496
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
whiskers (and red ones too, mind, how
would it look?) could
be devoted to the best of causes,
following the Divine Master
in humility of soul. Yet such I believe
is the fact. But you will
say, why mention red? She knows he can't
change the color.
True, but why not cut them off, for
surely red looks fiercer than
black."
The portraits of Benjamin Lundy, so far
as we have
seen them, represent him with a smooth
face. At the
time mentioned by the writer he
evidently had cultivated
an ample beard of war-like color.
THOMAS CORWIN MENDENHALL
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, whose
contribution on
The Coffin of Edwin Coppoc appears in this issue, is
one whose name ranks high among
America's eminent
scholars and educators. He was born on a
farm in
Columbiana County, Ohio, near the
villages of Hanover-
ton and New Garden, October 4, 1841. His
parents
were Quakers, who shared the
enthusiastic hostility to
slavery that characterized the pioneers
of that faith who
settled in eastern Ohio early in the
last century. They
lived at the time of his birth near the
Coppoc neighbor-
hood and were later deeply stirred, as
were their chil-
dren, by the events at Harper's Ferry
and Charlestown
following John Brown's invasion of
Virginia and the
execution of Edwin Coppoc. With this
antecedent in-
heritance and environment, it is readily
understood with
what enthusiasm Dr. Mendenhall, when a
young teacher
in the Salem High School, entered into
the celebration
of General Lee's surrender and how
naturally the
Coppoc coffin with the effigy of the
general suggested
itself to him as an appropriate memento
to be borne at
the head of the procession.