200 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY was appointed the attorney to prosecute the pleas of the state for this county during the pleasure of the Court." Mr. Welles was also appointed temporary clerk. The first official act of the court Was the appointment of Lucinda Holcomb, widow of Almond Holcomb, and Edward Durand, as administrators of the Holcomb estate. The first suit, Simon Nichols vs. Thomas G. Bronson, was for the recovery of $1,427.27, and was won by the plaintiff. Ebenezer Whiton was appointed permanent clerk of the court on the second day of the session. GRAND JURY PURELY HONORARY The first grand jury, which was sworn and charged by Judge Tod, and which failed to find any business provided for it, was composed of the following citizens: Heman Ely (foreman), Benjamin Brown, Eliphalet Redington, Phineas Johnson, Mahel Osburn, Edward Durand, Harry Reddington, Gardner Howe, Erastus Hamlin, Simon Nichols, Silas Wilmot, Thomas G. Bronson, James J. Sexton and Abraham Moon. EARLY JUDGES AND ASSOCIATES At the March term, 1830, Hon. Reuben Wood took his seat as presiding judge, with the same associates as before given. Heman Ely became associate judge in the fall of 1830, and in April, 1831, Josiah Harris and E. W. Hubbard commenced their terms as Judge Wood's associates. In the spring of 1834 Hon. Ezra Dean ascended the bench as president judge; Heman Ely, Josiah Harris and Franklin Wells. associates. Ozias Long was appointed associate judge in the spring of 1835 and Daniel J. Johns in 1837. In 1840 Hon. John W. Willey became presiding judge and died in office, July 9, 1841. Hon. Reuben Hitchcock filled the vacancy until January, 1842, when he was succeeded by Hon. Benjamin Bissell, with Franklin Wells, Daniel J. Johns and Joseph L. Whiton as associates. In the May term of 1845, Elijah DeWitt and Daniel T. Baldwin became associate judges, and in the April term, 1848, Benjamin C. Perkins was appointed. Hon. Philemon Bliss became president judge in May, 1849, and William Day an associate. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 201 ASSOCIATES ABOLISHED A new constitution was adopted by the convention at Cincinnati on March 10, 1851, but as it did not go fully into effect until the following year, it is generally known as the constitution of 1852. Under that instrument the office of associate judge was abolished and that of judge of the Court of Common Pleas made elective for a term of five years. OLD BENCH MORE DEMOCRATIC The Common Pleas bench, especially under the provisions of the first constitution, drew to itself much ability. Its old composition, with its two or three associates drawn from citizen ranks, brought the presiding judges in close touch with the people and enabled them more effectually to advance their public ambitions, if their aims were in that direction, than under the present constitution by which they are elected and have no intermediaries. Those who first served Lorain County as heads of the court were such non-residents as George Tod, of Trumbull County, who had been on the State Supreme bench before he presided over the Common Pleas Court; Reuben Wood, of Cuyahoga County, afterward chief justice of the State Supreme Court and governor of the commonwealth; John W. Willey, first mayor of Cleveland before he came into Lorain County to preside for his short term (cut off by death), and Reuben Hitchcock, of Painesville, so .prominent in the educational matters of that section. PHILEMON BLISS Hon. Philemon Bliss, who was the last presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas under the old constitution, had been a member of the Elyria bar for a number of years previous, and for thirty years thereafter his record, both at home and abroad, was one worthy of individual and county pride. Although of Connecticut nativity, his parents moved to New York when he was a boy, and later he was educated at Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, that state, and at Hamilton College. He was too poor to graduate and in 1833, when he left college, he entered a law office at Whitesboro, where he studied a year, and then went to Florida to regain his health. Although his stay there did not materially benefit him, he decided to join his older brother in Elyria. The result was that he completed his legal studies with his brother, A. A. Bliss, then a leading lawyer and a member of the State Legis- 202 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY lature, and in 1841 himself entered practice in Elyria. The two brothers formed a partnership which was mutually profitable, and in the winter of 1848-9 Philemon was elected by the General Assembly presiding judge of the Fourteenth Judicial District, which embraced the counties of Lorain, Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga. The new constitution created the office of probate judge, and in October, 1851, he was elected to the new judgeship. He was commissioned by Governor Reuben Wood in January, 1852, and entered upon his duties in the following March. FIRST PROBATE JUDGE Judge Bliss' first official act as the first incumbent of the Probate bench for Lorain County bears date March 5, 1852, and was the granting of a license to Rev. William O'Connor, a Catholic priest, authorizing him to solemnize marriages. Judge Bliss was succeeded by William F. Lockwood in November, 1854, as he had been elected a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress, and in 1856 he was honored with a re-election. In the national halls of legislation, as in the courtroom and on the bench, he was quiet, industrious, straightforward, thorough and able, and gained the confidence of his fellow members both south and north during that period of gathering conflict. He is said to have made several arguments upon the legal aspects of slavery in its relations to the Federal Government, which Charles Sumner and other leading members of the Senate pronounced the most conclusive which had been delivered in the House of Representatives. In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Judge Bliss chief justice of Dakota Territory, but after organizing the courts the appointee resigned, in 1864, and moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he engaged in newspaper work and proved a strong force in holding the state in the line of free states and as a supporter of the Union. In the fall of 1868 Philemon Bliss was elected judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri and served his term of four years. In 1872 he was elected professor of law in the Missouri State University and dean of the law faculty ; in fact, he opened that department of the State University. Judge Bliss made a fine record on the bench and as an able literary expounder of the law, while a resident of the State of Missouri, and his oldest son. William, also became one of its leading lawyers and republicans. JOSIAH HARRIS The old constitution provided for a president judge of the Court of Common Pleas, well versed in the law," and associates who were to HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 203 be representatives of the county and not required to have other qualifications than plain common sense and good moral standing in the community. As a rule, despite their lack of legal training, they were worthy representatives of the people and useful assistants to the presiding judge. Of these early associate judges none measured up to a higher standard than Josiah Harris, of Amherst. He was a Massachusetts man and one of the founders of the town, upon the site of which he first encamped in 1818. In the following year the first election in Black River Township was held in his log house, and in 1821 he was chosen justice of the peace for a territory which embraced what are now Black River, Amherst., Russia, Brownhelm and Henrietta townships. During the three years of his service, it is said that only five appeals were taken from his docket and only one of these ever came to trial in the Court of Common Pleas. He was the first sheriff of Lorain County and served two terms, the limit of the old constitution. 'Squire Harris was appointed associate judge in 1829 and served seven years in that capacity. During that period Hon. George Tod, father of Governor Tod, and Hon. Reuben Wood, who afterward became chief justice of the State Supreme Court and governor of the state, were the president judges of the court. In 1827 Judge Harris represented Cuyahoga County in the state house of Representatives. Such was the condition of the roads and conveyances at that time that Judge Harris rode his horse to Columbus, wintered him there, and returned on horseback in the .spring. After representing Lorain and Medina in the House two terms, he was elected senator from the same district and served for two years. Although a member of the dominant party in the Legislature, he successfully resisted its attempt to repeal the charter of Oberlin College, then obnoxious to many on account of its abolition tendencies. At the tune of his death in Amherst Village, March 26, 1868, at the age of eighty-four, Judge Harris was one of the oldest postmasters in the United States, having held office for more than forty years. He was first appointed by Postmaster General Return J. Meigs, whose terms expired in 1823 as a member of the Monroe cabinet. TWO NOTED PRESIDENT JUDGES George Tod, of Trumbull County, was about concluding his service of fourteen years as judge of the Court of Common Pleas when Mr. Harris commenced his career as an associate. He had already served several terms as state senator and had been a member of the State Supreme 204 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Court. He was a Yale graduate and thoroughly read in the law before he came West. Reuben Wood was a Vermonter and an able lawyer. After his long service on the State Supreme bench, in 1850, he was elected governor on the democratic ticket, but resigned to enter the diplomatic service in the Chilean field. The climate undermined his health, and he returned to his farm near Rockport, Cuyahoga County ; there (known as "Evergreen Place") he died in 1864. WOOLSEY WELLES Woolsey Welles, the first prosecuting attorney of Lorain County, and long a prominent lawyer and a leader of public opinion at Elyria, was of Massachusetts birth and New York education, and soon after attaining his majority and his admission to the bar, in the fall of 1823, became a resident of the county seat. As public prosecutor of the county, for two years, he received $120, when he moved to Akron to assume the duties of his position as collector of canal tolls at that point. He held that office for about a year, when, on account of his religious scruples, he resigned to avoid Sabbath labors. Mr. Welles also held the postmastership at Akron under presidents John Quincy Adams and Jackson, and was justice of the peace for nearly five years. He resigned the last-named office in 1834 in order to give all his time to his duties as traveling agent of the Ohio State Temperance Society, of which Governor Lucas was president. After being thus employed for about a year, he returned to Elyria and re-entered the practice of the law in partnership with Heman Birch. In the fall of 1837 Mr. Welles moved to Cleveland, where he spent three years in practice, at the end of which he again located at Elyria, where he remained for nearly a decade. During that period he became more prominent as an anti-slavery agitator than as a lawyer, and, through the agency of Dr. N. S. Townshend, whom the Freesoilers had elected to the Legislature, received the appointment of state agent for the sale of Western Reserve school lands. This necessitated his residence in Defiance, Williams County, where he resided some nine years. He was then appointed to an Iowa land agency and settled at Fort Dodge, that state, where he spent the later years of his life. DELEGATES TO THE 1851 CONVENTION The delegates from the county to the constitutional convention of 1851 were Dr. Norton S. Townshend and Horace D. Clark. During his HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 205 residence of thirty years in Lorain County, most of that period being a citizen of Elyria, Doctor Townshend attained much public prominence as well as professional fame. Horace D. Clark, the second delegate from Lorain County to the constitutional convention of 1851, was one of the oldest and best known lawyers in Northern Ohio. At that time he had been practicing seventeen years in Elyria, and naturally a more extended account of his professional career will be given in the section devoted to prominent members of the bar who have held no judgeships. In fact, as far as Mr. Clark was concerned, during his thirty years of practice at Elyria he held no official position other than as delegate to the constitutional convention of 1851. PRESENT-DAY COURTS As finally adopted, the constitution provided for five judges of the State Supreme Court. From that time to this only one member of that body has been selected from Lorain County—W. W. Boynton, of Elyria. The judicial power of the state is vested in a supreme court, courts of appeals, courts of common pleas, courts of probate and such other inferior judicial bodies as may be established by law. The Supreme Court judges are elected for six years; under the 1851 constitution they were elected for five years. The term is the same for common pleas judges, and the office is also elective. The probate judges are elected for four years. The amendments adopted by the constitutional convention of 1912 almost entirely changed the judicial system of Ohio. Each county was given one or more common pleas judges, the common pleas districts heretofore existing being abolished. The Federal courts have only one representative from Lorain County, Hon. Thomas A. Conway, of Elyria, a referee in bankruptcy for the Eastern Division of Ohio, whose jurisdiction also covers Medina County. He was a former probate judge and succeeded James H. Leonard in May, 1915. As to the courts of appeals, Lorain County is in the Eighth District of the state, but has no resident judge on the bench. The judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Lorain County is Hon. Horace G. Redington. Technically, it is included in the Fourth District, Second Subdivision, of the state. In September, 1914, was appointed to succeed Hon. Lee Stroup, of Lorain, to hold the office until his successor was elected and qualified. In the fall of 1914 Judge Redington and W. B. Thompson were candidates for election to fill that position. The election resulted in a tie, no one being elected. Judge 206 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Redington continued to hold the office and is still holding it. There was a contest and the votes were recounted by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals found that there was a tie. The case then went to the Supreme Court and the decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed by the Supreme Court leaving Judge Redington upon the bench as his successor had not been elected. At the last session of the Legislature the office of another common pleas judge for Lorain County was created and W. B. Thompson was appointed to fill the new position. We, therefore, have both Judge Redington and Judge Thompson upon the bench, serving under appointments of the governor. The times for holding of courts are fixed each year by the judges. The Court of Appeals holds two terms in the county and the Common Pleas Court three terms. COMMON PLEAS JUDGES, 1852-1883 Hon. Samuel Humphreyville was the first incumbent of the Common Pleas Court, under the present constitution, commencing his services in 1852 ; was succeeded by James B. Carpenter in 1857 ; Thomas Bolton, 1858 ; William H. Canfield, 1859 ; John S. Green, 1861 ; Stevenson Burke, 1862-9 ; W. W. Boynton, 1869 ; John C. Hale, 1877-83. STEVENSON BURKE Among the most prominent occupants of the Common Pleas bench in Lorain County under the new constitutional era were Stevenson Burke and Washington AV. Boynton, whose experiences are somewhat similar, both having made their