COLUMBIANA COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY PART 8 (published 1898)
***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Gina M. Reasoner
AUPQ38A@prodigy.com 
March 24, 1999
***********************************************************************

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO    By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

        SALEM IN 1846. -Salem is 10 miles north from New Lisbon, in the
midst of a beautiful agricultural country, thickly settled by Friends, who
are industrious and wealthy. This flourishing town was laid out about 1806
by Zadock Street, John Strong and Samuel Davis, members of the Society of
Friends, from Redstone, Pa. Until within a few years it was an
inconsiderable village. It now contains 2 Friends meeting-houses, 2
Baptist, 1 Methodist and 1 Presbyterian church, a classical academy, in
good repute, under the charge of Rev. Jacob Coon, 24 mercantile stores, 2
woolen factories, 3 foundries, 1 grist-mill, 2 engine shops and about 1,300
inhabitants. There are 4 newspapers published here, one of which is the
American Water Cure Advocate, edited by Dr. John P. Cope, principal of a
water cure establishment in full operation in this village. The engraving
shows the principal street of the town, as it appears on entering it from
the east. Street's woollen factory is seen on the left.
-Old Edition.
        Salem is on the line of the P. Ft. W. & C. Railroad, 67 miles from
Pittsburg, and contains about 6,000 inhabitants, with a post-office
business of over $10,000 annually. It is on high land, about 60 feet above
the railroad station and on one of the most elevated points of land in the
State. Newspapers: Salem Republican, Rep., J.K. Rukenbrod, editor; Salem
Era, E.P. Rukenbrod, editor; Buckeye Vidette, Greenback, J.W. Northrop.
Churches: 2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Disciples, 1 Episcopal, 3 Friends,
respectively of the Gurney, Wilbur and Hicksite divisions. Banks: Farmer's
National, J. Twing Brooks, president, R.V. Hampson, cashier; First
National, Furman Gee, President, Richard Pow, cashier; City, Boone &
Campbell, proprietors; H. Greiner & Son.
        MANUFACTURES AND EMPLOYEES. -J. Wooodruff & Sons, stoves, 72;
Victor Stove Co., stoves, 52; W. J. Clark & Co., stepladders, screens,
etc., 12; Boyle & Carey, stoves, 26; Bakewell & Mullins, sheet metal works,
100; W.J. Clark & Co., sheet metal works, 32; Purdy, Baird & Co., sewer
pipe, 6; Salem Lumber Co., sash, doors, etc., 10; J. B. McNabb, canned
goods, 16; Salem Steel Wire Co., steel wire, etc., 350; Silver & Deming
Manufacturing Co., pumps, feed-cutters, etc., 170; Buckeye Mills, 4; S.L.
Shanks & Co., steam boilers, 17; Buckeye Engine Co., engines, etc., 181;
Salem Plow Co., 12; M.L. Edwards Manufacturing Co., butchers' and
blacksmiths' tools, 15; Stanley & Co., flour, etc., 6; Carl Barckhoff,
church organs, 35. -State Report for 1887.
        Population in 1880, 4,041. School census, 1886, 1,464; Geo. N.
Caruthers, superintendent.
        Salem has an interesting history in connection with important
national events. Being originally settled by Quakers they instilled into
the minds of the people the true ideas of human freedom, and it early
became the seat of a strong anti-slavery sentiment. "The Western
Anti-Slavery Society" had its headquarters in this city before the war of
the Rebellion, and their organ, The Anti-Slavery Bugle, was published here
and ably conducted by Benj. S. Jones, Oliver Johnson and Marius R.
Robinson, editors, who waged an incessant, fearless and aggressive warfare
upon the institution of human slavery, its aiders and supporters, including
among the latter the National Constitution as interpreted by acts of
Congress, as well as most of the churches of the country.
        In consequence the contest grew hot and hotter as these "Disunion
Abolitionists," "Convenanters" and "Infidels," as they were termed, became
more aggressive; and as the spirit of liberty grew and spread they, with
more force and effect, demanded the unconditional freedom of the Southern
bondmen.
        At a session of one of these annual conventions of that period,
held in the Hicksite Friends' Church, during a terrible Philippic by a
prominent actor against the aggressions and encroachments of slavery on
Northern soil, as evidenced by the Fugitive Slave Law then but recently
enacted, a man arose in the audience with telegram in hand and disturbed
the speaker long enough to announce that on the four o'clock train, due at
the station in thirty minutes, "There would be as passengers a Southern man
with wife and child who had with them a colored slave girl as nurse."
        "Now," said the informant, who was in full sympathy with the
sentiment and spirit of the meeting, "if we mean what we say, let us go to
the station and rescue the slave girl." The enthusiasm became intense -the
meeting adjourned and in a body marched to the depot. Soon the train rolled
in and instantly a score of men boarded the cars, found the girl, forced
her off the coach on the station platform, where she was seized and hurried
by others on "the underground railroad" to a place of safety. Her owners,
badly frightened, passed on apparently glad to themselves escape being
kidnapped. The liberated slave-child was, by the same meeting, christened
Abby Kelly Salem, in honor of Abby Kelly Foster, who was one of the
speakers at the convention, and in commemoration of the place where the
"slave" was forcibly made free. The girl grew up to womanhood, and was for
years a citizen of the city.
        The old "Town Hall," yet standing in all its ancient pride, of
which a cut of the interior is shown in these pages, was the place where
the meetings of the Anti-Slavery Conventions were generally held. On its
plain wide platform eloquent appeals in behalf of the slave, like as if
inspired by Him who made of one blood all nations of men, were often poured
out in words that burned by such men as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell
Phillips, William Wallace Hubbard, Parker Pillsbury, Horace Mann, John
Pierpont, Oliver Johnson, Garret Smith, C.C. Burleigh, Samuel Lewis, Fred
Douglas, Lucretia Mott, Francis D. Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Marius R.
Robinson,Jacob Heaton, Owen Lovejoy, W.H. Burleigh, J.F. Langdon, Sojourner
Truth, Stephen S. Foster, Abby Kelly Foster, James Mott and George Thompson
of England, with others of like reputation.
        In that old hall, for the promotion of education and the elevation
and progress of political opinion, the voice of John A. Bingham, James A.
Garfield, Joshua R. Giddings, S.P. Chase, Wm. Dennison, W.D. Henkle, Jane
G. Swishelm. Benj. F. Wade, Geo.. W. Julian, Neil Dow, Charles Jewett,
Loring Andrews, James Monroe, Susan B. Anthony, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert
Collyer, John P. Hale, Edward F. Noyes, Jacob D. Cox and others (most of
whom are numbered with the dead). If those old walls could speak what a
story they could tell. It was there where seeds of political and religious
freedom were sown which grew into a harvest yielding much fruit.
        It was this early teaching that "all men were created equal" and
endowed with inalienable rights of life and liberty, that induced Edwin
Coppock, a near-by farmer's boy, born of quaker parents, to shoulder his
musket and go forth to join the immortal John Brown in opening the war for
freedom at Harper's Ferry. There with his old chief he fired a shot that
made slavery tremble to its fall. Coppock was captured and hanged at
Charlestown, Virginia.
        The following letter to his uncle, living within a few miles of
Salem, was the last he ever wrote. It will be read with interest. It is
full of prophecy, very long since fulfilled to the letter.
        He wrote it two days before his death, and spoke of the coming
event with the nerve and fearlessness of a true man. His grave is in Hope
Cemetery, Salem, and marked by a plain sandstone shaft, erected to his
memory by the late Howell Hise. It bears only the simple inscription
-"EDWIN COPPOCK."

