Prison Cemetery Blues

an appropriately dreary day

Geocaching sometimes takes me to interesting places. One of my favorite caching locations is cemeteries. I've been to all kinds. Some of them I've written about here. Pioneer cemeteries, potter's fields, US veteran graves, Confederate graves, American Indian graves, Presidential tombs, rural family plots, African-American cemeteries, abandoned cemeteries, bizarre graveyards, and even an elephant resting place. One day geocaching brought me to the Chillicothe Correctional Institute Cemetery. A prison cemetery.

I like cemeteries. They are historical records and the last word on the person. Some gravestones are quite beautiful and ornate. Others may have a likeness of the deceased. They may have a remark about the persons legacy or their wishes for the afterlife. However, nothing seems bleaker or more desolate than a prison cemetery. Don't get me wrong, many of the people buried in them were the worst of society. Other times they were a lost soul who had a hard life that ended here. Either way, you certainly won't find any epitaphs that read "husband, father, mass murderer" or "beloved son, in the wrong place at the wrong time". It's a pretty inauspicious place to spend eternity.

As I wandered around the unadorned wooden crosses and plain stones with simple names and dates, I wondered how one marker with the words "Unknown US" could be here. Even if a person goes to prison under an alias, one would think they would at least have the name used while incarcerated. As it turns out, Chillicothe Correctional Institute Cemetery is on the site of Camp Sherman, a WWI training camp, named after William Tecumseh Sherman. This is likely a stone from that era, although no records seem to exist to explain any further. Apparently, a similar stone was found under the CCI Administration building basement. I guess that still doesn't explain it fully. Maybe it was a newly arrived as yet unknown recruit, one of the nearly 2,000 soldiers that died of an influenza outbreak in 1918. Life was hard and cruel 100 years ago.

Of the inmates buried here, there are the usual types of offenders you would expect. Then there are the notorious and truly despicable. Looking through records on findagrave.com led me to the following people buried here:

Stephen Allen Vrable shot and murdered his girlfriend and their 3-year-old daughter in 1989. He put their bodies in a refrigerator and lived in the apartment for a month before leaving. The bodies were discovered several weeks later. He was executed in 2004.

plain wooden crosses among simple gravestones

Jeffrey Don Lundgren was failed Mormon minister and self-proclaimed prophet who started a religious cult in Kirtland Ohio. He murdered a family of five with help from some followers in 1989 and got ratted out by one of them. He was executed in 2006.

Then there is Frank Spisak, a neo-Nazi who even sported a Hitler mustache. He killed three people and injured several others in a racially charged 1982 shooting spree on the campus of Cleveland State University. Spisak was executed in 2011 and expressed no remorse when given the chance in his final words. Instead he read from the Book of Revelations...in German. Like many here, no one claimed his body afterward.

Although this post is more about the cemetery rather than the prison, there have been some noteworthy folks that passed through the corrections facility itself. Cincinnati born 17-year-old Charles Manson was housed here from 1952-1954 before his notorious 1969 Family murders. Country singer Johnny Paycheck did 22 months at CCI for shooting a man in a Hillsboro OH bar in 1985. His friend Merle Haggard performed for the inmates in 1989.

Anyway back to the cemetery.
I only intended to research the unknown grave. I do wish I could find some information on the "regular" folks that are buried in this stark cemetery, the ones that just made terrible mistakes or were in the wrong place at the wrong time, paid their price and ended up dying here. They were still sons, fathers, brothers...Now they lie here almost as if they never existed. For some of them like Vrable, Lundgren, and Spisak, that's fine by me.

other sources and further reading:
-Grave Addiction on CCI
-Gehio cemetery posts

Happy Birthday Tecumseh!

in Old Town, North of Xenia OH

I've written a few things about the Shawnee War Chief Tecumseh, the Pan-Indian Confederacy leader and William Henry Harrison's adversary in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are some links at the end of this post or you can use the search box to your right. This post will just focus on his date and place of birth, both of which are somewhat speculative.
Since American Indians of this time period had no written records, historians have to rely on statements and observations by whites who interacted with them and deduce from there.
It is generally agreed upon that Tecumseh was born in the Spring of 1768. The month of March is derived from Stephen Ruddell, a captured white who was an adopted brother of Tecumseh for 17 years that had the Shawnee name Big Fish. Ruddell was born on September 18th, 1768. In later years Stephen told his son that Tecumseh was 6 months his senior which would be about March 1768. This is also backed up by a letter that Ruddell wrote where he refers to Tecumseh being the same age as he when they met at age 12 in 1779. Putting all this together let's just call it March 18th, 1768.

