550 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO tory, a farewell greeting to the people of the county, in which he took occasion to announce that "no power but that to which we all must bow can prevent the election of Henry Clay to the presidency in 1844." If he was not a better newspaper man than prophet, a reason for his retirement from the paper may be seen. The burden of handling the paper was turned over to Otway Curry and Robert McBratney upon the retirement of Fairchild in the summer of 1843. Curry had won state-wide fame, and even had attracted some national attention, by his poetry, but it takes more than mere poetical skill to run a newspaper. Whether it was lack of this necessary skill, or whatever the reason may have been, the fact remains that the Torchlight in its issue of June 10, 1845, carried the valedictory of Curry. With the retirement of Curry, McBratney became the sole owner and editor of the paper, and so continued until June 22, 1853, when W. E. Morris bought an interest in the paper. But his connection with the paper was only of short duration, McBratney soon again assuming its complete control. When the new Republican party made its appearance in 1854 and two years later nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency, the Torchlight threw all of its strength to the new party and its first candidate for president. McBratney continued to fight for the principles of the new party until January, 1857, when he sold his paper to its former owner, W. B. Fairchild, and Dr. H. R. McClellan. Fairchild was as uncompromising a foe of slavery as McBratney had been, and his vitriolic editorials on slavery and secession fairly took his opponents off their feet. One has but to read a few of his editorials in order to see that he was a master of satire and possessed of a facile pen which was not afraid to set forth what he believed to be the right. Doctor McClellan soon had enough of the newspaper business, and six months after becoming identified with the paper disposed of his interest to E. S. Nichols, June 10, 1857. Nichols had also been previously connected with the paper. The new firm of Nichols & Fairchild conducted the paper through the opening days of the Civil War and up until April I, 1862, when the paper passed into the hands of W. T. Bascom, a practical newspaper man from Columbus, who continued as editor and proprietor until the issue of September 21, 1864. The Torchlight of this date carried the valedictory of Bascom and the salutatory of Perry Hawes, the new owner, who apparently was ready to relinquish it in favor of others about a year later. Whatever the reason may have been, the issue of December 6, 1865, appeared under the name of Coates Kinney and J. M. Milburn, to whom Hawes had sold the paper. Kinney and Milburn remained at the helm until January 1, 1869, at which time they turned it over to the tender mercies of a stock company, Dr. R. S. Finley and C. W. Newton being the chief owners of the stock of the newly organized Torchlight Company. Kinney will be remembered by the older GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 551 residents of the county as one of the best poets of his day. His poem, "The Rain on the Roof," was copied in nearly every newspaper in the United States, and occupies a place among the best poems ever written in the country. The last twenty years of the Torchlight were not as prosperous as the first twenty years of its existence. Other papers had arisen in the county seat ; it had keener competition ; it seemed to be waging a losing fight. The stock company of 1869 did not prove a success, and the following year J. D. Stine took over the controlling interest in the paper, becoming its editor and business manager. Stine was an excellent newspaper man. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University in 1859, he had served as superintendent of the London, Ohio, schools from 1859 to 1864. He became connected with the Madison County Union in 1863 and, after retiring from the city schools of London, became the sole editor and proprietor of the paper, continuing as such until he came to Xenia in 1870 to take charge of the Torchlight. Stine associated himself on coming to the Torchlight with Oscar W. Martshall, under the firm name of Stine & Marshall, and for the following eight years this firm had charge of the paper. In 1878 Stine purchased the intertest of his partner and continued in sole charge until 1887. About 1884 Stine began to issue a daily edition, but subsequently it appears that Thomas G. Brown, then postmaster, and Joseph G. Gest were associated with him in the daily paper. In 1887 Stine sold the entire plant to Ben R. Cowan, of Cincinnati. Cowan put considerable money into the paper in an effort to compete with J. P. Chew and the latter's Gazette, the two papers being rivals in the local field at the time. But Chew was too resourceful and too able a newspaper man for Cowan, and the latter finally decided that he had had enough of the newspaper business in Xenia. On August 7, 1888, Chew bought the entire plant of the Torchlight, and thereby brought to a sudden end the career of a paper which had maintained a continued existence since its first issue of September 18, 1839. When Chew bought the Torchlight he turned over a large number of bound files of the old paper to the library. The first home of the Torchlight in 1839 was in a frame building at the corner of Market and Detroit streets, the site later occupied by the German Reformed church. From here it was moved to a room over what is now the Woolworth store on South Detroit street, remaining in its second location until 1879. In that year it was moved to No. 12 West Main street, over the Scott tinshop, where it remained until it closed its career in 1888. THE XENIA GAZETTE. The life history of a newspaper presents as interesting a study as that of the men who publish it ; oftentimes the paper is really more interesting in many ways than the met. who make it. To follow the career of the Xenia Gazette, to keep trace of its ups and downs, its lean years and its 552 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO fat years, is to follow its weekly and daily life from the time it made its initial appearance on August 15, 1868, down to the present time. The Gazette was born of a desire to give the people of the county seat and the county of which it was an integral part, a paper which would reflect the best that the county had to give the world. In 1868 Xenia was a flourishing city of six thousand ; the Civil War had just closed ; the whole country had taken on new life; everybody seemed ready to start life anew. It was under such conditions that the Gazette made its bow to the public. During the spring and summer of 1868 a number of the leading citizens of the county had been agitating the question of a new Republican paper in the county seat; various plans were discussed for the establishment of a new paper, some wanting a stock company, and others feeling that the responsibility should be centered in a very small group of men. The final decision of all those interested was to leave the matter in the hands of three public-spirited citizens—J. F. Patton, Thomas L. Tiffany and Warren Anderson. Tiffany was the practical printer of the three, while Anderson was to furnish the editorial brains of the company. Subsequently, Anderson became one of the best known newspaper men in the state of Ohio. Tiffany was ordered to purchase entirely new equipment and within a short time had concluded arrangements with a Cincinnati type foundry for such equipment as was necessary to establish a paper of the size which had been planned. The company installed what was known as the "Wells Power Press," the first cylinder press in the county. The initial issue on August 18, 1868, called for eight hundred copies of the paper, although the subscription list did not contain that many names. Anderson, however, made the paper a success from the start, and within a month the subscription list had increased to twelve hundred. During the two years that he remained with the paper he had the satisfaction of seeing it become the most valuable newspaper property in the county, but for some reason he decided in the fall of 1870 to dispose of his interest in the paper and go West. He sold his interest to Col. R. P. Findley, the new firm being known as Patton, Tiffany & Findley. The next change in the personnel of the firm was brought about by the death of Tiffany on September 28, 1870. His widow soon disposed of her interest in the paper to Patton and Findley, and the new firm continued in charge of the paper until May 25, 1875, at which time Colonel Findley purchased Patton's interest and thereby became the sole owner of the paper. A little more than two years later, November 1, 1877, Findley