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Minutes of History
(Produced in 1981 for Lima’s Sesquicentennial)
The Allen County Reporter
A Publication of The Allen County Historical Society
620 West Market St.
Lima, Ohio 45801
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Although Allen County was formed in 1820, it was not until 1831 that Lima was surveyed and organized as the seat of government. In 1981, many people, organizations, and businesses celebrated this sesquicentennial year with a variety of activities.
The Allen County Historical Society revived a diverse selection of events in Lima’s 150 year history, and arranged them into one-minute radio announcements. Ray Schuck, curator, compiled these brief historical sketches and presented them to two local radio stations for broadcast, WIMA and WCIT/WLSR. He was assisted with the task by Joseph Dunlap, Anna Selfridge, Patricia Kaduk-Irwin, Dr. Susan Porter, and Ronald Huber; and edited by VaLaire Orchard.
The “Minutes of History” were aired during the last six months of the year by both radio stations. The following announcements are printed as they were broadcast in commemoration of Lima’s sesquicentennial celebration.
They moved into this area during the latter part of the 18th century. They took from the land what they needed – no more. Their economy was simple, based on hunting, planting, and gathering wild foods. Family ties kept them banded together. Each town had a large wooden structure used for council meetings and celebrations.
These people were the Sawanwa or Shawnee.
In 1817 a treaty was made with the U.S. Government establishing the Hog Creek Reservation, in what is today Shawnee Township. By 1831, pioneer settlement had so increased that another treaty was signed whereby the Shawnee relinquished all their land to the U.S. Government. This treaty resulted in their removal to Kansas. They departed from this area in June, 1833, arriving at their destination in September.
The intersection of South Metcalf and Kibby Streets in Lima marks the northeast corner of the 25 square miles, which was the home of the Hog Creek Shawnee from 1817 to their removal in 1833.
Lima’s First MayorAlthough the original town of Lima was surveyed in 1831 by Captain James A. Riley, it was not until 1842 that it was officially organized.
Henry Devilliers Williams, a Democrat, originally from Pompey, New York, was Lima’s First Mayor. He came to Ohio in 1834, and to Lima’s land office in 1835. Before being elected mayor he served as county auditor from 1838 to 1841. He is described as being generous, reckless, and easy-going – a unique character and typical pioneer woodsman in buckskin, with hunting dogs at his heels.
His love of dogs led to his unfortunate early demise. On a trip to Marion, Ohio, he purchased a dog in Kenton and took it with him. The dog, while being handled, bit him on the arm. The dog was killed, but not believed rabid; several weeks later, however, on December 19, 1846, Mayor Williams died of hydrophobia. An untimely end to Lima’s first mayor.
Before labor became organized, and before anyone ever heard of free agency, there was a labor system known as indentured servitude; whereby a person would be “bound” or indentured to an individual to learn a trade.
It was not uncommon in Lima during the 19th century for a father to contract with a local businessman for the services of his son. The father would receive a designated sum of money for each year of the boy’s service. In return, the “bound boy” would be taught to read, write, and do arithmetic. In addition, the boy would be given a Bible and two net sets of clothes when his term was completed.
If the boy became discontented and ran away, the businessman would advertise a “one cent reward” in the local newspaper for his apprehension to avoid any financial obligations incurred by the youngster. The businessman was then free to take on a new, and hopefully more responsible, apprentice.
The Hanging of Andrew Brentlinger
The sound of hammer and saw came faintly to his ear through the barred door of his cell. The scaffold was fast approaching completion. There had been talk of a mob, so at eight o’clock there silently gathered a guard of fifty men, the light of whose lanterns revealed the glitter of musket barrels. Lima was thronged with people from miles around, and sideshows with “living skeletons,” “fat women,” and “wonderful dwarfs” did a thriving business. At twenty minutes past ten o’clock on Good Friday, April 7th, 1872, Andrew Brentlinger was hung for the murder of his wife. At ten minutes before eleven, his body was cut down and placed in a plain walnut coffin. The hanging of Andrew Brentlinger was the first public execution in Allen County.
Since 1831, Lima has been the center of Allen County government. Consequently, it served as the site for the county’s courthouse. Three courthouses have been erected through the years in Lima. The first in 1831, the second in 1842, and the third – which still stands – was built in 1882. Of the three, the dedication of the second courthouse in 1842 stands out as the most grand. Lima society dedicated it by tripping the “light fantastic toe,” as the whole community turned out for a big dance in the basement of the new courthouse. In the cells, being prepared for future prisoners, beds were improvised so children could be tucked away while parents took part in the gaiety of the dedication. That magnificent new courthouse served its purpose for forty years, in the most active days of Allen County’s business and social development.
Upon the completion of Lima’s second courthouse in 1842, a bell was installed in the belfry, and for nearly half a century it played an important role in the civic and social events of that period. For every baby born in Lima it burst forth in a loud, joyful announcement of welcome. For every death it tolled a dirge of sadness, one toll for each year of the dead person’s age. Juries were assembled, court opened, town meetings called to order, and fire alarms sounded on the courthouse bell.For a number of years a crippled man by the name of William Swem attended to and rang the bell. It is reported that he took great pride in producing different tonal qualities when ringing the large bell. He even lived in a little room on the second floor of the courthouse, where he was always near his charge.