possible Tecumseh birth locations in 1768

There is also a question of the specific location of his birthplace in Ohio. I have read several books and articles on Tecumseh and historians don't all agree on this. Many agree that it was probably a Shawnee town called Chalahgawtha. The problem is, this band of Shawnee called their "principal village" Chalahgawtha and the town was relocated at least six times and the same name was used each time. Incidentally, modern-day Chillicothe OH derives its name from the Shawnee town so that adds to the confusion. This means his place of birth could have been in present-day Springfield, Piqua, Xenia or Chillicothe. It turns out that the Ohio Historical Society thinks his place of birth is in Old Town just north of Xenia OH. The Absentee Shawnee of Oklahoma agrees and have placed their own marker there too. That works for me.
So Happy Birthday to Tecumseh or perhaps in Shawnee/Algonquin, Minowaazon Tibishkaman Tecumtha!

Additional Gehio posts about Tecumseh:
The death of Tecumseh
Tecumseh! - the play
The War to End All Indian Wars
How It All Began

Ohio Statehood Day!

March 1st is Ohio Statehood Day when Ohio became the 17th state in 1803. Happy 210th!

Or did Ohio become a state February 19th, 1803?

Maybe it was it August 7th...1953?

We tend to think of these older historical events as neat and tidy occasions where gentlemen in white wigs have orderly civil debates and sign documents with fancy quill pens by candlelight. The US was a brand new country and everyone had the same goals...right? Not really. The State of Ohio was formed by a power struggle between two political parties.

at a crossroad

In the early 1800s, the esteemed Arthur St. Clair, a Revolutionary War Veteran, and Federalist Party member was the Governor of the NW Territory appointed by his friend George Washington. He even named Cincinnati. Arthur did have that little mishap where he led 3/4 of the US Army to their deaths but even that was forgiven and he remained the NW Territory Governor under Washington. In the late 1700s there were two parties vying for power and by 1800 Democratic-Republican Party had gained control of the House, Senate, and Presidency from the Federalists. Some of the key differences between these two parties are summed up nicely here.

St. Clair proposed new state boundaries for the territory that essentially divided it in two and would prevent Ohio from becoming a state at that time since it did not meet the population criteria for statehood.

the man who busted Arthur

Why did he do this? He wanted to remain the Governor and keep his Federalist party in control of the area by creating two new states instead of one. Many of Ohio's new leaders were members of the opposing Democratic-Republican party...and so was the new US president Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was, of course, was eager to add Ohio as the 17th US State to increase his party's control. So, the 7th US Congress rejected St. Clair's plan and in April 1802 passed the Enabling Act which put Ohio on the fast track to becoming a state by new rules that favored the Democratic-Republican Party.

When Ohio's new Constitutional Convention met in Chillicothe St. Clair angrily denounced the Enabling Act. Word got back to Jefferson and the President promptly fired Art and appointed Charles William Byrd as Governor. You can probably guess that the new guy was also a Democratic-Republican.

all St. Clair got was a rock

With St. Clair out of the way, the new State Constitution was passed in November 1802. On February 19th, 1803 the President and Congress approved it and on March 1st, 1803, the Ohio General Assembly met for the first time. March 1st became known as Ohio Statehood Day. Edward Tiffin was elected governor of the state of Ohio on March 3, 1803. I'll bet you can guess Tiffin's party affiliation.

The only thing is, there was a problem. In 1953 (yes nineteen) it was discovered that due to a technicality, Congress did not formally declare Ohio a US State. Eventually, that was resolved and they backdated statehood to March 1st, 1803. More on that here.

What happened to St. Clair? He rode off into the sunset with his gout. It turned out he had loaned much of his fortune to the cash-strapped US government while serving as Governor for 14 years and Congress never paid him back. As a result of all this, one of America's original military and political leaders, a once powerful man, died disgraced, penniless and forgotten in 1818 at his home in PA.

Isn't politics fun?

Take The First Raid By Clark's Will*

the first raid by Clark was right here at the
confluence of the Licking and Ohio Rivers
(Cincinnati in the background)

*My apologies to The Monkees and the writers Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart for shameful use of the lyrics of Last Train To Clarksville in this blog post.

...Oh, no, no, no!...

