Ohio History Journal

THE WHISKEY WAR AT PADDY'S RUN                                   49

diary is of special interest because some unusual events involving the neigh-

borhood's women were taking place. Inspired by stories of the crusade

against alcoholism -- the "Women's War on Whiskey" -- that was sweeping

much of Ohio, the ladies of Paddy's Run were making their own drive against

the liquor traffic.

During the peak of this campaign in February and March 1874, scores

of saloons in small towns of Ohio and eastern Indiana were forced to close.

Most reopened within a year, in Paddy's Run as elsewhere,³ but more than

ephemeral were the crusade's results, which included the founding in Novem-

ber of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union at Cleveland.

The women's battle against the saloon began in December 1873 in Hills-

boro and Washington Court House, where just before Christmas, Dr. Dio

Lewis of Boston, a popular lyceum lecturer on health, exercise, temperance,

and other topics recounted how women of his native Auburn, New York

had used prayer to halt the sale of alcohol. Deeply impressed by this incidental

portion of his talk, women in both places hastily organized to dry up their

communities. Results were speedy and amazing. Within two weeks after

Lewis's appearance, not a saloon remained open in Washington Court House.⁴

Relying on "moral suasion," without the damage made notorious later

by Carrie Nation, the ladies employed a tactic comparable to current sit-ins,

lie-ins, and teach-ins. They staged lengthy prayer meetings in the drink shops

and pestered the proprietors to sign a pledge not to sell beer, wine, or whiskey.

Unless there was a hasty surrender, they began daily picketing. Sometimes

they erected tabernacles in front of or near the taverns. They wrote down the

names of thirsty patrons. To prayer were added songs with special words

set to the tunes of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of

the Republic." In Xenia, a teacher stood her class of young girls outside

the swinging doors to chant "Say, Mr. Barkeeper, has father been here?"

and "Father, Dear Father, Come Home." Sometimes the zeal and persistence

of the ladies brought derision from hostile habitues and verbal abuse from

saloonkeepers. On the other hand, some repentant foes signaled their con-

version by pouring their intoxicating stocks into the streets and even becom-

ing temperance exhorters themselves.⁵ A noisy celebration often followed

an especially satisfying victory. Since the "best" community sentiment was

overwhelmingly on their side, the women seldom encountered any effective

legal harassment, despite their encroachment on property rights.6

In February 1874 the temperance drive had reached several places in

Butler County.⁷ The ladies of Paddy's Run, noting the progress in nearby

Oxford, determined in early March to dry up their village. For more than a

month they picketed, prayed, and petitioned until success was theirs.

For Albert Shaw the central figure was his mother, Susan Fisher Shaw.

Born in Chester, Vermont in 1828 of an old Yankee, Protestant family, she

had gone to Indiana to teach and there in 1852 married Doctor Griffin M.

Shaw, a widower with two children. They moved in 1854 to his home town,

Paddy's Run, where they had two children, Mary in 1855 and Albert in 1857.

Doctor Shaw died there in 1863, leaving a sufficient estate to care for the

52                                                 OHIO HISTORY

[Henry] H. Robinson¹⁹ has promised on his honor to sell no more, but will

not sign a written pledge.

March 18. The ladies had meetings morning and afternoon. In the after-

noon they visited Lawrence Brown [Laurence Braun]20 and Lothland [John

Laughlin]21 in a mass of 35. Had prayers and singing at both places. Left

pickets to notice who went in.

March 19. They commenced today to station pickets regularly at both

Brown's and Laughlin's. William Scott of N. Haven delivered a temperance

lecture in church. Lewis Deneret [Demoret]²2 and Mr. McKinstry gave

reports from Venice & Millville. Just after dark some one scattered burlesque

programmes of the evening meeting.

March 20. The pickets, Mother among them, stayed out until 10 o'clock

P.M. Tom Williams and Lon. Passmore signed the pledge. Peffer [Pfeffer]23

came four times during the evening for beer.

March 21. Chopped down & cut up the old May cherry-tree in front of

the side door. Played ball a while after dinner. Saw the ladies holding meet-

ings on street. Mother was out as a picket until nearly 12 P.M. George Patton,

John Irwin²⁴ signed the pledge.

March 22. Praise meeting in the evening. Mary played the organ.

March 24. The ladies are at it still.

March 25. Ladies had meetings morning and afternoon.

March 26. Mrs. Jones and Anna²⁵ went to Cincinnati this morning. Mother,

Carrie Davis,²⁶ Mrs. David Griffith,²⁷ and Mrs. [Robert] Reese²⁸ were on

picket at Laughlin's. They went in but he ordered them out.

March 27. Mother and Mary went to Hamilton to settle up at the Court

for Mother's guardianship. Laughlin was taken sick this afternoon. He thought

Mother went to Hamilton to prosecute him for putting them out. Mrs. J.

returned.

March 28. Mr. Clark and Mr. Morris and others are around trying to get

indictments against the saloon-keepers.29 Speakers from Millville addressed

the temperance meeting this evening.

March 30. The best news of the season is that Laughlin signed the pledge

to sell no more liquor. The school and church bells were rung the cannon was

fired and there was a general rejoicing. Lorence Brown still holds out.

(The temperance fervor in Paddy's Run speedily subsided after Laughlin's

capitulation. Presumably daily pressure was kept on Braun for he yielded

less than a week after Laughlin. The incident, however, seemed anticlimactic

and although Shaw kept up his diary until April 28, he made only four

scattered entries about the Women's War after the jubilant one of March 30.)

April 5. They have made an arrangement with Lawrence Brown by which

he consents to quit selling on the 20th. and has already quit everything but

beer. Two weeks of beer-selling and the liquor business will be gone in Paddy.

April 6. The ladies are through with their street prayer-meetings and

picketing. They will hold two meetings a week for a while yet.

April 14. Mother & several other ladies went to a womans temperance

54                                                   OHIO HISTORY

In any case, "normality" returned to Paddy's Run within a year and some

of the old hands reopened their businesses. By 1877 there was even need

for another local temperance campaign.³² Shaw, who with his mother and

sister Mary was then living in Grinnell, Iowa, where he was attending college,

was skeptical of a new crusade's chances for success, noting wryly: "My

faith is not the strongest. I'm afraid the results will not be permanent. We

can only thank the Lord, and wait."³³ His assessment proved correct,³⁴ but

despite the community's failure to become permanently dry then, the whiskey

war at Paddy's Run remains an intriguing and colorful example of a significant

movement in Ohio's social history.

THE EDITOR: Lloyd J. Graybar is As-

sistant Professor of American History at

Eastern Kentucky University and the au-

thor of "Albert Shaw's Ohio Youth," which

appeared in the Winter 1965 issue of Ohio

History.

72                                                         OHIO HISTORY

the economic system of cattle feeding in the Scioto Valley.

25. Renick, Memoirs, 3-4, 32-35, 48; Henlein, Cattle Kingdom in the Ohio Valley, 131;

Bennett, The County of Ross, 137; The Scioto Gazette, March 27, June 26, 1806; January

11, 1808.

26. This event was noted in the Scioto Gazette, February 24, 1820.

27. Bennett, The County of Ross, 359; Jonathan G. Harness to Daniel McNeill,

November 1, 1820. McNeill Family Papers.

28. Renick, Memoirs, 55.

29. Henlein, ed., "Journal of F. and W. Renick," 174, 176.

30. King, "The Coming and Going of Ohio Droving," 251.

31. George W. Renick.

32. Daniel McNeill to Daniel R. McNeill, April 11, 1827. McNeill Family Papers.

33. Catherine McNeill acted as her ailing father's amanuensis in this letter. Daniel

McNeill to Daniel R. McNeill, March 31, 1829. McNeill Family Papers.

34. Strawder McNeill was the son of Daniel McNeill's brother, John, who had

migrated to Ross County in 1809. In 1816 he established the town of Frankfort upon his

lands in Concord Township. Throughout his life, John McNeill was engaged in the

mercantile and livestock businesses. Will of Daniel McNeill, Sr., Will Book I, Office of

the Clerk of the County Court of Hardy County, 328; Bennett, The County of Ross, 599;

Williams Bros., History of Ross and Highland Counties, 314.

35. Catherine McNeill to Daniel R. McNeill, March 15, 1830. McNeill Family Papers.

36. Inventory of the Estate of Daniel McNeill, Will Book 6, Office of the Clerk of the

County Court of Hardy County, 71-74.

37. John Ashton, "History of Shorthorns in Missouri prior to the Civil War," Missouri

State Board of Agriculture Monthly Bulletin, XXI (November 1923), 14-29.

38. Henlein, Cattle Kingdom in the Ohio Valley, 75-79; Sanders, Shorthorn Cattle,

185-186; Charles S. Plumb, "Felix Renick, Pioneer," Ohio Archaeological and Historical

Quarterly, XXIII (January 1924), 28-56; Edward N. Wentworth, A Biographical Catalog

of the Portrait Gallery of the Saddle and Sirloin Club (Chicago, 1920), 235-238.

39. For names of settlers from the South Branch who went to Missouri, see Ashton,

"History of Shorthorns in Missouri," 59-62.

THE WHISKEY WAR AT PADDY'S RUN:

EXCERPTS FROM A DIARY OF ALBERT SHAW

The editor, Lloyd J. Graybar, wishes to dedicate this article to the memory of his

mother, Maude V. Graybar.

1. Lloyd J. Graybar, "Albert Shaw's Ohio Youth," Ohio History, LXXIV (1965), 29-34,

tells of Shaw's upbringing in Ohio and his later rise to prominence. The diary is deposited

in the large collection of Shaw Manuscripts in the New York Public Library. His capi-

talization, spelling and punctuation appear here as in the original.

2. Ibid., 31. For history of the community see Stephen Riggs Williams, The Saga of the

Paddy's Run (Oxford, Ohio, 1945). W. H. Irwin, Esq., and Rev. S. D. Crothers, Cen-

tennial Historical Sketches of Greenfield and Vicinity, July 4, 1876 (Greenfield, Ohio,

1876), contains "An Historical Sketch of Paddy's Run, Butler County, Ohio," by Rev.

B. W. Chidlaw [n.p.].

3. J. H. Beadle, The Women's War on Whiskey: Its History, Theory, and Prospects

(Cincinnati, 1874), is a graphic account of the crusade written by an experienced reporter

for the Cincinnati Commercial. From January 23 until May 2, 1874 he visited a score

of Ohio towns to write on the campaign's progress and later published his stories in his

book. See also Cincinnati Commercial, January 6, 16, February 8, 10, April 10, 1874;

Cincinnati Daily Gazette, February 16, 1874; Cincinnati Enquirer, March 6, 1874; Mary

Earhart, Frances Willard: From Prayers to Politics (Chicago, 1944), 138, 141-145. The

Commercial, edited by Murat Halstead, native of Paddy's Run, gave extensive news

coverage to the crusade, often on the first page, under a standing headline: "Woman's

War on Whiskey" until March 30 when "Temperance" was substituted. Editorially it

was unenthusiastic. The Gazette made a lesser effort at coverage, calling it "The Woman's

Temperance Crusade" or "The Temperance Crusade." The disapproving Enquirer gave

considerable space to news under headings "Woman's War" or "The Crusade."

4. Cincinnati Daily Gazette, February 3, 1874; Beadle, Women's War, v, 11-14. Dr.

Lewis wrote the foreword to Beadle's book in March 1874.

5. A notable example was John C. Van Pelt, New Vienna saloonkeeper who first

threw beer on his female tormentors, then repented, dumped his stocks and joined Dr.

Lewis when he returned to Ohio in February on another lecture tour to advance the

NOTES                                                                     73

cause. An example of the pledge used is found in Beadle, Women's War, 109. Typical

of the temperance songs, often printed in the newspapers, was Mrs. Emily J. Bugbee's

"Battle Hymn of the Crusade," quoted by Beadle, Women's War, 112-113:

On the plains of bloodless battle, they are gathering true and strong,

All the hero-hearted women, who have wept in silence long,

At the terrible oncoming of this raven-winged wrong.

Now God is leading on.

Chorus -- Glory, glory, hallelujah, etc.

6. Cincinnati Commercial, February 3, 5, 19, March 7, 1874; Cincinnati Enquirer,

March 6, 1874; Beadle, Women's War, 22-40, 69-77; Earhart, Frances Willard, 138, 141-

150.

7. Cincinnati Commercial, February 18, 19, March 24, 1874; Cincinnati Daily Gazette,

March 23, 1874.

8. Graybar, "Shaw's Ohio Youth," 30-32.

9. To identify places and persons mentioned in the diary, several books, the Hamilton

Telegraph, the suburban columns of the Cincinnati papers, and the section of the Shaw

letter collection pertaining to his Ohio friends have been consulted. Assistance also has

been generously given by Mr. Albert Shaw, Jr., of Ardsley, N. Y., and Mrs. Henry

Robinson of Shandon, Ohio. Volumes used were: Bert S. Bartlow and others, eds.,

Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio (n.p., 1905); Hazel Stroup, Butler County,

Ohio, Cemetery Records (Cincinnati, 1963); Philip Fisher, The Fisher Genealogy: Record

of the Descendants of Joshua, Anthony and Cornelius Fisher of Dedham, Massachusetts,

1636-1640 (Everett, Mass., 1898); William Leon Halstead, The Story of the Halsteads of

the United States (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1934); Memorial Record of Butler County, Ohio

(Chicago, 1894); Albert Shaw, "The Ohio Manuscript" (unpublished autobiography,

1941); Western Biographical Publishing Company, pub., A History and Biographical

Cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio (Cincinnati, 1882); and Williams, Saga of the

Paddy's Run. Because of the duplication of family names it has been impossible to

identify everyone.

