Ohio History Journal

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THE DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY, JANUARY-JUNE 1884

THE DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY, JANUARY-JUNE 1884

Part I

edited by HARVEY S. FORD

Head Librarian, Toledo Blade

John Beatty, the author of the diary which follows, was the

grandson of a Scotch-Irish immigrant who settled near Sandusky

in 1815.* His grandfather, also named John Beatty, was born in

County Wexford, Ireland, on March 17, 1774. At the age of

eighteen he visited the United States, and after some traveling

about the country determined to settle in Norwich, Connecticut.

Before doing so, however, he found it necessary to return to Ire-

land, both to gain parental permission for the venture and also,

from the same source, to get the wherewithal to finance it. In 1796

he returned to the United States to make his home. A fellow pas-

senger on the ship was Mary Cooke, a young lady of nineteen

and a native of County Fermanagh. In October they were mar-

ried in Philadelphia, and thereafter made their home in Norwich.

The elder John Beatty seems to have been more energetic and

enterprising in business affairs than skillful in their management.

In 1803 he moved to New London and took an interest in the

shipping industry of that port. He had also become a Methodist

preacher, though it is not known if he was formally ordained.

Sometime thereafter he became attracted by the Western Reserve,

and in 1810 he made an inspection trip through northeastern Ohio.

The death of his father had brought to him an estate of some

value, and with this Beatty invested heavily in the Connecticut

Firelands to the extent that he eventually came to own some forty

thousand acres. The War of 1812 delayed his plans, but in 1815

 

* For the material for this biographical sketch I am principally indebted to

General Beatty's daughter Mrs. Albert Green Joyce of Columbus and to the general's

own writings and addresses. I have also drawn on the files of the Firelands Pioneer

and the Congressional Globe; the publications of the Ohio State Archaeological and

Histroical Society and of the Ohio Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion;

Abraham J. Baughman and Robert F. Bartlett, History of Morrow County, Ohio (2 vols.,

Chicago and New York, 1911); Herbert Croly, Marcus Aionzo Hanna (New York,

1912); Whitelaw Reid, Ohio In the War (2 vols., Cincinnati and New York, 1868);

and the files of the Toledo Blade and the Toledo Bee.

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