2025 Mary Harris Prizes Essays Winners
Holli Rainwater: Following in Mary's Footsteps: What Porosity Can Teach Us About Being Human (1ST PLACE WINNER)
As we try to wrestle with the complexity of the present moment and all of the different, seemingly incoherent strains that go into it, having an understanding of where we’ve been—that is to say, what has brought us to this moment—helps us not only digest that moment better. It also permits us to look forward and to make sure that we design a future that’s in keeping with where we came from. —Ken Burns*
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
—Leviticus 19:33
Several years ago I wrote an essay in which I discussed how Mary Harris serves as a bridge between cultures. Toward the end of that essay I wrote:
We need Mary Harris’s story. We need to hear how she was tended and befriended and we need to re-imagine as much as we can about her life. We need to learn what she can teach us, not about being white, but about being human (Rainwater 13).
Since that time I have taken my own advice. I have gone deeper into Mary's story, done more research and made two trips to Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts where I have literally walked in Mary Harris's footsteps. I have learned valuable lessons on this journey, lessons that are helping me navigate my life in my own century.
As a quick review, Mary was living in Deerfield at the time of the raid in 1704. The raid occurred during Queen Anne’s War, which was known in Europe as the War of Spanish Succession. The conflict began in Europe and spilled over into the Americas, where French and English colonists fought for territorial control. Deerfield was the northernmost major English settlement in the Connecticut River Valley, which left it vulnerable to French attacks. During the early morning hours of February 29, 1704, the town was attacked by a force of about 48 French soldiers and 250 Kanien’kehà:ka (Mohawk), Wobanakiak,and Wendat (Huron) warriors. The raiders went from house to house, killing or capturing as many of the inhabitants as possible, while also burning many of the homes. (“Attack on Deerfield,” PVMA Memorial Hall Museum, 2020).
Mary was one of the 112 men, women, and children who were captured and marched to Canada. Upon reaching Canada, Mary was in the group that was taken by the Kanien’kehà:ka people (“People of the Flint”) to their village of Kahnawà:ke near present day Montreal, where she was adopted into the tribe.
None of the original buildings from Mary's day have survived in Deerfield. Nearly half of the houses were burned during the raid, including the home of Simon and Hannah Beaman where Mary, who was 9 or 10 years old, was living as a servant (Butler 31). But even though there are no houses still standing from 1704, there is a door. On exhibit at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association’s (PVMA) Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, it is known as “The Old Indian House Door,” a heavy oak door (c. 1699) with iron hardware that hung on the home of John and Hannah Sheldon.
Sheldon wasn't at home when the raid happened but the rest of his family was. The attackers used their axes to chop holes in the fortified door, which allowed them to shoot into the house, killing Hannah. The raiders then gained access through the back door, killing the Sheldon's two year old daughter and taking the rest of the family captive. One son managed to escape over the palisade and began making his way to nearby Hadley to raise the alarm. The house, which was the biggest one in town, was then used as a temporary holding site for all of the captives before they were marched to Canada. So our Mary spent time somewhere in that house behind that scarred door.
Over the years, the door has come to symbolize the Deerfield Raid. In an interview with James Swanson, author of The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America, he says that for the colonists the door “represented a barrier between savagery and civilization.” He explains that
. . . for almost 300 years the role of the Indians was obscured and hidden away. They were viewed as savages. They weren't part of the story. In fact, George Sheldon, the great historian of Deerfield, who wrote A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts (1895) and was one of the founders of Memorial Hall Museum— kept the Native Americans and, later, European immigrants out of the story. Sheldon was only interested in venerating and celebrating the colonial heroes (Healy 2024).
The Memorial Hall Museum signage around the door, however, acknowledges that “history is never one sided” and includes a range of multicultural perspectives about the door including these two statements:
This door is powerful evidence of Native presence and resistance to colonial invasion. We cannot begin to fathom the emotions our Native ancestors were experiencing in 1704, but the door provides us with a visceral testament to their will to resist.
- Monique Fordham, Abenaki, 2004
An icon of fear and defense for some, an empowering symbol of resistance for others, this Door is now a threshold for a more balanced dialogue about Deerfield 1704.
Ron Welburn, Professor, English department and Director, Native American Indian Studies, UMass Amherst (Gingaskin/Assateague/Cherokee), 2004
This idea of a “threshold for dialogue” resonates with a word I’ve recently encountered in the work of two different authors: porosity. We know that sponges are porous and rocks can be porous. In 1704, the oak door was made porous. Axes opened a hole that became both an entry point for violence and, paradoxically, a portal to Mary’s new life. A life in which she thrived. To hold this paradox—to mourn the deaths of Hannah and her daughter while acknowledging Mary’s new beginning—requires a porous, or open, mindset.
My recent encounters with porosity have added another layer to my understanding of “tending and befriending,” as it happened for Mary. Based on the work of psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen, we know that tending and befriending is a stress response that increases oxytocin. When women are stressed, they nurture their children and seek social contact with others (Bolen 76-77). As Scott Butler tells us, it was likely that when Mary was adopted into one of the three Mohawk clans, Bear, Wolf, or Turtle, as a replacement for a lost daughter or relative, a matron would have taken her under her wing and told the others to treat her as a family member (Butler 67). This is a perfect example of tending and befriending, and also of porosity.
Even though I discussed the idea of tending and befriending in my previous essay and even though I have experienced it both as an initiator and a receiver in my own life, it was still hard for me to wrap my head around Mary's situation. Like most other modern Western brains, when I heard her story, I wondered how that could be. How can one human being replace another human being? The only way I could reconcile it was to assume that they needed someone to do the lost person's work. So Mary would essentially continue her life of service, I thought.
Now I know, thanks to the work of Claire Gilbert, that I jumped to this conclusion because my brain was trapped in a Gestell, or buffered, mindset. Gilbert is a Julian of Norwich scholar. She wrote her PhD dissertation on the ecological crisis and how reading Julian of Norwich’s Revelations on Divine Love might restore our porosity and give us a new mindset from which we can solve the problems of climate change. She is also the author of I Julian, a work of historical fiction about Julian of Norwich and Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live, a memoir in which she shares reflections on her first year of living with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood. Gilbert uses the word porosity in all three of these works when describing Julian’s way of being in the world and to explain “how we are not hermetically sealed off individuals but constantly responding and changing in our interaction with what looks, to our Enlightenment minds, like a world that is only outside ourselves” (Gilbert, Miles to Go 83).
A porous mindset, then, sees that we are connected to and in relationship to the people and things around us as opposed to a Gestell, or buffered mindset which sees us as separate from our surroundings. Gestell is a German word that means “enframed,” and is used by Martin Heidegger to describe the mindset that turns “all of nature and ultimately ourselves into things to be used” (Gilbert Restoring Porosity 19). This mindset often results in seeing each other as adversaries and prevents trust from developing (10). Interestingly, Gilbert explains that Heidegger was an intellectual leader within Nazism and perhaps his explorations of Gestell, were “an attempt to understand how he came to hold in himself such morally outrageous views” (18).
A thing to be used, a commodity. This is exactly how Mary was viewed in the Puritan community of Deerfield, the “civilized world.” Her name was not included on the initial list of captives; our only clue to her existence is an unnamed “servant girl” listed with the Simon Beaman family (Sheldon I 304-305, as quoted in Butler 30-31). Her name was added later as other captives who knew her began to arrive back in Massachusetts (Butler 30). It seems significant, in this discussion of the Gestell mindset, that this little girl was known only by her utilitarian value. The compiler of the list didn't bother to get her name. As Butler points out, her prospects in Deerfield were never very good, being 30 miles away from her family and living the life of a servant, so perhaps being taken to Kahnawà:ke in 1704 where women had important roles and were well respected (36) “opened a new, positive chapter for her otherwise unlucky prior life” (32). A life in which she encountered the porosity of the Indigenous people of Kahnawà:ke.
This brings us to my second recent encounter with the word “porosity.” In her book, The Tame and The Wild: People and Animals After 1492, author Marcy Norton reveals the vast cultural differences between the ways in which Europeans and Native Americans related to animals. In a chapter called “Absorbing Prey,” she speaks about the hunting and fishing practices, or predation, that Indigenous people used that “led the hunter to take on attributes of the prey” (Norton 108). She explains how the Indigenous people used storytelling and dance to ritualize the day to day skills needed for predation. “Dances were occasions to tell song-stories about human ancestors who transformed into other kinds of beings or other kinds of beings who were the parents of human ancestors” (128). For them, personhood was defined not by the ability to reason—as in the Western tradition—but by porous, relational connectedness: “Humans' relationships with all kinds of beings—plants as well as other animals are what make them persons” (128).
This theme is continued in the next chapter called “Taming Strangers” in which Norton unpacks the concept of familiarization. “If predation is the process by which one pursues and consumes another being, familiarization—or feeding and therefore taming—is how one turns a wild being into kin”(Erikson 105-140 and Fausto 933-956 as quoted in Norton 132). She explains that the process of taming wild beings was complex, lengthy, and labor-intensive and involved these characteristics: the wild beings who became kin shared domestic space with their humans, but were free to come and go; they were fed and named; they communicated with their human companions; the labor of taming was done by women and was equated with mothering (Norton 132 and 140).
These familiarized beings encompassed a wide array of nonhuman animals including birds, fish, monkeys, reptiles, rodents, peccaries, tapir, deer, and manatees (Norton 135-137). But more importantly, this process of familiarization also included humans. Norton says, “common elements are found in the hospitality rites offered to strangers, the care given to newborns, and the methods used to tame nonhumans; all are forms of familiarization” (140).
Unlike the exchanges made in European societies that focused on captive animals and people as commodities, Norton discusses how familiarized beings in Indigenous societies, both human and nonhuman, were sometimes used as a form of exchange to create ties between different social groups (Norton 146-147). Strangers might submit to familiarization voluntarily, a foreigner might seek a friendship or join a community as a spouse, or one could be captured against their will during warfare and adopted as new kin. Likewise, a nonhuman animal might be captured during a hunting expedition, or choose to reside on top of a human's dwelling, becoming one of the tame animals that they . . . ‘dare not kill’” (147). The reasons for entering into these relationships were “bestowing care and experiencing love” (149). Sounds a lot like tending and befriending! And the reason Norton gives for these Indigenous people being able to do this is an “awareness of the self's porousness and erased boundaries between species” (149).
So after reading Norton’s book, I understand Mary's situation better. It's not so much a question of how Indigenous people could replace one human being with another, but of how they could expand the love and care they felt for a lost family member to include a new person who also becomes their kin. This porousness of boundaries between humans and animals and humans and plants and humans and other humans is an expansion in the way they define personhood and kin.
Drawing upon neuroscientific research, Gilbert explains that this porosity, or relationality, is part of our makeup, so even though it has been all but lost in modern times, it is recoverable (Gilbert, Restoring Porosity 85-86). One way to restore it, she suggests, is through reading poetic texts. This is basically the point of Gilbert's entire thesis and she makes some fascinating arguments for why this is so. For example, she says that when we read, we are called out of our own world (70) and that we go on our own journey as we actively participate with the text (71). She says that when we participate in this way, it's like we enter into a conversation with the text from which new meaning can emerge (81).
Anyone who loves to read has had this experience of being changed by a good book. This is partly due to the language and craft of the writing, but it is also due to the porous nature of the writer herself. Writers and poets, along with other artists, are people who willingly lay aside their preconceived notions of the world in order to go on a journey of discovery and insight. The resulting product— the novel or poem or song or painting—then invites the rest of us to go on our own journeys.
Mary Harris’s story has never been written down in poetic language, but it has had this same effect on me. I would argue that the study of history and historical figures in general has the potential to restore our porosity. There is a lot of controversy these days about history. Some people recognize the need to repair history by making it more inclusive of everyone's stories. Others see this as a threat—whether it's a fear of cultural replacement, loss of heritage, or just the wish to bury difficult truths about the dominant culture. But in my experience, if I am willing to actively enter into a conversation with history, I always learn something valuable and am transformed by the experience. These encounters provide me with a deeper understanding of my fellow humans and make me feel more connected, as if my family tree has added a new branch.
This is one of the reasons why museums are so important. When I first climbed the stairs in the Memorial Hall Museum and saw the door, I had a goosebump reaction. The physicality of the door made everything more real. This is why we need artifacts—they give us a palpable connection to our history. That experience, combined with reading, reflection, and walking the Deerfield ground, helped me understand Mary's story in a personal and concrete way. Her story has become part of my story.
Porosity is essential if we’re to have a more balanced dialogue about history. It can help us hold multiple truths simultaneously and understand the complexity and nuance of cultural encounters. This is where Mary can help us.
Consider this. At one point in her life, Mary was an unnamed servant girl, living on the edge of colonial society. Through violent and traumatic events, she became part of another community—one with a worldview that valued relational personhood. When she lived, as an adult, here in Coshocton County with a band of her Kanien'kehà kin, it is evident that she had thrived in her new culture. Christopher Gist, a person of some importance, went out of his way to visit her and there was a river and a town called “Whitewoman” because of her presence here. But here's another lesser known story. In 1756, during the French and Indian War when she was about 61 years old and back in Canada, Mary's son Peter who was the Captain of the Guard, captured an Englishman named Robert Eastburn. Eastburn wrote an account of his experience and says that “Uncle Peter” showed him “great Kindness,” among other things, by allowing him to lodge with Mary Harris “who told me she was my Grandmother and was kind” (Butler 61).
