Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 70

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 70

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Nomination of George E. Pugh for Lieu- tenant-Governor .- The game little Senator did not want the nomination, but he could not resist the demand made for his accept- ance, and on that night in front of the Neil House made one of the most fiery and elo- quent speeches that ever fell from the lips of this ever great and ready orator. It was defiant and audacious.

The Republican Convention. - The Demo- cratic State Convention was held in the second week of June, and two weeks later the Republican State Convention convened. Governor Tod was confident of a renomina- tion, but Smith, of the Cincinnati Gazette, Halstead, of the Commercial, and Cowles, of the Cleveland Leader, and others were afraid of his defeat were he renominated. They conspired to nominate John Brough, and, although he asserted he was not a can- didate for nomination, his friends were at work secretly and efficiently.

Governor Tod and his supporters were thrown entirely off guard by the loud asser- tions of Brough that he was not in the field for the nomination. To the surprise and the mortification of Governor Tod he was beaten for a renomination by a small majority. To do him justiee, however, I may say safely that had Tod worked personally with the delegates, as he was advised to do, he would have outflanked the Brough managers. He stood upon his dignity, his right for an in- dorsement, and went down. The personal relations between Tod and Brough were never friendly after this convention. Governor Tod had very many weaknesses, but he was kind- hearted and generous to a fault. "My brave boys," as he styled the Ohio volunteers, never had a better friend.

John Brough .- Brough was a great pop- ular orator. He had a sledge-hammer style about him that made him powerful. He used vigorous English, and had a directness about him which always told with the people. Like Tod, he was originally a Democrat ; was

at one time one of the editors and proprie- tors of the Cincinnati Enquirer ; was Audi- tor of State, retiring from that office to go into the railroad business. He was not a tall man, but was very fleshy and never very cleanly in his personal appearance. He chewed enormous quantities of tobacco, did not believe in prohibitory laws, and could not be labeled as the exemplar of any particular purity. Of him some campaign poet wrote :

"If all flesh is grass, as people say,

Then Johnnie Brough is a load of hay."

The Campaign. - Both parties having placed their candidates in the field there opened a campaign which, for excitement, for rancor and for bitterness will, I hope, never again be paralleled in this country. Vallandigham in exile in Canada, the com- mand of his forces was given George E. Pugh, while Brough led in person the Re- publican cohorts. Every local speaker of any note joined in the battle of words, and "Or- der No. 38" was "cussed and discussed," by night and by day, from the Ohio river to the lake and from the Pennsylvania to the Indiana line, before great assemblages of people. The great political meetings of 1840 were overshadowed in numbers by the gath- ering of both Democrats and Republicans in 1863. It was the saturnalia of politics.

The Democratic meetings were especially uotable for their size and enthusiasm. Every- where in the State were they very largely attended, but particularly in the north west, the Gibraltar of the Ohio Democracy then as now, and in the famed counties of the wheat-belt region, Richland, Holmes, Craw- ford, et al., it was no unusual sight to see a thousand men, and sometimes half as many women, mounted on horseback, forming a cavalry cavalcade and escort body, and in each procession were wagon-loads of girls dressed in white, each one representing a State of the "Union as it was." Glee clubs were numerous, and the song of

" We will rally 'round the flag, Shouting Vallandigham and freedom,"

was as common with the Democrats as was the other song with the Republicans :

"Down with the traitors, Up with the stars, Hurrah, boys, hurrah, The Union forever."

Intense Excitement .- The excitement be- came so intense in many communities that all business and social relations between Dem- ocratic and Republican families were sun- dered. Fights and knock-downs between angered people were an every-day occurrence, and the wearing of a butternut pin or an em- blem of any kind by a Democrat was like water to a mad dog before the irritated and intensely-radical Republicans. The women wore Vallandigham or Brough badges, just as their feelings were enlisted, and if there is intensity in politics or religion it is always among the sisters of the different flocks.

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COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

Ludicrous Incidents .- I was an eye-witness, on the occasion of a Democratic mass-meeting at Kenton, to a lively scrimmage between several Democratic and Republican girls, in which there was pulled hair, scratched faces and demoralized wardrobes, and, strange to say, the surrounding crowd of men inter- fered only to sce fair play between the com- bacants. Another instance, and a ludicrous one, I recollect. At Mccutchenville, Wyan- dot county, on one of the brightest of autumnal days, there was a Democratic meet- ing in a grove adjacent to the town. Judge Lang, of Tiffin, and myself were the speak- ers of the day.

