Organizers could fill a history book of their own given how much work it’s taken to open the Perrysburg
Area Historic Museum.
Since Phyllis Morton founded a group in 2001 to begin plotting a local museum, she and others including
Judy Justus, current president, have labored to find a suitable home, gather interesting community
artifacts and raise money to support their efforts.
The fruits of that labor will be on display Saturday when the museum opens for the first time in the
former home of Judge Aurora Spafford.
The two-story Greek Revival structure, located at 27340 W. River Road, just west of Fort Meigs, was first
built on a plot of land Spafford inherited from his father, Amos, one of the first settlers in the
Perrysburg area.
The house has been improved and moved a short distance, but

many original and restored features remain, as well as exhibits leading throughboth of the museum’s two
stories, filled with items donated and loaned by community members.
"They gave us so many nice things," Justus said.
On the lower level, original wood floors remain and antique spinning wheels line a common area. An
interesting ground-floor room is the Spafford’s chamber and research room, which contains a small
library of historical books and old photos of the area during different periods. A display window shows
through to the original frame of the home.
A set of stairs leads up into a master bedroom, splitting off into a handful of other exhibits.
Mannequins in period apparel stand guard over several rooms, including a school teacher presiding over a
replica one-room schoolhouse with desks, chalkboard and even a dunce cap in the corner.
Guests will likely stay a while in the military room, also upstairs, which contains uniformed mannequins
representing police and fire forces of both the city and Perrysburg Township. There are also tributes,
photos and belongings of war veterans.
Nearby is the Native American room, with cases full of antiquities like arrowheads and other projectile
points. There’s also a beaver pelt to show what was used to make hats, leading to the destruction of
local beaver populations. "We want the kids to touch this. Isn’t that amazing? It’s so soft,"
Justus said.
The museum will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon Saturday, with the museum open until 5 p.m., and
regularly during those hours on Thursday through Sunday.
"We just plugged along," Morton said of the long road to opening the museum. "We had a
goal in sight and we were going to see that it was accomplished, and here we are.
"It’s going to be really neat" when people start to show up and learn about the area, she
added.