Ohio History Journal

APPENDIX.

 

 

REPORT OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF

THE ERECTION OF JEFFERSON COUNTY AND

FOUNDING OF STEUBENVILLE.

 

THE CENTENNIAL OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.

The centennial of the formation of Jefferson county and

founding of Steubenville was celebrated in the city of Steubenville,

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, August 24, 25 and 26, which

was participated in by a large number of people, mainly former

residents who returned to their old home for the occasion.

The celebration noted a century gone since the founders

builded better than they knew - a hundred years of development

and achievement -a century that has marked greater progress

in the march of civilization, in the advancement of science, in

invention, in industry, in art, in all things that have added to the

forces in the hands of man, than had been made in all the cen-

turies since the birth of Christ. It was a celebration of the achieve-

ments of the fathers who made the wilderness blossom as the

rose - a celebration that called to mind the achievements of all

these hundred years; the story of the performance - the triumph

over the savage, the subduing of the wilderness, the building of the

home of peace, the erection of a great commonwealth and pop-

ulous communities.

Credit for the organized effort that led up to this grand

celebration is due the Bezaleel Wells Historical Society, which

was formed with this object in view; but not only this, it has

gathered data of history to which those who celebrate the second

centennial will fall heir, and rejoice that this organization was

more thoughtful than the pioneer fathers along this line. The

Wells Historical Society, officered by David Filson, president;

Joseph B. Doyle, recording secretary; W. H. Hunter, correspond-

(314)

• 1
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       315

ing secretary; Rev. Dr. A. M. Reid, vice-president; D. J. Sin- clair, treasurer; Winfield Scott, E. Crawford, G. W. McCook, R. E. Roberts, A. C. Ault, Chas. Gallagher and Frank Stokes, trustees, has been faithful to its trust and out of it grew the move- ment whose climax marks an epoch in the history of a great people, and is here recorded. George W. McCook was made president of the centennial organization; Chas. Gallagher vice-president, D. W. Matlack sec- retary, Frank H. Kerr corresponding secretary, and D. J. Sinclair treasurer. An executive committee was selected as follows: Geo. A. Maxwell, chairman; Robert McGowan, J. J. Gill, S. Laubheim, Hugh McGinnis, C. H. Steele, Winfield Scott, Wm. Vermillion, D. U. McCullough. Other members of the general committee were: J. M. Cook, W. B. Donaldson, H. N. Mertz, H. H. McFad- den, Isaac McCullough, G. B. Boren, R. E. Roberts, J. T. Hod- gens, E. M. Crawford, Chas. Waddel, John Underwood, J. D. Rothacker, R. M. Crabbs, I. N. Croskey, S. Z. Alexander, R A. Bryant, David Simpson, C. H. Stoll, S. B. Taylor, John Francey, J. A. Mansfield, J. B. Doyle, Davidson Filson and J. F. Oliver, Wm. Riley, Thos. Sharp, Wm. Winters, and C. N. Brown. Sub-committees were organized as follows, the chairmen largely constituting the general meeting, which was held each Monday evening for six months: Ladies' committee--President, Mrs. D. J. Sinclair; secre- tary, Dr. Nettle Erskine; treasurer, Mrs. Dr. John Pearce; vice- presidents, Mesdames T. B. Wright, Ida Elliott, V. McEldowney, W. R. Zink, John M. Cook, Miss Jessie McKee. Military-Dr. John Pearce, chairman; A. C. Blackburn, W. F. Ridgley, J. F. Oliver, R. G. Richards, Chas. Gallagher, J. D. Porter, James Lavery, B. N. Lindsay, J. F. Sarratt, E. H. Sprague, John Stewart. Stanton Memorial - H. G. Dohrman, chairman; H. L. M. Doty, corresponding secretary; W. C. Bracken, J. B. Doyle, H. B. Grier, H. H. McFadden, R. J. Morrison, J. F. Oliver, Dr. A. M. Reid, T. M. Simpson. Log Cabin-J. C. Ault, chairman; B. H. Maxwell, C. P. Filson.

• 2
 

316       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

Invitation -J. L. Means, chairman; R. G. Richards, Dr. A.

M. Reid, Judge J. A. Mansfield.

Advertising- Sig Laubheim, chairman; Frank H. Kerr, H.

G. Dohrman, W. M. Trainer.

Transportation- J. M. Reynolds, chairman; G. A. Maxwell,

G. W. McCook.

Program-Chas. Gallagher, chairman; G. A. Maxwell, G.

W. McCook.

Printing--W. H. Hunter, chairman.

Finance - Robert McGowan, chairman; J. J. Gill, Thomas

Johnson, Chas. Gallagher.

Educational-H. N. Mertz, chairman; Dr. R. Laughlin,

Rev. W. B. Irwin, Dr. J. C. M. Floyd, Rev. Father Hartley, Rev.

Father Thompson.

Church History-Dr. A. M. Reid, chairman; Rev. W. B.

Irwin, W. H. Hunter.

Decoration-Dr. B. J. C. Armstrong, chairman; Edward

Nicholson, D. J. Sinclair.

Bureau of Information and Public Comfort - W. M. Trainer,

chairman.

Fireworks-F. C. Chambers, chairman; Robert McGowan,

C. S. Moony, Homer, Permar, James Moody, Charles Caldwell,

Charles Irwin, Harvey Smith, John Saulters, Fred Kaufman,

Wm. Kaufman.

Soliciting-Joseph Basler, chairman; Jos. P. Bickar, B.

W. Mettenberger, Chas. McConnaughey.

The committees worked hard to make the celebration worthy

the occasion. The beautiful decorations bore testimony to this.

The decorations were not only beautiful--they were profuse.

The log cabin vied with the public building, the cottage was in

harmony with the palatial residence, with the result that bunting

and flags - the red, white and blue, were everywhere. In many

cases the decorations represented expenditure of much time and

money. The city was in its gala day attire. Never before in

its history had Steubenville been so beautifully arrayed. The

smooth, paved streets were clean, the magnificent shade trees

were at their best, the beautiful open lawns had been mowed,

and the people themselves were dressed for the great occasion.

• 3
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       317

 

There were portraits of Jefferson, the statesman, of Steuben, the

soldier and patriot, of James Ross and Bezaleel Wells, the founders

and capitalists; of Stanton, the most noted son of Steubenville -

they were everywhere. The words "You are welcome," were at

every portal, at every door, at every gate, and the words were

expressed with that sincerity that comes of true hospitality. The

speakers' stands in La Belle park and at the front of Stanton's

birthplace were buried in the tri-colors, Old Glory floated from

Fort Steuben, while the site of the old land office could almost

be recognized by the decorations. There were four triumphal

arches spanning streets, which added much to the imposing spec-

tacle.

During the celebration a brigade of the 17th Infantry, U.

S. A., Col. L. M. O'Brien, and the 8th regiment of infantry of

the 0. N. G., Col. C. V. Hard, were encamped on Pleasant Heights.

A brigade of the Naval Reserves from Toledo, Lieut. Com. Myer

Greenland, was also camped in the city. All of these participated

in the parades. Duquesne Greys, of Pittsburg, Capt. W. L.

Adams, commanding; Washington Infantry, of Pittsburg, Capt.

E. R. Geilfuss, commanding; Sheridan Sabres, Wilkinsburg, Pa.,

Capt. L. M. Eagye, commanding, also participated in the parades.

• 4
 

318      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

STANTON DAY.

Tuesday morning at ten o'clock, the exercises of the day

opened at the opera house, with Capt. John F. Oliver master of

ceremonies. There was a fair audience of school children and

others, who had gathered to hear Dr. W. H. Venable's address

on Ohio Men and Ohio Ideas. After an invocation by Rev. E.

W. Cowling, rector of St. Stephen's parish, and lately from the

mother state of Virginia, the home of Jefferson, Mr. D. W. Mat-

lack, principal of Stanton grammar school, introduced Prof. Ven-

able, of Cincinnati, one of the most distinguished of Ohio's edu-

cators, who spoke as follows:

 

ADDRESS BY PROF. W. H. VENABLE, LL. D.

Ladies, Gentlemen and School Children :

On the Fourth of July of the present year the passengers in

a tourist car, while crossing the Mohave Desert, celebrated the

national anniversary by singing patriotic songs. The voice which

rang most clearly was that of a school-boy, going with his par-

ents from Columbus to a new home in Los Angeles. The lad

cherished two pets from his native Ohio, a caged bird and a tiny

Buckeye tree. In spite of the parching heat and killing alkaline

dust of the plain, the staunch plant, carefully watered in the flower

pot which protected it, added a green inch to its ambitious top,

during the journey from Chicago to the Colorado. "I will be the

first," shouted the boy, "to climb this tree when it grows big, in

California."

That boy from Columbus, singing on his way to the far south-

west, with his bird and his Buckeye tree, and his confident hopes

of growth and great doing, typifies the Ohio man and his prev-

alence. New York and Chicago each has a powerful Ohio Soci-

ety, and every state and every city in the Union feels the presence

of Ohio men and the influence of Ohio ideas. The widespread

recognition of this predominance was evidenced by the remark

of a barber on the Pacific coast to an Eastern stranger: "Ohio,"

said the barber, "is a noted state. She is noted for runnin' out

big men." Then, after a pause, the professor of shaving added the

• 5
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     319

information: "McKinley is from Ohio." To be a Roman, in

the day when the empire was flourishing, was to be a man respected

because of his distinguished citizenship. The chief captain who

had bound St. Paul, not knowing his nativity, said unto him,

"Tell me, art thou a Roman?" He said, "Yea. I was free born."

The chief captain was afraid after he knew Paul was a Roman,

and because he had "bound him." The passage is sublime, show-

ing the dignity of the individual sustained by the mere name of

his native state.

The expression, "He is an Ohio man," derives potency not

because a nation's sword flames to guard every Buckeye who

goes abroad, but because our state, its people and its principles

are assumed to be enlightened and beneficent. Ohio and Ohio's

sons and daughters represent the best civilization and the best

ideas thus far attained in America. This is said not in boast,

but in grateful acknowledgment of what the present generation

owes to the past.

What is an Ohio man? Why do Ohio ideas prevail? What

is distinctive in the character of our state? How comes it that

the buckeye which you carry in your pocket not only cures rheu-

matism and keeps off witches, but admits you to the private boxes

of the world's theatre and insures you luck in the lottery of

fortune? What is the reason that we boys and girls are peculiarly

happy to have been born between Lake Erie and the Ohio river,

and are especially vain if born in a Buckeye log cabin and rocked

in a sugar trough? Surely not because a log cabin is intrinsically

better than a palace of marble, or a sugar trough more comfortable

than a satin-lined perambulator with a silken sun-shade. No, our

pride of local birth has an origin which antedates both cabin and

cradle. We inherit a pride derived from ancestors born in the

pavilion of liberty and rocked in the cradle of the Revolution.

Well-founded state pride intensifies national patriotism. The

British soldiers camped in a Crimean valley all sang Annie Laurie,

but each heart recalled a different name. Wherever the American

veteran may be when he hears the familiar hymn, "My Country,

'Tis of Thee," though, as a patriot, he thinks first of the Union

and the common flag, his heart quickly recalls a favorite state,

of whose rocks and rills and woods and templed hills his memory

• 6
 

320       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

forever sings. As family pride fosters self-respect and ambition

in sons and daughters, city and state pride stimulate laudable

activity in corporations and individual citizens. Perhaps the chief

elements of the working energy which made the World's Fair at

Chicago so great and magnificent were derived from state pride -

from the friendly rivalry among the many which make up the one.

E pluribus unum is a phrase which requires small Latin to

translate. The babe in the kindergarten can render it. From

many, from about fifty states and territories, a union is composed,

a unit, one, the United States of America. But each of the many

is also one, complete in itself, yet only a part of the greater one.

Each part, however, is not an equal fiftieth of the whole. Some

states are large; others little; some have a grand history, others

are scarcely remarkable in the annals of the world. Recently I

conversed with the daughter of John Brown, of Ossowotamie -

old John Brown, whose soul goes marching on. The daughter

of the man who saved Kansas placed in my hands a cavalry rifle,

a "Border Ruffian," she called it, "which had quickly changed

its politics," a weapon captured from a slave-holder who had

used it to shoot Abolitionists. That fire-arm was eloquent. It

told the story of bleeding Kansas, a state known to everlasting

fame. Doubtless there are educated persons in this audience who

cannot name all the state capitals, perhaps cannot name all the

states and territories, without book. But who has not heard of

Massachusetts, of Virginia, of New York? Who in the wide world

has read no eulogy or heard no rumor of Ohio? What is the

value of the state taken as a fraction of the nation, Ohio the numer-

ator, the Republic the denominator? Surely the ratio is vastly

greater than one to fifty. The extravagance of some editors and

orators appears to assume, indeed, that Ohio divided by America

is what arithmetic styles an improper fraction, a part greater than

the whole.

A lunatic author in a western village submitted to a literary

critic a manuscript book entitled, "What God Almighty was Doing

Before He Created the World." The human mind, sane or crazy,

has a tendency to seek antecedents, causes, original conditions.

Before men created Ohio the state, nature prepared Ohio the

primeval wilderness, with its hills and plains, rivers and lakes,

• 7
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       321

 

woods and meadows, minerals, plants, animals. Those pioneers

who first spied out the land were delighted with its natural re-

sources and described it as the finest region in the world for set-

tlement and cultivation. The lands chosen by the founders of

Marietta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Steubenville, were most eligible

for the purpose of agriculture and commerce. A beautiful river

on the south, a majestic lake on the north, afforded large oppor-

tunities to navigation. Stone and timber and fresh water were

abundant. No part of the country was inaccessible to industry.

The summer was not too hot nor the winter too cold for human

endurance. Here was nature's garden spot to be perfected by

man's science and art. Families flocked to the virgin wildwood.

Trees fell. Towns sprang. Fields were tilled. Boats and wagons

were taught to fetch and carry. Canals were dug. Then railroads

were stretched across from east to west, the endless trunk lines

which have poured wealth into our great cities and connected

Ohio with the world. Manufacture joined with her sisters, agri-

culture and commerce, to bless the Buckeye state with all material

products in richest abundance. Such are the natural advantages

of Ohio. Physical geography encourages, almost compels, the

thrifty inhabitant to prosper. The surface which he ploughs, and

the strata which he mines; the water courses which fertilize his

crops, or float them to market; the airs which play through his

orchards and billow his golden harvest fields; and the sun in

heaven, "like God's head," combine and co-operate to favor the

Ohio man.

Nature's genial forces may conspire to aid human beings,

the Creator may afford the creatures good physical opportuni-

ties, but soil and climate alone can never produce a superior race

or a noble man. Heroic peoples and admirable governments

have been developed on sterile mountains and barren plains. It

is moral force which removes mountains and reclaims deserts.

Ideas, convictions, principles, character, conduct and not chance

or circumstances, build states and give them renown.

Ohio is famed, as the barber put it, "for running out big

men." But what is a big man? You all recollect Sir William

Hamilton's "There is nothing great in man but mind." This the

framers of the Ordinance of '87 regarded as practical truth, and

Vol. VI-21

• 8
 

322      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

the very soul of the body of law which organized Ohio, is the

clause which provides for the education of the whole people.

There are countries professedly free in which liberty is only a

name. There are states in which the free school system exists

as a perfunctory institution, but which are actually indifferent to,

and, therefore, neglectful of the intellectual and moral needs of

the young.

But in Ohio popular education means something - means

almost everything. True, our legislature cares less than it should

for the mechanical forms and appliances of the system. Our

public does not trouble itself whether the township or the dis-

trict be the unit of school organization, whether or not we have

county supervision, state normal schools, new methods of con-

struction; but the popular feeling everywhere demands that the

boys and girls have a good schooling, a better bringing up than

their parents had, if not by the regulation pedagogical machine,

then by hand, any way, provided they learn to do something

with their learning. A favorite Ohio idea is crystallized in that

saying of Garfield: "A log in the woods, with Mark Hopkins

seated on it, is a great university."

