USA > Ohio > Ohio and her Western Reserve, with a story of three states leading to the latter, from Connecticut, by way of Wyoming, its Indian wars and massacre > Part 9
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attained, there was no thought in the West- ern Puritan's mind, with its inflexible sense of duty, but to fight for its realization.
From, and before, the days when Storrs had preached his philippics against slavery at Hudson until freedom was made a political issue under Giddings and Wade-who simply put the old Connecticut Puritan idea of lib- erty into a new and potent form-the mass of the people were constantly growing more fervent in zeal, until they constituted, uncon- sciously, an army eager for the fray and only awaiting a commander.
The same slow evolution of forces to which Thomas Hooker, Puritan preacher of Connecticut, had given an initial impulse in 1638 had by 1850 wrought the mass of Re- serve citizens to a realizing sense of the in- iquity of slavery, and by the operation of happy laws of heredity those who were to be the captains in the country-wide contest had been slowly preparing for their great work. The deep but silent, smoldering conviction of the former was finally aroused and organized for action by the fulminating words of the lat- ter, which ultimately fired the whole country.
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But long before that result was reached the society of Puritan pioneers found itself marked with a peculiar and proud distinction. The virile, uncompromising moral and polit- ical spirit of the people, as it began to exer- cise its destined dominance, provoked from their opponents of the press and stump the sneering assertion that the Connecticut Re- serve was "a State separate from Ohio." It did virtually constitute a separate State, or the equal of a State, in sovereignty and in splendid isolation-a State in all save actual organization. Its people had come to possess and exert a power, probably, in proportion to their numbers, greater than any other in the nation, certainly greater than any in the West, and more than any other of their relatively small number they impressed the conscience and swayed the destiny of the nation. From the time of the Free-Soil movement to the close of the antislavery fight the Western Reserve of Connecticut was a literal fortress of freedom and an exhaustless base of supply for the battle at the front.
The early leaders of this Western Puritan force in its fight for freedom, the greatest men
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whom the Reserve contributed to the service of the nation-Joshua Reed Giddings and Benjamin Franklin Wade-were perfect types of the Puritan pioneer society of which they became the political representatives. As such it is interesting to glance at their antecedents and achievements ; for all that has been said of the influence of ancestry and of moral idea -of the persistence of Puritanism in the class-finds forceful confirmation and apt il- lustration in their individual careers.
Giddings and Wade, the twin giants of the Reserve, were of one backwoods county, which they brought into national fame-huge Ashtabula, the political Gibraltar of the Western abolitionists. These two stanch, un- polished statesmen were partners in the pro- fession of law, lifelong friends, colleagues in Congress, one as Representative, the other as Senator. Their origins and early experiences were very like those of thousands of the early comers to the Puritan colony. They had his- tories strangely similar to each other, and they were typical of the times and the land they lived in. Both were of the Puritan pa- triot stock and of distinguished lineage, as
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ancient almost as the settlement of New Eng- land would admit. The Giddings family pro- genitor immigrated to Massachusetts in 1635, and removed to Lyme, Conn., less than a cen- tury later. Their genealogy shows service by some members in the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the war for the Union, and it reveals the names of distinguished Ameri- cans, such as Rufus Choate and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The parents of Joshua R. Giddings were very early Connecticut settlers in Pennsylvania, and it was Jaque there-at Tioga Point- that he was born, in 1795. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. Eleven years later he was brought to the newly opened Reserve, near the site of Jefferson, which was destined to become famous jointly as his and "Ben " Wade's home.
