Mr. DALZELL was the originator and author of the popular Soldiers” union, now held annually in all parts of the country.  Mr. DALZELL takes great pride in his work in behalf of John GRAY, the last soldier of the Revolution. In 1888 Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, published a volume entitled “Private Dalzell.”  It contains “My Autobiography,” “My War Sketches,” etc., and “John Gray.”  It is an interesting and valuable publication.  We quote a retrospect of his political life.  “In an evil hour, in the summer of 1885, I foolishly accepted a nomination to the Legislature, was elected, and there ended my prosperity.  After the election, in October, my name was in all the papers, congratulations poured in on me from every quarter, and I was invited to take the stump in Pennsylvania, which I did, at a great waste of time and money.  I thought nothing of it then.  It was only when, years after, I looked into an empty flour barrel and hungry children’s faces and felt in my empty pockets, that I fully apprehended my folly.  Four years I now spent in the maelstrom of politics, whirled and tossed about at the caprice of fortune, without any power to control it.  I look back on it with pain, . . .It is a grand game, and none but grand men need try to play it.  Let men of moderate abilities like myself, keep out of it if they would escape the chagrin and mortification of failure, accentuated with the pangs of poverty.”

 

            His father fell at White Plains, and he, then only about sixteen years of age, promptly volunteered, took up the musket that had fallen from his father’s hands and carried it until the war was over.  He was in a skirmish at Williamsburg and was one of the one hundred and fifty men on that dangerous but successful expedition of Mayor Ramsey.  He was also at Yorktown at the final surrender, which event occurred in his eighteenth year.  He was mustered out at Richmond, Virginia, at the close of the war and returned to field labor near Mount Vernon, his first day’s work after his muster out being performed for General Washington at Mount Vernon. Mr. GRAY married twice in Virginia and once in Ohio.  He survived his three wives and all his children, except one daughter, who has since died over eighty years of age, and with whom he resided in Noble county, Ohio, at the time of his death.  In 1795 Mr. GRAY left Mount Vernon and crossing the mountains settled at Grave creek.  Here he remained until Ohio was admitted to the Union, when he removed to what is now Noble county.  Mr. GRAY was not illiterate; he learned to read and write before entering the Revolutionary army.  In disposition he was quiet, kindly and generous; a good Christian, having joined the Methodist church at twenty-five years of age, and was for seventy-eight years a regular attendant.

                His means of support was earned by farm labor.  When in his old age, poor and infirm, Congress granted him a pension of $500 per annum.  The bill providing this was introduced in the House in 1866, by Hon. John A. Bingham.  This tardy act of justice to the old hero was the result of efforts in his behalf by Hon. J. M. DALZELL, whose kindly interest and generous efforts to make comfortable and peaceful the last years of Mr. GRAY are highly honorable to him.  

                Mr. DALZELL has published a full and complete account of John GRAY’S career and it is to this work that we are chiefly indebted for the sketch here given.   

                On the occasion of Mr. DALZELL’S last interview with John GRAY, he asked if he were not growing fatter than when he last saw him.  “Oh, no,” laughingly replied Mr. GRAY, “we old men don’t fatten much on hog and hominy and the poor tobacco we get now-a-days.”

                Mr. GRAY had used tobacco about a hundred years and knew something of its virtues as a solace, for later in the interview, speaking of deprivations in the past, he said: “I sometimes have had nothing else but a dog,” and musing a moment he added, “a plug of tobacco, of course; for without a dog or tobacco I should feel lost.”  

                This simple, inoffensive, kind-hearted old hero died of old age, in his one-story, hewed-log house, near Hiramsburg, where he had resided the last forty years or more of his life.  His funeral services were held in a grove near his home, with an audience of more than a thousand people present and presided over by several clergymen, the principal speaker being Capt. Hoagland, of the 9^th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, a minister of the Protestant Methodist church.  

                He was buried some two hundred and fifty yards north of the house in which he lived and died, in a family graveyard containing about thirty of his relatives and family connections.  Near his remains lie those of two of his relatives, Samuel Halley and Gillespie David; the first fought under General Harrison at Fort Meigs during the war of 1812, the other died in the war of the Rebellion.  Thus the heroes of three wars and of the same family lie side by side.

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(Source: Educational History of Ohio by James J. Burns.  Published 1905)

LEROY D. BROWN

Lerov D. Brown was born in Noble county, Ohio , November 3, 1848, and at a very early age developed the reading habit which so prominently characterized his entire life. In the old township library which was found in his neighborhood he had access to a few of the best books and soon made himself conversant with them. He was especially interested in biography, history and travel. In addition to this valuable habit he also learned, at an early age. in the school of hard manual labor, on the farm, to depend upon his own personal efforts for success, and to respect and honor all those who toil.

At the age of fifteen, having been prohibited by his father from entering the army, he ran away from home and in January, 1864, enlisted as a member of Company H, 116 O. V. I., in which company he served until the end of the war.

Upon his return from the army he again entered the district school which he attended for a short time and then began more advanced work in the graded school at Senecaville , Ohio . During the winter of 1866-1867 he taught school in a district adjoining the one he had attended as a pupil a few years before. The following spring he entered an academy at Athens , Ohio , where he made partial preparation for college. In 1869 he became a student in the Preparatory Department of the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware . Ohio , from which institution he afterward graduated. He was compelled to work his way through college and to enable him to do this he devoted considerable time to teaching. In 1871 he was appointed county examiner in his native county. In this county he was associated with John M. Amos, now editor of the Cambridge Jeffcrsonian, in the management of a normal school which proved to be very successful. Perhaps no man in Ohio knew more of the real inward life and character of Mr. Brown than Mr. Amos. In 'a recent editorial he speaks of him as follows: "No man who ever lived was more worthy of the closest and most intimate relations or personal friendship. He was true as tempered steel: able, energetic, amiable, shrewd, and forceful, he left the impress of his labor and of his character wherever he lived and worked."

