USA > Ohio > History of the Central Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, 1856-1913 > Part 10
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J. S. ORAM.
The annual encampment program consisted of lectures, given, many of them, by men eminent in their lines; amusements such as would attract and please the most refined taste; and music. vocal and instrumental,
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of the quality that should meet the expectations of those versed in that art. Besides the German and English camp-meetings, Sun- day school and Chautauqua assemblies each year, meetings for the promotion of temperance, civic reforni, education, and the benevo- lent objects of the Church have been accorded a generous hearing.
LAKESIDE LIFE SAVING STATION.
For a period of twenty years the C. L. S. C. was an im- portant and prominent feature of the work, with fine classes of graduates each year to make the Chautauqua Commencement a "red-letter day" in the calendar.
The Grand Army of the Republic with each recurring year has held meetings of a social and patriotic character. Women's clubs and organizations, seeking to interest the public on various questions and on woman's suffrage, have come to Lakeside, where the spirit of tolerance is not stifled and where the doctrine of democracy is vigorously upheld and taught. The assembly talent, now more than formerly, for entertainment and amusement is of the highest order and is given the approval of the large numbers that annually frequent the resort.
To-day and for some time past the Bible Conference is proving to be one of the most prolific sources of valuable and stimulative instruction and help. Men skilled and trustworthy in exegesis, in Biblical history, in the interpretation of the prophets of New Testa- ment teaching, and capable of inspiring in their hearers a new and larger interest in the Word of God, render this feature of the summer's program exceedingly suggestive and attractive.
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Lakeside, Ohio.
Lakeside as a place of rest and as a school of instruction and inspiration in study and work has a better outlook than ever before. The debt is fading away, the people who go to Lakeside have an abiding confidence in the enterprise, and there is no longer any question as to its future and enlarging use- fulness. The closing decade has added largely to the situation in buildings. in vari- ous improvements, in patronage, and in at- tendance.
The grounds and those adjacent invite the steps and attract the study of the student of geology, for here may be found forma- SAMUEL CASE. tions which have been many centuries in the making; glacier tracings on the great rocks forming the shore of Lake Erie are very evident and interesting.
Should space permit, we would be glad to make mention of the many men and women who, during the forty years of the history of the place-bishops, lecturers, reformers, missionary travelers, musicians, persons prominent in State and Church, generals, leaders of National fame, and notable min- isters, have given distinction to Lakeside and great inspiration to its many thousands of attendants.
Mr. S. R. Gill has been from the beginning a true and generous friend of Lakeside, filling offices of great responsibility with acceptability. Samuel Case, of Bowling Green, Ohio, in the cavalier days of Lake- side was a devoted friend connected with its management.
MR. R. B. HELLER.
The following persons constitute the present Board of Trustees: West Ohio Conference ministers- James W. Gibson, Charles Bennett, V. F. Brown, and W. A. Robin- son ; laymen-R. B. Heller, John M. Killits, S. B. LeSourd, and H. C. Hopkins. North-East Ohio Conference ministers-John I. Wilson, J. B. Mills ; J. H. Blackburn, C. J. Moore; laymen-A. L.
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Hover, Peter J. Slack, D. C. Powers, and S. R. Gill. Central Ger- man Conference ministers-Oscar Rogatzky and Daniel Matthaei; laymen-Theobald Schunk and Otto H. Magley.
President, R. B. Heller, Napoleon, Ohio; first vice-president, Rev. Daniel Matthaei, Grand Rapids, Mich ; second vice-president, Rev. John I. Wilson, Cleveland, Ohio; third vice-president, S. R. Gill, Port Clinton, Ohio; treasurer, H. C. Hopkins, Dayton, Ohio; secretary, Otto H. Magley, Columbus, Ohio; superintendent, Arthur B. Jones, Lakeside, Ohio.
STORY OF THE FIRST CONTEST IN THE WAR OF 1812.
The first contest of the War of 1812 between the United States and England in the region around Lake Erie occurred on the lower end of the peninsula lying between Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie.
On September 29, 1812, the settlers learned that a band of Indians was approaching, and with haste they started for the bay shore, south of the place where Marblehead now stands, to their blockhouse. Before reaching it the Indians attacked them. The pioneers fought bravely and their savage enemies were repulsed, some of their number being killed and others wounded. Three of the pioneers were killed; their names were Mason, Simons, and Mingus, and a number were wounded.
