(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 150 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO General Sherman followed with a brief address, but it was not on this occasion that he made his famous remark that "war is hell." That was on Aug. 12, 1880, at a G. A. R. gathering in Columbus when he said : "You all know that this is not soldiering. There is many a boy here today who thinks war is all glory, but, boys, it is all hell! You can bear that warning to the generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror, but if it has to come, I am here." Of the 2,300 Ohio young men of the Sherman Brigade who were at Camp Buckingham seventy years ago, only eight attended the brigade reunion at Mansfield in August, 1930. They were B. F. Oberlin, Butler ; Peter Redding, Zacharias B. Taylor, Ashland ; John Hughes, F. P. Hiltabiddle, Mansfield; Andrew J. Mumper, Loudonville; George Batdorf, Big Prairie, and Archibald Owens, Adario, now in the Soldiers' Home at Sandusky. Comrade Oberlin, who was made president of the brigade organization, died Jan. 7, 1931, at his home in Butler, aged eighty-six years. The vice president and treasurer is Peter Redding and the secretary, Z. B. Taylor. The only other survivors of the brigade besides those above mentioned, so far as could be learned, are Christ Yuncker, of Loudonville, and Homer Culbertson, eighty-four ; the latter, the last survivor of Company A, Sixty-fourth 0. V. V. I. Only four survivors of the Fifty-fifth Regiment, 0. V. V. I., were present at the G. A. R. Hall, Norwalk, Sept. 18, 1930, at the sixty-fourth reunion. Huron County was represented during the Civil War in six companies of this regiment. The four survivors were Capt. B. F. Evans, Company A, ninety-one years old ; N. D. Cadwalader, Company H, ninety-two years old ; John Noah, Company A, eighty-seven years old ; and Jesse M. Spooner, Company G, eighty-six years old. Comrade Cadwalader came from Faribault, Minn., for the reunion. He exhibited a cane, containing fifty-two pieces of wood, made by him after he was ninety-one years old. Greetings from William Negiler of Tiffin, ninety-four years old, were brought by his daughter, Miss Cora Negiler. Wooster-Boalt Post, G. A. R., at Norwalk had 148 members when it was chartered and for some years later was one of the largest posts in Ohio, but near the close of 1930 the names of only thirteen Civil War veterans were on the roster. It was decided to retain the charter during 1931 and the following officers were elected: Commander, J. R. Ryerson ; senior vice commander, J. P. Curtis ; junior HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 151 vice commander, S. A. Jefferson; chaplain, Kirkland Blakleslee; officer of the day and guard, Charles Fisher ; adjutant, J. D. Cook; secretary, Mrs. Matilda Taylor; delegate to convention, S. A. Wildman; alternate, Wilbur Robinson. The other members of the post are B. C.. Clark, A. T. Bishop, T. D. Hackett, 0. S. Smith and S. H. Johnson. REGIMENT HAD TWO PRESIDENTS OF NATION The Twenty-third Regiment, O. V. V. I., recruited in the northern section of the state, is famed for the number of distinguished men connected with it, two of them afterwards becoming President of the United States. Its first colonel, W. S. Rosecrans, became a brigadier general. Two other colonels of the regiment were Stanley Matthews, afterwards associate justice of the United. States Supreme Court, and R. B. Hayes, later chief executive of the nation. William McKinley served as a private from this regiment, was promoted to a captaincy and at twenty-two attained the rank of brevet major for gallantry at Opequan, Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill. Companies G and H of the Twenty-third Regiment were recruited in Ashland County. President McKinley's record shows that he was promoted to captain of Company G July 25, 1864. How well this writer recalls the reunions which the "Company G boys" held in the '80s at Savannah Lake and the regimental reunions at Lakeside. Not one of these veterans in Ashland and vicinity is still alive. His uncle, the late Orlando Markley, who died in 1920, used to tell how that noble woman, Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, afterwards mistress of the White House, saved his life one time when the Twenty-third Regiment was in winter quarters near Charleston, W. Va., the winter of 1863-64. Mrs. Hayes had come to the hospital, as was her custom, to aid in ministering to the sick soldier boys, among whom was young Markley. "Mrs. Hayes," said a nurse to her that day, "there is a very sick boy over on that cot; I fear he is going to die in spite of all we have been trying to do. Along with the disease—and he has been terribly ill—he is homesick. We can't seem to get him to take the least interest in getting well. He will not eat a thing. He's so young and it's a pity we can't get him out of this apathy. I really believe if we could arouse in him the desire to live, he would recover." 152 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO "Mother Hayes came over to me," Uncle Orlando used to say, "and as she bent over me I thought she was an angel from heaven; her face was so beautiful, so full of tenderness and love. 'My poor boy,' said she, 'is there anything we can do for you? See if you can't think of something that you would relish.' KINDNESS OF MRS. HAYES "Her voice thrilled me and as I kept looking into her face I forgot my homesickness. For the first time since I had been sick I had a desire to get well. At first I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to eat but finally I thought of something. 'Mother Hayes,' said I, 'I believe if I had a boiled onion, I could eat a little of it.' "I found out afterward that there wasn't an onion to be found in the entire camp but that didn't bother Mother Hayes any. She sent out through the country and finally one onion was found and with her own hands she cooked that onion for me, bless her dear heart. She brought it to me and I never ate anything that tasted half so good as that boiled onion. She fed it to me and sat there by me; didn't seem to be the least bit in a hurry, though she had so many people to see. "I began to get better right away and it wasn't a great while until I was well enough to come home to Ashland on furlough." Conversing with Mrs. Hayes at a reunion of the Twenty-third Regiment at Lakeside, years later, Mrs. Edwin. Arthur, wife of the secretary of the regimental association, mentioned that she lived at Ashland. "Ashland," said Mrs. Hayes, "I remember a soldier boy from Company G who was so sick when the regiment was in winter quarters in West Virginia ; he was from Ashland." Mrs. Hayes then told the incident of the boiled onion. "I have often wondered if he were still living," she added. "Yes, he's here." She called to him and told him Mrs. Hayes had been inquiring about him, that she remembered the hospital incident. "Yes, 'Mother' Hayes, I'm the boy," said he, turning to her. "I shall never forget how good you were to me; that onion saved my life." PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S REGIMENT Another Ohio regiment in which so many young men from North Central Ohio served, was the Forty-second Regiment, 0. V. V. I., HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 153 which General James A. Garfield commanded. Two companies and part of another of this regiment were from Medina County and two other companies, from Ashland County. Company A was made up mostly of students and alumni of Hiram Eclectic Institute. On the night of Aug. 10, 1861, in the Disciple Church at Hiram, when Senator Garfield talked, fifty young men, mostly students, were enrolled. The quota for Company A was filled at Ravenna on Friday of that week and a start made on Company F. Two-thirds of the men of Company B were enlisted in Medina County by Capt. W. H. Williams, afterwards promoted to major. Capt. Horace Potter commanded Company B after the promotion of Major Williams. Company C, organized Sept. 10, 1861, at Ashland, was recruited mainly by Capt. Tully C. Bushnell and First Lieut. William N. Starr, afterwards captain. Color Sergeant P. M. Cowles of Company A carried the battle flag of the regiment, and Company C, assigned to the colors at the center of the line, was its faithful, devoted guardian. Company E, mainly from Medina County, was recruited by Capt. Charles H. Howe and Lieut. Melvin L. Benham, afterwards captain. Most of the members of this company were younger than those of other companies of the Forty-second. The members of Company D were from Noble County, mainly ; Company F, Portage County ; Company G, Newburg Ellsworth Cadets, principally, also including twenty young men from Medina County. Company I, from Miami, Shelby, Clark and Logan counties; Company K, principally from Logan County but thirteen from Medina County enlisted by Porter H. Foskett. Company H, of Garfield's Regiment, was made up of Ashland County young men, including pupils of the Ashland High School and the superintendent, Seth M. Barber. In the old white pillared court house on the evening of Nov. 2, 1861, Colonel Garfield and Capt. Bushnell made stirring speeches ; recruits were received. The next day Seth M. Barber, who had been at the meeting, went to the court house, signed the enlistment roll and his example was followed by every boy in the school capable of carrying a gun. It is said that Barber didn't even return to the school building but gave his whole energy to filling the quota of the company. Garfield spoke at Troy (Nova) and in other places in the county, and before the end of the month the quota had been filled and Company H was in camp. In 154 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO front of Vicksburg, Prof. Barber, who was captain of the company, received a wound that cost him his right leg. Transferred to Veterans' Reserve Corps, he remained on duty until July, 1866. He was breveted major for gallant and meritorious services at Vicksburg and subsequently breveted lieutenant colonel. In a history of the Forty-second Regiment, F. H. Mason, a private of Company A, said, regarding Capt. Barber : "He was the guardian and inspiration of his company, unusually conscientious and an earnest, strong influence. Company H contained some of the best soldiers of the regiment and left a spotless record." One of the greatest reunions of the survivors of the Forty-second Regiment was in the court house yard at Ashland, Aug. 25, 1880. General Garfield, elected to the presidency the following November, arrived with his party in a special train over the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad. Newspaper accounts say there were 12,000 people in Ashland that day. Seated on the long platform on the east side of the old court house, were a large number of the veterans of the Forty-second. Speakers that day, in addition to General Garfield, were Capt. A. S. McClure, of Wooster, and Judge George W. Geddes, both of whom served in the national congress. FADING LINE OF BLUE Other reunions of the regiment were held in Ashland, but for many years it was held at Chippewa Lake. After the assassination of President Garfield, no successor to him as president of the regimental association was ever elected, a vice president being the presiding officer. Ashland's only survivor of this regiment is Robert Smilie, Sr., who was ninety-three years old Aug. 10, 1930. One of the last of the Medina County veterans of the Forty-second is the aged Elliott McDougall. The only other Civil War veterans in Medina County still living at the close of 1930, so far as he knew, were Comrade Rogers, 103d Regiment, and Oliver Rockwell, both of Medina ; Joseph Ault, Lafayette; Frank Kinnaman and Porter Crawford, Seville; Frank Brown and Clinton Waffel of Wadsworth, H. F. Prouty of Kansas and Levi Bowman of Youngstown. For more than half a century, Simeon. S. Oatman, who died in December, 1929, at the age of eighty-eight years, was marshal of the day in the Memorial Day observance in Medina, Harrison G. Blake Post, G. A. R., having made him marshal of the day for life. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 155 It is estimated that between 1,500 and 1,600 young men from Medina County served during the Civil War. Great credit is given to H. G. Blake and Draft Commissioner M. C. Mills. Under the first call for troops, 200 men in Companies A and B of the Eighth Regiment were furnished ; captains, Pierce and Kelsey. Company A became Company K and Company B was divided. Mention has already been made of Medina County men in the Forty-second Regiment. The Seventy-second Regiment contained more than a full company from Medina County and the county was represented in some of the other companies of that regiment. Lyman B. Wilcox and William H. Garrett were captains of two companies of the 103d from Medina County and adjacent territory. Company I, Second Ohio Cavalry, captain, A. P. Steel, was mostly from Medina County. In 1864 four companies enlisted in Medina County were organized into the Seventy-ninth Battalion, of which Harrison G. Blake was lieutenant colonel. Knox County sent to the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 about 3,000 men. Twenty companies were raised in the county, in addition to which there were detachments of Knox County soldiers with regiments from other counties and states. As stated in another chapter, Dr. Lorin Andrews, president of Kenyon College, Gambier, had volunteered for service some months before the outbreak of hostilities and two companies raised in Knox County became A and B of the Fourth Ohio Infantry, which Colonel Andrews commanded. Israel Underwood was first to enlist for Company A and recruited the company. Henry B. Banning, who rose to the rank of brigadier general, raised Company B, of which he became captain. Other regiments in which Knox County soldiers served were the 20th Ohio, 30th 0. V. I.; 32d, 43d, 65th, 96th, 121st, 126th, 2 Ohio Heavy Artillery, 18th U. S. Regulars. A squad of sharpshooters was raised by Capt. Charles H. Coe of Centerburg, others served in the Third Ohio Cavalry and in the Eighty-second Regiment was a squad of men from Knox. Home Guards and Squirrel Hunters were also organized in the county. Records show that Huron