Major General Anthony Wayne led the U.S. Legion across what would become Van Wert County as part of a 1794 campaign against Native American tribes. His army of 2,800 men camped west of the site near the present cemetery on the night of August 4, 1794, while marching toward a major village at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers, now Defiance. When Wayne found the village abandoned, he continued down the Maumee River and was attacked on August 20 by a force of Indians. His victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers ended the Indian Wars of the 1790s, and the Treaty of Greene Ville, signed by Wayne and representatives of twelve tribes, opened much of Ohio to American settlement. In the fall of 1847, Governor William Bebb and a cousin of the same name came to Van Wert County to buy land for a settlement of Welsh immigrants. In April 1848, three immigrant families from North Wales, the Bebbs, the Jervises, and the Morrises, traveled by the Miami-Erie Canal to establish Venedocia. Wolves, panthers, and other wild beasts often visited the settlement and, according to one settler, scratched at doors during the night. The descendants of Venedocia's settlers preserved Welsh culture in the area: until the organization of the Venedocia Presbyterian Church in 1895, all regularly scheduled church services were conducted in Welsh; annual reports of the Salem Church were printed in Welsh until 1917; and the Welsh Gymanfa Ganu, a hymn sing, continues as one of the community's biggest events. The Salem Presbyterian Church, visible from the site, was built in 1898.