Katie Huntington and Morgan's Raid

Katie Huntington

(from the George Buckland Collection)

The following letter was written during the Civil War by nine-year-old Katie Huntington to her father John Caldwell Huntington of Cincinnati, Ohio. Visiting relatives near Glendale, Ohio, Katie recounts the events of July 13, 1863 when Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his cavalry entered Ohio near the Hamilton-Butler County line. Morgan led his men to the outskirts of Cincinnati, where he spent the night of July 13, in sight of the Union Army's Camp Dennsion. From the perspective of a young child, Katie tells of the excitement and fear Morgan's Raid generated among family and friends.

Tuesday Morning July 14th, 1863

My Dear Father

I was very much pleased your letter which I received last evening. I suppose that it is too late for me to answer Aunt Sarah’s letter and send it to Marys-ville but if I am not too tired after I have finished your letter I will write her one and put it in the same envelope.

I go down to the depot every evening and sometimes in the morning. Last evening I went down as usual with Annie and Cora to meet their father at the depot, but the train that was due from the north at six-oclock did not arrive before half past seven in the evening. We have breakfast at quarter to seven. Last night I went to bed earlier than usual and about two oclock in the morning while I was asleep John Morgan (but I don’t think he deserves the name John) and about three thousand of his troops passed through Glendale right by the College and about half a dozen of them went into the barn and took Mr. Drake’s horse (it was a very fine one the nicest one in the barn).

This morning I went down to the depot and Mrs. Fox and Elisa were down there and I said that I wouldn’t go home then for anything because if there was going to be a mob I should like to see it. Just then a man rode up on a white horse and said that some rebels were coming in full gallop and another man that was there said ladies and children take care out of the way because they may fire and Mrs. Fox took 7 or 8 of the children in to her house and told the girl to lock the house all up and we all went up in the garret and looked out of the garret windows and Mrs. Fox made us all be still for fear that we would attract attention to the house.

In a little while they rode up there were four of them well armed on horses. Mr. Bogart had two pistols that would shoot 6 times and, two muskets and he told they men to stop and they did not and so he fired of[f] one of his pistols up in the air so as to make them stop and then they stopped and began to sware dreadfully and said that Gen. Burnside’s sent them and all of a sudden three of them put spur’s to their horses and went off at full gallop. But too of the union soldiers went at the side of the one that staid and began to talk to him and all of a sudden just like that the other three went off very fast but after a little while we found that they were some union men.

I forgot to tell you that in the morning they took five of Morgans men prisoners and they sent them down to Carthage on the hand car. When we were in the midst of dinner (it was the same day) all of a sudden we heard a great noise and every person jumped up from [the] table and there was about 7 thousand of our cavalry passed during the afternoon. And we were to have had pie for desert but we gave it all to the soldiers they were chasing, Morgan and said that they might overtake him.

That night one of the soldier[s] kissed Annie and Cora and me and said that he would always remember the children of the union. They gave them all this square bread and biscuit and ham and cold meat and cake and cold water, some tea, pie. bring my cat out with you and tell Mother that I have decided to stay another week. I have received your letter and want you to come out here so that I can tell you some things that I can not write because my hand is tired.

goodbye

from Katie

Heights Consolidated School, Ballville Twp. Sandusky County, Ohio

Heights Consolidated School, Ballville Twp., Sandusky County, Ohio

(Elmer A. Whitney Collection)

Sandusky County, Ohio photographer Elmer A. Whitney took this picture of the Heights Consolidated School students and staff in October 1919, only months after the "modern two-room building" was opened. The building, located on South Buckland, was the first attempt of Sandusky County citizens to provide better facilities for its students. While some objected to the cost and the school's distance from Fremont, others felt that the consolidation of 74 students from three rural schools - Glen Spring, Krugh, and Ballville Village - provided cost savings in maintenance and staff. Even though the building and land cost $17,000, the Board of Education believed that two teachers instructing grades one through four in a single structure was more cost-effective than three teachers teaching grades one through eight in three separate buildings.

