A standard history of Allen county, Ohio : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Part 49

Author: Rusler, William, 1851-; American Historical Society (New York)
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 598


USA > Ohio > Allen County > A standard history of Allen county, Ohio : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development > Part 49


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All Allen County women point with pride to Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes as an Ohio woman, who as first lady of the land banished wine from the White House, when Rutherford B. Hayes was President of the United States; while many families had their barrel of cider and used it freely, saying unblushingly that it was best when the bead was on it, and while domestic wines were unhesitatingly offered to guests, in the social reign of Mrs. Hayes it became entirely proper to reverse one's glass at dinner, when wine was being poured by the hostess; the White House precedent spread all over the country; the name of Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes will always live in history; she no doubt had her incentive from the Crusade.


It was Dio Lewis of Boston who first interested Ohio women in the Crusade. He gave public lectures in Hillsboro and Washington Court House, exhorting the women into heroic action. Mother Thompson of Springfield, who was a daughter of Governor Trimble of Ohio, was the first Ohio woman to pray in a saloon in 1873, on Christmas morning. Her name and fame went around the world because of it. As the Crusade continued spreading, Lima women began asking themselves: what shall we do about it? Lima business men were importuned by local saloonkeepers to keep their wives out of the Crusade. They did not wish to suffer the loss of patronage that would ensue from it. When inter- viewed on the subject, Mrs. Mary E. Mehaffey of Lafayette quoted from her own written account : "Then came the Temperance Crusade in Ohio, begun December 23, 1873, in Hillsboro with a power of baptism from on high that brought into existence from the burning timbers of the Crusade, the W. C. T. U., proclaiming with its banners unfurled to the breeze that the saloon was doomed," these lines written several years before national prohibition had been written on the statutes of the United States.


While the Crusade enlisted the most prominent women in Allen County, at the time of the visit to Mrs. Mehaffey there were only four living Crusaders: Mrs. Mehaffey, Mrs. Matilda Moore of Lima; Mrs. Anna Morris of Gomer, and Mrs. Villa Cook, who is now the Allen County Woman's Christian Temperance Union president, although her Crusade work was not in Allen County. She was the wife of a minister whose charge was elsewhere at the time. The Crusade in Allen County had its beginning at Lafayette, and Mrs. Mehaffey writes: "In February, 1874, the Christian women of Lafayette caught the Crusade spirit; the pastors of the churches and the Christian laymen stood with them and back of them in their Christian endeavor, and helped them to make arrangements for the holy warfare; each day for weeks they met at the churches for a prayer service, and from there they went by twos to visit the saloons and the taverns where spiritous liquors were kept; they knelt around the curbstones, on the pavements and on the doorsills; on one of those cold wintry days, after a season of prayer and song, the keeper of the tavern invited the Crusaders in, and weeping like a child he asked forgiveness for his discourteous treatment of them, and he helped the beloved women of God to pour out into the street several kegs of brandy, whisky and wine; the next day the regular saloonkeepers surrendered; the days before their surrender there were solemn processions: 'Not a drum was heard nor a funeral note,' but after the surrender all was joy-


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ous in the streets, in the homes and in the churches; bells were rung, drums were beaten and the voices of the people sang aloud the praise of Him through whom the victory was gained," and while Mrs. Mehaffey mentioned prominent women she was glad that Lafayette had taken the initiative in the Crusade.


Mrs. Augusta Steiner led the Crusade in Bluffton, and it was not long until Mother Watt-Mrs. Hudson Watt, had marshalled the forces in Lima, among them Mrs. Richard Metheany, Mrs. J. R. Hughes, but a Lima directory is necessary in naming so many women. Mrs. Matilda Moore is alone today as a Lima Crusader. While some of the Lima women veiled their identity by wearing the heavy baize veils then in vogue, they finally developed more courage and went boldly to spend their time at the saloons. Owing to their social prominence, not many indignities were offered to the Lima women; one saloonkeeper rang a bell while they were praying, and a woman who allowed her temper to assert itself asked God to paralyze his arm, never thinking that he might wish to have her tongue stilled in the same way ; like the Catholic sisters of today the Crusaders went two by two with the saloons always their objective points, and women who never had prayed in public kneeled and prayed in the slush on the streets ; some of the saloonkeepers opened their doors, inviting them inside, but when not invited in they would sing and pray on the outside, among their favorite songs : "What Means This Eager, Anxious Throng?" "Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By," "Corona- tion," "Nearer My God to Thee," and other songs of the day.


