(page 297)

 

Warren County Banks.

 

            On April 15, 1803, in the little city of Cincinnati, was incorporated the first organization in Ohio to issue notes for circulation as a medium of exchange. It was known as the Miami Exporting company of Cincinnati. It did not pose as a bank, indeed its charter did not intimate that the organizers had any authority to put into circulation notes that could be used as money. For over forty years this system of free banking was productive of harm to the public and stockholders alike. Banks failed and depositors lost. Bank assets too often were only assets on paper, as is shown in the history of Jefferson county, Ohio, which records that "the only asset was a table" in a bank failure in the town of Salem in that county in 1816, and that a similar failure in the same county showed that the principal, if not the only asset, was a "keg filled with nails, having a mere covering of gold and silver coin."

            Verily, the filled stocking, secreted in the black depths of a sooty chimney, promised to be a safer hiding place for hoarded coin. Mr. P. W. Huntington, president of the Huntington National bank at Columbus, Ohio, in a valuable article entitled a History of Banking in Ohio, contributed to the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, says, "Wildcat banking was a curse to Ohio, in common with other western states, and the spurious credit established by it was a blot on the fair name of commercial integrity. The losses imposed by this evil were as widespread as the communities of the state, and every man was liable to have in his pocket money which was worthless, or which could be passed only at a ruinous rate of discount. A clause is found in some of the early bank charters that `the capital stock shall never be impaired by the dividends' ; and the legislature appears to have assumed that the banks created by it had a right, without the grant, to issue notes for circulation. How that supposed right was used, and abused, can never be fully known." Counterfeiting was a potent enemy of the early banks, not only in Ohio but throughout the whole country. Mr. Huntington asserts of this evil, "An ever present form of loss and annoyance to bankers and to the public also, during the first sixty years of banking in Ohio, was the unending supply of counterfeit bank notes which were passed upon unsuspecting victims. This was a crying evil ; and no bank teller was expert enough to detect all the spurious currency offered, innocently in most cases to him.  * * *  As late as 1856, it was estimated that there were over sixteen hundred plates in use in the United States, from which bank notes were struck for circulation."

            One of the earliest troubles, financially speaking, in Ohio's history, was obtaining specie for small payments. Skins of animals, especially raccoon skins, were used as currency. In garrison towns, the payment of the soldiers being in gold or Spanish silver dollars, there was less difficulty in obtaining currency for small amounts. The early settlers solved the problem by coining for themselves what was called "cut money." A silver dollar would be cut by them into four pieces, each piece accepted in trade at the value of twenty-five cents ; if a smaller coin was desired the cut quarter would be divided into two pieces, each piece estimated at twelve and one-half cents.

            (page 298) From necessity, cut money was used by the pioneer residents of Lebanon and Warren county. One of the first cases tried in the supreme court at Lebanon, in November, 1805, was the arraignment of a boy for stealing from Ephraim Hathaway, Lebanon's noted tavern keeper, "one pocketbook, one Spanish milled dollar, and one cut eighth part of a Spanish milled dollar." The lad confessed his guilt, and justice and the law were satisfied by the public witnessing the scarring of his naked back with three strokes of a whip.

            Warren county's first bank was organized in Lebanon in 1814 under the name of the Lebanon Banking company;, its directors were John Adams, Joshua Collett, Joseph Canby, Alexander Crawford, William Ferguson, George Harnesberger, William Lytle, William Lowry, Thomas Ross, Daniel F. Reeder, the last named being honored with the office of president ; all were prominent men of influence in the county ; in the hands of Phineas Ross were placed the responsible duties of cashier. The capital stock of the new bank was $50,000. The article of incorporation of this association for public utility read as follows : "We whose names are hereunto subscribed, for the purpose of encouraging trade, to promote a spirit of improvement in agriculture, manufactures, arts and sciences, to aid the efforts of honest industry, and to suppress the unlawful and pernicious practice of usury, do mutually covenant and agree with each other to establish a banking company, for the objects before mentioned, at Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio, to be called and known by the name of the Lebanon Miami Banking company, which shall continue for the term of twenty years from the commencement of its operations." Mr. Morrow, in his very accurate history of Warren county, says, "The bank soon began to issue its notes for circulation, of the denominations of $1.00, $3.00, $5.00, and $10.00, and `tickets' of lower denominations than $1.00. * * *  Profitable dividends to the stockholders were frequently declared. But the company became involved in difficulties and, on February 2, 1819, the directors resolved `that it is expedient for this institution to close its business as soon as practicable. That it is not expedient that this resolution. be now made public.' " The bank closed its doors about three years later. In 1841 the bank was re-organized under the old name, with John S. Inglehart as president and James H. Earl cashier; following the example of its predecessor, it issued its own paper for circulation, and apparently stood on a firm and successful basis, but its activity was of short duration. Lebanon now proudly boasts of two fiscal organizations, that possess the confidence of the surrounding country. The Lebanon National bank is the older of the two institutions. For over forty-two years it has stood secure and firm, holding its own in every financial panic that has threatened the money interests of the people.

            It was organized in 1877 with Mr. J. M. Hayner as its first president. It is the larger of the two banks, and its last statements show assets of $1,200,000 and deposits of nearly $800,000. Its present officers are : President, P. V. Bone; vice-president and cashier, C. C. Eulass; assistant cashier, Lawrence P. Shawhan, of Loveland ; teller, C. H. Eulass. The present board of directors is composed of men of (page 299) sterling character : W. F. Eltzroth, P. V. Bone, A. B. Kaufman, Demas Guttery, E. W. Spreng, David E. Dunham, and C. H. Eulass. The history of the Citizens' National bank is of shorter duration. The organization of this most trusted institution was effected in 1890, with J. F. Benham, president, and Thomas Hardy, cashier. In the short space of twelve months its assets had grown to $165,000 and deposits to $100,000. After twenty-nine years of faithful service to the people of Warren county, its statement issued in the first month of the present year, shows deposits amounting to $630,000 and assets of $950,000. Its official directorate is : President, J. A. Runyan ; vice-president, R. M. Gallaher ; cashier, Charles S. Irwin ; assistant cashiers, C. L. Bolmer and Will R. Lewis. The following gentlemen constitute the bank's present board of directors : Judge Alton F. Brown, T. E. Ivins, O. W. Morris, Lon Simonton, R. M. Gallaher, Arthur Hamilton, Charles A. Graham, J. Warren Wood, George C. King, J. A. Runyan and H. W. Suemening. Both banks recognize the efficiency of women in clerical work, Miss Miriam Smith having charge of the books at the Citizens' National and Miss Sarah Gallaher holding the same responsible position at the Lebanon National, assisted by Mrs. Mildred Banta.

            In connection with this brief statement of the useful activities of these two financial institutions, mention should be made of Mr. J. Warren Wood, who lately withdrew from official connection with     the Citizens' National bank, after being identified with its operations almost since the date of its organization. Quoting from the Western Star, "Early in 1891, Mr. Wood became a bank messenger, but so rapidly did he acquire a banking knowledge that, Mr. Hardy's health having become seriously impaired, he was elected cashier in 1898, which position he has held until last Tuesday (January 14, 1919), when he retired of his own volition and against the wishes of both officers and stockholders. As is shown in the list of directors, he still retains connection with the bank, but now as a director and not in active management."

            Mr. Lawrence F. Shawhan, the newly-elected assistant cashier of the Lebanon National bank, was for years officially connected with the National bank at Loveland. He is a nephew of judge Robert J. Shawhan of Lebanon.

 

Early Industries.

 

            As one hears the whistles, and sees the black smoke ascending from tall chimneys that proclaim the location of numerous factories scattered over the Miami valleys, announcing the increasing wealth of the population, the story of the "business activities" of the pioneers makes interesting reading. Industries that improvement in the mechanical arts has driven from manufacture on a small scale, flourished in Lebanon in the early thirties.

            On September 13, 1832, William Russell announces to the 1,200 inhabitants of the village, that the two woolen factories operated by him under the name of "The Lebanon Steam Woolen factory," "where all kinds of woolen goods commonly made in this country will be made on easy terms by the yard or shares." He also states that he has "commenced fulling and was prepared to do work in that line in the best manner and on short notice." He had a rival (page 300) in his activity, in the firm of Wood & Boyd, who come out in an advertisement calculated to catch the eye of a young swain who is contemplating the purchase of a wedding suit (which probably will be his "best" attire till he would hold his grandchild on his knee, provided he did not increase in corpulency) ; the aforesaid advertisement announcing that the said Wood & Boyd "have at great expense procured machinery of the most approved construction for the manufacture of double-width cloths of the finest texture, and both wide and narrow cloths, satinets, cassinets, jeans, flannels, wide and narrow blankets, etc." These factories must certainly have done a prosperous business, for at the opening of the year 1840, there were still two in Lebanon, which employed thirty hands.

            Opposite to the woolen factory of Wood & Boyd stood the chair making factory of Richard Borden. The same business was carried on in the shop of E. A. Wiles & Co. on Main street; the firm also made and painted sign boards.

            John Probasco, in those early days repaired "watches and clocks of all kinds," and made "brass clocks at the shortest notice-" By brass clocks the. purchasers came into possession of clocks with brass wheels. Clock making was also carried on by Thomas Best. A few doors north of the hotel on Broadway, kept by Mrs. Share in these modern days known as the Ownley house, book binding was the advertised employment of James Hopkins, who also supplied the school children with requisite textbooks, but not a single work of fiction found a place on his shelves. In his immediate neighborhood, Tobias Bretney supplied the public with leather ; but in the year 1839 there was only one tannery in Lebanon. There were also heavier industries. North of the courthouse, on Mechanic street, Samuel Paxton made edge tools on "short notice," and also supplied the farmers of the surrounding country with plows of his own making. The iron business must have been one of the most thriving activities in the early history of Lebanon, for in 1839 there was one iron foundry and three plow making establishments in the village. The ownership of a foundry was advertised by William Alloway in the winter of 1833, his place of business being one square above the new courthouse, where he was always ready to "furnish castings of any pattern."

            There was only one barber shop in Lebanon in the early thirties, and it was conducted by a colored man who rejoiced in the uneuphonious name of Thomas Chubb. Like the famous Silas Wegg, this same Thomas Chubb delighted occasionally "to fall into poetry," and his advertisements appeared in both rhyme and prose. This same tonsorial artist was fond of his hours of meditation, as will be seen by his public announcement that "His shop will be open on Sunday only till 9 o'clock, after which he wishes to spend the day in going to church and reflection."

            Match Making. Not matrimonial alliances, but friction matches, although the former might sometimes be included in the latter.

            The first friction matches were brought to America from England, where they had been discovered by a druggist named John (page 301) Walker, in the year 1827. It was a long time before they came into common use in this country, for the price asked for them put them out of the reach of the poor man's purse ; even as late as the early forties they retailed at 25 cents per hundred. But as soon as their manufacture began in America, their convenient utility created a popular want for them, and their manufacture was begun on a small way in Warren county only a few years after the first improved friction matches were made on an extensive commercial scale in the eastern centers of population in the United States.

            It was in the year of 1840 that a young man about twenty-three years of age came to Red Lion in Warren county from the east.

            With his young wife, William H. Ballard set his face towards the sunset, ambitious to realize some of the golden dreams that glorified the future for every young man who ever started on a pioneer trail. He certainly carried with him nothing in the way of fortune's gifts, for the worldly possessions of the two were comprised in a bed, a store box full of household goods, and cash to the amount of $1.25. But doubtless he considered himself on the road to attainment when he obtained work at cutting corn at 50 cents a day, after the bed had been set up and the store box opened in the little log cabin that became their home.

            Undoubtedly he had at some time been employed in the matchmaking business, for he brought with him from the east some of the combustibles used in the manufacture of matches, and at once set to work making them by hand with a knife. The process was slow, and the demand not extensive, but a ready sale was found for the product, as he traveled on foot in disposing of them in the little settlements or at the doors of the scattered cabins. But, contriving to become the possessor of a rough, one-horse wagon, in the spring he was lucky enough to buy an old horse for $18, for which he gave his note. With this rude equipment the sale of his matches was extended ; demand for them increased, and he was able- to enlarge his manufacturing facilities proportionately.

            The appointment of Mr. Ballard to the office of postmaster in Red Lion increased his financial resources from $7 to $10 per quarter. He also opened a little grocery and it seemed, indeed, as though the sun of prosperity was driving away all clouds of discouragement, for, while he made and peddled matches on a larger scale, his wife proved herself a prototype of the "coming-woman, for she took upon her shoulders the duties of both grocery and postoffice. Possessing a rather inventive mind, Mr. Ballard was fortunate enough to invent a machine which cut the splints needed for his matches, and the output of his business was increased largely. Purchasing an old building, he moved it on his own land, thus enlarging his factory-room, and was able to run his machinery by use of a small engine and boiler, employed more hands, invested in property, and it can be truthfully said that fortune, in the small fame of a friction match, lighted his steps to substantial wealth. But the War of the Rebellion put an end to his industry. The war tax ruined the activity of all factories that were run on a limited scale, and in the year 1862 the manufacture of matches stopped in Warren county. (page 302)  

 

The Honored Dead of Warren County

 

            No county in Ohio has a longer roll of names distinguished for ideal citizenship than Warren county. Many of them attained national fame, others were of less wide renown, while some, perchance, were little known beyond the limits of their own county, but southwestern Ohio holds them all in affectionate and reverent admiration as founders and supporters of true American ideals and institutions. Local history has preserved the memory of Capt. Robert Benham, who migrated from Pennsylvania to the Ohio valley some years before the first treaty with the Indians at Greenville, and was the builder and possessor of the first hewed log house in the village or settlement of Cincinnati. With a keen eye to business, he established, in 1792, a ferry at the same settlement over the Ohio. His thorough understanding of the needs of the early settlers made him a member of the first territorial legislature, and having decided to locate in Warren county he was one of the first board of county commissioners to watch over its interests. He was noted for great physical strength, and his name has a prominent place in Ohio's record for distinguished bravery in Indian warfare. Strong as he was physically, yet, doubtless, the hard unceasing toil of pioneer life sapped his strength, and he died in-1809, at his farm near Lebanon, without attaining his three-score years.

            Jeremiah Morrow. There is no name more honored in Warren county's early history than that of Jeremiah Morrow. Of Scotch-Irish ancestry, it was in the year 1730 that his grandfather came to America and settled in Adams county, Pennsylvania ; his namesake, the subject of this brief sketch, was born near the present town of Gettysburg, October 6, 1771. Like all other boys of his time, he knew the meaning of hard work, and only obtained the scanty education found in pioneer schools. But with a determination thoroughly characteristic of the man, he mastered the science of surveying and, deciding that the Ohio country offered more inducements for a permanent location, crossed the mountains about 1796 and, reaching the little settlement of Columbia, was almost immediately employed as a teacher and surveyor. Following the trail of the immigration that was so rapidly advancing into the Miami valleys, he purchased a large tract of land in the fertile basin of the Little Miami, the farm lying in the inclosure of what is now known as Warren county, resolving that here during life should be set up his lares and penates. Obeying the Scriptural injunction that man should not travel the journey of life alone, in the spring of 1799 he returned to Pennsylvania and informed Miss Mary Parkhill of Fayette county, that a certain little log house, overshadowed by forest trees, not far from the clear, beautiful waters of the Little Miami, awaited her coming as its mistress. She willingly returned with him, and their united life was a truly happy and congenial one.

