Ohio is the first of the contemplated states under the Ordinance of
1787, and is the most important if not the largest state in the Union.
Although geographers say there are some twenty-five states larger, yet
no one has ventured to determine beyond dispute or contradiction just
how large Ohio is. When the lights of education were limited to the
“three R’s,” the boundary was supposed to contain about thirty-nine
thousand square miles. In a short time after, the size increased to
forty thousand. The area is described as the space between Lake Erie
and the Ohio river; and is usually estimated to contain twenty-five
million six hundred thousand acres. But some advanced information has
changed these figures to forty-one thousand square miles, and has shown
by the state auditor’s reports that nearly twenty-seven million acres
of farm lands were returned for taxation in 1833, and the question
still remains undetermined how large the state is.
The state is greatly favored in regard to water navigation, having Lake
Erie on the north for two hundred and thirty miles, and the Ohio river
on the eastern and southern border for four hundred and thirty-five
miles, giving a natural water-way around three sides of its boundary
amounting to six hundred and sixty-five miles, which is more navigable
water than is possessed by any other state in the Union, except
California and Michigan.
The vast territory east of the Mississippi river, of which Ohio formed
a part, was claimed and controlled by France, and was known as the
“North-western Territory,” or “Louisiana”, by French traders and
missionaries as early as 1658. In 1679, La Salle established a sailing
vessel on Lake Erie, and trading posts were designated at favorable
points, and missionary work found its way among the resident Indian
tribes that occupied the portion of territory now called Ohio.
France was made aware of the beauty of the meager possession on
this continent, and endeavored by means of the natives and their
missionaries to keep the pre-emption warm until a title could be better
recognized. In 1794, Major De Celoran, an officer of the French army,
with a force of several hundred men (French and Indian) landed at a
favorable point on Lake Erie, and carried their boats overland to
Chautauqua Lake; from thence into the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. And on
the way down the Ohio river, it is said this officer buried at numerous
favorable points lead plates bearing the proclamation of Louis XIV,
asserting the dominion of France over the territory on both sides of
the Ohio river. The titles of France were but little better than the
favorite grants and charters of James I, and the American colonies soon
began the establishment of claims, which, in conflict, were settled
only by the defeat of the French by the British at Quebec, and the
treaty of Paris in 1763, by which this territory was all ceded to Great
Britain; and the present good state was annexed to Canada, and by
proclamation amenable to the government located at Quebec.
After the close of the War of Revolution, the United States found the
rights to the territory of the great North-west in dispute between the
Indians and the colonies; and congress attempted to settle the disputes
by having the colonies abandon all claims by ceding the same to the
United States as the common property of all. New York set the patriotic
example, and gave up all her rights to a common cause and general
good, and was soon followed by other colonies until the entire domain
became vested in the United States, excepting an unsurrendered claim
of Connecticut, in the northern part of the state known as the Western
Reserve, about fifty miles wide and one hundred and twenty miles long.
The great North-west Territory, under the supervision of the
government, was divided up and known under the following heads:
1. The Seven Ranges and Congress Lands.
2. United States Military Lands.
3. The Ohio Company’s Purchase.
4. The Connecticut Reserve and Fire Lands.
5. The Military Bounty Lands.
6. The Virginia Military Bounty Lands.
7. Symmes’s Purchase.
8. Special Grants, Donation Tract, Refugees’ Tract, French Grant,
Dorhman’s Grant, Moravian and Lane’s Grants, Improvement Grants.
9. Canal, Turnpike, and Road Lands.
10. School, College and Ministerial Grants.
The Congress lands are those sold by officers of the Government. The
Connecticut Reserve, consisting of about 3,800,000 acres, was a claim
or grant made to the colony by Charles II in 1662. The “Fire Lands”
were part of the grant, and were donated by the colony to reimburse
losses sustained in property by the raids of Benedict Arnold during the
Revolutionary War. The Fire Lands consisted of 500,000 acres, and were
located chiefly in Erie county.
Connecticut sold her Ohio lands to a “land company for $1,200,000,” and
placed it securely as an endowment fund for common schools; and the
income from this source is still educating the children of that highly
intelligent state.
The United States Military Lands, made such by act of Congress in
1796 to satisfy claims of officers and soldiers of the War of the
Revolution. This tract embraced an area of 4,000 square miles in the
counties of Morgan, Noble, Guernsey, Pickaway, Coshocton, Muskingum,
Perry, Fairfield and Franklin. Donation Tract is 100,000 acres in
the north part of Washington county, granted to the Ohio Company by
Congress. The Symmes Tract of 311,682 acres was granted to John Cleves
Symmes, of New Jersey, in 1794, for sixty-seven cents an acre. The
land lies between the two Miami rivers. Mr. Symmes’s daughter married
General Wm. Henry Harrison, and was the grandmother of ex-President
Harrison the II.
The Refugee Lands is a grant of 100,000 acres. It lies along the Scioto
river, and the city of Columbus stands upon this land, granted by
Congress to be given to persons driven out of the British provinces
during the Revolutionary War.
The French Grant consists of 24,000 acres in Scioto county, and given
by Congress after the fashion of hush money.
The Dorhman Grant is a tract of 23,000 acres in Tuscarawas county,
given by Congress to a Portuguese merchant.
The Virginia Military Lands were located on the west of the Scioto
river. The amount of the grant in acres has never been known. There are
fifteen counties in the tract and much of it has never been surveyed.
This body of land was reserved by Virginia to pay her soldiers who were
in the Revolution without compensation or pay. When it was determined
by Congress to pay the soldiers in land, each original settler marked
his own boundaries with a hatchet, and made a good liberal guess that
the area within his lines would cover the acres given in his warrant.
The Moravian Grant was 4,000 acres in Tuscarawas county. Besides,
many other donations were made for roads and other purposes, making a
total of over eight million acres, the greater part of which went to
creditors of the Government. Land was the only thing the United States
had available to cancel the war obligations, and soldiers and others
gladly accepted land certificates in lieu of those of silver or gold.
Land in body was more desirable than town lots. When Chillicothe was
made capital of the territory it had about twenty cabins promiscuously
located among the timber, which had not yet been cut down to designate
the streets. The State House was constructed in 1800 by an old
revolutionary soldier, Wm. Rutledge, and remained the Capitol until
1816, when it was permanently located at Columbus, Franklin county.
The removal of the capital injured greatly the prospects and business
of Chillicothe for many years, and secured leisure to its citizens,
who engaged in various innocent amusements for killing time--in fact,
lingered with scarcely a symptom of lysis until after the “Literary,
Astronomical and Natural History Society” commenced the publication
and distribution of that illustrated periodical (yearly), known and
remembered to the last days of the older citizens, entitled “_The
Ground Hog Almanac_.” Since then the town has grown in population,
wealth and beauty, and is now the center jewel of the cities in the
rich Scioto valley.
Provisions for the education of the generations that were to inhabit
the North-west were made and ratified by Congress, in 1787, giving
one-thirty-sixth part of the entire public domain to be reserved from
sale for the maintenance of schools, declaring “That schools and means
of education shall forever be encouraged.”
When Ohio was set off and became a state, the reserve school lands
were placed under the management of the legislature, the constitution
of 1802 making it the duty of that body to carry out the educational
clause of the ordinance, and that the schools supported by the land
grants should be open for the reception of pupils. But it turned out
like many public trusts; with this splendid endowment of near a million
acres of good land, the children of Ohio received no benefit from that
source, nor from any legislative equivalent, for near half a century
after settlement. The majority of the people, it must be confessed,
were indifferent to the subject of education, and were used to keep
in power enough imbecile legislators, who in defiance of Ephraim
Cutler, the wording of the constitution and acts of Congress, spent the
sessions for more than twenty years in perverse legislation of the
public school lands.
[Illustration:
THE HISTORIC GROUND HOG CLUB.
ORGANIZED FEBRUARY 2, 1800.
Certificate of Membership.
The ground hog goes into his hole in the ground early in the fall,
and stays there until the 2d day of February, when, regardless of the
weather, he comes out; but, if he sees his shadow, winter is not over,
and he goes back to stay six weeks.]
It was stated by a member of the senate, at the time, that every year
things were made worse--“That members of the legislature got acts
passed, under pretexts of granting leases to themselves, relatives and
political partisans, giving the lands away until there was little or
nothing left.” One senator got acts passed giving him and his children
seven entire sections. And legislation through ignorance, inability
and design subverted the intention in regard to the school-land
grant--squandered the proceeds, and then pledged the state to pay the
interest. And for this pledge the citizen is annually taxed on a fund
of over four million dollars, which exists nowhere excepting in name on
the musty books of the state.
But the young Buckeye Squirrel Hunter could not be repressed; and
fathers and mothers labored hard and economized to help sustain
subscription schools to the full extent of their financial ability;
while the State of Connecticut was supporting an expensive system of
common school education from a fund arising from the sale of her lands
in Ohio.[6]
The teachers of Ohio subscription schools were not examined, nor did
their patrons require a very high standard of qualification. Still some
were highly educated wanderers over the earth, as the literary works of
H. D. Flood, John Robinson and James Kelsey show; and who were teachers
in Southern Ohio from 1810 to 1825. The greater number of instructors
were well-informed citizens, who accepted the opportunity in order to
pursue studies that would qualify them for a more lucrative calling.
It was not customary to close the school on holidays; nor even on
Saturdays. They were all hired by the month and were required to
perform the duties of teaching the full number of working days in each
calendar month--neither Christmas, New Year nor Fourth of July could
close the _door_. The patrons were the sole managers of these schools,
and were solicitous to obtain full consideration for the amount paid.
But young America was alive, and the incentive a holiday by nature
gave, could not, under the most staid rules of conduct and economy,
be entirely suppressed; and it became more contagious than measles or
whooping-cough, and every school in the country was soon broken out
with the idea of a holiday--in parts of two days--Christmas and New
Year.
There seemed to be no way to treat it other than to let it have its
regular course. It always came with a specific demand upon the teacher,
of which the following well-preserved pattern specimen embraces the
material points of others, varying only in quantity and quality, with
locality and circumstances:
“_December 23, 1817._
“MR. JOHN ROBINSON (Teacher)--
“_Sir_:--We the undersigned committee, in behalf of the unanimous
voice of the scholars of your school, demand that you treat,
according to custom, to the following articles in amount herein
named, to wit:
200 ginger cakes,
2 bushels of hickory nuts,
1 peck hazel nuts,
10 pounds of candy,
10 pounds raisins,
delivered at the school house, noon hour, December 25, for the
enjoyment and pleasant remembrance of this school. If this meets your
approbation you will please sign and return the paper to John Kelley
to-morrow, December 24, at noon, saying, over your signature, ‘I
agree to the above,’
“JOHN KELLEY, }
JAMES BROWN, } _Committee_.”
WILLIAM SMALLWOOD, }
Occasionally a teacher not fond of fun or fearful of exposure, would
at once sign these modest demands, and would join in with the children
at noon on Christmas, and again on New Year’s day, and have a long to
be remembered pleasant jollification. But by far the greater number of
teachers preferred a little preliminary skirmishing before acceding
to the peremptory demand. When the above bill of fare was handed the
teacher just before dismissal on the evening of the 23d, he glanced
over the contents and commenced tearing the paper into small fragments.
And it was said this meant defiance.
The next morning was cold, with deep fall of snow during the night; but
all the larger boys were inside of the school house with a hot fire
and armed with ropes and strings, and plenty of wood and provisions
to withstand a siege, before it was yet light. All the openings were
barricaded with the benches, which consisted of heavy “puncheons,” with
wooden pins driven in on the convex side for legs. One after another
of the children came and were admitted, and when the teacher arrived,
he found the house (cabin) full of jolly boys and girls, but could not
himself enter.
After many ineffectual efforts to obtain admission, he started
homeward. This was the signal for the boys, and the yelping, whooping
crowd of all sizes and ages of minors, broke camp and gave chase.
Robinson is described as an athletic specimen of vigorous manhood,
and delighted in sport, and concluded to give the boys a fox chase
through the forest and unbroken snow. He led the gang quite easily for
a short time, but after several miles’ running the boys captured and
overpowered the fleeing despot. Finding resistance useless he submitted
to be tied and roped down securely to pieces of timber on either side
with face in the direction of the clouds. The burial ceremony was
performed by asking compliance, and marching around his body, singing
funeral dirges, and piling snow upon his person.
A monument of snow was soon erected with an opening for breathing and
conversation. He did not hold out long, and by pledging his honor
the bill of fare should be on hand, and no punishment or ill-will
entertained for the usage received, the prisoner was released, and all
returned to the school-house, spelled for head, and were regularly
dismissed for home.
The next day at noon a cart-load of good things arrived with those
specified; and children and parents enjoyed the feast, after which
there was an old-fashioned spelling-match, and all went home to
remember with pleasure the Christmas of 1817. And at this writing
(1895) only one of that jolly crowd is known to be living, and from
whom the above reminiscences have been obtained.
The country was so thinly settled it was often difficult to make up a
school (fifteen), owing to distance from the school cabin, and it was
the common practice for those most interested, usually two or three
neighbors, to “sign” for their own children and enough more out of the
range to make up the required number. And often, in order to secure
them, agreeing to pay the tuition and to board them during attendance.
And so far as the advantages of these schools were to be obtained, the
boys and girls shared alike. But if unable to afford the expense for
both, the boys generally got the schooling.
[Illustration: Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840.]
The school-house was usually located in the woods. The building was
of round logs, and presented the appearance of very little comfort,
either without or within. The floor was of mother earth; the ceiling
above, the underside of the roof; a number of rude benches; a few
puncheon shelves, and a huge fire-place, constituted the necessary
arrangement of the interior. It was known as the school-house, although
used as a place to hold elections, lectures, debating societies, and
singing-schools.
But notwithstanding the loss of an endowment much needed in primitive
times, and the restriction of subscription schools from existing
poverty, and that the log-cabin school-houses stood empty for long
periods, there was no effeminacy in the desire for knowledge, for
where there is a will there is a way, and volumes might be filled with
learned and illustrious names who were once rocked in a “sugar-trough,”
and took their first lessons in “_Brush College_.”
It was in this environment the scientist, statesman, and divine
obtained that self-confidence and industry which leads to high and
honored stations and has made the North-west a perpetual eclipsing
shadow upon all other parts of the United States.
In every department, the chosen citizen of this magnificent empire
has shown himself master of the situation. In art, literature, and
sciences; in war and times of peace, he has given strength to the Union
and credit to a central power that will surround itself with national
influences the most impregnable of any government in the world. And
under all the disadvantages--the absence of public schools, and the
opening up of a new world isolated from civilization, he came forth
like a vision of beauty and glory from a chrysalis on which was
written the destiny of future greatness.