sold his entire interest in the paper to The J. P. Chew Company and the Chew family have been connected with the paper since that year—more than forty years. In fact, it might be said that as far as ownership is concerned, it has made practically no change since 1877. J. 0. McCormick, a son-in-law of J. P. Crew, was connected with the Gazette for thirty-five years. GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 553 The present The Chew Publishing Company was organized in the summer of 1915, with a capital stock of $70,000, in order to take over the properties of the Xenia Gazette and the Xenia Republican, the consolidation of the two papers taking place on Monday, August 16, 1915. The company now has the following officers : J. A. Chew, president and treasurer ; J. P. Chew, vice-president ; W. B. Chew, secretary. The directors of the company are J. A. Chew, J. P. Chew, W. B. Chew, F. W. Chew, J. B. Chew, A. V. Chew and M. A. Chew. When the amalgamation of the two papers took place, it was planned to issue the Republican as a morning daily and the Gazette as an evening paper, and this policy has been continued. The Gazette has been issuing a daily since November 21, 1881, having come to a sudden decision to start a daily edition because Anderson, the editor of the Nonpareil, had made a public announcement that he was going to start the first daily paper in the town. The Gazette, in the language of the newspaper fraternity, "beat him to it," and so flustered was Anderson by the sudden appearance of a daily from the office of his rival that he changed his mind about establishing his daily edition. There is still issued a weekly edition of the Gazette, but it circulates only in the rural sections of the county. The first home of the Gazette was on the third floor of the brick building at the northeast corner of Main and Whiteman streets. From there it was moved to the room now occupied by the Bijou Theatre on Greene street, where it was located when the Chews took charge of the paper in the fall of 1877. Subsequently they took the paper to the second floor of the building now occupied by the Peters Dry Cleaning Company and the Adams Express Company. Here the paper was destined to remain for thirty-five years, leaving this site for its present quarters on South Detroit street. The company now owns the building in which it is located. The Chew Publishing Company is a fine example of what can be done with a newspaper plant in a city the size of Xenia when it is properly managed. The company does no job printing at all, but devotes all of its attention to its two daily and weekly papers. For local and foreign news, as well as advertising mediums there are no better papers in the state for a town of its size, a fact which is attested to by the large amount of local and foreign advertising which the papers carry. The two dailies have a combined circulation of over five thousand. J. A. Chew, the third of the generation, is the general manager of the papers; J. P. Chew, the first of the family to become identified with the paper, and a man of eighty-six years, is the editor ; W. B. Chew is assistant manager ; F. W. Chew is the advertising manager ; C. F. Ridenour is the city editor ; Rose Higgins and Raymond Higgins are reporters; Katharine Landaker is bookkeeper and Janice Owens is stenographer. There are three linotype operators and five other printers connected with the mechanical force. 554 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO THE XENIA NONPAREIL. If the paper established on November 7, 1878, by Warren Anderson had lived up to its name, there could have been no doubt concerning its prosperity. Just what flitted through the brain of Anderson when he christened his paper the Xenia Nonpareil will never be known, but he must be given credit for originality if nothing else. In the history of the Gazette, it was noted that Anderson was one of the owners and the first editor of that paper, maintaining his connection with the Gazette until the fall of 1870. In this connection it is fitting to give a brief sketch of this man, who, in many respects, was a remarkable man. He was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, May 28, 1832, and when six years of age accompanied his parents to Elkhart county, Indiana, where he grew to manhood. Before he reached his majority he was clerking in a store at Goshen, Indiana, and when twenty years of age was teaching a rural school a few miles south of Goshen. In 185.4 he was back in Ohio and clerking in a book store of an uncle on Wolf creek, ten miles west of Dayton. In 1856 he entered Antioch College and remained there until he was graduated in 1860. He taught for the following two years, one year being principal of a so-called Industrial Academy, near Richmond, Indiana. In 1862 he located at Goshen, Indiana, to study law with George D. Copeland, and when his preceptor bought the Goshen Times the same year, Anderson was promptly installed as assistant editor. He remained with the paper, at the same time continuing his law studies, until the summer of 1863. The fall of that year found him teaching in Miami county, Ohio, but in the spring of 1864 he resigned his school and enlisted as a member of Company I, One Hundred and Forty-seventh Regiment, Ohio National Guard. He saw active service in the field before his final discharge from the service on August 30, 1865. It was at this time that Anderson first became identified with Xenia. He located in that city after securing his discharge and took up the study of law with R. F. Howard. In the winter of 1865-66 he taught school at Alpha and in the following year served as principal of the Xenia high school. In February, 1867, he was appointed mayor of Xenia, and in the following April was elected to the office for the regular term of two years. In April, 1869, he was admitted to the bar, and in April of the following year was admitted to practice by the supreme court of the state. In the meantime, however, he had been one of the organizers of a comtpany to establish the Xenia Gazette. The history of that paper shows his connection with the newspaper life of the city up to 1870. In November of that year Anderson located in Ottawa, Kansas, where he proceeded to establish the Ottawa Herald on December 4. In 1871 he sold his paper and pur- GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 555 chased an interest in the Journal of the same place, but a year later sold his interest in that paper on account of failing health. He had been admitted to the Kansas bar in December, 1871, but did not devote much of his time to the profession, confining most of his attention to his newspaper business. In the fall of 1872 Anderson returned to Xenia and resumed the practice of law, but the following year found him back in the newspaper business as editor of the Xenia Enterprise. He continued his connection with the newspapers of the city until he established the Yellow Springs Review in 1880. He became mayor of Xenia again in February, 1876, by appointment, and served out an unexpired term. To return to the history of the- Xenia Nonpareil. Anderson issued the first number of this sheet on November 7, 1878, but the name was evidently too much of a burden for it to carry. At least, on a bright, summer day in 1879 he dazzled his readers by sending it out under the name of the Xenia Sunlight. One is left to wonder whether Anderson was not under the spell of the Torchlight. THE XENIA SUNLIGHT. The Sunlight of Anderson proved to be such a radiant affair that he induced Oscar W. Marshall to become his partner with the beginning of January, 1880. But Anderson was not destined to continue his connection with the paper much longer. May 18, 1880, witnessed his departure and the transference of his interest in the illuminating sheet to J. M. Milburn, the new firm being known as Marshall & Milburn. The paper was a stanch Republican organ and took a prominent part in the campaign of 1880; in fact, its office was the headquarters of the Republican county committee. The name of the paper was eventually changed to the Xenia Republican, under which name it continued until absorbed by the Gazette in 1915. THE XENIA REPUBLICAN. The history of the Republican during the years that it was an independent paper shows that it became one of the best papers the county has ever had. The firm of Milburn & Marshall remained in charge of the paper for several years, and then Milburn disposed of his interest to John A. Beveridge, the new firm continuing under the firm name of Marshall & Beveridge.. The firm was dissolved by the death of Beveridge, Marshall then becoming the sole owner and proprietor. The next change in ownership resulted in the paper passing into the hands of Frank L. and Burch Smith, brothers, on January I, 1907. Under their management the paper began to show a marked improvement, new equipment being added and within a short time it became a real news and advertising sheet. 