USA > Ohio > Madison County > History of Madison County, Ohio : its people, industries and institution with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families > Part 37
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The Democrat office force includes nine persons in addition to the editor, namely : Martel Bryan, assistant editor; George Clark, reporter; Edward Neese, general foreman ; William S. Stearwalt, job foreman ; Lester Payton, linotype operator ; John O'Connell, pressman ; Kate Fleming, mailing clerk; Doris Holloway, janitor; Mary Ballenger, book- keeper. In addition, extra help is required at times to assist in getting out special editions. Correspondents are maintained in all the towns in the county as well as in territory adjacent to Madison county.
The history of the Democrat would not be complete without mentioning an unusual honor which was conferred on the paper in the fall of 1914. It is patent to anyone who examines the paper that it is one of unusual merits, but that it is recognized as one of the best country newspapers in the United States is not known to everyone. However. this distinction has been conferred on the Democrat by a committee of newspaper men of the United States. On October 26, 1914, Mr. Bryan received a letter from Eric W. Allen, head of the department of journalism in the University of Oregon, which tells of the place which the Democrat holds in the estimation of the newspaper men of the country. The following quotation from this latter is self-explanatory: "A questionaire recently sent out by the department of journalism of the University of Oregon among the newspaper men of the United States resulted in the selection by the men of fifty-two country newspapers as 'among the best.' Your newspaper is one of the fifty-two." Thus it may be seen that Madison county has a paper of which it may justly be proud and one which reflects honor on its editor.
LONDON VIGILANT.
The London Vigilant was established by A. J. Heintzelman in January, 1885, and published by him for ten years, the last issue appearing December 24, 1895. F. A. Taylor was editor of the paper until his death, on July 25, 1891, being succeeded by T. A. Cooper. who continued as editor until the paper was discontinued. This paper advocated the principles of the Prohibition party.
MADISON COUNTY REPUBLICAN.
The Madison County Republican was the immediate successor of the London Vigilant and made its first appearance on January 6, 1896. In fact, it should be considered as a
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continuation of the Vigilant, since Heintzehman still used the name Vigilant as a sub- head. He kept the paper running until July. 1905, when he sold it to Harrington & Shaw, the new proprietors of the London Times.
LONDON .ENTERPRISE.
The London Enterprise was founded on January 1, 1872, by John Wallace, one of the best-known newspaper men in central Ohio, "Devoted to the Interests of the People and Its Publisher," was the motto of the newspaper. The Enterprise was four pages twenty-five by thirty-eight, seven columns. In his salutatory, Mr. Wallace had this to say : "In accordance with a time-honored custom, 'we rise to explain' the Enterprise will not be a political paper, but will make a specialty of local news-improving the bare one advantage we possess over the city press. We have no promises to make, but will let each issue of our paper speak for itself. Our terms will be two dollars per year as near in advance as we can get it. Persons who feel that they cannot pay for the paper had better not take it from the postoffice." The friends of Mr. Wallace were generous in their response for subscriptions to the new paper and the Enterprise was soon read in hundreds of homes, not only in Madison but in adjoining counties. A good advertising and job-printing business was built up and the success of the venture was assured, due largely to the hard work of the editor to make it so.
The Enterprise was continued as an independent paper until April 16, 1879, when Mr. Wallace, at the urgent solicitation of many prominent Republicans of the county, came out with the announcement that the Enterprise would advocate the principles of the Republican party, which policy has been continued fearlessly ever since, causing it to be recognized as the Republican organ of Madison county. Since the death of Mr. Wallace, which occurred on September 30, 1901, due to apoplexy, the Enterprise has been published under the management of his son, M. H. Wallace, who had been con- nected with the paper as local reporter since leaving the London high school. The firm name is E. F. and M. H. Wallace, the senior partner being Elizabeth F. Wallace, daughter of the deceased, who assists in the publication of the Enterprise.
During the career of the late John Wallace, not one issue of the Enterprise was missed, although for about twenty years the deceased was unfortunately deprived of his eyesight. due to overwork in his newspaper business. Mr. Wallace possessed a wide acquaintanceship throughout Madison county, and with the assistance of a guide, would cover the county several times each year, his write-ups of such trips being a feature in the columns of his paper. In later years this custom was discontinued, owing to the failing state of his health.