While the Judge was addressing the peo- ple, a gaunt, tall young lady, wearing a Brough badge, stepped up behind a fat, chunky little girl, who was sitting on a log, and snatched from her dress the Vallan- digham badge she was wearing. The little girl turned around, eyed the trespasser but a moment, and then made one lunge, and with the awkward blow that a woman delivers, hit the Brough girl under the chin and brought her to the ground. With her eyes snapping fire, and her cheeks aflame, she put her arms up akimbo, and, like a little Bantam rooster, spreading his wings, hissed out: "I can whip any - Brough girl on the ground." Such occurrences were frequent. and all manner of tricks, by both parties, were played upon speakers and orators. The only wonder is, thinking of the bitter feeling en- gendered, that more bodily harm was not done.

The Orators, etc .- Colonel "Dick" Mer- rick, of Maryland, who died a few months ago in Washington City, ex-Governor Hen- dricks, Hons. J. E. McDonald and D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, were among the many distinguished speakers from other States who participated in the Ohio canvass. Morton, of Indiana, Harrison of the same State, Secretary Chase and leading Republicans from the East assisted Brough and the local Republican orators. One of the most ef- fective Republican speakers on the stump was Colonel "Bill" Gibson, of Seneca county, and one of the most sought after orators in Northern Ohio was Hon. A. M. Jackson, of Bucyrus, whose "heavenly tone " made him conspicuous in the battle for "free speech."

Sunset Cox .- Sam Cox, then representing the Columbus district in Congress, had fre- quent opportunities to air his eloquence and show his pluck. On a September day he had had a meeting near Camp Chase, in Franklin County. The soldiers there an- nounced that he should not speak. The Democrats declared that he should and must, 80 "Sunset " was accompanied to his meeting by a hundred city Democrats armed with re- volvers, while the country Democrats came pouring in loaded down with rifles and shot- guns. The soldiers, seeing that they would be promptly met with their own weapons, concluded that Cox might expound at will without interruption. Cox then made a

good speech ; and when or where was the oc- casion that he ever made a poor one ? In his old district in Ohio he is as popular now as he was then. Hundreds of little "Sam Coxes" are named after him, and the old Democracy remember his sunshiny and cheery ways and are jealous of the Turk who has him now within his boundaries. Every Democratic orator in Ohio in 1863 acquitted himself with credit, and was busy from the beginning to the closing of the fight.

The Result .- The strain on the public mind was intense. All men of all parties and all classes were anxious for the strife to be over. The Democrats in the last weeks of the cam- paign felt that they were beaten, but the splendid discipline of the Democratic organi- zation was manifested by their determined effort to the very last hour of election day. The vote cast for Vallandigham showed what a hold he had on the people, being the highest vote then ever cast for a Democrat in the State. Brough's majority on the home vote was 61,927, but the vote of the soldiers in the field ran his majority up to about 100,000, or a little over. Only about 3,000 votes were cast for Vallandigham by the soldiers in the field. The law, however, was very defective and admirably calculated to give unlimited opportunities for a duplica- tion of votes. It was crude and unsatisfac- tory, but as a war measure" it served the purposes for which it was passed.

Vallandigham in Exile .- While the great fight in his behalf in Ohio was being waged Vallandigham, like a caged lion, was fretting and worrying, was "watching and waiting over the border." He made his head-quar- ters most of the time at a little hotel in Windsor, Canada, a small town opposite Detroit. From the windows of his room he could see a gun-boat, with the American flag flying, which had been detailed to protect the Detroit river. His sarcastic remarks in refer- ence to his prosecutors, and to his political opponents, who were preventing him from leading his own campaign in Ohio, were heralded throughout the land, and spies were numerous, keeping vigil that he should not return.

It was about agreed upon at one time that Vallandigham should come to Lima, Ohio, and make a speech, in defiance of his sen- tence and the authorities, but the more con- servative Democratic leaders were satisfied that an attempt would be made to rearrest him, which would bring about riot and blood- shed, and in deference to their wishes Val- landigham did not return, although he could easily have escaped from Canada, as he did in 1864, when he crossed to Detroit in dis- guise, entered a sleeping-car, and the next morning appeared at a Democratic Conven- tion at Hamilton, Ohio, where he was chosen unanimously as a delegate to the Chicago Convention. He was enthusiastically received by the Democratic people, and remained un- molested by the civil and military authorities. Vallandigham was prompted to return by political friends in his own district, who had

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COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

vainly labored to have him nominated for delegate-at-large to the Chicago Convention. Judge Rufus P. Ranney, of Cleveland, was the choice over him by a small. majority in a very excited convention.

