Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

The Territorial Papers of the United States. Compiled and edited

by Clarence Edwin Carter. Vol. X, The Territory of Michi-

gan, 1805-1820. Vol. XI. The Territory of Michigan, 1820-

1829.      (Washington, Government Printing    Office, 1942.

1943.            Vol. X, xii??948p., $2.00. Vol. XI, viii??1₃₇2p.

$3.25.)

Here are two more volumes in the splendid Territorial Series.

Volume I is still to be printed; Volumes II and III embodied

the official records of the Northwest Territory; Volume IV con-

tained the papers of the Territory Southwest of Ohio, now Ten-

nessee; Volumes V and VI were on the Mississippi Territory;

Volumes VII and VIII dealt with the Indiana Territory; while

Volume IX concerned the Orleans Territory, the present

Louisiana. These two volumes, X and XI, are the first of three

containing the official letters and papers concerning the Michigan

Territory.

The material for these documents has been taken from the

archives in Washington; most of these documents have never

before been printed. These two volumes take the story down to

1829 and discuss the founding of the territory; the three terms

of administration by the first governor, William  Hull, and his

acting successor, Reuben Attwater; the period of British occupa-

tion; and the five terms of Governor Lewis Cass.

Anyone familiar with the tedious labor of arranging, organ-

izing and editing documentary material will marvel at the meticu-

lous and attractive appearance of these volumes. The arrange-

ment is logical as well as chronological; the headings are descrip-

tive yet concise; the index is very complete and the typography

is a model for clarity.

Dr. Carter is to be congratulated for having completed two

more excellent volumes in this very important series. It is to be

hoped that appropriations will continue until the entire series is

complete.                                        B. E. J.

(64)

• 1
 

BOOK REVIEWS                      65

 

One Hundred and Fifty Years of Presbyterianism in the Ohio

Valley, 1790-1940 (Cincinnati, Committee on History, 150th

Anniversary, Presbyterian Church, 1941.  xvi??303p.)

This is a joint work issued by the Church's Committee on

History, of which Rev. Earl R. North was chairman, and Mrs.

Edward C. Marshall, secretary. The Committee decided that no

names of persons would appear in connection with the articles

included.

The book is divided into nine parts, the first takes the story

of the Presbyterians through 1799; the second carries the tale to

1838; next comes the period from 1838-1870; then that from

1870-1915; and finally from 1915-1940. Part VI is devoted to

"Activities of the Presbytery" and Part VII gives an over-all

picture of the history of the churches in the Presbytery for the

past century and a half. The organization of the Presbytery for

1940-1941 is given in the appendix and Part IX is a Bibliography.

B. E. J.

 

 

The First Michigan Frontier. By Calvin Goodrich. (Ann Arbor,

University of Michigan Press, 1940. X??344P.)

This volume should have been reviewed long ago but the

upheaval of war brought many unreviewed volumes back to the

editorial office and this was among the unfinished jobs left by a

reviewer who was called to the aid of Uncle Sam.

The story of the earliest years of the white man's occupation

of Michigan, Ohio's northwestern neighbor, is a fascinating one,

though, as the author explains, he had to wade through a be-

wildering variety of accounts and resort to much guess work. He

complains that "statistics of trade and of population are fre-

quently in conflict," and that "legends and fantasy are in the

records in the habiliments of fact," while, on the other hand, "a

tantalizing reticence also is met with."

The book deals with such subjects as the early years of

Detroit, the fur trade, manners of living, communication, garrison

accounts, the stories of Pontiac and of Major Henry Gladwin

• 2
 

66   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and the history of Michillimackinac. All these are arranged by

chapters which bear colorful headings. The typography is good

and the index is adequate. The end covers are a plan of Detroit

in 1749, adapted from an original manuscript map in the William

L. Clements Library.

B. E. J.

 

 

The Life of Jonathan M. Bennett: A Study of the Virginias in

Transition. By Harvey Mitchell Rice. (Chapel Hill, The

University of North Carolina Press, 1943 xi??300p. Frontis-

piece. $3.50.)

