More Ohio Newspapers on their Way to Chronicling America!

The Ohio Historical Society is pleased to announce that we have received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue our participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program into 2014. That means another 100,000 pages of Ohio’s historic newspapers will be made freely available and keyword searchable at the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America!

As part of our new grant round, we will be digitizing a small run of a German language newspaper from Cincinnati, the Tägliches Cincinnatier Volksblatt, from 1914 to 1918. This will be one of the first German language newspapers to be added to Chronicling America.

The 31 other papers that will be joining Chronicling America represent 25 counties around the state:

• The Kalida Venture (1845-1854)
• Maumee Express from Maumee City (1837-1840)
• Napoleon Northwest (1881-1897)
• Ashland Union (1852-1871)
• Fremont Freeman (1849-1853)
• Plymouth Advertiser (1853-1855)
• Wyandot Pioneer from Upper Sandusky (1845-1873)
• Medina Sentinel (1914-1921)
• Wellington Enterprise (1879-1899)
• Democratic Press from Ravenna (1868-1895)
• Portage County Democrat from Ravenna (1859-1864)
• Portage Sentinel from Ravenna (1845-1862)
• Western Courier from Ravenna (1837)
• Ohio Star from Ravenna (1852-1854)
• Cadiz Sentinel (1844-1868)
• Carroll Free Press from Carrollton (1836, 1841-1858)
• Ohio Democrat from Canal Dover (1839-1845, 1863)
• True American from Steubenville (1855-1858)
• Delaware Gazette (1858-1871)
• Lancaster Gazette (1847-1870)
• Somerset Press (1873-1882)
• Eaton Democrat (1854-1877)
• Greenville Journal (1907-1918)
• Cincinnati Star (1875-1880)
• Democratic Standard from Georgetown (1840-1845)
• Organ of the Temperance Reform from Cincinnati (1852-1854)
• Jackson Standard (1853-1888)
• Meigs County Telegraph from Pomeroy (1851-1866)
• The Portsmouth Inquirer (1850-1855)
• Spirit of the Times from Ironton (1853-1856)
• Spirit of Democracy from Woodsfield (1844-1886)

This content will be made available online over the next two years, bringing Ohio’s total contribution to the site to 67 titles from 52 counties—over 300,000 pages! Be sure to check back here for announcements regarding when new Ohio papers are added to Chronicling America!

The National Digital Newspaper Program is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress and state projects to provide enhanced access to United States newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. NEH awards support state projects to select and digitize historically significant titles that are aggregated and permanently maintained by the Library of Congress. As part of the project, the Ohio Historical Society contributed 200,000 newspaper pages to the project over a four year period ending August 2012 and will contribute an additional 100,000 pages by the end of August 2014. For more information about the National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio and Ohio’s digitized newspapers, please visit the Ohio Digital Newspaper Portal or our Project Wiki.

J. Salamon, Project Coordinator

OHS in the News

OHS Museums are Making Headlines!

Roof Repairs in Marietta
Big Museum Job, Massive Crane Used to Replace Huge Skylight at Campus Martius

Click here for hours and directions to Campus Martius.

WOSU Interviews Sharon Dean, Director of Museums, about the Faces of Appalachia Exhibit
Ohio Historical Society Appalachia Photographs

Click here for hours and directions to visit the Ohio History Center.

I Found It In the Archives Contest: Finalist Sharen Bowers

Finalist: Sharen Bowers

To place your vote click here.

Sharen Bowers

During one of my family history research quests at the Ohio Historical Archives/Library, I was fast forwarding through microfilm of an old Scio, Harrison County, Ohio newspaper, The Scio Weekly Herald, looking for an obituary. I would stop occasionally and check the date when a headline caught my eye. “Scio Boy’s Sad Death” it read. And a sub-heading, “Found in Urbana Bleeding and Unconscious.” The first sentence stunned me. “The remains of Charles Mellish arrived here on Panhandle 10 yesterday.” I immediately realized that I was reading an article about my paternal grandma’s brother, my Great-uncle Charles, whose fate I’d never known.

