Albert Bitters Family
“The Scribe on the Alley” edited “Rochester Republican,
“ Uncle Tully Published “The Sentinel” 1872 – 86, Shelton Family
By Margaret Rose Bitters Dillon
From Fulton County Folks, Volume one, Fulton County Historical Society
My father. Albert Wilson Bitters. Was born August 9,1859 in Peru. Indiana. He died August 14,1936 in Rochester. He was the son of Thomas Major Bitters (born August 7,1835, in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and died April 5, 1902, in Rochester) and Maria Victoria Elizabeth Rose LaRossa), born near Basil, Ohio, and died at Rochester. She was the daughter of John LaRossa, born in Loraine, France, and came to America in early 1800’s, and Elizabeth Hope Blaze, born February 2, 1800, near Richmond, Indiana, died 1881 at Peru. She had two sisters. Rachel and Mary.
Thomas Major Bitters was the son of John Bitters, born July 5,1794, in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. and died March 4, 1881 in Akron, Indiana he married June 24, 1820 in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Sarah Ann Major (born January 25, 1804 and died March 21, 1891).
John Bitters was the son of Arnold and Mary Bitters, who were born in Prussia. ‘The name was formerly Von Bitter. I think this Arnold Bitters was the one I heard spoken of as Count Von Bitter. I used to have a tin type picture of Arnold and Mary. Their children besides John were Rebecca. William and Esther. All four were born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Arnold Bitters was a Prussian soldier, hired by the King of England to fight against the Colonists in the Revolutionary War. He deserted a British warship in Boston harbor 1782, jumped overboard at midnight, swam ashore, and joined George Washington’s army. He was in the siege of Yorktown and witnessed the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, September 28,1782.
Albert Wilson Bitters married Emma Evalyn Shelton on April 10, 1883, at the home of her mother, Mrs. Martha Ann Shelton at 1216 Madison Street, Rochester, Indiana. There were 70 guests at the wedding. Albert and Emma lived with her mother. The house had been built by her father and was one of the first three houses in Rochester. The location was called Vinegar Ridge.
Their son, Harry Shelton Bitters, was born February 7, 1884, at this residence and died February 3, 1968. Their daughter, Margaret Rose, was also born there on April 9, 1896, and now resides, with husband Clarence A. Dillon in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The Dillons have two children: John (1920) and Virginia (1924). Albert’s brothers, Franklyn and Frederick died in childhood. His sister was Marguerite Lillian (Bitters) Miller.
After the death of Thomas Major Bitters in 1902, the newspaper, “The Rochester Republican”, was taken over by Albert. He would probably be best remembered as its editor. My most vivid memory of him is as he sat at his much-cluttered desk, writing editorials and obituaries. His coat pockets were bulging with notes and letters. There was a telegraph instrument on his desk, which he tried to teach me to use. I was too slow in learning it and he gave up.
Also I picture him setting type and running the linotype machine in the back room of the office. Running off hand bills on the hand press, putting the page make up together and exclaiming when someone had made “pic” of the type. Turning off sheets of the newspaper on the big press. Even helping wrap the papers for mailing. In fact. Doing anything that needed to be done when help was scarce. Of course, his sister Marguerite Miller, was usually there; I remember her at her desk, and her son Earle Miller, at the big press.
Father must have been good at training young men in newspaper work as some of them did well at it later and I recall some speaking very highly of him.
He was a conscientious, dedicated Republican, living up to the principles, and precepts of the party. He used to say he was a “hand-hammered, ring-tailed, dyed-in-the-wool Republican”. He went to work early and worked late, often going back in the evening when it was necessary. He walked or rode a bicycle. The only car he ever owned was an Oldsmobile and he delighted in taking people for rides who would not get out otherwise. Of his boyhood days, I recall hearing very little. He must have had some of the mischief in him that boys usually have. There is a vague memory of his telling about the time he and some other boys put a cow’s tail through a knot hole in a fence and tied it.
As a young man he enjoyed sailing on Lake Manitou. I don’t know whether he had his own sail boat. He was very fond of music, especially band music, and for a time played in the band. I think a flute. When I practiced on the piano, I tried to do it when he was not at home because mistakes irked him.
He was an enthusiastic Mason, although he never joined the higher orders. He thought any man who was a Mason was all right.