To the average conception in Ohio, education is a tangible

good, a necessity, not a luxury, a part of one's working capital,

like money and land and tools, a staple without which families

cannot keep house. Hence the commonwealth is peppered and

salted with schools, academies and colleges, and sugared with

sweet girl graduates. On the question of woman's right to

equal education with man, Ohio is sound. Our claim is that the

co-education of the sexes in college was inaugurated in this state,

and that co-education is an original Ohio idea. So is the idea

of giving the colored race a fair opportunity, by founding such

a university as that of Wilberforce. Yes, the "nigger" has a

chance in Ohio. The city of Dayton produced the first noted

African poet, my friend, Paul Dunbar.

The Chautauqua movement was initiated by the generosity

of an Ohio man, Miller, of Akron, who supplies Dr. Vincent with

means of carrying his great plan into practice. Emphatically,

the greatest of all Ohio ideas is that of making good the promise

of the wise ordinance, by inculcating, by means of church and

• 9
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       323

 

school, the fundamentals of "liberty, knowledge, morality and

religion." And the "biggest men" whom the state has "run out"

or kept in, have been those versed in the theory and trained in

the practice of liberty, knowledge, morality and religion.

If there be any secret of success to account for the conspicu-

ous achievements and reputation of so many Ohio men who

have risen from humble to high station, half that secret is told

in the tremendous fact that the state has more teachers, more

children in school, and spends more money for school purposes

than any other state in the Union. Very happily did Coates

Kinney state the exact truth in fine poetry, when he wrote:

 

"Our learning has not soared, but it has spread;

Ohio's intellects are sharpened tools

To deal with daily fact and daily bread.

The starry peaks of knowledge in thin air

Her culture has not climbed, but in the plain,

In whatsoever is to do or dare.

With mind or matter, there behold her reign."

Not only, then, because Ohio ranks first in value of quarry

products, value of farm lands, manufacture of agricultural im-

plements; not only because, in the long list of states she stands

next to the first in iron and steel, petroleum, natural gas, num-

ber of farms, and miles of railroad; not only and not chiefly for

these evidences of material supremacy, do we rejoice in our

heritage of citizenship. These gifts of nature and results of in-

dustry are indeed the physical basis of higher mental achieve-

ments. Farms more valuable than those of any other state!

Think of that! Farm implements to occupy millions of working

hands! And railroads to transport everything and everybody

everywhere, and bring the rest of the world and its people and

products to Ohio! Yet not so much for its output of things is

the Buckeye State pre-eminent as for its product of men. It is

distinguished for raising stock - human stock. Our best in-

dustry is not agriculture but homoculture. Our royal roads are

not railroads but paths to the schoolhouse and the house of God.

But the college degree and the church communion, the Ohio man

cares for as means, not ends. Having made a man of himself

he can do a man's duty in any sphere, can make a living, can

• 10
 

324      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

make money, can make machines, speeches, books, can find the

road to Washington, can lead armies, can do a big citizen's big

work, can materialize and mobilize Ohio ideas into deeds.

An inscription over an ancient sacred gate reads: "Be bold!

Be bold! Be not too bold!" Trust, trust - trust not too much

in aids of any kind. Education is good, but he who depends

altogether or mainly on the helps which schools can render, will

be disappointed. The teacher cannot make, nor the preacher

save, an inert soul. Why do we go to school, asks a wise man,

but that we may not need always go to school? Alma mater is

a nursing mother, yet what a booby-baby he who sits on her lap

forever. Academic training is at best an apprenticeship, not a

mastery. Stuart Mill makes a clear distinction between educa-

tion under professors and self-education - the self-education

that is post-graduate. How can a scholar become an efficient

man not being "Tried and tutored in the world?" Men may

gather grapes from thistles. Ohio has produced men who, with-

out the advantages of collegiate or even of common school edu-

cation, took fast hold of such chances as were left them, studied

the curriculum of experience and went up head in the world,

above a long class of competitors with A. M. and Ph. D., at-

tached to their names. These successful men missed college,

missed helpful degrees, but did not miss education. Lincoln

said the Civil War developed him. Browning said, "Italy was

my university." He who is docile, resolute and industrious,

whether in school or out of school, will attain. Time is an im-

portant factor. Time and labor accomplish the impossible.

"The world belongs to those who come the last," sang

Longfellow. The young are bi-millionaires because they have

so large a capital of time and strength. "Youth is the time for

toil," said Goethe; and Emerson wrote, "Work is Victory."

Only when a man perceives the "abhorred approaches of age,"

does he understand how true it is that life has only one spring-

time, one seed time, and that no harvest can be gathered where

no field has been tilled, no harvest except, perhaps, a thin crop

of wild oats. These reflections are commonplace, I know, hack-

neyed and old and homely, but how true! The boys and girls

own the Klondike mines, and need not go to Alaska to work

• 11
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      325

 

them. Here in Ohio are Eldorado and the Golden Gate. Not

lo! here, nor lo! there, but within the man is the kingdom of

success.

There is a wonderful poem called "Childe Roland to the

Dark Tower Came." Roland is journeying to seek he knows

not what fortune, over a seemingly boundless plain. He plods

wearily on and on, yet the wide reaches of drear level stretch

away to the horizon, and the pilgrim thinks himself "just as far

as ever from the end." But Roland was deceived. The end

was not so far as he imagined. A sudden, awful hope-destroy-

ing surprise lay in wait for him. The air grew dusk. Looking

up the traveler was somehow aware that the plain had given place

all round to mountains, "ugly heaps and heights stolen in view,"

and he recognized that by some "trick of mischief" he was

trapped and penned against all farther progress -  caught as

within a den, no way forward, backward or to any side. Despair

seized Childe Roland, but still he sullenly stumbled on, and the

inevitable Dark Tower ended the journey.

The journey of life is not so long as it seems to the boy or

girl who, on commencement day, tells all about it in the valedic-

tory. By and by the plain vanishes, as by some devilish mirage;

the mountains of age steal into view, enclose the weary wanderer

on every side, cut off progress and retreat, warn him that the

night has come in which no man can work and that the Dark

Tower is hard ahead.

I dwell upon the importance of education, in school and

out of school, the value of time and toil, because this day is set

apart, on the progress of centennial ceremonies, as belonging

peculiarly to the young people of Steubenville and of Jefferson

county, to those whose main business in life now is to fit them-

selves for more life, by going to school, in schoolhouses. By

and by other than books and teachers will school them further.

President Hayes in a speech at the centennial of Marietta, in

1888, said the founders of Ohio were the best educated men of

their period, for they had gone to school seven years to George

Washington. The occasion which brings us here on this 24th

of August, 1897, is historic, will be memorable to those here

assembled, and should not pass by without leaving a historic im-

• 12
 

326      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

pression. We are here to give and receive object lessons in his-

tory and patriotism; to reconsecrate ourselves to our best prin-

ciples as American citizens and as Ohio men and women, intent

on promulgating and bettering what we are pleased to call Ohio

ideas.

Time will not permit us to more than glance at that great

history which made Ohio what she is, and which explains why

the Buckeye State became the mother of so many presidents,

statesmen and warriors. The history of Ohio is essentially the

history of the nineteenth century. The older cities of the state

have just completed or are near completing their first century.

Turn to the map of Ohio and note what it recalls and sug-

gests of significant events and mighty men. What is the name

of the first county organized in the state? Washington. The

second? Hamilton. The third? Wayne. The fourth? Adams.

And the fifth, what? Jefferson. Let your eye travel from

county to county, and you read such shining names as Warren,

Franklin, Putnam, Madison, Monroe, Green, Knok, Jackson,

Harrison. Finds the ambitious boy no meaning, no moral in

his geography book? Its very names inspire, and the dry page

becomes, to intelligent brains and heroic hearts, a very holy

Bible of patriotism and manliness.

We peruse the map and discover on the eastern edge of Jef-

ferson county a dot and a printed word - Steubenville. That

dot and that name are symbols and signs of much. It is easy

for the school-boy to find the dot and to say the name, but he

must read volumes and have speech with thousands, and use all

his faculties of out-door observation to understand what the

speck of ink really represents. Steubenville!

Conjure with the name, and it raises, first, the spirit of old

Baron von Steuben, the stern drill-master, who taught our stub-

born forefathers the meaning of discipline. He was a man who

would permit no fooling and had no use for a smart Alic. Von

Steuben! We have in Eden Park, Cincinnati, tough young oaks

grown from acorns brought from the Steuben estate, in Ger-

many. History, history, and sermon in everything - in buck-

eyes transplanted in California, in acorns migrated from Ger-

many, in dots upon a map.

• 13
 

The Centennnial of Jefferson County.       327

 

To-day a bronze tablet was set in a conspicuous place in

Steubenville, and dedicated, in your presence, to the memory of

an Ohio man, honored by the State and by the Nation. The

school children of his native county and city contributed to de-

fray the expense of preparing this memorial tablet, every boy

and every girl being privileged to take a share in a property more

valuable, in a moral sense, than we can estimate. Do we not

all feel that Steubenville is richer to-day than she was yesterday,

not by a weight of metal, but by an access of civic dignity, an

inflow of noble sentiment, a revival of patriotism! You have

baptized your sons and daughters in a stream and current of en-

nobling thoughts and feelings - you have dedicated them anew

to whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of

good report by encouraging them to admire, emulate and glorify

a good and great Ohio man.

For Edwin M. Stanton was good and great. He was firm

and brave, a right manly man, stalwart of body, strong of intel-

lect, and stubbornly virtuous. To the discipline of a college edu-

cation he added self-discipline, he could think and speak, con-

trolled his own mind and therefore could master other minds

and direct the action of legislatures and armies. His rich read-

ing, like wholesome food, went into his brain and blood, making

him vital and virile. Stanton did much to save the Union. He

staked all upon the issue. "If the cause fails," he wrote to Gov-

ernor Morton, "if the cause fails I do not wish to live." The

cause did not fail. Such Ohio men as Stanton and Grant do not

let causes fail. Their business is to win, not to lose. Stanton

indeed, sacrificed fortune upon the altar of his country. He died

a poor man, but he saved his reputation unsullied. "What will

it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul,"

his integrity? His life and the lives of others like illustrious,

answer our question, "What is an Ohio man?" Stanton, of

Steubenville, represents the superior class of American publicists

and politicians -- the able, the agressive, the conscientious, the

incorruptible. The boy who aspires something to hold a place

among the nation's councillors, or to sit on the high bench of

justice, may well take such men as models.

• 14
 

328      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

No less are such men patterns for imitation by the boy who

has not such aspirations for public distinction. Ewing, Corwin,

Chase, Stanton, and their ilk, typical Ohioans, did not in youth

conceive that they were born for extraordinary careers. They

did not have the "big head." They were modest, honest, obedi-

ent, common boys. Ewing sold coon skins to make money to

buy books, and helped found the coon-skin library. Corwin was

the wagoner boy of Ohio, Chase drove cows to pasture, took

grists to mill, and for a time was a hod-carrier. Neither Grant

nor Sherman nor Sheridan dreamed, in boyhood, of becoming

a general or a great man of any kind. Ulysses ground tan bark

at Georgetown; Tecumseh, or "Cump," as his mother called

him, was summoned from playing in a sand bank and sent to

school. Phil. Sheridan, the child of an Irish laborer, began life

as clerk in a hardware store; chance sent these three lads to

West Point, and so they became soldiers. Harrison, Garfield,

Hayes, McKinley were innocent of any desire for the Chief

Magistracy, when they set out on life's journey. But each and

every one of these Buckeye boys possessed the plain, practical,

common sense Ohio idea of doing something of some account.

Like Lincoln (who ought to have been an Ohio man) they be-

lieved in "pegging away." They were resolved to "fight it out

on this line if it takes all summer." Every one of them had a

ravenous appetite for knowledge. They were, without excep-

tion, active, enterprising and courageous. Their character and

education were such as fit men for any respectable occupation in

life, professional, business or mechanical, in town or country.

They were what we familiarly call "all round men." They rose

to high positions of public trust and were equal to the tasks re-

quired of them. But Grant in the tannery was essentially the

same man as Grant in the White House, and any self-respecting

Ohio man is intrinsically as great and as good, in a tannery as

in the Capital. "A man's a man, for a' that." If mean and small

in himself, a throne cannot make him royal and great. A puny

character in the president's chair betrays itself, and is contempt-

ible; a grand personality though in the humblest position, com-

mands admiration.

"Act well your part, there all the honor lies."

• 15
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       329

EDWIN M. STANTON. Tuesday being designated as Stanton day, the public mind was centered on the building in which E. M. Stanton was born. Here the great war secretary, lawyer and jurist was born De- cember 19, 1814. It is a two-story brick set back from Market street between Fifth and Sixth, with a small enclosed yard be- tween the house and the sidewalk. In after years a three-story business house was built in front of the old house. The tablet unveiled is of bronze made by the Lambs of New York, and on it are these words: EDWIN M. STANTON ATTORNEY GENERAL SECRETARY OF WAR JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT Born here 19th December, 1814 Erected by the School Children of Jefferson County. The Stanton day parade, which moved promptly at two o'clock Tuesday afternoon, was imposing, the educational inter- ests of the city being the main feature. The military of the state and nation also made a fine showing. The clergy, the board of education, the bar, Wells Historical society and the boys in blue were all in fine form. There were fully three thousand people in line. After the parade the people gathered on Market street, be- tween Fifth and Sixth, space being reserved for the school pupils, where the Stanton Memorial Tablet was dedicated. After a most beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by the 17th In- fantry band, and eloquent invocation by Rev. L. H. Stewart, of Cleveland, Gen. Sickles, of New York, was introduced and spoke as follows:

• 16
 

330       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

ADDRESS BY GEN. DANIEL SICKLES OF NEW YORK.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Jefferson County : -

I first met Edwin M. Stanton at Pittsburg, in the early fifties.

I was then a young practitioner at the bar, and Stanton had already

gained considerable distinction as a lawyer. I was to be asso-

ciated with him in the trial of an important patent case, but could

not be very useful to my senior associate, having been unfortu-

nately delayed by an accident on my way to Pittsburg, and found

on my arrival, that Stanton had already won the case. Thanks

to this lucky turn of affairs, I found myself with a few days of

leisure at my disposal and gladly accepted Stanton's invitation to

be his guest. With him as a guide I saw for the first time the

Ohio river, and I remember well the enthusiasm with which he

foreshadowed the wonders its noble banks would exhibit in future

years.

Stanton was disposed to criticise my fondness for reading

novels. He said it was a waste of time, and a sort of dissipation

which he advised me to drop. In my defense I urged that novel

reading was a harmless and useful recreation, and urged him to

amuse himself with one or two works of fiction I had brought

along with me, and which I left with him on my departure. I

was gratified not long afterwards, to receive a letter from him

asking me to send him a few more good novels, as he had found

them a pleasing diversion when overtasked by too much work.

Years afterwards he told me I had made him a confirmed novel

reader.

I did not meet Stanton again until I had taken my seat in

Congress, when he had become a leading practitioner in the Su-

preme Court of the United States. His abilities were held in

such high estimation by that great lawyer, Jeremiah Black, that

when he was transferred to the office of Secretary of State in the

cabinet of President Buchanan, Stanton was appointed on his

recommendation to succeed him as Attorney General.

