WASHINGTON COUNTY—Continued.

 

 

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was a hard student, giving to every subject thorough and careful investigation.  His published writings are forceful, clear and concise, and marked by careful thought and deep research into every particular of the subject in hand.  His “Manual of the Constitution” has been widely adopted as a textbook for instruction in the principles of the American government.

 

                His investigations and contributions to current magazines, on the history of the Northwest Territory and early Ohio history, are extensive and of great value.

 

                Dr. ANDREWS was one of the chief promoters of the celebration of Ohio’s centennial in 1888, but died in Hartford, Conn., a few days later, April 18th, without having been able to participate in the patriotic celebrations he had labored so ardently to make successful.

 

                WILLIAM P. CUTLER, son of Judge Ephraim CUTLER, and grandson of Dr. Manasseh CUTLER, was born in Warren township, Washington county, Ohio, July 12, 1812.  He entered Ohio University in the class which graduated in 1833, but ill health obliged him to leave college during his junior year.  He was thrice elected to the Ohio legislature, acting as speaker in the session of 1846-47.  He was a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1851.  In 1860 was elected to Congress.  His congressional career is marked for his strong denunciation of slavery.  Mr. CUTLER was a prime mover in the development of the railroad system of southeastern Ohio.  His career was active and of great usefulness to the community in which he dwelt.  Every public measure for the advancement of its interests found in him a leader.  Mr. CUTLER married, Nov. 1, 1849, Elizabeth VORIS, daughter of Dr. William VORIS.  His death occurred in 1889.

 

                GEN. JOHN EATON was born in Sutton, N. H., Dec. 5, 1829.  He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1854, and for two years was principal of a school in Cleveland, Ohio; superintendent of schools of Toledo, Ohio, 1856-9.

 

                He then studied for the ministry, and was ordained by the presbytery of Maumee, Ohio, in Sept., 1861.  He entered the army as chaplain of the 17th O. V. I.  In Oct., 1863, he was appointed colonel of the 63d U. S. Colored Infantry, and received the brevet of brigadier-general in March, 1865.  After the war he settled in Tennessee, became editor of the Memphis Post, and was elected State superintendent of public schools in 1866.  He was appointed U. S. commissioner of education in 1870, and served in that capacity until Aug., 1886, when he became president of Marietta College.  The following is from Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography:

 

                “The Bureau of Education, at the time of his appointment, had but two clerks, not over a hundred volumes belonging to it, and no museum of educational illustrations and appliances; but when he resigned there were thirty-eight assistants, and a library including 18,000 volumes and 47,000 pamphlets. Gen. EATON represented the Department of the Interior at the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876.  He was chief of the department of education for the New Orleans Exposition, and organized that vast exhibition; was president of the International Congress of Education held there, and vice-president of the International Congress of Education held in Havre, France.  He received the degree of Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1872, and that of LL.D. from Dartmouth in 1876.  Gen. EATON is a member of many learned associations, and has published numerous addresses and reports on education and the public affairs with which he has been connected.”

 

                BENJAMIN DANA FEARING, grandson of Hon. Paul FEARING, the first lawyer of the Northwest Territory, was born in Harmar, Ohio, Oct. 13, 1837, and died there Dec. 9, 1881.  He graduated at Marietta College in 1856.

 

                In April, 1861, he enlisted in the 2d O. V. I., and took part in the battle of Bull Run.  On Dec. 17th he was made major of the 77th Ohio, which, under his fearless leadership, distinguished itself by conspicuous gallantry at the battle of Shiloh.  On March 22, 1863, he was promoted to a colonelcy.  At Chickamauga he again distinguished himself by his superior courage, and was severely wounded in this battle.

 

                In March, 1864, he returned to his regiment, and in December was brevetted brigadier-general for “gallant and meritorious services during the campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to Savannah.”  He commanded a brigade in Sherman’s march to the sea, and was again wounded at Bentonville, where he led a glorious charge that “probably turned the fortunes of the day.”

 

                After the war he engaged in business in Cincinnati, but was compelled to withdraw from active life on account of precarious health resulting from his wounds.  He returned to his old home in Harmar, where the last years of his life were spent in literary pursuits.

 

 

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party for the governorship of Ohio.  Brevet Lieut.-Col. E. C. DAWES, Commander Ohio Commandery Loyal Legion U. S., is a brother.

 

                FRANCES DANA GAGE was born in Marietta, Ohio, Oct. 12, 1808, and died in Greenwich, Conn., Nov. 10, 1884.  Her father, Col. Joseph BARKER, was one of the early settlers of Marietta.  The following sketch of Mrs. GAGE’s career is from Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography:

 

                “Miss BARKER married, in 1829, James L. GAGE, a lawyer of McConnellsville, Ohio.  She early became an active worker in the temperance, anti-slavery and woman’s rights movements, and in 1851 presided over a woman’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, where her opening speech attracted much attention.  She removed in 1853 to St. Louis, where she was often threatened with violence on account of her anti-slavery views, and twice suffered from incendiarism.  In 1857-58 she visited Cuba, St. Thomas and Santo Domingo, and on her return wrote and lectured on her travels.  She afterward edited an agricultural paper in Ohio; but when the civil war began she went south, ministered to the soldiers, taught the freedmen, and, without pay, acted as an agent of the sanitary commission at Memphis, Vicksburg and Natchez.  In 1863-64 she was superintendent, under Gen. Rufus SAXTON, of Paris Island, S. C., a refuge for over 500 freedman.  She was afterward crippled by the overturning of a carriage in Galesburg, Ill., but continued to lecture on temperance till Aug., 1867, when she was disabled by a paralytic shock.  Mrs. GAGE was the mother of eight children, all of whom lived to maturity.  Four of her sons served in the National Army in the civil war.  Mrs. GAGE wrote many stories for children, and verses, under the pen name of ‘Aunt Fanny.’  She was an early contributor to the Saturday Review, and published ‘Poems’ (Philadelphia, 1872); ‘Elsie Magoon, or The Old Still-House’ (1872); ‘Steps Upward’ (1873); and ‘Gertie’s Sacrifice.’”