On this day in Ohio history August 1st 1780, while the Revolutionary War was raging in the East, formidable Indian fighter George Rogers Clark invaded the Indian homelands of Ohio at the confluence of the Licking and Ohio Rivers with his force of Kentucky Long Knives, the feared name given by the Indians to the American Rangers who patrolled the Ohio River Valley during the Revolution.
Clark's force built military blockhouses as an outpost in present-day Cincinnati. This was the first white settlement in the region. ...'Cause I'm leavin' in the morning...This military invasion was revenge for raids on Kentucky settlements by Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, Delaware, and Wyandot who used Kentucky as hunting grounds and took a dim view to permanent white settlement there...I'm feelin' low. Oh, no, no, no! 
Other Indian tribes and septs had signed treaties in previous years, such as the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals which allowed some settlement in KY but some of the settlers set up shop outside of treaty guidelines and was considered squatting even by European-American law....'Cause I made your reservation...The US Government really didn't do much to stop this. Furthermore, many Indians did not recognize these treaties in the first place and led successful raids on settlements, trying to unsettle them by general killing, and taking horses and prisoners...'Til the morning brings the raid...Famed frontiersman Simon Kenton was captured in Ohio by the Shawnee while on his own retaliatory raid on Indians. This revenge warfare situation caused much death, destruction, panic, fear, and chaos which Clark's team was sent to suppress. I'm feelin' low. Oh, no, no, no! 
It also gave the US an excuse to pave the way through Ohio to attack British held Detroit as it was difficult to enlist enough men to make that dangerous journey deep into Indian territory...And I must go, oh, no, no, no!
Clark's continuing raids met some losses but were mostly successful and forced the Shawnee to move their towns further north to present day Chillicothe and Piqua...We'll have time for coffee flavored kisses and a bit of conversation...This type of revenge warfare would continue in the area throughout the rest of the 18th century and into the early 19th century. And I don't know if I'm ever coming home...Take The Last Raid By Clark's Will...Take The Last Raid By Clark's Will

UPDATE:
In researching this event, I learned that an internment camp for Lochry's failed 1781 expedition was in Cleves OH. 64 captured militia were held in a British allied Indian camp. The ones who survived were taken to Canada. South of the junction of East Miami River Road and Jordan Road, Miami Township near Cleves. map 39.178547, -84.746475

Happy 246th Birthday Edward Tiffin*

Ohio's First Governor

Most Ohioans have no idea who Dr. Edward Tiffin is. I wouldn't either except that I visited Tiffin OH for one of my kids gymnastic meets and as usual I got to do a little geocaching and studied up on the history as well.

The small NW Ohio college town of Tiffin was named after the English born man who served as the first Governor of the Buckeye State from 1803-1807 and was one of the biggest players in early Ohio politics. Ed also did something pretty important in the War of 1812 but not as a soldier. You wouldn't know any of this if you walked around Tiffin OH. I didn't see one statue of this man or anything informational about him at all. I did see a buttery looking statue of Josiah Hedges (below) who founded the town in 1820. Maybe they have a statue or a sign hidden somewhere for Edward Tiffin but I didn't see any. Don't get me wrong, Tiffin OH has some other nice history that is featured but I would have thought they would have honored their namesake a little more prominently.

Edward Tiffin was born in England on June 19th, 1766. His family emigrated to Virginia in 1789 where he then married Mary Worthington, the sister of Thomas Worthington who another future Governor of OH and known as the Father of Ohio Statehood.

I Can't Believe It's Not Tiffin!

Tiffin's family eventually moved to the Northwest Territory in 1798 and settled in Chillicothe OH where Edward Tiffin, a trained medical doctor also became involved in the Democratic-Republican Party along with his brother-in-law Thomas Worthington.  The Democratic-Republican Party was at odds with the Federalist Party of whom Arthur St. Clair, the Governor of the NW Territory, was a member. St. Clair opposed Ohio Statehood on the grounds that his own party would lose power in the US Senate if this was allowed to occur. President Thomas Jefferson, another Democratic-Republican Party member dismissed St. Clair which cleared OH for Statehood thus tipping the balance of power. Tiffin was elected without opposition. He was later elected to the US Senate representing his adopted home state and also served in other various political positions for the State of Ohio. Tiffin was also responsible for removing important Federal records from Washington DC prior to it being burned and sacked by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812.

Tiffin served out his final years as the US Surveyor General until his death in 1829 at the age of 63 never stepping foot in the town that bears his name.

You may be wondering, why does Ohio's 6th Governor, Thomas Worthington a peer of Tiffin's, get to be known as "the Father of Ohio Statehood" and Tiffin gets squat?
*Why is Tiffin just an asterisk in Ohio history?
Location, location, location. It seems that Tiffin's home in Chillicothe no longer exists while Worthington's Adena Mansion stands to this day as an historic tourist attraction that happens to be where the first mound of a previously unknown culture of Native Americans was discovered in 1901. This 800 BC to AD 100 AD period was named the Adena Culture after the name of Worthington's estate. I guess if you are going to be remembered, have a nice house in a good part of town and name it something memorable. It will help if you build it on something undiscovered too.