This story teaches us that porosity, which leads to tending and befriending, has a way of paying itself forward. Mary's example teaches us that we don't have to be threatened by people who are different from us, even people whom we might consider our enemies. This is what she can teach us about being human. Her experience as an adopted child taught her to extend care and kindness to others and to expand what the “civilized world” defined as family. She invites us to do the same.
The old oak door hanging in a museum in Massachusetts was once a barrier. Now it is a threshold. When we step through, like Mary did, we can re-imagine not just her story, but our own. I wonder if Mary would mind if I call her Grandmother, too.
Appendix
You may be aware of Julian's most famous quote, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." We don't have many facts about Julian, but Gilbert explains that a “plausible surmise about her life is that she was born in 1343, was a householder with at least one child, but lost her family to the plague. She suffered a near-death illness herself in May 1373 at the crisis of which she experienced sixteen revelations. After that, for more than thirty years, she was an anchoress in a room next to the church of St Julian in Norwich from where she dispensed advice and in which she reflected on what she had seen, and wrote the wonderful text about her revelations, [Revelations of Divine Love]. An anchorite, of which there were some fifty in Norwich at the time, was someone who undertook to remain in a room attached to a church living according to simple vows” (Gilbert Miles to Go 100).
I (Holli) became interested in Julian when I was housebound for almost a year with Long Covid. Knowing that Julian had chosen a life of solitude as an anchoress, and feeling like an "accidental anchoress" myself, I became curious about her decisions. I was also curious, given my long illness and the state of the world, whether her assurance that "All shall be well," still applies in modern times. So I started researching her and discovered Claire Gilbert's writings. In addition to her dissertation, Restoring Porosity, Gilbert is also the author of I Julian, a work of historical fiction about Julian of Norwich and Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live, a memoir in which she shares reflections on her first year of living with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood. Julian became a spiritual guide who helped Gilbert face her cancer. Julian and Claire both helped me in my struggles with Long Covid. I highly recommend Gilbert's writings. And yes, “all shall be well” does still apply.
Sources:
Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World. Conari Press, 2005.
Butler, Scott E. Mary Harris: “The White Woman” of the Ohio Frontier in 1750, Fourth Edition. Katonah Publishing Corporation, 2022.
Gilbert, Claire. Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live. Hodder and Stoughton, 2021.
Gilbert, Claire. Restoring Porosity and the Ecological Crisis: A Post-Ricoeurian Reading of Julian of Norwich Texts. 2018. King’s College London, Doctor of Philosophy.
Healy, Carrie. “320 years ago, the raid in Deerfield was at the center of the fight for control of North America.” New England Public Media, February 28, 2024, https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2024-02-28/320-years-ago-the-raid-in-deerfield-was-at-the-center-of-the-fight-for-control-of-north-america?_amp=true#amp_ct=1729459282403&_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17294592744095&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
Norton, Marcy. The Tame and The Wild: People and Animals After 1492. Harvard University Press, 2024.
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Memorial Hall Museum. “Attack on Deerfield.” Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories, Last updated October, 2020, https://1704.deerfield.history.museum/scenes/scene.do?title=Attack
Rainwater, Holli. “Revisiting Whitewoman Street: Bridging Cultures With Mary Harris,” The Coshocton Review (edited by Scott Butler) vol. 3, no. 1, 2018, pp. 9-13.
*Versano, Carl. “Ken Burns on His ‘Most Important’ Project Yet—The American Revolution.” Newsweek, October 22, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/tv/ken-burns-on-his-most-important-project-yet-the-american-revolution-10906480
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
—Leviticus 19:33
Several years ago I wrote an essay in which I discussed how Mary Harris serves as a bridge between cultures. Toward the end of that essay I wrote:
We need Mary Harris’s story. We need to hear how she was tended and befriended and we need to re-imagine as much as we can about her life. We need to learn what she can teach us, not about being white, but about being human (Rainwater 13).
Since that time I have taken my own advice. I have gone deeper into Mary's story, done more research and made two trips to Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts where I have literally walked in Mary Harris's footsteps. I have learned valuable lessons on this journey, lessons that are helping me navigate my life in my own century.
As a quick review, Mary was living in Deerfield at the time of the raid in 1704. The raid occurred during Queen Anne’s War, which was known in Europe as the War of Spanish Succession. The conflict began in Europe and spilled over into the Americas, where French and English colonists fought for territorial control. Deerfield was the northernmost major English settlement in the Connecticut River Valley, which left it vulnerable to French attacks. During the early morning hours of February 29, 1704, the town was attacked by a force of about 48 French soldiers and 250 Kanien’kehà:ka (Mohawk), Wobanakiak,and Wendat (Huron) warriors. The raiders went from house to house, killing or capturing as many of the inhabitants as possible, while also burning many of the homes. (“Attack on Deerfield,” PVMA Memorial Hall Museum, 2020).
Mary was one of the 112 men, women, and children who were captured and marched to Canada. Upon reaching Canada, Mary was in the group that was taken by the Kanien’kehà:ka people (“People of the Flint”) to their village of Kahnawà:ke near present day Montreal, where she was adopted into the tribe.
None of the original buildings from Mary's day have survived in Deerfield. Nearly half of the houses were burned during the raid, including the home of Simon and Hannah Beaman where Mary, who was 9 or 10 years old, was living as a servant (Butler 31). But even though there are no houses still standing from 1704, there is a door. On exhibit at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association’s (PVMA) Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, it is known as “The Old Indian House Door,” a heavy oak door (c. 1699) with iron hardware that hung on the home of John and Hannah Sheldon.
Sheldon wasn't at home when the raid happened but the rest of his family was. The attackers used their axes to chop holes in the fortified door, which allowed them to shoot into the house, killing Hannah. The raiders then gained access through the back door, killing the Sheldon's two year old daughter and taking the rest of the family captive. One son managed to escape over the palisade and began making his way to nearby Hadley to raise the alarm. The house, which was the biggest one in town, was then used as a temporary holding site for all of the captives before they were marched to Canada. So our Mary spent time somewhere in that house behind that scarred door.
Over the years, the door has come to symbolize the Deerfield Raid. In an interview with James Swanson, author of The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America, he says that for the colonists the door “represented a barrier between savagery and civilization.” He explains that
. . . for almost 300 years the role of the Indians was obscured and hidden away. They were viewed as savages. They weren't part of the story. In fact, George Sheldon, the great historian of Deerfield, who wrote A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts (1895) and was one of the founders of Memorial Hall Museum— kept the Native Americans and, later, European immigrants out of the story. Sheldon was only interested in venerating and celebrating the colonial heroes (Healy 2024).
The Memorial Hall Museum signage around the door, however, acknowledges that “history is never one sided” and includes a range of multicultural perspectives about the door including these two statements:
This door is powerful evidence of Native presence and resistance to colonial invasion. We cannot begin to fathom the emotions our Native ancestors were experiencing in 1704, but the door provides us with a visceral testament to their will to resist.
- Monique Fordham, Abenaki, 2004
An icon of fear and defense for some, an empowering symbol of resistance for others, this Door is now a threshold for a more balanced dialogue about Deerfield 1704.
Ron Welburn, Professor, English department and Director, Native American Indian Studies, UMass Amherst (Gingaskin/Assateague/Cherokee), 2004
This idea of a “threshold for dialogue” resonates with a word I’ve recently encountered in the work of two different authors: porosity. We know that sponges are porous and rocks can be porous. In 1704, the oak door was made porous. Axes opened a hole that became both an entry point for violence and, paradoxically, a portal to Mary’s new life. A life in which she thrived. To hold this paradox—to mourn the deaths of Hannah and her daughter while acknowledging Mary’s new beginning—requires a porous, or open, mindset.
My recent encounters with porosity have added another layer to my understanding of “tending and befriending,” as it happened for Mary. Based on the work of psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen, we know that tending and befriending is a stress response that increases oxytocin. When women are stressed, they nurture their children and seek social contact with others (Bolen 76-77). As Scott Butler tells us, it was likely that when Mary was adopted into one of the three Mohawk clans, Bear, Wolf, or Turtle, as a replacement for a lost daughter or relative, a matron would have taken her under her wing and told the others to treat her as a family member (Butler 67). This is a perfect example of tending and befriending, and also of porosity.
Even though I discussed the idea of tending and befriending in my previous essay and even though I have experienced it both as an initiator and a receiver in my own life, it was still hard for me to wrap my head around Mary's situation. Like most other modern Western brains, when I heard her story, I wondered how that could be. How can one human being replace another human being? The only way I could reconcile it was to assume that they needed someone to do the lost person's work. So Mary would essentially continue her life of service, I thought.
Now I know, thanks to the work of Claire Gilbert, that I jumped to this conclusion because my brain was trapped in a Gestell, or buffered, mindset. Gilbert is a Julian of Norwich scholar. She wrote her PhD dissertation on the ecological crisis and how reading Julian of Norwich’s Revelations on Divine Love might restore our porosity and give us a new mindset from which we can solve the problems of climate change. She is also the author of I Julian, a work of historical fiction about Julian of Norwich and Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live, a memoir in which she shares reflections on her first year of living with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood. Gilbert uses the word porosity in all three of these works when describing Julian’s way of being in the world and to explain “how we are not hermetically sealed off individuals but constantly responding and changing in our interaction with what looks, to our Enlightenment minds, like a world that is only outside ourselves” (Gilbert, Miles to Go 83).
A porous mindset, then, sees that we are connected to and in relationship to the people and things around us as opposed to a Gestell, or buffered mindset which sees us as separate from our surroundings. Gestell is a German word that means “enframed,” and is used by Martin Heidegger to describe the mindset that turns “all of nature and ultimately ourselves into things to be used” (Gilbert Restoring Porosity 19). This mindset often results in seeing each other as adversaries and prevents trust from developing (10). Interestingly, Gilbert explains that Heidegger was an intellectual leader within Nazism and perhaps his explorations of Gestell, were “an attempt to understand how he came to hold in himself such morally outrageous views” (18).
A thing to be used, a commodity. This is exactly how Mary was viewed in the Puritan community of Deerfield, the “civilized world.” Her name was not included on the initial list of captives; our only clue to her existence is an unnamed “servant girl” listed with the Simon Beaman family (Sheldon I 304-305, as quoted in Butler 30-31). Her name was added later as other captives who knew her began to arrive back in Massachusetts (Butler 30). It seems significant, in this discussion of the Gestell mindset, that this little girl was known only by her utilitarian value. The compiler of the list didn't bother to get her name. As Butler points out, her prospects in Deerfield were never very good, being 30 miles away from her family and living the life of a servant, so perhaps being taken to Kahnawà:ke in 1704 where women had important roles and were well respected (36) “opened a new, positive chapter for her otherwise unlucky prior life” (32). A life in which she encountered the porosity of the Indigenous people of Kahnawà:ke.
This brings us to my second recent encounter with the word “porosity.” In her book, The Tame and The Wild: People and Animals After 1492, author Marcy Norton reveals the vast cultural differences between the ways in which Europeans and Native Americans related to animals. In a chapter called “Absorbing Prey,” she speaks about the hunting and fishing practices, or predation, that Indigenous people used that “led the hunter to take on attributes of the prey” (Norton 108). She explains how the Indigenous people used storytelling and dance to ritualize the day to day skills needed for predation. “Dances were occasions to tell song-stories about human ancestors who transformed into other kinds of beings or other kinds of beings who were the parents of human ancestors” (128). For them, personhood was defined not by the ability to reason—as in the Western tradition—but by porous, relational connectedness: “Humans' relationships with all kinds of beings—plants as well as other animals are what make them persons” (128).
This theme is continued in the next chapter called “Taming Strangers” in which Norton unpacks the concept of familiarization. “If predation is the process by which one pursues and consumes another being, familiarization—or feeding and therefore taming—is how one turns a wild being into kin”(Erikson 105-140 and Fausto 933-956 as quoted in Norton 132). She explains that the process of taming wild beings was complex, lengthy, and labor-intensive and involved these characteristics: the wild beings who became kin shared domestic space with their humans, but were free to come and go; they were fed and named; they communicated with their human companions; the labor of taming was done by women and was equated with mothering (Norton 132 and 140).
These familiarized beings encompassed a wide array of nonhuman animals including birds, fish, monkeys, reptiles, rodents, peccaries, tapir, deer, and manatees (Norton 135-137). But more importantly, this process of familiarization also included humans. Norton says, “common elements are found in the hospitality rites offered to strangers, the care given to newborns, and the methods used to tame nonhumans; all are forms of familiarization” (140).
Unlike the exchanges made in European societies that focused on captive animals and people as commodities, Norton discusses how familiarized beings in Indigenous societies, both human and nonhuman, were sometimes used as a form of exchange to create ties between different social groups (Norton 146-147). Strangers might submit to familiarization voluntarily, a foreigner might seek a friendship or join a community as a spouse, or one could be captured against their will during warfare and adopted as new kin. Likewise, a nonhuman animal might be captured during a hunting expedition, or choose to reside on top of a human's dwelling, becoming one of the tame animals that they . . . ‘dare not kill’” (147). The reasons for entering into these relationships were “bestowing care and experiencing love” (149). Sounds a lot like tending and befriending! And the reason Norton gives for these Indigenous people being able to do this is an “awareness of the self's porousness and erased boundaries between species” (149).
So after reading Norton’s book, I understand Mary's situation better. It's not so much a question of how Indigenous people could replace one human being with another, but of how they could expand the love and care they felt for a lost family member to include a new person who also becomes their kin. This porousness of boundaries between humans and animals and humans and plants and humans and other humans is an expansion in the way they define personhood and kin.
