Field Notes Ohio

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117 parks in 7 regions

Wyandot Mission Church

Upper Sandusky · Wyandot County · North-central Ohio
The 1824 church where the Wyandot began the Removal Trail in 1843
National Register of Historic PlacesReturned to the Wyandotte Nation in 2019

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed
September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source
Official page
Location confidence
Verified entrance or visitor center
Wyandot Mission Church, Mission Cemetery, Upper Sandusky
Check current conditions
Official conditions or closures
Reservations or tickets
Tickets or admission info

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

A limestone mission church on the Grand Reserve, the starting point of the 1843 Wyandot removal and now owned again by the Wyandotte Nation.

Built
1824, of blue limestone, by Wyandot converts and Methodist missionaries under Rev. James B. Finley, with government funds
First
Recognized as the first Methodist mission in the country
Missionary
John Stewart, a free Black Methodist minister, who began the mission in 1816
Reserve
The 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs gave the Wyandot the permanent use of the Grand Reserve at Upper Sandusky
Removal
In July 1843 about 664 Wyandot began a week-long, 150-mile walk to Cincinnati; they were the last organized tribe removed from Ohio
Ownership
Deeded to the Methodist church in 1843 and returned to the Wyandotte Nation in 2019

The story

The Wyandot lived on the Sandusky River for nearly a century before Ohio became a state, in houses they built, on fields and orchards they tended, governing from a council house nearby and running a saw and grist mill. In 1816 John Stewart, a free Black Methodist minister, came to Upper Sandusky and began the first Methodist mission to Native Americans in the country. A school followed and in 1824 the limestone mission church was built by Wyandot converts and Methodist missionaries with government funds. The 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs had opened much of northwest Ohio to settlement in exchange for the permanent use of the Grand Reserve here.

That permanence lasted 26 years. After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, all of Ohio's remaining Native peoples were pushed west except the Wyandot, who refused to go and wanted to stay on their Sandusky plains, despite living peaceably alongside neighbors and taking part in American society. Under heavy federal pressure they agreed in 1842 to give up the reserve, and on July 12, 1843, 664 people left Upper Sandusky on foot, after a farewell at the church in which Reverend Squire Grey Eyes said they were leaving their dead behind, and that the march of the settlers would not turn aside for Native graves. They walked 150 miles to Cincinnati, boarded steamboats and were resettled in Kansas and later Oklahoma. They deeded the church and its land to the Methodist Episcopal Church before they left, and it was abandoned, restored by Methodists in 1888 to 1889 and used again for summer services from 1970. In 2019 the United Methodist Church returned the church and its three acres to the Wyandotte Nation. In 2025 a new marker beside the church, titled the Wyandot Removal Trail, was placed; an earlier marker had called it a 'departure.'

Related sites

The Last Sunday in Ohio

On the eve of the Wyandot leaving Ohio they gathered one more time in the church they had built. Their pastors, some of them Wyandot themselves, told them what they already knew: the land they had farmed and prayed on for a century would belong to someone else.

They left the next morning, on foot, and their graves stayed behind.

Behind the legend

The dates, the 664 people, the 150 miles, the 1843 deed, the restorations, the 1970 services and the 2019 return come from the Ohio historical markers, Wikipedia, WTOL and the United Methodist Insight report. The new marker, erected in 2025, reframed the earlier 1999 marker's 'departure' as removal, according to WYSO. Counts are given as 664 or 'over 600', and the start date as July 11 and 12.

If you go

Walk the Old Mission Cemetery, read the two markers together and learn about the Wyandotte Nation from its own website.

Visiting

Status
Open seasonally; confirm
Managed by
Wyandotte Nation, with the John Stewart Methodist Church and the Ohio History Connection
Hours
Summer services are held here and the grounds and Old Mission Cemetery are open to visitors; call or check with the Wyandotte Nation and the local church before you go. Wyandotte Nation citizens return each year to gather.
Admission
Free.
Phone
See the Wyandotte Nation
Please note
This is a cemetery and a sacred site; please be respectful.
Address
200 E Church St, Upper Sandusky, OH 43351
Official information →DirectionsFind trails nearby on AllTrails →

Hours and prices change. Confirm with the site before you go.

Parks nearby

Delaware State Park
About 45 miles · A lake and fort-history park to the south.
Open
Findley State Park
About 55 miles · A camping park to the north.
Open

Details last checked 2026-09-22. Confirm hours and prices before you go.