This biography by a former member of the Department of

History of Ohio State University (now in war service) tells the

story of Jonathan McCauley Bennett, lawyer, landowner, business-

man, politician and legislator. Bennett was a contemporary of

Francis H. Pierpont and Johnson N. Camden and played an im-

portant role during the transition period, when western Virginia

(later West Virginia) changed from an agricultural community

to an industrial one.

The author follows his career from the exciting 40's, through

the Civil War and twenty years thereafter. During the Civil War,

Bennett served as state auditor at Richmond and in that office

was greatly responsible for the state's sound finances during such

a critical period.

The story is well told, in a lively style and is adequately docu-

mented by footnote references (at the end) and a bibliography.

There is a detailed index.

B. E. J.

 

 

Lincoln and the Radicals. By T. Harry Williams. (Madison,

The University of Wisconsin Press, 1941. viii??413p. $3.00.)

Of books about Lincoln there are no end and it seems that

the interest in the subject will never diminish. This author has

chosen the dramatic theme of the bitter struggle between the

• 3
 

BOOK REVIEWS                       67

 

president and the radicals in his own party--the faction whose

extremeness would have turned the war into a crusade of aboli-

tionist vengeance and violence.

The Washington of the Civil War period is recreated on the

author's pages in all the vehemence and excitement of its political

intrigue. Overshadowing all the turmoil, however, is the lonely,

patient figure of the man who fought to save the Union.

The story is well told, factual, yet far from dull. It contains

a mixture of the already known plus some new facts and its

bibliography indicates careful scholarship as well as good litera-

ture.

B. E. J.

 

 

Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D. C.,

1940-1941. Vols. 42-43. Edited by Newman F. McGirr.

(Washington, D. C., Columbia Historical Society, 1942.

viii??309p. Illus. Appendix.)

This volume contains papers on the following: "Captain

James Barry," by Allen C. Clark; "Hawaii, an Address," by

Samuel Wilder King; "The Activities of Peter Force," by New-

man F. McGirr; "Suter's Tavern," by Allen C. Clark; "Down

through the Years Stories," by Randolph Blinn; "Zalmon Rich-

ards, Educator," by Allen C. Clark; "April, A Battle Month in

History," by Fred A. Emery; "The History of Ninian Beall's

Burial Place Remains Unsolved," by George Magruder Battey;

"Material in the National Archives Relating to the Early History

of the District of Columbia," by Elizabeth Bethel; "Commodore

James Barron; Commodore Stephen Decatur; the Barron-Decatur

Duel," by Allen C. Clark; "Virginia's Glebe near Washington,"

by Charles O. Paullin; and "George Gordon of the Two Original

Proprietors of George Town, D. C.," by Allen C. Clark. Society

reports and minutes are in the appendix and the entire volume is

indexed.

B. E. J.

• 4
 

68 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The Civil War Veteran in Minnesota Life and Politics. By Frank

H. Heck. Annals of America, III. Edited by Philip D.

Jordan and Charles M. Thomas. (Oxford, Ohio, The Mis-

sissippi Valley Press, 1941. X??295p. Frontispiece and 2

maps. $3.50.)

This volume attempts to examine the part played by the

Grand Army of the Republic as a pressure group in the politics of

the state of Minnesota.  In so far as it was typical of other

G. A. R. organizations in this country it may be said to give a

picture of the influence of this organization throughout the coun-

try. As the editors point out in their preface, there were over a

million soldiers in the Union army at the end of the war in 1865

and these veterans, if they cooperated, could control the political

machinery of the North and of the entire nation. Though suc-

cessful in passing such laws as they wanted, these former soldiers

did not wield as powerful an influence as they might have.

