Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 55

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 55

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352

BUTLER COUNTY.

Manufactures and Employees .- The Wilson & McCallay Co., tobacco, 470 hands ; The Warlow Thomas Paper Co., paper, 52 ; Ohio Paper Bag Co., 29; The Wren Paper Co., paper, 32; The Gardner Paper Co., 61; R. E. Johnston, paper bags, 46 ; W. B. Oglesby Paper Co., 65; The Tytus Paper Co., 48; The P. J. Sorg Co., tobacco, 647 ; Middletown Buggy Co., 15; Middletown Pump Co., 74; The Card Fabrique Co., playing cards, 34; W. H. Todhunter, printing, 11 ; Ling & Van Sickle, carriages, etc., 8; La Tourrette & Co., machinery, etc., 20 ; George Ault Flour Co., flour, etc., 7; Wm. Caldwell, builders' wood-work, etc., 31 .- State Report 1887.

Population in 1880, 4,538. School census in 1886, 2,023; F. J. Barnard, superintendent.

'The Holly Waterworks supply the town with water, and it is lighted by the Brush electric light from eight lights on a wrought-iron tower 210 feet up in the air.

Middletown is known throughout the country for its paper mills, which manu- facture all grades from the common straw and manilla for wrapping to the finest writing. The medium writing grades are however most manufactured. One of the men most prominent in building up this great industry is Mr. Francis J. Tytus, born in Virginia early in the century and locating in Middletown when a very young man. Middletown enjoys the great advantage of good and cheap water-power, and manufactures, besides paper, agricultural implements, pleasure vehicles and tobacco to a large extent.

In the south part of this county is a stream called Paddy's Run, and because in the long ago it was the death of an Irishman. To further commemorate the sad event the post-office in the region was also named Paddy's Run ; and when a year since the government changed the name to Glendower, out of compliment to some of the Welsh stock thereabouts, the population arose in their might and by a pungent petition had it reverted to Paddy's Run. They were doubtless actuated by a spirit of humor in desiring to perpetuate a name so comic. Ask any one living there "where he is from ?" and he will often answer, with a smile, "O ! Paddy's Run." Therefore the retention of such a name in a sad, care-laden world shows their wisdom.

We allude to it here, not because of a death, but because in its valley something valuable sprang into life-an editor : the identical one, MURAT HALSTEAD, of whom the public would like to know more about. He who supplies reading for the people and all about themselves and the queer extraordinary antics some of them at times perform is naturally fated to take his turn and be read of.

Murat Halstead's grandfathers were John Halstead, of Currituck county, N. C., and James Willits, of Wyoming, Pa. John Halstead married Ruth Richardson, of Pas- quotank county, N. C., and their oldest son, , Griffin, was born in North Carolina June 11, 1802. Soon after they removed to Ohio by way of Cumberland Gap, having proposed, when leaving their native State, to buy lands in the blue-grass region of Kentucky, about which North Carolina was in those days filled with marvelous tales.

The land-titles in Kentucky were unsettled and John Halstead crossed the Ohio at Cin- cinnati, intending to settle on the Miami bot- toms. He stopped there and built a cabin, but the first great Miami flood shocked his tide-water experiences, and the escape of himself, wife and children on horseback from the overflowing water, such as had never been seen in the neighborhood of Albemarle sound, was one of the memorable incidents of his life. This led to his taking land on Paddy's

Run, the stream tributary to the Great Miami, running southward near the line be- tween Morgan and Ross townships, Butler county, six miles from the western boundary of the State. The half-section of land which is still the Halstead farm was equally divided between hill timber and fair bottom lands, and out of the way of floods.

James Willits, of Wyoming, when a boy, was one of a party of emigrants to Ohio, and drove a wagon from the Susquehanna to the Hockhocking. Another of the party moving from Pennsylvania to Ohio was Amy Allison. James Willits and Amy Allison were married and settled on Paint Creek in what is now Ross county, Ohio, where their oldest child, Clarissa, was born March 20, 1804. A few years later James Willits, with his family, moved to the neighborhood of New Haven, in the northwestern corner of Hamilton county, and there Griffin Halstead and Clar- issa Willits were married Nov. 1,. 1827.

Murat Halstead was born Sept. 2, 1829,

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BUTLER COUNTY.

the oldest son of the oldest son for several- the story is for seven generations. He has one sister, Mrs. John M. Scott, who lives at the old home, and one brother, Col. Benton

MURAT HALSTEAD.

