Ohio History Journal



Editorialana

Editorialana.                        125

 

WILLIAM     TRIMBLE McCLINTICK.

 

Hon. William Trimble McClintick, a life member of the Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical Society, a cultivated gentleman,

and one of the most distinguished citizens of Ohio, died at his resi-

dence, Chillicothe, on October 28, 1903, at the unusual age of eighty-

four. Mr. McClintick was a man far above the average in ability and

intellectual achievement. His long life spanned almost the first cen-

tury of Ohio's statehood history, and he had the unique experience

of having known personally Ohio's first Governor, Edward Tiffin, and

with two exceptions, all the rest to and including Governor Nash.

One of the most interesting portrayals of personal reminiscence per-

haps in Ohio literature is the address by Mr. McClintick, delivered

at the Centennial celebration of the adoption of Ohio's first constitution,

held at Chillicothe, on November 29, 1902. Those who were present on

that occasion will never cease to remember Mr. McClintick as he stood

before the audience, with the courtly manner of a gentleman of the

old school, and told with genial humor, and rare literary flavor, some

of the important events of Ohio's history, in which he was either

spectator or participator.  Mr. McClintick was the master of wide

culture; college bred, an accomplished lawyer, and a man of wide

affairs and experience. Ever a close observer and philosophical thinker,

he carried with him an environment of marvelous mental acquire-

ment and trained temperament.   The publications of the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society contain some choice contribu-

tions from  Mr. McClintick's pen.  Perhaps no tribute to him   could

be better expressed in brief words than that comprised in an address

by Judge Archibald Mayo before the Ross county bar, on November

14, 1903. "Mr. McClintick's success was manifold--that of the pro-

fessional man, the business man, the society man, the church man.

His life was an illustration of the health-giving, life-sustaining, hap-

piness-creating success of temperate and regular habits: and of the

success of persevering application in the accumulation of skill and

usefulness, knowledge and wealth. His career manifested what good

breeding, good schooling, and an inherited aptitude for business and

work are able to bestow upon a man of talents in a period of such

opportunity as existed here in his time."