A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL IN 1821
BY ALICE MCGUFFEY RUGGLES
The early free schools of the West have
been described many
times, often sentimentally. But of the
pioneer private schools
little has been written.
In the unpublished autobiography of
Charles Daniel Drake,
only son of Dr. Daniel Drake, there is
an account of the author's
experiences at a boarding-school for
boys at Worthington, Ohio,
conducted by the Right Reverend
Philander Chase, first Episcopal
Bishop of Ohio.
Charles Drake was born in 1811 and, at
the age of five, en-
tered the Lancaster Academy in
Cincinnati, a co-educational day
school, conducted somewhat after the
ideas of Pestalozzi. Dr.
Drake had advanced ideas on primary
education and had been one
of the founders of this curious school
which was modelled on the
plan of an Englishman named Joseph
Lancaster.
Four hundred boys and girls all sat
under one teacher, an
arrangement that kept the tuition down
to eight dollars a year.
The master sat at one end of the long
room, on a raised platform,
with the whole school before him on an
inclined floor, seated at
desks running nearly across the room,
with an aisle seven or
eight feet wide on either side.
On the floor of these aisles were marked
semicircles, round
which the classes stood to be taught by
larger boys or girls called
monitors. The monitors had no authority
to punish the children
but reported delinquents to the master
who alone exercised
discipline.
For the younger children's instruction
large placards were
hung on the walls over the semicircles,
with letters and words of
one syllable printed on them, and on the
tops of the desks were
small troughs containing a thin layer of
sand, in which the little
ones with their fingers could trace
figures and letters. Every
251
252 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
little while a monitor would come along
and inspect the work and
then wipe it all out by passing a flat
piece of wood over the sand,
and on the smooth surface the children's
fingers would go to
work again.
This school had been in existence six
years when Charles
Drake entered it and it closed soon
after. It suited the little boy
very well, and he always remembered it
as the least boring of
the numerous schools that he attended or
ran away from in the
next ten years. He was a fair rosy
child, volatile and wayward,
unable to concentrate and immoderately
fond of pleasure. His
father described him as "not
wicked, but fugacious and changeful
as Will Weathercock in the farce,
impersonating a whole flock of
wild ducks at the same time."
His teachers called him spoilt, which
his mother indignantly
denied-had she not lectured him,
punished him, prayed over him
and applied all the theories of
education she could find in the
writings of Maria Edgeworth and other
leading authorities of the
day?
Mrs. Daniel Drake, born Harriet Sisson,
a niece of Colonel
Jared Mansfield, Surveyor-general of the
North-west Territory,
was a serious woman. Her husband wrote
of her, "She loved
her children as candidates for
excellence, hence her affections
were chastened with severity." But severity ran off her son
Charles's back like water from a duck's
and the moment after
chastisement had been inflicted he was
out and away again at
his mischievous tricks.
The location of his home was just about
as bad as it could be
for such a boy. North of Cincinnati's
Third Street where the
Drakes lived, their neighbors were for
the most part respectable
citizens, but southward to the Ohio
River bank was a riffraff
population which Charles as he grew
older found much more
diverting.
By 1819, two baby sisters had appeared
on the family scene
and the mother had less time to devote
to her obstreperous son.
Dr. Drake, the youthful father, was at
this period feverishly
engaged in practicing medicine,
traveling, lecturing, writing and
launching educational and civic
enterprises. Charles ran wild.
A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 253
learned bad language and by the time he
had reached the age of
ten had become the household problem.
His parents decided to
send him away from home.
It happened that at this particular
moment Bishop Philander
Chase was opening a small
boarding-school for boys near Colum-
bus. The Drakes had entertained the
Bishop on his first visit to
Cincinnati in 1817, when he had
organized Christ Episcopal
Church on West Fourth Street. Mrs. Drake
had been brought
up an Episcopalian and her husband,
though not a member of
any denomination, often attended
services with her. What could
be more suitable, they agreed, than to
place Charles under the
religious influences of such a school?
They knew nothing of the Bishop's
qualifications for teaching
and they had not seen the school, but an
escort was found and
Charles was packed off in the early
summer of 1821. Following
the boy's departure his parents drew a
sigh of relief and settled
themselves for a season of domestic
calm.
Charles was at the school only four
months but the impres-
sions of his stay remained painfully
clear to him until the end
of his life. He was sixty-eight when he
wrote his autobiography,
which was uncompleted at the time of his
death in 1892. This
manuscript, written in a clear
"copybook" hand covers twelve
hundred and thirty-four pages and
carries the narrative up to the
year 1867. The title page bears the
following inscription:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
CHARLES D. DRAKE, LLD.,
MIDSHIPMAN, LAWYER, AUTHOR, SENATOR,
AND CHIEF JUSTICE.
WRITTEN FOR, AND DEDICATED TO,
HIS DAUGHTERS MRS. ELLA B. CRESSON
AND MRS. ANNA P. WESTCOTT
The manuscript is in the possession of
the State Historical
Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri,
to whom it was pre-
sented by the author's grandson, Charles
Drake Westcott.
254 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The chapter dealing with Bishop Chase's
school relates as
follows:
I was sent to Worthington in charge of
an Episcopal clergyman named
Osborne, who went to attend the annual
Diocesan Convention of the Epis-
copal Church, which was held that year
on the 6th of June, as I have since
ascertained. What day we left
Cincinnati, I do not know, but perhaps the
1st or 2nd of that month. The route we
travelled was by Reading, Lebanon,
Xenia and Columbus. The distance was 129
miles. We travelled in a gig
which had no top.
