Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I

©1888

 

GREENE COUNTY—Continued

 

Page 707

 

ings are substantial brick structures, except the industrial and farm-buildings and green houses.

 

The administration building has three stories, and is occupied by the officers and teachers; the cottages are two stories high, and are arranged to accommodate thirty-four children each; the school-house is three stories high, and will accommodate nearly 700 children. The chapel has a seating capacity of 700; the hospital is well arranged for the care of the sick. The building annexed to the administration building, known as the Domestic building, is three stories in height, the basement being occupied by the kitchen and bakery; the second story is the children’s dining-room, with a seating capacity of nearly 700; the third story contains sleeping apartments for certain of the employees, and the linen and store rooms. The children all sleep in the cottages, each cottage being under the charge of a matron. The principal buildings are heated by steam, lighted by gas and supplied with water from the water-tower in the rear. This water originally came from Shawnee creek, which runs through the grounds.

 

The large view was taken from a standpoint in the forest north of the cottages. It shows just half of them and the administration building, the other half being on the other side of that building. They are about 1800 feet from the road to Xenia, and form a continuous line of 1500 feet. The ground in front is a grassy lawn, sloping down through an open forest, beyond which, on a little lower ground near the road, winds Shawnee creek, a mere rivulet which is crossed by a bridge. On the path side, as the visitor enters the ground, he is greeted by a floral design speaking from the ground itself, a single word only—“WELCOME.”

 

It was a morning late in the autumn when we entered the place, and found the children scattered on the lawn enjoying themselves, playing at games in the bright sunshine. It was our second visit, after a lapse of a year and a half. A little later, while adjusting the camera for the picture, the music sounded from the boys band in the distance near the school-house, summoning them to school. Looking up we saw the boys in their neat military costumes arranged in companies in front of the cottages as shown in the picture. In one place was a platoon of urchins in zouave costumes: red leggings and red fez. In another, one girl in the bright garb of a vivandier, at the end of a platoon of boys. It was indeed a charming picture. A few minutes elapsed; we were too busy to look up. When we did, not a soul was to be seen; not a sound was heard. It was a surprise to us, the sudden change. The whole, some 600 strong, boys and girls, had been hived in the school-house seen in the extreme distance. It is the custom of the superintendent, Maj. Noah THOMAS, an armless ex-soldier, who carries an empty sleeve, to take a stand on the steps of the administration building on these occasions, and as the companies of boys march by they give him Ale military salute.

 

Historical Sketch.—the initiatory steps toward the establishment of a SOLDIERS’ AND SAILORS’ ORPHANS’ HOME were taken in 1869 by the Grand Army of the Republic. Its purpose was to secure necessary funds through private beneficence, believing that having placed the project well on foot the State would take it up and carry it to its consummation. On June 21 1869, a meeting was held in the city hall at Xenia to devise the ways and means for perfecting the plan. On Judy 13th a second meeting was held therein and addressed by Gov. HAYES, Congressman WINANS, Capt. EARNSHAW and others. Subscriptions to the amount of $16,500 were guaranteed Eli MILLEN, Lester ARNOLD, and J. C. McMILLEN subscribing $1000 each. In the meantime the citizens of Xenia and representatives of the Grand Army of the Republic were actively at work; a desirable location in the vicinity of Xenia was selected, and the press advocated the immediate erection of buildings.

 

The Grand Army of the Republic appointed a board of control consisting of Gen. Geo. B. WRIGHT, Maj. M. S. GUNCKEL, Col. H. G. Armstrong, Eli MILLEN, Judge WHITE, Mrs. R. B. HAYES, Mrs. H. L. MONROE and Mrs. Ann E. McMEANS, which met October 11th and agreed to accept the location offered by the people of Xenia.

 

 

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Main street. Mrs. A. McMEANS was elected superintendent in January 1870, but resigned n a short time and Maj. M. S. GUNCKEL was appointed acting superintendent, with Mrs. EDINGTON, of Chicago, as matron and four others as assistants and teachers. January 3, 1870, it was decided to construct at once a large frame building as a dormitory and lining-room, and contracts were made for the erection of five more cottages. Children were now coming in rapidly; there were about me hundred in the temporary quarters and numerous applications on file. Contributions and donations, principally wearing apparel and bedding, were sent m from all parts of the State.

 

