A GLANCE AT OHIO
HISTORY AND HISTORICAL MEN
BY JAMES Q. HOWARD.
Page 187
James Quay HOWARD is a
native of Newark, Licking county,
Ohio. His
mother was the daughter of Judge Quigley of Pennsylvania. His
father, Deacon George Howard, was a soldier in the War of 1812 and his
grandfather
an officer in the war of the Revolution. James
Q. Howard was fitted for college at
Granville and was graduated at Marietta College with honors. In 1859 he delivered the
Master's Oration and
received the second degree. He
was
admitted to the bar at Columbus having studied law with Hon. Samuel
Galloway.
In 1860, at the
request of Follett, Fosters & Co, the
publishers of the "Lincoln and Douglas Debates," wrote a brief, "Life
of Abraham Lincoln," which was translated into German.
On September 6, 1861, he was appointed by Mr.
Lincoln United States Consul at St. John, New Brunswick. The Chesapeake piracy case
the Calais bank raid,
bringing about the capture of blockade runners and enforcing Stauton's passport orders
conspired to render the duties of
consul at this great shipbuilding port on the Bay of Fundy
as responsible as those of any like officer in the service. The authorities at Calais,
Maine gave Council
Howard credit for having saved the town from destruction by fire. A dozen blockade-runners
were captured through
information which he furnished. He
received the frequent thanks of Secretary Seward for "zeal an activity" and his commendation
for "fidelity
and ability.” On
returning home in 1867
Mr. Howard purchased an interest In the Ohio State Journal and, while e
an
editorial writer on that paper, his articles on finance were commended
widely
and copied by the New York press.
Whole
writing for the reviews and magazines, his address before the Alumni of
Marietta
College, in 1871, was characterized by Charles: Sumner as
“admirable practical
useful.” In
1876 he was selected by the
immediate friends of Governor Hayes to wrote the authorized life the
Republican
candidate for the Presidency, published by Robert Clark & Co,
of Cincinnati. He
was soon after placed on the editorial
force of the New York Tribune, where he wrote all the articles on the
important
subject of counting the electoral vote.
In 1877 be was
appointed to a position In the New York Custom, House
an in the following year was nominated a confirmed as an assistant
appraiser of
merchandise. In
1880 he was deemed most
worthy of promotion to the responsible office of Chief Appraiser, one
of the
two national offices of largest discretionary power, outside of the
Cabinet. It is
through the work of the appraiser's
department at New York that the government is supplied with the bulk of
its
revenue. Mr. Howard
has held important
offices under five presidents of the United States, and passed the
United
Staten Senate three times by a unanimous vote.
His present home is on the border of Central Park New York
city.
The paper which
follows was originally delivered before the Ohio Society of New York.
I
PURPOSE to present the briefest possible outline of that Ohio field of
biography
and history which it would be both pleasant and profitable, for all
Ohioans
especially, to explore. That
Territorial
and State history relates to historical events and historical men. Some of these far-reaching
events worthiest
of our particular study are the first permanent settlement at Marietta,
in the
spring of 1788, the second settlement at Columbia near the site of
Cincinnati,
in the autumn of the same year, the establishment of a Territorial
government
with Gen. Arthur St. Clair as the first and only duly commissioned
Territorial
Governor, the formation of the first four counties in the Territory,
with the
noble Revolutionary names of Washington, Hamilton, Wayne and Adams, the
disastrous defeat of Gen. Harmar by the Indians, in June, 1790, the
more
disastrous defeat of Gov. St. Clair, November, 1791 in that western
Ohio county
since appropriately called Darke, the inspiring victory of Gen. Anthony
Wayne in
August, 1794, the enactment and enforcement of much needed laws by the
Governor
and Territorial Judges, the assembling of the first Territorial
Legislature
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185
on
September 24, 1799, the ceding by Connecticut of her claims to that
territory
called the Western Reserve of Connecticut, on May 30, 1801, the
formation of
the first State Constitution at Chillicothe in November, 1802, the
first
general electron under that constitution, In January, 1803, the
transition from
a Territorial to a State government, in February and March, 1803 the
Burr
conspiracy, with the State's vigorous action in suppressing it, in
1806, The
Gallant Defence of Fort
Stephenson and Perry's
splendid victory on a Lake Erie during the War of 1812, the
establishment of
the permanent seat of government at Columbus, in the beginning of the
construction of the great canals of the State, at Newark, in the
fitting
presence of Governors Jeremiah Morrow, DeWtt
Clinton
and an Hon Thomas Ewing, July 4, 1825, the building of he first and
other an
lines of that network of railroads which has done more than any single
agency
to advance the material interests of the State, the creation of those
noble
institutions of charity, benevolence and learning and of that system of
public
schools which have so honored the State in all succeeding years, Ohio's
preparation for and part in the War for the Union, her action with
respect to
the latest and best amendments to the national Constitution, her
courageous
course in the prolonged contests for a sound currency with coin
resumption, an
her firm maintenance, untarnished, of the State's and the nation's
credit an
faith.