Why this was so, especially in the case of Minnesota, is ably

told by the author in his analysis. He tells the tale of the organi-

zation's growth, activities and decline and also gives consideration

to lesser veterans' organizations, and especially does he dwell

on the political aspects from the veteran's point of view. Chapter

headings cover such subjects as "The Veteran as a Party Worker,"

"The Politician Seeks the Soldier Vote," "The Veteran Point

of View," "The Veteran and the Pension Issue," and "The

Veteran's Legislative Program."

There is a map giving the location of important G. A. R.

Posts in Minnesota and another indicating political dissent in

Minnesota from 1864-1912. The appendices list the membership

totals of the G. A. R. for the country and for Minnesota, and

give the names of Minnesota veterans in Congress. There is a

copious bibliography and an adequate index.

The author, who teaches at Miami University, began this

study under the tutelage of the late Lester B. Shippee. The

volume is interesting when one considers the possible future role

the G. I. Joes and Janes of today will play after the war is over.

B. E. J.

• 5
 

BOOK REVIEWS                      69

 

The College Graduate. By F. Laurence Babcock. (New York,

Macmillan Company, 1941. 112p. Statistical supplement.

$1.50.)

In view of post-war planning it might be well for college

administrators and those interested in education generally to study

this little book, which is a statistical report on the status of living

U. S. College Alumni (and Alumnae). The author calls the study

"an economic approach to measuring the social dividends yielded

by liberal arts."

Information for these statistics were derived from 90 per-

cent of the 1,164 institutions of higher learning in this country.

The idea was conceived by Charles L. Stillman of Time and man-

aged by Wendell Ward and Edward Rhett of the Time staff. This

work was compiled in the belief that education is the hope of

democracy, and that the existence of a group of 2,700,000 college

graduates is one of the most important factors in the preservation

of the American way of life. It should be a Roman holiday for

statisticians.

What it cannot give, however, is whether college training

has better fitted men and women for the art of living as well as

that of earning a living; whether it has taught them how to get

along with their fellow-men both at home and elsewhere; whether

it has made them more understanding of each other and others;

whether it has broadened their outlook and enabled them to be

less easily swayed by mob reactions, yet has sharpened their

sensibilities to grasp new problems and meet new issues. When

higher education will achieve this goal it will have accomplished

much more than it has done in the past.

B. E. J.

 

 

A Treasury of American Folklore. Edited by B. A. Botkin, with

a Foreword by Carl Sandburg. (New York, Crown Pub-

lishers, 1944. 932p.)

This Treasury is one of the first important publications to

result from the great sifting over of regional history, literature

• 6
 

70    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and folklore that America experienced during the 1930's.   It

is an attempt to sample in orderly fashion certain characteristic

patterns of creative folk-thought as they have been preserved on

both written and spoken levels, literary and sub-literary, in va-

rious parts of the American scene. The product is, on one hand,

a highly entertaining anthology of folk stuff, and on the other, the

first important reference book of country-wide significance, that

scholarship has yet produced for American folklore. The reader

will enjoy, for example, the reappearance here of the Casey Jones

ballad, the Arkansas Traveler lingo, the Little Audrey gags, or

various mongrel sidewalk rhymes (he may even know other more

colorful variants of each), but he can also get here, from Professor

Botkin's careful classifications, commentaries, and annotations, a

definite feeling for the role these homely materials have long

played in developing a popular expression as native as the specific

points of geography or the events of local history. The book is far

from complete, in the encyclopedic sense, but it is an important and

remarkably comprehensive beginning.

The Treasury is not, therefore, just another collection of

American wit and humor, although it is true that the hundreds of

items Mr. Botkin has brought together in these 932 pages are

largely humorous. Folk expression of this sort usually tends to

meet life's major problems with chuckles rather than with tears.

The materials are of all sorts--yarns, gags, popular tales, verse,

songs, newspaper items, autobiography, whoppers, magazine ar-

ticles, sermons, advertising blurbs, slang, proverbs, child-rhymes,

party-games, riddles, and speeches from the Congressional Record.

The opening item is an 1826 ballad, "The Hunters of Ken-

tucky"; the closing footnote, a discussion of the boll weevil, from

a 1931 speech of Governor William Henry Murray of Oklahoma.