In one Ohio town a German saloonkeeper employed a band to enter- tain the Crusaders; when they would sing the band played and confused them. One day the women sang, "Rock of Ages," getting the start of the band and the leader refused to play. When the German saloonist expostulated with him, he said: "I can't go against Rock of Ages," and the incident lost him his job. He had heard his own mother sing "Rock of Ages." One German saloonkeeper in Lima demanded that prayers be offered in German as he did not understand English; there was a Ger- man woman in the group whose two sons had been ruined by drink, and she responded with unction; she was fervent in prayer and her words had an affect ; when she finished he was in the distance ; he did not ask for prayers in German again. However, the incident was a sugges- tion to the women ; they pressed a Lima schoolgirl into the service to read from the German Bible when visiting saloons kept by Germans, and Mrs. Anna Melhorn Vicary, who rendered that service, was perhaps the youngest Allen County Crusader, although not listed by Mrs. Mehaffey.


Some of the Lima saloonkeepers manifested anger, and one man and his wife grated horseradish close to them while the women were praying ; while they could "smart their eyes," they could not stop them. While some of the Crusaders became discouraged, feeling that they might never accomplish anything, a number have lived to see the reward for their labors. At the forty-seventh annual Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention in Cleveland, A. D. 1920, Mrs. Villa Cook of Lima was one of the twenty-five Crusaders in attendance; this convention was held in Epworth Methodist Episcopal Church which occupies the site of the Second Presbyterian Church in Cleveland where the first Woman's Chris- tian Temperance Union was organized in 1874-a sacred shrine in Cleve- land for many women. Mrs. Cook relates that once when she was in a crusade, an angry saloonkeeper threatened to "egg" them, but he refrained from doing it. While Lima saloonkeepers boasted in advance of how they would handle the Crusaders, when they recognized the fore-


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most women of the community among their guests they treated them with courtesy.


At the Doepkins & Herrick saloon, Mr. Doepkins chalked off a space for them, saying any woman who crossed the line would be arrested; they all played safe, kneeling outside the line and they made it a "dead line" that he regretted, and Mr. Herrick was so annoyed that he tried to drown them out with a tin pan; when he threatened dirty water and a knife, his own wife restrained him. One saloonkeeper fixed a trap in the floor, saying he would precipitate the Crusaders to the basement, but some one "tipped it off" to them and they turned a deaf ear to his invita- tions, praying that morning from the curbstone. Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church was the Crusade headquarters in Lima, and Crusade bis- cuits were served in many households; a woman could make and serve them, and be back on duty again in fifteen minutes. Even the Billy Sunday campaign did not create more excitement in Lima than the Cru- sade. While there never was a saloon in Elida, a building in which it was planned to open a grog shop, went down the railroad track one night in the wake of a train, and the promoters never tried it again.


In a sense the Woman's Crusade was a boycott, as men "suffering" for drink would allow their mothers and wives to usurp their places at the bars; they did not have the courage to drink in their presence; a woman praying in a saloon had a restraining influence ; they started in by going three days each week, finally going every day and picketing all of the saloons. In one place a black-eyed bartender named Fisher declared : "You are no ladies," and he tried to engage them in conversation. While the Crusade was a demonstration in the open against the saloon, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union is an outgrowth from it, "Mother Thompson" and Frances E. Willard, "America's Uncrowned Queen," indorsing it as a better expression of womanhood, the influence of the Crusade still lives in Allen County. It had its inception at Hillsboro, while the Woman's Christian Temperance Union came into existence in Cleveland. Ohio is thus the nursery of two great temperance organiza- tions among women. Since 1874, the Women's Christian Temperance Union has encircled the world, the write ribbon badge of purity being recognized in all countries. In 1882, the Allen County Women's Christian Temperance Union was organized in Lima by Mrs. Mary A. Wood- bridge, and it "run well for a season," and in 1890, Lima entertained the State Women's Christian Temperance Union convention.


