A GLANCE AT OHIO HISTORY AND HISTORICAL MEN

BY JAMES Q. HOWARD.

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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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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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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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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!