USA > Ohio > History of the Upper Ohio Valley, with family history and biographical sketches, a statement of its resources, industrial growth and commercial advantages, Vol. II pt 2 > Part 49
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In about 1885, the Weekly Herald, was so christened by Lockwood & King, and after a fairly successful existence and frequent changes of ownership, and editorial control, it was sold in January, 1890, to R. C. Meyer, a bright newspaper man formerly connected with the St. Clairs- ville Gasette. The paper under the management of Mr. Meyer has been improved in every way, and is well printed, newsy, and influential.
In September, 1875, the first number of Bric-a-Bric, a monthly liter- ary magazine of eight pages, was published by Will S. Faris and W. C. Warnock. In February of the following year, Mr. Faris sold his interest in the enterprise to his partner, and in a few months after- ward discontinued its publication.
In the year 1877, Frank M. Barnes and J. E. Strahl, two practical printers, published a tri-weekly sheet called the Free Press. It suc- ceeded reasonably well, but was only published for a few months, when a disagreement between the proprietors made its suspension neces- sary.
In 1877-S, Ben S. Cowen, a school boy, son of Gen. B. R. Cowen, published a small literary paper called the Amateur fournal. It was very popular, on account of the novelty of its publication. The edi- tor did his own printing in leisure hours.
In July, 1878, Will S. Faris, at that time principal of the public schools of the Fifth ward, commenced the publication of a forty-col- umn quarto-weekly newspaper called the Phonograph. It met with a fair share of success as a local sheet, and also became somewhat fam- ous abroad for sprightliness and humor. It was continued until some time in 1879, when Mr. Faris left Bellaire to accept the position of as- sociate editor of the Wheeling Daily Register, and the Phonograph was consolidated with Mr. Anderson's Independent.
In IS-8, Waldemar Bille, M. D., established the Bellaire Star, a Catholic weekly, local in its character. It only existed a very few weeks.
The Democrat .- Of the papers now published at Bellaire the Deme- crat is the youngest, having first made its appearance March 23. 1SSS, with W. C. Warnock, above mentioned as proprietor and editor. Mr. Warnock is a descendant of the Warnock family of Smith township, mentioned elsewhere in this work, and is familiar with all the work-
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ing of a newspaper office, having filled almost every position from "devil" to editor. The Democrat is an eight-page five-column sheet, issued Friday of each week.
Martin's Ferry .- Two attempts were made to establish a newspaper here previous to 1872, both of which failed. About 1849, David S. Welling commenced the publication of the American Enterprise, which he published at Martin's Ferry and Bridgeport, the office, according to the best information at hand, being alternately located at both places, but its publication was unremunerative, and it was abandoned.
In 1871, the business men and citizens, feeling the need of a home organ, formed a joint stock company known as the " Martin's Ferry Printing and Publishing Company." This company commenced on the Ist of May, 1872, the publication of a six-column folio called the Martin's Ferry Commercial, with Mr. Barr, of Wheeling, as editor and publisher. About the ist of December, the establishment was sold to John J. Ashenhurst and John Clauser. This firm was short-lived, Mr. Clauser at the end of a few months retiring.
Mr. Ashenhurst made material changes, first increasing the size to a seven-column folio, and changing the name to the Ohio Valley News, and again enlarging to a six-column quarto, and making it the organ of the prohibition wing of the temperance people of eastern Ohio. Mr. Ashenhurst on the ist of November, 1874, conveyed the concern to James H. Drennen and John R. Gow. This firm continued to pub- lish the News for about one year, when Mr. Gow retired, and J. 11 Drennen became sole proprietor and editor.
The News is independent in politics, but in general favors the pol- icy of the republican party. It is influential and is one of those out-spoken journals which has great weight on all matters of public concern.
Flushing .- The News-Advertiser, published by F. M. and C. H. Judkins, at Flushing, is a bright, readable and reliable paper, giving the news of the neighborhood, and a large amount of good general reading matter. It was started May 1, 1886, as an advertising medium, by C. H. Judkins, then a boy of sixteen years. It was soon found, however, that a local newspaper was needed, and to supply this want the Advertiser was enlarged to a seven-column folio, which is its present size. It is a neat, well-printed paper and ably edited. The business men of the town, recognizing its excellence, freely patronize its advertising columns. The most prosperous and influen- tial people of the district are its patrons. The office is well equipped for a general line of job printing, and its presses are seldom idle.