broadest reputation as lawyers in Cleveland after their retirement from the bench ; but while Judge Burke departed permanently from the scene of his first professional work (Elyria) Judge Boynton, after gravitating between his home town, Columbus and Cleveland, for a long series of years, finally returned to his first love, and is now living in honored retirement at his beautiful home in the county seat. Judge Burke is a New York man, born in St. Lawrence County on the 26th of November, 1826, and is therefore nearing his eightieth year. In March, 1834, his father moved from New York to Ohio, and settled with the family in Ridgeville, Lorain County, where he resided until his death in August, 1875. Up to the age of sixteen, Stevenson's schooling came in very small and irregular instalments. For some time afterward he enjoyed more regular instruction in select schools at HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 207 Ridgeville Center and Elyria, and still later at Delaware University, located in the town by that name in the central part of the state. There, in 1846 he also commenced the study of law under Messrs. Powell and Buck. In the spring of 1848 Mr. Burke completed his professional studies at Elyria under Horace D. Clark ; was admitted to practice by the State Supreme Court on August 11th of that year, and became a resident lawyer at the county seat. In April of the following year his preceptor admitted him into a copartnership, which continued until May, 1852. The succeeding decade was one of industry, ceaseless labor, continual progress and impairing health. As a judicial position was less wearing, his friends secured his election to a judgeship of the Court of Common Pleas of the Fourth Judicial District of Ohio, which he held from February, 1862, to January, 1869. At that time he had served two years of a second term and was succeeded by Judge Boynton. Judge Burke relinquished his judicial duties to resume the practice of the law, having formed a partnership in Cleveland with Hon. F. T. Backus and E. J. Estep. The association was dissolved by the death of Mr. Backus in May, 1870, but was continued with Mr. Estep until 1875, after which Mr. Burke practiced alone. From the first he took a high standing among the leading lawyers of Northern Ohio, carrying much important litigation before the supreme courts of Ohio and adjoining states and the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1872 to 1880 he served as general counsel and director of the Cleveland & Ma-honing Valley Railway Company, and during a portion of that period as its president. From 1875 to 1881 he was general counsel and director of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railway, and became its president in 1886. From 1881 to 1886 he was also president of the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railway Company, and during most. of that period vice president of the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railway Company ; after 1886 president of the Toledo & Ohio Central and Kanawha & Michigan, and after 1894, until his death in 1905, he was president of the Central Ontario Railway Company, besides being at the head of such large corporations as the Republic Coal Company and on the directorate of the Canadian Copper Company, the Anglo-American Iron Company, etc. In fact, at the time of his death, ten years ago, there was no man in Ohio more prominent as a corporation lawyer or executive than Judge Burke. WASHINGTON W. BOYNTON Judge W. W. Boynton, who has now been a continuous resident of Elyria for a. decade, is in his eighty-fourth year and commenced prac- 208 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY tice in his home town nearly sixty years ago. He was born in Russia Township, Lorain County, January 27, 1833, and is a son of Gen. Lewis D. and Ruth (Wellman) Boynton, both natives of Maine and representatives of old New England families. The founders of both the Boynton and Wellman families in Lorain County were among the first score of settlers in the northern part of Russia Township, which was settled several years before Oberlin, in the southern part, was founded. The mother died on the old homestead in January, 1840, while still in her. early '30s; the father, who reached his seventieth year, died in 1871. General Boynton was a leading farmer and citizen of the county and attained such leadership in the old state militia that he was appointed brigadier general. The future judge, who was christened Washington Wallace Boynton was early trained for solidity, both physical and mental. He early showed intellectual aptitude and accomplishments and, like others in his position and of his temperament, taught in the district school as a young man, and later conducted a select institute in Amherst Township. He was also a school examiner for a time. During this period he commenced his law studies under his uncle, Elbridge G. Boynton, then one of the representative lawyers of Elyria. Mr. Boynton was admitted to the bar in 1856, established his residence in Elyria in 1857 and not long afterward formed a partnership with Gen. L. A. Sheldon, with whom he practiced until 1861. In that year his partner entered the Union army as lieutenant colonel of the Forty-second Ohio Volunteers and distinguished himself in the Union service. From the spring of 1859 until the autumn of 1863 Mr. Boynton served as prosecuting attorney of Lorain County. During that period he formed a partnership with John C. Hale, but his health had become so seriously impaired in 1863 that he relinquished his practice and sought rest and recuperation in the Northwest. Somewhat benefitted by the change of climate and surroundings, Judge Boynton returned to Elyria and was in partnership with Laertes B. Smith until February, 1869, when Governor Hayes appointed him judge of the Court of Common Pleas to succeed Judge Burke, resigned. Thereupon Judge Boynton retired from the firm of. Boynton and Smith. At the ensuing fall election he was elected to fill the vacancy, and two years thereafter was chosen for the full term. In October, 1876, he was elected judge of the State Supreme Court, and took his seat on that bench as one of the associate justices in February, 1877. Ill health again compelled him to resign in November, 1881. After his retirement from the supreme bench, Judge Boynton located in Cleveland, where his former law partner. John C. Hale, who had HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 209 succeeded him on the Common Pleas bench, in 1883, again joined him in the practice of their profession. During the succeeding fifteen years, the firms of Boynton and Hale and Boynton, Hale and Horr, of which he was a senior partner, became widely known throughout the state. In 1888 Norton T. Horr had been admitted to the old partnership and in 1892 Judge Hale had been elected to the Circuit bench and retired from practice. For the succeeding five years Boynton and Horr continued a large professional business, and on January 1, 1897, Judge Boynton retired from the firm. For several years thereafter he devoted himself to the trial of special cases, became largely a consulting attorney, and finally retired from all active practice. At first he erected at North Ridgeville, on the site of the birthplace and girlhood home of his wife (formerly Betsey A. Terrell), a large and attractive residence. There they maintained their home until 1906, when they removed to Elyria and occupied their present spacious, elegant and homelike estate. Judge Boynton has made a broad, stable and unusual record both as a judge and a public legislator, although in the latter capacity his career covers but three years; but they fell within the early and portentious period of Reconstruction, in which he had the honor of playing a leading part. From 1863 to 1867, inclusive, he represented Lorain County in the State Legislature, and first offered the resolution eliminating the color line from the Constitution. On the first vote the resolution was defeated in the House, but passed in the Senate. The measure was then returned to the lower house, where it was adopted after a bitter contest and, in the ensuing state election, defeated by popular vote. Judge Boynton was a vigorous champion of the measure which he introduced, and not long afterward had the satisfaction of seeing it, in all its essentials, become incorporated into the Constitution of the United States. By the present state constitution, it is provided that "every white male citizen of the United States" shall be entitled to vote. An amendment was proposed by the Fourth Constitutional Convention of 1912 to omit the word "white," but it was voted down by the people, probably because they did not understand what it meant. Colored people vote in Ohio now, but on account of the Constitution of the United States which accords them that privilege. JOHN C. HALE John C. Hale, Judge Boynton's old law partner, who also succeeded him as Common Pleas judge in 1877, had no superior in Lorain County as a strong and honorable member of the profession, whether on the Vol.     I-14 210 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY bench or at the bar. He was a New Hampshire farmer boy, but fitted himself for Dartmouth College and graduated therefrom in 1857 when twenty-six years of age. To obtain his education he had burdened himself with a $1,000 debt—which he paid, with interest. Immediately after his graduation from Dartmouth College, he settled in Cleveland, and during the succeeding three years taught in its public schools and studied law. In the meantime Mr. Hale had married a good Cleveland girl ; was admitted to the bar in July, 1861, and in the following October located at Elyria for practice. Two years afterward, he had so proved his worth that he was elected prosecuting attorney, succeeding W. W. Boynton, with whom he had been in partnership, and held the office for three terms, of two years each. During that busy period he also held the office of register of bankruptcy, continuing thus until the position was abolished by the consolidation of districts. He was an active and influential delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1873 and served as judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1877 until 1883, when he returned to Cleveland to become again associated with Judge Boynton, who had located in that city for practice after his retirement from the bench of the State Supreme Court. In 1892 the partnership of Boynton, Hale and Horr (Norton T.) was dissolved, because of Mr. Hale's election to the circuit judgeship. EARLY PUBLIC JUDGES At the time of the organization of the Probate Court in 1852, the term of the probate judge was three years and remained that way until 1905, when by an amendment of the Constitution the terms of various county, district and state officers was adjusted so as to have those officers elected in the even years and the municipal and township officers elected in the odd years. By that amendment the terms of the Supreme Court and Circuit Court judges were fixed for six years, Common Pleas judges for six years and the Probate Court judges for four years. Since that time the term of the probate judge has been four years. WILLIAM F. LOCKWOOD William F. Lockwood, who succeeded Philemon Bliss as judge of the Probate Court. in 1854,. was one of the ablest lawyers and judges ever connected with the profession in Lorain County. He was a native of Connecticut, spent his youth in New York and in 1841, when just approaching manhood, settled in Elyria and became a law student in HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 211 the office of Hamlin and Bliss. In the following year he was admitted to the bar; served as prosecuting attorney of the county in 1844-8, and in 1852 went to Baltimore as a delegate to the Whig Convention which nominated Winfield Scott for the presidency. After serving as probate judge from 1854 to 1856, Mr. Lockwood moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he resided two years ; then located in Dakota. City, Nebraska Territory. He served as one of the Federal judges from April, 1861, until Nebraska was admitted to statehood in 1867. He was then nominated by President Johnson as United States district judge for the State of Nebraska, but was not confirmed by the Senate. Judge Lockwood then became a resident of Toledo, became quite prominent as a democrat and was elected judge of the Common Pleas Court in 1878. As to other early probate judges, Lionel A. Sheldon was appointed to that bench when Judge Lockwood resigned in 1856, and he was in office from November 25th of that year until February 8, 1858, when Charles H. Doolittle was commissioned by Governor Chase to succeed him. Then came John W. Steele in December, 1867. He served until his resignation in June, 1871, when Laertes B. Smith became probate judge. LIONEL A. SHELDON Judge Sheldon came of a New York family, his parents bringing him to La Grange, Lorain County, when he was about three years old. He obtained his legal education in the office of Clark and Burke, Elyria, and at the Poughkeepsie (New York) Law School, being admitted to practice before the State Supreme Court in July, 1851. He commenced practice at Elyria as a partner of John M. Vincent, and was afterward associated, at different times, with George B. Lake, L. B. Smith and W. W. Boynton. After retiring from the probate judgeship, which he held in 1856-8, he returned to private practice and remained in Elyria until the opening period of the Civil war. In August, 1861, Judge Sheldon went to the Union front as captain in the Second Ohio Cavalry, and was subsequently a major in the same regiment. At the organization of the Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry he was commissioned its lieutenant colonel and on the promotion of its colonel, James A. Garfield, became colonel of the regiment. After serving thus until near the close of the war, he was advanced to the rank of brevet brigadier general. At the close of the War of the Rebellion General Sheldon settled in New Orleans. He became interested in politics; was elected to Congress 212 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY in 1868, 1870 and 1872, and in 1876 was one of the presidential electors from Louisiana in the famous Hayes-Tilden controversy. While residing in New Orleans permanently, he spent his summers on his large farm in La Grange, which had been the family homestead for so many years. After leaving New Orleans he was appointed receiver of one of the great western railroads, served as governor of New Mexico under appointment by President Garfield and afterward moved to California. Charles H. Doolittle was born in -Middlebury, Vermont, October 20, 1814, son of Judge Joel Doolittle of the Supreme Court of Vermont. He was educated at Middlebury College. He came to Ohio in 1840 and practiced law in Huron. In 1842 he formed a law partnership with Russell & Case of Unionville, Ohio, where he married, December 25, 1842, Elizabeth Kemp. In December, 1850, he came to Elyria where, with the exception of a few months, the remainder of his life was spent. In 1851 he was elected justice of the peace. About 1858 he took the office of probate judge to which he had been elected, which office he held until 1867: Then after this he had a severe illness which made him an invalid for a couple of years, and his first activity was an out-of-door business, which took him from Elyria for several months. With better health he resumed his former business, and in 1873 was established in a law office in Elyria. In 1874 he was again elected magistrate which office he held until his death, January 10, 1890. JOHN W. STEELE John W. Steele was admitted to the bar just before the opening of the Civil war, served throughout that period and was probate judge for about 31/2 years, from 1867 to 1871. He moved to Oberlin in 1877 and practiced there. LAERTES B. SMITH Laertes B. Smith was admitted to the bar in Elyria, during September, 1858. He practiced and held the office of justice of peace until June, 1871, when he was