In 1890, the bell was taken from the old courthouse and set in the corridor of the present courthouse. In 1909, it was given to the Allen County Historical Society. The bell stands today outside the front entrance of the Allen County Museum, where it is viewed with interest by the many visitors passing it daily.
While the public square was designed with two graded streets intersecting it – Main and Market – the corners of the square were once nothing but mud holes. Wagons loaded with wood or hay often mired there. It was the original plan that Market Street should become the business center and Main Street the residence section of Lima.
But conditions reversed themselves, due mainly to the courthouse being erected on Main Street in 1882. Thus, Main became the business street, while Market was noted as a residential area. The public square, originally planned as a parade ground, a market place for farmers, and for other community activity, has undergone considerable change through the years. An earlier gazebo once stood in the northeast quadrant near the center of the square and served as a transfer station and waiting room for people using Lima’s electric street railway.
Now, with Lima progressing, the public square is being transformed into, once again, a center for community activity; while both Main and Market Streets seek to revive business activity and a residential population.
There was a time in Lima history when fire protection depended upon water from public cisterns, a bucket brigade, and volunteer fire-fighters. When a blaze was discovered in old Lima, everyone shouted “fire” and armed themselves with buckets, dishpans, and anything else that would hold water. Lines were formed and buckets of water passed from person to person, while others pitched furniture out windows. Fire fighting with bucket brigades was quite informal. Every man was a director while scores who never took their hands from their pockets served as advisers. Salvaged items were passed around precariously and sometimes never found their way back to the owner.
In Lima, a volunteer fire department existed as early as 1865. Horses were first used by the fire department in 1878. At one time there were twenty-one horses in service, and people always stopped to watch the horses when they were running to a fire. On March 1, 1916, the department purchased a Gramm-Bernstein truck and became motorized. With this came an end to the era of the bucket brigade and their method of fighting fires in Lima.
On July 4th, 1981, the Council for the Arts of Greater Lima sponsored the Remembrance Arts Festival at Faurot Park. The Arts Festival will, no doubt, be remembered for some time to come. There was a time, however, not long ago, when the attractions at Faurot Park were of a different nature. A small collection of animals, including: buffaloes, elk, bears, monkeys, coyotes, foxes, alligators, Angora goats, ponies, and a variety of birds could be found at Faurot Park. The presence of a park custodian was needed in winter as well as during the season when there were more park visitors. Once a young boy slipped under the railing and into the moat, which surrounded the bear cage, and ventured too close to the caged bear. His curiosity was paid in claw marks, never to be forgotten. Although it was never a big zoo by today’s standards, many people still remember and talk about their visits to Faurot Park, when instead of arts and crafts it had animals and cages.
Oil was discovered in Ohio as early as 1819 along the Muskingum River. In 1829 it was found flowing in Kentucky but there was no market for it and no use was made of the product. Then, in 1856, there came a demand for oil as a medicine, and in 1858 it was utilized for lighting purposes.
On May 19, 1885, oil was discovered in Lima while drilling for gas at the paper mill of Benjamin Faurot near the East North Street crossing of the Ottawa River. The news spread quickly, and immediately the banks of the Ottawa were thronged with spectators. The cry of “oil” soon made Lima a boom town.
The well at the paper mill of Benjamin Faurot was never profitable but it was the beginning our oil industry; and the Lima oil field, developed after the discovery at Faurot’s paper mill, was, for a time, the largest in the nation.
On August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment to the Constitution was adopted by Congress. On November second of that year women would have the right to vote. In many of the larger cities, ballot boxes were replaced by barrels to accommodate heavy turnout. In Lima that day, the temperature was in the 40’s with intervals of rain; a movie entitled: “Sex Today and Tomorrow” with Louis Glaum was showing at the Lyric Theatre; The Leader Store was having a “Fire, Water, and Smoke” sale in an attempt to recover from a devastating fire only two months earlier; and polling places were opened for elections. Once woman in Lima arrived very early at her polling place – a garage on the corner of Market and Kenilworth. At six o’clock in the morning, a half hour before the polls officially opened, she cast her vote. That woman was Mrs. Lila (Graham) Gamble – the first woman to vote in Lima on this momentous occasion in American history.
About 1828 an order was issued by the state of Ohio placing certain restrictions on road construction. All timbers were to be cut off the road area and the area cleared at least twenty feet wide, leaving no stumps over one foot high. All wet and muddy places were to be made passable by causeways 16 feet wide and made of timbers – they were called, appropriately, corduroy roads.
In March, 1842, a traveler left Columbus for Lima and, after completing the journey in four days, had this to say: “the road has been surveyed, some underbrush cut out, but not sufficient to find the road in the dark; the entire country was afloat; the ravines and depressions would swim a horse; corduroy was made of rails laid down in a dry time; and there was danger of breaking the legs of the horses and the necks of the riders.” Such were the conditions of most roads upon which the pioneers of this area traveled.
