OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 446 Today's Topics: #1 HAMILTON COUNTY PART 35 [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] #2 Bios of Clark Co., OH people ["weiser2" ] ------------------------------ X-Message: #1 Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 17:45:59, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <199907022145.RAA12304@mime3.prodigy.com> Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY PART 35 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII HISTORICAL COLLECTION OF OHIO By Henry Howe LL.D., 1898 HAMILTON COUNTY - part 35 Another member of our circle was JUDGE JAMES HALL, then editor of the Western Monthly Magazine, whose name is known both in Europe and America. He also, in the long time that elapsed before his death, accomplished much and good work as the writer, citizen and man of business. The Western Monthly Magazine, which he then edited, was an excellent periodical, to which many of the literary young men of Cincinnati contributed. Judge Hall left the magazine to become cashier and president of the Commercial Bank, a much more profitable business. In the meanwhile he published several stories, novels, and essays on the West, which made him widely known, and deserves the success they receive, by their very pleasant style and pictures of Western life. Professor Calvin E. Stowe, then a comparatively young man, was also present, and contributed his share to the conversation. He is the best Biblical scholar I ever knew. His first wife, a new England lady, quite handsome and interesting, also attended the reunions. His present wife, then Miss Harriet Beecher, was just beginning to be known for her literary abilities. Two or three years after this time, I published in the Cincinnati Chronicle what I believe was her first printed story. I had heard her read at Miss Pierce's school, in Litchfield, Conn., her first public composition. It surprised every one so much that it was attributed to her father, but in fact was only the first exhibition of her remarkable talents. In the reunion I speak of she was not distinguished for conversation, but when she did speak, showed something of the peculiar strength and humor of her mind. Her first little story, published in the Chronicle, immediately attracted attention, and her writings have always been popular. Notwithstanding the world-wide renown of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" her real genius and characteristics were as much exhibited in her short stories as in her larger books. Her sister, Miss Catharine Beecher, was a far more easy and fluent conversationalist. Indeed, few people had more talent to entertain a company, or keep the ball of conversation going than Miss Beecher, and she was as willing as able for the task. Conspicuous in our circle, both in person and manners, was Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, whom none saw without admiring. She was what the world called charming; and though since better known as an authoress was personally quite remarkable. I have thus mentioned, out of a small circle gathered in a parlor, names which have been renowned both in Europe and America, and whose public reputation has contributed to the fame of our country. I have dwelt more particularly on these meetings to illustrate what I think I've seen in other cases, and to which, people in general seldom give due weight. I mean the influence of social sympathy in forming and developing individual minds. About the year 1833 was founded what was called "The College of Teachers," which continued ten years, and was an institution of great utility and wide influence. Its object was both professional and popular; to unite and improve teachers, and, at the same time, to commend the cause of education to the public mind. At that time public education was just beginning, and almost all in the Ohio educational system was created and developed after that period. To do this was the object in view and, accordingly, a large array of distinguished persons took part in these proceedings. I doubt whether in any one association to promote the cause of education there was ever in an equal space of time concentrated in this country a larger measure of talent, information, and zeal. Among those who either spoke or wrote for it were Albert Pickett, the president, and for half a century an able teacher: Dr. Daniel Drake, the Hon. Thos. Smith Grimke, the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, Alexander Kimmont and James H. Perkins, Professor Stowe, Dr. Beecher, Dr. Alexander Campbell, Bishop Purcell, President McGuffey, Dr. Aydelotte, E.D. Mansfield, Mrs. Lydia Sigourney and Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz. The BEECHERS lived in Cincinnati (Walnut Hills), from 1832 to 1852, twenty years, and were so closely connected with the anti-slavery and educational history of this region as to require a further notice than that given by Mr. Mansfield. Dr. Lyman Beecher, the head of this remarkable family, was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1775, the son of a blacksmith and the direct descendant of the Widow Beecher, who followed the profession of midwife to the first settlers there about 1638. Lyman was educated at Yale, but as we heard in our youth could not "speak his piece" on graduating day from the inability of his father to supply him with a suit of new clothes in which to appear. He studied theology under the famous Timothy Dwight, and was settled as an Orthodox Congregational minister successively over churches