USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > The story of Dayton > Part 9
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The tone of the early papers is a revelation of social and commercial manners. As in the exchange of personal inter- course, they exhibited a spirit of hortative arrogance. To be on opposing sides of a political question fifty years ago made ruthless enemies. For this situation the papers were largely to blame. The bitterness of the Jackson and Clay campaigns reverberated for years. The Civil War revived and made it worse. Men who in private life and in their own homes prided themselves on the possession of all the Christian virtues, were wont to indulge in printed opinions that were best left unread.
The advertisements in the old newspapers reveal the flavor of old times, with their queer punctiliousness in trifles, their limited outlook, and their antiquated point of view. Social history speaks between the lines. In those days there were no business men wearing sack coats, but "gentlemen" in top hats and frock coats.
Here are some instances :
JAMES McDANIEL Officers uniforms, suits, belts, &c to Gentlemen.
112
GAZETTE OFFICE.
BOOK BINDERY. BIN
Main Street in 1850, looking north from Third.
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Journalism in Dayton
PHILLIPS HOUSE BARBER HOUSE, by Alf Jackson I am now refitting my establishment in tasteful style and will employ none but competent workmen to wait upon the gentlemen who visit my shop.
What they thought was a "mammoth" newspaper is re- vealed in this announcement in 1862:
BUY THE DAYTON JOURNAL WAR WEEKLY News of the WAR up to the Hour! MAMMOTH DOUBLE SHEET! QUARTO FORM! EIGHT PAGES! FORTY-EIGHT COLUMNS!
This martial notice has in it the sentiment of the sixties : MEN OF OHIO! Finish your harvest and then to the rescue of the Govern- ment which has shielded and protected your homes. FIFTY ABLE BODIED MEN WANTED for three years. ENLIST IN THE 79th, COL. CHAS. ANDERSON Command. Recruiting office N. W. Corner Main and Fourth.
The girls that saw the Anderson Guards march out to join the Army of the Potomac, had one eye on the soldiers and one on the spring styles. Their costumes were planned according to what RIKE AND PRUGH had to offer. In April, 1863, it was,
PRINTS, LAWNS, DELAINES, BAREGES, MOZAM- BIQUES, best in town for cash. NEW HOOPSKIRTS, LACE MANTILLAS. 319 THIRD STREET.
SOMETHING NEW! SPOOL SEWING SILK
Over fifty different colors. Much better than skein silk. All trouble of winding saved. Daniels Millinery Rooms. 47 Main Street.
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Some advertisers had a sense of humor, even in shoes. THE LAST WORDS of Marion to Chester was to CHARGE!
Under the circumstances it was perhaps good advice, but the subscribers at 81 Jefferson Street
DON'T CHARGE and those who buy from him get GOOD SHOES CHEAP
Gentlemen's fine sewed and pegged boots to order. "ALLAN JEFFERS."
They played tricks, too, on the unsuspicious reader, as witness :
WAR WITH MEXICO!
It is now no longer doubted that Mexico has commenced hostilities against the United States. If they had used the same remedies to avoid the difficulty that they will have to in order to be made sensible of their mistake, they never would have taken the steps they have, but would have had their SIGHT BRIGHTENED, and their
EYES OPENED, their UNDERSTANDING RAISED By the use of two remedies, LIGHT'S EYE WATER, and LIGHT'S QUICK YEAST. For sale by all druggists
FASHIONABLE DANCING.
Mr. Yeo, Professor of Dancing, begs to inform the Ladies and Gentlemen that he has taken the National Hotel Ball Room to give lessons in the following new and fashionable Dances: QUADRILLES, WALTZES, all the different forms, GALLOPADES, MAZOURKAS, LA POLKA.
Gentlemen's class from 8 to 10, $6 per quarter. Ladies $5.
