Happy 201st Birthday to Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) whose 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin was a catalyst for the anti-slavery movement in the US. President Lincoln met her in 1862 and supposedly greeted her with "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war?"
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Walnut Hills was owned by her abolitionist Father and is where she lived from 1833-1836.
The home is now a museum focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Underground Railroad, and African-American history.
Grocery paper bags are not as popular these days as they once were. Most folks choose plastic or their own reusable sacks, but the next time you visit Kroger or "the Krogers" as we Ohioans say, and decide to choose paper over plastic you can thank a Buckeye for the modern paper bag. It would also be hard to imagine the Unknown Comic or crafty pre-school puppets without this great contribution from a Union Civil War veteran.
On June 12, 1883, Charles Stilwell from Fremont OH was granted his patent for the Self-Opening Sack or SOS for short.
also not Charles Stilwell
This was a great leap forward in paper bag technology that had been stalled for over a century. Stilwell actually didn't invent the paper bag. Prior to the SOS, the paper bag was simply a paper tube sealed at one end to form a V shape which was unable to stand without some assistance. This inconvenience made folks very unhappy. Stilwell listened to the people and invented a folded, pleated sack that could easily be opened with one swooping motion and its hi-tech flat bottom placed steadily on the counter ready to be filled with items. The next time you go Krogering, remember Charles Stilwell. Or don't.
Another great moment in Ohio history brought to you by Gehio.
This 50' cross-shaped wooden flagpole sits in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Carthage at 7011 Vine Street. It's been moved a few blocks from it's original location at Seymour and Vine where it stood in front of the Avenue House, a 19th-century hotel and tavern founded by a German immigrant named H.H. Lammers. I'm not sure if he was related to the Nazi War Criminal with the similar name and initials. The nearby plaque didn't say and Google wasn't any help.
The pole sat there being a pole for over 100 years displaying all the different American flags in great fashion starting with the 32 star US flag until the Sun Oil Company wanted to put a gas station in the old hotel's spot. I know you are thinking "boo! bad oil company people! boo!" However, I am happy to report that the Sun Oil Company was a good sport and paid to have it moved up the street to its present location in 1970. The citizens of Carthage then celebrated their fantastic historic wooden flagpole with a big party on Flag Day. I'm sure it was a great celebration.
Then in 1982, it was designated a Cincinnati Neighborhood Landmark, making it the city's smallest historic landmark!
If anyone is working on creating "Trivial Pursuit: Cincinnatus Edition" this should definitely be included.
In case you were wondering...nope, there is no geocache here. I was just driving by and saw the sign.
unrelated train car in North Bend w/ unrelated scoundrels
If asked where the first US train robbery occurred you might think it was in the Old West right? Everyone knows that because of movies.
Wrong. It happened in the Old Northwest, if you will, right outside Cincinnati OH on May 5, 1865, in North Bend, OH whose other claims to fame is being the home of two US Presidents named Harrison, as well as the resting place of John Cleves Symmes.
Under cover of darkness, several men apparently removed one rail to stop the 8:00 PM Ohio & Mississippi train that had departed from Cincinnati bound for St Louis MO with over one hundred passengers.
After the train was stopped from the derailment, twenty armed men "with the vilest oaths, demanded the money and valuables of the passengers." The scoundrels then blew open several safes that were said to contain over $30,000 in U.S. bonds.
With no serious injuries to the passengers or the perpetrators, the robbers made off with the loot and fled across the Ohio River into Kentucky. Military troops were called and sent to hunt down the outlaws who were traced south through Verona, Ky., but were never captured.
the Ohio River from North Bend looking toward KY
Another Indiana train robbery a year later in 1866 is sometimes listed as the "first" but because this 1865 North Bend event occurred during the last months of the Civil War and the suspects, although wearing civilian clothes, were thought by some to be members of the Confederate Army, many historians consider this a military action rather than a civilian train robbery. Since no one was ever caught I suppose we will never really know. The infamous brothers Frank and Jesse James were even suspected as the orchestrators of what a Cincinnati newspaper described as “one of the boldest robberies that we have been called upon to chronicle.”
The Thunder-Skys...left to right, Michael, Chief Thunder-sky and Raymond
The other day I was browsing an online database of famous people buried in Cincinnati. (Everyone does this right?) Mostly it was the familiar local athlete, businessman or politician. Many were surnames that a lot of Cincinnatians would recognize as streets or areas of town like Chase or Groesbeck, etc. As expected, almost all were buried in the beautiful and sprawling historic Spring Grove Cemetery.