County was represented during the Civil War in the following companies and regiments : Company D, 8th Regiment, 0. V. I. ; Company A, 15th ; Company F, 18th ; Company F, 19th ; Companies A, C and G, 24th 0. V. I.; Company K, 32d; Company E, 36th; Companies A, F and G, 37th; Companies H, 156 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO I and K, 41st; Company K, 52d; Company F, 54th, Companies A, C, D, E and I, 55th; Company B, 61st; Company E, 64th; Companies C, G and K, 65th; Companies F and K, 67th; Companies G and H, 72d; Companies G and. K, 87th; Company H, 88th; 0. V. I.; Companies A, B, D and G, 101st; Companies F, G and H, 107th; Companies C and G, 111th ; representation in seven companies of the 123d 0. V. I.; and four companies of Hoffman Battalion, 128th Regiment, at Johnson's Island; Companies B and D, 166th 0. N. G.; Company B, 166th 0. V. I. There were also enlistments from the county in regiments formed; in several heavy artillery companies; three organizations of cavalry and some enlistments in 27th Regiment of U. S. colored troops. Richland County furnished for service in the Civil War about three thousand men, Historian Graham says. On Tuesday, April 16, 1861, the day after the Governor of Ohio called for thirteen regiments for immediate service, General Wm. McLaughlin, then nearly seventy years old, telegraphed to the Governor, offering a hundred men before a single recruit had signed the muster roll. At a meeting that night, sixty-three were recruited and the rest could have been obtained that night but it was decided to wait until the next day. General McLaughlin was made captain and with his company reported to the Governor. This organization became Company I, First Ohio Volunteers, and was at the first battle of Bull Run. At Bellville, Miller Moody raised a company, of which he became captain. It was assigned to the Sixteenth Ohio. The late Judge Moses R. Dickey organized in Mansfield a company of which he became captain and A. C. Cummins, at Shelby, became captain of a company he raised there. Both of these were assigned to the Fifteenth Ohio. Captain Dickey was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment; Thomas H. Ford, Mexican War veteran and later Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, became colonel of the Thirty-second Regiment, in which Richland County was well represented. Companies A and E of the Sixty-fourth 0. V. I., which was part of the Sherman Brigade, were recruited at Mansfield; Company C, Lexington; Company H, Shelby ; Company I, from Wayne and Stark counties; Company A of the Sixty-fifth Regiment, which Colonel C. G. Harker commanded, was recruited at Mt. Vernon; Company C at Plymouth; Company G at Ashland and Sandusky; and Company I HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 157 at Mansfield. The other companies of these two regiments were raised in various places in Ohio. Company A of the Squadron of Cavalry, which the aged veteran, William McLaughlin, formed for the Sherman Brigade, was recruited partly at Mansfield with Gaylord McFall as captain and Company B, of which J. Buckmaster was made captain, was raised at Wooster and Lima ; the Sixth 0. V. V. Battery, also a part of the Brigade, was recruited at Mansfield, Akron and Uhrichsville. U. S. Senator John Sherman had been made colonel of the Sixty-fourth Regiment but his official duties in the Senate made it necessary for him to return to Washington and command of the regiment was taken by Colonel Forsyth. In leaving the regiment, the Senator made grateful acknowledgment to officers and men for their prompt response to the nation's call. He spoke especially of the services of Major Robert S. Granger, U. S. Army, in organizing the force. The aged commander of the McLaughlin Squadron was breveted general. On a hospital boat on the Big Sandy River in Kentucky, July 19, 1862, General McLaughlin died and Gaylord McFall became major of the Squadron. The McLaughlin funeral services at the General's home on North Main Street, Mansfield, are said to have been the largest in the history of Mansfield up to that time. Colonel Barnabas Burns was one of the speakers. The Hon. William Given of Wayne County was made colonel of the 102d 0. V. I., which was raised in this section of Ohio, four companies being from Richland County. Five companies of the 120th 0. V. I. were raised in Wayne and Ashland counties and the others in Richland, Holmes and Ashland. Histories of the Civil War period tell of further organizations raised for military service in this part of the state, of a militia camp at Wooster in September, 1863, where over 8,000 militiamen received instruction, also of Camp Mansfield, where in the autumn of 1863 nearly 3,500 men were under training. In his history of Wayne County in the World War and in the wars of the past, Edward H. Hauenstein of the Wooster Record says that Wayne, in common with all Ohio counties, did her part in putting down the rebellion, 1861 to 1865, the county furnishing over 3,200 volunteers, not including a considerable conscript force. James McMillen was captain of Company E, Fourth 0. V. I., the first company raised in Wayne County. There had been a wildly patriotic meeting 158 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO in the old court house with the Hon. William Given as chairman and James McMillen, secretary. Recruiting had been going on previously and the company was filled at this meeting. Mr. Hauenstein says that upwards of ten thousand people lined the streets from the court house to the station on Monday, April 21, 1861, when this first company left Wooster for Columbus. The ranks of the Fourth Ohio, of which Lorin Andrews was colonel, were filled by two companies each from Marion, Delaware, Mt. Vernon and Kenton and one each from Wooster and Canton. The first Wayne County soldier shot in the Civil War was John F. Barrett of Wooster in an engagement in Virginia. Mr. Barrett had to walk on crutches for two years and was a daily sufferer until his death in 1912. Wayne County volunteers were distributed among the various regiments as follows, says Mr. Hauenstein : One company, Fourth 0. V. I.; one of Sixteenth Regiment in three months' service and five in the three year service; one in Forty-first Regiment; five in 120th; three in 102d ; one company in 107th ; three companies in 169th 0. N. G. ; thirty men in Eighty-fifth 0. V. I.; one company in Ninth Ohio Cavalry ; small detachments for several artillery companies, besides many fragmentary enlistments in various infantry organizations. Ashland County furnished one company of first called troops in April, 1861; two companies, Twenty-third 0. V. I.; two companies, Forty-second; part of a company, Sixty-fifth 0. V. I.; Company K, Eighty-second; Company B, Eighty-seventh; two companies, 102d; Companies C and F, 120th; Company I, 163d; thirty soldiers of Company A, 196th 0. V. I.; part of Battery D, First Regiment, Ohio Light Artillery, and 104 of the Squirrel Hunters of 1862 were from this county. Civil War surgeons from Ashland County included Drs. I. L. Crane, John Ingram, P. H. Clark, 0. C. McCarty and John D. Skilling. When the boys in blue from Ashland County went to the war, they were taken by wagons to New London to entrain. When they returned they were able to come by train to Ashland, the old broad gauge, the Atlantic & Great Western, having been built in 1863. Loudonville had had train service over the P. F. W. & C. R. R. eleven years before the county seat was connected with the outside world by a railroad. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 159 A native of Lorain County, born 106 years ago at what was then Black River, now the City of Lorain, and who was a student of Elyria High School before going to the U. S. Military Academy from which he was graduated in 1849 at the head of his class, is credited with having "revolutionized the naval gunnery of the world." Quincy Adams Gillmore, who for his distinguished service was promoted to lieutenant colonel and soon thereafter to brigadier general. It will be recalled that at the siege of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, in 1862, this Lorain County soldier was in command of the attacking force. "Boldly discarding traditions of attack upon fortified places," says Historian Howe, "he planted his breaching batteries at distances never thought of before and in less than two days' bombardment, rendered untenable a work which the most eminent engineers had, in view of its peculiar situation, pronounced impregnable." GILLMORE'S ACHIEVEMENT Much has been written of General Gillmore's war achievements which brought him international fame but his engineering work in harbor improvements in the South, his treatises on concretes, cements, mortars, building stone and road construction added to his fame. He passed away in April, 1888, at Brooklyn, N. Y. Another Lorain County man who added victories of peace to his achievements as an artilleryman in the Civil War and later in Indian fighting, was Charles C. Parsons, born in Elyria in 1838 and graduated from West Point in 1861. After service in the army, he became an Episcopal minister and his death in September, 1878, at Memphis, Tenn., was due to overwork in ministering to victims of yellow fever epidemic. General Thomas T. Dill of Mansfield, who was a trustee of the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Sandusky from the time it was opened in 1886 until his death in November, 1905, had an interesting military career. He was born in Wayne County in 1842, served five years in the United States Army. He had charge of the troops at the execution, July 9, 1865, of four co-conspirators with John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln. A great many years ago, General Dill told this writer of the scene in the old prison yard at Washington, D. C., when Mrs. Mary Surratt, Daniel E. Herrold, George A. Atzeroth and Lewis Powell were executed. General Dill told me 160 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO that he had to make three details from the men under him before he could get soldiers to cut down the body of Mrs. Surratt, the men being loath to have anything to do, personally, in the execution of a woman. A bottle was placed in the coffin of each of the conspirators, containing a paper giving the name of the person interred and particulars of the crime for which each had been hanged. The General told me he was present when, the body of John Wilkes Booth was placed under the floor of the old arsenal building at Washington and that later the body was taken out and buried in the Booth family lot. General Dill was captain of Company B, Seventeenth Regiment, O. N. G., was Assistant Adjutant General of Ohio in the Hoadly administration and continued in that capacity under Governor Campbell until promoted to be adjutant general. He was at one time aide-de-camp on the staff of the national commander of the G. A. R. PRESENT G. A. R. POSTS McLaughlin Post, G. A. R., at Mansfield, the youngest member of which is over eighty-three years of age, installed the following officers for 1931: Commander, George W. Benedict; senior vice commander, John Constance; junior vice commander, Lewis Deems ; quartermaster, George W. Ricketts ; chaplain, Thomas J. Shocker ; adjutant, Andrus J. Gilbert; officer of the day, Peter Frietchen ; officer of the guard, Solomon Walters, surgeon, S. Fin Bell. Joe Hooker Post, G. A. R., at Mt. Vernon, has its quarters in a room in the Knox County Soldiers' Memorial Building, $250,000 structure just finished at the time of the state G. A. R. encampment in Mt. Vernon in June, 1925. The 1931 officers of the Post are: Commander, George Neal; senior vice commander, Joseph Devault ; junior vice commander, N. K. Ramsey ; surgeon, William H. Bricker ; chaplain, Theodore Pitkin. Commander Neal states out of 554 comrades of Joe Hooker Post No. 21, only sixteen are left, as follows : C. C. Baughman, Company C, 142d 0. V. I., aged eighty-seven ; William H. Bricker, eighty-six, Company H, 142d ; Joseph L. Devault, eighty-seven, Company F, 121st 0. V. I. ; Marshall Fairchild, ninety-two, Company D, Second 0. V. H. I. ; Smith Gearhart, eighty-seven, Company F, 121st 0. V. I.; Jacob Lybarger, ninety-two, Company A, Sixty-fifth; Linas G. Mavis, eighty-seven, Company M, Sixty-fifth 0. V. I. ; David McFarland, eighty-six, Company G, 121st; George HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 161 D. Neal, eighty-seven, Company F, 142d 0. V. I.; Theodore S. Pit-kin, eighty-four, Company G, Twentieth 0. V. I.; James Place, Company C, Eighteenth U. S. I.; John Rockwell, Company F, 121st 0. V. I.; Wilmot Sperry, Company A, Ninety-sixth 0. V. I.; John F. Stone, eighty-three, Company E, 102d 0. V. I.; Michael Young, eighty-eight, Company A, Sixty-fifth 0. V. I., and N. K. Ramsay, aged eighty-seven. The trustees of the Post are Comrades Neal, Devault, and Bricker. This is now the only G. A. R. Post in Knox County. Given Post No. 133, G. A. R., at Wooster, once had a membership of nearly 400 Civil War soldiers ; in January, 1931, there were only twenty-three, of whom eight are outside of Wooster. "We certainly have a right to claim that we are the 'fading line of blue,' " said Jesse McClellan, aged eighty-six, serving his eighth consecutive year as commander of Given Post. The senior vice commander is Milton S. Reed, aged eighty-four ; junior vice commander, Theodore Kent, eighty-eight; chaplain, A. L. Norton, eighty ; adjutant and quartermaster, Fred Clodfelter, eighty-one; officer of the day, John Pierce, eighty-six. The other members of the Post living in Wooster are: John Bryant, eighty-eight; David Bechtel, eighty-five; Vincent Cot-tam, ninety-one; William Hendricks, eighty; Philip Horn, eighty-eight; David Hauenstein, eighty-three; Absolom Himes, eighty-four ; James Mann, eighty-four; William Shiffer, eighty-eight. Nonresident members of the Post are : Albert Beck, eighty-seven ; Andrew Brandsteller, eighty-five; Rev. William Feeman, eighty; Charles Gasche, eighty-nine; D. R. Houser, eighty-two; W. N. Musser, John Shafer and Win. W. Wolabaugh. SURVIVOR OF SULTANA DISASTER Comrade Philip L. Horn, mentioned in the above list, is one of the very few survivors of the steamship Sultana disaster on the Mississippi, near