Street Car Struck by Coal Train

Ashtabula, Dec. 17. — Eight dead and seven injured was the toll of the wreck here last night when a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern coal train struck a street car. Two additional bodies, that of David Stowe and Mrs. Rose Thompson were found today. All of the injured are expected to recover.

The coal train crashed into a street car on the Ashtabula Transit Line at the Center street crossing. The car, which was carrying passengers down town, was struck in the middle and demolished.

The dead:

Miss Laura Leaphart, aged 20, daughter of C.H. Leaphart, this city.

Mrs. W.H. Cook, aged 45, this city.

Mrs. Geo. Kitson, aged 38, this city.

Mrs. Frank C. Barttell, this city.

David Stowe, this city.

Mrs. Rose Thompson.

The injured:

Ralph Cluff, leg and arm broken; may die.

Mrs. C.P. Hendershot, badly cut about the face.

Volna Barttell, aged 7, daughter of Frank Barttell, head injured and wrist broken.

Mrs. Stewart, cut and bruised.

W.P. Guthrie of Erie, Pa.

The missing:

Mrs. Eva Pancoast and 12-year-old daughter.

D.E. O’Connor, engineer.

O.E. Hirshberger, fireman.

James McCutcheon and Thomas Mullen, motorman and conductor respectively of the street car, escaped serious injury. McCutcheon is being held pending an investigation.

The conductor’s register book, which was found among the wreckage, showed that 13 fares had been collected. It is believed that several other bodies are buried beneath the wreckage.

From the appearance of the wreck, it is thought that the engineer, seeing the car in front of his train, suddenly applied the brakes. Fully a dozen cars, filled with coal, were piled 50 feet high. Workmen started at once to dig away the coal which covered the debris of the street car.

It is said that the gates at the crossing were not down and that the watchman, on duty at the time of the collision, is missing.

Eighty feet of the wall in the brick building occupied by the Richards Bros., wholesale grocery was caved in by the derailed cars. A large hole was torn in Fred Dorman’s grocery and a load of coal dumped inside.

The Center street crossing is the most dangerous in this city, as four tracks must be crossed by the street cars.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 17, 1912

Up to the Voters

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The Great Game Of Politics
By Frank R. Kent

ONE SIDE HAS been more successful than the other in creating an impression of victory…

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Nov 2, 1936

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GIVE ME A RIDE OR I WILL VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN!

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Hallowe’en Prank Leads to Attempted Assault on Prophet

Image from Love Letters to the Library

Attempted on Mayor Prophet by One Jack O’Neil, Who Was Crazed From Drink.

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Had it Not Been for the Timely Arrival of Chief Watts Lima’s Chief Executive Would Have No Doubt Been Severely Handled — Trouble Precipitated Through the Arrest of O’Neil’s Son.

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The mayor’s court was the scene of much excitement yesterday, and for a short time it looked as if Lima’s chief executive would be viciously assaulted by a fellow who apparently is devoid of one iota of manhood. The fellow in question is one Jack O’Neil, a well known character among police officials.

Saturday night his son John, who, though young in years is already well known for his many depredations, was arrested for tearing up a board sidewalk. The incorrigible lad was celebrating Hallowe’en and, together with other boys, was engaged in destroying as much property as possible when an officer happened on the scene.

The other boys got away, but young O’Neill was caught and taken to police headquarters, where he was placed in jail being without necessary security. His trial was set for yesterday.

The father and mother were both present and the former was pretty well “organized” (drunk), which, it is said, is not unusual for him. It seems that his son was making $1 a day working somewhere in the city. This sum was, of course, given to his drunken father. In police court the father kept repeating that he would make Mayor Prophet pay $1 an hour during the time he held the boy as a prisoner. The mayor told him to cease, or he would find some means whereby he would keep quiet. This seemed to make the loquacious fellow very wrathy and he threatened His Hone with personal violence. Mayor Prophet only laughed at this, where-upon the angered husband and father started toward His Honor, who was seated in his occasional place. O’Neil’s eyes flashed with wild anger; his fists were clenched, and the mayor would, no doubt, have received summary treatment from the man crazed from excessive drink had it not been for the timely arrival of Chief Watts, who interfered by grabbing the fellow just as he was about to strike a vicious blow. The chief had heard angry voices from his office below and ran up stairs leading to the mayor’s office just in the nick of time as has been seen. O’Neill was soon subdued and he was soon after ejected.

The boy was fined $4.00. Probably because of the pleadings of the wife and mother, who seems to be a kindly woman, whose withered cheeks and furrowed brow tell far plainer than words of her suffering and misery the mayor allowed her husband to go without being fined.

O’Neill, it is said, is drunk almost constantly and abuses his son and wife in a manner not unlike a Barbarian. He has been in the criminal court numerous times, while his young son had been arrested upon several occasions for different offenses, one of which was robbing a postoffice.

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Nov 1, 1898

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Nov 3, 1898

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‘ROUND LIMA HOUR BY HOUR — WITH APOLOGIES
BY OH. OH. JACKENRIM
A Page from the Diary of an Antiquated Reporter — (TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO) —

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Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Dec 30, 1923

Brief Bio:

From:

Title: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association…., Volume 36
Authors: Ohio State Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association. Meeting
Publisher    F.J. Heer, 1915
Pgs 138-139 (google book link)

Title: The history of Fuller’s Ohio brigade, 1861-1865: its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies
Author: Charles H. Smith
Publisher    Press of A. J. Watt, 1909
pgs 341-343

Groundhogs aren’t the Only Forecasters

Image from Skulls and Bones

OLD HUNTER SAYS RABBIT BONES TELL OF MILD WINTER

A mild winter is ahead according to Joe Cole, a famous weather prognosticator of Chargin Falls, Ohio.

Cole is a famous hunter and fisherman out in his section. He has discovered that if a rabbit’s bones go dry half and hour after having been taken from the carcass, nothing but a mild winter is in store.

His other reasons for hazarding his reputation on a prediction are these:

The goosebone indication — The bones break easily, hence dry weather.

Corn has remained dry in the shock unusually long this year.

Geese have not gone south yet.

Certain signs, known to the initiated, seen on the top of sour milk pans early in the morning.

All these and more, too complicated for ordinary minds to grasp, make Mr. Cole absolutely sure of his forecast.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Nov 20, 1907

Image of Virgil from Buzzle

WEATHER FORECASTS.

Primitive Portents That Are as True Now as in Virgil’s Time.

At the beginning of the Christian era, and before that time the signs of the heavens and the behavior of animals and birds were noted with reference to changes of weather. If we read Virgil we shall find numerous references to these portents, and the translation usually quoted will furnish us with information which must be as true nowadays as it was in Virgil’s time, for wild animals do not change their habits. Speaking of wet weather in the Georgics, the poet wrote

The wary crane foresees it first, and sails
Above the storm and leaves the hollow vales.
The cow looks up and from afar can find
The change of heaven, and sniffs it in the wind.
The swallow skims the river’s watery face,
The frogs renew the croaks of their loquacious race.
The careful ant her secret cell forsakes
And draws her eggs along the narrow tracks.
At either horn the rainbow drinks the flood,
Huge flocks of rising rooks forsake their food,
And, crying, seek the shelter of the wood.
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And owls, that mark the setting Sun, declare
A starlight evening, and a morning fair.

