450 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO counties and the principle of developing the state highway system in co-operation with the counties remained until 1927 the basic method of road improvement in Ohio. In 1927, county co-operation in the construction of state highways was abolished, except in counties having a tax duplicate of over $300,000,000.00, which counties are permitted to co-operate in the reconstruction of worn out surfaces. The 1927 act revised and recodified the highway laws of the state and designated the former "Inter-County Highways" and "Main Market Roads" as "State Highways." Funds for highway improvements are derived from four sources; the four cent gasoline tax, motor vehicle registration fees, the motor bus fees, and funds received from the federal government. CHAPTER XLIV CHURCHES FORMATION OF CONGREGATIONS-MORAL CONDITIONS-CAMP MEETINGS-EARLY PREACHERS-PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS-CATHOLICISM. Religion and the consequent formation of congregations and erection of churches came into West Central Ohio along the lines of original immigration. It came in from Kentucky with the sweep of a forest fire. After the Revolution and coincident with the French Revolution, religion in America had reached a low ebb. The Revolution had divided churches, disrupted congregations and set brethren to warring. Emigrants to the west abandoned old ties, became cut off from schools and churches and were brutalized by warfare with the savages. Poverty barred alike the school and church. The generation succeeding the Revolution grew up in the West in a semi-heathen atmosphere. Felons fled to the west for refuge, a criminal element congregated along the frontier, evading, despising laws of man and God. Drunkenness abounded, brawling, eye gouging, lewdness, prostitution, lack of wedlock, wife trading, gambling, horse stealing, counterfeiting, river piracy grew apace. Men of former reputation or probity succumbed. The same influences which evoked the saying in a later time that "No law of God or man runs north of 53" were operating around 1800 on the Western frontier. - 451 - 452 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO The first influx from Kentucky came from such an atmosphere where the original frontier hardihood had become corrupted into recklessness and spiritual indifference. A succession of the most appalling crimes in American history perpetrated by blood lusting villians like the Harpes began to horrify and terrify Kentucky in 1798-9. The better element was aroused and formed Regulator bands which swept through Kentucky westward burning doggeries, whipping prostitutes, hanging, tarring and feathering, driving the criminal element before it like dirt before the broom. It drove the crime element across the Ohio into the Indian territory in Illinois where it congregated at Cave-in-Rock, the Plymouth Rock of American roguery. Out of this outburst of public indignation and house cleaning came three great results. Crime was winnowed out and concentrated in a spot from whence there flow westward and southward the antecedents of the river pirates, the road agents, and bad men of the West. The western tradition and school of outlawry held its first sessions at Cave-in-Rock. The second consequence was that Regulators established a vogue out of which grew the Vigilantes, White Caps, Night Riders, and Ku Klux Klan of later years. Third and last the moral revolt and spiritual recoil harrowed the land and made a fertile soil for the coming of the Revivalists who appeared either in 1799 or 1800. The great revivals of Kentucky raced through the West, leaped the Ohio and came racing like a burning surge of flame up the Miamis into West Central Ohio. The Methodists led in fervor. This sect had been Tory in the Revolution, John Wesley being a Tory and the sect being a branch of the Church of England but in the great revivals it gathered in the Scotch-Irish and others foreign to the original English stock of the church and became a militant evangelistic church. Its itinerant circuit riders knew no distance, no barriers, no doubt, no despair. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 453 The beginning of churches in West Central Ohio counties date from the coming of such revivalists who gathered congregations and stirred other creeds to emulation. Camp meetings with their "Jerks" swept the backwoods. Men took to religion with a passion equal to their former depravity or indifference. The "jerks" were a form of psychical and physical manifestation in which the one seized was like a person in convulsions, they fell, lay in trances, leaped up screaming, fled through the woods, or seized young saplings, holding frenziedly while their emotional paroxysm jerked them back and forth or round until they peeled the bark loose with their despairing clutches. Persons seized snapped the head back and forth until the hair cracked and the body jerked, bounded and leaped convulsively or fell prone until the tranced ones were laid in rows while the singing and exhorting went on. Such camp meetings have endured until the present day although their attendance and number of manifestations have declined from the outstanding phenomenon of their time to a mild and rather routine happenings. Urbana, Champaign County, for a period extending to the opening of the Twentieth Century was the location of one of these famous camp grounds. Families maintained cottages at such places and others journeyed many miles carrying their tents and bedding for the annual meeting. Gradually they became more subdued in tone and have largely or almost wholly passed out of existence. The "Big Meetings" or "Revivals" originating at the turn of the Eighteenth Century continued to be of incalculable force in shaping West Central Ohio society, especially in the rural sections where their influence was most potent and their emotional house cleanings became as much a matter of routine in communities as did the semi-annual furnishing and cleansing of the individual homes. The "Big Meeting" became and still endures in many Protestant churches as the recruiting time for the congregation. 454 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Churches for the first century of American occupancy of West Central Ohio were literally one of the main and for a long period in the early times the only civilizing factor at work. The illiterate came and learned something of the Biblical literature, churches furnished a lecture course to each and every community. For long they constituted the only gatherings of a lofty and elevated nature, they were social centers, where the community gathered on Sunday and mid-week for conversation, exchange of news, the extension of social invitations and the inspection of their neighbors. In a day when newspapers were almost unknown these congregational gatherings mounting in the fall and winter into revivals gave the only emotional release to narrow and starved lives. Funerals were held in the churches and became often orgies of woe and sorrow where the hysteria of some of the mourners suffused and overcame the more emotional of the congregation. The whole community turned out to a funeral. To go was both a duty and a pleasure. People in isolated neighborhoods were personages. They were missed when they passed. They took with them the color and texture of their lives and the community was poorer in their passing. The death of an eccentric character was as truly mourned, far more deeply missed than the passing of the most famous entertainer of the present time. The church was school, theater, movie, circus, club and sanctuary to the frontier and its hold endured so long as it supplied exclusively these human needs for sociability, entertainment and emotional relaxation and spiritual cleansing. Rev. Jas. B. Finley, buried at the Old Mound Cemetery, Preble County, and Lorenzo Dow, were examples of the itinerant preachers who traveled through West Central Ohio in the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Dow was a wild looking man after the fashion of John the Baptist but possessed of magnetic power. Finley left valuable records of his observations. His "Life HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 455 Among the Indians," "An Account of the Wyandot Mission," his "Biography" and "Sketches of Western Methodism" will ever be choice browsing ground for the antiquarian and the delver into the past. Finley, the "New Market Devil," was a convert of the great Kentucky revival and one of those who bore the flaming torch in turn to West Central Ohio. Finley's account of his own conversion is typical of many at that time, "When he arrived at the camp ground, a vast crowd was collected estimated at 25,000. The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings was agitated as if by a storm. He counted seven ministers all preaching at once from stumps, fallen trees and wagons. Some were singing, others praying, some crying piteously for mercy, and others shouting most vociferously. He became weak as a kitten at the sight and fled to the woods." He returned and saw : "Five hundred swept down in a moment as if a battery of a hundred guns had been opened upon them; and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens. My hair rose up on my head, my whole frame trembled; the blood ran cold in my veins; and I fled for the woods a second time . . . . a sense of suffocation and blindness seemed to come over me and I thought I was going to die." From Finley down to Billy Sunday ran a diminishing thread but nevertheless a continuous one. Billy Sunday in 1913 and later was using in West Central Ohio some of Finley's methods but the religious movement had become more organized, less spontaneous, more commercialized and less terrifically emotional. There was in Finley and Dow a genuine fire and frenzy such as David is described as showing in his dance before the Ark. Lorenzo Dow preached in Logan and Champaign counties in May, 1826, previous to this he had preached in Hardin County, stopping at the Eleazer and Phineas Hunt homes. At Bellefontaine he stayed with Judge McCullough. At Bellefontaine he pointed out an old woman saying: "Old lady, if you don't quit tattling and slandering your neighbors, the devil will get you." 456 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO To a young man, Dow said : "If you don't quit your high notions, the devil will get you." Later he preached at Mount Tabor. His sermons were marked by sarcasm, severity, and he emphasized the "Divine call to preach" and that it was not a trade or profession. After the Mount Tabor sermon, he declined invitations to dinner, lay down on Judge Reynolds' cellar door, took bread from his pocket, made a meal, rested, rose and rode down to Urbana to preach at 3 :00 p. m. Here his animation let fly a hymn book out of his hand which struck an old lady in the head. Dow paused and said : "Excuse my energy, my soul is elated." Urbana was the point of origin of the famous "Ox Sermon," a temperance work of Rev. David Merrill which was first published in an Urbana weekly paper, copied by the American Tract Society and had a circulation of possibly 3,000,000 copies, not counting newspaper circulation. It had its greatest circulation around the decade of 1840-50. Finley and Dow had passed from the scene by 1857. They were succeeded by circuit riders such as Rev. Elnathan Corrington Gavitt, author of "Crumbs from My Saddle Bags," for five years financial agent of Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, and later for 13 years presiding leader of the Delaware and Central Ohio Conference. Rev. Gavitt was a missionary to the Wyandotte mission. In 1856 Rev. Gavitt had the Lima district and was present when the Delaware conference was established in 1856, which in 1860 became the Central Ohio Conference. Rev. Gavitt is typical of the itinerant ministers of West Central Ohio. He preached. 