            From the very beginning of Mr. Morrow's residence in his new home, his sterling, manly qualities and wide intelligence were recognized by his neighbors as assets to be used in the building up of community and state life, and in 1801 they sent him to the old state (page 303) house at Chillicothe to sit as their representative in the first legislative assembly that met within its walls. The following year the responsible duty of assisting in the framing of a constitution for the new state was laid upon him. Other honors came in rapid succession. Grave obligations as member of the first state legislature were treated most satisfactorily to his constituents; so gratifying were his labors that, at a special election in the summer of 1803, he was sent to the national congress where, for ten years, he was the sole representative of Ohio in the house of representatives. In 1813, when a new apportionment entitled Ohio to a larger representation in congress, Mr. Morrow took a seat in the United States senate.

            His services while in the national congress, as chairman of the committee on public lands, were particularly valuable, not only to the citizens of Ohio, but to the people at large. One has well written, "He knew thoroughly the wants of the settlers and possessed the firmness, independence and moral courage to resist the lobby-scheming of land speculators. His opinion on any subject relating to the public domain uniformly commanded the respect of congress, so that it came to pass that almost all of the laws providing for the survey and disposal of the public lands during the period he was in congress were drafted by him." His knowledge of Indian character made him a trustworthy commissioner to treat, in 1814, with the tribes living west of the Miami rivers. He kept in close touch with all projects and movements directed to internal improvements, and while in the house urgently urged governmental support for the building of the Cumberland road, a macadamized highway, linking a tributary of the Mississippi with the Atlantic coast, and a few years later he was seen as zealously advancing the canal system in his own state. In 1822 Ohio claimed his services as governor of the state, and for four years he faithfully and enthusiastically supported every enterprise directed towards the advancement of the state in every and all directions. As has been said elsewhere, the building and success of the Little Miami railroad was largely due to his determination that it should not fall through, and, as its first president, he did a major part in directing its financing and keeping up the faith of discouraged stockholders. At the close of his second term of governorship, Gov. Morrow returned to his home on the banks of the Little 1!I-am;, with the intention to devote the remainder of his life to the improvement of his farm, a labor peculiarly enjoyable to him. But the people of Ohio a little later demanded his return to public life, and elected him to congress. An almost unprecedented honor to come to a man who had reached his threescore years and ten. But it was not an ordinary time in either national or state politics, and no ordinary man could carry the burden intrusted to him. Says one thoroughly conversant with the times : "It was the log cabin year, when the people of the state went wild over the brilliant speeches of America's greatest orator, Corwin, and the songs of John Greiner." Mr. Corwin had accepted the Whig nomination for governor of Ohio, which necessitated his resignation as congressman, and Jeremiah Morrow was the imperative choice of the state as the one man fitted to fill out Mr. Corwin's unexpired term.

            (page 304) With great reluctance Mr. Morrow again took his seat in the great national council. The burden of age was beginning to be felt; he yearned for the quietude of private, home life, but, convinced that it was a duty to again take up the cares of statesmanship, he went to Washington, to find but one man sitting in congressional halls who had been there when Gov. Morrow went to the 8th congress as Ohio's representative in 1803. This was John Quincy Adams, who had ascended the political ladder from representative to the presidency of the United States, and at the end of his presidential term was again serving his state in congress, standing with characteristic positiveness for human liberty in pleading for free speech and the right of petition. Mr. Morrow was, perchance, more disturbed by the change in personal environment than by anything else. He missed his old associates, they had disappeared from the field of action, taking with them the courtesy and kindliness of manner that distinguished the public men of our early history. The venerable man said : "I am acting with another generation. The courtesies which members formerly extended to each other are, in a great measure, laid aside, and I feel that I am in the way of younger men."

            For over forty years Mr. Morrow faithfully served his nation, state and community. By nature he was retiring, and the attractive life to him was one passed at his country home, where he delighted to help in the work necessary in farm life; possessing the true American idea of manual labor, that it was ennobling and that laziness was degrading, Mr. Morrow often greeted the great of earth, who sometimes knocked at the door of his plain frame house, in workman's garb, and it was sometimes a little difficult for distinguished foreigners to realize that the slender, small man, so simple and reserved in manner, who came from the hay field or mill and met them quietly but cordially, was the man whose fame, as a patriot and upholder of republican principles and institutions, was not confined to the shores of the country so dear to him. Trained from childhood in things pertaining to religious life, Mr. Morrow was affiliated with the United Presbyterian church, and was honored by his friends and neighbors for his consistent life. He died on March 22, 1852, leaving behind him a record of a life so well spent, that Warren county may justly and proudly esteem it one of its priceless treasures.

            Matthias Corwin. The father of the man most distinguished in the history of Warren county if not, perchance, of the state, is worthy of remembrance for his own personality and influence in pioneer days. Born in Morris county, New Jersey, his father moved to Pennsylvania when Matthias was but a little lad, going later to Bourbon county, Kentucky ; but the "land of desire" seemed to be the valley of the Little Miami in Ohio, and in 1798 he came with his family to what is now known as Warren county, buying land near the present site of Lebanon. Matthias had reached his thirty-seventh year, and immediately identified himself with the progressive men of southwestern Ohio ; having acquired a knowledge of the law, it was not long before his ability and qualifications were recognized by the pioneers, and he was one of the first justices of the (page 305) peace in Warren county, also sat as a member of the first board of Warren's county commissioners, and for ten years represented his neighbors in the legislature, and twice was honored with the dignified position of speaker of the house. From 1816 to 1824, he wore the judicial ermine as associate judge of the court of common pleas. All of these responsible positions attested the esteem and reliance held by southwestern Ohio in his uprightness of character and capability to manage public affairs. So strict were judge Corwin's ideas concerning personal conduct, that he is said to have regarded as fraud every act intended to misrepresent or deceive. Laziness appeared to him absolute crime. A family of nine children were early trained in habits of economy and industry. His peace-loving disposition, just and wise outlook, made him a reliable arbiter in neighborhood differences which he was many times called upon to adjust. Of his character it has been written : "He was the friend of the friendless, the comforter of the disconsolate, the affectionate and kind neighbor and relative, and, connected as he was through life, with religious, social and political communities, he was a guide and pattern in each. Such was the candor, the mildness, the uniformity of his conduct, and so unexceptionable his walk and conversation, he never knew an enemy."

            For thirty years judge Corwin was a valued and influential member of the Baptist church in Lebanon. His death took place September 4, 1829, having almost completed the allotted term of human life. His body lies in an old graveyard west of Lebanon, where also sleep many of Warren county's distinguished pioneer dead.

            Ichabod Corwin. The first white settler on the present site of Lebanon was Ichabod Corwin, an uncle of Warren county's most distinguished son. His settlement in the beautiful little Turtle creek valley was the result of one of those happenings in human life, which too often are called accidental, but which, doubtless, are part of the Divine plan for the welfare of those who believe in a higher guidance into "green pastures."

            A resident of Bourbon county, Kentucky, Mr. Corwin was one of a company that crossed the Ohio river in pursuit of the red men, and his eye was caught by the beauty and potential richness of the Miami country. Before Gen. Wayne's treaty of peace with the Indians in 1795, Mr. Corwin purchased a half section of land on the north branch of Turtle creek, and in the spring of 1796, with his little family, consisting of a wife and three children, built his rude cabin in "the dark and lonely wood."

            Mr. Corwin was but twenty-eight years of age when he felled the trees for his Ohio home, and one can picture the ideals of freedom and ambition for his children that nerved the arm that so lustily swung the ax. In the year 1797, a daughter came to add to the happiness of the little home circle, and local history asserts that baby Eliza was the first white child born within the present limits of Lebanon. Her life was brief. In the year 1815 she was united in marriage to William Newman, of English ancestry, but died after seven short years of wedded life, leaving one child, Moses B. Newman.

            (page 306) It is recorded that the best built house in Lebanon when the town was planned, was built by Ichabod Corwin.; a residence of hewed logs, whose walnut shingles were fastened with pegs instead of nails. For unknown reasons, he soon disposed of it to Ephraim Hathaway, who, with an eye to business, hung over its entrance a picture of a dark equine animal, and under the name of the Black Horse it became the first hostelry in Lebanon, with Ephraim Hathaway as landlord.

            The platting of the village of Lebanon, which was done in the year 1802, was of great interest to Mr. Corwin. The people of the growing settlement were very desirous that the town should be made the county seat, and knew that legislative enactment demanded the erection of a courthouse in any town ambitious to be a county capital, so Mr. Corwin, with other land owners, donated proceeds of the sale of lots toward a fund for the building of the temple of justice. A zealous member of the Baptist denomination, he also assisted largely in the erecting of the first Baptist church in the village, which is noted as the first church edifice in the town. His ambition for the renown of the village was expressed in his giving, or rather offering, forty acres for a building site for Miami university which Lebanon was desirous of inclosing in its environs. The ground was formally accepted by the legislature for the purpose intended, but afterwards located the institution at Oxford. The proffered site now lies mostly in the Lebanon cemetery. Mr. Corwin's eventful life came to a close in the fall of 1834, and his tombstone in the old Baptist graveyard records that sixty-seven years embraced his earthly existence. His faithful wife, Sarah Griffin Corwin, and twelve children survived him. Mrs. Corwin lived to see nearly two hundred of her descendants, passing away after nineteen years of widowhood.

            Samuel Heighway. As the founder of Waynesville, the "village on the hill-top," Samuel Heighway, merits a place among the honored dead of Warren county.

            He was not an adventurer, seeking to build up his fortunes in the new wonderful country that was bringing untold thousands to American shores, but was an Englishman of large means, his native town being Shropshire, England. He landed in America in 1794, and with his family reached the Miami valley the following year. Like many brother pioneers, Mr. Heighway's western journey was made on horseback as far as Pittsburg, where a flatboat was taken for the trip down the Ohio river, and it is interesting to know that the primitive vessel was 36 feet long, 12 feet wide, and drew 18 inches of water. With a view to the personal comfort of himself and family, the little craft was loaded with "wares and implements," purchased in Baltimore, for the furnishing of the new home in the wilderness and also for barter with the Indians. Owing to the low water in the river, the momentous journey was not begun until late in November, but we learn that Mr. Heighway and family suffered comparatively little from the extreme severity of the weather, as they were well provided with "blankets, three or four feather beds and plenty of bed clothes," and their larder was well stocked with a sufficient supply "of beef, mutton, four, bacon and (page 307) other foods." The passenger list consisted of seven people, two women and five men, of whom one of the latter was a young Englishman by the name of Bailey, who later became distinguished as an astronomer. In December the boat was broken by floating ice and the seekers for a new home were compelled to land, fortunately for them in the vicinity of a deserted cabin, which was promptly utilized for several weeks as a riverside abode. Again kind fortune favored them, for the wreckage occurred not very far from a sawmill, and the building of a new boat, a more commodious craft, was soon under way. On February 20, 1797, the voyage was resumed, and seven days later the founder of Waynesville reached the little settlement of Columbia, arriving at the site of Waynesville in three or four days, when trees were cut down for the new cabins. Rev. James Smith of Powhatan county, Virginia, the same year, with a view to locating in the Miami country, was in October a guest at the Heighway home, and a note in journal of his trip and of his sojourn states, "It was curious to see their elegant furniture and silver plate glittering in a small smoky cabin."

            Shortly after his arrival in the Miami valley, Mr. Heighway had become interested in a land speculation with Dr. Evan Banes and Rev. John Smith, both of whom resided at Columbia. A tract of land, embracing 30,000 acres lying westward about three miles from the Miami river, was purchased from judge John Cleves Symmes : the grant contained within its boundaries the present site of Waynesville, and of which it was the intention of Mr. Heighway to become sole owner. And as he had advanced the first payment for the tract, he had the privilege of first choice in selecting the land most pleasing to him, and thus the future site of Waynesville passed into his ownership. The price paid for all the land was $1.25 per acre. The settlement of Waynesville was not begun by Mr. Heighway until more than a year after the purchase contract was signed, and then, with a Yankee eye to profit, all land sold by him was at an advance price of fifty cent an acre, and $6 was the price of a town lot. The first Waynesville settlers were forced to obtain their deeds from the United States government, as judge Symmes had failed in his efforts to be granted a patent for the     territory. his was true not only for the settlers in Waynesville, but also of those in Franklin and Dayton, for they all came within the district for which judge Symmes had contracted. And the profits, that might have accrued to Mr. Heighway and his associates in their large land deal, were lost in the expenses of the numerous law suits arising over land deeds. For several years Samuel Heighway was the most prominent and influential man in the growing settlement of the town which he founded. The first mill in its neighborhood was built by him, and local annals record him as the first storekeeper in the village : in the year 1804 he was honored by the government with the office of postmaster. Nine years later he removed to Cincinnati, where he died in the year 1817.

            Col. John Hopkins. Col. John Hopkins derived his military title from promotion to the colonelcy of a militia battalion at the close of the War of 1812, in which contest he served in the capacity of a (page 308) lieutenant. He came with his father to Warren county in 1804, about three years before attaining his majority, endowed with a liberal education for the times, and speedily found employment as a competent surveyor and conveyancer. Establishing himself on a farm about two miles south of the little village of Lebanon, he brought as mistress of his home a young wife, Susanna Branstator. Election. as sheriff of the county caused Mr. Hopkins to resign his military once in 1821, having previously served the public as justice of the peace, and his new duties compelled his residing in Lebanon. At the close of his sheriffship he removed to Hopkinsville and opened a store, but the fabled political bee buzzed its fascinating hum around his ears, and he consented to run for representative, taking his seat in 1826, serving two terms. In 1836, Warren county desired his services as county commissioner, and for six years he faithfully looked after the public interest of the county, but in 1846 again entered the political arena and was sent to the upper chamber of the general assembly for two terms. A local historian writing of Col. Hopkins says : "Political honors came to him unsought. His powers of mind, sound judgment and practical wisdom gave him the full confidence of Warren county's citizens." A warm personal friend of Thomas Corwin, it would follow that he was a Whig in politics until later allied with the Republican party. After the close of his senatorship, for a quarter of a century he enjoyed the quiet and rest of life on his farm, where he died in 1875, aged eighty-nine years. John Hunt. The subject of this sketch was one of the most prominent men in the early history of Warren county, the Hunt family at Red Lion looking upon his father, Aaron Hunt, as their common ancestor.

            John Hunt was only six years of age when his family came from Washington county, Pennsylvania in 1798, and settled in Turtle Creek township. It was hard living for a time, for not until they had ploughed and sowed for four years did a wheat harvest reward their efforts. Then came the problem of reaping, for, unfortunately, they did not own an implement with which to cut the grain. Women's forethought and willingness to do solved the problem. Mounting a horse, using a man's saddle, and taking with her a piece of linen of her own weaving for payment, for money was lacking, the mother of John Hunt rode to Cincinnati to purchase a sickle for the ingathering that meant so much to her household. The journey took three days and two nights, a storm detaining her for some hours. Great was her anxiety to reach her home, not only from desire to save the grain, but also from the fact that a babe only three months old had been left in the care of older children, but they were trustworthy little nurses, for she found the infant in good health. The wheat was cut, but to their great disappointment the crop proved to be what the pioneers called "sick wheat," unfit for domestic purposes, as the four when made into bread caused great nausea to the eater. The mother of John Hunt was a woman equal to the many emergencies that naturally crept into the limitations of pioneer life. When her son was still a small lad, his arm was broken by an unlucky fall. Speedy (page 309) treatment was necessary. The nearest surgical aid could be only obtained at Cincinnati, sixty miles distant. To think was to act. Mrs. Hunt was equal to the emergency. With her own hands she set the broken bones.