WRITING ACADEMY S. Easton
Has just commenced giving lessons in PENMANSHIP at the Academy, near the Lancasterian Seminary. He teaches the SWIFT ANGULAR RUNNING HAND, the ROUND RUN- NING HAND, the WAVING HAND, the ORNAMENTAL ITALIAN HAND. He also instructs in making pens. Ladies attend at 4 o'clock P. M. Gentlemen at 8 in the evening. At those hours, the bell will be rung. Scholars furnish stationery. A considerable number of Ladies and Gentlemen have already subscribed.
Specimens of scholars' improvement may be seen at the Academy.
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Dayton, July 22d, 1823.
Here is a small event that casts an important shadow. It is dated the "Journal and Advertiser," July, 1831.
GRAND EXHIBITION!
A locomotive or steam carriage drawing a car on a miniature railroad will be exhibited at Machir and Hardcastle's warehouse near the basin on July 1st and 2nd. The exhibition works with great celerity and precision, drawing a miniature car in which two persons can ride at the same time. The novelty of this machine has never failed to excite the admiration of all who have seen it.
Ladies and gentlemen are respectfully invited to call and ride.
Admittance twenty-five cents. Children half price.
THE MARVEL OF THE AGE GENERAL TOM THUMB AND MRS. THUMB Also COMMODORE NUTT and his wife, will be exhibited at Huston Hall. All are invited.
The subjoined notice is a small bit of the financial his- tory of 1837. Wild speculation all over the country had brought an alarming depression of business, resulting in the failure of many small banks. Silver was consequently
0.
On demand F
BÀ CENTS. Praise to pay
The Beaver SIX & A QUARTER CENTS in I paris , when the sum of one Dollar is presented . at my Office in Dayton, Ohio anton, 1838.
FACSIMILE OF THOMAS MORRISON'S SHINPLASTERS.
scarce, and as a substitute for small coin, "shin-plasters," as they were called, were issued by merchants. These were small paper bills proclaiming a "promise to pay," and were accepted in good faith by every one throughout the business
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world. The time came when a law was passed prohibiting the further use of shin-plasters, and with it the golden op- portunity for a man to repudiate his debts if he so pleased.
Thomas Morrison, a well-known builder, and a local character in his way, had issued a quantity of shin-plasters on the basis of his large holdings of real estate. When the law went into effect, he was obliged to be away from town, and fearing that his honesty might be questioned if he stayed too long, issued this reassuring declaration.
PUBLIC NOTICE! SHIN-PLASTERS IN DANGER! Fellow Citizens:
I am compelled to leave town to build a mill at Greenville. I leave Dayton with regret because the law prohibiting the circulation of shin-plasters is soon to take effect. I wish to satisfy my fellow citizens that I am not the man under any circumstances to take advantage of a law by which the State allows me to act the rascal. I intend to redeem every note I have put in circulation, and that as soon as I return, and will do it with pleasure and satisfaction.
I desire my fellow citizens and all who have confidence in my word of honor not to refuse to take them until my return, when every cent shall be paid with the addition of six per cent. interest.
On my return I will give public notice so that holders of my notes may call.
Thomas Morrison. June 26th, 1838.
Since the days of those early newspapers what mar- velous accomplishments has the journalistic profession achieved ! If a Rip Van Winkle editor of the early fifties could enter a modern newspaper office, he would understand nothing that met his eyes. With its four-decker Hoe presses, its linotype machines, Associated Press service, its pneumatic tubes, typewriters, adding machines; its army of pressmen, compositors, and news-gatherers, the up-to- date newspaper is one of the modern Seven Wonders.
But perfection of equipment and official efficiency do not tell the whole story. In the old days before the syndi- cating of newspapers, when the owner, publisher, and ed- itor were one and the same man, when he was personally responsible to the public and his party leaders, when he
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Journalism in Dayton
asked favors of no man and gave none, journalism was not without a fine flavor of adventure.
An early predecessor of the "Journal"* bore this device on its first page.
"PRINCIPLES AND NOT MEN WHEN PRINCIPLES DEMAND THE SACRIFICE."
