Tadmor, Ohio

Located at Taylorsville Metropark in Vandalia, the village of Tadmor was an important transportation hub during much of the 19th century. It was located at the center of the three major transportation methods of its time, on foot or by wagon on the National Road, by water on Miami-Erie Canal and by rail on the Dayton & Michigan line. The National Road in particular was important not just for Tadmor, but to the state of Ohio. It was a major route for settlers to get to Ohio from the east, as well as for the movement of trade goods and mail.

The National Road and the canal fell out of favor for the same reason; the rail could carry people and goods further, faster and more cheaply. However, it was the 1913 flood that inundated Dayton that ended the village of Tadmor. The flood destroyed most of the village as well as the canal. The National Road, which once cut across the Great Miami River on a covered bridge, was re-routed after the construction of the Taylorsville Dam. The rail line was also re-routed so that it would be further away from the river.

There is little interpretation at the site currently and is mainly used for outdoor recreation. Bicycling and hiking are common there today. There are a handful of interpretive signs though they offer little detail.

This one says "National Road"

There are other signs at the site that offer more detail than the one pictured but they are still very broad in scope. Much of the site is overgrown with existing foundations of structures such as the sluice gate for the canal crumbling. I am seeking, with my classmates, to turn things around at Tadmor by creating and presenting an interpretive plan that, if implemented, will re-vitalize the site and teach people about this little-known part of local history.

Source: Materials at Vandalia Historical Society

Christmas Gifts!

Gifts. Tons of gifts. Billions of gifts. Some may think that Christmas and its gift-centric celebration is a modern phenomenon. Yes, we do give very different gifts now in 2015 than were given in 1915, or even 1315, but gifts have always been given on Christmas. 

It all started with the Three Wise Men bringing gifts to baby Jesus. Remember them?  Then when Christianity became a religion and people celebrated the birth of Christ, they also gave gifts.  It started as a way to imitate the wise men and their celebration of Jesus’s birth.  Now obviously, with the advent of Santa Claus, things took a more dramatic turn.

Saint Nicholas was a saint who lived in the 4^th century in Myra in present-day Turkey.  He got his reputation as a gift-giver because of a story about three young women and their poor father who could not provide a dowry for them. Without said dowries, the girls would not be able to get married and they might have ended up as “ladies of the night” to make ends meet, if ya know what I mean. So Nicholas, under the cover of night so as not to embarrass the family by directly giving them charity and to be modest himself, threw pouches of gold coins through the home’s open window.  Saint Nicholas Night is the tradition that came from this story and is celebrated worldwide, but most popular in Europe. The English-speaking world gets the name Santa Claus from a mispronunciation of the Dutch “Sinterklass,” which also happens to be a mispronunciation of “Saint Nikolaos.”

So we all give gifts on Christmas because of a dude in Turkey who was super nice and threw money in people’s windows. #blessed #localhistory

So as you are getting ready to ship loads of gifts to friends and family across the globe, take a minute and check out the history of gift giving. Here is a picture of just a small amount of Christmas gifts and mail going through the mail in New York City to the American Expeditionary Forces in 1918:

So maybe send a little something to someone in the Armed Forces this Christmas season like these folks were doing in 1918.

Sources:
Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer Collection, National Archives.
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/

Hartzell Propellers and Orville Wright

A boy named John Hartzell began selling lightning rods from his wagon in 1860s Indiana. By 1875 he started his own company, Hartzell Farm Wagon Company.  His son George joined the family business by 1890 and they continued to mill lumber and make quality farm wagons.  George eventually took over the business from his father, John, and moved it from Greenville to Piqua, Ohio. 

Original Hartzell residence in Oakwood

In 1906, George Hartzell moved his family to a little village called Oakwood and used the property’s workshop to innovate his business.  About a decade later, Hartzell’s home burned down but he rebuilt a glorious new home and workshop for his family.  Orville Wright lived just a block away from the Hartzell family in his Hawthorn Hill estate. When World War I began there was a demand for manufacturing and Hartzell’s company machined and produced gun stocks for the war effort. 

George’s son Robert was interested in flight and was taking family business when his neighbor and friend, Orville, mentioned to him that he should make propellers out of walnut wood for planes.  This conversation happened in 1917, right when the United States entered the war.  Robert Hartzell jumped on this idea and began producing walnut propellers in at the family’s factory. 

Orville's home in red, Hartzell's in blue

Robert founded the Hartzell Walnut Propeller Company in Piqua, and even began making his own planes.  The planes he designed, built, and flew won many air races around the country in the 1920s, but decided to stop manufacturing aircraft as he didn’t want to compete with the companies he was making propellers for.  Hartzell continued on in the propeller business, switching to metal with the advent of new technology.  The company is still producing propellers today.  It is fun to think that from one suggestion of a neighbor, albeit a famous genius neighbor, a company changed paths and is still successful today.

Source:

http://hartzellprop.com/about/history/

Dayton Car Works and the rail-less railway cars

In 1849 Eliam Barney and Ebenezer Thresher formed the Dayton Car Works which built railcars for the burgeoning rail companies.  Barney and Thresher met each other through the Baptist church and became fast friends.  Barney was a teacher and Thresher was a Baptist minister, but they decided that they wanted to go into the railcar business.  They soon bought some land, hired an expert in car manufacturing, and started their business!

In 1849, railroads were just starting to take off and Dayton didn’t even have any rail or street lines, but that didn’t stop Barney and Thresher from making cars.  The only issue was how to get them out of Dayton and to places in the country that had rails.  So they shipped their cars by boat.

