New Indian Ridge Museum

The New Indian Ridge Museum, Historic Shupe Homestead, and Wildlife Preserve is a private museum and nature reserve located on Beaver Creek in Amherst, Ohio, consisting of the Jacob Shupe Homestead site, the Honeysuckle Cabin from Kentucky, the Mingo cabin (a stage coach relay station stop), and the Tymochte Cabin (built in 1795). The grounds contain two additional lots of upland and lowland mature wooded forest that contain wetlands, vernal pools, and an area floodplain. The property contains numerous tree and wildflower species, several fern types, buttonbushes, pawpaw trees, native green dragon wildflowers, and about fifty different species of birds.

The museum's collection is diverse, with artifacts dating from prehistory to recent decades. Many of the artifacts came from the former Vietzen Archaeological Museum of Elyria Ohio, founded by Ray Vietzen. Matt Nahorn founded the current museum in 2000 but it is not regularly open to the public.

Overview

Matt Nahorn worked to reassemble Vietzen's collection which was largely sold at a public auction in the 1990s. The New Indian Ridge Museum (NIRM) received loaned or donated historical artifacts, from the Amherst Historical Society, Ohio Archaeological Society, and private citizens. Nahorn honored Vietzen by using the latter name of his former museum. Vietzen had originally named the facility as the Vietzen Archaeological Museum[1] that was accessible by invitation only.

In recent years, the NIRM has expanded its focus to ecology and the conservation of wildlife habitats. The NIRM instituted the Beaver Creek Watershed Protection Group (BCWPG), to limit changes to the land that could augment flooding and pollution. The BCWPG placed an emphasis on maintaining floodplains and riparian zones along Beaver Creek and the creation of private trails to observe the natural beauty and wildlife of the area. NIRM has periodically made the property available to local academic institutions, including Lake Ridge Academy, and provided tours for the students and faculty. The museum's goals include educating students and other interested individuals on the natural, prehistoric, and pioneer history of the area.

Raymond C. Vietzen

Most of NIRM's artifacts are based on the collections of “Col.” Raymond C. Vietzen, the curator of the former, defunct Indian Ridge Museum near Elyria, Ohio. In 1940[2] Vietzen founded the Vietzen Archaeological Museum at his family home, at the corner of West Ridge and Fowl Road in Elyria. For over fifty-five years, Vietzen and his second wife, Ruth Bliss[3] delved into the prehistory and history of the local area and other locations in the United States. He was previously a professional automotive mechanic, who later authored seventeen ‘history’ books and became a prolific artist, and a consummate showman and master of hyperbole,[4] He claimed to be the grandson of Baron Karl Von Zimmerman. However, records in Eßlingen, Germany, denote that Vietzen's grandfather was a “bäckermeister”( master-baker), not a “Baron”. [5] He was also a self-purported expert on the Erie Indians (a.k.a. Cat Nation), while absurdly alluding to "raccoon" as being the source of that "Cat" connection.[6][7][8]

His museum was often patronized by local-area schools and organizations. But although Vietzen repeatedly assured the community, (many of whom had donated artifacts to the museum),[9] that his collection would never be sold, his entire estate was auctioned piece-by-piece after his death.[10]

Vietzen was the last living founding member of the Ohio Indian Relic Collectors Society (now the Archaeological Society of Ohio).

Matt Nahorn

Matt Nahorn, a 2008 graduate of Lake Ridge Academy, is the New Indian Ridge Museum's founder and curator. In 2006, he worked with the Lake Ridge Academy to create the Lake Ridge Archives, in an effort to preserve the school's rich history. He currently serves as an archivist at Lake Ridge Academy.

Nahorn graduated from local Oberlin College in Environmental Studies and continues his research on his hometown and local environmental issues. He has begun to work with the Lake Ridge Academy staff to establish a historical inventory of the school. He maintains the NIRM museum complex. The museum was featured in local newspapers, such as the Lorain Morning Journal and Elyria Chronicle Telegram.

As a result of Nahorn's conservation efforts, members of the Archaeological Society of Ohio petitioned the Kentucky State Government to grant him the honorary title Kentucky Colonel in 2007, the same honorary title that had been bestowed to Vietzen.

The historic Shupe Home

In 1812, Jacob Shupe, settled[11] in what would later become Amherst Township, Lorain County, Ohio. The present owners of a home which still exists here, have theorized that this house was built by Jacob Shupe, possibly as early as 1816. However, because Shupe operated his own sawmill[12] nearby, and also had a very large family with about 11 children, therefore that lumber availability, and the big family, likely resulted in the construction of a different, much larger house. There was formerly at least one other 19th-century dwelling upon the original Shupe property, but located much closer to the roadway, and adjacent to Shupe's "mill".[13] In contrast, the existing house is comparatively tiny, and is too distant from the site of Shupe’s mill, to have been able to physically monitor that mill site. In addition, the existing house’s architectural style is more typical of the 1840s. It was likely built specifically for Shupe’s widow, sometime after his death and the division of his real-estate.

  • A mature forest with a tree over 250 years old is a part of the wildlife preserve.
  • Beaver Creek and its watershed are being actively maintained.
  • Beaver Creek expands into its floodplain after a sizable rainfall.
  • Raymond C. and Ruth Vietzen conducted numerous archaeological explorations in the 1940s in Kentucky and Tennessee.
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References
  1. Elyria Chronicle Telegram (n.p.); 13 May 1957; p.11
  2. Elyria Chronicle Telegram, October 3, 1995, p.18
  3. Lorain County (Ohio) Probate-Court records
  4. Elyria Chronicle Telegram (n.p.); September 29, 1968 (sect.'B',pp. 1,3). "Lorain County's first log cabin, built in 1760" (some of Vietzen's many spurious historical claims).
  5. Elyria Chronicle Telegram, October 3, 1995, p.18
  6. Elyria (OH) Chronicle Telegram [n.p.]; 16 Sept 1961; "Leaping Elk" concrete statue: ("Vietzen, using an Erie skull taken from a burial ground, built the head and features of this [cast-concrete] Cat Nation chief who trod the shores of Lake Erie hundreds of years ago.")
  7. NY State Museum Bulletin; Issues 112-117-(1907)- p.527 "we call the Eries the Cat Nation, because there is in their country a prodigious number of wildcats, two or three times as large as our tame cats, but having a beautiful and precious fur"(1654 A.D. "Relation")
  8. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (V.1 / A-M); (1907) F.W.Hodge; p.430 (Erie 'people of the panther')
  9. Elyria Chronicle Telegram (n.p.); September 29, 1968 - sect.'B',p.3 (Haag dowry-chest)
  10. Commercialization in Archaeology: Problems, Old and New; by Ann C. Bauermeister, 1999; p.3
  11. Elyria Independent Democrat (n.p.) November 16, 1870; p.3,c.3
  12. History of Lorain County (OH), by Williams Bros., 1879
  13. 19th-century survey-maps of Amherst Twp., various years

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