A short time before execution, John Brown said--“I know the very
errors by which my scheme was marred were decreed before the world
was made. And I had no more to do with the course I pursued than a
shot leaving a cannon has to do with the spot where it shall fall.”
That hunger and thirst for knowledge which prevailed in the North-west
seemed to contradict all theories of man’s proneness under favorable
circumstances to degenerate, and favors the theory advanced by the
hero of Ossawatomie in regard to power and purpose. Some of the first
generation of boys of Ohio (those that lived in the territory) previous
to 1796 were born elsewhere to disappoint the Indians, but were all
the same shareholders of the great estate. And at the early dawn of
the present century many of these young men found their way to Eastern
institutions of learning, taking the front in physical and mental
culture, as they did afterward in positions of national honor.
As boys, squirrel hunters, men, scholars, lawyers, soldiers, civilians,
and statesmen, history shows they filled their places well as American
models of superior manhood. Poor as the isolated inhabitants were
in regard to worldly goods, they had an abundance of that which
gave vitality, energy, and power of will to do. It was no uncommon
thing for boys in this vast forest to obtain by their own efforts
full preparation to enter college, and with a knapsack of luncheon,
_tinder-box_, and scantily-filled purse, walk hundreds of miles to a
seat of learning, and there remain four years without seeing home or
friends until they obtained the high honors of the institution.
Ex-Governor Seaberry Ford is but the sample of many. When it came time
to go to college, the family of the young squirrel hunter was living
in a log cabin in the backwoods of Ohio. His ambition, however, was
for Yale, and so expressed it. His father replied, “How are you to
get there!” The answer was, “I can walk,” and did walk--reached Yale,
where he remained the “boss” young man of the town and institution
for four years, and returned to Ohio with the first diploma issued by
that college to an Ohio boy. Many years without public schools papers
or libraries did not dampen the ardor of the young for knowledge. The
inhabitants were destitute of a circulating medium, but managed to keep
apace with all the world in that synonym for power. The means employed,
as given in the autobiography of one of the first two college graduates
in the North-west, illustrates well the thousands of that and later
dates who managed to obtain books, and worked their way to the highest
standard of education.
The Hon. Thomas Ewing says--“About this time” (1803) “the neighbors in
our and the surrounding settlements met and agreed to purchase books
and make a common library. They were all poor and subscriptions small,
but they raised in all about one hundred dollars.
“All my accumulated wealth, ten coon-skins, went into the fund, and
Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, was charged
with the purchase. After the absence of many weeks he brought the books
to Captain Ben Brown’s in a sack on a pack-horse. I was present at the
untying of the sack and pouring out the treasure. There were about
sixty volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of the Vatican
was nothing to it, and there never was a library better read. This with
occasional additions furnished me with reading while I remained at home.
“Dec. 17, 1804, the library was fully established and christened, ‘The
Coon-skin Library,’ and a librarian duly elected by shareholders.”
Five years later, at the age of nineteen, with consent of his father,
young Ewing left home to procure means to obtain a collegiate
education. He set out on foot and found his way through the woods from
his home in Athens county to the Ohio river, and from thence to the
Kanawha Salt Works, where he engaged as a day laborer, and in three
months saved enough money to pay his way at school through the winter
at Athens College. He became well satisfied with the success so far,
and in the spring returned to the Salt Works and made money enough to
pay off some indebtedness that was troubling his father, devoting
the winter to the study of some new books obtained by the “Coon-skin
Library.”
The third year he returned with enough to induce him to enter college
as a regular student, where he remained until 1815; and, after taking
the degree of A. M., returned to the Salt Works, and earned enough to
aid in the study of law. Thus, ten years were spent as a necessary
apprenticeship--performing the arduous and monotonous labors of boiling
salt, that he might be enabled to cultivate the various talents nature
had so bounteously bestowed upon him, and at the same time avoid
financial embarrassments.
Many thousands of squirrel hunters since have imitated the example
of this great man, and have arisen to high eminence, but none--not
one--to the height of “The Ohio Salt-boiler”--the greatest man America
ever produced. In stature Mr. Ewing was six feet two inches tall--well
proportioned, with remarkable physical ability. It is related--that
many years after athletical exercises had been lain aside for law, on
passing near the old court-house in Lancaster, Ohio, he found a crowd
of able-bodied men who had been trying to throw an ax, handle and all,
over the building, but it could not be done. Mr. Ewing halted, and took
the ax by the handle and sent it sailing five feet or more above the
building and passed on.
Mr. Ewing was great from the fact he was familiar with the little
things of life, as well as the greater matters in the supreme court,
where he chiefly practiced. Daniel Webster acknowledged Mr. Ewing’s
superior abilities in seeking his aid in his difficult and weighty
cases.
In the Senate of the United States, he introduced many important
bills--and opposed Clay’s Compromise--the amendatory fugitive slave
law of 1850--and advocated the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia. As a statesman and educated in a free state, he had none of
that diffidence, timidity, and submission to slave-holding dictation so
commonly witnessed among northern legislators in Congress, and before
their constituents.
The influence of slavery was felt in the education and lives of the
people of the North-west. As race hatred was transplanted into Ohio in
the early settlements, it soon became a political element that caused
many odious and unchristian laws to be placed on the statute books, and
enforced as vigorously against color as if made in the interests of
slavery and bonded ignorance of the state.
The first State Constitution of Ohio, adopted in 1802, in article 8,
“That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free
government may be recognized, and forever unalterably established, we
declare”--
Sec. 1. “That all men are born equally free and independent, and have
certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, among which are
the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing,
and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and
safety.”
Sec. 2. “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
this state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted.”
Sec. 3. ... “That schools, and the means of instruction, shall
forever be encouraged by legislative provision, not inconsistent with
the rights of conscience.”
Sec. 25. “That no law shall be passed to prevent the poor in the
several counties and townships within this state from an equal
participation in the schools, academies, colleges, and universities
within this state, which are endowed, in whole or in part, from
the revenue arising from the donations made by the United States
for the support of schools and colleges; and the doors of the said
schools, academies, and universities shall be open for the reception
of scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, _without any
distinction_ or preference whatever contrary to the intent for which
the said donations were made.”
Still the colored man, under no circumstances, excepting taxation,
was recognized as a citizen. He was by Article IV of the Constitution
of Ohio disfranchised by the word “white”--no other color could enjoy
the rights of an elector. He was by law deprived of schools and means
of instruction contrary to the spirit of the endowment as well as
expressions of the constitution; and for more than forty years the
colored population sojourned in a wilderness of freedom before it was
discovered that manhood has rights all are bound to respect--one of
which is the right of suffrage.
The greater portion of the population forming the new state were
favorable to freedom, and many were known to have emancipated their
slaves and settled in Ohio that they might wipe out the stains of an
institution which had so truthfully been denominated the “sum of all
villainies.” There were, however, others, in almost every neighborhood,
who by nature were the patrons of the slave-hunter and looked upon a
colored man as unworthy of an existence on earth, and delighted in
tormenting, killing, or driving him from his home and neighborhood.
This race hatred in some parts of the state received so much attention
and cultivation, that many well-meaning people encouraged the
prejudice, in view of the peace of the neighborhood.
Cincinnati did more than all the rest of the border towns in keeping
up and disseminating a _violent_ race hatred. Free respectable colored
people were looked upon, denounced, and treated as a nuisance, “having
no rights a white man was bound to respect.” The city harbored if not
encouraged a lot of miscreants, who made it a business to hunt and
capture runaway slaves for the reward; and also to carry on the money
making business of kidnaping free blacks, carrying them across the
river, and selling them into slavery. Any and every unlawful treatment
they received was winked at by citizens and city authorities.
