OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 67

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Historical Collections of Ohio
And Then They Went West
Know Your Ohio
Tid Bits- Part 67
by Darlene E. Kelley
notes by 
S. Kelly

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Tid Bits - Part 67.

          Colonel Charles Whittlesey

Charles Whittlesey was born in Southington, Conn., October 4, 1808. His
Father, Asaph Whittlesly, wife and two children, started in the spring
of 1813 for Tallmadge, Portage county. The widerness was full of perils
from savage men and beasts and the journey a long and hard one, with
many incidents of trial, so that their destination was not reached until
July. His father having settled at Tallmadge, Charles spent his summers
in work on the farm and winters at school. Tallmadge was settled by a
colony of New England Congregationalists, and the religious austerity
and strict morality of the inhabitants had much influenece upon the mind
of Charles, who had inherited from his father a vigerous mind and great
energy and from his mother studious habits and literary tastes. Reared
midst the severe surroundings of the early pioneer days, he learned to
realize at an early age the earnestness of life and the vast
possibilities of this new country. He saw Ohio develop from a wildeness
to a wonderful productive and intelligent commomwealth.

In 1827 he entered West Point, graduating therefrom in 1831, when he
became brevet second-lieutenant in the Sixth United States Infantry.

Later he exchanged with a brother officer into the Fifth United States
Infantry, with headquarters at Mackinaw, and started in November on a
vessel through the lakes, reaching his post after a voyage of much
hardship and suffering from the severity of the weather. Here he was
assigned to the company of Capt. Martin Scott, the famous shot and
hunter.

At the close of the Black Hawk war, Lieut.
Whittlesey resigned from the Army and opened a law office in Cleveland,
and in connection with his law practice was occupied as part owner and
co-editor of the " Whig and Herald " until 1837, when he was appointed
assistant geologist of the Ohio Survey. This was disbanded in 1839
through the lack  of appropriations to carry on the work, but not before
great and permanent good had been done in disclosing the mineral wealth
of the State, thus laying the foundation for immense manufacturing
industries.

During this survey Col. Whittlesey had become much interested in the
geology and ancient earthworks of the State, and after its disbandment,
introduced Mr. Joseph Sullivant, a wealhy gentleman of Columbus, much
interested in archaeology, to furnish means for continuing investigation
into the works of the Mound Builders, with a view to a joint
publication.

During the years 1839 and 1840, under this arrangement, he examined
nearly all the remaining earthworks than discovered, but nothing was
done toward publication of te results until some years later, when much
of the material gathered was used in the publication by the Smithsonian
Institute of the great work of Squier & Davis. The first volume of that
work says:

" Among the most zealous investigators in the field of American
antiquarian research is Charles Whittlesey, Esq., of Cleveland, formally
topographical engineer of Ohio. His surveys and observations, carried on
for many years and over a wide field, have been both numerous and
accurate, and are among the most valuable in all respects of any
hitherto made. Although Mr. Whittlesey, in conjuction with Joseph
Sullivant, Esq., of Columbus, orginally contemplated a joint work in
which results of his investigation should be embodied, he has,
nevertheless, with a liberality which will be not less appreciated
by the public than by authors, contributed to this memoir about twenty
plans of ancient works which, with the accompaying explanations and
general observations, will be found embodied in the following pages. 

It is hoped the public may be put in possession of the entire results of
Mr. 
Whittlesey's labor, which could not fail of adding greatly to our stock
of knowledge on this interesting subject."

Among other discoveries of Mr. Whittlesey in connection wit the ancient
earthworks of Ohio was that the Mound Builders were two different races
of people, the  "longheaded and shortheaded," so called from the shapes
of their skulls.

In 1844, Mr. Whittlesey made an agricultural survey of Hamilton county.
That year a great excitment wa created by the explorations and reports
of Dr. Houghton in the copper mines of Michigan. Companies were
organized for their development and from Point Keweenaw to the Montreal
river the forests swarmed with adventurers as eager and hopeful as those
of california in 1848. Iron ore was beneath their notice.

