Custer Homestead
Near Toledo, Ohio
Near this spot in New Rumley, Ohio, stood the homestead of Emanuel and Maria Custer, who lived here until the family moved to Monroe, Michigan. They raised their sons in this part of Harrison County, including one who would become the most famous and most controversial cavalry commander of the Civil War and the Indian Wars. George Armstrong Custer was actually born in New Rumley in eighteen thirty-nine and spent his early years rooted in this Ohio farming community before West Point, before the Shenandoah Valley, before Little Bighorn.
The homestead itself is gone, but the marker holds the place. It is a quiet piece of ground connected to one of American history's most debated figures, a general celebrated as a hero in his lifetime and reassessed ever since.