A committee from the State Legislature visited the “Home.” February 28th a public meeting was held in the City Hall, attended by the children in a body, and one of them Master Howard E. GILKEY, of Cleveland, delivered a touching speech, presenting the claims of the orphaned children upon the State. The entire audience was much affected by his speech, and after other speeches the committee returned to Columbus, thoroughly convinced “that it was the duty of the State to at once assume the care of the orphaned children of its soldiers and sailors, A bill was introduced in the Legislature to “establish Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailor’s Orphans’ Homes.” The bill provided that such institutions should be under the control of a board of managers consisting of seven citizens appointed by the Governor; that there should be received into the Homes the children residing in Ohio, not beyond sixteen years of a deceased, indigent and permanently disabled soldiers and sailors who served during the rebellion. Thirteen thousand dollars was appropriated, and such part of the property of the State at White Sulphur Springs in Delaware county as was not necessary for the Reform and Industrial School for Girls, already located at that place, should be set apart for the establishment of a “Home.” The bill also provided that in case the orphans could not be comfortably and well accommodated at White Sulphur Springs without interfering with the efficiency of the Industrial School for Girls, that the Board of Managers should have authority to accept by donation or bequest a suitable tract of land at a convenient point, with necessary accommodations, buildings and equipments for two hundred and fifty children. This bill was passed April 14, 1870, and the following gentlemen were appointed a Board of Managers by the Governor: R. P. BUCKLAND, FREMONT; James BARNETT, Cleveland J. Warren KEIFER, Springfield; Benj. F. COATE, Portsmouth; F. FORCE, Cincinnati; J. S. JONES, Delaware; H. G. ARMSTRONG, Cincinnati. There was much objection to its requirement that the Home should be established at White Sulphur Springs; but, as that property could not be made available for the purpose of the law, at a meeting of the Board of Managers held in Delaware, May 13th, they resolved that they would accept a suitable tract of land with buildings etc., at some other point, as provided by the act of the Legislature.

 

May 25th the Board of Managers accepted the proposition of Gen. Geo. B. WRIGHT, Maj. M. S. GUNCKEL and Col. H. G. ARMSTRONG, representing the Board of Control of the Xenia Home, which was to complete the work already commenced under their auspices, and have the same ready for occupancy by June 1st. A large force of men at once resumed work on the buildings, and on August 16, 1870, they were ready for presentation to the State. Dr. I. D. GRISWOLD as elected superintendent and Mrs. GRISWOLD matron. During this month the children were transferred to the three cottages and the large frame building (now occupied as the workshop). The Board passed upon application for more than two hundred and fifty children, including those already collected, who numbered one hundred and twenty-three at an average age of nine years. The whole number of children m the State entitled to the benefits of the “Home” was estimated at 800. Of these 350 had already made application for admission, and another appropriation was made in May, 1871, to increase the accommodations.

 

The plan of dividing the children into families in cottages, separating the sexes, was found to work excellently, thereby rendering government easier and less liability to sickness and epidemic. A main building served to provide a suitable dining-hall, culinary department school-rooms, etc. Many of the larger children were required to work, the boys on the farm and the girls in the domestic department.

 

In 1872 additional land was secured to enlarge the farm, and many improvements made on the grounds and buildings and the following spring a large number of fruit trees and vines were planted. In 1874 a system of industrial education was inaugurated. Shops were established to teach printing, telegraphing, tailoring, dressmaking, knitting, carpentering, blacksmithing, shoemaking and tinning. Gentlemen well versed in the different branches were placed at the head of each department.

 

 

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without airing or washing. Washing airing and drying before storing in the spring prevented a recurrence of these diseases.

 

Further appropriations by the Legislature and a steady improvement in the system of management brought to the institution a high degree of efficiency in accomplishing the objects for which it was founded.

 

On February 16, 1879, the destruction of the administration and domestic buildings by fire involved a loss to the State of nearly $75,000, and to the employees and officers of sums ranging from $100 to $500. The Legislature speedily authorized the rebuilding of the destroyed structures, and plans were adopted for making the new buildings fireproof.

 

On the 27th day of April, 1884, the institution was visited by a most terrific cyclone. The storm did not rage to exceed one minute, but with force indescribable, tearing away the roofs of the laundry, hospital and other buildings, completely demolishing the barn, wagon and tool sheds, carrying away the roof of the hospital a distance of five hundred feet, in an almost unbroken condition until it struck the earth, driving slates into, the trees with such force as that it was impossible to remove them with the hand removing a large part of the east veranda from its foundation, tearing down timber, fences, and other structures, and carrying a portion of the wreck miles away, and yet there was no human being injured, except two employees slightly, although there were at the time within the institution about seven hundred and fifty men, women and children; the children all being at supper.

 

The damages resulting from the cyclone were repaired, at a cost of $7,500, a large portion of the money used for that purpose having been procured by Governor George HOADLY and Hon. John LITTLE, they having given their joint promissory note for $5,152.50 and Mr. LITTLE his individual note for $508.75.

 

This was the same cyclone which visited Jamestown in this county, with such disastrous results, an account of which is given on another page.

 

In 1888 the institution was under the superintendence of Major Noah THOMAS, with Mrs. Alice THOMAS matron, Leigh McCLUNG physician, George H. HARLAN financial officer. The Educational Department, with Horace A. Stokes as principal, had sixteen lady teachers. The cottage matrons numbered twenty, also a hospital matron, Mrs. Ephraim HARDESTY, and Miss Rosa BAUERLE supply matron and teacher. The number of children November 15, 1887, were 668, of whom 242 were girls, 426 boys.

 

The occupations taught are domestic economy, stenography, shoemaking, farming, carpentering, painting, girls’ sewing, printing, tinning, gardening, engineering, baking, tailoring, dressmaking, blacksmithing, cutting and fitting dressmaking.

 

Board of Trustee—Charles H. GROSVENOR Athens; Nelson A. FULTON, Xenia; William C. Lyon, Newark; John S. Jones, Delaware; and Andrew SCHWARZ, Columbus.