appointed probate judge to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John W. Steele. He was elected to that office the same year for the unexpired term and held the judgeship, by successive re-elections, until February 9, 1882. PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS PREVIOUS TO 1880 The office of prosecuting attorney of a county always draws some of its best legal talent of the younger class, and is generally considered a HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 213 stepping-stone to a judgeship. Such expectations have a basis of fact in the list of these officials who served the county in the early period of its corporate life. Woolsey Welles, the first prosecuting attorney of Lorain County, served from the organization of the county in May, 1824, for about two years, when he was succeeded by Frederick Whittlesey, a young man from Connecticut who had just opened an office in town. With the exception of a short break, when J. W. Willey, was prosecutor, Mr. Whittlesey held the office until 1835, when he departed for a broader field in Cleveland ; during his stay in Elyria he also served two terms in the Legislature. In Cleveland, where he resided until his death in 1854, he held the office of clerk of the courts of Cuyahoga County ; was also an associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas and represented Cuyahoga County in the State Senate. For a short time, while in Elyria, Mr. Whittlesey edited the Lorain Gazette, the first newspaper published in the county and which was established in 1829. his example in this respect was followed by quite a number of the young lawyers who early commenced practice at the county seat, as they were able thereby not only to add somewhat to a precarious professional income but to forward any public ambitions which they might harbor. Edward S. Hamlin, a partner of Mr. Whittlesey, succeeded his associate as prosecuting attorney in 1835. He held the office for about a year and in 1837 moved to Cleveland, but soon returned to Elyria, where from 1840 to 1845 he was in partnership with Albert A. Bliss. During the later two yers of that period he served an unexpired term in Congress, having just completed a second term as prosecuting attorney. Subsequently, William F. Lockwood was associated with him and the connection continued until Mr. Hamlin left Elyria in 1849. For some years he practiced his profession in Cincinnati. Elijah Parker, who was one of Woolsey Welles' competitors when the county was organized, succeeded Mr. Hamlin as prosecuting attorney in 1836. He served for a year. Mr. Parker was a Vermonter, was in rather poor health and was not in active practice after 1854, although he continued to reside in Elyria until his death in April, 1859. He was justice of the peace for several terms, as well as prosecuting attorney in 1836-7. JOEL TIFFANY Joel Tiffany, Mr. Parker's successor, was one of the most brilliant men who ever practiced in Elyria. He was a native of Connecticut, appears to have first practiced in Medina, and to have come into view 214 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY at Elyria in 1835. As the court records indicate, he made the county seat his headquarters until 1848, during which period he served as prosecuting attorney for the three terms commencing 1837, 1841 and 1845. Mr. Tiffany was associated with L. G. Byington for a short time and with E. H. Leonard for about two years. His professional reputation rests both on his record as prosecuting attorney of Lorain County and his works as an author and compiler. Upon leaving Elyria he went to Painesville and subsequently to New York City. From 1863 to 1869 he resided in Albany, where he was reporter of the Court of Appeals of New York, publishing during that period twelve volumes of reports and issuing, either alone or in collaboration, such standard works as "Tiffany and Smith's New York Practice," "The Law of Trusts and Trustees, as Administered in England and America," "Forms Adapted to the Practice and Special Pleadings in New York Courts of Record," and A Treatise on Government and Constitutional Law, According to the American Theory." From Albany Mr. Tiffany moved to Chicago. Mr. Tiffany had many friends and admirers in Lorain County, notwithstanding his erratic ways. One of them thus touches on his local career : "Mr. Tiffany approached nearer to being a genius, as that word is ordinarily understood, than any other practitioner of the Lorain bar. With acute and accurate perceptions, great mental powers of acquisition and assimilation, a prodigious memory and, withal, an eloquence seldom equalled, he was extremely well equipped for all forensic encounters. In the locally-celebrated counterfeit eases, Mr. Tiffany exerted his great powers to their utmost and made for himself a reputation that will long endure in Lorain County. These were tried in 1838-9, when he was prosecuting, and no fewer than fourteen persons were sent to the penitentiary for being implicated in the making and issuing of counterfeit money. "The great qualities we have mentioned were, however, handicapped by an unsteadiness of purpose and lack of application to his profession, which rendered them of comparatively little value to their possessor. He engaged in a variety of enterprises outside of his profession, while in Elyria, none of which proved profitable, while they prevented him from reaching that success in his profession which he might otherwise have attained." The decade after Mr. Tiffany's first term was filled out, in the prosecuting attorney's office, by E. H. Leonard, Tiffany, Horace A. Tenny, Tiffany again, and William F. Lockwood, afterward probate judge. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 215 JOHN M. VINCENT John M. Vincent succeeded Mr. Lockwood in 1850, served two consecutive terms, and commenced his third term in 1856. He was an able and popular lawyer, handicapped by a frail constitution. While a. youth he came from Massachusetts to Ohio ; began his collegiate course at Oberlin, but completed it at Union College, Schenectady, New York, from which he graduated in 1846. Returning to Elyria he entered the office of H. D. Clark as a law student, and was admitted to the bar at the State Supreme Court in the county seat, August 11, 1848. About a year afterward he was elected to his first term as prosecuting attorney. In the autumn of 1859, after several years of practice, somewhat interrupted by failing health, he was elected to the lower house of the State Legislature and served in that body during the session of 1860-1. In the summer of 1863 he went to Minnesota, hoping to be physically strengthened by a change of climate, but died in Milwaukee, while journeying toward his Elyria home. JOSEPH H. DICKSON Joseph H. Dickson, who followed Mr. Vincent as prosecuting attorney of the county in January, 1858, was a young lawyer who had been admitted to the bar at Elyria in 1852 and several years afterward located at Wellington. While residing in Elyria he was in partnership with Mr. Vincent. At the conclusion of his two-year term as prosecuting attorney, on the last day. of December, 1855, he moved to Wellington, where, for years he continued in practice and became a public character of considerable prominence. He represented Lorain County in the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth general assemblies, which covered the period from January, 1868, to May, 1871. During that period he voted with the great majority for Ohio's adoption of the joint resolution ratifying the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. OTHER EARLY PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS George Olmsted, who had come from New York as a practicing attorney and located in Elyria in 1853, followed Mr. Vincent at the conclusion of his second term, his own service commencing in January, 1858. After holding office a little over a year, in March, 1859, he resigned and moved to Indianapolis. After a year spent in that city he returned to Elyria, where he practiced until 1862 ; then four years of absence 216 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY preceded his return to the county seat. Afterward lie held the office of justice of the peace for a number of years. When Mr. Olmsted resigned as prosecuting attorney in March, 1859, W. W. Boynton was appointed to fill the vacancy and was regularly elected in the fall, serving, through two successive re-elections, until his resignation in the fall of 1863. John C. Hale, his law partner, succeeded him, and held the office for six years. The fine judicial record of these two friends and associates in the law has already been presented. Charles W. Johnston, Judge Hale's successor as prosecuting attorney, held the position for two terms, being elected in 1869 and 1871. He formerly practiced medicine in La Grange, Lorain County, but finally preferred law and entered the ranks of that profession in 1859. In that year he located at Elyria and formed a partnership with Philemon Bliss under the name of Bliss and Johnston, which continued until Judge Bliss moved to Dakota in 1861. Mr. Johnston resided in Elyria for many years afterward, engaged in active practice. George P. Metcalf, who succeeded Mr. Johnston, was admitted to the bar in 1869. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1873, 1875 and 1877. PIONEER LAWYERS, PURE AND SIMPLE After the names of those early members of the Lorain County bar who became prosecuting attorneys and judges have been eliminated, as in the foregoing pages, the list is. reduced to rather small proportions. HORACE D. CLARK The most noteworthy case of really able and popular lawyers who steadfastly refused official or judicial honors, was the veteran attorney Horace D. Clark. As previously stated, the only position ever held by him which could approach the official class was that of delegate to the constitutional convention of (adopted by that body in) 1851. His was such a rare case and his personality became so dear to the members of the bar, many of whom came to owe their start and advancement to his interest and kindness, that the following sketch is quoted from the pen of one who wrote while he was still living in Montreal, Canada, in his seventy-fifth year, the abandonment of his practice and his departure thither dating from 1865 : "Horace D. Clark, one of the lawyers who had the largest continuous practice in Lorain county, was born May 22, 1805, at Granby, Connecticut, where his mother still resides at the HISTORY OF LORAI' COUNTY - 217 age of ninety-four years. He went to district school summers until he was eight years of age and in the winter until he was sixteen, when he was placed in a country store, serving his apprenticeship and afterward being received as a partner. In this business he continued four years, at the end of which he says, in a recent letter, 'I found we had lost so much by bad debts and the stealings of clerks that there was but little left, and I quit the business in disgust.' He studied law one year in Connecticut and in November 17, 1832, started for Ohio, reaching Hudson, that state, in December. He at once entered the law school of Judge Van R. Humphrey and a year later was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court at Columbus. "On the Fourth of July, 1834, Mr. Clark opened a law office in the southeast corner room of the Court House in Elyria. He continued to practice in Elyria from that time for about thirty years, having during a large portion of that time the most extensive practice in the county—a practice never approached in magnitude by more than one rival at a time. A. A. Bliss, Hamlin and Bliss, Joel Tiffany, Benedict and Leonard, Hamlin and Lockwood, and W. F. Lockwood alone, were at different times, his nearest competitors; but Mr. Clark steadily maintained the leading position he had gained until after he ceased to reside in Elyria ; for, although he continued to practice there until 1864 he moved with his family to Cleveland in 1851. "In 1845 Mr. Clark took as a partner Cyrus Olney, who came from Iowa where he had been in practice. ' He was about twenty-eight,' says Mr. Clark, 'and the best special pleader of his age I ever saw.' In March, 1849, he formed a- partnership with Stevenson Burke, who had been admitted to the bar the August previous, having been a student in Mr. Clark's office. His partnership continued until about June, 1852. John M. Vincent and John V. Coon were also students with Mr. Clark during his practice in Elyria. He was an excellent lawyer, although not especially an eloquent advocate." OTHER FELLOW PRACTITIONERS Reuben Mussey, the father of Henry E. Mussey, practiced in Elyria from 1825 to 1837, subsequently residing for several years at Kishwaukee, Illinois, where he died in 1843. S. J. Andrews was one of the accomplished lawyers from Cleveland who, in the late '20s, practiced in the courts at Elyria. For a short time he was judge of the old Superior Court in that city, and was also a member from Cuyahoga County of the constitutional conventions of 218 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY 1850 and 1873. He was long remembered for his eloquence, quick wit and gentlemanly mirth. The period from 1831 to 1845, with large increase in business and population in the county, witnessed the advent of about a score of new lawyers to the Elyria bar. Among these were Edward S. Hamlin, Horace D. Clark, Joel Tiffany, Albert A. Bliss, Philemon Bliss, Judson D. Benedict, Robert McEachron and William F. Lockwood. A. A. BLISS Among the ablest on that list, and who has heretofore been merely mentioned, was A. A. Bliss, brother of Judge Philemon Bliss. Before he was twenty Albert had mastered a trade and secured a fair education. He then attended the Oneida Institute, at Whitestown, New York, which had recently been organized on the manual training plan. In the spring of 1833, having recently attained his twenty-second year, A. A. Bliss commenced the study of law at Elyria in the office of Whittlesey and Hamlin, and also engaged in newspaper work. He was admitted to the bar in Cleveland during September, 1835, and in the following spring moved to that city, where, through the political campaign of that year he edited the Daily Gazette. Mr. Bliss returned to Elyria in 1837 and practiced his profession there for ten years. From 1840 to 1845 he was in partnership with E. S. Hamlin, and the firm prospered. The steady increase of his law business and his reputation as a lawyer were much retarded by growing interest and prominence in politics. In 1839, 1840 and 1841 he was elected to the State Legislature and spent much time in the editing and management of political newspapers. In the winter of 1846-7 he was elected state treasurer, holding that office until January, 1852. Although he moved to Columbus, in the spring of 1847, he kept in touch with his Elyria practice through his partnership with Sylvester Bagg, which continued from 1846 to 1849. Mr. Bliss returned to Elyria late in 1852, where he remained until the spring of 1863. From that time until 1874 he engaged in business as a resident of Jackson, Michigan, but returned to his law practice in that city, and became prominent in various public matters connected with municipal and state institutions. JUDSON D. BENEDICT Judson D. Benedict came to Elyria from Medina in 1838 and was engaged in practice for about ten years thereafter. At different times he was in partnership with E. H. Leonard, Joel Tiffany, Robert Mc- HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 219 Eachron and Joshua Myers. About 1848 Mr. Benedict abandoned the law and became a Campbellite preacher, spending many years near Buffalo, New York, as a missionary of the Christian Church. He died in Canada in the late '70s. MYRON R. KEITH In October, 1832, Myron R. Keith, as a boy, was 'brought from New York by his father, Col. Ansel Keith, and settled in Elyria. A year after his admission to the bar (1841) he moved to Cleveland, where he continued in practice for four years. In January, 1846, he returned to Elyria, and was appointed clerk of the courts for