The courts were open, but until S. P. Chase went to Cincinnati in 1830
the black man could procure no counsel, as a white man could easily
ruin his character and standing by manifesting the least sympathy for
the persecuted. When the Hon. Salmon P. Chase defended one of these
down-trodden creatures in the courts of Cincinnati, after the hearing
of the case, a prominent man of the city said, pointing to Mr. Chase,
“There goes a promising young lawyer who has ruined himself.”
But the state outside of Cincinnati had enough of the right element to
enforce, if necessary, at all times, the fifth paragraph of the eighth
article of the state constitution, which affirmed, “That the _people_
shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions, from
all unwarrantable searches and seizures; and that the general warrants
whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without
probable evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or
persons not named whose offenses are not particularly described, and
without oath or affirmation, are dangerous to liberty, and _shall_
_not be granted_.” Still in matters of legislation Cincinnati managed
to secure her influence against the negro.
Notwithstanding the plain wording of the Constitution of the State,
laws were enacted to keep the black and mulatto people out of Ohio.
These were the much discussed “black laws”--
_First._ A black or mulatto person was prohibited settlement
unless he could show a certificate of freedom and the names of two
freeholders as security for his good behavior and maintenance, in
the event of becoming a public charge; and unless the certificate of
freedom was duly recorded and produced, it was a _penal offense to
give employment to a black or mulatto_.
_Second._ Colored and mulattoes were excluded from the schools; and,
_Third._ No black or mulatto could testify in court in any case where
a white person was concerned.
In 1848, Dr. N. S. Townshend, of Lorain county, and Dr. John F.
Morse, of Lake county, were elected members of the legislature as
“abolitionists.” To these two members, fortunately, holding the balance
of power between the Whigs and Democrats, are due the repeal of the
odious “black laws,” and the election of an “abolition” United States
Senator--S. P. Chase.
To these men, in combination with the Democrats, is not only due the
repeal of existing laws, but, also, provisions for schools for black
and mulatto children. And Ohio became reclaimed in favor of freedom,
and all was bright and lovely and prosperous--but not all happy; for
there still remained a black, disgraceful, disfiguring spot on the face
of the Goddess of Liberty--a spot that was causing millions to mourn.
Early in the Union of the States, slavery caste began to isolate itself
from every thing denominated “Yankee North,” and, at the same time,
disseminated a race hatred against the “nigger” among the ignorant
white and poor people of the South. And, in the line of emigration,
Ohio received a larger share of immigrants who had been taught to
despise the “nigger,” and honestly believed a colored man was an
inferior animal, “destitute of a soul;” and lecturers were often
traveling over the state entertaining large audiences with such crude
material as that--“A nigger is not human--the bones in the hands and
feet are entirely different; and he is nothing more or less than an
improved Orang-outang, and made to be a slave to the human race as
much as a horse or cow.” By lowering the natural status of the colored
man, such audiences became elevated and the space between man and the
monkey widened by comparison making room for increased hatred. At all
times, but most especially so, previous to the odious amendments of the
“Fugitive Slave Law,” in 1850, it was no uncommon thing to see calls
signed by numerous citizens inserted in popular newspapers, asking
all persons in favor of “law and order” to assemble at the time and
place specified to put down abolitionism, and to let their “_southern
brethren_” know the people of Ohio were in favor of the constitution
and preservation of the Union of the States.
A call for a meeting of this kind in a central county of the state, and
announced in the official political paper of the time, dated October 3,
1835, is headed in large type--
“_Anti-Abolition Meeting._
“A meeting of those opposed to the wild projects of abolitionists is
proposed to be held at the court-house in Circleville, on Saturday,
the 10th day of October next, at 1 o’clock P. M.
“All those who love their country and are willing to maintain her
constitution--
“All who are friends to order and would avert the horrors of a
servile war--
“All who know slavery to be an evil, but believe a dissolution of our
National Union a greater evil--
“All who deprecate ecclesiastical influence in political affairs, are
respectfully and earnestly invited to attend the proposed meeting,
when a number of addresses will be delivered.”
This call is signed by four hundred and seventy-three names, citizens
of a town having less than two thousand inhabitants. The next issue of
the paper publishing the call, and previous to the time of meeting,
contained an anonymous, but scathing criticism of such movements, in
which the author of the article says: “It has been shown what is the
real state of the anti-slavery question, and the unreasonableness and
utter groundlessness of the outcry against Abolitionists.” “Further we
would state for the serious consideration of our opponents that we are
persuaded that the ‘Union will be dissolved,’ not if this subject be
discussed, but if it be not. If it be true that the social compact was
formed on the condition of slavery being tolerated by the free states,
then it is such an Union as must sooner or later be dissolved.”...
“Admitting the existence of a God, and that God is a being of perfect
equity, can it be believed that He will suffer such a combination
against the happiness of man to exist forever? And has it not already
existed too long for that unity of counsel in this great republic which
should ever mark the doings of a nation? And can we calculate on a
much longer forbearance?” The editors of the paper, after offering an
apology for publishing the article, of which the above quotations are
but a small part, say: “Will some Abolitionist be so kind as to refer
us to the passage in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence
which asserts that all men are created free and equally; we have not
seen it.”
The meeting came off as advertised, and the chairman said: “Deeply
sympathizing with our ‘_Southern brethren_,’ we have assembled
to express our most unqualified opposition to emancipation and
disapprobation of the course pursued by its advocates; and to assure
our fellow-citizens in the Southern States that we regard their
constitutional rights as our own, and that we will to the utmost aid
them in the defense of those rights.” “Therefore, Resolved,” was
followed by ten long resolutions in praise of fidelity to the South and
opposition to emancipation, winding up with the following:
“Resolved, That were the slave-holders now willing to abolish slavery,
in our opinion the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all the
slaves in the United States, without providing for their colonization,
would render the condition of both the whites and blacks infinitely
worse than it now is, and would be an act of palpable and unpardonable
inhumanity to the _slaves_.”
Signed: Valentine Kieffer, President; Nathan Perrill, John Entrekin,
Wm. Renick, Sr., Vice-Presidents; Elias Bentley, W. N. Foresman, A.
Huston, Secretaries.
All the officers were well-known and prominent people, and it is not
strange that persons of such note and intelligence should have given
their approbation and signatures of approval to such a meeting, when we
reflect that most pro-slavery men in the free states had been taught to
believe or say: If the slaves were liberated, they would come north
in swarms and “_steal our chickens_,” and destroy the peace of society
“_by marrying every good-looking white woman in the country_.”
But there existed no occasion for alarm; the slave-holding states South
never had an inclination to emancipate their slaves. _They_ were the
wealth of that country, and its growing greatness fostered the desire
to found an aristocratic empire on slave labor. The number in bondage
was rapidly increasing and their labor was becoming more and more
remunerative. They had but to see the increase of this wealth and its
products in fifty years, to stimulate the desire to found a government
on the aristocracy of the institution.
In 1810, there were in all the states but 1,191,360 slaves; and
notwithstanding New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
had in the meantime liberated theirs--and the African slave trade had
previously been abolished--the underground railroad had been doing a
lively business--and the manumissions and colonizations that were going
on in the “breeding states”--in 1860 the number had increased to within
a small fraction less than four millions.
Slave labor was exceedingly profitable in the cotton states, as the
increase of the cotton product shows. In 1801, these states only
produced 48,000,000 pounds, while 1860 returned 2,054,698,800 pounds.
