JOHN W. BEAR, "THE BUCKEYE
BLACKSMITH"1
by ROBERT GRAY GUNDERSON
Associate Professor of Speech,
Oberlin College
On the week end of February 21, 1840,
twenty-three thousand
enthusiastic Whigs crowded into
Columbus for the Ohio Whig
convention.2 A heavy rain
drenched the delegates as they milled
about seeking quarters in the thriving
capital city, which that year
proudly reported six thousand
inhabitants to the bureau of the
census. The arrangements committee
announced that every Whig
house in Columbus had been
requisitioned to accommodate the
guests. "Straw beds, mattresses,
and even the naked floors" were
put to use; but sedate citizens got
little sleep, for this was the
opening of the sensational
"Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too" presidential
campaign in Ohio. To insure proper
enthusiasm for "Tip, Tyler,
and the tariff," thoughtful Whig
managers had provided barrels of
hard cider, conveniently located on the
downtown street corners, to
serve free as added stimulation for
those whose spirits might be
dampened unduly by the rain.
"Columbus," according to one
account, "was the very home of
ballad makers and ballad singers."
Every gathering had its minstrel
and every crowd its orator. "Songs
and shouts echoed alternately
from every part of the city."
Outside John Neil's tavern excited
partisans debated the gubernatorial
candidacy of Tom Corwin,
while around the square inebriated
paraders sloshed through mud
a foot deep while taunting President
Martin Van Buren with the
chant: "Van, Van, Van-Van's a used
up man." Across the street
on the statehouse lawn, speakers
harangued delegates from three
separate platforms, since a single
platform was found to be in-
adequate for the immense crowd.
"Twenty bands of music are
1 Based on a paper delivered before the
speech section of the Ohio College Asso-
ciation, Columbus, April 9, 1948.
2 "The estimate of several
judicious men who took much pains to make accurate
calculations." Niles' Register (Washington
D.C.), March 14, 1840.
262
John W. Bear, "The Buckeye
Blacksmith" 263
throwing their notes of exultation upon
the breeze," exclaimed the
editor of the Ohio State Journal; "the
loud mouthed cannon has
been speaking its notes of thunder-the
pride and pomp of military
array fascinate the eye at every
corner." A reporter for the Dayton
Journal predicted that "another such gathering of the
people may
not be witnessed by the present
generation." "Drunkenness, low
and filthy songs, the yells of the
savage, and acts degrading to the
beasts of the field" prompted
Democratic editor Sam Medary to
damn the gathering as "a BABOON
CONVENTION."3
Amid this turbulent excitement, John W.
Bear, a blacksmith from
Pickaway County, Ohio, made his first
public speech-a speech
which was to initiate a stumping
expedition of 331 appearances in
eight states and the District of
Columbia. No other Whig orator
spoke so frequently or was in so much
demand during the canvass
of 1840. "Barnum in his palmiest
days," Bear recalled later, "was
not half so much sought after."4
Bear had not come to Columbus to make a
speech. Unknown
outside his village of South
Bloomfield, he had accompanied his
county delegation merely to enjoy the
festivities. "I concluded to
go," he explained modestly in his
autobiography, "in my blacksmith
clothes, leather apron and all."
During a lull at one of the main
speaking stands, one of Bear's fellow
townsmen started to cry, "Bear,
a speech from Bear." The shout was
picked up by the crowd, and
soon the Pickaway blacksmith found
himself on the platform.
According to his own account many years
later, the sight of Sam
Medary gave him his opening story:
I dreamed that I was coming to this
Convention, and met the devil who
. . . [asked what his] old and worthy
friend Sam. Medary . . . [was]
doing.... "he is editing the Ohio
Statesman said I." "What!" said he in
surprise. . ., "if Sam. Medary is
at the head of the Ohio Statesman, and
3 Ohio State Journal (Columbus),
February 22, 24, 1840; Cleveland Herald,
February 26, March 2, 1840; Ohio
Statesman (Columbus), February 21, 22, 1840;
National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), February 29, 1840; Globe (Washington,
D.C.), February 28, 1840.