The expert that they hired to start their business died unexpectedly in 1850, but Barney and Thresher carried on.  They had hired a good team of employees and couldn’t be stopped. Their company had so many name changes it was ridiculous.  They were Dayton Car Works, then Thresher, Packard, and Company, then E. Thresher and Co. and became Barney, Parker, and Company when Thresher’s health began to fail and they brought in a new partner, Parker.  The company continued on and eventually started making top of the line sleeper cars for the major rail companies.

Although the Civil War hurt their business with southern companies, business eventually boomed again with the need for railcars for the Union Army. The company name was changed again when Parker retired and sold all his shares to Preserved Smith; it was then called Barney, Smith, and Company. And it changed again later to Barney and Smith Manufacturing Company. Although a flood of the Mad River in 1866 destroyed the factory and a lot of its merchandise, Barney and his company kept pressing on and was the biggest car manufacturer until Pullman opened a huge factory in Chicago.

Barney and Smith Co. had a very long history in Dayton and helped the Dayton economy to grow, and by 1890 they had more than 2,000 employees. They were known for their craftsmanship and luxury.  Unfortunately, damage after the 1913 flood, and government seizure of the rails post-WWI, combined with some slow business decisions took a toll on the company and it slowly fizzled out. 

Damage to Barney and Smith drawbridge after 1913 flood

Velocipede: It's not what it sounds like

Before there was the bicycle, there was the "Velocipede." It sounds like some kind of freakish hybrid cross between a velociraptor and a centipede, but it definitely isn’t. And I am glad because that kind of horrendous monster shouldn’t exist.

Styles of German velocipedes

The name was coined by the Frenchman Nicéphore Niépce, who also was one of the forefathers of photography.  The term velocipede is a general term used to describe any of the precursors to the bicycle bewtween 1817 and the 1880s.  Early velocipedes could have anywhere from one to five wheels and were generally made of wooden frames and metal wheels.  It must have hurt horribly to ride one down a cobblestone street…They even got the nickname “boneshaker” because of the horrible jostling that would take place when ridden. 

Patent for velocipede

Eventually, the two-wheeled design won out and we get the term “bicycle.”  “Ordinaries,” or the ones with the huge front wheel, were soon replaced by “safety bicycles” which are similar to the bikes we ride today.  Dayton was a bicyclist’s dream.  It had wide avenues and nicely constructed roads and paths, and it seemed like everyone had a bike.

 The Wright Brothers loved them some bikes too.  As we all, hopefully, know, the Wrights had a cycle shop in which they sold parts and accessories, repaired bikes, and built some of their own.  When Orville was younger he entered and won a lot of bicycle races around Dayton. Between his bike racing, airplane flying, and excessive automobile speeds in Oakwood, Orville was clearly quite the speed-demon.

Ed Sines and Orville workin' on some bikes 

Cycling is making quite the comeback in larger cities around the nation, including Dayton.  With the implementation of the Link bicycle system, you don’t even need your own bike to ride around Dayton in style. Make sure you pack your bowler hat and mustache for the ride!

Sources:

Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, National Archives.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

"Ted, the only people in the universe who have never seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars and that's cause they lived them Ted, that's cause they lived the Star Wars." - Marshall, How I Met Your Mother

Though the above quote is probably not true, it certainly feels true. The original trilogy, composed of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, was created in the 1970s and 1980s. In these releases, George Lucas created a cinematic universe, one that has attracted die-hard fans for decades.

The films have become classics. Movies that everyone knows and loves, though some more reluctantly than others. But more importantly, they have become cinematic heirlooms for the next generation. No, not The Next Generation, with capital letters. That’s Star Trek.

A great example is my family. In 1977, on opening weekend, my father begged my grandfather to take him to the movie theater to see A New Hope. He had seen posters for it and had heard rumblings that it was going to be an amazing science fiction experience, which is exactly what his nerdy eight year old self wanted. It was a Webb male bonding experience. Though the reel snapped, my Dad and Grandpa had held on to their ticket stubs (the only ones in the audience to do so).  They later went back to the theater and received a complimentary movie experience.

Years later, 29 of them to be exact, my sister and I were sitting in my Aunt Lena’s Oklahoma living room, complaining that we were bored. It was a weekend, so my father was home from training. He told us that he had a “princess movie” to show us. What he put in to the DVD player was most definitely not a princess movie. There was a princess in the movie, but I think most people won’t argue the fact that Leia is not the primary character. It was my first experience to a movie that helped shape my father’s childhood.

One of the things that local historians study is local families. The people in an area that help shape that area, that create the history that will later be studied. One of the most important things that make a family what it is are the traditions that those family members uphold. Sometimes those traditions are immediately putting the Christmas Tree up the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes it’s going out at 3 AM to go shopping on Black Friday. But sometimes traditions are quieter than that. Sometimes they are simply a shared cinematic experience.

Oakwood and the A-bomb

You may not have ever heard about it, but Dayton was instrumental in the creation of the atomic bombs that ended World War II.  The Manhattan Project was the research and creation of atomic weapons and under this nuclear umbrella was the Dayton Project. The Dayton Project was operated by Monsanto chemical company and had multiple project sites in the Dayton area.

One of these sites was in Oakwood, a suburb of Dayton.  The Runnymede Playhouse was a large community center that included an outdoor pool, tennis courts, a ballroom, and a stage and auditorium.  It was on the Talbott family’s property and was a popular hangout for Oakwood residents.  The Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories conducted researched on the initiation process for the atomic bomb under the auspices of Monsanto after the large company purchased their lab.  Charles Thomas was married to Margaret Talbott and he worked to gain the permission of the Oakwood City Council and the Talbott family to use it for a government project.  But the US Government seized it anyway under the Emergency Powers Act and stated that it was going to be used as a film laboratory… Yeah, sure it was.