556 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO The Smith brothers sold the paper to Austin M. Patterson, who took charge on January I, 1912. The new owner proceeded to inaugurate a new era in Greene county journalism. He was a man of fine scholastic attainments and introduced to the readers of his paper a number of new features which soon made it a prominent factor in the life of the county. He was a fearless writer and had no hesitancy in his advocacy of reform measures of all kinds. Patterson had charge of the paper for about two years, disposing of it in February, 1914, to the Xenia Publishing Company. The new owners were four local men, the company being officered as follows : J. F. Orr, president ; W. D. Wright, vice-president ; C. F. Ridenour, secretary ; George F. Eckerle, treasurer. The new owners proposed to make the paper as strong a contender as possible for a position among the papers of the county. C. F. Ridenour, who had been connected with the Xenia Gazette for a number of years, became the business manager and editor, while J. F. Orr, one of the owners, and at the time the postmaster of the city, conducted the editorial column. Orr also wrote special historical articles of real merit and the result was that the paper soon had a large subscription and advertising patronage. Ridenour was a practical newspaper man and knew the value of news, while he had a peculiar literary style that gave the paper what newspaper men are wont to call a "pleasing personality," an expression coined by Horace Greeley. For about eighteen months the paper made its daily appearance under the new management before it was consolidated with the Xenia Gazette. The merger of the two papers took place on August 16, 1915, and since that date both papers, the Republican and Gazette, have been issued by The Chew Publishing Company. The Republican is issued as a morning daily and the Gazette as the evening issue. Upon the consolitdation of the two papers the present Chew Publishing Company was organized with a capital stock of seventy thousand dollars, the officers of the new company being as follows : J. A. Chew, president and treasurer ; J. P. Chew, vice-president ; C. F. Ridenour, secretary. The first directors of the new comtpany were J. A. Chew, J. P. Chew, W. B. Chew, F. W. Chew, J. B. Chew, J. F. Orr, C. F. Ridenour and C. L. Darlington. The subsequent history of the company is given in the sketch of the Xenia Gazette. THE XENIA ENTERPRISE AND THE XENIA NEWS. The Xenia Enterprise was established in 1872 by Frank Funk and John H. Fahey as an independent paper, but its career was never very prosperous. Within two years Funk was ready to sell out to his partner, and about the same time Coates Kinney, the poet, became the editor. This change in ownership and the addition of the distinguished poet as editor also brought about a change in name and it became known as the Xenia News. Fahey remained the sole owner and Kinney the editor only one year GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 557 after the change in name, the year 1875 seeing the retirement of Kinney as editor and the acquisition of a half interest in the paper by W. V. Luce, who also became the editor. At this time the paper became Democratic in politics. Melville Mordecai Gaunce bought the paper on September 14, 1876, and continued as sole owner and editor until he disposed of it to Lewis H. Whiteman in 1894. The paper was consolidated with the Democrat sometime between the issues of December 15, 1877, and January 5, 1878. The paper was known as the Xenia News with the issue of December 15, 1877 (Vol. IV, No. 43), but when the issue of January 5, 1878, (Vol. IV, No. 46) appeared the paper carried the new title of Xenia Democrat-News. The issues of December 22 and 29 are missing from the files, but it would appear certain that the January 5 issue, the first of the year, was the first one to carry the new heading. The paper continued to be known as the Xenia Democrat-News until it was sold by Gaunce to Whiteman in 1894. Gaunce and Whiteman, both newspaper editors and both Democrats, were the candidates for the postmastership of Xenia when Cleveland began his second term, and Whiteman was the successful candidate. Sometime after he had taken the office Gaunce made a proposition to him to. buy his (Gaunce's) paper, saying that the county could hardly afford two Democratic papers. Whiteman bought the paper of his unfortunate Democrat brother, and consolidated it with his own paper, the Xenia Herald. THE XENIA HERALD. The Xenia Herald had been established by Lewis H. Whiteman in 1890, and for fifteen years he owned and edited it. His first office was over Norkauer's grocery on West Main street, later moving it to its present location. As before stated Whiteman became the owner of the Democrat-News in 1894, and the paper to this day carries the names of the three former Democrat papers of the city at its head. The next owner of the Herald was George C. Barnes, of Sabina, a practical newspaper man and also a lawyer, who purchased the paper from Whiteman in 1905. When Barnes sold the paper a year later to the present .owner he returned to Clinton county, where he is now serving as probate judge. Harry E. Rice took possession of the paper on October I, 1906, and has since continued as sole editor and owner. The paper issues only a weekly edition at the present time, although for a number of years in the '90s, Whiteman issued a daily edition. Since Rice became postmaster in 1916 he has not had the time to devote to his paper that he formerly had, although he is still the editor. He is a writer and author of note, one of his novels, "Eve and the Evangelist," receiving some very complimentary notices from the reviewers. 558 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO SOME SHORT-LIVED SHEETS OF XENIA. A number of papers with abbreviated careers have already been mentioned, most of them coming in the days before the Civil War. There are still a few more to be mentioned, although it has not been possible to get much definite information concerning them. The first daily paper in the town seems to have been started by James Winans, and to have made its appearance in the latter part of the '70s or the fore part of the '80s. J. P. Chew, of the Gazette, states that Winans had a small daily paper before the Gazette started its daily on November 21, 1881. Winans printed his paper on a job press in a room on the second floor of the building which occupied the site of the present Steele building. It is not known how long this first daily came from the press, but it was only a short time. A more pretentious daily was owned and edited by J. J. Horen in the middle of the '90s, his paper bearing the name of the Daily Review. It was printed in a room over. the old Eavey wholesale house on West Main street, and it appears that it was a very creditable sheet. The present editor of the Gazette says "it was good stiff opposition." The paper lasted about three years. The last paper to appear in Xenia was known as The Tribune, a temperance sheet, which was transplanted from Cedarville where it had been started by Stephen C. Wright as the Cedarville Record in 1903. Wright sold the paper in 1911 and it was brought to Xenia and turned into an anti-saloon sheet, the year 1911 marking the last concentrated attack on the saloons of the county seat. The city went dry in April of that year and for a time the Tribune was in a fairly prosperous condition, but it could not attract the advertising support to make it successful, especially when there were already two flourishing daily papers and one weekly paper in the field. Its career in Xenia lasted only about a year. CEDARVILLE NEWSPAPERS. The history of the newspapers of Cedarville is not as complicated as that of some of the other towns of the county. The present Herald has practically an unbroken history for about forty years under the same name, and for the past eighteen years the same owner and editor has been in charge, hence it may be said that the ownership of a paper in Cedarville has been uniformly a successful venture. It is definitely established that the first paper in the town was the Entertprise, that it made its first appearance on December 20, 1877, and that it was published by H. M. Northup. In June, 1878, James Miller, a practical printer, joined Northup and the plant was moved from its first location, a room GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 539 on South Main street now occupied by C. H. Stuckey & Son, to the "Barracks." Unfortunately, the files of the paper are not complete and this makes it impossible to follow the successive changes in ownership and