Lorain County, thus officiating until the spring of 1852. In August of that year he returned to Cleveland, where, for many subsequent years he was register in bankruptcy and an active member of the bar. JOSHUA MYERS Prior to 1880 Joshua Myers held the record for continuous length of practice in Lorain County. Although he was an active member of the bar two years longer than H. D. Clark, he never attained much prominence or established a large practice. Mr. Myers came to the bar about 1844 and remained in Elyria until his death in 1877. He was first associated with Judson D. Benedict and then with Robert McEachron. From 1850 to 1854 his partner was Judge Bissell, of Painesville, in the firm of Bissell and Myers. That was the period of his greatest professional prosperity. When alone, his practice was never large. During the later years of Mr. Myers' life, he held the office of justice of the peace for a term, securing his election partly through the anti-temperance excitement, or opposition to the Crusade, in 1874. JOHN V. COON John V. Coon, although he never made a distinguished place for himself at the bar, was one of its best known veterans. He was admitted to the bar at Elyria in 1846 and practiced for many years. He did not, however, devote himself exclusively to his profession, but engaged in farming, dealing in real estate and investing in various manufacturing enterprises. As a lawyer, he was best known in the .field of real estate transactions. Some time in the early '80s he removed from Elyria to Blue Rapids, Kansas, where he had investments in real estate and water power, and afterwards died there. Mr. Coon was particularly known in 220 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Lorain County as questioning the titles at the mouth of Black River now in the City of Lorain, and caused very much litigation over the titles here. That was quite a feature in Mr. Coon's life in Elyria, from about 1871 up to the time that he moved to Kansas. " FOREIGN " PRACTITIONERS It is said that up to about 1845 few of the practicing lawyers of the Lorain bar were able to make a living by confining themselves strictly within professional limits, nearly all engaging in newspaper or business enterprises. Although the relative amount of law business transacted by foreign attorneys after the '30s was much less than during the earlier period, a large number of attorneys from Cleveland and other outside points practiced occasionally in Lorain County. Besides S. J. Andrews, of that city, may be mentioned in that class W. Silliman, of Wooster, and C. L. Lattimer, of Norwalk. ACCESSIONS FROM 1845 TO 1860 The period from 1845 to 1860 witnessed an almost complete change in the personnel of the bar. About thirty new members joined it during that period, and at its close Philemon Bliss remained the only resident lawyer who had begun practice prior to 1845, although Mr. Clark, then residing in Cleveland, still practiced in the courts at Elyria. Some of the ablest members of the bar were arrivals of those years. Of the number were Stevenson Burke, John M. Vincent, Sylvester Bagg, Lionel A. Sheldon, George B. Lake, Washington W. Boynton, Laertes B. Smith, Edward D. Holbrook, John M. Langston, John V. Coon, Charles H. Doolittle and Joseph H. Dickson. SYLVESTER BAGG Of those not particularly mentioned, Sylvester Bagg attained much prominence after leaving Elyria. He commenced practice in Elyria in 1845, having come from Massachusetts a short time before. He had not then reached his twenty-second year. Mr. Bagg remained at the county seat for ten years, practicing alone or in partnership with A. A. Bliss, Edmund A. West or George Olmsted. To make both ends meet equally, he engaged at times in the drug and insurance business. In 1857 he located at Waterloo, Iowa, made a good Union record in the Civil war ; served as circuit judge from 1868 to 1878 and, for a number of years thereafter, as district judge. HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 221 ATTAINED PROMINENCE ABROAD George B. Lake, who practiced from 1851 to 1857, moved to Omaha and subsequently occupied a seat upon the bench of the Nebraska Supreme Court. Houston H. Poppleton, who first studied law with Judge Burke at Elyria in 1858-9, commenced practice in 1860, formed a partnership with his preceptor and in 1873 became general attorney of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway Company, of which Judge Burke was the executive head. Edward D. Holbrook is another of the Elyria lawyers of that period who attained his greatest prominence in the far West. He commenced practice at. Elyria in 1858, the year after his admission to the bar, and remained thus engaged until the spring of 1861. He then went to California, where he remained studying carefully the mining laws until May, 1862; at. that time he moved to Idaho Territory, where he rapidly acquired a large practice and rose to public prominence. From 1865 to 1869 he represented the territory as a delegate to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth congresses. In June, 1870, he was murdered at Idaho City by Charles H. Douglas. OBERLIN LAWYERS Elyria, as the county seat, was the logical headquarters of the litigation brought to the courts of the county, but as there was considerable local business at such population centers as Oberlin, Lorain and Wellington, several of the enterprising firms established outside branches. Philemon Bliss and Washburn Safford formed a partnership of that nature in 1855, its third member, the Oberlin representative, being R. H. Allen. J. W. Steele, who served as probate judge of Lorain County in 1867- 71, located at Oberlin in 1877, and practiced there for some time thereafter. JOHN M. LANGSTON But perhaps the ablest member of the bar who ever practiced at Oberlin, and really a high credit to the profession irrespective of color lines, was John M. Langston, a representative of the colored race. For twelve years he enjoyed a large business, chiefly among his own people, was honored by the entire community in various public ways, and finally achieved a substantial reputation in several lines of the national service, as will more fully appear from the biographic facts which follow. 222 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY John Mercer Langston was born in Louisa County, Virginia, on the 14th of December, 1829, and at the age of six was emancipated from slavery. In 1849, when but twenty, he graduated from Oberlin College in the regular literary course, and in 1853 from the theological department. He received the following degrees : A. M., Oberlin, 1852 ; LL. D., Howard University. Having studied law, he was admitted to the bar of Ohio in 1854, and practiced his profession at Oberlin until 1869. During that period he was clerk of several townships in Ohio, being the first colored man elected to any office by popular vote. He was also a member of the Board of Education of Oberlin. In 1869 Mr. Langston was called to a professorship of law in Howard University, Washington, which had been organized two years previous, under the auspices of the National Government, for the benefit of his race and which had been founded along the same lines which had given Oberlin so wide a fame. Professor Langston became dean of the faculty of law, of which he was one of the organizers, and remained at its head for seven years. President Grant then appointed him a member of the Board of Health of the District of 'Columbia, of which he was elected secretary in 1875. In 1877-85 he was United States minister and consul • general to Hayti, and on his return to this country was appointed president of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, at Petersburg. In addition to various addresses and papers on political, biographical, literary and scientific subjects, Professor Langston was the author of a volume of select addresses entitled "Freedom and Citizenship," published in Washington, 1883. He died at Washington, District of Columbia, November 15, 1897. THE OBERLIN-WELLINGTON RESCUE CASE One of the most famous cases in which either Mr. Langston or any other lawyer in Lorain County was identified was that known to history as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case, and the able and learned colored attorney participated in it not only as an advocate but as one of the defendants convicted of the conspiracy to rescue a negro fugitive from the hands of his captors (including United States officials) while en route to his southern master. It all happened in the spring of 1858 and constituted the last attempt to recover a slave in Northern Ohio under the law of 1850. The facts were these : John Price, a fugitive slave from Kentucky, had been some time in Oberlin, when by a ruse he was seized by the United States marshal and his deputy, accompanied by two Kentuckians who represented his master. The slave was driven over to Wellington, eight miles away, where he was made a prisoner at Wads- HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 223 worth's Hotel, the design being to take him South by the first train and re-introduce him to slavery. It happened at this critical time there was a large crowd at Wellington, attracted by a fire, and as soon as they received word of the state of affairs at the hotel, with re-enforcements from Oberlin they surrounded the temporary prison and rescued the fugitive. The grand jury of the United States District Court thereupon indicted thirteen persons in Wellington and twenty-four in Oberlin—all leading citizens —for aiding in the rescue, their cases being called at Cleveland on April 5th. The Wellington defendants, who were considered more as assistants than principals in the rescue of the slave, were each fined $20 and costs and sent to jail for twenty-four hours. Simon Bushnell, of Oberlin, and Mr. Langston, who made a strong speech defending his course, were convicted and sentenced—the former to sixty days in prison and a fine of $600, and the latter to a $100 fine and twenty days' sentence. Twelve of the Oberlin men remained in jail at Cleveland, but all of the prisoners, it is said, had a rather enjoyable time. The result of these convictions was to arouse the people throughout Northern Ohio who were opposed to slavery, and on the 24th of May an immense mass meeting was held at Cleveland to give expression to the prevailing sentiment. Hon. Joshua R. Giddings. Governor Chase and others addressed the meeting and the feelings of the community were aroused to a high pitch of excitement. Visitors came in throngs from all parts of the city to see the prisoners, sympathize with them and make their imprisonment comfortable. One of the most remarkable demonstrations was in favor of Mr. Fitch, of Oberlin, who had been superintendent of the Congregational Sunday school there for sixteen years. The children, numbering 400, came to Cleveland in a body, filling the jail and the corridors during their visit to their beloved superintendent. President James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, thus describes an attempt to get two of the prisoners from the Jurisdiction of the Federal Court through the agency of the State Supreme Court : "A writ of habeas corpus was granted by one of the judges of the Supreme Court, commanding the sheriff to bring Bushnell and Langston before that court that the reason for their imprisonment might be considered. The case was ably argued at Columbus for a week, but the court, three to two, declined to grant a release. This was a severe blow to the men in jail. They had counted with much confidence upon relief from that quarter. It is idle to speculate upon the possible results if a single judge had held a different opinion. Salmon P. Chase was governor at the time, and it was well understood that he would sustain a decision 224 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY releasing the prisoners by all the powers at his command ; and the United States Government was as fully committed to the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. This would have placed Ohio in conflict with the General Government in defense of State Rights, and if the party of freedom throughout the North had rallied, as seemed possible, the war might have come in 1858 instead of 1861, with a secession of the northern instead of the southern states. A single vote apparently turned the scale, and after a little delay the party of freedom took possession of the government and the party of slavery became the seceders." But as no sufficient proof of title to the slave, John Price, had been presented by the claimant who had issued his power of attorney to the Kentuckians, on the 6th of July, 1858, the prisoners were all released. The four men who had seized him and had been indicted on the charge of kidnaping in Lorain County, became alarmed. So, by mutual consent, all further proceedings were dropped. On their arrival at their home town, on the same day, the Oberlin men were escorted to the First Congregational Church where, until midnight, the people of the village gave way to their enthusiasm in the form of song and prayer. CAME IN THE '60s AND '70s Of a later generation of lawyers than those mentioned was Elizur G. Johnson, who was admitted to the bar in 1861 and resided in La Grange until he was elected county auditor in 1869. At the conclusion of his term in 1876 he commenced practice at the county seat. Other lawyers who commenced practice at the -Lorain County bar in the '60s include Iral L. Webster, whose headquarters were at Oberlin ; Norman L. Johnson, Charles Downing and P. H. Boynton. Those of the '70s embrace such as J. M. Hord, Winslow L. Fay, E. H. Hinman (North Amherst), David J. Nye, Walter F. Herrick, who had previously been a colonel in the Union army and a member of the State Legislature for several terms; John H. Faxon, who had served two terms as sheriff in the '40s and two terms in the Legislature in the '70s just before commencing practice in Elyria ; G. C. Jeffries, E. C. Manter and J. C. Hill ; Fred Webster, who also had an Oberlin office; and Roswell G. Horr, formerly county clerk. J. C. HILL Mr. Hill was admitted to the bar about 1862, came to Elyria with Hon. John C. Hale. After practicing a short time he went into the cattle business, afterwards into the nursery business, and in 1872 helped to organize the predecessor of the Savings Deposit. Bank & Trust Corn- HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 225 pany and has continued as cashier and president of that bank up to the present time. He has now retired as president, but is chairman of the board of directors, an honorary position. While he has not been in active practice of the law, he has done most of the legal business of the bank. ROSWELL G. HORR Roswell G. Horr was clerk of the Common Pleas Court of Lorain County from 1858 to 1864, and at the expiration of his term was admitted to practice. He formed a partnership with John C. Hale, but after two years of practice moved to Missouri and subsequently to East Saginaw, Michigan. He became prominent in the politics of the latter state and served creditably in Congress, being elected the first time in November, 1878. RETROSPECT OF THE EARLIER BAR About 1880, the following suggestive and interesting review was made of the Lorain County bar : "Ten of its members have been elevated to the bench (aside from probate judges) and held fifteen different judicial positions, viz.: Frederick Whittlesey, common pleas judge in Ohio; Philemon Bliss, common pleas judge in Ohio, territorial chief justice of Dakota and supreme judge of Missouri ; William F. Lockwood, territorial judge of Nebraska and common pleas judge in Ohio; Eleazer Wakeley, territorial judge of Nebraska ; Cyrus Olney, judge in Iowa; S. Bagg, circuit and district judge in Iowa.; S. Burke, common pleas judge in Ohio ; George B. Lake, supreme judge of Nebraska ; W. W. Boynton, common pleas and supreme judge in Ohio, and John C. Hale, common pleas and circuit judge in Ohio. "Four Lorain lawyers have been members of Congress, holding in all eight terms : E. S. Hamlin, one term ; Philemon Bliss, two