The sentiment was printed in deadly earnest. Abso- lute fearlessness was the order of the day. An editor said what he thought and said it hard if he risked all he owned in the saying, and if it hurt where it hit, so much the worse for those who stood in the way. During the Civil War
Main Street in 1S55. Reproduced from an old wood cut in Howe's History of Ohio.
when party feeling ran high, an editor was not sure when he started for his office in the morning if he would reach there alive. One editor never did; he was shot down as he passed along the street, a victim to fearlessness in the ex- pression of personal opinion.
During those four years the "Journal" said what it pleased, with bitterness it is true, but with consummate bravery, until a mob surrounded the building and burned it
*"The Ohio National Journal and Montgomery County- Dayton Advertiser" (Whig) 1826.
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out ; the next week it moved its presses, or what was left of them, into the middle of the next block north, and went on saying what it pleased, just as bitterly and just as bravely. That was when W. F. Comly was editor and manager. He, with W. D. Bickham and John G. Doren, were the three war editors, men utterly unlike and at oppo- site poles of political opinions, but each left his individual imprint upon the thought of the day. The first was editor of the "Journal" from 1863 to 1894, and of him it was said, ** "In his management of the 'Journal' he exhibited a breadth of view, public spirit, and thor- ough disinterestedness of which only the noblest class of men are capable."
Major William D. Bickham, Editor "Dayton Journal" from 1863 to 1894.
The years of his administra- tion covered the most thrilling years of our national history, the years preceding and those of the war itself. That such a tribute could have been offered to the memory of a man who worked during the clashing bitterness of such conflicting interests is praise indeed.
William D. Bickham-"Major Bickham," as he was known to all-came to Dayton in 1863 on a special errand. He was selected by President Lincoln to keep public opinion inflamed against Vallandigham and force his retirement from Dayton. It was a dangerous task and was accepted with only one proviso. "I have young children," said the major; "will they be safe from violence?" The President
** Mary D. Steele, "Early Dayton."
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Journalism in Dayton
assured him that the United States Government would en- sure the protection of his family, and so that post was ac- cepted and the duties entered upon with such fearlessness as few editors either then or now would undertake.
Bickham was, as a writer, both caustic and witty. His words bit through. "A prince of paragraphers" he was called. There was no pressure on earth to stop him. A bullet might, but it did not happen to.
The war at an end, much remained to be done in the reconstruction of the news service of the day. Eastern papers held a monopoly of control and the small west- ern papers took what news they could get, and when, -an irksome situation to an ambitious editor. Major Bickham was one of the earliest promoters of the Western Associated Press Service, as it was then known, and with seven other directors, pulled the monopoly out of the hands of the eastern press and brought the news of the world promptly to our doors.
When, in 1869, John G. William F. Comly, Editor "Journal" from 1834 to 1862. Doren, an unknown and unheralded stranger, came to Dayton and undertook to edit and publish a Democratic paper, it was about as unpromising a venture as could be imagined. The war of gunpowder was over, but not the war of prejudice and unfair competition. His party was in a hopeless minority. The "Daily Democrat" was a target for sharp firing on all sides; from his political opponents,
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from conflicting business interests, and from the leaders in the opening struggle between capital and labor.
Mr. Doren pleased nobody except a few kindred think- ers; he made no concessions and consequently no money, but he kept right on. His paper won standing and influence, and under his steady leadership the feeble Democratic mi- nority grew to a triumphant majority. And for more than party success did Mr. Doren fight. His was a fervent nature, always fighting at white lieat against intrenched wrong. Never was such a foe to "bossism" in or out of politics, nor such a stalwart defender of the work- ing man in or out of the "union." For him there was no compromise, no personal aims, no considerations of policy. He carried the banners during twenty years of unflinching work for civic righteousness and edu- John Gates Doren, Editor "Dayton Democrat" from 1870 to 1889. cational progress, and was not only in the front line, but in ad- vance of his time as proved later by the realization of proj- ects which he was first to advocate.
CHAPTER XIV. 1830-1870.
More Men Who Have Made Dayton.