name of the paper. In February, 1878, the name of the paper was changed to The Herald and became known as The Cedarville Herald in 1900. The files are missing prior to 1887 when W. H. Blair became the sole owner and editor, and this makes it impossible to trace the shifting ownership from 1878 to that year. A stray copy of 1882 shows that George B. Graham was then the owner and editor and it seems certain that he immediately followed Northup. The names of four owners are recalled as being connected with the paper between 1882 and 1887, namely: A. R. Van Fossen, George McNarney, a man by the name of Young, who tried to make a prohibition paper out of it, and James Winans. But the succession of owners for the past thirty-one years is definitely established. W. H. Blair became the owner some time in 1887 and continued as sole owner until April 25, 1896. He was followed by Rev. D. C. Woolpert, who appears as owner and editor with the issue of May 2, 1896. He sold to S. M. Ramsey, the latter taking hold with the issue of October 2, 1897. Ramsey was in charge of the paper for about eighteen months, disposing of it to J. Robb Harper and Karlh Bull, operating under the firm name of Bull & Harper, who appear as owners for the first time with the issue of April 8, 1899. The new firm continued to Publish the paper regularly for a little more than one year, when Bull acquired his partner's interest. The paper has carried the name of Karlh Bull as owner and editor since April 28, 1900. These eighteen years have seen the paper placed on a firm basis. The paper is issued weekly and is devoted primarily to local news. The office is equipped to turn out all kinds of job printing. Editor Bull at this writing expects to establish the paper in more commodious quarters on Main street, opposite the opera house, where he will be able to inaugurate several improvements which he has been contemplating. Wilbur D. Nesbit learned to set type in the office of the Herald and his brother, J. Emerson Nesbit, now city editor of the Dayton Herald, also learned the trade in the Herald office. J. N. Wolford, the owner and editor of the Yellow Springs News, is another newspaper man who got his start in the office of the Cedarville paper. One of the greatest newspaper men the United States ever produced, Whitelaw Reid, was born and reared at Cedarville, but left the town before it had a newspaper. It seems that Reid's first newspaper experience was with one of the Xenia papers, Reid making the statement in after years that he was editor of a paper in the county seat in the fall of 1858. G. A. McClellan, also of Cedarville, has headed several metropolitan papers in Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Florida, and Dayton, Ohio, and today is manager of a large magazine published in New York City. 560 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO THE CEDARVILLE RECORD. The Cedarville Record was established in 1903 by Stephen Calvin Wright, whoa continued as owner and editor of the paper until he sold it in 1911, when he assumed the postmastership of Cedarville. Wright had graduated from Cedarville College in 1903, and after leaving the postoffice on July 1, 1914, became financial secretary of his alma mater. In that same year he was made head of the newly organized normal department of the college, resigning that position in August, 1917, to become deputy probate judge of the county. After he sold the paper in 1911 it was taken to Xenia, where it was issued as a prohibition paper for a short time under the name of the Tribune. YELLOW SPRINGS NEWSPAPERS. The history of the newspapers of Yellow Springs is hard to follow for the reason that there are no files of any of the papers extant before the '80s, and the files of the several papers since then are very incomplete. The first definite record of a newspaper being established in the town shows that Warren Anderson issued the first number of the Yellow Springs Review on October 9, 1880. Anderson was referred to in the papers of Xenia as the "Great American Newspaper Starter," and between the years that he established the Xenia Gazette in 1868 and his founding of the Yellow Springs Review in 1880 he had established at least half a dozen other gapers. His connection with the Review was more abbreviated than his connection with some of the other papers he had founded, but the absence of the files renders it impossible to say what he did with it. The decade from 1880 to 1890 seems to have found only this one newspaper in the town, but the succession of owners and editors is not known. David L. Croy appears as editor and owner in the fall of 1890, having purchased the paper from N. A. C. Smith. In the fall of the following year the Citizens Printing & Publishing Company started a new paper, the Weekly Citizen. Its first issue, August 7, 1891, bore the double heading The Weekly Citizen and Yellow Springs Review, indicating that the new paper had absorbed the Review. The second issue of the paper dropped the Review part of the title, and thereafter it was simply known as the Weekly Citizen. The new paper was edited by L. A. Elster, and either he or the company publishing the paper soon wearied of the task, for within less than two years the company was trying to get rid of it. The issues in the fore part of 1893 show that E. H. Williamson had leased it. It was too much of a burden for him to carry, and the issue of June 22, 1894, shows that James R. Hale had the courage to try to make a success of the unfortunate sheet. The newspaper situation in Yellow Springs in the '90s is very much confused, the confusion arising from the fact that the editors were careless in 561 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO keeping their volume and issue numbers consecutive. Another difficulty in unravelling the newspaper puzzle of the '90s comes from the juggling of titles, the same paper in some instances appearing under a new guise every time it changed owners. The Weekly Citizen went to bed one night in 1894 and appeared on the streets the following week labelled the Yellow Springs Torch, Hale apparently thinking to thus make it a more illuminating sheet. Under this latter name it appeared for the first time on July 13, 1894. The Yellow Springs News has now had a continuous career since its first issue, July 24, 1896. Its founder, 0. C. Wike, was a practical newspaper man, and within three years had built up his paper to a point where the other newspaper of the town, the Review, was ready to sell. out to him. The News bought the Review on May 18, 1899, and Wike conducted the only paper in the town from that date until he disposed of it to J. N. Wolford on . September 18, 1905. Wolford has since remained the sole owner and editor of the paper and during the thirteen years that he has had charge of it he has had the field entirely to himself. The News is a weekly, published each Friday, Republican in politics, and does not pretend to be any more than a local paper. The paper enjoys a circulation of eight hundred, and an advertising patronage sufficient to make it a good paying proposition to its owner. The newspaper plant is well equipped to do all kinds of job printing on short notice. JAMESTOWN NEWSPAPERS. The first newspaper in Jamestown made its appearance in 1870 and since that year the town has always had at least one paper and at times there have been two published at the same time. The history of the papers of the town has been furnished by W. J. Galvin, now vice-president of the Journal-Republican Company of Wilmington, Ohio, but who was for years connected with the Jamestown papers. The Galvins, father and son, W. S. and W. J., have been connected with the local papers since the first one made its appearance in 1870. To give the account of the papers in the language of W. J. Galvin : "The first paper in the town was the Echo, established by W. S. Galvin in 1870.. Mr. Galvin (the senior Galvin) has remained as editor, with the exception of a few short stretches, ever since and is the editor today. It was first called the Echo; then in succession the Tribune, Comet and Journal. In 1898 the Greene County Press was established in the town, which paper, in 190, was consolidated with the Journal, the paper since the latter year being known as the Greene County Journal. Among the men who have been editors of the paper for short periods, either in connection with W. S. Galvin, or alone, have been W. H. Rowe, H. B. Zartman, W. H. Blair and W. A. Paxson." (36) 562 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO W. S. Galvin, the present owner and editor, is the oldest editor in the county in point of continuous service with a Greene county newspaper. The only other editor of the county who approaches him in point of continuous service is the senior Chew, who has been connected with