            But little school instruction came to John Hunt, and nearly all he received was in his childhood. But endowed with a good mind and ability to embrace every advantage that fell in his way, he acquired an amount of information superior to that possessed by many children in pioneer homes. His business life started in 1820, when for five years he was occupied in boating on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers between Cincinnati and St. Louis, later "engaging in commercial and banking transactions." His intelligence and incorruptibility of character were so recognized and appreciated by the people of Warren county, that in 1835 they sent him as their representative to the general assembly, where he remained for three consecutive terms. First a Whig in politics, with the majority of the party he became an earnest advocate of Republican principles, and at the outbreak of the Civil War upheld the Union cause most earnestly, not only with word and sentiment, but recognizing his obligations to the men who made possible the safety and permanence of his government, he gave $5,000 to the aid of soldiers and their families. One of the most beautiful acts of his praiseworthy life was the literal adoption of a poor and needy soldier, whose wounds attested gallant service in the battle of Shiloh. As if belonging to his own kindred, Mr. Hunt made Thomas Blake a mem-. ber of his home circle and so ably educated him, that for six years he was a valued instructor in the public schools of Warren county, and later, for four years served the people as county recorder, and receiving still greater proof of public confidence in the appointment of postmaster of Lebanon, which office he retained for eight years.

            In the happiness that only comes from a life of generous deeds, Mr. Hunt lived to an advanced age, passing away at the old homestead, so dear to him, near Red Lion.

            Michael H. Johnson. Perchance, no man in the early history of Warren county was more useful along many lines of public service than Michael H. Johnson. He seems to have been fortunate in possessing a thorough rudimental education, for his correctness in speaking, spelling and writing caused him to be called on very often by the early settlers who desired the drafting, of important papers or settling of accounts : not that many of those who asked were without education, but they lacked the ability to express themselves with literary aptitude. While Ohio was yet under territorial government, Mr. Johnson filled several responsible official positions, being at one time assessor and then auditor of supervisor's accounts of Deerfield township, when it was still embraced in the confines of Hamilton county, and also held a lieutenant's commission, signed by Gov. St. Clair, in the militia of the territorial government. After the admittance of Ohio into statehood, at the first election for justice of the peace held in Warren county in the summer of 1803, Mr. Johnson was one of the two justices chosen for the township of Hamilton. In the same year, the associate judges also (page 310) appointed him the first recorder of the county, an office which was filled by him for six years, earning the magnificent salary of nine cents for every one' hundred words recorded by him. He certainly must have been also occupied with other things, for his official duties were far from irksome, as it required four years to fill the first volume of land records, although deeds and mortgages and all papers relating to land titles were recorded in the same book.

            Election to the state legislature came in 1809, and for six consecutive terms he sat as representative, entering the governing body as senator in the year 1818. The following year by joint ballot of the two legislative chambers he was appointed collector of the Second Ohio district. The state of Ohio, at this time, was divided into six districts, in order that the collection of taxes from non-resident land owners could be systematically accomplished. The Second district was the largest of the six, as it comprised all the counties in which were located the Virginia Military lands. Two years later the office was abolished. In `1820 the office of county auditor was created and Mr. Johnson was its first incumbent; he then, for a short time, held the office of county commissioner, but his appointment the same year, 1824, by the legislature to the honorable position of associate judge, compelled his resignation of the lower office. For ten consecutive years he filled this responsible station to the entire satisfaction of the people.

            His varied official duties did not prevent him from being an enthusiastic participant in early politics, and he was one of the foremost organizers of the Whig party in Warren county, and remained a firm adherent to its principles until his death in 1846.

            Mr. Johnson was born in Virginia in 1769. As has been told, his qualifications for the many positions of public trust held by him during his lifetime are proof that his education was broader than that received by the majority of the young men of his day. He came to Deerfield in 1797, and clerked for a man named Hinkson, who "was the first storekeeper in Warren county." Four years later he purchased land directly north of Hopkinsville, which remained in his possession until his death.

            It is related that he found much enjoyment in writing on religious subjects, and as he was of the Universalist persuasion, doubtless his articles proved red flags of controversy to the orthodox element that surrounded him.

            Thomas B. Ross. A large per cent of the men who won eminence in pioneer days chose the law as a profession, and were thus better equipped to administer both local and state affairs. Among them was Thomas B. Ross, who in 1810 hung out the "shingle" in the little village of Lebanon, that announced his ability and desire to adjust the legal grievances of the citizens of Warren county. He was a young man, having but recently passed his majority, but, youth that he was, he had been admitted to the bar two years previously to his coming to Lebanon. The birthplace of Mr. Ross was in New Garden township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His father was a Quaker physician, and consequently his son was educated at a Friends' school. On his mother's side he bore relationship to the famous John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia. (page 311)

            The ability of Mr. Ross speedily won him an enviable place among the able legal lights for which Warren county was so justly celebrated in the early years of its settlement; for it can be most truthfully asserted that the judges and attorneys on the Miami circuit in the first half of the nineteenth century were noted far and wide for great legal acumen, intellectual power, forcible presentation of the law, and a sincere, honest comprehension of justice. So rapidly grew the fame of Mr. Ross as a barrister and trustworthy citizen that, in 1818, he sat in the national congress as representative of the First Ohio district, which comprehended the counties of Hamilton, Preble and Warren, succeeding Gen. William Henry Harrison. During his incumbency one of the most serious problems in our national life came before Congress for its solving and, to his honor be it told, he was found on the side of the minority-the adoption of the Missouri compromise.

            At the close of his congressional life, Mr. Ross resumed his law practice in Lebanon, but in 1835 Warren county again demanded his public services, sending him as its representative to the state legislature. The last years of his life were passed on a farm not far from Lebanon, happy in the companionship of his wife and children. His devoted companion, to whom he was united in 1811, was Miss Harriet Van Horne, daughter of Rev. William Van Home, who during the war of the Revolution, as chaplain, shared the discomforts and privations of the soldiers. At the ripe old age of eighty-one years, Mr. Ross died, June 28, 1869.

            John McLean. By reason that his youth was passed in Warren county, and his professional, and what might also be called his national life, began in Lebanon, the name of John McLean cannot be omitted from the annals of the Little Miami valley.

            He was a lad of four years when, in 1789, his parents started from their home in Morris county, New Jersey, with the purpose of establishing a home in far western wilds. Stops were made in both Virginia and Kentucky, but reports of the wondrous richness of the Miami valleys had reached their ears, and not until their "lone wagons bivouacked in the blaze" of campfires in what is now known as Warren county, were trees felled for the rude cabin that made the first home of the future statesman on Ohio soil. Until he was sixteen years of age, John McLean experienced the labor and privations incident to primitive farm life. But hard, unremitting toil failed to dim the ambition of his youthful heart, which was to be a worker in the life which lay outside of farm limitations. Eagerly embracing the few advantages for self-improvement that came within his environment,' he was especially happy in the privilege of forming an acquaintance with the classics under the guidance of private instructors, for which he paid by extra labor, as the family purse was somewhat limited.

            Before attaining his majority, Mr. McLean left the farm for broader opportunities for self-improvement and advancement. Obtaining employment in the office of the county clerk at Cincinnati, all of his leisure time was spent in acquiring a thorough, practical knowledge of the law, for which he was by natural gifts splendidly qualified, and was especially fortunate in having as guide and (page 312) mentor in his studies, Mr. Arthur St. Clair, who was not only honored as being the son of Gov. St. Clair, but was pre-eminent for ability as a legal advocate.

            In the fall of 1807, Mr. McLean opened a law office in Lebanon, and so well qualified was he for his profession, that he soon had the confidence and esteem of the entire community. Allying himself with the Democratic faction, although but twenty-seven years of age, the party in 1812 intrusted its interests to him by electing him to the National congress. Nor was it a political blunder. His outlook was not restricted to party horizon, but embraced what he rightly conceived to be national instead of factional or party problems. Gifted as an orator, Mr. McLean eloquently and persuasively upheld all measures for resistance against England's encroachment; he was the author of the first pension law recorded as an enactment of Congress, providing for the widows of American soldiers. In 1815, declining a nomination to the United States senate, the following year he received the unanimous vote of the Ohio legislature to a judgeship on the bench of the Ohio supreme court, where for six years his able, impartial and logical decisions commanded the admiration and respect of the entire state, and it was with regret that many saw him lay aside the judicial robe to accept from President Monroe the position of commissioner of the general land office, which was followed shortly by the appointment of postmaster general ; but this appointment was a truly marked appreciation of his great ability to succeed where other men failed. Postal affairs were in a general mix. Appropriations failed to meet expenses, and there was a public outcry against irregular and inadequate mail service. But if there was one dominant trait in Mr. McLean's character, it was a genius for hard work. Many men, not sluggards either, would have been appalled and retreated before the task confronting them. But with the same zest with which in early life he swung his axe in felling a tree on the home farm, he applied his great mind to bringing order out of the chaos around him. The result was marvelous and speedy. Finances were honestly and satisfactorily adjusted, and public dissatisfaction vanished before the systematic and regular mail service inaugurated under his scientific management.

            Brief as this sketch of judge McLean must necessarily be, injustice would be done, if omission was made of his conduct respecting distribution of public patronage while in office. And what is now written of him may be said of nearly every prominent man in our early history, both national and state. Favoritism was an unknown word to them. Sane idealists they were, but this idealism took form in sterling character and principle lived up to the line. Never did Judge McLean remove a man from office because of variant political creed ; character, not political affiliation, was the recommendation which procured an applicant a desired appointment. To Judge McLean official position was a sacred trust from the people of the new Republic, and this realization dominated his entire term of service, until the election of Gen. Andrew Jackson to the presidency, who urged him to accept the responsible position of secretary of the War and Navy department in his cabinet ; he (page 313) declined the appointment, but gladly accepted the appointment of associate judge of the United States supreme court, for the law was his first love. "His eminent fitness for this position" writes a biographer, "was manifested by more than thirty years' service, during which period the jurisprudence of the country was enriched by the diligent labors of his energetic and cultivated mind." In 1848 his opposition to the extension of slavery brought him as presidential nominee before the Free Soil convention at Buffalo in 1848, and he was also considered as a candidate at the Republican conventions in 1856 and 1860.

            But it is for his legal attainments and ability that judge McLean won widest renown. He and Judge Burnett of Cincinnati have been declared the "two greatest lawyers of the pioneer west."

            Like all truly great people, judge McLean was simple and unostentatious in manner; of a cheerful temperament, he was "instructive and elegant in conversation." His kindly treatment of younger members of the bar quickly won for him their confidence and respect; a professor of the Christian faith, he was consistent with the principles avowed. He was twice married, his first wife being a southern girl, daughter of a physician. For many years Judge McLean resided on the old home place near Lebanon, but passed the last years of his life in Cincinnati, where he died at the beginning of the Civil War, a contest in which his son, Nathaniel C. McLean, a native of Warren county, and also an attorney, fought gallantly for preservation of the Union, entering the service as colonel of the 75th Ohio volunteers and reaching the rank of brigadier-general, a merited reward for distinguished bravery. Francis Dunlevy. For more than three-quarters of a century, there has stood in the old Baptist graveyard at Lebanon, a tombstone whose almost time-effaced inscription reads as follows : "In memory of Francis Dunlevy, who died Oct. 6th, A. D. 1839, aged 78 years. He was among the first white men who entered the territory now forming Ohio. Was a member of the territorial legislature and of the convention which formed the constitution of Ohio."

            A great man was this same Francis Dunlevy, and the history of Warren county would be less valuable, less interesting had his life been lived elsewhere. A Virginian by birth, he was a lad of ten summers when his parents removed to Pennsylvania ; when a stripling of fourteen years he was found in the American army fighting against the Indians, and engaged in this mode of service

            to the colonists almost to the end of the Revolutionary struggle. Mr. Howe states that, "he assisted in building Fort McIntosh, about the year 1777, and was afterwards in the disastrous defeat of Crawford, from whence, with two others, he made his way alone through the woods without provisions to Pittsburg." A few years later he tried his material fortunes in Kentucky, removing in the year 1791 to Columbia, Hamilton county, Ohio, following here and afterwards in Warren county his vocation as teacher, for which he was finely qualified, especially in the ancient languages. Mr. Dunlevy's political influence and honors began with his membership in the last territorial legislature, which was succeeded (page 314) by an appointment to the office of presiding judge of the first circuit at the first organization of the judiciary. His circuit covered ten counties, and though often trails were his only roads in many places, and often swollen streams compelled a wide circuit, he is said never to have missed a court ; surely ample attestation of fidelity to the responsibilities of his high position. For fourteen years judge Dunlevy dispensed. judicial equity, then for a decade and a half practiced at the bar, spending the last years of his life in studying the problems of the day and indulging in his love for good literature.

            Brief as the sketch of this eminent jurist must necessarily be, no outline would be complete without reference to his most ultra views on the evils of slavery. He stands as the first abolition writer in Warren county, even in the Miami valley. His childhood was passed in a slave state, and even in those tender years the cruelties and injustice of enforced servitude appalled him, and later life placed him in the ranks of uncompromising abolitionism. His platform was immediate emancipation. He wrote much on the subject, and his extreme radicalism brought him both abuse and execration. But these were as fuel to the fame, and never was he intimidated from expressing open avowal of his principles, though in later years this bravery cost him his candidacy for office.   

            James Hart. Although no tombstone marks the last resting place of James Hart in the little cemetery at Deerfield (South Lebanon), his name has found a deserving place in the pioneer records of the Miami valley. The ancestry of James Hart was of the Scotch Covenanter stock, although he was, by birth, a "son of Erin," his father being an Irish weaver. James was somewhat of a prodigal, running away from home to follow the leading of fortune in the new America. With a peddler's pack upon his back he wandered from Pennsylvania into Virginia, some years after the close of the Revolutionary War, settling upon 200 acres of land on the east side of the Little Miami river, which he bought from William Lytle for the small consideration of $1 per acre. This Irish pioneer served gallantly in our contest for national independence, sharing in the .momentous victory at Yorktown- The religious teaching and convictions of his boyhood were never forgotten by him, and he remained a zealous adherent to the faith promulgated from the pulpit of the little Associate Reformed church, known as the Sycamore church near his home, in which Gov. Morrow held the sacred office of ruling elder.

            In 1822, at the ripe old age of eighty-four years his earthly life was closed, and his body rests in the old graveyard at South Lebanon, but like many graves of Ohio's pioneers, no stone attests his valor as a soldier of the Revolution or one of the advance guard of civilization, but "unhonored and unsung" he sleeps. Samuel Bigger. Not only has Warren county given Ohio two of its best governors, but she has contributed occupants of three gubernatorial seats in other states. Jeremiah Morrow and Thomas Corwin were Warren county men.

            Charles Clark, elected governor of the state of Mississippi. in the year 1864, but removed by President Johnson the following (page 315) year, was raised in Warren county and may have been born there ; while Ralph P. Lowe, elected governor of Iowa in 1858, was a son of judge Jacob D. Lowe, and by birth and early training a son of Warren county.

            But both were antedated in the executive office by Samuel Bigger, who was elected to the executive office in Indiana in the year 1840.

            In the year 1802, Samuel Bigger was born on his father's farm northwest of Lebanon. His paternal relative, John Bigger, stands out in the pioneer history of Warren county as one of its ablest men, serving in the state legislature longer than any other man in Ohio.

            Young Samuel attended the log cabin schools on week-days, and on Sunday with his parents attended the Dick's Creek Presbyterian church, which was built about the year 1810, a short distance from the present village of Blue Ball ; and probably strained his childish neck in an effort to see the minister, whose pulpit was built so high above the congregation, that he remained invisible until standing up to preach.