 

The average age of the children is about eleven years, and were it double its capacity the Home would speedily be filled with orphans of the class contemplated by the law. The annual expense is for each orphan about $140. This is about what it is with the inmates of the other charitable institutions, as the Deaf and Dumb, Blind, Imbecile and Insane.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

“The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home at Xenia is one of the bright places in the State. It pays the people largely to sustain it. I was a guest over night March 17, 1886, and then, passing there a few hours of the next day, saw much to admire and nothing to condemn. It is as one great household where system and order and a conscientious spirit everywhere prevails.

 

The Food and Health—At these various State charitable institutions the inmates all live well. The food is of the very best, much fruit, vegetables and milk; with no dishes of flummery for cloyed appetites, but all simple, well cooked, and healthy; far better than in most private families or hotels. The sleeping apartments are well ventilated, ample washing facilities are supplied and a healthy temperature maintained by good heating facilities. Aside from this comes the element of uniform employment without the fret, worry and hurry and idleness that often attend life elsewhere. Hence the health of the inmates generally surpasses that of any like number of people outside of such institutions. Only one death had occurred here in the three years prior to my visit.

 

 

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so. Some who have been bred here are among the teachers, and in time the entire supply may come from the institution itself.

 

I visited the various shops, among them the printing office where they print a weekly newspaper, the fruit and vegetable storehouse, and the greenhouse, with its array of flowers. The hospital I did not enter; it is not much used, as there are rarely many inmates.

 

Uses of Children.—A school-room, especially if filled with very small children, is always attractive. A world without children would be a stupid spot. They make things lively, are the beat sort of instructors, their ignorance, helplessness and trustful leaning so developing to our own high good, often so warming the heart in delightful emotion, that, even before the Master himself came to utter the words, “Suffer little children to come unto me,” multitudes of our race must have experienced the angelic glow that comes from their appealing presence.

 

Beauty of the Dawning Intellect.—No flower opens with more beauty to sip the morning dew as it glistens upon its fragile petals, than the heart of the young child to the reception of kindness and love, while it literally hungers and thirsts after knowledge, finding itself in this great storehouse of creation, with everything around new and strange, made for its use and development.

 

Yea, everything: the glory of the earth by day; the glory of the vast dome by night; time, that never was, bat ever is; space with its immensity that has no bounds; and, moreover the qualities of justice truth and love, higher than all material things, which always were, before anything was, ready existing for their exercise whenever sentient life could spring into creation.

 

And then a Supreme Intelligence and Supreme Power over all that creates, bringing these qualities into the uses of the thinking life he has created, and to fill it with joy and gratitude as it learns to discern more and more through all time, through all eternity, the full perfection and superlative beauty of the universe, of which not the least wonder will be that he finds himself a part. It is in this view to what children are the heirs, that to supply their highest wants, to give to them the noblest, purest development is among the highest, most bliss-filling of duties.

 

An Exhibition of the Little People.—I entered the far building in the picture, the school-house. The first room I went in was for small children, about eight years of age. There were forty boys and girls under the charge of Miss DIX. The room was on the ground floor, spacious, and lighted on two sides by nine windows. These gave a pleasing outlook upon green fields and noble trees, with the early buds of a spring morning unfolding in the sunlight. I now state what happened.

 

1st. School opened with the Lord’s Prayer.

 

2d. With folded hands and bowed heads the children repeated “I thank thee, Lord, for quiet rest, And for Thy care of me,” etc.

3d. A hymn was sung b the children. “Gentle Saviour,” followed by one entitled “Little Ones,” “Jesus, when He Left the Skies,” etc.

 

4th. Recitation. The noted poem of Alice Carey, beginning with—

 

“Among the beautiful pictures

That hang on memory’s wall,

Is one of a dim old forest

That seemeth the beat of all.”

 

5th. Recitation:

 

“Do your best, your very best;

Do it every day,” etc.

 

6th. Recitation:

 

“One step and then another,

And the longest walk is ended,” etc.

 

After these preliminaries they went through exercises on the blackboards, and their proficiency was surprising.

I then arose to go into some of the other rooms, when the teacher called out a little one as a guide as the midget came to me I lifted him up under the arms. He was as light as a kitten, and as his little legs dangled in the air I kissed him, whereupon the other thirty-nine midgets burst forth with a simultaneous laugh, in which their teacher, Miss Sarah Belle DIX, joined—making forty laughs as the product of a single kiss.

 

The Cottages.—a little later I went exploring the twenty cottages, each cottage with its family of thirty-four, presided over by a matron or cottage mother, thirteen cottages occupied by boys and seven by girls, and sixteen cottages in a straight line, facing the town of Xenia a mile away, with two. others at each end facing at right angles.

 

A plank walk passes in front of the cottages, over which is a continuous roof, as shown in the engraving. This is a shelter from the rain and the sun when the children march out from their cottages to the great dining-hall in the main building.

 

The dining-hall has four long tables, with a seating capacity for 700 children. They march in with military tread, accompanied by the matrons. When seated they repeat the Lord’s Prayer in concert. The matrons wait on and serve the children under their control.

 

 

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having the rooms to look after and the children’s clothing to mend. The older girls largely assist them, and learn housewifery after the very beat kind of instruction.