the Xenia Gazette since September I, 1877. Chew had previously been the owner and editor of a Lawrenceburg (Indiana) newspaper, and has actually had longer newspaper connection than the senior Galvin, but the latter holds the record for longest connection with a Greene county newspaper. The Greene County Journal is a weekly publication with a substantial circulation in the community. The office of the paper is equipped with a job press and does a considerable amount of job printing. OSBORN NEWSPAPERS. The newspaper history of Osborn promises to be a thing of the past within a short time, and for this reason the history of the papers of the town for the past half century has a peculiar interest for the historian. In this town, as in all the others of the county, the absence of newspaper files makes it difficult to give more than a cursory view of the press of the town. As early as 1866 there is evidence to show that the Osborn Bulletin was being published, but it seems that it was printed in Dayton. It is not known who was responsible for it, nor how long it maintained its existence, but it was undoubtedly only a short time. The second paper of which any record has been preserved bore the illuminating title of the Osborn Star, but it soon flickered out and the town was again without a newspaper. The first definite date for a paper in the town may be put down as July 9, 1882, on which date the Mad River Times made its debut. This has had a number of owners, among them being Warren Anderson, known as the "Great American Newspaper Starter." Evidently Anderson went from the Yellow Springs Review in the early '80s to the Osborn paper, and it is equally certain that he did not remain long with the latter paper. The present owner, J. A. Hardman, has been connected with the paper for several years and has made a financial success of it. It was issued under the name of the Mad River Times until sometime in the '90s, when it was given its present name, Osborn Local. BELLBROOK AND SPRING VALLEY NEWSPAPERS. There were newspapers in both Spring Valley and Bellbrook in the middle of the '80s, but neither village was large enough to make a newspaper a profitable enterprise. With no files of papers of either town it is impossible to give more than a general statement of the newspaper history of the two places. The Bellbrook Magnet followed shortly after the discovery of the GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 563 famous magnetic springs in the village in 1882, its name being suggestive of the qualities of the water. It is not known how long the paper was in existence, but subsequently a paper bearing the lunar title of the Bellbrook Moon was credited to the village. How long it maintained its orbit is unknown, but its radiance was never very dazzling and it soon disappeared below the newspaper horizon. Spring Valley seems to have had its first paper in about 1886; at least, a paper bearing the name of the Spring Valley Blade was then in circulation. The duration of its life can not be ascertained without files of the sheet, and they have long since disappeared. Another paper of Spring Valley, whether the second or not is not known, but certainly it has been the last, was given the title of the Twin City Vidette, the twins being Spring Valley and Bellbrook. The Vidette seems to have had a more or less consecutive career for some years prior to 1909, in which year it ceased publication. James R. Hale, now of Columbus, was at one time connected with the papers of these two towns, later becoming identified with one of the papers at Yellow Springs. SMITH ADVERTISING COMPANY. The Smith Advertising Company opened for business in its present quarters at Xenia on January 1, 1912, the Smith brothers, Frank L. and Burch, having just retired from the Xenia Republican after an ownership extending over a period of five years. They were both thoroughly in touch with the various phases of sprinting, a fact which accounts for their unusual success as manufacturers of advertising specialties of all kinds. They opened their new business in a large brick building on East Main street, a building which had been originally erected for a wholesale grocery establishment shortly after the Civil War. It is a large structure, two stories high, with 20,000 feet of floor space, all of which is devoted to their business. In addition they have been compelled to erect other buildings at the rear in order to house the large amount of paper stock which they find it necessary to keep on hand. When the Smiths decided to go into the manufacturing of advertising specialties, they purchased new equipment throughout, and their present equipment is of the most modern type. Among other publications they print two magazines of wide circulation Womens Missionary Magazine and Wood Construction. The former publication was established in Xenia_ in 1887 as the missionary organ of the United Presbyterian church and has always been published. in Xenia. It was formerly issued by the Xenia Republican, but when the Smith brothers sold the paper in 1912, they reserved the magazine and have since been issuing it. The present editor is Mrs. George Moore, Of Xenia. It is a monthly publication with a subscription list of ten thousand going to all parts of the world. Wood Construction is the official organ of 564 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO the Ohio Association of Retail Lumber Dealers, and has been issued for the past four years. It is a semi-monthly publication under the editorial management of Findley M. Torrence, of Xenia. Torrence is the secretary of the association and for the past two years has also edited the magazine, during which time he has greatly improved it. Many other publications are also issued from the presses of the Smith Advertising Company. There are few people in Xenia who realize that the product of the Smith Advertising Company reaches all corners of the earth. The name "Xenia" is found on advertising specialties in all the civilized countries of the globe. During the spring of 1918 the company was getting out millions of specialties printed in Spanish for distribution in Cuba and South America, and this is only a part of the season's output. Recently there were hundreds of thousands of advertising specialties sent from this company's presses to Egypt. These advertising specialties take every conceivable form, the fact that the Smith brothers have so many original ideas accounting for the large volume of business they handle yearly. . The output of the company is second only to that of the local cordage companies. There is no gainsaying the fact that the Smith Advertising Company does more to spread the name of Xenia abroad over the world than any other industry of the city. CHAPTER XXXII. THE BENCH AND BAR OF GREENE COUNTY. The lawyer has been found in Greene county from the beginning of its history ; he arrived here with the first blacksmith, the first carpenter, the first minister of the gospel. The lawyer, no matter how meagre may have been "his legal equipment, was looked upon in the early days with somewhat the same reverence that was accorded the preacher. And the follower of Blackstone has been a very important factor in the development of the county; in fact, if it were possible to determine his proportionate share of the credit for the present prosperity of the county, it would be found that he was entitled to more than the general public is wont to give him. No one will ever know how many lawyers there have been in the county. Certainly, the earlier attorneys were prone to wander more widely than their brothers of later years. The same lawyer may be found credited to half a dozen or more counties in the ante-bellum days of the state. It is probable that the county has claimed at least one hundred and fifty lawyers in the course of its history of more than a century. The last record shows that there are now thirty men in the county who have been admitted to the bar and therefore entitled to practice before the local courts, a larger number than the county ever previously has had. It is a fruitless task to attempt to classify the lawyers of the county on the basis of their respective abilities. They are of as varying abilities as men in any other vocation in life ; some are strong, some are weak, and some mediocre. In these latter days lawyers specialize in different departments of the practice, but half a century ago most of them were what might be called all-around practitioners. It is true that some of them were better jury lawyers than others, or that some preferred civil to criminal cases, but the fact remains that in the early days of the county the average lawyer was willing to attempt to handle any kind of a case. Any discussion of the early lawyers of the county would be incomplete which did not make mention