 

                DON CARLOS BUELL was born in Lowell, near Marietta, Ohio, March 23, 1818.  His grandfather, Captain Timothy BUELL, is said to have built the first brick house in Cincinnati.  His father’s death, and the second marriage of his mother, resulted in his being taken by his uncle, Geo. P. BUELL, to Lawrenceburg, Ind., where he spent his boyhood days.

 

                In 1841 he graduated from West Point, and was assigned to duty as brevet lieutenant of the 3d Infantry.  He served during the Mexican war, and was severely wounded at Churubusco.  At the beginning of the civil war he was serving as adjutant-general at Washington.  He was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers May 17, 1861.  Of his military career we give the following summary, abridged from Appleton’s Biographical Encyclopedia: After assisting in organizing the army in Washington he was assigned to a division in the Army of the Potomac, which became distinguished for its discipline.  In November he superseded Gen. W. T. SHERMAN in the Department of the Cumberland, which was reorganized as that of the Ohio.

 

                Early in December he entered upon the campaign which resulted in his troops entering Nashville March 25th, supported by gunboats.

 

                He was promoted major-general of volunteers on March 21, 1862, and on the same day his district was incorporated with that of Mississippi, commanded by Gen. Halleck.  He arrived with part of the division on the battle-field of Shiloh near the close of the first day’s action.  The next day three of his divisions came up, and the Confederates were driven back to Corinth.  On June 12th he took command of the district of Ohio.

 

                In July and August Gen. Bragg’s army advanced into Kentucky and Gen. BUELL was obliged to evacuate central Tennessee and re-

 

 

GEN. D. C. BUELL.

 

treat to Louisville, which he reached Sept. 24, 1862.  On Sept 30th Gen. BUELL was ordered to turn over his command to Gen. THOMAS, but was restored the same day.  The next day he began to pursue the Confederates, and met them in battle at Perryville.  The action began early in the afternoon of Oct. 8, 1862, and was hotly contested until dark, with heavy losses on both sides.  The next morning Gen. BRAGG withdrew to Harrodsburg, and then slowly retreated to Cumberland Gap.  Gen. BUELL pursued him, but was blamed for not moving swiftly enough to bring on another action, and on the 24th was succeeded in his command by Gen. ROSECRANS.  A military commission appointed to investigate his operations made a report, which has never been published.  Gen. BUELL was subsequently offered commands under Generals SHERMAN and CANBY, but declined them.

 

 

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signed his commission in the regular army, having been before the military commission from Nov. 24, 1862, till May 10, 1863.  He became president of the Green River Iron Works of Kentucky in 1865, and subsequently held the office of pension agent at Louisville, Ky.

 

                Gen. BUELL is reserved in manner, cultivated and polished.  His replies to the attacks made upon himself in the public press are written with great force and pungency, impressing the reader with a high opinion of his ability.  Whitelaw REID says he is “one of the most accomplished military scholars of the old army, and one of the most unpopular generals of volunteers during the war of the rebellion—an officer who oftener deserved success than won it—who was, perhaps, the best organizer of an army that the contest developed, and who was certainly the hero of the greatest of the early battles of the war.”

 

            On “Cleona Farm,” just above the city, is an old family mansion in which, in 1811, JOHN BROUGH, one of Ohio’s war governors, was born.  A sketch of him is under the head of Cuyahoga County.

 

MARIETTA CENTENNIAL.

 

            At the annual meeting of the Washington County Pioneer Association, April 7, 1881, the initial step was taken for the centennial celebration of the first organized settlement of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, at Marietta, April 7, 1788.

 

            A committee was formed to take the necessary measures for the centennial, April 7, 1888, with Rev. Dr. I. W. ANDREWS, chairman; R. M. STIMSON, secretary; Beman GATES, and two others who did not act, Hon. Wm. P. CUTLER soon taking the place of one of them.  There were some subsequent changes, till in addition to the above, as the time approached for the celebration, Gen. A. J. WARNER, Col. T. W. MOORE, Gen. R. R. DAWES, Hon. John EATON, Prof. O. H. MITCHELL, Capt. S. L. GROSVENOR and Hon. Wm. G. WAY had become co-operating members of the committee, with Mr. WAY as secretary.  Maj. Jewett PALMER was made the grand marshal and chief executive officer for the occasion.

 

            The results were a magnificent success, April 7, 1888, crowning several happy annual celebrations of April 7th—Forefather’s Day—notably that of the Ninety-fifth in 1883, when Hon. Geo. B. LORING, of Massachusetts, delivered the oration.

 

            The centennial exercises began Thursday evening, April 5th, with an address by F. C. SESSIONS, Esq., of Columbus, president of the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society, followed by an address by Judge Joseph COX, of Cincinnati.  On Friday, 6th, addresses were made in the afternoon by Hon. Wm. M. FARRAR, of Cambridge, with short addresses by R. B. HAYES, ex-President of the United States; David FISHER, of Michigan; Prof. F. W. PUTNAM, of Massachusetts, and at night an address by Hon. Wm. Henry SMITH, of New York.  On the 7th—Centennial Day—Gov. J. B. FORAKER, of Ohio, presided, making a spirited address, with an oration by U. S. Senator George F. HOAR, of Massachusetts, in the forenoon, and an oration by Hon. John Randolph TUCKER, of Virginia, in the afternoon.  Also addresses were made by Hon. Samuel F. HUNT, of Cincinnati, and Rev. Dr. Edward Everett HALE, of Boston.  General reception at the City Hall in the evening.  On Sunday, 8th, there were historical discourses in several of the churches in the morning, and at 3 p.m. Rev. Dr. Henry M. STORRS, of New Jersey, delivered an address in the City Hall; and at 7 p.m., in the same place, addresses were made by Rev. Dr. A. S. CHAPIN, of Wisconsin; Rev. Dr. J. F. TUTTLE, of Indiana; Rev. Dr. B. W. ARNETT, of Wilberforce University; Rev. Dr. J. M. Sturtevant, of Cleveland, and Rev. Dr. E. E. HALE.  Exercises also at the Unitarian Church.

 

 

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to last, conspired to make the Centennial of April 7th at Marietta complete and delightful.

 

CENTENNIAL, JULY 15, 1888, AT MARIETTA.