            Mr. Bigger possessing some means, Samuel was sent to finish his education at the Ohio university at Athens, which was the first college built in the state, and was-probably the first boy from Warren county who attended the Institution. His collegiate studies finished, Samuel returned to Lebanon and selecting the law for a profession, completed his legal studies and opened an office in the village, but for some unknown reason decided to remove to Indiana, where he soon entered upon a lucrative practice in Union and Rush counties of that state, being for a part of the time a partner of Oliver H. Smith, one of the most renowned attorneys in the early history of Indiana. So favorable was the opinion made by young Bigger upon the men with whom his profession threw him and the citizenship generally, that in the year 1834 he was elected to the legislature of the state, and shortly made presiding judge of the circuit court, where he remained until elected governor in the year 1840, taking his seat by a Whig majority of over 8,000 votes, but the tide turned and he lost re-election by about one-fourth of the majority of the votes that had previously elected him. Upon retirement to private life, Mr. Bigger located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his death took place while still in active manhood. His body lies in McCulloch park in Fort Wayne, and the following inscription upon his headstone reveals the impression his life made upon all who knew him : "Samuel Bigger, late governor of the State. Died Sept. 9, 1846, in the 45th year of his age. A Patriot and Christian, he died in the full hope of a glorious immortality."

            Joshua. Collett. To Joshua Collett is ascribed the distinction of being the first barrister in Warren county. He received a sound English education, and had also completed his legal studies in his native town of Martinsburg, West Virginia, before immigrating into Ohio territory.

            His majority had just been attained when he reached Cincinnati, where he sojourned for about one year, almost the most (page 316) eventful twelve months in Ohio's history, for its first state constitution had just been adopted, and it now stood upon an equality with every sister state in the Federal Union. Mr. Collett, having well-nigh a prophetic vision of the brilliant future awaiting him in the Miami valley, decided to make Lebanon his home, and came to the village in the summer of 1803, thus being the first resident lawyer in the town.

            It is somewhat hard to see what encouragement for future success, a settlement containing about half-a-dozen log houses, could promise to a young ambitious attorney, particularly as he seemed to be lacking in a certain quality, which now seems so essential in business along all lines of success, "Push !" But his modest, unpretending bearing could not hide his splendid intellectual and moral qualities, and the early settlers were not long in discovering that the unassuming young lawyer was a man to whom could be safely intrusted both their private and public interests, and evinced their confidence by electing him, one after the other, to the only three official positions then eligible to him. Ten years of public service as prosecuting attorney was succeeded by incumbency of the office of president judge for eleven years, and so widely known became his intellectual ability and conscientious construing of the law that, in the year 1829, the legislature elected him to the highest, most responsible office in the state, the supreme judgeship, which he filled with honor to himself and the position for seven years.

            His circuit was large, comprising the whole of the first judicial district which embraced the counties of Butler, Warren, Clermont, Miami, Greene, Champaign and Hamilton, thus bringing him into legal competition with the older and distinguished lawyers of the Miami valleys ; but he speedily won both their respect and admiration by his profound learning and intelligent understanding of the spirit of the law.

            Upon his retirement from the bench he was twice placed on the electoral ticket, and as many times cast his vote for his friend and neighbor, William Henry Harrison, and for seventeen years occupied an honored place on the board of trustees of Miami university.

            In the year 1808, Mr. Collett was united in marriage to Miss Eliza Van Horne, and to them was born one son, William R. Collett, who for many years was a prominent man in the Warren county agricultural society. He died on the home farm in the year 1860, while still comparatively a young man.

            The religious affiliations of judge Collett were with the Baptist church. His life was summed up by a friendly pen as follows :

            "He was a benevolent and kind-hearted man and, though an able lawyer and judge, the crowning glory of his life was his spotless purity, his scrupulous honesty and his unsullied integrity." William James. The third will recorded in the records of Warren county is that of William James; signed by him in February, 1803, and admitted to probate October 14, 1804.

            Mr. James was of Welsh descent, his parents settling first at Berkeley, Virginia, later building their home cabin in the beautiful (page 317) Miami valley, not far from Waynesville. He was a member of the legislature that in the year 1803, passed the enactment outlining the boundaries of Warren county, the first general assembly that sat under Ohio's first state constitution, going as a representative from Hamilton county, which at that time comprised nearly all of the Miami territory. This meeting of Ohio's legislative body reflects great credit and renown upon Warren county, as three of the eight representatives and two of the four senators chosen, lived within the district now known as Warren county. The three representatives were Ephraim Kibbey, John Bigger and William James ; the senators, Jeremiah Morrow and Francis Dunlevy. This convening of the legislature at Chillicothe in March was one of the most historic in Ohio annals. It was no longer a territorial legislature, but a state gathering of men to enact and execute laws as a governing body, empowered with responsible new privileges. For the office of associate judge, which was one of the most important of all the county offices filled by the legislature, Jacob D. Lowe, Ignatius Brown and William James were appointed for a term of seven years to preside in Warren county. The death of Mr. James was sudden, being attacked with a fatal illness while in attendance at a meeting of the Miami Baptist association at Duck creek church near Cincinnati. His body was interred at Columbia.

            John Probasco, jr. The son of the Rev. John Probasco, a Baptist minister, a lad only nine years of age, when in 1823, the family left their home in Trenton, New Jersey for new experiences of life in western wilds; four weeks were consumed in the journey. Locating at Lebanon, the boy received the rudiments of a good classical and English education, after which he entered Miami university at Oxford, but did not complete the course of study, returning home and following the study of law under the guidance of the Hon. Thomas Corwin, who was then in congress. Passing the required examination as to his proficiency in his legal attainments, Mr. Probasco began the practice of law in Lebanon in 1836, two years before his marriage to Miss Susan Jane Freeman, daughter of a Lebanon attorney.

            Politics proving attractive, he was sent by the Whig party to the Ohio legislature for three consecutive terms, during which period "he introduced a number of important measures of legislation. The solidity of his judgment and the determined energy of his character gave him his influence."

            Beginning, at the end of his legislative career, the practice of law at Lebanon, unsolicited by him, in the spring of - 1850, he received from the state legislature an appointment to the judgeship of the court of common pleas, but his term of service was rendered short by a constitutional enactment. His friends were desirous that he return to the judgeship under the new constitution, but he preferred the work of an attorney, and resumed his law practice in Lebanon, having also an office in Cincinnati with Gov. Corwin as partner, and soon won a wide reputation for great legal ability. And there were universal expressions of regret, when death terminated his earthly life, while a bright future apparently lay (page 318) before him. Only forty-four years of age, he died at his home in Lebanon, while the shadows were still slanting westward. George J. Smith. Many residents of Warren county and southwestern Ohio, recall today with affectionate veneration the venerable man, whose life of uprightness, Christian kindliness and conscientious dealing with all with whom he came in contact, is one of the valued assets of the history of the Miami valley, especially to the citizens of Warren county, with whose interests his whole life of near four-score years was identified.

            In the year 1798, the Rev. James Smith, with his wife and household of eight children, took up the pioneer's burden of care and responsibility that always weighted the shoulders of those who carried their dear ones into unknown western wilds. It was never a "picnic" journey to those intrepid men; notwithstanding the solemn treaties made by the government with the red man, there was a lurking fear of well-aimed bullet from a revengeful, implacable, hidden foe, to whose ears the creak of the springless wagons meant despoliation and destruction of the forests that for untold years had been to him and his ancestors both shelter and food. To this apprehension of danger, never absent, was added the certainty of the not-to-be-avoided hardships and privations that would be the lot of the woman whom he had vowed before God's altar not only to love but also to cherish, and to whom the .new life in the wilderness would come with a loneliness, a home-longing which she would hide beneath a smile of wifely duty and mother care, but would find expression in the dark loneliness of the night by hidden tears and happy dreams of the past. Great was the courage, the self-denial of the early pioneers of America. But, shining like a star from out the trials, deprivations and loneliness of the early wilderness life, is the loving self-sacrifice of the wives and mothers of that historic time.

            A tract of land at the junction of the Little Miami- river and Caesar's creek had been purchased by Mr. Smith previously to his departure for the west; but no improvements had been made upon it, and the family stopped temporarily at Middletown station, a small settlement between Newtown and Columbia, and here in May, 1799, little George J. entered upon the joys and vicissitudes of life. Within a year the boy was fatherless, and Mrs. Smith was left to face a future in a strange, wild county, and with nine children for whom food and clothing must be provided. But, with dauntless courage, six months after her husband's death, she took her little flock and settled on the land purchased by her husband, on which a house was in process of construction.

            In these primeval surroundings, experiencing the deprivations necessarily pertaining to his. environment, the boyhood and youth of the subject of this sketch was passed; as, with all boys of his time, hard and constant labor came with the rising of each day's sun, school advantages were very limited but every opportunity for acquiring knowledge was eagerly embraced, and every book that fell into his hands was regarded as treasure unspeakable. An opportunity for learning Latin proved a wonderful privilege, and all his life he retained a fondness for the old classics.

            (page 319) Under the guidance of Thomas Corwin, in 1818, he began the study of law in the office of that distinguished man, and two years later was a full-fledged attorney, equipped to seek justice for all desiring the benefit of the law. For several years he and William McLean, brother of the celebrated jurist, John McLean, were in partnership, but upon the appointment of Mr. McLean as receiver of the land office, compelling his residence in Piqua, almost the entire responsibility of the fast growing law practice fell upon the shoulders of young Smith ; but they were equal to the burden, and his ability and proficiency in his profession brought him as an advocate into the courts of every county composing the judicial district.

            Though young in years, having only passed his twenty-sixth birthday, he was sent by Warren county to represent its citizenship in the state legislature, and so true was he to his constituents, that re-election to the same position came for two successive terms. But his loyalty to Adams as a candidate for the presidency, cost him his re-election in 1828. Though difficult to perceive at the time, victory is oftentimes shrouded in defeat, for in the winter of 1829, Mr. Smith was elected by the legislature to the office of president judge of the seventh judicial circuit, of which Warren county formed a part, the incumbent judge Joshua Collett having been advanced to the bench of the supreme court of Ohio. Only thirty years of age, and the figurative judicial ermine draping his shoulders, was surely an intellectual and legal honor of which he might justly have been proud; but it was also open evidence of the confidence and appreciation in which the young lawyer was held by his contemporaries. He served a full term with distinction to himself and the high office, but failed of re-election as his enthusiastic Whigism was not appreciated by the legislature which the turn of politics had made Democratic in hue. He returned to Lebanon, and formed a law partnership with John Probasco, jr., which continued until the year 1850, when the latter was elected president judge.

            At that time, James M. Smith, son of judge Smith had completed his legal studies, and was taken into partnership by his father, a pleasant association that was only broken by the election of Mr. James Smith as probate judge, but his place in the partnership was taken by a younger brother, Mr. John E. Smith, a lawyer, equal in character and mental calibre to his distinguished father and brother. In the year 1858, judge Smith accepted a nomination to the office of judge of the court of common pleas for the third subdivision of the second judicial district of Ohio, a nomination which had been tendered him the preceding term and which he had declined. The counties comprising the subdivision were Clark, Clinton, Greene and Warren. For two terms he held office, and upon leaving the bench decided not to resume his former legal practice, but was occasionally prevailed upon to plead for old clients in court. A favorite pastime was attending court pleadings, listening to the storming of attorneys and the cool decisions of the judges on the bench. His last years were passed very happily. Possessed of ample means, he was able to enjoy many quiet pleasures that (page 320) belong to one whose earlier -life had been devoted to faithful public service and the pursuit of high ideals.

            The home life of judge Smith was singularly congenial. His wife, Mrs. Hannah Freeman, to whom he was united in the spring of 1822, for over forty-four years made his home the "dearest spot on earth" to him and the children that blessed their union. Mrs. Smith died in the year 1866. Twelve years after her death, judge Smith also entered the higher life, and Warren county mourned the loss of a citizen whose entire life had been an honor to the community in which he lived.

            Thomas Corwin. Of this wonderful man, Robert G. Ingersoll, the silver-tongued orator eloquently said, "He was the greatest orator of his time, the grandest that stood beneath our flag." And, verily, among the eminent men that Warren county has sent out for enrollment on the tablets of national and state history, there is not one that shines with the undimming renown that wreathes the name of Thomas Corwin, and to attempt to portray his truly wonderful genius, character and influence is like essaying to compress the sunlight in a pint measure.

            Of distinguished ancestry, the father of Thomas Corwin, Judge Matthias Corwin, came with his family from Bourbon county, Kentucky, when Thomas was but a child four years of age. Locating on a small farm near Lebanon, Judge Corwin's intellectual ability and comprehensive grasp of local and state affairs speedily won for him an influential place in the Miami valley. For many years he represented Warren county in the state legislature, part of the time occupying the speaker's chair, and at the time of his death was one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas for Warren county.

            To his son Thomas, he gave all the educational advantages that the environment afforded, which were limited in the extreme. A little chap of five years, Thomas, in the fall of 1798, sat on the rough bench in the low log cabin which had been erected in a few hours by the settlers for a school house on the north bank of Turtle creek, not quite a mile from the present site of Lebanon. He is said to have mastered the twenty-six mysteries of the English alphabet on the first day of his attendance. His entire education, as far as enjoying school privileges, was sporadic, but he reveled in what was, for the times, a good library. For an elder brother had been selected by the father to be the scholar and intellectual light of the family, and was well supplied with the books necessary for his advancement and time given for study, while sturdy Thomas was kept at home to share in the daily labor of the farm. Little did the father know the hunger for knowledge and determined ambition of the black-eyed boy who split the wood, followed the plow, cut the corn, but was never too tired after a hard day's toil, to bury himself for an hour in one of his brother's coveted books. Farm life, as a livelihood, did not appeal to Thomas Corwin, and in the year 1814, he took a position in the office of the county clerk of Warren county, of which his brother, Matthias, was then in charge and two years later he began the study of law in the office of Joshua Collett, who was soon to become one of the most (page 321) men of Ohio, and who reflected honor on Warren county in filling consecutively the high offices of president of that judicial district and a seat on the supreme tribunal of the state. Debating societies were exceedingly popular in the early life of the settlements, and many men afterwards celebrated for great rhetorical power owed their first round on the ladder of fame to those primitive forums. In the debating club that met weekly in the little village of Lebanon, Thomas Corwin first developed his wonderful gift of oratory, which was in the future to place him above every speaker in the nation. His intimate knowledge of the characters in ancient history, his fondness for the poets of the classic period, enabled him to gild his sentences with wonderful beauty and effect. Admitted to the bar in the year 1817, his wonderful intellectual gifts and effective oratory at once commanded attention, and notwithstanding his youth he stepped immediately into the front ranks of the legal fraternity of the Miami valleys. Mr. Corwin's political career began in the year 1822, when he was sent by Warren county to the state legislature where his services as representative were characterized by the marks of independence, uprightness and eloquence.

            It was while a member of the legislature, that Mr. Corwin made his wonderful plea against the barbarity of corporal punishment. A bill had been introduced, asking that public whipping be administrated as a legal penalty for petty larceny. There was something in the nature of Thomas Corwin that vehemently rebelled against tyranny and cruelty in whatever form they appeared. It was one of the secrets of his matchless eloquence, an ever-present, underlying sympathy with oppressed humanity. And the same spirit that in future years led him to his magnificent stand in congress against the injustice of the Mexican War, aroused him now, and with flashing eyes and characteristic gestures, this stalwart young man from Warren county, not yet in his thirties, dared to tell the older members of the great council of his state his condemnation of a bill worthy to be recorded in the records of the cruelties of the middle ages. In words that went with the quickness and sharpness of arrows to the consciousness of his hearers, he closed his marvelous effort by an appeal to the military men present in the chamber. Within the preceding few years, the demobilization of the regular army had taken place, and as the morale of many of the soldiers was at low ebb, "petty larceny" was an evil with which some of them had probably grown familiar. In plain, strong words Mr. Corwin asked the house if a soldier was detected in stealing a trifle and for punishment was brought to the whipping post, "While stripping for the sacrifice, should you behold upon his rough and manly bosom the scars which speak of his bloody and heroic deeds-is there an American arm that could be raised against him? If there be such a wretch, he must have a heart harder than adamant, lower than perdition, blacker than despair."     Mr. Corwin's political career as state representative lasted but seven years, but those seven years saw him steadily growing in the admiration and affection of the people of Ohio, especially in the Miami valleys.