In referring to the normal school to which attention has already been called, Mr. Amos says: "While yet a very young man he was sought out and employed as my associate in a normal school in Caldwell, and when thus employed he walked nearly all over the county talking with boys and girls and their parents, and as a result when the school opened over one hundred young men and women came forward as students. His energy was marvelous. His courage indomitable."

In the fall of 187.'! Mr. Brown took charge of the graded school at Newport , Ohio , and in a short lime had so thoroughly organized and systematized the work that the office of superintendent w-as created and he was elected to fill the position. His work here was so successful that he was called in 1874 to the superintendency of the Belpre, Ohio , schools, and in 1875 to the superintendency at Eaton , Ohio . It was in this position that the writer, who was then teaching his first country school, formed his acquaintance, and his helpfulness and kindness can never be forgotten. He was not only always ready but also anxious to render assistance to the teachers who were beneath him in position but who gave evidence of an honest desire to merit success. He never forgot his own early struggles and on this account kept in close touch with the younger members of the teaching profession.

In 1879 he was elected to the position of superintendent of public schools at Hamilton , Ohio , and in 1881 was re-elected for a term of two years. He held this position until January 1, 1884. when he entered the office of State Commissioner of Common Schools to which he had been elected in the preceding October.

He was untiring in his attention to all the calls of duty in this office where her calls are many and various, until the end of his term, July, 1887, when he moved to Alliance , Ohio , where he was engaged for a short time in the banking business. He then went to Reno , Nevada , to accept the presidency of the State University . He was afterwards superintendent of schools at Los Angeles , California . His declining health made it necessary for him to confine his work to a smaller sphere the last few years of his life, but he never lost any of the intense zeal which had characterized him in his days of better health and strength. He was an active member of educational associations, county, state and national and served as a school examiner in nearly every county in which he taught. He was appointed by President Harrison, Visitor to West Point, and in many ways not enumerated here he showed that he was not only interested in educational work of all kinds, but was also worthy of the honors conferred upon him work of teaching in Ohio, and taught in district and private schools until 1841, when he became connected with the Western Reserve Teachers' Seminary, of which Dr. Lord was then principal. Here he met with many who had taught in the public schools, or were preparing to teach, and his attention was thus turned to consider the defects in the common school system. From 1845 and onward, Mr. Cowdery labored faithfully in the interests of the schools of the state, attending nearly all the earlier institutes, meeting with others at Akron , in 1847, to organize the State Teachers' Association, instructing in the normal class at Norwalk . and everywhere laboring by word and work, to infuse into others the same interest which he himself felt and exhibited. In November, 1848, he commenced his labors in Sandusky , and, excepting one interval of about seven months in 1863-4. continued in the superintendency until July, 1870.

Few have been associated with Mr. Cowdery, cither as teachers or pupils, without acquiring something of the earnest, conscientious spirit he brought to his work, and of his desire for the physical, moral, and intellectual well being of those intrusted to his care — in a word, for their education in its broadest signification. His well known collection of "Moral Lessons" illustrates the spirit of the man.

In one report he says: "It seems to me that most of the present defects in the common schools of our county and State have their origin in the general indifference to the importance of common schools to society and the country. It is not for want of means or of statute regulations that good school-houses are not found in our county, abundantly supplied with furniture and apparatus: it is not for want of facilities that teachers in our county are not thoroughly qualified for their duties; it is not for want of legal powers that school directors do not employ a competent teacher, and render the common school a blessing to the community; but it is from the low estimate placed upon the importance of common schools by citizens generally, and the want of faith in their capacity for improvement, that such defects exist in these schools from year to year." These were truthful words in 1840. They are quoted to show what a shrewd observer said of the schools in the rural districts forty years ago — to what extent will the facts warrant us in using different words to-day?

Graded schools, as now organized and conducted were then unknown in the Western States. In the peculiar work of superintending such schools, Mr. Cowdery was in one sense a pioneer. He was not a genius, and did not claim to be such, but he possessed what is of far greater value in school management — common sense and confidence in one's ability to achieve success. He was fearless and determined, and rarely, if ever, male concessions to whim and prejudice: but he had the instincts and the culture of a true gentleman, and won the confidence of the entire community by his evenness of temper, blameless life, and willingness to listen patiently to advice or criticism, no matter from what source it came. Teachers visited his schools to learn how to conduct their own.

While he never neglected his professional duties, but bestowed his best thought and most exhausting labor upon them. Mr. Cowdery always kept abreast of the times, was a thoughtful, critical reader of the best literature, and something more than a mere lookeron in both the social and the political world.

Mr. Cowdery was eminently an industrious man. Having learned in early life the important lesson that one can rest and still not be idle, he did not seek ease or cessation from toil, the so-called rest of the sluggard, but found in change of employment all the rest or recreation he seemed to need. Gardening, care of orchard or vineyard, the pursuit of some favorite study, the entertainment of friends, and outdoor and indoor work of other kinds, occupied the moments many would have spent in listlessness or harmful amusements, or in dissipation of some sort. Doubtless some persons who saw him busily at work in garden, vineyard, or factory, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, thought he cared more for them and the income from them than for the schools he was employed to superintend. They failed to see that these varied occupations, engaged in with wise purpose, and pursued not as tasks, instead of impairing his strength or vigor or having a tendency to divert his thoughts from his chosen life-work, were the means by which, under providence, he was enabled to engage in that work with the energy, buoyancy of spirit, and enthusiasm which characterize him only who has a sane mind in a healthy body. Let all who would win success in our profession, follow his example.

 Submitted by Linda Rodriguez