The story told how young Charles had left Scio two weeks earlier with his cousin to take a team of horses to Oblong, Illinois. The boys planned to stay and find work. As it turned out his cousin stayed but Charles wanted to come home. He had no money so he tried “riding the rails.” Charles got as far as Urbana, Champaign County, Ohio where he met his tragic end. He was struck in the head with something very heavy as to leave him with a severely fractured skull, unconscious and near death. He was found beside a boxcar on a cold, rainy May morning in 1908 lying face down in a pool of blood.

They tried to save him but he passed a few days later without ever regaining consciousness. A follow up article in the Citizen and Gazette Urbana, Ohio newspaper, told of the murder investigation, my great-uncle’s injuries graphically (I just cried inside) and a possible suspect who they released due to lack of evidence. What left a lump in my throat was an account of how the good citizens of Urbana, under the leadership of Irving Armpriester, took up a collection to pay for the transportation of the body back to his poor family in Scio for burial. Fortunately, they had found a letter in Charles’ pocket with his name and address on it. Charles carried no other identification.

I believe Charles wanted me to find him that day in the archives. How else can I explain that I just happened to stop on the page of his story while whirling through the microfilm? Charles is buried in Grandview Cemetery in Scio, Harrison County, Ohio in an unmarked grave. I hope to locate his grave and buy a headstone. Charles was only 18 years old but I don’t want his life to go unnoted. I found Great-uncle Charles in the archives and I never want him lost again.

I Found It In the Archives Contest Finalist: Doug Tracy

Finalist: Doug Tracy

To place your vote click here.

Doug Tracy

I grew up knowing little about my family’s history. However, for some inexplicable reason, one extremely vague story did stick with me over the years – a strange tale about an unnamed ancestor who was last seen walking into a burning a building in Toledo. Four years ago, surrendering to a single moment of curiosity about my ancestors, I soon found myself spending countless hours of treasure-hunting in the Ohio Historical Society Archives – an ancestral ‘magical mystery tour’ that I never planned, leading to discoveries I could never have imagined.

The first surprise discovery was that there actually was a real Detective Tracy, my great-grandfather, with the Toledo Police Department from 1898-1921. He was often front-page news during his career and left behind a trail of hundreds of newspaper articles about his adventures in the rowdy pre-Prohibition days in Toledo. From micro-filmed newspapers at OHS, I was able to compile his story into a series of three coffee-table books, now housed in the Toledo Police Museum.

Next, the name ‘Fraser’, mentioned in a short Toledo newspaper article about Detective Tracy, led me to another unexpected discovery: the tragic, yet inspiring, story of Detective Tracy’s uncle, Captain James Fraser, a Toledo firefighter, Irish immigrant, and Civil War veteran who died in the 1894 King-Quale Elevator fire that nearly destroyed all of downtown Toledo. In that fire, Fraser’s partner, Alfred Blaine, was with Captain Fraser in the room when it exploded. Miraculously surviving the devastation, Blaine was able to graphically describe Fraser’s last moments, as Fraser faded forever into the smoke – clearly the event that was the essence of that hazy childhood story that I had carried with me all these years.

Despite sifting through the steaming ashes for many days, Fraser’s remains were never found – only a partially melted brass fire hose nozzle and two melted brass suspender buckles. To this day Fraser’s remains lie beneath the sod and concrete of Toledo’s Promenade Park, unbeknownst to park visitors.

Captain Fraser’s story inspired me to document all of it in a book, now housed in the Toledo Firefighters Museum, and more importantly, to apply for an Ohio Historical Marker (#48-61), which was approved in April of 2012. The marker is now temporarily housed in the Toledo Firefighters Museum, awaiting its permanent placement in Toledo’s Promenade Park in the spring of 2013.

All of this from a single moment of curiosity.

I Found It In the Archives Contest: George E. Biggs

Finalist: George E. Biggs

To place your vote click here.

George E. Biggs

According to the death certificate of my second great grandfather, Nathaniel Keeran, he was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, 11 December 1801. I previously found his father, Reuben Keeran, my third great grandfather in the 1830 Federal Census, in Pleasant Township, Fairfield County. However, I have never been able to find information about any of Nathaniel’s siblings. Until, that is, one day in December 2012 I was at the Ohio Historical Society Library/Archives in Columbus.

