Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Venedocia, OH

Venedocia is a village in Van Wert County that was founded as a Welsh immigrant settlement in the 1840s.

In the fall of 1847, Ohio Governor William Bebb helped buy land in Van Wert County for Welsh settlers, and in April 1848 three families from North Wales — the Bebbs, the Jervises, and the Morrises — arrived via the Miami-Erie Canal to establish the community.

One settler recalled that wolves and panthers scratched at the cabin doors during the settlement's first nights in the woods.

Until the Venedocia Presbyterian Church was organized in 1895, all regularly scheduled church services in the community were conducted in Welsh, and the Salem Church's annual reports were printed in Welsh until 1917.

The Salem Presbyterian Church, built in 1898, still anchors the village, and the Welsh Gymanfa Ganu hymn sing continues today as one of the community's biggest events.

General Anthony Wayne's army of 2,800 men camped near the present village cemetery on the night of August 4, 1794, during the march that ended at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

A post office called Venedocia has been in operation since 1866.

The 2000 census counted 160 people in 59 households in Venedocia, and the village had 140 residents at the 2020 census; it is part of the Van Wert micropolitan area and uses the ZIP code 45894.