USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 50
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Including the class of 1917, the total number of Sidney high
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
school graduates, for its first sixty years, is 1,005, six hundred of whom have graduated since 1902. Forty-two per cent of all grad- uates prior to 1917 had entered colleges which grant degrees ; and of this 42 per cent, 51 per cent had graduated from such colleges. The Sidney high school is a member of the north central association of high schools, and, when they have properly selected their high school courses, its graduates may enter any western college and some east- ern colleges, without examination. Lee A. Dollinger, the principal, entered upon his service in Sidney almost simultaneously with Mr. McVay, and shares the credit for the steady advance of the institu- tion. The course includes advanced teaching in arithmetic and geography, and the usual high school branches, algebra and higher mathematics, chemistry, physics, history (United States and Euro- pean), Latin, English, biology, music, dramatic art, domestic science and industrial art, manual training, modern languages, girls' ath- letics, gymnastics, and the commercial department. A corps of twenty teachers is employed.
Twice since the opening of the twentieth century a reunion of the pupils of the first decade has been arranged, each occasion being one of great interest and enjoyment. At the semi-centennial in 1907 a group of the "old children" gave a program of the school songs in vogue in their childhood, including "Come, come away," "Little Schoolboy," and "Scotland's Burning !" Some characteristic incidents of the olden days were also reproduced on the stage. Copies of "Lucerna," a magazine published fitfully during Rev. Shaw's incumbency, were reprinted, calling to remembrance many amusing and some pathetic memories. An item in the first number remarks upon the crowded condition of the village, which even then was obliged to stow transient guests in the attics, and declares "the greatest need of Sidney is more houses"-which proves that "times don't change much, after all."
Against the five hundred and twenty-nine pupils enrolled in 1857, the records of 1919 exhibit 1,176 names in the grade schools, and 303 in the high school, while a class of 41 students will grad- uate in June.
Names are, perhaps, dry reading in themselves, but a glance at the list of presidents of the board of education may be interesting, as evidence that Sidney has always given of its best, for the guid- ance of its educational system :
1857-Rev. C. T. McCaughan. 1887-Dr. B. M. Sharp.
1860-Joseph Cummins. 1888-C. R. Benjamin.
1863-Jason McVay. 1889-C. F. Hickok.
1870-N. R. Wyman.
1890-G. A. Marshall.
1874 .- W. P. Metcalf.
1891-J. S. Laughlin.
1875-Jason McVay.
1892-H. Gartley.
1876-George Bush. 1877-E. E. Nutt.
1893-G. A. Marshall.
1894-C. F. Hickok.
1880-A. J. Robertson.
1895-W. S. Crozier.
1881-Col. Harrison Wilson.
1896-Dr. Edwin Lefevre.
1884-E. E. Nutt.
1898-J. H. Taft.
1885-Charles McKee.
1899-C. E. Johnson.
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1900-J. D. Geyer. 1910-Dr. B. M. Sharp.
1901-W. J. Emmons. 1911-R. O. Bingham.
1902-E. L. Hoskins.
1912-Dr. J. F. Richeson.
1903-J. D. Geyer.
1913-T. M. Miller.
1904-R. O. Bingham.
1915-Dr. A. W. Reddish.
1905-M. F. Hussey, M.D.
1916-Dr. J. F. Richeson.
1907-A. J. Hess.
The county system of schools differs in scarcely any respect from the ordinary method followed during the past seventy-five years. The territory is dotted all over with the regulation small one room brick school house, with one teacher, the only feature which is not universal over the state is the "special school district," which grants to certain sections of the county an independent Board of Education consisting of five members, who manage the educa- tional affairs of the district in the same manner as a village board. Forty-five boards corresponding to as many districts, are now existent in the county. Only at Kirkwood, Montra and Maplewood is the one room school varied (these each supporting two teachers), except in the larger villages, in which the schools are in keeping with the population.