8,000 sermons, received 10,000 into the church, married 979 couples and travelled on horseback more than 25,000 miles. Gavitt's recollections cover some interesting points not touched elsewhere. He gives as Methodist preachers in 1812 on Mad River, Joseph Tateman, on Little Miami, Samuel Hellums; ministers were allowed $100 per annum and collected about two-thirds of that amount; that Delaware in 1828 was a HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 457 small village where Methodism was established in 1812, but in 1828 the church had but 48 members. Marion at this time had 500 people and preaching was held in the school house. In this journey from Granville to Detroit, Gavitt speaks of the flight "Of deer aroused from the grazing places; occasionally we fell into the company of bruin . . . . rising from his leafy bed, saluting us with . . . . an exhibition of his ivories . . . . we were surrounded at night by droves of wolves." On crossing the Auglaize and other rivers: "During the spring and fall when too full to ford, would take off my clothes and tie them up, with my saddle bags, on the pommell of my saddle to keep them dry . . . . turning my horse into the stream, I would take hold of his tail, and when I could no longer touch bottom with my feet, I would float upon the surface until I reached the opposite shore . . . . putting on my clothes, start on my journey . . . . sometimes would do this two or three times a day . . . . in coldest weather of winter . . . . ascend ladder to upper story of house . . . . sleep upon straw . . . . covered by overcoat . . . . find himself in morning in snowdrift forced through clap board roof . . . . salary, $100, paid in good will . . . . or things of the forest : red-root, blood-root, crow-foot, crane's bill, star-root, yellow-root, prickly ash buds, and dried slippery elm bark . . . . which were next thing to money . . . . disposed of at any large drug store used by all steam doctors or Thompsonian physicians." Gavitt's experiences throw side lights upon the times from 1830 to 1860 which are as much sociological as religious. Of a Mr. Wheeler, who later settled at Kenton, Hardin County, Gavitt relates a whimsical experience : Wheeler lived on the Scioto and kept a tavern near the Pisgah church. He preferred settling with preachers once a year; although not a Methodist, he quartered Gavitt and a companion upon their rounds. At the end of the year he produced a moder- 458 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO ate charge and turned over the leaf remarking, he had some credits. He had credited every sermon, every grace, family service, etc. For short prayers and short graces, he paid double what he allowed for long ones. Finally he gave each $5. Ohio's first itinerant preacher was Rev. David Jones of Freehold, New Jersey, who made a tour of the Indian camps as early as 1722. But he could not penetrate as far west as West Central Ohio because of the Shawnee opposition and his failure to obtain an interpreter. He met James Girty whom he said had "Little fear of God—yet he was civil." (Butterfield's Girty's, p. 21.) Jones afterwards served in the Revolution and was called the Fighting Chaplain. He was with Wayne of the Pennsylvania line and at Valley Forge. Later he followed George Rogers Clark. He was a Welsh Baptist. Rev. I. K. King of Columbus, one of the early preachers, left a history of Methodism in which he said meetings were held in cabins since there were no churches or congregations. A split bottomed chair served as pulpit. A wide board at the side of the room held the audience. Worshippers came in their working clothes. The preacher carried a bible and hymn book. Other sects were not idle. Rev. Paul Henkel, Lutheran minister from the Shenandoah, made a tour to the Miamis in 1806. Many people opposed infant baptism and threatened Henkel when he practiced after the doctrine of his church (This endured until the day of the writer who has heard a woman loudly asservate as she clasped her babe "Put water in their mouths, sez I, where it will do good and not on their heads where it will do no good.") Henkel baptized 96 children on this trip and collected 18 pounds and six pence. It was the zeal of the Methodists which gave them the lead. The first settlers were by birth and training, where previous training had existed, mostly Presbyterians, Lutherans, Reformed and Baptists. There was always a strong dash of Pennsylvania Dutch on the frontier and the Scotch-Irish and Germans were in HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 459 the majority in the whole frontier. Such stock clung to Clavin, Zwingli and Knox. Rev. Sylvester Scovel, president of Wooster University said of this stock : "Waldesenian bravery, Huguenot skill, Holland simplicity, and heroic patience, Scotch valor and stubbornness, all mingled with German fervor and conviction." As early as 1791. the Synod of Virginia had its plans for the "Multitudes who are ready to perish on the frontier" approved by the General Assembly; in 1794 the Synod included Red Stone and Ohio Presbyteries. The Synod of Pittsburgh in 1831 was exercised about the West. The religious movements of 1842 and 1857 were especially notable in Presbyterianism. The rise of Presbyterianism in West Central Ohio was a unifying of all those widely divergent streams of the creed which flowed into the section from all points of the compass East and South and Northeast. The Protestant Episcopal church organized the Ohio diocese in 1819. In addition to his initial trip to Ohio, Rev. Paul Henkel during 1808 and 1815 was accustomed to tour West Central Ohio as far west as Montgomery County and up into Champaign County in a two-wheeled cart. Of the Lutheran ministers he was the most remarkable and conspicuous of the early founders. Rev. Jacob Scherer of North Carolina was preaching in Dayton as early as 1813. As early as 1809 the Lutherans and Reformed churches were joined in their use of churches in the Miami Valley. Scherer commenting on conditions declared : "The spiritual condition of these people (West Central Ohio) is dark. The denominations are mixed. By September 14, 1818, Lutheranism had founded the Ohio Synod with Rev. Andrew Simon and Rev. S. Man from Montgomery County and Rev. John Casper Dill from Germantown. Up until 1826 the minutes were read in both English and German. The English Synod was formed about 1843 out of which grew Wittenberg College at Springfield in 1845. Rev. Ezra Keller was the guiding star and founder of this stronghold of Lutheranism. Rev. Christian Espich, a travelling preacher, covered Clark, 460 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Champaign, Preble and other counties. One of the greatest Lutheran ministers of early days was Rev. Henry Heineche. The Reformed Church was transplanted westward out of Pennsylvania and the Shenandoah. Rev. John Pence was organizing congregations in Clark County as early as 1823. About 1828 services began at the Widow Coffelt's in Clark County out of which grew Jerusalem Church. About 1830 the Reformed and Lutherans alternated in the use of the church at Noblesville (Lawrenceville), Clark County, on ground given by the writer's great-grandparents. Services were held at Tremont City about 1823 but abandoned until 1863 when the brick church replaced the old abandoned log structure. Emanuel, 1852, North Hampton, 1858, were other Reformed churches in Clark County. Like the Shakers, the Quakers began their activities in West Central Ohio in Warren County. The Miami Monthly Meeting which began on October 13, 1803, at Waynesville, had jurisdiction north and west indefinitely. Quakers had been in Waynesville as early as November 20, 1799, and their first volunteer meeting had been held in a house in the central block of Waynesville on April 26, 1801. The first Quaker meeting house was built in Waynesville about 1803-04. The Christian Church, nicknamed New Lights, had for their main organizer in West Central Ohio, Rev. Isaac Newton Walter, who was ordained at South Charleston, Clark County, in 1825. Rev. Walters travelled on foot or by horseback over Clark, Champaign, Union, Delaware and Fayette counties, besides much territory outside the province of this book. He was one of the founders of Antioch College, the first college where color or sex was no bar. Rev. Walters died in 1856. Rev. D. H. Moore, editor of the Western Christian Advocate, says: "As nearly as I can determine the first Methodist preacher to visit this section (West Central Ohio) was Wm. Burke . . . . He was appointed by Bishop Asbury, October 2, 1803, HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 461 to cross the Ohio and form a new district in the wilderness. He says 'I entered upon my work the last of October, 1803 The Miami circuit included all the settlements between the Miamis and as far north, including the settlements on Mad River, as far up as the neighborhood of where Urbana now stands.' " Doctor King gives John Kobler as antecedent to William Burke in West Central Ohio. Kobler came in 1798, reaching as far north as Dayton. Lewis Hunt and later Henry Smith carried on the work until late in 1800. Doctor King's dates for the introduction of Methodism into various towns are contradicted by his own narrative which would place the initial contact earlier. However at the dates he gives services were beginning with regularity as follows: Dayton, 1808; Springfield, 1805; Lebanon, 1805; Xenia, 1811; Urbana, 1807; Eaton, 1811; Troy, 1809; Greenville, 1812; Delaware, 1812; London, 1811; Wilmington 1810; Washington C. H., 