John W. Van Cleve, engineer, musician, botanist, artist, na- ture-lover, teacher, geologist. Robert W. Steele, educator, writer, scholar, director, trustee. E. E. Barney, principal of two schools, horticulturist, inspirer, captain of industry. Others we like to remember.
In a former chapter, we wrote that some of the early citizens left sons who took up their fathers' work and im- proved it. In every community there are sons who do not care, and sons who do. The first are born, make a living and die, no one but their immediate family being the better for it. Their names are never mentioned in connection with the city in which they have lived. The second also come into the world, surrounded with responsibilities more or less exacting, but to them the prosperity of Dayton has been a personal and constant concern. When they are gone, people wonder how the city is to get on without them.
It was written, recently, that what this country needed more than anything else was "Inspired Millionaires," mean- ing men of leisure and wealth whose enthusiasm could be depended upon to promote things otherwise neglected. Such a man was John Van Cleve, son of Benjamin Van Cleve, of whom so much has already been chronicled. He was not by any means a millionaire,-far from it,-but the leisure which an assured income bestowed was used for the benefit of Dayton.
You must know John Van Cleve if for nothing more than that he loved our city so deeply. A bachelor with few relatives, Dayton was home, family, and fireside to him. Note-book in hand, he walked the streets, putting down ideas that suggested themselves to him as desirable im-
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The Story of Dayton
provements. His ambition was to see Dayton resemble the elm-shaded town in New England, therefore he planted trees throughout the length of Main Street and on both sides of the levee. These branching elms which now shade the boule- vard are his monuments. To know how beautiful the classic facade of our courthouse looked, when seen be-
The Courthouse in 1860, surrounded by the elms which Van Cleve planted.
tween the arched greenery of branching trees, you must be at least sixty years old ; for the elms are gone,-long ago,- destroyed by a careless public sentiment. Shrubs and vines are still growing in old gardens in Dayton, whose roots Van
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More Men Who Have Made Dayton
Cleve brought in from his country walks and planted in his friends' enclosures.
Woodland Cemetery belongs to his memory infinitely more than to the other thousands buried there. For that hill appealed to him as the place to be consecrated to Day-
John Van Cleve's grave at Woodland Cemetery.
ton's dead-overlooking the scenes of their earthly labors. Against all kind of opposition, he saw that the work was planned and accomplished, he being one of those who see ahead. Not only are the curving driveways, the grouping
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The Story of Dayton
of shrubbery, and the variety of forest trees in Woodland due to Van Cleve's loving provision, but the actual sur- veying, the platting and clerical work, were all done by him without remuneration,-a labor of love.
Van Cleve loved study and he also loved to work. With these two habits passionately pursued, one can get almost anywhere. Proficiency in the classics made him a teacher of Latin and Greek, even before his graduation from the Ohio University at Athens. It was said that he went through Colburn's Mental Arithmetic at one sitting, so charmed was he with the combination of mathematics and philosophy. An absorbing love for nature led to a study of the rocks underlying our soil, and made him a prac- tical geologist; through his admiration for flowers he be- came an authority on botany. He prepared a classified col- lection of fossils and an admirable herbarium, both of which were presented to Dayton institutions, but have now quite disappeared.
It was Van Cleve's love of music that made him first president of the Pleyel Society, the forerunner of all our musical clubs. For years Christ Church choir sang to his organ accompaniment and leadership. His enthusiasm for books led to the founding, in 1847, of the Dayton Library Association. His private library was extensive and well selected. If he loaned, he loaned only to book-lovers like himself, duly entering the transaction in a ledger kept for the purpose. The periodicals of the day not seldom bore his signature to articles of special interest. For everything of interest appearing in this book, it is to the memory of Van Cleve, rather than to the writer, that thanks are due, because it was his wise care which saved files of newspapers, reports of societies, minutes of meetings, and placed them in the keeping of the Public Library for future reference.
Personally, John Van Cleve was a lovable though eccen- tric man. Sensitive on account of his immense physical girth, he refused to sit for a picture, and we are therefore now the poorer. His friends were many and admiring.