Six main classifications and numerous minor ones line up the as-

semblage in accordance with modern folklore systematization. Part

One on "Heroes and Boasters," for example, sets forth the great-

est of the backwoods roarers, the pseudo-bad men, the killers, the

free-lances, the miracle men, and the beloved saints of popular

story-telling for the past hundred years. Historical personages

• 7
 

BOOK REVIEWS                      71

 

such as Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, and Abe Lincoln rub

elbows democratically, as they are transformed by popular imagi-

nation, with the purely mythical Paul Bunyan, Bowleg Bill, and

Popeye.   Succeeding sections give, in order, "Boosters and

Knockers," "Jesters," "Liars," "Folk Tales and Legends," "Songs

and Rhymes." The sources may be anything--Mark Twain's Life

on the Mississippi, Irving's "Tom Walker and the Devil," Sand-

burg's The People, Yes, Mike Fink yarns recorded in the St.

Louis Weekly Reveille, of 1847, an article on Casey Jones in

the Erie Railroad Magazine, jokes from Joe Miller's famous

book, tales from the folklore journals, or tall stories from un-

published manuscripts of the Federal Writer's Project.  The

nature and not the source is the criterion.

To all these, the editor has added a 7-page introduction and

six sectional prefaces that amount to 83 pages of analysis. There

is an abundance of readable, often highly entertaining, footnotes

that give full sources and much supplementary data.

Professor Botkin has shown here the value of his excellent

background for such a task. While with the English Department

of the University of Oklahoma, 1921-1940, he was editor of

Folk-Say, A Regional Miscellany, 1929-1932. In 1937 he went to

Washington as a research fellow; in 1938 was made folklore

editor of the Federal Writer's Project; and in 1942 was placed

in charge of the folksong archives in the Library of Congress.

In 1944 he was elected president of the American Folklore

Society.

Criticisms of his work in the Treasury will be few. Most

readers close to popular story-telling will, of course, immediately

miss personal favorites. From Mark Twain, for instance, why has

he not chosen the superior "Jim Baker's Blue Jay Yarn" rather

than the notorious "Jumping Frog"? The book must be accepted,

however, for only what it honestly is, an illustrative selection.

The encyclopedic round-up of American folklore still awaits the

efforts of American scholarship.

An actual flaw, though a small one, exists in the present

inadequate index. It is both confusing in its classifications and

• 8
 

72   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

occasionally incomplete in coverage. Revision will improve its

reference value in the book.

Another seeming lack is the inadequate sampling of the folk

materials representative of the Old Northwest area--the Great

Lakes, the old cornbelt line from Ohio west to the Mississippi

River, and the new industrial culture that edges the rivers and

lakes throughout this region. The omission is probably not due so

much to Mr. Botkin's oversight as to the fact that adequate basic

studies in this complex, now highly cosmopolitan area, still await

the doing.

English Department,

Ohio State University.                  ROBERT PRICE.

 

 

The Great Lakes. By Harlan Hatcher. (New York, Oxford

University Press. 1944. 284p. $3.50.)

The author has brought within the compass of one volume

the story of the Great Lakes. In his foreword, he says, "The

name is apt. No other adjective describes the expanse of the

region, or the activity on this greatest body of fresh water in the

world. The Lakes are great in size, great in commerce, great in

engineering, great in history and romance, great in cities and in-

dustry along the shores, great in their interest and their beauty."

The author also tells of the discovery of this region and the con-

test for possession by three great nations. He divides the book

into four parts: discovery, conflict, possession and development.

The average reader will be surprised to learn how important this

region has been in the development of the United States and what

a great bearing it has had on world progress.

Dr. Hatcher is a member of the English Department of Ohio

State University and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

He is the author of a number of books, among them being The

Buckeye Country, and he is now writing a book on Lake. Erie as

one of the series of five volumes published under the general title

of The Great Lakes Scries. He also was editor of the Ohio Guide

in the American Guide Series published by the Oxford University

Press.                                            H. L.