 

The larger picture shows the form of each cottage, which are all on the same model. The general sitting-room is on the ground floor. I describe one of the several I entered, and they are mainly all alike. The room was about thirty-three by eighteen feet. It was carpeted, with two rows of chairs running lengthwise. On the walls hung pictures; a table was in the centre, with a few books upon it. In front of this was a doll’s table, with play-dishes and dolls sitting around. One mother doll was in a pleasure carriage on the floor, holding a baby doll in each arm. The toys for the children are supplied by The Grand Army. Last Christmas there was a great celebration here, and a deputation from them who distributed presents. The pictures and ornaments on the walls are paid for by saving the rage and old papers of the Institution.

 

Frank Henry Howe, Photo, 1888.

SITTING-ROOM OF A COTTAGE, SOLDIERS’ ORPHANS’ HOME.

 

 

In the small picture are shown three doors. That in the centre leads up-stairs. That on the left is to the sitting-room of the matron; on the right is the children’s store-room, where each child’s clothes are laid away in a .where of drawers against the walls, a drawer to a child, and each one with its name or number. Over these rooms is the wash-room and the matron’s bed-room. The children’s dormitory is over the sitting-room, and of the same size. The floor is uncarpeted, the walls white, the coverlets to the beds white; the bedsteads are of oak, seventeen in number, arranged in rows. Two children occupy a single bed. Everything there is neat, sweet and clean, as it indeed is about everything connected with the room. Many housekeepers might learn much in these regards by visiting the various State Institutions. The general tone of the bed-rooms is a snow-like whiteness and purity, with floods of light from ample windows.

 

The Matrons welcome visitors and take a just pride in showing them through their cottages. Among them one sees a variety. There is the large, fleshy woman with rosy cheeks, who has charge of the smallest troop of boys. Her face is redolent with goodness and smiles, and it is pleasing to see the little ones clustering around her to be caressed and share the envied kiss. Then there is the tall, strong woman, somewhat advanced in years. She has no especial call for the exercise of the softer motherly qualities. Her expression shows determination and executive capacity: and she should have these. The question of strong government is ever before her, for her charge is a family of thirty-four boys from fourteen to near sixteen years of age. They all sleep m one room, are naturally full of the exuberance and strength of dawning manhood, and how she manages to keep them from occasionally engaging in a pillow fight and frolic on retiring, after the manner of boys elsewhere, is a mystery. .

 

To one such I carelessly remarked, “I suppose you have an easy time here in managing our charge. “The moment I uttered this I wished hadn’t. I saw by the change of countenance, half comic and half anguished, I had made a mistake, for she at once ejaculated: “Humph! I should think so !—Boys are not angels; did you ever see any boys that were angels?

 

 

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ineffably sweet and gentle, and very sad; oh, so sad. There is a history of suffering in that face. Instinctively you are drawn toward her as to the face of the suffering Christ as portrayed by the genius of Raphael or DaVinci. You inquire, and maybe learn she is a soldier’s widow and now motherless. Her husband fell upon no battle-field in the heat and glory of patriotic conflict to find a grave of honor upon Southern soil. Worse than that. He was one of the thousands of victims to the horrors of Andersonville; was exchanged and came home to die, a mere skeleton, wasted by starvation, his mind gone, a hopeless driveling crying idiot. Then her two little ones were taken from her, and she is alone in the world. She is here and fills out her life in ministering to the little waifs of the departed heroes.

 

Religion offers to her its cup of anticipatory bliss in the expectation of again meeting her children and the love of her youth as he was when he left her one bright spring morning early in the sixties—left her m his manly strength and beauty, and marched away under the beautiful flag. And she is happy, though suffering—happy in her ministering happy in her faith. “God loves those whom he chastens,” and to such, while the tears all, the heart of the bereaved swells with he bliss of heavenly love.

 

 

FOUR LITERARY MEN.

Four literary men of note and now living come under notice in connection with Xenia—William D. GALLAGHER, Coates KINNEY, William D. HOWELLS, and Whitelaw REID. WILLIAM Davis GALLAGHER was born in 1808, in Philadelphia, and when a lad of eight years came with his widowed mother to Mount Pleasant, Hamilton county, Ohio, and was for forty-seven years a resident of the State; his home is now Peewee Valley, near Louisville, Ky.

 

He learned the printing business in Cincinnati, and, in 1830, when but twenty-two years of age, came to Xenia, and started a campaign newspaper, which he entitled the Backwoodsman, giving it that name because it was peculiarly Western, a strong characteristic of his being an ardent affection for the West. Mr. GALLAGHER was an enthusiastic Whig, and the main object of his sheet was “to hurrah for Clay and to use up Jimmy GARDNER, editor of the Jackson organ of Xenia.”

 

After the lapse of a year he returned to Cincinnati and took the editorship of the Cincinnati Mirror, which had a life of several years, and his prose and poetic writings were of so much merit that he was soon regarded as the leading imaginative writer of the West. Later he edited two other literary journals, was for a time on the Ohio State Journal, of Columbus, and from 1839 to 1850 was associate editor on the Cincinnati Gazette, when he went to Washington with Thomas CORWIN in a confidential capacity, CORWIN having been appointed Secretary of the Treasury: again in the civil war he was employed in the United States Treasury Department at Louisville by Mr. Lincoln. In 1853 he was on the editorial staff of the Louisville Courier.