of the conditions under which they practiced. Very few of them were college trained ; most of them obtained whatever legal education they had by reading law with some member of the bar. Some of them evidently never even had this privilege, but gathered their stock of legal knowledge by reading alone. There were some of the oldttime "squires" 566 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO who branched out as full-fledged lawyers later in life, their legal knowledge being a curious compound of what they picked up from the statutes and a manual of law which was placed at the disposal of every justice of peace in the state, together with a large and comprehensive stock of good common sense. Under the old constitution of the state, that is, the one which was in operation until 1851, each county in the state had three so-called "associate judges," who served with the "presiding judge." These associate judges very rarely, if ever, had any legal training, nor were they supposed to have any. There can be no question that these untrained local judges dispensed justice with as fair and impartial a hand as if they had been learned in the. law.. Wherefore could they not be as competent as the ordinary jury of twelve men. When William Maxwell, Benjamin Whiteman and James Barrett, the first three associate judges of Greene county in 1803, took their respective seats, they were simply staid, substantial pioneers, ignorant of the technical side of the law, but so imbued with an inherent sense of right and justice that they formed as competent a tribunal for their fellowmen as if they had been tutored at the knees of John Marshall. And there were others of these old associate judges who made excellent judges. The office was abolished in 1851, and with the adoption of the constitution of that year the old associate judge became a thing of the past. He had served his people well and faithfully, and there were not a few who regretted his passing. Such worthy pioneers as Benjamin Whiteman, William Maxwell, James Snoden, Samuel Kyle, David Huston and Daniel Martin will be remembered for their service on the local bench, and the county is glad to honor them. The complete list of associate judges from 1803 until the office was abolished in 1851 follows : ..Benjamin Whiteman, James Barrett and William Maxwell, 1803; Benjamin Whiteman and James Barrett, 1804-1805; David Huston, Josiah Grover and James Barrett, 1806-1808; David Huston, James Barrett and James Snoden, 1809;, David Huston, James Snoden and Samuel 'Kyle, 180 ; John McLain and Samuel Kyle, 1811 ; John Wilson and Samuel Kyle, 1812; Jacob Haines and Samuel Kyle, 1813-1815; Jacob Haines, Samuel Kyle and David Huston, 1815-1819; John Clark, Samuel Kyle and David Huston, 1819-1833; Simeon Dunn, Samuel Kyle and David Huston, 1833-1843; Simeon Dunn, Samuel Kyle and A. G. Luce, 1843-1846; Simeon Dunn, Daniel Martin and A. G. Luce, 1846-1848; John Fudge, Daniel Martin and A. G. Luce, 1848-1850; John Fudge, Daniel Martin and William Mills, 1850t1851. Then, there was still another class of men in the early days who dispensed justice without any previous legal training. These men were always known as "squires," the constitution calling them justices of the peace. They GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 567 are still a prominent feature of the judicial system of the state, but they no longer hold the importance they did in the early history of the county. It was, and still is, the custom to continue them in office from term to term, and as a result of this custom some of them really, in the course of years, acquired a considerable knowledge of the law. They formerly tried more than half the cases in the average county in Ohio, but their importance is gradually decreasing. As a matter of fact, there are those who are now saying that the justice of peace has outlived his usefulness, and that he ought to go the way of the old associate judges. But the "squire" of the first half of the last century was looked upon as one of the most important men in his township, each township usually having at least two, and some townships as many as four. His passing is one of the signs of the times. LEADING LAWYERS OF THE PAST GENERATION. As has been stated, it is impossible to rank the lawyers of the county on the basis of their respective merits. Some of the best known were not the best; on the other hand, there have been 'some who should rank at the head of the list, who did not attain the local fame which fell to the lot of inferior practitioners. Without mentioning any of the living lawyers, some of whom will rank with the best the county has ever produced, there seems to be a consensus of opinion that the following lawyers were among the best of those who have come and gone : Moses Barlow, James J. Winans, John Little, Roswell F. Howard,, Aaron Harlan, Charles Darlington, Charles L. Spencer and Edmund H. Munger. ADMISSION OF EARLY LAWYERS TO THE BAR OF GREENE COUNTY. Hidden away in the recesses of the attic of the court house in Xenia are several boxes of papers which were carefully preserved and arranged by the late George F. Robinson, the indefatigable historian of the county. Among these many papers the present historian found a neat little bundle of papers containing the documents concerned with the admission to the local bar of a number of Greene county's earliest lawyers. It is fair to presume that Robinson put in the little package all of these particular records that he could find. The earliest noted was that of William Alexander, admitted in 1817. The latest was that of Perry Hawes, who was admitted in 1862. The list totals twenty-one lawyers (not all, of course) who were admitted to the local bar during the years from 1817 to 1862. Unfortunately, the paper actually admitting Alexander to the bar in 1817 is missing, but there are two certificates concerning him which are interesting. It was the custom in those days for the applicant to be examined by three or more, usually three but sometimes five, members of the bar. Their certifi- 568 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO cate was then turned over to the court with their recommendation, whereupon the judge formally admitted the applicant to the bar. The two documents pertaining to William Alexander are as follows : State of Ohio, Greene County. Personally appeared before me the Subscriber one of the Justices of the peace in the county aforesaid and made oath that he the deponent actually does reside in the State of Ohio and is a citizen thereof, Sworn and Subscribed before he at Xenia this 15th July 1817. Joseph Hamill, Justice of the peace. WILLIAM ALEXANDER. I certify that William Alexander is of good moral character and that he has regularly and attentively studied law, and that I believe him to be a person of sufficient legal ability to discharge the duties of an attorney-at-law. The Hon. Judge of the Sup. Court, July 2, 1817. JOSHUA COLLETT. It is presumed that Alexander had to pass some sort of an examination following the presentation of these certificates to the court, the lawyers to do the examining being appointed by the court. Their recommendation for his admission is not filed with the other certificates, but it is certain that he was admitted at this time. A good example of the recommendation made by the examining lawyers is that of James D. Liggett and William E. Morris, a verbatim copy of which follows : To the Hon. the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, Within and for Greene County, Ohio. The undersigned committee appointed to examine James D. Liggett & William E. Morris, applicants for admission to practice as attorneys, respectfully report that, after an examination of said applicants we find, teat, they are in possession of sufficient legal knowledge & ability to discharge the duties of attorneys & Counsellors at Law, & Solicitor in Chancery—& being thus well qualified we recommend their admission to the Bar, according to Law, to practice as attorneys & Counsellors at law, etc. in the Courts of the State of Ohio. June 17, 1847. J. MILTON WILLIAMS A. HARLAN R. F. HOWARD The twenty-one lawyers whose bar papers have been preserved are the following : William Alexander, 1817.; Thomas Coke Wright, 1826 ; Cornelius Clarke, 1828 ; Henry Avery, 1831; Mark Anthony Sayre; 1834 ; Hiram Jones, 1837; Nathan Starbuck, 1838; Robert S. Reynolds, 1839; John B. McClymon, 1840; Charles T. Traugh, 1842; John H. Watson, 1844; William E. Morris, 1847; James D. Liggett, 1847; John Coates, 1847; George H. Frey, 1847; John F. Loyd, 1848 ; L. H. Culver, 1855 ; Darius Dislain, 1857; John L. Oram, 1860 ; Perry Hawes, 1862. The names of several of these lawyers are not familiar in the court records of the county, most of them apparently having been identified with the county only a