        CHARLESTON, Dec. 13, 1859.
JOSHUA COPPOCK:
        My Dear Uncle -I seat myself by the stand to write for the first
and last time to thee and thy family. Though far from home and overtaken by
misfortune, I have not forgotten you. Your generous hospitality towards me,
during my short stay with you last spring, is stamped indelibly upon my
heart, and also the generosity bestowed upon my poor brother who now
wanders an outcast from his native land. But thank God he is free. I am
thankful it is I who have to suffer instead of him.
        The time may come when he will remember me. And the time may come
when he may still further remember the cause in which I die. Thank God the
principles of the cause in which we were engaged will not die with me and
my brave comrades. They will spread wider and wider and gather strength
with each hour that passes. The voice of truth will echo through our land,
bringing conviction to the erring and adding members to that glorious army
who will follow its banner. The cause of everlasting truth and justice will
go on conquering and to conquer until our broad and beautiful land shall
rest beneath the banner of freedom. I had fondly hoped to live to see the
principles of the Declaration of Independence fully realized. I had hoped
to see the dark stain of slavery blotted from our land, and the libel of
our boasted freedom erased, when we can say in truth that our beloved
country is the land of the free and the home of the brave; but that cannot be.
        I have heard my sentence passed, my doom is sealed. But two more
short days remain for me to fulfill by earthly destiny. But two brief days
between me and eternity. At the expiration of those two days I shall stand
upon the scaffold to take my last look of earthly scenes. But that scaffold
has but little dread for me, for I honestly believe that I am innocent of
any crime justifying such punishment. But by the taking of my life and the
lives of my comrades, Virginia is but hastening on that glorious day, when
the slave will rejoice in his freedom. When he can say, "I too am a man,"
and am groaning no more under the yoke of oppression. But I must now close.
Accept this short, scrawl as a remembrance of me. Give my love to all the
family. Kiss little Joey for me. Remember me to all my relatives and
friends. And now farewell for the last time.       From thy nephew,
                                                   EDWIN COPPOCK

        The same spirit, when the Rebellion made its aggressive move on
Fort Sumter, aroused the patriotism of Quaker Salem, and the first two
volunteers for the war in the county enlisted in this "City of Peace;"
namely, Thomas J. Walton, yet a resident and business man here, and Wm.
Meldrum, an employee in the Republican office, and who, in March, 1887,
died at San Francisco, Cal.
        After them Salem and the county of Columbiana furnished not less
than 3,000 soldiers for the war; many of them met the fate of brave men on
the field of battle, falling with face to the foe.


==== Maggie_Ohio Mailing List ====