Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Carthagena, Ohio

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1908 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Marion Township. It lies in ZIP code area 45822. It stands on Montezuma Creek. The Survey maps it on the Montezuma quadrangle.

Carthagena within Mercer County

Then and now

1908 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 78 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Carthagena, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Carthagena, surveyed 1908

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

1,639 words on this township

History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907 names this settlement in its chapter on Marion Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

This township from the earliest history has always been represented at the Court House in Celina. Mathias Gast was an early commissioner of the county; H. H. Pulskamp served as county treasurer from this township and also as probate judge of the county; Bernard Wehrkamp from Carthagena was infirmary director; and Joseph Hinders, formerly of Marion, served as sheriff two terms.

Passage source: History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907.

Is located in the northwest corner of the township and is a settlement of perhaps ioo people. The town was laid out by Charles Moore in December, 1840. Here was formerly located the Emlen Institute, established by Augustus Wattles, of Connecticut, as an educational institution for the colored people. The property was later bought by a Catholic order, the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood, which established St. Charles Seminary for the education of young men for the Catholic priesthood. This is the motherhouse of the American Province of the Fathers of the Most Precious Blood. St. Aloysius' Catholic Church is also located at Carthagena. The colored people are growing less in numbers every year, but they still support a church near Carthagena and had a school until a few years ago. The lands once owned by them have been bought by German people and but few colored residents now remain in the township. For many years it was their custom to hold a great jubilee on the first day of August of each year. Carthagena does not command much trade from the surrounding country, as the towns of Coldwater, St. Henry and Chickasaw are too near. It has, however, a general store owned by Anton Link and a carriage and agricultural implement store conducted by Joseph Hartke.

Passage source: History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Marion Township.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 231 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 231 specimens collected within 10 miles of Carthagena between 1886 and 1975: 202 Animalia, 24 Fungi, 3 Plantae, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by . R. Slonakerj, A. D. Selby, Adler, K. K. and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Carex grayi J.Carey	1903	Wetzstein A.
Procambarus blandingii (Harlan, 1830)	1920	R. Rhoades	St. Marys Lake at Celina
unnamed	1934	P. P. Pirone	Coldwater
Umbra limi (Kirtland, 1840)	1886	Meek and Harris	Montezuma
Ardea alba egretta Gmelin, 1789	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Calidris canutus (Linnaeus, 1758)	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Ceryle alcyon alcyon Cramp & Simmons, 1977-1994	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Charadrius vociferus Linnaeus, 1758	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Cistothorus palustris dissaeptus Bangs, 1902	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Gallinago gallinago delicata (Ord, 1825)	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina
Porzana carolina (Linnaeus, 1758)	1888	J.R.S.	Celina
Tringa flavipes (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1888	J. R. Slonaker	Celina

All 231 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

3 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Carthagena in 3 storm reports between 1996 and 2019: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Carthagena	$5,000	no account filed
June 2019	Flood	Carthagena	-	U.S. Route 127 was closed north of Route 274 due to high water.
January 2013	Heavy Rain	Carthagena	-	Minor flooding was reported in low lying yards in the Carthagena area due to heavy rainfall.

Every storm recorded in Mercer County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Cassella	2.1 miles	13
Sebastian	2.4 miles	13
Saint Rosa	3.1 miles	13
Cranberry Prairie	3.2 miles	13
Chickasaw	3.5 miles	13
Montezuma	3.7 miles	13
Maria Stein	4.1 miles	13
Saint Henry	4.4 miles	12

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1056770. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.