I remember only three matters of
interest connected with the journey,
but have very distinct recollections of
the wild region we traversed, over
wretched roads, miles upon miles of
which were corduroy, which did not
admit of much sleeping as we worked our
way slowly along. The country
was almost an unbroken forest and there
were few habitations on the road
after we left Lebanon and they
diminished in number when we got east of
Xenia.
The first incident remembered was my
getting tossed out of the gig by
running one of the wheels over a stump
while I was driving and Mr. Os-
borne was hiding behind a tree to see if
I would pass on without observing
him. I discovered him, however, and was watching
him, instead of the
horse, when the wheel struck the stump
on the side on which I was sitting,
and pitched me out on the other side.
I suppose that as I went I caught at the
dashboard and instead of
going head foremost over the side, fell
lengthwise right before the wheel
with my feet next to it. I lay straight
out on my left side and the horse,
keeping right on, the wheel of the gig
passed along the whole length of my
body, but just as it reached my head I
sung out Whoa! and the horse
instantly stopped, with the wheel
resting on my temple. As soon as I dis-
covered that, I chucked for him to go
on, which he did, and I was let up.
Very fortunately, and doubtless much to
Mr. Osborne's relief, it was found
that I was not at all injured, though my
clothes were.
The second incident of the journey
occurred as we were nearing Xenia.
As a sailor would say, I was keeping
"a bright lookout" to discover the
town, and seeing some houses at a
distance through the trees, I said with
animation, "I think that's
Xenia," when Mr. Osborne turned his head and
looking down at me contemptuously, said
austerely, "I'd like to know what
right you have to think anything about
it !" I did not continue the conversa-
tion.
The third incident was my making a visit
with Mr. Osborne to the
penitentiary at Columbus. Though it was
explained to me that the men I
saw working there in silence were put
there for crimes they had committed,
I remember distinctly the feeling of
pity I had for them.
The Bishop's residence was a plain frame
house on a farm three-
A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 255
quarters of a mile south of the village,
but the school was kept in the village.
It was made up of boys who boarded at
the Bishop's and of day scholars;
and it was taught by his son Philander,
a twenty-three-year-old Episcopal
minister, who, in 1818-1820, had been a
chaplain in the Navy.
Here, one hundred and twenty-nine miles
from home,--which was then,
practically, about as far off as two
thousand miles are now,--was placed,
early in June, 1821, the ten-year-old
child, who had never before been twenty
miles from home without his parents, and
never away from them for more
than a few days at a time, except when
with relatives, in whose house he
had a home feeling. And here he was to
pass through experiences, of which
I will give you a plain and fair, but,
of course, not a full, account.
The minor details of my arrival there
are not remembered. My first
memory pictures me as a figure in a
scene in which were two principal
actors,--the Bishop, a large, imposing,
austere man of some forty-five years,
seated, and between his knees, facing
him, a small golden-haired, rosy-
cheeked, girlish-looking boy, a stranger
to all present. Standing around
were some eight or ten boys, of eleven
to fifteen, who were to be that boy's
schoolmates; none of whom had ever seen
him before.
And how do you suppose that
stranger-child was introduced to that
company of strange boys? I cannot
recount the exact words spoken to him
in a loud, stern, authoritative voice,
by that large, imposing, austere man,
to whose dominating personal presence
was, to the boy, added the awe-
inspiring knowledge that he was a Bishop;
though exactly what that meant
the boy didn't know; only it seemed to
him something very grand. But,
ever since, my memory has testified,
without hesitation, to these as substan-
tially the words: "Drake, I know
all about you; I know you are a very bad
boy; and I want you to know right away
that we are not going to have any
of your Cincinnati ways here." Of
course, that was not all, but it is all I
can distinctly remember.
Had he taken me by myself, and kindly
told me that he had heard I
was a bad boy at home, and that he
wished me to turn over a new leaf, and
leave my bad Cincinnati ways behind, and
he would help me to be a good
boy, it would have been well; but such a
denunciation, in the presence of
the other boys, was like a thunderclap
to me. I was dumbfounded at finding
that a bad name had come ahead of me,
and, of course, I was speechless.
To this day I can account for it only on
the supposition that my father had
intimated to the Bishop, as a reason for
sending me away from home at so
young an age, that the evil associations
and influences which had for years
beset me on every side in Cincinnati had
made a naturally unruly and way-
ward boy bad. Whether so or not, there I
stood, black-marked in the very
hour of my arrival; which would
certainly be taken by the boys as a license
to regard me as the one fellow among
them who had no friend there, and
presumably ought not to have any. Though
not particularly sensitive, I felt
degraded.
256
OHIO ARCHYEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
While at home, the Bishop was the
disciplinarian of the boys that lived
in his house; when he was absent, his
son was disciplinarian there as well
as in the school. They were, in all
essential characteristics, as nearly alike
as father and son could well be. Each
was impatient, domineering, irascible,
and severe toward boys; ...