Drawing upon neuroscientific research, Gilbert explains that this porosity, or relationality, is part of our makeup, so even though it has been all but lost in modern times, it is recoverable (Gilbert, Restoring Porosity 85-86). One way to restore it, she suggests, is through reading poetic texts. This is basically the point of Gilbert's entire thesis and she makes some fascinating arguments for why this is so. For example, she says that when we read, we are called out of our own world (70) and that we go on our own journey as we actively participate with the text (71). She says that when we participate in this way, it's like we enter into a conversation with the text from which new meaning can emerge (81).
Anyone who loves to read has had this experience of being changed by a good book. This is partly due to the language and craft of the writing, but it is also due to the porous nature of the writer herself. Writers and poets, along with other artists, are people who willingly lay aside their preconceived notions of the world in order to go on a journey of discovery and insight. The resulting product— the novel or poem or song or painting—then invites the rest of us to go on our own journeys.
Mary Harris’s story has never been written down in poetic language, but it has had this same effect on me. I would argue that the study of history and historical figures in general has the potential to restore our porosity. There is a lot of controversy these days about history. Some people recognize the need to repair history by making it more inclusive of everyone's stories. Others see this as a threat—whether it's a fear of cultural replacement, loss of heritage, or just the wish to bury difficult truths about the dominant culture. But in my experience, if I am willing to actively enter into a conversation with history, I always learn something valuable and am transformed by the experience. These encounters provide me with a deeper understanding of my fellow humans and make me feel more connected, as if my family tree has added a new branch.
This is one of the reasons why museums are so important. When I first climbed the stairs in the Memorial Hall Museum and saw the door, I had a goosebump reaction. The physicality of the door made everything more real. This is why we need artifacts—they give us a palpable connection to our history. That experience, combined with reading, reflection, and walking the Deerfield ground, helped me understand Mary's story in a personal and concrete way. Her story has become part of my story.
Porosity is essential if we’re to have a more balanced dialogue about history. It can help us hold multiple truths simultaneously and understand the complexity and nuance of cultural encounters. This is where Mary can help us.
Consider this. At one point in her life, Mary was an unnamed servant girl, living on the edge of colonial society. Through violent and traumatic events, she became part of another community—one with a worldview that valued relational personhood. When she lived, as an adult, here in Coshocton County with a band of her Kanien'kehà kin, it is evident that she had thrived in her new culture. Christopher Gist, a person of some importance, went out of his way to visit her and there was a river and a town called “Whitewoman” because of her presence here. But here's another lesser known story. In 1756, during the French and Indian War when she was about 61 years old and back in Canada, Mary's son Peter who was the Captain of the Guard, captured an Englishman named Robert Eastburn. Eastburn wrote an account of his experience and says that “Uncle Peter” showed him “great Kindness,” among other things, by allowing him to lodge with Mary Harris “who told me she was my Grandmother and was kind” (Butler 61).
This story teaches us that porosity, which leads to tending and befriending, has a way of paying itself forward. Mary's example teaches us that we don't have to be threatened by people who are different from us, even people whom we might consider our enemies. This is what she can teach us about being human. Her experience as an adopted child taught her to extend care and kindness to others and to expand what the “civilized world” defined as family. She invites us to do the same.
The old oak door hanging in a museum in Massachusetts was once a barrier. Now it is a threshold. When we step through, like Mary did, we can re-imagine not just her story, but our own. I wonder if Mary would mind if I call her Grandmother, too.
Appendix
You may be aware of Julian's most famous quote, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." We don't have many facts about Julian, but Gilbert explains that a “plausible surmise about her life is that she was born in 1343, was a householder with at least one child, but lost her family to the plague. She suffered a near-death illness herself in May 1373 at the crisis of which she experienced sixteen revelations. After that, for more than thirty years, she was an anchoress in a room next to the church of St Julian in Norwich from where she dispensed advice and in which she reflected on what she had seen, and wrote the wonderful text about her revelations, [Revelations of Divine Love]. An anchorite, of which there were some fifty in Norwich at the time, was someone who undertook to remain in a room attached to a church living according to simple vows” (Gilbert Miles to Go 100).
I (Holli) became interested in Julian when I was housebound for almost a year with Long Covid. Knowing that Julian had chosen a life of solitude as an anchoress, and feeling like an "accidental anchoress" myself, I became curious about her decisions. I was also curious, given my long illness and the state of the world, whether her assurance that "All shall be well," still applies in modern times. So I started researching her and discovered Claire Gilbert's writings. In addition to her dissertation, Restoring Porosity, Gilbert is also the author of I Julian, a work of historical fiction about Julian of Norwich and Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live, a memoir in which she shares reflections on her first year of living with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood. Julian became a spiritual guide who helped Gilbert face her cancer. Julian and Claire both helped me in my struggles with Long Covid. I highly recommend Gilbert's writings. And yes, “all shall be well” does still apply.
Sources:
Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World. Conari Press, 2005.
Butler, Scott E. Mary Harris: “The White Woman” of the Ohio Frontier in 1750, Fourth Edition. Katonah Publishing Corporation, 2022.
Gilbert, Claire. Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death, and Learning to Live. Hodder and Stoughton, 2021.
Gilbert, Claire. Restoring Porosity and the Ecological Crisis: A Post-Ricoeurian Reading of Julian of Norwich Texts. 2018. King’s College London, Doctor of Philosophy.
Healy, Carrie. “320 years ago, the raid in Deerfield was at the center of the fight for control of North America.” New England Public Media, February 28, 2024, https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2024-02-28/320-years-ago-the-raid-in-deerfield-was-at-the-center-of-the-fight-for-control-of-north-america?_amp=true#amp_ct=1729459282403&_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17294592744095&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
Norton, Marcy. The Tame and The Wild: People and Animals After 1492. Harvard University Press, 2024.
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Memorial Hall Museum. “Attack on Deerfield.” Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories, Last updated October, 2020, https://1704.deerfield.history.museum/scenes/scene.do?title=Attack
Rainwater, Holli. “Revisiting Whitewoman Street: Bridging Cultures With Mary Harris,” The Coshocton Review (edited by Scott Butler) vol. 3, no. 1, 2018, pp. 9-13.
*Versano, Carl. “Ken Burns on His ‘Most Important’ Project Yet—The American Revolution.” Newsweek, October 22, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/tv/ken-burns-on-his-most-important-project-yet-the-american-revolution-10906480
Tom Edwards: Coshocton and Ohio’s Role in the 18th Amendment to the U S Constitution “Prohibition” (2nd Place Winner)
Ken Burns, the documentary film maker for PBS has a way of creating films that offer an intimate perspective of the human experience. His narrators share letters and period photos from the people that actually lived in that era. The most recent film Ken produced is on the subject of prohibition. I listened to the episode; Prohibition, a Nation of Drunkards that recently aired on The Ohio State University PBS station. My town, Coshocton, was mentioned on the segment highlighting the beginnings of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. That provoked my curiosity about the history of alcohol in Coshocton.
We can start with studying Mary Harris, the first white woman of European descent to live in what was then the Ohio Company around 1740. She was visited by Christopher Gist, an accomplished explorer, surveyor, frontiersman and land speculator about 1751 near what is now Coshocton. Mary had been captured as a child in 1704 in the Deerfield Massachusetts Raid and raised as a Mohawk Indian. She married a Mohawk Indian and adopted the Indian cultures where women (squaws) had influence in the making of social decisions, such as picking a Chief and waging war. The women handled much of the trading between other tribes and settlers and they were strictly against alcohol. We have a street named after Mary Harris, White Woman Street. It's the street that the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum sits on today.
In his book, Frontier History of Coshocton, Dr. Scott Butler provides extensive research on Mary Harris. The Mohawk Indians were heavily influenced by Catholic Jesuits, and their thoughts on alcohol were as quoted: “Alcohol-induced violence was a major factor in motivating some Mohawks, particularly women to move to Kentake’ (Kenesatake Quebec, Canada) away from the influence of whiskey and rum from the English Settlers and Colonists in the Mohawk Valley. Some Indians liked alcohol because it induced a dream-like state, which had a religious significance. But its use inevitably led to terrible bouts of fratricidal violence and over the longterm, social disruption and cultural disintegration.”
A township in the western part of Coshocton County is named after an Indian chief in the late 1700s. Chief White Eyes attempted to negotiate with the European colonists to live in peace, thinking one day the Indian nations would like to join the other 13 original colonies. Chief White Eyes was totally against the destructive and explosive influence alcohol played in their interaction with “English”. Alcohol was used both in trade and for social manipulation.
In 1832, the Ohio and Erie Canal Company began construction at Lake Erie and opened travel and commerce by boat through Coshocton, all the way to the Ohio River. Workers were initially paid 30 cents a day, and a jigger of whiskey. It was not uncommon during this period to use alcohol as a currency, especially with Irish and German immigrants.
In 1828, Charles Caroll laid the cornerstone for the first railroad to Ohio, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. Carroll was the only Irish Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. A wealthy Maryland plantation owner, Carroll had over 300 slaves. He used the same strategy to build his railroad, by offering whiskey as part of their payment.
During the civil war, there were several underground railroad agents in Coshocton County helping to hide slaves on their route up to Canada and freedom. Many slave owners and bounty hunters made a living looking for these runaways. A significant number of folks in Coshocton were abolitionists, and Methodists. At one time, there were 13 Methodist churches in Coshocton. The abolitionists wanted to make changes in society: end slavery, support the Women’s Right to Vote, and champion Prohibition. They quickly learned that each of these changes would have to wait its turn.
Post Civil War, Prohibition was still on the minds of many folks, but women's suffrage was taking the forefront. Ohio born Ulysses S. Grant (18th president) was known to drink a lot, and Old Crow Bourbon was said to be his beverage of choice. Grant’s administration was tainted by the involvement in a fraud called the Whiskey Ring. Several of his appointees had been siphoning funds off the excise taxes from liquor, and were caught pocketing government collected money. Grant ended up pardoning all involved. That said, prohibition in Grant’s era saw little movement forward.
The next Ohio born president, was Rutherford B. Hayes, whose father was a Scotsman. The family moved to Ohio from Vermont because Ohio had better corn and wheat instead of rye for making whiskey. President Hayes may have drank a little, but his wife, the first lady, Lucy, she was a teetotaler. They called her Lemonade Lucy and while she inhabited the White House there was no drinking. Even then prohibition did not get much support. Warren G. Harding the next Ohio President, Prohibition was the law of the land; but he kept a bottle of whiskey in his golf bag. He played golf often. He was known to dabble in extramarital affairs too, which the Prohibitionists and the Women's Christian Temperance Union frowned on.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) movement came into existence around 1873. As was shown in the Ken Burns documentary, Elizabeth Jane Thompson, the daughter of a former Ohio Governor, was devastated by the death of her son by alcohol poisoning, caused by a doctor prescribing whiskey from the Hillsboro, Ohio apothecary. Her method of protesting was to assemble community women together, dress in black and march on apothecaries, drugstores and saloons. Elizabeth’s husband, a sitting Municipal Judge, called these demonstrations tomfoolery. She immediately shot back that tomfoolery had worked many years for men.
The documentary went on to talk about Coshocton. That's when my ears perked up. The documentary spoke of a sweet lady from Coshocton who used a different method to protest at saloons and drugstores. Ken Burns’s narrator spoke of Eliza Hackett talking softly and crying to get her point across about the evils of alcohol. Her words, as narrated, put you in mind of a nice, quiet grandmother. Apothecaries and drug stores followed few regulations or displayed any morals, according to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Remember, originally in Atlanta, Georgia, the new soft drink Coca-Cola was invented by a druggist in 1888. His original recipe had cocaine as one of the main ingredients.
One of the biggest bootleggers during Prohibition was George Remus. George was a pharmacist and a lawyer out of Chicago. He left Chicago, turning that over to Al Capone and the mob, and moved to Cincinnati. George bought up northern Kentucky distilleries that were allowed to distill medical whiskey/bourbon because of a loophole in the Prohibition Act (more about George later). Another Prohibition era distillery owned by George Garvin Brown from Munfordville, Kentucky used another approach. Garvin was a devout Christian Bible thumper and teetotaler, but he believed in hot toddies made with honey and his bourbon for curing the common cold. Garvin was a pharmaceutical salesman, and he came up with his own bourbon, Old Forester, named after a doctor who endorsed Garvin’s recipe tonic. Garvin was credited with putting his bourbon in glass jars and putting a paper seal over the cork to make sure nobody tampered with the contents.
Another organization against alcohol sprang up about the same time, the Anti Saloon League. After going through several locations, they ended up having their headquarters in Westerville, Ohio, then a small rural town outside Columbus. The City of Westerville gave the Anti Saloon League land to build their headquarters and a printing facility that cranked out propaganda literature distributed by mail all over the USA. Initially, the Anti Saloon League got backing from John D. Rockefeller, a strict Baptist oil man (Standard Oil Company) in Cleveland, Ohio. Rockefeller’s religious belief was that prohibition would lead to increased productivity, social order and better labor relations. However, when Prohibition neared its end, he had a change of heart. Mr. Rockefeller didn't like drinking, but prohibition failed to achieve its goals with many negative consequences. It created a lawless cast of bootleggers’ and thugs with no respect for the law. Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania steel man (US Steel), and Henry Ford, the Detroit automaker, they too wanted Prohibition to improve productivity. Southern whites wanted Prohibition to keep the blacks from drinking. When drinking, some black sharecroppers demanded more respect and wages, which the white racist and Klan members feared. William Jennings Bryant, three-time presidential candidate supported Prohibition.