The first document I found was an abstract of Fairfield County Indentures. In this abstract I found a mention of the indenture of a John Keeran, but no further information. With the help of one of the Archivists, we were able to locate the full indenture record.

“This indenture made this 31st day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty seven Between Ruben Keeran and of the county of Fairfield of one part and Charles Mytinger of said county of the other part. Witnesseth (sic) that the said John Keeran voluntary (sic) and with the approval of the said Ruben Keeran his Father hath put placed and bound himself and by these presents doth put place and bind himself to be an apprentice with him the said Charles Mytinger to well for and during the term of three years and ten months…”

“Charles Mytinger will well and truly instruct the said John Keeran in the art and mystery of a Taylor…”

This document linked John Keeran to Reuben Keeran as his son, and as a brother to my second great grandfather, Nathaniel.

The second document I found was an 1831 Quadrennial Enumerations, Fairfield County, Ohio. These enumerations list the names of all males 21 years of age and older living in the county. It was in this document that I found the names of Reuben, Nathaniel, and William Keeran in Pleasant Township. This established William as a son of Reuben and a sibling of Nathaniel. What happened to John has yet to be determined. This also gave me my first knowledge of William and allowed me to find other information about him in other sources.

The Ohio Historical Society Library/Archives has been a extremely valuable resource to me in my research over the years, but the findings cited here have provided me with tremendous leads to enable me to further my research.

Vote for Your Favorite Finalist in the “I Found It In the Archives” Contest

Vote now for one of our three finalists!

The voting will be open until the close of business on February 26th. We will announce the winner on February 28th.

Thank you so much for participating in the 2013 “I Found It In the Archives” Contest!

L. Wood, Curator for Visual Resources
L. Long, Reference Archivist

Free Access to the Siebert Collection During African American History Month

In celebration of the heroes of the Underground Railroad, Ohio Memory and the Ohio Historical Society are excited to announce that we will be providing free digital access to the internationally-acclaimed Wilbur H. Siebert Collection during this year’s Black History Month! Throughout the month of February, the public can view the over-5,000 items in the collection without the normally-required subscription, taking advantage of full-text search capabilities for all written documents, and zooming and panning of the historical materials and images.

Formal portrait of history professor Wilbur H. Siebert.

The original collection has been held by the Ohio Historical Society’s Archives/Library since 1946, and is made up of items that were compiled by Wilbur H. Siebert, a former history professor at The Ohio State University from 1891 until 1935. His research material on the Underground Railroad, collected over a period of 50 years with the assistance of his students, includes survey responses, interviews and copies of notes from books, diaries, letters, photographs, newspapers, biographies, memoirs, speeches, annual reports, trial records, census records, legislation and more. A bit more history comes to us courtesy of the collection’s finding aid:

Finding that students in his American history classes were “inclined to be restless
and inattentive, [Siebert] decided to arouse their interest over a mysterious and romantic subject that was rich in adventure.” There were only four books devoted to the subject in 1891, but Siebert’s students had heard about the Underground Railroad from their parents and grandparents. The students provided names and addresses of individuals who might have first-hand knowledge of the Underground Railroad. Siebert developed a seven-question circular to generate information. During vacations, Siebert traveled Underground Railroad routes, conducted interviews, and kept extensive research notes. After his retirement, Siebert collected his research materials and bound them in volumes according to geographic location. At age 80, Siebert took an office at the Ohio State Museum, where he wrote his final book, “The Mysteries of Ohio’s Underground Railroads” (1951).

Tune into the Digital Collections News Feed for examples of unique items in this collection.

Subscriptions to the Siebert Collection provide year-round support of both the digital and physical collections, as well as improve access to the extensive collections, archives and library services of OHS. Organizations or individuals interested in access to the collection beyond the free-access period in February 2013 should contact the Ohio Historical Society for further information at images@ohiohistory.org. Discount pricing is available for Ohio Historical Society members.