Also he and my mother enjoyed the Order of the Eastern Star to the fullest extent and found great pleasure in the Past Matrons and Patrons organization. They thought those dinner meetings and picnics were really something special. He liked the family dinners too, always wanted to eat cake the first thing at meals. I still remember the good cookies he used to buy at Nobby True’s bakery and a delicious spice cake and cream puffs.
Father served as Postmaster, 1922-31 and was very happy with that position. The Post Office was new and something in which to take pride.
He had a good sense of humor and a hearty laugh. I remember one time he wrote and printed a story about the Big Hills south of town that had many people wide-eyed until they came to the end and read “APRIL FOOL”.
He enjoyed poetry and often quoted James Whitcomb Riley. Also he wrote some poems and his “Editor’s Evening Prayer” was printed in other newspapers. He was fond of Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”, and it was read at his funeral.
My father could almost be called a pioneer, he was identified with the community for so many years and used his pen for the benefit of the Republican party, the town and country and the common good. He was always interested in civic matters and the future of Rochester. He was very definitely against the use of liquor. I don’t recall seeing him reading the Bible often but he must have done so because he was good at quoting it. One time when a minister failed to reach a funeral service at the appointed time, he gave the funeral oration.
Father was a kind and generous man and had many friends among the Democrats as well as the Republicans. He didn’t hesitate to criticize when he thought is was needed and was equally willing to compliment and to express sympathy.
Editor’s note: John and Sarah (Major) Bitters came to Akron in 1850. They had 11 children but only seven came to Indiana. Thomas Major, John, Lemuel, William, Rebecca (Doane), Andrew Tully, and Margaret (Snyder). See “Early Akron” story my Marie Gast Talbot for more about the William Bitters family.
Tully (A. T.) Bitters was partner with William T. Cutshall in publishing the Akron Globe 1866-67; then Bitters went to Rochester. In 1872, Tully Bitters bought the Rochester Sentinel from A. T. Metcalf and published it until he was appointed postmaster for a four year term by President Grover Cleveland in 1886, at which time he sold it to Henry Barnhart. Albert Bitters, son of his brother Major, worked for his uncle as job printer at the Rochester Sentinel in 1883, then located over Dawson’s Drugstore, 800 Main (now Lord’s). Tully was also a brick mason and built the first brick building in Rochester, the Jesse Shields block, northeast corner of 8th and Main. For many years he managed the City Book Store. Tully married Sally St. Clair but had no children.
Marie Gast Talbot writes: “Regarding my great Uncle Tully Bitters, I consulted again the old scroll of the John Bitters family and have the following meager information. Tully was the tenth of eleven children born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. The last date recorded on the scroll in 1885 and the ink is faded, so it’s a pretty old document. His father died March 14, 1881, and is buried in the Old Cemetery, Akron. I know that his wife lived in Akron as she was my mother’s favorite grandmother and she often spoke of her, helped a sister make a dress for her, etc. She was of Scotch and Welsh ancestry. The father, John was English and German.
Their children, including Tully, still had some British pronunciations: for example, Rochester was always “Roch-ster”, two syllables, cemetery was “cemetry” , three syllables. Also a bucket was a “blickey”, a skillet was a “spider,” these being Scotch uses Their speech was cultured in tone, or maybe I identify “culture” with a n English accent. But they were well-read people and loved and treasured books. They were quiet-mannered, stately, dignified in bearing.
“Tully had a sister two years older and one three years younger who both died a few days apart, one age 11, the other 6. Another sister died in her early 30’s. So it was my impression, as a child, that the family consisted of five brothers only. I was wrong, but the girls seem to have married and stayed in Pennsylvania.
“The record shows that Andrew Tully Bitters was born January 16, 1841, in Northampton County, Penn, married January 23, 1867, in Akron by Rev. P.S. Stephens, but no record of who he married! (Male Chauvinism?) I don’t remember that he ever had any children or where the bookstore was located in Rochester. I remember that he was editor and a liberal one, of the Sentinel, and what a grand, solid walnut, tall bed he had as I saw him when he was confined to bed before his death. I have a small piece of his magnificent bed; mother’s brother, Chester, made it into a shelf for me. Also I have the walnut bed of mother’s Uncle Jim Kuhn, who brought it from Pennsylvania. He operated the tavern or inn 1855-75, later Akron American Legion home in 1949.
