Ohio Literary and Historical Connections & Resources: Fall 2024

Each season in our newsletter, we highlight a few literary and historical connections with Ohio with which readers may not be familiar.

September 1, 1954, & September 12, 1825: Two Ohio Librarians of Congress

The list of Librarians of Congress engraved at the Library of Congress

Lawrence Quincy Mumford was the 11th Librarian of Congress, beginning his tenure on September 1, 1954. Mumford had several Ohio connections. He served at Cleveland Public Library as Assistance Director from 1945 until he became Director in 1950, serving until 1954. Mumford also served as president of the Ohio Library Association (1947-48). In April 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Mumford to head the Library of Congress, and Mumford would become the first professionally-trained librarian to be appointed to the post. Mumford’s tenure would include significant changes and developments for the Library of Congress. He was even exempted from mandatory retirement by President Nixon per Executive Order 11757!

Additional Mumford Resources:

Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the 6th Librarian of Congress, who served from 1864 to 1897, also had Ohio connections. Although born in New Hampshire on September 12, 1825, Spofford moved to Cincinnati in 1845 and worked as a bookstore clerk. He eventually became “the city’s leading importer of the books of the New England transcendentalists—his favorite authors.” Spofford would also help found the Literary Club of Cincinnati. Spofford was also Associate Editor of Cincinnati’s main newspaper, reporting on the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln during his tenure there.

Additional Spofford Resources:

September 24, 1825: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

portrait

Born on September 24, 1825, in Baltimore, Maryland to free African American parents, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper became the first female instructor at Columbus’ Union Seminary in Columbus, which would become Wilberforce University. She was a poet, author, lecturer, and is credited with publishing the first short story (“The Two Offers“) by an African American woman in 1859 in the Anglo-African Magazine.

Additional Harper Resources:

October 5, 1853: Rev. Edward Powell Foster, Originator of Ro

Readers may have heard of the constructed languages of Klingon, Esperanto, or Dothraki; but Ro is a more obscure language with Ohio connections. From 1906 to 1931 from his hometown in Marietta, Edward Powell Foster published several books, a dictionary, and a newsletter using his constructed language which he named Ro meaning “tell, say” in the language itself. Foster designed Ro to convey the meanings of words by their form. A number of supporters are listed in his books, including Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System. On March 2, 1914, Rep. George White of Ohio even introduced H. Res. 432 to the Committee on Education of the U.S. House of Representatives for “providing for an investigation of a new language known as Ro,” securing a mention in the Congressional Record (p. 4180) for Foster’s language. The World Almanac & Book of Facts mentioned Ro for several years in the early 1930s in its “Principal Languages of the World” section.

Born October 5, 1853, Foster died in 1937 and is buried, along with his wife, in Riverview Cemetery in Parkersburg, West Virginia, just across the river from Marietta, Ohio. The inscription on Foster’s headstone gives him credit as the “Originator of Ro Universal Language.”

Additional Ro Resources:

October 16, 1859: Harpers Ferry Ohio Connections

A number of readers may be aware that the fiery, charismatic abolitionist John Brown had deep Ohio roots – settling in the state as a child along with his family. However, many may be unaware that of the 22 men who raided Harpers Ferry on October 16, 1859, 11 of them – including Brown himself and his three sons – were residents of Ohio, hailing from the counties of Trumbull, Columbiana, Lorain, and Summit:

  • John Henry Kagi, Brown’s adjutant general, was born in Bristol, Trumbull County.
  • Barclay Coppock and his brother Edwin Coppock were born in Winona, Columbiana County.
    • Barclay Coppock escaped from the raid. Later, as a Union enlisted man in the 4th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, he was among the Union soldiers who perished in the Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy.
  • Dangerfield Newby, the son of an enslaved woman and a Virginia land owner, had been manumitted by his father and sent to live in Ohio.
  • Sheilds Green, a formerly-enslaved man from South Carolina, had escaped and settled in Oberlin in Lorain County before being recruited by Brown.
  • Lewis Sheridan Leary, the son of a manumitted slave from North Carolina, settled in Oberlin also and worked as a harness maker, married an Oberlin graduate, and became a member of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society. Leary was John Anthony Copeland, Jr.‘s uncle, and recruited his nephew to join Brown’s ill-fated raid.
  • John Anthony Copeland, Jr. was killed during the raid. He was also the son of a formerly-enslaved man from North Carolina, and had settled in Oberlin, attending Oberlin College and becoming a member of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society.

John Brown’s son Owen escaped the raid; however, his two other sons, Oliver and Watson, were both killed. Kagi and Leary were killed while attempting to cross the Shenandoah River. John Brown, Edwin Coppock, Green, and Copeland were captured by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Robert E. Lee and were taken to Charleston, Virginia (modern day West Virginia). John Brown died by hanging in an execution on December 2, 1859; with Coppock, Green, and Copeland following the same fate a few days later on December 16.

The raid — known by contemporaries variously as an insurrection, rebellion, uprising, and invasion — would have far-reaching implications; and Ohio played a pivotal role in that historical event.

So, this being the Ohio Center for the Book, what are the literary connections with John Brown and Harpers Ferry? Here are a contemporary source (from an Ohio Representative) and two titles from Ohio publishers chronicling that event and Brown’s legacy: