KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 125 Philander Chase, consecrated in 1819 first bishop of the Episcopal church in the Northwest territ0ry, came to the West on the tide of immigration which between the years of 1810 and 180 raised Ohio from thirteenth to fifth place among the states in point of population. He chose his time with sagacity. Never was there a greater missionary opportunity than among the thousands who were flocking into the new state. But from the first he felt the need of men. The harvest was ripe, but where were the laborers ? His necessity was great ; in all the great wilderness which was then Ohio there was hardly an Episcopal clergyman, and absolutely not a place where one could be trained. But for his herculean frame, which no exertions could wear out, he must have broken down under his long journeys through a sparsely settled, new c0untry, to do 'work much of which might have been done for him by clergymen or well-instructed laymen. It was even more difficult then than now to secure missionaries, for it was considerably subsequent to the year of grace 1820 that the rector of Trinity church, Boston, refused aid to a struggling rural parish in Massachusetts on the ground that only cultivated persons could appreciate the offices of the Episcopal church, and that none such lived in the country. As this anecdote was typical of a large body of opinion in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the large centers of population in which the appreciative cultivated classes were collected, there was not a great deal of missionary zeal and enterprise in those days, no man caring to cast his pearls, be they religious or lapidary, before swine. There were very few clergymen like Bishop Chase to foresee the great future of the new West, shut off as it was by the high mountains. From the older part of the country, then, Bishop Chase could hardly expect to receive many assistants, and even though the slender means of his people had permitted him to send young men to the East to be trained, it was doubtful whether men educated under such different conditions as the East then presented from Ohio would be either willing or adapted to do work at home. So it was that Bishop Chase determined upon founding a church training school in the opening West, where ministers might be educated at home under the hard conditions of pioneer life, and laymen be bred with the sound of the church's liturgy continually in their ears. Kenyon College was the result of the heroic missionary bishop's determination. The obstacles that the good Bishop had to encounter in the accomplishment of his purpose could have been surmounted only by the strongest intellectual conviction of the necessity of his work, an ardent devotion and a will which did not know the meaning of submission to man or to circumstances. Obviously, to carry out his plans money was necessary—not a great 126 – KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. deal, for labor and materials and living were all cheap, but much more money than could be provided by the new diocese, which could not so much as afford to pay its bishop a salary. The lack of accumulated wealth in Ohio and of sympathy in the East determined Bishop Chase to an extraordinary step—a visit to England to raise money for his missionary enterprise. Considering the inflamed condition of national feeling so soon after the war of 1812, the Bishop's resolution was the more audacious and original, and his success the more convincing evidence of the personal authority and influence of the man. Bishop Chase's trip to England indeed connects itself curiously enough with our national history through the dreary conference of Ghent, in 1814, which, after months of bickering and wrangling, concluded at Christmas a peace in which neither side mentioned the points the settlement of which had in July been declared indispensable preliminaries to any negotiation, for it was from Henry Clay, one of the American: peace commissioners, that Bishop Chase received a letter of introduction to Lord Gambier, the chairman of the British commission, and it was chiefly through the influence of Lord Gambier that the missionary enterprise in Ohio secured a hearing in England. The accounts that have come down to us of the contumelious treatment to which the American commissioners were subjected by their British compeers make it hard to understand why Henry Clay, nine years later, is recommending friends to the chairman of the British commission. Lord Gambier's interest in Ohio is perhaps a little easier to comprehend, for the commissioners of Ghent had demanded as a sine qua non to negotiation that the United States abandon their claim upon Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, most of Indiana, and a large part of Ohio, and recognize the territory as an Indian reservation under the joint suzerainty of Great Britain and the United States, and over this concession the war of diplomatic controversy had raged most hotly and continuously. The nine years' interval had not extinguished Lord Gambier's interest in the much-coveted Northwest territory, and familiar as he had become in 1814 with its resources and possibilities, he was in 1823 readily persuaded to help Bishop Chase in promoting the work of the Episcopal church in Ohio. The principal English donors to Bishop Chase's college were Lord Gambier, for whom the Bishop named his village ; Lord Kenyon, for whom he named the college ; Lord Bexley, for whom is named Bexley Hall, the Theological Seminary building; ; the dowager Countess of Rosse, and Hannah More, whose "cordial frankness, elevated sentiment and chastised wit" and other charming qualities Bishop Chase describes in a way quite at variance with the accounts of an observer like De Quincey. KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 127 It was only about thirty thousand dollars that Bishop Chase received from English sources, but those were the days of small things in this country, and the sum then seemed almost munificent. It was sufficient at any rate to enable the Bishop to buy a tract of eight thousand acres of land in central Ohio. This site was purchased from William Hogg, of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and consisted of section 1, in township 6, and section 4, in township 7, and the 12th range of United States military land, containing each four thousand acres. The amount of money paid Mr. Hogg for the entire tract was somewhat over nineteen thousand dollars. In the matter of a choice between a city or a country site, Bishop Chase earnestly advocated the latter, because he believed that not only would the students gain thereby in health and morality, but because he saw that wherever the seminary should be fixed, there property would at once advance in value, and by securing some thousands of acres the seminary might share in the gains which it would itself create. "If I were to judge in this matter from my present feelings," he said, "and if it were proper to express them here, I should be compelled to declare my great dislike to the confining of our views within the contracted sphere marked out by some for a city seminary, and that both my judgment and my feelings accord with the expressed opinion of benefactors in England I myself am witness, and here do testify." "Through a lifetime of half a century," the Bishop urged, "and far the greater part of this spent in being taught or in teaching others, there has been no one subject on which my mind has dwelt with deeper or more melancholy regret than this : That there was not in our seminaries of learning some way invented by which our youth, when removed from the guardian eye of their parents, might contend with vice on more equal terms—might be taught. at least, the use of weapons of self-defense before they are brought, as in our city colleges, to contend unarmed with the worst enemies of their happiness—those who find it to their interest or malicious pleasure to seduce them from their studies into vice and dissipation. And here this much desired means of preventing evils which no collegiate laws can cure is now before you. Put your seminary on your own domain ; be owners of the soil on which you dwell, and let the tenure of every lease and deed depend on the expressed condition that