It is said that Henry DeVilliers Williams, the first mayor of Lima, introduced his own views of justice when dealing with matters before his court and was known for setting an example in administering justice.
One day Jacob Ridenour was charged with disorderly conduct and brought before Mayor Williams. Ridenour admitted that, while standing on the street, a smaller man had started taunting and making fun of him. When Ridenour’s warning went unheeded, he picked up the smaller man and slammed him down in the mud. Ridenour was arrested and pleaded guilty. Mayor Williams gave the young Ridenour a lecture and fined him five dollars, with no show of sympathy. Then, quite abruptly, Mayor Williams walked over to Ridenour, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “Now, Jacob, for having administered a well-merited punishment to a bully, I will allow you $5.25, and here is the change.” Thus, Ridenour was vindicated and had 25 cents left over.
Before there were telephone wires connecting the different homes and businesses in Lima, there were signals – a code that was always easily interpreted…for instance, a red cloth hanging out from an upper window always indicated distress. Different colors meant different things, and people knew the meaning of such signals.
It is said that a Doctor Hiner had the first telephone in Lima. It was of his own construction. He called it a microphone and used a drumhead arrangement with a skin drawn across it for a sounding board, with wires connecting his office and his residence.
The first telephone exchange was built in Lima one hundred years ago; in fact, for a period of time, Lima had two different telephone systems. In 1915, these two telephone systems were unified, forming the Lima Telephone and Telegraph Company – the predecessor of the present telephone company.
In 1836, Lima was just beginning to emerge from the wilderness. The village was made up of a few cabins in the vicinity of the public square. Tree stumps were still standing in the square area, and the only roads leading into the town were broadened paths.
It was in 1836 that Lima had its first newspaper – “The Lima Herald” – a Democratic Party publication. In that year Martin Van Buren was the Democratic candidate for the presidency; and the winner. After his election as president, “The Herald,” along with its editors, passed from public view and became only a memory. Such was the character of many early newspapers: serving more as a forum for political views, than as a chronicle of a community’s daily affairs.
In the first year of Lima’s history – 1831 – Miss Malvina Tompkins came to live with her brother Daniel Tompkins who had the town’s first store, which stocked everything from laces and silks to candles and molasses.
In 1834 Doctor William McHenry arrived in Lima, seeking a place to set up practice. He arrived by horseback, stopping at the Tompkins store where he met Malvina. A year and a half later the two were married, journeying to Xenia on horseback for their wedding trip. The bride carried two silk dresses for the trip jammed into saddlebags. Upon their arrival in Xenia there was a reception planned for the bridal party, and Malvina had to borrow hot irons to press her dress in preparation for the affair.
Doctor and Mrs. McHenry returned to Lima, where they lived for the remainder of their lives. Doctor McHenry was Lima’s first surgeon and, for many years, performed all the surgical procedures within a radius of twenty miles.
When people lived in the woods before there were any fulling mills or factories of any kind, they fulled, or thickened, cloth by kicking it with their feet. Kicking parties were much in vogue for many years. When a young woman was ready to make her wedding gown, neighbors were invited from miles around to attend the kicking party. Water was warmed and the flannel was well soaped and soaked and piled onto the middle of the floor. Shoes were shed and stockings rolled up in preparation for the kicking process of fulling the flannel. A rope was stretched along chairs to keep them from slipping and, when everything was ready, the party was set in motion. Kick, kick, kick was the requirement from every side, until suds and lather hid the flannel from view. And so, the cloth was fulled for the wedding dress. When the fulling process was ended, a rustic table was spread and food was enjoyed by all.
The Bashore Tavern was the center of the old social life in Lima, particularly for the men of the community. It was located on the west side of Main Street half way between Spring and Elm; and, for many years politicians, teachers, preachers, and story tellers gathered around this festive spot and argued all the questions of the day. When they were uncomfortable on the outside they would retreat inside. It was the stopping place for all travelers who either inquired the way somewhere else or remained for a time within its friendly shelter. All comers and goers had much to say about “back yonder” when lingering about the Bashore Tavern in the early history of this area.
Even cases of love at first sight were not uncommon among the new comers. When a young woman stuck her head out from the canvas top of a covered wagon she would sometimes see her fate, or the fate would see her.
There are few instances in Lima during the 19th century where women played a more significant public role than the Temperance Crusade of 1874. On Monday, march 15th of that year, after considerable planning, the women’s crusade began against the “whiskey revival,” which had followed the Civil War. At eight o’clock that March morning, sixty five women of Lima assembled at the Methodist Church and, after an hour of worship, took up their march for the saloons, amid the ringing of all the bells in the city. By Wednesday, two hundred twenty five women were involved in the marches. That evening city council passed an ordinance on first reading preventing the keeping of shops in Lima for the sale of intoxicating beverages. Just one week later, on March 25, 1874, the ordinance was unanimously put into law.