            (page 322) What might be called his national public life began in the year 1830, when the Whigs of his district sent him to congress, and so satisfactorily did he represent his constituency, that re-election followed re-election until he had served the district, in that capacity, for a period of ten years. It was in the year 1837 that he, after only a few hours of preparation, made his pungent speech against the introduction of a bill to "reduce the revenue of the United States to the wants of the government." Three years afterwards his biting sarcasm played like sheet lightning around Gen. Isaac E. Crary, who had been reckless and imprudent enough to adversely criticise the military conduct of Gen. William Henry Harrison. Mr. Crary was a commander of the militia forces in his own state of Michigan, and Mr. Corwin drew a stinging comparison between the trials of a militia general on "parade day" and the perils of "real soldiers" who had followed Gen. Harrison along the bloody trail of the Indian wars.

            As candidate for the governorship of Ohio, in the year 1840, the people of his state had opportunities of listening to his matchless forensic powers. His flashing wit, his fearless handling of what he considered evils in state-craft, his sense of justice, his kindliness of nature, his thorough comprehension of the needs of the people at large, and his irresistible good humor, won the hearts of his immense audiences, and never again in all the political history of Ohio, was there another presidential and gubernatorial campaign like the Harrison-Corwin campaign of the year 1840. It was virtually an array of western democracy against eastern false aristocracy ; a contest, as it were, between the spiritual forces of the country, for being in part a national campaign, the whole Republic was swept into the intense excitement. The Whigs of Ohio were successful, and the popular "Wagoner boy" defeated his opponent by a majority of 16,000 votes.

            As governor, Mr. Corwin had but little opportunity to exercise the talents for which he was peculiarly remarkable. He is said to have made the assertion that the duties connected with his high office were mainly "to appoint notaries public and pardon convicts in the penitentiary." But the last-named duty did not lie lightly upon his conscience ; the same humane consideration that moved him to resist the passing of a bill legalizing the use of the whipping post as a penalty for theft, actuated him to pardon convicts several days before the expiration of their term of confinement expired; for, in so doing, the men were restorted to the rights of citizenship which they had previously possessed, and would otherwise have forfeited. This just and benevolent position was used by his political opponents at the next gubernatorial election as an attempt to thwart the administration of justice, and helped to defeat his re-election.

            But in the year 1844, his district sent him to the United States senate where, for six years, he was a striking figure. At the Whig state convention held at Columbus in January of the same year, he had been pressed to again become a candidate for governor, but steadfastly declined. Before the convention closed its sitting, Jeremiah Morrow, the distinguished ex-governor, proffered the (page 323) following resolution, which was greeted with uproarious enthusiasm from the assembled masses:

            "Resolved, That in THOMAS CORWIN we recognize a patriot, a statesman, an orator, a man of the people, and a champion of their rights-a man whom Ohio is proud to call her own. We esteem him, and we love him."

            Mr. Corwin was not spoiled by the almost boundless admiration of his friends, as was shown by his six years of service in the United States senate. He entered upon the performance of his duties with the same diffidence, the same apparent desire not to be a prominent figure in the great national council that had characterized his work as national representative some years before; but beneath this reserve, this calmness, was ever burning the earnest purpose to uphold justice and the equality of men, as was taught so many centuries before by the great wonderful Teacher, to whom all Christian democracy owes its sure foundation, the democracy found in the Golden Rule. The two greatest oratorical efforts made by Mr. Corwin in this portion of his public life, were his speeches      on the soldier-bounty bill and the Mexican War, which are familiar literature to every lover of history in the Miami valleys. In the year 1850, Mr. Corwin was placed at the head of the national treasury department by President Fillmore, where he remained until the close of the administration, when he returned to the practice of law in his native town, Lebanon, and his logical, judicial ability united to his brilliant forensic power, soon made him a leading light among the attorneys of the middle west. It is well to call attention to one point seldom omitted by Mr. Corwin in his public addresses, and that was the sacredness and importance he attached to the value and privilege of using the elective franchise.

            In one of his most impressive speeches, delivered in Dayton, in the year of 1858, he "appealed to the people to exercise the reason and the conscience which God had given them to decide how they should vote.” He reminded his audience of the tremendous power that was that was involved in the depositing of a ballot, declaring it to be “a power all potent for good and evil; and as the Almighty in His providence, had given men brains to think, and conciences to tell them right from the wrong, they could not hope to escape a fearful reckoning for negligence or unfaithfulness.”

            Mr. Corwin was again re-elected to Congress in the year 1858, where he remained for two terms, going from its halls to Mexico as representative of the American Republic, remaining in that office during the whole of President Lincoln's first administration; in the year 1865 he returned to the United States and opened a law office in the city of Washington, D. C., quickly winning a splendid practice until his sudden death in December of the same year.

            Quickly the telegraph announced the terrible tidings to the nation, and so firmly had he become intrenched in the affection of the people, that each man, friend and foe alike, felt a personal loss. For Thomas Corwin had not a single enemy upon the face of the earth.

            Politically, men differed from him most radically, yea, even bitterly, but Thomas Corwin-the man, the sympathizer, the friend, held a warm place in the heart of every American citizen.

            (page 324) His death was, perchance, as he might have desired. It was a wonderful exit from the world, almost enviable. A hero going to rest. Surrounded by the eminent men of his country, among them, Sherman, Wade, Chase, members of the president's cabinet, the chief justice and associate justices of the supreme court, senators and leading military men, who hung breathlessly upon his words, for the spirit and enthusiasm of his youth sparkled in his utterances, and over his wonderful face played the smile that always made a friend of an enemy. Never was he more brilliant, never did his kindly wit flash more brightly, never were anecdotes more pointed, and to many who hung enthralled upon his words came the oft-heard truth, "There is but one Corwin !" But it was the last scene. The play was ended. Without warning, the curtain fell. In the midst of a brilliant sentence, his lips were touched by the cold hand of the One who dwells in impenetrable silence. One who was present at that memorable scene has thus written of the tragedy : "His voice sank to whispers, and then he raised suddenly from his seat, reached forward his hands, asked for fresh air, and fell into the arms of surrounding friends. * * * And we carried him into the death-chamber, whence a soul, more eloquent than Patrick Henry's, more beautiful than Sheridan's, more graceful than Cicero's, went back to God who gave it."

            The Butterworth Family. No family in the annals of Warren county has been more prominent than the Butterworths, the ancestor of whom, Benjamin Butterworth, came from Virginia to the Little Miami valley in the year of 1812. Personally, he is described as the most remarkable of all the early settlers, standing six feet and six inches high and weighing over 300 pounds. The land to which he came with his family was located in Warren county, and his deed called for 1,000 acres, which lay along the Little Miami from Fosters to within a short distance of Loveland, and as the price was $3 per acre, this notable Quaker settler was evidently a man of financial resources. His deed is an illustration of the imperfect surveys of that early period, for later measurement found that 1,500 acres were contained in his large estate. This hardy pioneer had an open eye to the future of his descendants, for although the lack of proper machinery made the clearing of land a slow process, he purchased an additional 500 acres at the mouth of the Obannon, and also a tract in Wayne township, and thus was able to leave a large farm to each of the ten children who survived out of the thirteen born to him and his wife.

            Mr. Butterworth first located on Caesars' creek not far from Waynesville, but in the spring of the year 1816 removed to the place on his land now known as Butterworth's station, where a large and comfortable log house preceded the erection of the big stone house of which the family took possession in the year 1820. This stone house is a historic residence in the history of the Miami valley. With the sincere hospitality so characteristic of the Friends, persons of every station in life found a welcome at the table which was always loaded with the primitive and simple generosity of pioneer days. The house was a beacon to friends and acquaintances from old Virginia, who were seeking locations (page 325) in the west; traveling preachers, no matter what their denominational cloth might be, were glad of a night's rest under the hospitable Butterworth roof.

            It is almost needless to say, that the Butterworths were bitterly antagonistic to slavery, and their home was an always open station on the underground railway, and many a serious conclave has been held by anti-slavery leaders in the old mansion when to do so, perchance, meant to invite mob persecution. There were but few Friends in the southern part of Warren county at the time of the Butterworth settlement, and on first day and fifth day of every week, for many years, the few who were within reaching distance, would gather in the largest room of the old historic house and sit in silence, waiting for the influence of the Spirit to move them to utterance, the children and grandchildren of the pioneers generally making the major part of the congregation. When in the year 1827, a division occurred in the society, the Butterworths remained staunch to the Hicksite branch, and times without number, did the noted Quaker preacher and antislavery agitator receive a cordial welcome at the door of the famous stone residence.

            The education of the pioneer Butterworths was exceedingly limited, but many of their descendants were given intellectual advantages denied the older ones. William and Henry Butterworth, sons of the first settler were largely interested in the establishment of the academy at Maineville, a school which maintained its life and influence longer than any other academy in Warren county; William seems to have been given wider educational advantages than any of the rest of his brothers and sisters, and for many years was a successful teacher in the public schools.

            To a later generation the name of the old pioneer lived again in a grandson, who was a son of William Butterworth. Well-educated, gifted with rare forensic power, a fine lawyer, for many years Benjamin Butterworth, the grandson, represented his district in the national congress, where his quickness of thought in debate brought him into national prominence, and no stump-speaker in a political campaign was ever more popular than Benjamin Butterworth ; but in the prime of life, his thread of destiny was snapped, and a career that might, perchance, have brought him still higher political distinction was ended. His body is interred in the pretty little cemetery at Maineville.

            The last resting place of the pioneer, Benjamin Butterworth and his wife, Rachel Moorman Butterworth, is on the top of a hill that overlooks the stone house, which today is of more historic interest than any other ancient home in the Little Miami valley. By the side of these honored early settlers, sleep many of their descendants, their graves, as is the custom of the Friends, unmarked, only by rough stones, on which there are no inscriptions.

            The last son of the pioneers to jive in the old stone house was Henry Butterworth, and in the year 1880 he and his wife celebrated their golden wedding ; thirteen years later they were separated by death, in the year 1893, but Mrs. Butterworth, who before her (page 326) marriage was Miss Nancy Wales, a sister of the Hon. Thomas M. Wales of Harveysburg, lived to reach her hundredth birthday.

            The little station that takes its name from the proximity of the stone house, is located on the Little Miami branch of the Pennsylvania railroad, about twenty-six miles from Cincinnati, between Loveland and Fosters.

            Edward Deering Mansfield. The "Sage of Yamoden" was of English ancestry, who were among the first settlers in New Haven, Connecticut, which was destined to become one of the literary centers of the new world. His father was a prominent teacher all his life, at two separate times holding a professorship in the military academy at West Point, and for nine years filled the office of surveyor-general of the United States. Then, it is not strange, that the subject of this sketch should early have evinced a taste for literature, and devoted his life to both acquiring and giving out the wealth of his cultured intellect.

            An only son, born in the first year of the century, the best schools of New England were open to him, but he received a splendid collegiate training at West Point, entering immediately after his graduation in the year 1818, the classical department of Princeton college, afterwards taking a law course at Gould's renowned law school on Litchfield Hill.

            The fast growing town of Cincinnati appeared an inviting field for an ambitious young attorney, and in the year 1835 he obtained admittance to the bar of that city. So rapidly did he convince his friends and the public generally of his legal ability and wide intellectual acquirements, that in the short space of ten years he was installed in the professor's chair of constitutional law and history in the Cincinnati college. In the same year, 1835, he published his first book, a Political Grammar, which was the first definite authority on the national constitution and government given to the young men of America.

            To the duties of instructor, Mr. Mansfield added the labors of editor, serving in that capacity on the Cincinnati Chronicle from 1836 to 1849, on the Atlas from 1849 to 1852, and on the Railroad Record from 1854 to 1872, besides contributing regularly to the Cincinnati Gazette.

            To those possessed with the idea of accomplishing but a single purpose in life, Mr. Mansfield’s versatile power of writing along many lines of thought, and that with profit to the reader, must seem almost incomprehensible, for his pen dipped into educational and historical subjects as easily as it treated of mathematics and politics. His last work, Personal Memoirs, Social, Political and Literary, with Sketches of Many Noted People, 1803-1843, is considered a valuable addition to Ohio literature.

            In the main, Mr. Mansfield’s writing was intensely practical, devoted chiefly to subjects pertaining to the intellectual advancement of the people, and he embraced every opportunity of mingling with those to whose interest his life in his study was almost set apart. The subject in which he was most deeply interested, was that of education, and he actively promoted the college of teachers, a strong association of teachers and educators in the Mississippi (page 327) valley. As chairman of the committee on common schools at the first educational convention which assembled at Columbus in the year 1836, his opinions were incorporated in new enactments of the legislature which led to re-organization of the old school system. For a period of forty years, from the lecture platform he advocated the best and most thorough methods of education, and was truly a pioneer in the realization that the safeguard of the new republic lay largely in the intelligence of its growing youth. Also, keenly alive to all things pertaining to the commercial interests of the country at large, Mr. Mansfield was one of the first promoters of the Cincinnati Southern railroad ; possessing the same faith that Jeremiah Morrow had held in the ultimate success and benefit that the Little Miami would some day prove to the people of the Miami valley, Mr. Mansfield for four decades upheld the potentialities of his road in defiance of all discouraging prognostications, and lived to see it completed and prosperous. An office in which his exactness brought him foreign recognition, was that of commissioner of statistics of Ohio, which he held for nine years ; through it he was made an associate of the French Societe de Statistique Universelle.

            Why is . Mr. Mansfield numbered with the honored dead of Warren county? Because, for thirty years the home so dear to him was on its soil, and much of his literary work was done while living there. Yamoden, his beautiful country home stood about one mile north of Morrow overlooking a lovely river valley, and it was a never failing pleasure to him to sit and gaze upon the magnificent scenery that for miles stretched south and east till it blended with the line of bending sky.

            Like all truly great men, Mr. Mansfield in character was gentle, simple in his tastes, winning in his hospitality to friends, and devoted to his family ; his wife was a woman of wide culture, distinguished manner, before marriage Miss Margaret Worthington, daughter of Gov. Worthington of early Ohio history. It is said that during the half century that Mr. Mansfield was-engaged in journalism not a word of bitterness ever dropped from his pen. He lived, as it were, in two worlds, the realm of faith, and practical achievement. He believed in work. "I want, engraved on my tombstone, `Here lies a workingman.' " An ideal American. Mr. Mansfield's earthly life was ended October 27, 1880. Fire destroyed beautiful historic Yamoden in January, 1909. Ormsby M. Mitchel. Mr. Josiah Morrow, the valued historian of Warren county, in his most interesting sketches of men whose lives and achievements have added to the renown of the Miami valley, begins his paper on the distinguished astronomer as follows : "Perhaps a majority even of our most intelligent citizens do not know that Lebanon was. the boyhood home of the most eminent of the American astronomers of his day-O. M. Mitchel." A Kentuckian by birth, the death of his father when Ormsby was but three years of age, influenced his mother to choose Ohio as a residence, settling in Lebanon, when the town was but still a very small village. The boy was but indeed a little lad when he began to add to the extremely limited family income by the (page 328) contribution of twenty-five cents a week, which represented the amount received by him for work in a store in a neighboring town. He was evidently furnished with board by his shrewish employer, and which was most truly earned, for, before opening the store in the morning, he "cut wood, fetched water, made fires, scrubbed and scoured for the old lady." His salary allowed no margin for personal expenditure, and he went barefooted and ragged. At last there was a dissolution of partnership, and the boy left on the quest of fortune without a penny at his command. But the proverbial good fairy was met in the form of a driver on a Pennsylvania wagon, which has been termed the freight car of the period, and the lad was engaged as assistant teamster. Later a clerkship in a Xenia store came as easier employment, and upon his employer removing the goods to Lebanon, Ormsby was fortunate enough to be retained as clerk, and was happy to be in his home environment. There came to the boy one day the pleasing intelligence that at the United States military school at West Point, a cadet received, free of charge, a thorough scientific education, with an allowance of twenty-eight dollars a month. This seemed a bonanza to a boy hungry for book knowledge, and $28 was an inexhaustible fund when compared to his present earning of $4 a month. Immediately, he resolved to try his chances for a cadetship, and interested several of the influential citizens of Lebanon . in his behalf, also writing to Hon. Thomas R. Ross, Warren county's congressman and Judge John McLean, then filling the position of postmaster general, asking their influence in securing the appointment. The desired cadetship was won, and he at once started for West Point to pass the required examinations, being probably the first lad from Warren county to enter a military school.

