MAHONING COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY Part 5 (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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by MRS GINA M REASONER AUPQ38A@prodigy.com 19 September 1999 *********************************************************************** Historical Collection of Ohio By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898 MAHONING COUNTY PART 5 JOHN M. EDWARDS was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1805. He was great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian, and son of Henry W. Edwards, a Governor of Connecticut and United States Senator. He was a graduate of Yale, practiced law for a number of years in New Haven and made extensive visits through the South in the interest of the estate of his uncle, Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. Later, together with a number of young men from Connecticut, he visited the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio, in which his father Governor Edwards, had considerable possessions through Pierpont Edwards, who was one of the original proprietors. Most of these young men remained in the Western Reserve and helped form that highly intellectual community of which Garfield, Giddings, Wade, Tod and Whittlesey were representatives. Mr. Edwards had many important positions and was connected with various newspaper enterprises during his life and was one of the founders of the first newspaper published in the Mahoning Valley. He wrote frequently for publication, principally on historical subjects. He was the leading spirit of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society and collected a large amount of valuable information concerning the early history of Ohio and its people. He was a deeply studious man and a learned and able lawyer. He died suddenly at his residence in Youngstown, December 8, 1886, aged 81 years. KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD, the poetess of patriotism, is the daughter of Judge James Brownlee, of Poland, where she was born. While yet in her "teens," in 1859, she was married with Gen. Isaac R. Sherwood and early became associated with him in journalistic work, writing items, reading proofs, and then sometimes With dainty fingers deftly picked, Their clean-cut faces ranged in telling lines, The magic type that talks to all the world. As a school-girl in Poland she had shown fine literary capacity, and if there is anything that could have given added brightness and breadth to her intellect it was just this employment of journalistic work, coming, too, just at the opening of the stupendous events of the great civil war. Her youthful husband enlisted and the old Covenanters' blood in her veins became heated by the spirit of intense patriotism, which soon found expression in patriotic verse, which has thrilled multitudes and started many a glistening tear. Her soldier lyrics have been printed in different languages, found a prized place in varied volumes: one, solely her own, "Camp Fire and Memorial Poems." These have been recited on every platform in the Union where the veterans of 1861-65 have had a part, particularly "Drummer Boy of Mission Ridge," "Forever and Forever," "The Old Flag," etc. "Forever and Forever" recalls with lifelike vividness the opening scenes of the war. It thus begins: When men forsook their shops and homes, and stood with troubled faces, From morn till night, from night till morn in dusky market spaces; When women watched beside their babes in anguish half resisted Until the husky message came, "God keep you, I've enlisted!" When all day long the drums were rolled in hateful exultation, And fife and bugle stung with pain the pulses of the Nation; When woman's hand formed every star that flashed on field of glory, When woman's tears were stitched along each stripe in jeweled story- What said we then? "Go forth, brave hearts! Go where the bullets rattle For us to plan, for us to pray, for you to toil and battle! Ours to uphold, yours to defend, the compact none can sever, And sacred be your name and fame forever and forever." "The Old Flag" no true American can hear without a thrill. Its closing verse is especially fine, and in the coming higher and still higher glory of the nation, multitudes yet unborn in their love for it will regret that their fathers who fought were not with those who fought to save it. We give its closing verse: O flag of our fathers! O flag of our sons! O flag of a world's desire! Through the night and the light, through the fright and the fight, through the smoke and the cloud and the fire. There are arms to defend, there are hearts to befriend, there are souls to bear up from the pall. While thy cluster of stars broodeth over the wars that justice and mercy befall! There are breasts that will clasp it, when tattered and torn, there are prayers to brood like a dove. There are fingers to fashion it fold unto fold, and hands that will wave it above, While the rub-a-dub, dub, dub, rub-a-dub, is beating the marches of Love! Mrs. Sherwood has ennobled her life by constant active public duties in behalf of those who suffered from the war; as chairman National Pension and Relief Committee, Woman's Relief Corps (auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic); chairman Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home Committee Department of Ohio; editor woman's department National Tribune, Washington, etc. Perhaps her proudest moment was when she was invited by the ex-Confederate Committee to write that poetical bond of Union for North and South, to be read at the ceremony of the unveiling of the Albert Sydney Johnston equestrian statue in New Orleans. This event took place April 6, 1887, and her poem delighted alike the Blue and the Gray; and well it might, breathing, as it did, the spirit of unity and fraternity, as these two verses alone evince: Now five and twenty years are gone, and lo! to-day they come The Blue and Gray in proud array, with throbbing fife and drum; But not as rivals, not as foes, as brothers reconciled To twine love's fragrant roses where the thorns of hate grew wild. O, veterans of the Blue and Gray who fought on Shiloh field, The purpose of God are true, his judgements stand revealed; The pangs of war have rent the veil and lo his high decree: One heart, one hope, one destiny, one flag from sea to sea! The object of this monument was not as an insignia of regret that the cause was lost, but as a memorial of the splendid heroism of its soldiers: and all honor that sentiment. In the case of Albert Sidney Johnston, he, although born in the South, was the son of a Litchfield County, Conn., country physician, and his heart was not in the Lost Cause. He loved the Union, and witnessed "with unalloyed grief the culmination of the irresistible conflict. "Could his spirit have been present, it would doubtless have responded, "Yes, 'The Union forever and forever; one heart, one hope, one destiny, one flag from sea to sea.'" Among Mrs. Sherwood's varied poems is one historical, "The Pioneers of the Mahoning Valley, read at the meeting of the Pioneers at Youngstown, September 10, 1877. It begins at the beginning, when the "sturdy Yankee came," and marks the changes in the valley to our day and in thirty-three verses. Among them are these three, which certainly, to use an expression General Grant once used to compliment Grace Greenwood upon her "California Letters," as Grace herself told us, are "pretty reading:" The axes ring, the clearings spread, The cornfields wimple in the sun, The cabin walls are overspread With trophies of the trap and gun. And from the hearths of glowing logs The children's shouts begin to ring; Or in the lanes and through the fogs They carry water from the spring. Stout rosy boys and girls are they Whose heads scarce touch the dripping boughs; Who learned their first philosophy While driving home the lagging cows. After listening to her poem, and especially these closing verses, we do not doubt that the old folk from their heir hearts exclaimed, "Yea, verily, have we not a goodly heritage? and see, our cows have come home!" O sweet Mahoning, like a queen Set crowned and dowered in the West, The wealth of kingdoms gleams between The jeweled brow and jeweled breast. O valley rich in fertile plain, In mighty forest proud and tall, In waving fields of corn and grain, In ferny glen and waterfall! O valley where the panting forge Has stirred the bosom of the world, Till lo! on every hillside gorge The flags of labor are unfurled. O valley rich in sturdy toil. In all that makes a people great, We hail thee Queen of Buckeye soil, And fling our challenge to the State. We hail thee queer, whose beauty won Our fathers sin their golden years; A shout for greater days begun, A sigh for sleeping pioneers. -continued in part 6