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VW independent lists top stories of 2018

Editor’s note: The Van Wert independent will be doing a series of articles on what it identifies as the top 10 news stories of 2018. The series will run through New Year’s Day and include stories that have generated the most interest from the community and/or involved important institutions or people in the community. Today’s article will include the No. 10 and No. 9 story of 2018.

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

War of 1812 re-enactors from the 1st and 2nd U.S. Artillery fire off a salute to veteran James L. Coe at Woodland Cemetery. VW independent file photo

The No. 10 story occurred earlier this month with the announcement that The Marsh Foundation was renaming its more than 80-year-old auditorium in honor of former director Ronald R. Bagley.

Bagley, 81, was hired as a teacher at the Marsh in 1962 and later became director of the Marsh Foundation School on June 23, 1972. He served in that capacity for 19 years until his resignation in 1991 after 29 years of service.

Since then, Bagley has volunteered as the official Marsh historian, giving tours of the campus, as well as the home of George and Hilinda Marsh, which is also located on the Marsh campus. He has also been in a number of videos and historical documentaries related to the Marsh Foundation over the years.

Funding for the auditorium, along with the remainder of the Marsh Foundation campus, was provided in the will of local philanthropist George Marsh in 1919, and through the wishes of his wife, Hilinda.

The auditorium was dedicated in the mid-1920s and has served a number of purposes for Marsh Foundation residents and staff, as well as the community.

It was formerly the performance home of the Van Wert County Community Concert Association until that organization moved to the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio. The auditorium, now known as the Bagley Auditorium, has also served as a temporary performance home of Van Wert Civic Theatre.

The No. 9 story goes back much further in Van Wert County history than the Marsh Foundation; back, in fact, to the War of 1812.

The story was the result of curiosity on the part of Bill Marshall, a member of Van Wert City Council. Marshall, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served in the Vietnam War, was talking to Woodland Cemetery custodian Dave Schulte and asked him who was the oldest veteran buried in the cemetery.

Schulte answered immediately that the honor belonged to James L. Coe, a veteran of the War of 1812, but when Marshall asked to see where Coe was buried, he found there was no gravestone to mark his burial site.

Intrigued to find a veteran of the War of 1812 in Van Wert County, Marshall did some research to find out more about Coe. What he found was incredible:

Former Marsh School director Ron Bagley shows emotion, while his wife, Linda, shows surprise as the announcement is made that the Marsh Auditorium will be renamed Bagley Auditorium. Marsh photo

Coe, who fittingly was born on July 4, 1776, the date of the Declaration of Independence, had first served as a sailor fighting the Barbary pirates in northern Africa in the early 1800s and later enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in several battles during the War of 1812 as part of an expeditionary force that sought to capture Canada from the British. The expedition failed and Coe was a prisoner of war for a brief time after the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812. He mustered out of the army in 1815 and later married his wife, Permilla, in Pennsylvania in 1824.

Coe first settled in the Ohio town of Baltimore in 1836 and later moved to Van Wert County in 1850 when he received a land grant of 160 acres in Union Township from the government in payment of his military service. He later sold that land and bought a farm in Hoaglin Township in 1864, where he lived until his death in 1885 at the age of 109.

Felling that the lack of a gravestone was an injustice to the county’s oldest military veteran, Marshall, who also serves on the Van Wert County Veterans Commission, got the local veterans service office involved in finding out whether the Veterans Administration would pay for a marker for Coe’s grave. The answer was “yes” and Coe’s grave was dedicated on July 22 in Woodland Cemetery, with a number of War of 1812 military re-enactors on hand, as well as Cincinnati resident Jim Wilson, a relative of Coe’s, and his wife, Lorraine.

Tomorrow: 2018 stories No. 7 and 8.

POSTED: 12/26/18 at 9:07 am. FILED UNDER: News