We might quote further selections respecting the signs in the heaven and earth mentioned but the foregoing verses will be sufficient to illustrate our position, and to show us that weather forecasting is, at any rate, as old as the Christian era. The moon is generally supposed to influence the weather — a Saturday’s moon” being particularly objectionable, or when she appears anew at some hours after midnight thus

When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds
Her silver crescent tipped with sable clouds,
Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main,
And brews for fields impetuous floods of rain.

For generations, as today, a red sky foretells fine weather a yellow sky changing into green means rain, or rain and wind, on the other hand when the red rays appear we many anticipate fine weather, as the atmosphere is becoming less and less moist.

A “low” dawn is known as a good sign, so when the first rays appear at or near the horizon we may anticipate a fine day, as we may when the morning is gray.

Evening red and morning gray

are almost unfailing tokens of fine weather.

Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Mar 23, 1892

Virgil’s Georgics, Book I (google book link)

Mrs. Sarah Inman Roberts, A Pioneer

OUR NONAGENARIANS
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Short Sketch of Adams County Citizens of Advanced Age.
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MRS. SARAH ROBERTS, A PIONEER
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A Resident of Adams County for Fifty Years, This Good Woman Has Seen Many Changes.
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Mrs. Sarah Roberts, whose picture we give below, was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, August 3, 1819, and is therefore a trifle under 90 years of age. She was the daughter of Pamela J. and Arnold Inman, and at the age of 12 years moved with her parents to Washington county, near the town of Marietta, on the Ohio river. Here she grew to womanhood, amid the privations of pioneers in a timber country. On September 20, 1839, she was married to Daniel Roberts, in Muskingham county, Ohio, where they resided until 1850, when they removed to Henry county, Illinois, locating on the prairie near where the town of Kewanee now stands.

1850 Census - Muskingham Co., Ohio

Here they resided for two years, and then returned to Ohio, remaining in Muskingham county until August, 1959, when in company with Messrs. Alfred and John White, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts started overland in covered wagons for Adams county, Iowa, arriving in Quincy the latter part of October. Mr. Roberts rented a log cabin of Zachariah Lawrence and moved into it for the winter. This cabin stood on the prairie north of Carbon, near where the Houck school house now stands, and was twelve by fourteen feet in size. The Roberts family, being acquainted with the Lawrences and the Registers, old settlers in this county who had preceded them from Ohio to Iowa, enjoyed the winter very much, notwithstanding the hardships of a new country. In the spring of 1860 the Roberts family moved to the Sprague farm, now owned by C.A. Foote, and here they had a log cabin with a fire place and a sod chimney to do cooking. Mrs. Roberts remembers that they went with one of their neighbors to Des Moines to secure a plow to till Iowa soil, Des Moines being about the nearest point where a plow might be secured in those days. In the spring of 1861 Mr. Roberts moved to Mt. Etna, at that time a thriving metropolis with three frame buildings and two cabins. In the same year, he purchased some Adams county soil of Morgan Warren, the purchase price being $5 per acre, and in part payment Mr. Roberts traded a land warrant issued soldiers of the Mexican war. There are many other interesting incidents that have occurred in the life of this good woman that would be very entertaining to our readers, if we but had space to tell of them.

1860 Census - Adams Co., Iowa

Of the Inman family, to which Mrs. Roberts belonged, there are now living beside the subject of this sketch, Mrs. Marguerite Thompson, of Corning, aged 83 years; Hamilton Inman, Bigelow, Kansas, aged 78; Felix R. Inman, Antler, North Dakota, aged 73. Mrs. Polly Carlow, of Gross, Nebraska, died only a short time ago and her remains were brought to this city for interment, as our readers will remember. Of the immediate family of Mrs. Roberts, two sons are living, W.W., of Gove county, Kansas, and L.D. Roberts, residing near Mt. Etna, with whom Grandma Roberts makes her home. Her husband died about 20 years ago.

Adams County Free Press (Corning, Iowa) Apr 14, 1909

Capt. Farrar’s Famous Groundhog Oration

Image from Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 1 – by Henry Howe ©1888

Farrar’s Groundhog Speech.

We have been asked for information concerning Captain Farrar’s famous groundhog oration, In reply we reprint the following from the pen of a writer in Cambridge, Ohio, who contributed the readable account to a recent daily publication:

Each groundhog day. whether the sun shines or not, brings back to the citizens of Cambridge, Ohio the old story of how “Groundhog” Farrar got his nickname.

Captain William H. Farrar, at one time a leading lawyer in Eastern Ohio, banker, philanthropist and several times Mayor of Cambridge, was sent to the Legislature back in the seventies by the Republicans of Guernsey County. He was expected to make his mark as a law maker, as he had ability and was an eloquent speaker. The following incident, whatever else he said or did while a member of the lower House, gave him newspaper notoriety from one end of the land to the other:

One of the biennial sessions of the Buckeye Legislature, somewhere around 1884-87, was noted for what it did not do. There seemed to be no leader of either party, and, in fact, there seemed to be no laws needed, few changes in the existing laws and the members, both of the Senate and House of Representatives, were equal to the occasion and loafed most of the time.

One day, while the members of the House were sitting around waiting for some one to ‘do something’ or move the usual adjournment, Captain Farrar arose and said:

“Mr. Speaker, I have a resolution which I wish to offer and I ask as a personal favor from my colleagues that I be allowed to make some remarks before submitting the measure.”

The voice from old Guernsey was like a bolt from a clear sky. Weeks had passed without a set speech on any subject and the eagerness of the members to ‘hear something’ and to finally get to vote on a measure was expressed by many of them, and the Speaker himself waived any objection.

Captain Farrar began by setting forth the duty of the members of the body. He told of how each man was violating the trust put in him by his own people. He declared that the state of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Chase, Ewing, Hayes, Tom Corwin and a hundred other brilliant men was being made ridiculous by the House of Representatives, and the people who sent them to the Statehouse were disgusted. He then gave a history o’f the state in its territorial days; the settlement at Marietta,; the admission of Ohio to the Union in 1803; the part the Buckeye State had taken in national politics and what she had done in the War of the Rebellion. By this time he had spoken almost four hours, and as he sat down he asked leave to continue the following day.

Members approached him after his long speech and asked him what his object was. He only informed them that he would not discuss his speech.

The following day found every member in his seat. The newspapers had printed long accounts of the splendid flow of oratory, and this drew a crowd to the galleries. No one knew what the Guernsey member had up his sleeve, but they felt that something was going to happen. The Captain arose promptly, and, picking up his historical talk of the day before, issued forth such a flow of oratory as had seldom been heard in the Capitol. His eloquence caused profound silence, and there were no interruptions from ‘the other side.’