Early in 1861 when Major Anderson transferred his com-

mand from Moultrie to Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, the

South Carolinians insisted that President Buchanan should order

• 17
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     331

Anderson and his garrison back to Moultrie, affecting to treat the

movement to Sumter as a menace of hostilities. Public opinion

in the north strongly opposed any concession to this arrogant

demand. Mr. Buchanan hesitated in his decision. At this junc-

ture Stanton appealed to me, as one of Mr. Buchanan's friends,

to see the President and try and persuade him to hold Anderson

in Sumter. Stanton told me he had made up his mind to resign

from the cabinet if Anderson were ordered back to Moultrie. I

told him that it would be useless for me to make any direct appeal

to the President, if the remonstrances of his cabinet had proved

unavailing. Stanton was in despair, walking up and down my

apartment, showing the deepest emotion. Turning to me, very

earnestly he exclaimed, "Something must be done, and you are

the man to do it, because you know Mr. Buchanan better than

any of us." I answered, "So be it, leave it to me." In an hour I

was on my way to Philadelphia, Trenton and New York, having

meanwhile telegraphed to friends in those cities to meet me at

the railway stations en route.

Arrangements were made to have salutes of a hundred guns

fired in each city the next morning, in honor of President Bu-

chanan's heroic determination to sustain Major Anderson and

keep him in Fort Sumter. Hundreds of telegrams from promi-

nent men of all parties were sent to the President congratulating

him on his patriotic decision, and urging him to stand firm.

Double-leaded editorials of the same tenor appeared in the news-

papers. When the cabinet assembled they were surprised to find

the President overwhelmed with these tokens of popular approval

of a decision they had not yet heard of, and about which they had

grave apprehensions. Stanton alone held the clew to the mystery.

You who knew him so well, will appreciate the delight with which

he heard the President declare, "That in view of the excited con-

dition of public opinion in the north he supposed it would be well

to allow Major Anderson to remain at Sumter."

On February 22, 1861, a considerable body of regular troops

having been ordered to Washington for the protection of the

Capital, Gen. Scott, commanding the army, ordered a parade of

the infantry, artillery and calvary, in commemoration of Wash-

ington's birthday. Multitudes of people filled the streets through

• 18
 

332      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

which it was announced the column would march. Desiring my-

self to see this unusual number of our regular forces, I went to the

Treasury building and joined a group of spectators on the portico.

Near me were Mr. Stanton and one or two ladies of the family of

Gen. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury. The office of the Attorney

General was at that time in the Treasury building, I believe. At

all events, Mr. Stanton was occupied there during the day. While

we were waiting for the procession a rumor came to us, through

Mr. Kennedy, the Superintendent of the Census, whose relations

with the President were intimate, that the parade had been coun-

termanded. I went to Mr. Stanton and asked if there were any

truth in the rumor, pointing out the unfortunate impression that

would be made. Stanton quickly seized the significance of the

news, disclaiming any knowledge of what had happened, and

asked me to go with him to Gen. Dix's office, and learn whatever

he might know of it.

Gen. Dix had heard nothing of the countermand, and was as

unwilling as Stanton to believe it. Both went over to the State

Department to confer with Judge Black on the subject. He had

heard nothing, and likewise doubted the truth of the rumor, but

in view of the well-known relation of Mr. Kennedy to the Presi-

dent, and the fear felt by these members of the cabinet lest the

President might have yielded to some influence inducing him to

stop a military display at that critical moment, they determined

to visit the President at once, and learn what, if anything, had

happened.

They considered it expedient that I should precede them,

and learn from the President whether or not he had counter-

manded the procession. I was informed at the White House

that Mr. Buchanan was at the War Department, and when I re-

ported this circumstance to Stanton, Dix and Black, they decided

that it would be improper for them to go there about a matter

which had been perhaps determined by the Secretary of War,

Judge Holt, with the approval of the President. They, however,

deputed me to go the War Department and endeavor to have the

countermand revoked.

On arriving at the office of the Secretary, I was informed

that the President was with him and visitors could not be admitted.

• 19
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     333

 

In a voice loud enough to be heard through the thin partitions

of the old structure, then occupied by the War Department, I

announced that, as a representative of the people I had an im-

portant communication to make to the President and Secretary

of War, and insisted that my card should be taken in by the mes-

senger.  He said the door was locked, but it was very soon

opened by Mr. Buchanan himself, who in a good-natured way bid

me not to make so much noise, and come in and unburden what-

ever I had to communicate. I had not met Judge Holt before,

and I found him apparently in a temper not at all favorable to

the object of my mission. When I learned from the President

that the procession had been countermanded at the request

of ex-President Tyler, in behalf of the delegates of Virginia and

the other border states, in the peace congress, I divined at once

that the Secretary of War, who was a Kentuckian, had inspired

the revocation. My earnest representations to the President, so

influentially backed by the statement that three members of his

cabinet had expressed their profound regret, when informed of his

action, caused Mr. Buchanan to turn to Judge Holt and say to

him that he might send word to Gen. Scott to let the procession

move, and avoid further criticism.

Assuming, as I did, that this decision would be very unsat-

isfactory to Judge Holt, I expected to hear from him an emphatic

remonstrance, as he had not shown the least sympathy with any-

thing I had said in the name of his colleagues. Imagine my sur-

prise when Judge Holt replied, "Mr. President, I will go at once,

myself, to Gen. Scott, and deliver your message, and I know, that

he will be as glad to hear it as I am to be the bearer of it."

Judge Holt had no sooner left the room than Mr. Buchanan

enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense for the violent manner in

which I had criticised what I had foolishly supposed to be Judge

Holt's action in stopping the parade. The President declared

that so far was this from being true he had come over to the War

Department to dissuade Judge Holt from resigning his place in

the cabinet, because he was so angry at an order forbidding a

parade of regular troops in the Capital of the Nation on the birth-

day of Washington.

• 20
 

334       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

Stanton was in no sense a politician. In ordinary times he

never would have held office. He was passionately devoted to

the welfare of his country, and hated its enemies with all the in-

tensity of his nature. He called to see me at my lodgings in

Washington, one night in January, 1861, while he was Attorney

General, to congratulate me on an expression I had used that

day in a speech in the House of Representatives. As my remarks

had been wholly directed to a discussion of some of the legal

phases of the insurrectionary movements in the south, I was at

a loss to conjecture what I had said to elicit praise from the astute

lawyer. I ventured to express the hope that my law was sound.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, with impatience, "your law was well enough,

but I came to thank you for saying, as you did, 'that if South

Carolina forcibly resisted the laws, Charleston would be in ashes

and the state desolated.' That is the sort of law for rebels, and

I am glad it was announced by a northern Democrat, and a friend

of Mr. Buchanan's."

At the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration on March 4,

1861, when Mr. Stanton's brief tenure of office as Attorney Gen-

eral expired he had no expectation of returning to official life.

He resumed his practice at the bar without however losing his

deep interest in the stirring events of the times. It so happened

that when Gen. Cameron resigned from the War Department,

I was one of the first persons to learn that Mr. Lincoln had de-

termined to appoint Stanton as Cameron's successor. I hastened

to the office of my friend to offer him my congratulations, and

was informed that I would find him at the Supreme Court. Has-

tening to the court room I found Stanton in the midst of an argu-

ment. Waiting until he had concluded his address to the court,

I took his hand and warmly expressed my felicitations. He looked

at me with surprise, expressing his belief that there was no foun-

dation for the rumor. Before he left the capitol his nomination

as Secretary of War was sent to the Senate. He had never filled

an executive office, he had never been connected with military

affairs, of which indeed he was as ignorant, to use a witty com-

parison of John Van Buren's, as any of Mr. Lincoln's brigadiers.

I have often had occasion to observe that a thorough training at

the bar is a good school for any employment. It would be diffi-

• 21
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      335

 

cult to point to any one of Mr. Lincoln's inspirations that was

more fortunate than the selection of Stanton as a War Minister.

The influence of the new secretary was at once felt throughout

the service. His enthusiasm, earnestness and zeal pervaded all

ranks. There was about Stanton a severity and sternness that

supplied a want in the tender nature of Lincoln. Stanton could

say "No." From the hour he entered office until he left it, after

the close of the war, there was never a moment when any other

thought than the success of our cause influenced an order or an

act of the War Department. He entered office a poor man. He

disbursed two thousand million dollars for military purposes. He

left the office poorer than when he accepted it. He directed the

greatest war of modern times to a successful conclusion. I do

not need to be reminded how much our success depended on the

skill of our leaders, and the devotion of our troops, but those

leaders had to be found. Stanton found them. It was necessary

to inspire the troops with confidence. Stanton's administration

of the War Department made every man in the army feel that suc-

cess would be the reward of his sacrifices.

It was necessary, during the war, for Mr. Stanton to issue

a good many orders that were unpopular. The country was in-

deed fortunate to have at the head of the War Department a man

without political associations; indifferent to popularity; who had

always in view the interests of the service and the success of our

cause. No party was responsible for Stanton, for no party could

control him. Mr. Lincoln was not expected to interfere with the

administration of the War Department, although his sympathetic

and gentle nature was often touched by the appeals made to him

to overrule the stern measures of his War Secretary. Perhaps

no measure contributed more to our success than Stanton's reso-

lute refusal to exchange prisoners of war. During the latter pe-

riod of the conflict it had been found that while our exchanged

prisoners were faithful to their parole, not to take up arms again

during the war, our adversaries on the other hand were not scru-

pulous in keeping their engagements not to serve. The result

was that the rebel prisoners when exchanged were put back into

the ranks, furnishing important reinforcements to the opposing

army, thereby assisting to prolong the struggle. Mr. Stanton

• 22
 

336      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

saw this and resisted every appeal made to him from the President

to the humblest citizen, to consent to any further exchange of

prisoners. "Not while I am Secretary of War," was the answer.

Mothers and wives, sisters and brothers and fathers, besought

him in vain to modify his purpose. The untold and usspeakable

sufferings of our soldiers at Andersonville did not shake his de-

termination. It would be impossible to measure the unpopu-

larity of this action.

The speaker gave a graphic review of Secretary Stanton's

career the latter part of the war.

After Gen. Sickles' address, Hon. R. W. Taylor, member

of Congress from the Columbiana district, was introduced by

Capt. Oliver, and delivered an address on the life and character

of Stanton, dwelling on the importance of the lesson to the

school children.

After the singing of the national hymn, "America," by the

school pupils and the benediction beautifully delivered by Dr. A.

M. Reid, the daylight ceremonies of the first day's celebration of

the centennial came to an end.

 

A TRIBUTE TO STANTON BY HON. J. H. S. TRAINER.

The Bar Association of Jefferson county met in the court

house at 7:30 Tuesday evening and escorted Hon. J. H. S. Trainer,

the senior member and the only living member of the Jefferson

county bar contemporary with Stanton, and who practiced with

him both at Cadiz and Steubenville, a life-long friend and most

ardent admirer, to the opera house, where the bar held appropri-

ate services. Mr. Trainer was introduced by Dio Rogers, the

president of the Bar Association, and spoke as follows:

Mr. President, Members of the Bar Association, Ladies and Gen-

tlemen :

This is the hundredth anniversary of our city and county.

The early settlers have all passed away. Of these the name of

Bezaleel Wells, the founder of this city, still lives and is cherished

in fond recollection for his upright character and deeds of benevo-

lence. But I have been selected to speak of one with whom I

was intimately acquainted in life, who here eighty-three years ago

• 23
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       337

 

was born, received his early education and training here, and for

some fifty years was a citizen. He, too, has passed away, to be

hoped to that other and better world, leaving on record a name

for character and sterling worth that will be handed down through

generations as a bright and brilliant luminary of the legal profes-

sion, and a monument of a true and loyal citizen and statesman

of our Republic. I mean the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton.

Edwin M. Stanton was no ordinary man. He was not one of

those born with a golden spoon. And the learning and eminence

that he achieved in life were due alone to his untiring habits of

industry and close application in the pursuit of knowledge. He

was truly a self-educated man. The common schools in his early

life afforded youth a very limited education. His father died in

limited circumstances when Edwin was but thirteen years of age,

leaving his mother a widow with four minor children. The widow,

lamenting over the loss of a kind husband, her noble son, Edwin,

young in years, put his arms around her neck and kissing her,

said, "Mother, don't weep. I will take good care of you." What

a son for a fond mother to be proud of.

 

"My mother, at that holy name

Within my bosom there's a gush

Of feeling, which no time can tame;

I would not, could not crush."

That dear mother was never neglected by her loving and

faithful son through all the vicissitudes of life. He carefully per-

formed that promise and supplied her every need and want dur-

ing his life. She lived to see that son win honor and renown in

the legal profession, and statesmanship. The circumstances of

his mother's family were such that Edwin had by his labor to aid

in their support, and at the age of thirteen found employment as

a clerk in the book-store of that good old citizen, James Turnbull.

So pleased was Mr. Turnbull with Stanton's industry, that in

opening a book-store at Columbus, he sent Edwin there as a sales-

man. After some time in that position, and with a mind desirous

of education, he determined to qualify himself for another calling

and entered Kenyon college where, by close application, he ac-

quired learning that stood him in hand in after life. Here he

Vol. VI-22

• 24
 

338      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

gained the reputation for diligence that a student ought to be proud

of. But for want of the necessary means he had to leave the col-

lege in his junior year, in 1832, and return to his home.

He entered on a course of legal studies under the instruc-

tions of Col. James Collier and Maj. Collier in this city. He, on

completing his studies, commenced the practice of his profession

in Cadiz. The bar at that place was composed of able members,

such as the Hon. Chauncy Dewey, Gen. Samuel W. Bostwick,

Gen. Beebe and others. But he soon distinguished himself and

was elected prosecuting attorney, an office he filled with ability

and fidelity.

The Hon. Benjamin Tappan, one of the leading members of

the bar in this city, having been elected to represent this state in

the Senate of the United States, and retiring from practice,

Edwin Stanton, desiring to be near the home of his mother, re-

turned to this city and commenced the practice of his profession.

The bar of this county at the time was one of legal ability, a repu-

tation it sustained from the early history of the state, and at the

time composed of such attorneys as Col. James Collier, Maj. D. L.

Collier, Gen. Samuel Stokely, Hon. John K. Sutherland, Hon.

Roswell Marsh and others. Shortly after coming to this bar two

other brilliant lights in the legal profession came to this bar in

the persons of the learned and gifted Roderick S. Moody and the

bright and eloquent Joseph Mason. Here he remained as a resi-

dent attorney for twenty years, during which period his practice

in the courts of this and the surrounding counties of the state,

in the courts of other states and of the United States, was exten-

sive and laborious.

His character and upright deportment, his brilliant and

eminent career as a jurist is known to the citizens present who

were living at that period, and they can bear testimony with me

in regard to the same. The eminence that he reached was almost

like enchantment. But those who knew his close habits of in-

dustry, perseverance and stern and unyielding will, witnessed

in an early period that a grand success would be attained.

Close application to the duties of his calling gained him a

reputation of being a careful and learned legal gentleman, with

few, if any, superiors at the bar. While not flowery and airy,

• 25
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       339

 

he was eloquent as an advocate, argumentative and of persuasive

address to the jury or court. Being well versed in all the rules of

pleading and evidence enabled him to prepare a case which he

spared no pains in preparation; in court he wasted no time. Such

attention won confidence in his ability and was the crowning glory

of his success. In this he has left an untarnished name and exam-

ple worthy of consideration of every young member of the legal

profession. Edwin M. Stanton was more than an ordinary light

in the legal circle. By study and close application he became a

master in jurisprudence; and the study and care he devoted to the

same enabled him to grasp every intricate question. This with

him was a cherished love. For he was truly a profound lover of

his profession. Such was his great love of justice that the consid-

eration of his compensation for services was no thought to him,

for he looked on money in the language of Scripture as "the root

of all evil," and the poor and fatherless in his practice received

the same consideration as the wealthy.