The End .-- After 1868 Vallandigham pur- sued the profession of the law with ardor, and to his enthusiasm in the defense of a olient he met with the accident that deprived him of life. His last appearance in the poli- tical arena was at the Democratic State Con- vention in Columbus in the first part of June, 1871. He was a delegate, and, I think, chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, and secured the passage in the convention of what is known in Ohio politics as the "new departure " resolutions, pledging the Democ- racy to the recognition and validity of all the amendments to the constitution, including the fourteenth. A week or two after this con- vention he came to his death in a room at a hotel in Lebanon, Ohio, by the accidental discharge of a pistol. He died as he lived, courageously, but sensationally.

Had Vallandigham survived to this date (1886) he would have been but sixty-six years

of age, younger than Thurman, younger than Payne, and about the same age as Durbin Ward, George H. Pendleton, George W. Morgan, John O'Neil, Frank Le Blond and other prominent Ohio Democrats.

Had he not been called away I think that by his eloquence, by his logic and his high order of talent he would have worn out and dissipated that bitter prejudice which ex- isted against him. He had a good personal presence, a pleasant smile, an agreeable and resonant voice, a dignified bearing and those faculties which enabled him to have a mag- netic power over the people. The prize which he always looked forward to as a re- ward for his party services was a seat in the United States Senate, and he was chagrined to the heart when it escaped him in 1867. In his private and domestic circle he was charming, and, although there will always be a discussion as to the right and policy of the position he assumed during the war, no one will deny that he had a profound love for the constitution of his country and was unwaver- ing and unswerving in adhering to any posi- tion that he deemed right.

SALEM IN 1846 .- Salem is 10 miles north from New Lisbon, in the midst of a beautiful agricultural country, thickly settled by Friends, who are industrious and wealthy. This flourishing town was laid out about 1806 by Zadock Street, John Strong and Samuel Davis, members of the Society of Friends, from Redstone, Pa. Until within a few years it was an inconsiderable village. It now contains 2 Friends meeting-houses, 2 Baptist, 1 Methodist and 1 Presbyterian church, a clas- sical academy, in good repute, under the charge of Rev. Jacob Coon, 24 mercan- tile stores, 2 woollen. factories, 3 foundries, 1 grist-mill, 2 engine shops and about 1,300 inhabitants. There are 4 newspapers published here, one of which is the American Water Cure Advocate, edited by Dr. John P. Cope, principal of a water cure establishment in full operation in this village. The engraving shows the principal street of the town, as it appears on entering it from the east. Street's woollen factory is seen on the left .- Old Edition.

Salem is on the line of the P. Ft. W. & C. Railroad, 67 miles from Pittsburg, and contains about 6,000 inhabitants, with a post-office business of over $10,000 annually. It is on high land, about 60 feet above the railroad station and on one of the most elevated points of land in the State. Newspapers : Salem Republican, Rep., J. K. Rukenbrod, editor : Salem Era, E. P. Rukenbrod, editor ; Buckeye Vidette, Greenback, J. W. Northrop. Churches : 2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Disciples, 1 Episcopal, 3 Friends, respectively of the Gurney, Wilbur and Hick- site divisions. Banks : Farmers' National, J. Twing Brooks, president, R. V. Hampson, cashier ; First National, Furman Gee, President, Richard Pow, cashier ; City, Boone & Campbell, proprietors ; H. Greiner & Son.

Manufactures and Employees .- J. Woodruff & Sons, stoves, 72; Victor Stove Co., stoves, 52; W. J. Clark & Co., stepladders, screens, etc., 12; Boyle & Carey, stoves, 26 ; Bakewell & Mullins, sheet metal works, 100; W. J. Clark & Co., sheet metal works, 32; Purdy, Baird & Co., sewer pipe, 6; Salem Lumber Co., sash, doors, etc., 10; J. B. McNabb, canned goods, 16; Salem Steel Wire Co., steel wire, etc., 350 ; Silver & Deming Manufacturing Co., pumps, feed-cut- ters, etc., 170; Buckeye Mills, 4; S. L. Shanks & Co., steam boilers, 17; Buck- eye Engine Co., engines, etc., 181 ; Salem Plow Co., 12; M. L. Edwards Manu- facturing Co., butchers' and blacksmiths' tools, 15; Stanley & Co., flour, etc .. 6 ; Carl Barckhoff, church organs, 35 .- State Report for 1887.