The Playhouse in its glory days:

Work began at the Runnymede Playhouse to find a stable initiation to detonate the atomic bomb that the rest of the Manhattan Project was creating.  Polonium was the key.  In 1944, the first shipment of the extracted Polonium left Runnymede in a lead-lined suitcase and made its way to Los Alamos, the testing site for the bombs. The bomb initiation worked and World War II came to an end with the help of uncredited scientists who transformed the playhouse into a high-security, secret government facility in the middle of residential estates.

An eyewitness report from someone who saw the bomb test at Los Alamos:

Initially, it was thought that Runnymede Playhouse would be able to be decontaminated and returned to its former glory.  However, the site was too irradiated and had to be torn down.  The torn-down building was buried underground at a site in New Mexico along with all of the cobblestones from the driveway and seven feet of soil from underneath the site.  There is a new house there now, but it has always been a difficult property to sell because of the fear of continued radioactive contamination. 

Sources:

Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, National Archives 

Bison

We have discussed pocket turtles amongst our group in the past. Every one has that thing that they love, that thing that makes them quirky. Some of us love model airplanes. Some of us love, well, turtles. And some of us love bison. The American Buffalo.

I would not consider myself a buffalo lover. I like buffalo well enough. Whenever I am near a bison (is that grammatically correct?), I feel awed, and a little scared if I’m honest. Those things are massive. They would easily be able to destroy a car if they wanted to. There’s a wildlife preserve in Oklahoma that my dad has taken me to a few times where bison and long-horn cattle roam free as you drive around. The American version of an African Safari. It was one of the coolest and most terrifying moments of my life.

But I digress. Though I admire buffalo, I do not intend to make them my life’s mission. But luckily, someone else already has. As I’m sure you are aware, the increasing urbanization of the United States has stolen the habitat of the American Buffalo. In addition, they were hunted for quite some time, as their meat was (is. I can attest to this) quite delicious. Their hide is useful in leather production as well.

Allaboutbison.com (Tagline: All bison, all the time!) has taken the liberty of tracking historical mentions about bison. To them, buffalo are extremely important. To me, I would have never thought of buffalo as an item of historical note. But they clearly are. They clearly matter to someone. The same is in local history stories. Someone may one day be interested in the fact that Ft. Riley, Kansas’ dog park used to be where they housed buffalo. Buffalo are important to some. It just fascinates me. And makes me wonder what random thing in my current life may one day be interesting to others in the future.

The best Mustache in the West - George Armstrong Custer

George Custer is famous for many things. Custer’s Last Stand most likely comes to mind. The Battle of Bull Run (the first one). He was a very effective Cavalry Commander. He was very influential during the Civil War. Unfortunately, he lives in infamy for his defeat at Little Bighorn. This is most unfortunate for his glorious mustache.

I mean, look at that thing!

The glory of this particular piece of facial hair most likely did not appear during Custer’s childhood. This is why little is known about that period in his life. He was born in New Rumley, Ohio and spent much of his childhood in Michigan with his sister. After he graduated high school, he immediately went to West Point. Unfortunately, he did not get along well with West Point. He was not a good student, and was naturally rebellious. He famously graduated last in his class, in 1861.

Note the lack of mustache during his non-successful years. This particular photo was taken as a cadet at West Point.

An un-mustached Custer was almost court-martialled in the days following his graduation from West Point. Luckily for him, the Civil War was in full swing, and the Union needed as many officers as they could get. Custer was quickly ushered into the war. He also quickly began growing a mustache.

1862, with James B. Washington

The bushier his mustache became, the more accolades he began to collect. His first battle was the Battle of Bull Run, and the press lauded him for his brilliance with the cavalry, and for being stylish (he wore bright red neckties on the battlefield.) Custer and his cavalry were influential in forcing General Robert E. Lee into surrender at Appomattox in 1865.

Unfortunately, all of these achievements in his career would be overshadowed. I’m sure you have all heard of the Battle of Little Bighorn. On June 25 1876 Custer overestimated the power of the mustache. He ordered the 7^th Cavalry to attack a large Lakota village. The results were devastating. Sitting Bull took advantage of Custer’s fatal mistake: Custer had split his men into 3 units. After the dust settled, all of Custer’s men were killed. The mustache simply wasn’t powerful enough.

RIP Mustache

Source: http://www.biography.com/people/george-custer-9264128#young-hero

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/custer.htm

Fraktur

Something I learned today is that the silly looking font that the German language is often typed in is called “fraktur.”  Here is an example of what I am talking about if it doesn’t ring a bell.

The word “fraktur” also refers to a type of folk art of the Pennsylvania Dutch. (I learned that today, too. Good for me!)  They are manuscripts that often employ the fraktur font and are illuminated with ink or water color images.  Pennsylvania Dutch people created all kinds of documents using the fraktur styles.  Birth certificates, family records, marriage certificates, and book plates. Here is an example of a family record fraktur for the Müskenug family of Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Dutch are not actually Dutch.  They are German-speaking people and Americans just took the word for Germans, “Deutsch,” and messed up the pronunciation, as Americans enjoy doing.  Their ancestors came to America largely in the 18^th century and settled in Pennsylvania.  They decided to keep their traditions and language that they brought with them from Germany, and thus didn’t fully assimilate into American society.  Many of them were Lutheran or Reformed, as well as Anabaptist, but in WWII a lot of the Pennsylvania Deutsch gave up their language and strict German traditions to avoid persecution.  This occurred during WWI too, but not to such great extent.  However, some of the stricter sects of Anabaptism clung to their language and traditions, such as the Amish and Mennonites.