The second day’s session was brought to an end and the members were as much at sea as on the previous day. There was eloquence, but no argument. What was Farrar driving at? Were the Supreme Court members to be impeached? Was there treason somewhere? * No one knew. There was no question brought up which could call forth a denial from his opponents. There was a great mystery, and no one could fathom it

That night party leaders were summoned from Cincinnati, from Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo. A delegation from Cambridge was hurried to Columbus to find out what was going to happen. Their representative had talked for two days and had not finished!

The third day found a great crowd in the Assembly Hall. The Senate met and immediately adjourned. The members crowded into the House. The galleries were packed almost to suffocation, and Captain Farrar arose.

Several long, uninteresting decisions by the Supreme Court were read; long lists of prices of coal, wool, wheat, etc., were read. War stories were told and sketches were given of illustrious Americans. Weakened by the awful strain and so hoarse he could scarcely speak, he stopped for a moment, then, taking his bill from his inside coat pocket, concluded as follows:

“And now, Mr. Speaker, having covered the points I think necessary, I submit, for an immediate vote of the House, a bill which urges that Groundhog Day be set back from February 2d to January 2d, so that we may have an earlier spring.”

From:

Title: Ohio archaeological and historical quarterly, Volume 12
Author: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society
Publisher: Published for the Society by A.H. Smythe, 1903
Pages 331-333 (google book link)

Mary Jane’s Mishaps

Mary Jane’s Mishaps.

Poor Mary Jane McWilliams
Is in an awful plight.
She broke her arm this morning
And cracked her leg last night.

One day she fell down cellar
And smashed her nose right in,
And then to make it worser
She scratched her dimpled chin.

I SCARCE KEEP FROM CRYING.

She sat down by the fire
And burnt her curly hair
And scalded all her fingers
While she was sitting there.

And after all this trouble
Some bad boys threw a ball
And knocked her eyes and teeth in
And didn’t care at all.

Now, don’t you think she’s suffered,
Poor little Mary Jane?
I scarce can keep from crying,
She’s in such awful pain.

— 8. Jennie Smith in Christian Work.

Newark Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Nov 13, 1894

The Spicy Details of a Domestic Sensation

Image from http://www.oldandinteresting.com

HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW

Drive Gus Lambert Out of the House With a Broom – A Hamilton Boy’s Marital Experience.

There is a good sized domestic sensation at present exciting no end of gossip in certain circles in the Fifth ward. It will be remembered that about two years ago Gus Lambert, a young machinist, eloped with Miss Marie Catterlin, a very young lady and married her in Covington, in spite of the strenuous objections of the young lady’s parents.

Recently Lambert lost his position and went to live with his wife’s mother. This opened old wounds and it is said she forced him out of the house with a broom.

Lambert is now living with his mother and is highly indignant at his mother-in-law’s treatment.

Hamilton Daily Republican (Hamilton, Ohio) Aug 13, 1894

MARIE CATTERLIN

WAS HER MAIDEN NAME AND NOW SHE WANTS A DIVORCE.

Mrs. Gustav Lambert Relates A Tale of Woe in a Petition Full of Spicy Details and Sensational Allegations — Gus Kicked on Her Going to Parties, Disliked the Idea of Her Attending Decoration Day Exercises, and is Alleged to Have Indulged in Profanity Without the use of a “Swearing Room.”

Apropos of a recent sensational publication in which Gustav Lambert and his wife figured as the chief actors with an irate mother-in-law in the back ground, Marie M. Lambert today through her attorney, C.J. Smith, filed a suit for divorce. The petition makes spicy reading for those who love to hear of domestic broils.

Plaintiff says she was married to defendant in Covington, Ky., on February 19, 1890, and that no children resulted.

She says that she has at all times been a true, loving and faithful wife, but that he had refused and neglected to provide her with a suitable home, has compelled her to appeal to and receive means from her relatives and friends, to live and pay rent, has refused to furnish her with sufficient food and she says that shortly after her marriage he cursed and swore at her and would invariably curse and swear at her whenever she would visit or call on her friends or attend a party or place of entertainment alone or in company with others.

She says that on May 30, 1894, he damned her and tried to prevent her from attending Decoration services at the cemetery, thus wounding her feelings and humiliating her.

She says that on July 25, 1894, he cursed and swore at her and God damned her, and that when she remonstrated with him for his treatment he said: “God damn you, I will talk with you as I please as long and as I please in that way.”

She says that on August 1, 1894, he cursed and swore at her, seized hold of her in a rough and brutal manner, wounding her feelings and bruising her arm.

She says his continual ill treatment of her has greatly disturbed her peace of mind and impaired her health, wherefore she asks for a divorce, for reasonable and permanent alimony, for restoration to her maiden name of Marie M. Catterlin and for all other proper relief.

Hamilton Daily Republican (Hamilton, Ohio) Aug 29, 1894

MARIE IS DIVORCED

From Her Husband, Gus Lambert — sequel to a sensation.

Marie Lambert, nee Catterlin, was this afternoon granted a divorce from her husband, Gus Lambert, on the grounds of gross neglect. This is the sequel to a sensational case.

Hamilton Daily Republican (Hamilton, Ohio) Oct 22, 1894

William Allen: Congressman, Senator, Governor

Governor William Allen (Image from http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org)

The Old Governor and the New.

HON. WM. ALLEN took the oath of office as Governor of Ohio, on Monday last. After this, ex-Governor NOYES introduced the new Governor in the following courteous remarks:

GOVERNOR NOYES’ FAREWELL.

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: I have the honor to introduce to you a gentleman long distinguished in the country’s history, and now called by the sovereign voice of the people to preside over the interests of our State; the Hon. William Allen, Governor of Ohio. [Great and prolonged applause.]

GOVERNOR ALLEN’S INAUGURAL.

Upon being thus introduced Governor Allen spoke as follows:

GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY: The events of October have made it my duty to appear before you, and in your presence to take the oath prescribed to the Chief Executive officer of the State.

I have taken the oath, and shall earnestly seek to perform the promises it exacts.

At the opening of your session my predecessor, in his annual message, submitted to you a general statement of the several Executive Departments of the Government. He likewise made such suggestions as seemed to him necessary and proper.

If at any time during your session the public interests should, in my judgment, require me to do so, I will submit to you some additional suggestions in the form of a special message.

The Constitutional Convention, now in session, will no doubt complete its important labors and submit the result for ratification by the people during the current year.

Should such ratification be obtained, your next session will be one of extraordinary labor. You will then be required to revise the whole body of the general laws of the State, and, by appropriate modifications, adjust those laws to the requirements of the new Constitution.

For these reasons you may deem it unnecessary to alter in any very material particulars the existing laws at your present session.

But there are some legislative acts which will, I believe, attract your immediate attention. These are the acts by which taxes are imposed and appropriations made. Even if you were now convened under ordinary circumstances, you would, I believe, feel it to be your duty to reduce existing taxes and appropriations; for it is evident to all men that the increase of taxes and public expenses has for some years past been much beyond the actual and rational necessities of the public service.

