USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 43
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AN EARLIER BANK FAILURE.
"September 2, 1868," says Ben Douglas in his 1878 history of Wayne county, "T. S. Johnson started a bank, too, which the same was of discount and deposit, with a capital of twenty thousand dollars, and in 1875 it when there was wailing among the depositors to the amount of one hun- dred thousand dollars."
BUILDING AND LOAN COMPANIES.
Besides these regular banking houses, Wooster today has the benefit of the following building and loan institutions, all doing an excellent business. The Wayne Building and Loan Company, C. E. Thorne, president; J. G.
(28)
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Sanborn, cashier. It has assets amounting to six hundred and eighty thou- sand, three hundred and forty-three dollars. It was organized July 1, 1909.
Wooster Building and Loan Company, incorporated in 1892; the assets are four hundred and forty-two thousand, seven hundred and forty-six dollars; president, Charles M. Gray; J. W. Hooke, secretary.
The Home Building and Loan Company was incorporated September I, 1905, with an authorized capital of one hundred thousand dollars ; officers, David W. Musselman, president; William M. Linn, vice-president; Weston T. Peckinpaugh, secretary and treasurer. The assets, on June 30, 1908, were one hundred and thirty-three thousand, nine hundred and forty-seven dollars.
PRESENT BANKS OF WOOSTER.
In the year 19og the banking concerns of the city of Wooster were as follows :
Wayne County National Bank, following the old Wooster branch of the State Bank of Ohio. It has a capital of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, with deposits of four hundred thousand dollars. This bank has been mentioned at length heretofore.
The Citizens' National Bank, organized in 1905, has one hundred thou- sand dollars capital and its officers are as follows: L. E. Yocum, president ; Charles M. Gray, vice-president ; E. M. Thompson, cashier. Cash capital, one hundred thousand dollars: deposits, six hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Commercial Bank, organized in 1896. Present officers, Albert Shupe, president ; W. R. Barnhart, vice-president : E. P. Shupe, cashier ; cash capital, fifty thousand dollars.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF WOOSTER.
The first school house was a brick building erected where afterward stood the third ward building. The first school was taught by a young sprig of a lawyer, Carlos Mather, from New Haven, Connecticut, in 1814. In 1853 and 1854 each of the wards of the city built a school house of its own, and for a few years thereafter each had a school independent of the others. Then they were finally put under one management, with John Brinkerhoff as their general superintendent, a position he held until 1870.
By 1867 the school accommodations became insufficient and voluntarily
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the citizens taxed themselves to erect the best school house in northern Ohio. This was completed in 1870 and, with its grounds and furnishings, cost one hundred and thirteen thousand dollars. This is a part of the present high school building, to which, in 1909, was added a large section, all being complete and modern in its appointments. For many years it has stood out as the most attractive building in Wooster. Its architectural beauty has been the comment of thousands of strangers who from year to year have visited the city. It stands on the northwest corner of Market and Bowman streets. Within this structure is now held the high school of Wooster. A library of three hundred volumes, a geological cabinet, chemical apparatus, etc., were placed in the building as early as 1876. In 1874 vocal music was introduced into the schools as a regular branch of study in all the grades. In 1877 drawing was introduced and a special teacher employed for this study. The superintendent has for many years held monthly meetings of all his instructors. By state school reports it is learned that in 1877 the Wooster schools were among the best in Ohio. A large number have al- ways sought this city from remote parts of the county for the purpose of ob- taining a higher education than it was possible to gain at home.
The ward school buildings above referred to served well the purpose for which they were erected until the city had outgrown them. In 1891 what is known as Pittsburg Avenue building was erected, a two-story, two- room building, still in use. Bealle Avenue building was erected in 1901 at a cost of twenty-seven thousand dollars. It is a fine modern two-story brick building, containing six rooms. South Walnut Street building was erected in 1902, at a cost of thirty-one thousand dollars. It contains eight rooms and is thoroughly modern in all its appointments. The annex to the high school building was erected in 1908-09 at a cost of more than forty thousand dol- lars. It, together with the original building erected in 1868-70, is now styled Central High School building and is an imposing structure.