Wade, like Giddings, was of very old fam- ily, the first American forbear becoming a resident of Medford, Mass., in 1632. It takes
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nature a long time to make a man of Benja- min Franklin Wade's stature, and evoluting protoplasm and mysterious mind pass by many strange meanders to perform the function. Massive, rugged, a warrior born, if ever there was one, Wade had strains of blood from two poets-gentle Anne Dudley Bradstreet, daugh- ter of Governor Dudley, born 1612, the fa- mous "Tenth Muse" and first poetess of America ; and austere, profoundly puritanic Michael Wigglesworth, whose quaintly dismal and abysmal Day of Doom gave Cotton Mather pious delight, which he evinced by prophesying that it "would be read in New England until its pictures were realized by the event." The Dudleys were a great peo- ple in the history of old England and of New England, and so were the Uphams, who con- tributed to the molding of the Yankee Puri- tan Ohio Senator, while the Wades themselves were not wanting in honor or fame, for sev- eral of them were officers in the patriot army, and one a privateer of most remarkable ad- ventures. Of the complex yet homogeneously Puritan and patriot blood, the son of poets and fighters, Benjamin Franklin Wade was
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born at "Feeding Hills," now in Springfield, Mass., in the year 1800. He was next to the youngest of eleven children, the younger brother, beside himself the only one destined to fame, being Edward Wade the future Con- gressman. " Ben " Wade, or "Frank," as he was commonly called at his Ohio home, and Edward Wade came to the Reserve in 1821.
There, in Ashtabula County, and eventually in Jefferson, its seat of jus- tice, became united in fast fellowship of political con- victions and general intel- lectual sympathy the lives erchy of the two strongest men of their time in the West- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. ern Reserve. They were not the first, but they were the foremost of a succession of men of ability which this Con- necticut settlement sent to Congress. One, at least, and probably both of them were students at that famous old-time private law school of the region which graduated many great lawyers and several statesmen-the law
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office of Whittlesey & Newton, at Canfield, in Mahoning County. The senior of this firm of perhaps the ablest lawyers in the whole settlement, Elisha Whittlesey, had already entered Congress-he served from 1823 to 1838-and Eben Newton went later.
Giddings succeeded Whittlesey in the House of Representatives in 1838, and began that wonderful career of twenty-one years in Congress, in which, when the mantle of the dying John Quincy Adams fell upon his shoulders in 1840, he became, and remained for a decade, the preeminent leader of the antislavery forces in the House. The end toward which his unceasing and herculean labors tended was freedom; and the means by which that end was attained can be more justly attributed to his foreseeing sagacity than to any other single personal cause. He laid down the principle on which the Free- Soil party planted itself in 1848, and embod- ied it in the Republican platform of 1856 in the resolution declaring the extension of slavery unconstitutional. This was the fun- damental article of faith, and of ultimate force, upon which organized political action
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against slavery was started, and that author- ity upon our political history, Von Holst, testifies that " to Giddings more than to any other person belongs the credit of having with full consciousness made it the constitu- tional basis of the entire warfare against the slave power, and of having applied it with a consistency never before attained, to all ques- tions to which it was pertinent."
Wade supplemented in the Senate the great work of Giddings in the House, coming into the battle in its heat and remaining long enough to be gratified by the complete vic- tory-which was not permitted to Giddings. He served continuously for eighteen years (1851-'69), and became President of the Sen- ate. But a prouder distinction than that was his in being second only to Giddings in the struggle for freedom. In some respects he was his superior.
Neither of these men, it must be noted, were great orators in the true meaning of the term, though both sometimes arose to heights of eloquence which might fairly entitle them to be so classed. Their immense power and momentous achievement must be accredited
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to the burning earnestness of their convic- tions, their indomitable spirit, and irresistible aggressiveness. To this must be added the intelligence and the temper of their constitu- encies, which, with that intense, vital practical- ity (heretofore alluded to as the Western pioneers' paramount addition to Puritanism), persisted in keeping men once proved able and honest at the front of the fight as their cham- pions-a sapient policy, by the way, not to be underestimated as a factor in the political prestige not only of the Western Reserve, but of the State of Ohio.
