BlockFrom the record
One of 37 National Register listings published here for Mercer County · listed in 1979 · category: Building.
Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service
St. Paul's Catholic Church and Rectory
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. 5 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1908.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
- Address. R.R. 1, Ft. Recovery, Sharpsburg, 45846
- When was it listed? 1979-07-26
- Category. building
- Also known as. Cross-Tipped Churches of Ohio TR
- Township. Gibson township
- National Register reference number. 79002827 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The ground it stands on
8,829 wordsThe chapter on Gibson Township in History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, published 1907 names Sharpsburg. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
The southern and western part of Gibson township was largely settled by people from Southern Ohio and Pennsylvania, who originally came from Virginia and North and South Carollina, although a few came from Delaware. Among the early settlers in this section were the families of James -Cummins, Henry Denney, Benjamin Clark and William F. Denney, who came from Gallia County, Ohio ; the Clarks, who came from England ; Wateman Hastings and Solomon Collins, who came from the State of Delaware ; and Robert Hunter, James Alexander and David Hays who came from Fairfield County, Ohio - all of these settled in Gibson township about the same time. Nathan S. Scranton settled on a farm in Gibson township in 1849; the Scranton family, who were originally from the State of Connecticut, came to Mercer County from Medina County, Ohio. Near the town of Fort Recovery and north of the first neighborhood, Robert Travis, Edward Jones, Sylvester Schutt, Jacob Schaffer, Jacob Stuber and Joseph Clark and their families settled. In the eastern part of the township, around Sharpsburg, Aaron Rood and wife and' his sons, L. B. Rood and Alpha Rood, who were Yankees in every sense of the word; the Jones and Hall families and the families of Thomas Rockwell, Jacob and George Meyers and William Snyder - all of whom came from Butler County, Ohio - settled at an early date. In the same section of the township also settled John L. Fox, David Johnson, John Hedrick and Abraham Mott, Sr. - Abraham and James Z. Mott, sons of the lastnamed pioneer, still live in the township. The Lowry family came in at a later date and its representatives are still living in the township. Samuel Briner, Samuel Keller, David F. Blake (who went to Missouri in 1857), George Sigler, M. W. Diggs and George Painter were early settlers in the southern part of the township. Other early settlers were James Watkins, Daniel Broclc and John McDaniel.
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 Gibson Township - 8,829 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.
Specimens collected near this property
12 of 85 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 85 specimens collected within 10 miles of St. Paul's Catholic Church and Rectory between 1888 and 1959: 60 Animalia, 24 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. D. Selby, Clark, C. (Clarence), Clark, C. F. (Clarence F.) 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.
| Image | Species | Year | Collected by | Where, as recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | unnamed | 1934 | P. P. Pirone | Coldwater |
 | Piranga olivacea (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) | 1888 | J. R. Slonaker | Fort Recovery |
 | Podosphaera leucotricha (Ellis & Everh.) E.S.Salmon | 1906 | Selby A. D. | Sharpsburg |
 | Colletotrichum cereale Manns | 1908 | Selby A. D. | Sharpsburg |
 | Colletotrichum graminicola (Ces.) G.W.Wilson | 1908 | Selby A. D. | Sharpsburg |
| Glomerella graminicola D.J.Politis | 1908 | A. D. Selby | Sharpsburg. | |
 | Didelphis virginiana virginiana Kerr, 1792 | 1911 | L. L. Walters | Ft Recovery, 4 mi SE |
 | Alasmidonta viridis (Rafinesque, 1820) | 1913 | Goodrich, Calvin | Monterey |
 | Pyganodon grandis (Say, 1829) | 1913 | Goodrich, Calvin | Fort Recovery(3 mi E) |
 | Strophitus undulatus (Say, 1817) | 1913 | Goodrich, Calvin | St Henry |
 | Lepomis megalotis (Rafinesque, 1820) | 1928 | Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert) | Wabash River, within Mercer Co, Mercer County, township n/a |
 | Campostoma anomalum anomalum | 1929 | Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) | Wabash River, within Ex southeast Granville township, near Burkettsville, Granville township |
All 85 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Storms near this property
3 since 2000Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sharpsburg, the town this property stands in, in 3 storm reports between 2000 and 2020: 3 thunderstorm wind. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sharpsburg | $5,000 | Large limbs were knocked down due to thunderstorm winds. |
| August 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sharpsburg | $2,000 | Trees were reported knocked down across the road. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sharpsburg | $1,000 | Large tree limbs were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds. |
Maps showing this location
5 surveysUnited States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
- 1908 USGS St. Henry quadrangle1:62500
- 1953 USGS Muncie quadrangle1:250000 - 5 printings
- 1956 USGS Muncie quadrangle1:250000
- 1961 USGS Rossburg quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
- 1986 USGS Piqua quadrangle1:100000 - 3 printings
From the nomination file
1,166 words on recordWhen this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is reproduced in full on its own page, word for word and never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.
The whole case file for this property - 1,166 words, 7 pages, reproduced complete.
Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 79002827, 7 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 milesOther National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.
| Photograph | Property | Distance | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|
 | St. Wendelin Catholic Church, School, and Rectory | 2.6 miles | 1979 |
 | St. Bernard Catholic Church and Rectory | 3.6 miles | 1979 |
| St. Bernard Catholic Church and Rectory | 3.6 miles | 1979 |
 | St. Joseph Catholic Church and Rectory | 4.4 miles | 1979 |
| St. Joseph Catholic Church and Rectory | 4.5 miles | 1979 |
 | Fort Recovery Site | 4.9 miles | 1970 |
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 79002827 in Record Group 79. |
| Mercer County | All 37 listed properties in this county. |
Provenance
- Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
- Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
- How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
- 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.