“All the Bitters were tall and carried themselves so straight. (My mother, Mrs. A.A. (Flora Bitters) Gast, in her 90’s used to write me to ask if I was standing up straight. They prided themselves on their carriage.) The men never had big tummies but all smoked GOOD cigars, and till this day, I love the smell of cigar smoke because when they came to visit (they meaning Uncle Tully and his nephew’s who were my uncles.) they always picked me up and kissed me and I loved that sent, as well as their beautiful sideburns. I guess that some of the reasons I so love the young men of today with their beautiful hair as the Bitters men all had lovely, chestnut, wavy hair, never any baldness, and lovely bushy sideburns, some with van Dyke beards.
“The Bitters twin girls (Edna and Edith, born January 18, 1891) were the only children of Calvin Kuhn Bitters, nephew of Tully, born January 1855, so only 14 years younger than Tully, Cal was an attorney in Rochester most of his life, had graduated from Valparaiso. There were 20 years difference in age between Tully and his oldest brother. Tully is the only one of that family that I remember, and he was a darling! He must have died somewhere between 1905 and 1915 or I would have remembered better otherwise.
“The Bitters twins ran a cleaning establishment for a number of years (Zikers Cleaners, 612 North Main) The last of them died in November 1958.”
Thomas Major Bitters was always known as Major, having been so named in honor of his mother’s maiden name. He taught school in Akron one year. Then he was apprenticed to a printer and learned the trade. In 1856, he went to Peru and took the foremanship of the Peru Republican, which position he held for 17 years. He married Maria Victoria Rose in Peru in 1857, and had two children, Albert and Marguerite. Major bought the Rochester Union Spy weekly newspaper from William H. Mattingly on October 8, 1873. He changed the name to Rochester Republican. His son, Albert, quit school in the sixth grade at the age of 12 to become a printer’s “devil” and to press and type in the newspaper office.
Five years later he sold the Republican back to Mattingly and went to Rensselaer and purchased the Republican there, which he published for two years. Then the death of a six-year-old son made all of the family dis-satisfied with Rensselaer and they returned to Rochester. Here Major tried both the grocery and real estate business, but as he was a newspaper man by training and inclination, he founded the Tribune, afterward sold it to the Howards. Then he again purchased the Republican in 1886 and made it Rochester’s first daily newspaper, the Daily Republican. His son, Albert was assistant editor and job printer of Daily Republican. In 1891 Bitters bought out the Tribune and merged its business with the Republican.
Major made a success of the business to such an extent that he owned the Republican, the building it occupied (northwest corner of Main and West 9th streets), a business room just north of Milo Smith’s office on Main Street (Smith’s office was on the second floor of Masonic Building. 730 Main), and three residence properties in Rochester.
Major served in the War of the Rebellion (“Civil War”). He was active in church work and in early life was a leading member of the Methodist church. But for the last 20 years of his life he was a free thinker, an advocate of advanced or independent thought, and for the last 10 years an enthusiastic Spiritualist, being head of that organization in Rochester. He was always a great home man, and his children were kept as close to him after their marriages as in their childhood.
When Major died April 5, 1902, the funeral was held in the courtroom of the courthouse in order to accommodate the crowd of people. Business was suspended in the county offices, and the stairways and courtroom were decorated with flags and floral emblems. Rev. J. Harry Moore. Of the Spiritualist Society conducted the services. The Rochester Citizen’s Band led the funeral cortege to the Odd Fellows cemetery for the last rites.
The Sentinel supplied Republican subscribers with news service for a couple of days while funeral arrangement were going on. The Republican resumed publication with Albert W. Bitters as editor-in-chief on Monday.
Albert Bitters continued with the Weekly and Daily Republican publishing both by saving the most important stories from the Daily to be used in the Weekly Republican on Thursdays. His sister Marguerite Miller and nephew Earle Miller helped. Marguerite served as editor 1919-23 while Albert was postmaster 1922 on.
There was a Republican party scandal about making money from building gravel roads in the county. Bitters criticized them, so to defend them a group of Rochester citizens formed a stock company and in 1922 purchased the Fulton County Sun (founded by Harold and Floyd Van Trump in 1913). Van Trumps repurchased The Sun in 1923 and called it the Daily News. Bi8tters sold the Republican to the Daily News later in 1923. In 1924 the Daily News consolidated with the Sentinel into the present News-Sentinel.