There were, however, two things inserted in the government plat that
were unsatisfactory: “That all men are created equal” in natural
rights, and the Missouri Compromise--the thirty-six degrees thirty
minutes north latitude, Mason and Dixon’s line. It was not so clear
as they wished it might be, that “unalienable rights,” “life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness,” belonged only to masters; and when the
failure to rescind the “Compromise” in 1853 occurred through democratic
influence, of such men as Albert P. Edgerton, the possibility of
peacefully enlarging the area of slavery became as hopeless as it was
manifestly evident that bondage and freedom could not much longer
remain peaceably in the same government. And with amendments to the
fugitive slave law the Southern political bosses, who had usurped the
control of the national government, knew the constitution found slavery
in the states, and as a state institution left its local existence
to the chances of state laws. They knew full well it was not made a
national institution and that the time was close at hand when they
must go to the rear or abandon their northern allies and set up a
slavocracy for themselves. They had obtained sufficient to know Lloyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Arthur Tappan and the Boston Liberator were
actual facts; and the large meetings of the “dough faces” and their
expressions of sympathy was not the kind of “Soothing Syrup” the South
desired, although giving great encouragement to secession.
The division of sentiment existing in the free states in regard
to the rights of slavery and its extension became more and more
expressive, especially along the border lines of the opposing
institutions. Consequently Ohio felt a full share of the evils
due to political and social disturbances arising from this cause.
But the intercommunications given by railroads and the light
emanating from a free and fearless press--cheap postage and speedy
transportation--infused new life; and mankind began thinking--thinking
differently from that of past times when the postage on a letter was
twenty-five cents and required four days for an individual to travel
one hundred miles and return.
Slave hunting in the land of the free did not prove an agreeable
or profitable occupation. The oppressed fugitive generally found
friends enough in the North to secure the boon he sought. In almost
every community could be found the spirit contained in the lines by
Whittier, expressed for George W. Lattimer, who with his wife escaped
from Norfolk, Va., in 1841, and was found in Boston. He was the first
slave hunted in the North, and was arrested and proceedings began to
have him returned to slavery. His cause was championed by such men as
William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass. The
court ruled against the fugitive and his liberty was purchased by the
good people of Boston. Lattimer gained great notoriety, and after a
long and eventful life died at his home in Lynn, Mass., May 30, 1896,
aged seventy-five years. And it can not well be disputed that much of
the after changes in public sentiment in regard to the status of the
colored man, and his rights in a free state, was brought about by the
object lessons in the enforcement of the odious fugitive slave law.
“All that was necessary to prove the detestable character of this
iniquity and its dangers to liberty was simply to enforce it.”[7] Still
the corrupting influences of trade made the evils of slavery felt in
the social, moral and educational interests of the entire state; and
consequently citizens, who had in their hearts the logical idea that
all men are born free and equal, saw the hand of tyranny quite as much
on either shore of the river, that constituted geographically the
dividing line.
This was more especially true of Cincinnati, where large interests
in trade enabled the sentiments of the few to dominate and regulate
public acts and opinions parallel with steamboat monopoly, and the
creed of the “Divine Institution,” as much as if the city had been
located considerably south of “Mason and Dixon’s line;” and as late as
1836 a free soil newspaper, “The Philanthropist,” was destroyed by a
mob of leading citizens of Cincinnati, and which will ever remain a
historical record of loyalty to the institution on the opposite side of
the river, and as penance for some manifestation in favor of freedom.
The Philanthropist was a newspaper ably edited by James G. Birney.
After being published some three months, at night, July 14, 1836, the
press-room was broken open by well-known citizens of Cincinnati, and
the press materials all destroyed. No attempt was made to punish the
perpetrators. But rather to sanction the act. A call for a meeting of
the citizens was made for July 23d, stating the purpose to be, “_to
decide whether the people of Cincinnati will permit the publication or
distribution of ‘abolition’ papers in the city_.”
The decision of this mass meeting, composed of the business men of the
city, was afterwards published in a leading local paper, and makes
very good reading, although derived from a pro-slavery source, to wit:
“On Saturday night, July 30th, very soon after dark, a concourse of
citizens assembled at the corner of Main and Seventh streets, in this
city, and, upon a short consultation, broke open the printing office of
the Philanthropist, the abolition paper, scattered the type into the
street, tore down the presses, and completely dismantled the office. It
was owned by A. Pugh, a peaceable and orderly printer, who printed the
Philanthropist for the Anti-Slavery Society of Ohio.
“From the printing office the crowd went to the house of A. Pugh, where
they supposed there were other printing materials, but found none,
_nor offered any violence_. Then to Messrs. Donaldsons, where only
ladies were at home. The residence of Mr. Birney, the editor, was then
visited; no person was at home but a youth, upon whose explanations the
house was _left undisturbed_.... And proceeded to the ‘Exchange’ and
took refreshments.”... “An attack was then made upon the residences of
some blacks in Church alley; two guns were fired upon the assailants
and they recoiled.... It was some time before the rally could again
be made, several voices declaring they did not wish to endanger
themselves. A second attack was made, the houses found empty, and their
interior contents destroyed.”
Although all this kind of proceeding looked very much like an unlawful
assemblage, it met with no opposition from the city authorities, and
all that was ever done in a matter of this kind was to call a meeting
of citizens, and “_regret the cause of the recent occurrences_,” and
the next day would drive a Wendell Phillips from Pike’s Opera House,
and seek him with a howling mob that he might be hung to a lamp-post,
“the mayor refusing to allow the police to interfere.”
Cincinnati reaped a rich harvest for the examples given in “citizen”
mobs. Still, at any time previous to the “_salvation_” of the city, it
was impolitic if not dangerous for a minister of the gospel, a public
speaker, press or private citizen, to mention the subject of slavery
in a manner that might be construed unfavorable to its sanctity;
for a black line had been drawn over the twenty-sixth verse of the
seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; the tenth verse of the
second chapter of Malachi, and the spirit of the gospel dispensation,
as effectually in their practical theology as was ever manifest in
Danville or in any Southern translation of the ten commandments.
So determined were the pro-slavery elements to hold the fort in
Cincinnati and aid the South in making it dangerous for a colored
man in a “free state,” that they continued to supply the South with
stores until the last moment; and only a week before the bombardment of
Sumter, the city permitted cannon to pass through on way from Baltimore
marked
“_For the Southern Confederacy,_
_Jackson, Mississippi._”
And the same day, or the day before, returned a fugitive slave through
the commissioner, and all went well with the city, reaping the fruits
of the war, until General Wallace placed it under martial law, and,
suspending business, demanded the citizens to enroll themselves for
defense. “Some were at once taken very sick, others were hunted
up by detailed soldiers, who turned them out of barns, kitchens,
garrets, cellars, closets, from under beds, and in the disguise of
women’s clothing.” For the seed sown was now ripe and mid air was
resounding--“_The harvest is here._”
At a time, in 1858, when public sentiment was beginning to be felt, and
official prosecutions for the return of fugitive slaves became more or
less unsatisfactory to the owners, James Buchanan, President of the
United States, gave a surprise to every one by appointing Judge Stanley
Matthews--an eminent lawyer, ex-editor of an abolition paper, and
leader in the anti-slavery movements in Ohio, as United States District
Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
To politicians, this seemed not only a deviation from all known
precedents, but, politically, an unfathomable mystery. But, no more
remarkable was the appointment than that, a lawyer at the summit of
professional ability and large income--a noted abolitionist--opposed
to the fugitive slave acts, should have accepted the position. But
those who knew Judge Matthews and his patriotism best, could discern
in it logical conclusions--the interests of freedom could be subserved
and the public mind attained by a shorter method than by arguing,
speaking, or publishing--“_the enforcement of the iniquitous fugitive
slave law_.” And for three years he prosecuted “offenders” _without_
just fault or favor--giving such lessons in its application, that made
loyalty to freedom, and magnified the blessings of the free.