Six high schools are maintained in these village centers, two of them ranking in the first class, and the remaining four in the sec- ond. Consolidation of schools is making slow progress in Shelby county, the Special school districts acting, perhaps, as a deterrent. However, the leaven is working. Houston has the only real ex- ample of the modern consolidated country school, which is a model that will undoubtedly be followed. The various school boards are not all convinced yet, but it is reasonably certain that no more one- room schools will be built, repaired nor replaced, in the future. The school at Houston district was erected in 1908, and was a decidedly forward step, considering the date. Greene township also has a high school built about the same time, which is centralized, pupils from all over the township attending its advanced classes. The building stands about a mile from Plattsville. Also, in Perry township a consolidation has been effected (but in an old building), to which all the children of the township, except in two districts, are trans- ported in two motor trucks.
W. E. Partington, the present county superintendent of schools, gives the school census outside of Sidney, as about three thousand, four hundred and seventy-three, of which six hundred belong in villages; however, many country children attend the village schools. Anna and Jackson Centre both have first grade high schools, while Botkins, Houston, and Greene and Perry townships are classed as second. The problem of educational progress in the rural districts must always wait upon good roads to some extent, and Shelby county still has roads to build. However, the natural centralization of population should to some extent control the development of high- ways, and the consolidated school, to be effective, ought to be located with respect to natural centers rathers than conform to arbi- trary township limits, which were originally fixed for the convenient polling of voters, and are often a mere complication in social or
-
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community life. Shelby, like other progressive counties, must work out its own salvation in the consolidation of schools.
The Press
The year 1832 appears to have been popular all over the great northwest territory for the inauguration of provincial newspapers. It was, in fact, the seed-time of the great political parties, when the public mind, scattered over the new settlements of Ohio and Indiana, was struggling out of its net of slumber into a conscious view of things and the formation of opinions upon matters pertain- ing to the national welfare. Having hewn himself out of the woods, the pioneer was ready to receive instructions concerning what lay beyond the confines of his enlarging horizon, and to listen with open mind to leaders of thought from the eastern political centers, who came-or were sent-generally as the forerunners of a national or state campaign. The fact that so many of them remained fixtures in the settlements where they were established, is eloquent evidence of the quality of the editors who came to crystallize into definite shapes the chaos of new and but half-formed issues in which the country was at that time submerged.
The first Sidney editor was Thomas Smith, and his paper was the germ from which grew the Sidney Journal-whether or no that title was the one first used by Mr. Smith. The pioneer editor is said by some authorities to have been an eccentric, who indulged in the whimsical practice of walking to Cincinnati for his paper sup- ply, returning with the roll on his back. Milder tradition, how- ever, discredits this extreme, admitting only that Mr. Smith may have performed this feat once, under the pressure of necessity ; but that a man with the ability to establish a permanent publication, and to maintain it, single-handed, for nearly a decade, should have made a customary pilgrimage to Cincinnati when there was already a paper mill at Dayton, is deemed too absurd for credence. The gentleman lived on North Lane, about midway between Miami and Main avenues, in a little house which existed, in part, until a rather recent date. He also died there, a good many years after his retire- ment from the editorial desk and the type case-for he was his own type setter. He was a lonely soul, and latterly, quite a recluse.
In August, 1839, the paper had passed out of his management into that of Henry D. Stout, editor and proprietor, who published it under the expansive and inclusive title, The Ohio Argus and Sidney Aurora-from which it might be inferred that the editor brought with him to Sidney the memory and perhaps some of the properties of a newspaper published in some former home. The change was undoubtedly made in the interest of the approaching presidential campaign, and the paper was avowedly "devoted to the interests of the Whig party," whose candidates it supported in the following year (1840).
At the head of the editorial column, in an old copy, dated March 24th, 1840, appears the motto: "The union of the Whigs for the sake of the Union"; and below it is the ticket, already in the field,
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"For president, William Henry Harrison; for vice-president, John Tyler; for governor, Thomas Corwin, of Warren county."
An editorial item quotes from the St. Louis Republican of con- temporary date, news to the effect that a vagrant white man had been arrested in that city, and had been sold to a livery stable keeper for the sum of one dollar, under the authority of a law passed by the Missouri legislature when that body was in the control of the "Locofoco" party-the same party, the reader is called to note, which was at that moment attacking the candidacy of William Henry Harrison on the ground that, some twenty years before, in Ohio, Harrison had advocated the sale of criminals, as a penal measure, under certain economic conditions. Another item contains the news just received from London, of the marriage of the young queen Victoria, of England, to Prince Albert, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, cele- brated February the tenth, "with utmost magnificence."