Memphis, Tenn., April 27, 1865, one of the worst catastrophies in marine history. Mr. Horn is now the only survivor in Wayne County of that terrible catastrophe. Otto Bardon, Wooster veteran who died early in March, 1930, at the age of eighty-nine years, was one of the survivors. Twenty-three hundred people were aboard the Sultana on that fatal occasion, of whom 1,965 were Federal soldiers and thirty-five officers who had come aboard at Vicks- 162 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO burg, Miss., after having been released from Confederate prisons at Andersonville and Macon, Ga., and Cahaba, Ala. There were also several companies of infantry under arms besides the crew and 200 passengers who had boarded the steamer at New Orleans. Repairs to one of the boilers of the Sultana had been made at Vicksburg and at Memphis on the evening of the 26th. Some of the exchanged prisoners helped the crew unload a cargo of sugar. The trip up the river was resumed and at two o'clock on the morning of the 27th, opposite Tagleman's Landing, there was a terrific explosion due to the bursting of a boiler and the Sultana went up in flames. Many were killed outright and others, injured, perished in the flames. The waters about the burning ship were thick with great numbers of people who preferred to drown, rather than be burned to death. Weakened by hardships and exposure in Southern prisons, many of the exchanged soldiers had little strength to keep themselves afloat in the waters of the Mississippi. Describing his experiences, the late Otto Bardon said on one occasion that he was in the engine room of the steamer when there was a terrific explosion, a rain of bricks, chunks of coal and scalding steam. Soon the flames lighted the river. He and another soldier obtained a door on which they rode down the river to an island where a steamer from Memphis rescued them seven hours later from a partly submerged tree. He declared that a Kentuckian laid a torpedo in the coal, causing the explosion, but some accounts attribute it to defective boilers and the overloading of the boat. Philip Horn, who served in Company I, 102d Regiment, 0. V. I., a prisoner of war for seven months at Cahaba, Ala., says that the Sultana left Memphis about midnight. When the explosion occurred he was on the left side of the boat and was either blown through a stairway or thrust out sidewise into the river. Recovering consciousness in the water, he seized a piece of wreckage to which he and seven other soldiers clung, floating down the river. Two of the men, exhausted, let go and were drowned. The shouts of the other six were heard by men in a gunboat and they were rescued. Mr. Horn's bunk mate had been scalded from head to foot by escaping steam and died at a hospital in Memphis. Mr. Horn says that he and the five others who clung to the same piece of wreckage floated nine miles down the river before they were rescued. He also believes that a torpedo placed in the coal by Confederates at a coaling sta- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 163 tion caused the blast. One of the officers who perished in the Sultana disaster was Capt. Deming N. Lowrey of Company G, 115th Regiment, 0. V. I., father of former Mayor George H. Lowrey of Mansfield. Another Civil War veteran living in Wooster is W. H. Quinett, eighty-two, who joined the Union Army when he was only twelve years old, was on Sherman's march to the sea and was mustered out July 11, 1865, has had a most eventful career. As cabin boy on Missouri River and Mississippi steamboats, Civil War soldier, followed by a long and strenuous career as a circus man, he had some remarkable experiences which he tells me he had put into the form of a book. He knew Barnum, Forepaugh and other famous showmen. His wife, a native of Applecreek, Wayne County, died in 1921, and for some years he had led a retired life. CIVIL WAR VETERAN NEAR-CENTENARIAN Lorain County's oldest Civil War veteran, Reuben E. Knapp, who at his home in Wellington on Jan. 12, 1931, celebrated his ninety-eighth anniversary, was born in Lorain County fifteen years after the first settlers came to the site of Wellington. His earlier years were spent in Rochester Township. Later he lived on a farm south of Wellington, but for thirty-six years has lived in town. In his boyhood he worked for John Laborie, the first white settler of Huntington Township. Charles Abbey, aged eighty-six, commander of Richard Allen Post No. 65, G. A. R., at Elyria, one of the two G. A. R. Posts in Lorain County, says that there are now (1931) only eight comrades enrolled in the Post. The senior vice commander, LaFayette Stough, is eighty-six ; the junior vice commander, James Monroe, is eighty-seven ; officer of the day, Albert Taylor, eighty-six ; quartermaster, Freeman Stearns, ninety ; chaplain, John Kaley, eighty-six. The other members are Albert Harold, aged eighty-three, and Harvey Miller, eighty-five. The duties of secretary are performed by a member of the Women's Relief Corps. The other G. A. R. Post in Lorain County is Hamlin Post No. 219, at Wellington. The commander is Salonas A. Williams, who from 1929 to 1930 was department commander of the Ohio G. A. R. Orphaned at twelve in the village of Lagrange, he shouldered a musket at the age of fourteen, serving through the war and marching with Sherman to the sea. The four- 164 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO teen-year-old soldier, during this march, stood off single handed, a small troop of Confederate cavalry and saved from capture the foraging party to which he was attached. His great-grandfather, John Jay, soldier of the Revolutionary War, served as Secretary of State and as Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; his grandfather, Nathaniel Williams, during the War of 1812, was captain of a New York company of infantry ; his oldest son, Louis, was a soldier in the Spanish-American War and his youngest son, Russell, World War soldier, spent eighteen months overseas. He was the first chief of the Wellington volunteer fire department, was town marshal eleven years and a state oil inspector for two years. Hamlin Post at Wellington has three members. Office vacancies are filled with Sons of Veterans. Comrade Abbey says Lorain has no Post. One of the two Civil War veterans there is August Baldwin, eighty-five, now state junior vice commander of the G. A. R. A Lorain Civil War veteran, Cornelius Myers, eighty-five, who served in Company D, 178th 0. V. I., died in December, 1930. He was a resident of Lorain for half a century and at one time ran a fishery. Only two Civil War veterans remained in Wadsworth, Medina County, following the death, January 27, 1931, of C. S. Brown, aged eighty-five. Harrison G. Blake Post, G. A. R., at Medina has not had a meeting for several years. The last commander was Porter Crawford, of Seville, now eighty-six years old. The other surviving members of the Post are Frank Innaman, eighty-seven, Seville; Elliott McDougal, eighty-eight, of Akron ; Oliver Rockwell, eighty-six; A. P. Rogers, eighty-seven ; Joseph Ault, eighty-five; Wint Hill, eighty-five, all of Medina. Other Civil War veterans living in the county in February, 1931, so far as learned, were: Frank Brown and Clint Waffle, Wadsworth; Comrade Pace, between Medina and Wadsworth ; Jack Null, Sharon; Comrade Canfield, Litchfield; John Halliday, Chippewa Lake, and Jacob Kendall, eighty-four, of Medina. For a great many years the late Joseph R. Swartz of Ashland, who served in the Forty-second 0. V. V. I. and recalled many incidents of General Garfield, including the time he, with his business partner, Tom Harvey, bought from Garfield at Mentor the first Jersey cows brought to Ashland County, just before Garfield was inaugurated chief executive of the nation (Garfield reducing the price because Swartz was one of the "boys of the Forty-second"), was commander HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 165 of Andrews Post, G. A. R., in Ashland. The Post and local W. R. C. are both named for Lorin Andrews. The present commander of Andrews Post is Stephen M. Coe of Hayesville, aged ninety, and the other officers are : Senior vice commander, A. J. Greiner, eighty-seven, of Polk; junior vice commander, Walter Gantz, eighty-six; chaplain, William Rittenhouse, eighty-seven; surgeon, Gideon Leiby, ninety-one; officer of the guard, Henry Morr, ninety-two; quartermaster, P. M. Redding, eighty-seven; Z. B. Taylor, eighty-two, adjutant; M. W. McCready, eighty-one, delegate to department encampment. CHAPTER XIX. SPANISH-AMERICAN AND WORLD WARS NORTH CENTRAL OHIO'S PART IN CONFLICT FOR FREEDOM OF CUBA IN 1898-COLONEL HARD, COMMANDER OF "PRESIDENT'S OWN" WAS FROM WOOSTER-SERVICE OF SOLDIERS FROM SEVEN COUNTIES RECALLED-OUR SOLDIERS IN GREAT WAR-MEN WHO MADE SUPREME SACRIFICE LEGION POSTS OF AMERICAN LEGION. Those of us who have lived through two wars of the nation—also the aged ones still with us who have known the suffering and sacrifice of three wars—cannot impress too strongly upon the coming generation the imperative necessity of doing their part to develop those conditions which shall make future war impossible. We honor the soldiers of all the wars, but fervently hope that future sacrifices of the young men of the nations, and of the young women whose heroism in ministering to the wounded and dying in the face of constant peril shall not be necessary. How vividly we recall the Spanish-American War, which though it only lasted from April 21, 1898, to August 11, following-113 days —yet cost the lives of 279 Americans killed and 1,465 wounded, besides the many others whose lives were wrecked through exposure and disease; about 2,200 Spaniards killed, 2,948 wounded and thirty-five Spanish vessels destroyed, the immediate cost of the war to the United States being $141,000,000, besides the expenditure for pensions since then. The President of the nation during this war was William McKinley, who at one time represented a district including several North Central Ohio counties ; the Secretary of State, at the time of the outbreak of hostilities, but was compelled by ill health to resign, was John Sherman of Mansfield ; the Secretary of War, Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, was born ninety-five years ago on a farm in Lafayette Township, Medina county ; and a native of Mansfield, - 166 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 167 Commander Edward Parker Wood, was in command of the U. S. gunboat, Petrel, of Commodore Dewey's Asiatic squadron in the battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, resulting in the destruction of the Spanish fleet. In this war Ohio furnished 15,354 men, considerably more than its quota, based on population. Col. Curtis V. Hard, of the President's Own (Eighth Ohio Infantry), was a Wooster man. On the first call for troops Ohio furnished 428 officers and 8,052 men and on the second call, 73 officers and 6,801 men. The Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry (organized in 1877), was recruited to its full quota of officers and 1,288 men, and with the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Regiments and other Ohio regiments, it went into camp at Camp Bushnell, Columbus. The writer recalls the beautiful Sunday of May 1, 1898, (the day that the battle of Manila Bay was fought) ; a special train over the B. & 0. from Mansfield carried close to 800 people from Mansfield, Ashland and other places to Columbus to see the soldier boys in camp. On street cars out East Main Street, we went to the camp grounds between four and five miles east of the Franklin County court house. Capt. Fred S. Marquis, afterwards major and years later mayor of Mansfield, was officer of the day that Sunday and the regimental chaplain, the Rev. I. N. Kiefer of Wooster, preached. Charles Hughes, now head of the Richland Trust Company bank in Mansfield, was then a lieutenant in Company M and had been officer of the guard the day before our visit. Companies C and M were on the same company street. At the grounds were numerous refreshment stands, lunch counters, tintype galleries and sellers of all sorts of patriotic badges. The multitudes of visitors at Camp Bushnell that day came not only on the street cars but in buggies, wagons and on bicycles, while not a few walked the five miles through the heat and dust; evidently they didn't realize it was so far to the camp as it proved to be. The Eighth Ohio went from Columbus to Camp Alger, Va., and from there was ordered to Cuba, arriving there about the time Santiago was capitulated. Col. Coit commanded the old Fourteenth Regiment, which became the Fourth Ohio Infantry. Company L of that regiment was from Mt. Vernon. Of the Fifth Infantry, Company A was from Lorain and Company G from Norwalk. Capt. Albert W. Davis, who commanded 168 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Company G in the Spanish-American War, was colonel of the Fifth Ohio Infantry when the World War began. Among the companies of the Eighth Ohio were Company C, from Polk, Ashland County ; Company D, from Wooster ; Company G, from Wadsworth; Company H, from Shreve ; and Company M, from Mansfield. Capt. Geo. H. Wuchter, Wadsworth, was an assistant surgeon as well as captain; the regimental chaplains were Revs. I. N. Kiefer and James 0. Campbell, both of Wooster, and two hospital stewards, Frederick S. McKinney and Z. F. Atwell, were also from Wooster. Capt. Frank C. Gerlach, who commanded Company D of the Eighth Ohio in the Spanish-American War, was major of the Eighth Ohio in the Mexican border service preceding the World War, in which latter struggle he became colonel of the 145th and in February, 1919, colonel of 146th. He was awarded the Belgian war cross by the king of Belgium for exceptional gallantry in action, and by the marshal of France received the croix de guerre with palm leaf. His regiment was the first to force a crossing of the Escaut River in Belgium. Colonel Dudley J. Hard, who commanded the 135th Regiment during the World War, began his military career in Wooster, serving in the Spanish-American War. Capt. A. B. Critchfield, who commanded Company H of Shreve in the Spanish-American War, became battalion commander. The Fourth Ohio saw service in Porto Rico and