MANAGERS.
Opening Entertainment.
PRIEBIPS
Thursday Evening, October 14, 1852.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
J. D PHILLIPS
DANIEL BECKEL,
J. G LOWE,
SAMUEL CRAIGHEAD,
J. C. PEIRCE.
DR. E. SMITH,
ADAM SPIECE,
CHARLES HARRIES,
FIELDING LOURY,
E. A. PARROTT,
D. E. MEAO,
J. L. WESTON.
TICKETS FIVE DOLLARS.
Each Ticket will admit one Gentleman and Ladies and may be obtained of the Executive Committee or Proprietor.
H G Phillips,
John Rench,
Valentiee Wielers,
Samuel Doyle.
Peter Voorhees,
J W VanCleve,
H K Steelo, R N Comly.
Henry Fowler,
Jacob Bnestine,
Alex Gebhart,
A DeGraff,
Judge Morse,
James R Young.
James Turpin,
Jackson Langdon,
W J Mckinney,
J W Harries,
R R Dickey,
J M Smith,
H V Perrine,
F. W Davies,
Col J Greer,
H L Brown,
Joseph Dusang,
R W Steele,
L Huesman
David Clark,
Inseph Barnett.
D W Iddings,
Warren Estahrook,
Peter Odlin,
J W Dietrich,
W Westerman,
T J S Smith,
G W Clason, Robert Chambers.
A L Stour,
Frederick Gebhart,
Alexander Swaynie,
Dr J Clements,
Jnmrs Mr Damel,
G W Houk,
C G Grimes,
W W Thompson,
R F Shoup,
William Eaker,
Edward Wetherall,
T A Phillips,
Thomas H McGhec,
Charles Eaker,
J B Chapman,
R D Harshman,
Jacob Gilbert,
D B John,
fiilbert Kennedy,
Dr J Davis,
M J Parrott.
W Dixon, Daniel Eichelberger,
N B Darst,
Francis Collins,
C'hss Herrman,
Charles Ells,
& C Einley,
Samuel Shoup,
Sunon Gebhart,
Harvey Conover,
Jacob Jamison,
R P Brown,
Webster Pease,
Jamiea Perrine,
D' A Haynes,
S Shaeffer.
J H Peirce,
Major L Giddings,
De J Walters,
J G Crane,
I C VanAusdul, Smith Davison, R J King,
Christian Forrer,
Joseph Clegg,
Dr Langstedt,
& C Decker,
S B Brown,
J F Harrison,
F Holliday,
Williein Harries,
F M Jennings,
leone Haas,
W F Comly,
Grove Stutanıun,
John Kennedy.
H M Brown,
W B Conover,
Geo Owen,
DAYTON JOURNAL JOM OFFICE
Program of Opening of Phillips House, Loaned by Mr. J. P. Breene
Jonathan Harshman,
D H Bruen,
J V Perrino, P Carnes,
D Z Peirce, Judgo R S Hart,
Col 1 N Partridge,
Christian Herehelrede.
D G Fitch,
A H Munn,
P P Lowe,
Col J Patterson,
J O Conklle,
W H Piper,
J P Dodda,
C L Vallondigham,
O R Swain,
Jonstban Kenney,
M S Walker,
R Ayres,
Dr W Pease,
T L Smilb,
John Howard,
Richard Greop,
FROOME
Alexneder Grimes,
1.Il .Kiersled,
Hornce Passe,
J L Miller,
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The Story of Dayton
The children who at his invitation accompanied him on ex- cursions to the woods, looked upon these occasions as the most delightful of their lives. He knew so much ; he made things so interesting ; he had such a sense of humor. Hav- ing no home or children of his own, he borrowed both, re- paying with compound interest.
When this lover of art and human nature lay dying at the Phillips House, a younger man came to the sick room to take his last messages. To this friend were instructed the plans for Dayton, toward which Van Cleve had worked and which he now felt must be given up.