Judge Matthews resigned the office in 1861, and took the commission
of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Twenty-third--afterward Colonel of the
Fifty-first Ohio, and awaited the “proclamation.”
During Judge Matthews’ entire service as United States District
Attorney, the slave states were secluded as pertaining to things
and persons of the “North”--papers, books, teachers, preachers, and
citizens were effectually ostracized; northern colleges and seminaries
had their southern patronage withdrawn; and, finally, when, by the
aid of the Secretary of War, they secured large quantities of United
States arms and military supplies, and felt thoroughly prepared and
equipped, the states stepped out of the Union with defiance, leaving
poor Kentucky with a governor that threatened to chastise either of the
belligerents if they dared to interfere with her “_neutrality_.” And
it is not known to history that either the cotton states or neutral
Kentucky ever gave Judge Matthews a vote of thanks for his vigorous
enforcement of the fugitive law. But this is not all. In 1876, Judge
Matthews ran for Congress in the Second District of Cincinnati, and his
defeat, says the biographer,[8] was in consequence of an act of his
while United States District Attorney--that while he had the office he
prosecuted W. B. Connelly, a white resident of Cincinnati, and reporter
of the Gazette, for giving to a young runaway slave and his wife “a
glass of water and piece of bread”--a _crime_ under the fugitive slave
law. It was shown that the negroes were captured and were shut up
in Connelly’s room, and while there they were furnished “bread and
water.” It was further shown, that a letter was written by Connelly,
as a Master Mason, to Judge Matthews, as a brother Mason, in which he
confessed that he had “furnished the negroes with food.”
But, with all these influential relations, the offense was
prosecuted--Connelly found guilty and was sentenced to serve time of
imprisonment. “The publication of these facts destroyed Judge Matthews’
chance for Congress,” and that his brother Masons obtained full credit
for his defeat can not well be doubted.
It is not stated that any _promise_ had been made by Judge
Matthews--_none violated_; and differed materially from ordinary cases,
like that of O. A. Gardner, a Master Mason, arrested for robbing the
mails at Minneapolis, who said in court that his confession was made to
Postal Inspector Gould, a brother Mason, on the promise that Gould, as
a fellow Mason, would see that he was acquitted--“that his acquittal
was assured--that the judge, the lawyers on both sides, and most of the
jury were _Masons_.”
Judge Matthews had taken the oath of office as district attorney, which
to him was above all other oaths, and was not the man to play the
Marshal Ney performance. And it would seem the “defeat for congress”
was not “the consequence of an _act of his_” as much as it was his
declining to “act” crooked for the benefit of a brother Mason.
If any one now thinks it impossible that a free people in the North
could be so influenced, cowed, and blinded to the atrocities of slavery
upon the free, let them read the biography of Southern prisons. It
was a day of jubilee for the abolitionists (who had survived the
horrid cruelties that made “Libby” a paradise) when the federal forces
took possession of the South. The Rev. Calvin Fairbanks, after being
kidnapped and serving horrible time for seventeen years and four months
for being an abolitionist, was released from the state prison of
Kentucky, at Frankfort, by a special order of President Lincoln.
During the last two wardens of the prison--Zeb Ward and that of J.
W. South--this man received thirty-five thousand stripes on his bare
body with a strap of half-tanned leather a foot and a half long, often
dipped in water to increase the pain. He was often whipped four times a
day, receiving seventy stripes at each whipping; one time the number of
lashes was increased to one hundred and seven.
All this punishment was pretended to be inflicted on the grounds
of failure to perform the daily task which had been fixed beyond
possibility--requiring the prisoner to weave two hundred and eight
yards of hemp cloth daily.
Early in 1864, Mr. Lincoln learned through Miss Tileston of the
cruelties practiced upon Mr. Fairbanks, and sent General Fry to
Kentucky with orders to make it “Fairbanks Day” at Frankfort prison.
“When released, Mr. Fairbanks says he crossed the river and kissed
the free soil in Ohio,” where he met the girl who, on hearing of his
misfortune in Massachusetts, came to Ohio and engaged as teacher at
Hamilton, and then at Oxford, supplying him with such comforts as was
within her power--worked and petitioned and watched over the border for
many long years with the love of a true woman.
Slavery is no more--the dark blotch to freedom has been wiped out with
the best blood of the nation. It was a contentious, political evil as
well. But slavery of the colored race is not the only evil, the only
danger, that can arise to overthrow a Republican form of government.
The first thirty-five years of the existence of Ohio as a state may
be recognized, in an educational point of view, as the period of
the “_Three R’s_”--“_readin, ’riten, and ’rithmetic_”--for state
legislation made it so. There were no public schools, no academy, but
one higher institution in operation, called an “Ohio University,”
located at Athens, in Athens county. This was opened for students,
in 1809, with the classic course; and the first class, numbering
two, graduated in 1815, receiving the first collegiate degrees ever
conferred under the endowment for education by the act of 1787--John
Hunter, A. M., and Thomas Ewing, A. M.
This university was in financial straits all this time with an
incomplete corps of professors, for the reason the legislature had
manipulated the land endowments (46,000 acres) from time to time until
little or nothing was received, where large incomes should have been
realized. And the good intent of land grants for educational purposes
in Ohio proved a signal failure in common schools, academies, and
colleges.
After ineffectual efforts of mongrel state universities to supply the
pressing wants of rising generations, sectarian institutions multiplied
rapidly, and the state soon became honored with numerous chartered
seats of learning representing all religions from Roman Catholic (down,
or up, which ever it may seem) to the Free Will Baptist. Of these,
Oberlin has taken the lead. It was chartered, in 1834, under the
direction of the Congregational Church, with a theological seminary
attached as part of the institution. Both sexes and all colors have
been admitted to its classes.
During the struggle in Ohio to establish a satisfactory system of
education, the good people of Kentucky claimed to be greatly in advance
in regard to facilities, and sold large numbers of scholarships
to those who desired to embrace better opportunities to obtain an
education, before it was discovered that young men from a free state,
or states, attending those seats of learning had little or no spare
time for mental culture, after giving the physical enough attention to
keep all its members intact; as free-state students were obliged to
fight or “eat dirt.”
[Illustration: School-house of 1851, in which President Garfield
taught.]
The writer still holds the larger end of an uncanceled scholarship in
one of the then leading, but now defunct, college institutions.
As late as 1837, there was no public school system operating in Ohio.
But the year following a law was passed for the purpose of adopting a
system on a uniform footing. Still it required that teachers should
be qualified _only_ in reading, writing and arithmetic. Amendments
and improvements, however, went on, and in 1847 the “State Teachers’
Association” was organized, and deserves great credit for the good work
done and still doing in obtaining beneficial legislation and raising
the standard of teachers and the curriculum of “High Schools.” And at
the present time Ohio compares favorably with other states in regard to
her system for general and liberal education, regardless of color or
previous condition.