With the passage of this ordinance, the women of Lima accomplished in only ten days what others before them had failed to do. For a brief time in its history, Lima was a very dry town.
In 1883, Benjamin C. Faurot installed the first electric light manufacturing plant in Lima adjacent to the Faurot Opera house and Theater. The old arc lights were installed everywhere, and a man went around each day climbing a stepladder to trim the carbon. He was welcome in all the stores as the carbons had to be cared for to insure light again that evening. Although a carbon was supposed to burn 100 hours, the light-man made his rounds every twenty-four hours, cleaning and caring for the arcs.
In time, incandescent light – or light bulbs – replaced the old arc lights. Electricity proved so successful that a few years later, on July 4, 1887, Benjamin Faurot had the Lima Street Railway System electrified, replacing the horse-drawn cars. It was the first electric street railway in Ohio; one of the first in the United States; and a great moment in Lima’s history, as people from miles around came to town to witness the occasion.
It was on a bright Sunday morning April 12, 1861, and Lima residents were in churches – the weather was warm and the windows open – when the words “Fort Sumter Fired Upon,” were heard in the street. Soon an American flag was stretched between Ashton Hall and the Allen County Courthouse and waving over Market Street. When church services ended, and the people saw the flag waving in the air, they congregated in front of the courthouse, where they heard the story of the attack on Fort Sumter.
Not long afterward an enlistment station was opened in Lima to recruit volunteers. Professional men, business men, farmers, and young boys alike responded to the call for troops throughout the war. There was never a lack of men to fill the quota. The flag which flew over the enlistment station in Lima during the Civil War has survived, and is now displayed in the Allen County Museum.
It is said that Lima has always had a theater, although it wasn’t until the 1850s that Sanford’s Hall and later Ashton’s hall served as Lima’s entertainment centers. Prior to that time the courtroom filled the void. When these halls became too small as community centers, Benjamin Faurot planned a substantial gift to the community. On September 4, 1882, his dream was realized, and the Faurot Opera house was opened on the northwest corner of High and Main Streets. Long before the doors opened that evening, High Street became jammed with people. It is said that every lady who attended had her gown made especially for the occasion.
The Faurot Opera House was regarded as one of the finest in the United States, rivaling the theaters in New York and Chicago, and attracting the best theatrical groups. The Faurot Opera House so impressed producer David Belasco that he duplicated it in his Stuyvesant Theater in New York. Although the Opera House no longer stands, its memory remains.
By the end of the nineteenth century almost every town in America had a band. In the early years of that century, these bands used mostly woodwind instruments. After the invention of valves in 1815, coronets, trumpets, and horns became more popular – mainly because they were loud, portable, and flexible. Brass instruments soon proliferated and, for a time, brass bands were more popular than any other kind.
The typical nineteenth century concert included quicksteps and marches, dances like the waltz and polka, and overtures. In 1898 and again in 1912 the famous band conductor John Phillip Sousa appeared in Lima with his band at the Faurot Opera House. Lima had its own band as early as 1855. There has been a succession of bands in Lima ever since – playing for picnics, parades, social and political rallies, and concerts.
Today, that tradition continues with our Lima Area Concert Band.
The following sketch of Lima is taken from the recollections of Robert Bowers who arrived in Lima in 1834:
“My father brought me to Lima in the fall of 1834. I was then a boy of twelve…and as green as the forest leaves in June – a rare specimen to transplant on new and untried soil, where there was nothing to develop the mind but the study of forest leaves, the music of the bullfrog, and the howl of the wolf. Every boy or girl was their own instructor. Lima was then a town of very few souls…I knew every man, woman, and child in the settlement, and could count them all without much figuring. Our roads were section lines. Emigrants were constantly changing the trails, seeking better and dryer land for their footing and wheeling. Yet, under all our disadvantages, we were happy, and always ready to lend a helping hand and render assistance wherever it was needed.”
Imagine walking into a general store in Lima in 1835. You have ten dollars in your pocket to spend. After walking through the store a while you hand the proprietor your list: one yard of muslin – 18 cents; one pair of children’s shoes - $1.65; one pair of scissors – 25 cents; one hoe – 62 cents; one tin bucket – 31 cents; one tin cup – 8 cents; one yard of calico – 25 cents; one and a half dozen needles – 9 cents; one pair of kid gloves – 75 cents; two and a half pounds of coffee – 50 cents; three pounds of butter – 25 cents; two bushels of oats - $1.00; one pound of sugar – 18 cents; two and a half pounds of rice – 25 cents; two bushels of wheat - $2.00; and two bushels of corn – 85 cents. From the ten dollars you handed the proprietor, he gives you seventy-nine cents in change.
And how long did it take a laborer to earn that $10.00? 125 hours at the pay scale of 8 cents an hour.