Around the time of World War 1, Americans fostered an anti-German sentiment, due to American ships being torpedoed by U-Boats. The United States rationed grain (corn and wheat) to support the Army and Navy. The Blatz and Anheuser-Bush folks in America were furious. It was estimated that about one fifth of the U.S. economy centered around alcohol. From farmers to sellers and truck drivers to bartenders. The Federal Government collected much of its operating funds from alcohol production in the form of excise tax. Until the federal income tax came into play, none of the politicians really wanted prohibition and just paid lip service to it.
In Westerville, Ohio (a dry city until 2004) there was a fella in my vocation, the hardware business. In 1875 Corbin Hardware sold a variety of merchandise, including dynamite. Henry Corbin opened an illegal tavern which was bombed. He turned the loss in to his insurance company. In 1879 his wife ran a small hotel, and a tavern which it was bombed as well. Although Henry never went to Court for fraudulent insurance claims, there were other suspicious things going on all over Ohio. In Ohio soda fountains evolved into speakeasies serving whiskey and cocktails. Boat Brothers Soda Fountain in Columbus is where many Ohio senators, legislators and staff went to drink. Columbus lacked having any big named mobsters with Tommy Guns, although Al Capone did visit Columbus at one time. Al was convinced by an unsavory fellow named Pat Burden that Columbus was not big enough for the two of them. Pat had several businesses, and his wife operated brothels and gambling joints. Columbus City Hall was a party to this hypocrisy. The city officials turned a blind eye to booze, allowing this drunken debauchery during Prohibition.
Carrie Nation, the radical figurehead of the WCTU was highlighted in the Ken Burns Prohibiton series on PBS. Her life and works are also detailed in an exhibition in the Oscar Getz Bourbon Museum in Bardstown, Kentucky. Carrie passed through Coshocton in 1904 by train and then buggy on her way to nearby Newcomerstown, Ohio, just a few miles east of Coshocton. Upon arrival, she took her famous hatchet and destroyed barrels of whiskey at Sam Douglas's Saloon. Carrie was arrested and spent one night in jail. Carrie Nation was originally from Kentucky. Her first husband died of alcoholism. She moved to Kansas, a dry state, but the politicians were not enforcing the laws against the evils of alcohol that robbed her of her early life. She wrote letters to the Kansas Governor and city mayors. Her letter campaign was unsuccessful, so she took an unorthodox approach and turned to violence. Carrie Nation was to prohibition and saloons, what John Brown was to slavery, as noted by a Methodist minister in Cincinnati, who had come through Coshocton and read about Carrie’s exploits. Susan B. Anthony, a Women’s Suffrage leader, was for prohibition, but of primary importance, a woman’s right to vote. Voting was necessary to facilitate changes like prohibition by passing them in the legislature. Anthony, said of Carrie Nation that “Her hatchet is the weapon of barbarism, the ballot is the one weapon of civilization!” Newcomerstown has a small museum called the Temperance Tavern where parts of the Sam Douglas Saloon’s chopped-up bar is on display.
As World War 1 broke out, the Anti-Saloon League pushed for Americans not to drink German beer. German brewers pushed back by running newspaper ads quoting doctors as saying, “beer was good for you”. In retaliation, Anti-Saloon Leagues ran newspaper ads showing how many groceries you could buy if you forgo going to the saloon three times a week. One of the brewing companies, Columbus Brewing Company, advertised their beer on metal trays, similar to iconic Coca Cola trays. Those trays were produced by the American Artworks Company of Coshocton.
In 1908 the Ohio legislators passed The Rose Law, which gave each county and township the option of whether they wanted to prohibit the sale of alcohol. The law was a minor victory for the temperance folks in the Anti-Saloon League who had championed that they were going to make sure legislators wouldn't get re-elected unless they supported prohibition. The lawmakers more or less passed the buck. In 1908, Coshocton was a dry county. In November 1910, Coshocton voters repealed their former prohibition and went from a dry to a wet county, but the legislation came with regulations dealing with saloons. Prior to this move, there were speakeasies selling beer and whiskey on Main Street in Coshocton that operated as Soda Fountains. One such establishment was operated by a Fred Lorenz. Fred had put up a curtain over the windows so passersby could not look into his Soda Fountain while walking down Main Street. Fred said he did not want people peeking in to see his newly installed Western Union Ticker Tape machine sending results of each inning during Cleveland Indians baseball games. The real reason was so people couldn't peek in the window walking down the sidewalk to see who was drinking at his bar.
The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1919. Prohibition prohibited the manufacture, sale, transport, and import or export of intoxicating liquors; but there were loopholes. That's why George Remus, a German Immigrant, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. George had been a pharmacist and a lawyer in Chicago; he knew how to get around the laws. Cincinnati had a lot of German folks, and he knew they weren't going to quit drinking. George accumulated a lot of wealth by buying distilleries to make bourbon and whiskey and selling to drugstores and speakeasies. George knew where the corrupt politicians were and paid them off. George had a trophy wife, Imogene. The Treasury Department agents, “G Men”, were after George, and eventually convicted him on a couple of minor income tax evasion charges. George was sentenced to a white-collar prison for a few months in Atlanta. While he was incarcerated, his trophy wife, Imogene, got to messing around with a “G-Man”, Franklin Dodge, an agent from the Treasury Department trying to get rid of bootleggers. Frank and Imogene pilfered a lot of George’s assets, real-estate, hidden bank accounts and even some expensive furniture. George got out of prison, came home and found out his wife's had been cheating on him. He locates her in a Cincinnati park, gets his gun out, shoots her dead, then drives himself to the police station and turns himself in. The prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County at the time was Charles Taft. His father had been president of the United States and a Supreme Court Justice. George acted as his own attorney in his trial. He said that he loved that woman so much, he just lost his mind, and he pleaded “not guilty” for reasons of insanity. He helped pick the jury, most of whom were of German descent who appreciated George for helping making sure they had beer during Prohibition. The jury deliberated just a few minutes and found him not guilty! All the major newspapers, including the London Times and LA, New Orleans, Atlanta, New York and DC newspapers covered the trial. The newspaper editorials made a mockery of Charles Taft's abilities; hence Charles Taft would never become president like his father. By 1933 the 21st Amendment passed, ending Prohibition. The evils of alcohol and the reason why the Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed in the first place still existed.
The Women's Christian Temperance Union continued on after the repeal of prohibition. Coshocton resident, 86-year-old Alice Hoover, born in Perry County, Ohio currently does historical re-enactments for Roscoe Village and is a friend of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. Her father was a coal miner who suffered from alcoholism. He died at an early age, leaving Alice's mother to raise three girls by herself. She sent all of them to Otterbein College in Westerville (home of the Anti-Saloon League and a large chapter of WCTU). Alice joined the WCTU Youth council and pledged that she would never smoke or drink. Alice worked the WCTU booth at the Coshocton County Fair for many years. WCTU preached about the poisons that are in cigarettes. During that period, folks still used leeches for medical hematoma resolution. Leeches that sucked the blood from the bruise of a smoker would die. There were pictures of dead leeches in their county fair booth. WCTU warned people going to Ohio State football games in Columbus not to be lured into downtown hotels that had cocktails and hospitality rooms. Young ladies were forewarned not to go to those places because they were evil. WCTU members were also known to discuss taboo subjects like divorce and birth control. The Coshocton WCTU building today houses the county garden club displays at the fair, but the club is no longer active.
On October 22nd of this year, I crowdsourced the topic of Prohibition and alcohol use on Coshocton’s WTNS radio talk show. Disc jockey Mike remembers the 1966 Country Music Grand Ole Opry Star Loretta Lynn’s song about drunk husbands, "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)". One listener contacted me about their Italian immigrant grandparents who had backyard vineyards during prohibition, for making wine. Pia Casalotti Zanon told inquiring Coshocton Sheriff Deputy Hoop that the grapes were for making jelly. The Haines family spoke of a 1,000-gallon moonshine operation in Oxford Township that operated for many years until federal agents arrested 9 men on July 5, 1935.
In summary the story of drinking alcohol is best told by a future President. Not one of the 7 Ohioans who became president, but by Honest Abe. In 1832 Abraham Lincoln and a business partner owned a general store and tavern in New Salem, Illinois called Berry & Lincoln. The business eventually failed due to Berry’s drinking problems. Regarding alcohol Abe said “How could it be bad and be good?” “It's true that even then, it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by liquor, but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing.”
References:
Historical Society Museum, Newcomerstown, OH
Temperance Museum in the Westerville Public Library, Jim Seitz
Men of Steel. Advertising Art Industries in Coshocton, Ohio, William Carlisle
Frontier History of Coshocton, Scott E. Butler, Ph. D.
Whiskey: An American History, Oscar Getz Museum, Bardstown, KY
Friends of the Johnson Humerickhouse Museum, Coshocton, OH, Alice Hoover
The Standard Democrat Newspaper, Coshocton
Coshocton Daily Age Newspaper
The Coshocton Tribune.
WTNS Radio Talk Show October 22, 2025
Ken Burns documentary “Prohibition” WOSU PBS TV 8
We can start with studying Mary Harris, the first white woman of European descent to live in what was then the Ohio Company around 1740. She was visited by Christopher Gist, an accomplished explorer, surveyor, frontiersman and land speculator about 1751 near what is now Coshocton. Mary had been captured as a child in 1704 in the Deerfield Massachusetts Raid and raised as a Mohawk Indian. She married a Mohawk Indian and adopted the Indian cultures where women (squaws) had influence in the making of social decisions, such as picking a Chief and waging war. The women handled much of the trading between other tribes and settlers and they were strictly against alcohol. We have a street named after Mary Harris, White Woman Street. It's the street that the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum sits on today.
In his book, Frontier History of Coshocton, Dr. Scott Butler provides extensive research on Mary Harris. The Mohawk Indians were heavily influenced by Catholic Jesuits, and their thoughts on alcohol were as quoted: “Alcohol-induced violence was a major factor in motivating some Mohawks, particularly women to move to Kentake’ (Kenesatake Quebec, Canada) away from the influence of whiskey and rum from the English Settlers and Colonists in the Mohawk Valley. Some Indians liked alcohol because it induced a dream-like state, which had a religious significance. But its use inevitably led to terrible bouts of fratricidal violence and over the longterm, social disruption and cultural disintegration.”
A township in the western part of Coshocton County is named after an Indian chief in the late 1700s. Chief White Eyes attempted to negotiate with the European colonists to live in peace, thinking one day the Indian nations would like to join the other 13 original colonies. Chief White Eyes was totally against the destructive and explosive influence alcohol played in their interaction with “English”. Alcohol was used both in trade and for social manipulation.
In 1832, the Ohio and Erie Canal Company began construction at Lake Erie and opened travel and commerce by boat through Coshocton, all the way to the Ohio River. Workers were initially paid 30 cents a day, and a jigger of whiskey. It was not uncommon during this period to use alcohol as a currency, especially with Irish and German immigrants.
In 1828, Charles Caroll laid the cornerstone for the first railroad to Ohio, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. Carroll was the only Irish Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. A wealthy Maryland plantation owner, Carroll had over 300 slaves. He used the same strategy to build his railroad, by offering whiskey as part of their payment.
During the civil war, there were several underground railroad agents in Coshocton County helping to hide slaves on their route up to Canada and freedom. Many slave owners and bounty hunters made a living looking for these runaways. A significant number of folks in Coshocton were abolitionists, and Methodists. At one time, there were 13 Methodist churches in Coshocton. The abolitionists wanted to make changes in society: end slavery, support the Women’s Right to Vote, and champion Prohibition. They quickly learned that each of these changes would have to wait its turn.
Post Civil War, Prohibition was still on the minds of many folks, but women's suffrage was taking the forefront. Ohio born Ulysses S. Grant (18th president) was known to drink a lot, and Old Crow Bourbon was said to be his beverage of choice. Grant’s administration was tainted by the involvement in a fraud called the Whiskey Ring. Several of his appointees had been siphoning funds off the excise taxes from liquor, and were caught pocketing government collected money. Grant ended up pardoning all involved. That said, prohibition in Grant’s era saw little movement forward.
The next Ohio born president, was Rutherford B. Hayes, whose father was a Scotsman. The family moved to Ohio from Vermont because Ohio had better corn and wheat instead of rye for making whiskey. President Hayes may have drank a little, but his wife, the first lady, Lucy, she was a teetotaler. They called her Lemonade Lucy and while she inhabited the White House there was no drinking. Even then prohibition did not get much support. Warren G. Harding the next Ohio President, Prohibition was the law of the land; but he kept a bottle of whiskey in his golf bag. He played golf often. He was known to dabble in extramarital affairs too, which the Prohibitionists and the Women's Christian Temperance Union frowned on.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) movement came into existence around 1873. As was shown in the Ken Burns documentary, Elizabeth Jane Thompson, the daughter of a former Ohio Governor, was devastated by the death of her son by alcohol poisoning, caused by a doctor prescribing whiskey from the Hillsboro, Ohio apothecary. Her method of protesting was to assemble community women together, dress in black and march on apothecaries, drugstores and saloons. Elizabeth’s husband, a sitting Municipal Judge, called these demonstrations tomfoolery. She immediately shot back that tomfoolery had worked many years for men.
