USA > Ohio > Ross County > Chillicothe > Ohio centennial anniversary celebration at Chillicothe, May 20-21, 1903 : under the auspices of the Ohio State Archaelogical and Historical Society : complete proceedings > Part 52
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There are many of the largest and most influential papers of the state which date from a later period. Ohio grew rapidly, for in 1828 the era of canals had been but fairly inaugurated, and the era of railways had not begun. The state increased rapidly in population and wealth, and the newspapers multiplied, as a matter of course. Naturally this was notably the case with the larger cities. The Cincinnati Enquirer, while claiming to date from 1842, can certainly look back to Moses Dawson as its founder. He led the way in print to the naming of Andrew Jack- son for president, and in the thirties founded a tri-weekly in the Queen City. In 1841, the Brough brothers, Charles and John, came to Cincinnati. Their father was of Irish origin and came over with Blennerhassett in 1805. They were printers by trade, and in addition John was a lawyer of marked ability, who became distinguished as a statesman, and as the last of the great "war governors" of Ohio. The Broughs bought Mr. Dawson's Phoe- nix and Advertiser, changing the name to the Enquirer. They conducted the paper until about 1848. Then it passed into the hands of James J. Faran and Washington McLean. Mr. Faran retired from the firm after the war, leaving Mr. McLean the sole proprietor. To him succeeded his son, John R. McLean, its present proprietor, who modernized the paper in every respect, and made it one of the great dailies of national reputation.
Another notable Cincinnati daily was the Commercial, founded in 1845 by Greeley Curtis. In the fifties M. D. Potter 37 O. C.
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succeeded as proprietor, and on his death, early in the civil war, Murat Halstead took the helm. His brilliant work for many years is known to all Ohioans. In the early eighties the Gazette was consolidated with it, under the title Commercial Gazette. Afterward the proprietors of the Cincinnati Tribune purchased a controlling interest, and changed the title to the present one - the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.
Reference has already been made to Charles Hammond, and to the Cincinnati Gazette, founded in 1806. Mr. Hammond was a strong and vigorous writer, and made a deep impress upon the times in which he lived. Richard Smith was at the head of the Gazette during the civil war era, and remained there until the sale to the Commercial. The Gazette always had strong influence over the educated conservative element in the Republican party of Ohio, and in its day was a notable factor in the politics of state and nation.
Another paper which is to-day among the leading sheets of the state is the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In 1834 the Advertiser was established in the Forest City, in 1841 passed into the hands of J. W. Gray, who changed its name to the Plain Dealer. In 1868 it was sold to W. W. Armstrong. It was solely an even- ing paper until 1885, when Hon. L. E. Holden bought it, and be- gan the publication of a morning and a Sunday edition. It and the Leader are the two great Cleveland dailies of to-day.
The Cincinnati Times-Star dates its origin from the found- ing of the Times by C. W. Starbuck in 1840. It was very pros- perous until his death in 1870, when the paper was purchased by the Daily Chronicle. In 1880 this paper and the Star were con- solidated, whence the present title. Under the vigorous manage- ment of Hon. Charles P. Taft, its proprietor, it is now what the old Daily Times was under Starbuck - one of the leading organs of its party in the state, blessed with abundant prosperity.
The northwest quarter of the state -the Black Swamp region - was the last to be settled. It is safe to say the territory bounded in the east by Ottawa, Wood and Hancock counties, thence west to Indiana and north to Michigan, is to be considered at least 50 years later in its development than the remainder of Ohio. Of the great Black Swamp region it may be stated with
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truth that the first generation was occupied in clearing the dense forests that covered it; the second in bearing the burden of cost of the vast system of ditches to drain it, the main ones of which are canals in section ; while the third generation has grown wealthy from the mighty fecundity of the one-time swamp lands, and the stores of oil and gas in which that region abounds - the latter era dating practically from about 1887.