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COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

Population in 1880, 4,041. School census, 1886, 1,464; Geo. N. Caruthers, superintendent.

The following sketch of Salem's late history is from the pen of an old resident :

Drawn by Heury Home in 1846.

EASTERN ENTRANCE INTO SALEM.

Salem has an interesting history in connection with important national events. Being originally settled by Quakers they instilled into the minds of the people the true ideas of human freedom, and it early became the seat of a strong anti- slavery sentiment. "The Western Anti-Slavery Society " had its headquarters in this city before the war of the Rebellion, and their organ, The Anti-Slavery Bugle, was published here and ably conducted by Benj. S. Jones, Oliver Johnson

Hewitt & Hewitt, Photo., Salem, 1887.

CENTRAL VIEW IN SALEM.

and Marius R. Robinson, editors, who waged an incessant, fearless and aggressive warfare upon the institution of human slavery, its aiders and supporters, includ- ing among the latter the National Constitution as interpreted by acts of Congress, as well as most of the churches of the country.

In consequence the contest grew hot and hotter as these " Disunion Abolition- ists," "Covenanters " and "Infidels," as they were termed, became more aggres-

450

COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

sive ; and as the spirit of liberty grew and spread they, with more force and effect, demanded the unconditional freedom of the Southern bondmen.

At a session of one of these annual conventions of that period, held in the Hicksite Friends' Church, during a terrible Philippic by a prominent actor against the aggressions and encroachments of slavery on Northern soil, as evidenced by the Fugitive Slave Law then but recently enacted, a man arose in the audience with telegram in hand and disturbed the speaker long enough to announce that on the four o'clock train. due at the sta- tion in thirty minutes, "There would be as passengers a Southern man with wife and child who had with them a colored slave girl as nurse."

"Now," said the informant, who was in full sympathy with the sentiment and Hewitt, Photo. AUDIENCE ROOM, SALEM TOWN HALL, spirit of the meeting, "if we mean what we say, let us go to the station and rescue the slave girl." The enthusiasm became intense-the meeting adjourned and in a body marched to the depot. Soon the train rolled in and instantly a score of men boarded the cars, found the girl, forced her off the coach on to the station platform, where she was seized and hurried by others on "the underground rail- road " to a place of safety. Her owners, badly frightened, passed on apparently glad to themselves escape being kid- napped. The liberated slave-child was, by the same meeting, christened Abby Kelly Salem, in honor of Abby Kelly Foster, who was one of the speakers at the convention, and in commemoration of the place where the "slave " was for- cibly made free. The girl grew up to womanhood, and was for years a citizen of the city.

The old "Town Hall," yet standing in all its ancient pride, of which a cut of the interior is shown in these pages, was the place where the meetings of the Anti-Slavery Conventions were generally held. On its plain wide platform elo- quent appeals in behalf of the slave, like as if inspired by Him who made of one blood all nations of men, were often poured out in words that burned by such men as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, William Wallace Hubbard, Parker Pillsbury, Horace Mann, John Pierpont, Oliver Johnson, Garret Smith, C. C. Burleigh, Samuel Lewis. Fred. Douglass, Lucretia Mott, Francis D. Gage, Hewitt, Photo. COPPOCK'S MONUMENT. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Marius R. Rob- inson, Jacob Heaton, Owen Lovejoy, [Coppock was one of John Brown's men and hung at Harper's Ferry.] W. H. Burleigh, J. F. Langdon, Sojourner Truth, Stephen S. Foster, Abby Kelly Foster, James Mott and George Thompson of England, with others of like reputation.

In that old hall, for the promotion of education and the elevation and progress of political opinion, the voice of John A. Bingham, James A. Garfield, Joshua R. Giddings, S. P. Chase, Wm. Dennison, W. D. Henkle, Jane G. Swishelm, Benj. F. Wade, Geo. W. Julian, Neil Dow, Charles Jewett, Loring Andrews, James

CLEMENT I. VALLANDIGHAM.

G. S. Moore, Photo., New Lisbon, 1886.

THE OLD VALLANDIGHAM HOMESTEAD.

Brott Morgane

[Born at Huntsville, Alabama, June 1, 1826; made a raid through Ohio in the summer of 1863 ; was killed by a Union soldier September 4, 1864, while attempting to escape from a farm-house near Green ville, Tenn.]

G. S. Moore, Photo., New Lisbon, 1886.

SPOT OF THE SURRENDER OF GEN. JOHN HUNT MORGAN.