The documentary went on to talk about Coshocton. That's when my ears perked up. The documentary spoke of a sweet lady from Coshocton who used a different method to protest at saloons and drugstores. Ken Burns’s narrator spoke of Eliza Hackett talking softly and crying to get her point across about the evils of alcohol. Her words, as narrated, put you in mind of a nice, quiet grandmother. Apothecaries and drug stores followed few regulations or displayed any morals, according to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Remember, originally in Atlanta, Georgia, the new soft drink Coca-Cola was invented by a druggist in 1888. His original recipe had cocaine as one of the main ingredients.
One of the biggest bootleggers during Prohibition was George Remus. George was a pharmacist and a lawyer out of Chicago. He left Chicago, turning that over to Al Capone and the mob, and moved to Cincinnati. George bought up northern Kentucky distilleries that were allowed to distill medical whiskey/bourbon because of a loophole in the Prohibition Act (more about George later). Another Prohibition era distillery owned by George Garvin Brown from Munfordville, Kentucky used another approach. Garvin was a devout Christian Bible thumper and teetotaler, but he believed in hot toddies made with honey and his bourbon for curing the common cold. Garvin was a pharmaceutical salesman, and he came up with his own bourbon, Old Forester, named after a doctor who endorsed Garvin’s recipe tonic. Garvin was credited with putting his bourbon in glass jars and putting a paper seal over the cork to make sure nobody tampered with the contents.
Another organization against alcohol sprang up about the same time, the Anti Saloon League. After going through several locations, they ended up having their headquarters in Westerville, Ohio, then a small rural town outside Columbus. The City of Westerville gave the Anti Saloon League land to build their headquarters and a printing facility that cranked out propaganda literature distributed by mail all over the USA. Initially, the Anti Saloon League got backing from John D. Rockefeller, a strict Baptist oil man (Standard Oil Company) in Cleveland, Ohio. Rockefeller’s religious belief was that prohibition would lead to increased productivity, social order and better labor relations. However, when Prohibition neared its end, he had a change of heart. Mr. Rockefeller didn't like drinking, but prohibition failed to achieve its goals with many negative consequences. It created a lawless cast of bootleggers’ and thugs with no respect for the law. Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania steel man (US Steel), and Henry Ford, the Detroit automaker, they too wanted Prohibition to improve productivity. Southern whites wanted Prohibition to keep the blacks from drinking. When drinking, some black sharecroppers demanded more respect and wages, which the white racist and Klan members feared. William Jennings Bryant, three-time presidential candidate supported Prohibition.
Around the time of World War 1, Americans fostered an anti-German sentiment, due to American ships being torpedoed by U-Boats. The United States rationed grain (corn and wheat) to support the Army and Navy. The Blatz and Anheuser-Bush folks in America were furious. It was estimated that about one fifth of the U.S. economy centered around alcohol. From farmers to sellers and truck drivers to bartenders. The Federal Government collected much of its operating funds from alcohol production in the form of excise tax. Until the federal income tax came into play, none of the politicians really wanted prohibition and just paid lip service to it.
In Westerville, Ohio (a dry city until 2004) there was a fella in my vocation, the hardware business. In 1875 Corbin Hardware sold a variety of merchandise, including dynamite. Henry Corbin opened an illegal tavern which was bombed. He turned the loss in to his insurance company. In 1879 his wife ran a small hotel, and a tavern which it was bombed as well. Although Henry never went to Court for fraudulent insurance claims, there were other suspicious things going on all over Ohio. In Ohio soda fountains evolved into speakeasies serving whiskey and cocktails. Boat Brothers Soda Fountain in Columbus is where many Ohio senators, legislators and staff went to drink. Columbus lacked having any big named mobsters with Tommy Guns, although Al Capone did visit Columbus at one time. Al was convinced by an unsavory fellow named Pat Burden that Columbus was not big enough for the two of them. Pat had several businesses, and his wife operated brothels and gambling joints. Columbus City Hall was a party to this hypocrisy. The city officials turned a blind eye to booze, allowing this drunken debauchery during Prohibition.
Carrie Nation, the radical figurehead of the WCTU was highlighted in the Ken Burns Prohibiton series on PBS. Her life and works are also detailed in an exhibition in the Oscar Getz Bourbon Museum in Bardstown, Kentucky. Carrie passed through Coshocton in 1904 by train and then buggy on her way to nearby Newcomerstown, Ohio, just a few miles east of Coshocton. Upon arrival, she took her famous hatchet and destroyed barrels of whiskey at Sam Douglas's Saloon. Carrie was arrested and spent one night in jail. Carrie Nation was originally from Kentucky. Her first husband died of alcoholism. She moved to Kansas, a dry state, but the politicians were not enforcing the laws against the evils of alcohol that robbed her of her early life. She wrote letters to the Kansas Governor and city mayors. Her letter campaign was unsuccessful, so she took an unorthodox approach and turned to violence. Carrie Nation was to prohibition and saloons, what John Brown was to slavery, as noted by a Methodist minister in Cincinnati, who had come through Coshocton and read about Carrie’s exploits. Susan B. Anthony, a Women’s Suffrage leader, was for prohibition, but of primary importance, a woman’s right to vote. Voting was necessary to facilitate changes like prohibition by passing them in the legislature. Anthony, said of Carrie Nation that “Her hatchet is the weapon of barbarism, the ballot is the one weapon of civilization!” Newcomerstown has a small museum called the Temperance Tavern where parts of the Sam Douglas Saloon’s chopped-up bar is on display.
As World War 1 broke out, the Anti-Saloon League pushed for Americans not to drink German beer. German brewers pushed back by running newspaper ads quoting doctors as saying, “beer was good for you”. In retaliation, Anti-Saloon Leagues ran newspaper ads showing how many groceries you could buy if you forgo going to the saloon three times a week. One of the brewing companies, Columbus Brewing Company, advertised their beer on metal trays, similar to iconic Coca Cola trays. Those trays were produced by the American Artworks Company of Coshocton.
In 1908 the Ohio legislators passed The Rose Law, which gave each county and township the option of whether they wanted to prohibit the sale of alcohol. The law was a minor victory for the temperance folks in the Anti-Saloon League who had championed that they were going to make sure legislators wouldn't get re-elected unless they supported prohibition. The lawmakers more or less passed the buck. In 1908, Coshocton was a dry county. In November 1910, Coshocton voters repealed their former prohibition and went from a dry to a wet county, but the legislation came with regulations dealing with saloons. Prior to this move, there were speakeasies selling beer and whiskey on Main Street in Coshocton that operated as Soda Fountains. One such establishment was operated by a Fred Lorenz. Fred had put up a curtain over the windows so passersby could not look into his Soda Fountain while walking down Main Street. Fred said he did not want people peeking in to see his newly installed Western Union Ticker Tape machine sending results of each inning during Cleveland Indians baseball games. The real reason was so people couldn't peek in the window walking down the sidewalk to see who was drinking at his bar.
The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1919. Prohibition prohibited the manufacture, sale, transport, and import or export of intoxicating liquors; but there were loopholes. That's why George Remus, a German Immigrant, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. George had been a pharmacist and a lawyer in Chicago; he knew how to get around the laws. Cincinnati had a lot of German folks, and he knew they weren't going to quit drinking. George accumulated a lot of wealth by buying distilleries to make bourbon and whiskey and selling to drugstores and speakeasies. George knew where the corrupt politicians were and paid them off. George had a trophy wife, Imogene. The Treasury Department agents, “G Men”, were after George, and eventually convicted him on a couple of minor income tax evasion charges. George was sentenced to a white-collar prison for a few months in Atlanta. While he was incarcerated, his trophy wife, Imogene, got to messing around with a “G-Man”, Franklin Dodge, an agent from the Treasury Department trying to get rid of bootleggers. Frank and Imogene pilfered a lot of George’s assets, real-estate, hidden bank accounts and even some expensive furniture. George got out of prison, came home and found out his wife's had been cheating on him. He locates her in a Cincinnati park, gets his gun out, shoots her dead, then drives himself to the police station and turns himself in. The prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County at the time was Charles Taft. His father had been president of the United States and a Supreme Court Justice. George acted as his own attorney in his trial. He said that he loved that woman so much, he just lost his mind, and he pleaded “not guilty” for reasons of insanity. He helped pick the jury, most of whom were of German descent who appreciated George for helping making sure they had beer during Prohibition. The jury deliberated just a few minutes and found him not guilty! All the major newspapers, including the London Times and LA, New Orleans, Atlanta, New York and DC newspapers covered the trial. The newspaper editorials made a mockery of Charles Taft's abilities; hence Charles Taft would never become president like his father. By 1933 the 21st Amendment passed, ending Prohibition. The evils of alcohol and the reason why the Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed in the first place still existed.
The Women's Christian Temperance Union continued on after the repeal of prohibition. Coshocton resident, 86-year-old Alice Hoover, born in Perry County, Ohio currently does historical re-enactments for Roscoe Village and is a friend of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. Her father was a coal miner who suffered from alcoholism. He died at an early age, leaving Alice's mother to raise three girls by herself. She sent all of them to Otterbein College in Westerville (home of the Anti-Saloon League and a large chapter of WCTU). Alice joined the WCTU Youth council and pledged that she would never smoke or drink. Alice worked the WCTU booth at the Coshocton County Fair for many years. WCTU preached about the poisons that are in cigarettes. During that period, folks still used leeches for medical hematoma resolution. Leeches that sucked the blood from the bruise of a smoker would die. There were pictures of dead leeches in their county fair booth. WCTU warned people going to Ohio State football games in Columbus not to be lured into downtown hotels that had cocktails and hospitality rooms. Young ladies were forewarned not to go to those places because they were evil. WCTU members were also known to discuss taboo subjects like divorce and birth control. The Coshocton WCTU building today houses the county garden club displays at the fair, but the club is no longer active.
On October 22nd of this year, I crowdsourced the topic of Prohibition and alcohol use on Coshocton’s WTNS radio talk show. Disc jockey Mike remembers the 1966 Country Music Grand Ole Opry Star Loretta Lynn’s song about drunk husbands, "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)". One listener contacted me about their Italian immigrant grandparents who had backyard vineyards during prohibition, for making wine. Pia Casalotti Zanon told inquiring Coshocton Sheriff Deputy Hoop that the grapes were for making jelly. The Haines family spoke of a 1,000-gallon moonshine operation in Oxford Township that operated for many years until federal agents arrested 9 men on July 5, 1935.
In summary the story of drinking alcohol is best told by a future President. Not one of the 7 Ohioans who became president, but by Honest Abe. In 1832 Abraham Lincoln and a business partner owned a general store and tavern in New Salem, Illinois called Berry & Lincoln. The business eventually failed due to Berry’s drinking problems. Regarding alcohol Abe said “How could it be bad and be good?” “It's true that even then, it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by liquor, but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing.”
References:
Historical Society Museum, Newcomerstown, OH
Temperance Museum in the Westerville Public Library, Jim Seitz
Men of Steel. Advertising Art Industries in Coshocton, Ohio, William Carlisle
Frontier History of Coshocton, Scott E. Butler, Ph. D.
Whiskey: An American History, Oscar Getz Museum, Bardstown, KY
Friends of the Johnson Humerickhouse Museum, Coshocton, OH, Alice Hoover
The Standard Democrat Newspaper, Coshocton
Coshocton Daily Age Newspaper
The Coshocton Tribune.
WTNS Radio Talk Show October 22, 2025
Ken Burns documentary “Prohibition” WOSU PBS TV 8
Mark Kittel: Moravian Rhapsody: Modern Lessons of the Gnadenhutten Massacre (2nd Place Winner)
On March 8, 1782, American militia men from Pennsylvania murdered ninety-six Moravian Christians among the ruins of the Moravian’s village of Gnadenhutten. The Moravian Christians, most of them Lenape and Mohican converts from the greater Coshocton region, had been forcibly relocated by British-allied Wyandot Indians to a new village on the Sandusky River, while their missionary leaders, David Zeisberger and John Heckwelder, were taken to Fort Detroit on charges of treason against the British. But with winter food supplies running low, about one-hundred fifty of the Moravians were permitted to return to what remained of their Muskingum River homes to harvest corn and collect food and other supplies that had been left behind. (Dowd 1992, 65–90; Zeisberger 1885, 78-82; Hutton 1923, 111-15)
The Pennsylvania militiamen, a raiding party under the command of Colonel David Williamson, came across the Moravian Indians that were heading toward Gnadenhutten. The colonel assured them they were friendly and would protect them from other warring parties in the area. The soldiers escorted them to the village after the militia insisted on taking the Moravians’ hunting rifles and tools. Once the Indians were disarmed the militia bound and imprisoned them. The colonel, convinced he had found British-allied spies, accused the Moravian Indians of attacking American settlements in Pennsylvania and aiding the British. The Moravians protested that they were pacifists and had taken no side in the war; the pleas were ignored, as neutrality in war-time was viewed with extreme suspicion. The militiamen decided to put their captives to death, starting with the men and then working through the women and children, methodically beating, torturing, and then scalping each one by one. (Dowd 1992, 65–90; Hutton 1923, 111-15) Through it all, the Moravian converts sang hymns and prayed, praying for themselves, praying for divine intervention, praying for their attackers; they offered no resistance nor made any attempt to fight against their executioners. Some were apparently taunted for their pacifism; when one man was offered an axe to fight with, the Indian Christian refused to even touch the weapon, which was then used to kill him. (Schutt 2007, 172) To their deaths they held fast to the instruction of their mission teachers to follow the example of their lord and savior. Only two boys survived and escaped to report what had happened, warning other Moravian converts heading to Schoënbrunn and other nearby settlements. (Zeisberger 1885, 79-81; Hutton 1923, 111-15)
Zeisberger learned of the massacre only a few weeks later. He immediately declared the victims to be martyrs of the church, but puzzled over why his Indian brethren had so easily trusted these American soldiers when in the past they would have run or hid in the wilderness from white soldiers, and why they had not put up any resistance at all to their fate. (Zeisberger 1885, 79-81) But pacifism and love for all was exactly what the Lenape had been taught by the Moravian ministers. Prior to the American Revolution, Zeisberger set strict rules to live by for his converts, which prohibited violent behavior among themselves; when war came to the frontier, Zeisberger made it clear the Moravians would not go to war or take sides in the conflict, and endeavored to use the influence of his converts to persuade the rest of the Lenni Lenape to remain out of the war for fear it would expose the men to moral corruptions. Zeisberger even envisioned, as his friend Chief White Eyes did, that the Lenape would be able to form part of Ohio as a Christian Indian state where bloodshed would be absolutely prohibited on Lenape lands. (Hutton 1923, 108-110). The pacifist ideology that had appealed to and drawn the Lenape and Mohicans into the Moravian church had, perhaps, given them too much confidence in the effectiveness of peace and brotherly love.