nothing detrimental to the morals and studies of youth be allowed on the premises." In order to erect a college in the primeval forest all the task of pioneer life had to be performed on a gigantic scale. The backwoodsman makes a clearing to build his rude barn and the log cabin which is to shelter his own family.. Bishop Chase made his clearing to provide for a community, and 128 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. to erect a massive stone building, which is one of the finest architectural monuments of its period in America. To the difficulties incident to pioneer life were added the suspicion and hostility on the part of the other settlers. When the massive walls of old Kenyon began to rise it was rumored that English money was raising a fort to command a part of the Western country which English diplomacy had not been able to gain possession of at the convention of Ghent. The college, however, was finally built, and the first class received their B. A.'s in 1829. The manner of life in the new college was necessarily very primitive. Seventy dollars was the price for a year of forty weeks for students of collegiate rank, and sixty dollars for grammar-school pupils, while a generous reduction of ten dollars more was made to theological students. These prices include all expenses except stationery, books and clothing, and Bishop Chase was hopeful of maintaining permanently this state of arcadian simplicity. In one of his convention addresses he says : "Though it is evidently necessary that the boarding department be made to defray its own expenses, yet .conscientiously looking to the good of the public, the very nature of our plan of having our institution in the country, surrounded by our own domain, abounding in every necessity of life, gives us reason to expect that those prices can always be kept at their present unexampled and almost incredibly reduced rate." The picturesque pioneer life of Kenyon College and its founder and first president is very accurately, if jocosely, summarized in a song which is very popular among the Kenyon students of today : "The first of Kenyon's goodly race Was that great man, Philander Chase; He climbed the hill, and said a prayer, And founded Kenyon College there. "He dug up stones, he chopped down trees, He sailed across the stormy seas, And begged at every noble's door, And also that of Hannah More. "The King, the Queen, the lords, the earls, They gave their gowns, they gave their pearls, Until Philander had enough And hurried homeward with the stuff. KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 129 "He built the college, built the dam, He milked the cow, he smoked the ham, He taught the classes, rang the bell, And spanked the naughty freshmen well. "And thus he worked with all his might For Kenyon College day and night; And Kenyon's heart still keeps a place Of love for old Philander Chase." But Bishop Chase brought back something more than money from England ; he returned with ideas of collegiate architecture which controlled not only his own building but set a standard for his successors. When one looks at the ugly brick boxes which constitute the historical nucleus of the New England colleges of the same date as Kenyon, one appreciates at its full the architectural debt that the Ohio college owes to its first founder. For in the clearing that he made in the forest the Bishop began a group of buildings which far surpassed any collegiate architecture of that date in America, and which even yet is the equal of any. On January 9, 1827, he laid the cornerstone of old Kenyon, a massive Gothic structure with walls of solid stone four and a half feet thick. Planned as one side of a college quadrangle, its battlemented and pinnacled roof is surmounted by a majestic spire one hundred and ten feet high. A quarry was opened in the college hill to supply the stone, and timber was cut and hewn on the domain. Floors and finish were sawed at the mill built by the Bishop close by at the falls of the Kokosing. When Bishop Chase left Gambier in 1831 the walls of Rosse chapel, the cathedral church of Ohio, were several feet above the ground. The plans for this stately Gothic edifice, with a deep and spacious chancel, were altered by Bishop Chase's successor and the building assumed a simpler and more severe classical outline. Bishop Chase was a great man ; he saw the opportunity of the moment and seized it. The pioneers of Ohio were of the best and sturdiest stock of the young United States ; they were energetic and intelligent, and appreciated the value of education. But they had not the means to send their sons across the mountains to school and college, even though the journey had not been long, difficult and dangerous ; they needed, and showed that they appreciated, a good education that could be obtained at home cheaply and conveniently. Such an opening for a college has rarely been found, and nobly did Kenyon College fill the place opened for .it by the times, for its alumni roll contains a larger percentage of distinguished names than that of any college in the (9) 130 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. country. In those early days when the number of undergraduates rarely exceeded sixty, there were trained at Kenyon Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the United States and secretary of the treasury; Stanley Matthews, justice of the supreme court; David Davis, justice of the supreme court; Henry Winter Davis. the great orator of Congress; Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war; J. B. Minor, dean of the University of Virginia Law School and the best law teacher of his day in the United States; Bishop Wilmer, of Louisiana, and Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States. The social, religious and political life of the commonwealth of Ohio was moulded and stamped by the men educated at Kenyon and Western Reserve before the early sixties, and in the broader field of the national life their influence was a potent one. Today the life of church and state is more complex than in the early days; church and state alike are affected by the influx of outside currents; the old colleges which formed the early life of the commonwealth of Ohio have rivals now in the institutions of other states, brought near by the multiplication of railroads and the increase of wealth; their influence, though important, will not again be paramount. Yet Kenyon has a brilliant future before it as a brilliant past behind it. The pendulum is swinging back again; there are many signs that thoughtful people are tiring of education in the gross, of the mingling of the sexes in the colleges, of technical training before the mind is ripe. The old conservative notions of separate, liberal education in small numbers are reviving, and Kenyon College, which, in the midst of an uncongenial and often hostile environment, has maintained the standards of true cultivation and scholarship, never lowering them for the sake of numbers or of popularity, is certain to enter upon the second century of its history with greater endowments and more brilliant Prospects than it has ever had in the past. LATER HISTORY, 1831-1912. Since the resignation in 1831 of the first president and founder of the college, Bishop Chase, the list of presidents is as follows: Charles Petit Mcllvaine. 