Turning
from events some of which can be treated in essays, others only in
volumes, to
the meritorious men identified with Ohio's history—men whom
we all ought to
know more about, much more than the libraries can teach us—we
cannot omit from
the briefest historical list, General Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler
so
worthy to be enrolled among the founders of States, Gen. Arthur St.
Clair, who
passed from the Presidency of the American Congress
to the Governorship of the Northwest
Territory, remaining our Territory's executive chief, through alternate
successes and defeats, for fourteen years, Gen Samuel H. Parsons, Gen.
James M Varnum, and
John Cleves Symmes, the able and eminent Territorial
Judges, Dr. Edward Tiffin, president of the convention which framed the
first
constitution of the State, and first governor of Ohio
under
the constitution, Return. Jonathan Meigs, the first
cabinet officer Ohio
furnished the republic, whose grave is one of the objects of historical
interest in old Marietta; Judge Jacob Burnet, the Western Lyonurgus,
who helped to give our confused mass of laws consistency and
adaptation, honest
old Jeremiah Morrow, the last and best of the governors of the pioneer
race
faithful Peter Hitchcock, for twenty years in the Legislature and in
Congress,
and for twenty-five Chief Justice of the State, William Henry Harrison,
the
pure patriot of highest virtue,
whose
political triumph of 1840 was not greater than his earlier triumphs
over our
Indian foes, Justice John McLean, who combined the manners an graces of
the old
of jurists with the learning of the new Samuel F. Vinton, able and
dignified
Whig leader who preserve his dignity to his existence office, Charles
Hammond,
among the strongest of the members of the American bar, the brilliant
and
eloquent Thomas L. Hamer,
who sent Grant to West
Point, Judge Bellamy Storer,
alike popular on the
bench and on the stump Hocking Hunter, every inch and in every fiber a
lawyer,
an Henry Stanbery, that
perfect type of courtly
gentleman.
Especially
should we of this generation learn more about two most distinctively
representative historical men of , Thomas Ewing an Thomas Corwin, the
one the
embodiment of all the robust strength, physical and mental, of the
great
Northwest, declared to be at the period of his death the ablest lawyer
in the
United States, the other, in the concurrent judgment of all who have
felt the
spell of his matchless eloquence, the greatest natural orator an most
marvelous
wit, mimic and master of the passions of men that the continent has yet
known.
Passing
from these two extraordinary men, who taught the great men of the later
period
how to become great, but not forgetting, in passing, the hugh
minded and massive-minded Chase, the slavery-hating Joshua R. Giddings,
bluff
Ben Wade, burly, brainy John Brough,
and the strong
but gentle David Tod,
we reach that race of native
historic Ben whose loves tour ours, we might almost say whose lives
preserved
ours Grant, the peer of Marlborough, Von Moltke,
Wellington and Napoleon, modern world's first soldiers, Staton,
the creator
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186
of
armies and mighty forger of the Thunderbolts of war, Sherman who turned
retreats and defeats into advances and victories, and rode with the
swiftness
of the wind to fame, Sherman, the only soldier or statesman in our
history who
refused the honor of the Presidency when it was thrice within his
reach, Hayes,
who called around him as able a cabinet as the nation has had and whose
administration of the government was so acceptable to the people that
they
voted for another politically like it, Garfield, the most learned and
scholarly
president, not excepting John Quincy Adams, who has filled the
executive chair
the pathos of whose death touched all hearts in all lands, and the
tenderly
loved McPherson, whose untimely death alone cut him off from equality
with the
greatest.
And
in what more fitting connection can we refer to those two peerless
living Ohio
statesmen, similar in name and fame, Sherman and Thurman the one
greatest as a
financier, the other as a lawyer, both of highest distinction in the
making and
in the administration of law, and each gratefully honored for his noble
public
services by the discriminating, everywhere?
Conspicuous
for their eminent abilities as are Rufus P. Ranney,
William S. Groesbeck, Samuel Shellabarger, John A. Bingham, George H.
Pendleton, Thomas Owing, H. J. Jewett, Aaron F. Perry, Jacob D. Cox,
Joseph B.