            The distance from Lebanon to West Point is now only a trip of scarcely twenty-four hours' duration. Steam and electricity have annihilated remoteness. In young Mitchell's time it meant long weeks by the slow stage coach. How interminable it must have appeared to the ambitious young boy whose poverty would probably compel him to walk much of the weary way. But there were met kind hearts along the who gave the lad with the small knapsack strapped on his shoulders "lifts" on the long stretch of miles, and having chosen the lake route east, instead of the wearisome route over the mountains, going by steamer to Buffalo, whence the Erie canal conveyed him to the Hudson river, he reached his destination in June with a financial capital of twenty-five cents in his pocket. Successfully passing the examinations, the golden gates of an enviable fame had opened to him. In four years the prescribed course of study was completed and he was graduated with honorable rank, standing fifteenth in a class of forty-six: attending the school at the same time were boys who in the future were destined to stand prominently before the nation in the great Civil War, viz.: Jefferson Davis, Joseph E. Johnson and Robert E. Lee.

            Ormsby remained at West Point for several years as instructor in mathematics, but preferring the law as a profession, returned to Ohio and entered as partner, the law office of Edward Deering (page 329) Mansfield, but was to discover that he had mistaken his vocation. From boyhood the "science of the stars" had been a marvelous and fascinating study to him, and the year of 1836 found him occupying a professor's chair in the Cincinnati college, teaching the wonders of the stellar universe. But he was called to what some might deem a more practical field of labor. Civil engineering had been one of the studies pursued by him at West Point, and Prof. Mitchell was chosen to make the first survey for the Little Miami railroad, but true to his first love, he embraced every opportunity offered to deliver public lectures on astronomy, and through his influence the citizens of Cincinnati were persuaded to build a great observatory in which was placed the second largest refracting telescope in the world.

            As Prof. Mitchell grew older, the sublimity and majestic wonders of the star-science grew more and more a passion with him, and he devoted his life to leading the minds of men to study of the heavens. His lectures on astronomy grew more popular ; he was ranked on the public stage as the most eloquent scientific lecturer in the country at large, and his accurate and truly profound knowledge of his subject brought him fame as an astronomer, abroad as well as at home, and English publishers reprinted his books. The outbreak of the Civil war called him to the defense of the Union, and in the second year of the conflict he died with the stars of a major-general upon his shoulders, but he lives today in the scientific world as America's pioneer in the study of astronomy. Achilles Pugh. Looking at the pictured face of Achilles Pugh. one would remark the kindly but keen expression of the eyes and the sternness of the resolute mouth, and be tempted to say, "This man would die for a principle."

            The words would be true, for if ever willingness to suffer for a God-given conviction found lodgment in a man's breast, that man was the subject of this sketch.

            A Pennsylvanian by birth, his father came to Cadiz, Ohio, when Achilles was but a small child. Here the lad attended school and learned the printer's trade which, in after years, was to be the agency by which he waged war against the evil which stained our national banner of freedom. In the year 1830 he became manager of an Evangelist periodical in Cincinnati, but his family home was in Waynesville, to which place he had brought his wife, nee Miss Anna Maria Davis of Bedford county, Virginia.

            Mr. Pugh's antagonism to slavery was inborn, and he was but a young man of thirty years when, at the peril of encountering popular prejudice and ostracism, he openly espoused the abolition cause. A business connection with a large job printing house in Cincinnati had been formed by him, a connection that was eventually to bring his steadfast principles to public light.

            The Ohio Anti-Slavery society was organized in the year 1835, and its organ of propaganda was The Philanthropist, published at New Richmond in Clermont county. After a few issues the publishers thought that Cincinnati offered a wider field for the paper's circulation, and Mr. Pugh was asked to print it. His partners, aware of the animosity that existed in the popular mind against the (page 330) anti-slavery cause, refused to permit the printing to be done at their place of business : whereupon Mr. Pugh severed his business relations with them, and contracted to print it himself. His reasoning for undertaking the business was in this wise : "If slavery cannot stand discussion, then slavery is wrong ; therefore, as a printer, it is in the line of my business to print this paper, charging only the ordinary rates for the work." The city press immediately reflected the popular detestation of the doctrine of human freedom, and so incited the public mind against the new journal that on July 12, 1836, a midnight raid was made on the office, the week's issue destroyed, and the press broken and carried away.

            But little did the general public know the man with whom they had to deal. By noon of the following day, Mr. Achilles Pugh had rented a new office, installed a new press and was hard at work on a fresh edition of the paper. A little over a week elapsed when a second mob repeated the outrage of the week before, and were about to set fire to the premises, when the mayor, Samuel W. Davies, addressed the infuriated citizens, complimenting them upon having destroyed the obnoxious sheet, but advised them .not to resort to fire, as in so doing, adjacent property would be endangered. Mr. Pugh seeing that an anti-slavery paper could not thrive in Cincinnati, for a while continued its publication in Springboro, in Warren county.

            The antagonism evinced against the paper was extended to its editor and for a long time he stood much in danger of receiving a coat of tar and feathers, but as the years crept on towards the great conflict of 1861, the anti-slavery sentiment grew in favor, and he lived to see the disgrace of human bondage erased from the fag so dear to him.

            Mr. Pugh exhibited the same bravery in espousing the temperance cause. In the year 1846 he was printer of the Cincinnati Daily Chronicle, of which Mr. E. D. Mansfield was one of the editors. The paper had just reached a sound paying basis, when his own convictions and the advice of his temperance friends moved him to take out of the paper every advertisement relating to the sale of spirituous liquors thereby greatly diminishing the advertising profits of the paper.

            Mr. Pugh was a member of the Quaker denomination, and those familiar with the benevolent characteristics of that society will know that he was ever a friend to the poor and needy, and lived to the utmost the beautiful teaching of the Golden Rule. George R Sage. Many will recall with deep feeling the man identified with the history of Lebanon and southwestern Ohio, and only a few years ago "went the way of all the earth." Judge Sage was the eldest son of a retired Baptist minister, and was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the year 1828. His father came west in 1835, resided for a while in Kentucky, but located at Cincinnati in 1849.

            Naturally the Rev. Sage would favor his church school, so his son George received his education at Granville college, now known as Denison university, where he was graduated in the year 1849; having learned the printer's trade, he was enabled to pay part of (page 331) his college tuition by working during vacations and his leisure hours in different printing offices. He began the study of law after leaving college, teaching mathematics at the same time in the Lebanon academy; later he completed his legal education at the Cincinnati Law school. His practice of his profession began as a partner with the law firm of King, Anderson & Sage, but marrying the daughter of the Hon. Thomas Corwin in 1856, he entered into a partnership the following year with that famous attorney, and made his home at Lebanon until Gov. Corwin's death in 1865, when he returned to Cincinnati and formed a partnership with the able attorney, Mr. Hinkle, which was only terminated by the appointment of Mr. Sage by President Arthur to the bench of the United States circuit court in 1883. He was never tempted to enter politics, although solicited by his friends in Warren county to permit his name to be placed on the congressional ticket for that district. As a jurist, Judge Sage is said to have commanded the respect of all the attorneys who appeared before him. His Warren county friends recall him as possessing "a true, gentle refinement that readily classed him as a gentleman of the old school." His particular delight was music, which indeed was a passion with him. As a member of the Baptist church his life was consistent with his profession. Dr. James Scott. A little over thirty years ago there was laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery at Lebanon, the earthly remains of one who, under the Ohio constitution of 1851, held the longest record of legislative service of any one sent to that body of state representatives.

            Of Scotch-Irish descent, James Scott was born in the year 1815 in Washington county, Pennsylvania. A student of the college bearing the same name as the county, his medical studies were conducted under the supervision of Dr. R. F. Riddle, a leading practitioner of Monongahela City, and later he attended lectures at the Ohio Medical college at Cincinnati. Deciding to begin his practice in Greenfield, a town in his home county in Pennsylvania, he took back with him a life helpmate, in the person of Miss Hannah A. Fowler of Cincinnati. But in the year 1843 he returned to Ohio, and located in the promising village of Rochester, but was induced to go to the new settlement at Morrow which was laid out the following year, where he remained for seven years, removing then to Lebanon which in truth was his "home town" until his death in the winter of 1888. The medical profession was followed by him until the year 1858, when he assumed the-editorship of the Western Star, and for five years controlled its policy.

            The entrance of Dr. Scott into state politics is a little bit of interesting county history. In the year of 1856 he stumped the state for Fremont, and the next year came out himself as a candidate for legislative honors, and notwithstanding there were four other contestants in the field, was most gloriously nominated, receiving 1,049 votes to 897, which was the sum of all the ballots cast against him. His contestants, bitter at their defeat, united on an independent candidate, J. Milton Williams, a prominent attorney of Lebanon, and Dr. Scott was defeated by the small margin of 44 votes. It required the entire force of the Democratic party of Warren county (page 332) with the disaffected Republicans to put him on the shelf, where he remained but a short time, as he again stood for election to the legislature in the year 1859, and this time was more than successful for he remained in the general assembly during the whole period of the Civil war, and was most zealous in his support of enactments for the maintenance of the Union cause. By request of Gov. Brough he resigned his seat in the legislature and took charge of the office of probate judge in Warren county, hoping. for election to the same position at the regular election ; in this he was disappointed, but was again sent to represent his county in the legislature. An appointment as secretary of Washington territory was the next political plum that fell into his hands, but he soon resigned the position and returned to Lebanon to be again returned to the General Assembly in 1871 and 1873. Still greater responsibility was laid upon him in his appointment, in the year 1874, to the United States consulship at Honolulu, an office he so ably filled that he brought credit both to himself and his country. Upon his return to the United States, after five years of distinguished service, the Hawaiian Gazette expressed the feelings of the islanders in the following words : "The ripe experience, good sense, prompt business qualifications, urbanity of manner and strict integrity which have signalized every act of Consul Scott have proved him to be the right man in the right place, and every American who has come to these islands has had cause to congratulate himself that such a man is charged with high official duty."

            Dr. Scott returned to Lebanon only to be again sent to the legislature in 1879 and 1881. But, unfortunately, he made the mistake that is so often made by men who fill long terms in office, viz : that of thinking they are indispensable as public officials, and there were younger men whose political hunger could only be satisfied with office-plums and when, in the year 1883, he again ran for election to the legislature, he met defeat, and his chapter of public service was forever closed.

            To the honor of Dr. Scott, reference must be made to one of the most effective temperance legislative enactments, of which he was the author, ever engrossed in Ohio statutes. It is known as the Scott law. It was the first law relating to temperance under the state constitution of 1851 in which war was made directly upon the saloon business by taxation. By its provision the saloonist was forced to pay a yearly tax of $200. Licensing a saloon was forbidden by the state constitution, but the Scott law gave a revenue to the state from the business.

            By many people this taxation was regarded as license, and probably no temperance law, before or since, created the excitement and argument that was raised by the passage of the Scott law. Its constitutionality was brought before the supreme court of the state three times. It grew into a political issue, and judges were elected because they held the opinion that a special tax was not a license. It encountered bitter opposition from saloonists all over the state, and thousands of dollars were spent by them in fighting its constitutionality. But it has proved the most effective temperance enactment in, the history of Ohio. The tax was increased instead of (page 333) diminished, until in 1918 a man paid $1,000 yearly for the privilege of selling spirituous drinks across the bar.

            The life of this public-spirited man came to a close at his home in Lebanon, in December, 1888. Dr. Scott was a faithful member of the Presbyterian church.

            James M. Smith. Those whose eyes catch the name here written, will immediately recall memories of a man whose sterling character, kindly nature, and cultured intellectual ability made him pre-eminent in the Miami valley. To know Judge James M. Smith intimately was to possess a friendship to be treasured throughout life; to know him as only an acquaintance, was to have possessed the privilege that would be a never-to-be forgotten pleasure of having clasped hands with one of nature's rare noblemen. The beautiful little city of Lebanon was the birthplace of judge Smith, and he loved it, not only for the associations of childhood and youth, but also for the people who went up and down the quiet shaded streets, and his elegant home on North Broadway was to him the dearest place to be found on the great wide earth, not alone because it was "home" through the sweet, tender ties of family life, but also because it was in Lebanon.

            In the schools of Lebanon, Judge Smith received a sound and thorough training in English branches of study, Latin also finding a place in his curriculum. His business training began when he was only eighteen years of age, in the office of his uncle, Joseph Whitehill, who, at that time, was state treasurer, located at Columbus. But, desirous of entering the law as a life profession, he only remained with his uncle for about two years and returned to Lebanon and began his legal studies in his father's office. After his admittance to the bar, he opened an office in Xenia, Ohio, but the home-call was strong in his heart and in the year 1850 he returned to Lebanon and formed a law-partnership with his father. But it must not be omitted that, during his brief stay in Xenia, he so impressed the citizens of the town with his ability and strength of character, that they elected him to the mayorship of the place. In 1854 his friends in Warren county elected him probate judge, but after serving three years he returned to the practice of law, forming a partnership with his brother, John E. Smith, after their father's retirement from active practice. In the year 1871 he was the choice of the judicial district, comprising the counties of Warren, Greene, Clinton and Clark, for the distinguished position of judge of the court of common pleas, and had the great honor of being three times elected to the same high office ; and when the circuit court was organized, judge Smith presided over its sittings for sixteen years, and would have been re-elected, but declining health compelled his rejection of the honor.

            One strong factor in the wonderful popularity and continued success of this capable man, was that he was not a schemer-in other words, he was not a politician. Though always a firm Republican, and consequently his name as a candidate for election or re-election was always on the ticket of his party, his reputation for just rulings, which were never tinged with discriminating political (page 334) bias, brought him the confidence of political opponents and won him many votes at the election in his judicial district. He was never known to have made a political speech. Another agent of success was his entire freedom from emotionalism. He had the rare gift of being just in his decisions, a justice that came from conviction that a decision must be given on the simple, plain platform that it was right, and never was a case decided by him until careful study of its merits had been given it and the law applied with the "square" of equity. His judicial life was but as it were a reflex of the high standards held by him in his office practice. And the greatest eulogy that can be given of judge Smith is, that by nature he was a gentleman in all that the name implies, and its manifestation was seen in all that he did; his quiet dignity, perfect self-possession in every place and under every condition that might surround him, evinced a depth of character rare indeed. A friend of years, in writing of him, said he was "a man without an enemy, political or otherwise."

            In 1851, judge Smith was most happily married to Miss Sarah B. Clements, of Lebanon, a young woman of unusual culture and sweetness of character. Three children came to add to the happiness of their home, a son Harry, whose death a few years before the passing of his parents, was a cloud of sorrow that was never entirely lifted; a daughter, Florence, became the wife of judge Leroy D. Thoman of Chicago, and Mary, the youngest child, was married to Mr. M. S. Todd of Avondale, Cincinnati. During the last few years of their life, judge and Mrs. Smith resided with their daughter, Mrs. Todd.