at East Hampton, Long Island; Litchfield, Conn.; and Hanover Street Church, Boston. To fight evil in whatever form he saw it and help on the good was the love of his life. Old men who remember him in his prime pronounce him the most eloquent, powerful preacher they ever heard, surpassing in his greatest flights of oratory his highly gifted son Henry Ward. In 1814, in New England, the vice of intemperance had become so demoralizing, even the clergy at their meetings often indulging in gross excesses, that Dr. Beecher arose in his might and wrote his wonderfully eloquent six sermons against it, which were translated into many languages, and had a large sale, even after the lapse of fifty years. The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregational Churches under the lead of Dr. Channing was the occasion of his being called to Boston to uphold the doctrines of Puritanism; which he did with such great power as to soon be regarded as "unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness, eloquence of appeal, sparkling wit, vigor of thought and concentrated power of expression." His personal magnetism was intense and his will unconquerable. Mansfield in his Personal Memories writes that "Dr. Beecher's spells of eloquence seem to come on by fits." One hot day in summer and in the afternoon says he, I was in church and he was going on in a sensible but rather prosy half sermon way, when all at once he began to recollect that we had just heard of the death of Lord Byron. He was an admirer of Byron's poetry, as all who admire genius must be. He raised his spectacles and began with an account of Bryron, his genius, wonderful gifts, and then went on to his want of virtue and want of true religion and finally described a lost soul and the spirit of Byron going off and wandering in the blackness of darkness forever! It struck me as with an electric shock. The Lane Theological Seminary having been established at Walnut Hills and the growing importance of the great West having filled the thought of the religious public at the East, a large sum of money was pledged to its support, on the condition of Dr. Beecher accepting the presidency, which he did in 1832. Then to eke out his salary for ten years he officiated as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Cincinnati. One of his first acts here was to startle the Eastern orthodoxy by a tract upon the danger of Roman Catholic supremacy at the West. Soon after, in consequence of a tract issued by the abolition convention, at Philadelphia, the evils of slavery were discussed by the students. "Many of them were from the South; an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings. Slave-holders went over from kentucky and incited mob violence in Cincinnati, and at one time it seemed as though, the rabble might destroy the seminary, and the houses of the professors. In the absence of Dr. Beecher, a little after, the board of trustees were frightened into obeying the demands of the mob by forbidding all discussion of slavery; whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A few returned, while the seceders laid the foundations of Oberlin College. Dr. Beecher in person was short and substantially built, his complexion was florid and he had such a genial, fatherly expression and withal was so very odd one could not but smile on meeting him. He was proverbially absent-minded, cared nothing for the little conventionalities of life; as likely as anything else when out taking tea with a parishioner to thrust his tea-spoon into the general preserve dish and eat direct therefrom; evidently unconscious of his breach of manners. Like many not so great, he never could remember, where he put his hat. Topics of vital welfare to humanity seemed to fill his mind to the exclusion of thoughts of himself, or to what people thought of him, or where he had last put his hat. In 1846 we made his acquaintance and walking with him on Fourth street one day he described the situation at the time of the mobbing of the Philanthropist. The seminary was some three miles distant and over a road most of the way up-hill, ankle deep in clayey, sticky mud, through which, the mob to get there must of necessity flounder, even without being filled as they would undoubtedly have said with Old Bourbon. The mud was really what probably saved the theologian. "I told the boys," said he, "that they had the right of self-defence, that they could arm themselves and if the mob came they could shot," and then looking in my face and whispering with an air that was irresistibly comical, he added, "but I told them not to kill 'em, aim low, hit 'em in the legs! hit 'em in the legs!" Those who knew the road to Walnut Hills in those days will remember it was largely a mere shelf cut out of the mud of the side hills whereupon omnibuses and single vehicles were often upset. The old divine coming down one night after dark was crowded off by some careless teamsters, and went rolling down the precipice perhaps some thirty feet, and so badly hurt he could not preach for three weeks. The stupid teamsters, attracted by his cries for help, came to the verge and peering down in the darkness hollowed, "How can we get there?" "Easy enough," he answered, come down as I did!" On one occasion a young minister was lamenting the dreadful increasing wickedness of mankind. "I don't know anything about that, young man," replied he in his whispering tones. "I've not had anything to do with running the world the last twenty-five years. God Almighty now has it in charge." This good man was