Halstead, who resides at Riverside, Ohio. His mother died Aug. 29, 1864, and his father Oct. 29, 1884.

His mother taught him the alphabet, using the Hamilton, Butler county, Telegraph, as a primer, and he was able to read fluently. when first sent to school at five years of age. The house where he was born was of hewn timber, standing nigh a spring that had been a famous place for Indian hunting encamp- ments, a great number of stones in the

BOYHOOD HOME AND SYCAMORE GROVE.

neighborhood being burnt with many fires and the ground strewn with arrowheads. The spot is marked by a tree, a solitary elm.

When Murat was two years old the family

moved to a house meantime erceted on a pleasant foot-hill, 100 yards southwest of the spring and the elm. There had appeared south and west of this house in the summer of 1829 a remarkable group of sycamores. They are shown in the cut of the house and are a lofty and beautiful grove. As they are of the same age as Mr. Halstead they have always been associated with him, and he values them very highly.

In his boyhood Murat Halstead worked on the farm in the summer and attended school in the winter. At nineteen years of age he became a student at Farmer's College, Col- lege Hill, seven miles north of the Ohio at Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1851, and at once made his home in Cincinnati, and wrote stories for the city papers and letters for country papers. While he was the lit- erary editor of the Columbian and Great

THE SOLITARY ELM.

West he had an offer to go upon the Com- mercial, which he accepted March 8, 1853. He became a member of the firm of M. D. Potter & Co. May 15, 1854.

March 2, 1857, he married Miss Mary Banks, a native of Cincinnati. Twelve chil- dren have been born to them, of whom seven sons and three daughters are living.

Upon the death of M. D. Potter in 1866, the firm of M. Halstead & Co. was organized, and January, 1883, the famous consolidation of the Cincinnati Commercial and the Cin- cinnati Gazette took place and Mr. Halstead was elected president of the Commercial- Gazette company. He is now more active and constant in daily labor than thirty-five years ago, and has repeatedly written three thousand words of editorial matter a day for a hundred consecutive days, the aggregate frequently exceeding five thousand words in one day's paper, written in one day. He did this in 1856 and in each presidential contest since, and as much in the third campaign of Hayes for Governor, and in each of Foraker's campaigns. It is probable, as this product- iveness has continued with few intermissions (the whole not exceeding a year) for more than thirty-five years, and was preceded by voluminous writing in early youth of a ro- mantic and miscellaneous character, that Mr. Halstead has furnished more copy for printers

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BUTLER COUNTY.

than any other man living ; and having a good constitution and a healthy relishing ap- petite, with apparently many more years of

work before him, it is expected he will con- tinue increasingly to beat himself, until he finally reaches the ancient order of Patriarchs.

OXFORD, on the C. H. & D. Railroad, 39 miles northwest of Cincinnati and 12 from Hamilton, is a beautiful village, famous for its educational institutions. It has the Miami University and two noted female seminaries. "Oxford Female College" was founded in 1849, since which it has had 500 graduates and over 3,000 pupils. L. Faye Walker is principal. It now has 13 teachers and 109 pupils. The " Western Female Seminary" was founded in 1853. Helen Pea- body, principal. Teachers, 16; pupils, 156.

Newspapers : Citizen, Independent, S. D. Cone, editor ; also Oxford News, Brown & Osborn. Churches : 1 Presbyterian, 1 United Presbyterian, 1 Metho- dist, 1 Catholic, 1 African Methodist Episcopal, 1 Colored Baptist, 1 Colored Christian. Banks: Citizens', Thomas McCullongh, president, F. S. Heath, cashier ; Oxford, Munns, Shera & Co. Census, 1880, 1,743. School census, 1886, 581 ; Wm. H. Stewart, principal.

Drawn by llenry Howe in 1846.

MIAMI UNIVERSITY AT OXFORD.

[Miami University is in a large enclosure of over fifty eres, covered with green sward and many noble forest trees. The college campus is faced by pleasant residences with ample grounds. There is very little change in the buildings since the view given was drawn.]

By an act of 1803 Congress empowered the Legislature of Ohio to select a township of land within the district of Cincinnati to be devoted to the support of a college. The commissioners selected what is now the township of Oxford, which was all unsold, excepting two and a half sections, which deficiency was made up from the adjoining townships of Hanover and Milford.