The paper is well edited and carefully printed, typographical errs being quite undiscernible upon close scrutiny of the copy, which is newsy, dignified in editorial tone, and with nothing of the backwoods in its manner or appeal. It contains, perhaps, a larger proportion of patent medicine advertising than the average modern newspaper, but the phraseology used in them is not very different from that of today. Throughout the whole sheet, the absence of slang is, possibly, the most noticeable particular. Three large lot- teries, the "Virginia State," the "Louisiana," and a Kentucky af- fair, are prominently spread upon the pages. Some local items are here transcribed which afford a glimpse of the life in Sidney at that date, not otherwise preserved.
Among the professional cards published are noted those of Dr. H. C. Mann, and attorneys J. S. Conklin and Patrick G. Goode. Hugh Wilson, dealer in drygoods, publishes an advertisement in which he not only sets forth the merits of his stock of goods, but replies, to a current report that he "is selling certain damaged goods," that the cases of goods in question "are insured separately, and that they are now in the hands of the insurance company's agents, three responsible business men of Sidney, Messrs. Hugh Thompson, Hugh McElroy and John Neal." A grist and sawmill situated on the Great Miami river three and one-half miles from Sidney is offered for sale by Jeremiah Evans of Port Jefferson. E. McGrew calls the attention of the local and traveling public to the fact that, having about completed his term of office as county treasurer, he will resume the personal conduct of his tavern, "The Sign of the Mail Coach, the large brick building at the northwest corner of the public square," and states that both his table and his bar will, as ever, have the interests of his patrons at heart. (Elisha McGrew is still remembered by the elder citizens of Sidney, a slight deformity of one limb, requiring the use of a cane, and a very thick boot sole, having rendered him a marked figure in their childhood.) He was associated in many business enterprises of his time. One more detail serves to impress, upon the mind of today, the youth of the pioneer citizens, who else might perhaps appear a galaxy of grey- beards, in their top hats and frock coats. A prominent Sidney society woman recalls the circumstances that "Old Joel Frankebur-
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ger" was the term used to designate that dignified gentleman, upon whose tombstone is inscribed "aged forty-two." Who today dares call "old" the man of forty-two?
Between the Harrison campaign (when the paper was printed "in the new brick building on North Main street, over Gen. Tay- lor's store,") and 1842, the publication appears to have changed names at least once, tradition claiming that The Bugle Blast of Freedom William Armstrong, editor, was one title. But The Aurora came into its own once more, in 1842, although in 1846 (Howe's Historical Collections, edition 1846) it is referred to as The Herald, "an excellent paper," published by Clinton Edwards. Again, within a few years, it is referred to as The Sidney Banner. But in 1854, when Samuel Mathers came to Sidney from Pennsyl- vania, he purchased the establishment, and permanently renamed the sheet The Sidney Journal.
Mr. Mathers published the Journal until 1861, when he sold out to P. A. Ogden, he, in turn, disposing of it to J. H. McElroy, from whom it passed to J. Dubois, and later to Bliss and Adgate. Mr. McElroy went to Washington, D. C., and engaged in journal- ism there.
In 1869, Messrs. Trego and Binkley purchased the paper from Bliss and Adgate, and thereafter for thirty-six years owned and controlled it, a period during which it was characterized by the ablest editing of any Sidney publication, and exerted a powerful influence for public betterment and uplift. Mr. Trego was the business head of the establishment, and Mr. Binkley the sole edi- tor. Republican in politics, these gentlemen conducted their ef- forts, in behalf of the town they had chosen for a home, without regard to politics, and Sidney should hold them both in honor for the public benefits which they fearlessly championed and obtained. Public opinion will not always be led ; it must sometimes be driven. It was necessary, often, to lash and sting the slumbrous civic senti- ment of old Sidney into wakefulness upon many a subject which would now be taken for granted; and it may be said with truth that there is not a single public utility or advantage originating between 1869 and 1905, which was not first trumpeted into the ears of the Sidney public by William Binkley, through the columns of the Journal-oftener than not at the expense of personal popularity, even when it was not attended by the penalty of bitter animosity. Mr. Binkley was a thorough rhetorician and a virile writer, with abundant editorial initiative, and courage.