the Sixth and Eighth in Cuba. It is stated that the total deaths in all the Ohio volunteer organizations while in the U. S. service during the Spanish-American War were 230, seven officers and 223 men. One of those who died was Chaplain Kiefer, aged fifty-five, a native of Smithville, a Civil War veteran, and for many years a Lutheran pastor. He died at Camp Alger, Va., June 23, 1898, and was buried June 29 in Wooster cemetery. His successor as chaplain was Rev. Dr. James 0. Campbell, pastor of the Wooster United Presbyterian Church. Returning from Cuba, the Eighth Regiment landed at Montauk Point, L. I., Aug. 24. Invalided soldiers reached their Ohio homes, some of them to die. The regiment was mustered out of service at Wooster, Nov. 21, 1898. NORTH CENTRAL OHIO IN WORLD WAR Burned into our minds and hearts is the World War, recollection of many who made the supreme sacrifice, the fears that beset our HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 169 hearts when our boys were fighting overseas, when word would come of terrible battles with great casualties and we knew that our boys were in that particular sector. Our hearts were thrilled with the narratives that came of the heroism which our boys showed in some of the fiercest fighting of that terrible world struggle, the horror of which will never fade from our minds, no matter how many years may elapse. In quite a number of places throughout North Central Ohio, memorials have been erected, some in the form of monuments, others, as at Mt. Vernon and Elyria, buildings. In the center of Danley Square Park, Lorain, lilac bushes have been planted to be a blossoming memorial to John Danley, first Lorain soldier to give his life in the World War. A number of the Legion posts are named in honor of comrades who perished in the World War. Preceding the World War, all but the First and Seventh Regiments, and the Ninth Battalion (colored organization of Cleveland) of the Ohio National Guard, had been on nine months duty on the Mexican border. Adjutant General Wood called the 0. N. G. units into Federal service July 14, 1917. The Eighth Regiment mobilized at Bucyrus. Col. Harold M. Bush of Columbus commanded the First Regiment, Ohio Field Artillery. Battery E, from Mt. Vernon, had as captain, Vincent B. Welker; first lieutenants, John H. Taylor and Julius Headington ; second lieutenants, Harry Hosback and Edison J. Breece. Battery B, Field Artillery, organized at Columbus, moved to Mt. Vernon, 1913-14, and later was reorganized at Akron. Col. Dudley J. Hard of Wooster commanded the First Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. This was subdivided into the Second and Third Regiments, Field Artillery, 0. N. G., which became the 135th and 136th Regiments, Field Artillery, in the federal service. Col. Hard commanded the 135th Regiment. Officers of the Fifth Ohio Infantry from Norwalk were Col. Albert W. Davis and Chaplain Alfred J. Funnel'. First Lieut. Ared W. Hutchins, one of the battalion adjutants, was also from Norwalk. The home station of Company B of the Fifth was Elyria. Roy E. Hultz was captain ; Mather A. Jenkins, first lieutenant; George W. Lawrence, second lieutenant. Officers of Company G of the Fifth from Norwalk were Capt. Hugh S. Burdue ; first lieutenant, Thomas J. Quayle; second lieutenant, B. C. Robinson. 170 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Col. Charles C. Weybrecht succeeded Edward Vollrath as colonel of the Eighth Ohio. Lieut. Col. Frank C. Gerlach, afterwards commander of the 145th and then the 146th Infantry, was second in command. One of the battalion adjutants was First Lieut. Warren J. Keister of Wooster. Grover C. McCoy, captain of the Headquarters Company (regimental adjutant), was also from Wooster. Captain of the Supply Company from Mansfield was J. Earl Ports, in recent years mayor of Mansfield and now lieutenant colonel, assigned to the staff of the Thirty-seventh Division, 0. N. G., as quartermaster; second lieutenant, Thomas T. Brown. Officers of the companies of the Eighth Regiment (later the 146th Infantry, Thirty-seventh Division) at the beginning of the war service were: Company D (Wooster) : Captain, Marcus R. Limb; first lieutenant, Fred C. Reddick ; second lieutenant, Walter Yost. Company E (Ashland) : Captain, Jesse B. Blue; first lieutenant, Miles D. McCarty ; second lieutenant, William Chalmers. Company G (Wadsworth) : Captain, Frank C. Hilliard ; first lieutenant, Harry H. Kerr ; second lieutenant, Lewis C. Crawford. Company M (Mansfield) : Captain, Alfred I. Harrington ; first lieutenant, Robert L. Bride; second lieutenant, Isadore Gottdiener. Harry B. Bertolette, Wayne County man, was major of the Sanitary Detachment, Akron. Major Charles H. Huston of Mansfield, who served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, was major of the Headquarters Company S. A. Ammunition Train. He is now judge of the Richland County common pleas court. Truck Company No. 1, S. A. A. T.: Lieutenant Harry Merkel, Shreve. In the Fourth Field Hospital (Delaware) was First Lieut. Edward M. Clark of Mt. Vernon. In the Fourth Ambulance Company (Canton) was First Lieut. Robert C. Gill, Norwalk. One of the veterinarians was Second Lieut. Arthur A. Wilcox of LaGrange. It is impossible in the limited space here given to tell of the advancement of all the men from these seven counties of Ohio, the decorations a considerable number of them received, the commendable record made in all the military organizations in which the thousands of young men from the seven counties of North Central Ohio served, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 171 whether in cantonments, in aviation, in service on the seas, or in the fierce fighting in France, Belgium or other regions. Splendid histories have been written of the part Ohioans took in the World War. The history that E. H. Hauenstein wrote in 1919 of Wayne County in the World War and in the wars of the past is very complete. Col. Elmore F. Taggart of Orrville, who spent many years as an officer in the Regular Army, in Cuba, the Philippines, in China during the Boxer uprising, at Vera Cruz in 1915, and later on the Mexican border, served during the World War, first in charge of the officers' training school, The Presidio, in California, then in the Philippines, and still later at Vladivostok, where he commanded a unit of American troops in Siberia, remaining there for the rest of the war. Other Wayne County men of rank were Major Samuel H. Bell, Major E. R. Forbes, and Major Harry Horn. Col. John R. McQuigg of Cleveland, colonel of engineers overseas, and, after the war, state commander of the American Legion, was a native of Wayne County. He is now deceased. County draft boards were chosen in the latter part of May, 1917. Those for North Central Ohio were: Ashland County: Henry M. Schulz, Dr. W. D. Furry, Dr. W. M. McClellan. Dr. Furry took the place of J. M. Norris, who resigned. Huron County: John J. McMann, A. J. Funnel, Dr. R. L. Morris. Lorain County: Francis B. Rookey, D. H. Aiken, Dr. W. E. Hart. Medina County: Albert Harris, H. E. Hiers, Dr. H. P. H. Robinson. Richland County : William B. Martin, Charles H. Keating, Dr. W. E. Loughridge. Wayne County : Capt. W. K. Miller, Capt. James B. Taylor, Dr. R. C. Paul. Capt. Taylor is said to have been the only Civil War veteran who served as chairman of a county draft board in Ohio. Knox County: Columbus Ewalt, H. C. Devin, Dr. F. C. Larimore. Fred G. Heim of Wooster was a member of the Federal district draft exemption, or appeal, board for the first division of the northern district of Ohio for ten counties, including Wayne. Arthur L. Garford, Elyria manufacturer, and John T. Hogsett of New London were on this board for the second division, northern district, which included ten counties, among them Ashland, Huron, Lorain, Medina and Richland. Knox County was in the second division of the southern district, which included twenty-four counties, but had no representative on the board. 172 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO In other chapters we have told of the departure of the military companies and of the selective service men to the training camps and of the reception of the soldier boys on their return home. There are more than 4,000 World War veterans in Lorain County, 2,000 of them in the City of Lorain and vicinity, 700 in Elyria, and more than 1,300 in Amherst, Oberlin, Wellington, Grafton, LaGrange and the rural sections of the county. Huron County sent 1,143 people to the war, of whom 952 served in the army, 77 in navy, 20 in marine corps, 12 in nurse corps, and 82 in student army training corps. An article by Clark C. Tucker says that eight died from wounds in action, six from diseases overseas, twenty-seven of domestic service, one lost at sea and one died from injuries. Ken-Bur-Bel Post of the American Legion in Norwalk was named for the first three men of Company G, to be killed in action, Ivan Kenyon of Wakeman, Archie Burch of Vermilion, and Harry Bell of Fitchville. Charles V. Mack was the first commander, and nine others have served as post commanders, one of them being Dudley A. White, past commander for Ohio of the Legion. Mrs. George W. Lawrence, of Norwalk, is president of the Ohio Department, Legion Auxiliary, and George W. Lawrence is editor of the Ohio Legion News. James G. Haverfield, who was buried Feb. 6, 1931, at Flushing, Belmont County, served with Company G from Norwalk. Sergeant Haverfield was decorated three times for bravery, one from the king of Belgium and two from the marshal of France. There were in Medina County in March, 1931, 1,217 World War veterans. In Ashland County there are 1,150 who served in the World War in the various branches of service, army, navy, marines, nurse corps and student army training corps ; in Richland, 2,577; in Knox, 1,381, and in Wayne, 1,937. MADE SUPREME SACRIFICE In the World War over 6,500 Ohio soldiers made the supreme sacrifice. In the seven counties of North Central Ohio, the number of deaths, including army, navy, and marine corps, totaled 321, as follows : Ashland, 23 ; Huron, 41; Lorain, 96 ; Medina, 27; Richland, 41; Wayne, 67, and Knox, 26. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 173 Ashland County: Floyd A. Arnholt, S. J. Covert, James T. Danner, Ellis Fraunfelter, Harold L. Hissem, Harry Higgins, Sylvester Huntsberger, Earl Kendig, Frank M. Lambert, Earl H. Lucas, David E. Markel, Thos. B. Mowrey, Lewis Murry, Dewey B. Sellers, Harrison Shearer, Marcus Shoudt, Maurice Stoner, Carl Stover, Floyd F. Teeters, Harry 0. Vaughn, John Thompson, Arthur R. Sheller (Marine), and Ernest Burns (Navy). Huron County: Jacob Alt, Geo. F. Barney, Clarence L. Barn-worth, Arthur J. Beattie, Harry R. Bell, Clarence E. Brown, Huron Buckingham, Geo. M. Carson, D. D. Cherry, Bernard C. Edelman, Walter H. Endle, Carl J. Heyman, Harley L. Heyman, Stephen C. Heyman, K. H. Kelly, Ivan W. Kenyon, Rudolph Loew, Homer H. Martin, H. H. McClaflin, T. E. Mead, Merrill M. Miller, Cecil E. Nolan, P. C. Norman, Geo. L. O'Mara, L. F. Savage, Jacob F. Schick, C. R. Schnupf, Carl E. Sherman, C. L. Stone, J. J. Sullivan, J. E. Vrooman, P. K. Watros, Harley D. Wilson, Henry P. Heyman (Marine), Ralph 0. Hill (Marine), Cyrus M. Denman (Navy), and Ernest C. Myers (Navy). Wayne County: John Adams, Lieut. James Bahl, Lawrence Britton Bailor, Lieut. Howard Allen Bair, Raymond Earl Barnes, Emmet L. Bell, Ross Russell Boor, Lieut. John T. Brandt, Harry Brauneck, Charles E. Bruny, Bert Budd, Harvey Wingert Carbaugh, David Elmer Clippinger, Chris S. Conrad, Frank Ernest Cook, Walter Cusack, Edwin G. Cuthbertson, Earl Daniels, France E. Dennis, Fred Drabenstott, Albert Roy Elliott, Allen English, William H. Eyler, John Earl Fike, Clarence Fisher, Joseph R. Flickinger, Harvey Alvin Fluhart, Charles Ian Forman, Harry Sylvester Franks, Clayton Samuel Gochnauer, Luman Harkins, Roy Marvin Hartel, Leroy Hunt, Oliver Park Hershberger, William Kane, Julius Glenn Keister, Don Lawrence, Philip Lehman, Carl Lewis, Fred Meahl, Harry Meier, Edward Meiner, Forest Glen Messner, Lewis Murray, Jr., Daniel Dallas Nussbaum, Donald C. Orr, Russell Reed, Harry Royer, John K. Salts-man, Forest Schaaf, Lorenzo Shaffer, William F. Smith, Houston Snyder, Thomas Russell Snyder, Carl R. Stebbins, Ben F. Stoudenheimer, Dewey Utsler, Joseph Wade, Henry Glenn Webb, Harvey Weiss, Forest Clayton Weiser, Clair Wilbur Welty, Wilbert W. White, Arthur P. F. Whitman, Edward Zuver, Harlan E. Major (Marine), and Vincent D. Dannemiller. 