History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 98

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 98

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

This account further states that, in behalf of the ladies of the Horticultural Society, a basket of fruits, beautifully trimmed with flowers, was presented to the Prince by Henry C. Noble, President of the Society. After a stoppage of a few minutes ouly, the train bearing the party sped on, followed by the resounding plaudits of the crowd.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, made a brief sojourn in the city in February, 1861. In July of the same year John C. Breckenridge and Henry C. Burnett, of Kentucky, passed through, en route to Washington, and Major-General and Mrs. John C. Fremont took lodgings for a day or two at the American House where they were visited by many citizens. In compliance with numerous solicitations General Frémont made a brief address to a street crowd from the balcony of the hotel. Henry Winter Davis, of Baltimore, was a sojourner at the American House April 17, 1863, and Hon. William Sprague, of Rhode Island, was a guest of Columbus friends for a few days during the mouth of Octo- ber, 1864. Ralph Waldo Emerson arrived in the city April 11, 1856, and on the next day Raphael Semmes, of the Confederate cruiser, Alabama, passed through to Cincinnati. Among the transient visitors of May, 1866, General G. T. Beauregard and Ex-Senator Foote, both late of the Southern Confederacy, were noted. Cou- federate-General Magruder passed through January 29, 1867. IIon. E. M. Stan-

750

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

ton and General Philip H. Sheridan were present at the Dennison-Forsythe wed- ding October 18, 1867. General J. Q. A. Gilmore made a short sojourn in the city in June, 1868. General and Mrs. William T. Sherman visited Columbus in April, and General A. E. Burnside in May, 1868. Generals Grant and Sherman both visited the city transiently in July of that year. On November 6, 1868, General and Mrs. George H. Thomas passed through, en route to Washington. General Sherman was again a passing visitor in November, 1869, and General W. S. Rose- crans was for a time a guest at the residence of his brother, Bishop Rosecrans, in December of that year. President U. S. Grant arrived in a special car August 9, 1870, and was honored with a serenade at the Union Station. Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, received the attentions of many citizens during a brief stay in March, 1875. The Irish statesman, Charles Stewart Parnell, passed through, February 18, 1880, and was met at the Union Station by about fifty citizens, On March 10, 1880, Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, passed through, en route to San Francisco. Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States, passed Columbus on his homeward journey from Europe December 8, 1881. An effort was made by some local representative of the press to "interview " him but without success. General George W. Morgan conversed with Mr. Davis con- cerning their mutual experiences in the Mexican War.

President Barrios, of the Republic of Guatemala, passed through the city, on a special train, July 14, 1882. He was accompanied by a party of twelve Guate- malan officials, and was en route to Washington for the purpose of soliciting the intercession of the United States Government in the Mexico-Guatemala boundary dispute.

Nearly every city or town of considerable size has had among its population certain droll characters whom nearly all their contemporaries knew or remem- bered. Columbus has had its full share. A few among many may be briefly men- tioned. One of the earliest was a wood sawyer popularly known as "Judge " Thomas, who was a composer of doggerel songs, and was accustomed to say that his occupation was that of " bisecting and rifting wood."

" Aunt Aggie Lewis," a colored woman who died at the age of over one hun- dred years, was consort to Caleb Lewis, driver of an oxteam, of whom it is stated as a memorable fact that he " ran the first dray ever known in Columbus." The family dwelt on Peters's Run.

" Granny Sowers," we are told, died in the County Infirmary, aged over a century.

We hear of an oldtime gang of " hard cases," conspicuous among whom was a certain character commonly known as Black Hawk, who was the terror of the town. Among the associates of this person was a certain Ben Langer, who was a remarkable thrower of stones.

Samuel Perkins, an exquisite of African descent, who wore ruffled shirtbosoms and wristbands, kept a barbershop variously under the National Hotel and the Clinton Bank. He is described as the tallest person of his raee in the town - next to Lyne Starling in height - and of the complexion of a moonless midnight. During the Michigan Boundary " War " he served as a valet to Governor Lueas,

751

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL.

and thereby acquired -as legitimately as some others who wear it - the title of " General." " General" Perkins was a conspicuous and indispensable figure in the service of refreshments at fashionable balls and parties.