If assertion needs the backing of evidence, the annals of the village council show that the changes in Sidney prosperity and con- ditions began with the advent of Trego and Binkley in 1869, at which date there was no pretense of pavement in the town except the first crude rough stone deposited around the public square to keep the wagons from sinking in the mud, where the country teams were parked on market days; sidewalks were of tanbark or cinders, except where the more well-to-do citizens indulged in the luxury of flagstone or brick in front of their properties; water was still drawn entirely from wells in the door yards, or from the few surviv- ing springs; a bucket brigade was still the chief fire protection of
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
the village, and the only street lamp known to the entire community was the lantern which hung fitfully, as the weather permitted, from a hook in a post in front of the old Ackerly tavern at the Monu- mental corner. Verily, the times had changed by 1905 !
The headquarters of the Journal were not a fixture, various situations being occupied from time to time. For several years fol- lowing 1869, the establishment was located in the second story of the old building on the east side of the Carey or Thompson Block on the north side of the square. From there it was moved to Main avenue over Piper's grocery, thence to a building which stood on West Court street where now is a garage, opposite the Monumental building. In the Journal office under Trego and Binkley was in- stalled the first gas engine used in a printing office in Ohio outside of the city of Cleveland-the next office to follow being the Belle- fontaine Republican.
In 1890 a stock company was formed by J. H. Williams and E. J. Griffis, and a second Republican paper was established under the title The Sidney Gazette, with Jesse L. Dickensheets as editor.
Not long after, a third Republican paper, this one called the Republican, was started by J. M. Leight, which became an incor- porated company under the name the Republican Publishing com- pany with David Oldham as the leading stockholder, and a daily edition was started, of which Mr. Light (or Leight) was the first editor.
In 1905 Trego and Binkley sold out the Journal to Griffis and Williams, who continued for three years with the title of The Journal-Gazette. The following year, 1909, the Republican Pub- lishing Company bought out the Journal-Gazette and the daily became permanent, Mr. Light being the first editor, while Mr. Griffis edited the weekly. The name of The Sidney Journal was about this time again established, and will probably be maintained for the future.
Mr. Binkley removed to New York and engaged in journalism there, for several years, but has returned to Sidney where he is now in mercantile business. Mr. Trego entered the banking busi- ness in Sidney, and is a director in the People's Savings and Loan association.
J. M. Light was succeeded in the editorship of the Daily Jour- nal by Howard B. Sohn, and he by Harry M. Gill, a rather gifted writer, but an erratic and irresponsible youth who was retired after a few stormy years, and was followed by Claude C. Waltemeyer for a month or two, after which Harry W. Oldham undertook the edi- torship and is still at the head of the paper. A large job-printing business is done by the Oldham company.
Like the Whig organ started in the thirties, the first Demo- cratic newspaper established in Sidney was destined to be per- manent, although ten years elapsed after the first number was is- sued, in January, 1848, before the publication became stable. Its title was frank, and its appeal wide. The first editor of The Demo- cratic Yeoman was William Ramsey, who was succeeded by S. A. Lecky. No one, however, remained long in the editorial chair dur-
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
ing the precarious childhood of the paper, the name of which was changed to 1851 to The Shelby County Democrat; and perhaps a dozen editors took a turn at piloting the little craft among the local shoals and whirlpools until 1860, when A. Kaga (of Tiffin, Ohio) came to Sidney and assumed the conduct of the enterprise for a year, leaving it in April, 1861, to organize a company with which he entered the war.
For a few months a "Democratic Committee" formed for the purpose, ran the publication, finally securing the services of Thomas K. Young as editor. Mr. Young was apparently unconvinced of the propriety or necessity of the Civil war, and presently astonished the town by publishing a violent anti-war editorial, leaving town simultaneously with the appearance of the sheet-to sojourn in Cincinnati, perhaps, until the storm should die down. But the storm aroused in Sidney by the editorial became so threatening that the editor decided it were wiser never to return, and the paper was once more abandoned to the Committee. Incidentally, the editor soon afterward experienced a change of mind (proving that the heart had not been misplaced after all), entered the army himself, and rising by meritorious service to the rank of brevet brigadier- general at the close of the war, afterward serving successively as member of the Ohio senate, and of the national congress, then as lieutenant-governor, and later, governor of Ohio.