The reputation of Edwin M. Stanton at an early period in his

career soon extended throughout his native state. He made his

first appearance in the Supreme Court of the state at the Decem-

ber term, 1836, in the case of Woods against McGee, in which

he had to combat such able counsellors as the celebrated Metcalf

and the Hon. John K. Sutherland. After this he appeared in

many cases in the Supreme Court and demonstrated his ability as

a jurist. Among these cases is the celebrated case of Moore

against Gano and others, tried at the December term, 1843, of

the Supreme Court, contending against such learned counsellors

as James and Daniel L. Collier, Wright, Coffin and Minor. The

name of Edwin M. Stanton as a jurist gained such an ascendency

that he was selected by the Supreme Court as its reporter, and

made the reports of the court of the December terms of the years

1841, 1842 and 1843, found in the 11th, 12th and 13th volumes.

These evidence masterly manner in careful preparation. Edwin

M. Stanton prided in doing his work and knew that to do so re-

quired care and study.

The display of his legal acquirements was not confined to his

native state. He gained a high reputation in other states and in

the courts of the United States, where he tried cases of great im-

• 26
 

340      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

portance. Among these cases was the celebrated Wheeling

bridge case.

A personal quality of Edwin M. Stanton was to do that which

he believed to be right and just, and all his actions were pure, fair,

open and honorable. His judgment was excellent, and in the

exercise of his mind, he seriously considered what was right to-

wards his fellow men, with a laudable desire to achieve honest

fame, for he scorned at doing wrong.

He possessed in the different walks of life a knowledge not

often found among eminent jurists. He had nothing of the so-

called holiday idleness in his character, and when not engaged

in his legal business devoted himself to other studies and socia-

bility with his friends.

He was well versed on general subjects and was an interest-

ing conversationalist and companion. I first heard of Edwin M.

Stanton, when but a youth, in the ever memorable political cam-

paign of 1840, and saw him for the first time in the old court room

in the summer of 1842. Court being in session, I visited the court

room. Mr. Stanton was addressing the jury. I was charmed

with his manner and on leaving the court room remarked to the

friend who was with me, I wish I could speak like Stanton. From

that time my mind was made up to try and be an attorney. Com-

mencing the study of law in the summer of 1846 with the Hon.

Thomas L. Jewett at Cadiz, the office of Stanton & Peppard ad-

joining Mr. Jewett's office, and meeting Mr. Stanton there while

he was attending court, I became then personally acquainted with

him. We became intimate friends, which continued until his

death.

At the McNutt house our rooms were only separated by a

hallway. Frequently, on waking up at night, I would hear him

up in his room, and would now and then, on meeting him, say,

"Mr. Stanton, you keep late hours at night." His reply would

be, "Mr. Trainer, I have to do so, in order to consider the matters

I have to look after in court, and be prepared on questions that

may come up on the trial."

Locating as a practicing attorney in Columbiana county in

the spring of 1850, I met with him frequently at the bar of that

county. He was a member of the law firm of Stanton, Umstetter

• 27
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       341

 

& Wallace. I became a resident of this city in April, 1853, and

commenced the practice of law. At that time Edwin M. Stanton

was a resident here; and the law firm of Stanton & McCook, of

which Stanton and Col. George W. McCook were the members,

had an extensive practice. I often met Mr. Stanton in the trial

of civil and criminal cases, I being the prosecuting attorney during

the years of 1854 and 1855. Mr. Stanton appeared as the attorney

for the defense in several criminal cases, and I can truthfully bear

testimony that in all the trials he came to the trial thoroughly

prepared. His treatment of witnesses and counsel opposed to

him was kind, courteous and gentlemanly. There was nothing

of the bully or trickery about him. His deportment was such

as becomes the true lover of the legal profession.

During the administration of President Buchanan he was

selected to represent the government in important legal matters

at San Francisco; the duties he discharged with ability and fidel-

ity, and won the praise of the government. Afterwards he became

attorney-general of the United States for a short period. To

this period in his life Edwin M. Stanton never sought or held

office not united with the legal profession.

In 1854 I spoke to him in regard to using his name in con-

nection with being the Democratic nominee for Congress in this

district. His reply was, "Mr. Trainer, you are not the first one

that has suggested my name for that honor, and you have my

thanks for your kind regards; but I have not sought office out-

side of the legal profession, and would not accept any office in

the gift of the people, except it would be a judgeship, for that

is the only office I believe I could fill with credit to myself and

honor to my country."

But the time came when Edwin M. Stanton, as a true and

loyal citizen, saw that it was proper to change his mind, and for

a time to lay aside his legal robes and devote his time and atten-

tion to aiding his beloved country in putting down one of the

greatest rebellions against government in the history of the world.

For this purpose he accepted from President Lincoln the office

of secretary of war. Possessing a strong and determined will

and energy to do and to dare, and undaunted courage, he proved

himself to be the Ajax in the cabinet and rendered greater service

• 28
 

342       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

to his country than he could have done had he been a command-

ing general in the field, and his memory as the greatest of his

country's war secretaries will live in famous history. He was

the true and tried friend of our soldiers in the field. Punctually

he kept in sight their needs and wants and had them relieved

as far as possible.

The thought of enemies was no trouble to him, and the

love of money could not influence him to do wrong. For Edwin

M. Stanton was no friend or associate of the class of men that

the Hon. John J. Crittenden spoke of when he said, "There are

men sent to Congress who will, with the right hand raised, say,

'Mr. Speaker,' while at the same time their left hand is held behind

their back for the bribe they are to receive." Independent of

enemies, he fearlessly discharged all the duties of his office, and

had the satisfaction of receiving the plaudits of loyal citizens of his

country. During the war his perseverance was of true Roman

virtue.

Edwin M. Stanton lived as a plain, American citizen, without

any show of aristocratic airs. He was very generous, kind and

sympathetic. No one in want or distress ever approached E. M.

Stanton without finding him ready to extend help. To such an

extent did his kindness lead, that he died poor, although all

through life he had the means within his grasp, had he hoarded

money and loved it, to have accumulated a fortune and have

died wealthy.

The incessant toil that he endured in his profession, and as

secretary of war, wore out his precious life, and death reached

him when only a few years past middle age. Realizing that the

stream of his life was fast approaching its end, still clinging to

the high sense of honor that had been the polar star throughout

life, he could not bring himself to think of receiving the gift of

a hundred thousand dollars that kind and generous friends offered

him.

The only office the gifted Edwin M. Stanton ever had a

desire to fill came to him in the closing days of his earthly course.

That gallant and brave soldier, after reaching the presidency,

apreciating the eminent character of the ex-war secretary, ap-

pointed him one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United

• 29
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       343

States, which appointment was confirmed by an unanimous vote

of the Senate. Dying within a few days thereafter, he never took

his seat on the Supreme bench. He would have filled the position

with distinction and would have been the equal in learning, bril-

liancy and legal knowledge with Chief Justices Marshall, Story

and Chase.

But I must hasten to a close of my remarks. What a great

loss such a great jurist and high-minded statesman is to our

beloved country! But death makes no distinction; and the gifted,

the learned, the able and upright jurist and statesman passes from

life into that other and undiscoverable country. But the name

of Edwin M. Stanton lives in the memory of a grateful and gen-

erous people.

Dead! The great and learned jurist and statesman is silent,

and no more will his voice be heard in the courts or in the nation's

councils. His name will forever stand on the Records of the

Courts of his country as one of the brightest and ablest of jurists;

and the records of our loved country, as the greatest of war secre-

taries, who, in the cabinet of the lamented President Lincoln,

aided and assisted in crushing out the rebellion and restoring the

Union of the states to peace and harmony, united under one flag.

The name of Edwin M. Stanton as a jurist and statesman is:

"One of the few immortal names

That was not born to die."

 

RECEPTION BY THE LADIES CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE.

A reception was given by the ladies' centennial committee in

the Court House in honor of distinguished visitors, and the first

day of the celebration was most auspiciously closed.

• 30
 

344      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

PIONEER DAY.

At the close of a very imposing Pioneer and Industrial parade

the people gathered at LaBelle park and on the beautiful lawns

that terrace the immediate neighborhood at the intersection of

Fourth street and LaBelle avenue, in full view of the Ohio river

and under the shade of hundreds of trees, they crowded to listen

to the addresses.

Hon. J. J. Gill, a descendant of an old and honorable Mt.

Pleasant family, as chairman of the day, spoke as follows:

 

ADDRESS OF HON. J. J. GILL.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

To me has been assigned the very gratifying and highly hon-

orable privilege of acting as the presiding officer of this meeting,

and it is my wish to confine myself strictly to my duties as such

chairman. We are here to listen to the formal addresses of the

occasion as arranged, and I shall not, therefore, delay the feast

of good things which is before us longer than to pause a moment

to congratulate the good people of Steubenville and of Jefferson

county and the various patriotic and self-sacrificing committees

having the work in charge upon the memorable and magnificent

success of this centennial celebration and upon the very great

general interest and enthusiasm which have been aroused. We

can all rightfully rejoice over and take pride in the past, and as

the events of history are recounted and the panorama is unfolded

before us, I sincerely trust that under the inspiration of the occa-

sion we shall also give sharp heed to the living present and to

the duties of to-day, and turn also with anxious thoughts towards

the future, earnestly resolved that if possible a more rapid rate

of progress shall be established, and that the splendid heritage

which has been left us shall not have its lustre dimmed by any

deed of ours, or dulled by our failure to adequately and propor-

tionately advance along the line of the world's grand march.

Invocation was offered by Rev. Dr. Geo. W. MacMillan,

of Richmond, after which Hon. H. L. Chapman made congrat-

ulatory remarks.

• 31
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       345

 

 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY JOHN M. COOK, ESQ.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Jefferson county extends her greetings to the thousands that

have come to participate in our centennial anniversary. Wel-

come, thrice welcome, one and all. It is our birthday party; for

a hundred years of civil life is little more than a single year of

personal existence. On birthdays we look backward and for-

ward; have we gained or lost, and what are the prospects of

the future? Whatever may be our future prospects, in the record

of the past our hearts swell with unbounded pride.

What a magnificent county we had a hundred years ago. It

extended from the lakes on the north to Powhattan Point on

the south, from the Pennsylvania line on the east to the Cuyahoga

and Tuscarawas rivers on the west. Five thousand square miles

of as fruitful domain as the sun ever shone upon. Hill and valley,

forest and prairie, soil of the richest character watered by hun-

dreds of rivers, rivulets and springs. Like the promised land to

which the children of Israel journeyed, it was fair to look upon,

and flowing with milk and honey. Is it any wonder, therefore,

that the red men of the forest contested every foot of ground

with the pioneer homeseekers for such a land?

The early settlers were worthy of the land; they were not

Goths and Vandals seeking conquest for the sport of conquest

at the sacrifice of property and culture; they were not bigoted

crusaders, driving out a barbarous race for the purpose of estab-

lishing a system of religion, more intolerant and cruel than the

religion of the untutored worshippers of nature, "who saw God

in the clouds and heard Him in the wind"; they were not even

from a foreign land, warped and prejudiced by foreign educa-

tion and contact with foreign ideas and principles. They were

our own countrymen, speaking our own inimitable Anglo-Saxon

language; they came from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,

Virginia and Pennsylvania. What a grand combination: the

Puritans of New England, rigid, zealous, and quick-witted; the

Dutch of New York, not the equal of the Yankee in driving a

bargain, but surpassing him in industry and frugality; the Scotch-

Irish of New Jersey, in whose lexicon there was no such word

• 32
 

346      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

as fail; the cavalier of Virginia, noble, dignified, and valorous;

and as if to cement the whole and round it out in strength and

symmetry, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, who would tolerate no

feuds and quarrels. Well might Gen. Washington in his cele-

brated eulogy upon our first settlement say, "No other colony

in America was ever settled under such favorable circumstances

as that which has just commenced upon the Ohio river. Infor-

mation, property, and strength will be its beginning."

We have been faithful to our heritage. No section of the

country has made greater strides in physical, intellectual, and

moral development than has our beloved Jefferson county. The

evidence of material growth is everywhere; the smoke and flame

of the furnace, factory and workshop greet every passing cloud;

the joyous song of the harvester gladdens every hilltop and val-

ley; the hum of busy industry is heard in the marts of trade

in a hundred cities and villages, for Cleveland, Youngstown,

Akron, Canton, and a score of others belong to us as surely as

Steubenville. Our boys and girls have done well. We gave

the country the literary genius, William Dean Howells; the pio-

neer abolitionist, Benjamin Lundy; the brave war governor,.

David Todd; the great war secretary, Edwin M. Stanton, and

the fighting McCooks. Yea more, we have furnished two of the

most illustrious chief magistrates of the nation: the scholarly

orator and statesman, James A. Garfield, who sleeps in Lake

View cemetery, and the conscientious and gifted William Mc-

Kinley, who now so worthily occupies the White House. Our

daughters have in every respect been the equals of our sons.

The women of southeastern Ohio and of the Western Reserve

have been proverbial for their refinement, culture, and religious

devotion; they have graced the homes of presidents, statesmen,

bishops, philanthropists, and financiers, and there is hardly a

missionary field in the world but what has felt the beneficent influ-

ence of the graduates of Beatty seminary. "I speak these things

to your honor."

Old Jefferson has felt the touch of the century. That touch

has been in many respects magnetic and uplifting, but in some

enervating or at least depleting. We have advanced from the

log cabin to the comfortable dwelling and palace; from the rude

• 33
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       347

 

school house with its three R's to the magnificent high school

of the people and the college and university of the more favored.

Religious intolerance with its bigotry and aspersions has become

a thing of the past; and to-day Roman Catholic and Protestant,

Greek and Jew, meet upon the platform as brothers. Brute force

has been supplanted by steam and electricity; higher mechanism

has succeeded the waste of muscle and the sweat of the brow.

Never was there such advancement in any age as during this

last quarter of the nineteenth century, and in no corner of the

earth has it been more marked than in what was Jefferson county.

There is a reverse side to the picture. How small and dwarfed

our once magnificent county seems. It is with difficulty that we

recognize the old settlement and homestead; from five thousand

square miles it has been reduced to four hundred; our cities,

villages and farms with their riches and fertility have been taken

away from us; however, as dutiful parents, we rejoice in these

new settlements and the children that occupy them. Cuyahoga,

Lake, Ashtabula, Geauga, Summit, Portage, Trumbull, Stark,

Mahoning, Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison and Belmont, we are

proud of you and your success. You are not with us, but you

are of us, and how dear you are to our hearts!

Children of these new homes, God bless you; sometimes

we fear many of you, in your incomparable prosperity, have

become proud and seldom think of your shriveled and dwarfed

old parent, yet our hearts go out to you like that of Jacob that

went out to Joseph and Benjamin, and upon this festal anniversary

we are glad to greet you and bid you welcome home.

 

 

ADDRESS OF HON. WEBSTER DAVIS.

 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen .

Of all the monuments erected to perpetuate the memory of

America's greatest men none are grander, sublimer or more en-

during than this--Jefferson county--named in honor of the

immortal Thomas Jefferson. It was the fifth county established

in Ohio and was created by proclamation of Governor St. Clair,

the first governor of the state, on July 29, A. D. 1797. Its original

limits included all the country west of Pennsylvania and the Ohio

• 34
 

348       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

river; and east, and north, of a line from the mouth of the Cuya-

hoga; southward to the Muskingum, and east to the Ohio river.

Within those boundaries are Cleveland, Canton, Steubenville,

Warren, and many other large towns and populous cities. This

immense territory was considerably larger in extent than some

of the states of the American Union. Of course, as soon as the

population began to increase rapidly because of the large immi-

gration, which soon set in from other states, this territory was

considered entirely too large and unwieldy for one county, hence

it was subdivided.