Bridgeport in the Past .- The following article was written by Dr. Todd in 18,6:
" Bridgeport is not without journalistic fame. For two years the proceedings of the Belmont Medical society were published here. The Belmont Farmer by various parties, prior to 1848. It was about one-fourth the size of the Intelligencer, generally, but sometimes it grew beautifully less. It was intensely whig in politics, especially un-
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der the editorial management of that stern old patriot, David Allen. As nearly as we can ascertain, it was established by J. D. Gray, and first edited by William B. Affleck, the doctor's brother.
"Three years ago the Zevely family started a paper called the Standard, which lasted only a few months. It claimed to be inde- pendent.
"As Dr. J. G. Affleck has been the newspaper man of our town, a brief sketch of his life will not be uninteresting. The doctor was born in Drummelzier, Scotland, in 1802; came to America in IS19; studied medicine with Barton and Cook; first edited the National Historian in St. Clairsville from July 16, 1831. till June, 1833, buying out Horace J. Howard, a brother of Mrs. Affleck, and sold out to David McPherson, under whose administration the paper changed its name to the Belmont Chronicle. He edited the True Blue from Somerton and Bridgeport, in connection with his brother, from June, 1840, to 1846. Its politics were whig. One number of August, 1846, contains a call in flaming characters for a 'democrat whig conven- tion.' Afterward in Bridgeport the Belmont Farmer, the Dog, the Cocoanut, all contained a series of reflections on the follies of mankind, taking his characters from well-known Bridgeporters. The portrait- ures are immensely amusing. Then came his small sized Belmont Farmer, with its expressive motto, viz .: ' What is the cursed multi- tude about?' (Goethe). He enlarged it in 1847, with this motto: Whilst some doubt of everything, and others profess to acknowl- edge everything, a wise man will embrace such tenets, and only such as are built upon experience, or upon certain and indisputa- ble axioms- Epicurus. And now, occasionally he publishes the Tidal Il'aves. The doctor's mother was first cousin to ex-premier Gladstone, and he sat upon Latin and Greek benches with the great Dr. Chalmers, for whom he has an ardent admiration, and with Pol- lock also, author of 'The Course of Time.' In 1818, by invitation, the doctor visited the Wyandotte reservation, lying between Colum- bus and Lake Erie, and surveyed for them their lands, while he helped Rev. James B. Finley, a Methodist missionary, to convert the heathen.'
Benjamin Lundy .- Connected with the press of Belmont county was the subject of this biography, who began his life work against slav- ery in St. Clairsville, and it was here that he gave to the world his celebrated " Appeal to Philanthropists," which earned for him a na- tional reputation. The following is taken from a biographical sketch written by R. H. Taneyhill: The pioneer abolitionist in the United States was Benjamin Lundy, who began his labors as such in St. Clairsville, Belmont Co., Ohio. He there formed the first society whose only and avowed purpose was the overthrow of African slav- ery in the United States, and he there edited the first newspaper de- voted to bringing into odium the monstrous crime of that slavery, and to finally driving it from the nation. Mr. Lundy was born in the state of New Jersey on the 4th day of January, A. D. 17So, at the town of Hardwick, Sussex county. Both his father and mother were
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Quakers, and he, of course, was born in the communion of that church. In 1808 he went to the vicinity of Wheeling, Va., and after working at several places west and east of that town, finally settled there to learn the trade of a saddler. Having finished his apprenticeship, he went to Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, but in a short time went back to New Jersey, where he was married. Soon after his marriage he returned to Ohio, settled at St. Clairsville, and set up the trade of saddle and harness maker. In the year 1815 he called a meeting of his neighbors to be held at his own house in the town of St. Clairsville, to organize an anti-slavery society. Only six persons attended that meeting, but they formed what they called a "Union Humane Society." That was the first abolition society ever organized in the United States. It was a small beginning of a counter-wave to the flood that was overflowing the na- tion. In a few weeks the house of Mr. Lundy was too little to hold the members of that society, and in six months from its " small begin- ning" the "Union Humane Society" had over 400 members, and among them some of the best citizens of Belmont county. Not satis- fied with simply organizing an anti-slavery society and bringing his fellow-citizens into sympathy with its object, he began to write articles against the "great abomination." On his twenty-sixth birthday, Mr. Lundy wrote his first article upon the abolition of American slavery. He entitled the article, "The Appeal to Philanthropists." That " ap- peal" contains nearly every thought ever urged against African slavery in the United States, and whatever was