Foraker, Wm McKinley, Chief Justice Waite and Associate Justices Woods
and
Matthews among Ohioans, we must not forget in our biographical studies
other
useful or brilliant men still living or who have passed away, leaving
honored
names worthy of long remembrance within and beyond the limits of their
own
State. It will not
trust, invidious to
call to mind Elisha Whittlesey,
Joseph R. Swan, Alfred Kelly, George E., William Allen, James G.
Barney, Samuel
Lewis, William Dennison, Samuel Galloway, R. P. Spaulding, Valentine B.
,
Doctors Delamater,
Kirtland, and Mussey,
and General J. H. Devereux, or such public-spirited benefactors as Dr.
Daniel
Drake, William Woodward, Reuben Springer, Leonard Case, Lyne
Starling, John Mills, Douglas Putnam, Jay Cooke, Nicholas Longworth,
J. R. Buchtel, David
Sinton and William Probasco.
Such
born jurists and gentlemen as Justice Noah H. Swayne
and Judges Leavitt, Nash and Gholson are everywhere held in honor, as
will also
long be revered the names of those eminent scholars and divines, Dr.
Lyman
Beecher, Bishop, Philander Chase, Bishops McIlvaine,
Simpson, Ames, Bishop Edward Thomson Dr. Henry Smith and Presidents
Finney of
Oberlin and Andrews of Marietta.
These
are other Ohio names that are too prominently connected with the
history of the
nation to be overlooked among which are those of Generals McClellan, Rosecrans McDowell, Buell,
Custer, Crook, Hazen, Quincy A. Glllmore,
Schenck, Steadman, Swayne, Walcutt
and the McCooks, the
great inventor Edison, the Arctic explorer Dr. Hall, the Siberian traveller George Kennan, the
astronomer Prof. O. M. Mitchell,
the
geologists, Newberry, Orton
and Wright, and the
Director General of our National Centennial Exhibition, Sir A. T. Goshorn.
What
are Ohio's most honored names in literature, intelligent readers of
course know
all about, and whole her sons may have accomplished less, perhaps, in
that
field than in war politics or art, one can safely say that Artemus
Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby
compare favorably with
the first humorists of the nation William Howells and Albion W. Tourgee with the foremost
novelists of their day, while
Charles Hammond, Samuel Medary,
E. D. Mansfied,
Washington McLean, Henry Read, Fred Hassaurek,
Joseph Medill, Richard
Smith, Murat Haldstead, Donn Piatt, Samuel Read, Edwin
Cowles, J. A. MacGahan, William
Henry Smith, and the present editors of the New
York Tribune, the New York World,
and the Cincinnati Enquirer have
yielded or are vow yielding as large a measure of Influence as has
fallen to
the lot of any American Journalists, Buchanan Read, Frances W. Gage,
William D.
Gallagher, Alice and Phoebe Cary, William H. Lytle, John James Piatt,
Manning
F. Force, Henry Howe, S. P. Hildreth
and John Hay
have done nobly all that their have attenuated to do at all and John
James and
Mrs. S M. B. Piatt, Edith Thomas and Mrs. Kate Sherwood are making
poetry and
fame just as fast as the muses will permit.
And
while it would take many essays to show what Ohioans have accomplished
in art
none can afford to be Ignorant of the lives and works of the world
famous
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187
Thomas
Cole and Hiram Powers, or of the achievements of America's first animal
painters, James H. and William H. Beard, or of the noble for works
which adorn
so many of our parks and cities of this country's greatest sculptor,
Quincy
Ward, whose "Indian Hunter," "Shakespeare," and
"Washington” and an "Equestrian Thomas" will live a thousand
years after all that now has life shall have perished.
I
close this appeal for the study of our State's history by reminding
that Ohio
can lay full or partial claim to four Presidents of the United States:
Harrison, Grant, Hayes and Garfield, to one Vice President, by birth,
Hendricks, and one Speaker of the House, Keifer,
to
two Chief- Justices, Chase and Waite and four Associate Justices,
McLean, Swayne,
Matthews an Woods, to one Secretary of State,
thorough fourteen years residence, Lewis Case to five Secretaries of
the
Treasury, Ewing, Corwin, Chase, Sherman and Windom, three Secretaries
of War,
McLean, Stanton and Taft, to three Secretaries of the Interior Ewing,
Cox and
Delano, to two Attorneys-General, Stanbery
and Taft,
and to three Postmasters-General Meigs, McLean and Dennison.
If
all these men have not done enough to command your interest an
studious attention, set to work gentlemen of the Ohio Society, and do
something
to honor the Buckeye State yourselves!