Because of the importance of the mouth of the Maumee as a lake port, and as the terminal of the Miami and Erie and of the Ohio and Wabash canals, Toledo grew rapidly during the late thirties. About the middle of August, 1834, the Toledo Herald appeared - the first paper within the present limits of Lucas county. It was really published in the interests of real estate men in Toledo, who desired a medium through which to adver- tise their lands. The first actual newspaper in Toledo was The Blade, started early in 1836 - as a weekly, of course. On April 17, 1848, the daily edition made its first appearance. The paper, daily, tri-weekly and weekly, had the numerous changes usual to the early days in proprietors, until David Ross Locke, known to fame under his pen-name of Petroleum V. Nasby, assumed its editorship in 1867. In 1876 the Toledo Blade Company was organized, with Mr. Locke as president and owner of a controlling interest. D. R. Locke died February 15, 1888. The control of the paper, one of the most important Ohio dailies, then came into the hands of Robinson Locke, his eldest son, where it still re- mains. The enormous popularity of the Nasby Letters developed the Weekly Blade, which up to that time had but a country circu- lation, into a national weekly, a position it still maintains. It is, so far as the writer knows, the only instance in American jour- nalism of a great weekly newspaper which was built up on the name and work of one man, retaining its success after his demise. For the year of Mr. Locke's death, its paid weekly circulation averaged 112,000 copies ; for the present year its average is over 160,000 per week.
Among the Ohio weeklies of great national circulation, the first in point of time was the Dollar Weekly Times, under Mr. Starbuck's management, which ran up at one time to 125,000 - a most remarkable circulation for that era. The weekly edition
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of the Cleveland Leader was very large, as it received the title of "The Republican Bible of the Western Reserve." The Weekly State Journal was another notable example of large circulation. Besides the Toledo Blade, the only weekly of more than state note in Ohio is the weekly edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer, which stands among the farmers of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Vir- ginia, and perhaps other states, as high as the Weekly Toledo- Blade does among the same class all over the United States.
In speaking of Der Ohio Adler and its English counterpart, the Ohio Eagle, mention has been made of the beginnings of the German press of Ohio. The second German newspaper in Ohio was the Westliche Beobachter und Stark und Wayne County Anzeiger, began at Canton in 1826 by Edward Schaeffer, from Frankfort-on-the-Main. Then he removed to Germantown, and published the third German paper, Die National Zeitung der Deutschen. About the same time the Ohio Chronik was founded in Cincinnati. It and Der Deutsche Patriot, founded in 1832, did not last long. In 1834 Der Weltburger made its appearance in Cincinnati. When it came out for Harrison in 1836, the betrayed German Democrats of Cincinnati clamored for an organ, and the Volksblatt was founded, which is to-day one of the influential German dailies in the United States. The Cincinnati Volksfreund was founded in 1850, and the Freie Presse in 1874. Cleveland had for many years two German papers, the Waechter am Erie, Democratic, founded by August Thieme in 1852, and the Anzei- ger. Both papers were combined a few years ago and now ap- pear under the name Waechter und Anzeiger, a strong Demo- cratic afternoon paper. The German press of to-day fairly rep- resents, in number of papers and in influence, the great German element in our population.
The mutations of politics, especially in the period following the repeal of the Missouri compromise, led to many newspaper changes, and the starting of many new sheets. The gradual de- velopment of the telegraph, which became commercially available to Ohio newspapers in the late fifties of the century recently ended, conduced to the growth of the daily press; but the Civil War, with the insistent public demand for news, caused a revolu- tion in newspaper methods, and a rapid multiplication of papers.
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in the years following the ending of the great conflict. The founding of establishments to furnish stereotype plates of tele- graphic news matter, in the late seventies, led to the development of daily issues by all the leading weekly papers in the county seats. Naturally, as these towns increased in population, their dailies were able to assume the cost of regular news dispatches. Hence, Ohio has to-day, in all her cities of what may be termed the second magnitude, a class of daily newspapers which surpass, as regards their news departments, any daily of the war period, and even to the later seventies. Youngstown, Akron, Zanesville, Springfield, Dayton, Steubenville, and other manufacturing cities have papers which surpass anything in Ohio at the date of com- parison named, and among the multitudinous small dailies and the weeklies, the improvement within the past quarter century has been phenomenal.