Some of the men hastened to the mainland, on the east side, where they met friends coming to their rescue. Within three days they lifted the siege at the blockhouse and relieved those in the blockhouse, who were without food and water.
After the siege had been raised and they were delivered from the fear of starvation, they each pledged that in fifty years from that day, if any survived, there would be a reunion on the site of the blockhouse and at the graves of their comrades.
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, then a youth of seventeen years, was one of the number. In 1858, while a member of Congress, he visited the scene and had a monument erected.
In 1862, fifty years after the agreement made to return, Mr. Giddings, then a member of Congress, returned and stood alone by the graves of his friends and by the stone he had caused to be erected. This is a scene worthy of the pen of the poet and the brush of the artist.
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Lakeside, Ohio.
As long as the name of Joshua R. Giddings, the great friend of the slaves, defending their rights in the halls of Congress, is remembered, this first contest of the War of 1812 will also be remembered.
It is a satisfaction to know that the great Lakeside Chautauqua Assembly stands on historic ground where a battle for liberty was fought and won.
XIV. Educational Institutions.
THE cause of education has always appealed to the sympathy and support of the Methodist Episcopal Church, its numerous and flourishing institutions in many parts of the world being an evidence of the interest Methodism has taken in the broadest culture of the mind and in the fullest equipment for life.
The Central Ohio Conference, and in many ways its individual members, have shown a decided interest in the establishment and maintenance of higher schools of learning within its bounds.
One of its first attempts in the direction of education of young men and women was the establishment of the seminary in Maumee. This school afforded some of the early ministers of the Church the advantages of a course of study, necessarily elementary and academic, but one by which they were prepared in some degree for the work of the ministry.
The seminary was also the means of giving to considerable numbers of others, young men and women, a preparation to teach in the public schools, and through the education and training thus obtained to shed a refining influence in the home and to inspire in the minds of their associates a taste for learning and higher ideals of life and service. The Conference has already taken great pride in the fair name and enlarging influence of the Ohio Wesleyan University and, so long as it was a separate institution, in the Ohio Wesleyan Female College at Delaware.
Not having been formed when the Ohio Wesleyan University was established, the Conference could not share in the initial step that led to its founding; but as soon as the Conference came into existence, its members as a body, and many of them in a special way, accepted gladly any relation accorded it in the maintenance and advancement of the school.
This college, organized in the early forties, chiefly by a band of devoted and far-seeing ministers, aided by a number of noble laymen, has proved of incalculable value to thousands of young
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Educational Institutions.
men and women, who, very many of them, have found distinguishing employment in the various professions and walks of life. Their services have enlarged and made prominent in society and the world the sacred office of the ministry, the chair of the teacher, the pro- fessions of law and medicine, the field of literature, and the relation of the missionary at home and abroad, while into other occupations, less notable perhaps, but not less useful, countless numbers liave gone as artisans, farmers, business men, and still others as builders of States and splendid servants of their country. Its Faculty has comprised men and women of rare devotion to their work and of illustrious service in the cause of higher education.
The Conference, in 1898, purchased from individual proprietors the Ohio Northern University at Ada, Hardin County, Ohio, a school with a long and interesting career, chiefly at first in the education and preparation of young men and women to teach; but as circumstances demanded, the school widened its scope of instruc- tion so as to embrace courses of pharmacy, music, telegraphy, stenography, law, engineering, etc., not, however, lessening em- phasis on the importance and value of normal training. The college at Ada has been and still is a school extending special advantages to teachers wishing to review their studies, and to young people in meager circumstances.
It is a school always open, and students turning to it for a practical education find opportunities offered by but few colleges in the country. Its graduates, great in number, are to be found in all the honorable walks of life, making for themselves a useful career and reflecting on their Alma Mater no little distinction. The college has relied almost entirely upon the income from tuition to meet the salaries of instructors and the up-keep of the institution.
Recently, however, a strenuous but successful effort has been made to raise the sum of $200,000 as an endowment, and in June, 1913, before the Commencement of the university, the entire amount was subscribed.