1831-1840; David Bates Douglas, 1840-1844; Samuel Fuller, 1844-1845; Sherlock A. Bronson, 1845-1850; Thomas M. Smith, 1850-1854; Lorin Andrews, 1854-1861; Benjamin Lang, 1861-1863; Charles Short, 1863-1867; James Kent Stone, 1867-1868; Eli T. Tappan, 1868-1875; Edward C. Benson, 1875-1876; William B. Bodine, 1876-1891; Theodore Sterling, 1891-1896; William Foster Peirce, elected president in 1896. In 1839, as a fruition of the exertions of Bishop McIlvaine, a separate building was erected for the exclusive use of students in the Theological KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 131 Seminary. The working model for this building, Bexley Hall, was sent from England and is a copy of the Elizabethan country house of Lord Bexley. It has been called the finest specimen of pure Elizabethan architecture in America. In 1850 occurred the sale of the college lands as related in Dr. Bodine's "Kenyon Book." When Major Douglas came to Gambier in 184.0 the finances were in a depressed and most deplorable condition. The money collected a few years before had been partially used in the erection of new buildings, partially in the payment of old debts. These debts, however, were not entirely obliterated. To meet this deficit, Bishop Mcllvaine, in 1833, had found it necessary to contract a loan of fifteen thousand dollars, which he secured "through the great attention and affectionate interest of Samuel Ward, Esq., of New York." This loan, however, proved a very heavy burden. Without it, or rather without the debt which it represented, the college financially would have prospered. As it was, there was an increasing accumulation of debt, year by year. It was at length deemed both expedient and necessary to sell the greater part of the original tract of land and definite action to this effect was taken by the trustees. The college lands consist at present of about four hundred acres, of which approximately one hundred and fifty acres are in use as parks surrounding the college and seminary buildings, the college campus comprising ninety acres and the remainder being known as the Bexley Park. Ascension Hall was erected in 1859 by gifts from the Church of the Ascension, New York. - Built in pure Tudor style, its finely proportioned lines and battlemented towers command special admiration. It contains most of the college lecture rooms, together with scientific laboratories, business offices and halls of the Philomathesian and Nu Pi Kappa literary societies. These two latter halls are finished in handsome hand-carved oaken beams and paneling. The records of the Philomathesian and Nu Pi Kappa literary societies are interwoven with college history and the students who in these halls practiced oration and debate have gone forth to utter words not lacking in influence both in church and state. The college literary society records both of Edwin M. Stanton and Rutherford B. Hayes are both highly characteristic of the two men in ways typically suggestive. The Nu Pi Kappa Society owes its foundation to an incident in the life of Stanton. When in 1832 South Carolina nullified the existing tariff and the proclamation of President Jackson declared that the whole force of the Federal army would enforce the collection of the duties, the Kenyon student body, many of whom came 132 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. from the South, could talk of little else. Stanton, although he had not been brought up a Democrat, on this issue went over to Jackson and vehemently denounced the action of the nullifying state. His vigorous speeches made the Southerners so uncomfortable that they seceded from Philomathesian to found the Nu Pi Kappa Society. Perhaps Stanton was thinking of the influence upon him of this college debate when in later years he said, "If I am anything or have done anything in the way of usefulness, I owe it to Kenyon College." President Hayes, whose college life covered the years 1838-1842, played a highly characteristic part in the relations of these two Kenyon literary societies. In the winter of 1841 there were so few Southern students in the college that the members of Nu Pi Kappa feared their society would cease to exist. One of the Southern students, Guy M. Bryan, of Texas, who was an intimate friend of young Hayes, decided to bring the matter before the latter in the hope of devising some means for carrying on Nu Pi Kappa, which was chartered by the state and had valuable property. The two boys discussed the situation with the greatest seriousness. At last Hayes said, "Well, I will get 'Old Trow' Comstock and some 0thers to join with me, and we will send over a delegation from our society to yours, and then we can make new arrangements so that both societies can live in the old college." Accordingly, ten members of Philomathesian joined Nu Pi Kappa and a joint committee from the two societies reported a plan by which students could join either one without reference to sectional differences. It was very natural that the man who, as President,. welded the nation together should have been the man in college to go over to the Southern society. Lorin Andrews, from 1854-1861 president of the college, trained as a lawyer, had, however, achieved signal success as an educator, but when the first call of the President of the United States for quotas of volunteer troops was made, was the first man in Ohio whose name the Governor received. He did this rather less from any desire for a military life than as an example. He was elected colonel of the Fourth Ohio Infantry, which entered for three months' service; re-enlisted July 5, 1861, and died September 18, 1861. One hundred and thirty-seven students at Kenyon College and twenty-seven at the Theological Seminary were in attendance when the Civil war broke out. Of this number over sixty followed the example of President Andrews, enlisting, N0rth and South, in the armies of the Civil war. Not until 1905 has the attendance again equaled this figure, at which time there were registered one hundred and forty-eight men at Kenyon College and twenty-one at Bexley Hall. KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 133 PROPERTY, 1911. A list of the college buildings follows : Old Kenyon, built by Bishop Chase in 1827, opened to students, 1829. The interior rebuilt and handsomely remodeled, 1905-1906. Rosse Hall, begun by Bishop Chase, 1831. Constructed on revised plan by Bishop McIlvaine; burned, 1897; rebuilt, 1899. Bexley Hall, built by Bishop Mcllvaine, 1839. Stone pillars at entrance of college park, erected by President Douglas, 1842. Ascension Hall, built by members of the Church of the Ascension, New York, 1859. Church of the Holy Spirit, presented to Bishop Bedell by members of his former parish in New York, 1869. Hubbard Hall, built by Mrs. Ezra Bliss, 1884, in honor of her brother; burned January 1, 1910; replaced. The Alumni Library and Norton Hall, the gift of David Z. Norton, 1910-1911. Stephens stack room, adjoining the library, built in 1903 by James P. Stephens, of the class of 1859. Prayer cross, erected by the class of 1902, Bexley Hall, to mark the spot where prayer first was said on the college hill. Hanna Hall, built in 1903, by Senator Marcus A. Hanna, in honor of his wife, C. Augusta Hanna. Colburn Hall, the library building of the Theological Seminary, built by Mrs. L. C. Colburn in 1904. The president's house and professors' residence, being constructed 1911-1912, the gift of William Nelson Cromwell, of New York. The treasurer's report for 1910-1911 shows the assets of the college to he $1,036,300.85, made up as follows: Net current funds, $8,275.98; securities, $364,021.37; real estate investments, $153,803.50; educational plant, $510.00. The budget for the academic year 1910-1911 amounted to about $57,000. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES. Entirely different from most other Western colleges, though belonging to the same general type as the small colleges of New England and New York, Kenyon has nevertheless certain individual features which are worthy 134 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. of note. The general character of Kenyon of today is that impressed upon it by its first founder, and Bishop Chase, unlike many founders, would not be dazed by the sights he saw if he could revisit the scene of his labors. He would find new buildings, but built along the grave and dignified lines he himself laid down, and none of the eccentricities in brick and stone with which many a college campus is diversified. Unsympathetic observers might find the village of Gambier somewhat lacking in convenience and in enterprise, but Bishop Chase would find it just what he intended it to be, namely, an adjunct to his college which should afford the necessaries but none of the distractions of life. The good bishop would find, to be sure, instruction in sciences like psychology and biology, which in his time had no name and scarcely an existence, and in languages like Spanish and Italian, which were hardly esteemed tongues for a Christian youth to learn ; but though the humanities include a wider range of subjects than they did eighty or ninety years ago, it is still the humanities and only the humanities that are taught in Kenyon, just as in the days when Latin, Greek and mathematics formed their whole