It was the hope of the writer that he would be able to include in this article due mention of the individuals most noted in Ohio journalism ; but its length precludes more than general mention. It must suffice to say that the newspaper men of Ohio have been and are men of affairs, many of whom have taken high positions in state and nation. The adequate mention of the men connected with journalism in this state would of itself require more space than that occupied by this paper.
The sincere thanks of the writer are tendered to the news- paper men who have answered his inquiries most cordially and in the fullest degree. His only regret is that the prescribed limits of this paper would not permit the using of the vast amount of interesting matter they kindly placed at his disposal.
OHIO LITERARY MEN AND WOMEN.
W. H. VENABLE.
INTRODUCTORY.
In a recent issue of the New York Sun a writer who obtained his facts from the official report informs his readers that there are more than a million natives of Ohio living in other states and that no other state has such a record. Not even the commonwealth of New York contributes so much to. the population of other states as does Ohio. The figures show that 200,000 natives of Ohio live in Indiana, 90,000 in Michigan, 90,000 in Kansas, 30,000 in California, 15,000 in Oklahoma, 10,- 000 in Texas and nearly 5,000 in Washington City. "Ohio is not so populous a State as Illinois," says the article in the Sun, "but at the time of the last Federal enumeration it had a larger number of persons in the mili- W. H. VENABLE. tary and naval service of the United States than its more populous neighbor. It has more of its natives in Hawaii than Pennsylvania has and it is practically the only Western State which has contributed much to the popu- lation of New England."
The exodic habit upon which the metropolitan journalist dilates, appears to affect Ohioans of every rank and vocation, the soldier, the man of politics, the man of money, the captain of industry, the scientist, the artist, the author. But, "once a Buckeye always a Buckeye," whether at home or away from home. Wherever the Greek goes, there is Hellas: Ohio's migratory sons and daughters go forth equipped with a varied assortment of "Ohio Ideas" adapted to all environments and ready for immediate use.
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The literary men and women from one or another of the eighty-eight shires of Ohio have done and are doing their full part in aiding to establish the supremacy of things true, honest, just, pure and of good report. They have done the State effi- cacious service and their vital influence has pervaded the nation and helped to create public opinion. In every field of intellectual labor their energy has been exerted. Their power has wrought in the upbuilding of institutions political, social and educational, no less than in raising the House Beautiful of letters and art. Their aggregate contribution to the knowledge and culture of the last hundred years is copious and of an average excellence sufficiently high to command the respectful attention of the re- viewer and the historian.
A prodigious mass of printed matter has been manufactured in Ohio since the date of its admission to the Federal Union. The magnitude of the publishing industry in the State may be inferred from the immense trade in special kinds of books, such, for instance, as works on education or law or history.
Statistics show that in the school book business Ohio has long held a leading rank among the producing centers of the world. Millions upon millions of copies of school and college text-books have been published in the State within the last three quarters of a century. Few others states have developed so large a quota of pedagogical authors as has Ohio. A single American company of educational publishers advertises in its trade catalogue, among numerous other issues, about two hundred different books by Ohio authors alone.
In the production and distribution of law-books Ohio has been signally active and progressive. One firm in the Queen City publishes ninety-seven, and another firm fifty-seven stand- ard words-in all one hundred and fifty-four volumes and sets of volumes among which are included many of the most import- ant treatises known to the legal profession-and these are not only published in Ohio, -they are, in the main, composed by Ohio authors.
The output in the State, of original works in medicine, surg- ery, and allied specialties, though not so voluminous as that in law-books, is nevertheless plentiful.