 

            The celebration of the first settlement of Ohio and the Northwest Territory, at Marietta, did not exhaust by any means the resources of the people in this locality, and on July 15th a second celebration was successfully held in Marietta, the centennial of the reception of Gov. ST. CLAIR, in 1788, by the people who here had begun the foundation of city and State, when the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the people northwest of the river Ohio was read, and accompanying addresses made.  This second celebration was of a popular character, and was attended by enormous crowds of people.  The pageant, the Elgin (Ill.) Military Band, and all the addresses and festivities, were enthusiastic and satisfying, except the weather, which was not the best for the season.

 

            Among the chief managers were Judge William B. LOOMIS, A. T. NYE, Wm. H. BUELL and S. M. McMILLEN.  Gov. FORAKER presided, and the oration in chief was by the Hon. John W. DANIEL, United States Senator from Virginia, and among those who made addresses were Hon. Thomas EWING, of New York; Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, of Massachusetts; Prof. J. D. BUTLER, of Wisconsin; Hon. John SHERMAN, Hon. Charles H. GROSVENOR, Hon. Wm. M. EVARTS, etc.

 

            The historical relic departments of both celebrations were very large, and were objects of universal interest.

 

FIRST MILLSTONES AND SALT KETTLE IN OHIO.

 

[Exhibited in the Relic Department.  The millstones were used in the blockhouse at Fort Harmer; the salt kettle in the production of the first salt made in Ohio.]

 

 

REMINISCENCES OF MARIETTA SOCIETY AT AN EARLY DAY.

 

            Hon. E. D. MANSFIELD, when a very young child, came with his father’s family to Marietta, and in his “Personal Memories” has left some interesting items.  His father, Col. Jared MANSFIELD, of whom there is a sketch in this volume under the head of Richland County, first took up his residence at Marietta.  We quote:

 

 

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A private carriage and driver, such as my father had to have, was the abhorrence of the wagoners, who considered it simply an evidence of aristocracy.  They threatened and often actually endangered private carriages.  My mother used to relate her fears and anxieties on that journey, and, as contrasted with the mode of travelling at the present day, that journey was really dangerous.

 

                “Arrived at Marietta, Ohio, my father established his office there for the next two years.  At first, some trouble arose from differences of political opinions at Marietta.  Political excitement at the election of Jefferson had been very high—perhaps never more so.  Gen. Rufus PUTNAM, my father’s predecessor as Surveyor-General, had been a Revolutionary officer and a Federalist, while my father was a Republican (now called Democrat), and supposed to be a partisan of Jefferson.  This political breeze, however, soon passed over.  The people of Marietta were, in general, intelligent, upright people, and my father not one to quarrel without cause.  The PUTNAMS were polite, and my parents passed two years at Marietta pleasantly and happily.  I, who was but a little child of three or four years of age, was utterly oblivious to what might go on in Marietta society.  Two things, however, impressed themselves upon me.  They must have occurred in the summer and spring of 1805.

 

                “The first was what was called ‘The Great Flood.’  Every little while we hear about extraordinary cold, heat, or high water; but all these things have occurred before.  The impression on my mind is that of the river Ohio rising so high as to flood the lower part of Marietta.  We lived some distance from the Ohio, but on the lower plain, so that the water came up into our yard, and it seems to me I can still recall the wood and chips floating in the yard.  However, all memories of such early years are indistinct, and can only be relied on for general impressions.  As I was four years old at the time of the Marietta flood, it is probable that my impressions of it are correct.

 

                “The other event which impressed itself on my mind was the vision of a very interesting and very remarkable woman.  One day, and it seems to have been a bright summer morning, a lady and a little boy called upon my mother.  I played with the boy, and it is probably this circumstance which impressed it on my mind, for the boy was handsomely dressed, and had a fine little sword hanging by his side.  The lady, as it seems to me, was handsome and bright, laughing and talking with my mother.  That lady soon became historical—her life a romance and her name a theme of poetry and a subject of eloquence.  It was Madame BLENNERHASSETT.

 

                “It is seventy years since WIRT, in the trial of Burr, uttered his beautiful and poetic description of Madame BLENNERHASSETT and the island she admired.  Poetic as it was, it did less than justice to the woman.  An intelligent lady who was intimate with her, and afterward visited the courts of England and France, said she had never beheld one who was Mrs. BLENNERHASSETT’S equal in beauty, dignity of manners, elegance of dress, and all that was lovely in the person of woman.  With all this, she was as domestic in her habits, as well acquainted with housewifery, the art of sewing, as charitable to the poor, as ambitious for her husband, as though she were not the ‘Queen of the Fairy Isle.’  She was as strong and active in body as she was graceful.  She could leap a five-rail fence, walk ten miles at a stretch, and ride a horse with the boldest dragoon.  She frequently rode from the island to Marietta, exhibiting her skill in horsemanship and elegance of dress.  Robed in scarlet broadcloth, with a white beaver hat, on a spirited horse, she might be seen dashing through the dark woods, reminding one of the flight and gay plumage of some tropical bird; but, like the happiness of Eden, all this was to have a sudden and disastrous end.  The ‘Queen of the Fairy Isle’ was destined to a fate more severe than if her lot had been cast in the rudest log-cabin. . . . . . .

 

                “During my father’s residence at Marietta there appeared in the Marietta papers a series of articles in favor of the schemes of Burr, and indirectly a separation of the Western and Eastern States.  These articles were censured by another series, signed ‘Regulus,’ which denounced the idea of separating the States, and supported the Union and the administration of JEFFERSON.  At the time, and to this day, the writer was and is unknown.  They are mentioned in Hiildreth’s ‘Pioneer History,’ as by an unknown author.  They were, in fact, written by my father, and made a strong impression at the time. . . . . . .

 

                “Here let me remark on the society of the past generation as compared with the present.  There is always in the PRESENT time a disposition to exaggerate either its merits or its faults.

 

                “Those who take a hopeful view of things, and wonder at our inventions and discoveries, think that society is advancing, and we are going straight to the millennium.  On the other hand, those who look upon the state of society to-day, especially if they are not entirely satisfied with their own condition, are apt to charge society with degeneracy.  They see crimes and corruptions, and assert that society is growing worse.