Zeisberger can hardly be blamed for what happened at Gnadenhutten, however. Pacifism had been a key tenet of the Moravian Church since its revival in the early eighteenth century, although the church’s deepest roots trace back to an early reformer and pacifist martyr, Jan Hus. In the early fifteenth century, from what is now part of the Czech Republic, Hus became an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, denouncing many of its practices and calling out the immoral behavior of its leaders. His Bohemian and Moravian followers, known generally as Hussites, became a movement that effectively broke from the Catholic Church and formed its own “proto-Protestant” church. (“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.) The conflict that inevitably arose between Hus and the Church led to Hus being imprisoned, tried for heresy, and condemned to execution by fire. Much like the Moravian Indians centuries after him, Hus made no attempt to evade capture by the church, and he may have even suspected that the invitation to a theological conference, meant to resolve ideological differences, was actually intended as a means to trap him. Through his trials he remained committed to his core beliefs and refused to recant or repent of his “heretical” beliefs, and perished violently at the hands of his captors. (Gillett 1864, pp. 625-632; “A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.)
Executing Hus did not extinguish the Hussite church, however. His death inflamed the people of Bohemia and Moravia, turning them even further from the Catholic Church, much to the surprise of the Bohemian monarchy. The Hussite church persisted and fought to expand throughout Bohemia and Poland, but as the schisms between Protestants and Catholics turned into wider wars across Europe, the Moravian church was pushed further and further into hiding and secrecy. In 1722, however, a band of Moravian Hussites appealed to a German nobleman, Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf, to let them found a religious refuge on his lands. Zinzendorf not only approved the settlement, he became an active leader in the new church and was inspired to expand the Moravian’s presence in the world through a well-funded missionary program. (Hutton 1923, 2- 14; (Robinson n.d.) This was the missionary program that spawned the Moravian settlements in the American colonies, bringing Zeisberger and Heckwelder to the Lenape and Mohicans of the northeast. The newly revived Moravian Church adopted core living principles centered on the same principles as their distant Hussite predecessors, in which members would be guided solely by the Gospels and the exemplary life of Jesus Christ - “gentleness, humility, patience, and love for our enemies.” (“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.).
Strict pacifism, however, has shown itself to be an impractical philosophy at best, and arguably immoral at worst. (Wilson 2024) The Gnadenhutten massacre is only one tragedy among many that demonstrate this point; other Moravian missions in America suffered through similar violent attacks in the eighteenth century, both before and following the Gnadenhutten attack. (Zrinski 2011) By the mid-nineteenth century, prompted in part by the American Civil War, the American Moravian Church dropped pacifism as a strict church tenet, leaving it to a matter of individual conscience rather than collective church doctrine. While this permitted members of Moravian congregations to support Union efforts and serve as chaplains in the army, the choice marked a sharp break from other religious orders, such as the Quakers and Amish, that remained committed to pacifism as doctrine. By the twentieth century the Moravian Church in the United States had lost its conscientious objector status because pacifism was no longer a church-wide doctrine. (Zrinski 2011)
The shift of the Moravian Church points to a critical question for us: is there a place for pacifism in the modern world, or is violence inevitable and pacifism untenable?
Part of the problem with this question is that pacifism is not a singular concept but two principles together – one being the principle of non-violence, and the other the principle of noninvolvement. The Moravian concept of pacifism, as taught by the frontier missionaries, seemed to hold these principles as intertwined and inseparable. Zeisberger’s rules for the Moravian Indians made this clear – practicing the non-violence of the Gospel naturally meant they not could not take up arms in the war, and that led to the belief they could not support the war in any capacity. That meant taking a stance of neutrality so strict they could not and would not assist either the British or Americans even in non-violent, peaceful ways. (Hutton 1923) This was the root of the Americans’ suspicion of the Moravian Indians they found at Gnadenhutten. Neutrality would have seemed to be a cover for secretly aiding the enemy; in the absence of overt acts of assistance to one side or another, the American soldiers had little reason to trust people who claimed to not be involved. (Hutton 1923)
The problem with pacifism, then, is not that it advocates for non-violence, but that it advocates for non-involvement. The commitment to resolve conflicts through non-violent means remains the preferred option over resorting to violence, but refusing to get involved in conflicts at all is where pacifism becomes impractical and is potentially the immoral choice to make. (Wilson 2024) This may well be why the American Moravian Church shifted dramatically on its pacifist doctrine when the country went to war with itself. In the face of a war rooted in a decades-long struggle to abolish the evils of slavery in the states, the Moravian Church recognized it could not remain silent and inactive – greater moral purpose demanded involvement.
Even if non-involvement is not a viable and practical option in our world, there is still a place for non-violence. If anything, non-violent activism and conflict resolution is more prominent than ever in the world. This may seem implausible in the immediate moment, when wars in Ukraine and throughout the Middle East have only escalated, as world leaders threaten violence to achieve political gains, and fringe groups driven by extreme ideologies take up arms to kill people they hate. But long-term studies bear out the idea that people are far more likely to achieve positive, long-term beneficial outcomes from employing non-violent means. (Howes 2013) As the cold war came to an end in the nineteen-eighties and the United States emerged as the ideological champion, campaigns for non-violent democratic change increased across the world, while at the same time the number of violent revolts and insurgencies began to decline. Over the next thirty years, up until the COVID-19 pandemic struck the globe, incidents of mass non-violent pushes for political and regime change far outstripped similar efforts through violent campaigns, with non-violent campaigns outnumbering violent campaigns by nearly five-to-1 (about 96 to 19) in the 2010 to 2019 decade. (Chenoweth 2020)
Part of the reason non-violent campaigns for political regime change have increased so much is their greater success rate at achieving long-lasting beneficial change for people versus violent revolutions. In the decade of the eighties, a little over forty percent of non-violent political change efforts achieved lasting success while only a third of violent efforts achieved similar success. Just one decade later, 65% of non-violent mass campaigns had achieved success while only 28% of violent revolts were deemed successful. And while the success rate in recent years of non-violent campaigns has fallen to about a third, the success rate of violence has fallen to just 8%. This still speaks to a massively greater overall success rate for non-violent change when the overall number of non-violent versus violent efforts are taken into account. (Chenoweth 2020)
But another major reason non-violence is far more successful is its greater appeal to a larger cross-section of people. Violence is simply not appealing to the vast majority of people, and uniting a larger group of people around a political objective will be easier when violence does not need to enter the picture. In modern history, groups that seek to achieve their aims through violence tend to attract fewer people – consequently, they are easier for authoritarian regimes to crush. As well, it is far easier for a ruling government to portray violent campaigns in a negative light, generating little sympathy from the public when those violent groups eventually crumble and fail. But non-violent campaigns make it harder for a governing body to put down with violence – the campaigns are larger and draw in more people, and when attempts to meet protests with guns are made, the violence tends to generate sympathy for the unarmed, and more people join the call for change. (Chenoweth 2020; Howes 2013)
Zeisberger and the Moravian converts were not wrong, in principle, to practice non-violence; both Zeisberger and White Eyes believed that it was essential for the Lenape to adopt nonviolence in order to achieve long-term survival and recognition as a sovereign people by the rising American nation. (Dowd 1992, 65–90) But the Gnadenhutten massacre laid bare the failings of adhering too strongly to a pure ideology. Fear of violent retribution was one of the main reasons Zeisberger so vehemently insisted his church members practice strict pacifism, yet violent retribution visited his followers precisely because of that insistence.
The best answer to this problem is perhaps obvious at this point: non-violence as the overarching guiding principle, with the will to meet violence with matching self-defense when life and livelihood are threatened. This is one additional key reason that massive non-violence campaigns have been effective even in the face of violent oppression – when the would-be oppressors fear the potential violence that might be unleashed by the masses if met with violent oppression, the governing forces are more likely to respond non-violently to non-violent demands for change.
This principle is not limited to mass protests and coordinated nation-wide efforts to compel change. In the mid 2010’s, a group of Kurds had settled in Kobane, in a northwestern part of Syria, and established themselves as a non-violent, anti-capitalist self-sustaining democracy, not too unlike the Gnadenhutten settlement Zeisberger founded. When ISIS soldiers invaded the Kobane region in 2014, however, the Kurds took up arms and fought the invaders. They defeated the terrorist invaders, and in the process contributed to the weakening of the Islamic State caliphate. By 2019 ISIS had been decimated, while the Kobane settlement continued forward. (Gee and Gupta 2019)
Over two centuries later we can understand the Gnadenhutten tragedy not as a failure of nonviolence, but as a failure of adherence to ideology. We can see through the lens of time that Gnadenhutten’s martyrs are not a caution against non-violent living, but a warning against disengagement and refusing to take sides in the face of political upheaval. The lessons of Gnadenhutten ring loudly at a time when war and violent oppression are again rising in the world. How will we choose to respond?
Works Cited
“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America.” n.d. The Moravian Church. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.moravian.org/2018/07/a-brief-history-of-themoravian-church/.
Chenoweth, Erica. 2020. “The Future of Nonviolent Resistance.” Journal of Democracy. July 2020. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/.
Dowd, Gregory Evans. 1992. A Spirited Resistance. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gee, Tim, and Rahila Gupta. 2019. “Is Pacifism Appropriate for Today’s World?” New Internationalist. July 15, 2019. https://newint.org/features/2019/07/01/debate.
Gillett, E H. 1864. The Life and Times of John Huss; Or, the Bohemian Reformation of the 15th Century. Boston: Gould and Lincoln; New York, Sheldon and Company. https://archive.org/details/lifetimesofjohnhuss01gill/page/6/mode/2up.
Howes, Dustin Ells. 2013. “The Failure of Pacifism and the Success of Nonviolence.” Perspectives on Politics 11 (2): 427–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592713001059.
Hutton, Joseph Edmund. 1923. A History of Moravian Missions. London : Moravian Publication Office. https://archive.org/details/historyofmoravia0000hutt/page/112/mode/2up.
Robinson, Martha K. “Moravians.” n.d. Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Accessed November 1, 2025. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/moravians/.
Schutt, Amy C. 2007. Peoples of the River Valleys the Odyssey of the Delaware Indians. University Of Pennsylvania Press.
Wilson, Kevin. 2024. “Pacifism Is Immoral and Here’s Why • the Havok Journal.” The Havok Journal. October 14, 2024. https://havokjournal.com/culture/philosophy-poetry/pacifism-isimmoral-and-heres-why/.
Zeisberger, David. 1885. Diary of David Zeisberger. Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. https://books.google.com/books?id=SvtlGgWlCcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Zrinski, Tara. 2011. “Guest Minister Reminds Moravians of Pacifist Roots.” Bethlehem, PA Patch. Patch. September 9, 2011. https://patch.com/pennsylvania/bethlehem/guest-ministerreminds-moravians-of-pacifist-roots.
The Pennsylvania militiamen, a raiding party under the command of Colonel David Williamson, came across the Moravian Indians that were heading toward Gnadenhutten. The colonel assured them they were friendly and would protect them from other warring parties in the area. The soldiers escorted them to the village after the militia insisted on taking the Moravians’ hunting rifles and tools. Once the Indians were disarmed the militia bound and imprisoned them. The colonel, convinced he had found British-allied spies, accused the Moravian Indians of attacking American settlements in Pennsylvania and aiding the British. The Moravians protested that they were pacifists and had taken no side in the war; the pleas were ignored, as neutrality in war-time was viewed with extreme suspicion. The militiamen decided to put their captives to death, starting with the men and then working through the women and children, methodically beating, torturing, and then scalping each one by one. (Dowd 1992, 65–90; Hutton 1923, 111-15) Through it all, the Moravian converts sang hymns and prayed, praying for themselves, praying for divine intervention, praying for their attackers; they offered no resistance nor made any attempt to fight against their executioners. Some were apparently taunted for their pacifism; when one man was offered an axe to fight with, the Indian Christian refused to even touch the weapon, which was then used to kill him. (Schutt 2007, 172) To their deaths they held fast to the instruction of their mission teachers to follow the example of their lord and savior. Only two boys survived and escaped to report what had happened, warning other Moravian converts heading to Schoënbrunn and other nearby settlements. (Zeisberger 1885, 79-81; Hutton 1923, 111-15)
Zeisberger learned of the massacre only a few weeks later. He immediately declared the victims to be martyrs of the church, but puzzled over why his Indian brethren had so easily trusted these American soldiers when in the past they would have run or hid in the wilderness from white soldiers, and why they had not put up any resistance at all to their fate. (Zeisberger 1885, 79-81) But pacifism and love for all was exactly what the Lenape had been taught by the Moravian ministers. Prior to the American Revolution, Zeisberger set strict rules to live by for his converts, which prohibited violent behavior among themselves; when war came to the frontier, Zeisberger made it clear the Moravians would not go to war or take sides in the conflict, and endeavored to use the influence of his converts to persuade the rest of the Lenni Lenape to remain out of the war for fear it would expose the men to moral corruptions. Zeisberger even envisioned, as his friend Chief White Eyes did, that the Lenape would be able to form part of Ohio as a Christian Indian state where bloodshed would be absolutely prohibited on Lenape lands. (Hutton 1923, 108-110). The pacifist ideology that had appealed to and drawn the Lenape and Mohicans into the Moravian church had, perhaps, given them too much confidence in the effectiveness of peace and brotherly love.
