New Council to Furnish Post Quarters

The Marietta Daily Times, December 4, 1931

Further effort to provide financial aid by the city for members of the colored post of the American Legion will be left to Mayor Steadman and the City Council that will take office on January 1. This was decided at a regular meeting of City Council held Thursday evening. All members were present and the final report on the matter was offered by Gerald M. Schuff, chairman of a special committee to which the request of the Legionnaires was referred a month ago.

Colored members of the Legion asked that the city give them the same sort of help that has been given to members of Marietta Post which has free rent for its quarters in the city building at Front and Butler streets. The colored post's headquarters are located in private property and the annual rental of $120 is said to be a burden, particularly in view of the fact that the post is a small one.

A partial report was given to City Council two weeks ago at which time there was discussion of authorizing an annual expenditure of any sum not in excess of $600. This was so much more than the Legionnaires had requested that unfavorable comment resulted. Now it has been decided to let the next administration, which must finance the program, work out the solution.

Chairman Schuff said Thursday evening that the city has a room in the building where the Chamber of Commerce, the city electric plant and Marietta Post American Legion are located and it is believed that this can be made available for the post. Mayor Steadman and Service Director Campbell have indicated that this can be done. Such a solution will provide quarters that are well located and at but small expense to the city, it is said.

The council approved the committee's recommendation to refer the whole matter for further investigation.

 

Letter of Esau Harris

The Crisis, July 1912

I am pleased to know we have such a paper as The Crisis. If the whole family of colored newspapers were more like it, how much better it would be for our race. Here in the community we have settled the "Race Problem," and some of our people, in fact most all, are shortsighted enough to think it is settled everywhere. There is some friction here, but it amounts to just the same as if they were all one - in fact, there is more trouble between colored and colored and white and white than between colored and white - a quarrel or fight between the two races being rare. The farmers in each race do not hesitate to exchange work and sit at each others' tables, and they trade as freely as if each were all white or all colored. I have no complaint at home, but let me travel away, then I find that there is a "Race Problem," and that "Race Problem" will have to be settled in some way.

Esau Harris

Cutler, Ohio

[The Crisis, official publication of the NAACP, was founded in 1910 by W.E.B. Du Bois. It is a journal of civil rights, history, politics and culture related to African American issues.]

 

Young Couple of Newport Run Away

The Marietta Daily Times, December 1, 1931:

Marietta police and the sheriff and county court officers were appealed to Tuesday by the parents of Miss Mabel Taylor, attractive Newport high school girl, in an effort to locate her and help prevent what is believed by them to be an elopement wherein the Taylor girl and Byron Burton, also of Newport, are the principals.

Miss Taylor, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Taylor, is a member of the sophomore class at Newport High School. She is said to have left home at the usual time to go to school this morning but did not appear at the school building. Investigation is said to have developed the fact that young Burton, son of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Burton of Newport, also had disappeared.

Report of the disappearance of the young couple, each of whom is 16 years old, spread quickly throughout the village and it is said to have been learned that they, in company with a well known Newport woman, had driven away shortly before 9 o'clock.

Authorities here and in adjoining counties on both sides of the river were notified by the parents of the girl and they were asked to prevent the issuance of a marriage license. The girl was described as an attractive blonde, dressed in a green suit, hat and shoes to match and wearing a tan coat. 

The young couple and their companion are said to be traveling in a Chevrolet coach, and local officers were directing the search at noon today toward the state of Maryland to which they may have gone.

Burton and Miss Taylor are said to have been sweethearts for several years, having until recently attended the same school.

Mother of Runaway Girl Files Charges

The Marietta Daily Times, December 3, 1931:

Mrs. Agnes Taylor of Newport, whose daughter, Mabel Taylor, 16, Newport High School girl, is alleged to have run away from home with Byron Burton, a 16 year old boy, came to Marietta today to urge the sheriff and other officers to renew their efforts to find her daughter.

"Go ask about them at the court house; go out and search the roads; do something to find them," the mother is said to have urged as she talked to local officers. Sheriff Thorn conducted an extended investigation of the case Tuesday afternoon and evening. Deputy Sheriff Mossburg was still at work on the case today.

Mrs. Taylor declared she would make somebody suffer for the "wrong done me" and went before Judge Frank F. Fleming in Probate Court where she swore out a warrant charging Byron Burton and George Delong with contributing to the delinquency of Mabel Taylor. The warrant was placed in the sheriff's hands to be served.

Delong's name was connected with the case upon authority of Mrs. Taylor. She told officials here that Delong and his wife assisted the young couple in their elopement and took them in their automobile.

Elopers Are Married in Oakland, Maryland

The Marietta Daily Times, December 4, 1931:

Byron Burton and Mabel Taylor, 16 year old Newport young folks whose elopement Tuesday morning created a sensation in their home village, were married at Oakland, Maryland, Tuesday afternoon. They are in hiding in West Virginia, awaiting parental blessings before they return home.

Mr. and Mrs. George Delong of Newport Township, who accompanied the young folks to Maryland, returned home Thursday evening. They told friends of the bride and groom about the marriage and informed them that they drove Mr. and Mrs. Byron Burton back to Wheeling, West Virginia, where they left them at noon on Thursday. They would not say definitely whether the young couple had remained in Wheeling or in some nearby city or town.

As soon as Delong and his wife reached home and learned that a warrant was in the hands of the sheriff for the bridegroom and Delong, the latter took steps to retain counsel and early Friday morning he came to Marietta and surrendered to the sheriff. Attorney C. C. Middleswart will defend him.

Arrangements were made to continue the case until Wednesday of next week, and an agreement was made by Attorney Middleswart to bring both Burton and Delong into court at that time to face the charge made by the mother of the bride that they had contributed to the daughter's delinquency.

"Plans for the wedding had been underway for several months," Delong said at the sheriff's office on Friday. Burton and Miss Taylor decided to go to Oakland, Maryland, and the Delongs readily agreed to accompany them. They knew how to proceed, Delong told the sheriff. "You know we were married at Oakland," Delong explained, "and we knew just where to take them."

The youthful Mrs. Burton was a sophomore at the Newport High School.

Rufus Putnam House

Sunday Morning Observer, September 30, 1917

The Rufus Putnam house, standing at the corner of Second and Washington streets, is probably second to the oldest house in the entire state and in the early days of the pioneers this historic old building housed the first school founded in Marietta. The building, which was one of the Campus Martius houses, was erected in the summer and fall of 1788.

It was built as a residence for General Rufus Putnam, facing on Washington Street and next adjoining the southeast corner of the block house. After the Indian War, General Putnam enlarged and improved the residence. Several years later he tore down a part of the block house and used a portion of it to build a wing kitchen on the Second Street side of his home. It was to this house he moved his family in 1790 and it was there he resided until his death in May, 1824.

During his life in Marietta, General Putnam had no other residence, except in the early summer of 1788 when he domiciled in his tent at "The Point," near the A. T. Nye and Son foundry.

Two years after the death of General Putnam, Arius Nye moved with his family into the house at the corner of Second and Washington streets. In 1831 he purchased the property from the heirs of Rufus Putnam. He made his home there until his death, July, 1865.

The last piece of wood from the old blockhouse was removed from the grounds in 1847, when Mr. Nye tore from his house the wing kitchen. At this time all the other buildings of the historic old fort had been removed.

Contrary to the belief of many Mariettans, the Rufus Putnam house was never a block house. It is now the Chapter House of the Daughters of the Revolution.