Albert Bitters is still remembered today for his flowery, flamboyant style of writing. He wrote a series on old time Rochester doctors now in the Fulton County Historical Museum. His political enemies called him “the baboon on the alley” and said he had “diarrhea of the mouth”. His admirers turned this into an honorary title, “the scribe on the alley,” because the Republican office was across the alley on East 8th street from the Sentinel. He continued to write historical sketches and features for the News-Sentinel and finally retired in 1934 after 63 years of “inky fingers.” Here is a story from his “Retrospective Ramblings- True Stories Told by Pioneer People to Please the Public.” This one was published March 24, 1930.
“Continuing accounts relative to the Pottawattomie Indians, I will repeat the story told to me by the late Col. Kline G. Shryock, who was Provost Marshal here, during the Civil War. When I came to Rochester, in 1873, he was senior partner of the law firm of Shryock & Jemison, and their office was the front and second rooms, second floor of the Mammoth Building, a three-story wooden structure occupying the ground between Dawson & Coplen’s drug store and the alley south, where stands Levi’s dry goods store, that big building being destroyed by fire in the d summer of 1874. After the present brick buildings were erected on the same ground, Col. Shryock was Justice of the Peace for Rochester township, and had an office in the back room over the location of Carter’s bookstore, where I visited with him on may occasions to hear his experiences in pioneer times. In 1884 he was Postmaster for Rochester, and while thus engaged it was Col. Kline G. Shryock that signed my recommendation for the extension credit with printers’ supply firms n Chicago, for my first business venture, that kindness retaining my continued respect to this day, teaching a lesson of honor, honesty and integrity that has been a safe guide for the keeping of public confidence, a virtue no wealth of gold can purchase.
“Col. Shryock and my father, the late Major Bitters, were intimate personal friends and, consequently, I was generally present at many of his evening visits at the old Daily Republican office. It was on a night in April 18904, that Col. Shryock told a story about the habits, customs and last days of the Pottawattomie Indians in this bailiwick. Rochester’s electric light system was young at that time, and its constancy well matched it’s youth. Service being discontinued at midnight, hence the Indian story ended when the lights were extinguished, and we each went home to dream over the events of the distant past.
“Col. Shryock recounted that in compliance with certain treaties entered into between the U.S. Government and Pottawattomie Chiefs Wau-Ke-was, and Pau-koo-shcuk, with Able C. Pepper as commissioner, a stipend of two thousand dollars per annum, in silver, was the annuity to pass to the Indians, payment to be effected on the south bank of Tippecanoe river, at a point about a quarter-mile up stream from the Michigan road bridge. The first few annual pay dates, which included a period of twenty years, constituted a sort of general Indian festivity, when the Pottawattomies would assemble from Marshall and Fulton counties, the Braves making their X mark to their names on the U.S. roster receipt. In preparation for this annual function, U.S. Government agents would apportion the silver money in pokes, load it into a wagon at Fort Wayne, and with provisions and necessary accouterment, would start on a two or three days’ journey through the woods to the counsel place we have long since known as Pottawattomie Paradise.
“Now to tell the shame of crime- the dishonor, dishonesty, perfidy, puerility, sneaking, stealthy, pusillanimous, wicked thievery of white mountebanks. Oh, can the bones of such men lie at rest in their graves?
“In the afternoon following the morning departure of the Government wagon from Fort Wayne, such characters would follow the trail of the Government vehicle, their wagon bearing blankets, beads, hunting knives, trinkets, rifles, ammunition, and many glittering generalities to attract Indian covetousness, and, lastly, a barrel of whisky. The arrival of this outfit was timed to occur immediately after the departure of the Government agents, and the first trick on the program was to “set-em-up” to all bucks having received money for their lands. When those unsophisticated, innocent men became hilariously intoxicated, the blankets, etc, would be sold to them, stolen back and the same blanket again sold to the same Indiana at a higher price, that stunt being repeated as often as four times for a certain victim. It is evident that when the crooks got most of the two thousand dollars, they would skedaddle with their swag, leaving Indians impoverished of both lands and their money. An yet, in face of these facts, the “wets” of this day have the unmitigated gall to have the “dry” imply that whiskey was innocent of crime in pioneer times, that intoxicants were pure and the use thereof a blessing to humanity: that the much-advertised crime wave of today is all due to the “joke” of the Volstead law and “weakness” of the Eighteenth amendment to our Federal Constitution. Shame on the intelligence of any young man who assumes that the Amendment is a failure, a fizzle and a fake. In this single instance is sufficient object lesson to convince any honest conscience that the “wet” rabble is more to encourage free booze than to hold a profound respect for the fundamental law of our country and a loyal defense of its flag.
