Medina and Medina CountyWhen Medina County was created in 1818, it was named after Medina Township which dates back to the early surveys of the land. It is believed that Medina Township was named after Madinah in Saudi Arabia. What became Medina County was originally part of Trumbull County which was divided when Portage County was created, and then Medina County was carved out of Portage County. Later Summit County was created from part of Medina and Portage counties.
When it was first announced that a new county was to be formed and the county seat would be located in Medina Township, a plat of land in that township was donated by Elijah Boardman, one of the original Connecticut Land Company proprietors and who owned most of the land encompassing what would become Medina County, donated 240 lots to create a county seat. Of those 240 lots, lot numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 were reserved specifically for public buildings. Although the plots were platted in 1818, they were not recorded until 1820.
The county seat of Medina was originally named Mecca, another Arabic name, but as it turned out there was another town in Trumbull County named Mecca, so the name of the county seat of Medina was changed to Medina.
Medina is located just south of Cleveland and today is considered a bedroom community of Cleveland. The town was originally named Mecca. For some reason parts of Medina County had an Arabian heritage that may or may not have been associated with the Middle East.
The Connecticut Western Reserve was land claimed originally by the colony of Connecticut and later claimed by the state of Connecticut. The claim entitled the state all lands between the 41st and 42nd+ parallels from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans. At the time this claim was granted by the King of England, the exact makeup of what would later become North America, had not yet been identified. After the Revolutionary War Connecticut gave up these claims everywhere except for what would later become Ohio. This land became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. This land was purchased from Connecticut by the Connecticut Land Company with the idea the land could later be sold in lots to individual settlers. Before that it had to be surveyed.
Teams of surveyors left Connecticut and came to the Connecticut Western Reserve, or as it had become known New Connecticut. They began from the western edge of Pennsylvania and began mapping out a grid. The vertical grid lines made up what are called ranges. Each of these ranges were then divided into segments called townships and townships were further divided into sections. The New Connecticut surveys were based on each township being 5 miles by 5 miles. Most of the rest of the state which was under federal guidelines created townships that were 6 miles by 6 miles and were designated by a number. Besides the section number, the surveyors also assigned names to each of these townships and those names became the references for the Connect Land Company to sell lots. 
Each township had the surveyors remarks on the land as to its makeup and general geography of the land. In 1809, just six years after Ohio became a state, the Connecticut Land Company declared bankruptcy and the remaining sections of land not sold were divided up between the investors in the company..
Amos Ives Root was an avid bee keeper which he began strictly as a hobby in the 1860s. Using the knowledge he gained from tending his own bee hives, Amos began manufacturing beehives and beekeeping equipment. Over the years he help develop a standardized bee keeping industry and at the height of his beekeeping equipment manufacturing the A. I. Root Company was shipping 4 box car loads of bee hives a day. In time, the company began producing high quality bees wax candles and the beehive equipment was phased out and today the company (which is still family owned) manufactures and sells high-quality candles.
Today Medina High School is known as the Medina Bees in honor of Amos Root's tireless efforts in promoting the growth and development of bees and Medina. There is also the A. I. Root Middle School in Medina.
Amos Root may be best remembered for his love of bees. But, it should be noted that he was also was a publisher and editor (Gleanings in Bee Culture) and a student of technology. What makes this remarkable is the fact that in 1904 he contacted Wilbur and Orville Wright about their flying experiments. He wanted desperately to see such a machine and asked the brothers if that would be possible. He mentioned his publication and said he would like to describe what he saw, but only with their permission. To that point in time, despite all their efforts, the Wright brothers could not get any publication other than a one paragraph statement in the local Dayton newspaper about their invention. They invited Amos to Dayton when they thought their improved flying machine would be ready to fly. That date happened on September 20, 1904. Amos and Orville (Orville was recovering from a previous accident) watched as Wilbur took off from Huffman Prairie in his flying machine. It had been less than a year since the brothers made their first successful powered flight in Kittyhawk N.C. On this particular day, Wilbur would accomplish something that had to date, never been done before: he would fly in a complete circle. With the blessings of the brothers, Amos would go back to Medina and in the next issue of Gleanings in Bee Culture, he would describe in precise detail exactly what he saw. His publication of that news item would become the first detailed account of the Wright brother's accomplishments.
Northern Ohio Railway MuseumMay 22-Oct 30 Sat 10am-4pm. Mailing address: PO Box 458, Chippewa Lake, OH 44215. See streetcars, interurbans and rapid transit equipment from Ohio, 1895 to 1967 on a docent guided walking tour. Includes a visit to the restoration shop.
Lodi Station Outlets is a 311,478 square-foot turn-of-the-century outlet mall featuring vintage trains and over 60 outlet stores.
Elijah Boardman, a Connecticut Land Company proprietor donated some of his holdings in the Connecticut Western Reserve to create a new town named "Mecca" which would be the seat of the new county Medina. Elijah was born in New Milford Connecticut. During the Revolutionary War, Elijah served in one of the original regiments raised by the Continental Congress. After the war he worked as a shopkeeper with his brothers. In 1795 he became one of the original investors in the Connecticut Land Company and when that company was dissolved, he became one of the vast land owners of the Connecticut Western Reserve. He served in the Connecticut legislature and later became a U.S. Senator.
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