174 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Knox County: Mt. Vernon: William Adams, Charles Andrews, Harry C. Bartlett, Ralph E. Beach, Walter S. Blakely, Ben Carter, Elton V. Faddis, George Gregory, Ray Helt, Louis Herrod, Harry C. Hill, Harry E. McDonald, Channing V. Pickering, Charles R. Ranson, Howard E. Smith, Edgar J. Weber, and Lloyd A. Worley. Howard: Dwight R. Kieffer, Calvin C. Lafever, and Harry Staats. William M. Dailey, Fredericktown ; Herman L. Fox, Brinkhaven ; Jesse M. Hauger, Buckeye City ; Roger J. McCullough, Martinsburg; Clinton E. Tish, Democracy, and Joseph E. Cocanour (Marine). Lorain County: Oberlin: Elmer Anderson, Wilfred A. Cobb, Harry E. Mason, Lawrence McCarty, Thomas J. Quayle, Donald J. Slack, and Pauls Whitehead. Elyria: Charles Arthrell, Paul 0. Beckwith, William B. Cline, Rollin E. Hinkson, John C. Hoffman, Gay Johnson, Oscar C. Kolb, Louis P. Magas, Kline D. Mayberry, Charles D. McGinnis, Edwin W. Meinke, George Adam Miller, Harley Moor, Edward G. Nary, Oscar F. Peltz, Walter A. Peters, Frank C. Phillips, Charles Prindl, Herbert S. Richey, Joseph V. Rourke, Thomas E. Shannon, John J. Smith, John M. Smith, Peter P. Smith, Louis Simon, and Gilbert J. Wagner. Lorain: Vincent Bonaminio, August Buss, Thomas Campana, Frank Ciganski, Walter I. Davenport, Erminio Del Sangro, George H. Dibble, Frank J. Emerick, Orval R. Fike, William C. Gannon, Frank Garro, Clarence L. Glading, Albert Graber, Arthur V. Harris, Henry B. Hudson, Lorence Lakosi, Karl B. Lewis, Cleveland Lumsden, Joseph Marconis, Frank L. McTighe, Joe Mischke, Martin V. Morarity, John J. Mullen, Thomas Murrey, William H. Parsley, Bartlett B. Pennington, Adam Peyrykonski, Alfred R. Pflug, Paris J. Plumb, Frank L. Reiber, Matyas Repiczky, Theodore Rotter, John J. Sattler, Joseph Scott, John L. Seabold, Peter Spos, Wilfred Thompson, William H. Weitzel, and David W. Wilson. Kipton: Frank Arnold, Charles W. Hardwick. Amherst: Julius M. Blum, Albert J. Decker, Homer A. Dute, David E. Hill, Henry W. Holle, Melvin A. Matson, Walter Pippert, Ralph E. Powers, Frank J. Wesbecher, and Herbert P. Wyttenbach. Lagrange: Judson D. Freeman. North Ridgeville : Edward Gibbons. Grafton: Arthur M. Hacker, William J. Wildenhein, and Frank A. Wirkner. Wellington: Walter Howard, and lyle K. Morgan. Beldon: Lloyd Leonard. Avon: Barney Mittendorf. Beach Park: Victor Stauder, Lawrence E. Broome (Marine), and William Pillivant (Navy). HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 175 Medina County: Medina: Dudley M. Borger, Howard Boyd, Harry Brooks, Richard Cheeny, Franklin Clark, Neil Conkling, Bryan Gray, Frederick Hoyt, Glenn Kindig, Karl Montoux, Courtney Lawrence, Edwin Mummaw and Clarence Tanner. Wadsworth: Clair Caskey, Harry Lower, Elmo Meager, Charles Neville, Lorenzo Shaffer and Philip Vasel. Myron Curtiss, Malley Creek ; Joseph Fixler, Max Roshen, Arthur Gordon, Seville ; Chippewa Lake, Harry Hedges, Ernest Gault, Ernest Sherman, William L. Rounds (Marine). Richland County: Mansfield: Leonardo Auding, Mike Cherouvis, Morrid B. DeWitt, Frank Fleber, Walter Fry, Albert C. Gerke, Earl Hartford, Edward L. Hill, Earl P. Jones, Maurice J. Leasure, Frank Meconi, Wilbert E. Miller, Theo Myers, William Peters, Russell L. Richetts, Henry B. Schomer, Grimm Steward, Frank A. Styert, Luther Swigart, George C. Teeter, Guy E. Thompson, Jesse H. Walters, and Glenn Young. Perrysville, R. F. D.: George L. Atherton; Pavonia, Albert J. Beeler ; Shelby, Clarence Broadhead, George S. Broderick, Charles B. Gates, Ray C. Gutchall, Charles L. Johnson, Freeborn A. Kellogg, Ralph J. May, and James O'Brien ; Lexington, Harry L. Driscoll, Edia C. Harshey, and Cloyd 0. Yeager ; Bellville, Harry I. Hiskey ; Butler, Herbert S. Statler ; Pavonia, Albert J. Beeler, Horace A. Waid (Marine), and Samuel C. Ehret (Navy). LEGION POSTS IN NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Below is given a list of the American Legion Posts in the seven counties of North Central Ohio. The membership of the American Legion of the various counties in 1930 was : Ashland, 207 ; Richland, 410; Knox, 305 ; Huron, 416; Lorain, 744 ; Medina, 414 ; and Wayne, 507. Membership campaigns were conducted during the first part of 1931 increasing the enrollment substantially. Dudley A. White, business manager of the Norwalk Reflector-Herald, was the Ohio state department commander of the legion in 1929-30. Vice commander for the Lorain and Medina County district is C. E. Persons, past commander of the Elyria Legion Post. James B. Palmquist, commander of Courtney Lawrence Post of the Legion at Medina, has been appointed by Department Commander John A. Elden, a member of the Boy Scout Committee of the Legion. Clyde Tucker, author in 1930 of a history of Huron County in the World War, received first honors 176 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO in a nation-wide contest sponsored by Eben Putnam for the best history of an American Legion Post. George W. Lawrence, formerly of Norwalk, is editor of the Legion News at Columbus. I. E. Cubie, of Avon Lake, fifth district, received in December, 1930, a medal for the most memberships in the Legion, in a state contest. In addition to the legion posts given below are the legion auxiliaries voitures of the 40 et 8 Society, Posts of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliaries. Elyria has a famous Legion Drum Corps. Ken-Bur-Bel Post No. 41, Norwalk: Commander, Herman Snyder, Norwalk ; Adjutant, Clay H. Stackhouse, Wakeman; Finance Officer, C. Fred Moll, Norwalk. Liberty Post No. 46, Bellevue: Commander, Ed. Poss ; Adjutant, F. B. Weigel; Finance Officer, Carl Hawk. Mil-Bow-Mar Post No. 280, Greenwich: Commander, W. J. Coffman; Adjutant, N. P. Marsh ; Finance Officer, C. E. Haines. Lawrence E. Broome Post No. 292, New London: Commander, J. J. Eccles ; Adjutant, George Martin; Finance Officer, Claire L. Griffin. Huron Buckingham Post No. 514, Willard: Commander, Ralph E. Boyles ; Adjutant, Frank E. Mitchell; Finance Officer, Earl G. Youngs. Sch-Loe-Man Post No. 547, Monroeville: Commander, Dewey Beck ; Adjutant, Fert Burrer ; Finance Officer, Peter J. Brown. Morgan-Dirlam Post No. 8, Wellington: Commander, R. S. Coates ; Adjutant, E. C. Wise ; Finance Officer, Bernice F. Miller. Elyria Post No. 12, Elyria: Commander, Dr. A. R. Agate; Adjutant, H. E. Agate ; Finance Officer, Jack Marshall. Lorain Post No. 30, Lorain: Commander, C. Norman Kent ; Adjutant, R. F. Case ; Finance Officer, Vernon E. Queer. Karl Wilson Locke Post No. 102, Oberlin: Commander, Claude L. Lyman ; Adjutant, Chalmer Davidson ; Finance Officer, Harold E. Cook. Elmer Johnson Post No. 118, Amherst: Commander, Lee R. Womack; Adjutant, Hugh Tompkins; Finance Officer, R. Lee Menz. South Amherst Post No. 197, South Amherst: Commander, H. A. Ruth ; Adjutant, J. F. Bierman; Finance Officer, P. S. Mori. Avon Lake Post No. 211, Avon Lake: Commander, William J. Arnold, Avon Lake ; Adjutant, Victor L. Young, Avon Lake; Finance Officer, D. E. Foley, Lakewood. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 177 Wadsworth Post No. 170, Wadsworth : Commander, R. R. Reichard; Adjutant, W. D. Westenbarger ; Finance Officer, Wade Hart. Courtney Lawrence Post No. 202, Medina : Commander, J. B. Palmquist ; Adjutant, H. F. Bradway ; Finance Officer, L. Max High. Joseph Fixler Post No. 249, Seville : Commander, John P. Harry ; Adjutant, J. A. McCoy ; Finance Officer, J. A. McCoy. Lodi Post No. 523, Lodi : Commander, Edward Dirion, Lodi ; Adjutant, Raymond Rice, Leroy ; Finance Officer, Glen Sanders, Lodi. Earl E. McVey Post No. 16, Mansfield: Commander, R. J. Nichols ; Adjutant, Lorne V. Holmes ; Finance Officer, H. R. Barnes. O'Brien Post No. 326, Shelby : Commander, Luther M. Edgar ; Adjutant, Herbert M. Davis ; Finance Officer, Charles Payne. Ehret Post No. 447, Plymouth : Commander, J. E. Nimmons ; Adjutant, Paul Russell ; Finance Officer, George Hacket. Riest Post No. 503, Shiloh : Commander, Fred Witchie ; Adjutant, Charles Kirkwood ; Finance Officer, John Kuhn. Wilbur Davis Post No. 505, Lexington : Commander, C. W. Sowers ; Adjutant, John Bowman ; Finance Officer, John Bowman. Irvin Hiskey Post No. 535, Bellville: Commander, Harry C. Teeter ; Adjutant, E. E. Weltmer ; Finance Officer, E. W. Shumaker. Dan C. Stone, Jr., Post No. 136, Mt. Vernon: Commander, Edward B. Rawlins ; Adjutant, H. L. Owen ; Finance Officer, R. C. Baker. Charles Andrews Post No. 460, Centerburg: Commander, Arthur Jewell ; Adjutant, Clarence E. Armstrong; Finance Officer, Guy Bishop. Joe Cocanour Post No. 500, Fredericktown: Commander, Herbert Brentlinger; Adjutant, Harry Gibson ; Finance Officer, Clay Rogers. Forest Post No. 67, Shreve: Commander, Dewey White; Adjutant, L. A. Cornell ; Finance Officer, Glenn Leyds. Wooster Post No. 68, Wooster: Commander, E. W. Douglas ; Adjutant, Edward M. Quinby ; Finance Officer, Edward M. Quinby. Wilbur Welty Post No. 147, Apple Creek: Commander, Wilbur Knappenberger, Fredericksburg; Adjutant, L. L. Martin, Apple Creek; Finance Officer, Samuel F. Redett, Fredericksburg. Frank E. Cook Post No. 282, Orrville : Commander, Blaine Murray; Adjutant, E. J. Handwork ; Finance Officer, Harold E. Ellsworth. D. W. M. D. Post No. 407, Doylestown: Commander, J. Julius Johnson ; Adjutant, Warren Lutz ; Finance Officer, Phillip Heller. 178 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Howard A. Bair Post No. 423, Rittman : Commander, Walter Keating; Adjutant, Boyd D. Miller; Finance Officer, W. W. Bodager. Creston Post No. 497, Creston: Commander, Howard G. Knepp ; Adjutant, Paul E. Matteson ; Finance Officer, Oscar Fetzer. James Stevenson Post No. 499, West Salem: Commander, Guy R. Garn ; Adjutant, Charles W. McBride; Finance Officer, Charles W. McBride. Harry Higgins Post No. 88, Ashland: Commander, Morgan Fitzpatrick ; Adjutant, W. E. Moebius ; Finance Officer, John M. Gates. There are two other legion posts in Ashland County, the Lucas-Vaughn Post at Polk, and one at Loudonville. Commander of Lucas-Vaughn Post No. 219 is Howard M. Jones ; Adjutant, John E. Fahr ; Finance Officer, Glen E. Stentz. Commander of Post No. 257, Loudonville, is J. F. Bowman ; Adjutant, H. G. Huffman ; Finance Officer, J. C. Tenschert. OHIO NATIONAL GUARD UNITS There are a number of units of the Ohio National Guard in North Central Ohio in towns where they have been for many years. Mention of these is made in other chapters. At the completion of the Ashland armory in 1925 that city had three military companies, the Headquarters Company, Company E, 145th Infantry, and the Hospital Company of the 112th Infantry. The Headquarters Company removed to Shreve in 1929, but the other two units still have their headquarters in Ashland. The Hospital Company has the distinction of being the first of its kind ever organized in the United States. Dr. C. B. Meuser and C. W. Cummings organized this Sanitary Company, which was federally recognized April 19, 1921, and in August of that year served its first camp period at Camp Perry. On the night of June 28, 1924, while at Camp Perry, the Hospital Company was ordered to service in the Lorain and Sandusky disaster, remaining in Lorain eight days on relief work. Captain Meuser was promoted to the rank of major, served as battalion commander and Dr. D. L. Mohn as battalion adjutant after having served as captain of the Hospital Company, of which Dr. E. L. Clem is now in charge. Dr. Mohn is still connected with the company as junior officer. Dr. Meuser resigned as battalion commander more than a year ago. There are also National Guard companies at Norwalk, Wooster, Mt. Vernon and Mansfield. CHAPTER XX. FAMOUS UNDERGROUND RAILROAD NORTH CENTRAL OHIO HOMES WHERE, IN ANTE-BELLUM DAYS FLEEING SLAVES WERE SECRETED AND ASSISTED ON WAY TO FREEDOM-SAVANNAH WOMAN TELLS OF FATHER'S OPERATIONS-RICHLAND COUNTY FARMER OUTWITS SLAVE-HUNTERS-OBERLIN-WELLINGTON RESCUE CASE. The region around Savannah, a few miles north of Ashland, contained a number of places of refuge for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. Anti-slavery sentiment among the sturdy Scotch Presbyterians was so strong that at the risk of heavy penalties, fines and even confiscation of their farms, they followed their vision of service to fellow beings in bondage, harbored the run-a-way slaves and at night conveyed them to Greenwich, Oberlin or even to Sandusky. Among these stations near Savannah, were the John Lawson home along the Creek Road, four miles west of Savannah ; the Bebout farm, the John Patterson farm, both west of the village ; the homes of Abram and William Shaw, A. H. Paxton, James Lindsay, John Harvey and Ezra Garrett. One of the landmarks on Route 250, near where it leaves Route 60, is the old Ezra Garrett home, a brick house behind a grove of eighty-year-old pine trees about a mile north of Savannah. In the front room, to the right of the hallway, was a trap door which gave access to a secret cellar where the colored fugitives were concealed when officers or masters were searching for them. There was a similar secret cellar in the Bebout farmhouse and the attic of the Lawson house was a frequent place of concealment of runaway slaves. Joseph Patterson, the aged president of the First National Bank at Ashland, told of an occasion when two southerners, searching for their human chattels, appeared suddenly at the home of Mr. Lawson, Patterson's uncle. In a pile of wool in the attic, Mr. Lawson had - 179 - 180 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO concealed the negroes so well that though the masters took off some of the fleeces they failed to find the hidden negroes, who that night were taken to Greenwich and from there further north to freedom. Miss Emma E. Garrett, who died Dec. 26, 1930, at her home in Savannah, told this writer on one occasion that between the years 1847 and 1860, her father, Ezra Garrett, gave aid to between 400 and 500 runaways. "From Mansfield, Wooster and south of Hayesville, the refugees would be brought to our home on the Fitchville Road, usually about midnight. John Finney brought them from near Mansfield and Mr. Wilson from south of Hayesville. My father, who died Aug. 15, 1914, often told me of his experiences in transporting runaway slaves. He told me that the first time he took a load of them on their way, he was afraid, but after that he had not the least bit of fear. `I knew that I was disobeying a man-made law but was obedient to the higher law of God,' he used to say. One night two men came out at the Fitchville bridge and seized his horses by the bridles but father gave the animals a sudden cut with the whip, they leaped forward and he got away. The tavernkeeper at Fitchville was safe but there were some people in the village who could not be trusted and father usually took the runaways to the home of a Mr. Palmer, two miles north of Fitchville. Father hauled a great deal of wheat and other grain to Milan and it was easy for him to conceal the runaways among the sacks. He sometimes concealed fugitives at his sugar camp and one time they were hidden in shocks of corn back of the woods. "One time eleven slaves, worth from $1,000 to $2,000 apiece, were brought to our house at midnight. Mother prepared a big meal for them. Potatoes were cooked with the jackets on and a whole ham was cut up. The negroes were kept until the following night when they were taken on their way. An aunt of mine, Mary Benton, accompanied by a neighbor girl, Maggie Slonecker, helped a mulatto girl on her way one time ; the slave girl was anxious to get to Oberlin to meet her lover. The girls took her to Elder John Kirkton's, southwest of Ruggles, and he took her on to Oberlin. Neighbors often supplied clothing for the slaves, some of whom were quite destitute." John Finney, to whom Miss Garrett referred, lived in Springfield Township, Richland County, a few miles northwest of Mansfield. It is asserted that during the quarter of a century that he was an HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 181 Underground Railroad conductor, he