afterward said or written upon that subject is only a repetition of that "appeal " or an elaboration of its ideas. In addition to the "appeal" he wrote several articles for the Philanthropist, a paper then printed and published at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, and edited by one Charles Osborne, a Quaker gentleman. The general bearings of that paper were against slavery, but discussed that question rather abstractly. Shortly after he had written those articles for the Philanthropist he became an assistant editor on that paper. So soon as Mr. Lundy had assumed the character of editor, he did an act that happily illustrates the force of his feeling against slavery, and the dogged de- termination of his mind to wrestle with its crime. In order to have funds with which to make the paper a more powerful one, he put his entire stock of harness and saddles into a flat-boat to take them to St. Louis to sell. The trip down the river was a slow one, and he did not reach St. Louis until late in the fall of 1819. He found all business at a standstill, and everybody excited over the admission of Missouri as a state, with the memorable proviso known as the " Missouri Com- promise." A fiery discussion was going on in the newspapers of the city, and Mr. Lundy, indiscreetly, yet manfully, entered the arena of discussion as a combatant for freedom. That course inflamed the public against him, and he could get no sale for his goods only at disastrous prices. Getting out of them all he could, he, to save all the money possible, made the journey home on foot, although it was the "dead of winter of 1820-1. 'Tis said calamities never come singly, and so Mr. Lundy found it to be in his case, for when he got back to Mt.
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Pleasant, Mr. Osborne had sold out his establishment, and the press and type shipped to Jonesboro. Tenn. But the loss of his property, the unexpected destruction of the business, to give strength and pros- perity to which he had sacrificed his means; with mid-winter upon him, without friends, among strangers, and his money scant, all seemed to form a grand stimulating compound that gave fresh vigor to the energy of Mr. Lundy. He at once resolved to start a news- paper of his own, exactly suited to his conception of the needs of the tremendous situation, for the charge of which he felt it his duty to act. Having gone on foot to several of the adjacent towns, on the hunt of a printer, willing to print his paper for him, he at last discov- ered the object of his wish at Steubenville, Ohio. That town was twenty miles distant from Mt. Pleasant, but Lundy, undaunted by obstacles and undismayed by his poverty, carried his manuscript and selections in his pocket, to that town on foot, had his paper printed and then walked back to Mt. Pleasant, carrying the first issue of the Genius of Universal Emancipation on his shoulders. He continued to be his own mail carrier, carrying his manuscript and selections one way, and the Genius of Universal Emancipation the other. Just as he had made the Genius of Universal Emancipation a news- paper success, he received a pressing invitation from the editor of the Philanthroptist, then published at Jonesboro, Tenn., to come there and print his paper at that office. Mr. Lundy very foolishly accepted the invitation. Ile went to Jonesboro and remained there three years, publishing his paper, but an abolition paper at the very heart of Tennessee, was too much for the "hot bloods" of that region to tolerate. lle was often insulted as he passed about the streets, and threatened with personal violence, and on one occasion two ruffians locked him in a room, brandishing pistols in his face, de- claring that " if he didn't git out of thar, they'd be the death of him," but he stayed in Jonesboro until it suited him to leave it. The first "anti-slavery convention" ever held in the United States, met at Philadelphia in the winter of 1823-4. Mr. Lundy made the journey of 600 miles to attend its sittings. While at that convention he was induced to remove his paper to the east, and by an unlucky choice, located its publication at Baltimore, Md. Mr. Lundy left Jonesboro for Baltimore on foot, with knapsack on his back. He went by way of North Carolina. At Deep Creek, that state, he made his first public "anti-slavery" speech. He spoke in a beautiful grove near "Friends' meeting house," directly after divine service. He also spoke in the meeting at another time, and made speeches at some house raisings, and at a " militia muster." While at Deep Creek he organized an " abolition society." He once spoke at Raleigh, that state. As he went through Virginia, he made speeches at several places and organized one abolition society. He arrived at Baltimore about the first of October, 1824, and the first issue of his paper was made October 10, 1821, being No. 1, fourth volume. In the year 1828 Mr. Lundy went to New England on a lecturing tour. Arriving at Boston he visited the clergymen of the city, and
