Monday, August 29, 2011

Found Tombstone

The Marietta Daily Times, July 18, 1904

Found Tombstone While Digging foundation for a Building.

A rather peculiar find was made by laborers who were digging the foundation for the new residence of W. S. Allender on Gilman street Saturday.

Imbedded a few feet beneath the foundation of an old house was found a tombstone lying face down which bore the following inscription:

"Elizabeth, wife of A. I. Stone died July 5, 1840, aged 24 years, 10 months and 13 days.  Also her infant twins, Elizabeth died Oct. 8, 1840 aged 3 months and Augustus I., died Oct. 11, 1840 aged 3 months."

The face of the stone was not weather worn in the least and owing to this fact it is thought that the stone had never been erected.

*  *  *  *  *
Marietta Intelligencer, July 9, 1840

Died - At Harmar, on Sunday, the 5th inst., in the 24th year of her age, Mrs. Elizabeth Spencer Stone, wife of Mr. Augustus I. Stone, and only daughter of the late Samuel Selden Spencer, of Vienna, Virginia.



Thursday, August 4, 2011

New School Building

The Marietta Intelligencer, August 9, 1849

We notice the walls of a large brick building going up, near the Universalist Church on Second Street.  We understand it to be designed for a school building, to be called the "Western Liberal Institute."  The building will accommodate 180 pupils.  The second story is to be occupied as a female School, and the lower story for a Male School.

Between our Union Schools, Academies, Female Seminaries, and the College, there is hardly a town in the west that enjoys so many advantages for acquiring a thorough education as Marietta.  The "Institute" will in a few months be added to the list of schools now in operation here, and we may reasonably expect that with all these educational privileges, and a location which the history of the last twenty five years proves to be more healthy than almost any other in Ohio, the number of those who seek a residence here for the purpose of educating their families will be greatly increased.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Fast Day

The Marietta Intelligencer, August 9, 1849

The observance of this day in Marietta, was very general among all classes of citizens.  A single groggery was kept open, but with that exception we understand that every store and shop was closed.  Religious services were held in all the churches, and the attendance upon them was very general.

We are sorry to add, that late in the evening the quiet of the good people at the corner of Front and Greene Streets was disturbed by a drunken roisterer, who mounted the old boiler and for half an hour spouted profanity and obscenity at Old Zach, the whigs, the abolitionists, and every body and thing - save the unterrified, and unwashed, democracy.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Death of a Noted Character - William Snively

The Marietta Register, December 19, 1878

Last week, at his home, on the Little Muskingum, near the small post-town of Bloomfield, Washington county, there died one of the most noted characters of this part of Ohio, William Snively.  He located on the Little Muskingum over fifty years ago, and took up one hundred and sixty acres of land, all of which with the exception of a small potato patch is uncleared, and as wild as when he first located it.  A man of great mechanical genius, he built a forge, and was noted among the honest class of people as a splendid blacksmith and gun-maker.  But his talents were not entirely devoted to a legitimate avocation, for he, in a very few years acquired a reputation as one of the most skillful counterfeiters west of the mountains.  He was too smart to attempt the passage of the spurious money, but his location was known to every counterfeiter and horse thief in Ohio and West Virginia, who made his house and the many secret hiding places he had scattered around through the woods, a rendezvous to get counterfeit money, and hide stolen goods. 

Of a very miserly and avaricious disposition, he was never known to spend a cent of money for the commonest necessaries of life.  He has been known to eat a frugal meal of corn bread and milk, in the morning and walk to Marietta and back, a distance of twenty-two miles each way, and carry back with him fifty or a hundred pounds of iron, and without breaking his fast.  For the last fifteen years he has added largely to his hoarded gains by the illicit distilling of liquor. 

He died at the age of eighty-five, after an illness of but a few days, and what is the most harrowing to his relatives and has aroused the curiosity of the community, is that he went into eternity without revealing where his hoarded wealth was stored, the lowest estimate of which is $100,000, and up as high as $250,000.  For many a year to come treasure hunters will be found at the dead hour of night digging into the bowels of what as once his land, in the remote hope of securing and enjoying the counterfeiter-miser's ill-gotten wealth.  [Cincinnati Commercial.]

All but the $100,000.  A man of that kind would be satisfied with saving 25 cents a day, and no interest entering into the count, it is easy to see how fast he would accumulate.  He may have had $2,000 or $3,000 hid away.

The Marietta Register, December 26, 1878:

William Snively Again.