Information derived from newspapers was measurably lost--the
inefficient postal service prevented the circulation of metropolitan
papers; and those published in Ohio for half a century were under the
ban of slavery. And with the censorship of Kentucky and the cotton
states it is not surprising they were short-lived and unattended with
prosperity. The first paper published in the North-west was printed in
Cincinnati, November 9, 1793, under the name of “The Sentinel of the
North-western Territory.” The journal was owned and edited by William
Maxwell. Newspapers in those days were comparatively small and poorly
executed in presswork; and changed names, ownership or ceased to exist
so frequently that not a few attempts at journalism became lost to
history.
During the territorial days, and while the seat of government tarried
at Chillicothe, Mr. Willis, the father of N. P., the poet, author and
artist, published a literary paper for a short time. After the capital
became permanently located at Columbus, Philo H. Olmstead, from 1813 to
1818, published “The Western Intelligencer”--then changed the name to
“Columbus Gazette” and in due time to “Columbus Journal.”
Small as these and other beginnings were over the settled portions
of the state, the press and its influence became of more and more
importance, and kept pace if not in advance of many other leading
departments connected with an advanced civilization. As ideas beget
ideas, so inventions beget inventions, until time and space are no
more, and the wild elements meekly bow in submission to the will and
works of man. If John Gutenberg, Fust, Mentel or Koster, with their
little inventions, could see the automatic working of one of those
mammoth printing machines, which noiselessly move with such rapidity,
exactness and intelligence--even putting human volition and precision
to shame--any one or all of the once contesting discoverers would stop
disputing in astonished wonderment long enough to set up and strike off
on their own inventions a single line, in quotations, “Large trees from
small acorns grow,” and abandon further contention.
Newspaper educators at an early day, like the schoolmaster, had a
limited showing in a country so financially short. Editors and
publishers could not conduct the business without a given amount of
support. But this needful requirement was too manifestly uncertain to
justify an expensive venture; for there was little or no money in the
country, nor means to procure it by exchanges. Still, the experiment
was occasionally made, but most generally failed even in the hands of
the most economical management and moderate expectations.
The following is a brief of a four-paged paper, ten by fifteen inches
in size--“No. 33, Vol. I.”--dated June 5, 1818. This paper was started
at the county seat of one of the early settled localities, and in
agriculture one of the leading counties in the state. This number
treats of the following subjects:
[Illustration: THE OLIVE BRANCH
VOLUME I.] JUNE 6, 1818. [NUMBER 33.]
1. Light reading. Traits in Washington City Drawing-Room. Mrs.
Monroe. The President. Virginians. The Belles. Foreigners. Etiquette.
Foreign Ministers. The Secretaries of Government Departments.
Western Opposition. American Manufacturers. Essex Junto. Two
Different Descriptions of Men that Inhabit Virginia, Contrasted.
2. Foreign News--Spain. Major-General Jackson’s Letter to Gov.
Rubute, Bowleg Town, Suwanny, April 20, 1818. Late from the
Army--Milledgeville and Indians. Patriots victorious--Marching on
to Carraccas. The President of the United States. More Specks of
War at Detroit. The Belt had passed through the Winnebago, Sack,
Fox and Hickapoo Nations. Mercury at Green Bay through the Winter,
25°. Letter from “Savannaa,” April 30, 1818. Letter from Porto Rico.
Letter from Upper Canada. Extract from a Vermont Paper. Expensiveness
of the Ground purchased for the Bank of the United States at
Philadelphia, being One Thousand Dollars per Front Foot.
3. Obituaries. Advertisements. Court Proceedings. Expulsion of
Masons from the Order. Patent Pumps. Paris Papers. One Hundred and
Forty Vessels perished in the late Tremendous Gale along the English
Coast. Injurious Effects of Flannel. Masonic Notice. Prospects for
continuing the Publication of “The Olive Branch.” Advertisements.
4. Poetry--“Absent Friends. Defense of Putnam. Improvement of the
Loom for Weaving. Sheriff Sale of Accounts.” His own Included.
The deplorable condition of the press of Ohio at the time is so
graphically and candidly set forth by the editors of the Olive
Branch--the only paper published in the county--in their last appeal
for support, is better illustrated by reproducing the article entire:
“PROSPECTS
“FOR CONTINUING THE PUBLICATION OF THE OLIVE BRANCH.
“The publishers now call upon the citizens of ---- county, and the
country adjacent, to determine if they shall continue publishing
_The Olive Branch_. They have fully and firmly determined to
discontinue its publication, unless the number of their subscribers
is considerably increased. They apprehend their present number will
not pay the expense of the establishment; and they do not think
themselves able, nor are they under obligations, to lose more by it
than they have lost already.
“If, therefore, the citizens of the county are desirous that a paper
should be published at this place, and if any think _this_ worthy of
their patronage, let them declare it by adding their names to the
list of our subscribers. By this declaration, yea or nay, when fully
and explicitly made known, we shall positively abide.
“Some persons ask, ‘What is to be the _character_ of our paper?’ And
what _inducements_ we offer them to become subscribers? In a few
words we will tell them: Its character shall be truly American and
Republican. Americans by birth and education, we have no partiality
for European institutions or policy. _Republicans_ in principle, we
will never disseminate aristocratical or monarchical doctrines. We
will ever oppose, with our utmost endeavors, their progress. We do
fearlessly declare perpetual war against them. Believing our forms of
government infinitely superior to any ever before witnessed, we will
rather perish in their defense than sit silent spectators of their
destruction.
“We will ever respect and inculcate virtue, both public and private,
and deprecate vice in all its dazzling forms. Nothing shall ever
appear in our columns to disturb the present public tranquillity,
unless we see danger lurking therein, which duty requires us to
expose to public view. We hold the Christian religion in sacred
veneration, and shall never, therefore, suffer an aspersion to be
cast upon it through our columns.
“As the happiness of most of mankind lies in their social domestic
circles, we shall hold them sacred. We will never designedly cast
into them the apple of discord; nor will we knowingly cause a pang to
the _honest heart_ or a blush upon ‘the modest cheek.’
“The _inducements_ we offer are:
“_First_--A weekly account of the most important events and
transactions occurring in our own country.
“_Secondly_--An account of such as transpire in other parts of the
globe affecting us; and among these, every thing important relative
to our Mexican and South American neighbors will have a preference.
“_Thirdly_--The most important state papers and documents relating to
or coming from our government.
“_Fourthly_--Well-written essays, either original or extracted,
on political, moral and scientific subjects, and relating to the
topography and geography of our country.
“_Fifthly_--A view of the proceedings of our state and national
legislatures, and a strict examination of the laws passed by them.
“_Sixthly_--Literary articles which convey _instruction_ with
_amusement_ will find a niche in our paper. We shall not, however,
seek to _amuse_ unless we can at the same time _instruct_. To excite
or gratify the public taste for amusement alone we consider dangerous
to our freedom. By such means Pericles destroyed the liberties of
Athens, and Cæsar of Rome. Modern France, too, had her Pericles and
her Cæsar; she followed them, and she is now ruing her folly. Similar
must be our fate when we _follow after_ the siren song of amusement.
We will never be the willing instruments of thus sapping our free
institutions. If our paper can not find a sufficient support without
this, let it go ‘to the tomb of the Capulets.’ For we will sooner
breast the torrent of public feeling on this subject, though we are
swept by it into the deep bosom of destruction, than glide upon its
surface and trim our barques to its course.
“Renick, Doan & Co.”
Although ably edited--containing interesting, well-written and
well-selected articles, the verdict was “_perpetual suspension_.”