But, gentlemen, you are not now convened under ordinary circumstances.

A few months ago, that undefinable but tremendous power, called a money panic, imparted a violent shock to the whole industrial and property system of the country.

The well-considered plans and calculations of all men engaged in active business, or in the exertion of active labor, were suddenly and thoroughly deranged. In the universal business anarchy that ensued, the minds of men became more or less bewildered, so that few among them were able distinctly to see their way or know what to do or what to omit, even through the brief futurity of a single week. All values and all incomes were instantly and deeply depressed.

There was not a farmer, a manufacturer, a merchant, a mechanic, or a laborer, who did not feel that he was less able to meet his engagements, or pay his taxes, than he had been before. The distressful effect of this state of things was felt by all, but it was more grievously felt by the great body of the laboring people, because it touched them at the vital point of subsistence. Many of these men were unable to find that regular and remunerative employment so essential to their well-being, while some of them, especially in the large towns and cities, would have suffered for the want of the nutriment upon which the continuance of life depends, but for that prompt humanity and charity so characteristic of and so honorable to the whole American people.

It is in the midst of this condition of things that you are now convened; and it is manifestly the duty of the Legislature of the State to afford the only relief which it has the constitutional power to afford, by the reduction of the public taxes in proportion to the reduced ability of the people to pay.

Yet, this cannot be done without at the same time reducing the expenditures of the State Government down to the very last dollar compatible with the maintenance of the public credit of the State, and the efficient working of the State Government, under the ever-present sense of necessary economy. I do not mean that vague and mere verbal economy which public men are so ready to profess with regard to public expenditures — I mean that earnest and inexorable economy which proclaims its existence by accomplished facts.

In the prodigality of the past you will find abundant reason for frugality in the future.

I close these brief observations by returning my thanks to the people of the State for that expression of their good will and pleasure which brings me before you.

I thank you, gentlemen of the General Assembly, and our fellow-citizens here convened, for the respectful attention with which I have been heard; and I thank my predecessor for the courtesy and urbanity which he has extended toward me since my arrival in this city, when for the first time I had the pleasure of making his personal acquaintance.

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) Jan 17, 1874

Governor William Allen

ALLEN pays $525 per month for himself and family at the Neil House. — Democratic economy!

—Kenton Republican.

This may be true: but one thing is sure — the honest old man will pay it out of his own, not the people’s pocket! He recently sold $30,000 worth of cattle from his own farm, and has a lot of durhams and shorthorns left. We can assure our Republican friends that Governor Allen will never purchase a landaulet, silver-mounted harness and gold-headed whip out of the governor’s contingent fund. He was born in the “earlier and purer days of the republic. It is left to the WILLIAMES, the DELANOS and the parasites who are appointed by GRANT, the chief salary grabber, to indulge in carriages and horses at the expense of the taxpayers of the country. There is a day of reckoning coming for all public thieves.

— Plain Dealer.

The Ohio Democrat (New Philadelphia, Ohio) Jan 30, 1874

Governor Allen has returned all Railroad passes sent to him, saying that he does not think it comports with his position to accept favors of that kind.

Cambridge Jeffersonian (Cambridge, Ohio) Feb 26, 1874

One of the first official acts of Governor Allen was to pardon William Graham, a notorious rebel sympathizer of Summit county, who was serving out a life sentence for the murder of two loyal citizens during the war. This act stamps the real character and sympathies of Gov. Allen, and is alike an insult to the dead and the living — the hero in his grave and the loyal people of the State.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Mar 6, 1874

Democratic State Convention.
Everything Harmonious, and a General Good Feeling.
{excerpt}

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR ALLEN

He said a speech now would be out of order. He stood before them as a servant of the Democracy always, when unobstructed, points to truth, honor and liberty of all men. He regarded the people as every thing and the agent as nothing except as he executes their will. He had served the people for sixteen years, and left their service with his hands as clean as when he entered their service, and when he came to die, he would rather have inscribed on his tombstone:

“Here lies and honest man, than to have millions of stolen treasures to leave to his children. He knew not that he should serve the people more than one year. A voice, “Yes, you will.” Another voice, “You will be the next President,” immense cheering. Well, I do not seek or decline any position the people may call me to fill. I again thank you. Continued cheering and three hearty cheers “for William Allen, the next President of the United States.”

Allen County Democrat (Lima, Ohio) Sep 3, 1874

LAST year the Radicals in Ohio called upon William Allen to “rise up,” and now they are sorry for it. The old gentleman refuses to take his seat, but stands up  17,000 strong.

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) Oct 31, 1874

"Rise Up" William Allen - Nov 5, 1874 - The Democrat - Lima, Ohio

“Rise Up” William Allen.

The Democratic organs which have been so distressed over the intemperate habits of President Grant, should give their immediate and prayerful attention to His Excellency, Roaring William Allen, Governor of Ohio. The Kenton Republican says:

Governor Allen was very sick when he left here last Saturday night, and had to be carried from the barouche into the sleeping car. His stomach was so overloaded with mean whisky that he was as helpless as a child. and yet the Democracy speak of this man as their prospective candidate for the Presidency.

A representative man of the party in every sense of the word!

This is melancholy. The people of Ohio have known for a year past that His Excellency keeps something “thirteen years old” in his cellar, but they did not suppose that he ever had to be helped to his carriage on public occasions. William will find it difficult to “rise up” with a record like this against him.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Nov 20, 1874

“Your Taxes.”

In his speech on the 8th inst. Governor Allen said:

‘There it is, draped in black. A State has disappeared. Louisiana as a sovereign State of this Union has no existence. This night a part of the standing army paid by your taxes has crushed it out of existence.’

That is more of the old rebel talk about a ‘Sovereign State.’ Gov. Allen is much troubled about the taxes of the people. While upon this subject we wish to call his attention to a matter in the annual report of the Auditor of State, page 228. It reads thus:

INAUGURATION OF GOV. ALLEN. — 1874.

Feb. 21, William Wall, carriage hire …$100.00
Feb. 24, Frank Hemmersbach, service of band …75.00
March 10, Charles Huston, hairbrushes, perfumery, soap, combs and shoe-blacking …24.00
April 10, James Naughton, 75 years of crash at 12 1/2 cents per yard …9.38
Total … $217.88

And it costs the tax-payers of the State two hundred and seventeen dollars and eighty-eight cents to get one old Democrat scrubbed up and perfumed so as to appear decent when presented to the public. But, is not 75 years of crash rather a long towel to only one of the unwashed Democracy? To the rescue, fellow-citizens! Our liberties are in danger! Suppose the Democratic Legislature should pass a law to buy soap, fine combs and 75 yards of crash for every unwashed Democrat in the State.

— Holmes County Republican.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Feb 5, 1875

It Makes a Difference Whose Ox is Gored.
[Pomeroy Telegraph.]