While there were frequent temperance lectures, the Women's Christian Temperance Union organization finally lapsed, but was reorganized in 1899, and since then has maintained continued existence. It maintains all the departments, and the local unions were all active in promoting the franchise of women. Emotion, love and sympathy predominate the average woman, and as an organization of Women's Christian Temper- ance Union is both secular and religious; when the men of the country advised the women that they should raise up voters instead of asking for the franchise, they immediately began a campaign of education among future voters; through their efforts scientific temperance has been intro- duced into the public schools, and since the child of today becomes the citizen of tomorrow, the women are right in their campaign of education. The three unions in Lima are: Frances Willard, Florence Richards and Villa Cook, and there are unions in Bluffton, Beaver Dam, West Cairo, Gomer, Elida, Delphos, Spencerville and Lafayette. As long as a union pays its dues it is in existence ; some unions are more active than others, and the Frances Willard Women's Christian Temperance Union is in the Lima Club Federation.


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Mrs. Augusta Steiner of Bluffton was Allen County Women's Chris- tian Temperance Union president for many years, and some years ago there was an attempt to secure historical data, but in Mrs. Cook's time as president, the principal effort has been franchise education and citizen- ship. While women have always resorted to prayer in bringing about moral reforms, the oak and the vine simile does not mean so much to the aggressive Allen County woman; she is inclined to do things on her own account, and while some are dropping out others are joining the Allen County Women's Christian Temperance Union. When local option began functioning, and Allen County was automatically dry, and when finally national prohibition was written on the statutes the local temperance women rejoiced with other women of Ohio and the nation-they felt that success at last had crowned their efforts.


The Women's Crusade was the real beginning of definite action on the temperance question, and men of today enjoy recounting the part their mothers had in it; there was rivalry among women in many places as to who should knock the heads out of whisky barrels ; in many communities it was a weakened article they emptied into the streets, whisky barrels frequently being shifted from one cellar to another in advance of them. The Christian Alexanders have conquered the world for temperance, and while the Crusade was temporary the Women's Christian Temperance Union seems like Tennyson's Babbling Brook-goes on forever, and yet in a short space of time some other instrumentality for good may supplant it. As yet nothing else has made a stronger appeal to the womanhood of the world.


Vol. 1-25


CHAPTER XXXVIII PUBLIC UTILITIES


While on the face of things it seems that public necessities should be public trusts, private ownership of public utilities is the prevailing condi- tion. While government control of public utilities may be inconsistent with private ownership, there are men who advocate it, and the United States postal system is a strong socialist argument. However, the recent experiment with government controlled railroads as a war measure was not wholly satisfactory; the United States Government seemed glad to let loose of them. It is just as important for railroad affairs to be in the hands of railroad men as for the shoemaker to stick to his last- politicians not always being able to "railroad" everything.


The following paragraph was no doubt written under the pressure of circumstances : "So far as we are concerned, public utilities officials are welcome to their jobs : if they make money the public kicks; if they don't, the stockholders kick," and the president of a mammoth utility said: "I shall be disappointed if the company is not on a dividend paying basis when I appear again," and without question his feeling was unanimous. People do not give their time and effort to business without thought of gain from it. While the Bible says: "God made man in His own image," Disraeli declared: "But the public is made by the newspapers," and there are those who question the freedom of the press with reference to the discussion of public utilities, saying the truth is unknown to the masses about such things. Lima newspaper readers are given a lot of informa- tion, but it is not quite easy to discern between news and propaganda sometimes.