 

                “Let me here assure the reader that this is not true, and that while we have all reason to lament the weakness of human nature, it is not true that society is declining.  No fact is more easily demonstrated than that the society of educated people—and they govern all others—is in a much better condition now than it was in the days succeeding the Revolution.  The principles and ideas that caused the French Revolution, at one time, brought atheism and free thinkers into power in France, and largely penetrated American society.

 

 

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strengthened by some of the most eminent men of the times.  JEFFERSON, BURR, Pierrepont EDWARDS, of Connecticut, and many men of the same kind, were not only skeptics, but scoffers at Christianity.  Their party came into power, and gave a sort of official prestige to irreligion.  But this was not all; a large number of the revolutionary army were licentious men.  Of this class were BURR, HAMILTON, and others of the same stripe.  HAMILTON was not so unprincipled a man as BURR, but belonged to the same general caste of society.  No one can deny this, for he published enough about himself to prove it.  Duelling, drinking, licentiousness, were not regarded by the better class of society as the unpardonable sins which they are now regarded.  At that time wine, spirits and cordials were offered to guests at all hours of the day, and not to offer them was considered a want of hospitality.  The consequence was that intemperance, in good society, was more common than now, but probably not more so among the great masses of the people.  Intemperance is now chiefly the vice of laboring men, but then it pervaded all classes of society.

 

                “Judge BURNET, in his ‘Notes on the Northwest,’ says that of nine lawyers cotemporary with himself, in Cincinnati, all but one died drunkards.  We see, then, that with a large measure of infidelity, licentiousness and intemperance among the higher classes, society was not really in so good a state as it is now.  At Marietta were several men of superior intellects who were infidels, and others who were intemperate; and yet this pioneer town was probably one of the best examples of the society of pioneer times.

 

                “I have said that my father was appointed to establish the meridian lines.  At that time but a part of Ohio had been surveyed, and he made Marietta his headquarters.

 

                “In the rapid progress of migration to the West his surveys also were soon necessary in western Ohio and in Indiana.  Indiana was then an unbroken wilderness, although the French had established the post of Vincennes.  This was one of a line of posts which they established from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, with a view to holding all the valley of the Mississippi.  There may have been a settlement at Jeffersonville, opposite Louisville, but except these there was not a white settlement in Indiana.  It became necessary to extend the surveyed lines through that State, then only a part of the great Northwest Territory.  For this purpose my father, in 1805, in the month of October, undertook a surveying expedition in Indiana.  As it was necessary to live in the wilderness, preparations for doing so were made.  The surveying party consisted of my father, three or four surveyors, two regular hunters and several pack-horses.  The business of the hunters was to procure game and bring it into the camp at night.  Flour, coffee, salt, and sugar were carried on the pack-horses, but for all meat the party depended on the hunters.  They went out early in the morning for game and returned only at night.  As the surveying party moved only in a straight line, and the distance made in a day was known, it was easy for the hunters to join the others in camp.

 

                “It was in this expedition that some of those incidents occurred that illustrate the life of a backwoodsman.  One day the hunters had been unfortunate, and got no game, but brought in a large rattlesnake, which they cut into slices and broiled on the coals.  My father did not try that kind of steak, but the hunters insisted the flesh was sweet and good.  On another day a hunter was looking into a cave in the rocks and found two panthers’ cubs.  He put them in a bag, and afterward exhibited them in New Orleans.  Here let me say, that posterity will never know the kinds and numbers of wild animals which once lived on the plains of the Ohio.  Some are already exterminated east of the Mississippi, and can only be found on the mountains of the West.  A citizen of these days will probably be astonished to hear that the buffalo was once common in Ohio, and roamed even on the banks of the Muskingum; but such was the fact.

 

                “A large part of Ohio was at one time a prairie, and the vegetation of the valley very rich.  The wild plum, the pawpaw, the walnut, and all kinds of berries were abundant, so that Ohio was as fruitful and generous to Indians and wild animals as it has since been to the white man.  In the valleys of the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Miamis were Indian towns where they cultivated corn as white men do now.  Marietta, Chillicothe, Circleville, Cincinnati, Xenia and Piqua are all on the sites of old Indian towns.  The wild animals and the wild Indian were as conscious as the civilized white man that Ohio was an inviting land—a garden rich in the products which God had made for their support.  But man was commanded to live by labor; hence, when man, the laborer, came, he supplanted man, the hunter.

 

                “The animals most common in Ohio were the deer, the wild turkey, squirrel, buffalo, panther and wolves.  All these were found near Marietta, and all but the buffalo subsequently near Cincinnati.

 

                “It is not my purpose, however, to go into the natural history of Ohio.  The inhabitants of the woods fast disappeared before the man with the spade.  I, myself, saw birds and animals in the valleys of the Miamis which no man will hereafter see wild in these regions.

 

                “I recollect one bird which made a great impression on me—the paroquet—much like the parrot, its colors being green and gold, but much smaller.  This bird I have seen at Ludlow station in large flocks.  I was told it was never seen east of the Scioto.

 

 

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tive functions of government, judicial, executive and legislative, it put no limitation on the power of the people, and in a democratic government there should be none.  For half a century Ohio grew, flourished, and prospered under its first constitution.  It was the best and brightest period Ohio has had.  It was the era of great public spirit, of patriotic devotion to country, and of the building up of great institutions of education which are now the strength and glory of the State.  In forming educational institutions I had some part myself, and I look upon that work with analloyed pleasure.”

 

THE ORIGIN OF OHIO’S COUNTY CHILDREN’S HOMES.

 

Given by that of the history of their founder, Mrs. Catharine Fay EWING.

 

            In 1866 the Legislature of Ohio passed a law, prepared by Hon. S. S. KNOWLES, a Senator from Washington county, which was amended in 1867, by which the commissioners of any county could purchase lands and erect buildings for a Children’s Home, and provide means by taxation for their cost and maintenance of the same by county taxation.  The commissioners were empowered to appoint a board of trustees for the same.  Children under 16 years of age were eligible for admission, “by reason of abandonment, or orphanage, or neglect, or inability of parents to provide for them.”

 

            On their arrival at 16 years of age the trustees were empowered to indenture the children and provide suitable homes for them.