 Photo:

Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 1773 - 2007, National Archives.

Sources: 

Grubb, Farley. "German Immigration to Pennsylvania, 1709 to 1820," Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter, 1990), pp. 417–436 in JSTOR

Shelley, Donald. The Fraktur Writings or Illuminated Manuscripts of the Pennsylvania Germans. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, 1961.

Anthony Sowell

Anthony Sowell was born on August 19, 1959 in Ohio. He was raised in East Cleveland by his mother, in a household with nine other children. When he was 18 years old, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. By 1981, he had gotten married to Kim Yvette Lawson. While in the marines, he received training as an electrician. He served in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Okinawa. During his seven years in the Marines, he received a Good Conduct Medal, a Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, a Meritorious Mast, two Letters of Appreciation, and a Certificate of Commendation. He was been described by those who know him as “Very respectable,” to which his various accolades can attest.

It may come as a surprise to you that the above paragraph describing an up-right citizen of Cleveland actually describes a man who has also been dubbed “The Cleveland Strangler.” In addition to the above achievements, Sowell attacked and killed no less than eleven women. Due to his modus operandi and the cooling off period between attacks, he has been classified as a Serial Killer. He committed all of these attacks over only a two year period, from 2007 until 2009. He most likely would have started his “career” earlier, except he had been imprisoned for fifteen years for rape. Authorities are investigating if he may have started his career even earlier than that, and are looking into other cities that he had lived in during the 1980s.

When studying history, it is very important to examine sources. Researchers need to look for any apparent bias in their sources. It was relatively easy to pick out the positive parts of Anthony Sowell’s life. Despite the horrifying crimes he committed, it took very little information to paint him as a contributing citizen of Cleveland. Even primary sources can be misleading., If one only had his military accolades, a researcher may never suspect that Sowell was capable of the atrocities that he committed in his life.

sources: http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sowell-anthony.htm
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/01/anthony_sowell_who_is_the_man.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/anthony-sowells-home-of-horror/

"Husband in the Garden, Wife in the Bathtub--MURDERED"

Frances Nesbitt

On February 19, 1926 a man named Johnson West received a frantic phone call from his neighbor, Jacob Nesbitt. Hysterical, Nesbitt barely managed to get out the information that his wife, Francis, was in the bathtub, and that she was dead.

When authorities arrived, Fran was indeed murdered, if the blood that was covering the bathroom was anything to go by. It was a tragedy amongst the community. The happy couple had only been married 13 months, their lives together had barely started.

Fran was a saleswoman for the Hobart manufacturing company. She was their top saleswoman, adept at selling kitchen appliances. She was a graduate from Ohio state, and was athletic, playing tennis and swimming. The town felt for Jacob’s loss.

Jacob told the authorities that he had been in Dayton for a business meeting all day. That when he got home, the house was dark and unlocked. When he called for her, she didn’t answer. He turned on a light and saw a trail of blood leading to the bathroom.

What is the first rule of investigating violence against women? If you’ve watched enough crime television, it’s to always suspect the significant other. This particular case was no different. After other leads failed to work out, Jacob eventually confessed to strangling Frances and bashing her head with a log. This log was later burned by her brother to keep the house warm, unknowingly destroying the murder weapon.

This case shocked a nation. But the response to the case is personally more shocking. You see, at some point during Jacob’s testimony, word got out that Frances smoked nightly before she went to bed. At the time, this was a primarily masculine activity. Women simply did not smoke. At some point during the investigation, word got out that the Huburt company had described her as their best “salesman.” To many people, Fran’s assumed masculinity meant that she deserved whatever violence she had coming. Unfortunately, this case, with the murder victim being one to cast off society’s ideas of gender, has strong ties to many instances of violence. To me, it is extremely appalling that anyone would ever think that a murder victim deserves it. It sometimes makes me wonder how our descendants will look at crimes that occur today.

sources: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/justice-story-article-1.213652

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19330905&id=zc1PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=slQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2353,6732710&hl=en

#DirtyThirties

The Dirty Thirties was an extraordinarily strange period in American history.  The so-called "Dustbowl" was created when farmers out West began converting grasslands into crop fields.  The tall grasses in the Plains region thrived in the arid environment and required very little water for survival.  They benefitted the landscape by holding fast the dry land in which they lived. The farmers that moved out West didn’t initially understand that farming techniques that are successful in the eastern part of the country would not fare as well in the much drier Plains. 

They went about their merry way farming as usual, but when the region suffered a period of droughts in 1930s, all hell broke loose. Well, not hell, but dirt. All dirt broke loose. Literally.

Without the native grasses to retain moisture and hold the dirt to the earth, the high winds that are prevalent in that area took all of the soil with them.  The dirt went everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Huge dust storms could blow up in a matter of minutes and cover miles-wide swaths of land and black out the sun.  Tens of thousands of farm families were forced to leave because their crops failed in the droughts and it was too dangerous to live in the severe dust storms.  These troubles compounded the effects of the Great Depression and made life miserable for the people of the Oklahoma, Texas, and other states. 

The storms got dust and dirt in every nook, cranny, and crevice of people’s lives and homes.  Many people died from “dust pneumonia” when trapped out in quick-forming storms, or from living in those conditions for too long.  Dust pneumonia was not pneumonia at all; it was respiratory failure caused by getting dirt in your lungs.  It suffocated men, women, and children.  Eventually better farming practices were used and they droughts released their grip on the Great Plains, but the Dirty Thirties killed and displaced many American families.  The dust even travelled to the Chicago and New York when it got swept into the Jetstream.  

