Ohio History Journal

RAILROAD DISCUSSION NOT FORBIDDEN

BY LANCASTER SCHOOL BOARD

FACTS AND FICTION RELATING TO A WELL WORN STORY.

On September 13, 1927, appeared a news article of

considerable length in the Lancaster Daily Eagle, rela-

tive to the story that is semi-occasionally the subject of

inquiries addressed to the Ohio State Archaeological and

Historical Society. We are under obligation to Judge

Van A. Snider, of Lancaster, Ohio, for the clipping

from which we quote liberally.

The news story opens as follows:

For a half a century or more there has appeared in the

public prints a paragraph which somewhat reflects upon the intel-

ligence of the citizens of Lancaster and which has been clipped

out by former residents of Fairfield County and sent to the

Eagle. They came from the far and near, from the golden

shores of the Pacific States, from the middle west and from all

the states bordering on the broad Atlantic.

We have printed it, oh, a score of times and denied its

authenticity, but still it is printed and the latest to take it up

was the Liberty Magazine, whose editor comments upon it edi-

torially. It has to do with the use of a schoolroom for a public

debate as to whether or not railroads were practical. The reso-

lution that was supposed to have been passed by the Lancaster

School Board reads as follows:

You are welcome to use the schoolroom to debate all proper questions

in, but such things as railroads and telegraphs are impossibilities and rank

infidelity. There is nothing in the Word of God about them. If God had

designed that His intelligent creatures should travel at the frightful rate

of fifteen miles an hour by steam He would have foretold it through His

holy prophets. It is a device of Satan to lead immortal souls down to hell.

The best explanation to the above was written some years

ago by Will Scott, a former Lancasterian and a son of Dr.

Hervey Scott, who many years ago wrote a history of Lancaster

and Fairfield County.

At this point the story, as published in Dr. Scott's

history, in 1877, is here reproduced in full as follows:

(148)

150       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

In the winter of 1827, the compiler of this volume was the

Secretary of a debating school in one of the Western counties

of Ohio. We held our meetings in the little brick schoolhouse

of the village. The building stood a little out to one side, and

near the Methodist Meeting-house.

The railroad idea was just beginning to incubate in the

East, and the heresy had got on the wings of the winds -- merest

inklings of it, and had been wafted to the brains of even some

chimerists of the "Far-West." A Yankee had been through the

country exhibiting a miniature locomotive on wires stretched

across the room, and charging a quarter for the sight. The

thing was pronounced a Yankee trick by the conservative element

of the community. Three-fourths of the people were conserva-

tive then; in fact, radicalism scarcely dared show its face.

We had a Captain Brown among us. He was voted a

visionary -- a castle builder. It has since appeared that he

was one who let his mind run off in all directions; a man who

did not believe that things were finished, or that the acme of

knowledge and the ultimatum of invention had been reached.

At one of the meetings he made a speech -- a railroad

speech. He said the time was coming, and not far off, when

railroads would be laid all over the West, and that people would

yet travel fifteen miles an hour by steam. He said there would

some day be a railroad from Cleveland to Cincinnati, and it

would pass not far from that spot.

The meeting was largely attended that night, including ladies

and many of the older and staid citizens.

A couple of days subsequently I received the following note,

signed by a dozen of the solid men of the neighborhood, with a

request that it should be read at the next debating school:

You are welcome to the use of the school-house to debate all proper

questions, but such things as railroads are impossibilities, and are impious,

and will not be allowed.

I read the note, and the railroad idea was squelched. Captain

Brown did not live to see his prophecy fulfilled, but the railroad

station now is within three hundred yards of where the school-

house was then.

It will be noted that the date, 1827, which usually

goes with the reputed opposition to the discussion of

railroads and telegraphs, appears in Dr. Hervey Scott's

history. We continue the quotation from the Lancaster

Eagle:

Railroad Discussion Not Forbidden by Board     151

Will Scott is now connected with the Hearst paper, in

Detroit. We asked him to reproduce the article and this is

what he says in a letter to his nephew, Dr. Bay Scott, of Lan-

caster:

Detroit, Mich., August 14, 1927.