 

            As a result of this law thirty-six of the eighty-eight counties of Ohio have established Children’s Homes, and about 3000 children have been taken from poverty and neglect, largely from almshouses from the association with the adult inmates and their vicious degrading companionship.

 

            In the Children’s Homes the inmates enjoy a home-life as near the good natural home as possible.  “In the nursery or the play-ground, in the dormitory and dining-room, in the school-room and chapel, they find the uplift of education, social, industrious and religious, that prepares them for an early and safe transfer to good homes outside.  In these Homes the industrial training begins.  House work, garden work, light chores, interest the children, develop a love of labor, and teach them habits of industry, or order and neatness, so necessary for their success in the battle of life.  Many poor waifs, ignorant, uncouth and almost repulsive, are received into these Homes.  To them it is humanitarianism in the gospel of clean clothes, soap and water, a seat at the table and a nice bed in the dormitory; is the beginning of a new life, the dawn of a brighter and a better day.”  It is estimated there are to-day in Ohio 20,000 children suffering from the want of parental love, cheer and guidance, all involved in a good safe home.  It is from the families of the wretched largely come the criminal classes that prey upon the public, and fill our prisons and almshouses.

 

CHILDREN’S HOMES.

 

            The greatest charity of Ohio, the Children’s Home, the greatest because in behalf of the weakest and most helpless of its population, owes it origin to one single determined, devoted woman, with a clear intellect and pitying heart inspired by the Divine Spirit, Mrs. Catharine Fay EWING, of Marietta.  It would be difficult to find in our land a single other woman who has been the author of such great good.  She began in poverty, her only capital “Love, Faith and Works,” and to-day this capital abides: it is her all, but then it is huge.  I called upon her to obtain the story of her life.  I found her home a small two-store ancient frame house; its ceilings low, which gives the place a cozy air, and is saving of fuel, and the stairs to the upper regions short, and that saves from weariness of limbs.  In that humble spot beneficent work progresses.

 

 

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valid husband and smiling young niece, Miss Hattie.  At times Mrs. EWING was very weary from her labor, but happy, because she was enabled to help struggling young men to get an education.

 

            Aside from this, she had on Sundays a class of sixty scholars, and on Saturday afternoons another, 26 young girls, whom she taught to sew, mostly children of washerwomen.  Mrs. EWING is rather large in person, a blonde, has a face full of benevolence, as it ought to be with one whose entire life has been filled with the love and care of helpless little ones.  Although she never had a child of her own, she has had 600 under her care, and adopted five of the neglected and forsaken as her own.  The story of her life follows as given to me mainly from her own lips.

 

                MRS. CATHARINE FAY EWING was born in Westboro, Mass., July 18, 1822.  She was the daughter of a farmer.  Eleven years later her parents removed to Marietta.  She was bred to the profession of a teacher, and taught a mission school among the Choctaw Indians for ten years.  Her salary was her board and $100 a year.  While among them her sympathies were aroused for an infant left forsaken and friendless.  In a drunken spree this child was killed accidentally by a party of Indians.  The sight threw her into a state of nervous prostration, and it was long before she recovered.  It resulted in a determination to start a children’s home at the earliest opportunity.

 

                Soon after she returned to Marietta, and visiting the county infirmary was so shocked at seeing little children receiving their first impressions of life in the midst of such degradation and woe, that she at once took steps to found a home for them.  The directors of the infirmary eventually acceded to her proposition.

 

                1.  This was to take charge of them in a home that she would build for $1.00 per capita a week.

 

                2.  They to supply a new suit of clothes when she should take them.

 

                3.  They to pay one-half the cost of medical attendance, and in case of death the burial expenses.

 

                Her pecuniary means to carry out her project were ridiculously meagre.  She had saved about $200 in the course of years from her slender salary as a teacher, which with a legacy of $160, and $150 borrowed from a friend, amounted to $500 in all.  With this, in 1857, she purchased twelve acres of land on Moss Run, ten miles east of Marietta, and began the erection of a home.  There was a cottage on the farm of two rooms when she bought it.  Into this cottage on the 1^st of April, 1858, she received from the county poor-house nine children, eight of them boys, and all under ten years of age—four of them were babes.

 

                On the 1^st of May she took five of these children to the district school.  On her arrival she found sixteen men by the door, who told her she should not take her little paupers among their children.  She replied: “I am not afraid of you; I know I am right, and you are wrong;” and persisting, in she went.  The teacher told her that he could not keep them without permission of the three trustees, who were among the sixteen men.  Next Monday she went to Marietta, and got an appointment from the court as guardian over the children, which gave her full authority, and the second time she went to school with the children.  Again she was confronted at the school door by thirteen men, two of whom were the trustees, who felt chagrined at the idea of the association of their children with paupers, for that neighborhood was composed of old Virginia families, who inherited a full share of their ancestral pride.  Time with its developments changed all this, especially as the institution, by the increase of children for that district, lessened their school tax, the State disbursing a certain amount per capita for each scholar.

 

                In the following August the permanent Home Building was finished.  It had twenty rooms, and of the joy with which they moved in, why it cannot be written.  This building cost full $2000, but she managed it all with the meagre income of which we have spoken and the credit which she got from the builder.  In five years she had expended $4000 on the property, and cancelled every debt.

 

                She relates some curious incidents.  The name was as an inspiration.  “One night after I had been thinking over this matter I had a dream, in which appeared a wall on which in red block letters were two words: ‘CHILDREN’S HOME.’  I never,” she says, “ever mentioned this before to any one, but I do it to you because it is the truth.

 

 

Page 823

 

 

Top Picture

MRS. CAHTERINE FAY EWING.

 

Bottom Picture

Cadwallaler, Photo

 

THE ORIGINAL CHILDREN’S HOME.

 

Page 824

 

blaze had started.  To seize a pail of water and put out the fire was but the work of a moment.

 

                Wanting some lumber for building purposes a neighbor whom I shall here call Mr. SMITH, a man of bad reputation, brought me what he said was 1800 feet.  I told him that I would have my carpenters measure it, and, if they found it correct, would take it at his price.  He flew into a passion that I should doubt his word in the matter.  My carpenter found it some 400 feet short.  I took it at that, and gave him my note, payable in three months—amount, $20.30.

 

                In a little short of three weeks, one Friday it was, SMITH came to me and said I must be ready for that note on the next Monday, or he would sue me.  I was completely taken aback, and asked to see the note.  Then I discovered that he had altered the word “months” to “weeks.”  I was in great distress.  The idea of being sued and thus disgraced before my children and the community was terrible, lone woman as I was.  When SMITH left I retired to my room, and threw my burden at the feet of Christ.  Relief was instant, as it always was.  The next morning I answered a knock at the door, and there stood a young gentleman about thirty years of age in light clothes, and with the blackest eyes I think I ever saw.

 

                He asked: “Are you Miss Fay, the matron of this institution?”  “I am.”  “Here is a package for you.”

 

                With that he turned on his heel, and before in my astonishment I could even thank him disappeared.

 

                Who he was, where he came from, or where he went, I never was able to learn from that day to this, now over twenty years ago.  On opening I found it to contain exactly the amount of my note, $20.30.

 

                “Many of my neighbors had strange ideas of my work.  They thought it a mere money-making scheme, and an injury to them, as they paid taxes to the State, and they tried to injure me.  At night they opened my gates and let in hogs and cattle upon my garden and fields, and killed my chickens.  Once when I went to take one of my children to a home I found on my return fifty-two of my sixty chickens dead.”

 

                In June, 1860, her family were attacked with diphtheria, and sickness lasted for months.  Her hired girls left her, and on the day the last left she was sick also.  “I crawled downstairs and found things in a dreadful condition.  The children gathered around me so pleased to have me with them again, and with the help of the two oldest, a girl of twelve and a boy of thirteen, I went to work to get things in order, but soon the sick upstairs needed my attention.  I was too weak to walk; I had to creep on my hands and knees.  There lay six dear children, very sick, one of whom died next day.  Thus it went on for weeks.  Many a day I had no one to speak to but the children.

 

                “The hardest time came one evening when I knew that one of the little ones could not live through the night.  I dreaded to be alone, and just at night I sent one of the boys to ask a neighbor to come and stay at least a part of the night.  He returned with the answer: ‘Tell old Kate she was paid for taking care of the children, and now she might do it.’   When the boy told me this I broke down and cried, until one of the children came and put his arm round my neck, and said: ‘God can take care of us.’  ‘So he can,’ I said; ‘I will trust in him.’  Nor did I trust in vain, for before dark Dr. BECKWITH came, bringing his wife with him.”

 

                Mrs. EWING’S enterprise was sneered at by many, who regarded it as a great folly; but her strength was in her utmost faith in God, and in many instances aid seemed to come almost miraculously.  Her motto always was “never let up.”  To pause is misery; to move is, in some unseen way, joy and perhaps eventual victory.

 

                God raised up friends for her.  He always does.  The citizens of Marietta and Harmar by two entertainments at one time raised $400, and lifted her out of debt.

 

                At the close of the war two-thirds of the children were soldiers’ orphans.  At that period the donations were less frequent, and at the same time were more greatly needed; for the war had caused the prices of goods and clothing to greatly increase.  At this period she had thirty-six children.  Her allowance for the care of each child was raised to $1.25 per week.  In her reports to the county commissioners she plead for a Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, and, as a consequence, was the establishment of the noble institution at Xenia.

 

                Early in her career, on account of the many epithets applied to her children by the other children at the district school, and the annoyance she had in receiving anonymous letters containing threats of mobbing and burning, she decided to build a school-room and employ a teacher at the home.  During the ten years she had charge of the home 101 indigent children were taken care of by her, she finding homes for them as opportunity offered.

 

 

Page 825

 

and her family.  She clothed them all, as she expresses it, in flannel, and gave them many garments and bedding beside, and near the 1^st of April, 1868, these children, thirty-six in number, entered the first home established by law.

 

                This, the first Children’s Home on the “Ohio Plan,” is justly a matter of pride with the citizens of Washington county for the great works of good it is doing, and the ability shown in the management.  The house has now an average of over one hundred children ranging in age from a few months to sixteen years.  The property is valued at about forty thousand dollars.  It is supported by direct taxation and the income from the farm.

 

GREAT TREES.

 

            The valleys of the Muskingum and the Scioto have been noted for immense trees.  The most noted was a sycamore, which stood on the banks of the Muskingum at the time of the first settlement in 1788, and is thus described by Dr. CUTLER in his journal:

 

            Sunday, Aug. 24.—Cloudy this morning and very muddy.  Attended public worship in the hall at Campus Martius.  Hall very full.  People came from the Virginia shore and from the garrison.  Dined with Generals PARSONS and VARNUM.

 

            We took a walk out just at sunset, and went as far as the great tree.  Measured the diameter—thirteen feet in diameter in the two opposite directions, i. e., at right angles.  The tree is broken down: one side is about eighteen feet high; the opposite is about two feet.  The inside of the tree is not only hollow, but burnt so there is but a thin shell.  The growth of the tree is sloping; if cut off about two feet above the ground would contain sixty-four men, allowing eighteen inches to a man.  Six horseman could ride in abreast and parade in the tree at the same time.

 

            We measured the circumference as near the ground as possible so as to take in all the bulges, and made it 46½ feet.  About two feet above the ground we measured the circumference again, and found it to be 41½ feet.  This seems to have been the proper place to have measured it to give the proper circumference, and gives the diameter fourteen feet.  At the height of sixteen feet the tree was only six feet in diameter; at eighteen feet it branched into three large branches which now lie on the ground.  General PARSONS, elsewhere states Dr. CUTLER, measured a black walnut tree near the Muskingum, whose circumference at five feet from the ground was twenty-two feet.”

 

            On the RATHBUN place, famous for its fine sweet potatoes, near the Children’s Home, in the Muskingum valley, is an immense elm which I measured, and found to have, two feet above the ground, a girth of about twenty-four feet; five feet above the ground eighteen feet; length of branches from north to south 127 feet.  On my way thither, Thursday, May 6, 1886, I called upon Mr. Lewis J. P. PUTNAM, born March 2, 1808, and great-grandson of General Israel PUTNAM, called hereabouts General Wolf PUTNAM, to distinguish him from General Rufus PUTNAM, his cousin.  This would now make it about a century old from the seed.  The average life of an elm is about 170 years.  This tree bids fair to become widely famous, for the soil is remarkably generous for tree growth.

