Russia

How Russia began

Russia is a small village in Loramie Township, Shelby County, settled by French-speaking Catholic immigrants, many from Alsace and Lorraine, who arrived in southwestern Shelby County in the early-to-mid 1800s. Lewis Phillips purchased and platted the village site, building the first house and opening the first business, a grocery store, in 1853. The heavily Catholic community built its first Saint Remigius church in 1854, part of the string of parishes in western Ohio known as the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches.

Settled 1853, platted 1853, by Lewis Phillips.

Where the name comes from

Two accounts survive. Local tradition, as given on Wikipedia, holds that early settlers, French-speaking Swiss who had served under Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1812 invasion of Russia, named the village to commemorate a battle. The 1883 and 1913 county histories give a second: the village was named because its land, as first laid out, resembled a place in Russia that some of the first settlers had known or lived in.

Before the town

No Native American sites or villages specific to the Russia area are documented in available sources. Russia lies in Loramie Township, which the 1913 county history says was named for Loramie, the French trader, and a few miles from the site of the 18th-century Loramie Store/Fort Loramie trading post associated with the Shawnee and Wyandot fur trade.

Timeline

1. 1853 — Lewis Phillips built the first house in Russia and opened the village's first grocery store.
2. 1853 — Lewis Phillip bought the town site from a man named Febaux and began selling lots before any plat was made.
3. 1854 — A log church dedicated to Saint Remigius was built in Russia, with the first Mass celebrated there on June 15.
4. 1854 — Clement Lachat built the second house, of logs; Ferial DeBrosse built the third in 1856 or 1857.
5. 1854-06-26 — Archbishop Purcell administered confirmation in the new log church of St. Remy, eleven days after its first communion service.
6. 1861 — Jasper Cordonnier opened the first dry-goods store (1861 or 1862).
7. 1867 — John A. Marchal, Michael Meham and John B. Marchal built a steam sawmill; Frank Simon bought Meham's share in 1868, and C. F. Francis owned the mill from about 1888.
8. 1869 — A large brick church was built for the St. Remy congregation under Rev. C. Berard.
9. 1883 — Russia, a station on the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroad, had about eighteen houses and a hundred people, two stores, a grain warehouse and a sawmill.
10. 1891 — Construction of the present St. Remy church began under Rev. Nicholas Poiry; it was completed in 1892.
11. 1892 — A larger brick Saint Remigius (St. Remy) Catholic Church was completed in Russia.
12. 1910 — The census counted 251 residents in Russia, then a station on the Big Four Railroad.
13. 1979-07-26 — St. Remy Catholic Church, at Main Street and Russia-Versailles Road, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

Napoleon's veterans and a village named for a battle

According to tradition preserved in local histories, several of the earliest settlers around present-day Russia were French-speaking Swiss men who had served in Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armee during the catastrophic 1812 invasion of Russia. Decades later, having emigrated to the farm country of southwestern Shelby County, they are said to have named their new settlement after the campaign in which they had fought. It is a small, easily overlooked detail in a county otherwise full of German and biblical place names, and it survives mainly as oral tradition rather than a documented act of naming.

St. Remy, a parish of French settlers

The 1913 county history says immigrants from France, Alsace and Lorraine settled in western Shelby and eastern Darke counties in the early 1800s, forming the communities of Frenchtown, Versailles and Russia. Their first shared church, St. Walbert's, stood a mile and a half northeast of what was then Jacksonville, now Versailles, on ground later used as the St. Denis cemetery. As the settlements grew, the Catholics of Russia formed their own parish under Rev. L. Navaron and built a log church dedicated to St. Remy, the apostle of the Franks, where the first communion of children was held on June 15, 1854, and Archbishop Purcell confirmed on June 26. A brick church followed in 1869 under Rev. C. Berard, and the present church, begun in 1891 under Rev. Nicholas Poiry and finished in 1892, was built in what the 1913 history called a 'purely Roman style.' It was listed on the National Register in 1979.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · russiaoh.com · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Shelby County on the full map

Mostly private wells The water here

• Russia Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

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Public schools (2)

Public libraries (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 1 of 1 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-06-23
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-12

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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