American Women in Volunteer Service
Although not drafted to fight in World War II, women served their country admirably in other ways during those tumultuous years. Under the leadership of Mrs. Lewis Larsen and Mrs. Charles Baker, the Lima unit of Women in Volunteer Service was organized in November 1942, to provide hospitality for service men and women. Land was donated by the Pennsylvania Railroad for a canteen; Lima businessmen provided funds for the building; and the Lima Locomotive Works built and donated large coffee wagons. Many food companies, service clubs, and individuals made weekly donations of food and supplies to keep the canteen going. Through the snow of winters and heat of summers, the women of the American Women in Volunteer Service met every arriving train and distributed free food, candy, gum, cigarettes, books, and magazines. The quality of Lima’s hospitality became a legend among the more than 650,000 service men and women who stopped here during the second world war.
Have you ever wondered how and when Lima street addresses came into being? It all happened in 1883 when Lima City Council passed an ordinance establishing the method of numbering streets to facilitate postal delivery. It was determined that there would be one hundred numbers for each city block; and, starting from the Public Square the numbers would progress as they went out north, east, south, and west. Even numbers were assigned the right side of the street north and south from Market Street, and east and west from Main Street.
Prior to that time, mail and local newspapers were picked up at the local post office which, in many communities, was just a small partitioned cabinet occupying a space on the counter of general stores.
Our post office was established in Lima in 1832, and has been in continuous operation since. For a period of time in the mid-1800s it was the recipient, not the sender, who paid for the cost of mailing! The original post office equipment is located in the Museum’s General Store.
One summer morning in 1850, without any advance notice, a group of men came to Lima and started posting handbills throughout the city. There was excitement in town all day as the bill posters did their work. By night every building, barn, and tree had a poster announcing the coming of the first circus to Lima.
The circus came from the west – from Allentown. Wagers were made that the elephants would break through the bridge over Hog Creek. But all bettors were disappointed for when the elephants came to the bridge, they set one foot upon it, then detoured and waded across the water instead.
The circus tents were pitched on open ground where the Argonne Hotel is now located at the corner of High and Elizabeth Streets. When the show started it began to rain, eventually swelling into a storm. Rain poured through torn canvas, and most, if not all, of the spectators were drenched. The following day, though, still held the enchantment of the circus, as people mingled around the wet and muddy site of the first circus in Lima.
Cholera
During the summer of 1854, cholera
ravaged the towns and countryside of Northwestern Ohio.
This hazard of living in the nineteenth
century was a terrifying reality to the people living in Lima and Allen
County. On August 12, 1854, over
thirty-five deaths were reported in Delphos as the cholera epidemic
spread. In Toledo, two hundred
thirty-nine deaths were reported. These
epidemics were caused mainly by the primitive sanitary conditions of the
community. In town, the houses, many on
forty-foot lots, had their own water wells, outhouse, and often a stable and
barn as well. Most streets and roads had
open sewers and ditches. Livestock
running loose within the city was not unusual.
These conditions created contaminated water supplies and food sources,
resulting in serious epidemics.
Thirty years would pass before Lima
was to have a municipal water system. In
1886 Lima’s first water works was completed – a big step in combating many
diseases transmitted by unsanitary and unsafe water sources.
City and county officials occasionally become involved in jurisdictional questions. None, however, have been more bizarre than what became known as the “silent” saga of 1954.
“Silent” Smith was, of all things, a carnival mummy who, according to the hazy recollections of some Lima residents, was a wanderer who died around 1913. He was embalmed by some secret process, which somehow withstood the test of time for forty years. The body was stored in a shed on East Elm Street. In 1954, some college students, home for Thanksgiving, broke into the shed, dressed “Silent” in an Ohio State sweatshirt and blue jeans, and propped him against a utility pole in a downtown city alley. “Silent” was found and taken to Memorial Hospital where he was, in truth, pronounced “dead on arrival” and taken to a local funeral home. A $75.00 bill was sent by the funeral home to the city relief department. The city solicitor, however, ruled that Silent’s interment was the responsibility of the county commissioners. After some hesitation and a check into the law, the county paid the bill, and Silent Smith was finally laid to rest in a south Lima cemetery on December 2, 1954.
In 1910, Benjamin A. Gramm arrived in Lima and began building the Gramm motor truck. Together with Max Bernstein they later formed the Gramm-Bernstein Company.When America entered World War I in 1917, Mr. Gramm, by then a recognized pioneer in the motor truck industry, was called to Washington. The reason: to develop and construct a dependable military transport truck for use overseas in the war. In October, 1917, the “Liberty Truck” was completed and put on display in the Public Square before traveling on to Washington. Its trip – through roads hub-deep in mud, and over steep hills and rugged terrain – proved the reliability of the truck. The truck was ceremoniously welcomed in Washington upon its arrival by President Woodrow Wilson.
Soon thousands of these Gramm-Bernstein Liberty Trucks were manufactured and on their way to Europe.
Although Gramm-Bernstein trucks are no longer built, they will always be remembered for their quality. One has even been preserved by the Allen County Historical Society.
In “The 1976 History of Allen County,” Robert C. Barton contributed a chapter on “Newspapers, Radio, and Television.” Gray Knisely, one of the pioneers in Lima radio, included some memories. He recalls that Lima had many “firsts” in the field of radio. One of Lima’s radio enthusiasts devised an automatic control system and a special electron tube in 1926. Several years later, R.C.A. “rediscovered” the same system and patented it.