In 1816 the corner-stone of the University was laid, and in 1824 the main building finished and the college duly opened, Rev. Dr. Robert H. Bishop being installed President. The funds had come from the accumulation of rents from lcases of the college land. Mr. Bishop was born in Scotland and was a graduate of Edinburgh University. He acted as President until 1841 and then as Profes- sor until 1845. The institution maintained a high standard of scholarship and from its course of study was called "the Yale of the West." Among the early instructors were Robert C. Schenck and W. H. McGuffey, the last famed for his " Eclectic" Series of school books. Anti-slavery agitation and the dismember- ment of the Presbyterian Church in 1838 brought dissensions into its management. In 1873 the institution was suspended and so remained until 1885, when the Legislature made an appropriation of $20,000, the first State aid it had received, and it again resumed under the presidency of Robert W. McFarland. It has graduated nearly 1,000 students. Among them are many names of men who

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BUTLER COUNTY.

have become leaders. As an illustration a few of the names of the many are here given :

Clergy-Wm. M. Thomson (author of "The Land and the Book "), Th. E. Thomas, David Swing, D. A. Wallace, Henry Mc- Cracken, B. W. Chidlaw. Governors, Ohio -Wm. Dennison, Chas. Anderson. Medical -Alex. Dunlap (surgeon), John S. Billings, S. W. Smith, E. B. Stevens. Business- Calvin Brice, Geo. M. Parsons, Wm. Beckett. United States Senators-Benjamin Harrison, Ind., Republican candidate for President of the United States, 1888 ; J. S. Williams, Ky. Editors-Whitelaw Reid. Lawyers-Samuel Galloway, Thomas Milliken, Wm. J. Gil- more, C. N. Olds, John W. Caldwell, Wm. S. Groesbeck, Wm. M. Corry, Robert C. Schenck, Samuel F. Cary, Samuel F. Hunt, M. W. Oliver, etc.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

Monday, April 12 .- Oxford is on very high ground, a breezy place, with a good literary name. The University is 975 feet above the sea and 370 above Hamilton. From its tower, to which I ascended with President McFarland, I found a magnificent panoramic view of a rich country undulating in all directions with cultivated and grassy fields, interspersed with woodlands and dotted with the habitations of prosperous farmers whose familics have had largely the educa- tional advantages of this favored spot. So well up to the skies is Oxford that the Presi- dent tells me that before the shortening of the tower the highlands east of the Little Miami, forty miles away, were discernible. The eye takes in the valley of the Great Miami and that bounteous tract lying east in this county called "The Garden of Ohio," so exceedingly fertile is it. Bayard Taylor, standing on the same spot, said : "For quiet beauty of scenery I have never seen anything to excel it and nothing to equal it, except in Italy." But Bayard was ever of amiable speech. Humboldt is stated to have re- marked after an interview with him that he had travelled more and seen less than any man he had ever met-a natural spurt for a matter-of-fact, dry scientist to give in the di- rection of a poet.

Oxford is purely a college town, and its various institutions are each in localities with pleasant outlooks. Among them is a sani- tarium, the "Oxford Retreat," a private in- stitution for the treatment of nervous dis- eases and insanity. Through its ample grounds winds a little stream named by Gen- eral Wayne Four Mile Creek. After leaving Fort Hamilton on his march north he crossed a stream which he named from its distance from it Two Mile Creek. The next was Four Mile Creek, then "Seven Mile," far- ther on another, "Fourteen Mile," etc.

Among the present residents of Oxford is Waldo F. Brown, a noted writer on horticul- ture and agriculture. Also David W. Magie, famed as the originator of the Magie or Po-

land China hog, produced from four distinct breeds of bristlers about the year 1840. They are now shipped all over the world, even to Australia, where they help to fatten and swell out the ribs of the descendants of the "canaries," as the early enforced settlers were called from the color of their garments. Mr. L. N. Bonham, so widely known as an agricultural writer and President of the State Board of Agriculture, has here his "Glen- ellen farm," the raising of fine stock being his specialty.

President McFarland is a native of Cham- paign county, graduated in 1847 at Delaware, was seventeen years professor here, twelve at the State University, and then was unani- mously called to his present position. He is a cheery gentleman, and I was pleased to see between him and the young men that sort of older brother relation so helpful and advan- tageous everywhere in this learning world. His specialties are mathematics, astronomy and civil engineering. In connection with the general discussion of the glacial epoch a few years since he completed the calculation of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit at short intervals for a period of over four and a half million years, and I have no doubt, if the occasion should arise, will be ready to go a few millions better.