10. The crusade had begun in Oxford, in the northern portion of Butler County, on

January 31. The last saloon there closed on March 23. Cincinnati Daily Gazette, February

16, 1874; Cincinnati Commercial, March 24, 1874.

11. James A. Clark was appointed principal of the graded school in 1872. He was

married to the former Hannah Williams, and Willie was their young son. Cemetery

Records, IV, 28; Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 128, 190; Anne Peate to Shaw,

June 1, 1876, Shaw Manuscripts.

12. The Woman's Temperance League was not permanently organized until May.

Susan Shaw was chosen a director. Hamilton Telegraph May 28, 1874.

13. George Candee was pastor of the Congregational Church from 1872 to 1875. Wil-

liams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 125.

14. Griffith Morris, whose wife Mary Jane became president of the Temperance

League, was a prominent farmer and a member of the school board. Hamilton Telegraph,

May 28, 1874; Shaw, "Ohio Manuscript," chap. 11, p.29; Williams, Saga of the Paddy's

Run, 128, 159, 185.

15. Thomas F. Jones was clerk of the Congregational Church from 1849 to 1871 and

also one of the three acting deacons. Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 183, 185.

16. Mrs. Hugh Williams was the widow of a prominent blacksmith and church deacon.

Shaw, "Ohio Manuscript," chap. 8, p.4; Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 127, 183, 184.

17. Probably David R. Moore, pastor-elect of the Presbyterian church in Venice in

nearby Ross Township. Cincinnati Gazette, March 18, 1874.

18. John L. Evans, a storekeeper, was postmaster twice, in 1852-53 and 1861-71.

Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 88, 100.

19. Henry Hidlay Robinson owned a three-story hotel and store building. Williams,

Saga of the Paddy's Run, 148-149.

20. Perhaps Shaw meant Laurence Braun, who like the Scheels, Pfeffers and Sonnen-

tags, belonged to one of the community's German Catholic families. Williams, Saga of

the Paddy's Run, 119.

21. This was the only reference to a Lothland, which leads to the surmise that Shaw

really meant John Laughlin. Mrs. Henry Robinson to author, January 25, 1966.

22. Lewis Demoret later became editor of the weekly Venice Graphic. Mrs. Henry

Robinson to author, January 25, 1966.

23. Perhaps Shaw meant either Benedict or Henry Pfeffer. Nothing is known of

either's age or occupation. Anne Peate to Shaw, August 31, 1877, Shaw Manuscripts;

Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 119.

24. John Irwin, Sr., was in 1877 a member of the Paddy's Run Horse Protection

Company. Mrs. Henry Robinson to author, January 25, 1966.

25. Anna B. Jones, born in 1862, later taught for three years in Lima, Ohio and then

for forty years in missionary schools in and around Constantinople, Turkey. It is not

known to which of the several Jones families she belonged. Cemetery Records, IV, 37;

Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 91.

74                                                         OHIO HISTORY

26. Perhaps Mrs. Caroline J. Davis, nee Jones. Cemetery Records, IV, 56.

27. The wife of carpenter David Griffith. Williams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 67.

28. The wife of Robert Reese, an acting deacon of the Congregational Church. Wil-

liams, Saga of the Paddy's Run, 183.

29. Legal means were seldom taken against saloonkeepers, but under the Adair Law,

an Ohio statute in effect before the crusade began, relatives could bring charges if liquor

were sold to their husband or father, and interested citizens could act to stop the sale

of whiskey to chronic drunkards. Beadle, Women's War, 16-18, 95-104.

30. Cincinnati Enquirer, April 13, 1874. This was a bit premature since some cam-

paigns continued into May. See also Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 1873-1900

(Carl Wittke, ed., History of the State of Ohio, Columbus, 1943), V, 35.

31. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 35.

32. Orsini Scheel to Shaw, July 28, 1877; Anne Peate to Shaw, August 31, 1877, Shaw

Manuscripts; Shaw, "Ohio Manuscript," chap, 8, p.45.

33. Shaw to Anna Jones, October 12, 1877. Shaw Manuscripts.

34. Anne Peate to Shaw, October 31, 1878. Shaw Manuscripts.