Robert W. Steele, the son of Judge James Steele, was the friend to whom this task was be- queathed. It was nobly fulfilled. For half a century the work which Van Cleve laid down, Robert Steele carried on; the same interest in education, to which the name of the great high school is the best proof; the same pride and care for Wood- land Cemetery, as the books of the association still testify; the same interest in horticulture, as the members of the society will Robert W. Steele. bear witness; the same devotion to books and readers, as his constant and intelligent service to the library is remembered.
As member of the Board of Education for thirty years and president for twelve, Robert Steele's service was not merely official, but intimate and practical. No other member of the board frequented the schools more regularly than he. As a visitor to the debates in the Philomathean Society at the high school, or the girls' composition class at Cooper Seminary, Mr. Steele was always welcome.
1
The Conover Building, for sixty years a landmark on the corner of Third and Main.
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The Story of Dayton
We should also chronicle Robert Steele's services to Day- ton as trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association, of the Children's Home, of the Board of Cooper Seminary and as President of the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War.
While not withdrawn from his neighbors, and in full sympathy with their pursuits, he found his chief delight among his books. He read the great writers and translated their messages into terms of modern thought. He kept abreast of the best thinkers and applied the knowledge prac- tically for the benefit of his fellow men. Hundreds of men and women in Dayton, whose memory of their school days is yet young, owe to the quiet, wise intelligence of Robert Steele more than can be expressed in words.
It is fortunately not only to good sons of good fathers that Dayton owes gratitude. There have been and will be in the future, we hope, importations of citizenship whose loyalty to their adopted home has been a gracious thing.
Such a one was E. E. Barney, who came from New York in 1831, and put the stamp of his individuality upon more than one interest in our community. He was born in a log house, the eldest of eleven children, educated out of the family pittance by a self-sacrificing father, and inspired to use it to noble ends by a loving mother. The suit of clothes he wore when starting to college was spun, woven, dyed, and made by his mother and sisters.
It was a happy accident that brought E. E. Barney to Dayton and made him principal of the Academy on Fourth and Wilkinson. A teacher by passion and instinct, he was, as an instructor, fully fifty years ahead of his time. He not only made his pupils learn, but he made them in love with learning. During his first term at the Academy, nine students were enrolled ; in the second, eighty-five. Thirteen years after his association with the Academy, Mr. Barney was invited to become principal of Cooper Seminary for girls, just then incorporated.
These facts would seem to point to teaching as the supreme work of his life, therefore it will be a surprise to
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More Men Who Have Made Dayton
learn that the business world of Dayton owed as much, if not more, than the educational field, to his intelligent stim- ulus. In 1851, the railroad touched our circle, and brought with it a demand for cars. Mr. Barney knew much less about manufacturing than he did about algebraic equations, nevertheless the demand for cars was undertaken promptly and scientifically. Beginning with a capital of ten thousand dollars and a single building, the plant gradually increased to its extent of twenty-eight acres. Carrying an instinct for imparting knowledge into his relations with the employees, Mr. Barney instituted a salesman's school in order to instruct his representatives in the prin- ciples of marketing the com- pany's products. A constant watch for promising material among his employees and the en- couraging of them to greater self-improvement, bore wonder- ful fruit in the spirit of the fac- tory operatives.
It is as a national, rather than a local personage, that we ap- proach General Robert C. Schenck. Long before his repu- tation was gained in military and diplomatic circles, he was a prac- E. E. Barney. ticing lawyer, here in Dayton, first with Judge Crane, after- wards with Wilbur Conover. Oxford was his Alma Mater and he studied under Thomas Corwin at Lebanon. In Dayton he first came into notice, politically, during the Harrison campaign, when his eloquent stump speaking ap- pealed greatly to the public. His wit, fearlessness, and legal ability took Mr. Schenck first to the Ohio legislature, then to Congress, then, in 1851, as the representative of the United States at Brazil. When the Civil War broke out, he offered his services to the country, easily stepped into the rank of general, and won distinction for gallantry in action.
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