helped fully three thousand negroes on their way to liberty. Many were brought to his farm home from Iberia, the Quaker settlement in Morrow County, from a couple of refugees in the vicinity of Lexington, and the Owl Creek Quaker settlement north of Fredericktown. The story has often been told how he outwitted officers of the law when he had five negro men concealed in the grainery of his barn and several negro women and a couple of children hidden in the house loft. Finney having demanded that a search warrant be produced, several of the officers returned to Mansfield for the legal authority while the other members of the posse, left on guard, accepted Finney's invitation of breakfast, which was preceded by family worship. The officers knelt with the family and Finney, praying with his eyes open, did not say amen until from a window he saw the five negroes, who had been warned, disappear up the road. To give them further time he announced the 119th Psalm, the longest one he could find, and it was sung to slow music. The breakfast was even more abundant than usual and the officers did full justice to the good things provided, tarrying until the other members of the force returned with the warrant. The search was fruitless for the women and children were so well hidden that they could not be found. Disappointed, the posse returned to Mansfield and that night the women and children joined the other runaways at Savannah, from which place they journeyed to Sandusky and from there across Lake Erie to Amherstburg in Canada. There are said to have been between 2,800 and 3,000 miles of Underground Railroad routes in Ohio, so efficiently operated that during a period of forty years the loss to southern slave owners amounted to thirty millions of dollars. Along the Ohio River there were twenty-three communities from which runaway slaves were helped on their way across the State of Ohio. The five principal outlets on Lake Erie, places from which the fugitives were taken across the lake, were Ashtabula Harbor, Fairport Harbor, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo. There were 123 miles of these routes in Richland County ; 120 in Huron and 108 in Lorain. The extent of the opposition to the fugitive slave law of 1850 is seen in the famous Oberlin-Wellington rescue case which attracted nation-wide attention from the middle of September, 1858, until the case was finally disposed of in July, 1859. 182 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO OBERLIN-WELLINGTON CASE An eighteen-year-old negro, John Price, who had fled from his master's plantation in Mason County, Kentucky, had lived in Oberlin a couple of years when the owner, learning of the black boy's whereabouts, sent a couple of men after him. They obtained the assistance of a United States officer and deputy from Columbus and the black boy having been enticed from Oberlin on promise of a job at potato digging, they seized him and drove with him to Wellingtotn, Sept. 13, 1858. They stopped with their prisoner at the Wadsworth House, afterwards the American House, where the Herrick Library now stands. News of the kidnapping was brought to Oberlin and crowds of people were soon on their way to Wellington where they were joined by Wellington folks who had come out to a fire. The kidnappers had intended to take Price south on a train over what is now the Big Four but were prevented by the people who surrounded the hotel. The prisoner was found in the attic, rescued by Oberlinites and taken back to the college town. For several days he was at Professor Fairchild's and then taken to Canada. In federal court at Cleveland, indictments were secured against twenty-four Oberlin people and thirteen from Wellington. There was considerable litigation, sentences imposed, fines assessed. A number of the men refused to give bail and remained in jail at Cleveland for months. Governor Salmon P. Chase and Joshua R. Giddings were speakers at an anti-slavery mass meeting held on the Cleveland public square while the case was pending. In Lorain County, Price's kidnappers were indicted in retaliation and finally the court at Cleveland held that there was not sufficient proof of the slave owner's title and all the prisoners connected with the case were freed. The rescuers were accorded a big demonstration when they were released from the jail at Cleveland. A big reception was held and bands played. There was great rejoicing at Elyria, Oberlin and Wellington. Judge A. R. Webber, in his "Early History of Elyria and Her People," says that the Oberlin-Wellington rescue case was the last attempt to enforce the fugitive slave law in Ohio. A little over a month after the case ended occurred John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, on December 2 of that year Brown was hanged and a little more than sixteen months later Fort Sumter was fired upon and the nation plunged into Civil War. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 183 GRAVES OF THREE OF BROWN'S MEN In the southeast section of the Oberlin cemetery a monument of clouded marble marks the resting place of three colored men who were with the abolitionist, John Brown, in the Harper's Ferry raid Oct. 16, 1859. They were twenty-three-year-old S. Green and twenty-five-year-old J. A. Copeland, both of whom died at Charlestown, Va., Dec. 2, 1859, and L. S. Leary, aged twenty-four, who died at Harper's Ferry, Va., Oct. 20, 1859. The inscription reads : "These colored citizens of Oberlin, the heroic associates of the immortal John Brown, gave their lives for the slave. Et nunc servitudo etiam murtua est, laus Deo." FORMER SLAVE LIVES IN OBERLIN Living in Oberlin in his eighty-fourth year is a former slave, James A. Bell, white-haired, white-mustached, who was sold on the auction block several times before he was eighteen years old. He tells of his childhood on a cotton plantation along the Savannah River; the cruel, lash-wielding master who dropped dead in a fit of anger; Bell's father sold down the river, his mother and her three children, including James, then five years old, sold to a master as cruel as the first one, his sale to a third master, who hung him up by his thumbs to a rafter of the barn and gave him 100 lashes on the bare back with a harness tug because he had run away ; his escape finally to the Union Army, and his acquaintanceship with Capt. Herman Nicholson of Pittsfield, Lorain County, which lead to the former slave locating in Oberlin in October, 1865, that town having been his home ever since. Commemorating a Medina County abolitionist, Hiram Miller, who is said to have aided hundreds of negroes to escape to Canada in the days of the fugitive slave law, a monument is to be erected this summer (1931) on the old Miller farm in Hinckley Township, Medina County. With his family he located in Medina County ninety-eight years ago. He was not only outspoken in behalf of freedom for the slaves but was one of the foremost in educational matters, an ardent worker in the cause of temperance. He was a personal friend of the abolitionist, John Brown, when the latter lived in Akron. Judge A. R. Webber of Elyria will be one of the speakers at the unveiling of the Miller monument. Frank G. Goldwood, who leads a band organized 184 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO in Hinckley by his forefathers and who is one of the leaders in the Miller memorial preparations, says that over 3,500 fugitive slaves made their way to freedom through Summit, Medina and Cuyahoga counties. CHAPTER XXI. BANKS AND BANKERS. COMMUNITY STOREKEEPERS IN EARLY DAYS SERVED AS BANKERS TO FARMER CUSTOMERS-KELLEY BANKING ACT OF 1845 PUT BANKING ON SUBSTANTIAL BASIS-FIRST BANKS IN MT. VERNON, MANSFIELD, NOR-WALK, WOOSTER, ELYRIA, ASHLAND, MEDINA-CIVIL WAR FINANCIER NATIVE OF FIRELANDS-PRESENT BANKS AND BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS. In the early day communities of North Central Ohio the local storekeeper usually acted in the capacity of banker to his farmer customers for there were very few banks in those days. There was very little money and most of the transactions were those of primitive barter. The farmer sold to the storekeeper whatever surplus products he had and purchased such supplies as he needed from time to time. Settlement would be made once a year. In order to obtain goods in the eastern markets, the village merchants often did pork packing or would drive cattle, hogs or other live stock to Pittsburgh, Baltimore or some other market. On April 15, 1803, a few weeks after the first Ohio Legislature met at Chillicothe, the Miami Exporting Company of Cincinnati was incorporated and with a capital of half a million dollars, established the first bank in the state. Five years later banks were opened at Chillicothe, Marietta and Steubenville. There was one at Zanesville in 1811. An Ohio writer has said : "Up to 1845 the banking business in Ohio was in a deplorable condition. Wildcat banking was the rule and bank swindles were a frequent occurrence. During the panic of 1837 the Zanesville bank was nearly the only one in Ohio that did not repudiate its obligations. In those days no man dared accept bank paper without first investigating the standing of the bank issuing the money. In 1845 Alfred Kelley's great bank act was enacted by the General Assembly. It ended wildcat banking in Ohio." - 185 - 186 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO In providing for National banks during the Civil War, a famous Ohioan, Salmon P. Chase, as United States Secretary of the Treasury, followed for the most part the plan of the Kelly bank act. In 1816 the state's first general banking act was passed and on April 10 of that year, as stated in another chapter, a meeting was held at the court house in Mt. Vernon for the organization of the Owl Creek Bank, which was established in spite of the fact that a charter was refused. All would probably have been well if so many of the patrons who had been perfectly willing to borrow from an unchartered bank, had not acquired conscientious scruples against paying their obligations to an unchartered bank, someone has said. Litigation followed and it was over thirty years before the case was finally ended. The first bank in Mansfield was started in 1816, the same year that the Owl Creek Bank at Mt. Vernon was opened. Historian Graham says it was on Main Street at the southwest corner of the square, with John Garrison as president and a Mr. Elliott as cashier. The bank failed to receive a charter because when the bill was pending the Richland County member voted aye on what he supposed was the final passage of the bill but which proved to be a motion for indefinite postponement of the measure ; this being carried by a majority of one, the Richlander defeated his own bill and the bank having failed to get a charter was discontinued. Mansfield does not seem to have had another bank until thirty years later when James Patterson & Company opened a bank of deposit on the west side of the public square and every evening the daily accumulation of cash was taken to E. P. Sturges' store at Main and North Park streets to be put in his safe. When as a youth of seventeen the future statesman, John Sherman, came to Mansfield to study law, his brother, Charles T. Sherman, afterwards District Judge of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio, was substantially the banker in Mansfield and surrounding counties for eastern merchants, collecting accounts for them. The senator in his Recollections says : "Our banking system was then as bad as it could be, exchange on New York was always at premium and there was no confidence in our local banks." While a law student in Mansfield from 1840 to 1844, young John was often sent by his brother to the nearest bank at Wooster with money to buy exchange on New York for clients. This trip of thirty- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 187 five miles over the hills was always made on horseback. The night before he was to make one of these trips young Sherman was given two packages containing nearly two thousand dollars in bills. Next morning before mounting his horse he felt in his overcoat pocket for the packages. He was terror-stricken to find the packages gone. One of the packages he found on the sidewalk but thorough search failed to reveal the other one. It touched John deeply that his brother on being told of the loss didn't scold him but prepared to make good the loss after having taken steps to trace the finder of the package. It developed in a few weeks that the package had been picked up by a man who was on his way to get an early morning drink. He was seen taking money from his trunk and a search warrant resulted in the recovery of the thousand dollars except for a small sum that the man had spent. In 1846 after the Kelley bank act had gone into effect, the new banks that were established took over the collections for eastern merchants in this section of Ohio. The first bank in Huron County was the Bank of Norwalk, which started in 1833 under a special charter of the Legislature. The president of it was the Hon. Ebenezer Lane, subsequently a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court and the cashier was Martin Bentley. The directors were : Ebenezer Lane, Timothy Baker, George Hollister, Daniel Hamilton, Pickett Latimer and Moses Kimball. In the spring of 1834 John Gardiner, who at the time of his death, April 14, 1915, was the oldest active banker in the United States, lacking only five months of being one hundred years old, entered upon his remarkable career in the banking business as clerk in this pioneer financial institution which at that time was the only bank for Northwestern Ohio. Its business extended west, to Fremont, Toledo and Perrysburg ; north, to Milan, Huron and Sandusky, and south, to Bucyrus, Marion, Mansfield and Mt. Vernon. Mr. Gardiner was in his eighteenth year when early in May, 1833, he came to Norwalk, which at that time was a village of about 300 population. At a salary of seventy-five dollars a year and board, he became a clerk in the store of P. & J. M. Latimer, who did a large general merchandising business and dealt in produce, which found ready sale in Detroit to supply early settlers of Michigan. During the summer of 1834, a short