The present school board is made up as follows : President, George W. Ryall ; clerk, J. T. Keister, John A. Myers ( 1909) ; D. L. Thompson, superin- tendent; C. M. Tawney, treasurer; city school examiners, C. M. Tawney, James M. Schamp and D. L. Thompson.
J. E. Fitzgerald became superintendent of the city schools in the autumn of 1909. At that date the number of teachers in the various city schools was thirty-three. Of this number, ten were employed in the high school. The total number of pupils enrolled in Wooster schools in 1909 was nineteen hundred and sixty-six.
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EIGHTH OF JANUARY CELEBRATIONS -- JACKSONIAN.
Since early in the fifties, Wooster has always had a very interesting celebration in the way of observing the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans and the great achievements of Gen. Andrew Jackson and his gallant army. It has come to be a "fixed institution" in Wooster. It is annually observed as a grand jubilee day, and to it men of state and national renown come each year to share in the interesting program. Usually members of Congress are invited and come and deliver eloquent and historic speeches to a large assemblage. Banquets are served and the rising young are fired with the true spirit of patriotism and love of country and a higher respect is inculcated into them, by the observance, with the return of each January 8th, of this anniversary.
WAYNE COUNTY'S CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
On August 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, 1896, at Wooster occurred the one hundredth anniversary of the forming of . Wayne county by order of the then governor of the Northwest Territory, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who had the honor of establishing original Wayne county, the date of its establish- ment being August 15, 1796. Indeed it would fill a good sized volume to detail all there was of interest at that celebration-Wayne county's centen- nial. But the following description must suffice in this connection :
On the TIth day of August, 1896, commenced a series of brilliant exer- cises, which culminated on the great day of the real anniversary, August 15th. The decorations throughout the city were never half so brilliant and bewitching. The public square was truly a mass of bunting. The court house, from tower to base, was literally clothed in rich festoons and flags. North Market street had an entrance archway with the figures, "1796," bold and sightly : over South Market street "1896" appeared conspicuous; over West Liberty street, at the court house, hung a beautiful portrait of Gen- eral Wooster, and over East Liberty street was to be seen that of Gen. Anthony Wayne. These pictures were executed and presented to the com- mittee by M. S. Nachtrieb. In the center of the square there stood a white- canopied grand stand; just to the north was a real log cabin, built by a pio- neer of ninety-eight years before. Its interior and exterior were furnished with primitive furniture of pioneer days, not forgetting the coon skin at the door and the draw-well. The decorations by the merchants on the public square were lavish and gay. The program of the centennial was as follows,
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in brief : Inaugural day, Tuesday, August 1Ith; Educational day, Wednes- day, August 12th; Soldiers' day, Thursday, August 13th; Church day, Fri- day, August 14th; Pioneer day, Saturday, August 15th. The last day surpassed all; the procession was the longest ever seen within Wayne county, being two miles long. All the arts and sciences and business industries of Wooster made it at once a complete, impressive and instructive scene. Mu- sic and bands from far and near enlivened the day. Ten thousand people participated in the march. At the southwest corner of the square a speaker's stand had been provided, and from it many eloquent and witty speeches were made.
Of educational day it may be stated that the exercises were held at the opera house and later bicycle races were in order. In the evening, at the opera house was "Woman's Evening," presided over by Mrs. Ben Douglas and prayer was offered up by Mrs. Kirkwood.
Soldiers' day was observed at the park. Captain Lybarger first spoke, and was followed by Hon. John Sherman, who delivered a masterly address in which he brought out the point plainly that the Indian was rightfully driven from this fair section in order to make room for a better type of civil- ization.
Church and Sunday school day found twenty-five thousand people in Wooster; eight thousand were at the tents at the park at opening time. Later fifteen thousand were on the grounds. Rev. W. O. Thompson, president of the Miami University, spoke, as did Rev. George W. Peppard, and Rev. T. K. Davis spoke at the Lutheran church.