1817; Marysville, 1812; Sidney; 1824; Marion, 1825; Lima, 1824. Salaries in the very beginning were smaller than in Gavitt's time. Bishop Asbury received $64 per annum, Father Smith said his average salary for 12 years was $27.50. John Stewart, mulatto missionary to the Wyandottes, received his appointment officially at the quarterly meeting of the Bellefontaine circuit then in session near Urbana. This was in 1818 and the first quarterly meeting for the Wyandotte Mission was held at the house of Ebenezer Zane, a half white, living at Zanesfield, Logan County. The house was still standing on the rear of a lot in 1933. Fayette County had its first quarterly conference at Joel Wood's, 12 miles north of Washington C. H. with Solomon Lang-don as presiding elder. West Central Ohio had at least two very peculiar faiths : The Creepers and the Shakers. The Creepers were in Union County but were better known as the Farnhamites, following a teacher Douglas Farnham who taught that man was a vile animal, sin- 462 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO ful but proud, and must make a public confession of humility by creeping along in the dust to show abject remorse for their sins. The Creepers made little impression on their neighbors. The Shakers, however, stirred up mobs repeatedly by their practices. They were located at Union Village, Warren County. Tecumseh and the Prophet were alarming the country by their religious and political activities at Greenville, Darke County. So on March 17, 1807, David Darrow, Richard McNemar and B. S. Young set out for Greenville. McNemar says they found a council house 150 x 34 with 60 cottages around it. Here they net the Prophet who told them of his conversion and visions. The Prophet likened the drunkard's punishment in hell to one who drinks molten lead and is seized with an exquisite torment in the bowels. The Shawnees visited the Shakers in turn and were given food which aroused the settlers against them as in league with the Indians. Union Village, where the Shakers had their bishopric and 4,500 rich acres, was three miles from Lebanon. Rev. Richard McNemar was preaching at Turtle Creek in 1805. Shaker missionaries travelling on foot from New Lebanon, New York, came March 22 and later converted him. By the end of 1805 370 persons had joined. The records of the Shakers are divided into reigns of various leaders. They did not believe in marriage and the sect gradually languished away. Their queer beliefs led to mobs troubling them in 1810, 1812, 1813, and 1817. Some of their women were cowhided by the mob. Aside from mobs the village met disaster by a freshet June 9, 1835, in which nine inches of water fell and greatly damaged the communal mills. Spiritualism distracted the society in 1838. An attempt to colonize in Clinton County in 1857 failed. The Quakers and Shakers did not get along as peaceably as their creeds suggested. By 1901 the Shakers had dwindled into a hopeless state of mind as to the future of their faith. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 463 Catholicism in West Central Ohio has its strongholds in the cities and is almost absent from the country side save in Shelby, Auglaize, Mercer and VanWert counties where the country churches are often and in places exclusively of the Catholic faith. The building of canals around 1830 brought an influx of labor which was Catholic in faith. There is a strong Germanic predominance in the Catholicism of this rural section. One of the interesting landmarks of Catholicism in West Central Ohio was the convent of the Precious Blood Sisterhood at Marysville, Union County, established in 1849. It grew under the leadership of Mother Clara. In 1931 the order was transferred to Salem Hills, near Dayton. When the work of constructing the canals and railroads in West Central Ohio opened the priests followed the routes of these improvements ministering to their communicants, many of whom were camped in the tents and shacks along the right of way. The Congregation of the Most Precious Blood which was introduced in 1843 has done most of its work in the Cincinnati archdiocese in the counties of Auglaize and Mercer. July 1, 1850, the St. Mary's School for Boys was opened in Dayton. December 26, 1855, the buildings burned, and rebuilt and opened September, 1857. This institution was under the charge of the Society of Mary. The novitiate of the society was established August 5, 1864. In 1911 it was transferred from the college to what is now Mount Saint John. The normal school and provincial buildings on this site were opened in the fall of 1915. The Antonio hospital at Kenton is in charge of the Sisters of Charity, who arrived first in the archdiocese, October 27, 1829. The Sisters of Saint Dominic opened the "Dominican House of Retreats" in Dayton, September 9, 1912. The Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur have a convent and academy in Dayton. The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood have a convent and boarding school at Minster, founded 1852, and conduct the St. Joseph's Orphan Home at Dayton. The Sisters of the 464 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Poor of Saint Francis have a hospital in Dayton. The Sisters of Christian Charity are in charge of the Saint Boniface School, Piqua. The Polish Franciscan School Sisters have charge of the Saint Adelbert Parish school, Dayton. Following are the dates of founding of some of the Catholic Churches in West Central Ohio: Eaton, 1853; Saint Mary, Piqua, 1844; Troy, 1858; Tippecanoe, 1858; Franklin, 1854; Minster, 1836; Maria Stein, 1837; Fort Loramie, 1838; Saint Rose, 1839; Saint Henry, 1839; Saint Sebastian, 1851; Casella, 1847; Chickasaw, 1895; Montezuma, 1903; Philothea, 1851; Coldwater, 1867; Saint Bernard, 1874; Saint Francis, 1858; Saint Anthony, 1852; Saint Peter, 1868; Fort Recovery, 1880; Saint Wendelin, 1856; Saint Paul, 1868; Saint Mary, 1854; Glynnwood, 1860; Celina, 1864; McCartyville, 1881; Petersburg, 1836; Wapakoneta, 1839; Freyburg, 1849; Rhine, 1856; Botkins, 1865; Saint Valbert's, 1839; Russia, 1846-1850; Frenchtown, 1846; Versailles, 1864; Greenville, 1839-1863; Newport, 1858; North Star, 1892; Osgood, 1906; Emanuel, Dayton, 1835; Miamisburg, 1852; Osborn, 1868; other Dayton churches: Mary, 1859; Joseph, 1847; Trinity, 1860; John, 1891; James, 1919; Anthony, 1913; Holy Angels, 1902; Resurrection, 1920; Holy Rosary, 1887; Holy Family, 1905; Sacred Heart, 1883; Corpus Xti, 1911, Agnes, 1915; Springfield, Saint Raphael, 1849; Saint Bernard, 1861; Saint Joseph, 1882; Saint Mary's, April, 1922; Saint Theresa, September 27, 1931; Urbana, 1849; Xenia, 1849 ; Yellow Springs, 1856; London, 1856; South Charleston, 1865; West Jefferson, 1866; Bellefontaine, 1853; Kenton, 1862; Marion, 1854; La Rue, 1869; Morrow, 1852; Wilmington, 1866; Washington C. H. 1866; Jamestown, 1871. At the second diocesan synod, September 13, 1886, Emmanuel and Saint Joseph's in Dayton; St. Raphael in Springfield, and Saint Mary's in Urbana were made irremovable. Holy Trinity was added November 9, 1898. In strict accuracy the Catholic Church can justly claim to be the first in West Central Ohio since the Jesuits were working HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 465 among the tribesmen perhaps as early as 1669 or earlier. However the Church makes no claims to the celebration of the Mass until 1750 under Father Bonnecamps, who accompanied Celoron up the Big Miami. The Rev. John H. Lamott argues that mass was celebrated at Pickawillany, Shelby County, between September 13-20, 1750. (Note by editor—Father Lamott is mistaken in his date, it should be September 13-20, 1749.) Lamott denies the claim made for Pierre Loramie that he was a Jesuit or officiated as such at Loramie. Some Catholics filtered up into West Central Ohio in all probability from Gallipolis, where they were settled in 1790 and letters from Chillicothe in February, 1807, show there were thirty or forty Catholics settled there mostly from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. No doubt a few of these worked northwestward. Bishop Flaget said Mass in Urbana, May 24, 1818, so there must have been Catholics resident there in some numbers. He had passed through Dayton and Springfield on his trip from Cincinnati. The first Catholic Church in Cincinnati was organized under the state charter issued February 5, 1819. Christ's Church was a small wooden structure and Mass was said Easter Sunday, 1819, for the first time. The papal bull erecting the Cincinnati diocese and naming Edward Fenwick as first bishop was issued June 19, 1821. Since he was then at work in the "woods of Ohio" he was prepared to estimate the Catholic population at 6,000. The Most Reverend John B. Purcell succeeded Bishop Fenwick March 8, 1833. He became the first archbishop of Cincinnati and died July 4, 1883. Under his labors the Catholic churches grew from sixteen with 7,000 members to 500 with 500,000 members. Archbishop Purcell was succeeded by the Most Rev. William H. Elder by virtue of his position as coadjutor. He died October 31, 1904, and was succeeded in turn by his coadjutor, Most Rev. Henry Moeller. The present archbishop is Most Rev. John T. McNicholas. 466 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO The diocese of Cincinnati included the section from the date of its organization, June 19, 1821, until April 23, 1847, when the diocese of Cleveland was organized and given Allen and Van Wert counties. The diocese of Columbus, organized March 3, 1868, includes Delaware and Morrow counties. The arch diocese of Cincinnati was organized June 19, 1850. The Congregational Church in West Central Ohio spread northward from the initial settlement of the Welsh at Paddy's Run (Shandon) twenty-two miles northwest of Cincinnati, 1796. Here the first church was built 1803 and the Sunday School established 1819. Emigrants from Paddy's Run, entered Allen and Mercer counties in the 30's. Sects such as the Mennonites, River Brethren, Dunkards, Amish are not differentiated to the casual eye but these have their schisms and divisions as much as other sects. Churches of these faiths dot the section around Medway, New Carlisle and North Hampton, Clark County, near Dayton, and also in Darke County. The members are of German descent, being Pennsylvania Dutch. Originally these sects were offshoots of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, the division taking place in Germany. In entering Ohio they followed the lines of emigration down out of Pennsylvania into the Shenandoah and the Ohio River or later over the Cumberland Road and National Pike. Accounts mention the Dunkards as found among the earliest settlers. Jacob Miller who settled near Dayton in 1800 is claimed as the first of that sect. The word "Dunkard" originates from "Tunk" to dip. The Tunker or Dunkard is literally a "Dipper" since they baptise by complete immersion, being known to cut the ice in the streams for that purpose. The Dunkards developed a schism in 1881 over matters of education and worldly conformity. The conservative element withdrew and set up as the "Old Order". Every innovation was a matter for serious debate in the church councils. Stoves in churches, automobiles, etc., were matters in point. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 467 The "Covenanters" by their faith effected West Central Ohio out of all proportion to their number since Clement L. Vallandigham on his mother's side was of that descent and on his father's from a like stubborn element, the French Huguenots; neither blood ever knew how to compromise and had the straight, narrow strength of a sword. The Piatts of Mac-a-chack Valley were Huguenots and have always been found on the side of the forlorn hope. When it was death to be a Huguenot, in France, the Piatts came to America, and were Protestants of Protestants. The Baptists had a church in Ohio by 1790 and an association by 1797. The origin and early history of this sect is so twisted and intertwined, so full of schisms and alliances as to make its history maddening to trace. Baptists in America trace back to Roger Williams and his church in March, 1639. The Cold Spring, Buck County, Pennsylvania, church, founded 1684 by Thomas Dungan was more in the direct line of West Central Ohio. The Pennsylvanians worked down into Virginia and later to Kentucky, some of the Boones being Baptists. The first Kentucky Baptist church was at Severn's Valley, June, 1781. While there was of course a Kentucky migration into Ohio bearing Baptist fruits yet the first Baptists in Ohio were at Columbia (Cincinnati) from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, including the Ganos, Stites, Ferris and Goforth families. John Smith, afterward United States senator, ruined by Aaron Burr, was the first pastor. In 1797 the Miami association was formed, the Kentucky stream bearing in the Smiths, Lees, Clarkes, Carmans and Dodges. The Mad River association was formed in 1812. The Christian Church or Disciples of Christ had as one of their organizers in Southern Ohio the famed Walter Scott. Dayton has long been a center of the United Brethren in Christ, the publishing house of that sect being located at Dayton in 1853, while the theological school, the Union Biblical Seminary, was founded there in 1871. The Young People's Christian Union was organized in Dayton in June, 1890. The offices of the general 468 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO church boards were early located at the publishing house in Dayton and it was in a sense the capital of the sect. This came about by reason of the Miami Valley being the center of the church's greatest activity in the West, the Miami Conference organized in 1810, being the first conference of the church west of the Alleghany mountains. The commission for the revised U. B. Confession of Faith met in Dayton in November, 1885. Universalism was first preached in Ohio by Rev. Timothy Bigelow in 1814 and the first convention organized in 1827. Unitarianism received its greatest impetus in the West when Horace Mann turned Antioch College from the Christian connection to the Unitarians about 1850. West Central Ohio through its denominational colleges has had a lasting effect upon many of the sects predominant in American religious life. CHAPTER XLV SCHOOLS SCHOOL LANDS-EARLY SCHOOLS-SCHOOL LEGISLATION-PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS- EVALUATION OF SCHOOLS-COLLEGES. The Ordinance of 1787, Article III, contained the declaration : "Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." But even further back the Land Ordinance of May 20, 1785 "reserved lot No. 16, of every township for the maintenance of Public Schools within said township." Reservation of public lands for the support of churches, schools and highways had been discussed by Washington, Paine, Hutchins, Timothy Pickering and others. When the Spumes Purchase was made, provisions were made for school and church lands and one township for college lands. This later led to an allocation to Miami University. The Virginia Military and other lands of West Central Ohio had no provisions made for school lands. When the state constitution was formulated the makers drove a bargain for one thirty-sixth of the lands to be set aside for schools. Under the territorial government of the Northwest, little was done for schools; about all done was to warn settlers from cutting trees on reserved lands (Centinel of the Northwest, December 27, 1794). The territorial legislature at its first session at Cincinnati, 1799, instructed the territorial delegate to congress to obtain legislation securing the title to lands for schools and colleges. - 469 - 470 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Private or subscription schools arose among the pioneer communities. Families regarded education in the three R's much as they do college or university education today, a matter for the individual family to settle for itself. The well-to-do or the ambitious made such provisions as they could, the poor or the indifferent did nothing. Education in West Central Ohio like settlement, public improvements, law and medicine, worked up the river valleys from the Ohio. John Reily opened a school in Columbia, now part of Cincinnati, June 21, 1790. Reily had fought under Greene in the Revolution; he had character and ability. The school system of Western Ohio can be proud of its beginnings. Francis Dunlevy, another soldier pedagogue joined Reily in 1791. Reily taught the English and Dunlevy the classical branches. Dunlevy moved up to near Lebanon and opened a school around 1797-8. It is interesting to note that Lebanon later became the training ground for much of the normal school activities of the West, the founders of Ohio Northern, Valparaiso, Indiana, and other similar schools getting their start at Lebanon. Two of Dunlevy's pupils became United States senators: John Smith, and Tom Corwin, then a black eyed boy of four. Warren County became the educational center of Western Ohio and had schools taught by Judge Ignatius Brown, 1800; by Matthias Ross, near Ridgeville, 1801-3; at Waynesville, taught by Rowland Richards, 1802; and Lebanon, 1801-2-3 by Enos Williams, a pupil of Dunlevy. Such school teachers advertised for pupils; and communities for school teachers (see columns of Centinel and Western Spy). Robert Benham, hero of the Four Mile Bar fight of 1779, advertised in the Western Spy, August 17, 1803, for a school teacher wanted for a school in Warren County, as also in the same issue did W. C. Schenck of Franklin ; Benham also announced in the same advertisement that he had four stills for sale. Singing and dancing schools were advertised even earlier; rates for singing school being one dollar for thirteen nights, the HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 471 pupils to furnish their own wood and candles. These latter schools grew by degrees into the conservatories of today but long persisted as rural or small town cultural influences. Practically all of the elderly acquaintances of the writer had attended singing school in their youth. The first school in the Virginia Military Lands was at Manchester with Israel Donaldson as teacher, 1796 (1794 ?). Donaldson was the last survivor of the state constitutional convention of 1802. From Donaldson's school, education filtered upward with the progress of the years. Benjamin Van Cleve started the educational history of Dayton in 1800 in a block house which stood on the site of the present Soldier's Monument. He started September 1, reserved time out to gather his corn and continued school until the latter part of October. The Virginia and Kentucky settlers were less accustomed to schools than those from New England and schooling lagged among them. Some of the early schools of that day were: Nathaniel Pinkered's, 1806, on site of Lagonda National Bank building, Springfield. According to William Patrick, writing in Antrim's History, Urbana had a school by this same Nathaniel Pinkard (Pinkered) in the old log courthouse on Lot 174 East Court Street. William Nicholson and others taught school in the old log church; Hiram M. Curry taught in the Fithian Tavern about 1811; William Stephens and others in the E. B. Patrick property about 1811. The Urbana Academy was started about 1820. Nancy Zane McCulloch about 1816 started the first free school in Logan County, hiring a teacher for her children and those of the neighbors. As the danger of Indians lessened the people scattered out more widely and made the assembling of the necessary numbers more difficult. The first schools were in the block houses or houses of the teachers, or if he were boarding round the school room was with some family which had accommodations. 472 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Communities, once their family needs were met might rear a log school house not much different from a cabin. In fact it was a one room cabin about 18x24 with puncheon floors, huge fireplace which the larger boys fed and a latch string which when pulled in told tardy pupils the "master" was at morning prayers. Pens were of goose quill trimmed by the teacher and ink was oak bark ooze and copperas or poke berry juice. Black boards on the wall served for lesson copy. Lebanon again led with its brick school house in 1805 but the rural schools were half a century evolving into the "Little red brick schoolhouse" and even longer. Text books were of all kinds, such a thing as uniformity being reserved for the second half of the century. The writer has attended classes in which many pupils were without texts. The Virginians had led in exploration, the Kentuckians in conquest, the Pennsylvanians in agriculture, it is only fair to say the New Englanders claim to have done the best in education, having a better background and tradition, and being fitted for it just as their predecessors had been for conquest, but the New Englanders have clouded their claims to educational leadership by unjust grasping at credit to the extent that other breeds are ignored. Giving the New Englanders of the Western Reserve and the Marietta settlement due credit in that they furnished Nathaniel Guilford, chairman of the committee on schools which passed the mandatory act of 1825, making the one-half mill tax obligatory, and that Caleb Atwater as chairman in 1821-22 had laid the ground work of propaganda and that Samuel Lewis was first state superintendent, there remains much credit to be allotted elsewhere. Governor