            The health of this most lovable man gradually declined, but he faced the inevitable with the calm courage and sweetness of true Christian fortitude. The arrow of destiny found him on a railway train near Erie, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1902, as in company with his devoted wife and son-in-law, Judge Thoman, he was returning from a sojourn in the east. When the tidings of his death reached Cincinnati, the courts then in session adjourned as a mark of respect to his high character and judicial standing.

            Coates Kinney. Because of his long residence in Warren county, and that his first literary work was done within its territory, Coates Kinney holds a strong, distinctive place in the annals of the county.

            New York might, perchance, claim him by reason of his birth in Yates county in that state in 1826; but when he was a slender lad of thirteen years his father came west, locating with his family at Springboro, Warren county, where young Coates had the limited educational training of the schools of the period, but his schooling was often broken into by work required of him for family support, his hands learning the hard toil found in the rough labor of a primitive sawmill, then the art of barrel making, after which came employment in a woolen factory. Of this last-named work, the poet many years later, in a letter written to a brother poet, W. H. Venable, referred to in these words : "I worked hard with my hands while my head was `buzzier' with wheels than the old-fashioned machine which I fed with the farmer's fleeces and out of which I (page 335)  took the spin-rolls of wool. I was mad-hungry for learning and drunk-thirsty with a fever of love and aspiration." No pioneer boy was ever more "mad-hungry" for mental food than this lad, destined to become the leading poet of the middle west.

            The short hours that he could call his own were literally crammed with close, unsystematic application to mathematics, the dead languages and general literature. He considered himself fortunate in securing, at different periods, country schools where he taught, or rather, sought to lead the "young ideas" into the same path in which he was trying to walk-a way that led to the desirable land of knowledge ; and surely the door of attainment seemed to swing wide open to the fulfillment of his ambition on the day that he began his legal studies in the office of the renowned Thomas Corwin at Lebanon ; later coming under the instruction and advice of the Hon. William Lawrence of Bellefontaine and Donn Piatt of Cincinnati. But Coates Kinney soon found that the emoluments of life were not to be gathered by him from the legal profession; the gods had in store for him rarer gifts than poor mortals often find awaiting them. He was first, last, and always a poet, and the dry technicalities of the law were seldom to be written by him, but instead the thoughts and aspirations of his own heart and life that, after he had passed from earth, were still to bring courage to discouraged hearts and faith in an overruling Power for ultimate good, when human life seemed to be nothing but constant groping in darkness and baffled hope.

            The poet was happy in enjoying for a few years the companionship of a woman whose tender appreciation and gentleness of heart were constant inspiration to him in the years that, as husband and wife, they faced limited means and all the struggles that meet young hearts when striving for the things that make life appear so desirable.

            Miss Hannah Kelly, to whom he was united in the summer of 1851, at her home in Waynesville, was eminently fitted to be the wife of a poet. She is said to have had also the poetic gift, but to the cares of wifehood was added the loving responsibility of motherhood, a motherhood that knew the bitterness of death that speaks in empty, longing arms, for three little graves became love's sacred shrines to the young parents, and the brave woman found life too full in comforting and caring for the father of her dear little ones, to give her hours to the writing of thoughts that, doubtless, would have crowned her own life with a poet's wreath. Those closest to the poet in the friendships in which he was always so sincere, can find in many of his poems the golden thread of his tender remembrance of his early married life.

            Two years previous to his marriage, Mr. Kinney wrote the lines which were the foundation of his poetic fame ; a lyric that, for sweetness and tenderness, has no superior in the English language “Rain on the roof," which, Mr. Venable says, "perhaps has been reproduced in type more frequently than any other lyric ever written in the Ohio valley." Mr. Kinney, in his last book, Mists of Fire, has a revision of the poem, which, to many, has robbed it of much of the intangible "something" that, in the earlier writing, touches (page 336) the heart and brings happy, sweet memories to the reader. The poem first met the eyes of an appreciative public in the year 1849, in the columns of the Great West, a weekly, published in Cincinnati and edited by Emerson Bennett.

            A very busy man was the young poet as he endeavored to support his little household with the proceeds of his literary work; for literature did not yield the gold that it does today. But poems, essays of criticism, short stories, poured from his ever obedient pen, and found homes in the columns of the Philadelphia Post, the National Era, the Ladies Repository, Willis' Home Journal and the Yankee Blade ; he was also connected with the editorial department of the Genius of the West, a Cincinnati publication. Quoting again from a sketch of Mr. Kinney by Mr. W. H. Venable, in the Franklin News, "In 1854 he purchased a half interest in Abbott's printing office, where, with his own hand, he set the type of his first book, Keeuka and Other Poems, which was issued from the press as a private edition in 1855." So devotedly had his time been given to literary work, that he was not admitted to the bar until the year 1856, when he opened a law office in Cincinnati.

            The death of his young wife in 1859 was a blow that left him long in the shadow, but he hid the sorrow deep in his heart and turned a brave strong face to the world.

            The outbreak of the War of the Rebellion found Mr. Kinney anxious to be of service to his country, and, through the recommendation of Secretary Chase, he received from President Lincoln an appointment as major and paymaster in the army, serving through the war, retiring with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. In the second year of the war he was united in marriage to Miss Mary C. Allen, of Xenia, Ohio, a young woman of unusual literary culture and ability, and thereafter made Xenia his place of residence. Three daughters came to gladden his home.

            Politics offered an inviting field for cultivation, and in 1869 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago which gave Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the nomination for president; twelve years later he represented the fifth Ohio district in the state legislature, where his masterly comprehension of state questions and his truly wonderful eloquence made him a distinguished figure in the senate. Mr. Howe says : "In 1881 he was the leading Republican speaker in the Ohio senate. He was the author of the amendment to the constitution on the subject of temperance, which was submitted to the voters the following year, and of the bill for the abolition of the official railroad pass, on which he made a speech that was circulated and commended throughout the United States. He passed the bill through the senate by his eloquent, masterly array of facts and deductions, but the railroad influence reconsidered it the next day, and converted enough votes from aye to no to de-, feat it, but the principles of the bill have since been enacted in the interstate commerce law. But Col. Kinney's record as editor, speaker and public official has been eclipsed by his achievements in literature, especially poetry."

            Two collections of his poems were given by Col. Kinney to an admiring public, the first, Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real, was (page 337)  published in 1887; following it in 1899 came Mists of Fire, which contains some of the lyrics found in the earlier book, and also poems so amazing in thought and expression, that they fill the reader with wonder and admiration. It is a pleasure to quote the opinions of Mr. W. H. Venable on the writings of Col. Kinney, for Prof. Venable has a kindred reputation for intellectual ability and literary achievement, and he and Col. Kinney were life-long friends; reviewing Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real, he says, he gives "in glowing words and often splendid dictum, the deepest and most earnest thoughts of a well-trained and subtle intellect upon life, doubt, fear, faith, freedom, immortality, God and man; and then to all his own restless and penetrating questions finds an answer." A signal honor fell to Col. Kinney in being asked to write and deliver the Ohio centennial ode on the opening day of the Ohio state centennial exposition at Columbus, Ohio, on September 4, 1888; it was a masterly production, and well worthy of an honored place in every history written of Ohio.

            Only one criticism can be made of the poet, and that is, he should have given more of his work to the literary world. As the years crept on, his splendid intellect did not weaken in power of thought or expression. Few writers possessed the knowledge and use of the English language acquired by him. In literary criticism he was as strong and forceful as he was in poetical expression. His words, his sentences, seemed literally alive. He wrote as he felt, as he believed or wanted to believe, as he longed. The heartbeats of the man was heard in his verses and the earth is richer in thought because Coates Kinney lived and wrote. On a January day in the year 1904, at the Presbyterian hospital in Cincinnati, his thread of life was snapped, and as he beautifully expressed it in his wonderful poem entitled Duty here and Glory there, forever was "the curtain of the infinite" lifted for him.

            George E. Morrow. The state of Illinois, always progressive, has taken -a step in advance, in showing special honor to men who have helped to make the science of agriculture, or farming, as exact a science as any that has been developed. This appreciation is expressed in establishing in the splendid college of agriculture, that forms a department of the state university, The Illinois farmers' hall of fame, on whose walls will be hung portraits of the men thus honored, with tablets telling what their genius or investigations have accomplished towards making farming a perfect science. This college of agriculture is the largest building in the world specifically devoted to agricultural study.

            Not all of the men whose pictures already have found places in this Hall of Fame were practical farmers, neither were some of them citizens of the state by birth, but all have contributed, either by close study or experimental investigation, something of help to the farming activity of the world.

            Warren county has obtained recognition in this gallery of worthy men, through the ability and practical study of George E. Morrow, who was born and raised on his father's farm near Fosters. The early education of the boy was acquired in the school at-Twenty Mile Stand, where he speedily surpassed many of his schoolmates (page 338) in his studies and, young as he was, sometimes filled the teacher's place in the common school, matriculating at the Maineville academy.

            Naturally he was fond of reading and the circulating library, of which his grandfather, Gov. Morrow, had been chief founder, was a source of pleasure and profit to him.

            Enlistment in the army during the Civil war broke in upon his studies but after his discharge two winters were spent by him at the Michigan State university, which were devoted to the study of agriculture. Frequent contributions to agricultural journals led to his engagement as assistant editor on the staff of The Western Rural, published at Detroit, Michigan, but in the year 1867 the paper was removed to Chicago, when he became editor-in-chief; in connection with this paper he edited a paper at Madison, Wisconsin, called The Western Farmer. When journalistic work permitted, Mr. Morrow was in demand by agricultural associations for addresses on topics bearing directly upon practical farming and the improvement of soil and agricultural implements. Under the land grant of congress, agricultural colleges were springing up almost in every state, and in the year 1876 Mr. Morrow was given a professor's chair in the Iowa Agricultural college at Ames, Iowa, which he filled for twenty-three years, going then for a similar service to the Illinois State university at Urbana, where he did eighteen years of splendid work ; Oklahoma then proffered him the presidency of its Territorial college at Stillwater, where he remained for four years. Twice his busy life was relaxed by short trips to Europe when he visited the Highland and Royal Agricultural exhibits, and the fat Stock Shows, which annually draw visitors from all over the world to the city of Chicago, was a project of his farsighted brain.

            Prof. Morrow lived to see the foundations laid of the immense college of agriculture connected with the Illinois State university, a building that covers two acres of ground', and whose two hundred rooms are devoted entirely to scientific farming. But he did not live to realize the appreciation of his work, as evinced by the people of Illinois, in calling the big assembly room of the college "Morrow Hail" in his honor, or to read the following inscription beneath his portrait in the Hall of Fame, "George E. Morrow. A Man Far in Advance of His Time, Who Laid the Broad Foundation for Present Agricultural Teaching in Illinois, and Inspired a New Faith from One End of the State to the Other."

 

The Medical Profession

 

            The intrepid knights of the lancet and calomel were very important personages in pioneer days, and in this era of telephones and automobiles, one can hardly do justice to the strenuous life of the men who literally lived in the saddle. For there was no settlement large enough to command the entire time of a man of healing, and his calls were often many miles apart, and one is lost in conjecture as to how they could keep to the trail on dark, stormy nights when it led through lonely, dark woodland or safely cross bridgeless streams swollen by spring rains. In times of epidemic, (page 339) the self-sacrificing physician had his only snatches of sleep as his intelligent steed made its way along the scarcely open way. It surely was his heart-felt desire to relieve the suffering of the dwellers in the rude log cabins, united with a love of his profession, that kept the early physician at his work, for the fees earned by him were not especially tempting to be earned by a life of sacrifice. His ordinary compensation was twenty-five cents a mile, the pioneer having the privilege of liquidating one-half the amount in provision for the family of the physician, or in provender for his faithful horse. If the pioneer could have had a vision of the skill and nursing that would be one of the blessings of the future to his grandchildren, he would have shrunk, almost in terror from the rude, apparently harsh treatment given his family in those early days. The bitter decoction of herbs administered was the least objectionable. But many a person would have lived to a good old age, had not the lancet played so prominent a part in the treatment given him in his illness. The first thing nearly always called into use by the physician was the shining, sharp knife, no matter what was the character of the trouble, and happy the patient who did not have united in his treatment, both lancet and calomel. Today, a dentist is considered somewhat unskillful in his practice when a patient suffers during the extraction of a tooth ; in the early days the unhappy settler in Warren county had his tooth literally "yanked out" by a hook placed over it which was worked by a lever.

            In early days, a man was considered proficient in the medical profession who had read a few books and been fortunate enough to peruse them in the office of a practitioner. His mental acquirements consisted in repeating from memory the nomenclature of the bones and muscles of the human frame, without ever having seen a human skeleton or a pictured diagram of the parts of the body. Buried in the old Baptist cemetery at Lebanon are the earthly remains of the first medical student in Warren county to receive the degree of M.D., a son of the distinguished judge Francis Dunlevy of Lebanon, Dr. John C. Dunlevy. His medical training consisted of attendance upon a course of medical lectures in Lexington, Kentucky, and later he was numbered among the young men first to be graduated from the Ohio Medical college in Cincinnati. He acquired a little local fame and notoriety from a paper read by him in the year 1824, upon what was, in his estimation, a successful treatment of bilious intermittent fever. An excerpt will be permitted : "The treatment of this epidemic which I found most successful consisted in vomiting, purging, bleeding, blistering, the use of refrigerants and diaphoretics, and in exciting salivation. All of these means were, of course, not necessary in the treatment of each individual case, though there were some, which from their obstinacy or violence, required in co-operation or succession, nearly the whole." And unlike most practitioners, Dr. Dunlevy was willing to try his own prescription when he fell a victim to the malady, and strange to say, lived to tell the story.

            The report of the county commissioners in 1830 furnishes the first complete list of practicing physicians in Warren county. The list was made in requirement of the new law requiring the taxing of (page 340) the doctors and lawyers of the state. The report shows that the income of each of the following named physicians was about $500. Turtle Creek township: David Morris, John Ross, John Van Harlingen, Caleb B. Clements, Wilson Thompson; Franklin township: John S. Haller, Otho Evans, George McAroy, Benjamin Dubois; Clear Creek township : Joseph Stanton, Samuel Marshall, Joseph Hildreth, Wm. H. Anderson ; Deerfield township : John DeHart; Hamilton township: John Cottle, Benjamin Irwin; Wayne township: Horace Lathrop, John E. Green, Joseph Craft; Salem township : George Starbuck.

            Dr. Eban Banes was doubtless the first practicing physician who established a residence in Warren county. A friend of Samuel Heighway, who founded the village of Waynesville, he was present in the year 1796 when the first trees were felled, for its clearing, and when the town assumed the size of a "settlement," he left Columbia, where he had first located about the year 1796, brought his simple stock of herbs, calomel and lancets and presided over the pains and aches of the new village. In the year 1811 he removed to Clark county, where he lived until his death in 1827. Dr. Banes was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and acquired the knowledge of his profession under the tutelage of the celebrated Dr. Rush of Philadelphia. Dr. John C. Winans is regarded as the first physician who settled in the immediate vicinity of Lebanon, which was about the year 1797. In the year 1801 he decided to enlarge the borders of his medical renown, and inserted his professional card in the Western Spy, a Cincinnati journal.