Governor Allen and Senator Thurman were called out one night last week in Columbus, to help celebrate the election of a Democratic Mayor in that city, by three hundred less than the usual majority. The Governor was terribly severe on corruptionists, and had a good deal to say about the corruption existing at Washington, but somehow he forgot to say anything about that lately brought to light in the Ohio Legislature, and which his party friends sought diligently to cover up.

Your average Democrat is fierce on Republican scoundrels, but when it comes to exposing and punishing those of his own party, he generally declines. It strikes us that an Ohio Democrat, at this time, must have a good deal of cheek to talk about corruption in others.

Let him look at the last Ohio Legislature and then keep silent.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Apr 30, 1875

Here is a strategy! Down in Dark county there lives a man named William Allen, a long, lank, sullen, dyspeptic, tobacco-chewing man, who was once a Democrat, who served a couple of terms in Congress — one as a Democrat and another as a Republican. He is a lawyer, has been a Judge, and has boxed the political compass thoroughly. The only thing good about him is his name!

Now the Republicans think if they could only put up this William Allen against our “Old Bill,” they would make a point. We don’t think it would amount to much, though it would lead to the confusion which used to attend the fight between “Old Doctor Jacob Townsend Sarsaparilla, and that of “Young Doctor Jacob Townsend.” Ours is the original William, and having once “risen,” all the namesakes and Radicals in the State can’t keep him from being re-elected.

Hurrah for the original Bill! No counterfeit bills taken by the people of Ohio.

— Plain Dealer.

Allen County Democrat (Lima, ohio) May 13, 1875

What kind of whisky do they drink at Coshocton? Is it what is termed ‘rifled,’ ‘rot-gut’ or the kind that kills around the corner?

The intelligent editor of the Coshocton Democrat in giving a three column history of old Bill Allen, telling how he was born away back in the misty past, just before the dawn of history in the old North State, which accounts for the various reports as to his age. After discoursing like a love-sick maiden on the old ‘chap’s’ love scrapes, he launches out on his political career and says, ‘Allen accepted the challenge of the Whigs to debate with Thomas Ewing. In the very first debate, Allen, in the opinion of the audience, had much the best of it, and so firm did the conviction become, that Ewing was withdrawn after the second joint discussion.’ Great Heaven! to compare William Allen with, perhaps, the greatest man intellectually this State ever produced! It would be just as appropriate to compare the editor of the Coshocton Democrat to a jackass and so enrage the animal that he would kick the day lights out of you for it.

Again, this editor would have us believe that old ‘Uncle William’ discussed philosophy with Socrates, paraded the streets of old Athens arm in arm with Plato and Aristotle, for, he says: ‘Gov. Allen is a great historian, is deeply versed in philosophy and the sciences, and is better acquainted with rare books than almost any scholar any one ever met.’ No wonder the old man was acquainted with rare books! It is supposed those things existed before the deluge when the Governor was a boy, but the idea that the old Governor knows anything about philosophy and the sciences!

Great Jupiter! Hurl your thunder-bolts upon the devoted head of that Editor! But the poor fellow knows not what he is talking about. Too much honor had turned his head. ‘Old Uncle William,’ philosopher and scientist! Shades of the old philosophers! smite that man! Old Bill Allen a philosopher! In the next number that fellow will be claiming that the devil is a Saint, because the old thief always, and under all circumstances, marches under the Democratic banner.

Gentlemen of Coshocton take charge of that man. Don’t permit him to run at large while the people are paying so much money to make such ‘chaps’ comfortable at the Asylum for idiots.

— Zanesville Courier.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Jul 15, 1875

Cambridge Jeffersonian - Aug 26, 1875

:[From the Plain Dealer.

We are Coming, WILLIAM ALLEN.
We are coming, William Allen,
From the meadow and the hill.
We are coming from the workshops,
From the furnace and the mill;
‘Tis the steady tramp of the thousands
That gives that steady roar,
That rolls from the Ohio
To Lake Erie’s sandy shore.

We are coming, William Allen,
O’er the river and the rill,
Over bog and over meadow,
Through the valley down the hill;
From the filed and from the forest,
From the mountain and the glen.
Blow your fog horn, William Allen,
Equal rights for equal men.

We are coming, William Allen,
From the Factory and mine;
For labor’s great tin-pail brigade
Is wheeling into line;
And massed in solid columns,
Armed with freemen’s ballots, we
Are coming, William Allen,
Lead us on to victory.

Allen County Democrat (Lima, Ohio) Sep 16, 1875

THE Democratic orators have a good deal of demagogue clap-trap to offer to the “poor man,” and a good deal to say about bloated bondholders and aristocratic land holders of great farms that the poor man ought to own a portion of, &c., &c. Governor ALLEN is one of the latter and owns a fourteen hundred acre farm, but he don’t say a word about giving or even selling a few acres for a garden spot to a poor man. His pure sympathy don’t take just that turn, although he is very much in need of more votes than he will get.

He proposes to fool them to vote for him by promising them “more money” — somebody elses money — if they can get it, after he gets their votes.

And here is Dr. BLACKBURN who his friend NICHOLAS SCHOTT says, has 400 acres, — does he propose to divide it with the “poor men” of Jackson township? NICHOLAS says “he is a little on the stingy order,” which seems to answer the question. The demagogues who have so much gushing interest for the poor man are not all fools.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 7, 1875

IN a speech which Governor Allen made at Washington O.H. some time last Fall, there occurs this passage:

“The Democrats came into office last January after our political opponents had held control of the State of Ohio for nearly twenty years, but we could not find, after the most careful examination, a single case of official corruption.”

And this is more than he could have truthfully said of his own party before they had been in power as many months.

The Athens Messenger (Athens, Ohio) Oct 7, 1875

Nov 4, 1875 - The Coshocton Age

ALEXANDER DURANTY & Co., merchants of Liverpool, England, have failed for two million dollars, and the Democrat thinks it is all because BILL ALLEN and SAM CARY and the rag-baby were not elected last fall.

Sad.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Apr 20, 1876

IN the midst of the terrible slaughter of Democratic candidates for the Presidency, on account of some crooked transactions in money, or Congressional lobby jobs, the Democrat favors old BILL ALLEN as the only one not tainted, or sound on the rag-baby question. Yet old BILL has not the ghost of a chance.

The Coshocton Age (Coshocton, Ohio) Apr 27, 1876

OLD Governor “Bill” Allen, the warmest-hearted, most genial, generous and yet firmest and truest of Democrats, has retired from politics and the world. He leaves no better man behind him.

— Memphis Appeal.

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) May 19, 1877

Image from Find-A-Grave

Find-A-Grave memorial LINK

SUDDEN DEATH OF EX-GOVERNOR, WILLIAM ALLEN.

Special to the Columbus Dispatch.]
CHILLICOTHE, July 11, 1879

The community was startled this morning by the report of the sudden death of ex Governor William Allen. He had been in town on Wednesday, chatting with old acquaintances, apparently in the best of health and spirits. Yesterday he had a slight chill, after which he took medicine and a warm bath. But apparently there was nothing in that illness to cause alarm.