Dear Bay Scott:

Re Mr. Ed Wetzler's interest in the old story which has

been floating around for nearly 100 years and dealing with the

action of an alleged Lancaster, Ohio, School Board in forbidding

the use of the schoolhouse for the discussion of railroads and

telegraphs, I submit the following narrative.

I have written the story several times in the last five years --

the first time for the Eagle. The others were published in the

Detroit Times and other Hearst papers.

In the first place, no Lancaster School Board was concerned

in the note forbidding the use of the schoolhouse. This error

arose from the fact that the story was originally published in a

Lancaster newspaper and while the publication was before my

birth and I therefore did not see it, I am of the opinion that its

author, my father, was not so careless as to omit in his story the

actual location of the schoolhouse in another county and definitely

identify the particular school board concerned.

Years later, I heard him frequently talk and laugh about

the incident and he showed me the original note from the school

authorities, which he most carefully preserved. There were three

signatures to the note, including the name of his own father.

The facts were as follows: My father was born in Clark

County, Ohio, in 1809. The town of South Charleston is located

exactly on the old farm or settlement owned and operated by

my grandfather. Ohio was at that time little more than a wilder-

ness. I have heard my father talk often of the Indians and wild

animals which shared the region, the entire state perhaps, with

the white people who had drifted into it and settled there. In

1831, my father then at the age of 22, was engaged to teach

school to the few young people who lived close enough to

reach a long, one-room log schoolhouse and which had oiled

paper in lieu of window glass for the admission of light from

the outside. It was the custom of the young men and women

of the locality to assemble at the schoolhouse at intervals and

just talk about anything that interested them. Upon one of these

occasions, a stranger arrived on horseback, there being of course

no railroads and not even wagon roads, which made horseback

the only means of travel, except on foot. Being attracted by the

gathering at the schoolhouse, the stranger, whose name has never

152       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

been connected with the story because it was perhaps not learned

during his few hours' sojourn in the neighborhood and was of

no consequence anyhow, tied his horse to a tree and entered the

schoolhouse. He sat there listening to the various young people

who had something to say and his presence was of course noted --

also the fact that he was a stranger and totally unknown. Some

sort of interview developed the fact that he had been riding west

from the Atlantic seaboard for many weeks and was headed for

no particular place -- just traveling in quest of some locality that

might prove attractive to him. In these modern days such a gen-

tleman would be referred to as a "Boomer."

The interview also disclosed that this visitor might possibly

be able to make an interesting talk to those young folks who

never had been away from the locality or read any newspapers --

if there were any. He was invited to make them a talk and in

the course of his remarks, he informed them that he had, a short

time before leaving New York, witnessed the demonstration of a

"wagon with fire in it and built out of iron." The wagon, as he

described it, had flanged wheels and was mounted on long lines

of wooden girders. The wagon was so constructed that steam

was created and held in "boxes" and according to the mechanism

of the "wagon" this steam moved a rod backward and forward,

The rod was attached to wheels so that the steam which governed

the "rod" made the wheels turn around and with such power that

the wagon moved at the rate of 15 miles an hour and drew behind

it other wagons also equipped with flanged wheels to hold them

on the rails or wooden girders. The said wagon had just been

built by somebody who had an idea it was a practical means of

moving various articles from one locality to another. I imagine

his description was crude enough but also thorough enough to

arouse the curiosity of his audience, who continued their discus-

sion of it at their homes and in this manner the older people

learned of the incident and talked it over among themselves.

The older and more conservative members of the

community were not favorably impressed with the story

of the traveling stranger and proceeded to register their

opposition to continued discussion of the subject he

brought into the community. Mr. Will Scott's letter

continues as follows:

I have always held the idea that their action in forbidding

the use of the schoolhouse further to listen to such trashy talk,

Railroad Discussion Not Forbidden by Board    153

was based upon the well-known human trait of character which

manifests itself in people of considerable age, resisting as best

they can, the ideas of younger people along lines which the older

ones know nothing about. At any rate, the fiercely denunciatory

note, containing the most positive command to prevent any more

such disgraceful incidents in the schoolhouse, followed.