4 Log Cabin (Albany and New York), December 5, 1840; John W. Bear, The
Life
and Travels of John W. Bear,
"The Buckeye Blacksmith" (Baltimore,
1873), 53.
264
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
can't lie the Whigs out of . . . [the
election], all the devils in hell can't
do it."5
At this point, in Bear's version of the
incident, Medary shouted
from the crowd, "That's a
lie." The blacksmith prepared to take
off his coat as he retorted, "Say
that again Sam, and I'll take off
the outside quires for you."
Whereupon, the editor was said to
have hurriedly retreated from the
scene.
Though Bear's account of his triumph
was enhanced by the
passage of time, his performance was,
in fact, described by con-
temporary Whig papers as sufficient to
send the crowd into "the
wildest enthusiasm." His success
as a speaker spread throughout
Columbus, and Whig leaders prevailed
upon him to give a repeat
performance at the main platform next
day. For this second speech,
he came prepared. Ascending the
platform with a pair of black-
smith's tongs on his shoulder, he
announced that he had a dirty
job to do. After picking up Medary's
paper with the tongs, he
read a short paragraph, dropped the
paper to the floor and
vigorously wiped his feet on it. Then
he washed the tongs in
soap and water and apologized for
defiling them with so dirty a
thing as the Ohio Statesman. Once
again, the crowd responded
with hysterical applause, and Whig
leaders from every part of
Ohio came forward to request similar
performances at Harrison
meetings in their respective counties.
The man who thus was made famous after
a single speech had
a background typical of many pioneers
in the Old Northwest.
Born of a poor family in Frederick
County, Maryland, in 1800,
Bear was indentured to a tavern keeper
at the age of ten. When
he was fourteen, he ran away from his
indenture and crossed
the mountains to evade capture. Up to
that time, he had never read
a newspaper or a book, and his only
knowledge had come from
5 Bear, Life and Travels, 43 et
seq. Bear incorrectly recalled that Sam Medary
"had devoted the half of his paper
in abusing" him. No mention was made of Bear
in the issues of February 21, 22, or 24.
No paper was issued on Sunday, the 23d.
A letter signed "SPECTATOR" in
the February 28, 1840, Ohio Statesman, asked
why the Whigs failed to present
"the doings of . . . Bare's [sic] to the public."
As state printer, Medary had been
accused of using the outside quires of state
paper for his private printing.
John W. Bear, "The Buckeye
Blacksmith" 265
those who had, as he said,
"occasionally conversed in my presence."
Though he had set out on his lonely
journey over the mountains
with only seventeen cents in his
pocket, good fortune brought him
to Indiana where he found work clearing
woods near Indianapolis
at a wage of two dollars a month, plus
keep. After six months as a
Hoosier woodsman, the restless young
fugitive decided to seek his
future in Ohio. There followed a brief
interlude in Pennsylvania,
a return to Ohio with his parents,
marriage, and eventual settlement
in the village of South Bloomfield,
where he worked as blacksmith
for the stagecoach line. After his wife
taught him to read, he
took an increasing interest in
politics. The Whig party got his
allegiance because it supported
education and a protective tariff.6
After his success in Columbus as a Whig
orator, Bear hastened
to South Bloomfield where he said
goodbye to his wife and
children and set out on a stumping trip
which he thought would be
completed in less than a week. After
speeches at Lancaster, Chilli-
cothe, and Portsmouth, he prepared to
return home; but Whig
managers lured him into Kentucky, and
his nationwide travels
were under way. He did not return home
until election day, eight
months later. In Kentucky, George D.