Happy 58th Birthday to our 49th State...Ohio!

We've been led to believe that Ohio was the 17th US State and the 1st State admitted to the Union under new rules set up in our blossoming country on March 1st, 1803.
It's a lie.
In 1953, while people were preparing for the 150th birthday shindig, laughing to I Love Lucy and enjoying the sweet sounds of Ohio native Dean Martin's hit song, "That's Amore", it was discovered that in 1803 President Jefferson signed off on the borders and State Constitution. Congress, however, didn't formally declare Ohio a US State. Essentially the right paperwork was not done. Oops!

No one was even sure if Ohio's laws were even valid now. So everyone got to work, rolled up their sleeves, took a break from racial segregation and bringing suspected communists to the Loyalty Review Board and they united as one to solve this important problem.
I'm just kidding. No one really took a break from McCarthyism or segregation. This was 1953 and that would go on for a while in the "good ol' days".

Ohio's first statehouse, sort of

They did solve the problem of this low hanging fruit. To remedy this odd situation, the Ohio General Assembly (that technically wasn't even legal when you think about it) approved a new petition for statehood in the old 1803 capital of Chillicothe. Then, in the spirit of 1803 delivered it on horseback (yes really) to Washington DC where Congress then formally declared Ohio a state and President Ike signed it on August 7th, 1953. What about those 150 years? Never fear my dear Ohioans, they made it retroactive to March 1st, 1803.

Tecumseh! - the play

After our short tour of old Chillicothe on June 11th, it was off to the amphitheater on the north side of Chillicothe near the Great Seal State Park. There are no aquatic seals there. The series of hills in the park are in fact the inspiration for the Great Seal of Ohio.

The sign coming into the amphitheater is meant to represent where Tecumseh's name came from which is the anglicized form of the Shawnee name Tecumtha which means "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across The Sky". Tecumseh was born into the Kispoko band of the Shawnee that was represented by a Panther. Supposedly a comet was present at the time of his birth so they chose this for his name. I think the illustration looks more like a Dianetics ad myself.

Great Seal State Park

Since there were no cameras allowed during the performance we paid extra for the pre-show tour where the actors who appear in the play demonstrated the weapons, took us up on the stage area, showed us the prop room, demonstrated a fall, etc. Unfortunately, I was having some battery/camera issues and didn't get to take too many pictures. If you go with young children I recommend taking this tour so they see that there is no real blood or bullets being fired. The blood is actually laundry detergent with food coloring. Easy to clean up!  They also opted for shorter rifles and the smaller cannons from a later time period for the ease of use by the actors. We learned that in case of rain, just like in the old days the gunpowder won't light, so they had small shotguns ready to go for the battle scenes just in case. If you are doing a play about the 1770's to 1813 you need some explosions to keep it real.

A tribute to Chief Arthur Rolette

They also had a small museum with a tribute to Arthur Rolette who came to opening night on June 30, 1973. Arthur Rolette, then principal chief of the Absentee Shawnee of Oklahoma. He was a direct descendant of Tecumseh and passed away in 1977. The playwright Alan Eckert recalled, "Arthur came up to me, threw his arms around me and gave me a big bear hug. When he turned to me, there were tears in his eyes as he said, 'You've brought Tecumseh to life.'

A nicely stocked gift shop that wasn't too terribly tacky awaited us. At least according to the packaging, the novelty arrows, drums and headdresses were made by Cherokee and not from China. I opted for a t-shirt, a fridge magnet and a fine Ohio Indian History map I plan to frame.

stocking up on provisions

The play was fantastic, exciting and as expected over the top and quite incorrect in some historical detail but I was there to be entertained not be educated. They actually spent a good amount of time on the relationship between the Galloways (especially Rebecca) and Tecumseh which I was not expecting. Rebecca was a white woman who taught Tecumseh to read and write when he visited near present-day Xenia and they supposedly had a relationship and nearly married. It is from these visits and access to books that Tecumseh may have learned of some items that his brother The Prophet "predicted" such as the 1806 eclipse that secured his standing among Tecumseh's pan-Indian Confederacy.

They kind of skipped over Tenskwatawa's conversion from alcoholic loudmouth to The Prophet and made it seem that Tecumseh only propped him up knowingly as a ruse and did not mention the vision he experienced while in a coma-like trance when others thought he was dead and they prepared him for a funeral.