Last week, we published an interesting extract from the Cincinnati Commercial, giving certain statements regarding Mr. Snively, of Bloomfield, that need correcting in some things.  A gentleman, who knew him well, says the charge of his harboring horse-thieves, and being such an adept counterfeiter, is groundless.  He died Nov. 26th, aged eighty-five years, and was living at that time with William Pool, his grandson, to whom he deeded his land and all his property, some two years before, in consideration that Pool should care for him during his lifetime.  He had five grand-children in this county, named Girts, to whom nothing was given.  The stories of his great wealth must be attributed to a lively imagination.

The Marietta Times, January 2, 1879:

Mr. Snively Again.

Bloomfield, O., Dec. 17th, 1878.

Editor Times:

An article appeared in the Noble County Republican, of Dec. 5th, which purports to give the biography of a deceased citizen of this place, Mr. Snively.  The writer of that article was certainly ignorant of the facts in the history of the deceased, or else maliciously sought to cast undue reproach on the memory of the dead, and to inflict a lasting and stinging wound on the relatives and friends of the deceased.

That Mr. Snively was a strange character, no person will pretend to deny.  That the public may rightly understand why his character was strange, we will givea few facts i the history of his life:  He was a German by decent, and came here from Belmong county, O., over fifty years ago, and entered 160 acres of land, built a comfortable house, planted a good orchard, cleared about twenty acres of land, which for some years, he cultivated with skill and judgment.  He reared a family of four daughters, all of whom are dead.  He was once a man of great genius, activity and power of endurance.  He has been known to walk a distance of 60 miles in a day.  About thirty years ago his mind became engrossed with the idea of perpetual motion, and for several years he labored to invent it.  About this time he conceived an idea that with the aid of the wings of a turkey he could fly, and it is said that he made several attempts to accomplish his wild fancy.  He has frequently been known to start on foot to Baltimore to learn how to salt pork.  for the last twenty-five years he has been considered insane by all who knew him, and allowed to pursue his wild fancies at will.

He never was accused until accused by the Republican of being in any way connected with horse thieves or secreting stolen goods of any kind.

We acknowledge ourselves under obligations to the Republican for information concerning that enormous sum of money buried by this poor old man.  The citizens of this locality might have remained ignorant of it had it not been for the Republican.  We do not know any treasure hunters who feel in the least inclined to search for it, and perhaps the bowels of the earth may remain undisturbed for years unless that Noble Sluet will give more definite information about it.

Justice


Monday, August 1, 2011

Daniel Hovey - Obituary

American Friend, December 11, 1823

Died, in Sutton township, Meigs County, Ohio, on the 4th instant, Mr. Daniel Hovey, aged 19 years, a native of New York, and eldest son of Mr. Eleazer Hovey, (formerly of Richmond, Ontario county, and Patentee of Hovey's celebrated Shearing Machine, of great repute among Clothiers and Manufacturers in the United States,) and for a few years past a resident of the state of Indiana.

It is seldom in obituary notices that we have it in our power to speak with such satisfaction of the virtues and amiable qualities of individuals, as of those of this promising and worthy young man.  With a temper and disposition formed by nature to conciliate and please, he secured the friendship of his numerous acquaintances, whilst his correct and unexceptional conduct inspired confidence and procured respect.

On his arrival in this place he was employed as a School teacher, in which situation he continued but about three months, at which time he was more severely attacked with the consumption and confined to his room, where he continued till the time of his decease.  In his death the public have sustained a loss which cannot be easily repaired, and his pupils and examplary instructor; independent of the feelings of friendship and regard, fostered and produced by time and education.  He was an extraordinary natural genius; a poet, painter and engraver; he excelled most painters of our acquaintance, in Portrait, Landscape and Miniature Paintings; in poetry we have but little to judge from, his last production appeared in the 11th number of the "Marietta Gazette" (October 9th,) with the initials of his name, and wrote since his confinement to his death bed; as engraver, his last specimen, (and the only one in  letter press, ) appeared in the "American Friend" No. 52, Vol. 7th, (June 19th, 1823).  Though he had but few relations in this place to consecrate his ashes with their tears, yet the sorrow and regret of his more numerous acquaintances and friends accompanied his earthly remains to the grave.  In the death of childhood there is little interest, in that of age there is nothing unnatural or unexpected; but the fall of youth, just opening into manhood, awakens the tenderest sympathies and emotions of our hearts.  Thus we pass unheeded the mouldering trunk of the once vigorous and majestic oak which has fallen beneath the weight of years, whilst we pause, and contemplate, with pity, the prostrate ruins of the youthful magnolia, which grew in solitary beauty, but which fell, with all the foliage and fragrance of its expanding blossoms, beneath the sweeping tempest.

Communicated.

                                          American Friend, June 19, 1823