Prentice, editor of the
Louisville Journal, dubbed him "the Buckeye Blacksmith," a title
he continued to use long after it
ceased to be appropriate. From
Kentucky, he was summoned to Cincinnati
where Harrison's in-
formal campaign committee stuffed him
with Whig arguments,
bought him a new suit, found a local
belle to help him with his
grammar, and sent him back to the
stump.7
Following a series of speeches in Ohio
and Kentucky, Bear began
a trek to Washington. In every major
city on the way, he repeated
performances similar to those of the
Columbus convention. On his
arrival in each town, he took pains to
secure the name of the leading
Democratic editor, which he substituted
for Medary in the story of
his dream. When no local personage
qualified for Medary's place,
he used the name of Amos Kendall, who
resigned as Van Buren's
6 Bear,
Life and Travels, 7 et seq.
7 Ibid., 45-50; Lexington Observer & Reporter, May 9, 1840.
266
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
postmaster general to become editor of
the Extra Globe.8 Local
Whigs posted the peripatetic blacksmith
on rival Democrats in
their respective communities;
consequently, as Bear phrased it, "I
was able to pitch into them on private
matters that would generally
floor them." His usual course was
to "tear down Van Buren and
build up Harrison"; but as he
progressed, he became versatile
enough to discuss less personalized
issues. By the time he reached
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, for example,
he felt confident enough
to discuss the tariff. "[Through]
constant practice and the in-
structions I received daily from . . .
members of Congress who
were furnishing me with
documents," he boasted later in his auto-
biography, "I had so improved in
speaking that I had no fears
of any man."9
On June thirteenth, Bear addressed the
Whigs of Washington,
D. C., from the steps of the
City Hall. Though Whig papers gave
scant mention of what Bear said in the
capital city, they were im-
pressed by the spirited response he
evoked. Exploiting the theme
of hard times, the Ohio blacksmith
proclaimed that "as Mr.
Van Buren had turned him out of
employment, he should do what
he could to turn Mr. Van Buren out of
employment." At the con-
clusion of his speech, he sang
"Old Tip's Raisin'," a popular cam-
paign ballad which promised that on the
fourth of March "little
Martin will have to shin it." So
thrilled were Washington Whigs
that the Buckeye orator "was not
allowed to walk through the gate
in front of the City Hall, but was
borne over the fence on the
shoulders of his fellow
citizens."10 In retrospect, Bear fancied
President Van Buren as a member of his
audience:
Mr. Van Buren heard me speak at this
meeting, and was very much
amused at some of my anecdotes that I
told on him, and said to Mr.
Crittenden that he never heard a man
speak, that could carry the people
away with him, better than I could; he
said that with a few such men
as I was in the free States, the Whigs
could beat any man the Democrats
could get up at this time, for it was a
new thing for a working man to
speak at public meetings.11
8 Northwestern Gazette & Galena
Advertiser (Galena, Ill.), July 17, 1840.
9 Bear, Life and Travels, 52.
10 National Intelligencer, June 15, 1840; Axe (Cleveland), June 25, 1840.
11 Bear, Life and Travels, 63-64.
John W. Bear, "The Buckeye
Blacksmith" 267
Bear later recalled that he was
entertained in Washington by John
Quincy Adams, who supposedly
complimented his guest by ad-
mitting, "I think that you are
able to hold your own with any
of us."12
Newspaper accounts of Bear's Washington
performance varied
with the political inclinations of the
editor. "Much as has been
said of him in advance," reported
the Whiggish National In-
telligencer, "he surpassed expectation. . . . If strong
sagacity, ac-
curate information, and an effective
eloquence . . . can avail, Mr.
