History Room
Welcome to the Local History Room...
Way Public Library's Local History Room is located within the library and is open during library hours. It features information and displays on the history of the area and aids in local genealogical searches. Gifts of photographs, diaries, family histories, and local church and club records are welcome. Help us preserve the past for the future!
Brief History of Perrysburg
Perrysburg was named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry who secured a victory against the British on Lake Erie in 1813. It was expected that boats could make it to this point in the river thereby creating a bustling business center. Indeed for some years there were many mills, baskets, barrel staves, bricks, lumber, leather goods, and even boats
produced on the waterfront and shipped out in schooners.
The county seat was also in Perrysburg until being moved to Bowling Green in 1870. There was a railroad bridge as well as a toll bridge to Maumee. Later an electric trolley went to Toledo daily. Houses grew up, many self sufficient, with their own livestock and large gardens. The corner of Indiana and Louisiana was a common used to pasture cows. Later an ordinance was passed to prohibit pigs from wandering freely in the town. As more houses were built out more and more toward the country, farms were pushed farther out into Wood County.
Today Perrysburg is a thriving suburb of Toledo with pleasure boats at the river docks, a school where cows used to graze, and a library where circus tents used to stand.
Brief History of Way Library
Interest from an endowment of $15,000 willed for a library by Willard Way was used to first establish one in 1881. This was in the home of Miss Harriet Hulburd at 118 Louisiana Avenue. The first building on the current site was completed in 1892. This building was loved and well used, until overcrowding became critical. Additions to it were considered, but finally rejected. It was razed, and the new building opened in 1959. This was added onto in 1981, and a further addition was completed in 2001!
Willard V. Way: A Brief Biography
Willard V. Way was born in Springfield, Otsego County, N.Y., on the 5th day of August, 1807, and was, at his death, a little over 68 years old. Although in early manhood he was afflicted with ill health, he passed through a stormy life and attained almost to the allotted three score and ten years.
His father was a farmer and his early life was spent on the farm with nothing remarkable to distinguish it from the life of farmer boys of the present day, only that at that early day in the history of our country boys played less and worked more than at the present time. He was one of a numerous family all of whom, except himself, I believe, followed their fathers occupation. But his feeble health warned him he would not be able to earn a livelihood by physical labor, and he early turned his attention to the acquiring of an education; for this purpose he entered Hardwick Academy, and after a preparatory course, at the age of about 23, he entered Union College from which he was graduated in due course; having enjoyed the privileges of an institution under the immediate direction of the celebrated Dr. Watt, whom he considered one of the first men of his age and he always delighted to speak of his early preceptor in terms of the highest praise, thereby showing that he had a heart easily touched and melted by kindness.
An excerpt from a Eulogium on the late Hon. W.V.Way, by Hon. Asher Cook.
From Perrysburg Journal Oct. 1, l875