From this opening you may be prepared to
conceive that moral suasion
was not the governing principle in that
school. And you may not find it
difficult to suppose that such a chap
as, whether rightfully or wrongfully,
the Bishop had held me up to be, was not
likely to have much patience or
sweetness bestowed on him by either father
or son. I sincerely wish I
could now recall, or could remember of
ever having recalled, one instance of
paternal kindness from the father, or
one of fraternal consideration from
the son; I would gladly record it. And
yet, on the 4th of August, Philander
Chase wrote to my father thus:
"I have not forgotten that he is
your son, and your happiness in a
measure centres in him; nor that, from
his own ability and engaging appear-
ance, I wish to love him; and I believe
that if you have reposed any con-
fidence in us hitherto, you will not
doubt that he has been, and will continue
to be treated, by my father as if he
were a son, and by myself as if he
were a brother, under similar
circumstances."
I dare say he wrote those words meaning
to be truthful; but they did
not convey the whole truth; for, what
his father's treatment of a ten-year-
old son had been, or what his son's
treatment of a ten-year-old brother would
be, "under similar
circumstances," was not said. I think I came pretty near
finding out both.
As might well be expected from the
Bishop's introduction, tribulation
for me would not be very far off. Pretty
soon both father and son gave me
to understand that my word was not to be
believed, if there appeared to
them any ground to suspect me of
untruth. Once settled in that track, there
was plenty of trouble ahead for that
boy. And when to that and other trials
you add agonizing home-sickness daily
and hourly for weeks, you can under-
stand that there were not many bright
days there for him.
Feed boys well, and they'll overlook a
good many bothers and wrongs.
This didn't seem to be very strongly
impressed upon the Bishop's mind. The
ordinary breakfast was corn-meal mush,
sweetened with scant molasses
made on the farm, and washed down with a
drink called coffee, made from
parched seeds of the okra plant. The
ordinary dinner fare I do not recol-
lect. At supper sage tea usually, with
sassafras-tea occasionally, as a
relish. With these drinks, or
punishments, Crafts J. Wright's experience is
thus stated by him in a letter to me:
"The first night I took supper with
the Bishop we had sage-tea, which
I left untouched. On its being reported
to the Bishop, he called me to him
to ask why I had not drunk the tea. I
replied it made me sick, and I
A
BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 257
couldn't. He told me he had a great
notion to throw it into my face, and if
I left it again he would punish
me."1
Perhaps in that sparsely settled region,
the Bishop couldn't get much
of other kinds of tea and coffee; but
more probably he was too poor to
afford anything better. At that time
there was no salary provided for the
office of Bishop; and in his
autobiography he speaks of having to discharge
his only farm-hand, because he hadn't
money to pay his wages; and he
there assigns as a reason for removing
to Cincinnati in the fall of 1821, that
he had failed to obtain support from his
farm. The discharge of the farm-
hand was not, perhaps, a serious matter,
for the Bishop got out of his
boy-boarders a good deal more work than
the hand could have done.
The Bishop supervised the health of the
boys, as was quite proper.
The country was new and liable to
fevers. To avert them, I suppose, he
occasionally treated the boys to an early
morning dose of salts,--whether
epsom
or glauber I can't say,--which, though well intended, was not
specially appetizing, nor particularly
promotive of sweetness of temper. I
see the whole lot of them now, at the
well, awaiting in grim jocoseness,
their several turns at the beverage, or
smoothing down their faces after
swallowing it.
But that was less in favor with the
Bishop than bone-set tea; which,
(in a Pickwickian sense), was to him
almost a Fortieth Article of Religion.
It was frequently administered before or
after meals; why, I don't know,
unless for its supposed tonic efects;
but if a boy complained of being sick,
alas for him! Then he had to take it by
the bowlful, nearly all at once,
strong as lye, bitter as gall,
wretchedly nauseating, or as the Rev. Dr.
Erastus Burr, of Portsmouth, Ohio, (who
was at the Bishop's when I was),
wrote me some years ago, "a
horrible nasty dose, ten times worse than the
treacle and brimstone of Dotheboys
Hall." I was made to swallow about a
pint of it once, and was, it seemed to
me, nearly turned inside out. Tradition
said that a boy who had once taken it
that way was never known to be sick
there again.
My recollections of the school-room are
not many. Whatever was of
the ordinary school routine has faded
from my mind. The memory that
sticks is my being put at Latin. To this
day it almost makes me shiver to
think of it. I had neither natural
aptitude nor taste for acquiring a strange
language, and therefore couldn't get
into my head the first glimmer of an
idea of what Latin meant, or what was
the use of it, or why I should have
to study it. But, nevertheless, I had to
do it. Do what? Why, take the
grammar in my hand, look at queer words
not of my mother tongue, get
them by heart, and stand up and recite
them mechanically, without knowing
1 [Charles Drake's footnotel Crafts J.
Wright was a son of John C. Wright, a dis-
tinguished lawyer of Steubenville, who
was afterwards a member of Congress, a Judge
of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and editor
and proprietor of the Cincinnati Gazette; in
the management of which paper the son
was for many years associated. The latter was
Colonel of an Ohio regiment in the war of the Rebellion.
258
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
anything on earth about them that would
interest me; and all the while fired
with the spirit of revolt against an
immeasurably irksome task. I have
never liked Latin since.
As before intimated, moral suasion was
not the rule there. There
was, to my best recollection, no appeal
to the affections, no attempt to touch
the sensibilities. It was all force,
violence, and punishment.
