John Ratliff, Among the surviving pioneers of Trumbull county few are more deserving a place in this history than Judge Ratliff. He was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania , December 17, 1799. His grandparents came to this country from England , but at what date is not known. His father was John Ratliff, and his mother Mary Vandyke, both of whom were natives of Delaware , where they lived until about the year 1798. They moved to Westmoreland county and thence to Beaver county in 1801, near the Pennsylvania and Ohio State line. On the 1st day of April, 1811, his parents removed to Trumbull county, Ohio , arriving at their destination in the north­west part of Howland township on the 3d day of the same month. There the subject of this sketch grew to manhood, surrounded by all the difficulties attending a pioneer settlement. In 1818 he married Elizabeth Wilson, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Hyde) Wilson, who were natives of Ireland but came to this country when quite young. In April; 1821, he was elected township clerk of Howland and served in that capacity for a period of eighteen years. About the year 1823 there was a regiment of volunteer riflemen organized in Trumbull county. The township of Howland raised a company of about eighty men, who were uniformed and equipped with good rifles. At the first election of officers Richard L. Seeley was chosen captain but was afterwards promoted and Judge Ratliff was elected captain, serving seven or eight years, shortly after which the regiment was disbanded. About the year 1839 he was elected justice of the" peace and served in that capacity six years, when, in 1845, he was elected one of the asso­ciated judges of the common pleas court of Trumbull county, which office he filled with ability until the change in the State constitution in 1851. His associates on the bench were Edward Spear, of Warren, and Asa Haines, of Vernon, the presiding judge being Hon. Benjamin F. Wade. September 1, 1844, Judge Ratliff became a member of the Disciples church of Warren, and in the following year was elected by the congre­gation one of the overseers of the church and officiated in that capacity till about 1870, when he was released from the duties of the office on account of his age. May 3, 1855, the Disciples church in Warren became an organized body under the laws of Ohio for the incorporation of churches and he was elected one of the trustees and still holds such office. He is the father of seven children. Two died in infancy. The others are as follow: Isaac, now living in Howand; Robert Wm. of Warren; Ann (deceased), wife of Josiah Soule; Mary (deceased), wife of Henry Hoagland; and Lydia Maria, wife of Daniel L. Jones, of Warren, with whom the subect of this sketch makes his home. Mrs. Ratliff died in Warren March 16, 1875, aged seventy-seven. Judge Ratliff's occupation through life has been that of farming. He has been unusually blessed with good health, and, possessing a naturally vigorous constitution, he is to-day, not­withstanding his advanced age, a hale and hearty old gentleman. At this writing (March 17, 1882) he is eighty-two years and three months old.

He made the acquaintance and courted Irene Schoville, a lady of aristocratic family, whose parents objected to her marriage with a laborer; and the old Connecticut statutes made it a crime for a man to lead a lady to Hymen's altar without her parents' consent. But Cupid has never been easily bound by statutes, and when in earnest always finds a way of evading them. In this instance Miss Schoville rode to her affianced's house, gave him a place behind her on her horse, and rode to a magistrate's office, where they were lawfully married. Mr. King joined the second company of surveyors sent out by the Connecticut Land company in 1797, and while thus employed selected a place for settle­ment near the present site of Canfield. The following spring he removed with his wife from Connecticut and made an improvement on the lot which had been selected. They lived there two years, then removed to a lot at the present village of Girard . After a residence on this lot of about six years, having made considerable improvement, General Perkins proposed an ex­change of one hundred acres in Howland for the lot on which Mr. King lived. After viewing the ground the proposition was accepted, on condition that the center of the one hun­dred acres should be a certain strong, clear, flowing spring. Beside this spring Mr. King built his house in Howland, and moved into it in June, 1806, on the day of a total eclipse of the sun. The house stood on the ground now occupied by J. F. King's resi­dence. Mr. King was a plain, un-ambitious farmer. He lived to the age of sixty-nine years. Mrs. King lived to the advanced age of eighty-six years. During the Revolution she was taken prisoner at Wyoming by the Indians and held captive for six months. The family of Barber and Irene King consisted of seven children— Jonathan, James, Samuel, William, Bliss, Anna, and Sarah. Sarah (Mrs. William Brinton) is the only member of the family living. They all settled in Howland township except James, Anna (Mrs. Jabez Bell), and Sarah Brinton. William King, father of James F. King, was born April 9, 1798, and died October 8, 1866. He was married in 1820 to Mary B. Kennedy, a daughter of Samuel and Jane Kennedy. She was born in 1801, and died January 3, 1869. Mr. King was a man of great energy and pro gressive ideas; his wife was plain, unassuming and industrious. They were both members of the Presbyterian church and were remarked in their neighborhood for sympathy and kindness in cases of sickness. Their family consisted of four children—James F., Irene (deceased), Orvilla (Mrs. William Chamberlain), and Jerusha (Mrs. Charles Hunt). James Franklin, whose portrait appears on an adjoining page in this volume, was born March 12, 1822. He owns and resides on the old home­stead of his grandfather and father, and where he was born and raised. He attended the dis­trict school and received a fair English education, but it was farm work that mainly occupied his attention. Soon after thoroughbred short­horn cattle had been introduced into the county, in 1841, by Thomas and Frederick Kinsman, Henry B. Perkins, and the Cowdens of Gustavus, Mr. King saw the opportunity of building up a successful industry. The first importations of cattle had been from New York . Mr. King accompanied Messrs. Kinsman and Perkins to the Bluegrass region in Kentucky in 1850, at which time he made a purchase of short-horns, and has since continued to supply his herds with stock cattle from that region and from southern Ohio . He has for about forty years given close and intelligent attention to the breeding and raising of stock cattle. He keeps on his farm about one hundred head. Of late years Mr. King has been dealing to some extent in thor­oughbred Southdown sheep. He has been identified with the Trumbull County Agricultural society as an officer ever since its re-organization in 1846, and for eight years was president. Under his management the annual fairs were made of special interest to the general farmers. He aimed to make the annual exhibitions what they professed to be agricultural fairs. He is a man of good executive talent, being energetic, correct and decided. Mr. King married in 1862 Miss Cornelia J. Andrews, daughter of Samuel and Lorena (Hutchins) Andrews, of Howland township. They have a family of two children.