Then an unusual name caught my eye...Chief Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky. That's just not the sort of name you expect to discover in Southwest OH. I had to know more of course and lucky for me, this gentleman's grave was just a couple of miles from my house. So I did some research before going for a visit.
Born on St. Regis Mohawk Reservation in Upstate NY in 1911, Chief Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky was apparently the "last full-blooded hereditary Sachem Chief of the Mohawk Nation". To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what that means. I know a sachem is basically the Chief of Chiefs although I'm not sure what duties he would have had in fulfilling that that role in the 20th century. It's still pretty cool and interesting since the Mohawk were not known to have ever lived in the Cincinnati area.
Chief Thunder-Sky also played parts in several old Westerns such as Gene Autry's 1950 Indian Territory and Tyrone Power's 1952 Pony Soldier. Not bad gigs at a time when many Indian parts were being played by non-Natives such as Italian-Americans for their close physical resemblance or whites with make-up.
Dad
In 1961 Thunder-Sky moved to Cincinnati OH with his wife Irene and two sons Michael and Raymond and helped organize the North American Indian Council which still operates in Mt Healthy OH. His wife of 49 years was Irene Dianna Szalatzky, the daughter of a Hungarian nobleman of the Habsburg Dynasty. Richard died in 1989 and is buried at Arlington Memorial Gardens in Mt Healthy OH just outside of Cincinnati a couple miles from my house. Irene died in 1994 and is also buried at Arlington but I was unable to find her marker.
Here is where the story gets a little more interesting...
If you spent any time in Cincinnati OH in the 1980s and 90s as I did you may have seen a man going about his business wearing a clown suit, donning a construction hat and carrying a toolbox. I didn't know this back then, but the mysterious man was Raymond Hiawatha Thunder-Sky, the eldest son of Chief Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky. It turns out that Raymond was autistic and created hundreds of paintings over the years that he kept secret (he kept his art supplies in the toolbox) and revealed to his social worker in 1999 a few years prior to his death from cancer. When he died in 2004, Thunder-Sky, Inc. in Northside was founded to preserve Raymond's artistic legacy.
Son
Unfortunately, it was difficult to find further information on Chief Richard Brightfire Thunder-Sky to fill in the gaps in his life. It seems the son eclipsed the father. I don't know what brought Richard to Cincinnati or why he quit the movie business. Or what happened to the younger brother Michael. Or how Irene lived out her final years. Even Richard's IMDB entries for his movies were hodgepodge and incomplete due to uncredited roles. However, much has been written about his son Raymond who not only was a half-blooded Mohawk, but also the descendant of Hungarian royalty on his Mother's side. I never would have guessed this as I saw him wandering around town back in the day known only to me as "the Construction Clown".
I won't delve any more into Raymond's history here. Many nice articles have already been written about this man. If you would like to read more about him, see some photos of him and his artwork, here is a great article from 2010 with further links to other websites. Update 2016: Original link is dead, try this instead.
An F5 Tornado hit Xenia OH killing 33, injuring thousands, leaving 10,000 homeless and removed half that city from the map. The very mention of this event strikes fear in most Southwestern Ohioans who were alive when this occurred.
April 4th, 1841
William Henry Harrison, an adopted Buckeye like myself, died one month after taking office as President. They said he was too old (68) and sickly. I guess they were right. It's too bad he is usually only remembered for this as he had an impressive resume and life.
April 7th, 1788
The first permanent US settlement is made in the Northwest Territory by General Rufus Putnam and 48 men who named their city "Marietta" after Queen Marie Antoinette of France in honor of that countries support during the Revolutionary War.
By 1843, a little over a half-century later, no Indian tribes would remain in Ohio.
April 7th, 1792
Following his defeat at the hand of Indians in the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair resigned from the United States Army. He would stay on as Governor and become one of my favorite follies.
Mr. President Governor Major General Arthur St. Clair
Today is the 275th (possibly 276th or 278th) birthday of my favorite US frontier General, Arthur St. Clair (pronounced "Sinclair" if you didn't know). He's one of those forgotten founding fathers that played a huge part in the shaping of the US and Ohio...but one teeny little incident sealed his legacy.
Art was born in Scotland on March 23rd, 1737... or 1736 or 1734. No one really knows the exact year. Bad records and a calendar change kind of messed that up and makes it very confusing.
He served for the British in the French & Indian War (1754-1763) and then later as a General for the Americans in the Revolutionary War until 1778 when he was court-martialed for his loss at the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga in 1777 and served the rest of the war as an aide to General Washington. Well, that was the end of St. Clair, right? Not quite.
Eaton, OH - Fort named for Art while he was the Gov
After the war, in 1787 he was elected as the 15th President of the Continental Congress which enacted the Northwest Ordinance and created the Northwest Territory, encompassing present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan. The Northwest Ordinance served as the blueprint for the upcoming the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. After his term as President of Congress, he was then appointed Governor of the Northwest Territory by President Washington.
As Governor in 1790, he gave the settlement Losantiville its new name, Cincinnati named after a club of veteran's that honored Washington called The Society of Cincinnati which he was a member of. People in Cincinnati sort of know him for this but we haven't gotten to the oopsy part yet.
Losantiville OH - a nice plaque on a rock in Clifton
While he was Governor, President Washington, who still thought highly of his military capabilities, called him up for service to end the ongoing hostilities with the Native Americans in the NW Territory. St. Clair underestimated the enemy, was poorly prepared and had a force of demoralized men by the time the battle had even begun. This resulted in the 1791 St. Clair's Defeat*, a resounding Native American win where in just three hours, one-quarter of the *entire* US Army was wiped out with over 600 men killed and over 200 wounded out of 1400 under his command. By comparison, the Indian Confederacy under the Miami Little Turtle's command lost 21 men out of 1000. Oops. This was the greatest disaster in American military history and as you've probably guessed, this is what he ended up being most known for. That was the end, right? Well not quite. He was forced to resign from the Army by the President but stayed on as Governor. Go figure.
He played the game of politics for another decade or so but it turned out that the new President Jefferson didn't care for Art too much and fired him in 1802 over political differences. His firing led to Ohio to becoming a state in 1803.
Toledo OH - Tom & Art at a crossroad
St. Clair was kind of like the comeback kid but he never really recovered from that last one. Once a very wealthy man, he died penniless at the age of 82 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania on August 31, 1818.
Maybe today everyone can raise a glass of whiskey and toast the words of Stuart Rankin, "if it's not Scottish, it's craaaapp!!"
James reads and I consult my notes in Covington KY
It was $700.
The statue of James Bradley, honoring anti-slavery activity in Kentucky, is one of the several statues along the scenic Covington Kentucky Riverwalk portraying persons having a strong association with the Ohio River and its history.
In Bradley's autobiographical letter, he was about 3 years old “when the soul-destroyers tore me from my mother’s arms, somewhere in Africa, far back from the sea”.
Sometime around 1819, he was taken to a plantation in South Carolina where he was given his name James Bradley after the surname of the man who purchased him. He recalls being treated physically well there, however, later in his own words he wrote, "...from the time I was fourteen years old, I used to think a great deal about freedom. It was my heart’s desire; I could not keep it out of my mind. Many a sleepless night I have spent in tears, because I was a slave. I looked back on all I had suffered – and when I looked ahead, all was dark and hopeless bondage."
After many years he managed to earn $700, about $15,000 in today's money, by sacrificing precious sleep to do extra work on the plantation and finally bought his freedom in 1833. He headed for the closest free state which was Ohio and crossed the Ohio River near this statue.
Lane Seminary was in Cincinnati's Walnut Hills
In 1834, Bradley learned of Lane Seminary which was run by the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe who later raised US awareness of the plight of slaves in her 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Bradley was admitted to the school and was the only black person admitted to an American institution of higher learning before the Civil War. He participated in the highly publicized Lane Seminary Debates regarding the cruelty and immorality of slavery which helped shift students and many Americans toward that point of view.
Not much is known of James Bradley after he left the school. Nothing more is written about him. I hope he at least lived to see the day decades later when the end of the US Civil War finally began the process to free his people from, in his words, "the soul destroyers" and "hopeless bondage" of slavery.
The bronze statue to honor him was made and installed in 1988 by sculptor George Danhires as part of Cincinnati's bicentennial.
Growing up and getting their start in Piqua OH in churches and other local venues in the late 1920's, The Mills Brothers, Herbert, Donald, Harry, and John Jr., were a popular jazz and pop vocal quartet for several decades. They created their unique vocal style of imitating musical instruments when one of the brothers forgot his harmonica and he was forced to improvise without it. Later, when they were on Brunswick Records the label boasted “No musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other that one guitar”. I couldn't help but be reminded that40 years later, the rock band Queen, also known for their unique vocal style, would make a similar brag of "no synthesizers were used on this record" because people mistook their multi-multi-tracked guitar sound to be synthesizers. (I make several more Queen references. If you enjoy that keep reading.)
