toledoblade.com --

Every time period after 1800 exists in harmony at the Oregon-Jerusalem Historical Society.

It is housed in the former Brandville School on Grasser Street in Oregon, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1994. The two-story brick school building was built in 1888. Its size made it desirable for students to attend.

"It was almost a premier grade school," said Martha Young, a volunteer and past president who has worked for the group on and off since 1990.

The historical society's campus has the Brandville School, a portable one-room schoolhouse that dates back to the turn of the last century, and a replica of a carriage house, all chock-full of artifacts. The society bought the Brandville School in 1977 and started using it in the mid-1980s. By 1991, they were moved in, Mrs. Young said.

The museum and society have no paid staff, but they have about 20 regular volunteers and at least 300 members. The society has six meetings a year and a chicken barbecue fund-raiser each June. The museum is open afternoons each Thursday, one Sunday a month, and by appointment.

"Whenever we can, we make a presence in the community," Mrs. Young said.

Students come for programs at the portable schoolhouse. The museum gets about 800 to 1,000 visitors each year at all its events; many come to research local history, learn about their genealogy, or to donate items and information.

This year is the society's 40th anniversary, but members are still deciding how to celebrate it. For Ohio's bicentennial, historical society members distributed 1,700 buckeyes for elementary school pupils in Oregon to plant.

The museum's pride is its collection of Civil War materials. It has two Union flags carried by regiments from Northwest Ohio. One is an American flag with the word "Bloomer" stitched onto it, reminding soldiers that women made it from their underwear.

"It's part of our mission to preserve the history and artifacts of the village of Oregon," said Doris Danekind, of Oregon, a volunteer since 1985 and a past president.

The upstairs room is dominated by a 5-by-8 foot Gilbert Gaul painting that memorializes men from the Toledo area. Battery H. First Ohio Volunteers Light Artillery in Action at Cold Harbor, Virginia, June 3-4, 1864, depicts the battle where trenches were first used. It was commissioned by Toledo area veterans in 1893. When Mr. Gaul presented it to the soldiers, they had him make a few alterations so that the painting was accurate, Mrs. Young said.

The painting had a $20,000 restoration last year because of a large scratch and a patch of missing paint.

Two of the most popular items in the museum are the model horses and an 18-inch-long, size 36 shoe that belonged to Robert Wadlow, of Alton, Ill., the tallest man in history, according to the Guinness Book of Records. He was 8 feet, 11 inches tall.

The oldest item the society has is a Native American basket dating to the early 1800s that was given to a settler after she gave bread to one of the last Native American women in the area, Mrs. Young said.

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