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WILLIAM H. McGUFFEY

The name of Dr. Mcguffey has been made familiar to hundreds of thousands, perhaps to millions of people by the series of school readers that he compiled. Probably no other series of books ever published has had a wider or more wholesome influence. Yet, strange to say, the history and character of Dr. McGuffey himself are but little known.

He was born in Washington county. Pennsylvania , September 23, 18(Mt. While he was still a child his parents removed to Trumbull county, Ohio . No data concerning his early life are available, but the conditions in Ohio at that time and the fact that he was nearly twenty-six years old when he graduated from college, seem to justify the inference that his youth was spent in labor, probably on a farm, and that be prepared for his college course mainly after he was twenty-one years of age. To complete his education he returned to his native county and entered Washington College at Washington . Pennsylvania . He always accounted it one of the fortunate events of his life that he here came under the influence of Dr. Andrew Wylie, the president. President Wylie took an interest in him and befriended him; but it was Dr. Wylie's force and independence of mind and elevation of character which most deeply impressed him.

It appears that his college course was interrupted for a year, during which he taught school at Paris , Kentucky . While he was teaching in Kentucky , he became known to Dr. Bishop, the president of Miami University at Oxford , Ohio : and so favorable was the opinion of him which Dr. Bishop formed that in March. 1820, before he had received his baccalaureate degree, he was elected professor of ancient languages at Miami University . That institution had been in existence less than two years, but it had already gathered a few strong men in its faculty and a few students of more than ordinary minds. But Dr. McGuffey, young as he was, at once took rank as one of the best of its teachers and won the admiration and homage of its students. In 1832 he was transferred to the chair of mental philosophy, which he retained for four years. With no preparation except that which he received at the hands of President Wylie during his undergraduate course, and. possibly, some private reading during the subsequent six years, he assumed the duties of instructor in one of the widest and profoundest departments of human thought. In our day the value of special training and extensive courses as a preparation for teaching elementary students is greatly overrated. 'For beginning, a teacher's best equipment is simplicity and directness of thought, clearness of statement, and aptness in illustration. These qualities. Professor McGuffey possessed in an unusual degree. At that time, and for several years at least, he adhered to the Scottish philosophy. Brown being his chosen author in psychology and ethics. But he read widely and critically and thought for himself; so that his class-work was always fresh and stimulating. His ablest students, no matter what distinction they attained in later life, never outgrew the conviction that he was an able teacher. On the contrary, their subsequent growth only led them to place a higher estimate on his ability.

In 1829 he was licensed as a preacher in the Presbyterian Church and from that time became a public speaker. The uniform testimony is that in the pulpit and on the platform he was singularly effective. Perfectly unassuming in manner, he was so clear in thought, so simple in language, so attractive in manner, that the crowds which gathered to hear him were held, sometimes enchained, by the charm of his discourse. He spoke extempore, and with the directness, freedom, and warmth of elevated conversation.