Folding doors separated the classrooms. When opened, the two rooms were transformed into an "auditorium" large enough for community gatherings. The building boasted a 75-barrel cistern, movable chairs and desks, windows on either side, a library and reading room, piano, furnace, and two "lavatories equipped with soap and sanitary towels." Perhaps most appealing to the students was the two-acre playground

Even though its capacity was 96 pupils, the structure apparently was outdated within 15 years. During Sandusky County's building program, the school was replaced by Lutz Elementary, located across Buckland Avenue. E. H. Buchman bought the building and property. In 1936, the Edgar Thurston American Legion Post purchased the structure. Through the years, the American Legion added to the original two-room brick structure.

James A. Dickinson in the Civil War's Brown Water Navy

James A Dickinson

U.S. Mississippi River Squadron

Fortunately for thirteen-year-old James Alpheus Dickinson, zero tolerance was a policy that no one considered in 1863. Had such a disciplinary code existed, the life of this bright but rebellious teen surely would have taken a different course.

The youngest child of U.S. Congressman Rudolphus Dickinson, James grew up fatherless in Fremont, Ohio. His birth occurred just months after his father's untimely death in Washington, D.C. By 1863, ideas of manhood, warfare, and adventure captivated the young boy's imagination. Dickinson ran away from home, planning to enlist in the U.S. Army. His rejection (due to his small size) was undoubtedly a severe disappointment, but Dickinson remained determined to serve his country. He signed on for a year's service in the U.S. Navy. Within a week, he found himself aboard a gunboat patrolling the Mississippi River, fending off the attacks of Rebel guerrillas on Union supply channels.

Dickinson reveled in his newfound freedom. He proudly recorded in his diary incidents of smoking, missing church, and chewing "because all sailors chew tobacco."

Disciplinary measures did not deter Dickinson from jumping ship to enjoy nightlong drinking sprees in towns along the Mississippi. Despite swift, severe punishment, the young sailor continued his wild ways - missing inspections, drinking, enjoying forbidden night swims, and stealing food. Yet he performed his duties admirably. Even with a painful shrapnel injury, he continued to return sniper fire. Dickinson withstood a bullet wound to the knee and endured frozen toes, the result of long hours on guard duty in the cold. He wrote his mother regularly. She responded with her own letters and issues of the Catholic Telegraph.

A year later, his Civil War service complete, the high-spirited Dickinson returned to Fremont where he spent his first few weeks fishing and dancing with his boyhood friends. We can only guess what forces molded the rebellious teen into a man. But at age sixteen, Dickinson took a positive step and entered Notre Dame. He graduated with a law degree in 1869. He practiced law in Fremont until he took a position with the U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C. and then the Department of Labor. While supporting a family, Dickinson returned to school and earned a degree in medicine from Howard University in 1889. He moved to North Carolina where he practiced medicine.

Upon his death in 1922, Dr. James A. Dickinson was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

If you would like to read James A. Dickinson's diary, click here.

One-Eyed Charley Parkhurst's Secret

Charley Darkey Parkhurst

Pioneer Cemetery, Watsonville, California

(Courtesy of Find a Grave)

On December 12, 1879, one of the great “whips” of California’s Gold Rush days died just outside Santa Cruz. Charley Parkhurst, a legend among Wells Fargo stagecoach drivers, passed away quietly, having suffered the ravages of rheumatism and cancer. When friends prepared Parkhurst’s body for burial, they were startled to discover that “Charley” was a woman!

Born in New Hampshire, “Charlotte” Parkhurst spent her early years in an orphanage. The independent teen soon ran away. Dressed as a boy, she found work at a livery stable where she became adept at handling horses. In 1851, a former employer offered her a position driving a stage route amidst California’s gold fields. For the next twenty years, Parkhurst drove for nearly every line around the Mother Lode. Parkhurst confronted robbers, Indians, runaway teams, and narrow mountain passes, eventually gaining a reputation as one of Wells Fargo’s fastest and safest drivers.

A kick from a horse cost Parkhurst an eye. From then on, nearly everyone called the tough little driver “One-Eyed Charley.” Sporting a black patch and a great coat of buffalo hide, Parkhurst drank, chewed, and gambled with the best of them – all the while keeping her secret.