At one of the corners of West Broad and Front streets, one of the curious characters of the town kept a place at which fights and brawls were of daily occurrence. Having concluded to put up a sign for his " tavern," the proprietor of this place one day asked a prominent citizen what device he would suggest for it. The reply was : " A black eye on one side and a red one on the other."

This list might be considerably prolonged, but it may fitly conclude with the following pathetic story of " Old Joe and His Garden." It is taken from the Ohio State Journal of June 4, 1867 :

The death of Franz Joseph Weitgenannt, an old resident of Columbus, was announced "old fre" May 25. One full week had passed before the citizens comprehended the meaning of this the nile announcement. The closed gate of a favorite flower garden, the deserted walks of a favorite resort, first made the announcement a reality to the public, and in absolute surprise, a week name "Wedge after the remains had been interred at Green Lawn, people said to one another, "Old Joe is dead." Had this simple announcement, these four words, appeared in the city papers, every child and every adult would have accepted the truth at once. As it is, you cannot now con- vince Allie or Albert, who had found a warm place in Old Joe's mysterious great " barn of a heart," that he is dead, and on Sunday scores of adults turned away from the silent grounds, scarcely crediting the announcement made by the attendants that the proprietor had been dead one week,

Old Joe was a permanent fixture of the city in the eyes of the people. They believed him part and parcel of the garden over which he presided. His peculiarities caused his name to be always associated with flowers. People were used to his mysterious disappearances into his retired haunts as his flowers withered, and considered it a law of nature, almost, that he should reappear at a fixed time. The younger generation found him .here and never questioned where he came from. Had yon asked a pioneer a question in regard to Old Joe he would have turned solemnly to Capitol Square, pointed to the majestic elms that are now such a source of pride to the citizens, and have told you that " thirtyfour years ago Old Joe planted those big trees." This was exhaustive. The old settler said nothing more. If this didn't convey to the mind of the questioner the orthodox respectability of old Joe's charac- ter, Old Citizen became indignant. Had you asked a lady of Columbus any time within the last twenty years the question " Who is Old Joe ?" she would have been as much startled as if you had asked, " Who is Abe Lincoln?" but in answering the question she would have told you of his flowers and nothing of himself. Ask a little urchin in the street, " Do you know Brown, Smith or Muggins?" and he will answer to each question, no " Who do you know then ?" Prompt as the explosion of gunpowder will come the quick reply, " I know Old Joe." If the questioner should so far forget himself as to ask, " Who is Old Joe ?" little eight year-old will give him a pitying glance that will [make him] feel as [if he had done] something sacrilegions.

What nobody has ever done it seems almost out of place to do now. Old Joe was to the people simply "Old Joe," mysterious and peculiar. His very peculiarity caused people to accept the situation without questioning, but this same peculiarity made him so much of an anomaly in this community of ours that it seems proper that some one should answer the question the asking of which has provoked so many people within the last few days.

Franz Joseph Writgenannt came to Columbus from Freiburg, Germany, in 1833. He was for some time in the employ of Mr. Kelley and Mr. Fisher, and under the direction of the former planted the elms in Capitol Square. He was one of the earliest professional gardeners in the city and soon made himself useful to the citizens. He seemed to act

752

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

toward a tree or plant as toward a person. He petted, and fondled, and talked to them, as he did to the children who gathered about them to watch his operations He examined a diseased tree or a blighted flower with the professional dexterity of a physician. He talked of trees breathing, sweating, choking, being siek, and doctored thiem accordingly. You will find his theories impressed still on the minds of many of the young generation of Columbus.