Another “first” in Lima was the “wired-wire-less” setup – a system that allowed homes and businesses to rent a set for $2.50 a month and receive piped-in programs though the use of available telephone wires. Local musicians performed, South and Central High School football games were aired, and phonograph records were played. The weirdest request the service ever had was from a man who wanted to perform card tricks! Hugh Downs, in 1939, at $7.50 a week, started his first job in radio as an announcer with Lima radio station W-L-O-K, a station later to become W-I-M-A.
The introduction of the motion picture – our modern “movie” – was one of the magical developments in Lima in the early 1900s. In 1907, the first moving picture theatre was opened in the northwest quadrant of the public square. It was named “The Royal” and occupied little more space than a good sized storeroom. People enjoyed this new phenomenon – it did not matter that the actions were jerky and the film jumped and flickered! These films were silent, and were accompanied by a piano or organ player whose antics were as much a part of the action as the film. For five cents, they got their money’s worth. A part of the entertainment, too, were the penny slot machines for those patrons who had to wait for a seat.
By 1920 Lima was to have a number of motion picture theatres, located mainly around the public square. For many people, the “Perils of Pauline” thriller series was as popular and long-lived as today’s soap operas…and the memory of Charlie Chaplin still brings a smile to many faces.
In November, 1854, the first train reached Lima over the Indiana and Ohio Railroad tracks. The original intention was for the railroad to go through Findlay; but through the efforts of Richard Metheany and Thomas Jacobs it was routed through Lima. The arrival of the first train in Lima was quite an event. Wagons loaded with families drove into Lima to see the “Iron Monster” arrive. School was dismissed and teachers with excited youngsters marched to the station.Later, one tanner’s son, nicknamed Chubby, felt he must write a poem about the event. But he was only able to write two lines when the recess bell rang. While out at recess a mischievous boy found Chubby’s poem and finished it by adding two not so complimentary lines. When completed the poem read:
She
puffed and she blowed
In
such a fine manner
You
would think it was Chubby
The
son of the tanner.
It wasn’t long before Lima was intersected north and south, and east and west by railroads; and went on to become an important railroad center of the Midwest.
One of the foremost industries in Lima began in 1869 as The Lima Agricultural Works and, over the years, progressed through corporate name changes and types of manufacturing. Under the name Lima Machine Works, it built the first famous Shay-geared locomotive around 1882. As the Lima-Hamilton Corporation, it built its last locomotive in 1949. This locomotive, Number 779 [seven-seven-nine] built for the Nickel Plate Road, is a permanent attraction at the Lincoln Park Railroad Exhibit at the intersection of East Elm and Shawnee Streets.
Between these years, the company was known to Lima residents as The Lima Locomotive Works. The final corporate name was Lima Division of Clark Equipment Company and, when it closed, one of Lima’s great industries was no more.
Railroads and railroading contributed significantly to the development of Lima as a thriving industrial city. Much of this great past is preserved at the Lincoln Park Railroad Exhibit and in the archives of the Allen County Historical Society at our Allen County Museum.
Lima, because of its geographical location and its importance as a railroad center, seemed to have more than its share of tramps in the late 1800s. The panic of 1877 and the railroad strike of 1894 made wanderers of many honest and skilled workers. Our town had one solution to this problem. For many years the city of Lima maintained a chain gang on the streets and tramps very often found themselves unwilling prisoners.
There was a large pond and wooded area on West Vine Street where tramps once congregated. The pond was known as the hobo bathtub. They would get off the train cars and stop there to take a bath. Sometimes they would fix up a shelter of boards and brush and stay until they found a job. This state of affairs required Lima’s marshals to be men of brawn and handy with their fists, for scarcely a day passed without an altercation with a tramp or some local character.
When winter came to Lima in the years 1888 to 1900, graceful sleighs and sleigh bells, fast horses and proud owners, and buffalo robes and sealskin caps were much in evidence. From the time the first snow packed down on the streets until the spring thaw, North Street, from Baxter to Elizabeth Street, was a frozen race-course. At almost any hour people could watch or participate in sleigh races, with Thursday and Friday the big days. After two o’clock on these afternoons, North Street was reserved for racing. At times, as many as a thousand spectators stood in the snow on the sidewalks or watched from the windows of North Street residences and businesses. Snow racing became almost a civic sport in Lima and was open to anyone who showed up with a horse and sleigh.
With the introduction of the horseless carriage at the turn of the century, sleigh racing declined in popularity. Beloved horses were abandoned for high-powered motors in shiny bodies.
Just as Lima celebrates it sesquicentennial this year, next year will be Lima’s 150th year of education. It was in 1832 that Lima had its first school. Public or “free” education did not exist for the first two decades of Lima’s history. Taxes to support the school were unheard of because there was nothing to tax. Prior to 1850 schools were known as “subscription schools,” and teachers agreed to “keep school” for a sum. It cost parents $3.00 to have a child taught to read, write, and do arithmetic for thirteen weeks. Schools were purely private enterprises.