The Enterprise was first located in the Toland block. on South Main street, and the location was not changed until March 1. 1912. when the office was removed to the paper's own two-story brick building, No. 31 West First street, where a largely increased busi- ness is conducted both in the newspaper and job department. The Enterprise was pub- lished as a weekly journal until 1897, when its publication day was changed from Wednesday to Tuesday and Friday, thus making it the oldest semi-weekly paper in Madison county.
THE PLAIN CITY ADVOCATE.
The Plain City Advocate was founded on November 3, 1894, by Noland R. Best and Thomas R. Coles but its ownership was vested in twenty-four business and prominent men of the town. It was first run under the firm name of Best & Coles, but only for a few months, after which, still owned by a company, it was conducted by the following men in the following order : William A. Brown, Jr., Dwight L. Matchette, W. W. Lowery, Dell Dougherty, Howe Woodruff. Mrs. Lillie Malee and C. F. Monroe. The stock com- pany controlling this paper sold it in December, 1896, to E. Beach, Howard C. Black
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and B. A. Taylor. In June, 1898, E. Beach and Olive B. Ward (now Olive B. Mackan) assumed ownership. A few years later the plant became the property of Olive B. Mackan, who has remained the sole owner to the present time.
The present editor, Olive B. Mackan, learned the type-setting trade in the office of the Plain City Dealer in the summer of 1891, and worked there until the Advocate was launched in November, 1894, when a position was tendered her to set straight matter in the latter office. The first type for the new paper was set by Mrs. Mackan and she has been actively associated with the paper ever since. For a number of years she was foreman of the composing and press rooms. In the spring of 1898 a half in- terest in the paper was purchased by Mrs. Mackan, and in the summer of 1902 the entire plant was leased by her. Then a short time later she became owner of the entire plant, since which time it has been edited and published by her. In October, 1912, the competing weekly paper. the Plain City Dealer, which had been published for more than thirty years by Charles W. Horn, was purchased by Mrs. Mackan and was consolidated with the Advocate, since which time the Advocate has been the only paper in Plain City.
In September, 1911, the size of the paper was enlarged to seven columns and eight pages. It is published every Thursday. The equipment of the plant consists of a Cox Duplex perfecting press, linotype, paper knife, cylinder and platen presses for job work, and an abundance of type, cases and other office equipment. The power for the presses is furnished by one seven-and-one-half and one three-and-one-half horse- power electric motors.
THE PLAIN CITY DEALER.
The Plain City Dealer was founded in September, 1880, by Charles W. Horn. This paper continued for thirty-two years under the ownership and editorship of Mr. Horn and was purchased by the Plain City Advocate in October. 1912. at which time the plant was consolidated with that of the Advocate.
WEST JEFFERSON NEWS.
The West Jefferson News is the outgrowth of the West Jefferson Clipper and subse- quent publications of different names. The Clipper was established by Ezekiel Metals. Just how long Metals issued the paper is not known, neither is it known when the Observer, owned and edited by J. O. Lee, came into existence. The first definite date of a paper in the town is 1889, in which year the Jeffersonian appeared on the newspaper horizon. Wright & Heintzleman were the proprietors of this paper from 1889 to 1894. In the latter year a man by the name of F. C. Fullmer bought the paper and changed its name to the Home News. Fullmer owned the paper a short time and then disposed of it to a man by the name of McCracken, who, in turn, sold it to Wilson & Cartwright. J. R. Cartwright became the sole owner and proprietor in 1911 and has since managed the paper alone. Upon taking over the paper in 1911, Mr. Cartwright changed its name to the News. The paper is a seven-column, eight-page sheet and appears on Thursday of each week. The plant has two presses, three jobbers and a complete equipment of material for doing all kinds of printing on short notice.
MT. STERLING TRIBUNE.