 

            Mr. Geo. M. WOODBRIDGE, in connection with the study of the ancient mounds, has been investigating for years the ages of trees hereabouts, and the oldest he has discovered was on the WOODBRIDGE farm about eight miles above the city, nearly a mile back of the river and a mile east of the 7th range line.  It was an ash tree.  Three feet above the ground its girth was sixteen feet three inches.  When cut in logs he counted the concentric rings carefully ten feet from the base with a glass, and made it 300 years.

 

 

Page 826.

 

            Hon. W. M. FARRAR writes me that about three-quarters of a mile northwest of Caywood station, on the C. & M. R. R., in this county, is a pair of oak trees that become merged in one.  They start from the ground two feet apart.  At the height of twenty feet they are four apart.  Then the smaller, which is ten inches in diameter, turns nearly at right angles and unites with the larger tree, which is two feet in diameter, and the two become thenceforth one.  For references to various noted Ohio trees see Index.

 

 

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

 

HARMAR, FROM THE VIRGINIA SHORE OF THE OHIO.

 

[On the right appears “the Point” at Marietta with the Muskingum and its falls; also in the distance the towers of the “Two Horn” church; in front is Harmar.]

 

            Harmar in 1846.—Harmar is very pleasantly situated on the south bank of the Muskingum, opposite Marietta.  It contains 1 Methodist church, a male and female academy, 5 mercantile stores, 1 steam mill, 1 extensive foundry, a large hotel (shown on the left of the view), and had, in 1840, 692 inhabitants.  Steamboat building has been extensively carried on here.  It will probably become a manufacturing town, a grant having lately been given by the State to use the waters of the Muskingum at the dam.—Old Edition.

 

            The Fort Harmar, completed in the spring of 1786, stood near the point on the west side of the Muskingum, and upon the second terrace above ordinary flood water.  Joel BUELL, one of the first settlers at Marietta, was on the frontier as early as 1785, and spent considerable time at Fort Harmar.  In his journal he states that the pay of the soldiers was only $3.00 per month, or ten cents a day.  “Drunkenness and desertion were prevalent evils.  The punishment for drunkenness and other trifling offences was not infrequently flogging to the extent of one hundred or even two hundred lashes, and the death penalty, without the process of court-martial, was inflicted upon deserters.  BUELL relates that three men, the finest soldiers of the company, deserted at McIntosh, and being captured were shot by order of Major WYLLIS, who commanded the fort—an act which he chronicled as the most inhuman that he ever saw.”

 

            Drunkenness was common in that day among all classes.  A large proportion of the soldiers of the revolution died drunkards.  Early in this century if a beggar appeared at one’s door, and they often did, and clothed in rags, it was common to characterize him as an “old soldier.”  It was from this fact arose the old time doggerel:

 

 

Page 827

 

OLD-TIME DRINKING HABITS.

 

            A chaplain of a regiment of the Continental army complained that the men were not punctual at morning prayers.  “Oh, I’ll fix that,” said the colonel, so he issued an order that the liquor ration would hereafter be given out at the close of morning prayers.  It worked like a miracle; not a man was missing.

 

            It is impossible for this generation to conceive of the position of society when the drinking habit was universal among the American people, as it was even down to the period of my youth.

 

            Alcoholic liquids were considered a necessity of life; a sort of panacea for all ills; a crowning sheaf to all blessings; good in sickness and in health; good in summer to dispel the heat, and good in winter to dispel the cold; good to keep on work, and more than good to help on a frolic.

 

            So good were they considered, that their attributed merits were fixed by pleasant names.  The first dram of the morning was an “eye-opener;” duly followed by the “eleven-o’clocker” and the “four-o’clocker;” whilst the very last was a “night-cap;” after which one was supposed to take no more drinks that day, unless he was unexpectedly called up at night, when, as people generally slept in rooms without fires, he prudently fortified himself against taking cold.

 

            Don’t imagine these were all the drinks of the day—by no means.  The decanter was at the dinner-table and stood ready at all times on the side-board of every well-to-do family.  My father was not an exception.  If a friend had called, he had been welcomed by the “social glass;” if one had departed, a pleasant journey was tendered in a flowing bumper; if a bargain had been made, it was rounded by a liquid “clincher;” if a wedding had come off, a long and prosperous life was drunk to the happy pair; if one died, the watchers with the dead (as was the custom of the time) were provided with refreshments through the long solemn hours of night; ardent spirits were always included, while the bearers at the funeral had set out for them the decanter and glass.

 

            Drinking, all the way from the cradle to the grave, seemed the grand rule.  Dinah, the black nurse, as she swaddled the new-born infant, took her dram; and Uncle Sam (I remember him), the aged, gray-haired sexton, with  the weak and watery eyes and bent, rheumatic body, soon as he had thrown the last spadeful of earth upon the little mound he had raised over the remains of a fellow-mortal, turned to the neighboring bush on which hung his green baize jacket, for a swig at the bottle; after which, and smacking his lips the while, he gathered up his tools and slowly and painfully hobbled homeward to attend to his duties to the living—one was to ring the town-bell at noon, the dinner hour, and again at nine at night, to warn the people to close the stores, stop work and prepare to retire.

 

            This was in accord with a favorite couplet of the day:

 

                                                “Early to bed and early to rise,

                                                 Makes people healthy, wealthy and wise.”

 

            An hour later, almost the entire population of the little town, after burying up their fires and blowing out their miserable, dim, little lights, would be laid out around in horizontal positions in their various dwellings—some with “night-caps” and some without “night-caps,” and some with two “night-caps”—one outside and the other in—sometimes more than that in.

 

            Poets and philosophers have written much in praise of sleep.  It is an early habit of the race.  The first man of us all, only, on awakening from a sound nap, found “his affinity,” and ever after she was by his side.  There is GOOD in sleep. 

 

 

Page 828

 

gions of the great unknown:  but memory gone, it returns no report save that, in some mysterious way, it has noted the passing of time—can tell whether it has been wandering one hour or ten.