The earliest known schoolmaster in Lima was John Ward who, in 1832, opened a school for twenty-five pupils in the first courthouse on South Main Street. The next year, Colonel John Cunningham instructed some forty students in a cabin on Water Street. Mrs. Margaret Poague Cunningham became Lima’s first woman teacher, with a school above a cooper’s shop on West Elm Street.
It was not until 1850 that there were three district schoolhouses established in this city for the purpose of “free” education.
There was a time when a good cannon and an accurate cannoneer were essential to combat refinery fire hazards. They were called upon when one of the heavy sheet metal and riveted storage tanks, used earlier in this century, caught fire. As the crude in the top portion of the tank burned, water, which had separated to the bottom, began to boil. This created pressures the oil tank just could not handle. Eventually, something had to give…vapor pressure from the boiling water would blow up the tank. The results could be catastrophic, depending upon how large neighboring tanks were and how far away they were located.
The most practical solution was to somehow poke a hole in the smoldering tank before an explosion occurred. The safest – but not entirely foolproof – solution was a well-placed cannonball. The old, Civil War cannon that stands on the front lawn of the Allen County Museum was used for just such a purpose at the Standard Oil Refinery in Lima.
Just as important to early settlers as food and shelter was clothing. Clothes were durable, so there was much cutting down and remaking of suits for the youngsters from clothing of parents or older children. Sufficient room was allowed for considerable growth. This was especially likely to be true of the Sunday best suit. One outfit was described this way: “The trousers dragged and folded over his cowhide shoes, bagged at the knees and in the seat, and, in common with the vest, had sufficient room for two boys, while the coat hung loose at the shoulders and elbows and was turned up at the wrists. A round-crowned, stiff rimmed, wool hat completed a picture of discomfort, self consciousness, and awkwardness.” Underclothing was not worn by many people prior to 1840. It was too expensive to buy, too troublesome to make, and, besides, it was not considered necessary!
In February, 1820, by an act of the legislature of the state of Ohio, Allen County was established. Nine years later Christopher Wood was appointed to “cause a town to be laid out at some suitable point upon 160 acres of land within Section 31 in Township Number 3, presently Bath Township, and give to the said town a name.”
The site selected by Christopher Wood is the area bounded by North Street on the north, West Street on the west, the Ottawa River on the south, and Central Avenue on the east. The survey and plat of the new county seat was completed on April 20, 1831, 150 years ago this year. [151 years in 1982].
History recorded that this town was named “Leemah” by Judge Patrick G. Goode after the capital of Peru, South America. And throughout his life he insisted upon the Spanish pronunciation of the name – “Leemah.” This gradually gave way to a locally popular pronunciation, however – and Lima it is today.
Although Lima was not officially founded until 1831, people had been settling in the area since 1817. A newcomer to the area was likely to find his new home some distance from any settlement or even from friends and neighbors. The homes of the settlers varied in type, size, and elegance. In the Lima area, the simple house of unfinished logs or rough-hewn logs prevailed.
The furnishings of these early homes depended upon the means, tastes, and abilities of the settler. Some arrived with only an axe, rifle, iron pot, a few tools, scraps of metal, packets of seeds, a bit of bedclothing, and the clothes on their backs. Others came with plunder enough to start housekeeping in decent shape.
A skilled pioneer, even though possessed of little to start on, soon found time to make the most necessary furniture from material at hand. Thus, by 1831 when Lima was founded, it was already recognized as a thriving community in the wilderness.
Much of the medical treatment in pioneer days was domestic and primitive. Provided a doctor was available, it required time and money to get his services, although some doctors did take whatever a person could offer for payment. Generally speaking, a doctor was called only for serious cases. Even then, home remedies or folk cures were likely to have been used before the doctor was called.
Naturally, Indian influences were strong, and many relied on ‘herb and root’ doctors who worked largely with remedies obtained from the forest or garden. Many ills were cured with concoctions of herbs, drinks, sweatings, and rubbings, incantations, ceremonials, and ghost shootings in the night would often accompany these cures. For a period of time, “medicine doctors” traveled from town to town, selling bottles of an elixir guaranteed to cure anything from cuts and bruises to epilepsy.
Today, many of the drugs used by these early doctors can be found among the formulas manufactured by modern pharmaceutical companies.
In 1835, Augustus Wattles, a white schoolmaster, brought freed blacks from Cincinnati to settle in the wilderness in Mercer County. There he established an experimental training school for this black colony that stretched over 10,000 acres into four townships and had a population of approximately 400.
One of the black settlers, Charles Moore, platted the town of Carthagena in 1842. It continued to be the nucleus of this community until the Great Depression.
In 1837, Joel and Wesley Goins platted the town of Rumley in Shelby County. By 1859, this settlement included over 7,000 acres in two townships.
In Van Wert County, blacks settled in Wilshire Township and bought 40-acre farms north of the St. Marys River.
In Paulding County, a black community settled along the Miami-Erie Canal in the 1850s.