Bear's efforts are likely to be crowned
with glorious success."13
The Cleveland Axe informed
Ohioans that their itinerant black-
smith was "lion of the
Capital."14 The hostile Washington Globe
gave a contrasting account: "If
low and vulgar ribaldry, stale jokes,
and the manners of the Harlequin, be
eloquence, then indeed was
the Buckeye eloquent." "The
Whigs are so proud of their prize,"
the Globe added, "that they
are carrying him about for exhibition
as though he were a bear in fact
as well as in name. . . . Only fancy,
a Whig blacksmith!" Interested in
audience reactions, one Loco-
Foco reporter asked a Whig listener
"if the rant of the blacksmith,
his ignorance and vulgarity, were not
too great to enable him to
be popular with the people." "Yes,"
the Whig replied, "for the
cities, but he will catch a great
many of the country people." In
an
editorial, the Globe deemed it
one of the "political wonders of the
day" that "men of character,
of talents, and of taste, should par-
ticipate in such raree shows as that at
which Mr. Bear figured."15
After performing for numerous
gatherings in Maryland, Bear
journeyed to Philadelphia for the
Fourth of July holiday. The
Philadelphia Whig committee engaged
quarters for the Ohio
orator at the Madison House and
informed him of the local political
situation. Thus fortified, he harangued
five separate congregations
in honor of Old Tippecanoe and the
independence of the country.
Thoughtful Whig propagandists provided
him with an anvil, sledge,
and other necessary implements of a
smithy, and for each audience
Bear refuted slanders that he was
"no mechanic, but a broken down
12 Ibid., 64.
13 June 15, 1840.
14 June 25, 1840.
15 June 16 and 20, 1840.
268
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
lawyer" by giving public
demonstration of his trade. Once his
talent was proved, he "riveted the
whole attention ... for an hour."
After four such exhibitions, the
Buckeye concluded his day at a
"monster meeting" on Smith's
Island in the Delaware River. In
testimony to Bear's exertions that day,
the committee treated him
to champagne disguised as "New
Jersey cider." This the exhausted
orator drank "as free as
water." It was two days before the sturdy
Ohioan could resume his travels.16
During the next four months, Bear
stumped through Penn-
sylvania, New York, New Jersey, and
Delaware. At Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, he spoke to a crowd
estimated at twenty-five to fifty
thousand. At Easton, he was presented
with a silver cup by admiring
Whig ladies of the Keystone State.
Everywhere he spoke, he kept
"the sledge and small hammer
flying at a busy rate, with great
effect."17 After
giving six speeches in New York City, he began his
trek back to Ohio. He reached Cleveland
on October twenty-ninth,
the night before the election. In a
rally at the Cleveland Log Cabin,
he "laid off his overcoat, and
with the sledge hammer of 'Truth'
broke the Sub-Treasury and standing
army scheme of Van Buren
to flinders." Next day, Cleveland
Whigs hired a special stagecoach
to take him to South Bloomfield. He
arrived one hour before the
polls closed "amid the shouts of
the Whigs of our little town."
Noting his exploits, the Cleveland
Herald concluded, "He is a man
of strong mind, quick perception,
retentive memory, fluent tongue
and iron constitution."18
Bear's iron constitution was not an
unimportant requisite to his
campaigning, for while his friends
greeted him with enthusiasm,
his opponents often met him with
violence. Only a quick draw on
his pistol, for example, prevented
three men from tossing him into
Chesapeake Bay during his stay in
Baltimore. Loco-Focos at Ellicott's
Mills, Maryland, disrupted his speech
by steaming a whistling
locomotive back and forth past his
platform. At times, the hostility
of his Pennsylvania opponents led to
extreme measures. Near
16 National Intelligencer, July 23, 1840; Bear, Life and
Travels, 60-70.
17 Axe, June 25, 1840; National
Intelligencer, September 26, 1840; Niles' Register,
September 26, 1840; Bear, Life and
Travels, 70-80.
18 Bear, Life and Travels, 90; Cleveland
Herald, October 30, 1840.