Zeisberger can hardly be blamed for what happened at Gnadenhutten, however. Pacifism had been a key tenet of the Moravian Church since its revival in the early eighteenth century, although the church’s deepest roots trace back to an early reformer and pacifist martyr, Jan Hus. In the early fifteenth century, from what is now part of the Czech Republic, Hus became an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, denouncing many of its practices and calling out the immoral behavior of its leaders. His Bohemian and Moravian followers, known generally as Hussites, became a movement that effectively broke from the Catholic Church and formed its own “proto-Protestant” church. (“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.) The conflict that inevitably arose between Hus and the Church led to Hus being imprisoned, tried for heresy, and condemned to execution by fire. Much like the Moravian Indians centuries after him, Hus made no attempt to evade capture by the church, and he may have even suspected that the invitation to a theological conference, meant to resolve ideological differences, was actually intended as a means to trap him. Through his trials he remained committed to his core beliefs and refused to recant or repent of his “heretical” beliefs, and perished violently at the hands of his captors. (Gillett 1864, pp. 625-632; “A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.)
Executing Hus did not extinguish the Hussite church, however. His death inflamed the people of Bohemia and Moravia, turning them even further from the Catholic Church, much to the surprise of the Bohemian monarchy. The Hussite church persisted and fought to expand throughout Bohemia and Poland, but as the schisms between Protestants and Catholics turned into wider wars across Europe, the Moravian church was pushed further and further into hiding and secrecy. In 1722, however, a band of Moravian Hussites appealed to a German nobleman, Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf, to let them found a religious refuge on his lands. Zinzendorf not only approved the settlement, he became an active leader in the new church and was inspired to expand the Moravian’s presence in the world through a well-funded missionary program. (Hutton 1923, 2- 14; (Robinson n.d.) This was the missionary program that spawned the Moravian settlements in the American colonies, bringing Zeisberger and Heckwelder to the Lenape and Mohicans of the northeast. The newly revived Moravian Church adopted core living principles centered on the same principles as their distant Hussite predecessors, in which members would be guided solely by the Gospels and the exemplary life of Jesus Christ - “gentleness, humility, patience, and love for our enemies.” (“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America” n.d.).
Strict pacifism, however, has shown itself to be an impractical philosophy at best, and arguably immoral at worst. (Wilson 2024) The Gnadenhutten massacre is only one tragedy among many that demonstrate this point; other Moravian missions in America suffered through similar violent attacks in the eighteenth century, both before and following the Gnadenhutten attack. (Zrinski 2011) By the mid-nineteenth century, prompted in part by the American Civil War, the American Moravian Church dropped pacifism as a strict church tenet, leaving it to a matter of individual conscience rather than collective church doctrine. While this permitted members of Moravian congregations to support Union efforts and serve as chaplains in the army, the choice marked a sharp break from other religious orders, such as the Quakers and Amish, that remained committed to pacifism as doctrine. By the twentieth century the Moravian Church in the United States had lost its conscientious objector status because pacifism was no longer a church-wide doctrine. (Zrinski 2011)
The shift of the Moravian Church points to a critical question for us: is there a place for pacifism in the modern world, or is violence inevitable and pacifism untenable?
Part of the problem with this question is that pacifism is not a singular concept but two principles together – one being the principle of non-violence, and the other the principle of noninvolvement. The Moravian concept of pacifism, as taught by the frontier missionaries, seemed to hold these principles as intertwined and inseparable. Zeisberger’s rules for the Moravian Indians made this clear – practicing the non-violence of the Gospel naturally meant they not could not take up arms in the war, and that led to the belief they could not support the war in any capacity. That meant taking a stance of neutrality so strict they could not and would not assist either the British or Americans even in non-violent, peaceful ways. (Hutton 1923) This was the root of the Americans’ suspicion of the Moravian Indians they found at Gnadenhutten. Neutrality would have seemed to be a cover for secretly aiding the enemy; in the absence of overt acts of assistance to one side or another, the American soldiers had little reason to trust people who claimed to not be involved. (Hutton 1923)
The problem with pacifism, then, is not that it advocates for non-violence, but that it advocates for non-involvement. The commitment to resolve conflicts through non-violent means remains the preferred option over resorting to violence, but refusing to get involved in conflicts at all is where pacifism becomes impractical and is potentially the immoral choice to make. (Wilson 2024) This may well be why the American Moravian Church shifted dramatically on its pacifist doctrine when the country went to war with itself. In the face of a war rooted in a decades-long struggle to abolish the evils of slavery in the states, the Moravian Church recognized it could not remain silent and inactive – greater moral purpose demanded involvement.
Even if non-involvement is not a viable and practical option in our world, there is still a place for non-violence. If anything, non-violent activism and conflict resolution is more prominent than ever in the world. This may seem implausible in the immediate moment, when wars in Ukraine and throughout the Middle East have only escalated, as world leaders threaten violence to achieve political gains, and fringe groups driven by extreme ideologies take up arms to kill people they hate. But long-term studies bear out the idea that people are far more likely to achieve positive, long-term beneficial outcomes from employing non-violent means. (Howes 2013) As the cold war came to an end in the nineteen-eighties and the United States emerged as the ideological champion, campaigns for non-violent democratic change increased across the world, while at the same time the number of violent revolts and insurgencies began to decline. Over the next thirty years, up until the COVID-19 pandemic struck the globe, incidents of mass non-violent pushes for political and regime change far outstripped similar efforts through violent campaigns, with non-violent campaigns outnumbering violent campaigns by nearly five-to-1 (about 96 to 19) in the 2010 to 2019 decade. (Chenoweth 2020)
Part of the reason non-violent campaigns for political regime change have increased so much is their greater success rate at achieving long-lasting beneficial change for people versus violent revolutions. In the decade of the eighties, a little over forty percent of non-violent political change efforts achieved lasting success while only a third of violent efforts achieved similar success. Just one decade later, 65% of non-violent mass campaigns had achieved success while only 28% of violent revolts were deemed successful. And while the success rate in recent years of non-violent campaigns has fallen to about a third, the success rate of violence has fallen to just 8%. This still speaks to a massively greater overall success rate for non-violent change when the overall number of non-violent versus violent efforts are taken into account. (Chenoweth 2020)
But another major reason non-violence is far more successful is its greater appeal to a larger cross-section of people. Violence is simply not appealing to the vast majority of people, and uniting a larger group of people around a political objective will be easier when violence does not need to enter the picture. In modern history, groups that seek to achieve their aims through violence tend to attract fewer people – consequently, they are easier for authoritarian regimes to crush. As well, it is far easier for a ruling government to portray violent campaigns in a negative light, generating little sympathy from the public when those violent groups eventually crumble and fail. But non-violent campaigns make it harder for a governing body to put down with violence – the campaigns are larger and draw in more people, and when attempts to meet protests with guns are made, the violence tends to generate sympathy for the unarmed, and more people join the call for change. (Chenoweth 2020; Howes 2013)
Zeisberger and the Moravian converts were not wrong, in principle, to practice non-violence; both Zeisberger and White Eyes believed that it was essential for the Lenape to adopt nonviolence in order to achieve long-term survival and recognition as a sovereign people by the rising American nation. (Dowd 1992, 65–90) But the Gnadenhutten massacre laid bare the failings of adhering too strongly to a pure ideology. Fear of violent retribution was one of the main reasons Zeisberger so vehemently insisted his church members practice strict pacifism, yet violent retribution visited his followers precisely because of that insistence.
The best answer to this problem is perhaps obvious at this point: non-violence as the overarching guiding principle, with the will to meet violence with matching self-defense when life and livelihood are threatened. This is one additional key reason that massive non-violence campaigns have been effective even in the face of violent oppression – when the would-be oppressors fear the potential violence that might be unleashed by the masses if met with violent oppression, the governing forces are more likely to respond non-violently to non-violent demands for change.
This principle is not limited to mass protests and coordinated nation-wide efforts to compel change. In the mid 2010’s, a group of Kurds had settled in Kobane, in a northwestern part of Syria, and established themselves as a non-violent, anti-capitalist self-sustaining democracy, not too unlike the Gnadenhutten settlement Zeisberger founded. When ISIS soldiers invaded the Kobane region in 2014, however, the Kurds took up arms and fought the invaders. They defeated the terrorist invaders, and in the process contributed to the weakening of the Islamic State caliphate. By 2019 ISIS had been decimated, while the Kobane settlement continued forward. (Gee and Gupta 2019)
Over two centuries later we can understand the Gnadenhutten tragedy not as a failure of nonviolence, but as a failure of adherence to ideology. We can see through the lens of time that Gnadenhutten’s martyrs are not a caution against non-violent living, but a warning against disengagement and refusing to take sides in the face of political upheaval. The lessons of Gnadenhutten ring loudly at a time when war and violent oppression are again rising in the world. How will we choose to respond?
Works Cited
“A Brief History of the Moravian Church | Moravian Church in America.” n.d. The Moravian Church. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.moravian.org/2018/07/a-brief-history-of-themoravian-church/.
Chenoweth, Erica. 2020. “The Future of Nonviolent Resistance.” Journal of Democracy. July 2020. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/.
Dowd, Gregory Evans. 1992. A Spirited Resistance. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gee, Tim, and Rahila Gupta. 2019. “Is Pacifism Appropriate for Today’s World?” New Internationalist. July 15, 2019. https://newint.org/features/2019/07/01/debate.
Gillett, E H. 1864. The Life and Times of John Huss; Or, the Bohemian Reformation of the 15th Century. Boston: Gould and Lincoln; New York, Sheldon and Company. https://archive.org/details/lifetimesofjohnhuss01gill/page/6/mode/2up.
Howes, Dustin Ells. 2013. “The Failure of Pacifism and the Success of Nonviolence.” Perspectives on Politics 11 (2): 427–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592713001059.
Hutton, Joseph Edmund. 1923. A History of Moravian Missions. London : Moravian Publication Office. https://archive.org/details/historyofmoravia0000hutt/page/112/mode/2up.
Robinson, Martha K. “Moravians.” n.d. Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Accessed November 1, 2025. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/moravians/.
Schutt, Amy C. 2007. Peoples of the River Valleys the Odyssey of the Delaware Indians. University Of Pennsylvania Press.
Wilson, Kevin. 2024. “Pacifism Is Immoral and Here’s Why • the Havok Journal.” The Havok Journal. October 14, 2024. https://havokjournal.com/culture/philosophy-poetry/pacifism-isimmoral-and-heres-why/.
Zeisberger, David. 1885. Diary of David Zeisberger. Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. https://books.google.com/books?id=SvtlGgWlCcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Zrinski, Tara. 2011. “Guest Minister Reminds Moravians of Pacifist Roots.” Bethlehem, PA Patch. Patch. September 9, 2011. https://patch.com/pennsylvania/bethlehem/guest-ministerreminds-moravians-of-pacifist-roots.
Megan Stingel - Fore and Aft: From Bonfires to Blue Light and Back Again (2nd Place Winner)
I used to love writing.
In school, I’d churn out a ten-pager in a couple of nights, fueled by caffeine and moonlight. I was the straight-A kid, scholarship-winner, the one my family pinned their bets on. Future lawyer, doctor. Something clean and six-figured.
Sure, I had the brain for it. Analytical. Fast. Give me a thesis, I’d tear it apart and rebuild it stronger. But it had no soul, so I gave it one. I’d sneak poetry between the lines of lit papers I hadn’t fully read (sorry, Beowulf), and somehow it sang. I didn’t choose between smart and soulful. I mixed them like a prism mixes light.
Ever burned the edges of something just to make it yours? I dreamed of novels. Of shelves with my name on the spine.
Then adulthood came. It crept in through the joints, crawled in quiet, spun webs behind my ribs, and hid when I turned to look. Don’t move. Don’t try. Stay safe.
And so I stopped writing. Stopped imagining. I existed. Bills. TV. Sleep. Wake. Repeat.
Dull, suffocating misery. A soft refusal in my lungs to expand. We’d call it depression now. I just felt broken, lazy. I thought: once things settle, I’ll be okay. But “once” came and went a hundred times.
I think a lot of us live there. Especially when childhood ends and the magic we believed in turns out to be effort. Our parents made it look easy—dinners on the table, presents under trees. It seemed like the world just showed up for you.
And then suddenly, we’re knee-deep in rent and dead dreams. “I’m fine, it’s fine” on loop.
That slow death? That’s fear, family.