XV. Central Ohio Conference Seminary.
IN the year 1860 a written proposition was presented to the Central Ohio Conference from the town council of Manmee, asking the Con- ference to establish a seminary in the town. In response to this communication the Conference appointed a committee, consisting of Joseph Ayres, Alexander Nelson, Leonard B. Gurley, William
CENTRAL OHIO CONFERENCE SEMINARY, MAUMEE, OHIO.
S. Lunt, and Thomas Parker. to consider any proposition that had been made. or that should be made. in regard to the establishment of such an institution within the bounds of Toledo District.
A proposition had already come to the Conference to establish a school at Wauseon. Ohio. At the session of the Conference in 1861 the proposition of the council of Maumee was accepted, and
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Central Ohio Conference Seminary.
the seminary known as the Central Ohio Conference Seminary was established at Maumee. The name of the school at first proposed was the Elm Grove Seminary.
The old courthouse and grounds, Maumee being the first county seat of Lucas County, were turned over to the Methodist Episcopal Church, to be used forever for educational purposes.
The Minutes of the Conference of 1861 reported the property as valuable and desirable as a location for a school, and free from debt. Everything at that time promised well for a school of useful and honorable character. The property was valued at $17,700 in 1866. The first principal of the seminary was Mr. John W. Hiett, with Russel Bigelow Pope, as- sistant. He had just graduated, at the age of seventeen, from the Bald- win University, Berea, Ohio, and at once won the confidence of students and patrons. Mrs. Hiett, the wife of Mr. Hiett, was for the first year or two employed as a teacher.
In 1863-64 Mr. Pope was ad- junct professor, and in 1864-65, full professor of Latin and Greek in Baldwin University, having been REV. RUSSEL B. POPE, D. D. elected to the full professorship when but nineteen years old. In the year 1865 he was elected principal of the seminary at Maumee, holding the position until 1868, when he resigned to enter the ministry of the Central Ohio Conference, having joined the Con- ference in 1866. His assistants while principal were Miss Mary McDermott and Miss Mary Baldwin, both graduates of the uni- versity at Berea.
In November, 1867, Mr. Pope married Miss Naomi Sperry, a graduate of the Lake Erie Seminary, at Painesville, Ohio; a teacher in that institution for two or three years, and then teacher in the seminary at Maumee during the winter and spring terms of 1867-68.
On the resignation of Mr. Pope, Burton J. Hoadley, a class- mate at Baldwin, was elected principal. Among those who attended the seminary during Mr. Pope's principalship were James S. G.
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Reeder, Wilson U. Spencer, Jackson T. Pope, Mrs. W. S. Philpott, Mrs. J. T. Pope, and Mrs. Parker P. Pope.
On account of the absence of many young men who had enlisted in the service of their country, the seminary was closed during the year 1864. The school was continued a year or two longer after the election of Mr. Hoadley as principal, but for the lack of patron- age it was finally abandoned. The property remained in possession of the Conference until 1881, when it was transferred back to Maumee City.
During the existence of the seminary the Neely House in Mau- mee, which is still standing and in use, was occupied as a boarding- house for the students. The old courthouse, the building which the seminary used for class and recitation purposes, is still standing, but falling into decay and ruins. A picture of the building is to be seen in these pages. Mr. and Mrs. Hiett, associated with the seminary as principal and teacher at its beginning, were for many years-the rest of their lives after leaving the school-prominent residents of Toledo, both actively identified with St. Paul's Church, and Mr. Hiett one of the most widely known business men of the city. They have both passed to their reward, Mr. Hiett a number of years ago, and his wife, a woman of great and long service among the needy and unfortunate of the city, departing this life in June, 1913.
Dr. Pope was for many years a prominent and successful pastor, serving William Street, Delaware; St. Paul's, Toledo; Trinity, Chicago; Ann Arbor, Mich. (twice) ; First Church, Cleveland ; and in his later years at Cambridge, Coshocton, and Painesville, Ohio. His death occurred at Painesville, Ohio, September 17, 1904.
XVI.
Ohio Wesleyan University.
