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The year 1861 was a significant one for this community for several reasons. First, the unincorporated village of Shannon was renamed Bluffton. The name change was because another Shannon also existed in Ohio and the United States Post Office asked the younger of the two locations with the same name (us) to change it.

This, of course, took place in 1861, 150 years ago, thus we celebrate our sesquicentennial this year.

The year 1861 was also the beginning of the American Civil War. According to several history sources Bluffton had its share of Civil War veterans, as evident in the photo of Henry L. Romey's gravestone and the stone accompanying this column.

You might call this column's photo one of Bluffton's unknown soldiers because the name is no longer readable on the stone.

The term GAR stands for Grand Army of the Republic. Following the Civil War, Bluffton vets created a GAR Post honoring Robert Hamilton, ironically from near Pandora. History tells us that Hamilton died in an army hospital.

Charter members of this post included many familiar last names in Bluffton's history including Hauenstein, Reiter, Romey, Agin, Lewis, Beals and Nonnamaker. The GAR's post had 37 members.