            Politics sometimes tempted the early physicians away from professional life, for Dr. David Morris was sent by his neighbors and friends in the vicinity of Lebanon to the state legislature. For twenty years Dr. Joseph Canby, from 1810 to 1830, administered relief to the physical ills of the citizens of Lebanon, and so sound was the public faith in his medical knowledge that five different times he was appointed by the state legislature on the state board of censors to examine applicants for license to practice medicine. Two years after the first settlement in Harveysburg, in 1828, Dr. Jesse Harney opened his "shop" for the benefit of the people of the tiny village. He won more than local fame, not only as an alleviator of physical ills, but also for his acquaintance with the natural sciences, and his unstinted efforts to improve and elevate the Indian and negro races. In the year 1847 he went as a medical missionary, under the sanction of the Quakers, to the Shawnee Indians in Kansas Territory, but his benevolent work was not long continued, as he died the next year while still comparatively a young man.

            A most interesting chapter, thrilling in the stories of the self-sacrifice of the early physicians of Warren county, could be written. Similar in experiences, yet each one held an individuality of trial and hardship that placed him in the ranks of pioneer heroes. The Thompsonian method of therapeutics introduced into Warren county in 1826, stirred the medical fraternity of Warren county greatly, and because the system called for the using of steam for the purpose of inducing perspiration, the new practitioners were (page 341) dubbed steam doctors, and were also known as herb or root doctors. The herb upon which the followers of Dr. Thompson placed greatest reliance in their practice, was lobelia, whose medicinal value Dr. Thompson claimed to have discovered.

            In the year 1850, the Hahnemann school or "little pill" system was brought into practice in Warren county by Dr. Thomas W. Cuscader, who died in Lebanon in 1861. Two years before the last date given, the Eclectic school of medicine had its first representatives in Lebanon in the persons of Drs. James Anton and wife ; Mrs. Anton being the first woman physician in Warren county brave enough to encounter public opinion and prejudice.

            Lebanon Medical Society. The medical society of Warren county is one of the most progressive organizations of the kind in the middle west. Its standard is high, its rules exacting, its discussions evincing that its members strive to keep up to the efficiency and proficiency demanded of the medical profession of the twentieth century. Organized in the fall of the year 1837, it included not only the practitioners of Warren county, but also those of adjacent counties. Its first presiding officer was Dr. John Van Harlingen, who is said to have been more liberally educated than many of his professional brethren. He located in Lebanon in the year 1817 and acquired a wide and successful practice. Today Warren county rejoices in a corps of medical practitioners that will rank with any in the state. They are well read in the fundamentals of materia medica, keep pace with the wonderful progress that is daily being made in the scientific methods of alleviating pain and suffering, and one and all have the confidence and admiration of the county at large. The president of the Warren county medical society is Dr. Thomas Sherwood of Waynesville ; its secretary, Dr. Herschel Fisher, of Lebanon. Following is a complete list of the medical practitioners of Warren county at the present time : W. L. Brown, C. C. Borden, Austin C. Roberts, L. G. Brock, Wm. E. Blair, Robert Blair, B. H. Blair, F. E. Crosier, Mary Cook, Hugh J. Death, H. M. Dill, J. T. Ellis, Herschel Fisher, M. H. Houseworth, David B. Hamilton, Chas. A. Hough, N. A. Hamilton, C. F. Krohn, T. E. Keeler, E. P. Krieghoff Tohn W. Moore, W. F. Moss, Leonard Mounts, M. Purdee, C. G. Randall, M. M. Romine, Austin C. Roberts, Vance Reynolds, S. S. Stahl, Thomas Sherwood, E. C. Thompson, P. W. Tetrick, John M. Wright, James W. Ward, John E. Witham, Emily Wright and Alfred Wright; Mary E. Cadwallader of Warren county is connected with the Dayton State hospital.

 

The Bench and Bar

 

The complete history of a country lies not alone in a description of its seas and rivers, its hills and vales, but in the lives of the people who sailed across the seas, and made homes in the fertile dales and erected enduring monuments on the limitless plains. Their thought, their words, their actions, the gains, their losses, their aspirations, their achievements, are history, and in writing the story of Warren county it is not the clearings, the log cabins that gave the county pre-eminence in the history of the (page 342 Middle west, but the intellectual and spiritual thought and deeds of the men who felled the trees and laid the first home altar-fires.

            Very few, indeed, are the men of the early days of Warren county who did not adopt the law as a life profession. In one way, possibly, it was the only profession, or rather vocation, that could bring them in contact with the big outside world, for trade offered but little inducement as markets were few and far between, and connecting roads were still a problem of the future. The legislative act which gave to Warren county a name and boundaries, was passed May 1; 1803. Under the state constitution of 1802, the occupants of the judicial bench of the common pleas courts consisted of a president judge and three associate judges who were not elected by the people, but were appointees of the legislature, the time limit being seven years.

            Before the formal organization of Warren county, the pioneers who were unfortunate enough to be compelled to seek legal redress were forced to go to Cincinnati for transaction of their business.

            For the character of the Cincinnati bar at that period local history gives rather a gloomy picture, for of the nine practicing lawyers in that river town in 1796, seven became confirmed drunkards. And the outlook for equity was far brighter for the residents of Warren county, and other counties as well, when each county was given a seat of justice as it was called.

            It was on the third Tuesday in August, 1803, that the first session of the common pleas court of Warren county was held at the home of Ephraim Hathaway in Lebanon. The president judge, Francis Dunlevy, passed into the hostelry under a swinging sign of a prancing steed of midnight darkness, for the hewed log cabin of the aforesaid Ephraim Hathaway was an inn, as well as a court of justice. Of this same first president judge, it must be told that he was not regularly admitted to the bar until after he had retired from the bench; but his renown as a member of the territorial legislature, his superior education, and his study of the maxims of the law, made him capable of filling the high place to which he had been appointed.

            The prosecuting attorney at that first hearing of causes in Warren county was Daniel Symmes of Cincinnati, a nephew of John Cleves Symmes, whose appointment to the once came from the supreme court, and, doubtless he had prepared the indictment returned by the grand jury. We learn that he was not discouraged enough by the small salary which he earned as prosecutor, $20 a term, to leave the legal profession, for he eventually, only two years later, was enrolled among the judges of the supreme court of the state.

            There was not much business presented for adjustment at that first judicial sitting in Warren county. There is no record of either civil or criminal cases ; the docket comprised a few assault and battery indictments and several accusations for affray. In the second sitting of the court, which was in the following December, seven cases were on the civil docket for trial, six of which were dismissed, or continued. The record shows that Joshua Collett, then Lebanon's only resident attorney, presented the defendant's plea for resistance (page 343) in the only case that was tried. Whether he won or lost, history sayeth not.

            Like the court of common pleas, each county, was entitled to sittings of the supreme court, and the first session of that august tribunal was held in Warren county on the sixth day of October, 1803, judges Sprigg and Huntington presiding. The record shows no cases tried. Of equal authority were the two courts in their jurisdiction over criminal cases. Half of the time of the worthy judges was spent in going from one seat of justice to another, traveling as did the early Methodist circuit riders on horseback, umbrella and overcoat strapped behind the saddle, sitting on their saddlebags, leggings discolored with mud, they followed the woodland trails, and welcome indeed were the lights of Ferguson's tavern which was located east of the old courthouse in Lebanon, and more welcome the kindly greeting of the genial landlord and the appetizing odors of the bountiful meal in course of preparation. But forgotten was all fatigue when, after hearty appreciation of the bountifully spread table, judges and attorneys stretched their legs in front of the leaping fames upon the wide hearthstone, and spent a jovial hour in swapping stories and experiences, assisted very often by a certain liquid that helped to make the tongues even more active. In comparison with the intricate problems of justice brought before a judicatory of today, the matters presented for adjustment in the early history of Ohio seem to border on the trifling and unimportant. The most important were ejectment suits caused by contested land boundaries, particularly in the Virginia military district east of the Little Miami river, and were most eagerly desired by the attorneys as they brought the largest fees, for the compensation earned by lawyers seventy-five, years ago would now be "turned down" by his clerk as not worth consideration; in the year 1803, the salary of a judge of the court of common pleas, only amounted to $750. The list of the early judges and attorneys of Warren county is a notable one. It is to be doubted if any other county in the middle west can produce as long an enrollment of men who have won as prominent places in state and local history, even national, as a majority of the lawyers who lived in Warren county during the first half-century of its history. The president judges who were appointed under the constitution of 1802, were Francis Dunlevy, Joshua Collett, George J. Smith, Benjamin Hinkson, Elijah Vance and John Probasco, jr. The Associate judges were William James, Jacob D. Lowe, Ignatius Brown, Nathan Kelly, Jacob Reeder, Peter Burr, George Harlan, Matthias Corwin, George Hamsberger, Wyllis Pierson, George Kesling, Michael H. Johnson, Benjamin Baldwin, David Morris, Samuel Cladwell, James Cowan, John Hart, Egbert T. Smith, William S. Mickle, Daniel Crane, Richard Parcell, Rezin B. Edwards.

            A complete list of the lawyers of Warren county who reflected honor upon their profession and the community in which they lived cannot be given. But few indeed were the members of the bar in the earlier history of Warren county who were not honored by it with political preferment, and by their ability won a distinguished place in the annals of their chosen profession. Outside of the lists (page 344) already given are read with distinction worthy of emulation the names of John McLean, chief justice of the United States supreme court; his brother, William McLean, J. Milton Williams, Richard S. Thomas, Jacob D. Miller, Thomas Freeman, Thomas R. Ross, Jacoby Hallock, Benjamin Collett, of whom judge R. B. Harlan said, he "is entitled to be placed as a lawyer above all the lawyers of my acquaintance" ; A. H. Dunlevy, Thomas Corwin, the brightest legal star of the west ; James Sabin, George R. Sage, James and John Smith, Jeremiah Wilson, William W. Wilson, A. G. McBurney, Durbin Ward, Benjamin Butterworth, and others of equal note, all helping to make the history of Warren county brilliant in achievement and distinguished in all that goes to the making of intelligent, progressive citizenship.

            The enactment of the Ohio legislature in 1853, which adopted the reformed mode of civil procedure as accepted by the bar of New York five years previous, was a source of great discussion and dissatisfaction to many of the older members of the bar in Warren county, and indeed to lawyers all over the state, especially to those who had been long in the profession. The existing method of pleading was cumbersome, full of Latin phrases, but older attorneys had become so accustomed to them, and in truth enjoyed the pomposity and mystery which weighty verbiage gave to their pleading, that it was as much to them as a red sash is to a leader of militia on a fourth of July parade; and even younger members in the profession rather delighted in the glibness with which the, sometimes almost incomprehensible, technicalities and mysterious phrases of the law stood out in their pleadings or briefs, that they were slow to adopt the new code, and were delighted with every opportunity that permitted resort to the old forms. But the American spirit to adopt everything that tends to progressiveness along all lines in modern life, pervaded even the law and has led to almost universal acceptation and use of the revised practice, and now it would, perchance, be difficult to find a lawyer who would be willing to return to the use of the old code.

            The office of prosecuting attorney was an especially desirable one for a young attorney in the early history of the county. Not for the financial recompense, for the salary was almost meagre ; but from the fact that his compelled appearance before grand juries and judges, not only extended his more intimate acquaintance with the men from whom was to come his living, but also threw him with the leading attorneys of the southwestern part of the state, and if he showed strong mental calibre he was welcomed into the upper circle of legal lights. The office was one of appointment. Joshua Collett was the first lawyer from Warren county to hold the office of state's attorney, receiving his appointment in 1807, having been preceded in the office by only two incumbents, Daniel Symmes and Arthur St. Clair, son of Gov. St. Clair. The services of Mr. Collett were so eminently satisfactory to the county that he was continued in office for ten years, stepping from that place of public trust and confidence into the president judgeship of the court of common pleas, which he filled for seven years. The able men, who for the first century of Warren county's history represented the (page 345) state of Ohio at court proceedings, following Mr. Collett, were Thomas Corwin, A. H. Dunlevy, J. Milt Williams, J. Durbin Ward, J. Kelly O'Neall, Thomas F. Thompson, George R. Sage, David Allen, Collin Ford, Seth W. Brown, Albert Anderson, William McDonald, Chas. Dechant, and George E. Young.

            Clerks. The duties of county clerk are so closely connected with the courts of the county, that to speak of them in this connection seems most fitting. The office was established in Warren county with the organization of the county in 1803, and the first to be honored with the position was David Sutton who served twelve years, being succeeded by Matthias Corwin whose term of service lacked only two years of being as long as his predecessor's, and-was followed by Jonathan K. Wilds, who for fifteen years kept the records of the court proceedings. Succeeding these faithful and appreciated public servants during the time 'that elapsed until Warren county celebrated its centennial in 1903, were H. M. Stokes, G. W. Stokes, F. S. Van Harlingen, James S. Totten, William H. Rockhill, Lot Wright, Harry Wilson, George L. Schenck, D. W. Humphreys, and Chas. S. Mounts.

            Sheriff. The duties devolving upon this court officer necessarily made him one of the earliest officials known in pioneer life. Unlike the office of sheriff in England, the officer holding this position in America has no judicial duties to perform, his functions being purely ministerial. Hence, the first sheriffs of Warren county knew the experience of riding through trackless forests, fording high water, as, in obedience to higher powers, they served writs and endeavored to maintain all laws calling for peace.

            The first sheriff connected with the first court of Warren county was George Harlan, and for one hundred years the office was capably filled, respectively, by Ephraim Hathaway, Samuel McCray, George Kesling, Benjamin Sayre, Coonrod Snyder, John Hopkins, Joseph Whitehill, John M. Houston, William Russell, Nathaniel Bowers, Israel Woodruff, William Eulass, Chas. A. Smith, D. P. Egbert, A. E. Stokes, John Butler, N. V. Cleaver, John L. Ely, William H. Harlan, Jasper M. Johnson, William H. McCain, Lon Hunter, Al Brant, F. M. Hamilton, and Frank Gallaher.

            Present Attorneys of Warren County. With the rapid increase of population in both state and county, and the connecting links of good roads between towns, schools and colleges rapidly multiplied, and there ceased to be so marked a difference between the intellectual acquisitions of attorneys and the people whom they served. Libraries, small and great, were gathered together in a large per cent of the homes throughout the country at large. And it must be said that attorneys generally, everywhere, began to pay more attention to the financial end of their business than to gaining fame as leaders of the people, either in patriotism or in the highest ideals of American life, which was a characteristic of the early bar. But Warren county has a roll of attorneys at the present time who have the confidence of their clients, and who see in their profession a royal service for all that tends to the highest citizenship ; men whose names are worthy to be written in every history of their county : Albert Anderson, Frank C. Anderson, Seth W. Brown, Frank (page 346) Brandon, Alton F. Brown, Harry C. Burns, F. M. Cunningham, T. C. Christie, Milton Clark, L. F. Coleman, C. B. Dechant, A. J. Divine, Corwin M. Drake, W. F. Eltzroth, M. E. Gustin, F. M. Hamilton, Howard Ivins, Martin A. Jameson, L. K. Langdon, Chester W. Maple, Wallace E. Miller, Josiah Morrow, J. W. O'Neall, J. A. Runyan, W. Z. Roll, W. L. Suemining, G. W. Stanley, D. E. Stanley, R. J. Shawhan, W. G. Thompson, W. C. Thompson, D. B. Wilson, W. J. Wright, George E. Young, Alex. Boxwell, Arthur Bryant, P. Gaynor, Justin Harding, J. D. Miller, P. H. Rue, W. H. Dearth, Earl J. Cox, Wm. McDonald, T. C. Welch.

            Court Officers. The Warren county bar docket for the spring term of 1919 shows Hon. Willard Jurey Wright, judge of court of common pleas; Dan P. Bone, clerk of court ; George L. Schenck, deputy clerk ; Dean E. Stanley, prosecuting attorney ; Charles J. Waggoner, sheriff ; Morrow Brant, deputy sheriff ; James Burke, official stenographer.

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