Just as the use of the words strenuous and conservation cause the thoughtful mind to revert to the late Theodore Roosevelt, whose distinc- tive Americanism stands out in bold relief, and the word reciprocity recalls the "plumed knight," James G. Blaine, and the word propaganda itself along with questionnaire came into the popular vocabulary with the World war, and everybody recognizes camouflage as a word bor- rowed from the French-the thoroughly commercialized term public utili- ties is always associated in the public thought with the commission, or with some private individual promoting such things; the atmosphere of Lima and of Allen County is impregnated with utilities-the word has a meaning in no sense uncertain. The railroads, the traction systems and the public highways have already been described, and associated with them are the Western Union and Postal Telegraph systems, both in use in Allen County. While the telegraph office followed in the wake of the railroads, for a long time the public only used it when transmitting death or funeral notices.


It is said that a woman suggested the first telegraph message: "What hath God wrought?" that was flashed over the wire from Baltimore to Washington in 1840, and since that time through its cable system and wireless branch, the telegraph has encircled the world. However, the noonday of the nineteenth century had been passed in the onward march, long before the modern improvements that made of civilization a sim- plified problem had evolved from the brain of the genius, and the ele- ment of profit from the ownership of public conveniences-the utilities themselves as yet undreamed of-had taken deep hold on the mind of the speculator. While nothing but market reports and emergency notices


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were transmitted by telegraph for many years, because of the attendant expense, now the night letter by telegraph is frequently used in business correspondence when speed is necessary. It used to cost $1.50 to send a ten-word message from Lima to Chicago. There are now commercial rates, and business is largely transacted by telegraph all over Allen County.


Perhaps the first utilities corporation to which Allen County citizens paid tribute was the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company which was later incorporated as The Western Union. It is operated wholly by non- resident capital, with a local representative, and Hiram Moore was the first man in charge of the local commercial telegraph. He was succeeded by Fred Limb and Harry L. Davis, but since 1890, E. B. Oglevie has been the Western Union manager. While the railway' telegraph office used to serve the community in a commercial way, now its only business is its own traffic, entirely separate from commercial affairs; it was in the early '80s that the commercial companies came into existence ; while they use the same poles and wires-the same general equipment, for sveral years the uptown offices have handled the commercial end of the tele- graph business ; even when Mr. Oglevie took charge of the local Western Union office the business was practically limited to death, marriage and birth notices-the telephone coming along just at that time and dividing the commercial patronage.


For a time the telephone seemed to monopolize local business, when night letters were introduced by the Western Union; they were so much quicker than the mail service ; correspondence by telegraph was ended in a few hours that used to require several days, and it was an important saving of time. Business men frequently close deals in one day that used to "hang fire" for a whole week. Life is too short for the old-time methods of business communication ; business is transacted on a knowl- edge of the changing markets, and grain and live stock dealers must know the latest quotations ; those who turn first to the market quotations when opening the newspaper understand the necessity. The Postal Telegraph system was installed in Lima in the early '90s, and E. A. Siferd is in charge of the local office. All the towns in Allen County have some mar- ket demands, and it is conceded that Willis Grant Harbison, employed at the Chicago and Erie office in Spencerville, has been receiving and sending telegraph messages longer than any one else in Allen County. In his thirty years on the wire he has taught the code to many other opera- tors ; he never worked in any other place.


Many years ago, Horace S. Knapp, a local historian of some note, in writing of conditions in the Maumee Valley, said: "The transition almost confuses the mind to contemplate, when viewed in all its length and breadth; what a marvellous change in the means of transmitting intelligence has been produced in a period less than a half century. Today, at any railroad station in Allen County, connected with which is a telegraph office, one may transmit a message 2,000 miles distant, or even to Europe or the Orient and receive to it an answer in less space than a half century ago would have been consumed by the speediest mode of travel then known to make the distance between two Allen County towns and return, and during the January and June floods that then appeared as regularly as the seasons, to communicate with a neigh- bor ten miles distant," and he did not dream of the wireless communi- cation.