The Mt. Sterling Tribune was founded in January. 1887. by J. W. Hanawalt. The following is a list of editors from the beginning, with their period of service: J. W. Hanawalt. 1887-89; J. M. Williams, 1889-91; W. A. Bownocker, 1891-08, seventeen years; J. M. Williams, 1908 to the present.
J. W. Hanawalt, the founder of the paper, was editor and proprietor for two and one-half years. The paper was then purchased by J. M. Williams, in August. 1889.
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in 1891. W. A. Bownocker purchased a half interest and the firm of Williams & Bow- nocker continued until 1908. At the latter date W. E. Carlisle purchased Bownocker's interest, selling his interest one year later to R. E. Embry. In 1910 Mr. Williams pur- chased Embry's interest and became sole owner.
The paper is published on Friday of each week. It is a four-page, eight-column paper and has a good circulation. The equipment of the plant consists of a four-horse- power gas engine, a cylinder press, two jobbers and a fully equipped job plant.
THE MT. STERLING REVIEW AND HUSBANDMAN.
In April, 1871, M. W. Schryver commenced the publication of a newspaper in Mt. Sterling, known as the Mt. Sterling Review. This paper he continued for eighteen months, at the end of which time he changed the name to the Husbandman. He con- tinued the publication of the latter paper until May 1, 1874, when it ceased for want of sufficient support to justify the publisher to continue it. Both of these papers were purely local weeklies, but failed to receive the support of the community.
CHAPTER XXIV.
EDUCATION.
Those venerable men of today who are familiar with the olden time in Madison county, of which they were a part, and who grew up with the ever enlarging civiliza- tion of this region, are living in a changed atmosphere. So suddenly and so strangely has the genius of change and alteration waved his charmed wand over the land, that the early settler has changed and kept pace with the changing years, and the unwritten history of the early days is recalled, as one remembers a fading dream. The sharp and hard conflicts of life make heroes, and the fierce struggles of war and bloodshed develop them into self-reliant, stubborn and aggressive men, as fierce and sanguinary as their bitter foes. We are living in the age of invention and machinery. These factors have destroyed the romance of frontier life, and much of the strange, eventful realities of the past are rapidly becoming traditional; the narratives of the generation that settled the Scioto valley, abounding in richi treasures of incident and character, are being swallowed up and forgotten in the surging, eventful present.
The inost casual observer cannot but have noticed that notwithstanding the priva- tions and discomforts attending the lives of the early settlers, they manifested a most earnest zeal in education, and that, as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could be collected and a teacher secured, a house was created for the purposes of a school. The period just preceding the Revolution was characterized by its number of literary men and the interest they gave to polite learning; and the patriots who were conspic- uous in that struggle for human liberty were men, not only of ability, but of no ordi- nary culture. We can readily understand that the influence of their example had its weight in molding public sentiment in other respects besides that of zeal for the patriot cause. To this may be added that, for the most part, the early pioneers were men of character, who endured the dangers and trials of a new country, not solely for their own sakes, but for the sake of their children, and, with a faith in what the future would bring forth, clearly saw the power and value of education. From the beginning they kept their object steadily in view, and made provision for its successful prosecu- tion. The express declaration of the fundamental law of the state enjoins that "The principal of all funds arising from the sale or other distribution of lands or other property, granted or entrusted to the state for educational purposes, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished, and the income arising therefrom shall be faith- fully applied to the specific object of the original grants or appropriations and the General Assembly shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise, as, from the income arising from the school trust fund, shall secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state."
SCHOOL LANDS.