 

Mr. GALLAGHER’S father, Barnard GALLAGHER, was an Irish Roman Catholic, a participant in the rebellion in 1803, that cost Robert Emmet his life; and his mother, Abigail DAVIS, daughter of a Welsh farmer, who lost his life in the American Revolution. Coming from a liberty-loving stock, Mr. GALLAGHER inherited the spirit of freedom and philanthropy and could not be otherwise than an opposer of slavery. His biographer, Prof. VENABLE, in the Ohio Archœological and Historical Quartery for 1888, says of him in his early days: “He sang the dignity of intrinsic manhood, the nobleness of honest labor and the glory of human freedom. Much he wrote was extremely radical. . . . Such lines as these, and as compose the poems ‘Truth and Freedom,’ ‘Conservatism,’ ‘The Laborer,’ ‘The New Age,’ ‘All Things Free,’ went to the brain and heart of many people, and it is not to be doubted but that they exercised a deep and lasting influence.

 

 

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In his ‘Fruit Culture in the Ohio Valley.’ His latest volume is ‘Miami Woods: a Golden Wedding and Other Poems’ (Cincinnati 1881) Venable says: ‘Gallagher’s verse paints the forest and field with Nature’s own color, and glows with the warmth of human love and joy. ‘Miami Woods’ is a sort of Thomson’s ‘Seasons’ adapted to the Ohio Valley.

 

Fifty Years Ago.

A Song of the Western Pioneer.

By Wm. D. Gallagher.

 

No man was ever more thoroughly imbues with a love of the West than Mr. GALLAHER. The memories of his boyhood were rich with the glow of enthusiasm for its free and manly life, when everything was so rapidly expanding and prosperity seemed to be so assured to the humblest who would bug exert his powers. Annexed is one of his songs that was widely published in the papers of the West forty years ago.

 

 

 

 

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wrote a parody upon the ballad under the title of “The Spotted Frog,” which parallel the fate of the Indian maiden with that of a young frog stoned to death by boys. This ever after spoiled the ballad for popular use. A version from each follows.

 

 

Mr. Gallagher is rather tall in person, with blue eyes and rather proudly bearing. He was a delegate to the National Convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln, whereupon, on his return home, a mob assembled at Beard’s Station, nearby, to warn him to leave the State, and his position was a dangerous one. Independent, outspoken and with the keenest sense of honor he had won the warm respect of his rebel neighbors, some of whom put arms into his hands for self-defence. A stalwart young mechanic took upon himself to champion the cause of free opinion. “I hate Gallagher’s politics as much as any of you,” said this chivalrous young Kentuckian to the crowd, “but he has as good a right to his opinions as we have to ours, and” with a string of terrible oaths, added—”whoever tries to lay a hand on him or to give him an order to leave the State must first pass over my dead body.” This put a quietus upon the mob, the excitement died away and the stars and stripes floated over Fern Cliff Cottage during the five gloomy years of the war.

On Tuesday, September 4, 1888, the opening day of the Ohio State Centennial Exposition at Columbus, a tall, finely-formed and erect gentleman, with flashing dark eyes, and with the most silvery head in that multitude of thousands, arose on the platform and delivered the “OHIO CENTENNIAL ODE.” The Coliseum, in which it was given, rises about 100 feet in the air, springing from the ground in form a half globe, with seats for some 10,000. Behind him were 1,500 children on the platform in tier above tier, arrayed in red, white and blue, whose patriotic songs had just filled the vast auditorium and the simultaneous fluttering of their hand-held flags had made for a few moments a bewildering, brilliant scene of gayety and beauty

 

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OHIO CENTENNIAL ODE.

By CO. COATES KINNEY.

Delivered in the Coliseum, Columbus, O., on the Opening Day, September 4, 1888, of the State Celebration of the Arrival of the Centennial Year.

 

 

 

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COL. COATS KINNEY was born in Yates county, N. Y., in 1826; came to Ohio in 1840, studied law with Judge Wm. Lawrence and J. W. and Donn Piatt: soon adopted journalism as a life professional was paymaster in the army through the war and brevetted Lieut.-Colonel.

 

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the author of the amendment to the Constitution on the subject of temperance, which was submitted to the voters the following year, and of the bill for the abolition of ^“The Official Railroad Pass,” on which he made a speech that was circulated and commended throughout the United States. He passed the bill through the Senate by his eloquent, masterly array of facts and deductions, but the railroad influence reconsidered it the next day, and converted enough votes from aye to no to defeat it, but the principles of the bill have since been enacted in the Inter-State Commerce Law. But Col. KINNEY’S record as editor, speaker and public official has been eclipsed by his achievements in literature, especially poetry. His reputation as a poet was established in 1849, when he wrote the famous lyric, “Rain on the Roof.” Since then he has written several poems of such merit as to demonstrate that his early effort was not a literary accident, and his recent collection, entitled “Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real,” has greatly extended his reputation.

 

In review of this work the poet’s friend, Prof. W. H. VENABLE, says, be gives, in glowing words and often splendid dictum, the deepest and most earnest thoughts of a well-trained and subtle intellect upon life, doubt, fear, faith, freedom, immortality, God and man; and then to all his own restless and penetrating questions finds an answer.” This answer Mr. VENABLE then quotes in the thrilling stanza with which he concludes the great poem of the book entitled “Duty Here and Glory There.” Of the infinite, but spirit.