He sat up late on his porch last evening, but after retiring was restless and arose, requesting Dr. and Mrs. Scott — his son in-law and daughter — to assist him, and they led him to a chair, into which he

DROPPED DEAD.

The cause of his death is ascertained to have been heart disease, although he had never suffered from any premonitory symptoms.

Governor Allen retained his intellectual vigor to the last. At the time of his death he was in the seventy-fourth year of his age. From sixteen to eighteen years of that period have been spent in public life — as a member of Congress, Senator of the United States, and Governor of Ohio. He was universally respected and beloved by all who knew him here, and his loss will be sincerely regretted by his neighbors and the poor who his hand often fed.

The date of the funeral is not yet fixed, but probably will take place Sunday; as it is feared the body cannot be preserved until Monday, when the family desire the interment to take place. A number of distinguished men and old friends of the Governor are expected to be in attendance at the obsequies.

The Marion Star (Marion, Ohio) Jul 12, 1879

Fruit Hill - Allen Homestead (Image from Rootsweb)

DEATH OF EX-GOV. WM. ALLEN.

The Venerable Patriot and Statesman Breathed his Last Yesterday Morning.

THE telegraph brought the painful intelligence to this city yesterday forenoon of the death, at his home in Ross county, at an early hour yesterday morning, of Hon. WM. ALLEN, ex-Congressman, ex-Senator and ex-Governor of Ohio, in his 73d year. Gov. ALLEN was born in North Carolina. In his boyhood days he walked from his native State, to Chillicothe, Ross county, where he studied law. In 1830 he was elected to Congress. In 1836 he was elected to the United States Senate, and re-elected in 1842, serving with CLAY, WESBSTER and BENTON with equal prominence, as one of the intellectual giants of that day. In 1873, after a voluntary retirement of 25 years, he was elected Governor of Ohio, but was defeated in 1875, after one of the most memorable campaigns ever known in the State.

Governor ALLEN was a man of the most undisputed honesty, broad and comprehensive in his views and fearless and able in defending them. He was the choice of the Ohio delegation in the St. Louis Convention in 1876 for President. Through a long and eventful public life, no suspicion of wrong doing was ever charged by his political adversaries, and no other man was held in such high esteem by his party friends.

He was a man of vast information upon all questions of a scientific, literary and political nature. He was never an idler, but in his rural home on Fruit Hill he prosecuted his researches as zealously in his latter years as he did when a student at law.

He was a friend of the oppressed, and his speeches in the campaign of 1875, were full of the spirit of Democracy which stood for the “man against the dollar.”

His Democracy partook of the fervor of religious zeal. He was eloquent in paying it the highest tribute which has ever been paid. In accepting the nomination for Governor in 1873 he said of the Democracy “upon its success and that alone rests the prosperity, liberty and happiness of the American people.”

In a speech delivered at Lancaster, Ohio, on the 19th of August, 1837, Senator Allen then rising rapidly to fame, spoke these memorable words:

“Democracy is a sentiment not to be appalled, corrupted or compromised. It knows no baseness; it cowers to no danger; it oppresses no weakness. Fearless, generous and humane, it rebukes the arrogant, cherishes honor and sympathises with the humble. It asks nothing but what it commands. Destructive only of depotism, it is the sole conservator of liberty, labor and property. It is the sentiment of freedom, of equal rights, of equal obligations. It is the law of nature pervading the law of the land.”

We have this speech before us in a copy of the Chillicothe Advertiser, of September 9th, 1837, making eleven columns of that paper. It was a masterly effort and devoted principally to the perils which menaced the rights of the people from the United States Banks and delineated the baleful influence of an organized banking monopoly.

Gov. ALLEN leave but one child, Mrs. Dr. SCOTT, who resides at the old homestead. The particulars of his death did not accompany the meagre announcement by telegraph, and we reserve until next week a more extended notice of this great and good man, who in the public and private station was a man of unimpeachable probity, enlarged patriotism, an intellectual giant, a warm hearted citizen and a noble man. Ohio has lamented the death of many of her statesmen, but the death of none that have gone before will be more keenly regretted than the death of the philosopher, patriot, and statesman, WILLIAM ALLEN.

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) Jul 12, 1879

Image from http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org

WILLIAM ALLEN.

Sketches of His Life and Public Services.

HON. WM. ALLEN was born in Edenton, Chowan county, North Carolina, on the 5th of January, 1807. He was, by the death of both father and mother, left an orphan in his infancy. His parents were poor. In his boyhood days there were no common schools in North Carolina, nor in Virginia, whither he early removed, and he never attended any school of any kind, except a private infant school for a short time, until he came, at the age of sixteen, to Chillicothe, Ohio. He, however, early manage to acquire the rudiments of learning; and that was the golden age of public speaking, and the era of oratory and orators in this country. He was enthused and carried away with a passion for listening to public addresses, upon every occasion and upon any subject, marking the manner and treasuring up the words of the various speakers he listened to — and he would go far to get the opportunity to hear. He soon secured a prize to him more precious than silver and gold — a pocket copy of Walker’s Dictionary, which he consulted for the pronunciation and meaning of every word that he heard and did not understand. This companion always accompanied him to public meetings, all of which he sought and attended as a deeply interested hearer.

Several of the years of his boyhood life were spent at Lynchburg, Virginia, where he supported himself working as a saddler’s apprentice. When he was sixteen years old, he collected together his worldly goods, tied them in a handkerchief, and set out on foot, walking every step of the way from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Chillicothe, where he found his sister, Mrs. Pleasant Thurman, the mother of Hon. Allen G. Thurman, who was then a small boy, whom he had never seen before.

After taking up his residence at Chillicothe, where he has ever since resided, (except when absent in the public services) young Allen was, by his sister, placed in the Old Chillicothe Academy, where he received his only instruction from a teacher. She herself selected and supervised his general reading. In this he derived the greatest advantage. The books she placed in his hands were the works of the best and most advanced writers and thinkers, by the aid of which his thoughts were impelled in the right direction, and his mental development became true and comprehensive.

Struggling on, and maintaining himself as best as he could, Allen entered, as law student, the office of Edward King, father of Hon. Rufus King, President of the late Ohio Constitutional Convention, and the most gifted son of the great Rufus King of Revolutionary memory and fame. When he came to the bar and while he continued to practice, forensic power, the ability and art of addressing a jury successfully, was indispensable to the lawyer’s success. This Allen possessed and assiduously cultivated, rather than the learning of cases, and technical rules, and pure legal habits of thought and statement, which made a counselor influential with the court.

While it is true that William Allen will be chiefly remembered for his services in the Legislature and executive departments of the government, it is certain that he was a learned and able lawyer. His name appears frequently in the earlier volumes of the Ohio Reports, and in some instances his arguments were abstracted by the reporter, Mr. Charles Hammond. They show conclusively that he was not only thoroughly familiar with the principles of the common law, but clearly understood the limitations on governmental power, State and Federal.