THE Ohio Wesleyan University was founded in 1844. It owes its location, if not its establishment at that particular date, to the famous White Sulphur Spring in Delaware. In order to accommo- date tourists and seekers after health who had been attracted to the spring, two enterprising citizens, Judge Thomas W. Powell and Columbus W. Kent, erected, in the year 1833, on a spacious lot embracing the spring, a fine hotel, which soon became known as the Mansion House. In the summer of SULPHUR SPRING. 1841 Judge Powell, who had become the sole proprietor, de- cided to abandon the attempt to establish a Western watering place. The spring property being thus brought onto the market, it was suggested by the Rev. Adam Poe, the Methodist pastor in Delaware, that the citizens should purchase it and offer it to the Ohio and the Northern Ohio Conferences jointly as a site for a Methodist col- lege. Mr. Poe's suggestion met with a cordial approval, both from the citizens of Delaware and from the members of the Conferences.
As early as September, 1840, Dr. Edward Thomson, then principal of Norwalk Seminary, in a long report to the North Ohio Conference, from the Committee on Education, said: "There is no Methodist college in Ohio. We blush to think it contains no institution to which our youth can resort for collegiate education without imbibing ideas at variance with the religious belief of their fathers and the Church of their adoption. There is no State in the country in which the Methodist Church is more in need of a college than Ohio."
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In 1841 Dr. Elliott, in an editorial in the Western Christian Advocate, gave expression in favor of some movement looking towards the establishment of a school of a higher grade. The property proposed for a college site comprised about ten acres of ground, lying in the suburbs of Delaware. The investment in the grounds was about $25,000, but the owner offered to convey his interest in the entire property for $10,000. This sum, it was thought, could be raised by subscription among the citizens of the town and country; and, accordingly, a delegation was appointed to wait on the Conferences and ascertain whether they would ac- cept the property if conveyed to them as proposed.
The delegation laid the proposition before the North Ohio Con- ference in Wooster, in August, 1841, and before the Ohio Confer- ence, the same year, in Urbana, Ohio.
In response to the request of the delegation, both Conferences appointed committees to take the matter under consideration; and the committees thus constituted met in Delaware, September 1, 1841. The committee consisted of Revs. John H. Power, Adam Poe, Edward Thomson, James Brewster, and William S. Morrow, from the North Ohio Conference, and Revs. Jacob Young, James B. Finley, Charles Elliott, Edmund W. Sehon, and Joseph M. Trimble, from the Ohio Conference. The committee voted to ac- cept the property if the citizens should perfect their offer and if the title should be made satisfactory to the Conferences. The Conference Committee met again on November 17, 1841, and re- ceived from Judge Powell a bond for the conveyance of the prop- erty donated by the citizens ; and the title was finally made to the trustees in 1850.
In addition to the ten acres donated by the citizens, the com- mittee purchased from Judge Powell an adjacent property, on the south side of the original grounds, of five acres more, at a cost of $5,000, and the furniture of the Mansion House for about $2,000.
The population of the State in 1850 was about 1,500,000, and the Methodist Church in Ohio numbered 150,000 members. Im- mediate steps were now taken looking to a formal organization, and a committee, consisting of Jacob Young, Joseph M. Trimble, and Adam Poe, was appointed to apply to the Legislature for an act of incorporation.
A special charter, under the old Constitution, conferring uni-
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Ohio Wesleyan University.
DAVID S. GRAY, LL. D.
EDWARDS GYMNASIUM.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
versity powers was granted by the Legislature, March 7, 1842. The corporate powers were vested in a board of twenty-one trustees from different parts of the State. These were William Neff, Ex- Governor Allen Trimble, Lemuel Reynolds, Thomas Orr, William Bishop, William Armstrong, Rev. James B. Finley, Rev. Jacob Young, Rev. Edmund W. Sehon, Rev. Leonidas L. Hamline, Judge Patrick G. Goode, George B. Arnold, Ex-Governor Mordecai Bart- ley, Frederick C. Welch, Wilder Joy, Henry Ebbert, John H. Harris, Rev. Adam Poe, Rev. William Burke, and Rev. Leonard B. Gurley.
All of these men, prominent in their day in State or Church, have passed away, the last one being Dr. Gurley, who died in 1880, at the ripe age of seventy-six years.
To provide for the safety of the buildings and to meet the public expectation, it was thought best to commence the work im- mediately, and a subcommittee was appointed, consisting of Revs. Adam Poe and William S. Morrow, to employ teachers and open a preparatory school. This committee at once engaged Capt. James D. Cobb, a graduate of West Point and an ex-army officer, as instructor in the new school for the year 1841-42. It was arranged that he should have free use of the Mansion House, but look to the receipts from tuition for his compensation. He had a mixed . school of boys and girls. At the end of the year Capt. Cobb resigned his place and moved to the South for his health.