Charley Parkhurst’s name appears on a list of registered voters in the 1868 presidential election of Ulysses S. Grant – some fifty years before women were legally allowed to vote! Californians contend that Parkhurst was the first woman to vote in the state and possibly the first in the nation.

In 1886, the Santa Cruz Surf stated that Charlotte was the daughter of one Frederick M. Parkhurst. Friends attempting to settle Parkhurst’s estate reported that in 1848 Charlotte was living with a Parkhurst family near Sandusky, Ohio. Indeed, the 1850 census of Townsend Twp., Sandusky County, Ohio lists a Charlotte L. Parkhurst, aged 16, living with the prominent Parkhurst family of Sandusky County. Yet, no local descendants have ever been able to place her.

Although the facts of Parkhurst’s early years remain elusive, she continues to hold a unique place in the rich history of California’s wild Gold Rush days. Students examine her extraordinary life in women’s studies courses. A ballad commemorates her Wells Fargo adventures. Women re-enactors drive six-hitch teams over her old Santa Cruz route. And today a monument near her grave declares “One-Eyed Charley” the first woman to vote in the United States.

John Garvin: U. S. Naval Academy Midshipman

John Garvin: U. S. Naval Academy

After helping defend Washington, D.C. during the last months of the Civil War, sixteen- year-old John Garvin of Fremont, Ohio, was certain he wanted a career in the United States Navy. Aided by his older brother Jacob, he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

But aboard the frigate Santee, preparing for his first cruise, he was no longer sure. He wrote his brother, "The midshipmen play some pretty rough practical jokes on the green ones. The naval school is not such a fine thing as people at home think".

A week later, young John was convinced he was entirely unfitted for the Navy. He told Jacob, “My ardor for a military life is completely quenched." He wanted out! Knowing brother Jacob would be a tough sell, John wrote his brother, anticipating his every argument.

John claimed, "We are ordered around like dogs. A person might almost as well be in the States prison. As I do not like it here, I of course will not feel like applying myself much and will possibly fall behind and get expelled." And finally, if those weren't reasons enough to come home, he told Jacob, "The graduates from here are sadly corrupt in their morals and not only swear, chew & smoke, but drink to excess."

The following morning, John wrote again in desperation. This time he used a positive approach. He assured Jacob he would be happy in Fremont. Then, John must have wondered if Jacob might not want him at home? Well - that would be fine too! He pleaded, "IF I ONLY GET AWAY FROM HERE. Please send permission to leave …as I am sick and disgusted with the whole Navy and not merely the school."

Later that same day, desperate and angry, John fired off another letter. This time he issued an ultimatum. If Jacob didn't respond within one week, he would resign with or without his permission!

It must have been a relief to Jacob when the letters stopped coming. Whether the frigate put to sea or young John gave up trying to convince his brother, history does not record. But Garvin continued at the academy and became a fine naval officer, who loved life on the high seas. As he sailed the world, he wrote his brother delightful letters, filled with descriptions of exotic cities, dangerous hurricanes, and life aboard ship.

When not at sea, Garvin taught mathematics at Annapolis and inspected naval weaponry. He returned to Fremont and married Maude Edgerton in 1876. For the next eighteen years, whenever Garvin was stationed at U. S. ports, Maude and the couple’s children traveled there to be with him.

Martha Treat Canfield in the Civil War

Martha Treat Canfield

(General Ralph P. Buckland Collection)

"The ravages, the desolation, the misery, the horrors of war forced us to construct a religion of our own. If there was any heaven, a soldier who had endured the things we endured, would be very liable to go there, no matter if he had never heard of a creed or a catechism,” explained John Lemmon, captain of a company of northwest Ohio soldiers in the Civil War.

Shiloh had taught them harsh lessons: death did not discriminate between young and old, strong and weak, brave and cowardly, or righteous and sinner. Civil War soldiers, of whom 90 percent saw combat, became contemptuous of chaplains who, as Lemmon put it, “did not stay year. All went home long before the war ended.”