content. Unlike most founders, too, Bishop Chase would not find the ubiquitous American woman in what he meant to be a cloistered seclusion. The salient features of Kenyon, both those which serve to classify it and those which serve to differentiate it from other members of its own class, may be briefly summarized. In the first place, Kenyon confines itself strictly to undergraduate work of collegiate character. It offers no graduate work; that is for the universities. It offers no technical courses ; those too are for the universities and the institutes of technology. It offers no business courses; these do not properly belong to the sphere of education. It does offer a man a "liberal" education, the education of a gentleman. It gives him a general foundation of knowledge, which will enable him to appreciate and follow the manifold intellectual interests and activities of the time and to choose and pursue his profession or business with intelligence and efficiency. It tries to fit him for an intelligent share in the business and pleasure of life. With a view to presenting a conspectus of the field of knowledge, the Kenyon curriculum, like the curriculum of other colleges of its type, aims to offer a sufficient number of courses to give some scope for individual preferences and not a sufficient number to admit of much specializing. Obviously only a limited amount of work can be done in the four years of a college course. If a man can carry only sixteen or seventeen hours of work a week for this period, it confers no particular intellectual benefit upon him that the courses offered are so numerous that it would take him seventy years to complete all of them, as is the case in some of our universities. He has only KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 135 four years to spend and not seventy, and the college, which, in order to give some scope for the tastes of the individual, offers courses covering ten or fifteen years' work, is doing as much for the individual as the university. The thirstiest man can drink no more from a river than from a spring. There must be some knowledge which is of most importance to the average man, and it is for imparting this knowledge that the college courses are organized. The Kenyon faculty still hold to the opinion—delusion they hope it is not—that they are somewhat better equipped to select courses for the average freshman than he is to do it for himself, and accordingly they exercise a general supervision over his choice of work from the beginning to the end of his college course. Professor Munsterberg has compared the free elective system as practiced in some of our universities to the condition of a man who, knowing no French, tries to order a dinner from a French bill of fare by pointing out the name of one and another dish with no idea whether it is a roast or a soup or an entree that he is indicating. No doubt, says Professor Munsterberg, the waiter will bring him a dinner, but he cannot be said to have elected his courses. As Kenyon, like the other colleges of its type, wishes its students to be provided with a regular dinner and not a meal composed of soups alone or of salads alone, the faculty have labeled the roast, and the entree, and the others, and told each man that he must take everything from the fish to the coffee, only that he may choose which roast or which salad it shall be. Thus the sophomore in the course in arts must take one ancient language, but may choose which ; he must take one modern language, but may choose whether it be French, German or Spanish ; he must take one science, but may choose between mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Then, to allow full scope to the individual taste, the student is permitted- to make one election in any department he pleases. Moreover, students' electives being largely determined by caprice or circumstance or accident, it has seemed wise to guard against shifting purpose and lack of continuity. Accordingly, at least two of the courses of the sophomore year must be carried throughout the junior year, and at least one junior course must be continued in the senior year. As the best thing a college can do for a man is to teach him to -speak and write his native tongue with precision, if not with elegance, and to enjoy its literature, English is prescribed for all men in all courses throughout the four years. From what has been said it follows almost as a corollary that Kenyon is, in the second place, a small college. It is only the few nowadays—and the percentage is perhaps smaller in the West than in the East—that desire a 136 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. liberal education, and so Kenyon has never had more than a hundred and fifty undergraduates, exclusive of theological students. Knowing that it has not the necessary equipment for good work in technical, graduate or professional courses, Kenyon has made no "bid" for greater numbers by offering makeshift courses in those departments ; it professes to do only what it can do well and thoroughly. Another obvious means of increasing numbers is to admit women, but neither to this means has Kenyon cared to resort. It remains practically alone among Western colleges in maintaining the old-fashioned tradition of separate education and in making no provision for the education of women. But Kenyon is a small college not only from necessity, but from conviction. At a time when a great college like Princeton is trying to split itself up into smaller units, it is superfluous to enlarge upon the benefits of the small college—upon the personal attention its faculty is able to bestow upon students, both inside and outside the class room ; upon its way of treating students as individuals instead of units, upon its development of personality. In Kenyon, which with its hundred and fifty students maintains all the athletic and social organizations that mark American college life, every man, however small his ability, must do what he can. The environment awakens and cultivates his sense of individuality, his realization of the true importance of his personal life. In the small college, as in ancient Athens and medieval Florence, each man, plainly seeing what his own effort contributes to the common weal, is stimulated to his best endeavor. A third feature of Kenyon is its dormitory life. The Greek letter fraternities, though active at Kenyon, have not here, as elsewhere, broken the college up into independent groups. By segregating the several fraternities in different parts of the dormitories privacy is secured to the fraternities without sacrifice of the esprit du corps which results from community life. A call in front of Old Kenyon will summon every man in college. It is the more remarkable that Kenyon should have been able to keep out the fraternity house, that source of disunion, because the Kenyon chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon built the first fraternity lodge in the United States; but the interior arrangement of Old Kenyon has no doubt been a determining factor. The building is in five distinct sections, some of which have no communication except through the basement, and it has a separate entrance for each section or "division." When Hanna Hall was erected the same plan of separate divisions was adhered to. Three divisions of Old Kenyon are occupied by the Delta Kappa Epsilon, Alpha Delta Phi and Delta Tau Delta fraternities, and two divisions of Hanna Hall by the Psi Upsilon and Beta KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 137 Theta Pi fraternities, leaving two divisions of Old Kenyon and one of Hanna Hall for non-fraternity men. Hanna Hall was erected in 1902 by Senator Hanna in honor of his wife, and is a model of a college dormitory. Old Kenyon, though Bishop Chase regarded it as "containing more conveniences" than any building that ever he saw, left much to be desired in the eyes of our softer generation, and accordingly, thanks in part to contributions from alumni of the fraternities residing in the building, the whole interior has been rebuilt within the last year. By the skill of the architect, C. F. Schweinfurth, it has become in point of equipment one of the finest, and in point of finish one of the handsomest college dormitories in the country. A fourth distinctive feature of