Notes From My Knapsack 2-1-18

Notes From My Knapsack 2-1-18

Jeff Gill

 

Statues on a bridge, concluded

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In my previous column in these pages, I had a daydream about the new bridge in downtown Newark. It was more of an evening-dream, with fog, and the then not-completed span had ten pillars, which now have lightposts on it.

 

But I wondered when I stopped there briefly at the light, and as I drove down Route 16 back to Granville, what would it look like if those pillars each had a statue on it. There's a very famous example in Prague, the Czech Republic, called the Charles Bridge – lined with great figures from that nation's past.

 

What ten historical personages might we put on such a landmark? Last time I explained in brief why I'd put Mary "Wakatomica" Harris, Christopher Gist, Rev. David Jones, Jonathan Chapman, Fr. Jean-Baptiste Lamy, and Edward Roye in bronze on those pillars. But that only makes six!

 

My friends will not be surprised to know that I'd pick for number 7. Israel Dille. He served as mayor of Newark in the 1830s, but his role in so many civic improvement projects, like the original Courthouse Square landscaping, the creation of Cedar Hill Cemetery, plus many more projects through his long and eventful life: and so much more.

 

8. Johnny Clem, a choice that in this case already has a statue, on the grounds of Sixth Street Park in front of the Buckingham House. The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga has earned all the honors we can give him, though.

 

9. Victoria C. Woodhull is better known now than she was a few decades ago, but she is still under-recognized in many ways. There's a state historic marker in her birthplace of Homer, Ohio due north of the village, but she only has two memorials in her honor – one near her final residence, placed in England's Tewkesbury Abbey (long story), and the other right here in Granville, a part of the Robbins Hunter Museum. A statue for her is long overdue.

 

For 10. Mary Hartwell Catherwood would be my pick. And in some ways, maybe the least well known of the bunch, which is too bad. Back around the turn of the century that was 1900, she was one of the best selling authors in the United States. Many of her early novels included settings that were Granville, sometimes under a pseudonym, but the outlines of our village are clear. Her romances of the Old Northwest, and of the French trapper and trader days of the upper Great Lakes, were immensely popular.

 

She was born due south of us in Luray, attended the Granville Female College on the site of today's Granville Inn (the coach-house section includes a bit of the old building), and taught in Jersey Township before ending up in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Mackinac Island, before dying at the relatively young age of 55.

 

Many of her short stories hold up rather well, and are easy to find online; an early success, "Rocky Fork" of 1883, is clearly set first in the northeast corner of Licking County along Rocky Fork, and the second half in a village called Sharon which is easily seen to be Granville in the days after the Civil War. If only to encourage a bit more reading of her works, I'd love to see a statue of her somewhere, but she would make good company for the other nine honorees I've proposed.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's probably on a list of about three living people who have read the majority of Catherwood's books! Feel free to join him, and then tell him your thoughts about those stories at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.