Political activity, a widespread reputation as a legal power in the judicial forum before a jury, and a fine military figure and bearing, joined to a voice of command, fixed him in the public eye as one deserving of political promotion. He had not long to wait. His Congressional district was strongly Whig. Wm. Key, Bond? and Richard Douglass so hotly contested for the place in that party that a “split” was produced, to heal which Governor Duncan McArthur was induced to decline a gubernatorial re-election, and to become a candidate, they both withdrew in his favor. Against him Wm. Allen was put in nomination by the Democracy, to make what was deemed a hopeless race. With a determination to succeed, he spoke everywhere, ably and effectively, mapped out every path and by road in the district, and visited nearly every voter at home, thus insuring the full vote of his party at the polls, and the accession of many converts.

During this campaign he met and overcame in debate William Sumpter Murphy, the grandson of the Revolutionary General Sumpter, and at that time recognized as the first orator in Ohio, who had been put forward as another Democratic candidate to divide with Allen the Democratic vote. The power he displayed in this canvass was fully exemplified in Allen at a later period, when he accepted the challenge of the Whigs to debate with Thomas Ewing.

At the end of that memorable contest for a seat in Congress, William Allen was declared elected by one vote, when he had scarce attained the Constitutional age to occupy it. Five hundred men are yet living who claim the honor of having, by lucky accident, cast that vote. Although the youngest member, he at once took rank among the foremost men in the House of the 23d Congress, and took a leading part in its most important discussions.

An election for United States Senator was soon to occur, and the two parties struggled for a majority in the General Assembly. Ross county was Whig; but the Democrats nominated a strong candidate for Representative. Allen labored for his election, and he was elected by one vote, which gave the Democrats a small majority in the Legislature. There were a number of candidates for Senator. An Eighth of January supper, with speeches, came off, at which all the candidates were present and delivered addresses. That of William Allen took the Assembly by storm, and he was nominated and elected over Thos. Ewing, who was then in the Senate. He reached Washington on the evening of March 3, 1837, to witness the inauguration of Presidnet Van Buren, and to take his seat in the Senate the next day. Late at night he went to the White House, where he was cordially welcomed and agreeably entertained by Andrew Jackson, the retiring President, who was his fast friend and ardent admirer. Before the end of his first term, he was re-elected by a very handsome majority; and he remained in the United States Senate until the 4th of March, 1849, being then, at his retirement, one of the youngest members of that body.

During the twelve eventful years that he represented the State of Ohio in Senate of the United States, he took a prominent part in all the discussions upon the great questions that Congress had to deal with. Most of the time, and until he voluntarily retired, he was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, being entitled to that elevated position on account of his eminent ability. He had just reached the meridian of his splendid powers. Tall, of a majestic and commanding figure, with a magnificent voice, an opulence of diction seldom equalled, a vigorous and bold imagination, with much fervor of feeling and graceful and dignified action withal, he combined all the qualities of a great orator in that memorable era when the Senate was full of great orators — in the day of its greatest intellectual magnificence. And in all the years he was there he never uttered a word nor gave a vote that he had occasion to recall or change.

While Governor Allen was a member of the United States Senate he married Mrs. Effie McArthur Coons, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of General Duncan McArthur — his early, true and only love. She chose him from among a host of distinguished suitors from several States. She inherited the old homestead and farm, where Allen, having added many acres to the latter, with his daughter, Mrs. Scott, her husband and their children and his grandchildren resided, until the summons came.

Mrs. Allen died shortly after the birth of their daughter and only child, Mrs. Scott. In health and sickness, William Allen was a most devoted and affectionate husband; and, after the death of his wife, he rode on horseback with the remains from Washington City to Chillicothe. He never thought of marrying afterward; and it is almost certain that if he had not married her, his only love, he never would have married at all.

Governor Allen always possessed unyielding integrity, and ever strongly set his face against corruption and extravagance in every form. When he entered public life, he had the Postmaster General certify in miles the shortest mail route between Chillicothe and Washington City, and always drew pay for mileage according to that certificate. He refused constructive mileage, and after his retirement from the Senate, the Whig Congressman from his district offered to procure and forward to him $6,000 due him on that score; but he would receive none of it. William Allen and John A. Dix alone refused it.

No man was ever more true and faithful in his friendships than William Allen; and few public men have gone as far as he to maintain a straightforward consistency in this respect. He virtually declined the Presidency of the United States, rather than seem to be unfaithful to an illustrious statesman whom he loved and supported.

After he retirement from public life at Washington, Governor Allen greatly improved by study. He has since been a more profound man than he was at any time during his career in the Senate. He was a great historian, was deeply versed in philosophy and the sciences, and was better acquainted with rare books than almost any scholar one can meet. His home was the home of hospitality, and to visit him there was to receive a hearty welcome and a rare intellectual treat. His farm is not surpassed in any respect by any other farm in the magnificent valley of the Scioto; and, as a thrifty and successful farmer, no man in the State was his superior.

In August, 1873, William Allen consented to take the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio. He became satisfied that it was a duty he owed his party, and the people without distinction of party; and when it became a public duty, he promptly accepted the situation, and came forth from his retirement to make what nearly everybody, but himself and the writer and compiler of this sketch, deemed a hopeless race. He made an able and effective canvass, and was elected by nearly one thousand majority, being the only candidate on his ticket who was successful.

He was inaugurated Governor on the 12th of January, 1874, in the presence of the largest assemblage of people that was ever before at the capital of Ohio. His inaugural address was everywhere regarded as a magnificent State paper. The New York Tribune said it “was a very model of a public document for compactness and brevity, devoted to a single topic — the necessity of reducing taxes and enforcing the most rigid economy in all matters of State expenditure.” Upon this point the Governor said:

“I do not mean that vague and mere verbal economy which public men are so ready to profess with regard to public expenditures — I mean that earnest and inexorable economy which proclaims its existence by accomplished facts.”

“In the prodigality of the past, you will find abundant reason for frugality in the future.”

His appointments, and all other acts of his administration gave general satisfaction, and were commended by the people without distinction of party. His inauguration was the herald of a new era — “the era of good feeling” in Ohio. Colonel Forney, in his Philadelphia Press, but stated a universally recognized truth, when he said: “Governor Allen, of Ohio, is winning golden opinions from all parties by the excellence of his administration of the affairs of the State.”

At the close of his administration he again returned to private life and to “Fruit Hill,” his beautiful home, with the firm determination that he would never give them up again for public position.

The Democratic State Convention that was held the following summer (1876) in  the city of Cincinnati, endorsed William Allen as the choice of the Democracy of Ohio for the Presidency, and instructed the delegation from this State to support him in the then approaching Democratic National Convention. He esteemed that endorsement, by that grand Convention, as the highest compliment he had ever received. When the writer hereof informed him what the Convention had done, he replied: “I am content. I can receive no higher honor than that.”