In 1863, Joseph McGonigal was brought to the rescue of the Democrat Publishing Committee, editing and managing the paper with such ability that it presently became a self-supporting insti- tution into which Mr. McGonigal took his son-in-law, Dr. Lewis, the firm of McGonigal & Lewis publishing until 1872, when Lewis sold out his interest to Hubbard Hume. The firm of McGonigal & Hume lasted until 1874, when they sold out to James Van Valkenburg, who became editor and manager until his death in December, 1875. James O. Amos, having purchased the establish- ment, then became its editor and proprietor, taking charge Janu- ary 25, 1876. Six years later, in 1882, the Democrat was moved from its two-room headquarters in the little brick building next to the alley on North Ohio street (now occupied by James Way as a law office) to its own new home on South Ohio, adjacent to the People's Savings and Loan building (then the Robertson corner), where the Democrat was doubled in size; where the immense and profitable job printing business was developed, which has become so notable a feature in Sidney's industrial aspect; and where, in 1891, The Sidney Daily News, the first permanent daily paper to be established in the town, was inaugurated at the request of many citizens. In 1892, Mr. Amos purchased the old United Presbyterian church edifice on the south side of the public square, and tore it down, replacing it with a second business block to which the news- papers, weekly and daily, and the printing establishment were all removed in 1893, and where they are permanently located.
Miss Delia Amos, now Mrs. Horace Holbrook, of Warren, Ohio, was managing editor of The Daily News from its inception in 1891 until November, 1905, at which date she, with her husband, left Sidney for Los Angeles, California, where they entered the
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
field of journalism for a time before settling in Warren. Mrs. Holbrook is now joint owner and manager of the Western Reserve Democrat in that city.
Mrs. Holbrook is a brilliant woman, much traveled and with wide experience in different fields of journalistic effort, for several years president of the Ohio Women's Press association, and a familiar figure on its convention platforms.
The whole Amos establishment was incorporated in 1903 as The Sidney Printing & Publishing company, with the personnel including James O. Amos ; his three sons, W. T., E. C. and Howard Amos; and his daughter, Miss Delia Amos. A younger daughter, Miss Kate Amos, a graduate of the Cincinnati School of Art and a thoroughly trained artist and teacher, succeeded to Mrs. Holbrook's post and duties upon the retirement of the latter from the office, and has sustained her reputation. She has become as extensively trav- eled as her sister, besides developing the same business and execu- tive talent. The travel letters of both sisters have been a feature of prominence in the weekly and daily issues of the past, until the world war made much travel a difficulty.
James O. Amos died in the early part of 1919. He was a man of varied talent and abilities, beginning life as a farmer lad, and making his mark successively as school teacher, lawyer, prosecuting attorney (in Monroe county), school examiner, member of Ohio senate by election, and adjutant-general of Ohio by appointment, after the war-all before he came to Sidney in 1876.
Mr. Amos' sons all have received thorough training for their life work, Col. W. T. Amos and E. C. Amos both graduating from Wooster university, while Howard Amos had the advantage of practical experience in the Sidney establishment, with subsequent training in the Chicago Legal News Record office.
A democratic paper was started in Sidney in 1880, by J. T. Hearn, which had for five or six years a very successful existence under the title "The Valley Sentinel." It was for the first three years a weekly, well received, and a wide-awake sheet. In 1883 a daily edition was begun, giving to this paper and its editor the honor of having published the first daily paper in Sidney. No copy of it is obtainable, but it is indistinctly remembered as having passed as "The City Sentinel," to distinguish it from the weekly. The date of discontinuance is unknown, but within a few years after the first issue of the daily, the paper was no more in Sidney.
About 1892, a German newspaper, The Anzeiger, was estab- lished in Sidney by Frank Sieverding of Botkins, and until the entry of the United States into the world war, the paper had a large circulation among the German settlements of Shelby county, also supporting a job printing department. It has now been abandoned.
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