Pioneer day, day of all days, under the charge of the Pioneer Picnic Association, was a great gathering-a genuine love feast of pioneers and the younger generations. Judge L. R. Critchfield made a masterly oration, which was printed in full. It was replete with all that was noble, good and inspiring, and was a valuable historic contribution, being reprinted elsewhere in this work.
DAYS OF MOURNING IN WOOSTER.
In April, 1865, upon the death of President Lincoln, Wooster was in sorrow, in common with all the country. The body of the martyred Presi- dent was viewed by many from Wooster as the train stopped at Cleveland, en route to Illinois. The news of his death was received at IT o'clock the day of his death and immediately the stores and business houses were closed, bells tolled mournfully, the people assembled in groups and every
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one seemed surrounded by a deep gloom. The town was filled with people from outside, and all bore evidence of deep grief. On the following Sabbath people greeted one another in subdued tones, and tears coursed down many a strong man's cheeks. The churches all observed the day in sorrow and held appropriate memorial services, alluding especially to the great Emancipator in the sermons that were delivered.
DEATHS OF GARFIELD AND M'KINLEY.
In 1881, when President Garfield was stricken down, the people again put on mourning in Wayne county. Then, at the death of President William McKinley, the heart strings of all were almost snapped asunder. Regardless of political lines, all were his friends, and at this time became his mourners in fact. The city of Wooster was for the third time within twenty-six years draped in deep mourning for the assassination of a President-all three noble specimens of American manhood. A committee was appointed from the Wayne county bar and appropriate resolutions were spread on the rec- ords, Mr. Mckinley having at one time been a member of the bar in this county. Memorial services were held in the Methodist Episcopal and Luth- eran churches. President S. F. Scovel, of the University of Wooster, spoke to a large audience at the Lutheran church on "Mckinley as a Statesman." "Lead Kindly Light" (the President's favorite hymn) was tenderly sung at the services. The church was appropriately draped and had a setting of palms.
At the Methodist Episcopal church flowers and drapings of black and royal purple adorned the ceilings and walls. Rev. Neikirk read from the Scriptures and Judge L. R. Critchfield delivered the address on behalf of the bar of Wayne county. It need not be added that it was a gem of oratory. Judge Taggart also spoke for the citizens of Wooster. The last address was by President Holden, of the University of Wooster.
SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL
CHAPTER XXII.
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WOOSTER.
By Sylvester F. Scovel.
A university is an affair of the generations. That lends a peculiar sacred- ness to all which concerns its origin and fundamental principles, for by the generations God creates anew the heavens and the earth in the mental, moral and spiritual worlds.
Wooster is yet young. This sketch is written in 1910, which is but sixty-three years from 1847, when the first faint echo of the agitation for a Presbyterian college reached the synods of Ohio. It is but forty-four years since the charter was granted in 1866, but forty-two years since the corner- stone was laid in 1868, and just less than forty years since the main building was dedicated and actual college-life began within its open doors in Sep- tember, 1870.
That which makes it easier to relate Wooster's history is this youthful- ness. Anything less than a century in the life of a university is but an annual ring in the age-long growth of a Calaveras pine. The external life of a brief period can be more easily presented and the internal life more ad- equately penetrated and depicted. It is also true that Wooster's development has followed the lines of its original projection and that three out of its four decades have been characterized by quiet progress-the startling things being reserved for the fourth.
On the other hand, within a period so limited and so recent all sorts of historical material are accessible and rigid "selection" is rendered com- pulsory, difficult though it be, and this becomes the more imperative in a work which essays to discover and trace all the lines of interest which legiti- mately belong to the story of such a county as Wayne. Yet these limits must not be too rigidly interpreted, seeing that the importance of the university element in the life of Wayne county is becoming steadily more perceptible and perceived. The life and meaning, the ideals and realizations of our central educational institution should be carefully restated from time to time in ampler and more consecutive form than the transient publications provide
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for. This has not been done since the admirable contribution by the second president (Dr. Taylor) to the highly esteemed history of Wayne county, edited by that remarkable man, Benjamin Douglas. That communication was written in 1877 (published in 1878) and represents the University's first thir- teen years. It is, perhaps, appropriate that after the interval of thirty-three years, Dr. Taylor's successor in office should succeed to his task as historian.
