Alexander Creel, so it is said, had an apparition of the Virgin Mary on a trip down the Ohio River. The Virgin pointed toward the Virginia shoreline, where Middle Island Creek flows into the river, and told him the site would one day be a city. Needless to say, when Creel established a town on the site, he named it St. Mary. Later generations have labeled it St. Marys (without an apostrophe).
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