The lowest form of discipline was to put
a boy on bread and water, for
at least a day, perhaps longer. This
regimen was, to me, unalleviated, save
by some salt to sprinkle on the bread,
given in compassion by "good, kind,
motherly Mrs. Russell," as Dr. Burr
rightly calls a widowed niece of the
Bishop, whose presence there was a daily
comfort to the boys. Her good-
ness to me is, to this hour, cherished
in my memory, as the solitary bright-
ness of those dark days.
The next form was whipping. In all
western schools, in those days,
this was a matter of course. The Bishop
and his son resorted to it without
any expression of reluctance or regret,
but seemingly with relish, and cer-
tainly with lavish severity. After
seeing, in the Navy, the constant use of
the rope's end and the cat-o'-ninetails
on the backs of men, Philander
Chase's faith in the lash on the backs
of boys, if it had ever been weak, was
bravely righted up. When I knew him, it
was quite as stalwart as his
father's. That said, nothing need be
added.
The third form--the Bishop's peculiar
prerogative--was to grab a boy
by the hair, and jerk him up and down,
forward and back, hither and
thither, every little while thumping him
with his knee, until his rage had
somewhat abated. This was a mode of
punishment I had never before
heard of, nor have I ever heard of it
since in any other school. I remember
one evening when he so grabbed me in one
hand and Charlie Conant in the
other, and hauled us over a good part of
the large yard, and once, perhaps
more than once, struck our heads
together with stunning force, which made
us see multitudinous stars without
looking skyward. I remember, too, one
Sunday night, when the Bishop returned
from preaching in Columbus, and
was told of some very bad conduct of mine,
that I was suddenly wakened
out of sleep by being pulled out of bed
and dragged down stairs, by my hair,
and then punished furiously. This, I
frankly acknowledge, was well deserved.
A fourth mode, less frequently resorted
to than the others, was to
send a boy to Coventry; that is,
prohibit his associating with, or speaking
to, any other boy, or any other boy's
associating with or speaking to him.
I had a large experience of this.
Philander Chase, like his father, was
addicted to rages. When one of
them seized him in the school-room, he
would throw any book he had in his
hand, or within his reach, at the
offending boy. I do not remember of any
boy's being hurt by any of his
missiles.; but Wright, one day at the dinner
table, seemed narrowly to escape it. Mr.
Chase was seated at the end of
the table, and was loudly and severely
reproving Wright, who sat on his
A
BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 259
left, about four feet from him, and I
between them. What had been said or
done to anger Mr. Chase, I can't say;
but suddenly there was a commotion
among the boys on hearing his loud and
rageful language, and seeing him
raise his right arm aloft threateningly,
with a large plate in his hand,
apparently intending to throw it at
Wright. Had he done so, the boy's face
would pretty certainly have been seriously
injured, if not marred for life.
Some sudden thought of the danger of
this, probably, arrested the act; for
Mr. Chase, though he must have known
that every boy had seen his menac-
ing attitude, choked down passion and
pride, and laid down the plate.
What I have forgotten of the events of
the four months and-a-third
of my stay in that school, might take a
fair-sized volume to tell; but there
are two matters which hold an immovable
place in my memory, and will
abide there as long as memory remains to
me, because of the burning in-
justice done me, in each instance, by
Philander Chase.
It was not strange, after the Bishop's
harsh reception of me, that it
should have come to be temptingly
convenient to charge me with any sin,
the doer of which couldn't be
discovered. A remarkable instance of this I
will now give.
The dining room was a frame apartment,
which had not been lathed.
Consequently, underneath each
window-sill, down behind the wash-board,
was a space some inches wide, between
the wash-board and the weather-
boarding. Upon the sill of one of the
windows lay a comb, for use in
common by the boys.
One day the comb was. missing. When told
thereof, Mr. Chase made
strict inquiry of every boy about it,
but could get no information. He
questioned me once and again, but I
denied any knowledge of it. One of
the boys, however, said he had seen me
that day go into my room upstairs
with my hair "all tousled",
and come out with it combed smooth. Without
stopping to inquire whether I had not a
comb of my own in my room, or
whether there were not combs of my
room-mates up there, or what prob-
able motive I could have had for taking
the comb from the window, or in
any other way pursuing investigation,
Mr. Chase received the boy's state-
ment as sufficient to outweigh my
positive and repeated denial. Taking me
in to his study, he announced that he
would whip me until I would tell the
truth about the comb; and he went on to
whip me with the utmost severity.
Over and over again, in blinding tears
and with convulsive outcry, I
repeated my denial; but at last the
torture became so intolerable that, in
the hope of escaping it, I told a
downright lie, by admitting that I had taken
the comb. He bade me get it and
bring it to him. Then came my utter
dismay and supreme misery. In reality, I
knew no more where the comb.
was, than if I had never been in that
house. He might as well have sent
me into the woods to find a comb dropped
there a year before. I was in
despair. But in that terrible moment a
merciful Providence came to my
aid. As I entered the dining room it
flashed like lightning into my mind
260 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
that possibly the comb had fallen behind
the wash-board into that open
place under the window sill. I went
straight to the window, thrust my
arm down behind the wash-board till my
hand reached the ground, and the
first thing it touched was the comb. I
took it to Mr. Chase. Of course,
he was satisfied that he had whipped the
truth out of me. No doubt he
went to his grave with that conviction.
Had he lived till I grew up, and
had I then told him the reality, as I
would certainly have done, even if
I had had to travel very far to see him,
he probably would have disbe-
lieved me.