While at Miami University , in addition to his labors in teaching and preaching he collected and arranged the material for his series of Eclectic Readers. To an ordinary worker it is a marvel that he could have found time to examine so wide a range of sources as the selection of lessons suitable for his purpose must have involved, and that he could have adjusted his mind to a task so much at variance with his vocation. If he began with the first of the series and proceeded in regular order, he did most of this extra and diverse labor after his transfer to the department of philosophy and while he was taxed to make himself familiar with difficult subjects which he had never taught. For it was early in 1833 that he employed B. W. Chidlaw, then a student, to copy the manuscript of the printer. Only a mind of remarkable flexibility and remarkable capacity for work could have achieved such a task under the conditions. [The sketch of his brother, A. H. McGuffey, is an instructive note at that point. Editor.]

He resigned his position in Miami University in 1836 to accept the presidency of Cincinnati College . This institution was without endowment, but it was thought that its location in the principal city of the west and the influence of Dr. Daniel Drake and those whom he had interested in the college, gave promise of its success. President McGuffey took hold of the enterprise with his customary zeal and efficiency. That he produced a strong impression on the public is evident. There is a tradition that during one course of lectures which he delivered the numbers who wanted to hear him were so great that some requested permission to cut a hole through the ceiling of the room in which he spoke, so that they might hear him from the room overhead.

It was during his connection with Cincinnati College that he completed an arrangement with Winthrop B. Smith to publish the Eclectic Readers.

He remained here but three years, having been elected in 1839 to the presidency of the Ohio University at Athens . He was now at the zenith of his powers. He brought to his new position a mature and experienced mind, scholarship of a high order, a wide reputation both as a teacher and as an administrator, and an exceptional power to influence men.

By his students at Athens he was soon regarded as a great man. Nearly all of them, perhaps all, are now dead; but they carried to the end of their lives a profound respect for his ability and character. One of them, Rev. E. P. Pratt, D. D. , of Portsmouth , Ohio , in a brief article written just after Dr. Mc. Guffey's death, said: "In 1839 I returned to Athens , where he was commencing his career as president, and reviewed with him mental and moral science. He was a master in his department. In this branch (mental philosophy) I never saw his equal. He was an enthusiast in it, and he communicated much of his enthusiasm to his pupils. They loved him, and yet reverenced him as a father."

He soon was recognized here also as a popular public speaker. His sermons and lectures were remembered and mentioned with appreciation by citizens of Athens for many years after he had left the University.

As was to be expected, the University began a vigorous growth under his administration. Its attendance increased, its work became more vital, and its hold upon the public mind was greatly strengthened. But this rising prosperity was overshadowed by a dark cloud. The law establishing the university provided for a reappraisement of the leasehold lands which constituted its endowment, and which comprised the township in which it is located and the township immediately south of it. The date fixed for the first reappraisement arrived about the time of Dr. McGuffey's accession to the presidency. The lessees were bitterly opposed to any increase in the valuation of the lands; but under Dr. McGuffey's leadership the trustees of the University proceeded to the performance of their duty. An injunction was sought by the lessees and the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the State. The decision of the Court was in favor of the University. But the feeling of hostility on the part of the lessees only grew more intense. Violence was threatened. President McGuffey was denounced and maligned, and at length the rage of the people became so great that they burned him in effigy.

He bore all this with quiet dignity and without any surrender or abatement of the rightful claims of the institution. But the lessees, foiled in their attempt to obtain relief from the courts, appealed to the legislature, with the result that a law was passed assuming to annul the decision of the courts and to prevent a reappraisement of the lands. This action of the legislature seemed to Dr. McGuffey to seal the fate of the university, and seeing no prospect of an increase of its scanty revenues, he immediately resigned. The act was passed on the 10th of March, 1843. and he retired at the close of that academic year. The university was suspended and remained so for five years.

Dr. McGuffey returned to Cincinnati , where he taught for the next two years in Woodward High School . His service to education was not confined, however, to his duties in the school room. He was an active and earnest champion of the public school system. He had co-operated with Samuel Lewis and others in securing the adoption of the system by the state, and he continued to use his influence to promote the organization of schools under the law.

At the end of the second year in Woodward High School . Dr. McGuffey was elected professor of moral philosophy in the University of Virginia , which became the scene of his last and longest period of service. He gave to that service his ripest scholarship and his accumulated power as a teacher and as a man. The same results followed that had marked his work at Oxford , at Athens , and at Cincinnati .