That appears to be all there is to the story. It was, however,

in Clark County, and not in Lancaster, that the incident was

created. I will connect Lancaster with it a little further on.

The Encyclopedia Britannica contains the information that the

first steam engine built in this country, was produced at a

machine shop called the "West Point," in the city of New York,

in the year 1831, by a man whose name I have forgotten. This

engine was demonstrated by its builder and was doubtless the

one seen by the traveler who told the Clark County "kids" about

it. The encyclopedia states that this engine was at once put into

practical use, but exploded after a short service and DeWitt

Clinton immediately built a duplicate of it, with some improve-

ments of his own and in the same shop. This latter engine is

still in existence and I have seen it many times.

Now for the responsibility which a Lancaster School Board

has had to assume for the action which has in later years,

appeared so humorous.

My father was, at the time he served as school-teacher,

studying medicine and very soon thereafter he entered the Cin-

cinnati College of Medicine from which he graduated, and soon

after located in Lancaster. He had been greatly impressed with

the life of the wilderness as he had seen it, the habits, customs

and character of the settlers and, as he saw advancement in his

new environment, he believed that written accounts of the earlier

days would be interesting. He seems to have acquired, or in-

herited from his mother, a very highly educated young woman

of English extraction, a considerable amount of literary talent.

As long as he lived he continued to write his pioneer sketches

which were widely published in many localities. Having built

up a more or less successful practice in Lancaster and having,

as a possible necessary consequence, become possessed of "some"

money, he purchased the Lancaster Gazette, at some date shortly

prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, and my oldest brother,

Hervey Scott, together with Billy Kooken and Lang Sutphen,

was the working staff of the paper, my father and brother,

Hervey, acting as editors.

While publishing the Gazette, let me say from perhaps 1858

to 1861, he published this dictum from the school board incorpo-

rated in one of his pioneer narratives. At the outbreak of the

154       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

war, my brother, Hervey, enlisted as a private and served

throughout the entire conflict. I remember his arrival home,

although less than three years old myself, at the time. My father

had sold the paper, to whom I am not certain, but believe it

was Mr. Griswold. Now, then, because the story was printed in

a Lancaster newspaper, and because subsequent developments

began to give it an amusing and humorous character, the "odium"

was forever fastened upon a Lancaster School Board. The

story is still current and even Arthur Brisbane used it in his

internationally famous "Today" stuff within recent months.

Going back to the cause of all the trouble, the "Boomer"

traveler on horseback, among his remarks, was a prediction that

some, who then listened to him, would live to see in actual and

practical operation, the curious contrivance he was trying to

describe. It was not very long after that time that a railroad

was built through Clark County, which as far back as I can

remember, was the "Little Miami" section of the Pennsylvania

Railroad, and its South Charleston depot stands upon the identical

spot previously occupied by the log schoolhouse in which the

traveler from the east broke the news. This information came

personally from my father.

WILL SCOTT.

2325 Cass Avenue, Detroit, Mich.

It will be noted that Dr. Hervey Scott does not state

where the address of this traveler from the East was

delivered. The designation is "one of the western coun-

ties of Ohio." The inference very naturally was that it

occurred in Lancaster, or at least in Fairfield County,

inasmuch as the prophecy was published in Dr. Scott's

History of Fairfield County, Ohio.

The fact that "telegraphs" are usually included in

the resolution purporting to have been adopted by the

Lancaster School Board in 1827, is strong evidence that

such resolution was never passed by the Lancaster or

any other Ohio school board in that year. "Telegraphs"

were not dreamed of at that time -- at least in the west-

ern wilderness. The fully purported resolution, quoted

at the beginning of this newspaper story, doubtless