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Local history program set
POLAND
A free program at the Poland public library, 311 S. Main St., will highlight an iconic figure in early Ohio history, who once resided in this community.
The 7 p.m. Thursday presentation will focus on Jared Potter Kirtland, a Connecticut-born physician and naturalist who moved to Poland in 1823 and served three terms in the Ohio Legislature between 1829 and 1835.
The presenter will be Dr. Thomas M. Daniel of Hudson, professor emeritus of medicine at Case Western Reserve University, who will discuss his newly published book, “Jared Potter Kirtland, Naturalist, Physician, Sage of the Western Reserve.”
Published by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Sigel Press, it is the first book-length biography of Kirtland ever written.
During the 1820s, Kirtland and his brothers established orchards and a greenhouse in Poland.
A staunch abolitionist, Kirtland used his Poland residence, which is still standing, as a station on the Underground Railroad, where he hid runaway slaves.
In 1840, he bought an 83-acre farm in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, where a home was completed for him two years later.
In 1843, he co-founded the Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, and two years later, he was appointed to the founding board of managers of the Smithsonian Institution.
“Jared Potter Kirtland is one of the most important citizens of the Western Reserve of the 19th century,” Dr. Daniel said. “He was well-known in Northeast Ohio, and his reputation extended nationally,” he added.
“I first got interested in him because he was the founding professor of the department of medicine, in which I spent my entire professional career,” Dr. Daniel said.
“He is a nationally-recognized naturalist, and, next to William McKinley [who would become a U.S. president], he’s the most important person to have lived in Poland,” said Rebecca Rogers, who lives in the Poland house where Kirtland resided.
“He did most of his natural-history research when he lived in Poland,” said Rogers, a historic-preservation consultant and a trustee of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.
Rogers also is a member of both the planning commission and the architectural review board of Poland village.
A man of “wide-ranging accomplishments,” Kirtland “was part of a very important family in the history of Poland” and of Ohio’s Western Reserve, said Tim Seman, genealogy and local-history librarian at main library.
Kirtland’s biography “continues to draw attention to the importance of Poland as Town One, Range One” of the Western Reserve, Seman said.
In 1848, Kirtland was elected president of the Ohio State Medical Society and became a founding member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Kirtland warbler, a bird discovered in 1851 on Kirtland’s Lakewood farm, was named for him.
Many of the specimens Kirtland collected as a naturalist are housed in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
In 1865, Kirtland was among the first group of members elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Kirtland died in Lakewood in 1877 at age 84.
Thursday’s presentation is part of the History Buff Presenter Series sponsored by the Friends of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
Dr. Daniel will sign copies of his book, which will be available for $20 in cash or a check made out to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which is receiving all proceeds from the sale of the book. Credit cards will not be accepted.