I will now relate the other great wrong
inflicted upon me by Philander
Chase. One day, as the boys were coming
from school, I ran up behind
one of them, and knocked his hat off,
and cried, "Pick up your manners,"
an exploit and expression I had learned
among the Cincinnati boys. The boy
went immediately to Mr. Chase, and
reported that I had used words to him
entirely different from those I did use,
and such as I had never thought
of in my life, and which were too
shamefully indecent to be repeated here.
I was immediately arraigned for it in
Mr. Chase's room before a crowd of
the boys. I utterly denied the charge,
and repeated to him what I had said,
just as I have here stated it. Here was
one boy's word against another's,
and how was the truth to be got at? Mr.
Chase, for some reason unknown
to me, declined to decide the matter,
but said he would have it determined
by a jury. A jury trial was a thing I
had never before heard of, and all I
could do was to wait and see what it
meant. He selected three of the large
boys and constituted them the jury.
Before them my accuser told his story
about the affair. Whether he was adjured
or admonished-he couldn't be
sworn--to tell "the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth", I
do not remember. When he got through
with his statement, Mr. Chase
turned to me and said sternly,
"What have you to say?" I began at once
to speak in denial of the accusation,
when, to my utter confusion, he
instantly interrupted me with,
"Whatever you have to say, put it down in
writing," and not one word would he
allow me to speak. Child though I
was, I felt bitterly the wrong done me
by this: now, after more than fifty
years' connection with legal study and
judicial proceedings, I see the inex-
pressible outrage of it. To have my
adversary speak against me, and then
not let me speak in self-defense, was an
act which, if done by a judge in
a court of justice, would demand, and
almost certainly receive, impeachment
and ignominy. To require me to put down
in writing what I had to say,
was, in effect, to silence me. Though I
could write in a child-way, I
had not the least capacity to write down
a defense: what ten-year-old boy
ever had? I took a pen, however, and
wrote down simply a denial. (I
would now give a great deal to get that
paper.) Upon that denial and the
boy's false witness, Mr. Chase submitted
the case to the jury, directing them
to retire into another room, and write
down their verdict, Guilty or Not
Guilty. Had those boys been wholly
unprejudiced, they were bound to find
A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 261
a verdict of Guilty, for there was no
evidence but that which was against
me. But, as the outcome proved, they
were far from being unprejudiced.
Each of them knew how the Bishop had
branded me, the hour I came there.
Each of them knew, by daily observation,
that Philander Chase was pitiless
toward me. In the mind of each of them I
was the black sheep of the
school flock. They promptly returned a
verdict of Guilty. This should
have been the end, but it was not. Mr.
Chase was not satisfied. Without
taking any further evidence, he told the
jury to go out again, and assign
in writing any other reasons they had,
besides the evidence, for believing
me guilty. They again retired, and soon
returned with an additional paper,
stating, as a further reason for
believing me guilty, that I was a bad boy
generally. This was conclusive evidence
of their prejudice against me, and
of their unfitness to be jurors in my
case.
I say now, before God, that the
accusation was utterly false.
This transaction occurred some six or
seven weeks after I went there.
I do not remember whether any punishment
followed the verdict, except
Coventry. On the 15th of September, Mr.
Chase wrote to father that he
had, a few days before, released me from
Coventry; and this was the last
of my experience in that line. The
vacation began soon after, and all the
boys left, except me and one other,
presently to be mentioned more par-
ticularly.
To any one who knew the utterly
insubordinate nature born in me,
it would hardly have seemed strange that
I should try to escape from that,
to me, dreadful place. About a month
after I went there, I was one day
left alone in the little hall into which
the front door opened, and was
required to learn a lesson, while all
the other boys were at play. The door
being open, I looked off through the
orchard to the Columbus road that
led toward home; which brought suddenly
into my mind the thought of
running away. Wild as the notion was, it
at once took hold of me. I
knew the road to Columbus, and also knew
a gentleman there, Dr. Peleg
Sisson, whom I had seen at father's
house, and who I thought might befriend
me if I could get to him. With my usual
impetuosity, without hesitation,
without thought of failure, without fear
or apprehension of anything, but
borne away by the bright hope of
escaping, I dropped my book, made for
the road, and started on it for
Columbus. I had walked about two miles,
when I passed a man on horseback going
toward Worthington. Imme-
diately after, I heard voices behind me
calling aloud, and, looking back,
saw that a man and two boys were
pursuing me, and had called to the man
on horseback to stop me. Instantly I
broke for the woods. When I did
so, the man turned his horse in a trot
after me, and called to me to stop,
but I kept on. He then shouted if I
didn't stop he would run me down.
I gave up, and was captured. . . .
Well, I was marched back to the house,
where Philander Chase was
waiting to receive me, and all the boys
were eagerly watching to see what
262
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
he would do with the fellow who had the
audacity to run away. I see
them now, mounted in a long row on the
fence that ran from the corner of
the house.
On going through the front door into the
little hall, from which I had,
about an hour before departed, there was
to the right a door leading into the
Bishop's study, and on the left one
opening into the parlor. When those
doors were open, there was a track of
about thirty feet in length from the
north door of the parlor, through the
hall, to the south door of the study;
and that was Mr. Chase's track that day.
What he said to me when I got back I do
not remember, but I don't
forget what he did. Seizing me with his
left hand by my arm, or by the
collar of my jacket, he started me on
the run on the track, from one end
to the other, and then back, and so back
and forth many times, all the while
beating me heavily with his right hand;
greatly to the delight of the young
savages on the fence. I do not recall
that this performance made any very
great impression on me; I rather think
that I considered it no very great
affair. But I do remember thinking, as
he was rushing me to and fro, how
nice it would be if his foot should
trip, and he should get a fall. That
such a thought, at such a time, should
have taken shape in my mind, was
about as good an indication of the
defiant recklessness of the child's nature
as could have been furnished. Well, sure
enough, after he had dragged and
beaten me many times from end to end of
the track, as he neared the outer
door of the parlor, his foot did trip,
and out he went head foremost down
the steps to the ground, right under the
row of boys on the fence, and I
with him. As it happened, neither of us
was hurt, but our clothes were
damaged. He didn't resume the exercise,
as I doubt not he would if he
had known of my previous thought.
News of this escapade reached home, and
soon came a letter from
father, telling me that if I should run
away again, and succeed in get-
ting home, he would send me back in two
hours after I got there, if he had
to send me in a cart. This, however, did
not change or stagger my purpose
to escape, if possible. Nor did a
subsequent awful letter, signed by both
father and mother, from which I care to
copy only these two sentences,
as samples:
"We cannot consent either to see
you or write to you again until you
reform, and send us such a letter, in
one of Mr. Chase's, as he will approve
and we shall delight to see. . . You
shall never again enter our door or
embrace your little sisters unless you
cease to be a bad boy."
I doubt not my parents' belief that this
would put an end to my running
away; but they did not understand that I
was not so much longing for home,
as intent on escaping from where I was
utterly miserable. I stopped not one
moment to think where I should go, or
what I should do after escaping;
but go from there I was determined, and
I kept on in my purpose till I
got away.
A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 263
While I was in Coventry, Mr. Chase made
me sleep in his room, in
a little frame building about a hundred
yards away from the Bishop's
house, so as to enforce my separation
from the other boys. From there I
made a second attempt to escape. This
was late in August, after I had
received that joint letter. Waking up
one morning at daybreak, and making
sure that Mr. Chase was sound asleep, I
noiselessly dressed myself, and,
taking my shoes in my hand, opened the
door as silently, probably, as door
was ever opened, went out, closed it
again as silently, and made for the
road. But, remembering the former
occasion, I crossed the road to the
west, and kept on that course, less
perhaps than a mile, till I reached
Whetstone River, (now called Olentangy),
when I followed its course
southward through the woods, and at
breakfast time was in Columbus,
having walked nearly, if not quite, ten
miles. A happier boy, probably,
was not that morning in the capital of
Ohio. I soon found Dr. Sisson,
for Columbus was then but a village. The
doctor received me kindly, and
I frankly told him that I had run away
from the Bishop's, and how I had
been treated. I remained with him a day
or two, not dreaming what
was to come. He invited me to a drive
with him in his gig, and we went
out on the road to Worthington. Then I
discovered that a drive in his gig
meant a drive to the Bishop's; and in
two or three hours I was back there
again. Strangely enough, I remember
nothing of what followed my re-
delivery to Mr. Chase; from which I
infer there was no punishment, except
to return me to Coventry.
In September came the vacation, and all
the boys left, except myself
and a boy from Kentucky, named Bernard
("Barney") Talbot, the young-
est of three brothers at the school,
who, my impression is, were sons of
Isham Talbot, then a Senator of the
United States from that state. The
two older brothers had gone to spend the
vacation with Allen McArthur,
a schoolmate, son of General Duncan
McArthur; whose title as General
was obtained in the then recent war with
Great Britain, and who after-
wards was a member of Congress and
Governor of Ohio. His home was
Fruit Hill, a mile or two west of
Chillicothe. . . .
Sometime in September, Philander Chase
left for the east. The
Bishop's Diocesan and parochial duties
kept him away from home most of
the time. In his absence I had vacation;
but when he was at home, it
wasn't much of a vacation for me; for he
required me to learn and recite
lessons regularly.
On the 4th of October, under the
Bishop's dictation, I wrote thus to
father: "I have not been permitted
to write to you or Ma for a long time
on account of my bad conduct, and I am
very sorry that you have had the
mortification to learn that I have been
a bad boy."
On the same sheet thus wrote the Bishop
his last letter about me of
which I have knowledge:
"My pledge given you that your son
should be treated in all respects
264
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of regimen as I would treat mine, has
been on my conscious mind, and I
am happy to inform you that the
treatment he has received, (specifications
omitted) although often painful, aided
as it has been by your good counsel,
is attended with appearances of
considerable success. Charles does not
lack talents, and if to a more than
ordinary share of these he can be made
to add integrity, honor, and a due
application, few young men, it is pre-
sumed, will exceed him. A regard to
truth we never can dispense with,
and I am happy to inform you that
Charles's character has arisen of late
in this respect to a considerable
degree, not only with myself but with all
the family. His obliging and manly
conduct I endeavor to reward by
hearing regularly his lessons every day,
though it be vacation. The task
is not made tedious to him, and it is
pleasant to perceive that he receives
this attention from me as a favor. All
this is well and opens better pros-
pects."
Rosy and, to my parents, comforting, and
presumably candid and well-
meant; but wandering into the region of
fancy as to my receiving his
tutorial attentions as a favor.
Evidently the Bishop didn't know that the
purpose to escape was still as fixed as
ever in Charles's mind.