 

            In those ancient and somewhat melancholy days, church deacons not only frequently ran distilleries, but sold rum, whiskey and gin over the counter at two cents a dram (the price of the time); while the parson, that good old man, after finishing a round of social visits, not unfrequently returned to his own dwelling so mellowed by the soothing influence of the cordial welcomes of his parishioners, as to feel that this was not such a very bad world after all.

 

LYMAN BEECHER’S TESTIMONY.

 

            This may seem an exaggeration as to the habits of the people and old-time clergy; but none can gainsay the evidence of Lyman BEECHER.  In his autobiography, Mr. BEECHER describes a scene at a meeting of the Consociation of Congregational ministers and laity at the house of Rev. Mr. HEART, in Plymouth, which took place in the year 1811, on the occasion of the ordination of Mr. HEART.  He says:

 

            “In the sitting-room of Mr. HEART’S house, beside food, was a broad side-board covered with decanters and bottles and sugar and pitchers of water.  There we found all the various kinds of liquor then in vogue.  The drinking was apparently universal.  This preparation was made by the society as a matter of course.  When the Consociation arrived they always took something to drink round; also before public services, and always on their return.  As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged each to stand and wait for his turn, as people do when they go to mill.

 

            There was also a decanter of spirits on the dinner-table to help digestion, and gentlemen partook of it through the afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more and some less.  The sideboard, with the spillings of water and sugar and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop.  None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not at times a considerable amount of exhilaration I cannot affirm.

 

            When they had all done drinking, and taken pipes and tobacco, in less than fifteen minutes there was such a smoke you could not see.  And the noise I cannot describe; it was the maximum of hilarity.  They told their stories and were at the height of jocose talk.  They were not old-fashioned Puritans.  They had been run down.  Great deal of spirituality on the Sabbath, and not much when they got where there was something GOOD to drink.

 

            When things are at their worst they begin to mend.  The terrible evils arising from intemperance finally startled the land.  The first point in the reform was gained when as one entered a friend’s house the latter no longer felt it a breach of hospitality not to give a sidewise toss of the head and an angular glance of an eye to the sideboard, and then with a smile of tender solicitude ask, “What will you have to drink?”

 

            And then farther along in the progress of the Temperance idea, when a stranger guest was present, the old, coarse, disgusting question, “What will you have to drink?” was not put at all, and so when an invitation was extended it came from some old fossil of antiquated habits, moved by the spirit of sociality, who, in a hesitating, timid sort of manner, would inquire—“Do you ev-ever in-INDULGE?”

 

            The Temperance Reform began 1832, and soon there came such a moral resurrection of the old-style American people as history has not seen—the banishment of intoxicating liquors as a common beverage from the homes of respectable families.  Such a use had become disgraceful, for public opinion sustained what the enlightened moral sense could only contemplate with a loathing and a shudder.

 

 

Page 829

 

But then in some few cases an unlooked-for extreme was reached: not only did such people banish alcoholic drinks from their homes but all sorts of stimulants, as tea and coffee; and then came a crusade against meat, inaugurated by Sylvester GRAHAM, who advocated a purely vegetable diet as a preservative against a desire for stimulants.  He had many followers: among his captives was Horace Greeley, who for a while lived in a vegetarian boarding house, and when there in a lady-boarder met the lady who captured him.

 

            What may be termed a drinking song was a favorite at that time, which even a Cupid stricken youth of strict temperance proclivities might well sing without violating any canon of teetotalism.  It was set to a very plaintive air.  It is not thought Mr. Greeley ever sang it.  It opened with

 

            

 

            HARMAR is on the Ohio river, at the mouth of the Muskingum river and opposite Marietta.  It is on the C. W. & B. and M. C. & N. R. R.  City officers, 1888: Geo. P. STEVENS, mayor; Henry STRECKER, clerk; A. W. TOMPKINS, treasurer; S. G. STAGE, marshal; Sanford LOFFLAND, street commissioner.  Churches: 1 Congregational and 1 Methodist Episcopal.

 

            Manufactures and Employees.—Harmar Foundry and Machine Co., 7; STRECKER, TOMPKINS & Co., flour, etc., 7; George STRECKER & Co., boilers, etc., 8; W. F. ROBERTSON & Co., plows, etc., 37.—Ohio State Report, 1888.

 

            Population, 1880, 1,571.  School census, 1888, 619; John D. PHILLIPS, superintendent of schools.  Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $51,000.  Value of annual product, $91,000.—Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.

 

            In June, 1890, Harmar lost its distinction as a corporation, having been annexed to Marietta, and it population, some 1700, is included in the census of that year.

 

            BELPRE is on the Ohio river, twelve miles below Marietta and opposite Parkersburg, West Va., and on the C. W. & B. R. R.  It has five churches.  School census, 1888, 311; F. P. AMES, superintendent of schools.

 

            BEVERLY is twenty-three miles above Marietta, on the bank of the Muskingum river and on the Z. & O. R. R. R.  It has a normal school and is the seat of Beverly College; W. C. HAWKS, principal.  City officers, 1888: J. M. TRUESDELL, mayor; Chas. WILSON, clerk; C. W. REYNOLDS, treasurer; Perley CHAPMAN, marshal; Chas. McCARTY, street commissioner.  Newspapers: Dispatch, Independent, Roberta SMITH, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist and 1 Methodist Episcopal.  Bank: Citizens’, E. S. McINTOSH, president; Chas. W. REYNOLDS, cashier.  Population, 1880, 834.  School census, 1888, 267.

 

            WATERFORD is opposite it, on the west bank of the river.

 

            LOWELL is on the Muskingum river, ten miles northwest of Marietta.  Population, 1880, 322.  School census, 1888, 150.

 

            MATAMORAS, P. O. New Matamoras, is on the Ohio river, thirty-one miles above Marietta.  Newspaper: Mail, Democrat, Geo. W. TARY, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist.  Population, 1880, 631.

 

            MACKSBURG is sixteen miles north of Marietta, on the C. & M. R. R.  School census, 1888, 248.  This is in the once noted Macksburg oil district, for account of which see Noble County.

 

            UPPER NEWPORT, town with a population in 1890 of 1236, and LOWER NEWPORT, town with a population of 1169, are on the
            Ohio river, a few miles above Marietta.