[Morgan's surrender took place about seven miles south of New Lisbon under a cherry tree shown in the foreground on the left, and a few hundred yards from the farm-house of John Hepner seen in the distance. Morgan was at the time crossing from the Steubenville to the Wellsville road.]

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COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

Monroe, Susan B. Anthony, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Collyer, John P. Hale, Edward F. Noyes, Jacob D. Cox and others (most of whom are numbered with the dead). If those old walls could speak what a story they could tell. It was there where seeds of political and religious freedom were sown which grew into a harvest yielding much fruit.

It was this early teaching that "all men were created equal " and endowed with inalienable rights of life and liberty, that induced Edwin Coppock, a near-by farmer's boy, born of Quaker parents, to shoulder his musket and go forth to join the immortal John Brown in opening the war for freedom at Harper's Ferry. There with his old chief he fired a shot that made slavery tremble to its fall.' Coppock was captured and hanged at Charlestown, Virginia.

The following letter to his uncle, living within a few miles of Salem, was the last he ever wrote. It will be read with interest. It is full of prophecy, very long since fulfilled to the letter.

He wrote it two days before his death, and spoke of the coming event with the nerve and fearlessness of a true man. His grave is in Hope Cemetery, Salem, and marked by a plain sandstone shaft, erected to his memory by the late Howell Hise. It bears only the simple inscription-" EDWIN COPPOCK."

CHARLESTOWN, Dec. 13, 1859. JOSHUA COPPOCK :

My Dear Uncle I seat myself by the stand to write for the first and last time to thee and thy family. Though far from home and overtaken by misfortune, I have not for- gotten you. Your generous hospitality towards me, during my short stay with you last spring, is stamped indelibly upon my heart, and also the generosity bestowed upon my poor brother who now wanders an out- cast from his native land. But thank God he is free. I am thankful it is I who have to suffer instead of him.

The time may come when he will remem- ber me. And the time may come when he may still further remember the cause in which I die. Thank God the principles of the cause in which we were engaged will not die with me and my brave comrades. They will spread wider and wider and gather strength with each hour that passes. The voice of truth will echo through our land, bringing conviction to the erring and adding members to that glorious army who will follow its ban- ner. The cause of everlasting truth and justice will go on conquering and to conquer until our broad and beautiful land shall rest beneath the banner of freedom. I had fondly

hoped to live to see the principles of the Declaration of Independence fully realized. I had hoped to see the dark stain of slavery blotted from our land, and the libel of our boasted freedom erased, when we can say in truth that our beloved country is the land of the free and the home of the brave ; but that cannot be.

I have heard my sentence passcd, my doom is sealed. But two more short days remain for me to fulfil my earthly destiny. But two brief days between me and eternity. At the expiration of those two days I shall stand upon the scaffold to take my last look of earthly scenes. But that scaffold has but little dread for me, for I honestly believe that I am inno- cent of any crime justifying such punishment. But by the taking of my life and the lives of my comrades, Virginia is but hastening on that glorious day, when the slave will rejoice in his freedom. When he can say, "I too am a man," and am groaning no more under the yoke of oppression. But I must now close. Accept this short scrawl as a remembrance of me. Give my love to all the family. Kiss little Joey for me. Remember me to all my relatives and friends. And now farewell for the last time. From thy nephew, EDWIN COPPOCK.

The same spirit, when the Rebellion made its aggressive move on Fort Sumter, aroused the patriotism of Quaker Salem, and the first two volunteers for the war in the county enlisted in this "City of Peace; " namely, Thomas J. Walton, yet a resident and business man here, and Wm. Meldrum, an employee in the Re- publican office, and who, in March, 1887, died at San Francisco, Cal.

After them Salem and the county of Columbiana furnished not less than 3,000 soldiers for the war; many of them met the fate of brave men on the field of battle, falling with face to the foe.

THE MORGAN RAID THROUGH OHIO.

One of the most exciting events to the people of Ohio in the Rebellion was the raid of Morgan. When this dashing officer, at the head of less than 2,000 of his troopers, crossed the entire width of the State from west to east, and although more than 40,000 men were in arms and in pursuit, his audacity would have triumphed

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COLUMBIANA COUNTY.

in his successful escape back within the Confederate lines but for circumstances which even wise foresight could not have anticipated. As his surrender took place within this county, we here give the history of the raid, mainly from Whitelaw Reid's "Ohio in the War," and in an abridged form :

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 70

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