The act of Congress providing for the admission of Ohio into the Union offered certain educational propositions to the people. These were, first, that section 16 in each township, or, in lieu thereof, other contiguous or equivalent lands, should be granted for the use of schools; second, that thirty-eight sections of land, where salt springs had been found, should be granted to the state, never, however, to be sold or leased for a longer period than ten years; and third, that one-twentieth of the proceeds from the sale of public lands in the state should be applied toward the construction
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of roads from the Atlantic to and through Ohio. These propositions were offered on the condition that the public lands sold by the United States after the 30th of J'une, 1802, should be exempt from state taxation for five years after sale. The ordinance of 1787 had already provided for the appropriation of section 16 to the support of schools in every township sold by the United States; this, therefore, could not in 1802 be properly made the subject of a new bargain between the United States and Ohio, and, by many, it was thought the salt reservations and one-twentieth of the proceeds of the sale of public lands were inadequate equivalent for the proposed surrender of a right to tax for five years. The convention, however, accepted the propositions of Congress, on their being modified and enlarged as to vest in the state, for the use of schools, section 16 in each township sold by the United States, and three other tracts of land. equal in quantity respectively to one-thirty-sixth of the Virginia military reservation, of the United States military tract and of the Connecticut west reserve; and to give three per cent. of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the state to the construction of roads in Ohio, under the direction of the Legislature. Congress agreed to the proposed modifications, and, in March. 1807, offered to the state, in lieu of the one-thirty-sixth part of the Virginia military reservation, eighteen quarter townships and three sections of land lying between the United States military tract and the Connecticut reserve. On the 14th of January, 1808, the state accepted these lands and released all right and title to the school lands in the Virginia military dis- trict, thus providing the bases of the common-school fund of Ohio, never probably conjectured or intended to be sufficient for the purposes of education, but adequate to enconrage broader and more liberal views.
In the foregoing it is disclosed how Congress, by a compact with the people, gave them one-thirty-sixth of all of the lands northwest of the Ohio river for school pur- poses. The lands for this purpose set apart, however, were often appropriated by squatters, and through unwise, careless and sometimes corrupt legislation, these squat- ters were vested with proprietorship. Caleb Atwater, in his "History of Ohio," in speaking on this subject, says: "Members of the Legislature not infrequently got acts passed and leases granted. either to themselves, their relatives or to their partisans. One senator contrived to get, by such acts, seven entire sections of land into either his own or his children's possession." From 1803 to 1820 the General Assembly spent a considerable portion of every session in passing acts relating to these lands, without ever advancing the cause of education to any degree.
THE SALE OF SCHOOL LANDS.
In 1821 the House of Representatives appointed five of its members. Caleb Atwater. Lloyd Talbot, James Shields, Roswell Mills and Josiah Barber, a committee ou schools and school lands. This committee subsequently made a report, rehearsing the wrong management of the school-land trust on behalf of the state, warmly advocated the establishment of a system of education and the adoption of measures which would secure for the people the rights which Congress intended they should possess. In com- pliance with the recommendation of the committee, the governor of the state, in May, 1822, having been authorized by the Legislature, appointed seven commissioners of schools and school lands, viz .. Caleb Atwater, Rev. John Collins, Rev. James Hoge, N. Guilford. Ephraim Cutler. Josiah Barber and James M. Bell. The reason why seven persons were appointed was because there were seven different sorts of school lands in the state, namely : Section 16 in every township of the Congress lands, the Virginia military lands, Symmes' purchase, the Obio Company's purchase, the refugee lands, the French grant, and the Connecticut western reserve. This commission of seven persons was reduced by various causes to one of three, Messrs. Atwater, Collins
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and Hoge, who performed the arduous duties incumbent upon them with but little remuneration, and (at the time) but few thanks.
The Legislature of 1822-23 broke up without having taken any definite action upon the report presented by the commission, but, during the summer and autumn of 1824, the subject of the sale of the school lands was warmly agitated, and the friends of this measure triumphed over the opposition so far as to elect large majorities to both branches of the General Assembly in favor of its being made a law. The quantity of land set apart was ascertained, in 1825, to be a little more than half a million acres, valued at less than one million dollars.