William Allen was the last survivor of an illustrious line of statesmen. He, too, is gone. It is hard to realize it “His sun of light is set forever. No twilight obscured its setting.” A great man is dead, and the people of a great State and a great Nation will manifest in a thousand ways their sorrowing sympathy. His memory and the memory of his deeds “will outlive eulogies and survive monuments.”

The Portsmouth Times (Portsmouth, Ohio) Jul 19, 1879

***

Ohio History Central has a biographical sketch HERE.

She Gets a Pension

After nearly forty years of continual service as a teacher in the employ of the public schools of Oakland, Miss Rebecca A. Bills of 961 Jackson street, of this city will have for her faithful work, the distinction of being the first woman in Alameda county to be pensioned from the teacher’s pension bill which goes into effect August 10 of this year.

During the lengthy period of service with the Oakland schools, Miss Bills has been most actively identified with activities of the primary grades, being especially devoted to the younger grammar school children. Miss Bill first became identified with the local educational branch in 1872 when she was appointed to one of the graded classes of the Lafayette Grammar school.

Later she was given a class in the old Irving school serving until 1875 under J.B. McChesney. In that year, she was transferred to Mills Seminary in East Oakland, where she taught for two years.

This was followed by a short six-month leave of absence and after a short term in the San Leandro school she was elected to a position in July, 1878, to the Lincoln Grammar school with which institution she has been connected until Friday, which concluded her career of teaching.

TAKES  TRIP ABROAD.

According to present plans, Miss Bill will leave for a trip through the various cities and places of interest in Europe, returning by way of the Panama Canal and arriving here on time to witness the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco. At the home of Mr. and Mrs. C. Cotton at 961 Jackson street, with whom she has resided for the past fifteen years, Miss Bills recalled several reminiscences of her career.

“I graduated from Mt. Holyoke University Mass. in 1867,” she said, “and after several weeks of traveling arrived in Oakland early in the year 1868. My first experience as a teacher was at the Pacific Young Ladies’ Seminary which was located where the Merritt hospital now stands. It was in this year that the great earthquake similar to that of 1906 occurred. I was the last to leave the building, taking two small Spanish girls with me. They were both badly frightened and cried out in terror. It was one of the most dreadful experiences I have ever gone through.”

Miss Bills also taught at the same institution for some time after its removal to Eddy and Taylor streets in San Francisco.

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Jun 29, 1913

MRS. SYMONS ENDS 33 YEARS SERVICE AS SCHOOL TEACHER

Seated comfortably in her cozy home on Fifth street, Mrs. Eleanor Symons, Elyria’s veteran school teacher, entertainingly discussed her long service of thirty-three years in the public schools and let her mind run back over the years that she has been engaged in training the youth of this community.

“I hardly know how to express myself,” said Mrs. Symons, “but I feel as if I had earned a vacation and a needed rest. My years of teaching have been pleasant ones, and I presume I will be lost when I retire in June.”

Eleanor M. Baker Symons was born in Spring Creek, Pa., in 1851 and attended the district school summer and winter. At the age of fifteen she obtained her first county certificate, and that winter began her first school. She was then but sixteen and taught 66 days for $24 in cash with her board thrown in, boarding around in the old-fashioned way. This was not considered a hardship as it had many pleasant sides to it.

“Some of the most delightful and lasting friends came into recognition in this way,” said she. “The school ma’am had the best of everything and was always invited to all the festivities of the district. I taught six years in the county schools and then went into the Corry public schools and taught the spring term as assistant eighth grade teacher and principal. The following summer the president and secretary drove to my home to see if I would take the position of the principal, as she had resigned.

Reluctantly, and after much urging, I consented to try it, with the result that I taught there until the Christmas of 1876 when I resigned and was married. I came to Elyria in 1877 and for one year was home sick as I did not know a child on the street.

Mr. Symons was working in the Democrat office. George G. Washburn was the editor of this paper and in February of 1878 he invited me to visit the schools with him on a certain Tuesday. I gladly went, not knowing then that Superintendent Parker was anxious to find a teacher for his one A grammar school. This fact, however, was known to Mr. Washburn, who had been asked by the superintendent to bring about this visit so he could size me up. Mr. Parker walked home with me at noon and asked if I had certificates, recommendations etc., I had, and he took them with him, after explaining his desire to find a teacher so he could release Miss Josie Staub, who soon became Mrs. D.C. Baldwin.

On Thursday evening of this same week, Mr. Parker called and said I had been hired by the board to teach and was to begin the following Monday. He advised me to visit Miss Staub and get somewhat acquainted with this work for the next week, which I did. I taught this grade for seven years and resigned, never intending to teach again, and I did not teach a day for six years. Then Mr. Parker sent for me to help out for a day, a week or maybe a fortnight.

The fall of 1894, he came for me to take the A grammar school taught by Miss Whitbeck, who was obliged to stop on account of illness. He put aside all my excuses for not taking up the work and I went into the school again on the following Monday. On the following Friday Miss Whitbeck passed away and of course, I remained until the end of the school year, and as you know I have been there ever since. I want to thank everybody connected in any way with the Elyria public schools, the different board members, superintendents, teachers, children and parents, for making my long years of teaching such years of joy and happiness.”

Well does the writer remember Mrs. Symons’ first year in school for he was a member of her class. It was a tough school to take charge of and was full of smart Aleck boys and a few frivolous girls, who did not have much idea of what they went to school for. However, the majority of the school were good students, and being a strict disciplinarian, Mrs. Symons soon brought order out of chaos. All will agree that Mrs. Symons has been able to discipline her schools in the right way. She knows when to be lenient, and when to be stern, with absolute justice at all times to her pupils. Some of her pupils with whom she had to be severe, have since written and thanked her for the advice she had given them, and these letters from all over the world are among her prized possessions. Little did the boy back in ’78 dream that in 1921 he would be telling the story of Mrs. Symons’ long years of service in the public print. But it is a genuine pleasure to give tribute to this splendid character whose life has been devoted to the youth of Elyria.

When she retires in June, she will be one of the first to receive the benefit of the teacher’s pension fund that a thoughtful legislature has provided for that splendid body of men and women, who mould the minds of men and women of tomorrow to become useful, orderly, patriotic, educated citizens.

The Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio) Jun 5, 1921

Miss Kate Stanton, teacher in Wayne township school No. 9, who has taught school for 43 years, retired under the teacher’s pension law at the close of her school term last Friday. She will receive $700 a year the remainder of her life. Miss Stanton is the first teacher in Wayne county to receive a pension.

Cambridge City Tribune (Cambridge City, Indiana) Apr 5, 1917

TEACHER 53 YEARS

SACRAMENTO, July 9. — Fifty-three years of teaching is the record submitted by Mrs. Fannie L. Walsh, of Salinas, who has applied to the California State Board of Education for a teacher’s pension. This is the longest term of teaching ever submitted by any applicant.

Trenton Evening Times ( Trenton, New Jersey) Jul 9, 1915