terms; Lionel A. Sheldon, three terms, and E. D. Holbrook (delegate), two terms. "The bar furnished one of the delegates, Mr. Clark, to the constitutional convention of 1851, and the single representative, Mr. Hale, to that of 1873. Two former Lorain lawyers are lecturers in law schools—Judge Bliss and Mr. Langston—and two, Judge Bliss and Mr. Tiffany, are authors of legal treatises. "So far as the writer has been able to learn, Philemon Bliss seems to have held the largest number of important official positions ; two, terms in Congress and (including probate judgeships) five different judicial positions. To Mr. Myers belongs the distinction of having been the longest at the bar, from 1844 to 1877. The next longest, and Vol. I-15 226 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY by far the longest practice of the leading lawyers of the bar, was that of H. D. Clark, from 1834 to 1865." BENCH AND BAR SINCE 1880 For the past forty years, or more, there have been many changes in the personnel of the bench and bar of Lorain County, both in the natural order of nature and because of the great industrial development and marked increase of wealth and general culture outside of Elyria. The bar of Lorain, for instance, has had marked accessions to its membership and strength even since the early '90s, and corporation practice, especially, which forty years ago was virtually unknown to the county bar, is now a large and profitable field. In the earlier times, when an Elyria, Lorain, Oberlin, Amherst or Wellington lawyer became ambitious to enter a broader practice than he could establish at home, he considered that his only hope to realize larger things was to move to Cleveland. That has not been the case for the past twenty or twenty-five years; members of the Lorain bar have not been forced from the home field to obtain business commensurate with the best talent and the highest professional ambition. HON. DAVID J. NYE, VETERAN ACTIVE PRACTITIONER Judge David J. Nye is, since the retirement of Judge Boynton, the veteran of the Lorain bench and bar, and he has been far longer in continuous service both as a lawyer and judge in Lorain County than any member of his profession. His home record dates from April, 1873, one year after his admission to the bar and his return from Kansas, where his professional career commenced. Judge Nye is a native of New York, of old Vermont stock, his parents spending most of their years in the rugged farming district of Western New York. His first taste of education outside the district schools was at Randolph Academy, and from 1863 to 1866 he taught both in New York and Northern Ohio. Cuyahoga, Summit and Erie counties were the western fields of his labors in that line. In 1867 he entered Oberlin College and during the succeeding four years was both teacher and student. During his senior year he served as superintendent of schools at Milan, Erie County, and at the same time prosecuted his law studies. Judge Nye graduated from Oberlin College in 1871, returned to Milan to resume his work as superintendent of schools, and in August, 1872, was admitted to the bar at Elyria. After a brief residence at Emporia, Kansas, where he commenced practice, in March, 1873, he returned to the county seat and continued his studies in the office of HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 227 John C. Hale. In 1874 he established himself at Elyria and has since been active and progressive either at the bar or on the bench. In July, 1891, the republican members of the bar selected Judge 'Nye as the party candidate for the common pleas bench; he was elected in the following November and took his seat in February, 1892, and his service in that capacity during the succeeding decade is well indicated by the fact that only one criminal case which came before him was reversed by the higher courts. One important case tried before him involved the right to have debts deducted from national bank stock for taxation. Judge Nye held such deductions were inadmissible under the laws of Ohio. This decision was subsequently affirmed by the State Supreme Court and by the Supreme Court of the United States. Since retiring from the bench, Judge Nye has devoted himself to his extensive private practice and varied business interests. In 1912 he served as a member of the fourth constitutional convention. He is one of the most prominent Masons in the country. Other details than those given in this sketch, which has been virtually confined to his career as a lawyer and a judge, will be found elsewhere. HON. CLARENCE G. WASHBURN Clarence G. Washburn, who served by appointment and election as judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1904 to 1913, represents the younger generation of his profession, as lie is now in his forty-ninth year. A native of Huron County, Ohio, his parents were New Yorkers who came to the Buckeye State from their farm near Syracuse. Judge Washburn spent his years until he reached young manhood in the Village of Greenwich, Huron County, and in the State of Kansas. He pursued his law studies under private instruction and at the University of Michigan, being graduated from the latter in June, 1892. He commenced practice at Lorain, where he also served as village solicitor, and in 1896 was elected clerk of the courts. In the following year he moved to Elyria to assume his official duties, and was re-elected to that position in 1899. He returned to practice in the fall of 1903, but in 1904 was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas and, by successive elections, served until February, 1913. The foregoing simple record is sufficient., without comment. Judge Washburn's wife, who, before her marriage had been a deputy in the probate office of Huron County, and who afterward assisted her husband when he was serving as clerk of the Lorain County courts, was admitted to the bar herself in 1896, but. never engaged in active practice. CHAPTER XII DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS DR. NORTON S. TOWNSHEND-JOHN HENRY BARROWS. BARROWS' MOTHER-HIS ANTE-OBERLIN CAREER-THROUGH THE EYES OF DAUGHTER AND FATHER- COLONEL CHARLES WHITTLESE Y-JUDGE CHARLES CANDEE BALDWIN-LUCY STONE AND ANTOINETTE BROWN -GENERAL QUINCY ADAMS GILLMORE-A MORAL AS WELL AS PATRIOTIC HERO-HON. MYRON T. HERRICK-FRANK H. HITCHCOCK. Although a majority of those who achieve distinction in political or public life have a legal training and have therefore largely figured in the preceding chapter, Lorain County presents several notable exceptions. Some of its distinguished characters are natives; others have resided within its bounds only a few years at different periods of their lives: some have laid the basis of a hardy constitution on its farms and in its rural communities; others have obtained their first intellectual stimulus from its schools of higher learning; both white and black, men and women, have gone out into the world from Lorain County and made fine records for themselves and the towns, cities or institutions which have touched their lives. DR. NORTON S. TOWNSHEND For more than a quarter of a century, the late Dr. Norton S. Townshend was one of the most prominent citizens of Northern Ohio and, although he was a successful and skillful physician and surgeon, his public services much overshadowed his professional career. Dr. Townshend was of English parentage, and when the boy was fourteen years of age the family settled on a beautiful farm in Avon Township. In his early youth he evinced an active intellect and a pronounced literary talent, but when twenty-one years of age, in 1837, entered the office of Dr. R. L. Howard, of Elyria, as a student. of medicine. In the fall and winter of 1837 Dr. Townshend attended a course of medical lectures in Cincinnati, returned to Elyria to continue his private - 228 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 229 studies, and in the fall of 1839 commenced his final course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. Soon after graduating therefrom, in the spring of 1840, he sailed for Europe and spent the succeeding year and a half attending the hospitals and clinics of Paris, London, Edinburgh and Dublin. He then returned to Ohio and, for a short time, practiced in Avon, but in 1843, soon after his marriage to Miss Harriet Wood, located at Elyria. His broad education and professional skill at once brought him practice, and while thus actively engaged he performed a number of such capital surgical operations as lithotomy and amputations of the thigh and shoulder. But Dr. Townshend's mind was too active and his ambitions too broad for him to confine himself to the labors and honors of the profession. Locally, his influence was quickly felt. For example, he was prominent in organizing the Elyria Natural History Society, and delivered numerous and able lectures before it. Whenever a speaker failed to appear, the doctor was substituted and was always ready to deliver a most interesting and instructive address. In 1848 the Free Soil party elected Dr. Townshend to the lower house of the State Legislature. He and John F. Morse, of Lake County, were the only members of that party elected to the body named, and also held the balance of power between the whigs and democrats. Messrs. Townshend and Morse were therefore able to wield considerable political power and, with the aid of the democracy, secured the repeal of the notorious Black Laws. They also threw the senatorial election in favor of Salmon P. Chase and launched him on his career as a famous American, as well as brought about the appointment of several anti-slavery men to prominent positions in the State of Ohio. Doctor Townshend's record in the State House of Representatives gave him so much prominence that he became a member of the constitutional convention of 1851, having already commenced his term as a representative of the Thirty-second Congress. In both bodies he added to his standing as a leader of state and national sentiment. As he was only thirty-five when he was sent to Congress, he was considered rather as an inexperienced upstart, especially by the dignified and elderly members from the South who virtually controlled the lower house. Being a rabid abolitionist, the young doctor was truly a popular target for the representatives of slavery, but their shafts rebounded. Among others, Representative Stanley of North Carolina attacked him in a bitter speech, to which the doctor replied with such effect that the southern gentleman named was usually referred to thereafter as "the late Mr. Stanley." In 1853 Doctor Townshend was elected to the State Senate. During, 230 - STORY OF RAIN COUNTY the session he introduced a bill to establish an asylum for imbecile children and youth. It passed at the next session, and he was appointed a members of the board of trustees, holding the position by reappointment until 1878. In 1858, while living on his farm in Avon (the family homestead), he was elected a member of the State Board of Agriculture. He continued in that office for eight years, being elected twice as president of the board. In 1863-5 he served as medical inspector in the Union Army, with rank of colonel of cavalry. The year 1867, when he accepted a professorship in the Iowa Agricultural College, marks the end of his continuous residence of more than twenty years in Elyria, for even when engaged in army service he considered that city as his home. But he only remained about two years in Iowa, and in 1870 secured the passage of the law to establish an agricultural and mechanical college for Ohio. He was appointed a trustee of the institution, and accepted a professorship therein when the college was opened in 1873 He then moved. with his family to Columbus. The doctor's first wife .died in 1854, and he was subsequently married to Miss Margaret A. Baily, of Clarksburg, Virginia. JOHN HENRY BARROWS Rev. John Henry Barrows assumed the presidency in November. 1898, and continued at the head of Oberlin College affairs until his death, June 3, 1902. He was the first president of that institution to die in office, his decease occurring about two months after the passing away of his predecessor, President Fairchild. It is probable that no president of Oberlin College enjoyed so cosmopolitan a. reputation as Doctor Barrows, his name being honored by scholars and religionists of two hemispheres. He first came into world-notice as president of the great Congress of Religions at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, and afterwards extended his fame by the profound lectures in the promotion of religion which he delivered from Calcutta, India, to San Francisco, California. As a preacher, orator, scholar and college executive he had few equals in the United States. In 1904 Doctor Barrows' daughter, Mary Eleanor Barrows, published a memorial volume of her father, a loving, simple and complete tribute to his intellectual and spiritual greatness—greatness spiritually. in the sense of height and depth. of being. That hook, to which all are referred who wish to truly know the broad president of Oberlin College, traces many of his remarkable gifts to the father, John Manning Barrows, who received his early and liberal education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, New York, and Oberlin College, and HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 231 from Catherine Moore (Barrows), a learned, wise and tender mother, also drawn from the East to that unique home of physical, intellectual and moral equality in what was then the West. They met at Oberlin as students, when the institute was sending forth its first graduates, and as man and wife, father and mother, fought slavery together for many years, and preached and taught various communities in New York, Ohio and Michigan. DOCTOR BARROWS' MOTHER Doctor Barrows himself once wrote of his mother thus: "She was born in Saratoga County, New York, and taught a district school before she had reached the age of fifteen. She was converted in Troy by the personal ministry of Reverend Fayette Shipherd, a. brother of the founder of Oberlin. Being hungry for a college education, she went to her father and said, ' Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me that I may go West, where Professor Charles G. Finney is ;' and she went. It was a journey of four hundred miles or more that she made in a stage coach to reach the forests of the Western Reserve, there to undergo the trials, the sickness, and the hardship and to gain the inspiration of student life in those stirring early days of Oberlin. It was a time when bean soup was deemed dainty fare, when a slab boarding house was a palace of ease, and when ornaments of all kinds on the person of a young lady were indications of a carnal heart. My mother acquired some linguistic learning which nearly all vanished in later pioneer hardships. She read the New Testament through in Greek. Besides studying Latin and attaining a good knowledge of French, she read thirty chapters of the book of Genesis in Hebrew, and I think used to hush her children to sleep by repeating the deep-toned, full voweled opening words of the old Bible. But better than the language taught was the earnest spirit breathed from the brave lives of those pioneer teachers who helped to make Oberlin perhaps the greatest single factor in the evangelization of the West. Their theology did not square altogether with the Westminster Confession, but it made revivalists, reformers, and public spirited citizens. The ambition of the early Oberlin students, exemplified by my mother as completely as by any other person I ever knew, was to be nobly useful, to sell their lives for the greatest possible good." DOCTOR BARROWS' ANTE-OBERLIN CAREER Rev. John M. Barrows, the father, was graduated from the theological department of Oberlin College in 1838. Nine years afterward, John 232 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY Henry Barrows, the son, was born in a log cabin about five miles from Medina, Lenawee County, Michigan, the fourth of five children, all but one of whom were boys. The career of that son