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But perhaps the energy of the Ohio intellect has nowhere been more effectively exerted than in the sphere of history and archæology. The State itself and the several counties of it, afford numberless attractive themes for the annalist, the politician, the student of civilization. Some idea of the amount that has been written concerning the state may be obtained by a glance at Thomson's "Bibliography of the State of Ohio," 1880, which briefly describes over fourteen hundred different books and pamphlets relating almost wholly to the history of Ohio. This number of titles is far greater than is to be found in any printed list of publications bearing upon any other state. The exceptional distinction in which Ohio is held as a center of historical interests and collections was strikingly witnessed to by the late John Fiske who, in his "History of the United States," advised his readers to apply to the "Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, who keep by far the largest collection of books on America that can be found on sale in this country." Ohio writers have shown as much energy and enterprise in historical research and statement as have book-sellers in collecting and cataloguing. Probably the richest and fullest department of the literature produced in the State is the department of history.
The great outside world in general, and, in special, the academic and critical world, will naturally inquire what Ohio has contributed, within the century, to literature proper, literature restricted to writings which appeal to the taste and imagination and which depend for their acceptance upon the artistic and beautiful use of words in fitting forms of prose or poetry. That the accomplishment of Ohio authors, native and adopted, in pure belles lettres, - that is, in polite essay, criticism, oratory, fiction and poetry, - is all that could have been expected and is on a par with the similar work of cotemporary writers in the other states, - it is part of the purpose of this paper to demonstrate.
It would seem from the evidence afforded by the publishing industry, the libraries, colleges and bibliographies, that, in literary activity, Cincinnati holds the lead. Cleveland, of course, ranks next in order and Columbus, third. Other centers of culture in which the vocation of quill-driving has flourished or is now in the flowering or fruiting season, are Chillicothe, Oberlin, Toledo and Springfield. In the oldest burg of the State, the
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dignified little city of Marietta, at least seventy different books by native authors have been published, not to mention a large number of sermons, addresses and magazine articles, by local clergymen and professors. Dayton, Sandusky, Akron, Norwalk, Steubenville, Ashtabula, and a dozen other places within Ohio's borders, have each produced their quota of men and women who write. Almost every village in the State has its library, its literary society, its newspaper, - and can point with pride to its risen or rising stars in the heaven of magazine fame.
The statistics and generalized facts just given, afford suf- ficient evidence that the pen, the press and the bindery, in Ohio, have not been idle during the century the close of which is sig- nalized by a celebration this year, in the old capital, Chillicothe. There is no disputing that books in great abundance and of great variety, have been, and are to be, recokned among the staples pro- duced by a considerable class of Ohio citizens. The old scripture applies to the new age, - "Of making many books there is no end."
What, it may be asked, may be said of the worth, relative and absolute, of this accumulating mass of facts, thoughts, and imaginings, in print ?
The value of a literature must be tested not by quantity but by quality, nevertheless a prolific yield of books implies fecundity in the mental world, as increase of population does in the physical. Some vigor and intelligence are required in making even the feeblest pamphlet. The "American Review of Reviews," for April 1903, contains an article, written by Murat Halstead and entitled, "A Century of the State of Ohio," in which timely and eloquent contribution to Buckeye literature occurs this forceful paragraph: "In addition to the heroic quality of the immigrants who possessed Ohio there seemed to be influences of soil and climate, of airs and waters, of the fruitful woods and living streams ; and there was, by the mighty magic of creation, in the brains and blood, the tissue and sinew of men and the grace and faith of women that yielded a growth of manhood and woman- hood in a race equal to the founding of a mighty nation, with the inheritance of all the Empires gone before-the conquest of the beneficient continent, that in a few generations has given
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weight to America, in the scales of destiny, equal to that of Europe."
The influences, the fruitfulness, the brains and blood in which Mr. Halstead discovers the creative cause of the political and military prowess of the Ohio people, are also the source from which flow the literary energy and enterprize manifested. in the State.
By virtue of its location and history Ohio is a typical com- monwealth, an exponent of the spirit and of the general culture prevailing in the Ohio Valley and in the region bordered by lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior. The five sister states who now divide among them the ownership of what was the Old Northwest are daughters of the Ordinance of 1787, and Ohio, the first born of the five, once held potential sway over the destiny of the whole domain. She transmitted to the younger members of the geographical family, as one by one they took up the functions of maturity, the virtues and aspirations in- herited from her stalwart and ambitious progenitors. A per- sistent likeness of features common to them all denotes the con- sanguinity of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. These states are in commercial and political sympathy, their interests are alike, their organic laws are similar, their systems of education agree, their conceptions of life and art and liter- ature are in essential harmony.