The inhabitants of neither town nor country cared to become “readers
of newspapers.” The agrarian element of society had not extended to
business transactions. The contracted condition of the “circulating
medium” was such that it became absolutely necessary to ignore every
luxury that required “spot cash;” while state laws made the credit
system so dangerous, honest people kept as free as possible from
financial obligations. They did not wish to take the risk of seeing
their names posted in public places, stating the time the indebtedness
would be sold by the sheriff at public outcry to the highest bidder.
And the citizen continued on his even way, enjoying the chase--catching
wolves and foxes; and hunting the deer, turkey and squirrel; and in
summer tilling a few acres of corn--a small “patch” of flax--enough
potatoes, beans, pumpkins, and gourds for the use of the family. The
soil produced well, and with but little labor enough corn could be
raised for family meal and to winter the small amount of stock--the
fire-wood was secured from wind-falls in the “deadening,” and with
a horse and cow, a few sheep, and a good dog, the “squirrel hunter”
became wonderfully well satisfied with his environment, and had no
desire for change. The amount he knew of things transpiring in the
outside world was obtained by the word of mouth in the regular line of
communication.
The women carded the wool and hackled the flax, and spun and wove
the same; and from year to year there were no changes in household
appearances or landed possessions. The “deadening,” however, was a
little larger in area, in order to keep up the easily-obtained supply
of fire-wood, and to increase the amount of the natural grasses and
green things in summer for the benefit of the stock.
All domestic animals subsisted on what nature furnished in the woods
during spring and summer, and each individual owner had an ear-mark
for hogs and cattle recorded at the county-seat, which gave security
against mistakes, and when animals became lost furnished information of
ownership and acted as a substitute for a square in the “lost” column
of some newspaper. It must be remembered that Ohio was not settled all
over at once. It came into the Union an immense wilderness, and much of
it remained unoccupied for long periods. The first tree cut, in Hardin
county, was cut for bees in 1837--a dead black-walnut, seventy-two
feet to the first limb. And as the counties became organized and
settled the inhabitants all commenced at the same point--the same style
of cabin and like simplicity--benches were used for chairs, earth
for flooring and carpet, forked sticks driven into the ground with
cross poles for bedsteads, clap-boards for bed-cords, and pond-grass
for feathers, a single pot and frying-pan, with a few pewter dishes,
constituted the primitive outfit, sooner or later, for every county in
the state.
The immigrants who pushed forward into the interior counties suffered
most for want of mills and from the high price of freight, and
merchandise, as salt, flour, and other necessaries of life, all came
from Chillicothe or Zanesville. Salt was ten and twelve cents a pound,
calico one dollar a yard, coffee seventy-five cents, and whisky two
dollars a gallon.
High prices ruled in all new settlements long after they had been
reduced in and at the vicinity of Chillicothe and Zanesville;
and which, too, was only partly owing to exorbitant rates for
transportation. So little and so few were articles purchased, that
pioneer merchants did not enter the interior counties of the state for
many years, and orders for flour, and salt, and other necessaries,
accompanied by the silver, would be forwarded generally by the bearer
of the order, as no regular mail or line of transportation was run from
one settlement to another. For want of roads the inconvenience was
tolerated, as it did not detract much from the power of the inhabitants
in every part of the state from living well and living easy. Still
there were a few from isolation or improvidence suffered hardships and
unpleasant conditions, especially in the interior counties.
In the fall of 1803, Henry Berry, a Welshman, came to this country
to establish a home, and leaving his wife and smaller children in
Philadelphia, Pa., took his two boys, one nine and the other eleven
years old, and put up a small cabin in the interior of Delaware
county, fifteen miles from the nearest one of the three families that
constituted the white inhabitants. At this time the country was full
of Indians and wild animals, and was distant from sources of supplies
seventy-five to one hundred miles. The father was so infatuated with
the country, he hurriedly erected a small cabin of such timber as
he and his boys could handle; and when covered, but without floor,
chimney, or fire-place, and without daubing or chinking, he fixed the
children a place to sleep, started back for Philadelphia, hoping to
get the rest of his family West before the cold weather set in. When
he reached Philadelphia he found his wife dangerously sick with a
protracted fever, and before she was able to travel Mr. Berry became
sick, and winter came on, and he was unable to return until the June
following.
The boys had not been heard from; the winter had been unusually
severe, and they had been left with but a short amount of provisions,
without a gun, surrounded by Indians and wild beasts, and were
compelled to live upon such animals as they could capture; and with no
fireplace or chimney they passed a cold winter in that open cabin. And
when the father returned with the family, he found the boys had cleared
enough ground for a large garden and had vegetables growing from
the seeds they had brought with them from Wales. Of course the boys
suffered much, but like the one on the burning deck, they heroically
stood their ground regardless of consequence.
But the man who would refuse cornbread and carry a bushel of wheat
seventy-five miles on his shoulder, to get it ground, is not properly a
subject of pity or sympathy.
Before the state had reached its fortieth anniversary, almost all
parental heads establishing homes in this country, prior to the opening
of the Erie Canal (1825), could, at the sound of a dinner horn, call
in a large family of well-grown children, numbering a “baker’s dozen,”
more or less; and oftener than otherwise, without the loss of a single
addition.
The ratio of natural increase of population was satisfactory, and
death rate was small. The climate was healthful; living simple and
easy; house-keeping uncomplicated and destitute of style. Rural homes
were all alike unostentatious, and early marriages were seldom, if
ever, deferred on account of immaturity or financial circumstances;
and large families became fashionable. Seldom less than ten, and only
occasionally more than twenty children, were added to the household.
People may have been poor in accumulated wealth, but it was not
felt or despised. A father with eight or ten robust sons had a sure
foundation for a hope to see the destruction of the surrounding forest,
cultivation of the soil, and the transformation of a portion of the
wilderness into fields of waving grain, fruits and flowers.
It is possible, and has been no uncommon thing for heads of large
families to live to see their great-great-grand-children; for it would
seem true, as in history, longevity and children are very nearly
related. As a rule, large families are healthy, having inherited a full
measure of vital resistance. Records of centenarians show that both
males and females of those who have gone into the second century have
been nearly all parents of large families; and read quite similar to
the following: “Alexander Hockaday has just celebrated his one hundred
and twelfth birthday. His wife, a few years younger, is still living.
They were blessed with twelve children, eleven of whom are living near
the aged couple with their numerous posterity.”
No doubt the existing conditions of a desirable new country, and the
exemption from avarice, penury or speculation, with the enjoyment
of that happy state unknown to wealth, want or war, were favorable
to longevity and natural increase. States of the mind and existing
impressions, like acquired habits, are transmissible as certainly as
that of the resemblance of physical and moral qualities. And with the
pioneer posterity, much of that strong manifestation of character and
mental endowment was due to the multiplicity and salutary combinations
of causes. Blood will tell, but in addition to descent, posterity
had all the winning influences of a quiet, simple and easy mode of
living--pure air, earth and water, filled with inspiration to greatness
and dispensed by nature to those who delight to worship within her
temple and partake wisdom from beasts, birds and flowers.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] History United States, by C. A. Goodrich, 1823: “This fund, in
May 1821, amounted to one million seven hundred thousand dollars--the
yearly income of which, together with twelve thousand dollars of the
public taxes, is annually devoted to the maintenance of common school
masters in every town in the state. The amount paid to the towns from
this fund, in 1818, was more than seventy thousand dollars--a greater
sum by twenty-two thousand dollars than the whole state tax amounted to
in the year preceding.”
[7] Mathews.
[8] “The Builders of the Nation.”