Ohio History Journal

Editorialana.                       253

 

'Your house is going up on Tuesday.    If Wadsworth can't raise it,

Norton will. We will meet at Norton Center for a game of base-ball,

prepared with wagons and horses, if warned by one o'clock that we will

be wanted. Then when we come every Wadsworth man must stand back

and see Norton men put up the frame.' The same messenger then

slyly told the leading men of the whisky party, the plan being to bring

all Wadsworth to see Norton's triumph.

"The day came. Being myself the appointed messenger if needed, I

had my father's little fast mare, Bullet, fed, groomed and saddled, to be

ready to gallop five miles to Norton. By nine o'clock a larger company

than ever before seen at a raising in Wadsworth were sitting on the

timbers. Much apprehension was felt that the meaning of this was

forcible prevention, and that the Norton men would be welcomed to a

riot.  Our commandant, Esquire Ward, stepped forward, swung his

square and called out: 'Now men, please get up and carry these timbers

together as I point them out.' Instantly every one was on his feet and

enough men to raise two such buildings quickly put the 'bents' together.

"While they were going up my father, instead of sending me to

Norton, dispatched me to our house, a quarter of a mile off, where the

dinner was being prepared by the ladies of the society, to say: 'Make the

dinner twice as large as you have planned.' By twelve o'clock the last

pin was driven in the last rafter, and a good-natured crowd, all sober and

happy, bandying jokes and gibes, were marshalled around two long tables

in our front yard, to a sumptuous dinner. The afternoon was taken up

in games of old-fashioned base-ball. This was the greatest triumph of

temperance in that part of Ohio. Raisings without whisky soon became

the rule instead of the exception. The only triumph our Norton friends

enjoyed was in the claim: 'We shamed Wadsworth into temperance.'"

 

 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SPECIAL LEGISLATION

FOR D. A. R.

BY MRS. LEWIS C. LAYLIN.

[Report made before Columbus Chapter, February 22, 1919.-EDITOR.]

At the last State Conference of the D. A. R. held in Dayton in

1917, the Chairman on Special Legislation reported that the bill authoriz-

ing the purchase by the State of the site of Campus Martius at Marietta

had passed the General Assembly. It was signed by Governor Cox and

became a law on April 7, Mayflower Second Day, the day we celebrate

the landing of the pioneers on that historic spot.

You all remember that the United States declared war on April 6,

1917, and our whole country was plunged into the great world war which

absorbed all our time, energies and resources for two years. So nothing

was done during that time in regard to the transfer of the property, and

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254        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications. the appropriation would have lapsed in two years and reverted back to the State. However, the matter was taken up again last fall (1918) and it is a curious coincidence that on the day that the armistice was signed, November 11, 1918, the Ohio Legislative Committee filed its re- port of the purchase, together with the deeds for the transfer of the property with the Governor and Attorney General for their approval, as required by the Act of the General Assembly. The Governor and At- torney General approved the purchase and the deeds and directed the Auditor of State to issue his warrants on the Treasurer for the payment of the amount, $16,000 appropriated by the State for the purchase of Campus Martius from its owners, Miss Minerva T. Nye and Mrs. Theo- dore F. Davis of Marietta. This was done on February 14, 1919, St.

Valentine's day, making a most appropriate valentine for the State of Ohio. Therefore, Campus Martius is now the property of the State of Ohio, and under the Act is placed in the custody of the Ohio Archaeologi- cal and Historical Society. The consummation of this patriotic enter- prise was largely due to the advice and co-operation of Mr. E. O. Randall, Secretary of this society, and the Chairman of this D. A. R. committee wishes to gratefully acknowledge his valuable services to the State and to the Daughters of the American Revolution.

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