few years. It is possible, of course, that some of them were not even resident lawyers of Greene county, but the fact that they applied to the local bar for admission indicates that they intended to practice in this county. GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 569 Among the several lawyers whose names appear on these old documents as attesting to the moral character of the applicants, or as examining lawyers, are the following : A. Harlan, William Ellsberry, A. S. Buck, R. F. Howard, M. Barlow, George Spence,. William R. Sherwin, Joshua Collet and J. M. Williams. The names of R. F. Howard, Moses Barlow and Aaron Harlan appear the most frequently, a fact which indicates that they must have been the leading lawyers of the county at this, time. THE TAXING OF LAWYERS. It is not generally known that at one time in the history of the county all the lawyers were placed on the tax duplicate at so much per head, just the same as dogs. They were taxed from one to three dollars each, the law providing that they should be assessed according to their annual income ; hence the record shows three-dollar lawyers and one-dollar lawyers. While the provision for placing the lawyer on the tax list was provided by a state statute, it required an order from the county commissioners to make it effective in the various counties of the state. The Greene county lawyer found his way into the tax duplicate as a result of the following order, dated June 11, 1830: The commissioners and auditor proceeded to estimate the annual income of the practicing lawyers and physicians, and to charge a tax upon each ; which tax is attached to their respective names on the lists returned by the assessor to the auditor. As far as is known this law was in force until the constitution of 1851 became operative, but the list of lawyers taxed in 1831 is ,the only one which has been found among the county records. This list included John Alexander, William Ellsberry, Aaron Harlan, Thomas Coke Wright, Joseph Sexton and Cornelius Clark. JUDICIAL SYSTEM PRIOR TO 1851. The first judicial system of the state of Ohio was provided for by the legislative act of April 15, 1803, this act being based upon the constitution which had been adopted the previous year. With such modifications as the General Assembly was privileged to make, the system then put into operation continued in use until 1851, when the whole system was changed by the new constitution of that year. During these years the state was divided into a number of judicial circuits, over each of which presided a so-called president judge elected by the Legislature. These districts, composed of a number of counties as they were, were constantly changing due to the annual addition of new. counties to the rapidly growing state. Other districts had to be added from time to time, but, in the main, little change was made in the judiciary prior to 1851. Each county, in turn, was allowed to have three judges of its own, at first elected by the Legislature, however, and .these local judges, could, in the 570 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO absence of the president judge, hold court. The associates were not requital to have any knowledge of law; it was the exception if they had. Some wise man has said that the reason why Justice was represented as a blind-folded woman was because she feared to look upon the men who were to dispense the justice she was supposed to typify. Be that as it may, the associate judges of Greene county between 1803 and 1851 really served their constituents as faithfully and efficiently as if they had been skilled in the law. After all, if twelve men can determine the merits of a case, whether it be the value of a dog or a human life, it is not too much to assume that the untrained judges of the olden days were competent to sit upon any and all cases which might come before them. THE FIRST COURT OF GREENE COUNTY. The history of the early courts of the county may be traced in the musty volumes which make up the records of their proceedings. There were two courts which came into touch with the pioneers of the county—the supreme court and the court of common pleas. The supreme court, a state court, was what was frequently known as a "traveling" court ; that is, its judges and prosecutor moved from one` county to another, the length of its sessions in each county being dependent upon the amount of business which might come under its jurisdiction. The first session of the supreme court in Greene county convened on the fourth Tuesday in October, 1803, the day happening to fall on the 25th of the month. The record of this first session is well preserved and its proceedings, in the bold hand of John Paul, the clerk, are still legible. The court convened at the house of Peter Borders, a pioneer who had settled on Beaver creek, with Samuel Huntington and William Spriggs as judges. William Maxwell, later a well-known printer of Cincinnati and now buried in Greene county, was sheriff, while Arthur St. Clair, Jr., a son of the former governor of the Northwest Territory, was the prosecutor. Paul was the clerk of the court, and the record notes that he gave bond in the sum of two thousand dollars for the faithful performance of his duties, Benjamin Whiteman, one of the associate judges, and Josiah Grover being his bondsmen. Then came a grand jury, to-wit : Andrew Read (foreman), James Snodon, Joseph C. Vance [the director of the county seat, and later serving in a similar capacity for Champaign county], William Allen, John Marshall, John McKnight, Samuel Brewster, John McClain, James Snodgrass, John Judy, Robert Lowry, Thomas Frean and Samuel Freeman. After being sworn in the grand jury was ordered to retire from the court and consider any possible indictments which might be presented to it. But it seems that no one within the extensive limits of the county had transgressed GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 571 any of the few statutes of the state, or, if they had, there was no one to report them. At least, the first grand jury of Greene county soon filed into the humble court room (the living room of pioneer Borders) and reported that they had nothing to bring before the court. After admitting Richard L. Thomas to the bar, the "court adjourned until court in course." Thus ended the first session of the supreme court in Greene county. The statute provided that this court should hold an annual session .in each county, and at such times as the court itself might determine. A perusal of the proceedings of this court in the county indicates that it handled only a few cases and most of these were of minor importance. The second session convened on October 3, 1804, and the grand jury completed all of its work in a short time in the morning and was immediately discharged. The record shows that the first case to come before this court was that of the state vs. Archibald Dawden and Robert Reneck, charged with the murder of "Betty George or otherwise Kenawa Tuckaw," the indictment being the work of the second grand jury. The defendants did not elect to stand trial and the court admitted them to bail in the penal sum of two thousand dollars, Simon Kenton being one of Dawden's bondsmen. The case was set for the next annual session of the court, at which session, held on November I1, 1805, the case was venued to Champaign county, the Greene county record stating that the case was to be tried at Springfield, Champaign county, which town, at that time, was the county seat of the newly organized Champaign county. No further reference is made to the case in Greene county, and therefore the Champaign county records would have to be searched to ascertain its final disposition. The supreme court record of the county up until 1851 is filled with a multitude of petty cases, largely of assault and battery, or minor infractions of the criminal statutes. Here is a .typical case : Nimrod Haddox, one of the more prominent old pioneers, seemed to have got into some kind of an altercation which brought him before this tribunal. On being placed on the witness stand and asked whether he was guilty, this doughty pioneer plead "not guilty." And the ancient volume which tells of his indictment goes on with his story. "Therefore," says the record, "let a jury come." It came, it tried him, found him guilty as charged, fined him in the sum of five dollars and costs, and committed him "till performance." It takes a chirographic expert to decipher some of these century-old proceedings, and, once deciphered, it would take a lawyer well versed in ancient legal phraseology to tell exactly what is meant by 'some of the curious expressions which found their way into the record. John Paul was not quite equal to the task of getting all of the Latin phrases correctly spelled. One of his records says that