This association is the smallest of the five numerically; headquartered in Columbus, it occupies not only central and southeastern Ohio, but some churches in adjoining parts of West Virginia as well.
Most of its congregations were members of the Southeast Ohio Synod of the E&R Church prior to the UCC merger, having been established in the 19th century by German-Americans from adjoining Pennsylvania.
The northern part of the association contains the greatest concentration of Christian-heritage congregations in the Ohio Conference, many having been founded by settlers from North Carolina and Kentucky in the 1810s and 1820s.
Some of the Cincinnati-area congregations were started originally as Evangelical Protestant churches, a German-language free-church movement that first appeared in the Pittsburgh, Pa. area in the early 19th century.
In the years preceding the Civil War, pastors and laity often became staunch proponents for the abolition of slavery; some devoted missionaries went to the South after the war to teach newly emancipated African-Americans, under the auspices of the American Missionary Association Many, if not most, churches in this five-county association (Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, and Lorain) carry on much of that politically and socially progressive mission and advocacy to this day.