 

 

Another of the poet’s friends, and he has many, Mr. Frank D. MUSSEY, in his review says: “After reading some of the strong poetical efforts of Col. KINNEY in his recent book, how softly comes back into the thoughts from the days of one’s boyhood, the old lines of ‘Rain on the Roof,’ a poem which there are few writers who could wish for anything better to leave to the world; that is in every school-book; sung to the music of a dozen composers, and is in every man’s memory and life.”

 

RAIN ON THE ROOF.

 

 

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When a lad Of fourteen WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (see page 327) lived with his father’s family in a log-cabin on the Little Miami river, where his father had a grist-mill, near the mad to Dayton, some two or three miles from Xenia. His home was rude and ruinous; through the roof the stars shone in and the snows sifted down. Says Mr. HOWELLS:”I should not like to step out of bed into a snow- wreath now, but then I was glad to do it; and, so far from thinking that or anything in our life a hardship, I counted it all joy.”

 

There were barrels of books in the loft, and this was a treasure to him. Among them, he says, “I found also a copy of the poems of certain Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, then wholly unknown to me; and, while the old grist-mill, whistling and wheezing to itself, made a vague music in my ear, my soul was filled with this strange new sweetness. I read ‘The Spanish Student’ then, and ‘Copias d Manrique,’ and the solemn and ever-beautiful ‘Voices of the Night.’ But neither those nor any other books I read made me discontented with the small boys’ world around me. They made it a little more populous with visionary shapes, and there was room for them all. It was not darkened with cares, and the duties in it were not many.”

 

In the tenderly^- expressed poem of his “Lost Boyhood” he wistfully recalls the calm, peaceful hours of his early life on the banks of the Little Miami.

 

 

It is a somewhat remarkable fact that Ohio, besides supplying the nation with so large a proportion of statesmen and generals of eminence, should be alike prolific of journalists. At this time three of the leading dailies of New York city, the metropolis of the nation, have as their editorial managers Ohio men, viz., Whitelaw REID, the Tribune, Col. John A. COCKERILL, the World, and Charles Julius CHAMBERS, the Herald; also William Henry Smith, of the Associated Press, Bernard Peters, of the Brooklyn Times, and W. L. Brown, Daily News.

 

Whitelaw REID is a direct descendant of the Scotch Covenanters. His father, Robert Charleton REID, had married Marian Whitelaw RONALDS, who came in a direct line from the small and ancient “clan Ronalds” of the Highlands. His paternal grandfather emigrated to this country from the south of Scotland, and settled in Kentucky, but crossed the Ohio in 1800, and bought several hundred acres of land on the present site of Cincinnati. He was a stern old Covenanter, and, found his conscience uneasy owing to a condition in the deed which required him to run a ferry across the river every day of the week. Sooner than violate the Sabbath he sold out, and, removing to Greene county, became one of the founders of Xenia.

 

Whitelaw REID was born near Xenia, October 27, 1837. He graduated at Miami University in 1856, and took an active intereat in journalism and politics before attaining his majority; made speeches in the Freumont campaign on the Republican side, and soon became editor of the Xenia News. At the opening of the civil war he was sent into the field as correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, making his headquarters at Washington, when his letters on current politics, over the signature of “Agate,” attracted much attention by their thought, information, and pungent style. From that point he made excursions to the army whenever there was a prospect of active operations.

 

 

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Bottom Picture

WHITELAW REID HOMESTEAD.

Birthplace of Whitelaw Reid.

 

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Frank Henry Howe, Amateur Photo., 1887.

 

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York at the invitation of Horace Greeley, and became an editorial writer on the Tribune. On the death of Mr. Greeley he succeeded him as editor and principal owner of the paper. In 1878 he was chosen by the Legislature to be a regent for life of the University of New York. With this exception he has declined all public employment. He was offered by President Hayes the post of Minister to Germany and a similar appointment by President Garfield. he is a director of numerous financial and charitable corporations, and has been for many years president of the Lotus Club. Besides the works mentioned above, and his contributions to periodical literature, he has published “Schools of Journalism “ (New York, 1871); “The Scholar in Politics” (1873); “Newspaper Tendencies” (1879); and “Town-Hall Suggestions” (1881).—Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography.

 

THE REID HOMESTEAD, in which Whitelaw was born, was erected by his father, Robert Charleton REID, in 1823, on land which, before his marriage, he and his brother bought at the Virginia military sales, and stands to-day as it was then, identical in frame-work, flooring, plastering, and interior finish. It is situated between Massie’s creek and Little Miami river, in what was then part of Xenia township, not far from the centre of the triangle formed by the three towns of Xenia, Yellow Springs, and Cedarville.