the court adjourned 572 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO "si no dy." However, Paul evidently improved in his knowledge of Latin, since some of his later records show that the court very properly adjourned "sine die." In the main, the supreme court records of the county are well kept, and the student of criminology can here find much valuable material for a thesis on the early depravity of the first settlers of the county. During the first quarter of the century men were frequently arrested for swearing, for betting on the elections, for fighting, for fast driving, and such petty misdemeanors, many of which are passed by in 1917 without an officer of the law even knowing that the law is being violated. THE COMMON PLEAS COURT. Greene county came into existence the same year the state was admitted to the Union 1803—and the same year saw seven other counties make their initial appearance. The legislative act of April 16, 1803, made it mandatory upon the associate judges of each of the counties to meet on the l0th of the following month and "lay" their respective counties into .a "suitable number of townships." For at least a year after Greene county was organized these associate judges performed all the functions of the later county commissioners. The present set of officials known as "county commissioners" were created by an act of the General Assembly, passed on February 14, 1804. In Greene county the first election for these commissioners was held on the first Monday of the following April, but it was not until June 20, 1804, that the associate judges turned over to the commissioners that part of their duties which the statute had placed under their jurisdiction. Hence, it is seen that the first court of common pleas was a far different court from what it later became. In fact, as long as the old judiciary was in existence, that is, up to 1851, the court of common pleas handled some of the business which subsequently was turned over to the county commissioners. As previously stated, the associate judges met on May 0, 1803, to divide the county into townships and at the same time they determined the number 0f justices of the peace which should be allotted to each township. An explanation is necessary at this point to show the peculiar status of these associate judges. When acting in the capacity above mentioned. although they were called a "court," vet it is not technically correct to call them a "court of common pleas." It was a court for the transaction of executive business, not in any sense a court for judicial purposes. When they met for such business as was later taken over by the county commissioners it is improper to call their session a Meeting of the court of common pleas. However, this dual set of functions, as before noted, came to an end when the county commissioners began their legal existence on June 20, 1804. The first meeting of the court of common pleas as a judicial body con- GREENE COUNTY, OHIO - 573 vened at the house of Owen Davis (then occupied by Peter Borders) on August 2, 1803, with Francis Dunleavy as president judge and associate judges, Benjamin Whiteman, William Maxwell and James Barrett. Daniel Symmes was prosecutor; John Paul, clerk ; and Nathan Lamme, sheriff. The grand jury was composed of the following men, "tried and true" : William J. Stewart ( foreman), John Wilson, William Buckles, Abram Van Eaton, James Snodgrass, John Judy, Evan Morgan, Robert Marshall, Alexander C. Armstrong, Joseph C. Vance, Joseph Wilson, John Buckhannon, Martin Mendenhall and Harry Martin. These were the men who had charge of the first court in Greene county, all of them being residents of the county except the president judge and the prosecutor. One hundred and fifteen years have elapsed since this first court convened in Greene county. Could the men who foregathered in the one small room in the Davis cabin on that memorable day in August, 1803, drive into Xenia in an automobile in the spring of 1818, it would be hard to convince them that they were on the same planet where they inaugurated a government for a civil county more than a hundred years ago. Scarcely a thing they might see would be familiar to their eyes, and scarcely a sound would be familiar to their ears. And the score of officials ? What did they look like? How were they dressed ? What an interesting photograph they would have made, but that was long before the day even of the daguerreotype. But we can conjure up a picture, which will be fairly life-like. They were sober faced men, these sturdy forefathers. Some would have been dressed in homespun, some in skins; some with moccasins, some with home-made boots, some with no footgear at all ; some with well-oiled queues and some with close-cropped hair; some with curious felt hats, or hand-made straw hats, or none at all; some with a long hunting shirt, fringed and bedecked, and with leather breeches ; but not a man with the long trousers as we now know this nether garment—but every man, no matter how dressed, was deeply intent upon the performance of such duties as the law assigned him. This first court performed but little business. After the grand jury received its instructions from the judge, it retired to the little log cabin which was near the Davis house, mention of which is made in the chapter on the court houses of the county, and there proceeded to hear the testimony of some seventeen witnesses. The strange thing about the first court day in Greene county was that all of these witnesses, and all the indictments which were subsequently returned, arose from a series of fistic encounters which were staged around this primitive court house after court convened on this particular morning in August, 1803. To read between the lines, it would seem that the fact that the first session of the Greene county court was to be held on this day had been 574 - GREENE COUNTY, OHIO widely advertised throughout the county. At least, on the appointed day, there was a large crowd on hand, and the presence of the tavern of Borders, with its ample supplies of whiskey, fully accounts for the numerous personal combats which soon were in action. Consequently, after the grand jury was in session, it began to get cases right from the yard immediately surrounding the cabin in which they were holding their deliberations. In all, no fewer than seventeen witnesses were called, with a resulting total of nine bills of indictment for such misdemeanors as affrays, assaults, batteries, .etc. The reading of the record of the day's proceedings shows that it must have indeed been a red-letter day in the history of the infant county. In addition to the assessing of a number' of fines against the belligerent pioneers, the court found time to do a few other things. On the first day of the session it appointed James Galloway, r., as the first surveyor of the county, a position which he held until 1816. On the second day, August 3, the court appointed Joseph C. Vance director of the county, and authorized him to survey the county seat and lay it off into lots preparatory to placing them on sale. These two days, August 2 and 3, 1803, were taken up with the session of the common pleas court sitting as a judicial body. The statute of April 16, 1803, made it mandatory on the associate judges to hold a court for the transaction of "county business" on the day following the adjournment of the court as a judicial body. In accordance with this provision, the associate judges convened on Thursday morning (August 4, 1803) for the transaction of such so-called county business as might properly come before them. They had little to do. First, they appointed James Galloway, Sr., treasurer of the county. They then granted three licenses for the keeping of taverns. One of these tavern licenses was issued to Peter Borders, in whose house the court was sitting, the court room presumably being the bar_ room. The other two licenses were issued to Griffith Foos and Archibald Lowry, both of whom were living in the village of Springfield. Borders paid four dollars for his permit, while the other two were compelled to Pay twice as much, a fact which seems to indicate that Springfield was the more important trading center of the county at this time. The act establishing the county had provided that the court of common pleas, sitting as a judicial body, should convene on the first Tuesdays in April; August and December. The August session was the first in Greene county, since the first Tuesday in April had passed before the enactment of the law. When the time for the second session of the court arrived there was again very little business to come before it; in fact, for several years the court found comparatively 'few cases coming before it for hearing. This second session indicted and found guilty one Thomas Davis, a justice of the