A Worldly View
He was a man with a worldly vision.
He Created the Beginning of the World,
the Center of the World,
and the End of the World.
I am talking about academic, businessman,
eccentric Randall D. Wilmot.
He opened a store he called “The Beginning of the World.”
in New York State near a popular stagecoach route.
The business was very successful,
but Wilmot dreamed of a larger world.
In 1845, Wilmot bought a 0.7-mile stretch of land
along Route 5 in Braceville Township, Ohio.
It was located along the canal and on
the Pittsburgh-Akron stagecoach route.
He opened a new store and inn
and named it “Center of the World.”
He became a thriving capitalist merchant.
In 1844, a new world entered Braceville, Ohio.
It was the Trumbull Phalanx.
A socialist Utopian colony known as the Fouriers.
They bought 2,000 acres of land
for their over two hundred members.
They were seeking to create a society of organized families.
Families that worked together towards attaining
a higher social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual life.
They were a progressive community that believed
in the feminist movement and anti-slavery.
After a disastrous flu epidemic, the group disbanded.
Their world existed in the area for eight years.
The most successful co-operative such society
lasted in Germany for 150 years.
After a dozen years, Wilmont’s world was in danger.
The big capitalists of the day, the railroad tycoons
owned the politicians and were creating
a new transportation world.
That world bypassed “The Centre of the World.”
The world that Wilmont had created.
It made nearby Warren, Ohio, the railroad hub.
Wilmont knew his business would suffer.
He already knew failure, as his lawyer son, David,
had twice bailed him out as creditors closed in.
He would not fail again and realized
he would have to create a new world.
He then relocated to neighboring Leroy, Ohio.
Now known as Cortland, where he established
a grocery store he named “End of the World.”
Today, he is buried in a Cortland Cemetery.
His lawyer son, David Wilmont, became a congressman.
He wrote the Wilmont Proviso,
to try and make a better world.
It was a proposal attached to a spending bill
that would have banned slavery from the western territories
acquired in the aftermath of the Mexican American War.
While it passed the House, it failed in the Senate.
The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the
major events that led to the Civil War.
Today the Center of the World consists of several houses,
an abandoned motel, and the obligatory Dollar General.
Tourists stop to take a selfie at the “Center of the World” sign.
The signs are cultural icons that are frequently stolen.
It is said people steal them to send to ex-spouses.
For many years, a 25-foot blue Statue of Liberty
representing Liberty Tax Service stood along the roadway.
The statue, like Wilmont, left seeking a new world.
She moved to nearby Newton Falls
in a little downtown park.
Newton Falls’ claim to fame is their zip code.
It is the only five matching numbers 44444 in the country.
Rt 82, a four-lane highway, leads into the Center of the World.
The speed goes from 65 down to 45.
So, besides the selfie, you are likely to get a speeding ticket.
Afterall, they do need a revenue source to keep replacing those signs.
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