MOUNT VERNON — The year 2022 has proven to be a tough one in many ways, but comfort can be found in exploring the stories of our area’s rich past.
As the year draws to an arctic close, I wanted to point out a few highlights from the previous year for those who may have missed them.
An interesting exercise in envisioning the long-last past came in April, when a series of columns retrieved an almost-forgotten trainwreck that happened in Fredericktown in 1912.
I found a vintage postcard which pictured the derailment, then located the wreck site on the bike path which runs where the rails used to be. After that, reader Aaron James chimed in with some old photos of the same areas to further document the scene.
It was a good year for examining conjectural connections, including the possible Knox County connections of the Delaware County wild man discovered in 1912. The man — James or Jason Black — claimed to be from Knox County, and at least one source identified the hermit as a Kenyon College graduate.
Black wasn’t the only eccentric with possible local connections, for we turned up a connection between traveling patent medicine doctor R.J. Lyons, who often visited Mount Vernon in the mid-1800s, and his one-time assistant, Francis Tumblety. Tumblety — who may or may not have accompanied his teacher to Mount Vernon — was later a suspect in the ‘Jack the Ripper’ series of murders in London, England, in the 1880s.
And, while we’re on the subject of wild men in the woods, we came across the unfortunate story of Elmer Chandler’s nervous breakdown in 1913, which saw the stressed-out farmer flee into the woods north of Brandon until he could be led back home by searchers. This story was turned up in a general exploration of the distinctive house in Brandon owned by the Chambers family.
The biggest series of the year was a dive into one of the great Knox County stories, the tragic hazing death of Stewart Lathrop Pierson, the Kenyon College student killed in 1905 by an unexpected locomotive during a fraternity hazing ritual.
We started with a narrative of the beginning of that fateful evening, then continued with the story of how the disaster was discovered as the night wore on.
We then dove into the controversy that developed between local officials and college officials about just what had taken place, and closed the series with a modern forensic examination of the medical report, which offers proof of the truth.
A little-known local connection to some of the greatest events of American history came through Knox County veteran Cary McClelland. When McClelland filed a claim for an army pension, he was 80 years old.
The officials who took his application realized that they were staring history in the face, for McClelland was able to tell them many stories of his service in the Continental Army in the 1770s, directly under General George Washington.
After such drama, it was good to chuckle at the story of compulsive liar Elva Loney, who had his lawyer denounce him and quit in the middle of a trial in Mount Vernon in 1912.
Another chronic ne’er-do-well was Edwin Bible, thrown in jail for passing bad checks around the same time. The Coshocton County resident thought he could lie his way through Mount Vernon, but it didn’t work.
The other major series of the year was the unforgettable story of serial killer Cletus Reese, who lived just over the county line near Nellie, in Coshocton County. We framed the story of this disturbed man with a glance of him as an innocent child in 1924, and his lonely funeral in 1966.
We then dig into the details of his troubled life at home and in the state mental hospital. The series closes with an attempt to figure out what made this madman’s mind go off the rails.
Other interesting stories included the early frontier ‘Axe Man’ who made tools for both settlers and Indians, and the history of the fountain at Camp Sychar. A little frightening was the challenging test Knox County educators had to pass in order to become a licensed teacher in 1913.
All these stories and more were looked at this year. It’s worlds of memories, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the stories we shared.
Enjoy the holidays and keep warm. We’ll see you next year!