I could not well avoid this divergence, as its truth is so patent to conditions of the past and present. Continuing with Col. Shryock’s story, he stated that these annual hospitable (?) holdups finally put their victims wise to their misfortunes, so old Chief Ben-nack, Chief Aub-bee-naub-bee, Chief Naswau-gee and Chief Pau-koo-shuck issued stringent orders to all younger bucks, that on coming of the pay-wagon thereafter, all their money should be hidden before the arrival of the whisky wagon, and that it would be a serious offense against the authority of their Chiefs not to obey the command.
“There were no First National Banks or safety deposit boxes at that time, so the Pottawattomies buried bushels of silver along Tippecanoe river and about the shore of Lake Manitou. When Gen. John Tipton and his soldiers were sent here on 1838, to remove the Pottawattomies to their new reservation in Kansas, those humble first Americans were so sorrowful, humiliated, disgraced and discouraged that they merely marched before the bayonet without thought of their buried treasure, for turning their backs to the graves of fathers, mothers and children was far greater stress to them than leaving silver coins, which meant no more intrinsic worth to them than as many pants-buttons are to us. It was Col. Shryock’s firm conviction that there are hundreds of dollars in silver still buried near the river and lake if only we knew where to look.
“ At least partly in the substantiation of buried treasure, is the fact that about 1884, an Indian came here from Michigan, He had a crude pencil map which he claimed was give to him by his grandfather, by which he could locate buried money. He and the late Andrew Edwards, a pioneer citizen, dug large holes at the river, but the passing of a half century had removed toe landmarks indicate, hence nothing was found. However, that failure can not deny the probability of the burial of the money the could not fine.
“Good citizens of Rochester, please pause and consider. Our homes, schools, churches, public buildings, business blocks, railroads, highways – all are built on lands veritably “snouged” from the untutored children of the forest, at bargains that would put men in the penitentiary today for similar advantage against innocence. We hold deeds in perpetuity for our homes and property, and those deeds were honestly obtained as truly liquidated, but can our conscious pride be charged as particeps criminis in this generation, when we realize that the Pottawattomie Indians were wickedly robbed by first crippling their minds with whiskey, a vile intent and a flagrant crime too repugnant for any legitimate excuse. Let “wets” answer that record of the early piety of booze and booze venders.”
Albert Bitter’s wife, Emma Shelton, daughter of Samuel and Martha (League) Shelton, was a descendent of John Johnson, one of only three Revolutionary War Veterans buried in Fulton County. He is buried in the Shelton cemetery (just west of the corner of old U.S. 31 and county road 300S by Woodrow School.) Emma’s brother Horace Shelton ran a dray line in Rochester and was the father of Louise Shelton (Mrs. Ray Yeagley) and Jess Shelton, a barber. Emma’s brother John Shelton was a Civil War veteran and worked in Dawson‘s Drug store. He died April 8, 1942, just a few days before his 100th birthday. Emma died at the age of 97 on March 22, 1961. She and her brothers were born in a log cabin one –fourth mile north of Woodrow School on old U.S. 31 about three and a half miles south of Rochester. The cabin was located on a knoll on the east side of the road just north of the drive to Frank Carroll’s machine shop. For many years the Shelton reunion was held there until the cabin was torn down in the early 18900’s. Their father, Sam Shelton, built the house at 1216 Madison, where Emma lived form age of 6 until her death.
Albert and Emma’s son, Harry Bitters, was a lifetime resident of Rochester, also living in the Shelton home at 1216 Madison. He married Dollie Smith in 1922. He was a cabinet maker and attended Rochester Normal University two years. He died at age 85 in 1969, but Dollie now resides in the Peabody Home at North Manchester. They had no children and thus the Bitters name is no more in Rochester.
References:
Rochester Sentinel, September 20, 1895; Major Bitters Obituary April 3, 1902; Sentinel Dec 6, 1934 and Dec 4, 1954; Ray Yeagley; Mary Hardin; Fulton County Health Department death records.