Professor Noah K. Davis, his successor in the chair of philosophy at that institution writes of him: "He impressed his students as a broad thinker, inspiring teacher, and brilliant lecturer: and their esteem is warmed by an affectionate remembrance of his genial and sympathetic character." He continued, also, to preach, and he exerted a strong religious influence in the university and surrounding community. Professor A. D. Hepburn of Miami University states that one of his first acts after entering on his professorship at the University of Virginia was to make a tour of the state advocating the introduction of the public school system. This was probably the first appeal of this kind ever made in that state, and there was but a feeble response. But twenty-five years later, Dr. McGuffev had the satisfaction of seeing one of his own friends and former students, Mr. W. H. Ruffner, made the first public school superintendent of the state. Professor Hepburn expresses the opinion that Dr. McGuffey is fairly entitled to be regarded as the pioneer of the public school system in Virginia .

Dr. McGuffey remained at the University of Virginia till his death at Charlottesville , May 4, 1873.

In his vocation he held a double mastery. He was master of that which he taught and of those whom he taught. "He taught as one having authority." For almost half a century successive classes of students passed under his molding influence, and by them that influence has been borne into thousands of school rooms and sick rooms and court rooms, into pulpits, into the marts of trade, and into the halls of legislation; so that multitudes who never heard his voice or saw his face have unconsciously felt his power.

Besides these, there are other multitudes who have known him only through the readers which he compiled and which they conned day after day through all the years of their school life.

The child who began his school life in Ohio sixty years ago lacked many of the advantages that are possessed by the pupils of the present day: but he had the benefit of one noble and quickening power that has not been surpassed by all the boasted progress of later years. Whenever he opened his school reader and perused the lessons which this wise friend of childhood and youth had set for him. He drank from a pure and deep fountain which often became in him a well of living water. And when he came to manhood he brought to the function of living a larger conception of the meaning of life and a deeper sense of life's responsibility, because of the lessons of wisdom and morals that he learned in his Eclectic Readers. All over the West and South are men and women whose testimony would be that among the helpful agencies of their school days there was none — no book, no fellow-pupil, no teacher — whose influence was more gracious and beneficent, and none that now holds a more hallowed place in their memory than McGuffey's Eclectic Readers. W1ll1am Henry Scott.
(Source: Educational History of Ohio by James J. Burns.  Published 1905)

Submitted by Linda Rodriguez

 

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HAENSLER, Mrs. Arminta Victoria Scott, physician, born in Kinsman, Ohio, 27th July, 1842. Her maiden name was Scott, and her parents were of Scotch-American extraction. Her father, a teacher, married one of his pupils. Of this union Mrs. Haensler is the third child. She had more trials during her childhood than at any time since, owing to her parents' belief in and practice of "good wholesome restraint" and her own intense dislike of being curbed or controlled. She became converted in her eleventh year, and then earnestly began to control herself. At that early age she showed a quick mind, an excellent memory and fine mathematical powers. She entered Kinsman Academy at fourteen years of age, doing domestic service in the family of a Presbyterian minister for her board. She made rapid progress in study and began to teach when she was eighteen years old. Her attention was turned to medicine by reading a newspaper article concerning Elizabeth Blackwell and her trials in securing a medical education. Miss Scott then determined to be a physician in some large city, and thenceforth all her energies were spent in earning the money and preparing herself for the medical profession. She taught for six years. At the age of twenty-four she entered Farmington Seminary, and a year later she went to Oberlin College. There she helped in household work as an equivalent for her board. After some months she went to the Ladies' Hall, where, during the rest of the course, she taught both private pupils and college classes. As soon as she had earned the degree of A.B., she received the offer of an excellent position, not only as teacher, but as reviewer, editor and reporter. She was true to her aim and entered the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, from which, in 1875, she received the degree of M.D. Since then Dr. Scott has practiced in Philadelphia and at different times has held the positions of resident physician of the Mission Hospital, gynaecologist to the Stockton Sanitarium, consulting gynaecologist to the Pennsylvania Asylum for the Insane, consulting physician to the Woman's Christian Association, lecturer to the Woman's Christian Association, lecturer to the Working Women's Club, member of the Philadelphia Clinical Society, member of the Philadelphia Electro-Therapeutic Society, member of the Alumni Association of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, resident physician to the Franklin Reformatory Home for Women, physician to the Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, and lecturer before the National Woman's Health Association of America. Dr. Scott is the author of a lecture on Alaska, which country is among the many she has visited, and is the author of several articles on medical topics. On 13th November, 1890, she became the wife of Franz Joseph Haensler, M.D., of Philadelphia.
(Source: American Women by Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Vol. 1, 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow)