Gann (Brinkhaven)

How Gann (Brinkhaven) began

Brinkhaven is a small village on the east side of the Mohican River in Union Township, Knox County. John Hibbitts laid it out in 1838 as Mount Holly; after the railroad came through, the Cleveland, Mount Vernon & Columbus railroad's president renamed it Gann in honour of George Gann, who had helped win the right of way, and it was later renamed Brinkhaven (also once known as Nonpareil). It had about 200 people in 1881 and 114 in 2020. It is best known for the Bridge of Dreams, a former Pennsylvania Railroad bridge across the Mohican that now carries the Mohican Valley Trail.

Platted 1838 (as Mount Holly), by John Hibbitts.

Where the name comes from

Hill's 1881 county history says the village, laid out by John Hibbitts in 1838 as Mount Holly, was renamed Gann by the president of the Cleveland, Mount Vernon & Columbus railroad in honour of George Gann, who came to Jefferson Township in 1831, helped secure the railroad's right of way and died September 7, 1877. Wikipedia lists the earlier names Nonpareil, Mount Holly and Gann; the date and reason for the change to Brinkhaven are not recorded.

Before the town

No Native American site specific to Brinkhaven is recorded. It lies in the Mohican River valley of Knox County; Hill's 1881 history says of neighbouring Jackson and Clay townships that the hills of southern Knox were favourite hunting grounds of Indians from Greentown and Upper Sandusky, and that an old trail ran from Greentown to Coshocton County. See the Knox County file for the treaty and settlement context.

Timeline

1. 1831 — George Gann comes to Jefferson Township, the part of which later passes to Union; the railroad station of Gann is named in his honour for his help in securing the right of way, and he dies September 7, 1877.
2. 1838 — John Hibbitts lays out the village of Mount Holly on the east side of the Mohican River; Hibbitts builds the first house and Isaac Means keeps the first store.
3. 1840 — Robert Long builds the first grist mill at Mount Holly, about 1840; it is still standing in 1881, owned by Isaac and James Thompson.
4. 1848 — A Methodist class of some forty members is formed after a series of meetings led by Rev. Lawrence; James and John Hibbitts and Elizabeth Titus are among the first members.
5. 1864 — The Methodists build their church at Gann and the United Brethren organise and build one, which they later sell to the Catholics for occasional funeral use.
6. 1880 — Population recorded at 153.
7. 1881 — The 1881 county history describes Gann, formerly Mount Holly, as a village of about 200 people with two dry-goods stores, two groceries, a hardware store, two hotels, a drug store and an iron bridge several hundred feet long over the Mohican.
8. 1910 — The census counts 341 residents; the count is 342 in 1920, the highest recorded, and falls to 277 in 1930 and 187 in 1940.
9. 1920s — The Pennsylvania Railroad builds a 370-foot bridge across the Mohican River at the village, the structure later known as the Bridge of Dreams.
10. 1998 — The former railroad bridge is enclosed as a covered bridge, completed in December and dedicated in April 1999, funded by roughly $90,000 in contributions and an Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant; local skeptics of the costly project gave it the name 'Bridge of Dreams.'
11. 2000 — The census counts 143 residents in Brinkhaven.
12. 2001 — The Mohican Valley Trail, a rail-trail built on the former Pennsylvania Railroad bed and carried across the river by the Bridge of Dreams, opens June 15.
13. 2010 — The census counts 125 residents in Brinkhaven.
14. 2020 — The census counts 114 residents in Brinkhaven.

Stories

The Bridge of Dreams

In the 1920s the Pennsylvania Railroad threw a 370-foot bridge across the Mohican River at Brinkhaven, then still sometimes called Gann, carrying freight and passenger trains through the narrow river valley. When the line was abandoned, the bridge stood unused until a local push arose to convert the old railbed into a public trail; skeptics called the expensive plan to save the bridge a pipe dream, and when the project's backers went ahead anyway they adopted the taunt as the structure's new name. Volunteers and donors raised roughly $90,000, much of it matched by an Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant, to enclose the span as a covered bridge, finishing the work in December 1998 and dedicating it the following April. The Mohican Valley Trail that crosses it opened to the public on June 15, 2001, and today the Bridge of Dreams, closed to motor vehicles, carries hikers, cyclists and, not infrequently, Amish buggies over the river it once carried freight trains across. At 370 feet it ranks as the second-longest covered bridge in Ohio and the third-longest in the United States.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

No water-system data is linked to Gann (Brinkhaven)'s ZIP codes yet.

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