There was an era, and that not so long ago, when the states now called Central, including Kentucky, called themselves dis- tinctively The West, and considered their literature an indi- genous species for the honor and glory of which they contended with passionate provincialism. They were jealous of competi- tion and would protect their infant industry of prose and poetry, by a wall of prejudice. But in the process of nationalization more liberal ideas were evolved and educated people gradually gave up the crude notion that there ought to be or could be an independent, local literature, fostered mainly for home con- sumption. They realized that art is art the world over. A novel or a poem which is worthless in Ohio cannot be good in Massa- chusetts or in Alaska, though it may be marketable; - a book which is intrinsically excellent is excellent everywhere, whether accepted or rejected by the reading public.
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The State of Ohio has become a vital member of the Na- tional Republic of letters. Her authors are not merely Ohio, men and women, they are American men and women.
An element of state pride necessarily and properly enters. into one's feelings and judgments in literature, as in politics, trade or any other sphere of human effort and purpose. But local considerations must merge and lose themselves in larger views. Literature, like patriotism has regard to the whole nation. Not that we love Ohio less, but the United States of America more.
In the realm of books, - in the spacious commonwealth of the fine arts in general, - no state lines are drawn, no bigotry can exist, but universal magnanimity is the law and the motive there. Even national boundaries are freely crossed by the devotee of liberal culture, - genius ranges the globe and is modern through all time. The few great and permanent classics are the world's common treasure no matter in what continent or country they happen to come to birth.
PIONEER BOOKS AND PENS IN OHIO.
The founders of Ohio were not illiterate men. On the contrary many of them had formed the reading habit in the east and they did not neglect to bring books along when they moved to Marietta, Cincinnati, Chillicothe and Cleveland, to establish a new state. There was a public library in Belpre as early as the year 1796. The first Cincinnati library was opened in March 1802, and the far famed "Coonskin Library," in Athens County, began to circulate its precious volumes in the backwoods, in 1803, exactly a century ago.
The first book printed in Ohio was "Maxwell's Code," a small octavo containing the laws of the Northwestern Territory. This appeared in 1796. Dr. Daniel Drake's potent little hand- book, "A Picture of Cincinnati," came out in 1815. In it the author says: "Ten years ago there had not been printed in this place a single volume; but since the year 1811, twelve different books besides many pamphlets, have been executed."
In 1820, John P. Foote started a Type Foundry and a Book Store, in the Queen City, and there, ten years later, the publishing
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house of Morgan, Lodge and Fisher had business enough to require five presses each of which threw off 5000 printed sheets daily. At about the same date, was organized the firm of Tru- man and Smith, which in time grew to be the most extensive schoolbook house in the world. The veteran U. P. James, began to publish in 1832, and his establishment became so flourishing, that it was popularly distinguished as the "Harpers' of the West."
There existed in Cincinnati, in 1813, an organization called "The School of Literature and the Arts," the first president of which was the Honorable Josiah Meigs. Twenty years later, sprung up the "Western Literary Institute and College of Pro- fessional Teachers," of which, an eminent alumnus of Princeton wrote: "It is doubtful whether in one association, in an equal time, there was ever concentrated, in this country, a larger measure of talent, information and zeal." The proceedings of this renowned college may be found in six published volumes of "Transactions," a set of books now rare, and not without value to the student of pedagogics and of early western culture. The energies of the association were eventually transmitted to The Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, The Mechanics' Institute, The Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, The Academy of Fine Arts, and other educative bodies. That such agencies for intellectual advancement were fostered so early in the history of the Buckeye Commonwealth, goes to show that letters and arts had made considerable progress in some parts of the State long before Johnny Appleseed distributed bibles and tracts among the frontier settlers, or Francis Glass, the nomadic schoolmaster of the wildwood, wrote in the Latin language his life of George Washington.
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