as student, teacher and minister, in the East and the West, during which a broad and brotherly outlook was being evolved in his personality, cannot be traced in detail. The fifteen years of his life in Chicago constituted a period of continuous advancement and expansion, and culminated in his elevation to the chairmanship of the Parliament of Religions, held as an auxiliary of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and his appointment soon afterward to the Haskell and Barrows lectureship of the University of Chicago. Then followed his pilgrimage to India and Japan in the interest of a world brotherhood of religious beliefs. The last three years of his life, which was one of the highest historic examples of true culture, are those which are sacred to Oberlin College and so closely concern this history of Lorain County. THROUGH THE EYES OF DAUGHTER AND FATHER Fortunately Doctor Barrows' daughter has accorded generous space to her father's connection with the institution which gave both of iris parents such an intellectual and moral impetus when they were entering the mysteries and responsibilities of parenthood. We therefore extract from her "Memoir" the following pertinent paragraphs : "In November, 1898, he received a unanimous and pressing call to the presidency of Oberlin College. This was accompanied by the promise of the trustees to cooperate- with him in raising the standard of scholarship, in putting the college on a firmer financial basis, in broadening its ideals, and in giving it a more commanding place among educational institutions. Those of his friends that were not Congregationalists advised him to decline this invitation. They believed the college to be so provincial in its ideas and so conservative in its policy as to make sure and rapid progress doubtful. It was true that Oberlin had been long without a president, had lost some of its earlier prestige, had cut down its courses, had a large annual deficit, many dissatisfied alumni, and was falling off in the number of its students. To accept this call meant that he must leave the city that he loved, relinquish his freedom and the large income that his lectures brought him, and assume grave responsibilities and some uncongenial duties. He had no friends among Oberlin's trustees and but two acquaintances on its faculty. It was perhaps the only large college in the country that he had never addressed. But he was very familiar with Oberlin's emphasis upon justice and social service, and with the signal devotion and sacrifice HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 233 that had made its history sacred; to quote his own words: 'With very limited means it has done an almost unlimited work. More than thirty thousand men and women have come as students under Oberlin training, and these people, scattered as teachers and citizens through almost every village and city of Ohio and the Middle West, and even the far West, have done an incalculable service for the higher life of the country. Oberlin was the first college to admit women to equal and common privileges with men in the classical collegiate education. It opened its doors to students, irrespective of race, and was foremost in the Antislavery agitation which led up to the Civil War and the act of Emancipation. It may justly be deemed the historic college of the West, standing at the center of the moral and spiritual forces which have shaped our newer civilization. It is intimately linked with the lifework of President Finney, that epoch-making force in modern Christendom. Three presidents of the United States—Hayes, Garfield and McKinley—have spoken in emphatic eulogy of what this college has wrought for the higher life of the country. The late General Jacob D. Cox has shown that it was the mighty and incessant work of the Oberlin reformers and the thousands of Oberlin students who went forth as teachers, lecturers, and missionaries that turned the scales in the Antislavery contest, led to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the gigantic results which followed, making for Union and Freedom. America owes a great debt, not yet paid, to this historic college. Oberlin students have been active doers in all the field of the world's work, not only as preachers and teachers in the North, but in foreign mission lands, among the Indians, and among the African race in the Southern States and in the West Indies. What Edward Everett Hale has called "the most democratic and cosmopolitan college in the country" possesses such strong traditions and stands for such an earnest type of character that its moral endowment is already large.' "Unfortunately for the success of his friends' persuasions, he went with my mother to Oberlin, to survey the field and lecture to the college. And it came to pass when he looked into the faces of a thousand students while the foot ball captain led the cheering in his honor, that boyhood memories rushed back upon him, the opportunity seemed large, and one of those decisive spiritual experiences common to him in crises of his life marked this college presidency as the duty to which God now called him. He took up his new work on the first of January, 1899, and his own words spoken at different times tell of the college's attractions for him, his hope for its future, and his sympathy with its ideals. " 'As many, reading the last chapter of Drummond's "Ascent of Man," have exclaimed, "Oh, for some one to take up and carry forward 234 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY his fine and stimulating suggestions, and show the later and higher evolution of man in recorded history !" so, as I have reviewed what has already been accomplished in Oberlin, and now behold this hungry, aspiring, unfinished college world, the strong appeal comes to me to take up and carry on this work and place it upon some loftier and more radiant tableland. " ' The founders of Oberlin dared, for man's sake and for Christ's sake, to be peculiar. Surely this has been the distinctive mark of the leaders of our race, for nothing except sin reduces the grandeur of human life like inert gregariousness, the making of one's self like everyone else. The world needs more men and women in the conflicts of this generation who bravely listen to God, who are not cheated out of their better selves either by the subtle temptations of sin, or by "the dull fool's palsying sneer," and who have not been smoothed down into well-shaven formalists. " 'In going to Oberlin I feel, in one sense, that I am going home. It was at Oberlin that my father and mother first came to know and love each other, and from Oberlin have come the chief forces that have shaped my life. " 'Oberlin possesses, in a large measure, the ideals which I have always preached, the ideals of true brotherhood, real democracy, freedom from artificial temptations, zeal for service, devotion to higher education, intellectual liberty, independent and intelligent patriotism, and consecration to the expansion of the divine kingdom among men, ideals which are supported by the fresh young life of the students and by the beautiful spirit of the community. All good things seem possible in a college with such a history.' "His efforts were not simply verbal. Never was he more skillful than now in rallying men about him to produce desired effects. At times he travelled so continually that he would write home, ' The heading for this week's chapter is "Six nights in a sleeping-car." ' During the brief three and a half years allotted to him, he called on hundreds of possible Oberlin supporters all over the country and gave more than four hundred sermons and speeches mostly before teachers' associations, schools, and colleges. By this means he spread Oberlin's influence, made her many new friends, and attracted to her both more students and more kinds of students. Under his inspiration nearly $600,000. not including gifts for buildings, were added to the college resources; this sum not only removed the annual deficit, but made it possible to retain men of power already in the faculty and to add to their number. Through the generosity of Lucien C. Warner, Louis H. Severance and D. Willis James, a Men's Gymnasium and a Chemical Laboratory were HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 235 built, and the money secured for a Memorial Arch. Other results of his leadership were the better adjustment of the college requirements to the best secondary schools, closer harmony with the usages of the foremost American colleges, the establishment of graduate scholarships as incentives to advanced study, considerable modifications of student regulations in the interests of larger liberty, the appointment of a College Dean and a College Secretary, more ample provision for the teaching of the English language and literature, the strengthening or sifting out of poor students, by means of a committee on deficient scholarship, and a reunion of all Oberlin alumni, the special feature of which was the discussion of burning educational topics by representative men from American universities. He gave courses of lectures to Freshmen, on John Frederick Oberlin, Books, and Methods of Study ; to Seniors, on Ethics, to the Seminary, on Comparative Religions. He was glad to add to the college's notable collection of photographs and to lecture in connection with their exhibition. He brought many of his distinguished friends to speak to the student body. He took a lively interest in the College Glee Club, athletics, oratory and debates. To the Oberlin Conservatory of Music he gave his hearty commendation. He was grateful not only for its excellent routine work, but for its service to the church music, its support of a great chorus, and the eminent musician that it regularly brought before Oberlin audiences. By means of the hospitality to which he was given, he stimulated social life among students and faculty and brought the community and college into more cordial relations. " The losses of the college, through the deaths of some of its trustees and teachers, he made his own. He said at President Fairchild's funeral : 'For three years I have been a message-bearer from groups of alumni in different parts of the country, who have sent him through me their messages of grateful and reverent love. It was pleasant to see the quiet joy in his face that reflected all the Beatitudes. A few days ago I brought to him a grateful message from his friends in Southern California. I could not remain, as the physician was in waiting, to tell him all that I had to say and his last words to me (and how significant they are) were these: "We'll talk over the rest of it later." Those words are a comfort to all of us. We shall not see this Master in our Israel again on the streets which he made radiant by his presence, but it is his faith and ours that the fellowships of time are to be continued beyond. From the passing days he took not their poorest, but their best gifts ; not a few herbs and apples, but the stars and kingdoms of the soul, and the sky that holds them all.' "He suffered deeply over the Shansi Martyrs and rejoiced in their 236 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY monument to be erected in Oberlin by the American Board of Foreign Missions, of which he was now a corporate member. 'But their most glorious memorial,' he declared, 'shall be the regeneration of an empire and the speedier conquest of the world.' "On December 31, 1901, he returned from Cleveland very happy at the successful end of a movement in which Oberlin had been engaged, to raise $300,000, and thereby secure $200,000 more, that Mr. Rockefeller had offered conditionally. But he was tired and the following months brought him little rest, which may partly account for his declination of an invitation to take charge of all the congresses in connection with the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. His engagements carried him to California where he gave thirty-six addresses, among them the first course of Earl lectures before the Pacific Theological Seminary. According to his letters both Berkeley and Stanford have 'vast outlooks into the twentieth century. One is overwhelmed on the Pacific Coast by the possibilities of the American future.' "Most of March, April, and May he spent in Oberlin, glad to be working at home, to entertain his faculty with a series of dinners, and to give the Baccalaureate Sermon before the Theological Seminary. On May 18th he preached in his old Chicago pulpit, on 'Lessons from the Life of John Frederick Oberlin.' This sermon, which joined his old life to his new, was his last address. From Chicago he went to New Haven to a banquet in honor of Professor Fisher, and thence to the meeting of the General Assembly in New York where he rejoiced over the final action concerning the Revision of the Westminster Confession. On his way home, he was prostrated by an illness that proved to be pneumonia, complicated by pericarditis. This resulted in his death the morning of June 3rd, ten days later. "During his illness the anxious crowds before the bulletin board from seven in the morning until eleven at night, the grave faces and hushed voices of students, faculty, and townspeople, bore witness to the love in which he was held. The students gathered in a mass meeting and sent him the following message : 'We, the student body of Oberlin College, send to our dear president our fullest sympathy and our prayer in this great need. You have stood not alone for the Oberlin ideals of Christian character and democracy, but you have stood also for their realization in the broadest, most liberal. and most modern form. You have ever been to us all that a noble president could be, and we pray that God will spare you to us. We could not bear for our own sake that you should lack now this simple expression of our affection that is ever yours.' Such messages as this and letters and telegrams from absent friends filled his last days with happiness. As he struggled HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 237 heroically with pain, that farewell week, his devotion to the college for which he had spent himself, and his tireless thoughtfulness of almost countless friends, were hourly evident. He left loving messages for scores of people, remembering by name famous preachers, men of affairs, parishioners both rich and lowly, struggling students, his Oberlin faculty, his hosts and hostesses in distant places, missionaries to far lands, and many more. He did not forget his little girls in his Lemon and Soda Society and requested that their yearly dues be doubled when his goodbye was sent. them. He asked, too, that his body might rest in Oberlin and that Manning might be placed beside him. He faced death wittingly, with the blessed peace of one about to gain the crown of life. "His burial was princely. For three days no college classes met, and all Oberlin business was suspended the morning of his funeral. This was held on June fifth, in the Second Church of Oberlin. The speakers were his minister, Dr. H. M. Tenney, the dean of the college, Professor Henry C. King, who has since become his successor, and Dr. L. C. Warner of Oberlin's Board of Trustees. Their loving words, the wonderful display of flowers sent from many places, and the strains of the Gounod Sanctus and Benedictus sung by grieving students, helped to soften and ennoble the hard fact of death and to express the sorrow of the Oberlin community and of business men, educators, divines, and othcr friends who had assembled from afar. "The casket was carried from the church to Westwood Cemetery by seventy-two young men of the four college classes. As one of his faculty has written : 'He showed to his students cverywhere such courtesy, such an interest in their sports, their studies, their spiritual welfare, they could not but feel that he was their friend. It was fitting that he should be tenderly borne to his grave by their strong arms,—relay succeeding relay, and all eagerly giving this proof of their love. As they passed through our streets between its crowds of spectators, their gracious service reminded