Both Giddings and Wade represented the best of New England. The mind and morals of Puritanism and an exalted patriotism found convincing utterance through their personal- ities. But they were as representative of the pioneers-as good examples of the potential- ity of the "plain people "-as they were of New England. Their education was of the backwoods, and their gigantic growth of physical and moral stature was gained there. They could handle the rifle with the accuracy of experts, and they learned to fell trees be- fore they studied Blackstone. Giddings
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chopped wood and split rails, like Abraham Lincoln, and Wade worked on the Erie Ca- nal, as Garfield did upon that in Ohio. Both were stately, stalwart men, six feet or more in stature, whose every motion displayed power of mind and body. Both were mor- ally made up from the full trinity of ances- tral influences, supplemented by Western vigor and radicalism. They had alike the New England genius for general reform, rec- ognized its new needs in the West, and both came early to oppose alcoholic intemperance, as they did slavery, when the doctrine was exceedingly unpopular.
The graves of these two friends, constant companions, coworkers, as they were through life, fittingly lie close together in the little cemetery of the green and quiet village of Jefferson, which their lives and works made historic ground. Relics of the two fearless, sturdy statesmen abound in the town. Their quaint old law offices are preserved, and these and the graves of Giddings and Wade are alike the Mecca of pilgrimages of grateful gray-headed black men who were one time slaves, and of reverent readers of history.
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Something of the powerful personality of these heroic men seems still to pervade the shaded and hushed streets where once they walked. The very quietude and simplicity of the surroundings conforms to the character of the men who fared forth from this rural village ; but what a contrast it suggests to the stern strenuousness of their careers and the resounding clash of conflict they brought about ! They were not the mere pioneers of a place and people, but the resolute pioneers of a vast moral revolution. Yet, practically, the training of these warriors of world-wide fame had its inception here in one of the ob- scurest villages of a young colony. They were the greatest product of the Connecticut Reserve, and its greatest gift to the nation. It was through them that the distinctive char- acter of the colony made its chief impress upon the country and gained public fame. Reflec- tion upon their achievement and their influ- ence in molding the national mind compels appreciation of the enormous significance of the settlement and the truest triumph of Con- necticut in the West.
These men represented a terribly strong
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and yet a morally restrained radicalism ; but John Brown, also of the Reserve, a fierce and fanatical radicalism. He, whom Fate hurled, a human firebrand, to light the actual and consuming conflagration in the already smok ing flax, was brought here from Connecticut as a child of five years, and it was from here that he and his sons went into “bleeding Kansas," and he, ultimately, to that death which has given him in history an equivocal position between hero and fanatic.
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CHAPTER VII
THE RESERVE'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO PUBLIC SERVICE
NOTHING denotes more decidedly than its relatively large number of famous men the intellectual energy of a community. As the old Connecticut was made conspicuous in the first half of the nineteenth century by the multitude of its prominent men (as is set forth in Chapter I), so the New Connecticut became noted in later generations for its prolific pro- duction of men who became notable as law- yers, legislators, statesmen, soldiers, authors, educators, scientists, inventors ; and thus, in this respect, as in many others, asserted her- self the most worthy daughter of a wonderful mother State.
There were other Congressmen than Wade and Giddings in the Reserve's list who shed luster upon it and performed valuable service for the nation. Jacob Brinkerhoff, the fore-
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runner of a family conspicuous in Ohio, and one of the very few not of New England ori- gin, but of Hollandish and Huguenot stock for many generations in America, came early to Plymouth, on the extreme southern border of the Reserve, and as a Congressman from 1843 to 1847 assisted the work of a Con- necticut-Pennsylvania colleague, David Wil- mot, the original draft of whose famous " proviso " he drew. A relative, Henry R. Brinkerhoff, went to Congress from one of the western counties of the Reserve; but more noted of those from that region were Eleutheros Cooke, Joseph M. Root, and James Monroe, of Oberlin. Among those from the eastern and middle districts there should not pass unmentioned Peter Hitchcock, Elisha Whittlesey, Jonathan Sloan, Sherlock J. An- drews, Edward Wade, Sidney Edgerton, John Hutchins, Albert Gallatin Riddle, Rufus P. Spalding, William H. Upson, Ezra B. Taylor, Tom L. Johnson, and Stephen A. Northaway. Of Senators not otherwise mentioned there are the pioneer Harley Griswold, the latter- time Henry B. Payne, and, latest of all, Mar- cus Alonzo Hanna.