• 9
 

BOOK REVIEWS                      73

 

Lake Michigan. By Milo M. Quaife. 384p. Lake Superior.

By Grace Lee Nute. 376p. Lake Huron. By Fred Landon.

³⁹⁸P. The        American Lakes Series.  Edited by Milo M.

Quaife.             (Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1944.

Illus. $3.50 each.)

The romantic tale of America's great inland waterways was

begun with the Rivers of America books and is now expanded

and continued under the able editorship of Dr. Milo M. Quaife

in the American Lakes Series. Well qualified authors have writ-

ten authoritative studies of each of the Great Lakes and the results

make very entertaining and informative reading. The stories of

the development of the lakes are necessarily much the same, but

each author has so skilfully explained the characteristics of his

own subject that the reader sees each of these lakes with its own

distinctive flavor and personality.

Dr. Quaife divides his hook on Lake Michigan into three

sections. In the first of these, "From Bark Canoe to Steel Le-

viathan," is the record of the early explorers and missionaries--

Nicolet, who discovered the lake in 1634 on his way to China,

Jolliet and Father Marquette, La Salle and Hennepin--who not

only brought to light the farthest reaches of the back country,

but also made the settlements and missions which grew into the

great cities of the present day. Dr. Quaife takes care to point

out the relationship to the broad picture of American history of

the struggles between the British and French for possession of

Lake Michigan. The chapters entitled "Talk of Many Things"

and "All Around the Coast" contain entertaining stories about

the fur trade, the Indians, the animals (it is surprising to learn

that there were buffalo as far east as Illinois and southern Michi-

gan), and travel in the early eighteenth century. The shores of

Lake Michigan attracted many groups who were trying to estab-

lish utopias; there were Fournier, Father Ochswald's Catholic

Community and a Mormon Settlement at Voree. The discussion

of "King Ben" and the House of David at Benton Harbor makes

highly diverting reading. One of the most interesting chapters is

that on the city of Chicago and its quick comeback after the

• 10
 

74   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

disastrous fire of 1871. Dr. Quaife, as well as the authors of

the other books in this series, tells many exciting and terrifying

stories of the hazards of shipping on the Great Lakes. He has

written with freshness of style and has presented his facts and

even his footnotes in a highly entertaining manner.

Miss Nute tells how French fur traders and Jesuit mission-

aries established themselves around Lake Superior in the seven-

teenth century, following its discovery by Etienne Brule, and how

they in turn gave way to British traders and Protestant mis-

sionaries, and how John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Com-

pany took over in the early eighteenth century. She makes good

use of interesting quotations from the diaries of early travelers.

The author has marshalled a commanding array of facts and fig-

ures concerning industry and commerce on Lake Superior. She

describes thoroughly the fishing industry, with methods of catch-

ing and marketing the whitefish, herring and trout for which the

lake is noted, the lumber business, the geological background for

the huge ore deposits, the locks at Sault Ste. Marie and the de-

velopment of the grain and ore shipping industry. The final por-

tion of Lake Superior deals with the folklore, crafts and literature

of the region. It was the Chippewa legends of this section that

gave Longfellow the inspiration for Hiawatha. Grace Lee Nute

writes in a logical and informative way and has been particularly

successful in presenting the largest of the Great Lakes as a very

unique and forceful factor.

Fred Landon, formerly a lake sailor and now Associate Pro-

fessor of History and Librarian at the University of Western

Ontario, writes about Lake Huron, the first of the Great Lakes

to be discovered. After Champlain first entered the lake in 1615,

it became a kind of training ground for explorers on their way

westward. The settlement of the lake shores followed the usual

pattern with fur traders and missionaries being alternately ac-

cepted and then destroyed by the Indians. Lake Huron, like

Lake Erie, played an important part in the War of 1812 and

Mackinac Island was one of the focal points in the struggle be-

tween the British and American forces. Mr. Landon describes

Mackinac as well as Georgian Bay, the St. Clair River and other

• 11
 

BOOK REVIEWS                      75

 

points of interest all around the lake. He reports, in a most

entertaining style, the stories of the traveler, Mrs. Anna Jameson,

and the physiologist, Dr. William Beaumont. Lake Huron, like

the other Great Lakes, has been the scene of tragic shipwrecks.