Soon after writing this letter the
Bishop left home, and I never again
saw him there. Barney and I secretly
planned to run away together. Two
or three times I got my clothes ready
for a start, but he "rued". Mrs.
Chase would discover that my clothes
were missing from the closet where
she kept them, and would quietly hunt
them up and put them back. One
forenoon, after several disappointments,
Barney came to me in a hurry and
said, "Come, we'll go now,"
and he picked up a bundle of his clothes for
an instantaneous start. I wanted to get
mine, but he objected, and, as he
was a year or two the older, I
submitted. We made for the barn, some
fifty yards away, he carrying his bundle
before him, so that it should not
be seen by any one in the house. I went
with him promptly, unhesitatingly,
joyfully, without a stitch of clothing
but what was on me, without a hat,
and without a cent of money. We reached
the barn undiscovered, crawled
under it to the side farthest from the
house, whence no one could see us,
and turned our faces westward toward the
road; as we went, keeping a
sharp lookout in every direction for any
one that might appear likely to
arrest our progress; but we discovered
no one. Having before been over
the ground, under similar circumstances,
I told him that our best way was
to cross the road and go down the
Whetstone. We did so, and returned
not to the road until we were so far
toward Columbus as, supposably, to be
beyond successful pursuit. Had there
been any man at the Bishop's to
take horse and make for Columbus, we
might have been overtaken after
we got into the road; but we were keenly
on the watch every moment,
ready, if danger appeared, to conceal
ourselves in the cornfields or the woods.
And besides, we knew that there was no
one at the house but Mrs. Chase
and Mrs. Russell, and that it would not
be easy for them to get some one
A BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 265
to pursue us. We went on without
interruption to Columbus. Remember-
ing my previous experience with Dr.
Sisson, and fearing that I might
encounter him if I entered the town, it
was agreed that I should go
round it, and wait on the Chillicothe
road for Barney; who, knowing a
gentleman in the town, would look him
up, and try to get some money
from him. The plan was successfully
carried out, except that Barney got
no money. But he got--how, I don't
remember--what was almost as good
as money to me, a small box of ointment
for my already blistered feet.
Our objective point was Chillicothe. We
expected to walk there; but
how, in the forty-mile tramp before us,
we were to get food, or be housed
at night, we had not the least idea. We
had proceeded perhaps a mile
when we were overtaken by a wagon with a
four-horse team which we
had before seen standing at the
roadside. We asked the driver to let us
ride, and he good-naturedly consented.
Seeing at once that we were stran-
gers, he wanted to know who we were,
where we were from, and where we
were going. Barney was not much of a
talker, but I had no difficulty in
expressing myself, and I gave the man a
full account of ourselves; told
him we were running away from Bishop
Chase's school; how I had been
treated there; and where we wished to
go. He appeared so much inter-
ested in the story that we felt quite
safe in his hands; but we knew not
where he was bound, nor what he would do
with us. On the latter point
we were not to be long in suspense; for,
about six miles south of Colum-
bus, we came to a tavern, where he
stopped, called out the landlord, and
told him to take those boys in, give
them supper, lodging, and breakfast,
and start them on, the next morning, for
Circleville, and he would pay the
bill! We alighted from the wagon with jubilant hearts. I
never knew
who our benevolent friend was, and do
not remember having heard his
name; but, many times since, I have
wished that I could have seen him in
my manhood, to give him my heartfelt
thanks for his kindness to us that
day, and repay him that tavern bill,
with compound interest.
We stayed over-night at the tavern, got
a hearty breakfast in the
morning, and started for Circleville,
twenty miles away. Riding in wagons
when we could, and, when we couldn't,
walking, we reached that place in
the evening, with no more knowledge of
any one there, than if it had been
a village in China. We knew, though,
that the best place to go to was the
tavern, and to it we went, and told our
story, and the kind-hearted Boniface
took us in, and cared well for us till
the next morning. I have a pleasant
memory of being seated in the evening at
the family fireside, where were
two young ladies and a gentleman or two,
who listened with evident interest
and sympathy to our story.
Starting the next morning for
Chillicothe, twenty miles distant, we
repeated the history of the day before,
alternately walking and riding.
Fortunately, we got to the Scioto River,
opposite Chillicothe, in a wagon,
which forded the stream and landed us in
the town. Had we reached the
266 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
river on foot, we might have been
troubled; for it was just at twilight. If
night had overtaken us before we got
across, it might have compelled our
sleeping in the woods. But, thanks to a
good Providence, all went well.
Just as we dismounted from the the
wagon, another came along driven by
a negro, whom we stopped and told that
we wanted to go to General Mc-
Arthur's, and asked him if he could tell
us how to get there. He answered
cheerily that he was going right there,
and told us to get in; and soon we
were at Fruit Hill, where we found
Barney's brothers and Allen McArthur.
You can imagine their surprise at seeing
us there, when they thought us
safely bestowed at the Bishop's for the
vacation, and their mingled amuse-
ment and astonishment over our narrative
of our escape and journey.
My stay at General McArthur's was short,
and my recollections of
it are meagre. The only distinct one is
of his sweet and pretty daughter
Effie, then about sixteen, who, many
years after, became, and died, the
wife of William Allen, a Senator of the
United States, and afterwards
Governor of Ohio. I once met her, in our
mature years, and had pleasant
talk with her about the fascination she
had exerted over the runaway
boy at Fruit Hill.