John W. Bear, "The Buckeye
Blacksmith" 269
Millerstown, thugs pushed a huge rock
over a cliff into the path
of his carriage. Democrats in Lewistown
lowered the water level
of the canal in an attempt to prevent
his passage to Harrisburg. An
effigy of Harrison, "the Petticoat
General," was tossed into his
audience at Kutztown. Ruffians in
Huntington stoned the windows
of the hall in which he spoke, and then
drove him from the town
barely ahead of a volley of eggs.19
Using less direct methods to drive him
from the stump, the
Democratic press denounced him as a
hireling, an impostor, and an
embezzler. A correspondent for the Ohio
Statesman reported that
Bear absconded "with nearly a
thousand dollars . . . [from his
former home in Zanesville] and left his
securities to pay the
piper!"20 Eleven
citizens of Zanesville testified in a public letter
that Bear was "a dishonest man of
base character."21 The Globe
proclaimed him to be "one of the
greatest imposters and swindlers
in existence! A true Federal Whig
Mechanic is he! A cheat-worse
than humbug-a cheat of the
people!"22 "The whole land is now
rife with the itinerant orators,"
concluded the Globe; "from
DANIEL WEBSTER down to the TRAVELLING
BEAR, they are
known to be all mercenaries."23
Bear's noisy audiences helped to
determine the style of his
speeches. Subtleties were not easily
projected to the cider-soaked
partisans he faced. Thus his humor was
crude and, in the testimony
of his critics, vulgar. His homely
stories were refreshingly intelligible
to audiences accustomed to hearing
speeches in which imagery and
allusions were predominantly classical,
and consequently unfamiliar.
His anecdotes about the eccentricities
of leading Democrats in-
variably led to a vigorous audience
response. The open interchange
with hecklers added zest to his
speaking, and no small measure of
his popularity lay in the pungency of
his replies. Once, for example,
19 Bear, Life and Travels, 65, 66, 77, 84, 86; Log Cabin, October
10, 1840;
Political Tornado (Columbus), October 9, 1840.
20 Ohio Statesman, February
28, 1840.
21 Globe, June
29, 1840. A. R. Cassidy, sheriff of Muskingum County in 1835,
wrote to testify, "He is the same
John W. Bear that I arrested. . . . There is no
doubt about his identity." Ibid.,
September 9, 1840.
22 Ibid., June 29, 1840.
23 Ibid., August 19, 1840.
270
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
when heckled that he was not a
blacksmith, Bear hurriedly retired
to his anvil and hammered out a
horseshoe. Flourishing the finished
shoe aloft, he cried, "I would
like to nail it on the jackass who just
said that I was not a blacksmith."24
His commentary on political
issues was vastly oversimplified. As he
explained it, the election
was a contest between two ways of life:
the log cabin versus the
palace; linsey-woolsey versus
broadcloth; hard cider versus cham-
pagne; and the people versus the
officeholders.25
The success of "the Buckeye
Blacksmith" was reflected in his
imitators. "The contest of
1840," said one contemporary frankly,
"soon became too uproarious for
gentlemen of refined taste, and
orators of a different class held the
rostrum."26 Indeed, there were
many "practical hard hitters of
the masses" who dramatized Whig
solicitude for common folk. There was
"the Kinderhook Black-
smith," Mr. Chamberlain, who,
"full of anecdote and humor,"
excited "shout after shout"
by detailing unsavory stories about his
fellow townsman, Martin Van Buren.27
There was Elihu Burritt,
"the Learned Blacksmith,"
widely renowned as a linguist, who
marshaled his "vast
erudition" in behalf of Old Tippecanoe.28
There was Longhead, the blacksmith from
St. Louis, who roved the
Midwest "striking while the iron
was hot" against the evils of
Van Burenism.29 There was
Henry Wilson, "the Natick Cobbler,"
who spoke at a great gathering in
Concord, New Hampshire, as
one of his first efforts in a political
career from indentured servant
to the vice-presidency.30 Another
shoemaker, F. W. Kellogg, "a
whole souled Tippecanoe mechanic,"
entertained Harrison meetings
with some of "the most amusing,
side-shaking, hearty ha-ha speeches
ever listened to." "Bear and
Kellogg," proclaimed the Cleveland
Axe, "make a full team, the regular Davy Crockett
line."31
Prominent politicians also adopted
Bear's methods. The aris-
24 Bear, Life and Travels, 69.
25 Log Cabin, October
10, 1840.
26 Richard Smith Elliott, Notes Taken in Sixty Years (St. Louis,
1883), 127.