The author devotes several chapters to these stories and to other

well-known and less ill-fated ships and pays particular attention

to the significance of shipping on the Lakes.

The series is well illustrated with a large number of excellent

and well-chosen photographs and the decorative maps which serve

as end papers in each of the books are very helpful and inform-

ative. Each volume has biographical notes and an adequate index.

The skill of the writers in presenting the history of these im-

portant waterways, combined with the attractive format of the

books, make this series one to be enjoyed and referred to many

times. Studies of Lake Ontario, by Arthur Pound, and of Lake

Erie, by Harlan Hatcher, are in preparation.

M. S.

 

Arthur St. Clair; Rugged Ruler of the Old Northwest. An Epic

of the Frontier. By Frazer E. Wilson. (Richmond, Va.,

Garrett and Massie, 1944. 253p. Illus. $3.00.)

This year, the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty

of Greene Ville will be celebrated. It was the negotiation of this

treaty in 1795 which brought to conclusion the Indian Wars which

delayed settlement in the Ohio region after 1787. Before General

Wayne's successful conquest of the Indians of the Maumee Valley

in 1794, two United States armies, under General Josiah Harmar

and General Arthur St. Clair, had met disastrous defeat.

The volume being reviewed is a biography of the Governor

of the Northwest Territory, who was assigned the task of fighting

the Indians in 1791. The destruction of a large part of his army,

and the utter rout of the remainder of it, has left his military

reputation in somewhat of a cloud. Mr. Wilson does what he

can to present Governor St. Clair in a proper light, pointing out

not only his failures and weaknesses but the strength of his admin-

istrative talents at the beginnings of government in the Northwest

Territory.

• 12
 

76   OHIO  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The story is one of a rugged Scotsman who began his mili-

tary career in the French and Indian Wars.  His ability as a

warrior brought him the rank of Brigadier-General at the opening

of the American Revolution, and in 1777 he was raised to the

rank of Major-General.

In 1787, he was appointed Governor of the Northwest Ter-

ritory, holding that position until his removal in 1802. Under

his administration, the new settlers of the West were given terri-

torial and local government, and the population increased from

a few scattered handfuls to many thousands.

St. Clair's conservatism and his adherence to the principles

of the Federalist party brought him into conflict with Jeffersonian

Republicans, especially those of the Scioto Valley. Edward Tiffin,

Ohio's first Governor, and Thomas Worthington led the opposi-

tion to St. Clair.

By 1796, a movement for statehood was started, a movement

which threatened St. Clair's position. This movement would also

give further democratic privileges to the people, a concession not

looked upon with favor by St. Clair. The struggle for statehood

resulted in great bitterness between St. Clair and the Jeffersonians.

Ohio's first Constitution, in its limitations upon the executive, re-

flected the popular opposition to the arbitrary acts of the Terri-

torial Governor.

Mr. Wilson's book will be an interesting one to all readers of

the history of the Old Northwest. There are criticisms that might

be made of it: the use of extensive quotations detracts from its

readability; there are some errors of fact and some of interpre-

tation; there are some typographical errors; in some cases the

illustrations are not particularly effective. The book, however,

will have immediate value to students of early Ohio and the Old

Northwest, especially in this anniversary year.

J. H. R.

• 13
 

NOTES

 

Contributors to This Issue

August C. Mahr is a professor of German at Ohio State

University.

Harlow Lindley is Secretary-Editor-Librarian of this Society.

Robert Price is an instructor in the Department of English

at Ohio State University.

James H. Rodabaugh is Research Associate of this Society.

Bertha E. Josephson is Chief of Department of Documents

and Editorial Associate of this Society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(77)

• 14