Had Mr. Knapp lived A. D. 1920, and through several previous presidential campaigns, he would have known the results of the national political conventions-the last campaign in Chicago and San Francisco,


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within a few hours, the telegraph and the printing press combining to have the news on the streets in all the towns of the country. Because of the network of the telegraph, Lima had no advantage over other towns in Allen County. Mr. Knapp continues: "Imagine a pioneer who about three months after the presidential election in 1832, received an eastern newspaper or letter conveying to him the information that Andrew Jackson had been elected president of the United States in the previous November. If the settler happened to be a Jackson man, he donned his hunting shirt and coon-skin cap and sallied forth in search of the few neighbors of his political faith to communicate the glad tidings to them, and mingle their rejoicings over it; the news of the result of a presidential election is now known in every considerable city and town in the United States and Europe within twenty-four hours after the close of the polls," and the foregoing was written soon after the coming of the railroads and telegraph lines into Northwestern Ohio. While men and women of today think they have lived through the greatest age in history, some regret their activities so soon-would enjoy greater advantages in the future.


THE TELEPHONE SYSTEM-Before there were telephone wires con- necting the different homes in Allen County, there were signals-a code that was always easily interpreted-a red rag hanging out from an upper window always indicating distress; different colors sent different things, and the neighbors knew when they were wanted by different signals. It is said that Dr. S. B. Hiner had the first telephone in Lima ; it was of his own construction; he called it a microphone; he used a drumhead arrangement with a skin drawn across it for a sounding board. There were wires connecting his office and his residence before the telephone became a necessity. It was in 1878 that the telephone first claimed attention. Now the family not connected with the outside world by telephone is the exception. Allen County is a network of telephones.


The Ohio Telephone News, a journal for independent companies, in its May, 1919, issue, carried a comprehensive writeup of The Lima Telephone & Telegraph Company, by George H. Metheany, in which he says: "Back in 1895, which year in a telephone sense is synonomous to year one of the Old Testament, D. J. Cable of Lima and George W. Beers of Fort Wayne, organized a telephone company which through the passing years has been developed into the Lima Telephone & Tele- graph Company, as it stands today. When on March 4, 1895, the Lima city council granted a franchise to these two pioneers to build and operate an independent telephone plant, there were many individuals who shook their heads and lamented that two seasoned business men should get back of such a venture. It was pointed out that a telephone plant operating as part of the Bell System had been in service in Lima since 1878, and in 1895, had less than 250 subscribers; the mourners were away in the minority, however, and business and professional men of Lima rallied to the standard of the new company, which promised to furnish service not only within a limited local area, but to the rural territory surrounding Lima, where service requirements were as great if not greater than within the city itself."


In his 1920 report of the commercial department of the Lima service, H. E. Simonton says there are 11,239 phones in use in Lima, and it is understood that the Delphos Home Telephone Company serves 1,100 patrons in the three counties; Allen, Putnam and Van Wert. Bluffton has two telephone companies: The Bluffton and the Bluffton Mutual- the latter organized as a Farmers' Mutual with headquarters in Bluffton. The Spencerville Company connects with all others, and in Allen County


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are the following exchanges: . Beaver Dam Home Telephone Company, West Cairo Mutual Telephone Company, Elida Mutual, which serves both Elida and Gomer with an exchange in Gomer. While there are a few Lima patrons at Lafayette on private lines, the exchange there is operated though Ada; Harrod and West Newton are connected with Ada; Westminster connects directly with Lima. Ada has telephone territory in Jackson and Auglaize townships because it is the trade center for people in eastern Allen County. Cridersville also serves ยท some Allen County patrons. The border telephone service is divided much as the commercial interests. Bluffton, Delphos and Spencer- ville companies serve patrons in Allen and adjoining counties.


The Lima Telephone & Telegraph Company succeeded the Bell System, and there is a tendency to avoid having two companies in one community in the interest of efficient service. Since 1913, Lima has had a merged service; while it required two years to effect the transi- tion, results are better from it. For twenty years missionary work was necessary in extending the telephone service, but now that its advantages are so apparent almost all Allen County families have it. While party lines serve some subscribers, by listening in they have all the gossip of the community. Conservative persons sometimes withhold just what the eavesdropper wants to hear-and he hears something quite uncomplimentary ; it is generally known who weakens the service with receivers down, when people engage in conversation.




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