Having now briefly related the facts connected with the school lands, a review will be made of the legislative enactments through which these lands were disposed of. On the 17th of February, 1809, the lands belonging to the Virginia military district were authorized to be leased and the proceeds thereof paid into the state treasury for the future use of the schools. From 1810 up to 1824, acts were passed at nearly every session of the Legislature, more fully describing the condition of those leases and pro- viding for the disposition of moneys accruing therefrom. In 1827 a law was enacted directing a vote to be taken in the district as to whether these lands should be sold or not. The vote decided in favor of selling, and on January 28, 1828, the Legislature ordered them to be sold. In 1829 an act authorized the distribution among the several counties, or parts of counties, in said district, of the sum of fifty-four thousand dollars of school moneys, then in the state treasury, Madison county receiving as her share two thousand and seventy-five dollars and thirty-four and one-half cents. This distri- bution, however, was for some cause postponed by an act passed on January 21, 1830, until May 1, 1830. The manner of apportionment was as follows: The school directors delivered to the county auditors a list of white children in their respective districts, between the ages of four and sixteen; the county auditors transmitted said lists to the auditor of the state, who divided the school fund among the several counties, or parts thereof, according to the foregoing enumeration. From that time up to the present this principle has been carried out, each county receiving annually its quota of moneys derived from this school fund. The reader must bear in mind, however, that the school age was changed whenever the General Assembly saw fit to do so, or considered such a change necessary or judicious.
PIONEER SCHOOLS.
In the early development of Madison county. a great variety of influences were felt in the way of general education. The settlements were, and for years continued to be, sparse. The people, as the pioneers of all new counties are, were poor and lacked the means of remunerating teachers. Their poverty compelled all who were able to labor, and the work of the females was as important and toilsome as that of the men. Added to these discouragements, both teachers and books were scarce. This condition of things continued perhaps for more than a quarter of a century. Taking these facts into consideration, it is surprising that the pioneers had any schools whatever.
The interest awakened in literature and science immediately after the Revolution followed the pioneers to their western homes; but, to make their efforts productive of useful results, time became absolutely necessary. Just as soon as the settlements were prepared for the experiment, schools were opened; but at every step it was the acqui- sition of knowledge under difficulties. Everything connected with the pioneers was as simple and primitive as were their dwellings, food and clothing. School houses were built in the various neighborhoods as occasion made necessary, not by subscription in money, but by labor. On a given day the neighbors assembled at some place previously agreed upon, and the work was done. Timber was abundant; they were skilled in the use of the ax, and, having cut logs of the required length, out of these the walls were
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raised. The roof was made of clapboards, kept in place by heavy poles reaching the length of the building. The door was of clapboards and creaked on wooden hinges, the latch of wood and raised by a string. The floor was "puncheon," or trees split in the middle, tolerably true, the edge and face being dressed with an ax. The crevices between the logs forming the walls were filled with "chinks," split sticks of wood, and daubed with mud. The fireplace was equally rude, but of ample dimensions, built on the outside of the house, usually of stone, to the throat of the flue, and the remainder of the chimney of split sticks of wood, daubed with puddled clay within and without. Light was admitted through the door and by means of an opening made by cutting out one of the logs, reaching almost the entire width of the building. This opening was high enough from the floor to prevent the boys from looking out, and in winter was covered with paper, saturated with grease, to keep ont the cold, as well as to admit the light.
In the rural districts school "kept" only in winter. The furniture corresponded with the simplicity of the house. At a proper distance below the windows, auger holes were bored in a slanting direction in one of the logs and in these strong wooden pins were driven, and on these a huge slab or puncheon was placed, which served as a writing-desk for the whole school. For seats they used the puncheon, or, more con- monly, the body of a smooth, straight tree, cut ten to twelve feet in length, and raised to a height of twelve to fifteen inches by means of pins securely inserted. It has been said that not infrequently the pins were of uneven length, and the bench predisposed to "wobble." Many of the pioneer "masters" were natives of Ireland, who had fled from the cruel oppression of the English government prior to and succeeding the struggle for Irish independence in 1798, and here in this land of freedom were putting to good use that education obtained in their native isle. Thus did the oppression of England inure to the benefit of the young republic; and the literary ability of Irishmen, like their military prowess in the Revolutionary war, did much toward founding and building up this great free and enlightened nation. Doctor Johnson's notion that most boys required learning to be thrashed into them was practically carried out in the pioneer school house. The pupils sat with their faces toward the wall, around the room, while the teacher occupied the middle space to superintend each pupil separately. In some rooms a separate bench was furnished for those too young to write. Classes, when reciting, sat on a bench made for that purpose.
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