Period I may be called
THE PERIOD OF INCEPTION AND PREPARATION.
We might press the beginning of this period, constructively, clear away to the atrocities on both sides, which ended in stripping the north of Ireland of its proper possessors by Cromwell and the insertion there of the elements out of which time created that peculiarly hardy and intelligent and aggressive folk popularly known as the "Scotch-Irish." They came to western Penn- sylvania and thence into central Ohio, and reached the state also from Ken- tucky and North Carolina. They planted the "Scotch-Irish seeds in American soil" (see Dr. Craighead's interesting volume, with this title ). And the har- vest was not only political freedom but an intellectual intensity that could not be content without making the speediest possible provision for the education of their children. The home missionaries of the Presbyterian church were generally men of education and they never ceased to foster the conviction that education must follow the attainment of any satisfaction of "existence wants," because it was emphatically the first of the "culture wants." Other denominations succeeded in planting colleges under pressure of the two great motives common to all-the sacredness of education in its moral and religious aspects, and the provision of a ministry for the edification of the church and the ultimately world-wide conversion of men. This essentially religious and only formally denominational pressure, more than any other force, determined the diffusive college policy which did so much to make the state the new Mother of Presidents. Its results are manifest, if one stands besides the group of statues in the Capitol's park, and traces the touch of the denominational col- leges upon that rare collection of Ohio's "jewels." [The writer had the privi- lege of defending this policy before the Ohio Society of New York on an occasion in which the then Governor Mckinley made the principal address. and had subsequently the satisfaction of the Governor's approval of the posi- tion taken. ]
The Presbyterians of the state did not at first establish their own insti- tution, but co-operated with those under state patronage, as in the case of
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Miami University, or in partnership with another denomination, as at Marietta and with Western Reserve and in lesser degree with Oberlin. All believed in the just combination of the spiritual with the mental and moral elements in training and developing the whole man, as necessary to a complete and symmetrical education. But as other denominations entered the field and as no one of the arrangements tried seemed thoroughly satisfactory ; as many of the sons of their own families were sent to Eastern institutions; the Presby- terians continued to discuss the propriety and finally the necessity for an in- stitution of their own.
We have the most direct and reliable account of this period of genesis in the various addresses of the Rev. Dr. John Robinson, of which there are now extant but rare copies, and especially in the ample and careful statements made at the inauguration of the first president (Dr. Lord). And just here it must be noted that while Dr. James Hoge (so long pastor at Columbus) and Dr. John Robinson appear together as joint promoters of this great inter- est from the beginning, it is to the latter we are indebted for many years of most valuable service (after the death of the former) both as president of the board of trustees and as the historian of the first period in the University's life. He was spared to state and preserve for record the circumstances and convictions accompanying the conception and birth of the enterprise, to make plain its meaning and motives, and to impress these in clear and unmistak- able terms at the inaugurations of the first, second and third presidents. "The idea we realize in part to-day," he said on the first occasion, "arose simul- taneously a quarter of a century since [i. e., about 1845] in the minds of earnest members of the synods of Cincinnati and Ohio. It sprang naturally from the fact that the church had just then entered upon the plan of doing ecclesiastically, in her organic capacity, her proper work for the evangeliza- tion of our race. Foreign and domestic missions, ministerial education and publication she was carrying on under her own supervision. Nor could it be seen why her efforts in the direction of collegiate education should be less effective than those of voluntary associations or individuals, or why she should leave the important work of moulding the ruling minds of successive generations to other hands. This work seemed fundamental if not to her existence at least to her prosperity, her success not only in multiplying an evangelical ministry, but in ramifying every department of society with her earnest piety and her sturdy theology. To neglect this seemed suicidal. There seemed no alternative left but to prove derelict to duty or pursue this course [i. e. to create their own institution]. In this they heard the voice of God."