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eight of them subscribed for his paper and prevailed upon him to hold an anti-slavery meeting. The meeting was held and largely attended by the people. AAt the close of the meeting several of the clergymen addressed the people, concurring in the views of Mr. Lundy. He went on to New Hampshire and Maine, lecturing when he could get the privilege. As he was returning, he spoke in the principal towns of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. He also traversed a large part of the state of New York, speaking at many of its prominent towns. It was on this tour at the city of Bos- ton, that he first met Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, who was then quite a young man and a boarder at the house where Mr. Lundy sojourned. During his stay at Boston, he had frequent conversations with Mr. Garrison, and at last converted him to his views on the slavery question. In a short time, Mr. Garrison became an active worker in the cause of abolition. So it may be truly said that Mr. Lundy cleared away the mists from before the face of that mighty luminary of uni- versal emancipation. In 1829, he visited Hayti and went many times to Canada to see how " his people " were getting along. In the win- ter of 1829, he was met on the street by Austin Woolfolk, a notorious slave trader of that day, and assaulted, and nearly beaten to death by him. Woolfolk was brought before Judge Nicholas Brice, for that offense, but Woolfolk was summarily set at liberty by " his Honor," with the remark, that " Lundy had got no more than he de- served." Mr. William Lloyd Garrison went to Baltimore, Septem- ber 1, 1829, and become the associate editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation. As is universally known, Mr. Garrison was a strong and fearlesss writer, and in a short time, rendered himself subject to the fury of the "chivalry." Subsequently the partnership between those gentlemen was dissolved and the publication of the Genius of Universal Emancipation was transferred to Washington, D. C .; Mr. Lundy removing to that city. Mr. Garrison went back to Boston, and on the ist day of January, 1831, he issued the first number of his illus- trious abolition paper, the Liberator. From 1830 to 1835. Mr. Lundy was constantly engaged in providing homes for slaves set free, and getting them to their homes. He continued the publication of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, at Washington, D. C., until 1836, when he removed to the city of Philadelphia. After his arrival at Philadelphia, the name of his paper was changed to the National En- quirer, and in a short time to that of Pennsylvania Freeman. In July, 1838, Mr. Lundy started for the state of Illinois, and finally settled at Lowell, La Salle county, where he started the Genius of Universal Emancipation once more, but in August, 1839. he contracted a prevail- ing disease and died on the 22d day of that month.
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CHAPTER IX.
BY COL. C. L. POORMAN.
MEDICAL -- EARLY PHYSICIANS OF BELMONT COUNTY -- FIRST MEDICAL SOCIETY - CHOLERA EPIDEMIC - OTHER EPIDEMIC'S - MEDICAL ORGAN- IZATIONS - BELMONT COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY - MEDICO-CHIRURGI- CAL SOCIETY.
ERY little tangible history in relation to the carly physicians and the practice of medicine in Belmont county is extant. During the first twenty-five years after the organization of the county there were but few physicians, and these were located at St. Clairsville, Morris- town and Barnesville, and had the whole county for their field of operation, and frequently had calls into the adjoin- ing counties.
The first authentic record within the county was Dr. John Herron, at St. Clairsville, of whom it is of record that "he cut out the letter ' M' branded in the hand of Peter Sunderland by order of the court of quarter sessions, for the murder of John Holtz." Dr. Hughes and Dr. Quigly succeeded Dr. Herron at St. Clairsville, the latter practic- ing until 1822, when he lost his eyesight and died blind.
Alexander Gaston removed from Brooke county, Va., in 1800, and built a cabin near Morristown. He was a blacksmith, but studied medicine and commenced to practice in 1809. He removed to Mor- ristown in ISHI and soon secured a large practice, extending as far south as Woodsfield. in Monroe county, and northwest to Freeport in Harrison county. He died in 1829.
Dr. Carolus Judkins removed to Barnesville in 1809, and was the first practitioner in the southwest part of the county, his practice call- ing him into the adjoining counties. His son, Nicholas, born in i815, studied medicine with his father and succeeded to his practice.
These were the pioneers among physicians that did most of the medical practice in the early history of the county. They did not practice in thickly populated towns with paved streets and nice side- walks, with neat spring buggies, or "dog carts," nor yet on bicycles, but were called in all kinds of weather to ride long distances on horseback through an uncleared country without roads and cross swollen streams without bridges, swimming their horses through turbulent currents at the risk of life to both horse and rider, carry- ing their "saddle bags," which contained their drugs and instruments for any possible case. It is true that there was not such an exten- sive and elaborate materia medica as now, and the practice was much simpler, but the labor and drudgery of the practitioner very much greater.