Quite early he established a garden in the northern part of the city, but the severe winter of thirty years ago killed all his flowers and plants, and he abandoned the place as a man would flee from the seat of an epidemic. In 1842 he established the garden on Washington Avenue, and though unfortunate for a time, he was soon permanently located. The soil was not suitable and Old Joe's flowers were not " healthy." This very invalid quality, perhaps, attached him to the place, and with assistance from some of our German citizens he overeame the difficulty and made his garden so much a scene of beauty that it became a favorite resort and stands today so much of a personification of his inner self that when the people say "Old Joe," they mean his garden. Old Joe was a bachelor and lived al. most entirely alone. Without being uncivil he conveyed to lady visitors the impression that he was a disagreeable man and a woman-hater Yet this man, who every night locked himself in his little cight-by-ten room from all the world apart, was the confidant of half of the young men in the city on love matters. He prepared with exquisite taste the bouquets for sweethearts, eniblemed love of the most enthusiastic young man in beautiful clusters of flowers that always told the story truly, and entered with all a boy's enthusiasm into the secret maneuvers by which the lover's bouquet was made a sweet surprise to the fair recipient. He heard a thousand and one love stories calmly and answered the many shades of the question, " What is to be done ?" in a bouquet. In such matters he never made mis- takes. The bouquet always suited the sender and the receiver, and not many of the matrons of the city would be willing to tell you the history of Old Joe's bouquets, now held as the most sacred mementoes of the happiness of the past.

Old Joe thus became an absolute necessity in the city, and the children of those whose vows were said over and through his flowers learned to look upon him as had the parents. He was fond of children and delighted in surprising them and pleasing them. The little folks of the city have still an abiding faith that no one but Old Joe can raise flowers. He was to them a sort of magician, a reformed " Black Crook " of a splendid tale of enchant- ment in which they and the flowers were his subjects, doing not as he willed but as they pleased. He was not sociable but everybody knew him. His flowers always spoke his prettiest specches, and a free translation of his bitterest ones, turning always the grumble and growl into an unmeaning smoothness.

Old Joe originally was a Catholic. Soon after his arrival here, however, he withdrew from the church, and from that day ignored priests and ministers. The reason for this action he never explained. He said nothing against the recognized churches, but seemed rather to obey their precepts. He was charitable in the two senses of the word. He gave of his means, and exeused the shortcomings of others. He had no fear of deatlı and had made such preparation therefore as he deemed right. Long before his death he purchased a lot in Green Lawn Cemetery, and had his tombstone inscribed as he directed. This was peeu - liar, but so was his every act.

Last winter, during the snow, one of his friends stopped at his house to inquire about his health. There were no tracks in the snow, no signs of life in the greenhouse or in his apartments. An effort to force the front door was unsnecessful, but at length the rear door was forced open, and there Old Joe, with a resignation and a quietness as peculiar as all of his actions in life, was found severely ill and waiting for death. Days on days had passed, and still h+ waited, both doors locked and curtains down. He had the same fecling towards physicians as toward ministers, and refused to have one attend him. In spite of this refusal one was sent to him and a regular attendant secured. From this illness he never recovered. The attendant remained with him during the day, but at night Old Joe would be alone. By

That is an ortor, He said to the writer, that he was for and raised a Catholic, with a belief that all out of the beatholic church would go to hell, and no other idea can entered his head until after the had lived in this country twenty fun years. when the first came one to this country, he found workmen were much better off and lived annuale better than he had can new them live , inter in Germany " France , and he saw to, that they all had a vote, but they could not vote mutil they had lied to be twenty we years old, and did not see any reason why he should voli until he had hired her traenly cre years, and he said , having lived here that long he had been naturalized and intended to rice, let be added when I came to take the oath I found I would have to forwcrear allegiance to all governments, potentates and powers, especially if the King of France , and the rules of the putty German power where he tom ( I do not now remendar which one ) and bear to and fartiful allegiance as the government of the United States, Wie furch allegiance was to the Paper and he must either renounce hin allegiance To the Pope, a reface to reveal allegiance & the United States. be determined to do the Caller, and had no connection with the Catholic church since; and he did not see how a man could be a good Castrolis and a good republican.

Louis Hoster

PHOTOGRAPHED BY BAKER.

Residence of the late Louis Hoster, 31 Livingston Street, built in 1834, rebuilt in 1848.

$753

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL.

his direction, the man at eight o'clock locked both doors, put the key in his pocket and went home. This prevented the possibility of intrusion.

He died on Friday, May 24. A great many of his German friends had been present during the day, and his last wishes were freely expressed to them. On Sunday following he was interred in the lot of his choosing at Green Lawn Cemetery. His property, amounting in value to about eight thousand dollars, he willed to the children of two sisters who lived in some of the Western States. This old man, sixtyeight years of age, who lived for twentyfive years as a hermit in the midst of beauty of his own creation, though simply "' Old Joe," with- out what the world would pronounce a lovable or heroic quality, was-puzzle as he was-a man who numbered his legions of friends. Last week hundreds of these visited the garden, hesitating to accept the truth of the saying " he is dead." No flowers were allowed to be touched and there was no desire to touch them. The garden drooped in the absence of the guardian magician, and even the "hermit's cell," sacred from intrusion for so many years, was open now. The little couch in the corner, the oldstyle clock with its heavy weights dangling in free air, the one chair and one stool, the little cooking stove, and the little table tell the whole story of the man who entertains none but himself. For twentyfive years, in this little room, he was cook and master, and the world wondered why a man who had such a passion for flowers, who had so fine an appreciation of sentiment in others, who loved children with the devotedness of a parent, could be so much a hermit.

Old Joe kept well his own secrets, as well as those of others. but once an unexpected kindness from a lady of the city caused the doors of the "old barn of a heart, crowded with the sultry sheaves of the past," to stand open for a moment, and a glimpse was caught of this " little story : " Old Joe, when he was Young Joe, loved a German maiden. After the vows had been spoken the lady's family moved to America, where Joe, in one year, was to follow, and the two were to be married. The young gardener came as he had promised, but found his sweetheart the wife of another. Disappointment to a sensitive heart is sometimes worse than death. It made Old Joe half a hermit, and all a mystery.

NOTES.

1. Letter published in the Ohio State Journal.

2. Amounting to $1,200,000, all acquired at Columbus.

3. The author was kindly favored with an inspection of these letters by Mrs. Deshler's son, Mr. William G. Deshler, who justly prizes them as precious mementoes of his sainted mother.

4. Ohio State Journal.

5. Ibid.

Church History. PART I.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

PRESBYTERIAN.

BY REV. WILLIAM E. MOORE, D. D., LL. D.

[William E. Moore, D. D., LL. D., is a native of Pennsylvania, born April I, 1823. His ancestors were of Scotch-Irish blood, came to America in 1698 and settled in the State of Delaware. His father, a physician, died when he was six years old, leaving a widow with four chi dren, and the legacy of a good name. Doctor Moore's early life was spent on a farm attending school in the winter season. Desiring a liberal education, he taught school and improved his leisure in preparing for college. After graduating at Yale College in 1847, he taught for two years in the academy at Fairfield, Connecticut, and in the meantime studied theology with Lyman H. Atwater, then pastor of the church at Fairfield but afterwards a professor at Princeton College. fle was licensed to preach in April, 1850, and in October of the same year was ordained and installed as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of West- chester. Pennsylvania, where he remained until called to the pastorate of the Second Presby- terian Church of Columbus in April, 1872. During the twentytwo years of his residence at Westchester he was instrumental in establishing the State Normal School at that place and was the first president of its board of trustees. He was also elected as its Principal but declined that position. During the last nine years of his sojourn at Westchester he was Presi- dent of its School Board. During the Civil War he was active in the work of the Christian Commission When Lee's army invaded the State of Pennsylvania in 1863, he enlisted as a private in a battery of the state militia and was elected a lieutenant, in which capacity he served during the Gettysburg campaign. Accepting the call of the Second Presbyterian Church of Columbus, he began his ministry therewith in April, 1872. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by Marietta College in 1873, and that of LL. D., by Lake Forest Univer- sity, 1890 On September 19, 1850, Dr. Moore was married to Harriet F., daughter of Rev. George Foot, of Delaware. They have six surviving sons. all college graduates. They are Rev. George F. Moore, D. D., Professor of Hebrew at Andover, Massachusetts ; Rev. Edward C. Moore, Pastor of the Central Church at Providence, Rhode Island ; Henry M. W. Moore, M. D., of Columbus ; Charles A. and Frank G. Moore, Tutors in Yale College, and Frederick A. Moore, clerk in the service of the C. S. & H. Railway. Doctor Moore has been stated clerk of the Synod of Ohio since its organization in 1882, and permanent clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church since 1884. He was elected Moderator of the General Assembly by acclamation in 1890. He is President of the Columbus Medical College and a trustee of Marietta College and of Lane Theological Seminary. Since 1878 he has been Chaplain of the Fourteenth Regiment of the Ohio National Guard. ]