" How doth the busy bee Improve each shining hour !"

Associated with the thought of industry, flowers and honey, with now and then a sting, comes the bee. And if any man has a natural right to devote his life to this little golden-winged creature, it is one who has such a pretty alliterative name as Lorenzo Lorraine Longstreth. And he is found right here in Oxford in the person of a retired clergyman who has made a specialty of culti- vating bees and written largely upon them.

In the spring of 1868 there came into my office in Cincinnati a large, portly gentleman, with rosy cheeks, a perfect blonde, a stranger who cheerily called me by name and put out his hand with the familiarity of an old ac- quaintance. I answered : " I do not remem- ber having seen you, sir." "Not surpris- ing," replied he; "it is forty years since we met. My name is Longstreth." I then recollected him a stripling in college at New Haven and of going fishing with him-both of us boys together-I the little boy, he the big boy, and in a pure mountain stream with hook and line we brought up the crimson and golden beauties. In the very social time that ensued he gave me his history and how his life had been marred by a strange mental malady, an alternation of seasons of excessive uncontrollable joyousness and exuberation of spirits, followed by dreadful turns of despondency and mental agony. Before he left he wrote a note and directed it in pencil

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and then said : "I want to show you some- thing that may be useful," whereupon he passed his tongue over the pencil mark. ". Now," said he, "that, when dry, will be as ineffaceable as if written with ink "-a useful thing to know in the spiriting away, the Hegira of one's inkstand.

In turn I showed him a sort of comic poetica! extravaganza I had just that hour conceived. Being in a happy mood. it pleased him, as I hope it may now and then some reader, as it illustrates a phase of experience not unusual with young married people who, disappointed in the sex of their first-born, find in after years an occasion for rejoicing.

THE LASSIE MUSIC.

'Twas at creation's wakening dawn,

When MUSIC, baby-girl, was born ; The angels danced, the new earth sang, And all the stars to frolic sprang, While mamma cried, and papa run And groaned, because 'twas not a son.

But when to years the lassie grew, The happiest child the whole world knew, Her sweet notes trilled so joyously, And soothed all care so lovingly, That mamma laughed and papa run And danced, because 'twas not a son.

JAMES McBRIDE.

My old friend, from his fondness for bees, has been termed " the Huber of America." Some thirty or more years ago he wrote a book upon "the busy bee," and I am told there is no work upon the subject so fascinat- ing, it is so filled with the honey of a benig- nant kindly nature. [Since the above was written Mr. Longstreth has passed away. ]

In my original visit to this county I made the acquaintance of Mr. James McBride, the historian of the Miami valley. In my varied experience I have been blessed in meeting and knowing many fine characters, ever to be fra- grant in my memory, but none occupy a better

place than Mr. McBride. He was of Scotch descent, born near Greencastle, Pa., in 1788. His father soon after was killed by the Indians in Kentucky, so he was the only child. He came to Hamilton when eighteen years of age, and at twenty-five years was elected county sheriff, the best office then in the gift of the people, and later to other offices. When I saw him he was clerk of court, yet public office occupied but comparatively few of his years. He was in easy though not affluent circumstances from ventures made to New Or- leans in the period of the war of 1812, which gave him the leisure to devote to his loves.

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BUTLER COUNTY.

He had scarcely arrived here when he be- gan his researches into the local history of this region, gathering it directly from the pioneers. In 1869 was issued by Robert Clarke & Co., in two octavo volumes, his " Pioneer Biography of Butler County," and it was estimated he left no less than 3,000 MS. pages on local history and biography. He was the earliest arehæologist of Butler county, and in connection with Mr. John W. Erwin, now of Hamilton, supplied 100 MS. pages, notes, drawings, plans of survey to Squier & Davis for the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." He was a con- vert to Symmes' theory of "Concentric Spheres," and furnished the means and wrote the book describing it. He gathered a library of some 5,000 volumes, largely illustrating Western history, and its destruction was an irreparable loss, from the great amount of rare original material it contained.

He never was so happy as when buried in his library pursuing his solitary beneficent work. He was a silent, modest man, avoid- ing publie gatherings and all display, of ster- ling integrity, and charitable to a fault.