Here is a photo of a dust storm from 1934 in Oklahoma:

Photo from: 

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962

Indian Relocation Act

One historical event that did not really affect this particular area of our nation is the Indian Relocation Act of 1830. This particular piece of legislation had drastic effects on the Oklahoma region, however. To this day, the scars from entire nations being ripped from their homeland and relocated into the American Southwest can still be felt.

The whole thing started in 1802 in Georgia. The federal government struck an agreement with Georgia that Georgia could have the land that belonged to the Cherokee nation in exchange for some of its western land. In 1803, Jefferson attempted to persuade the Cherokee nation to settle in the newly-acquired West. Unsurprisingly, the local Native Americans overwhelmingly decided that they would not give up their homeland.

In the 1820s, gold was discovered in Georgia. With a growing white population in the state, Georgia was clamoring for the native lands even more than previously. It was determined by the Federal government that an even exchange, eastern land for western land, was the most fair deal. Andrew Jackson, elected as president in 1828, informed the Cherokees that they had no constitutional means of resistance, and that moving was inevitable. A small party comprised of members of the Cherokee Nations elected to negotiate the terms of a treaty for moving the tribes from the east to the west. This was primarily done without the consideration of the actual wants and desires of the rest of the concerned parties.

The 1830 Indian Removal Act authorized the use of funds to encourage Native Americans to move to the West. Jackson and his supporters took this as carte blanche to force these peoples out of their homelands. Though the Supreme Court recognized the sovereignty of the First Nations, the executive branch did not, forcing thousands of people to trek across the country to new land, land they did not want. In 1838 the infamous “Trail of Tears” commenced, as armed soldiers forced Cherokee people to the Oklahoma region.

Oklahoma history is irrevocably tied to Native American History. The entire land that is now Oklahoma used to be known as “Indian Territory.” Even this land, given to the Native Americans, was shrunk as oil was discovered and the land became valuable. The history of Oklahoma is the history of Native Peoples being wronged by their white invaders. These scars can still be felt in Oklahoma, particularly in towns that are located near reservations. Though this history is passed, it is most definitely not forgotten.

Source:  http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=IN015

http://www.okhistory.org/research/airemoval.php

Civil War Orphan

So when I was looking through my family records for the storytelling assignment I came across I sheet of paper that said "Application of Brothers and Sisters for Arrears of Pay and Bounty" at the top and I was intrigued.  I didn't know what that meant so I read further.  The document is dated 9 March, 1866 and states that "Nancy Johnson aged 12 years residing near New Market in Harrison County Ohio and James W. Crawford her legal guardian" appeared in front of a Justice of the Peace.  

I was confused because James Crawford is my relative, but I had never heard about anyone named Johnson in my family.  Upon reading further I discovered that this Nancy Johnson had previously lived with her older brother, Thomas, who also lived in Harrison County.  He was a Private in Company K of the 170^th Regiment of the Ohio National Guard.  He died on August 12, 1864 in Sandy Hook Maryland. So Nancy was adopted in 1866 by my relatives.

He was stated as having no surviving relatives other than Nancy, which made Nancy an orphan of the Civil War.  I looked up the Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the Civil War. Apparently the Ohio Voluntary Infantry was sent to the eastern theater of the war in order to hold supply chains for Grant’s forces.  However, they ended up being engaged in combat and there were plenty of casualties. 

Sandy Hook, Maryland is just over three miles away from Harper’s Ferry, and Company K ended up being sent to fight the Confederates in the Battle of Harper’s Ferry.  This is where Thomas Johnson was wounded and he later died after he was transported back to Sandy Hook.  He is listed as being interred at Antietam. 

I still don’t understand why I have never heard the story of how Nancy Johnson came to be adopted by my ancestors or anything about her story. I also don’t know why it would have taken two years for her to be adopted after her brother’s death.  And where did she reside when he was sent away in the first place?  Their parents were not alive at the time of Thomas’s death so I don’t know where she would have been while he was away. 

This single sheet of paper is so intriguing and I was able to find a surprising amount out about Thomas because he was in the military during one of the most significant periods in our history, but it is frustrating to not find anything about Nancy.  

Sources: 

Application of Brothers and Sisters for Arrears of Pay and Bounty, Harrison County Ohio, 1866.

Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866. Akron Ohio: Werner, 1886. 

Sharing Local History

I have been blessed to have friends and family in other states. We get to share the good and the bad that happens to us. This is done faster now with Facebook, Twitter, Skype and texting. These methods along with regular phone calls allowed me to share my local history with those in other states.  We have laughed and cried, sometimes over silly stuff, sometimes the serious matters. In having an internship in Nebraska, I was able to share the local history of Dayton with those I worked with and met in Lincoln

In the 1970s I exchanged letters with a friend in Chicopee, Massashusetts. In our letters we described out homes, the neighborhood and when in school, what we were learning and our thoughts on the teachers. Letters from the grandparents and cousins were different. The letters during the holidays spoke about snow, family traditions and what we hoped we would get for Christmas. When the grandparents were with us for a holiday, there would be stories of where they would shop at for food to make the meals. Family traditions of helping with the church, singing in the choir and going around the neighborhood with Christmas carolers.