Kenyon is the entire absorption of its students in college activities. Other colleges are in towns or cities; Kenyon is in the country. There is no life for the students except what they make for themselves, and the isolation of the situation makes college life all the more intense. In the fifth place, Kenyon, as the apostle of true culture, has always taught the meaning of beauty and the subordination of the material to the spiritual. Philander Chase, its founder, was a man of taste in a generation in which few Americans thought of beauty. Life within his college walls might be crude and primitive, but the walls themselves should be permanent, in stone and nobly reared. Side by side with Old Kenyon it was impossible to erect mean or commonplace buildings, and so on the hill above the muddy Kokosing has arisen a group of buildings worthy of comparison with those on the banks of the Isis or the Cam. Kenyon College, with its serene and stately beauty, has a lesson of refinement to teach. In the old days students might be obliged to carry their own wood and water, but it was in a building which had the majestic proportions—as well as the conveniences—of a medieval castle. The student may tramp knee-deep in snow, but he does it with the music of the Canterbury chimes in his ears. If the last new book that he wants is not on the library shelves, he can find there specimens of the printing of the great bookmakers. Kenyon is like a refined family which, if forced to subsist on meagre fare, will place its little upon the table with immaculate linen, delicate china and deft service. Kenyon has always been a poor college, but its poverty has always been dignified. In the lives of the ill-paid professors, too, the Kenyon man sees that poverty need not be mean or sordid or unrefined. These are no small lessons for a young man to learn in a nation which as a nation is only beginning to love beauty and refinement, and which offers excessive worship to the dollar. 138 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. HARCOURT PLACE SCHOOL. By Harriette M. Collins. A history of Knox county would be incomplete if mention of Harcourt Place School were omitted. A relative and close neighbor of Kenyon College, Harcourt Place School stands within the scholarly precincts of Gambier and, with the other institution, enjoys the quiet and seclusion which characterize that ideal little college town. Harcourt Place School is particularly fortunate in its location and environment. An elevation of eleven hundred feet above sea-level insures pure, invigorating air and an immunity from malaria. Convenient omnibus and train service afford easy communication, not only with the state capital and the county seat, but with every part of the country. Attractive grounds, which offer facilities for tennis and other out-of-door games, beautiful country roads and shady lanes—that remind one of rural England—invite the student to open-air exercise and recreation. Venerable woods, rolling hills and the lovely little river Kokosing vie with one another in lending charm to the surroundings of Harcourt and combine to form scenes which inspire alike the budding artist and the student of nature. The attractiveness of Harcourt Place School, however, is not confined to its surroundings. The school home consists of three commodious red brick buildings which are vine-clad, connected by covered "bridges" and known respectively as Mcllvaine House, Lewis Hall and Delano Hall. Lewis Hall was erected as a memorial to the late Miss Anna Lewis, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John N. Lewis, of Mt. Vernon. Lewis Hall, with its sister buildings, faces the beautiful boulevard known as the Middle Path. Mcllvaine House is named in honor of the Rt. Rev. C. P. Mcllvaine, the second bishop of the diocese of Ohio. Bishop Mcllvaine, who was noted in his day as a man of fine taste, built a beautiful home in 1833 on the summit of Gambier Hill. The mansion was set in the midst of twelve acres of land and the estate received the name of Harcourt Place. In 1846, Bishop Mcllvaine moved to Cincinnati, Harcourt Place was purchased by the Rev. Alfred Blake, D. D., the first graduate from Kenyon College, and Harcourt Place School made its debut in the educational world as a boarding school for boys. In 1885 Harcourt Place was purchased by the regents of Kenyon Grammar School (now known as Kenyon College), and steps were immediately taken for. the organization of a church school for young ladies and girls. On September 28, 1887, Harcourt Place School first KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 139 opened its doors as a high class school for girls and since that date it has steadily kept pace with the van in the march of educational progress. For eighteen years, Harcourt Place School grew and prospered under the able administration of Mr. and Mrs. H. N. Hills. Under their care the seminary grew from a small school to a large and influential one. In 1907 Miss H. Merwin, of New York, leased the beautiful estate of Harcourt Place, which had been greatly improved by the trustees of Kenyon College while the property was under their control. Miss Merwin brought to Harcourt not only a magnetic personality, but a wealth of experience with eastern educational methods, and that broader, deeper culture which results from years of earnest study abroad. Miss Merwin holds the reins of government at Harcourt with a firm but gentle hand. Skillful management and impartiality of judgment distinguish her administration as principal and assure to the individual members of her large household all the comforts of a refined home coupled with as much personal liberty as is consistent with the best interests of the school. Miss Merwin believes in progress—in keeping up with the latest approved methods in the training of girls. She believes in the symmetrical development of the whole woman, in the maintenance of a proper balance between the mental, physical and spiritual sides of being. By precept and example, Miss Merwin and her staff of teachers inculcate true politeness—the constant practice of little courtesies and the thoughtful attention to minor details which keep the social and domestic machinery running smoothly and which, in every land, distinguish the gentlewoman. The curriculum of Harcourt Place School offers a wide range of subjects and each subject is taught by a teacher who has specialized in that particular subject, for, among the many special advantages offered by Harcourt is the somewhat unusual one that a large number of teachers are engaged in the instruction of a small number of pupils. "Ye Harcourt Mayde," the school paper, is deserving of the highest commendation. It is beautifully illustrated, abounds in bright witticisms, entertaining stories and clever verse. Clever French, German and English plays are given by the students of Harcourt. These plays bear witness to the high excellence of the training received in foreign, as well as in the best English literature. CHAPTER XIII. NEWSPAPERS OF THE COUNTY. The newspapers of America stand out prominently as civilizing factors and really mould and fashion public opinion to a great extent. As a general rule the fraternity of journalists in this country are able, painstaking and broad-minded in their opinions and actions. It is true that political papers are, at times, biased by party influence and cannot be relied upon at all times, but the news department, proper. of a majority of the local daily and weekly newspapers, as well as the greater national publications, is abreast with, if not superior to those of any other country on the globe. The circulation of these newspapers is very large and generally distributed, being delivered even at the farmer's door in the early forenoon of each week day, by means of the modern rural delivery carriers. In this way every intelligent citizen of the land may inform himself daily as to the comings and goings of the busy world round him. The reader of a weekly or daily newspaper cannot fail of becoming a thoroughly posted person. The rate charged for the modern paper is exceeding cheap, while the quality is superior to that of any other country. Of the two classes, perhaps the local newspaper is the most sought after and read the most constantly, giving, as these journals do, the "home news," in which all are most naturally interested. KNOX COUNTY JOURNALISM. In common with other sections of Ohio, this county has ever kept fully abreast the times in way of furnishing its citizens with excellent local daily and weekly newspapers and this chapter will undertake to give the reader something accurate concerning the founding and present standing of the publications within Knox county since the issue of its pioneer newspaper. The Ohio Register, established in the pioneer village of Clinton, in July, 1813, by Smith & McArdle, was the first attempt at local journalism in Knox county. Samuel H. Smith, one of the founders of the paper, was also proprietor of the town of Clinton and John P. McArdle was an excellent practical printer, who emigrated from Ireland in the spring of 1801, coming to Knox county in 1809. KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 141 Clinton not succeeding in gaining the county seat in a singular contest noticed elsewhere in this volume, it never materialized to be of much commercial importance, hence after two years of struggle, the paper was removed to the more fortunate town of Mt. Vernon, where, on April 24, 1816, it was first issued, bearing this motto : "Aware that what is base no polish can make sterling." This paper was indeed very small, being only an eightby-ten-inch sheet of the folio style, at first. Its worthy, capable editor, Mr. Smith, announced in his first issue that his paper would not be the receptacle for party politics or personal abuse. In October, 1817, six months after removing to Mount Vernon, its columns contained the following notice to its patrons and subscribers : "For without this one thing necessary, it is impossible to expect that we can live; money would be preferable, but if that is scarce with you, rags, wheat, rye, corn, and almost all kinds of market produce will be taken in payment." On April 18, 1818, at the close of volume No. 2, the patrons had not supported the Register sufficiently to enable its proprietors to live longer in the business and it went down and its offices were closed. From that date down to 1844 there were various attempts at local papers at Mount Vernon, but none survived as long as had this first publication, the Ohio Register. Others came and tried it for a time, but did not succeed and left the country or engaged in some more lucrative vocation. Among the ablest men who here sought to work out the problem of early-day local journalism may be named Charles Colerick and William Bevans, the former from Washington county, Pennsylvania, and the latter from Fayette counts', of the same state. They were in bitter opposition to one another and were arrayed against each other as candidates for the office of sheriff of Knox county. Colerick espoused the cause of Adams, while his opponent favored Andrew Jackson for President, but really the main fight was over who should have the county printing for this county. Of Colerick it may be stated that he, in company with his brothers, John and Henry, made their first appearance here in 1822, while Bevans was sheriff of the county, and established his printing office. The Knox County Gazette was established by John Barland, in 1825, at Mt. Vernon, and two years later he sold it to James Harvey Patterson, from Fayette county, Pennsylvania, and 'William Smith, from Washington county, Pennsylvania, and they continued the publication until 1829, when the property was transferred to William Bevans, who conducted it, under the name of the Western Aurora, until 1831, when it was sold to William P. Reznor, a printer who learned his trade under Bevans. In 1832 C. P. Bronson became an associate with him. In the fall of 1833 Dan Stone purchased 142 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. the property, carried on business a few months alone, when Dr. Morgan I. Bliss became a partner, they operating together until November, 1834, when, on account of severe illness, Bliss withdrew and Dr. Lewis Dyer became the editor. In 1835 he was followed by Dr. John Thomas, who was somewhat of a talented man and he, after having run his course, gave way to Dan Stone, who conducted the paper alone until he saw no profit in the same and in May, 1835, closed the doors of his office. Three years later, 1838, the Western Watchman was established in Mt. Vernon, by Samuel M. Browning, with John Teasdale as editor for a short time. The last named intended to become a partner, but in an unguarded moment this philanthropic Englishman happened to insert an abolition article, and found it wise to leave town suddenly, for be it remembered that this was long before the freeing of the slaves and the Civil war days, when in many sections of Ohio, including Knox county, such things were not to be tolerated. In October, 1839, the paper was sold to S. Dewey & Company, but the time which they ran the paper was short. The Family Cabinet was the next newspaper launched on the seas of Knox county paperdom. It suspended, as had all of its predecessors. These first organs had all been representatives of the one political party and were all conducted prior to 1840. In 1827 the paper known as the Democrat and Knox Advertiser was still conducted by the Colerick brothers, but in 1831 it was sold to Samuel Rohrer,. who in 1832 sold to F. S. and P. B. Ankeny, who changed the title of the paper to the Mount Vernon Democrat and Knox Advertiser, a name long enough to be remembered for words. The following year it was named the Looking Glass and Whig Reflector. Again Charles Colerick entered the newspaper field, this time in 1835, to establish the Day Book, which he conducted with great zeal and much ability until he volunteered as a soldier and went to Texas, where he fought for the independence of that territory and there died. Delano & Browning bought his office in Mt. Vernon and it was continued by William Byers until the winter of 1837-8, when it was transferred to S. M. Browning. When the campaign of 1840 came on, the Whigs having become disgusted with the sentiments of John Teasdale on the abolition question, caused him to give up the publication of his paper and advertised far and near for a reliable Whig editor to come to their rescue. They finally succeeded in securing James Emmett Wilson, of Steubenville, who came to Mt. Vernon and established the Knox County Republican. Six months later he associated with him his brother-in-law, Milo Butler. It was started under the most flattering circumstances, but in the autumn of 1841 was discontinued because KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 143 it could not prove itself a "live Whig paper." Wilson and Butler both went into the ministry. The next newspaper founded in Mt. Vernon was in 1842 by William H. Cochran, young school teacher of Newark, Ohio. He rented the old Republican and called his paper the Times, from which office has been continued a paper, under one caption or another, up to the present time. Among those interested in the publication and editorship of this organ may be mentioned Messrs. Cochran, Silmon Clark, G. E. Winters, 0.. B. Chapman, James F. Withrow, J. W. Shuckers; also the members of a joint stock company, H. M. Ranney, W. C. Cooper, Rev. J. H. Hamilton, Wilkinson & Knabenshus, C. Wilkinson and Harry G. Armstrong & Company. Later came in Baldwin & Taylor, who purchased the property in the spring of 1881. From that date until the present time this office has been in the hands of C. F. and W. F. Taylor, Mr. Baldwin and the Republican Publishing Company, under its present management, since 1900. Its president is Benjamin Ames; secretary and treasurer, L. A. Culbertson, with Charles C. Jams as editor. The latter has been connected with the paper since fifteen years of age and set the first slug from the first linotype machine in Knox county, August 27, 1900. At one time the presses were run here by water motor, but for some years by electric motors. The paper was a weekly until 1885, then a semi-weekly, but in the autumn of 1897 was converted into a daily. It is an up-to-date Republican journal, giving all the decent news of the day. The full title of the paper is the Daily Republican-News. The word News was added in 1898. After the Day Book was purchased and merged with the Western Watchman, an effort was made to establish