time after he began work in the Bank of Norwalk, Cashier Bentley died very suddenly and the responsibil- 188 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO ities of the cashier were assumed by young Gardiner for nearly two months until George Mygatt was made cashier. The large area served by this early day bank brought young Gardiner into acquaintanceship with all the leading business men of that section of the state, who at that time came to Norwalk for their bank accommodations. The bank went successfully through the panic of 1837 and was one of the first institutions of the kind in Ohio to resume coin payments. He became cashier of the bank, was in mercantile business for a while and in 1847, with some friends, established the Norwalk branch of the Bank of Ohio. This began business in May, 1848, with J. P. Reznor as president and Mr. Gardiner as cashier and manager. In 1861 he assisted Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to organize the nation's First National Bank. He was president of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad, now a part of the New York Central Lines. He was one of the organizers in 1865 of the Norwalk National Bank of which he was president up to 1914 when he retired because of his health. The first directors of this bank, in addition to Mr. Gardiner, were Amos Woodward, John Tifft, C. A. Preston and Timothy Baker. The private bank of Baker, Kittredge & Co., began business in Norwalk in December, 1857, and continued until Feb. 1, 1864. It was succeeded by the First National Bank of Norwalk, the first directors of which were G. G. Baker, W. F. Kittredge, Henry Brown, D. A. Baker, W. 0. Parker, Fred Sears and J. C. Curtiss, Jr. The president of the bank was G. G. Baker and W. F. Kittredge, cashier. The Bank of Deposit, established in Mansfield by. James Patterson & Co., came into control of Andrew Conn and Charles T. Sherman upon the death of Mr. Patterson, with whom they had been associated. It closed up its affairs about 1854. Prominent in a number of banking enterprises in Ohio and elsewhere, also in the construction of railroads and industrial enterprises, along with the successful practice of law was James Purdy, of Mans. field, who lived to advanced age and in his day was the oldest bank president in Ohio in point of continuous service. He was active in securing the passage of the law creating the State Bank of Ohio He had been a stockholder in the Bank of Wooster, organized in 1834, and after the enactment of the law for the establishment of the State Bank of Ohio, he was chosen a member of the board of control. It was through Mr. Purdy's efforts that Mansfield's first permanent HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 189 bank was established in 1847, regarding which Historian Graham says : "Money to establish banks could not be gathered up on the streets in those days, but Mr. Purdy succeeded in finding thirty men in the county who were able to pay in $30,000 in specie, Mr. Purdy agreeing to take their stock off their hands, if at any future time they should desire it. He was aided in the establishment of this bank by G. Armentrout, William Granger, David Anderson and others." The first directors were Mr. Purdy, William Granger, David Anderson, M. Barker and John Shauck. Purdy was made president and continued in that capacity after the institution became the Farmers National Bank in 1865. John Rhodes was the first cashier of the Farmers Bank. Among the other banking enterprises with which Mr. Purdy was connected was the firm of Luther Crall & Co., at Ashland, which started in January, 1852. His associates in this bank of deposit and discount were Hulbert Luther, Jacob Crall, George H. Topping, Jacob 0. Jennings and William S. Granger. This became, in January, 1864, the First National Bank of Ashland. Jacob 0. Jennings, who died March 13, 1911, at the age of more than ninety-two years, was in continuous service of this bank and its predecessor for fifty-nine years, having been cashier of the private bank of Luther Crall & Co. from its organization and cashier of the First National Bank until the withdrawal of Hulbert Luther, when he became president and continued in that capacity until his resignation in January, 1911, a couple of months before his death. He was the first clerk of Ashland County and was one of Ashland's most highly esteemed citizens, being noted for his benefactions. Francis E. Myers; millionaire pump manufacturer of Ashland, and for some years president of the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus Electric Line, who succeeded Mr. Jennings as president of the bank, died Dec. 2, 1923, and Joseph Patterson became president. Mr. Patterson, now in his eighty-eighth year, has been connected with this institution since March, 1861. He became cashier in 1870, continuing in that position many years and was vice president when he was chosen head of the institution. A. C. Bogniard is cashier. Mr. Patterson, probably the oldest banker in Ohio in point of continuous service, is a remarkably well preserved man and at his desk every working day. Seventy years ago, when he entered upon his work with Luther Crall & Co., Ashland was a village of about 190 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO fifteen hundred inhabitants. He tells many interesting things regarding banking in those days of the long ago. When in his eighteenth year he came from Savannah to work in the bank at Ashland, he was instructed thoroughly on how to detect counterfeit bank notes. Hundreds of counterfeit notes were in circulation and it was necessary to be on the alert constantly. At that time, too, only a few bank notes were at par in New York. There were frequent changes in the cost of a draft on New York. One week a draft for a hundred dollars would cost three dollars and the very next week, perhaps, it would cost fifteen dollars for an equal amount. State Bank of Ohio notes were at ten per cent discount in New York. During the spring of 1861 very few banks' issues were at par in New York. Paper money was plentiful. Mr. Patterson recalls the time when gold went up to two-eighty and how it went down again after the resumption of specie payment. The Lorain Bank of Elyria was established May 25, 1847, as a branch of the old State Bank of Ohio with Heman Ely as president ; Artemas Beebe, vice president ; Elijah DeWitt, secretary ; W. A. Adair, cashier, and Levi Burnell, bookkeeper. This continued until 1864; the First National, 1864 to 1883, and the National Bank of Elyria from 1883 to 1903, when it was rechartered with an increase of capital. In 1895 Parks Foster organized the Lorain County Banking Company and was its president until his death in 1905. In 1915 the name was changed to the Lorain County Savings & Trust Company. The Elyria Savings and Banking Co. began business in 1901 with William Braman as president. Dr. Elijah DeWitt, who for thirty years was president of the National Bank of Elyria, and who for some years was an associate judge in Lorain County, began the practice of his profession at Lodi in 1821 and in 1835 opened a drug store in Elyria. For fifty-five years he lived in a brick dwelling on West Broad Street, which was still standing in 1930. He was actively interested in having the Lake Shore Railroad built through Elyria and was always deeply interested in the advancement of his home city. Judge A. R. Webber, in his Early History of Elyria, writes interestingly of Dr. DeWitt. Also of another Elyria banker, Parks Foster, a native of Amherst Township, Lorain County. Judge Webber says that for "undaunted zeal and determination in his undertakings, Foster stood alone in his day among the native sons of Lorain County." During his long and busy career he took the initiative in, and successfully established a considerable number of enterprises, in  HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 191 some of which he encountered obstacles that to most people would have seemed insuperable. An incident of his boyhood is related. By hard work, persistent application and self-denial he had been able to save thirty dollars by the time he was fifteen years old. Fearing that he might be robbed of his money, the lean, tow-headed, red-faced youngster, barefooted, walked to Elyria to deposit his money in the only bank then in the county. He knew that the bank didn't pay any interest on deposits but was greatly disappointed when the cashier told him he didn't believe the bank cared to bother with so small a sum as thirty dollars. However, the banker told him he would talk it over with the president and let him know definitely that afternoon. When, on his second visit to the bank, he was told that thirty dollars was too small a sum to be bothered with, young Foster made a vow that some time he would return to Elyria and either buy out that bank or start one of his own that would not refuse to receive for deposit any young person's savings, no matter how small. Years later the banking company which he helped to organize and of which he was the president, absorbed the bank that had refused his money when he was a lad. In these days when financial institutions give every encouragement to the practice of thrift, it seems almost incredible that any bank, anywhere, should ever have refused to accept savings. The pioneer banker in Medina was the Hon. Harrison G. Blake, who as a youth of seventeen, located in Medina in 1836, clerked in a store, was in business for himself, studied law with Judge J. S. Carpenter, served in the General Assembly for two terms as Representative and two as member of the Senate, being chosen president of the Senate. In the spring of 1857 he founded the Phoenix Bank, the present Old Phoenix National Bank of which his grandson, Blake McDowell, is president. The reason for its founding was to give the people of Medina County a place to do their banking without having to go to Cleveland or to Wooster. In his Recollections of the Medina County Bar, Judge Webber of Elyria, who studied law in the office of Blake, Woodward & Lewis at Medina, speaks of the magnitism and attractive personality of his preceptor. "He was in his day, beyond all question, the most popular and beloved man in the county," says Judge Webber. "He wore a cloak overcoat and plug hat and was very diligent in his business. He owned the Phoenix Block which he built and was cashier of the Phoenix Bank. The law office was over 192 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO the bank. He spent practically all of his time in the bank where he was in constant demand by callers. Such was the confidence reposed in him that men and women came to him with about all the troubles to which flesh is heir. If they needed court proceedings, he sent them upstairs to his law partners, Woodward and Lewis. If he thought his presence was needed above he accompanied them for consultation. He cut his life short by many years by his too close confinement to business. He was a distinguished looking man, a gentleman of highest honor, a patriot to the core." In 1858, the year after he founded the Phoenix Bank at Medina, Harrison G. Blake was elected to Congress from the old Fourteenth District and re-elected in 1860. He was a close personal friend of President Lincoln. The United States Postoffice Department money-order system was established as the result of Congressman Blake's efforts. "The American people owe a debt of gratitude to the memory of the late Harrison G. Blake, business man, banker, editor," says Hal P. Denton in an article a couple of years ago. "As a member of the committee on post offices and post roads in the Thirty-seventh Congress, he conceived the money-order, introduced the bill which initiated the necessary legislation for its passage by the nation's lawmakers, guided it through the devious ways of the lower branch of Congress, followed it with fatherly care through the Senate and lived to see the fruits of his wisdom acknowledged by the press of the country." It is said that in the building on the site of the present Phoenix Block Mr. Blake, during a recess of Congress, drafted the money-order bill. At the end of his second term in Congress Mr. Blake enlisted as a private in the Civil War and was chosen colonel of the 166th Regiment, 0. V. I. Summing up the career of this Medina banker who so distinguished himself in other lines as well, Judge Webber says: "His life is striking evidence of the opportunities every youth has to rise in the world under the flag he so ably defended in Congress and out. From a Vermont waif, to the forests of Ohio and fatherless, motherless, and in the arms of strangers, he was given an ax to hew out his destiny which he did to the high position in the councils of the greatest nation on earth, rising to be the best beloved and most conspicuous personage in a great Western Reserve County. It did not come to pass by luck or accident. Native ability and everlasting HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 193 work and integrity of purpose were the foundations. Such was the impression he left on his day and generation that he is still a conspicuous character for his soul will go marching on." The Phoenix became a ,National Bank in 1873, after the National Bank system was established and for a quarter of a century Mr. Blake's son-in-law, the late R. M. McDowell, was at the head of the Phoenix National Bank. When its charter was renewed in 1893, it became the Old Phoenix National Bank. On the death of R. M. McDowell in 1897, J. Andrew became president of the bank, serving until his death in 1915. The other present officers in addition to President Blake McDowell are: Vice president, D. C. Shepard ; cashier, C. E. Jones ; assistant cashiers, E. F. Gibbs and Paul M. Jones ; teller, Max L. High. The Savings Deposit Bank Co., of Medina, was established in 1892. Amherst T. Spitzer, who, at the age of seventy-six, died in September, 1924, was president of this bank for a number of years. His grandfather, Nicholas Spitzer, located in Lafayette Township, Medina County, in 1836. The present officers are E. B. Spitzer, president; E. R. Root, vice president; H. E. Aylard, cashier; C. O. Davenport, assistant cashier. The directors are H. E. Aylard, A. A. Bostwick, E. R. Root, G. F. Gruninger, Frank