Carol Cartaino - It Happened in Ohio: Stories of Events and People That Shaped Buckeye State History

IT HAPPENED IN

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ISBN 978-1-4930-3961-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4930-3962-3 (e-book)

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For Quiggy

Carol Cartaino would like to thank Denvis Earls, professor of Ohio history at Wilmington College, for agreeing to help out with this journey down the years in Ohio. It enhanced my background for all of the subjects herein and made what was sometimes a very hard job more fun. My son, Clayton Collier-Cartaino, was also invaluable as a sounding board, researcher, and second wordsmith when I needed one.

A sincere thank-you too, to editor Erin Turner for giving me a chance to really get to know my adopted state (as well as for the welcome touch of the West she brought to her competence and professionalism) and project editor Gregory Hyman. I also much appreciated Courtney Oppels skilled editorial piloting through the rapids of the second edition of this book.

I am grateful as well to distinguished Professor Andrew R. L. Cayton of Miami University for graciously consenting to review the initial outline; Patty Krylach, one of my most promising writing students, for help with research and second opinions; Dan Fleming, reference librarian, Licking County Library, for his very helpful and timely aid with Licking County subjects; and Woody Phelps of Covington, Ohio, for his helpful feedback and encouragement.

The terrific collection of books on Ohio at the Highland County District Library included some truly charming old volumes. I much appreciated the able assistance of the entire staff there for all of their checking in and out (I think I have a blister on my library card), holding, renewing, and re-renewing of things. A nod of thanks too, to the SEO Consortium Interlibrary Loan system, whose excellence and helpfulness I never fully appreciated till now; and my silver Jeep and the west side of my office building for what they had to endure in 2010 due to my immersion in this project.

Denvis Earls would like to thank Carolyn Perry Bartlett; Ponca Indian Elder, Middletown, Ohio, for her information on Native American legends; the Wilmington Public Library for books and source materials; Carol Cartaino, author and editor, Seaman, Ohio (godsend and friend); and Frank Henkel, author, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Also thanks to Patti Kinsinger, head of Academic Research, Watson Library, Wilmington College, for her help with the Wright Brothers, the Big Red Machine, and other subjects; James Palmer, student researcher, Wilmington College, for providing an outline of events for Kent State; Colleen Baker, student researcher, Wilmington College, for her help with the Gnadenhutten entry; and my wife, Linda, who served cheerfully as my proofreader and draft editor.

I moved to southern Ohio in 1978 from what the people around here call up East. I wondered before I left whether you could take a state with only four letters in its name seriously and knew only that Ohio seemed to be a fairly flat, bland place beyond the mountains of Pennsylvania.

More than forty years later, I am still here. Though Ohio had little breathtaking scenery and was not spectacular in any other obvious way, I soon discovered there were two very fine things about it: The people make you welcome, and the state wears well. It has been a safe, pleasant, positive place to beeasy to take and easy to live in, day after day and year after year.

In the past months, working on this book, Ive gotten to know my adopted state far better. And in the process have moved from appreciation... to admiration.

For a small state, Ohio has had a big impact on this country. There are a number of reasons for this, the first being its wealth of natural resources. When you read the descriptions of Ohio written by the first pioneers to see itits broad, clear, fish-filled rivers; dense, hardwood-rich forests; lush green valleys; barely glimpsed mineral riches; and teeming wildlife of all kindsyou want to be teleported back to that time. Ohios physical location has played a part too. It had a firm hold on the public imagination as the first American frontierthe first place beyond the original colonies everyone wanted to go to stake out new and better farmland and, later, the gateway and stopping place en route to the greater west beyond. Between waterways, railroads, and other means, Ohio soon had a transportation system second to none, helping it become the crossroads of the nation.

Not to be discounted in the equation are the vigor, earnestness, and imagination of its citizens. After its intrepid and highly able original inhabitants had been cleared out by the relentless drive of western expansion, a stream of settlers followed from New England, the South, Pennsylvania and other states, and countries across the oceans. The names on the map of Ohio reflect these far-flung origins and their memories. Pioneers of all kinds came here in search of a new and better place, and in the decades and centuries that followed, they tried to make sure that Ohio was that place. Their sweat, ambition, and high-mindedness helped make Ohio first an agricultural power, then a political one, and finally an industrial giant, despite its small size. This was a place, too, where an incredible number of inventions were created and many improvements in society were first tested and then made the law of the land.

The descendants of all of those earlier Ohioans are now working together to find Ohiohalf rural and half urban; half intellectual and half people who know how to work well with their handsa new and even more exciting place in the world.