Although Allen County never had significant black settlements prior to the Civil War, many of the descendants of these early black settlers moved into Lima and the surrounding area and live here yet today.
Although there were numerous chores to do at home, possibly even some homework, boys and girls during the 1800s found ample time for fun and amusement. Children did not have access to department stores and were without our modern selection of toys. Instead, homemade balls of yarn, dolls, dishes, wooden blocks, and animals were just as interesting, and often far more lasting.
Most girls knew the uses of the various household utensils and could dress their own dolls.
For the boys, homemade sleds, wagons, bows and arrows, slings, and noisemakers were available. They were all the more enjoyable in that the idea and its manufacture were personal affairs.
Christmas was celebrated with homemade candies, popcorn strings and balls, fancy cookies, and perhaps some dates and figs from the store. Although presents were common at this season, Christmas was not yet the highly commercialized institution that it has since become. There is little or no indication in the advertisements or news found in newspapers that the Christmas season was more different from any other. Yet in the hearts of children, it was no doubt a special time.
The art of coverlet weaving came to America in early Colonial times and came west with the settlers. Coverlets were among the most prized household possessions. Although many women wove their own coverlets, by the 1840s itinerant weavers did much of the work. With numerous daughters to be supplied with at least one coverlet, it was easier for a mother to furnish the materials, select a pattern, and pay a weaver $5.00 or $10.00 for a coverlet.
Lima’s most prominent coverlet weaver was John H. Meily. Although he only wove coverlets for a few years in the late 1840s, his works rank with the most beautiful in America. He used complicated patterns and sometimes fashioned his own designs. It is believed he used the cornucopia design in the corners of his work, along with the words: Lima, Ohio, as his personal trademark. The coverlets made by John Meily are highly valued today.
Perhaps one of the most spectacular World’s Fairs ever held was the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Many people from all over the world attended it, including some from Lima.
When the occasion arose in Lima during the summer of 1894 for a city-wide fund raising event to raise money to furnish the new YMCA building which then stood on the northeast corner of Market and Elizabeth Streets, Mrs. Tillman Baliette of the Ladies Auxiliary of the YMCA conceived the idea of reproducing a portion of the 1893 Exposition in Hover Park. After months of preparation the event was held on the 21st and 22nd of August, 1894. Trains brought people into Lima from many neighboring communities for this fantastic two-day event.
When the “Lima Exposition” came to an end, the Ladies Auxiliary found that they had raised over two thousand dollars, which was sufficient to furnish the entire YMCA building.
One of the most notorious crimes involving the Lima Police Department happened on Columbus Day, October 12, 1933. That evening, six men raided the County Jail and released the infamous gangster John Dillinger, who was being held in connection with a bank robbery in Bluffton. During the process of releasing Dillinger, Sheriff Jess Sarber was murdered by Harry Pierpont.
With the death of Sheriff Sarber, an intensive manhunt was inaugurated throughout the United States. Dillinger, already on the most wanted list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, became the number one FBI fugitive. In the ensuing manhunt, Harry Pierpont, Charles Makely, and Edward Clark were eventually captured by police and returned to Lima for trial.
John Dillinger, the most notorious, died on July 21, 1934, in Chicago, in front of the Biograph Theater where he was shot down while trying to draw his weapon.
On January 29, 1929, a pedestrian discovered smoke coming from the windows of the third floor of the Courthouse on Main Street. An alarm quickly reached the Fire Department and the Courthouse was soon surrounded by firefighters and fire fighting equipment. The fire had apparently been in progress for some time before it was discovered, for the whole southwest quarter – in the section occupied by the District Court of Appeals – was enveloped in flames. The massive stone walls – approximately two feet thick – made it difficult for the firefighters to get at the heart of the fire. Finally, Captain John Wolfe and John Fisher approached the fire through the partially burned ceiling of the second floor, shooting great streams of water on the flames above them. Without warning, a section of the ceiling gave way and came down on the two men. By one o’clock that afternoon the fire was brought under control, but not without great loss.
A bronze plaque was later erected in the Courthouse in memory of John Wolfe and John Fisher, who lost their lives fighting the blaze. The fire damage has long since been repaired, but the heroic deaths of two firefighters will long be remembered.
The immigrants of this area, of whatever race or creed, brought with them the mixed heritage of older communities. These immigrants were conditioned by their struggle with the wilderness and their comparative isolation. Among them were the best elements of earlier pioneer frontiers – as well as some of the worst. Many were uneducated, yet people of intellectual attainments, some with classic educations, also arrived and were destined for leadership. The desire for better homes, broader opportunities, and greater wealth were the dominating goals. They had a certain stamina, independence, aggressiveness and faith deep within them. But most importantly, they were just folks, doing their day’s work and caring little for the verdict of history. No doubt, every one of them would marvel at the changes made in their community after one hundred fifty years.
As this sesquicentennial year closes, let us all take time to reflect on our past, remembering those having gone before us; and in so doing, carry on their tradition of working together to strive for a better tomorrow.