Several times throughout the play, Simon Kenton was portrayed as having great respect for the Shawnee and thwarted attempted by his companions to do wanton harm to them. From what I have read, this was quite true with people like Kenton and Daniel Boone who didn't act like hostile rednecks. In the Battle of Thames death scene for Tecumseh, he is shown misidentifying the body purposefully because he knew that his body would be mutilated by the whites and felt he deserved better. The Shawnee story says that the body was retrieved and taken to an undisclosed location and that is what we saw at the end.

Tecumseh and I meet at last!

After the play, there was a meet and greet with the actors. I had expected to get my "Tecumseh!" book signed but while I was in line I realized I didn't really see the point in doing that but I did make sure I got in the line to meet the actor who played Tecumseh and get a picture with him.

Overall it was a great representation of the life of Tecumseh and I would gladly see it again! In fact, I would like to visit Chillicothe again to take in some more of its history, there are several Hopewell Cultural Park there as well as the "Father of Ohio" Thomas Worthington estate. I'll be back.

See the entire photo album here

UPDATE July 2011: I just learned after posting this that Allan W. Eckert, the playwright of the Tecumseh drama and noted author, passed away in California early today at the age of 80. He did a lot to raise awareness of much of this forgotten time period and he will be missed.

a visit to Chalahgawtha

one of the many fine murals in town

For Christmas, I received from my wife a gift card to see the award winning 30 year running "Tecumseh!" outdoor stage play in Chillicothe OH. The play is based on the Alan Eckert book The Frontiersman. I must admit that I am not a big Eckert fan for his narrative docudrama writing style and I've only read part of his book "A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh" for this reason but I was still pretty excited to witness the epic life story of the legendary Shawnee leader as he struggles to defend his sacred homelands in the Ohio country during the late 1700’s.  It just so happened that opening weekend was on my birthday, so on June 11th, Tricia and I ditched the kids and we drove up and over to Chillicothe located along the Scioto River.
We arrived in the afternoon to grab a few geocaches first (it was my birthday after all) and visit the historical section of town where there are several markers and murals showcasing the city history. I like it when my hobbies merge. You can see the photo album here. I was having some battery issues and I didn't take as many pictures as wanted so I'd have some power for later.

1858 Ross County Courthouse

Columbus OH has been the the state capital since 1816 but Chillicothe was the capital of the entire Northwest Territory as well as the first...and third Ohio state capital. Once from1803-1810 until it was moved to Zanesville for two years and  then moved back to Chillicothe from 1812-1816. It seems some political monkey business had a hand in that shuffle in order to wrestle some party control over eastern Ohio from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republican party.
The name Chillicothe is the anglicized version of the Shawnee word Chalahgawtha, meaning "principal town". There were in fact several Shawnee "Chillicothes" since the Shawnee were semi-nomadic and re-used the name as they moved the town from place to place in the region. When a village was called  Chalahgawtha, it meant that it was home to the principal chief so it was also decided to be used for the name of the new state capital of Ohio when it became the 17th US state in 1803. Many people at that time just loved co-opting Indian words while at the same time they seemed to fear, loathe and look down upon them them and want them all gone. It's a strange love/hate paradox in American history.

St Clair and I meet once again in Chillicothe

While grabbing a geocache in the downtown area, my now highly trained eye spotted a plaque attached to a stone across the street. It turns out that my favorite inept gouty frontier general and Old Northwest Territorial governor Arthur St Clair had his headquarters here from 1800-1802 before President Thomas Jefferson fired him. That was the second time a President dismissed poor ol' St Clair. The first time was when George Washington asked him to resign from the Army after handing the US the worst defeat ever at the hands of the Native Americans in 1791 near present day Fort Recovery, OH. 25% of the entire U.S. Army had been wiped out. The disaster known as St Clair's Defeat was even worse than the later more infamous Custer's Last Stand yet many people have never heard of it. I think the site of him and his gout yelling orders from a litter because he couldn't sit on a horse would make a great scene in a movie. I'll bet Arthur never lived that one down at the Society of Cincinnati meetings over brandies and bonbons.

perhaps Tecumseh himself touched this stone

The impressive looking Ross County Courthouse was also nearby where the original Ohio statehouse stood until it was torn down in 1852. In 1807 Tecumseh himself, escorted in by Ohio Senator and future Governor Thomas "Father of Ohio" Worthington, gave a speech in the original building that was meant to ease tensions between the Native Americans and the nervous Ohio populace. The mission was considered a success and tensions did ease for a while. That would soon change.

There is a road named Nancy Wilson Way and I assumed at the time it was named for the rock musician in Heart. I have since learned that it is named for a different Nancy Wilson, a jazz singer who was from Chillicothe.

There is much more to see here such as the Adena State Memorial and the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park so I will have to come back another time. This day had a greater purpose ahead...

Coming up next...Tecumseh! - The Play