another paper, and the Democratic Banner was founded in April, 1838, by Chauncey Bassett and Joel Robb. John Kershaw bought it in 1841 and he conducted it without an editorial, only as some partisan would furnish one over his own name. Kershaw published the paper until 1844, when he sold to E. I. Ellis and it was edited by G. W. Morgan until 1845, when it was sold to David A. Robertson, who later sold back to Ellis, who continued its publication until 1847, when it was bought by William Dunbar, who had during part of one year associated with him George W. Armstrong. In 1852 Mr. Dunbar sold to E. J. Ellis and in December, 1853, it was sold to Hon. Lecky Harper, then of the Pittsburg (Pa.) Post, who continued the publication of the same until his death, June 18, 1895, a period of forty years, when his sons, Frank and William M. Harper, conducted it a year, after which Frank bought his brother's interest and has been sole owner since that date. It became a semi- 144 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. weekly and daily paper in June, 1898. It is a progressive, though conservative, paper, full of the daily news. The Mount Vernon True Whig, established in 1848, was the result of the proprietors of the Times not supporting General Taylor for the Presidency. Taylor, living in the South, held slaves and this the Times would "not stand for," hence the new paper, which continued for seven years a stanch Whig organ. During the 1848 campaign it was ably edited by Joseph S. Davis ; in 1849-50-51 and 1852 by John W. White, and the remainder of its existence by A. Banning Norton, who also ran a daily for three years, known as Norton's Daily True Whig, carrying as a motto the saying of David Crockett, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." The support, financially, was from the proprietor's own pocketbook, mostly, and in 1855 he tired of this sort of newspaper publishing and quit short. The Democratic Banner had also run as a daily for thirty days during the winter of 1852-3. Other early-time papers were the Rainbow, edited by Rev. A. Sanback, at Mount Vernon, then moved to Fredericktown, then to Bellville, from which place it was removed to Tiffin. The Lily was edited by the famous Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, of costume notoriety. It was moved to Iowa after about one year. The Western Home Visitor, established in Mount Vernon by E. A. Higgins and edited by E. S. S. Rouse, was too good and large a publication for the times and price asked. A half interest was soon sold to David C. Bloomer, who six months later became sole proprietor and two years later removed it to Columbus, Ohio. Then came the National, with Agnes & Ragnet as proprietors, with William C. Gaston as its editor. This organ supported the "Lecomtonites" and after the defeat of that political faction it went out of commission. Next, the Knox County Express was started by Agnes & Tilton, in December, 1860, and in 1862 was published by C. M. Phelps & Company and ably edited by Judge S. Davis. The Express was finally merged with the Mt. Vernon Republican; then in the hands of the Mount Vernon Publishing Company. During the early days of the Greenback craze, two organs advocating that party were established in one week, the Knox County Advocate, by two youthful printers, Joseph H. Watson and William A. Agnew, and the Knox County National; by a young attorney named John Lennon, who soon gave way to the former. Both were part home and part "patent print," furnished from Cleveland. After one year, the Advocate saw the error of its teaching and dropped the word National and run as a Republican organ the Advocate, which, after a brief, but heroic struggle. suspended operations. KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 145 During the exciting campaign of 1878, Watson & Agnew, for two months, issued a daily as a straight campaign paper. The Centerburg Gazette was established in 1880 by E. N. Gunsaulus, who was succeeded by Fuller Brothers, F. H. Huntsberger, J. C. McCracken and the present proprietor, L. M. Bell. Its present size is a six-column quarto, which is printed on an improved Babcock standard cylinder power press. Politically, this paper is an independent. It seeks local news, rather than that of being a political party leader or organ. It is this class of newspapers that give the common people what they most desire, a clean, neat, readable paper, void of political sensation. The Gazette enjoys a good patronage, both in its list of paid subscriptions and in the excellent job work which it turns from its presses. The Knox County Herald, published at Danville, was established in March, 1908, by Paul Welker. It is now published by G. P. LaPorte, who purchased the office from Mr. Welker in February, 1911. It is a six-column quarto journal, independent in its politics and is printed on an old reliable Washington hand press. It has a good list of appreciative patr0ns who look for its weekly coming as they would for a news letter from a friend. It is well edited and has the respect of the community in which Danville is situated. It is the second paper of the thriving village of Danville and should have the support of all who care to be well informed concerning the weekly events as they transpire. The Tri-County Leader, of Danville, has been published since 1902 under the style of the Standard Printing Company ; J. F. Dodd, proprietor, F. 0. Padgett, editor. It is an eight-page six-column paper, independent in politics, is run from a hand press and asked to be a four-page, four-column paper. The journal is the successor of the Buckeye Star, established in 1881. This paper supplies the people of the three counties with an excellent local paper in which all decent news appears. The Universalist Advocate was the pioneer publication in Hilliar township, this county. It was established as a sixteen-page magazine devoted to the "universal salvation of all men." It was printed in the village of Centerburg from early in the forties up to 1861. The Centerburg Mirror, a local newspaper of the seven-column kind, was started in 1878, but was short-lived. John S. Watson was its editor and proprietor. The Independent, of Fredericktown, was started in 1871 by A. M. Smith, who was succeeded in 1872 by W. S. Ensign, who later sold to C. W. Townsend who conducted it until April, 1875, when the enterprise failed on account, it is believed, because he was a radical temperance advo- (10) 146 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO. cate—way ahead of his time. M. F. Edwards purchased the material and started the Free-Press, June 1. 1875, and continued to publish it until 1880, when he sold to H. P. Johnson, who conducted a lively independent local journal, the same being a five-column quarto sheet. In 190,7 W. G. Cummings was proprietor ; E. A. Day in 1908, and the present proprietor commenced in 1908. The paper is run from a gas engine power press ; size and form is now from eight to ten-page six-column sheet, thirty-four by forty-four inches, all home print. Politically, it is a Republican journal. LITERARY WORK. Among the books published in Knox county should not be forgotten one entitled "The American Revolution," which was the first attempt at book-making in this county. It was printed at Clinton, this county, by Smith & McArdle. The second book was the "Columbian," a poem of the American war, in thirteen cantos. Next was "A Caveat against Methodism," by a gentleman of the church of Rome, printed at the office of the Ohio Register. In 1830 C. & J. Colerick published a directory of Knox county, compiled by Edward Harkness from the tax books of the county. The Day Book office published, in 1835, the "Laws and Ordinances of Mt. Vernon," and in 1852 the "Charter and Ordinances of Mt. Vernon" were published by the True Whig office. The "Revised Ordinances of the City of Mt Vernon" were published by the Republican office in 1878. The same year were published the "History and Rules of the Mt. Vernon Public Schools," by Joseph S. Davis, A.M.