Mr. MeBride contributed for my original edition the early history of the county, beside

other important matter. His writing was peculiar ; round, upright, plain as print, and written evidently with laborious painstaking care, and with a tremulous hand. I can never forget how in my personal interview I was impressed by the beautiful modesty of the man, and the guileless, trustful expression of his face as he looked up at me from his writ- ing while in his office over there in the old court-house square in Hamilton ; and then unreservedly put in my possession the mass of his materials, the gathered fruits of a life- time of loving industry. The State, I am sure, had not a single man who had done so much for its local history as he, unless pos- sibly it was Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, whom I well knew, and who resembled him in that quiet modesty and self-abnegation that is so winning to our best instinets.

He was fortunate in his domestic relations, and when he had attained the patriarchal age of threescore years and ten his wife died. From that moment he lost all desire to live, and prepared to follow her, which he did ten days later-a beautiful sunset to a beautiful life, and then the stars came out in their glory.

A large number of the graduates of Oxford were officers of the Union army in the civil war. Among them was Col. Minor Millikin, born at Hamilton in 1834, the son of Major John Millikin. He was a perfect hero, a Christian gen- tleman, and of the highest type in moral qualities. His will began with these heroic words : " Death is always the con- dition of living, but to the soldier its imminency and certainty sums also the condition of its usefulness and glory."

He was a college mate of Whitelaw Reid, who wrote of him : " He was my long-time friend. His death was the cruellest personal bereavement the war brought me. No one on the sad list of the nation's slain seems more nearly to resemble him than Theodore Win- throp."

Personally a splendid swordsman, he was shot while leading a desperate cav- MOSS-ENG CONY alry charge at Stone River. His Sol- COL. MINOR MILLIKIN. dier's Creed, found among his papers after his death, is given here as illustrat- ing his character, and the sentiments that influenced the multitudes on entering into the war for the Union. From its tenor, he evidently wrote it for circulation among the soldiers.

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BUTLER COUNTY.

THE SOLDIER'S CREED.

I have enlisted in the service of my country for the term of three years, and have sworn faith- fully to discharge my duty, uphold the Constitution, and obey the officers over me.

Let me see what motives I must have had when I did this thing. It was not pleasant to leave my friends and my home, and, relinquishing my liberty and pleasures, bind myself to hardships and obedience for three years by a solemn oath. Why did I do it ?

1. I did it because I loved my country. I thought she was surrounded by traitors and struck by cowardly plunderers. I thought that, having been a good government to me and my fathers before me, I owed it to her to defend her from all harm ; so when I heard of the insults offered her, I rose up as if some one had struck my mother, and as a lover of my country agreed to fight for her.

2. Though I am no great reader, I have heard the taunts and insults sent us working-men from the proud aristocrats of the South. My blood has grown hot when I heard them say labor was the business of slaves and " mudsills ; " that they were a noble-blooded and we a mean-spirited people ; that they ruled the country by their better pluck, and if we did not submit they would whip us by their better courage. So I thought the time had come to show these insolent fellows that Northern institutions had the best men, and I enlisted to flog them into good manners and obedience to their betters.

3. I said, too, that this war would disturb the whole country and all its business. The South meant "rule or ruin." It has Jeff Davis and the Southern notion of government ; we our old Constitution and our old liberties. I couldn't see any peace or quiet until we had whipped them, and so I enlisted to bring back peace in the quickest way.

I had other reasons, but these were the main ones. I enlisted, and gave up home and comfort, and took to the tent and its hardships.

I have suffered a great deal-been abused sometimes-had my patience severely tried-been blamed wrongly by my officers-stood the carelessness and dishonesty of some of my comrades, and had all the trials of a volunteer soldier; but I never gave up, nor rebelled, nor grumbled, nor lost my temper, and I'll tell you why.

1. I considered I had enlisted in a holy cause, with good motives, and that I was doing my duty. I believe men who are doing their duty in the face of difficulties are watched over by God.

2. I felt that I was'a servant of the government, and that as such I was too proud to quarrel and complain.

3. I know if with such motives and such a cause I could not be faithful, that I could never think of myself as much of a man afterward.

And so I drew up a set of resolutions like this :

1. As my health and strength had been devoted to the government, I would take as good care of them as possible ; that I would be cleanly in my person and temperate in all my habits. I felt that to enlist for the government, and then by carelessness or drunkenness make myself unfit for service, would be too mean an act for me.

2. As the character I have assumed is a noble one, I will not disgrace it by childish quarrel- ling, by loud and foolish talking, by profane swearing, and indecent language. It struck me that these were the accomplishments of the ignorant and depraved on the other side, and I, for one, did not think them becoming a Union soldier.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 55

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006