Now in this technological age, we find we can share our local history with others. Through friends and new found distant cousins I have come to know more about the history of the places my ancestors lived and how they got around. I have remained friends with past coworkers, keeping in touch with them. I am dedicating this post to Shawn Robeson, a friend who passed away a week before Thanksgiving. We exchanged emails and text messages over the eight years since we first met by working remotely for the same company. He shared his history, talking about how hurricane strength storms impacted him and his family. We shared our class work and championed each other for the papers we wrote and degrees received. We were the first ones to wish each other the appropriate holiday and nudged each other to get out and mingle. He will be missed but will be remembered by the stories he told.

Destroying Records

In the Introduction in Archives class we learned how to properly de-accession and destroy old records. The Records Management class re-iterated the standards set in place. These standards are placed on retention schedules to be followed by all departments in any business. There are those, however, who do not follow these rules and just dump their records out like regular trash. While doing a Dayton Daily News research request for the Archives, I ran across and article dated October 6, 1979 talking about old records found at a local dump. These records were the car title and welfare department records

They were found in Warren County, so there was a bit of confusion of why Montgomery county records were even in a different county to be disposed of. These documents were found by the Montgomery County Sherriff at the time, Roger Goertemiller. He contacted the county clerks office, who advised him the titles would be useless since they were filled out before 1970. This shocked him since anyone could use these titles to steal vehicles. He then asked the county about the welfare records. Dixie Yoon, Human Services Director at this time said they should be been incinerated. These documents contain the names of children getting benefits.

The reason I bring up this article from over 30 years ago is this has happened once again, only this time in a different county. This time they are records from the Community Mercy Health Partners. The records were found by a Springfield citizen who was dropping off recycling at the recycling center. He came across a plastic tub and found laboratory results in it. Two more tubs were found in another dumpster. These files contained the unblacked out social security numbers and other personal data of patients. The business may be fined for not properly disposing of confidential records. http://www.whio.com/news/news/local/private-patient-records-found-dumped-in-springfiel/npgz5/

Both of these instances show how important it is to properly dispose of unneeded records. I do this at hime, shredding those documents were contain finances and personal information.

A Nativity Tradition

           This Christmas season the University of Dayton is hosting a display of 3,000 Nativity scenes from 50 countries ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe. The créche Nativities have collected by the Marian Library and the International Marian Research Institute at UD with the help of many donors and volunteer making it one of the largest in the nation. The title of the crèche display is “At the Manger: World Nativity Traditions” and is free to the public. It is now one of Dayton’s main Christmas events.

The exhibition offers five incredible Nativity scenes with different themes. The firs is “A Provencal Welcome” that displays a church, homes, a workshop, and a lavender field with visitors welcoming the Holy Family, highlighting Nativities that are found in the south of France. The next scene is “Railway into the Past” that has a model train that makes stops to tell the story of Christ’s birth. Another scene, “Between Rain and Corn” highlights a Pueblo setting from New Mexico that portrays Native American oral traditions. “From Hammock to Jar” shows traditions of Nativities from many different cultures including the Brazilian Amazon and Spain. “From Heaven to Earth and Back” demonstrates the Nativity, Mary, and the Rosary.

Museum quality créches were collected by the library starting in the 1990s. The displays to do not stop with “At the Manger,” the Marian Library highlights Nativity scenes all year round at the museum located in the Library, the Créche Museum. Christmas is the time the library highlights most of the collection by placing Nativity créches in over 100 offices on UD’s campus. The library also loans Nativity sets to Churches, other religious sites, and institutions in Ohio and other states. They do this to spread and share the Christmas spirit throughout the United States.

Source: Vonada, Damaine. "Celebrating Christmas 'At the Manger.'" Country Living, December, 2015, 27-29.

Photo: https://www.udayton.edu/libraries/manger/

Preserving a Family History...Literally

              Everyone knows or has heard of the tragedy that occurred in Pompeii in 79 A.D. when Mount Vesuvius erupted for two days. The first day the volcano spewed millions of tons of debris that buried Pompeii in increments of 6 inches per hour. The second day Vesuvius produced super-heated rock, ash, and gases that flattened buildings and scalded or suffocated people who had not already been buried the first day. Structures, paintings, mosaics, artifacts, plants, animals, and people were covered and preserved by the volcanic debris. First century Roman writer Pliny the Younger stated, "You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling to their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices." It has been tricky to recover and preserve the organic material that was preserved, especially the people who were found. Today it is important to preserve the artifacts and people found in Pompeii because they can tell us about what life was like in Pompeii so long ago. This is a struggle because casts were made of people found in Pompeii, but these casts are deteriorating drastically now, mainly casts that were made 150 years ago.

                A major find in Pompeii was a family of four that was found under a staircase of the House of the Golden Bracelet. The family was made up of a man, woman, and two children. Casts were made of this family in the 1970s, but are unfortunately falling victim to years of decay and deterioration. Stefano Vanacore, director of the lab in Pompeii states feels that this issue needs to be taken care of now so that the story of Pompeii’s destruction can be brought to those living now and to future generations. It is also important because research will always be executed on the family found and other people and objects that were found for evidence of how they lived and died, how and what objects were used for, and their local history. Studies on these people will also help us gain an understanding of their eating habits, diseases, and causes of death. Studies will also provide information about some individuals’ lives. Restoring the casts includes cleaning loose debris and the surfaces, reattaching parts, and scanning them for 3-D images.

                Seeing this preserved ancient family brings about many emotions. Vanticore believes that the family found in the House of the Golden Bracelet came together in death, they must have known that the end was coming and made sure they were all together. It is amazing to see this and it serves a one of the many reasons to preserve the family. It is also important to remember that they are not simply artifacts, but are people from a different time that were much like all of us today. 