Herbert, Donald, Harry, and John Jr. performed on Cincinnati's 5000 watt WLW radio which allowed them to reach audiences as far away as Chicago and New York City. The brothers were billed under various other names for these shows such as Four Boys and a Kazoo and the peculiar Tasty Yeast Jesters, which sounds like some modern Indie rock band but this name came from the sponsor of the show, Tasty Yeast.
After a broadcasting executive heard them in late 1930 on WLW, CBS Radio signed them to a three-year deal becoming the first African-Americans to have a network radio show. After this, they became national stars and their version of the jazz standard Tiger Rag went to #1 in 1931, which became the first recording by a vocal group to sell one million copies.
They followed up with a string of hit songs. In 1934, they became the first African-Americans to perform for British Royalty including the Queen (Mary, not the band). During the War Years, they continued churning out the hits and touring worldwide to great acclaim and delight.
Mills Brothers monument in Piqua
In 1943 The Mills Bros had their biggest song with Paper Doll going to #1 and selling 6 million copies. Not bad for a song that was recorded in 15 minutes. The group remained active up through the rock and roll era still topping the charts and appearing on popular TV variety shows such as Jack Benny, Perry Como, and the Tonight Show.
After four decades and 71 chart singles (Queen only had 18), The Mills Brothers disbanded after their final hit Cab Driver in 1968 which happened to be the same year Brian May met Roger Taylor forming the basis for the rock band Queen.
Over the years since, The Mills Brothers performed reunion shows with different members. The last original Mills Brother, Donald passed away in 1999 at the age of 84. The son of John Jr, John Mills III and Elmer Hopper of the Platters currently tour as a version of "The Mills Brothers" much in the same way Brian May and Roger Taylor still perform without Freddie Mercury or John Deacon as a version of "Queen".
Geocaching sometimes takes me to interesting and forgotten places that pique my curiosity after scratching the surface a bit. Hillcrest Cemetery, a Cincinnati OH cemetery on Sutton Road in Anderson Township is one of those places.
Its 14 acres were established as a resting place for the remains of African-American US veterans and members of their families. Most of these men served in the Civil War, the Plains Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, World War I & II, and Korea.
The bodies of nearly 1,000 African-American veterans rest in this ground and most fought for their country despite not having equal rights at home under the law. Upon returning from their sacrifices they were still met with segregation and racism. These men came to be here because Jim Crow laws even applied to burials in many places in the US prior to the 1960's. Cincinnati was no different. There are several other segregated cemeteries with African-American veterans in the area including United American Cemetery and Beech Grove Cemetery.
Sadly, over the years, Hillcrest's private ownership fell into dispute. With no one caring for the grounds, the cemetery became vandalized and run down. Erosion had even exposed some graves and vaults to the point where bones were visible and groundhogs had taken up residence. No one wanted to assume responsibility for its maintenance. In 2002, the Ohio National Guard with assistance and funds from private, local and state organizations helped with the restoration of the property and replaced or restored many missing headstones for these forgotten men and their families.
Buffalo Soldier
I am sure there are many forgotten stories to tell in this graveyard. Being an aficionado of local ties to Native American history, one marker, in particular, caught my eye on my 2nd visit here.
Pvt Nelson Morrow of the US 24th Infantry Regiment was one of the "Buffalo Soldier" units organized of black men to fight in one of the many hundreds of confrontations with Native Americans. The US Army dubbed them the "Indian Wars" which occurred west of the Mississippi from the Civil War up until 1898. The Cheyenne supposedly came up with the term Buffalo Soldier because the curly black hair reminded them of buffalo fur. The Lakota called them black wasichu which meant "black white person".
Here also rests an American paradox. Morrow is a young post Civil War "free" black man sent off by his country to kill or force another group of individuals into Indian reservations only to return home and live out his days in segregation even upon his death. Pvt Morrow probably felt he was doing the right thing to get his share of the American Dream and improve his own lot in life or perhaps he had no real choice in the matter, but nonetheless his story still represents the struggle of two ethnic groups of Americans that certainly didn't get their piece of the freedom pie as easily as others... or at all. At any rate, it is good to see that the men buried here have at long last been given some respect and recognition by the local community in the country they served.
The pole sat there being a pole for over 100 years displaying all the different American flags in great fashion starting with the 32 star US flag until the Sun Oil Company wanted to put a gas station in the old hotel's spot. I know you are thinking "boo! bad oil company people! boo!" However, I am happy to report that the Sun Oil Company was a good sport and paid to have it moved up the street to its present location in 1970. The citizens of Carthage then celebrated their fantastic historic wooden flagpole with a big party on Flag Day. I'm sure it was a great celebration.
by John Winkler.