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Then the president of the board emphasized the call to evangelization of the world. which the church was beginning to hear with a new sense of re- sponsibility. To secure the laborers for the great white harvest no other way appeared except "an institution where she could bring her religious in- fluences to bear in her own way, most intensely, where she could infuse an intense missionary spirit, give a biblical cast to the whole course of study and inculcate her very 'ism,' not offensively nor with bigotry, or for mere sec- tarian ends, but with the energy which a conviction of its divinity gives, and where she might do all this without being trammeled by the fear of a lack of candor, or wounding the denominational sensibilities of any, or lessening patronage."
In addition to this dominant religious motive there was also the per- suasion that there did not then exist in Ohio "an institution possessing the means and facilities for giving that broad and thorough culture which the age and the exigencies of the church demand. Not, therefore, to add another to the many colleges of Ohio that burlesque the name, but to establish an institu- tion with broad foundations and with facilities equal to the best in the land. capable of preparing men for every department of life, for the highest walks of science in all its forms, enabling them to wrench from the hands of infidel sciolists the weapons with which they now attack the Christian religion, was the enterprise undertaken."
Nor was it enough that the institution should be frankly Christian. Its character as such, as well as its support, must be guaranteed by its inherence in and not simply adherence to a definite church organization. "Denominational institutions, gathering about them," said Dr. Robinson, "the sympathies, and calling forth the prayers and benefactions of a large and homogeneous Chris- tian constituency who look to them for leaders after their own heart, in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, are those that best succeed. Their responsibility is most direct. Their unity of purpose and effort is best assured."
Nor was there any fear as to the effective management of an educa- tional institution so expressing the life of an organic section of the church of Christ. "For surely." continues the same authority, "a board of direction appointed by the church and responsible to the church in her organic capacity cannot be less united, less wise or less efficient than a self-appointed board. And living pre-eminently for the church they will live with the church. As her agencies she will call down upon them the blessing of God. They cannot, therefore, but live and prosper. These considerations, accumulating force year by year, have now culminated in the establishment of this University."
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A rapid sketch of the steps which led to that culmination may now claim attention.
Though the "idea" dawned about 1845, no formal action could be taken, "because several institutions were under the general influence of Presbyterians and these were deemed by many sufficient." . The earliest syn- odical action was that of the synod of Ohio (covering the central portion of the state). A committee was appointed to report at next meeting on the whole subject of education-embracing particularly the topic of a synodical college. This committee was continued in 1848 to confer with a similar com- mittee from the synod of Cincinnati. to receive donations and propositions for the establishing of a college. But 1849 finds the latter body "disinclined." and the former did not think it expedient to engage in the enterprise alone. But three years was as long a period as these earnest men could check their enthusiasm, and in 1852 a committee of Ohio synod was appointed to consider the expediency of endeavoring to establish a Presbyterian college to be insti- tuted, endowed and managed by the synods of Ohio conjointly. A similar committee was asked from the synod of Cincinnati, ten men in each. Being appointed, the twenty were to be authorized to "select a location, prepare a plan of and secure means for sustaining and make preparation to open such an institution," subject to future action of synods. The committee conferred in 1853, but only with the result that in 1854 it was judged "inexpedient to engage in this enterprise at the present time." In the same year the noble old institution of Washington College, "then under the care of the synod of Wheeling," was approved by the synod of Ohio and the way opened for its agents. The next year it was arranged that funds secured for Washington College "were to be returned without interest after a use of seven years, if a synodical college shall be established in this state."
But that very year ( 1855) the synod of Cincinnati overtured the synod of Ohio and that synod again took measures "looking toward the accomplish- ment of this greatly important object." The two synods authorized the joint committee "to devise such plans and perform such acts as may be necessary to the location, endowment and government of such an institution." This 1855 action may be regarded as, in an important sense, the starting point. It gives us about five years before the war, a five years' interim during the war (except a single resolution in 1864) and five years after the war until the opening in 1870.
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