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James A. Garfield, it must also be borne in mind, was a long-time Congressman, and for a very short period Senator, before he was President. This typical man of the Reserve, who turned the eyes of the whole nation to- ward it, like Wade and Giddings, of the long- lined New England stock from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, was born at Orange, educated (in part) at Hiram, and went to the White House from Mentor. William McKinley, the second President of the United States furnished by the Reserve, like Garfield long time a Congressman, was born at Niles.
Then, too, among men of note who have entered the halls of national legislation from other States, but who had earlier homes in the Reserve, there should be mentioned Sen- ator and, earlier, Representative, Bishop W. Perkins, who succeeded Preston B. Plumb, from Kansas ; Senator John P. Jones, of Ne- vada ; Congressman Horr, of Michigan, who emigrated from the western, and Senator Ju- lius Cæsar Burrows, of the same State, from the eastern, portion of the Reserve (who left two brothers of not less ability and of equally
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classic names in his old home). It may be remarked en passant that the apportionment will only admit of a very minute percentage of those natives of the Reserve who have the requisite ability entering Congress directly from this phenomenally favored region, and so some of the most aspiring must seek less crowded, if more roundabout, paths by way of other localities. Altogether, the Reserve has supplied the nation with two Presidents, five Senators, and its full complement of Con- gressmen, besides members of the Cabinet, foreign ministers, and United States district judges. When it is borne in mind that the Reserve is but little more than one-seventh of the State of Ohio, it will be seen that she has supplied men of national note in excess even of the large proportion for which Ohio has deservedly held high repute.
But her contributions to the civil roster of the State have been scarcely less important and indicative of her prominence as an inte- gral part of the commonwealth than have those to the nation. She has furnished a full score of its Supreme Court judges, among them perhaps more than her share of Chief Justices
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(of whom one not heretofore mentioned was Judge Rufus P. Ranney, a jurist of national reputation), and no less than six chief exec- utives, including the "war Governors." Of these the pioneer Samuel Huntington-to whom tribute has already been paid-was her first. He was the second elected Gov- ernor of the State, and served from 1808 to 1810. Later came Seabury Ford (1848-'49), and Reuben Wood (1850-'51), both, like Huntington, New Englanders. When the war broke out David Tod, of the old Connect- icut settlement of Youngstown, was elected Governor in the autumn of 1861, and gave the State an efficient administration, which made it one of the strong forces in the prosecution of the war. In the campaign of 1863 another candidate from the Reserve was put forward -John Brough, a native, indeed, of that other New England settlement, Marietta, but then a resident of Cleveland, a "war Democrat," who had years before been a popular and powerful leader, and he was triumphantly elected over Vallandigham. Brough died in the summer of 1865, and was succeeded by the Lieutenant-Governor; but at the fall
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election still another Western Reserve candi- date was put forward in the late Major-Gen- eral Jacob Dolson Cox, who was essentially a "war Governor," though after war time. The most distinguished Ohio soldier who went into the war without military education or experience (whose close second was Gar- field, also a major-general from civil life) was overwhelmingly elected, and was the sixth representative of the Connecticut corner of · the State in the executive office. Later, Gen- eral Cox was Secretary of the Interior in President Grant's first Cabinet, and still later a member of Congress.
If we pursue the list of civil war gen- erals contributed by the Reserve we find that, besides Garfield and Cox, there were the two Paines-Halbert E. and Eleazar A. (the latter a graduate of West Point)-both major-gen- erals, Q. A. Gillmore, Russell A. Alger, Emer- son Opdyke, Joel A. Dewey, and J. W. Reilly.
But not alone in politics, statesmanship, and martial glory have the matron's jewels shone. The domains of literature and art and the department of education and general cul- ture in the country at large have received re-
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peatedly the impetus of some reenforcement from the intellectually fresh and fecund West- ern Reserve, though in the latter cause it may perhaps be admitted that she has done more for her own sons and daughters than for those of her neighbors.
As the child of Connecticut who could find no better use for the price paid for the lands of this district than to devote it to her public schools, it was natural that the young Connecticut should foster education. She did so from the outstart. Not only the common schools, but institutions of higher learning sprang up with surprising quickness, and flour- ished with astonishing vigor, in some cases, to most gratifying fruition.