27 Ohio Whig (Perrysburg), June
12, 1840.
28 National Intelligencer, July 25, 1840.
29 Northwestern Gazette & Galena
Advertiser, May 29, 1840.
30 Log Cabin, June 27,
1840.
31 May 7, 1840.
John W. Bear, "The Buckeye
Blacksmith" 271
tocratic Hugh S. Legare of South
Carolina, erudite student of law
and the classics, donned rough clothes
and a coonskin cap, spoke in
the idiom of the frontier, and
"engaged in cider drinking and
general carousing" in a desperate
effort to woo the crossroads' vote
in the South.32 Governor
William H. Seward of New York stumped
the western hustings of the Empire
State in a green country wagon.33
A "Railsplitter" stood on a
stump at a Whig convention in Spring-
field, Illinois, and regaled 15,000
Whigs with his rustic humor and
risque anecdotes. Rival Democrats
charged that all the buffoonery
was a part of the strategy of the Whig
managers. "Contempt for
the people," insisted the Rough-Hewer,
"lies at the bottom of
their whole scheme of
electioneering."34 The Democratic Review
contended that it was "a
ludicrously impudent imposture" for
Whigs to masquerade as spokesmen for
the common man.35 But
as one Whig leader replied, "It is
but fair to . . . prostrate our
opponents with the . . . weapons with
which they beat us."36
Orators of "the Davy Crockett
line" like John W. Bear thus con-
tributed an important element to
Harrison's success in 1840: the
feeling that the Whig party was the
party of the blacksmiths,
cobblers, and railsplitters of America.
32 Linda Rhea, Hugh S. Legare, A Charleston Intellectual (Chapel Hill,
1934),
191-193.
33 Dixon
Ryan Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York
(New York, 1919), 412-413.
34 Albany, N.Y., June 25, 1840.
35 United States Magazine and
Democratic Review, VII (1840), 486.
36 M. Bradley to Thurlow Weed, August
29, 1839. Thurlow Weed Collection,
University of Rochester Library.
JOHN W. BEAR, "THE BUCKEYE
BLACKSMITH"1
by ROBERT GRAY GUNDERSON
Associate Professor of Speech,
Oberlin College
On the week end of February 21, 1840,
twenty-three thousand
enthusiastic Whigs crowded into
Columbus for the Ohio Whig
convention.2 A heavy rain
drenched the delegates as they milled
about seeking quarters in the thriving
capital city, which that year
proudly reported six thousand
inhabitants to the bureau of the
census. The arrangements committee
announced that every Whig
house in Columbus had been
requisitioned to accommodate the
guests. "Straw beds, mattresses,
and even the naked floors" were
put to use; but sedate citizens got
little sleep, for this was the
opening of the sensational
"Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too" presidential
campaign in Ohio. To insure proper
enthusiasm for "Tip, Tyler,
and the tariff," thoughtful Whig
managers had provided barrels of
hard cider, conveniently located on the
downtown street corners, to
serve free as added stimulation for
those whose spirits might be
dampened unduly by the rain.
"Columbus," according to one
account, "was the very home of
ballad makers and ballad singers."
Every gathering had its minstrel
and every crowd its orator. "Songs
and shouts echoed alternately
from every part of the city."
Outside John Neil's tavern excited
partisans debated the gubernatorial
candidacy of Tom Corwin,
while around the square inebriated
paraders sloshed through mud
a foot deep while taunting President
Martin Van Buren with the
chant: "Van, Van, Van-Van's a used
up man." Across the street
on the statehouse lawn, speakers
harangued delegates from three
separate platforms, since a single
platform was found to be in-
adequate for the immense crowd.
"Twenty bands of music are
1 Based on a paper delivered before the
speech section of the Ohio College Asso-
ciation, Columbus, April 9, 1948.
2 "The estimate of several
judicious men who took much pains to make accurate
calculations." Niles' Register (Washington
D.C.), March 14, 1840.
262