The Board of Trustees, at their first meeting in Hamilton, Ohio, where the Ohio Conference was in session in October, 1842, elected Rev. Edward Thomson, at that time principal of Norwalk Seminary, to the presidency of the university, with the understand- ing that the appointment was only nominal for the present, but a pledge to the Church that a college Faculty would be appointed and the college opened at no distant day.
The Board, however, determined that a preparatory school should meanwhile be maintained, and appointed Rev. Solomon Howard as principal, with authority to employ his associate teachers.
Professor Howard began his school November 1, 1842, and continued it successfully for two years. Both sexes were still admitted; the attendance was largely local. He had at first but four little boys as pupils, but the number for the year was one hundred and thirty.
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Ohio Wesleyan University.
SLOCUM LIBRARY.
ELLIOTT HALL.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
In 1841 the academic work of the college was begun, and in September of that year a Faculty was organized, with Rev. Herman M. Johnson, professor of Ancient Languages : Rev. Solomon How- ard, professor of Mathematics: William G. Williams, principal
WILLIAM G. WILLIAMS, LL. D.
of the Preparatory Department, and Enoch G. Dial, assistant in the Preparatory Department.
The president's salary, when he should enter upon his duty, was fixed at $800; the professors were to receive $600 each, and the teachers in the Preparatory Department, $400 and $350 re- spectively ; but it was many years before even these salaries were paid as they became due.
Wednesday, November 13. 1844, was the day appointed and advertised for the opening of the school. The weather was dis- agreeable; the day was rainy and chill, and the prospect was not encouraging. Dr. Thomson was present but for a day or two, and did not enter upon his duty for nearly two years afterward,
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SANBORN HALL.
MONNETT HALL
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and Professor Johnson was detained from duty until after the winter holidays. The three other teachers of the five appointed reported for duty.
They met in the basement of the Mansion House, once the dining room, which had been temporarily fitted up for a chapel. But twenty-nine presented themselves for enrollment, and all were males ; most of them were from other parts of the State. From this small number the Faculty was able to organize all the college classes below senior. By the end of the year there were only two juniors, two sophomores, fourteen freshmen, and there were ninety- two in the preparatory and other courses. Such was the initial catalogue of a university which, long before its jubilee year, en- rolled forty times the first number of students annually, and now graduates hundreds at a time.
Delaware, in 1844, was a village of twelve hundred inhabitants, away from the lines of travel, of commerce, of intercourse. There were no railroads in the State, and but few good pikes. In bad weather it took the tri-weekly stage a whole day to plough its way hither from Columbus. There were no paved walks or graveled roadways in the town; and in the winter the Faculty and students extemporized walks of tan bark, or else literally waded through the mud to their lodgings down-town, to the postoffice, or to church. There were no street lights, and on dark nights lanterns were necessary. There was no town clock, but the courthouse bell was rung at six o'clock in the morning and at nine o'clock at night. There was no bookstore in the town; there was a single newspaper- a weekly. There were two small common school buildings; the Delaware Academy, built ten years before by a stock company in the interests of better education, had completely failed and was standing empty. There was not a good church building in the place, but the several congregations in the town-Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal-were prosperous, and their pulpits were well filled. Rev. William L. Harris (afterwards professor, mis- sionary secretary, bishop) was the pastor of the Methodist Church.
The present attractive appearance of the spring-its fine marble basin and the pleasant approaches-is due to the public spirit of Mr. Sidney Moore, president of the Delaware County National Bank.
Education the world over is largely a gratuity, and especially
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Ohio Wesleyan University.
L.D.
EDWARD THOMSON
EDWARD THOMSON, LL. D.
FREDE
1.D.
MER
FREDERICK MERRICK, LL. D.
L. D. MCCABE, LL. D.
CHARLES H. PAYNE, LL. D.
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in the higher institutions of learning. Grounds, buildings, cabinets, libraries, endowments, and all the educational appliances of science and art, are the gifts of the founders of the school to the students who attend it. A college, to be eminently successful in its work. should have all of these before it opens its doors to the public. But in former times, in the Western country, neither State nor
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