Others whom soldiers deemed more virtuous and selfless replaced them as religious counselors. For the 72nd Ohio, Martha Treat Canfield more than any other individual filled that role. She was the wife of Lt. Col. Herman Canfield, killed during the opening moments of the Battle of Shiloh. Despite her own grief, she comforted Julia Grant when her husband General Ulysses S. Grant came under severe criticism following the battle. That relationship gave Martha Canfield unique access to the 72nd and other Ohio regiments on the battlefield at a time when most thought women were “too delicate” for such work.

Intelligent, confident, and courageous, Martha Canfield acted as minister, nurse, and mother to thousands of Ohio soldiers. Captain Orin England of the 72nd claimed, “She did more good than all of the chaplains in the army. If we had one in every brigade, yes, one in every division, how much good they could do!”

With her young son in tow, she visited military hospitals in Memphis and Vicksburg where she found thousands dying for the lack of good food, clean water, and decent care. She sought help from Ohio’s governor and hundreds of aid societies. They responded with a continuous flow of medical supplies, nurses, and food to Union hospitals in the South. Ohioans funded her efforts to establish a hospital ship at Vicksburg and a waterworks system at the Memphis military hospital. “None excelled and few could equal the remarkable Martha Canfield on the battlefield or in the hospital,” claimed one admiring doctor.

When all else failed, she sought out General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant held Martha Canfield in such high regard that on one occasion, on her word alone, he cut through military red tape and ordered several thousand of the sickest soldiers onto boats, sending them North for better care.

When peace finally came, Martha Canfield’s efforts to help the sick and dying did not end. For the remainder of her life, she assisted at the Bristol, Rhode Island, hospital established by her physician sons.

Tragedy Along the Washita

Clara Harrington Blinn

Despite dangers and hardships, thousands of Americans settled in the West in the decade after the Civil War. Among them were Richard and Clara Blinn.

Clara Isabel Harrington was born in Elmore, Ohio, October 21, 1847. She was the daughter of William and Harriet Bosley Harrington, who owned the Baird House in Perrysburg, Ohio. On August 12, 1865, in Sandusky County, she married Civil War veteran Richard Blinn of Perrysburg. The couple spent their wedding night at the Croghan House in Fremont.

The Blinns settled in Colorado Territory, but hard times forced them to join a wagon train returning east to Kansas where Clara's father lived.

On October 9, 1868, near Lamar, Colorado, Cheyenne warriors attacked the train, carrying off Clara and two-year-old Willie Blinn. The warriors left their captives at the winter camp of Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River.

Charge of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on Black Kettle's Village

(Harper's Weekly, December 19, 1868)

General Philip Sheridan ordered George Armstrong Custer to destroy the village in retaliation for raids throughout the region. Black Kettle pleaded for protection for his people from General William Hazen stationed at Fort Cobb. When Hazen learned that Clara and Willie were in Black Kettle's camp, he began negotiations for their release. His superior was of little help; Sheridan believed that Clara had been "subjected to fearful bestiality of perhaps the whole tribe; it is mock humanity to secure what is left of her for the consideration of five ponies."

Clara's feelings were decidedly different than those of Sheridan! A month after her capture, she smuggled a note to Hazen. Clara pleaded desperately for help - if not for herself, then for her son. Believing that her husband had died in the Cheyenne raid, Clara begged that someone notify her father in Franklin, Kansas.

Custer's troops struck the sleeping village before dawn on November 7. Black Kettle, his wife and 100 other Cheyennes died during the short but vicious battle. Two weeks later, Custer, accompanied by Sheridan, returned to the site of the massacre. There among the dead lay Clara - scalped, a bullet hole in her forehead, and her skull crushed. Nearby the generals found the thin, little body of Willie, bearing evidence of bruises about the head. Soldiers buried them at Fort Arbuckle.

Outraged by the deaths of Clara and Willie, General Hazen criticized the generals for attacking during his negotiations. Without eyewitnesses, the official inquiry proved futile.

Richard Blinn survived the Cheyenne raid. He was found on the plains, still searching for his loved ones. In his letter of condolence to Blinn, Sheridan enclosed a piece of Clara's dress and a lock of Willie's hair - remnants of the tragic end of Clara and Willie Blinn.