wont, after preaching a powerful sermon, to relax his mind from his highly wrought state of nervous excitement, sometimes by going down into his cellar and shovelling sand from one spot to another; sometimes by taking his "fiddle," playing "Auld Lang Syne," and dancing a double shuffle in his parlor. His very eccentricities only the more endeared him to the public. He was great every way. On a platform of a hundred divines, his was the intellect that all felt was their master. No American, except Benjamin Franklin, has given utterance to so many pungent, wise sentences as Lyman Beecher. In the power of concentrated expression he has been rarely equalled, and in his more sublime solemn outbursts he was like a thunderbolt. Lyman Beecher was married thrice and had thirteen children; his seven grown sons all became Congregational clergymen, and his four daughters mostly gained literary and philanthropic distinction. Henry Ward, his most distinguished son, was educated at Lane Seminary; and it was on Walnut Hills that his daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe, met the originals of the persons that figure in her novel of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and got filled up for that famous work, which was published on her return East. Her maiden sister Catharine's entire life was marred by a tragic event. She was betrothed to Prof. Fisher of Yale College, who lost his life in 1822, by the wreck of the packet ship, Albion off the coast of Ireland, at the age of twenty-seven years. He was a young man of extraordinary genius, thought to be akin to that of Sir Isaac newton, and his loss was regarded as national. In the Yale Library to-day is an exquisite bust of him in marble. The face is very beautiful and refined. Evidence of his masterly power was shown by the opening article (an abstruse paper on the science of music) in the first volume of Silliman's Journal of Science, issued in 1818. In conversation, Miss Beecher was humorous, incisive and self-opinionated, but kindly. While at the head of a female seminary she became a convert to the Graham system of diet, and practiced it upon herself and pupils, whereupon some of them invited her to partake of a good generous dinner at a restaurant. It operated to a charm, converted here, and she came to the conclusion that a rich, juicy, tender, well-cooked beefsteak, with its accompaniments, was no object for contempt with a hungry soul. An anecdote of her we heard in our youth was that, on being introduced at a social gathering in Hartford to the poet Percival, she went at him in an exciting adulatory strain upon his poetry, which had then just appeared and was eliciting general admiration. Percival, who was then a very young man, and the most shrinking of mortals, was completely overwhelmed; he could not answer a word, but as soon as possible escaped from her, and then, in his low, whispering tones, inquired of a bystander, "Is not that the young lady who was engaged to Prof. Fisher?" "Yes." "Ah!" rejoined he, "it is well he died." No American family has so much influenced American thought as the Beechers, and on one, through its genius and eccentricities, has been so interesting; and it did Ohio good that she had possession of them for twenty years. It used to be a common expression forty years ago that the United States possessed two great things, viz. the American flag and the Beechers. -continued in part 36 ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 19:34:13 -0400 From: "weiser2" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <377D4C75.801FDB96@neo.lrun.com> Subject: Bios of Clark Co., OH people Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Surnames: ENSLEY, MILLER Researcher: Daily News, Springfield Date posted: Tuesday, March 3, 1936 Mrs. Matilda C. ENSLEY, 83, died at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Lorena MILLER, 533 Stanton av., following a six-month illness. She was born in Marietta, O., but had lived in Springfield practically all of her life. She was a member of the Northminster Presbyterian Church. Besides the daughter at whose home she died, she leaves two sons, William R. ENSLEY, of London; and Harrly L. ENSLEY, of Cleveland, besides six grandchildren. She was the last of 12 children. The body was taken to the Jackson Funeral Home, where funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, with burial in Ferncliff Cemetery. The body will be taken Wednesday morning to the daughter's home, where it will remain until Thursday noon, when it will be returned to the Jackson Funeral Home. Note: Matilda was first Married to Lemuel Brandle and had two daughters by him. _______________________________________________________________ Surnames: BROWN, GRAHAM Researcher: Daily Republic, Springfield Date posted: Friday, March 29, 1881 Mr. John A. GRAHAM, who was sent to the Dayton Asylum for the Insane for treatment about two years ago, died there Monday from an attack of apoplexy. Funeral from the residence of Mr. Geo. W. BROWN, brother-in-law of deceased, No. 48 Lincoln Avenue, to-morrow afternoon at 2 o'clock. Burial under arms, by the Veteran Memorial Association, who request all old soldiers, especially of the 44th O.V.I., to meet at the G.A.R. Hall this evening, to make arrangements. Mr. GRAHAM was a member of Co. I, 44th O.V.I., and was a re-enlisted veteran. His malady was the result of grief over the death of his father and from business reverses several years since. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #446 *******************************************