T. W. Worthington, a Virginian, had led the fight for land endowment in the state constitutional convention. John Symmes and the New Jersey men had reserved school lands; HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 473 the appropriations for education in Western Ohio counties were generally greater than in those of New England settlement. The latter hired women because they "were cheap." The influence of the Cincinnati College, not identified with the New Englanders, was tremendous in Western Ohio. The Presbyterian Church with its Scotch-Irish blood was always a center of the "Friends of Education" whose meetings were held in such churches in the period, 1820 to 1850, when public education was a hard fought issue. Most of the preachers of various faiths pleaded for education save the Quakers and Pennsylvania Dutch who were too often parsimonious in that respect. It can be pointed out that the legislation for the use of the reserved lands for school purposes originated mostly in Western Ohio while the legislation which looked to and succeeded in plundering the schools of much of their heritage by the alienation of the school land originated among the New Englander-born such as Timothy Buel of Marietta. Dayton claims a lineage for its high schools back to 1807; through the academy which was deeded to the board in 1850. Dayton, Piqua, Xenia, Lebanon and other West Central Ohio towns backed the Union schools with tremendous majorities. This issue raged about 1849 around high school education. Urbana was said to not have a dissenting vote, Lebanon going twenty to one, Xenia practically unanimous. McAlpine claims Benj. M. Piatt of Logan originated the legislation which Guilford's later committee passed shorn of some of its best features. Cist in commenting on the population of Cincinnati in 1841 at the height of the school fight gives the New Englanders 862 as compared with a total of 10,607 from other states and nationalities. It is to be remembered the educational influences of West Central Ohio spread mainly up from Cincinnati. This had its genesis in the College of Teachers organized in 1831 at that place. Cincinnati is said to have been the first in Ohio to adopt graded schools, this in 1840. 474 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Regardless of the merits of the two bloods, the fact remains that as late as 1900 the fathers and mothers of the native born stock who were family heads, had on the average just enough education to read haltingly a newspaper and the Bible, write letters without much knowledge of punctuation or capitalization, and could "figure" but little beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; their knowledge of geography and history was largely acquired from newspapers or casual contacts. If in 1933 it be placed at a trifle above a junior high level, in 1900, it was about a third or fourth grade level. The number who had less than that amount far exceeding those who had more, the average child was leaving the schools with about a sixth grade education. Alexander Boxwell, of Franklin, member of the legislature in Warren County and speaker of the house in 1894-6 gave education an impetus when the Boxwell law allowed school boards in townships without high schools to pay the tuition of Boxwell graduates in attending the nearest high school outside the township. The next step came under the administration of Governor James M. Cox and through his advocacy of the organization of the schools of the counties on the same basis as the cities with county supervision. If it be asked why public school education evolved so slowly, the answer is twofold: the public had to be educated to spend money for schools and the fight was long and bitter; secondly, the earlier teachers were often men and women of little education. Most of the cities and towns of West Central Ohio where there is a Catholic congregation have parochial schools which are a part of the educational system. These have been maintained by the congregation without public funds. Several times efforts to obtain state aid for these schools have been made, notably in the 70's and lastly in 1933 when the pressure of the depression became so acute as to lead to resort to the legislature for aid. This was refused. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 475 Due to this same condition and the non-collection of taxes, the public schools in many localities were curtailed as to their length of sessions, while teachers were compelled to wait until the next tax collection for their salaries. The years of 1932-33 were years of increasing perplexity in the schools. This had been brought about by the great era of expansion which began with township and county units. The Little Red School house practically passed out of existence in the first three decades of the twentieth century and was succeeded by centralized schools with transportation of pupils, complete new housing along urban lines, enlarged course of study, supervision, increased salaries and a determined effort on the part of the teachers to raise their calling to the dignity and rewards of a profession. Whereas a boy or girl with a common school education who was eighteen and could pass an examination, was licensed to teach up until the time of the county organization, the standard from that time had steadily risen so far as scholastic attainments were concerned until high school diplomas and college training were essential. Preparation was spread wider—and thinner; the average teacher of today being less well grounded in the basic studies than a generation before when the emphasis was on fewer things. A historian looking back from the vantage ground of another fifty or 100 years may perhaps point to developments in education as factors in the creation of the social crisis of 1933. The school was unable to replace the home in training children. The shift from the rural to urban centers and the mechanization of farms released children from the discipline of toil and the responsibility for tasks; the home as a place of training became nil and the school could not shoulder the full burden. The transition from the ungraded school to the graded school was not an unmixed blessing and has serious defects which are just beginning to be realized. The old ungraded school had two advantages not present in graded schools: the younger pupils heard the older pupils recite and grasped whither their own work was tending. They received a bird's eye view of the course of 476 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO study ahead. The older pupils heard the younger ones recite their lessons and heard the teacher's expositions and it acted as a review when their more matured minds could better grasp what they had been over. But greatest of all, the pupil found his level in each subject; if he was keen in arithmetic he could join the advanced pupils; if one of the latter was slow in a particular study he was not pushed out of his stride. A pupil might recite with five different ages, each of whom in that particular study were his own mental age. He was not held to a definite lesson but could progress as fast as he desired. There was not the mental stifling, the holding back, the dragging forward that is universal in grading. Minds do not progress equally in all branches. There was more elasticity and mental adjustment in the old ungraded schools and something equivalent is demanded of modern education, something which will preserve the best of the two theories, the individualistic and the regimented. Education in West Central Ohio has been much influenced by four institutions of learning: The National Normal University of Lebanon which was established in 1855 by Alfred Holbrook and trained thousands of teachers. In 1930 the governor, the lieutenant governor and the floor leader of the dominant party were old Lebanon students. The Ohio Northern University of Ada filled much the same field at a later date. Wilberforce University, supported by southern slave holders, who wished to give their colored offspring education, has always been a beacon light among colored institutions of learning in United States. Antioch identified with Horace Mann, the first to graduate women on the same platform as men and later the location of Dr. Arthur Morgan's experiments with alternating study and practical employment, has a world wide reputation. Wittenberg is a seat of American Lutheranism. Education in West Central Ohio is not wholly of the schools and the churches. Broadly speaking it is influenced as is the rest HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 477 of America by the press, the movies and political and industrial developments. Secondary schools founded in West Central Ohio were as follows: Auglaize County Mission School, founded by Quakers, 1809; Champaign County Urbana Academy, 1820; Urbana Female Seminary, 1824; Clark County Smith's Academy, Springfield, 1814; Torbert's Grammar School, 1824; Clinton County Taylor's Latin School, Wilmington, 1820; Darke County Swallow's Grammar Schools, 1815; Delaware County Morgan Academy, Delaware, 1815; The Female Seminary, Delaware, 1820; Quitman's Academic Grove, 1823; Miami County Piqua Seminary, 1818; Troy Grammar School, 1826; Select School for Young Ladies, 1838; Montgomery County Dayton Academy, 1807; Miss Dionecia Sullivan's Private School for Girls, 1815; Glass' School, Dayton, 1823; Inductive Academy, 1820; Maria Harrison's School for Young Ladies, 1832; Warren County Robinson Grammar School, 1810. Colleges and universities: Antioch, Yellow Springs, organized 1850; Cedarville, Cedarville, organized 1894; Dayton, University of Dayton, organized 1850; Ohio Northern University, Ada, organized 1871; Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, organized 1842; Wilberforce University, Greene County, organized 1856; Wilmington, Wilmington, organized 1875; Wittenberg, Springfield, organized 1845. National Normal University—Lebanon, long one of the leading normal schools and colleges of the country was absorbed by Wilmington College. CHAPTER XLVI LAW IN WEST CENTRAL OHIO FIRST JUDICIARY SYSTEM -EARLY COURTS-FIRST COURT IN NORTHWEST TERRITORY-PROBATE COURT ESTABLISHED-EARLY LAWYERS-JUDGES. In common with the rest of the now state of Ohio, the Ordinance of July 13, 1787 provided West Central Ohio with a judiciary system "There shall be appointed a court to consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have a common law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have each therein a freehold estate in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of their offices, and their commissions shall continue in office during good behavior." It was further provided the governor and a majority of the judges should adopt