The Presbyterians bore so large a part in the settlement of Columbus that a few words may be in place here as to the antecedents of their settlers in Southern

[757]

758

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

and Central Ohio. They were chiefly the descendants of the Scotch and Ulster men who fled from the persecution of the Stuarts, who sought to force prelacy upon all their subjects. Some of them were of the Covenanters of Scotland. Others, and the majority, were of those who had settled in the English colonies in the north of Ireland. In the first decades of the eighteenth century many thous- ands of these migrated to America. Landing on the Delaware, after brief sojourn in eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, they made their way westward and southward across the Susquehanna and up the valleys of the Susquehanna, the Potomac and the Shenandoah, in search of homes. After the peace of 1762 which secured to England the regions west of the Alleghanies hitherto claimed by France, these men, who were chiefly agricultural laborers with no capital, but brave hearts and strong arms, worked their way over the watershed to the streams which poured into the Ohio, and were found in large numbers in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and in Kentucky, looking wistfully to the fertile lands beyond the Ohio.

These men were almost all of Presbyterian proclivities. They had been trained in war for a century : as " rebels" in their old homes, fighting for freedom ; in the wars with the Indians and their French allies; and in the war for indepen- dence. They were bitter in their hostility towards monarchy and prelacy. They had suffered from both. When the War of American Independence came, they were found to a man on the side of the colonies and against the crown. The Pres- byterian ministers, without exception were, in the language of the day, " Whigs." They preached the duty of resistance to tyranny, whether of the civil or the ecclesiastical powers. Many of them, when the war began, raised companies in their own congregations and led them to the field. They suffered the especial vengeance of the marauding parties in common with their people. They were accounted ring- leaders in the rebellion. Presbyterianism was considered prima facie evidence of guilt when the emissaries of the royal cause were seeking for " rebels." A house that had in it a large Bible and David's Psalms in metre was considered as a mat- ter of course the home of enemies of the crown.

Presbyterianism is at once a creed and a polity. It looks both toward God and Man. It has respect to the life that now is as well as that which is to come. It recognizes God as the only Supreme Ruler, the source of all binding law, the only being in the universe who has authority to bind the conscience. It claims for every man freedom under law. It holds civil government to be ordained of God and to derive all its just authority from Him. It measures the duty of submission to the " the powers that be " by the conformity of their laws to the will of God as found in the Bible or by necessary consequence inferred from it. It is loyal to government, but government must be true to the interests of those whom it serves; otherwise it is right and a duty to choose new rulers and depose the old. As a creed, Presbyterianism asserts the sovereign control of God over all his creatures and all their actions, so that in His own way and time He will infallibly secure the fulfillment of His own eternal purposes, which are holy, just and good, and are always for the futherance of universal righteousness. It asserts equally the Godgiven freedom of man to choose for himself whether he will do

759

PRESBYTERIAN.

right or do wrong ; and so it holds every man responsible for all his acts and amen- able to all their consequences. It holds that the salvation which God offers to every man through His son Jesus Christ is of His own free grace ; that it is not of man's desert, actual or foreseen, but is of God's sovereign choice, and that it is an election unto holiness of living.

As a polity, Presbyterianism rejects alike monarchy and democracy in the government of the church. Its ideal is a republic - the administration of govern- ment by rulers and servants chosen by all the members of the church, male and female, as their representatives, and having no other authority than that which is conferred upon the church by Christ, who is the only lawgiver, judge and king. Its supreme standard is the Scripture, the only infallible rule of faith and conduet. Its subordinate standards are its confession of faith, form of government, and book of discipline, which are of binding authority only as they conform to the Scriptures. The necessary corollary of the polity of the Church to men who find the source of authority for all that binds men on earth in the word of God is representative or republican government in the state. James I. of England, who knew the Presbyterians of Scotland to his sorrow, was shrewd enough to see, and frank enough to say that "God and the devil agree as well as monarchy and pres- bytery." He recognized the determined fight against prelacy as significant of the fate of autocracy. Such historians as Bancroft, Motley and Froude affirm that to the mon of the reformed faith and polity - Calvinists in faith, Presbyterians in polity - we owe our republican institutions, whose governors, legislators and administrators of the laws, are chosen by the people over whom they exercise the functions of government.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 98

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202