Source: Lobell, Jarrett A. "Family History: Giving new life to some of Pompeii's dead." Archaeology, Jan./Feb. 2016, 52-55.

Pliny the Younger

Photo: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/381414/Major-show-reveals-life-in-Pompeii-and-Herculaneum

Christmas and The Five and Dime

Since it is the Christmas season and everyone out shopping, I am going to take us back into how we shopped with little money back in the 1970s.  The store of choice for parents to take their children to was Woolworth. This five and dime store was a place where siblings could get gifts at a low price. The money we used to purchase these gifts for the siblings was the money we got from doing our assigned chores around the house. No, it wasn't much, but we loved the idea of using our own money to get something special for them.



https://michaellewisart.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/woolworths-houston-tx-1964-pleasantfamilyshopping.jpg

We went shopping in shifts. Each one (I have three siblings) of us had time with Mom or Dad to go out to Woolworth. They had the list with them for each one of us to go by. I loved going shopping at this store. Since our parents bought us the Barbie Dolls and GI Joe (for the only son), we bought the clothes or accessories for Barbie and for my brother, Hot Wheels. Woolworth was the place were the dollar stretched out, allowing us to purchase more.

The new 'five and dime' are the dollar stores. These are great stores for those who now are in the financial pinch and wish to give a their children a good Christmas.

Urban Sprawl - Nebraska vs. Ohio

As I drove west to Nebraska for the internship, I was hoping to see that massive urban sprawl which has hit between Dayton and Cincinnati had not hit much of Iowa and Eastern Nebraska. It had been twelve years since I had made the drive out and after talking with cousins who live in these states, I was a bit worried of what I would see first hand. They all spoke about how Omaha and Lincoln were expanding, Omaha south and Lincoln north, similar to Dayton and Cincinnati. I was apprehensive to how much I-80 through Iowa had changed its landscape.

When I started on I-80 just west of Davenport, I liked what I saw, still open space, farms still striving and no real building off of the interchanges. During our military moves, we always stopped at the I-80 Truck Stop in Walcutt to get a bite to eat and there was plenty of room for us kids to run around and exhaust our energy. They have updated the stop to keep up with the new technology in trucking and now have two options for dining. There is the fast food options in the gift shop area, but they have added a sit down restaurant for those who travel without children. The other addition is they have built a trucking museum next to the truck stop. On the trip back we stayed overnight in Walcutt and stopped in at the museum. It is a small museum and for not being ran by those in the museum field, they have done a good job at the text panels.The only major change in the landscape of Iowa is the farmers have now added wind turbines to their land. Even though these turbines are not too visually appealing, they provide a vertical aspect to the landscape, knowing a lot of people do not take too much pleasure in driving through 'farm country'.

Upon reaching the Iowa/Nebraska border, I could tell that Omaha had expanded northward. I took I-80 through the city. If I had taken the bypass, I would have missed a wonderful welcome of a train to the rightside before getting into the major portion of the city. It did not take too long of a drive to get of the 'urban sprawl'.  I had a different picture in my mind of what I would see from what the cousins described to me. This was not the sprawl which is and is still happening in the Dayton/Cincinnati area of Ohio. Lincoln and Omaha still have plenty of land between the two cities and I hope it never comes to what is happening in Southwestern Ohio on I-75.

My mom was surprised to see the changes in the city where she grew up. Lincoln uses numbers for the streets which run north to south. She remembers when the eastern section of the city ended at 70th Street, which now ends at 84th. The growth has mainly been in the south and southeasterly sections. There are new housing developments, but understandably since their population tends to be growing. A major difference between Dayton and Lincoln, is the usage of previously built on land. When my maternal grandmother passed in 2002, we stayed at a Best Western on O Street. This hotel is no longer there, they REdeveloped the commercial land instead of building in brand new location.

I pulled the 2010 Federal Population Census numbers for all four major cities. Omaha - 446,599, Lincoln - 272,996, Dayton - 141,003, Cincinnati - 298,165.  The amount of growth in these cities is interesting. Omaha and Lincoln with the larger populations are very close to 'farm country', yet have been able to keep their sprawl at a minimum, but Dayton and Cincinnati continue to use up open space.

The #history of #hashtag

It would be an understatement to say that social media has become popular over the past few years. Social Media has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. We tweet about how are are feeling, we Instagram the food we eat and we vent on Facebook. One of the unifying factors across all social media outlets is the hashtag.

The first hashtag was used in 2007 by Chris Messina (@MrMessina) who tweeted "?how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]??" Messina is credited as a social technology expert and came up with the idea for #hashtags as a way to group discussions on Twitter. Since then #hashtags have been used in every kind of social media outlet. They are relevant on Facebook, Instagram, Flikr, Twitter and others. By tagging a message that message is linked to other message with the same tag. These are used for a wide variety of things such as in marketing campaigns like #I'mlovingit for McDonald's, for showing support such as #ParisAttacks as well as random thoughts or ideas such as #history.

These tags are not limited to a set list of words, you can easily create your own hashtag like #pocketturtle. There are also very few rules to hashtags. The only rules being that there must be no spaces in between words (for some reason) and there of course must be a # in front of the words.(#justcuse) For companies who would like to register their hashtag they need to register with Hashtag.org in order to group the messages that use those tags.

Hashtags are just another way for people to express how they are feeling in the moment. That is really what is at the heart of social media, expression at a moments notice. Of course social media has also been used a tool for bullies, trolls and generally mean spirited people who have nothing good to say about anyone.