us of a similar scene depicted by Browning in "A Grammarian's Funeral :" " "This is our master, famous, calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders." ' "On the first anniversary of his death, students covered his grave with flowers. The stone that marks his quiet resting place beside his oldest son, bears these words : " 'He gave His body to this pleasant country's earth, And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long.' " 238 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY COL. CHARLES WHITTLESEY No one person has ever been connected longer or more prominently with historical and archeological research in the Western Reserve than Col. Charles Whittlesey, who, a young man, first settled in Brownhelm Township as a pioneer woodsman and builder. He was a graduate of West Point; fought in the Black Hawk war of 1831-32; in 1839 was connected with the first Ohio Geological Survey ; later, made a thorough examination of the ancient earthworks of the state, and in the late '40s made a geological survey of what became the famous Lake Superior copper region. In the Civil war he was colonel of the Twentieth Ohio Regiment and chief engineer of the Department of Ohio, on the second day of the battle of Shiloh being in command of a brigade and especially commended for bravery. After retiring from the army, Colonel Whittlesey again turned his attention to the exploration of the Lake Superior region and the upper Mississippi Basin. In 1867 he organized the Western Reserve Historical Society, with headquarters in Cleveland, his residence, and remained its president until his death in 1886. JUDGE CHARLES CANDEE BALDWIN Judge Charles C. Baldwin, who passed his boyhood in Elyria, was far more than a member of the bench and bar of Cuyahoga County. With Col. Charles Whittlesey, he was one of the founders of the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland, and succeeded his friend and co-worker as president, at the death of Colonel Whittlesey in 1886. Both were widely known for their historical, anthropological and antiquarian researches and publications, and were ever ready to encourage and assist others in such fields. At Judge Baldwin's death in Cleveland, February 2, 1895, when he had but just entered his sixty-first year, he had achieved a high reputation as a lawyer, a judge, a financier, a man of practical affairs and a deep scholar. He was a man of tireless industry, positive in his views, even aggressive in his temperament, but withal so sympathetic, helpful, straightforward and friendly that, although he had antagonists, he made no enemies. Charles Candee Baldwin was born December 2, 1834, at Middletown, Connecticut. His parents were Seymour Wesley Baldwin and Mary Candee Baldwin. Early in the seventeenth century, the Baldwins were a prominent family in Aylesbury, England, from which place most of them emigrated to Connecticut in 1637; Sylvester, the direct ancestor of Judge Baldwin, dying, however, on shipboard before reaching his destination. Mrs. Baldwin was a bright, attractive, and intelligent HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 239 young woman, of a French Huguenot family early in Connecticut, and descended, through her mother, from such worthies as William Pynchon, the first treasurer of the Massachusetts colony and the founder of Springfield ; Captain Wadsworth, who hid the Connecticut charter ; and the famous secretary, John Allyn, of that colony. In every line, the ancestry of Mr. Baldwin is purely Connecticut for 200 years. When Charles was five months old, his parents moved to Elyria, Ohio. A considerable part of the journey was made by boat on the Erie Canal, at that time the most luxurious mode of travel. The crowded condition of the boat made it necessary for many ladies to sleep upon the floor of the ladies' cabin, and it was with the greatest difficulty that a berth was secured for the infant and his mother—a favor, which we are told, was the more readily granted because of the lusty use which he made of his untrained vocal powers. In 1834 Northern Ohio was mainly a wilderness. The first clearings in the forests of Lorain County by white settlers had been effected less than twenty-five years before, but scarcely any progress was made in settlement until after the War of 1812. Elyria was not occupied by settlers until 1817. Though the accessions to the population from then on were unusually rapid for those times, the dense forests yielded slowly to the woodman's ax ; so that it is related that when Charles was two years old he was lost in the woods where the Elyria depot now stands. Judge Baldwin's father was a most energetic, successful and highly respected merchant in Elyria from 1835 to 1847. During this period there is little direct. knowledge of the boy's experience ; but from a description of the times which Judge Baldwin gives in a biography of his father much can be learned indirectly concerning the history of that formative portion of his life. The trade of a merchant was at that time chiefly conducted by barter. Potash in its various forms, derived from leaching the ashes obtained by burning the heavy timber, constituted the chief article of commerce with the East, and was considered as good as cash. Much lumber was also sent by way of the Erie Canal to New York. The dry goods and groceries were brought with great difficulty after the close of navigation, and Mr. Baldwin's father displayed his energy in highest degree in overcoming these difficulties of prompt transportation. All this was well calculated to impress the mind of a boy in his teens, as were also the scenes which he constantly witnessed about his father's store. "Elyria in those days," writes Judge Baldwin, "was a sight to see. The farmer came over the road with his heavy wagon, frequently with oxen, for twenty-five miles, bringing part. of his family and such 240 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY articles as he had to sell, and doing the trade for the spring and the fall. The street at midday would be full of wagons, there often being one hundred, more or less." The perplexities of the merchant were increased during this period by the terrible financial crisis of 1837, and Seymour Baldwin was one of the few who passed through it without failure. The impress of such a father was indelible upon the mind of the son, while the importance of energy and perseverance was emphasized by the loving, but faithful pressure of parental discipline. Judge Baldwin frequently said he never could forget the lessons of perseverance which his father taught him by insisting that when he was sent for the cows he must not come home without them, but must overcome his timidity and look in every nook and corner of the pasture until they were found—a habit of action which was pre-eminent throughout all his later life. A little more than a year after reaching Elyria, Charles' mother died, leaving his brother, David, an infant five days old. After a time their father married for a second wife Miss Fidelia Hall, who thus came into the care of these small children. Of her Judge Baldwin wrote that she was as gentle and conscientious as any mother could be. In 1847 the family returned to Connecticut, and resided for nine years in Meriden. During this period, when fourteen years of age, Charles entered a boarding school 'in Middletown to prepare for college. Among his companions at that time, and one with whom he maintained pleasant association in late life, was the distinguished historian, John Fiske. At the age .of sixteen, Charles entered Wesleyan University, Middletown, graduating with honor in August, 1855, at the age of twenty. Among his classmates was Justice Brewer, late of the Supreme Court of the United States. Immediately upon graduating from college, young Baldwin entered Harvard Law School, taking the degree of LL. B., in 1857. LUCY STONE AND ANTOINETTE BROWN Lucy Stone, of Massachusetts, one of the earliest and most eloquent of the pioneers in the equal-rights movement, graduated from Oberlin in 1847. During her four years' course, she supported herself partly by teaching in the long vacations and partly by doing housework in the Ladies' Boarding Hall at 3 cents an hour. She was an active propagandist of anti-slavery and woman's rights doctrine among the students, and was regarded as a dangerous character by the more conservative professors, although, as one of them said to her many years after, "You know we always liked you, Lucy !" Antoinette Brown of HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 241 New York, who afterwards became the first ordained woman minister, was also an Oberlin student, and she and Lucy Stone organized there the first debating club ever formed among college women. The young men had to hold debates, as part of their work in rhetoric. The young women were required to be present, in order to help form an audience for the young men, but they were not allowed to take part. Lucy Stone was intending to lecture and Antoinette Brown to preach. They wanted the practice in public speaking. They and some others petitioned that the girls should be allowed to share in the debates. With many misgivings, the authorities allowed them to take part in one. It proved an unusually brilliant one, but the faculty decided that it was contrary to St. Paul for women to speak, and that it must not happen again. An old colored woman who owned a small house, and whom Lucy Stone had taught to read, consented to let them meet in her parlor. Coming by one and two at a time, so as not to attract notice, the debating club used to assemble there and discuss all sorts of high subjects. In summer they sometimes met secretly in the woods. When Lucy Stone graduated, she was invited to write an essay to be read at commencement, but she was told that one of the professors would have to read it for her, as it was not proper for a woman's voice to be heard in public. Rather than to consent to this, she declined to write it. Many years after, when Oberlin celebrated its semi-centennial, she was invited to be one of the speakers on that great occasion. GEN. QUNCY ADAMS GILLMORE Among the famous residents of Lorain County were Generals Quincy A. Gillmore and Charles C. Parsons, and it happened that both achieved their greatest war fame in the artillery service of the Union Army during the Civil war. Quincy Adams Gillmore was born at Black River, in 1825. After attending Norwalk Academy and Elyria High School, he began to study medicine and wrote for publication. There was a vacancy at West Point and the boys appointed failed to pass. In the search for a suitable candidate, Gillmore was recommended because of his integrity and scholarship. He was not in the neighborhood at the time of the arrival of the messenger who sought him, who therefore passed Black River to seek other likely young men of military ambitions. But word was soon brought to young Gillmore, who promptly mounted his horse and gave chase, overtaking his man in time to secure the appointment. In 1849 he graduated from the West Point Academy at the head of his class and entered the service. Vol. I-16 242 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY General Gillmore's fame as an artillery officer was established during the siege and capture of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, in 1862. At that historic siege and bombardment he planted his batteries at distances which, previous to that time, were thought to be suicidal, but in less than two days he reduced the fortress which had been pronounced by eminent engineers as impregnable. It is often claimed that General Gillmore's cannonade and capture of Fort Pulaski revolutionized the naval gunnery of the world, and extended his fame throughout Europe as well as America. For that service he received the brevet of lieutenant colonel and was made brigadier general of volunteers April 28, 1862. His next notable success was with the noted "Swamp Angel," a gun used in the siege of Charleston. The gun was apparently planted in the edge of the sea, but really in the shallow marsh between Morris and James islands. There a firm foundation was laid. a low breastwork built around the gun, and 100-pound shells were dropped into Charleston. But it was only fired thirty-six times, exploding at the last discharge. Other guns soon after did as effective work, but the "Swamp Angel" is remembered because it first proved the practicability of the method. Later, General Gillmore, with the Tenth Corps, took part in the final operations of the Army of the James River. He received brevets of brigadier general and major general for services before Charleston, resigning his volunteer commission as major general in December, 1865. After the war, General Gillmore was engaged upon important engineering works, and his name is closely associated with the improvement of the Charleston and Savannah harbors, with other like works along the Atlantic Coast and, as president of the Mississippi River Commission, with the great works which were projected for the rectification of that great waterway. His treatises on Road Making and Paving are regarded as the highest authority. He was breveted four times for meritorious conduct, upon the last occasion as major general of the United States Army "for gallant and meritorious conduct in capturing Forts Wagner and Gregg and for the demolition of Fort Sumter." Although after the war he bought the old home farm at. Black River and converted it into a vineyard, he spent much of the later period of his life in the East, and died at Brooklyn, New York, in 1888. A MORAL, AS WELL AS PATRIOTIC HERO Gen. Charles C. Parsons was born in Elyria in 1838, graduated from Wst Point in 1861, and soon afterward was placed in command of a battery which became famous both in the Union and Confederate HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 243 armies. After the war he became chief of artillery in General Hancock's Indian expeditions, but later took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church. His death occurred at Memphis, September 7, 1879, and was directly traceable to overwork during the terrible yellow fever epidemic of that year. His end proved him to be a moral, as well as a patriotic hero. Charles Carroll Parsons was the son of Jonathan Trumbull and Mary C. Parsons, who moved from Bloomfield, Hartford County, Connecticut, to Elyria, in 1827, and settled on what was then farming land. The father died when the son was but six months old, and a few years afterward the widow married Rev. William Butlin. Charles, however, had a favorite uncle with whom he lived during most of his boyhood and youth. He was bright, active and studious and in 1857, through the influence of Judge Philemon Bliss, who was then in Congress, was appointed a West Point cadet. Mr. Parsons graduated from the military school in 1861, was at once commissioned a first lieutenant and assigned to the Fourth Regiment, U. S. Artillery. After serving a few months in the mountains of West Virginia, he joined General Buell's troops, who by a forced march reached the battlefield of Shiloh at the close of the first day's disastrous battle. General Buell's troops crossed the river as soon as possible, the army was rallied and before morning took its position for the second: day's battle. Lieutenant Parsons commanded a battery of United States troops in that battle, and for distinguished bravery in the action was promoted to a captaincy. In the early summer he obtained a leave of absence, returned North and was married to Miss Celia Lippett, of Brooklyn, New York. Returning to duty, he reached Louisville, where he found communication with his battery cut off by General Bragg. General Terrel, then in command of a brigade at that point, made a detail of 200 raw infantrymen and ordered them to report to Captain Parsons for duty. With them he organized an eight-gun battery, which he commanded at Perryville. In that engagement General Jackson, his division commander, and General Terrel, who commanded the brigade, were killed almost at his side, and forty of his own men fell