 

About the year 1850 this part of Xenia township was set off to Cedarville, of which ,it is now a part. The house as left by Robert Charleton REID, consisted of a two-story frame building with a one-story wing in which were sitting-room, dining-room, and kitchen. Some extensions have been made to the wing and the whole exterior has been repaired and restored by Whitelaw REID The interior finish in the old art of the house was of oiled and polished black walnut, with handsome mantels, oak floors, excellent plaatering, and windows with 8 x 10 panes of glass, which were then a costly elegance. Every room on the first floor had a large fireplace finished in Xenia limestone. The original framework has now been filled in with fireproof concrete blocks, and the roof and second story are covered entirely with red Akron tiles. There are numerous piazzas, a porte-oochere, etc., and the new rooms in the extensions of the wing are finished in handsome cabinet-work in cherry, sycamore, ash, walnut, etc. The house contains fourteen rooms, numerous bath-rooms, dressing-rooms, etc.

 

It is situated on one of the highest points in the county, the ground gently sloping away, and giving a view of many miles in every direction. The farm consists of about 200 acres, is carried on by a farmer for whom a separate house is provided, and is kept in a nice state of cultivation.

 

When Robert Charleton REID was married he immediately took his bride to this house. There he died in the room in which his children were all born, and there his widow still lives. His eldest son also died there. The house was originally finised in oak, black walnut, and poplar; not because it was foreseen that these woods would be fashionable half a century afterwards, but because they stood on the actual site of the dwelling, and had to be gotten out of the way to make room for it. The house at first stood in almost unbroken forest, and for a number of years there were not more than ten acres of cleared land in sight. The lawn surrounding it has always remained unbroken by the plough since the Indians rambled over it.

 

Mr. REID is in person very tall and sinewy, uniting delicacy with strength. He has in person and character the best qualities of his Scotch ancestry strength. His eyes are dark and forehead broad and full, and the intellectual perceptions that discern, and the untiring persistence that wins, have been his inheritance. His great work of “Ohio in the War” will grow with the years, for it has no equal as a record of those troublous times. Therein he wrote of that of which he was a part. He was at the head sources of knowledge and a personal witness of the events under which the Nation trembled. Its spirit of fairness, to those opinions with which he could have no personal sympathy, and its fulness in facts must impress every reader. In character-drawing it is most admirable-every man brought in review stands out in his peculiarities; and wherein there are words of condemnation which a love of truth and a sense of duty impelled him to utter, it seems as though the spirit of charity guided his pen and flowed with the ink.

 

 

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the various branches of literature, science, agriculture and mechanic arts; and also for those young men who may desire to prepare their minds for the work of the ministry.” In 1847 Union Seminary, twelve miles from Columbus, began a humble yet relatively important career. In 1856 the M. E. Church laid the foundations of Wilberforce University. Students by the score came from the South into the free State of Ohio. Students by the score returned with education from surroundings, as well as from science, for Wilberforce began, and has continued, a Southern school on Northern soil. In 1863 the University passed into the possession and under the control of colored men. Two years later it lay in ashes, on the very day of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Arrangements for rebuilding were begun at once; yet thirteen years of arduous effort were required for its completion.

 

“The work of the University has been, from its organization, continuous and progressive. It has maintained a faculty of from four to seven regular instructors assisted by undergraduates. It has enrolled more than 3,000 students, or an annual average of about 130. These have come from all parts of the United States from Canada the West Indies, and India. It is located about three miles from Xenia, in Xenia township and about one mile from the P. C. & St. L. . R. R The main building is a substantial brick 160 x 44; four stories high, containing seventy eight rooms. Eight cottages in the campus are used for resident and dormitory purposes. There have been recently erected by the State Normal and industrial Board a building for instruction in domestic arts, and one for instruction in carpentry.

 

The property is variously estimated at from $50,000 to $60,000. The university has an endowment fund of $14,033.62. During its existence of twenty-two and one-half years there have been collected and disbursed more than $200,000. The university is under the management of a Board of Trustees, composed of the entire Episcopal Bench—seventeen permanent trustees and 210 conference trustees: the latter are chosen at each conference and consist of three ministerial and two lay members. Under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal Church Dr. Frederick MERRICK and Dr. R. S. RUST presided. Three Presidents have executed the will of the Board since 1863—Bishop D. A. Pa yne D. D., presiding from July 3, 1863, to September 6, 1876; Rev. B. F. LEE, D. D., from September 6 1876, to June 19, 1884, and Rev. S. T. MITCHELL, A. M., was elected June 20, 1884. Under the provisions of an act of the Legislature of Ohio passed March 19, 1887, the Normal Department has been strengthened and an Industrial Department organized; $5,000 per annum is pledged to its support.

 

The Board for the management of the new department consists of Bishop D. A. PAYNE, Dr. B. W. ARNETT, Hon. C. L. MAXWELL Senator John O’NEILL, Dr. R. McMURDY and Hon. J. A. HOWELL.

 

YELLOW SPRINGS is about forty-five miles west of Columbus, on the Little Miami River, and on a branch of the P. C. & St. L. R. R. Newspaper: Review, Independent, A. E. HUMPHREYS, publisher. Churches: 1 Christian, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Episcopal, 1 Advent, 1 A. Methodist Episcopal and 1 Colored Methodist Episcopal. Industries: 1 saw-mill, grain elevator, etc. There are many small fruit growers at this place. Population in 1880, 1,377; school census in 1886, 410, S. OGAN, superintendent.

