I stopped by the blockhouse site this morning and work is progressing on the new foundation. The dismantled pieces are laid out inside the pavilion like a big Lincoln Log set. I expected to see signs of work on the new timbers, but evidently that is being done at another site, because there was no sign of any new work here at South Park.
Jacob Barr's portrait hangs in the library at Oak Hill Cottage. Tim McKee made this excellent photo of the oil painting. See later posts about Jacob.
At our Wednesday meeting of the Preservation Commission Dan Seckel reported that test borings for the enlargement of the Renaissance Theater revealed 15 feet of infill. That information rang a bell with me because of a detail I remembered from a letter from 1847 by Robert Bowland. Bowland had built a new home in the "addition" he had developed on West Third Street between Mulberry and where Bowman Street is today. I've circled his house on the map above. (West Market Street is Park Avenue West today.) Here is what he wrote:
The scene outside my back door this morning; and the snow's still coming down. The city has never been quieter.
Here's another extract from Jacob Barr's (Louis Bromfield's Great Grandfather) composition book. I'm not sure of the date, but pre-Civl War and by this poem and other clues, he was in school and in District 5.
[Composition Day]
Is composition day
And I appear as usual here
With something too to say
In olden time the god of rhyme
Was wont to aid the poet
But I don’t claim a poets fame
I’m crazy and I know it
I’ve touched the lyre to please desire
But could not raise a --------
The old concern I mean to burn
And go it all alone
So one and all both great and small
I say prepare for rhyme
Im bound to write although my might
May not give aught sublime
Old Sheakspere once was but a dunce
And learned his abc
And others too but little knew
When they were brats like me
The cabbage plant though small and scant
When young if planted out
Will often grow enough you know
To make a tub of crout
Old number five is just alive
With cabbage plants like me
We’ll thrive I spose but no one know
How large we’ll get to be.
There’s Prude and Cele & Poll & Cal
Armand Liz and Dave
And John and Garn who cannot learn
They’ve tried alas in vain
But mark you I am aiming high
My name a stir creates
I’ll be tis meant next president
Of these united states.
Draft of a Speech on Education Written by Jacob Barr
We claim to love our country and boast to the world of our freedom as though we did not inherit it from the God of the universe. I tell you it is the slave of ignorance that is the slave to tyrants, and if we educate and liberate our minds we will burst every chain and shackle that usurpers seek to enthrall us, and walk forth like men in the world. For an enlightened and intelligent people can never be enslaved.
‘Tis true that we owe our prosperity and happiness in a great measure to the unparalleled struggles of our forefathers whose cultivated minds detected the encroachments of a haughty and oppressive nation, and with resolutions as firm as the pyramids of Egypt they hurled back the insults and chains of old England and declared themselves free and independent. And when I look back through history and behold the dense volumes of sulphrous smoke rolling into heaven mingled with the shriek and groans of the wounded and dying and see the American forces in rags and starvation marching to battle, the blood trickling from their bare feet, marking every footprint in the snow, I thank God that I am an American to walk over the graves of such true hearts and extol their mighty deeds.
And shall we the happy recipients of the priceless boon of freedom transmitted to us pure and spotless by those lion hearts and giant intellects prove ourselves unworthy of the inheritance by ignorance and licentiousness? Lock up your schoolrooms and let two successive generations grow up in utter ignorance and they would cease to be freemen and become the abject subjects and vassals of a king and perhaps be ruled with a rod of iron. The grand machinery of your government is so complicated that it requires a highly developed mind to take hold of the helm and guide the ship of state safely over the surging billows of political excitement and hand it down to our posterity perfect and sound as when it was left to us, and what have the deep thought and foresight of our noble fathers done for the cause of education in Ohio?
By and act of congress in 1803 one 36th part of the land of the state was set apart for the support of common schools, and the money derived from the sale and lease of those lands, besides the interest on the states share of the surplus revenue of the United States and the revenue from banking insurance companies, and with a small amount raised by taxation, form the great school fund of the state of Ohio. And to each district is apportioned every year a sum from the state fund sufficient to defray the expense for 10 months school. Who would not get an education under such circumstances when all that is left for us to do is to take off our coats, roll up our sleeves and pitch in to the books?
And could I elevate and expand your minds so that you could see the beauty and value of it as I see it, as your parents and teacher see it, you would study assiduously. Do you suppose this fine school room was built and furnished at an expense of 8 or 9 hundred dollars merely for your amusement? Nay, verily not, and you will have to account perhaps before you end your career in this world for the manner in which you have improved these precious opportunities. Compare your condition with the condition of the poor African slaves of the south who are born into slavery and drag out a miserable existence in servitude under the lash; no heavenly rays from the gospel are allowed to penetrate the dark recesses of their benighted minds, to loom up the soul with a living hope. No books are allowed to come within their reach from which they may learn the eternal truth that all men are born free and equal. No, they are kept in ignorance. They could not be kept as slaves and they scarcely know that their condition might be better. Or compare an enlightened notion with the savage tribes of the forest if you want to see what education has done. Do you see among them the huge steam boat with two or three hundred tons burden sailing up the river or plowing the deep at the rate of 2 hundred miles in twenty four hours, or do you see large cities churches school mills manufactories canals railroads and telegraphs? No. The birch bark canoe is their steam boat. The bow and arrow, tomahawk, and scalping knife are their implements and weapons, rude wigwams their mansions, and the furs of animals their dress, and yet they can learn as fast as you can when they have the same chances. How easy is it to get an education at the present day? Look at the advantages we enjoy. We have all the inventions, discoveries, and improvements of the world for more than two thousand years past and we seldom think of the toil, energy, and deep thought it has cost intellectuals to discover and establish the shining truths that we have in our possession. How long do you suppose it took man to sail on every sea and traverse every land to discover all the islands, bays, gulfs, lakes, rivers, and measure their length, ascend all the mountains and measure their height, and horizon; have it all nicely compiled in your geography and you can learn all about the world in two or three months.
-Draft ends uncompleted-