such laws, civil and criminal, of the original states as might be necessary and that these laws should be in effect until the organization of the General Assembly; Congress reserving the veto power, and the assembly having right to alter laws as it saw fit. It will be noted the Governor and judges had no authority to make any laws but only to select such laws from the 13 states as they might think adapted to the primitive conditions. Samuel H. Parsons, John Armstrong and James M. Varnum were named judges by Congress, Oct. 16, 1787. Judge Armstrong resigned in a few months and John Cleves Symmes was appointed his successor, an appointment of particular moment to Western Ohio, since Judge Symmes was identified - 479 - 480 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO with its interests. Parsons and Varnum were Yankees and Armstrong was accused of being author of the Newburgh letters in the Revolution which it took all Washington's influence to quell. The offices, being under the Articles of Confederation, terminated with the adoption of the Constitution and Washington reappointed Parsons and Symmes with William Barton to succeed Varnum who had died. Barton declined and George Turner was next appointed. Rufus Putnam then succeeded Judge Parsons, deceased. Return Jonathan Meigs succeeded Judge Turner in 1798 upon the latter's resignation. The Territorial Court existed from 1787 to 1799. The second law selected by the court provided for county courts of common pleas and for single judges to hear and determine upon debts and contracts of small amount and also provided that each county should have a court called the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace. Not more than five nor less than three persons in each county were to be appointed and commissioned to keep a court of record, to be styled the County Court of Common Pleas. This law was selected as of August 23, 1788. The first court in the Northwest Territory was the Court of Common Pleas, the first Tuesday of September, 1788, at Marietta, established with much ceremony in the presence of curious Indian chiefs. The Court of Quarter Sessions was opened the following Tuesday with Gen. Rufus Putnam and General Tucker as justices. R. J. Meigs was clerk and one of the three assistant justices. Paul Fearing was admitted to the bar, being the first attorney to practice in the Northwest Territory. Probate Court had been established August 30, 1788. A law respecting crimes and punishments was published September 6, 1788. These smacked a bit of the Connecticut Blue Laws as respected profanity, Sabbath observance, etc. The General Assembly to be elected when there were 5,000 free males of voting age met at Cincinnati, September 16, 1799, and thereupon the selection of laws and their promulgation ceased HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 481 and the assembly became the law making body. On October 29, 1799, attorneys, by the second law passed, were regulated as to admission to the bar and practice. Such had to be examined by two or more judges of the General Court and given a certificate which had to be signed by the Governor. He, before examination must produce a certificate that he had studied law under a practicing attorney residing in the territory four years. There was a distinction between attorneys-at-law and counsellors-at-law. The state constitution provided for a Supreme Court of three judges elected by joint ballot of both houses of the General Assembly, two to form a quorum and to hold office for seven years of good behavior. The First General Assembly, April 15, 1803, provided for Judicial Courts and abolished all territorial courts. The first Supreme Court judges travelled the circuit on horseback for $800 per annum. It was required that these judges hold court in each county at least once a year. A fourth judge was authorized after five years. This position was created in 1804; the number of judges was reduced to three in 1810 and restored to four in 1816, which number held until February 9, 1852, when the new constitution went into effect. This Constitution provided for five Supreme Court judges elected by the people. One of these Supreme Court judges sitting with the common pleas judges of the district held each year in each county District Court, replacing the "Supreme Court on the Circuit." This district arrangement was succeeded February 9, 1885, by the establishment of seven circuits each with three circuit judges elected by the voters for terms of six years. Special courts were provided from time to time. The Superior Court of Montgomery County with one judge elected by voters held office from March, 1857, to April, 1865. Judged by the standards of today the attorneys and judges of that time might seem pitifully prepared. Yet, in the law it should be remembered what was said of Horace Mann in education, that he and a student on a log constituted a university. 482 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Character and horse sense constitute a better basis for legal activity than shystering proclivities and mediocrity which takes refuge in precedents and fits the case to the law rather than fitting the law to the case. There was once a robber chieftain who had a bed on which he lay all his captives; if the unfortunate was too short, he stretched him to fit the bed, and if too long, he was cut down to the size of the bed. The greatest law giver in his decision respecting the Sabbath covered the point when He said "Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for the man." So man is not made for laws but laws for man and the test of a judge and attorney is his understanding of that fact. Many of these early judges might carry their law library in their saddle bags, but they often carried abundance of grey matter in their cranium. Still it might often be that oratorical ability, wit, knowledge of human nature, impressive personality and shrewdness in special pleading were better weapons than profound knowledge of the law. Such a lawyer was Tom Corwin of Lebanon, who was unequalled before a jury although it is to be doubted that he could have begun to prepare the brief in the case of Virginia vs. Garner, et al., in which Samuel F. Vinton won before the Virginia Supreme Court in 1845, establishing the low water, north shore boundary of Virginia on the Ohio River. There are few modern day lawyers who would care to cross legal swords with Corwin, John McLean of Warren County, later judge of the Ohio Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, and postmaster general of the United States; Edward Stafford Young, of Dayton, who declined an Ohio Supreme Court appointment; C. L. Vallandingham, of Dayton; Samuel Shellabarger, of Clark County; Joseph Rockwell Swan, president judge of the Twelfth Circuit, including Champaign, Clark, Franklin, Logan, Union and Delaware counties in 1834, and later Supreme Judge in 1854. His "Treatise on the Law Relating to the Powers and Duties of Justices of the Peace, etc." was pronounced by Andrews Thurman and Harrison, "This has probably proved to be HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 483 the most useful book ever published in Ohio." "Swan's Pleadings and Precedents Under the Code," 1860, had tremendous effect upon the bench and bar of Ohio. Richard Almgill Harrison of London, Ohio, was recognized as a leader of the Ohio bar and declined the Supreme Court appointment in 1887. Josiah Scott, who represented Delaware and Marion counties in the legislature in 1840-1, became Supreme Court judge, 1856, and declined the chief judgeship in 1876. William White of Springfield was Supreme judge of Ohio, 1864-1883, and named for the United States District Court of Southern Ohio in 1883, but his last illness prevented acceptance. His opinions are recorded in 20 volumes of Ohio State Reports. Gen. J. Warren Keifer of Clark, Gen. John Anthony Quitman of Delaware, Judge Thomas Powell of Delaware, Gen. Robert C. Schenck of Dayton, Senator Calvin S. Brice, Vice President Charles Fairbanks, President Rutherford B. Hayes, Durbin Ward of Warren County, Col. Donn Piatt, Judge William Lawrence, Robert P. Kennedy, Judge William West, Lieutenant Gov. Benjamin Stanton, all of Logan County, are other men whose political or military pre-eminence or eloquence lent color and standing to the West Central Ohio bench and bar. Among the lawyers of West Central Ohio who have been honored to appointment or election to the Ohio Supreme Court bench in recent years are : Judge Edward S. Matthias of Van Wert County; Judge James E. Robinson, of Marysville, Union County; Judge Augustus Summers, Judge James Johnson and Judge Charles B. Zimmerman, all of Clark County. When the long service of Judge William White is considered, Clark County has been pre-eminent among the counties of West Central Ohio in number of its lawyers who have attained the supreme court bench. CHAPTER XLVII BANKING IN WEST CENTRAL OHIO PIONEER INSTITUTIONS-EARLY BANKING CONDITIONS-GROWTH OF BANKING- STATE BANKS-NATIONAL BANKS. Population stood waiting the end of the Indian war so that in the beginning there was not business enough to justify regular banking. But with the signing of the Greenville Treaty in 1795, population came with such a surge that whereas there were but 2,000 in the Miami Country in 1790, there were 18,000 people by 1800. Soon after or by April 15, 1803, the Miami Exporting Company was organized to do banking among other activities. This company paid ten to fifteen per cent for many years, and served the whole Miami Country until February 11, 1814, when the Dayton Manufacturing Company was chartered with an authorized capital of $100,000. There were private firms who did a banking business in the interval as is the case in all new communities where trusted persons are made repositories of cash and often gradually evolve into what amounts to private banking. Delaware being distant from the Ohio River, tried a bank as early as 1812, but it failed to get a charter and wound up its affairs. The War of 1812 with its blockades and embargoes so disturbed eastern business that by 1814 a tremendous emigration westward was started; this addition of transported capital called for additional banking facilities; the Lebanon-Miami Banking Company was organized at Lebanon, with $200,000 authorized - 485 - 486 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO capital, August 24, 1816; the Urbana Banking Company at Urbana, also with $200,000 authorized capital, August 15, 1816; and the Little Miami Canal and Banking Company, $300,000, December 29, 1817. This period has been pronounced the "Jubilee of Swindlers" since no capital was required to set up a bank; the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars brought the same wild seesaw of values, crazed speculation and violent fluctuations of the currency as marked the end of the mad 1920s. By August 2, 1818, the only banks doing business in West Central Ohio which were rated as having outstanding banknotes acceptable in exchanges were the John H. Piatt Company, of Cincinnati, and the Bank of Xenia. These two out of 23 alone were reputable. By 1819 the Detroit Gazette, in ranking banks, notes in its territory, divided them into "Good," "Decent," "Middling," and "Good for Nothing" as follows : West Central Ohio : "Good," none; "Decent," the Bank of Dayton ; "Middling," Lebanon-Miami Banking Company, and the Bank of Xenia; "Good for Nothing," the Miami Exporting Company and the John H. Piatt Company. Population, despite the violent business fluctuations, had leaped along as follows in the Miami Country : 70,000 in 1810; and 100,000 in 1815. This bad condition of the Miami Exporting Company was typical. It was the first bank in Ohio and perhaps the second west of the Alleghanies. By 1822 it could no longer proceed with business. Until 1834 it was in process of liquidation; was reorganized but was compelled to close before the expiration of its charter in 1843. Its troubles began with the capture of Washington, the suspension of specie payments by banks which spread westward and was succeeded by the paper money orgy. The depreciation of the currency caused a great rise in prices. Land nearly quadrupled; people imagined they were growing rich and bank dividends were enormous in the 1815-17 period. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 487 Gouge's Journal of Banking says "The first months of 1818 were the golden age of the western country; silver in Jerusalem, in days of Solomon . . . not more plentiful than paper money in Ohio." Eastern banks attempted to resume specie payments and the credit contracted, prices fell so that commodities and real estate fell as far and much more rapidly than in 1929-33; men with a little money could make a fortune attending sheriff's sales. Dayton prices showed a decline from January 1, 1817, to March, 1822, as follows: Wheat, from $1.50 to 20 cents, while on the latter date corn was 12 cents the bushel; butter 5 cents the pound; eggs 3 to 5 cents the dozen and chickens 50 to 75 cents the dozen. The report of conditions read like 1933: "Immense quantities of goods . . . . sold on credit and the debtors had nothing with which to pay; credit was at an end and universal distress prevailed." . . . . Legislature passed a law to prevent property being sold under a fixed amount. The space of this work will not permit the details of banking in West Central Ohio. Let it suffice to say that regular banking spread very slowly northward from Cincinnati so that even by 1863 in the midst of the Civil War the banking towns of West Central Ohio are listed as Eaton, Preble County; Lebanon, Warren County; Xenia, Greene County; Dayton, Montgomery County; Urbana, Champaign County; Troy and Piqua, Miami County; Delaware, Delaware County; Marion, Marion County; while no banking towns are listed at all in Van Wert, Mercer, Darke, Auglaize, Allen, Logan, Union, Madison, Morrow, Fayette or Clinton counties. Due to the loose regulations and fluctuations of printing press bank notes, bank failures in Ohio between 1811 and 1831 averaged one a year which in view of the small number was a high mortality. These included the Miami Exporting Company, the Dayton Manufacturing Company, the Lebanon Miami Banking Company and the Urbana Banking Company, and the Bank of Xenia. These failures reduced the number of chartered banks in 488 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Ohio in 1830 to but eleven, none of which were in West Central Ohio. By January 18, 1831, Dayton newspapers were clamoring for the revival of the Dayton bank. Governor McArthur brought up the proposition of a state bank since money was exceedingly scarce in Ohio and people were paying about nine per cent on foreign loans. The Legislature defeated the state bank bill but granted charters to ten new banks among which was the Bank of Xenia, March 1, 1834, capital $100,000. The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company was doing business at this time in sixty-seven counties of the state loaning money on real estate at 10 to 15 per cent. The Urbana Banking Company was revived in 1834 after its failure in 1830; and by 1835 West Central Ohio had the following: Dayton Bank, Urbana Banking Company, Bank of Xenia, listed among the 31 chartered banks of the state. By 1836 these banks had increased their circulation 70 per cent with a total not reached again until 1850, and one that was provocative of a second climax of inflation. The United States Treasury recommended the states to repress the issuance of small notes and the Ohio Legislature refused to issue any more bank charters. Governor Lucas asked the banks not to issue any bills under $5.00. Among others the Bank of Xenia disdained reply to such a request and on March 14, 1836, the Legislature put a 20 per cent tax on the annual bank dividends of such institutions as did not surrender the small bank note privilege. The Urbana Bank at the time of the panic in 1837 had outstanding eleven and one-quarter dollars in paper to one dollar of specie. This period was marked by suspensions of specie payment in 1837, and, with some banks in 1839. There was marked distrust and wrangling among the banks, the giving of stock notes for capital in banks and by loans to directors and stockholders. Most of the bank charters expired in 1843 and the Springfield, Ohio Republican gave the aggregate bank capital in Ohio in 1843 HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 489 as $16,000,000, and added that almost the entire trading capital of the community was about to be withdrawn. In 1841-2 the mortality in Ohio banks was very high due to frozen assets such as judgments, mortgages, and real estate. When charters of thirteen banks expired in 1843, the Bank of Xenia was the only chartered bank left in the 22 counties of West Central Ohio. By this time the state was first in agriculture and the Barrens of Madison County were especially prominent in live stock raising while the canals were giving the interior counties shipping facilities. The banking facilities were inadequate for this business and there were vicious practices among private business which bought up depreciated bank notes of insolvent banks and then forced them out into payrolls and its value would be quoted at par by some subsidized press. There was considerable specie in private hands which were used for cash transactions, notably in Delaware and Marion counties. By the law of February 24, 1845, independent state banks were authorized but limited so that in West Central Ohio, Miami and Montgomery counties could have two each and the other counties but one each. This was followed by a rapid rise of prices due to the new trading medium. By 1847 Delaware, Troy and Springfield had banks but the whole situation was in politics with the Democrats clamoring for hard money and the Whigs sponsoring the banking set up. However the Democrats did pass the free banking law of March 21, 1851, which marked another era of banking expansion. Some banks made as high as 37 per cent on their capital, although this was an exception. By 1857 Marion, Piqua, Washington C. H. and Eaton were listed with banks some of which had been established earlier. A branch of the Bank of the United States had been established in Cincinnati as early as January, 1817, and from location served West Central Ohio along with one established at Chillicothe in 490 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO October, 1817. Local banking was practically free down to 1838 and almost so until the Civil War. In 1845 the State Bank of Ohio was created with which the state was divided into twelve districts and provisions made for sixty-three branches. By 1861 Dayton was listed with four banks, Delaware with two; the Bank of Delaware and the Delaware Branch of the State Bank of Ohio; Eaton with the Preble County Branch of the State Bank of Ohio; Marion with two, the Bank of Marion and the Ohio State Stock Bank. Miamisburg had the Washington Bank, incorporated in 1844. Piqua, the Piqua Branch of the State Bank of Ohio; Springfield, two, the Springfield Bank and the Mad River Valley Branch of the State Bank of Ohio. Troy, the Miami Branch of the State Bank of Ohio; Urbana, three, the Champaign County Bank, the State Stock Bank and the Urbana Bank; Xenia, two, Bank of Xenia, and the Xenia Branch of the State Bank of Ohio. It was reserved for the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company of Cincinnati by its failure in 1857 to precipitate the panic of that year. National banks came in with the Civil War in 1863. The next serious banking debacle came in February, 1933. Measures taken at that time placed what practically amounted to a government bill of health to all banks re-opened and was followed by a government guarantee of deposits up to $2,500, effective January 1, 1934. Ohio had twenty of the first sixty-three national banks. Ohio banks for years have been of four classifications, National, State, Saving and Private. All banking institutions except national and private ones went under a state superintendent of Banking in 1908. Students of the origin of nullification and its manifestations will be interested in Ohio's nullification fight against the United States Bank (See Randall and Ryan's History of Ohio, Vol. 3, Chapter X). January 1, 1934, saw the introduction of deposit insurance covering deposits up to $2,500. The debacle of March, 1933, had HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 491 left thirty-four Ohio banks unopened and the act was designed to prevent a repetition of runs. Through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation every bank in Ohio then open, which applied for membership in the deposit insurance, was able to meet the rigid requirements and Ohio in common with the rest of the nation entered upon a new era in banking in which each bank was in a measure the partner of every other bank up to a certain point of responsibility. In the 1929-1933 period of depression and panic almost every community had experienced a bank failure or its closing down. There were banks, however, which had stood this storm as sturdily as the storms of the past. Springfield was one of the few cities in West Central Ohio where all the major financial institutions stood the crash of the storm. The Lagonda-Citizens National, dating back to a private bank of 1859, and the First National Bank and Trust Company, dating back to February 10, 1864, and the Springfield Savings Society, organized