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The practice of medicine then was different in many respects from the practice now. The lancet was of first importance, and a basin to catch the blood drawn from the patient's arm, and bandages to tie up the wounded arm the first thing prepared. Then followed, frequently, a careful examination of the bundles of roots and herbs that invariably hung in festoons from the rafters in every well regulated cabin in the country, and it is not clear even now, amid the claims of science, that the great improvements in medical practice has lengthened the aver- age of human life, that the decoctions prepared from these were not quite as efficient in many cases as are the elegantly prepared prescrip- tions with great Latin names filled by the present graduated and licensed pharmacists. In 1828 the number of physicians in the county had materially increased, and we find the following persons were en- gaged in practice of medicine in the county: At St. Clairsville, Thomas Carroll, John McCracken, James Wishart; at Barnesville, Carolus Judkins and Lewis Grategney; Flushing, Jesse Barley; Mor- ristown, John W. Ayers and Ephraim Gaston; Uniontown, John Camp- bell; Somerton, William Schooley; elsewhere, Aaron Hartly and Nathan Johnson.
From 1828 to 1834 there was a considerable increase in physicians, among the number John Alexander, of Flushing, and 1837, St. Clairs- ville; Henry West, of Bridgeport, afterward of St. Clairsville: S. B. West, of Martin's Ferry; Thomas Irwin, of Uniontown; Robert Ham- ilton, of Morristown; Dr. Andrews, of Bellaire; E. Barnes, of Bridge- port; John T. Mackall, Isaac Hoover, of Barnesville; Dr. Plumby. of Somerton, and Caleb H. Cope, of Farmington. Of all these there is but one living at this date. Dr. John Alexander, of St. Clairsville, to whom the writer is indebted for much of the information in this chapter. His life is phenomenal; born in Ireland in May, 1799, he is now ninety-one years of age. He has been in the continued practice of medicine since 1832, his practice extending over this and adjoining counties in Ohio and to Wheeling, W. Va., has been nearly all done on the back of that noble animal, the horse, of which he has been a passionate lover, swimming swollen streams amid drift, scores of times endangering life, and with limbs broken seven different times in that period, he is still in the practice of medicine, with an intellect as bright and strong as forty years ago, and a head stored with information that he imparts with such ease as to make listening a pleasure. There is not his equal in the profession or in any profession within the writer's knowledge.
About the year 1835, or a little later, the first attempt to organize a medical society was made in this county, and it was kept up with con- siderable interest for a number of years, but there seems to be no one who has the record, or who knows where it is. Dr. Evans, of Morris- town, one of the first practitioners, was its secretary, and its meetings were held at St. Clairsville, and this organization had shipped to the county the first "subject" for dissecting table of which there is any information. The secretary in writing to the professor of Anatomy in the Baltimore Medical college, asked him to have the vascular sys-
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tem injected so as to disclose the arteries and veins, and when the professor in answering assured the secretary that "the arteries and veins were usually found close together," the society feared that the secretary had not disclosed, in his letter, the highest order of ana- tomical information. The "cadaver" came, however, all right, and the first subject was dissected.
During the epidemic of cholera, in )833, there was great excitement throughout the county, and great anxiety in advance among physi- cians to learn all they could about it, and for the purpose of investiga- tion where it assumed epidemic form at Wheeling, Drs. Thomas Flanner, of Mt. Pleasant, Jefferson county, John Alexander and Thomas Carroll, of St. Clairsville, resolved to go there to investigate it. They discussed remedies to be used as preventives and differed. Dr. Carroll insisted that complete salivation was a good preventive, and took large doses of calomel until his system was thoroughly salivated and his mouth a great sore. Dr. Flanner had great faith in brandy and used it copiously. Dr. Alexander believed in the power of a good, healthy system to resist disease, and took nothing but good care of himself. Dr. Flanner took the cholera and died before he reached home. Dr. Alexander took it shortly after he reached home, and a panic in St. Clairsville closed the scoools, broke up court, then in ses- sion, and well nigh depopulated the place by the stampede. Dr. Car- roll did not take it and took care of those who did, scoring a victory for his theory of salivation as a preventive. About 1835-6 scarletina maligna assumed an epidemic form in parts of the county, and many deaths occurred in St. Clairsville. Drs. Carroll and AAlexander had large experience in this disease, and while both practiced bleeding in their treatment, many of the patients of Dr. Carroll died from gan- green or mortification in the lancet wound.
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