Spellman, C. 0. Davenport, C. E. Hoover, E. B. Spitzer. Members of the state board of control under the act of 1845 creating the State Bank of Ohio and other banking companies were the following in addition to James Purdy of Mansfield, previously mentioned : John Gardiner, of Norwalk ; E. Quinby, Jr., of Wooster; Henry B. Curtis, of Mt. Vernon, and E. DeWitt and John R. Finn, of Elyria. Probably the greatest banker the Firelands produced was the famous Civil War financier, Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, who was born at what is now Sandusky, in 1821. When, in October, 1862, Secretary of the Treasury Chase made Cooke financial agent of the government for the sale of government bonds, the Philadelphia financier faced a stupendous task in selling the bonds at par for the premiums on gold had advanced. By newspaper publicity campaigns, advertisements, editorials and articles in the news column on a scale unprecedented up to that time, he carried the appeal to the people of cities, villages and farms in all parts of the Northern states. He named close to 3,500 sub-agents and assuming many personal risks, he con- 194 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO ducted the campaign so successfully that a loan of half a billion dollars was over-subscribed eleven million. Speaking of what Cooke did, Secretary Chase said: "Without Mr. Cooke's service neither army, navy or general creditors of the government could have been paid. It was a work which could not have been as successfully performed, or indeed have been performed at all, by the Treasury." In a subsequent campaign this great financier rendered still further service. In the panic of 1873 he faced adversity but through fortunate investments he regained wealth, founded a girls' school near Philadelphia and enjoyed a serene old age. Oct. 3, 1900, he was at Norwalk and addressed the Firelands Historical Society. He enjoyed his summer home, the island of Gibraltar, Put-in-Bay. The islands of Lake Erie had for him perennial charm. He died at the home of his daughter near Philadelphia, Feb. 18, 1905, in his eighty-fourth year. The president of the Farmers Bank, Ashland, is J. L. Clark ; cashier, George R. Freer, who is also treasurer of the Star Telephone Company, which operates exchanges in fourteen towns in this section of the state. T. 0. Stearns is president of the Ashland Bank & Savings Co.; Julius Lutz, cashier. The president of the Ashland Building & Loan Co., which occupies its own building on West Main Street, is H. J. Schulz ; secretary, J. E. Arnold. T. V. Simanton is president of the Home Savings & Loan Co. and M. R. Roberts, secretary. Richland County has twelve banks in seven different towns, as follows: Mansfield, Farmers Savings & Trust Co., Mansfield Savings Bank & Trust Co., The Richland Trust Co., and Citizens National Bank & Trust Co.; Shelby, Citizens Bank and First National Bank ; Bellville, Bellville Savings Bank and Farmers Bank of Bellville ; Shiloh, Shiloh Savings Bank Company ; Butler, The Citizens Bank; Lexington, The Lexington State Bank and Lucas, The Lucas State Bank. In thirteen towns, Wayne County has sixteen banks. Wooster, Commercial Banking & Trust Co., Citizens National Bank and Wayne County National Bank ; West Salem, Farmers State Bank ; Orrville, Orrville Savings Bank and Orrville National Bank ; Smithville, Farmers & Merchants Bank; Sterling, Farmers Banking Company ; Shreve, Farmers Bank; Mt. Eaton, Bank of Mt. Eaton ; Fredericksburg, Citizens Bank ; Doylestown, Doylestown Banking Company ; Dalton, First National Bank ; Creston, Stebbins Banking Company ; Apple Creek, Apple Creek Banking Company ; and Rittman, Rittman Savings Bank. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 195 Huron County has thirteen banks located as follows in nine different towns : Norwalk, Huron County Banking Company, and Citizens National Bank ; Willard, Commercial Bank Company and Home Savings & Banking Company ; Bellevue, Union Bank & Savings Co., and First National Bank ; New London, Third National Bank; Greenwich, Farmers Banking Company, and First National Bank ; Monroeville, Farmers & Citizens Banking Co. ; North Fairfield, North Fairfield Savings Bank ; Plymouth, Peoples National Bank ; and Wakeman, Wakeman Bank Company. Knox County has ten banks located as follows : Mt. Vernon, First National Bank, Knox County Savings Bank and Knox National Bank ; Danville, The Commercial & Savings Bank Company and Danville Bank ; Fredericktown, First National Bank and Dan Struble & Son, Bankers ; Gambier, The Peoples Bank ; Howard, Howard Savings Bank Company ; and Centerburg, Centerburg Savings Bank Company. In seven towns in Medina County eleven banks are located: Medina, Savings Deposit Bank Co. and Old Phoenix National Bank ; Wadsworth, Wadsworth Savings & Trust Co. and First National Bank ; Lodi, Lodi State Bank and Peoples National Bank ; Seville, Seville State Bank ; Spencer, Farmers Savings Bank and Spencer State Bank ; Sharon Center, Sharon Center Banking Co.; and Valley City, Farmers Bank. There are seventeen banks in Lorain County located in eight different towns: Lorain, Central Bank Co., City Bank Company, Lorain Banking Co., Peoples Savings Bank and National Bank of Commerce; Elyria, Elyria Savings & Trust Co., Lorain Co. Savings & Trust Co., Savings Deposit Bank & Trust Co. ; Wellington, First Wellington Bank and First National Bank ; Oberlin, Oberlin Savings Bank Co. and Peoples Banking Co. ; Amherst, Amherst Park Bank Co. and Amherst Savings & Banking Co. ; Grafton, Grafton Savings & Banking Co. ; Kipton, Kipton Bank Co. ; and La Grange, Peoples Bank. Ashland County has ten banks in eight towns : Ashland, First National Bank, Ashland Bank & Savings Co. and Farmers Bank ; Loudonville, Farmers & Savings Bank of Loudonville ; Jeromesville, Citizens Bank ; Savannah, Farmers Bank ; Nova, Nova Banking Co. ; Perrysville, Perrysville Bank ; Polk, Polk State Bank ; Sullivan, Sullivan State Bank. 196 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS The following is a list of the Building & Loan Associations in the seven counties of North Central Ohio : Ashland County: Ashland Building & Loan Company and Home & Savings Company, Ashland. Huron County : Industrial Savings & Loan Association, Bellevue ; Home Savings & Loan Company, Norwalk. Knox County : Centerburg Building & Loan Association Company, Centerburg ; Citizens Building, Loan and Savings Association Company, Home Building & Loan Company and Knox Savings & Loan Association, Mt. Vernon. Lorain County : First Savings & Loan Company, Lorain County Savings & Loan Company, Northern Savings & Loan Company, Elyria; Citizens Home & Savings Association Company, Independent Savings & Loan Company, Lake Erie Savings & Loan Company, Union Savings & Loan Company, Lorain ; Wellington Savings & Loan Company, Wellington. Medina County: Citizens Savings & Loan Company, Medina ; Medina County Savings & Loan Company, Peoples Savings & Loan Company, Wadsworth. Richland County : Citizens Savings & Loan Company, First Savings & Loan Company, Mansfield Building & Loan Association, Mechanics Building & Loan Company, Mansfield ; Shelby Building & Loan Company, Shelby. Wayne County : Citizens Savings & Loan Company, Rittman ; Home Building & Loan Company, Peoples Savings & Loan Company, and Wayne Building & Loan Company, Wooster. CHAPTER XXII. COUNTY SEAT NEWSPAPERS TRUMP OF FAME, FIRST NEWSPAPER OF WESTERN RESERVE PUBLISHES FIRST NEWS OF PERRY'S VICTORY-OHIO REGISTER ESTABLISHED AT CLINTON IN 1813-LATER MOVED TO MT. VERNON-OHIO SPECTATOR, WOOSTER,1817- MANSFIELD'S FIRST PAPER 1818-NORWALK REPORTER 1827-LORAIN GAZETTE 1829-MEDINA AND ASHLAND NEWSPAPERS. Hundreds of newspapers have been established in villages, towns and cities of North Central Ohio in the hundred and eighteen years since John P. McArdle, practical printer, and Samuel H. Smith, first surveyor of Knox County and founder of the town of Clinton, a mile and a half north of Mt. Vernon, founded in Clinton the Ohio Register, an eight by ten sheet, folio style, that July day in 1813. This was the first newspaper in all the thirty-four hundred and twenty square miles of territory comprised in what are now the counties of Huron, Lorain, Medina, Wayne, Ashland, Richland and Knox. This was a little over nine and a half years after William Maxwell, Revolutionary soldier, printed on a hand press in a log cabin at the corner of Front and Sycamore streets, Cincinnati, the first issue of The Centennial of the North Western Territory, the first newspaper published in what was destined to be the State of Ohio. This was on Nov. 9, 1793. Publisher Maxwell evidently had some difficulty in delivering the initial issue of his weekly paper to his subscribers, as indicated by a notice in this issue as follows : "Subscribers to this paper will please to call at the office for it, as there has been a subscription-paper mislaid, and the names of a number of subscribers are not yet known to the printer." It is said that in spite of the difficulties which he encountered, he managed to issue his paper every week with great regularity through almost the entire period of his connection with it. Having received, in 1796, the appointment of - 197 - 198 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO postmaster of Cincinnati, he sold the Centinel to Edmund Freeman, who renamed it Freeman's Journal. In the next few years newspapers were started at Chillicothe, Marietta, Cincinnati, Lebanon, Steubenville, Lisbon, Zanesville and Worthington, but it was not until in June, 1812, that Thomas D. Webb established at Warren The Trump of Fame, which eventually became the Warren Chronicle. This was a little over a year before the Ohio Register at Clinton was founded. Warren at that time was the capital of the Western Reserve, Trumbull County, at that time including extensive territory. Cleveland had no newspaper, nor had Sandusky or Detroit. It was not until five years later that the sale of lots began at Port Lawrence on the site of Toledo. News did not travel very fast in those days. In its issue of Sept. 5, 1812, the surrender of General Hull's army at Detroit the sixteenth of the previous month was mentioned. The paper of September 12 said, after mentioning the item of the week before: "We are happy to say that this great misfortune did not happen in consequence of any fault in our government but in the treason of the infamous Hull. All accounts agree in ascribing our loss to the treachery of the commander. Colonels Cass and McArthur, together with about a hundred of the brave volunteers of this state, landed, a few days since at Cleveland. Colonel Cass has gone on to Washington. We are informed that at the surrender of the place the American force was greatly superior to the British. The army was supplied with every necessity and a large convoy of provisions was at the Miami of the Lakes, under the command of Captain Brush, waiting for an additional number of men to escort it on to Detroit." A year later The Trump of Fame was in the first in the world to print the news of Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie. The news of this event reached Warren much more quickly than did the news of the disaster at Detroit the previous year. In 1809 a mail route had been established from Cleveland to Detroit, an extension of the line from Cleveland to Pittsburgh and the east. When the courier (or couriers), carrying to Washington the news of Perry's victory, stopped at Warren the editor of The Trump of Fame learned the glorious news and published it in his paper three days after the battle, which was very rapid service for those days. At the top of the first column of the first page, this news story was placed but without any scarehead. Here is the story of HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 199 the Battle of Lake Erie as it appeared in The Trump of Fame of Warren, Ohio, Sept. 13, 1813: "By the express mail we have received the good news that Commodore Perry has made an attack upon the British fleet, and after a dreadful conflict has succeeded in capturing six of his vessels. When the mail left Sandusky the prisoners were landing. It is reported that the slaughter on board the American vessels was so dreadful that Commodore Perry's vessel had but nine well men after the battle. This part of the story is almost incredible ; a conquered ship may be in this situation, but that the victor should be so is not probable." The news articles in these early day newspapers were for the most part regarding happenings weeks before, and even months before in the case of the foreign news. Exchanges were few and it took them a long time to reach the Ohio settlements. General articles were used and some poetry but scant attention was given to local happenings. How much light would have been thrown on the life of the people in the settlements of North Central Ohio if the early day editors had published the happenings as they are given in the newspapers of today. John Y. Glessner, pioneer editor of Mansfield, who for over forty-one years edited the Shield and Banner, was asked more than half a century ago why the early day papers paid so little attention to local news. "Our people knew everything that was going on at home," he replied. "If anybody went away visiting or had a party, we all knew about it. There was no need to print it in the paper. What our readers wanted to know was regarding the outside world and that is what we printed." However, we do get a glimpse now and then in the advertisements. The Publisher of the Ohio Register at Clinton says in his paper in December, 1813: "Samuel H. Smith, having added a large stock of goods to his former assortment, will trade for butter, sugar, country linen, rye, corn, hides, deer skins and furs. Dr. T. Burr is duly authorized to attend to his business and will prescribe gratis to purchasers of drugs and medicines." Smith, in addition to publishing the paper and serving as county surveyor, conducted a general store. Dr. Timothy Burr was the first physician in Clinton. An important article in the materia medica in those days was whisky, of which there was an abundance in Clinton and vicinity, as in other communities of that day. Morris Township, in which Clinton was located,