The tie in to local history is that social media has become a way to display local history. Many historical societies have a variety of social media accounts and use hashtags as a way to advertise for themselves. (#ohiohistory) In the technological based world we live in, the greater social media presence you have the more chances people will come and visit your institution. I this day and age is it all about the hashtag and what it can do for your local history institution. #wrightbrothers #wsuspecialcollectionsandarchives #blessed

Sources: https://www.hashtags.org/featured/hashtag-history-when-and-what-started-it/

The Spot to Eat!

Spot Miller and the original building

In downtown Sidney, just across from the county courthouse, there is a white building with colorful signage. This is the famous Spot, with some of the best pie in Ohio. If you go in, it's like walking back into time. The decorations, down to the red vinyl seats and the black and white tile on the floor transport you to the 1950s. There are signs on the walls, with advertisements of days gone by, when you could get a milkshake for a quarter. Pictures align the wall of the various celebrities that have visited the eatery during its lifetime, including then-president George W. Bush.

It's obvious that the restaurant has a lot of history. But what is that history exactly?

The Spot was founded in 1907. A man named Spot Miller had been selling food from a cart. This was against city ordinances at the time, which banned the sale of food from impermanent structures. His solution was to remove the wheels from his chuckwagon, thus creating a "permanent" structure.

The restaurant would pass through many hands over the 100+ years it has been in operation. A more permanent structure was built on the original location, eventually becoming the building it is today. There was a short-lived chain of restaurants that existed throughout the region, in places such as Piqua, Bellefontaine, and Lima. None of these other locations have survived. The Sidney location, in addition to being the first location, is the only one that is currently in operation.

Pres. Bush appreciating a pecan pie. Pies are a specialty of the eatery.

For 108 years, the Spot has provided delicious hamburgers and milkshakes tot he families of Sidney, Ohio. Though we can no longer enjoy hamburgers for $1.00, the fact that the restaurant is still around keeps a tenuous thread to the towns history. We can sit at the same spot as our ancestors, and enjoy a very similar menu. The Spot has become the most delicious part of Sidney's heritage.



source: http://www.thespottoeat.com/history.html

Brotherhood 2.0

"Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday." These words have begun countless videos made by best-selling author John Green, author of popular young adult novels Paper Towns and The Fault in Our Stars. Green and his younger brother Hank have become internet celebrities, all thanks to their Youtube channel, vlogbrothers.

The conceit of the channel is that the vlogs (video logs) are conversations between the two brothers. In 2007, the two brothers, one living in New York and one living in Montana, decided to not contact each other for an entire year through any "textual" means. That meant no text messaging, no emails, no letters. Phone conversations, in-person meetings, and video blogs. These vlogs would be uploaded onto their channel daily. They did this for an entire year. After the close of 2007, they had managed to build an audience, whom they called "nerdfighters," or those who fight on behalf of nerd-dom. They decided to keep the vlog going, albeit on a looser schedule. They continue to upload videos on a weekly basis to this day, maintaining their internet presence.

But what does this have to do with local history? Everything! One of the things we have been talking about almost since the day we entered our program is the looming day that paper has become extinct and the entire world goes digital. Where historians have turned to letters and diaries in the past to learn about history, future historians will have to rely on digital traces left behind. Sources such as the vlogbrothers will one day become invaluable to these researchers. The structured format of their videos reveals more history than one might suppose at first glance.

Even in videos where there appears to be little substance reveal stories. Take the video embedded below for instance:

In this video John discusses the progress on writing his book, later to be called Paper Towns. The video shot during his song about nannies gives snapshots of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. These are small pieces of what at the time were boring events but even today, only 8 years later, is already history.

Findlay is Changing

In class yesterday we all mentioned how our hometowns are changing. When I went home that night I discovered an article which would continue to change Findlay. Marathon Petroleum has been a part of the community for decades. For years it occupied a single, multi story building in the heart of downtown. Now Marathon has expanded their foot print by tearing down one of their own stations, a historic Elk Lodge and a few other buildings. In their place they are currently building a parking garage and a 100 room hotel. In an announcement on December 7th, Marathon unveiled their plans for the Hancock Hotel. The construction will begin in the spring of 2016 and extend the Marathon complex to the corner of Main and Lincoln which brings the total footprint to a block and a half.

The hotel is due to open in Fall of 2017 and includes a restaurant, bars, and conference rooms. According to an article in The Courier, "The 100,000-square-foot hotel will be open to the public as well as out-of-town Marathon employees, vendors and board members." The original plan for the complex did include a hotel, however those plans were not set in stone upon beginning construction on the parking garage. However this announcement comes with mixed responses. Some see this projects as a great opportunity for jobs and urban renewal while others see Marathon gaining a greater hold on the town. It is no secret that Marathon is a company with a lot of money to burn and it is the biggest company in town beating out the Cooper tire plant on the other end of town.

Marathon has also sponsored the recently opened Performing Arts center a few blocks away. There influence grows by the day. My concern is that when they try to do something that is unneeded or unethical, the town will be powerless to stop it. Our elected officials are not likely to stand up to Marathon because I would not be surprised if some of their campaigns were funded, at least in part, by Marathon.

There is of course some truth that Marathon is pumping money into the community and bringing business to town. If they ever left the town would shrink to half its size and probably die out. However, I am concerned with the amount of power they have over the town. As long as they use their power for good there will be little resistance. However, if they push for unwanted improvements or openly interfear with our elected officials I wonder who would be able to stop them.

Current building                                                               Hancock Hotel

                                                                                  



Sources: http://thecourier.com/breaking-news/2015/12/07/marathon-announces-details-for-new-20-million-downtown-hotel/