by Michelle Sanders
Woman born in Tipp returns after years to explore her hometown
TIPP CITY is a small town in southwestern Ohio, commonly known as a bedroom community of Dayton.
This land originally belonged to the Shawnee Tribe.
It has around ten thousand people in less than eight square miles and it is part of the Dayton metropolitan area, but I think it deserves more recognition of its own.
TIP AND TY
Tipp City was founded by white folk in 1840 as Tippecanoe and it was named after the ninth President of the USA, William Henry Harrison.
Harrison’s nickname “Tippecanoe” was in reference to his success during the Battle of Tippecanoe back in 1811, and his campaign slogan was “Tippecanoe, and Tyler Too!”
Many Tippers have heard that slogan their whole lives, but likely do not know that it came from a song.
“Tip and Ty” was the rally song of William Harrison and John Tyler, members of the Whig Party, in their “Log Cabin Campaign” of 1840.
An Ohio jeweler named Alexander Ross wrote its twelve different verses to the tune of an old “minstrel” song and I hate that part.
“Tip and Ty” lyrics consist of excessive repetitive words. I can not say I am fond of it, but it was such a rousing hit in New York that it became part of a Broadway musical in the 1960s called How to Steal an Election.
The version of the song in How to Steal an Election was adapted with new lyrics by famous folk singer and author, Oscar Brand, who toured and performed with Lead Belly, Woodie Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.
Brand later went on to compose a couple of Canada’s national songs, Jimmy Carter’s campaign song, more musical scores, and hosted a whole slew of radio and television shows.
North American Review, the oldest literary magazine in the US, described the song as being “what ‘La Marseillaise’ was to the French Revolution” and credits it for “singing Harrison into the presidency.”
Contemporary grunge pop band The Amps released a song titled “Tipp City” in 1995.
They put on a show with the band Guided by Voices in a former post office building and local media praised the song as a “Loveletter to Ohio” but that is not the impression one might get if they actually listen to the lyrics.
Tipp City also has its own fight song.
TIPPECANOE BECOMES TIPP CITY
The first town plan for Tippecanoe consisted of 17 land lots, and by 1850 the population had grown so much that the Tippecanoe village was renamed Tippecanoe City.
Within a decade or so, the railroad had laid its tracks and made canal travel less popular.
Related businesses slowed or closed, leaving ruins to sit idly until development of Highway 25 and Interstate 75 required some clean up.
In the late 1930s, the town post office abbreviated the name to “Tipp” City after the discovery of another Ohio town that was going by Tippecanoe City.
The mix-up caused a lot of mail delivery chaos, but the new name resolved the issue.
As Tippecanoe City grew, it merged with Hyattsville, a nearby contiguous village that was located on present-day Hyatt Street.
THE MIAMI ERIE CANAL
Tipp City is situated along the Miami Erie Canal that was built over a span of twenty years, from 1825-1845.
The 274-mile canal ran from Cincinnati to Toledo and had over 100 canal locks, the bulk of which have been landscaped or converted into parks in this part of Ohio.
It was a bustling port for transport ships and had its own red light district and countless bars filling in the spaces between each canal lock along its boundary.
You can still see many of them, dry and dusty as they are now.
Canal Lock Park is the prime example of this, and it is also the park closest to downtown.
There is an old canal boat on display next to the parking lot, right by a part of the actual canal.
NOTABLE FIGURES
The Wampler Siblings; Carrie, Philip, and Cricket, are all actors who were born in Tipp City.
Carrie Alexander acted in Big Little Lies, The Goldbergs, Paper Tiger, Yellow Birds, Parks & Recreation. Philip acted in Nocturne, Damage Control, and Last Vegas, and Christina aka “Cricket” acted in Big Shot, Mr. Robinson, and About a Boy.
My dad worked for their grandfather Phil, who was a beloved Tipp City local. They stayed in touch long after our family moved away from Ohio, until Phil passed away.
This old clawfoot tub that once belonged to Phil’s plumbing company still sits outside as a humble memorial, repurposed as décor for the new bath and body care shop that took its place.
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