A company was organized in Detroit in 1845 and Mr Whittlesey was
appointed geologist. In August, they launched their boat and pulled away
for Copper harbor, and thence to the region between Portage Lake and the
Ontonagon River, where the Algonquin and Douglas Houghton mines were
opened. The party nearly escaped drowning the night they landed.

Col Whittlesey gave an interesting account of their adventures in an
article entitled " Two Months in the Copper Regions," published in the
National Magazine of New York City.

In 1847, he was employed by the United States government to make a
geological survey of the land about Lake Superior and the Upper
Mississippi River. His survey was of very great value and gave proffs of
great scientific ability and judgement. He was afterwards engaged by the
State of Wisconsin to make a survey of that State, which work was
uncompleted when the war of the rebellion broke out.

Upon his return to Cleveland, Col Whittlesey became identified with a
local military organization which was tendered to General Scott early in
the year 1861. On April 17, 1861, he beame the assissitant quartermaster
general upon the Governor's staff, and he was immediately sent to the
field in Western Virginia, where he served during the three month's term
as State military enginer with the Ohio troops. He re-entered the three
years' service as colonel of the Twentieth regimant Ohio volunteers. He
was detailed as chief engineer of the department of Ohio, and at the
battle of Shiloh on the second day of the fight was placed in the
command of the third brigade of General Wallace's Division. and was
specially commended for bravery. Soon after this engagement he resigned
from the army. Gen. Grant endorsed his application: " We cannot afford
to lose so good an officer," The following letter written son after his
decease shows in what estimation he was held by his army associates.

           " Cincinnati, O., Nov 10, 1886.

" Dear Mrs. Whittlesey: Your noble husband has got release from the
pains and ills that made life a burden. His active life was a lesson to
us how to live. His latter years showed us ow to endure. To all of us in
the Twentieth regimant he seemed a father. I do not know any other
Colonel that was so revered by his regiment. Since the war he has
constantly surprised me with his incessant literary and scientific
activity. Always his character was an example and incitement.
               Very truly yours, 
                      M. F. Force "

After retiring from the army Col. Whittlesey again turned his attention
to explorations in the Lake Superior and Upper Mississippi river basins,
and " new additions to the mineral wealth of the country were the result
of his surveys and researches."

In 1867 Col. Whittlesey organized the Western Reserve Historical
Society, and was its president until his death, which occurred in 1866.
The latter years of Col.
Whittlesey's life were full of ceaseless activity and research in
scientific and historical fields. His published literary works were very
numerous, commencing in 1833 and ending with his death; they nunbered
one hundred and inty one books and pamphlets. 

" His contributions to literature," said the
New York Herald, " have attracted wide attention among the scientific
men of Europe and America !" and adds, " he was largely instrumental in
discovering and causing the development of the great iron and copper
regions of Lake Superior."

Judge Baldwin says; 

" As an American archaeologist Col. Whittlesey was very learned and
thorough. He had in Ohio the advantage of surveying its wonderful works
at an early date. he had, too, that cool poise and self-possession that
prevented his enthusiasm from coloring his judgement.
He completely avoided errors into which a large share of archaeologists
fall. The scanty information as to the past and its romantic interest
lead to easy but dangerous theories, and even suffers the practice of
many impositions. He was of late years of great service in exposing
frauds, and thereby helped the science to a healthy tone. It may be well
enough to say that in one of his tracts he exposed, on what was
apparently the best evidence, the supposed falsity of the Cincinnati
tablet, so called. Its authenticity was defended by Mr. Robert Clark, of
Cincinnati, successfully and covincingly to Col. Whittlesey himself. I
was with the Colonel whenhe first heard of the successful defense, and
with a mutual friend who thought he might be chagrined, but he was so
much more interested in the truth fot its own sake than in his relations
to it that he appeared much pleased with the result.

He impressed his associates as being full of learning, not from books
but nevertheless of all around -- the roads, the fields, the sky, men,
animals, or plants. Charming it was to be with him in excursions; that
was really life and elevated the mind and heart.   

He was a profoundedly religious man, never ostentatiously so, but to him
religion and science were twin and inseparable companions. They were in
his life ad thought, and he wished to and did live to express in print
his sence that the God of science was the God of religion, and that 
the " Maker had not lost power over the thing made."

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Tid Bits continued in part 68.