 

 

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basin surrounded with cedar trees. The yellow-stream which comes from the basin runs a short distance over a bed of limestone and is afterwards precipitated, into the alley. These limestone rocks form very singular figures on the edge of this valley; the detached pieces resemble the Devil’s Wall of the Hartz.

 

In the beautiful glen at Yellow Springs is POMPEY’S PILLAR, of which Prof. Orton has written for us this brief description.

 

 

POMPEY’S PILLAR, YELLOW SPRINGS

 

It consists of a mass of the native limestone rock, fifteen to twenty feet in height, which has been left as we find it, through the action of erosive agencies in the past. The large mass which makes the top of the column is a part of the cap of the cliffs, and the column itself consists of a number of courses of the building stone of the same series. All of it is Niagara limestone. The formation of the column must date back for many hundred and probably for many thousand years. It is now slowly wasting through the action of the atmosphere, but is likely enough to remain about as it is for many centuries to come, unless disturbed by human agency.

 

Yellow Springs derives its principal importance at this time from being the seat of Antioch College. Connected with its teaching department have been quite a number of eminent men. In the college campus is a monument to the memory of HORACE MANN of national fame, who spent the last seven years of his life, from 1852 to 1859 here as its President. He was born in Franklin, Mass., in 1796, was educated at Brown University the theme of his graduating oration, “The Progressive Character of the Human Race,” foreshadowed his subsequent career. He was educated to the law, took great interest in the cause of education, and being elected Secretary to the Massachusetts Board of Education introduced thorough State reforms into the school system of the State. He visited the schools of Europe, especially those of Germany, and on his return by his lectures and writings did more to awaken an interest throughout the country in education than any man in our history.

 

 

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first succeeding to the vacancy, as a Whig, occasioned by the death of John Quincy Adams; then was relected by the antislavery party, and as an advocate in behalf ff their principles was pre-eminent, at one time engaging m a controversy with Daniel Webster, in regard to the extension of slavery and a fugitive slave-law.Failing n his candidacy from the Free-soil party as Governor of the State he accepted the Presidency of Antioch. He carried the institution through pecuniary and other difficulties and satisfied himself of the practicability of the co-education of the sexes, and his incessant labors hastened his death. This great friend to man gave to Ohio his last ripe years. and her soil is honored by being the resting place of his remains. He published several annual reports, also lectures on education, voluminous controversial writ, “A Few Thoughts for a Young Man,” ‘Slavery: Letters and Speeches” ‘Powers and Duties of Women” etc. His work on education was republished in France, with a biographical sketch.

 

BELLBROOK is about forty miles northeast of Cincinnati and half a mile from the Miami river. The Magnetic Springs, owned by Ohmer & Co., of Dayton, were discovered here in 1884. Newspaper: Moon, Independent, Morgan FUDGE, editor and proprietor. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 P. M., 1 Presbyterian. Population in 1880, 425.

 

JAMESTOWN is an important village eleven miles east of Xenia, on the D. & I. railroad, which had in 1880 a population of 877. It narrowly escaped destruction a few years since by what has been termed the “Jamestown Cyclone.”

 

THE JAMESTOWN CYCLONE.

 

On Sunday, April 27, 1884, at about five o’clock, a destructive cyclone passed over the southern part of Montgomery and Greene counties. It was formed near Dayton by the meeting of two light storm clouds from the south and northwest respectively, which immediately assumed the shape of a water spout, rising and descending like waves of the sea, and moved on with great fury, destroying everything in its path. It caused much damage in Montgomery county, mowing down forests, destroying buildings, fences, live-stock, etc.

 

At Bellbrook, in Greene county, at least fifteen houses were more or less damaged; but the inmates seeing its approach took refuge in the cellars, arid thus escaped serious injury. The greatest damage inflicted was at Jamestown, where the cloud approached along the pike leading to Xenia, having first passed over the fair grounds of the Union Agricultural Society, completely demolishing all the buildings excepting a few small stalls: even the fence posts were razed to the ground. In Jamestown only about one-half of the homes of the entire population escaped destruction: nearly one hundred families were rendered homeless, four persons killed outright, and some thirty-five or forty more or less seriously injured.

 

Along the track of the storm, which was about one hundred yards wide, not a single building was left intact, and nine out of every ten were razed to the ground. The most prominent buildings in the town were either unroofed or badly damaged. Every church was more or less damaged, and those of the Methodist, Presbyterian, Christian and Colored Methodist nearly demolished. The loss of property amounted to nearly $200,000. The cyclone seemed to have about exhausted its fury on Jamestown, far it passed away to the east without creating much more, damage.

 

 

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Overhung by evergreens, and presenting scenery of a wild and picturesque character. In this disaster the steam has sufficient fall to supply a number of manufacturing establishments.

 

CEDARVILLE is forty-seven miles southwest of Columbus on the P. C. & St. L. R. R., and on Massies’ creek, eight miles northeast from Xenia. Newspaper: Herald, Independent, Robt. H. YOUNG, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Covenanter, 1 Reformed Presbyterian,

 

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

CASADE AT CLIFTON.

 

1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 United Presbyterian, 1 African Methodist Episcopal and 1 Colored Baptist.

 

Industries.—Manufacture of lime; extensive saw-mills are also located here. Population in 1880, 1,181. School Census in 1886, 368; J. V. STEWART, superintendent.

 

 

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