—this was a valuable work of forty pages. Several lesser books, mostly on religious subjects, have been from time to time published in this county, especially in connection with the college at Gambier. Aside from such works of home authorship, may be named the valuable law books written by Judge Hurd and Charles H. Scribner, whose law works have been scattered throughout the length and breadth of this country, and are found in m0st all law libraries. Last, but by no means least, was the authorship of Knox county's first local history, that of A. Banning Norton, in 1862. This was a creditable account of the doings of this people from the earliest date down to Civil war days in Knox county. It has more than four hundred pages and the author is credited with being more nearly correct than any later historian. Having been reared and lived here many years, he was peculiarly fitted for the task he undert0ok. CHAPTER XIV. THE CHURCHES OF KNOX COUNTY. That the people of Knox county have, as a general rule, been a God-fearing and religiously-inclined class of citizens, is seen from the numerous church organizations in the county, and that from the earliest day. It appears from the church records that the Presbyterian society was the first formed in this county, the year being 1807. The following is as near a correct account of the organization of the various church societies in Knox county as can now be compiled, with what little aid has been furnished by those who are in a position to know and from previous historical sketches of these church organizations : THE MOUNT VERNON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. As near as can now be determined, the first colony of Presbyterians to locate within Knox county included the following: William and Amos Leonard, Ziba Leonard, Ebenezer Brown, Rachel Mills (wife of John Mills) and Mary Knight (wife of William Knight). William Leonard, of this little company, was the oldest and looked upon as the true patriarch of the band who located at Mt. Vernon in the autumn of 1799, which was half a decade before the town had a place on the records of the county. Mr. Leonard was then in his eighty-fourth year. Religious services were held at the home of Ziba Leonard, as his house was central and the largest. Here on Sunday and Thursday evenings the few Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist settlers met for services, and soon the outsiders began to come and take interest in divine things. In the early spring came others, including Abner Brown, Sr., and Abner Brown, Jr., from Greene county, Pennsylvania, from which section the others had emigrated ; also Jacob and John Cook, from Washington county. After the death of Father Leonard, in the spring of 1805, his son Amos became a sort of religious leader in the colony. It was probably in the year 1806 when Rev. James Scott visited the new settlement and preached at the house of Ziba Leonard the first sermon in this green, glad solitude ever uttered by a Presbyterian minister in this county. Clinton and Mt. Vernon had just been laid out as town sites, and 148 - KNOX COUNTY, OHIO emigration set in from Pennsylvania, some locating here, among them two families of this faith, James Colville and Robert Work. In the summer of 1806 (or some have it 1807), the members of this band of true Presbyterians decided that the time had arrived when some steps should be taken to provide a church home in which to better worship God. Accordingly a place was chosen, on the road to the south of Hunt's and Amos Leonard cut the logs, the few neighbors hauled them and a "meeting house" was soon raised. These logs were rough and unhewn, the roof was of clapboards, while the floor was none other than mother earth. Round logs laid on the earth were used for seats. Two small poles of proper height were inserted in the ground and to these was pinned a board which constituted the first pulpit within the county. This rudely fashioned "church" was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, Father Scott officiating. A majority of those who there worshiped formed themselves into a church under Rev. John Wright, of Lancaster. It was called "Ebenezer," that being the given name of the oldest man in the organization. Prior to 18̊8 a church had been organized at Clinton. Among its members were James Loveridge and wife, James Colville and wife and two sisters, Robert Work and wife, Mrs. Park, wife of James Park. Josiah Day, Edward Marquis and wife, and Isabell Bonar. In April, 1809, the three churches in the county had but a total of twenty-eight members, the Clinton, Ebenezer and Frederick churches. About 1814 a better church- was erected at Clinton and served until about 1818, then services were held at the old court house till in 1821, when it became apparent that the building at Clinton must be abandoned for a new one proposed at Mt. Vernon and the change was made. The place where the church now stands was chosen as the location on which to erect a new building. Hence all but two lots of the entire block were secured for church and cemetery uses by the Presbyterian people. The church had only about fifty members and most all were poor. The undertaking was a large one, but they went forward and erected a building at a cost of about two thousand three hundred dollars, which was raised by the sale of seats before the work was commenced. Fifty-three seats were sold and fifty dollars was the most paid for any single pew. The lowest sale was ten dollars. The structure was of brick and constructed by Stephen D. Minton. The size of the church was forty-five by fifty feet. In each end were large, wide double doors, which opened into an aisle seven feet in width, extending the whole length of the building. Immediately in front of the pulpit was the singers' stand, two and a half feet from the floor, and there the leader of the singing, then styled "clerk," sat. The stand was furnished KNOX COUNTY, OHIO - 149 with what was those days considered necessary—a sounding board. The pulpit, singers' stand and sounding board were all painted light blue, while the balance of the house had no paint upon its surface. On September 13, 1827, the name of the church was changed from Clinton to Mt. Vernon. Rev. Scott continued to attend the three churches above named until April, 1840, when he resigned from the care of the Mt. Vernon church and attended the other two and preached at various points until within two weeks of his death, which occurred in September, 1851. He was unmarried when he first came to the county and had his study in the attic of James Loveridge's cabin, and there, by the little light gained through a knot hole in the gable, he dug out his sermons. In either 1841 or 1842 the old brick church was torn down and a new one erected This was built of wood and was forty-five by eighty feet in size and twenty-one feet to the ceiling. After a few years this building was totally destroyed by fire, and a new one, built of brick, took its place, after many a hard struggle in way of fund raising. All three churches occupied the same site. The new one was completed in April, 1860, and cost, with furniture, about eight thousand dollars. From May, 1841, to April, 1844. the pastor was Rev. Chauncey Leavenworth. In July, 1844, Rev. P. R. Vanatte commenced his labors as pastor. He was followed by a supply named William Hamilton, who had a call from the First church of Cincinnati and accepted. In June, 1850. Rev. Louis L. Conrad began his labors, which were quite brief and he returned to his old home in Pennsylvania. Rev. R. C. Colmerry became pastor in 1851. continuing until August. 1856. Rev. J. N. Shannon occupied the pulpit a short time and was followed by Rev. M. A. Sackett, who was pastor but a few weeks when the church building was burned. The next pastor was Rev. D. B. Harvey. who was installed January 16, 1862. Following him came Revs. 0. H. Newton and A. K. Bates, who were pastors in order given until 1881, when came C. L. Work, who served till 1883, followed by T. O. Lowe in 1884, who served until 1887, and was succeeded by F. A. Wilber, D.D., and he in turn, in November, 1905, by James S. Revennaugh, who served till the present pastor, Rev. W. A. Clemmer. came, in October, 1910. The building above named as having been erected in 1860 has served until the present year, and to it is being added a large front of pressed, red brick, and the building is being entirely rebuilt. When completed there will have been expended more than twenty-four thousand dollars, on the present improvement and addition. which, with the main part of the old