either dead or wounded. His horses were also nearly all killed, and the troops supporting the battery retreated. Still Captain Parsons stood by his guns; his was then truly a one-man battery. At this juncture a column of Confederates advanced to take the guns, and the captain, with his face to the enemy retreated backwards. A hundred guns were raised to shoot him, but the enemy commander ordered then not to fire, each officer gave the other the military salute, and Captain Parsons walked deliberately away. During the following 244 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY morning he recaptured part of his battery. His conduct at Perryville earned him the rank of brevet major. The next battle in which Captain Parsons participated was that of Stone River. General (afterward Governor) Palmer, of Illinois, said of him : "During the whole day I regarded the battery commanded by Captain Parsons as my right arm. My orders to Parsons were simple : `Fight where you can do the most good.' Never were orders better obeyed." For his part in the battle Captain Parsons was breveted lieutenant colonel of the regular army. Soon afterward, however, he Was obliged to go to New York for a surgical operation, and after his recovery was detailed as an instructor at the West Point Military Academy. There he remained until the close of the war and for the two succeeding years was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, when he was again ordered to West Point as a teacher. The return of Colonel Parsons to the military academy was the turning of his distinguished career as a soldier into quite different channels. While engaged in the performance of his duties there as an instructor in the profession and art of war, he became acquainted with Bishop Quintard of the diocese of Tennessee, under whose guidance he began the study of theology. Resigning his position in the army, he repaired to Memphis, took holy orders in 1870, and, for a time, served as rector of St. Mary's Church in that city. He was soon called to St. Mary's in the Highlands, at Cold Spring, opposite West Point, New York, where he remained two years. Father Parsons was then in charge of the Church of the Holy Innocents at Hoboken, New Jersey, for three years, when, soon after- the death of his wife, he returned to Memphis to assume his office as canon of St. Mary's cathedral. There he labored with his accustomed zeal and ability, and finally met that sweeping epidemic of yellow fever with the bravery of the soldier consecrated by the spirit of the priest. The press of those terrible days, in speaking of the soldier-priest on September 6, 1878, bore many messages of comfort to his numerous friends. A former comrade wrote as follows in the Chicago Tribune : "A man of polished intellect, beautiful soul, the possessor of every grace, Parsons seems to have been created for the sweet offices of charity and friendship. From the outbreak of the plague until he became one of its victims, he had been constantly busied (as he wrote me a few days ago) in caring for the dead, the dying and forsaken. He has been winning the useful victories of peace ; he has stood by his guns, but, alas! the invisible enemy, less generous than the visible, has not held his fire." Another friend in the Madison (Wisconsin) Democrat : "He looked death calmly in the face and when his turn came died as a true HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 245 soldier of Christ, at his post of duty. Let no one sorrow over such a death. It rounds out in full perfection the record of a hero's courage and a martyr's steadfastness." The Memphis Avalanche : "He died to save those against whom he fought." HON. MYRON T. HERRICK Note is made elsewhere of how ex-Governor Herrick, and late ambassador to France, delivered an address at. the Huntington home-coming of 1915. Although a lawyer by profession, he has been so long before the public, in various capacities, that. his personal sketch seems logically to fall in this chapter. His birth at Huntington occurred on the 9th of October, 1855. Both his grandfathers were Revolutionary soldiers, his paternal ancestor of that generation being Timothy Herrick, who, in 1837, migrated from Watertown, New York, when Timothy R. (the governor's father-to-be) was but nine years of age. Myron T. Herrick was reared in the vicinity of the old farm, and attended the district school at Huntington, the Union School at Wellington, and Oberlin College and the Ohio Wesleyan University,. at Delaware, Ohio. While at college in his seventeenth year, he taught school for a time. Although he did not graduate from either college or university, he has an honorary A. M. from the Wesleyan institution conferred in 1899. Before attaining his majority, the young man traveled through the Southwest, and his letters published in the . eastern press contained much valuable information for those seeking homes in that section of the United States. In 1875 Colonel Herrick located at Cleveland for the purpose of reading law, entering the office of his relatives, G. E. and J. F. Herrick. In 1878 he was admitted to the bar and, although he entered active practice, became interested in financial matters, and in June, 1886, commenced his career as a banker by organizing the Euclid Avenue National Bank. In the following September he resigned from the directorate of that institution to become secretary-treasurer of the Society of Savings, holding that office until 1894, when he assumed the presidency. Colonel Herrick and his associates in the banking business also erected the Arcade Building, extending from Euclid Avenue to Superior Street and considered one of the finest structures of the kind in the country. He also became largely interested in other productive real estate in the heart of Cleveland. Colonel Herrick's prominence as a republican and a citizen of public affairs commenced in 1885, when he was elected city councilman, serving in that capacity until 1.888. In the latter year he first served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and the honor was 246 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY repeated in 1892, 1896 and 1904. He acted as Ohio commissioner to the New York Centennial in 1889, and in 1892 was selected as a presidential elector-at-large for the state. In the latter year Governor McKinley appointed him as a member of his military staff, with the rank of colonel, by which he is generally best known. He had been identified with the Cleveland militia for fourteen years, so that the appointment seemed particularly appropriate. Colonel Herrick's influence as a man of large affairs and a stalwart republican was strikingly manifest by his election to the gubernatorial chair in 1903. He served the term covering the years 1904-05 ; was a delegate to the Republican National Convention again in 1908, and commenced his lately-completed service as ambassador to France in 1912. FRANK H. HITCHCOCK Amherst is the birthplace of Frank H. Hitchcock, postmaster general in the Taft cabinet, from 1909 to 1913. His father was Rev. Henry C. Hitchcock, a Congregational minister of long service and high standing in Lorain County, and his mother (formerly Mary L. Harris) was the youngest child of Judge Josiah Harris by a second wife. Mrs, Hitchcock, the widowed and venerable' mother, is still living on the old homestead near Amherst, but the house where Frank H. Hitchcock was born was burned down about forty years ago., The future postmaster general lived in Amherst, where he was born October 5, 1867, until .he was twelve years of •age, when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated at the Hub and was graduated from Harvard University, with his A. B. degree, in 1891. He completed a legal course at Columbian (George Washington University) in 1894, which conferred the degree of LL. B. upon him at that time, and LL. M. in 1895. Mr. Hitchcock was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1894 and to practice before the Court of the United States in 1897. In the latter year he commenced his political career as chief of the Division of Foreign Markets, Department of Agriculture, continued in that position until 1903, was afterward identified with the Department of Labor and other Government boards, and in 1905 became first assistant postmaster general under George B. Cortelyou. As assistant secretary of the Republican National Committee in 1904-8, he was manager of the campaign of the latter year which resulted in the election of William H. Taft to the presidency, and during the following administration (1909-13) he served as postmaster general. He has since practiced his profession in New York City. CHAPTER XIII MILITARY MATTERS CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OBERLIN COLLEGE-COMPANY C, SEVENTH OHIO INFANTRY-FATALITIES-THESQUIRREL HUNTERS—COMPANY D, TWENTY-THIRD REGIMENT-FATALITIES-COMPANY K, TWENTY-THIRD REGIMENT-FATALITIES- REGIMENTAL HISTORY-COMPANY H, FORTY-FIRST REGIMENT-REGIMENTAL HISTORY-FORTY-SECOND OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY-COMPANY E—REGIMENT AL .HISTORY-THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD INFANTRY-COMPANY F—COMPANY HR EGIM E NT AL HISTORY—THE FORTY-THIRD INFANTRY-THE FIFTY-FOURTH REGIMENT-THE GERMAN ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH-OTHER INFANTRY BODIES-BATTERY B, LIGHT ARTILLERY-FIFTEENTH OHIO INDEPENDENT BATTERY-SECOND REGIMENT, OHIO VOLUNTEER CAVALRY-THE TWELFTH OHIO CAVALRY-OTHER CIVIL WAR ORGANIZATIONS-FIFTH REGIMENT, OHIO NATIONAL GUARD. In proportion to its population, Lorain County sent into the Union rank and file an unusually large number of youth and men, and in no section of the state were the girls and the women more tireless in the work of relief than those "at home." In the raising of funds, the forwarding of provisions, clothing and medical supplies, and hundreds of other acts which constituted war relief, the large and more effective organizations of Cleveland absorbed many of the activities and contributions of the people of Lorain County ; but no thought of distinctive credit entered the minds of the patriots of those days ; the all-important aim was to get the relief to the front as rapidly as possible. The all-pervading sentiment of patriotism so manifest during the period of the Civil war was only to be expected from communities which had so long been molded by strong moral and religious influences, with a sustained sentiment of many years growth against the institution of slavery ; and Oberlin College, as the strongest force in the propulsion and dissemination of such influences, nobly proved her faith by her works. - 247 - 248 - HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OBERLIN COLLEGE In speaking of the part taken by Lorain County in the Civil war, a special tribute must be paid the student body of Oberlin College. The patriotic drafts upon the membership of that institution, upon several occasions, threatened the very life of the college. On April 20, 1861, not long after the firing on Fort Sumter, more than 430 students applied for admission to Company C, Seventh Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Only eighty-one, the maximum of the company, were received. A second company was promptly organized and filled to its maximum, and, a few months after Company C enlisted, Oberlin College and vicinity sent another company to the Forty-first Regiment. In the second year of the war still another company was raised in the college and the village to join the One Hundred and Third Regiment, and not long afterward, when Cincinnati appeared to be threatened by the Confederate cavalry, every student in the college able to bear arms marched to the defense of that city. Although the services of these so-called Squirrel Hunters were not required, their prompt action showed their manly spirit and they returned home with honor ; but hundreds of Oberlin students there were who saw actual service on the battle field, and many cheerfully sacrificed their lives to the Union. A testimony to this patriotism is the Soldiers' Monument which stands opposite the campus. On the main face, which fronts West College Street, is the inscription : "Our brave volunteers who fell in the War for the Union." On the opposite side of the Memorial are the names of Lieutenant Herbert Kenaston, U. S. A., and the privates who also fell in line of duty. Fredericksburg, Stone River, Gettysburg, Fort Wagner, Chickamauga and Pittsburg Landing are etched in this stony face, as they must have been in the memories of the gallant soldiers when alive. On the side facing South Professor Street is the sad and gallant record of Company C, Seventh Ohio Volunteers. There appear the names of Captain 0. P. Brockway, Lieutenant E. R. Smith and Charles F. King, and the tattles of Cross Lanes, Chattanooga, Winchester, Port Republic, Cedar Mountain and Antietam, and on the reverse side of the monument, Ringgold, Petersburg, Fort Harrison, Five Forks, Cold Harbor, Olustie and Port Hudson. There are other memorials of the Civil war than those of stone. For instance, there is an elm nearly opposite the Carnegie Library upon whose massive trunk is the inscription : " Transplanted April 2, 1859, by Burford Jeakins, Oberlin College, '61; Company C, 7th Regt., 0. V. I. Mortally wounded at Cross Lanes, August 26, 1861. Died at Carnieux Ferry, W. Va., September 22, 1861." HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY - 249 COMPANY C, SEVENTH OHIO INFANTRY Company C, Seventh Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which contained so many Oberlin students, was mustered into the service at Camp Dennison, Ohio, June 20, 1861, and mustered out at Cleveland, on the 6th of July, 1864. Following were its commissioned officers : Captain Giles W. Shirtliff, resigned March 18, 1863. First Lieutenant Judson N. Cross, promoted to captain of Company K, November 25, 1861. Second Lieutenant Ephraim H. Baker, promoted to first lieutenant November 25, 1861; resigned March 1, 1862. Second Lieutenant Henry W. Lincoln, promoted from sergeant to second lieutenant, August 9, 1862 ; to first. lieutenant, November 6, 1862 ; resigned January 7, 1863. Second Lieutenant Isaac C. Jones, enrolled March 1, 1863 ; promoted from sergeant to second lieutenant ; died November 30, 1863, of wounds received in the battle of Ringgold, Georgia, November 27, 1863. Company C was with its regiment for more than three years, and its record shows what a firm basis true grit has in moral sentiment. The Seventh Regiment was made up entirely of Northern Ohio men, and John S. Casement of Painesville was its first major. He resigned after a time, and assisted in raising other organizations. He ascended the steps of promotion until he was brigadier-general when he left the service. At the expiration of the term of service for which they were mustered, the regiment re-enlisted, almost to a man, for three years ; and on June 26, 1861, it started for the field to take part in the opening of the campaign in Western Virginia, and on the following day first set foot on Rebel soil, near Benwood. They marched along the line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to Clarksburg and went into camp. There a beautiful stand of colors was presented to the regiment by Captain Schulte, in behalf of the "Social Turnverein," of Cleveland. The regiment made its first march fully equipped. The day was oppressively hot, and before one mile had been laboriously overcome many valuable and useful articles, supposed to be absolutely indispensable, had become an intolerable burden; at three miles, when a halt was ordered, the men went deliberately to work reducing their baggage. Blankets, dress uniforms, books, underclothing and every article that could possibly be dispensed with, were emptied on the ground and left there. This march terminated at Weston. After doing considerable marching, the regiment reached Cross Lanes on the 16th of August ; and it was there, on the 25th of the same month, that they had their first fight, which proved a disastrous affair. The regiment was obliged to retreat, although it held