in 1872, are among the oldest banks in West Central Ohio. The Springfield Morris Plan Bank, organized in 1915 justified this type of banking, a comparatively new development in banking by keeping a record with the best. The Springfield Morris Plan Bank was the first of its type in Ohio. CHAPTER XLVIII THE PRESS FIRST NEWSPAPER IN NORTHWEST TERRITORY-OTHER NEWSPAPERS. Maxwell's Sentinel of the Northwest first issued November 9, 1793, was the first newspaper in the Northwest territory and from its location in Cincinnati, naturally covered West Central Ohio so far as coverage could penetrate at that time. It was a four-page, three-column sheet, 8 1/2x10 1/4 inches. Its motto was "Open to all parties, influenced by none." The Maxwells afterward moved to Dayton. The Maxwells in 1799 settled on the Little Miami in Greene County in Beaver Creek Township. He was a member of the First General Assembly and later was associate judge of Greene County, was Greene County sheriff until 1807, and died, 1809. The Western Spy, May 28, 1799, and the Scioto Gazette, April 25, 1800, both had circulation throughout West Central Ohio. In 1810 of the fourteen papers published in Ohio, only two, the Lebanon Western Star and Ohio Sentinel, Dayton, May, 1810, were strictly within the limits of these twenty-two counties. John McLean had founded the Star in 1806 so that the press in West Central Ohio began with one of the greatest newspaper families in American history, the McLeans. By 1819 the local list had been increased by the Reading Room, Xenia, Ohio Watchman, Dayton, the Delaware Gazette, Urbana Gazette, and the Farmer, Springfield, the last either 1817 - 493 - 494 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO or 1820. It later became the Western Pioneer from which descends the present News-Sun. The Ohio Watchman was the old Ohio Sentinel which in turn had been the Repertory, giving Dayton its first newspaper in 1808, founded by William McClure and George Smith. The Delaware Gazette, 1818, soon ceased but the Delaware Patron came forth October 10, 1821. Moses Corwin and a man named Blackburn published the Watchtower in Urbana, July 4, 1812. This list could be added to indefinitely: The Bellefontaine Examiner, 1830; Celina Observer, 1874; The Dayton News and Journal (both claim to date back to 1808, probably to the Repertory) ; Delaware Journal-Herald, 1841; Delphos Courant, 1869; Eaton Register-Herald, 1820; Eaton Democrat, 1842; Forest Review, 1865; Franklin Chronicle, 1876; Germantown Press, 1874 ; Jamestown, Greene County Journal, 1870; Jeffersonville Citizen, 1884; Ada Herald, 1885; Ada Record, 1872; Belle Center Herald Voice, 1896; Kenton Democrat, 1844; Kenton News-Republic, 1889; Lebanon Patriot, 1867; Lima News & Times, 1884; Lima Republican Gazette, 1880; Lima Star, 1915; London Enterprise, 1872; Madison County Democrat, 1857; Madison Press, 1917; Marion Star, 1877; Mechanicsburg News, 1924; Mechanicsburg Telegram, 1903; Miamisburg News, 1880; Milford Center Ohioan, 1888; Minister Post, 1896; Mount Gilead Sentinel, 1848; Mount Gilead Union Register, 1848; New Bremen Sun, 1886; New Carlisle Sun, 1901; New Vienna Reporter, 1890; Ohio City Progress, 1895; Osborn Herald, 1923; Piqua Call and Press Dispatch, 1883; Plain City Advocate, 1894; Pleasant Hill Stillwater News, 1915; Prospect Monitor, 1878; Richwood Gazette, 1872 ; Rockford Press, 1883; Sabina News-Record, 1894; Sabina Tribune, 1894; Saint Marys Leader, 1902; Saint Paris News-Dispatch, 1871; Sidney Journal, 1908; Sidney News, 1891; Sidney Republican, 1908; Shelby County Democrat, 1849; South Charleston Sentinel, 1840; Springfield Sun, 1894; Springfield Tribune, 1909; Tippecanoe City Herald, 1869; Troy Democrat, 1880; Troy News, 1909; Troy Miami Union, 1864; HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 495 Troy Feature Weekly, 1901; Urbana Champaign Democrat, 1854; Urbana Citizen, 1883; Urbana Democrat, 1854; Van Wert Bulletin, 1887; and 1860; Van Wert Times, 1904; Versailles Policy, 1875; Wapakoneta Democrat, 1848; Auglaize Republican, 1881; Wapakoneta News, 1905; Wapakoneta Republican, 1820; Washington C. H. Herald, 1885; Record-Republican, 1879; Ohio State Register, 1836; Waynesfield Chronicle, 1896; Waynesville Miami Gazette, 1850; West Alexandria, Twin Valley Echo, 1898; West Jefferson Messenger, 1923; West Liberty Banner, 1882; West Mansfield Enterprise, 1893; West Milton Record, 1892; Covington Tribune-Gazette, 1897; Wilmington Clinton County Democrat, 1879; Wilmington News-Journal, 1838; Xenia Gazette, 1881; Xenia Herald and Democratic News, 1891; Xenia Republican, 1912. Springfield is home of the Crowell Publishing Company, one of the greatest publishing concerns in the world. Its list of publications started with the Farm and Fireside, a factory publication of P. P. Mast and Company. To T. J. Kirkpatrick as editor and J. S. Crowell as business manager the phenomenal rise of the organization was largely due in the beginning. The Woman's Home Companion was started in 1885; Collier's Weekly and the American Magazine were afterwards added. McCalls in Dayton is another nationally known publication which helps greatly to make West Central Ohio one of the publishing centers of the world. CHAPTER XLIX MEDICINE PIONEER DOCTORS-EARLY METHODS-DENTISTRY. Medicine in West Central Ohio came in by way of Kentucky, most of the early physicians harking back to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, the first medical school of the West. Out of the Transylvania University grew the offshoot, the Medical College of Ohio at Cincinnati, which was to take up for many a year following 1819 the training of doctors for West Central Ohio. Benjamin Winslow Dudley, the founder of the medical department at Transylvania, had studied at the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, the oldest and most distinguished medical school of the United States. His teacher had been Doctor Benjamin Rush, "Father of American Medicine." Dr. Daniel Drake had been a member of Dudley's faculty at Transylvania and in turn had founded the Cincinnati school. These three great names are the genesis of medicine as practiced for many a day in West Central Ohio. In early days the medico was often none too well versed in theory but became long on practice. His school was more human nature than the text book. Some of the early practitioners must have merited the caricature drawn of them in the Hoosier Schoolmaster. They had to compete with the midwife, and the pow-wow Pennsylvania Dutch who were masters of spells, hexes and with every old woman who was versed in simples and "Yarbs." - 497 - 498 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Every creek had its still and every still had a countryside for customers. Whiskey was the sovereign cureall. It would cure chills, ague, colds, fevers, "Misery" indigestion, snake bite, melancholia, and what not. It was good rubbed on or taken internally. It was a solvent for "Yarbs" and thus prepared was known as "Bitters." It sold for 121/2 cents a quart and every man was his own doctor. You raised corn and took a jag to the still and brought one home. A man literally raised his own hell in his own corn patch. The standard diseases of the early day were "agger" or chills and fever, the shakes in the vernacular but malaria to the educated few; next was "Rheumatiz" which covered a multitude of sins—and focal infections. Consumption took a heavy toll as did childbirth. Typhoid was rampant. Dentists were unknown and men chewed tobacco to kill toothache. Anyway they all chewed. Milk sickness raged in the "Barrens" as the unwooded portions of Madison County and other similar spots were called. The settlers traced the sickness to their milk and that in turn to some weed the cows had eaten. Since cows ranged far and wide on free range, to admit milk sickness was present was to condemn the countryside, and like California earthquakes, and Florida hurricanes, the subject was taboo before strangers. Milk sickness usually proved fatal in the first attack or in the relapse sure to follow the initial recovery. From necessity every mother became a nurse or lost her brood. The history of medicine in West Central Ohio for the first fifty years was a queer patch work of rule of thumb, folklore, reinforced and bolstered by a slowly increasing school of physicians as the wealth of the country grew to proportions where it would educate and support adequate medical art. Gradually every village grew to have its practitioners, a condition which reached its maximum with the horse and buggy days and began to wane with the coming of the automobile which at HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 499 one and the same time brought patients to the doctor quickly and extended the range of his operations. With the auto the practice of medicine began to gravitate to the towns and cities; the country doctor, the general practitioner had his rise, decline and fall as part of small hamlets all in the space of 100 years. As hospitalization increased, the country practice declined. The doctor followed the stork to the hospital. The present day of specialization is part of the history of American medicine in general and cannot be separated into any West Central Ohio classification. The day when the doctor, like the preacher and teacher, gave color, culture and opinion to the country community, has about passed. Hospitals with their mass handling, medical science with its specialization, has moved into a scientific atmosphere where the impersonal grasp has usurped the personal touch. The country doctor, like the Indian, the buffalo, the wild pigeon, the little red school house, the rubber tired buggy, the lap robe, the petticoat, the sleigh, has gone. Like the dodo, he is extinct. The modern sick man escapes powders pre-eminent for nastiness, does not have a doctor who calls for a newspaper and measures out by guess work doses of mingled drugs, or leaves several glasses or cups of liquid medicine standing by the patient's table. He is spared tasting a thermometer which has made the rounds of the countryside and gathered germs from every mouth. He is not bled, sweat, starved, denied drink in fever, purged; he is not salivated until his teeth show, nor filled with calomel and jalap for every disease. No leeches are placed upon the skin to suck blood. He is not blistered, cupped, sterilized with a red hot iron; he has no seton in his flesh to insure a discharge of pus; no cotton Moxa is coiled upon his flesh and slowly burnt down into the raw. No system today is slugged full of mercury; fresh air is not barred, water is not taboo. There is something to be said for the modern physician. He may not be colorful, romantic, but he is not the devil's emissary of torture.