MOUNT VERNON — And so another year passes, full of stories well-remembered or long-forgotten.
First off, I’d like to apologize to many readers who have written in with requests for other subjects to be explored.
Working multiple jobs, I simply don’t have the time nor the energy to track them all down. At least I can proudly say I’ve written a few this year that really caught people’s attention. This retrospective is History Knox column #185.
If there was one column from this year that I’m most proud of, it was “The lonely death of shy Eddie Berger.” It may be the best installment of History Knox that I’ve written.
It began when I stumbled across an old newspaper reference to this now-forgotten tragedy that took place just south of Mount Vernon in 1876. First I tracked down the original sources and pieced together what happened, then I got out and traced the doomed boy’s probable route on the ground to understand, from his point of view, how such an unlikely demise took place.
Once I had my feet on the ground and looked around at what Eddie Berger would have seen, suddenly it was all too easy to understand how the impossible happened.
One of the most remarkable oddyseys of the last year was retrieving not just the story but the stunning image of the once-famous fortune-teller Old Gorum. A few random mentions in period newspapers about the 1913 flood in Brinkhaven slowly led to reassembling the career of what turned out to be not one, but two psychics, father and son, who read the fortunes of generations of central Ohioans. Writing about Old Gorum unexpectedly led me to the surviving larger-than-life-size oil painting of the striking occultist, whose actual name was William Gorham.
A personal triumph for me was cracking open the historical roots of the story of Susie’s Grave, just of Ohio Route 13 between Mount Vernon and Fredericktown. I had tried once before, over a decade ago, to cut through the fog of history and figure out the roots of this persistent ghost story. Finally, after some detailed scouring of historical sources, I was able to find at the source of the tale not Susie, but Sophie: Sophronia Baugh, who died at this spot in 1865, and is said to have haunted it ever since.
Another forgotten point of interest was the ambitious academy the Rev. Morrison started in Waterford in the mid-1800s. While some early institutions of higher education thrived, this one didn’t last long at all, and there’s no hint of it in the village of Waterford today.
A story that intrigues me still is the tale of Centerburg’s runaway banker and his suffragist wife. There may never be any public record that fills in the curious blanks of this odd relationship. One hopes that perhaps a private source will drift to the surface one day and shed more light on what may have been a marriage of convenience.
I enjoyed digging into the forgotten history of Col. Lorin Andrews with Kenyon College professor Tabitha Payne, as well as recording a podcast with her about this inspirational figure who served as a
moral compass for the anti-slavery movement at the young but influential college during the U.S. Civil War, and whose educational innovations still resonate statewide today.
Another fascinating discovery was one that proves that troubled youths are nothing new: In 1938, a gun battle took place near Mt. Liberty involving two juvenile delinquents, one of whom was shot and killed during the incident. The two troublemakers were fleeing an armed robbery they had committed in the town of Delaware. Their vehicle broke down when the made it to Knox County, and a dangerous armed encounter with locals brought the county sheriff and a deputy to the scene, which quickly escalated.
This was a great year for reader involvement. Dozens chimed in to sort out the details of a photo from Hartford Avenue in Centerburg, allowing us to ultimately focus in on a fairly tight dating of the original image. Even more people chimed in with comments on a photo of the opening of the Big Bear store in Mount Vernon in 1961. Then numerous readers posted comments which helped us identify a house near Fredericktown seen in a 1910 postcard, and update it with pictures of the house as it looks today.
All these were wonderful moments of interactive journalism, and I thank everyone for their help. It’s a beautiful thing to see History Knox extend from just being my column to being the people’s forum.
There were also several very personal moments for me, reflecting over great actors of the region which we have lost, looking at the Civil War Gen. Morgan and how his racist views would have denounced my great grandparents’ marriage, and exploring the history of a country crossroads that once inspired me to write a poem.
Amazingly, the one thing I did not write about this year was the publication of my book The Ceely Rose Murders at Malabar Farm, an in-depth history of that infamous true crime case from 1896, which took place just over the Knox County line. But I’ve certainly been out and about promoting it successfully, sharing my passion for historical stories.
Much of what I do with these columns depends on journalistic research of old media records. With our proliferation of social media these days, information (and misinformation) can spread at record speed.
But what that doesn’t give us is responsible, ethical reporting of the stories of the day. I decided to do this retrospective of the year just to remind everyone to financially support local media. They are doing critically important work documenting the history of our lives as it happens. A century from now, if there should be some fond fool with a weakness for history, writing down stories for the people of Knox County in 2121, heaven help them if their only source is a surviving mess of exaggerations and outright lies on any fragments of social media’s virtual surreality that will have survived until then.
Whatever survives this chaos in the form of real reporting will still be the most reliable source. Support it. Local media will tell those who come later who we were.