The first settlers, long before 1789, were doubtless "Mound

Builders," that remarkable race of beings, of which so little

seems to be known; from whence they came or whither they

have gone, no one seems to be able to tell positively. But that

they inhabited this region at one time is very evident from the

fact that certain relics and bones have been found in the valleys

of the Miamis, the Scioto and the Muskingum, which indicate

their existence here at some remote period.

Then again, this magnificent territory was but a vast waste

of luxurious nature, where, amid scenes of primeval solitude, the

explorer might have thought that war's invading foot never trod.

Wild beasts, ferocious and terrible, had their lairs in the glens

and jungles. Reptiles dragged their slimy forms along the grassy

dells, while savages of the most bloodthirsty natures built their

wigwams in the hidden recesses of the forests, and on the banks

of the winding streams. But finally, the pioneers - the torch-

bearers of civilization, wended their way toward this virgin ter-

ritory, and soon the smoke from the cabins and the noise from

the woodman's axe proclaimed to the world the beginning of

a new era -the most wonderful in the annals of mankind. No

pen can portray, no tongue can describe the awful sufferings and

hardships endured by the first settlers in their struggles with the

Indians. For those savages died by thousands rather than yield

this rich and fertile territory, which they so loved and hoped to

enjoy for all time. After many years of fierce and bloody con-

flict, the Indians were compelled to give way to a superior race

of men and women, whom an all-wise Providence had directed

to open up this new land to civilization and to plant on its hill

• 35
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      349

 

tops, in its valleys, on its plains, and amid God's temples in its

picturesque woodlands, the altars of liberty and equality of rights,

and invite the genius of the earth to worship at their shrines.

And in passing it may be said, that the most ferocious Indian

incursions in these parts were inspired by the British government,

which has always been one of the worst enemies this youthful

republic has ever had. The last blood shed in battle between

the first settlers and the Indians was shed in this county in August,

1793. The battle is known in history as "Buskirk's Battle," and

took place on the farm of John Adams on what was then known

as Indian Cross creek, now as Battle Ground run.

A very important incident in the early history of this part

of this state should not be forgotten on this occasion; and that

is the fact that George Washington visited this county at Mingo

village in the year 1770, just seventeen years before the adoption

of the famous ordinance of 1787, which is now recognized by all

men as a masterpiece of statesmanship, ranking with the Decla-

ration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

And its author, Nathan Dane, became immortal, and his name

will be heralded to other generations as one of the great benefac-

tors of his race. For by that ordinance he laid a foundation upon

which the pioneers might rear an honest manhood and a loyal

citizenship. With that ordinance as a guide they could never go

wrong. It was their pillar of cloud by day and their pillar of fire

by night. By it all men and women were guaranteed freedom

of worship. They might worship God according to the dictates

of their own conscience. They were allowed the privilege of the

writ of habeas corpus-one of the choicest rights enjoyed by free-

men. By it also the people were given representation in the

affairs of government. It was to be a government of the people,

by the people and for the people. It also gave the right of trial

by jury-a blessing enjoyed by men and women only in a land

of freedom; and it also established roads and highways; abro-

gated the law of primogeniture, and made equal divisions of land

among children and heirs. It was also ordained that "there shall

be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory,

otherwise than in punishment of crime, and that religion, morality,

and knowledge, being essential to good government and the hap-

• 36
 

350       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

piness of mankind, shall forever be encouraged." These were

placed by the ordinance as among the fundamental principles of

civil and religious liberty, and upon these as the foundation stones,

was erected a most wonderful temple of civilization; which is to-

day the marvel of the century and the pride of mankind.

The most important event in the early history of Jefferson

county was the founding of this beautiful city-Steubenville-in

the year 1797, which was named after Fort Steuben, which had

been erected in 1787. To Bezaleel Wells and James Ross. the

one hailing from Maryland and the other from Pennsylvania,

belongs the honor of laying out this city, which was incorporated

on February 14, A. D. 1805. These men were among the noblest

and sturdiest of the pioneers.  They started the manufactories

here, and they introduced into these parts the sheep industry and

for its Merino sheep it became famous. The finest wool ever

raised in the great northwest territory was raised in this county.

And this resulted in the establishment in this city of the first

woolen mill in the United States. In this county also was the first

public survey, and in this city was located the first land office in

the United States located in the district where the land lay. It

was this splendid opportunity given to the poor man that attracted

the attention of the people of other localities and caused them

to turn their eyes towards this great west, where they might go

and find a home for themselves and their little ones, where they

might sit under their own vine and fig tree with no one to molest

them and no one to make them afraid-a home where their youth

might be crowned with happiness and the sun of their life's even-

ing go down with the unmolested hope of a glorious immortality.

So they came from all states and all lands, until now Jefferson is

one of the most populous counties in this state, and Steubenville

has within its confines 14,000 souls, and instead of a village it is

to-day a splendid city, with many manufacturing institutions of

iron, steel, glass and pottery; with a supply of coal which is inex-

haustible; with splendid railway facilities; with water ways and

with vessels to assist in carrying her commerce; with excellent

wholesale and retail establishments; with modern improvements

unexcelled; with modern churches and schools; with bright and

sparkling newspapers; with petroleum and natural gas wells, and

• 37
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      351

 

on every hand thrift, prosperity and refinement. And, surrounded

by fertile farms, with plains, valleys and woodlands, with waving

fields and fruitful orchards, indeed with everything essential for a

people's happiness; with a climate too, unexcelled for health and

comfort, with sunshine enough for song, and snow enough for

courage, surely the people of this city and county ought to be

among the happiest and most contented people on earth. And

it may be said also of this county that, like Cornelia of old, the

brightest jewels in her crown are her children-the strong men

and beautiful women who have their homes within her borders.

Indeed it seems that God has brought, during this first cen-

tury, to this state and county, young people from every land and

every clime, from the rugged lands of Germany and the vine-clad

hills of France; from the snowy land of Scandinavia, and the sunny

land of the south; from the lowlands and highlands of Scotland,

and from the hills and dales of Ireland; from the mountain fast-

ness of Wales and from England itself. Ah yes, among them

are men and women whose ancestors in the long ago stood amid

that mighty array of barons who wrested Magna Charta from

King John on the historic field of Runnymede; among them too

were those whose fathers had stood with Oliver Cromwell at Mars-

ton Moor and Naseby, and among them were some whose fore-

fathers had followed the white plume of Henry of Navarre, in the

years that are past and gone. All of these were put as it were

into a mighty laboratory, out of which God brought the master

man and woman-the ideal citizens of the greatest republic known

in history's wondrous annals. Of all agents for the promotion

of enterprises, the upbuilding of cities, the development of states

and countries and the spreading of civilization, the newspapers

are the most powerful. Hence on this centennial anniversary it

would not do to forget to give proper credit to the newspapers.

The first one was started in this city in 1806, by Lowry and Miller,

its editors, and I am told that this paper still continues. John

Miller afterwards became a citizen of the city of St. Louis, and

in 1820 was elected to be the first governor of Missouri, a state

in which natural resources stand to-day without a superior in

the Union.

• 38
 

352       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

Thus has Ohio sent her sons and daughters by thousands

into the western wilds, where they have become pioneers again

in the establishment of new cities and new states, and many a

homesick boy has laid his head to rest far out in the hills of the

west, thinking of the old home back in old Ohio, and in his dreams

his mutterings told of loved ones far away, but not forgotten.

Jefferson county is also the birthplace of the great anti-

slavery sentiment which resulted in the freedom of the slaves.

Because of the provision in the ordinance of 1787 against negro

slavery many of that sturdy sect of men and women who loved

liberty, known as Quakers, came here from North Carolina, and

immediately upon their arrival liberated their slaves. Indeed the

first newspaper devoted to the abolition of negro slavery, was

printed in this county, and here lived the great abolitionist, Ben-

jamin Lundy, who was the first man to get William Lloyd Gar-

rison interested in that question. These liberty-loving pioneers

believed that the spirit that causes the little bird to beat its breast

against the wires of the cage while it longs for freedom, is the

same spirit that is planted in the human breast struggling to be

free. Hence they were determined that here a man might assert

his claim to right and have it allowed. And as a result the people

who live here to-day, can boast that they live in a land of freedom.

Freedom not only in name but in fact. They live in a land of

liberty where everything is possible to every citizen, and where

the only restraints upon the full enjoyment of life, liberty and pos-

session of happiness, are the necessary restraints of society against

the abuse of these blessings. With no tyrant ruling over them;

with no privileged classes to exact support and luxuries from the

masses; with no great standing armies to eat up their substance

and oppress the people in the enjoyment of their liberties; with

fertile lands, yielding abundant increase; with splendid systems

of transportation; with commerce extending to almost every sec-

tion; with a mighty population increasing in wealth annually-in

the presence of blessings like these, thrilling with the conscious-

ness of citizenship in a government more glorious than any that

ever existed, surely these people should be thankful for a privilege

so great.

• 39
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      353

 

Steubenville is also a city of schools, and Ohio is noted for

its excellent public school system and also for its many excellent

colleges, universities and academies. The people of this state

have always been true friends of education, in fact one of the

strongest provisions in the famous ordinance of 1787 was that in

regard to the encouragement of schools, and the promotion of

education.

The pioneers of this region realized that, from the time the

Creator commanded the earth and the waters thereof to bring

forth abundantly the manifold species of living creatures, down

through the centuries until this day, there has been but little

change in the inferior animals. The beasts of burden still con-

tinue to bear their burdens for the convenience, profit and com-

fort of man. The cattle still graze upon the meadows, fatten,

and are led to the slaughter to furnish food for man. The wild

beasts of the forest, still ferocious and terrible, have their lairs

in the tangled jungle and mountain glen. The eagle still builds

his eyrie on the loftiest crag on the mountain peak; the birds

still carol the same songs amid the branches of trees that were

sung by the feathered tribe among the boughs of the trees in

the Garden of Eden. These have changed as little as the grasses

or herbs upon which they feed, or the trees beneath which they

shelter in the woodlands.

All creeping things are just the same slimy, ugly things

they used to be before the serpent incurred the everlasting enmity

of mankind. And all the inhabitants of the mighty deep, from

the majestic whale that sports in its waters down to the humblest

member of the finny tribe, are still unchanged from what they

were on the evening of that wonderful day when the Creator said,

"Let the waters of the seas be filled with living things."

In one generation inferior animals attain all the perfection

of which their nature is susceptible.

That Being, without whose notice not even a sparrow falls

to the ground, has provided for the supply of all their wants, and

has adapted each to the element in which it moves.

To birds He has given a clothing of feathers, and to quadru-

peds a clothing of furs adapted to their latitudes. Where art is

requisite in providing food for future need or in constructing

Vol. VI-23

• 40
 

354       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

a needful habitation, as in the case of the bee and the beaver, a

peculiar aptitude has been bestowed which, in all the inferior

races of animals, has been found adequate to their necessities.

The crocodile that issues from its eggs in the warm sand and

never sees its parent, becomes, it has been well said, as perfect

and as knowing as any crocodile.

But not so with man, he comes into the world the most

helpless and dependent of living creatures, long to continue so.

If deserted by parents at an early age, so that he can learn only

what the experience of one life may teach him, he grows up in

some respects inferior to the brutes themselves.

The condition of the inhabitants of this section, at the time

of the coming of the pioneers, was that of ignorance, superstition

and barbarism; they were cruel savages living upon roots and

herbs, wild fruit, fish, and the flesh of wild animals; their habi-

tations were wigwams or huts; their avocation was hunting and

fishing; their language was but a jargon; they loved to wage

war against each other and the neighboring tribes; and were in

all respects scarcely above the wild beasts that shared with them

their haunts in the shady groves and by the side of the winding

streams.

But now this county and state have undergone a marvelous

change; instead of being the abode of savages they are now

occupied by intelligent, energetic, peaceable, civilized men and

women, who have founded manifold institutions of learning,

constructed villages and magnificent cities, have converted the

impenetrable forests into cultivated fields and fruitful orchards;

clothed the hills with luxuriant vines and filled the valleys with

corn and wine; covered the sterile plains with beautiful gardens

and transformed the desolate deserts into fields of bloom and

have filled with plenty their granaries; while the music of

reapers and mowers, the songs of hardy sons of toil, as they

garner in the sheaves from the harvest fields, the murmur of the

loom and the shuttle, the roar of the hot breath of furnaces, the

hum and whir of wheels and spindles of the mills and factories

planted on the banks of the rivers, the music of ringing anvils of

the smithies at the forge, the laughter of little children sporting

on the schoolhouse playground,fill the land with the sweet melody

• 41
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       355

 

of songs of industry, while plenty sits enthroned and crowned and

sways her joyous scepter over happy homes where millions dwell

in peace and sweet content.

These are living monuments to the power and beneficence

of education, and to the industry and patriotism of the rugged

pioneers.

I do not mean that education whose sole object is to make

experts. Not simply to make a man a great navigator, to be

able to plough unknown seas in the search of unknown worlds

and nothing more; or simply to enable him to have at his

tongue's end the writings of those wondrous geniuses who have

been enshrined in history and have been adorned by the poets

with their rythmic flowers.

Nor to become an expert and to excel in chemistry, or

higher mathematics, nor to become a great geologist, to delve

into the hidden recesses of the earth, and to be able to read its

history in its layers of rocks, clay, granite and mineral. Nor to

become a great geographer, who is able to give us the dimen-

sions of the mountains, plains and valleys, and the extent of the

rivers, lakes and seas. Nor to become a great philosopher, who

can with ease read and interpret the phenomena of nature, and

place her marvelous wonders before the minds of men, and

cause her to contribute of her stores to the comfort and happi-

ness of mankind.

Nor to become a great astronomer, whose comprehensive

mind is able to scan the universe, whose heaven-aspiring spirit

is able to soar beyond the boundaries of time and to discover

new worlds in the illimitable realm of space, to view them in

their grandeur, to tell the story of their past history, and to

prophesy of their future.

All this is pleasant and profitable to the inquiring minds of

men and women if they are able to obtain it, but the kind of

education that I mean is that which makes of men and women

good citizens and prepares them for successfully fighting life's

battles.

For a nation's wealth consists not alone in its natural re-

sources and broad domain, but in the intelligence and virtues of

• 42
 

356      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

its citizens; its nobles are not the men of royal birth, but the

men of sober thoughts and righteous deeds.

It is upon the education of the people that this county and

state must depend for their still greater progress and advance-

ment in the future. For this age above all others demands an

educated people for citizenship.

Science and philosophy are revolutionizing the views of

mankind. Progress in the arts has transformed all society, in-

creasing a thousand-fold the ease of access and communication,

multiplying inconceivably the working forces of the world and

too often chaining men to the chariot wheels of mammon.

Truly, we live in a wonderful age of progress and advance-

ment, of education and civilization. A decade now is worth

more than half a century would have been in the early history

of your commonwealth. The good old times of your forefathers,

bordering seemingly on fairyland, so often referred to by those

who love to delve amid musty relics of forgotten ages, are not

to be compared with your time.

Instead of tearing open the soil of the fields with the roots

of a tree, that we may feed on the bounties of nature, as the

ancients did, the green covering rolls away with the perfection

and grace of art itself, from the polished mould-board of the

Pittsburg steel plough.

Machinery casts abroad the seed and the reaping machine

gathers the harvest. The loom has taken the place of the old

wheel that used to stand in the corner of old granny's log cabin

home. And the improved sewing machine has taken the place

of the needle-worn fingers, long since silent in the tomb, and fits

the fabric for the use of man.

The great steamers that plough the waters of the mighty

deep, and the locomotives that encircle the continent on their

bands of rails, bearing the freight of commerce to the uttermost

parts of the earth, carrying the people to and fro with the rapidity

of the winged messengers of the air, from the busy marts of

trade, render communication in person and in thought more

easy and rapid than in other years.

The discovery of the powers of electricity has also revolu-

tionized the age; the electric light has enabled men to turn the

• 43
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      357

 

darkness of night into the light of day, and were Diogenes now

living, he might pursue the even tenor of his way along the

streets of Athens in search of an honest man, with an electric

light instead of a lantern.

The telegraph too, has made it possible for men to com-

municate with each other across seas and lands with the rapidity

of lightning itself, and by the telephone man is enabled to con-

verse with his fellow man and even recognize his voice at a dis-

tance of thousands of miles. Think too, of the graphophone

and the kinetoscope, and countless other inventions more mar-

velous than any recorded in the history of people of other ages.

These discoveries and inventions, together with the progress

made in the realms of science, literature and art, and the ad-

vancement in every field of thought, are the wonders of the age.

And all these are but a few of the outcroppings, everywhere vis-

ible, of this marvelous age of progress.

And let it not be forgotten that liberty is not the child of

ignorance, superstition and barbarism, but the child of intelli-

gence, education and progress. The love of liberty is a passion

that has been wont to spring up in the hearts of men since time

began, so soon as their minds began to expand under education,

however crude, in their breasts the fires of liberty began to burn.

In all centuries and in all lands that passion has lived and defied

rocks and chains and dungeons to crush it; it has strewn the

earth with its monuments and shed undying lustre on a thousand

fields whereon it has battled in the gloomy night of ages.

And here in Ohio there seems to be something in the scenes

of nature, in her beautiful landscapes, in her luxurious vine-

yards and orchards, full of bud and blossom, in her waving fields

and in the dim vistas of her mighty woodlands, in the beauty of

bird, of bud, of tree and flower; and in the pure and exhilerating

air on her hills, her fields and her meadows, that inspires her

youth with an ardent love for knowledge.

And why is it that Babylon, with her hanging gardens;

Egypt, with her pyramids and temples -  stony records of the

twilight of history - Greece, with her wondrous works of art,

her power and renown, her temples, and statues of the gods

crowning the Acropolis, the golden splendor of her Athens,

• 44
 

358      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

whose columns and temples have long since passed away; and

Rome with her grandeur and might as an empire; when con-

trasted with the greatest of Time's offerings -this Republic,-

in the latter half of the nineteenth century, dwindle into mere

specks and fragments of history? The answer is to be found in

the increasing volume of intelligence among the masses of our

people, behind which stand the public schools, academies, col-

leges and universities, and that spirit of philanthropy which has

been the inheritance of the nations. With continued effort to

increase the opportunities for, and to stimulate a stronger desire

in the minds of the people for education, what marvelous prog-

ress may we expect of the generations of the future.

 

Oh, royal mind! nor cease thy flight,

While sun and stars dispense their light

And roll in grand array.

And when these orbs shall cease to shine,

When suns decay and stars decline,

Let onward progress still be thine

And upward hold thy way.

Ohio has given to the Republic many of its noblest and

greatest men. The bar, the press, the pulpit, the rostrum and

the schoolroom have all had their worthies. And in the realm

of science, literature, art and invention, in oratory and music her

sons and daughters have held their own in the march of progress

and advancement.

I would not attempt to call the roll of her distinguished

statesmen of all political parties in the past lest I should neglect

some and thereby appear to discriminate. But it is true that her

sons have not been surpassed in the halls of Congress, or in the

highest Judicial Tribunals in the land, or in the Executive man-

sion itself. In all these there have been worthy sons of Ohio,

whose names are cherished by the people, for they are names

not born to die.

And, living to-day, are men representing the people of this

great state as state officials, and as representatives in the Con-

gress of the United States, who are an honor to their people and

to their state.

• 45
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      359

 

Among those may be mentioned the peerless Sherman, the

dashing Foraker, the sturdy Hanna and the genial Bushnell.

These are all worthy representatives of a state whose foundation

stones were laid by the superb Anthony Wayne and the indomit-

able William Henry Harrison.

But one of the greatest of all the dead, and one of the greatest

of all the living, of Ohio's distinguished sons, were born within

the original territory of this county of Jefferson-Stanton and

McKinley.

Edwin M. Stanton sleeps in his narrow home-but he is not

forgotten, for he lives in the immortality that blooms beyond the

grave, he lives in the record of his country's history, and he lives

in the hearts of living millions on hill-top, valley and plain.

Grand indeed is the monument in Trafalgar Square which

perpetuates the triumphs of Nelson on the sea, and grand is the

Column Vendome which eternizes the victories of Napoleon on

the land, but grander and sublimer by far than these is that love

implanted in the hearts of American freemen for the invincible

Stanton, who, with the immortal Lincoln, laid his life on his coun-

try's altar that the Union might live, and all men and women be

forever free.

Brave, generous and lofty, endowed with the most exalted

sense of honor. We seem now to be gazing upward to the sum-

mit of that Olympus upon which he serenely sits.

He seems as one who belonged to that majestic race of be-

ings to whom the ancient Greeks and Romans ascribed qualities

and honors almost divine-to some modern Achilles, Hercules,

or Theseus, and not a leaf of his laurels has yet had time to wither.

 

Deep scars of thunder had entrenched;

And Care sat on his faded cheek;

But under brows of dauntless courage.

 

Stanton stands out in our history as a mighty rock, firm and

immovable as the angry waves of rebellion dashed themselves

into foam at its base. His faults are but as the setting of the no-

bility of his nature which rises-

• 46
 

360       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

Like some tall cliff that rears its awful form,

Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm;

Though round its base the lowering clouds may spread,

Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

Dropping a tear of sorrow on the tomb of our dead Stanton,

let us turn with a smile of joy to our living McKinley. He too,

is a typical American. No other country on the face of the earth

could have produced him; simple-mannered, rugged, broad, com-

prehensive and manly; and a gallantry approaching the spirit of

the old cavaliers of romance, possessing talents of the highest

order, and an intellect cultivated to the most brilliant point of per-

fection; joined to all this, refined sensibilities, which constitute

the poetry of life and rescue men from the groveling vices and

debasing passions of our kind. He is just what the educating

forces of our own civilization would make of these attributes.

His well-balanced purpose of lofty devotion to duty, his uncon-

querable courage, his unselfish patriotism, his strict integrity,

honesty and nobility of character, his tender love for the wife of

his early manhood, all will ever remain glorious examples for the

emulation of the young men of this splendid land, to stimulate

them to a nobler manhood.

Oh, may our young men draw lessons of patriotism and de-

votion to their country from the example of his noble life, and from

its richness may the future gain its highest aspirations, for out

of that life they may construct an ideal on which to mould them-

selves.

In all the wars during the last century, and especially in the

war of the rebellion, Jefferson county furnished its full quota of

men, and sent officers and privates to every battlefield. Immortal

heroes! They each performed a part in the greatest drama in

our Republic's history. They assisted in settling for all time the

supremacy of the Union of the states, and the equality of all men.

And after the war was over, realizing that mercy is the brightest

flower in the victor's wreath, they bade the vanquished return to

their homes, lay aside their swords and muskets for the tools and

implements of workshop and farm, and mingle with the songs of

the birds their joyous songs of contentment, industry and peace.

Thus spreading over all the past the mantle of sweet charity and

• 47
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       361

brotherly love, they returned to their homes, and soon as com-

rades and soldiers in war, were lost in the busy throng of citizens

of peace.

Surely the Union soldiers are the assured idols of undying

renown; living or dead they shall never be forgotten; and their

graves will be known as a shrine so long as chivalry girds on a

sword; shrines where patriot knees will bend and patriot eyes will

weep as long as freedom has a worshipper and patriotism a dev-

otee.

A few years ago, Jem Hollingsworth, a young miner in a

western camp, was turning a windlass by which a bucket filled

with earth was being lifted to the surface, while two of his com-

rades were digging at the bottom of the mine. When within a

short distance of the top the handle broke and the bucket started

down with fearful force; then, remembering his friends at the bot-

tom of the mine, Jem threw his body into the cogs of the wheel

and checked the fall of the bucket. Bystanders seeing the acci-

dent hastened to him, and after securing the windlass took poor

Jem's bleeding, mangled body out and laid it on a stretcher: as

they carried him away one of the men said, "Jem, this is awful,"

but with a smile on his dying lips poor Jem replied: "What's

the difference since it saved the boys?"

Thousands of splendid young men in Jefferson county and in

Ohio, over a third of a century ago, threw their strong, manly

forms into the iron jaws of rebellion, and when they were taken

out mangled and bleeding and sent home on crutches, with empty

sleeves, bearing scars and wounds, the legacies of battlefields,

their loved ones said when they got home, "Isn't it awful?" Their

answer was: "What's the difference since it saved the Union?"

Oh! patriotism  superb! Oh, heroism  sublime! On this

centennial day we must not forget to pay this slight tribute to their

memory.

Nor must we forget the patriotic women of this county and

state, who in all the years of the past contributed so much to that

upbuilding and development. And in the wars it was woman's

soft hand that staunched the bleeding wound, and cooled the

fevered brow of the soldier boy; it was woman's sweet voice that

spoke into his ears words of consolation and cheer; it was woman's

• 48
 

362        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

tears that fell upon the face of the dead; and it was woman who

wrote his last message to the loved ones at home. And they did

all of this because of their love for the Union.

Ah, yes:

The maid who binds her warrior's sash

With smile that well her pain dissembles,

The while beneath her drooping lash

One starry tear drop hangs and trembles;

Though Heaven alone records that tear

And fame may never know her story,

Yet her heart hath shed a drop as dear

As e'er bedewed the field of glory.

The wife who girds her husband's sword

Mid little ones who weep and wonder,

And bravely speaks the cheering word

E'en though her heart be rent asunder;

Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear

The bolts of death around him rattle,

Sheds holy blood as e'er was shed

On freedom's gory field of battle.

The mother who conceals her grief

While to her breast her son she presses,

And speaks a few brave words and brief;

Kissing the patriot brow she blesses:

With no one but her secret God

To know the pain that weighs upon her,

Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod

Received on freedom's field of honor.

How wisely the fathers builded-how closely their sons have

followed in their footsteps! The wilderness has in reality been

made to blossom as the rose. And Ohio to-day is known as the

key of the heart of the continent. Two hundred miles square,

with an area of over twenty-five millions of acres. This happy

intervening of rivers, valleys and uplands, with a fertile soil, cov-

ered with forests, fields, orchards and meadows, with rivers and

canals, with turnpikes and railroads, and with a population larger

than the population of all the original thirteen colonies when they

declared their independence. A population of hardy freemen and

women larger than that grand old Republic nestled in the shadows

of the Alps held within its borders, when its brave, heroic sons,

• 49
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      363

seized with the noble inspiration on the famous battlefield of

Sempach, rescued liberty from the grasping hand of Austria; more

than Athens crowded within her historic gates when the gallant

Greeks at Plataea delivered their beloved land from Persia's

threatened yoke of slavery; more than Rome gathered on her

seven hills when Julius Caesar unfurled the banner of equal rights

to the balmy breezes of Italy, and amid the wildest acclaim and

joyful shouts of multitudes of outraged people, overthrew the

aristocratic commonwealth under Pompey on the battlefield of

Pharsalia, and reared upon its ruins the Imperial Republic.

This is the glorious result of the work started by the pioneers.

Their every endeavor seemed to be to develop their new country

and make it pleasant and profitable for their posterity. A beau-

tiful story is told of one of these. John Chapman, or Johnny

Appleseed, as he was called, who came to the Muskingum at an

early day and spent his time chiefly in scattering nurseries of ap-

ple trees about the country for the benefit of the coming people.

With nothing but his axe and bag of appleseeds he made his pil-

grimages far into the wilderness, when he cleared or deadened

spots in the woods in which he sowed his appleseeds, and sur-

rounding them with hedges of brush to keep off the deer, left them

as gifts to those who should follow. Many an orchard far out

in the Firelands and at the head of the Scioto and Miami, and the

Wabash was planted from these seedlings.

Marvelous indeed were the struggles of the pioneers-their

patience, fortitude and perseverance, their example should be a

constant inspiration to their children, spurring them on to nobler

deeds and holier endeavors.

In fancy I see a pleasant picture of the old father and mother

-they of the pioneers, sitting on the porch of their cottage home,

when they are in that period known as the sear and yellow leaf.

 

Almost alone like pilgrims worn,

Journeying alone,

Of all the friends they once possessed

They hardly can find one.

And, as the old father looks into the eyes of that dear com-

panion of his youth and old age, his mind wanders back along the

• 50
 

364        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

pathway of the years, flecked and checkered with sunshine and

cloud, with storm and calm, through years of struggles, trials sor-

rows and disappointments; out at last into the grand, glorious

crowning beauty and benison of hard won and well deserved

success.

He feels prouder of her than ever before, and, as the tears roll

down his wrinkled cheeks, he blesses his God for that precious

gift of a good companion who has stood by his side in all those

years of hardship and sorrow.

And she, with a sweet smile, looking at him through her tears,

says in tremulous voice:

John, dear, we are old and gray;

Fifty years since our wedding day,

Shadow and sun for every one as the years roll on;

John, dear, when the world went wry,

Hard and sorrowful then was I,

Ah, lad, how you cheered me then;

Things will be better, sweet wife, again;

Always the same, dear John, my own,

Always the same to your old wife Joan.

John, dear, but my heart was wild

When we buried our baby child,

Until you whispered, Heaven knows best;

And then my troubled heart found rest.

John, dear, 'twas your loving hand

Showed the way to the better land;

Ah, lad, as you kissed away each tear,

Life grew better and Heaven more near.

Hand in hand when our life was May,

Hand in hand when our hair is gray,

Shadow and sun for every one as the years roll on,

Hand in hand when the long night tide

Gently covers us side by side,

Ah, lad, though we know not when

Love will be with us forever then;

Always the same, dear John, my own,

Always the same to your old wife Joan.

By and by the storm of their life was over, and side by side

they were laid to rest in the quiet little cemetery, and now each

springtime they are covered with the same mantle of green, decked

• 51
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     365

 

by nature with the same wild flowers blooming over each with im-

partial love; while at nighttime the whippoorwills chant their

solemn requiem to their memory.

Let them peacefully sleep; all honor to their memory-they

were Jefferson county's noble pioneers.

Some one has said, that in the pious and magnificent struc-

tures of the great temples of the Mohammedan faith the inde-

structible and infinitely divisible fragrance of the attar of roses

was mixed by the builders with the mortar with which they held

together the mass and ever since annually ten thousand worship-

pers have worn the stone pavement of the structure for a hundred

generations, and yet find their prayers still imbued with the un-

dying fragrance of this inexhausted and inexhaustible perfume.

These great masses of wealth, and of population and of power,

this structure that our fathers built and we occupy is but the as-

semblage of the great material structure that built up to the visi-

ble eye a temple. But the cement that holds it all together is

perfumed by the great virtues and the sweet influences of the

men and women that laid this moral structure. Let us never

lose that perfume, for if we do, that cement will crumble and the

structure be destroyed.

As heirs of a splendid heritage we should love our homes,

our city, our county, our state, and our Republic. It is only when

a people lose their patriotism and become stupid and careless

from too much revelry in luxury, peace, and prosperity, that they

are in danger. This has been the road along which many nations

and many peoples of all the ages in the past have gone down to

ruin and decay. And the wrecks of their cities are strewn along

the banks of Time's fretful stream. So it was with Tyre, the queen

of the desert, her atmosphere ever fragrant with the sweet aroma

of spices brought to her fairs by caravans from distant climes;

her sails of commerce once whitened many seas, the beautiful

horses of Arabia were on sale in her market places. There too

could be found the rarest wines, emeralds, corals, embroidered

work, and upholstered wares, of the rarest quality and pattern.

But where now is the din of her markets, where the splendor

of her magnificent structures?  Where the noise of her chariots

and the laughter of her charioteers as they thundered along the

• 52
 

366       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

public thoroughfares? Where, where are all these? Let the

rude fishermen, who dry their nets where here palaces once stood;

let the crested billows of the sea that now roll where her towers

once gleamed in the sunshine; let the humble heathen who now

sets his tent where Tyre once sat in glory, answer the question.

Thebes too, was once the brightest star of her time, with her

public places filled with wondrous works of art challenging the

admiration even of the antiquarian who now digs and studies

amid her historic ruins; with columns and temples unsurpassed

in the history of mankind, when the artists of the renowned

studios of earth brought the products of their brains and hands

to win the plaudits of the world's lovers of art.

And Babylon, with her towers, her gates of brass and her

granite walls, and with palaces wherein were gathered riches un-

surpassed, her hanging gardens also, with trees of rarest foliage,

and flowers of varied hues yielding their rich perfume to make

fragrant each passing breeze, with fountains sending up their

silver sprays to glitter in the sunshise, while amid the spreading

boughs of the trees birds of wondrous plumage chanted their

sweetest songs, until they filled with enchanting melody the wav-

ing woods of Babylon. But finally the storm came; the gates

crumbled and the walls fell, and the startled banqueters, hasten-

ing from their palaces, joined the revellers in the garden groves

and in terror together went down into oblivion.

To-day the pilgrims walk on that scene of desolation, and

from the broken stones and pottery they read its history. The

owls and bats have their homes amid the ruins of the once far-

famed palaces, and amid the awful surging of that billow of deso-

lation that now rolls over the place where Babylon once was,

they hear the wild waves saying, "Babylon, oh Babylon, in the

midst of thy glory and grandeur thou didst slumber in the dreamy

realms of wealth and luxury and inactivity. Thou didst lose thy

pride and patriotism, and now thou are no more." So it was

with them all, they slept the sleep of the sluggard, and the wiley

enemies from without and from within their borders accomplished

their ruin and downfall, so that now they live only in legend and

story.

• 53
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      367

 

Every effort put forth to develop this country and this state

still more in the future, to make a dozen vines to grow where

but one grew before, to swing to each other their delicious clusters

that seem a whole happy rural population held in Dryad spell,

whose joined hands a word would set free to urge all with glad

coercion into the merry vintage dance:-To cause two trees to

spring up where but one appeared before, to hold aloft in their

rustic hands their luscious fruit to ripen in the sunshine; to make

two stalks of wheat bend their heads to the harvester, where but

one nodded its head before, and to make two ears of corn to

swing their silken tassels to the breeze, where but one had waved

its plume:-Every effort to build churches, colleges and universi-

ties; to found homes for the helpless and the aged, asylums for

the unfortunate, hospitals for the sick, and art galleries, museums

and libraries for the poor:-Every effort to elevate the character

of the people, to banish ignorance, vice and impurity from the

land, and to cultivate a desire for intelligence, purity, integrity,

loyalty and nobility of character in the minds of the masses of

our citizens:-Every advancement made in the realms of science,

literature and art; every new discovery, every new invention,

every encouragement to gifted genius in every field of thought;

every act that ennobles humanity and makes the world better.

Every wise law promulgated; every effort to cultivate peace and

good will among the people of the different sections of our coun-

try and uphold an unconquered flag:-Every endeavor to nar-

row and obliterate forever the widening chasm between capital

and labor, to ameliorate and improve the condition of those who

toil in the workshops, in the mills and in the fields, until their

labor shall be more productive and their lives made brighter;

until equal and exact justice shall prevail among all classes of

our people, and beautiful virtue and spiritual grace shall light

up the homes of the poor, and the shadows of darkness and gloom

shall melt away before the dawning light of a brighter day of

contentment, happiness and peace:-Every effort to teach the

youth in the public schools and elsewhere to love their country

and its flag, and to fondly cherish the memory of the pioneers

who opened the gates of the Ohio to the tide of a marvelous civil-

ization:-All this is glorious work in which to be engaged, and is

• 54
 

368      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

worthy of the descendants of those brave and chivalrous men

and women.

The pioneers builded better than they knew, for no country

in the world furnishes such splendid opportunities for poor boys

as this country does, and Ohio is almost in its center.

As we pass through many of the cities and villages of the

northwest, we often see some country boy standing by his load

of wood and to the passer-by he says, "Mister, will you buy a

load of wood?" To him we cannot keep from saying, be coura-

geous, my boy, your lot may be a hard one, your clothes may not

be as good as the clothes some boys wear, but be manly, be strong,

take advantage of your opportunities, go to the public school, be

loyal to your country and true to your fellow men, for once upon

a time a boy like you stood on the streets of a western city selling

wood, and now a majestic monument rises to mark the place

where he once stood, and the "wood hauler," Ulysses S. Grant,

is immortal.

And as we pass by a canal we see a little boy, ragged and

barefooted, driving his mule along the tow path, and to him we

feel like saying:

Don't be discouraged, my lad, your pathway may not be a

pleasant one, but remember that once there was a barefoot lad

who trod the weary tow path which led from a canal in Ohio to

the White House in Washington, and the canal boy, James A

Garfield, is immortal.

Then away in a forest we see a stalwart farmer boy splitting

rails with which to build an old fashioned worm fence around

father's little farm, and to him we feel like saying:

Be brave, my boy; though poverty and hard labor may now

be your portion, there's a better time coming by and by, take ad-

vantage of our free institutions, for they will furnish the full equip-

ment of shield and spear for the battles of freedom; and don't

forget that once there was a homely rail splitter who climbed the

granite shaft of fame amid the admiration of the civilized world;

with his chisel he carved a place as it were for his fingers and

his toes as he climbed hand over hand, and foot over foot, with

the weight of a Republic resting on his shoulders and tears rolling

down his sad face; he climbed higher and higher, while the shame-

• 55
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.       369

ful darts of malice, hate and envy were hurled at his quivering

form; around the base of that shaft the boys in blue with muskets

and fixed bayonets guarded him as he climbed, until finally God

stretched forth His hand and plucked him from the theater of

things to become a saint in glory in the Pantheon of Kings, and

the "rail splitter," Abraham Lincoln, is immortal.

Great and happy country. Where manhood reigns alone

and every citizen is king. May patriotism and love of country

bloom and blossom in the hearts of the present generation of

free men and women, even more than they did in the hearts of

the fathers and mothers who blazed the pathway through the

primeval forests for this unexampled civilization, and as they now

sleep in their quiet homes covered each springtime by wild flow-

ers, nature's sweetest emblems of love and affection, while their

children continue the great work which they so nobly began.

And gathering together on this centennial day let them unite

in a mighty anthem of praise and thanksgiving until their land

shall be filled with melody as they sing:

 

Great God we thank Thee for this our home

In this bounteous birthland of the free,

Where wanderers from afar may come

To breathe the pure air of liberty;

Still may thy flowers untrampled spring,

Thy harvests wave and thy cities rise;

And yet till Time shall fold his wing

Remain; Oh, remain our cherished paradise.

All hail! Jefferson county. All hail! the dawning of the new

century, with hope and joy.

Brief addresses were made by Mayor McKisson, of Cleve-

land; Hon. John J. Sullivan, of Warren; Lieutenant Governor

Asa W. Jones, Rev. John J. McCook, of Hartford, Conn.; Adju-

tant General Axline, General E. R. Eckley and Hon. E. O. Ran-

dall, of Columbus, Secretary of the Ohio Historical Society and

official reporter of the Supreme Court.

Gen. Anson G. McCook was called for, but as the general was

to accompany Gen. Sickles to the train he begged to be excused.

 

 

Vol. VI-24

• 56
 

370       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

MILITARY DAY.

The third day was Military day, and no other county has

better right to commemorate the memory of the soldier than

Jefferson, whether he be of the Revolutionary war, of the Second

War for Independence, the Mexican war or the War Between the

States. Jefferson county furnished thousands of the bravest men

in the Federal army during the War Between the States. It is

not necessary to mention their names - the mere mention of this

awful conflict at arms between people of the same blood, of the

same ancestry, brings before us the names of men who were among

the bravest, whether in the line or whether they were in com-

mand. Jefferson county is proud of her military record. She

is proud to celebrate her prowess in war as well as her greatness

in peace.

After an imposing military parade, the addresses were deliv-

ered at La Belle park. Rev. J. A. Thrapp presided and ex-Lieut.-

Gov. R. G. Richards was the secretary. After the rendition of

"Marching Through Georgia," Rev. Dr. R. A. McKinley deliv-

ered an eloquent invocation, most feelingly spoken.

Hon. L. Danford, the Congressman from the Jefferson dis-

trict, delivered an address, reviewing the war and its results, refer-

ring to the part taken by Jefferson county in the conflict that

resulted in the freedom of the slave.

 

ADDRESS BY GEN. S. H. HURST.

Fellow Citizens of Jefferson County: -

At the invitation of your committee, I come with pleasure

to-day to join you in the impressive ceremonies of your splendid

centennial, and to bear to you the greetings of the people of the

Scioto valley and of old Chillicothe, where, almost a hundred

years ago, the seat of government of our great commonwealth

of Ohio was first established. In the midst of your rejoicings

we tender you our warm congratulations over your marvelous

growth and enrichment during the first century of your life. A

hundred years in the history of a people, spanning as it does the

average life of three generations of men, must under any circum-

• 57
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      371

 

stances embrace many events of such interest and significance as

to make them worthy of commemoration in after years.

But when that hundred years covers the beginnings of things,

when in that period were laid the foundations, and was built the

superstructure of the splendid life of a free and intelligent people,

then indeed it must be crowded with significant events, worthy

to be recorded for all time, and to be commemorated and cele-

brated as the centuries go by.

And so it is most befitting that you gather here in vast

assemblage in these centennial days, and with song, and speech,

and story, with thundering cannon, and waving banners, and

with the gladness of grateful and patriotic hearts build here the

monument of your achievements, in the century just closed, by

recounting those achievements to your children and proclaiming

them to the world. In that hundred years you have transformed

Jefferson county from a dark and homeless forest to an Arcadia

of beauty-the happy home of fifty thousand souls. You have

built here a home-life as sweet and peaceful and charming as

the world affords. You have blended here into a social life,

where the knightliness of manhood, and the grace and charm

of woman have vied with each other to ennoble and enrich-

to beautify and to hallow the cricle of your broadened life. You

have planted here on every hill and in every valley, the school

house and the school, where the education, begun and continued

in the home, is enlarged and methodized, and inspired and directed

until intelligent thought and ripening scholarship have given you

an educational life of which you may be proud.

You have builded here your churches and your altars; have

treasured in your hearts and taught to your children the faiths

of your fathers; have cherished a sublime faith in the human

brotherhood of the race and the Divine Fatherhood of God; in

the immortality of the soul, and in the power of a pure religion

to transform and ennoble the spiritual life of men.

You have carried forward great industrial enterprises, util-

izing the soil, the forest, the mine and all the resources and forces

of nature, within your reach, and with skilled and educated labor,

as well as with intelligent operative labor, have carried forward

the work of the farm, the mine, the furnace, the forge, the mill

• 58
 

372       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

and the factory until within your borders have grown many of

the industries of our advanced civilization. You have exercised

all the rights of citizenship, organized and administered local self-

government, furnished representative men for state and national

responsibilities and honors, and have been especially honored in

presenting to the nation the great war secretary, Edwin M. Stan-

ton, who was the right hand of support to Abraham Lincoln

during the four years' battle for the nation's life. Thus in your

home life, in your social life, in your educational life, in your

religious life, in your industrial life, and in your political life you

have wrought well, and have ever been an honored integral part

of this great central commonwealth of Ohio, whose conservative

power, alike in peace and in war is felt and recognized by the

whole Republic.

Our noble state, of whose grand manhood and noble record

we are so justly proud, is doubtless the most completely repre-

sentative of American life and character of any of the great sister-

hood of states. Into her young life, a hundred years ago, as

she grew up to, and into statehood, came the blood and brain

and brawn, came the spirit and ambition and hopefulness, came

the best manhood and noblest womanhood of thirteen states lying

east of us. These lines of western migration, taking in all the

coast states from New England to the Carolinas, ran converging

into the new territory and state beyond the Ohio river, and Jef-

ferson county was among the first places where these lines cen-

ered, and where these noble pioneers determined to locate, to

build their homes, and to aid in laying the foundations of the life

of the new Republic of Ohio. Into this formative society, these

early pioneers brought the diverse thought, and habits and faiths,

nd industries of the sections from which they came, and here

in the cabin homes, in the log school-houses, in the churches,

in the social circle, and public assemblage, these ideas and faiths,

habits and principles were sifted and smelted, and wrought into

new amalgam of life, out of which ultimately came that splendid

product of modern civilization known as "the Ohio man." Then

when the young state had been fairly established, the march of

empire started westward again, and then all the lines of migration

diverged from Ohio, just as they had converged into it, diverged

• 59
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      373

 

into all the western, northwestern and southwestern settlements,

until now our blood and brains have made their impress upon

every state that has been formed west of us. And so I say we are

closely and deeply akin to all the east, and to all the west, and

are pre-eminently the representative state of the great sisterhood,

and I am inclined to believe that Jefferson county is the rep-

resentative county of this great representative state.

For many years I have been going over our state, some-

what every year; have been meeting the farmers and soldiers

and citizens generally, and I have noticed with much interest

that the lines of migration which used to be distinctly marked

across the state, are gradually but certainly fading out, and we

are becoming a great homogeneous people. And with another

fact I have been impressed, especially as I have studied our rural

life and agricultural interests, and that is that the typical, or ideal,

American farm-life comes as near finding its realization in Jef-

ferson county and some of her adjoining counties as can be found

anywhere in the state or country. You have comparatively very

little non-resident land ownership; almost all your practical farm-

ers own the land they live upon. They are attached to it, and

take good care of it, and it takes good care of them. You have

not many farmers who live in town and farm in the country,

and still fewer, I apprehend, who live in the country and farm

in town. But I should not farther pursue these lines of thought.

The facts relating to your growth and prosperity, and the recol-

lections of your early and latter history and achievements have

been the themes of the past two days, and it has been a rare

banquet indeed to listen to the eloquent words in which the story

of your life has been so beautifully told. This day, however,

is set apart for a somewhat different line of thought. To-day

is "Military" or "Soldiers' day," and the themes for our thought

and reflection are, I apprehend, the love of country and the

love of liberty, and of justice, and of political righteous-

ness, and the unselfish and heroic elements in manhood

which inspire men to stand by country and liberty and defend

them, if need be, to the death. There has rarely been a finer

exhibition of devotion to principle than was shown in the spirit

of the men who first planned the colonization of the "Ohio coun-

• 60
 

374       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

try." When the men who formed the Ohio company were about

consummating their deal for so many million acres of this virgin

soil, there was some opposition to the passage of the ordinance of

1787, dedicating all this northwestern territory forever to free-

dom. But no dream of fortune, or of empire, could blind those

men of New England as to the path of duty, nor bribe them to

depart from that path, and so they frankly said to the committee

of Congress, with whom the negotiations were being carried on,

"We will not buy your land unless slavery is forever prohibited

in that territory." And so it came about that this nation and the

world is indebted to those brave Puritans who were to have the

public lands in consideration for military service, for which the

government had no money to pay, were also in that new land

to have free homes, "where the blight of slavery could never

come." Thus had the spirit of the Revolution made men strong

for duty in defense of liberty, whenever the exercise of that cour-

age was demanded.

The three great wars that have tested the quality of American

courage and patriotism, and demonstrated the soldierly possi-

bilities of American manhood have on our part been singularly

free from passion or from military ambitions. Our fathers did

not begin the fight for independence because George Washington

wanted to be the president of a new republic, or the ruler of

a new empire in America. Nor did they begin the fight with a

storm of blind and rebellious passion - seeking to break down

established forms and inaugurate the reign of the red-shirted

mob. Many of our colonial leaders were statesmen of rare cul-

ture and character, whose nobility would have honored any par-

liament in Europe or the world. Our colonial life of a hundred

and fifty years had been a great school of liberty, where all the

questions of human right had been thoroughly discussed and

were intelligently understood. Our people were calm and peace-

ful and loyal. They were not ambitious or warlike, but they had

studied the gospel of liberty, and enjoyed the blessings of colonial

liberty in a high degree, and they were determined there should

be no encroachments nor usurpations limiting, or robbing them

of the rights they had so long enjoyed. And again and again

they pledged their loyalty to the mother country, if King George

• 61
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      375

 

should abandon and disavow his encroachments on our rights.

This he would not do, however, and at once prepared to enforce

our complete subjection. But when petitions were unavailing,

when there was no longer hope of enjoying a rational degree

of freedom under the protectorate of the British government,

then they struck for independence, as well as liberty, then the

Puritans of the north and the Huguenots of the south, standing

together with clasped hands, pledged to each other "life and

property and sacred honor," for liberty and independence, and

with a courage that commanded the admiration of the civilized

world, in a bitter fight of seven weary years, won the first great

battle for human rights fought in the western world. It would

be trite indeed for me to attempt a eulogy of the soldiers of the

Revolution. Their fame is as wide as human civilization.

It is sung by our children and voiced by statesmen and

poets wherever the English language is spoken. All alike

delight to do them honor, and I am sure it is, as it ought to be,

a matter of great and honest pride to many who join in this

centennial celebration- citizens of Jefferson county,-that you

are the direct descendants of these soldiers of the Revolution,

and that the blood of such immortal heroes thrills through your

veins. With great wisdom the infant republic was guided through

four decades of her young life; she had now taken a place among

the nations. But England was jealous of her prosperity, was

haughty and insolent, chary of granting us the rights that were

accorded to other governments by the law of nations. She cap-

tured our vessels, searched our ships, and impressed our seamen

at her pleasure, denying the right of expatriation to seamen who

were English born. Vainly we protested against the perpetra-

tion of these wrongs and outrages. Her replies were renewed

insults, and there was no redress left us but a resort to arms.

The issue was one of international rights. But the principles

involved we could not ignore, and so the nation bravely took

up the gage of battle. Two years of active war on land and

sea brought England to realize her great mistake. The courage

and spirit of our American soldiery again commanded the respect

of the world, and the concession of England practically to all

we claimed vindicated not only the righteousness of our cause

• 62
 

376       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

but also our ability to enforce the recognition of our rights by

the leading nations of the earth. Every part of the state con-

tributed its quota of citizen soldiers in the prosecution of this

war, and though the armies were not large, nor the contest very

direful, much military, naval and mercantile significance was

attached to the two years' struggle.

The repeated outbreaks of border warfare with the Indian

tribes of our western territories developed along our frontier

a quality of soldiery among the hardy pioneer settlers, and in

our small standing army stationed there, capable of coping with

the wily and treacherous savages with whom they had to deal,

and although there were serious outbreaks and massacres, still

they were generally held well in check, and the tides of emigration

poured steadily westward, planting and building state after state,

and rapidly developing the marvelous resources of the great Mis-

sissippi valley.

The war with Mexico, though creating at the time great

political and military interest, was in fact scarcely a test of the

quality of our soldiery, since the enemy we were engaged with

was incapable of meeting a daring and skillful foe. And so our

marches to the capital of that country were a succession of almost

unbroken triumphs.

But the war of the Rebellion, or the late Civil War, that

from '61 to '65 menaced the life of the republic, constitutes a

chapter in our military and civic history which utterly overshad-

ows, dwarfs and belittles all that had gone before. That great

battle of four years was a struggle of such magnitude, of such

bitterness, of such determined purpose - on the one side to de-

stroy, and on the other side to save the great Republic--it

was so deeply and cruelly direful in its character, and its results

were so immeasurably important to the American people and

to the whole civilized world, aye, to the whole human race, that

it seems as if all our history, and all that was possible to us

of suffering, of peril, of disaster and defeat, of agony and despair,

as well as of courage and hope and triumph and destiny, were

crowded into those fearful years. And yet it came to us so sud-

denly and unexpectedly-we were so utterly unprepared to meet

the causeless revolt - it was so out of the realms of human reason

• 63
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     377

 

to think that it would come, that it was many times more direful

than it could have been had we known it was coming. It defied

credulity that such an attack could come to us from our own

brothers, under our own roof-tree, to despoil our common her-

itage, to spread the blighting curse of slavery, and supplant the

Republic of Washington by the slave empire of Jefferson Davis.

We put from us the belief that the South would make war

upon us. It was so unnatural, and we refused to prepare even

for defense, lest we should fan the fires of passion, and provoke

them to hostilities. We were on our knees praying God for peace

and brotherhood, while they were drilling and preparing for the

conflict. They had every power of the government in their hands.

They had the President, and had inspired him to believe and

to say that there was no power in the government to conserve its

life. They had Congress, where they met the arguments of our

Senators with brutal and cowardly assault. They had the Su-

preme Court from whose chief they had just heard the doctrine of

the Dred Scott decision. They had the Secretary of War, who

submitted to the seizure of our southern forts and arsenals and of

large quantities of arms and army stores. They had the Secretary

of the Navy, who had sent our little navy to the ends of the earth.

They had the Secretary of the Treasury, who had bankrupted not

only the treasury, but our credit also. They had control of the

foreign diplomacy so that they could misrepresent to the nations

the spirit and purpose of our American political life and institu-

tions. They had the commander-in-chief of the army, who, like

the President, was mainly distinguished for his age and imbe-

cility. They had everything in their own hands, and they had

used all these offices and opportunities to plot and organize

treason against the Republic, even while the oath of allegiance

to the old government was upon their souls. And all through

the winter of 60-61, during the five months intervening between

the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, they had

promoted the rebellion with all the power they could command.

Seven states had gone through the pretended form of seceding

from the Union, and had set up a confederate government at

Montgomery, Alabama, and the only things necessary to put the

revolt on its feet were the organization and equipment of a south-

• 64
 

378       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

ern army and the firing of the southern heart. And to these two

things the fire-eating Southerners devoted all their energies. The

new confederate government was active in voting men and money

and in collecting supplies and material of war for the conflict

which they defiantly invited. But our own Government would

do nothing lest a conflict might be precipitated.

The first month of Mr. Lincoln's service was passed in the

same way, he hoping against hope that better counsels might

prevail, and waiting till the sleeping patriotism of the north awak-

ened to assert itself in case decisive action became necessary. The

attack upon and capture of Fort Sumter at Charleston Harbor,

brought on the crisis. It awakened the whole Nation, north and

south, to the startling fact that war was upon us, and was actually

begun.

The war spirit now swept over the north as it had over the

south, like wildfire. The time had come for action. Mr. Lincoln

called for 75,000 men, and 300,000 responded. The south had

constantly asserted that northerners were cowards, and would not

fight. Now the spirit of our northern manhood was awakened,

as we shall see. Still everything was for the time against us;

we had neither organization, discipline, nor drill. We had poor

arms, and inefficient officers, and were really incapable of doing

efficient service. But we were there, we answered to the roll call,

and were ready for any duty that came to us in defense of the

Republic.

Our successes in western Virginia during the summer of '61

led many to think the struggle would be short. But the sicken-

ing disaster at First Bull Run dispelled that hope entirely. And

now we were compelled to look the matter squarely in the face,

and to recognize the fact that the war might last for years, des-

perate and direful as it afterwards proved to be. And now for

the first time we began to appreciate the character and magnitude

of the work before us.

And yet there was nothing else to do but to fight. There was

no answer to the gage of battle but battle. And if we were not

able to move upon the enemies of our country in aggressive fight,

then we must assume the defensive, until we were ready to fight

them in open field. Our statesmen had beaten them in argument

• 65
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.     379

 

in Congress and in the Senate; and when they could not answer

our great Senator with words and arguments they answered him

with the bludgeon of a bully.

We had beaten them at the ballot-box and when they had

no answer to that they said, "We can whip you," and we said,

"Maybe, but so long as you make war upon our country and its

flag, we'll fight you to the death." Deep in our hearts we had

unquestioning faith in the righteousness of our cause, and al-

though the triumph was postponed, still we had the men and we

had boundless resources. Skill in arms and genius in leader-

ship, ability to fight a disciplined foe would come with time and

discipline and experience. And so with a deep conviction of the

sacredness of our cause, and an abiding faith in its ultimate tri-

umph, we pledged our lives and loyalty to God and the country

"for three years or during the war." Young men, most of us,

just entering the fair fields of life. Joyful and hopeful in the

bright dream of the future, happy in our surroundings and our

homes, we were-yet what could we do but answer to the drum

beat when the country called us to duty. And so without a tear

we laid our lives upon the altar, almost without a pang we gave

up home and friends and loved ones-almost without a regret we

severed the tenderest and holiest ties of life for duty. What else

could we do? Could the great battle of the ages for free man-

hood and free government, and free civilization in this western

world be fought and we not there? No, no, we had to go; all

that was heroic in our natures, all that was noble and true within

our souls bade us go; and answering to that heroic inspiration,

you, and you, and you, gave up everything for duty. Out of the

hills and villages of Jefferson county, out of the homes that crown

your hills and gem your valleys you came by hundreds and by

thousands, answering the call of duty. Oh, if the grand old Puri-

tan heroes whose blood flows through your veins, could have seen

you muster to God's grand army of freemen, or could have seen

you fight for what they had bequeathed you, every hero, living

or dying, would have heard their proud commendation, "soldier,

well done! well done!"

And it ought to be a matter of deep pride to you, my com-

rades, that in the providence of God it was your privilege to be

• 66
 

380      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

a soldier in the grand army of free civilization and to have done

battle for liberty that shall bear fruit not only in this country, but

throughout the world. Have you ever attempted to grasp the real

magnitude of the great struggle? Have you, in imagination even,

rode along its picket and army lines from the mouth of the Poto-

mac to the Rio Grande? Have you counted a million and a half

of men on duty at a given time, or more than four million in the

grand aggregate of the two armies during the fight? Have you

seen ten thousand cannon wheeling into battery along that line,

or observed the hills and valleys of a dozen states ribbed with rifle

pits as though some great plowshare of nature had torn them up?

Or have you seen those armies moving southward over vast areas

as the victorious armies of the Union bore down upon the foe

and drove them toward the gulf? If you have seen all these you

can yet have only an approximate idea of the vastness of the

struggle. We had now thirty-four states. Three were border

states torn and divided in sentiment. Eleven states with twelve

million people were in revolt and twenty states with twenty mil-

lion people stood by the flag; while all the energies and resources

of both sides were devoted to the business of making war, the

one side to destroy and the other to defend the Republic. But

if the contest was grand in its physical proportions, how much

grander, how infinitely grander it was in the interest involved,

and in the far-reaching significance of its results. Not from the

Potomac to the Rio Grande alone, but from the Klondyke to

Cape Horn, nay, wherever men are now struggling for a freer life

and a nobler manhood, our triumph was felt as a mighty inspira-

tion and will continue to be an inspiration of hope while our proud

flag floats upon the breeze.

The fact that both armies were composed of men of heroic

blood, made the combat as direful and costly in human life as it

was vast in proportions.

And to-day, my comrades, as we gather here in this great

reunion, it is a deep delight that we may look back over those

years of battle, and suffering, and triumph, and feel that we were

right, and know that God was with us, and crowned our courage

with success. Aye, and a deep delight, too, to look out over our

great free country, to-day, and know that this great American

• 67
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.      381

Republic-built of fifty-five Republics,-is the grandest nation

and the first power of the earth. It was but the other day that

England's grandest statesman, the "old man eloquent," Lord

Gladstone, declared in a public speech, "Now and henceforth

America leads the world." And so, my comrades, we shall count

it the glory of our lives to have lived in the most eventful age

of the world, and to have shared in the labor, and suffering, and

manly devotion to patriotic duty, that saved the nation's life,

brought liberty to millions and happiness to untold millions more.

And now in conclusion, let me say that I recall with pride and

joy, every influence, every agency, every effort, every consecra-

tion and every sacrifice, that contributed to this marvelous ad-

vancement of free civilization in our own times, and made the out-

look for the future brighter and more hopeful for the whole hu-

man race. I remember how in those perilous days at the be-

ginning of the struggle our hearts ached with suspense and anx-

iety. How the people met together by communities and counties

and states and pledged to each other their devotion to the Union.

It was inspiring indeed to attend those union meetings and warm

your heart in their patriotic fires. But I recall the fact that there

was one great union convention that was grander than all the

rest-grander because vaster-and more far-reaching in its scope.

In that great union meeting the Rocky Mountains presided, and

New England was "orator of the day." At the opening, Niagara

thundered her mighty solos till she wakened the echoing con-

tinent. Then the Mississippi with her thousand murmuring

voices sang that beautiful chant, "E Pluribus Unum," "many in

one," "many in one," "many in one." The oration, full of patri-

otic sentiment and heroic fire, thrilled every heart with the story

of Plymouth Rock and Lexington and Bunker Hill. Then the

Savannah and Etowah sang "Marching Through Georgia." The

hills and prairies and lakes were the committee on resolutions,

and when they brought in their report they simply said, "Re-

solved, That we are one; one and indivisible; now and forever;

and what God hath joined together let no man put asunder."

And when the vote was taken every mountain and every hill,

every river and every lake, every prairie and every plain in all

the land voted, "Aye, aye, we are one, we are one."

• 68
 

382      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

Thursday was closed, as was also Wednesday, by a magnifi-

cent display of fireworks.

 

STEUBENVILLE AND JEFFERSON COUNTY

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

Steubenville to-day is one of the most beautiful of Ohio

cities. It is a city of beautiful homes, and while there are no

wealthy people living in Steubenville there are very few paupers.

The homes are mostly owned by those who occupy them, a con-

dition that speaks volumes for the thrift of the residents. The

streets are all paved with fire brick and the drainage is complete,

there being no disease resulting from miasma. The sidewalks

are lined with magnificent shade trees, most of which were planted

in 1879-80 by W. H. Mooney, W. H. Hunter and A. F. Matlack,

who formed a self-constituted committee known at the time as the

Tree Commission. The city is most favorably located on the

second bank of the Ohio river, the streets being at right angles

connecting with an excellent system of McAdam roads leading in

every direction. The business houses are substantially built,

many of them being elegant in architecture and massive in con-

struction, while the school houses are commodious and church

buildings magnificent. The manufacturing consists of iron, pa-

per, glass, pottery, brick, flour, while the surrounding country

is fertile and peopled with industrious farmers, who produce

wheat, corn, oats, garden vegetables, fruit, live stock, wool, etc.

The city's population is about fifteen thousand, while that of the

county is about forty-three thousand. There are many towns in

the county, the most populous of which are Toronto, Mingo,

Dillonvale, Mt. Pleasant, Smithfield, Irondale, Brilliant. There

is much coal mined in the southern part of the county and Dillon-

vale has grown to a large town as a result of this industry. One

of the principal industries of the county is the manufacture of the

products of fire clay along the Ohio river. The towns on the

river above the city, including Toronto, have become noted for

the manufacture of paving brick, fine building brick, sewer pipe

and architectural terra cotta, the clay industry being now perhaps

the most important in the county, while a few years ago iron

took the lead in importance; that is to say that more factories are

• 69
 

The Centennial of Jefferson County.         383

 

engaged in this line than in any other and it is also likely true

that more people are employed in the terra cotta works, includ-

ing clay mining, than in glass or iron. The transportation facili-

ties are ample by rail or water.

• 70