For some reason, not remembered, I left
there and went to Madeira's
Hotel in the town, where was the rest of
my stay in Chillicothe. There I
found a warm friend in young John
Madeira, who assisted his father in
keeping the house. From the first he
showed a kindly interest in me.
Seeing that I had no hat, he bought me
one. One day, when some man
seemed to be disposed to treat me
roughly, John told him quite peremp-
torily that he would not allow anything
of that kind. In 1841, I was at
Chillicothe, and met my friend, then Colonel
John Madeira, and a highly-
esteemed citizen; when I did not fail to
thank him for his kindness to me
twenty years before.
While at the hotel I was, told that
father had written to General Mc-
Arthur to send me back to the Bishop's!
How, or by what influence, I
don't remember, if I ever knew, the
General did not start me off at once,
but kindly yielded to my entreaty for
time to write home and get an
answer; and here is the letter I wrote:
"Chillicothe, October 24, 1821.
"Dear Father:
"You wrote to Gen'l McArthur to
send me back to Worthington, and I
was very sorry to hear it, and I did not
like it at all, and the reason of
that is that I will be beat about as I
was before I came away, and that
was the reason I ran away. And another
thing, before I came I wrote to
you to know whether I might come or not,
and when I had written you a
very good letter, the Bishop was not at
home, and Mrs. Chase took the
letter away from me and tore it up.
"I remain your miserable son
"CHARLES DRAKE."
A
BUCKEYE BOARDING-SCHOOL 267
That was the boy's own letter, written
without counsel or help from
any one, telling his little story in his
own way. I doubt if it would, of
itself, have saved him from being sent
back. I can't help thinking that
extraneous influences were at work with
father on my behalf. I know,
however, but of one,--an anonymous
letter, which father must have re-
ceived before I wrote from Chillicothe,
and which was as follows:
"Worthington, October 16, 1821.
"Dr. Drake,
"Sir,
"Your little son left Mr. Chase's
last Saturday. Where he has gone
is uncertain. He left here without money
or clothing. I believe no person
has taken any interest for him except
Dr. Sisson of Columbus. He went on
Sunday last after him, but could not
find him. Mr. Chase is very much
censured for his treatment to your son.
"I am with due respect your Obed't
servant,
"A FRIEND."
This letter ministers to my propensity
for remembering dates, by en-
abling me to record and cherish the 13th
of October as the day of my final
escape from Bishop Chase's dominion. I
have no idea who wrote it, but
it bears internal evidence of the
writer's having become accurately acquainted
with my treatment there. It may have
exerted influence against my being
sent back. But it is more probable that
father had heard of the Bishop's
intended removal to Cincinnati, and that
consequently the school at Wor-
thington would not be re-opened.
After I had been at Madeira's Hotel some
days, I received with great
joy some clothes that had been sent to
Worthington for me. How they
came to follow me, I never knew.
I was out one day across the river,
amusing myself with a shot-gun,
when a man on horseback from the hotel
brought me the joyful news that
my father had written to have me sent
home, and that a way of sending
me had been found. The man mounted me
behind him, and rode in a
gallop to the hotel to get my clothes,
and then out of the town and past
Fruit Hill, and some distance from the
latter, overtook a carriage, in
which two or three gentlemen were
traveling, to whom he delivered me,
and with whom I went home.
I remember the name of but one of
them,--Dennis Rockwell, a hand-
some, amiable, and sensible young man;
whom, thirteen years after, I found
living, greatly respected, in
Jacksonville, Illinois, and there renewed my
friendship with him. He delivered me at
my father's house, where my
reception was decidedly cool; but I do
not remember any reproaches . . . .
Here ends Charles Drake's account of his
acquaintance with
Bishop Philander Chase, one of the most
energetic, irascible and
268
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
domineering characters of the New West,
ever the refuge and
the nursery of violent spirits.
Though temperamentally unfitted to deal
with young boys,
the Bishop was a zealous worker in the
home missionery field.
He soon gave up his school at
Worthington to undertake the
founding of an Episcopal institution of
higher learning near
Gambier. But he quarrelled with his
trustees over questions of
policy and was ousted from his beloved
Kenyon College, which
he had established with funds
laboriously collected on two trips
to England.
Driven into exile in the wilds of
Michigan, Chase suffered
poverty and privation but was finally
made the first Episcopal
bishop of Illinois. He died in the same
year as Dr. Daniel Drake,
1852. There was a saying current in
Bishop Chase's Illinois
diocese that he had but one friend--God.
Charles Drake's later educational
experiences were checkered,
but less harrowing. He studied under
private tutors in Cincin-
nati, attended a Jesuit boarding-school
at Bardstown, Kentucky,
and later went to the famous
"American Literary, Scientific and
Military Academy" at Middletown,
Connecticut, under the head-
ship of a Captain Partridge, formerly
Superintendent of West
Point.
At sixteen Charles's father procured him
an appointment as
midshipman in the Navy, but on a cruise
in the Mediterranean he
was threatened with court martial for
rough language to a sailor
and rather than face trial, resigned. In
his early twenties he
studied law, married and settled in St.
Louis, where he became
an elder in the Presbyterian Church,
published law books and
campaigned actively against slavery and
secession. After the
Civil War he was elected to the United
States Senate on the
ticket of the new Republican party,
moved with his family to
Washington and was appointed by
President Grant as Chief
Justice of the Court of Claims.