Of several academies in the new settle- ment, one developed into Western Reserve College, located at Hudson. The germ was planted in 1803, and the college came into existence in 1826. The strong predilection of the people was expressed in the pet patro- nymic bestowed upon this institution-"the Yale of the West "-and that, too, defined the aim and ambition of its founders. It at- tained dignity and thoroughness, and with a
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faculty containing from the first some famous educators soon became an institution of con- siderable worth in developing culture and character in the New Connecticut.
It was preeminently the college of the first-born of the pioneers, and many of the more well-to-do and aspiring among them laid there the foundations for future useful- ness and success. It put forth at an early day a medical department, which obtained wide recognition. This was planted in Cleve- land, to which city the entire institution, now known as the Western Reserve University- of which Adelbert College, nobly endowed, is the chief factor-was removed in 1882. An exception from the first to the rule that small colleges are feeble and sorry institutions, it has constantly risen toward ideal standards as it has increased in attendance and general prosperity. A great impetus was given its ascendancy by the reorganization effected under Rev. H. C. Haydn, and now under the presidency of Rev. Charles F. Thwing it has perhaps a thousand students, a large fac- ulty containing many educators of more than local note, and a noble library, with all de-
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partments housed in stately, scholastic archi- tecture. But in one respect it remains un- changed since it was the Yale of the pioneers' sons : although unsectarian, a great prepon- derance of its students are of the Presby. terian and Congregational faiths, which pre- vailed among their fathers.
As we have already seen, it was an early president of this college who was the pioneer of antislavery agitation in the West. The in- stitution became famous largely through his radicalism, but the marked ability of its fac- ulty also contributed to its repute. Many of its members attained distinction there or else- where, Laurens P. Hickok, its first Professor of Theology, becoming President of Union College, New York, and others being called to the larger Eastern colleges.
Hiram and Wooster-the former known principally to fame through the presidency of that sound scholar the late Burke A. Hins- dale, D. D., subsequently of Michigan Univer- sity, and the fact that it was the school which Garfield attended ; and the latter kept in the minds of men by its medical department, ri- valing in Cleveland that of the Western Re.
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serve-were two more meritorious institutions which attested the zeal of the young colony in education.
Oberlin came into being, and still stands for an idea about equally embodied in town and college, both rather curiously created and maintained by one force. It had its origin in 1833 in an evangelistic movement, and may be regarded as an extra-condensed concretion, or crystallization, of the ultra-radical religious element in the Reserve, just as "the Yale of the West " was of the more conservative mind. Oberlin carried coeducation to a convincing success with a rush, and it may be looked upon as demonstrating equally well another coeducation than that combining the sexes- a coeducation in Congregationalism and secu- lar science. It represents radicalism in prac- tical application (even to the prohibition of tobacco), the most marked demonstration of which was in the old-time abolition movement and its service as a station of the " Under- ground Railroad." It affords a liberal train- ing to thousands-it has about 1,400 stu- dents-and sends them into the world as well equipped with religious and philosoph-
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ical ideas of the " benevolent theory " as with more worldly knowledge. Its great names were those of Finney and Keep-Rev. Charles G. Finney and "Father " John Keep-but its greatest that of ex-President James Harris Fairchild, all of New England, and the last- named probably the foremost educator of the Western Reserve.
Of the other advanced educational insti- tutions, Lake Erie College, founded at Pains- ville, in 1856, for the education of young women, is peculiarly of New England initia- tive, being the eldest daughter of Mount Holyoke. Besides all these, there is Buchtel College at Akron, Baldwin and German Wallace at Berea, and various normal and special schools, as the Case School of Applied Science, in Cleveland.
Education flourished so well on the fresh, strong soil to which it was transplanted that some of the best seed was carried back to replenish the old garden from whence the stock came, or, to change the metaphor, a reflex tide set in, and Connecticut, which had long supplied teachers for her colony, some years ago began to receive them from it. The
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