First Traffic Fatality in Ohio

While riding along a section of the National Road near Norwich I came across the following markers that caught my attention.

The stage coach came down the above hill apparently too fast for conditions (which were probably crazy rough at best) and overturned about where the rock marker which has the above info plate is, killing the passenger.

Norwich is one of those many small towns at the bottoms of a hill along the eastern part of Ohio Rt.40 and like a lot of small towns has its claim to fame. This reminded me of the town of Seymour Indiana that makes the claim of being the site of the first train robbery in America http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/recon/robbery_1 . Then there is Adair Iowa which claims to be the site of the very first train robbery west of the Mississippi River http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/jamesyoungergang/adair.html
It seems like the Adair robbery is cooler because the James/Younger gang was a lot more famous than the Reno brothers who did the Seymour job.

One of the great things about touring America is checking out how small towns work so hard to be unique and stand out from all the other small towns. Sometimes it involves an historicasl happening and other times it is claiming itself the capital of something (like that world Purple Martin in Indiana) or having the "est" of something--largest, smallest, fastest, highest, lowest,etc etc etc., . This is what makes the USA the best.