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. *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 184 Today's Topics: #1 COLUMBIANA COUNTY - PART 8 [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] #2 EDWARD A. WELSH - COLUMBIANA COUNT [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] ------------------------------ X-Message: #1 Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 17:55:20, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: COLUMBIANA COUNTY - PART 8 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. ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 17:55:32, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: EDWARD A. WELSH - COLUMBIANA COUNTY History of Ohio, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925 Volume III, Page 80-81 EDWARD A. WELSH. One of the representative citizens and substantial and reliable business men of Elyria, Ohio, is Edward A. Welsh, undertaker and dealer in household furnishings, with business quarters at 202 West Bridge Street, Elyria. He has been continuously identified with the interests of this city for the past seventeen years, is very generally known, and commands the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens. Mr. Welsh is a native of Ohio, born in Columbiana County, April 16, 1871, a son of John and Mary (Doyle) Welsh. His father was born in Pennsylvania, where his people were farmers. He came to Ohio when comparatively a young man, and at Summitville, this state, was married to Mary Doyle, who was born in Ireland, and died on the home farm in Columbiana County in 1892. For a number of years John Welsh was a farmer in the above county, but in later life came to Lorain County and purchased a residence on West River Road. His death occurred in the fall of 1918. Both he and his wife were faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church. Edward W. Welsh obtained his education in the country schools. A good obedient son, making his parents' interests his own, he remained with them, helping his father on the home farm until he was eighteen years old, and after that alternated farming with school teaching, and had taught five terms before he was twenty-two years old. The death of his beloved mother left a vacant place in the household, keenly felt, and as changes came about he left the farm and started out for himself. In 1893 Mr. Welsh went to work in a butcher's shop at Lorain, Ohio, where he remained for a time, but on finding himself not greatly interested he looked about for other employment and finally entered the steel mills at Lorain. Never having had any experience in this line of hard work, he had to begin at the bottom, but he soon made headway, and during the seven years he remained there was advanced from time to time, both as to salary and responsibility. In 1906, Mr. Welsh came to Elyria and soon afterward went into the undertaking business, which he has conducted ever since, his establishment being the oldest in its line in his section of the city. Mr. Welsh has kept abreast with the times and his equipments are modern in every particular. In 1915 he embarked in merchandising along the line of house furnishings, rugs, carpets, linoleums, curtains and other properties, and his attractive and reliable goods have found ready sale and a large business has been built up. Mr. Welsh married in Lorain County, in 1906, Miss Anna M. Wilhelmy, who was born here and is a daughter of Nicholas and Anna (Stopp) Wilhelmy. Mr. and Mrs. Welsh have a family of four sons and two daughters: Raymond E., J. Regis, Marion, Marcella, Robert and Thomas. In politics Mr. Welsh has always been an active and loyal supporter of the democratic party, although he has never consented to accept a political office. For years he has also been interested in several reliable fraternal organizations, beginning before he left the farm, when he was a charter member in the organization of a local Grange. He belongs to the Loyal Order of Moose, and to the Lorain County Automobile Club. With his family he belongs to St. Mary's Catholic Church at Elyria. For a number of years he has been a member of the Knights of Columbus, and has served as warden of the local body; served four years as president of the Knights of St. John and is now serving as treasurer of same and is a member of St. Joseph's Society. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #184 *******************************************