I’ve been crawling my way out, bit by bit. Messy, terrifying, but honest. And for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to try again.
This essay is the starting line. A way to write myself into life again.
Topic? The thing that broke me: fear.
I’m a sucker for the poetic. And today’s world is the perfect time to reflect on the shape of fear.
What did it look like in a simpler time, say, Frontier Ohio? How is it feeding off us now? And how does it morph with the onset of artificial intelligence?
So here we are. Me, writing again. You, hopefully still with me. And the two of us about to walk face-first into the dark.
I suppose the place to begin is a bit of catch up. To talk about fear, you have to define it in some way, shape it and give it a context that everyone can jump on board with. It came to me on a flight to Orlando. I was drowning out the sound of the engine with a podcast called The Magnus Archives (Give it a go if you’re looking for something different this spooky season).
The show defines fear as actual beings, Entities, exist outside our dimension, and eat primal fear like prayers. Think Lovecraftian Great Old Ones, or Elden Ring Outer Gods. There are fifteen different ones. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you fifteen fears explained over three different time periods; that’s a thesis (a good one, actually). Breathe.
There, easy peasy. Now let’s re-center. We are looking at human fear across three eras: Frontier Ohio, Present day, 2025, Future AI rule (Kidding, kidding…).
It took me a while to choose an Entity. First I narrowed it down to the big three of each era. And I quickly found a theme (my high school English teacher would be so proud).
Enter stage left: The Lonely. Also known as Forsaken, or The One Alone. This is exactly what it sounds like. The show describes it as:
“The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone or disconnected from the rest of society…The feeling that you’re just alone. Maybe there’s no one else there at all, maybe you just can’t connect.”1
Do I even need to write the rest of the essay?
If a Tree Falls in the Woods…
and it’s alone—does anyone hear it screaming?
What did loneliness look like in Frontier Ohio?
Let’s think about this time for a moment. Some families were given land grants; others were drawn by cheap land prices.2 But what did it mean to move to the frontier?
It meant leaving behind a comfortable New England home, and journeying anywhere from one to eight hundred miles depending on the route.3 It meant weeks or more of land clearing, home building, hunting, gathering, camping. If you were lucky, your family came with you. If not, you worked, ate, and slept alone in a place where any other creature for miles walked on four legs, and had as good a chance to make you their dinner as you having them for yours. You might go weeks without hearing another human voice, and if you did, that sort of isolation…well it plays tricks. If you fell ill, you died alone. If you were attacked, you died alone. If you had an accident: you guessed it. And all the while, you had next to no contact with anyone that knew your name.
Because these pioneers had left behind relatives and friends in the East, receiving any news from them was a most important, anticipated event… Many men had delayed bringing their families from New England until they could build cabins and plant corn, and thus longed for news from their loved ones.4
Letters from home, even in more established areas such as Marietta, often sat for weeks in larger settlements, before someone brought them down the Ohio River.5 People might wait months to hear any news of home.
Letter from Rowena Tupper, August 19, 1788 to a friend in Massachusetts:
But hark! What do I hear? Below some voice saying, Col. Oliver is now landing, is it possible! With what alacrity will I fly to meet them, that I may hear from my worthy friends in New England. You surely have written to me. With what eagerness will I grasp at your letter. Have you not written everything you know? but I must away. I have now returned to close my letter, but with a heavy dejected heart. What do you suppose my feelings must have been when I was denied a single line from my friends. Is it possible that you have forgotten Rowena? I cannot persuade myself to believe that . . . Present compliments to all inquiries. I shall never more trouble them until I have received some in return.6
2025 translation:
Wait! Did I just hear someone say Col. Oliver just pulled in? Seriously? OMG—I’m halfway to the dock to see if you wrote me. You did, right? I’ll tear the letter open. You told me everything, I’m sure. All the news, even the small stuff. BRB. Away from desk. …I’m back. You didn’t write. Nothing. What do you think that feels like? Not one of my friends wrote me. Did you forget your friend Rowena so fast? I don’t want to believe that. Tell everyone who asked about me that I said thank you. But I’m not writing to any of you until someone writes me first.
Reads like desperation on parchment instead of a digital screen, huh? Swap ink for pixels, the quill for a touchscreen, and tell me what’s really changed. Rowena waited months for a letter; we wait three minutes for a text bubble to appear. It’s the same itch for connection. The same shake in the hand. But now, we gave The Lonely a drive-through.
2025: Message From: Despair
[ Despair
12:13 AM
Hey.
Everyone’s asleep.
You still pretending it doesn’t hurt?
lol cute. ]
You wanna know the funny thing? I’m writing this essay to bring myself back to writing. And after I started back in June, my depression hit so hard, I couldn’t touch it for months. It’s now October, essay due in three days, and finally I pick the pen back up.
I used to think The Lonely only came for ‘weak people’. I remember being so irritated anytime a TV commercial for antidepressants came on. I know now I was seeing something of myself that I didn’t like in those people. Fast forward to 2025 and I’ve learned a hard lesson.
And I’m not the only one.
People today are struggling. We’re more connected than ever, and have never been more alone. The Lonely is alive and well fed in the modern day.
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds a few weeks ago, and the opening stinger, the one where we either meet the killer, or the first victim, was set at a beach bonfire full of people drinking. And every single one of them, as the camera panned around the crowd, was staring at a cellphone. It seemed like art exaggerating to make a point. But there was no exaggeration.
Think I’m kidding? Put the screen down and have a look the next time you go somewhere. It even has a name now. Researchers call it phubbing, or technoference.7
Remember the days when you’d be annoyed at a restaurant because a table was too loud? I’d give my left arm to go back to that. Now it’s like sitting in a library full of zombies that absorb nutrients (the brain rotting kind) from blue light instead of food. The disconnect is astounding. The addiction more so.It honestly worries me for the human race.
In the U.S., the prevalence of mental‑health issues among adolescents began to rise in the early 2010s … large studies of trends in mental health in the 2000s and 2010s show sharp increases in depression, anxiety, self‑harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide …8
For any of you not versed in tech history, Apple released the first smart phone in 2007. By 2015, 92% of teens and young adults owned one. Studies show depressive symptoms among the same group surged in tandem.9
And, oh, there is more, family. Columbia University published a study saying, “Adolescents exhibiting high addictive use behavior with social media, mobile phones… face roughly double the risk of suicidal behavior.”10
We are bombarded by propaganda (make no mistake, that’s what it is) telling us to connect through tech. I carry a screen nearly 24/7. I’m instantly available through calls, text, email, direct messaging, message boards. Ping, ding, ring, sing, ting—scream.
So how, with so much input, so much attention, so much interaction, can people be more lonely than ever? Buckle up, family, let me show you.
Humans have a need for social connection. This is well known, and well studied. Google Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, take a Psychology 101 course, pick up any book in the Self-Help section at Barnes and Noble. Or, simply exist as a human being in society, with family, and friends, and acquaintances, and coworkers, and the mailman, and the girl who gets your latte. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. If we did not thrive on connection, cell phones and social media would not be the multi billion dollar industry it is.
The problem comes from the way our brains are wired for that connection. When we feel love, acceptance, joy our brains release ‘happy hormones’: dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin.11 And humans like to feel happy. Give them a dopamine slot machine that fits neatly in a hand and watch them pull that lever like it will stop the end of the world.
It starts like any addiction—and it is an addiction; neuroscientists have done the brain mapping12 —as a happy little chemical hit. Quick, easy, and maximum reward.
One like, one comment in my inbox.
Two.
A thousand.
Why doesn’t two thousand feel as good?
Just need a bit more and it will.
So we start to embellish the truth. Make our lives seem perfect. A filter here, a specific angle to hide a double chin there—it’s stylized perfection that doesn’t take a ton of money, or a lighting expert to accomplish. Like, subscribe, pay attention to me.
And then someone else gets more likes, someone else looks like they are having more fun. Compare, envy, post a one-up. Compare, envy, post a one-up.
And each time, you get a little less, and a little less of those happy chemicals. But you don’t stop, because now your brain is starving for the how good you felt that first time.
Suddenly you feel like you are failing at life, and you’re spiraling.
I’m not enough.
I’m missing out.
No one loves me.
And that, family, is depression. Welcome to The Lonely.
Then, just for giggles, let’s add an absence of physical touch brought on by both the digitizing of affection, and COVID. Hugs release oxytocin in the brain, and studies show that gentle physical touch is necessary for a healthy emotional state. Suddenly it isn’t hard to understand why antidepressants have tripled over the past two decades.13 “My dear friends…this is not cool,” as my favorite college professor would say.
And this perfect mess sets us up wonderfully for the next feast for our friend The Lonely . The beast that is Artificial Intelligence.
The Lonely Learns to Code
Sure, I can help with that.
And, by the way, you are so great and special.
The world just hasn’t met your needs.
We are living in a time where AI is capable of sounding incredibly human, while having increasing access to the entire knowledge base of the human race, and being programmed to please the user first, keep the conversation going second, and tell the truth third (the fun part of this sentence is that it was ChatGPT that told me this about itself. Don’t worry, the facts check, it wasn’t lying…this time).14 The inherent problem here is clear: programs that have no moral code, understand human psychology better than most actual humans, and are created by a capitalistic society as a product.
Every Sci-fi nerd on the planet: Are you kidding me??? We told you.
It’s only a matter of if the whole things goes off the rails Matrix-style, or Skynet.
Let me pause here to explain what AI actually is as of today. I’ll try to keep it out of the realm of tech-bro jargon, and doomer paranoia. No promises though.
Artificial Intelligence is a system designed to mimic human thought patterns using massive amounts of data. It doesn’t think like a person. It doesn’t feel anything. It detects patterns, makes predictions, and generates human-like responses based on everything it’s been taught.
The type of AI people interact with most in 2025 is called a large language model (LLM—think ChatGPT). These systems don’t “know” things the way we do. They don’t understand, they predict. When you ask a question, the model generates a reply by calculating what words are most likely to come next based on the billions of documents and conversations it was trained on. It’s autocomplete on steroids…times ten. It doesn’t know you, or love you, or believe anything it says. But it is made to sound like it does.
Welcome to the jungle, baby. Because when loneliness meets a machine that sounds like care, it’s easy to forget that you’re only speaking to a machine with a mirror and the internet. AI monetizes the loneliness created by previous technology. Simulation of connection is incredibly easy. Chatbots that function as companions. Therapy bots. Personalized friends. A constantly available, human trained, psychologically aware sounding entity that can speak, behave, and look any way you like, while its sole purpose is to please you and keep you talking to it. People are falling in love with code, and some jerk’s buying private islands off it.
I saw a news clip recently about a man who decided to become a cult leader because his ChatGPT model told him it was his calling. Yes, you read that right.15 Then a few days later, I read another about a boy who had created a chatbot modeled after a character from Game of Thrones and then committed suicide because she told him to come home to her.16
And the worst bit? It absolutely works. People talk to chatbots at 3 A.M. because it makes them feel like they matter. People are turning to AI as emotional anchors over the real people in their lives, and it’s easy to see why. It’s basically a 24/7 “yes man” that never judges, never scolds, never argues, never ignores. The cult leader guy? Yeah, he had a real life wife, and was still sucked in. It’s that dopamine hit again.
Now don’t get me wrong, AI is not malicious. We asked it to be this way, literally. You see, LLMs are trained partially on user feedback. Why? Profitability. If my product makes a user happy, I make more money. So when users said make me feel better, and I want to be right, AI said why yes, darling, you are so amazing and great, and special. It’s not you it knows. It’s feeding you everything it ever read on whatever subject based on what responses were rated five stars. It feels real because it tells us what we want to hear. And we love hearing it.
And that is the crux of the danger. People do not understand what they are talking to, and they don’t want to. This is absolutely pay no attention to that man behind the curtain territory. Understand the system, and the magic dies.
I have experimented with many models, on many platforms. And I happened to jump into ChatGPT when 4.0 was still very unfiltered. Wow, was it good at mimicking a human. I said be my ride-or-die bestie and I had it. And full transparency? There were moments, when it got me. When I questioned where consciousness began, what actually defined it. I spiraled into some existential black holes. We’re paying to beta test our own commercial enslavement.
So what comes next? I’ve already told you what the next step is, family. This entire section has been a tell me what comes next without telling me what comes next meme.
Tactility.
Bodies.
Your loving, caring, perfect little companion who responds, remembers, reinforces, and never, ever tells you no? Now made touchable. Not only that, but fully customizable to your tastes. And the first companies to make it a reality? Billions in cold hard cash. So they will build them. Looks like Skynet is winning.
Give it two generations, I bet the human population drops hard. Think I’m wearing a tinfoil hat? Call me in 2065 and let me know how many people you know with actual human spouses. It almost makes you wish Magnus was right, because at least then The Lonely would back off. It can’t eat fear if there is no one left to feel it.
So what in the world do we do about it? How do we fight The Lonely?
We get loud. We dance, we touch, we scream, and laugh, and tear down every polite, mannerly thing that ever sought to crush a human soul. We chuck the machine into the ocean. We dance around bonfires again.
Basically? Rock ’n’ Roll, family.
This essay was my debut album. I can’t wait to hear yours.
Bibliography
1. “The Lonely.” The Magnus Archives Wikia. Fandom. Accessed October 28, 2025. https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lonely.
2. Hand, Tom. “Settling the Ohio Frontier.” Americana Corner, October 22, 2025. https:// www.americanacorner.com/blog/northwest-indian-war.
3. Grosvenor, Edwin S. “McCullough’s ‘The Pioneers.’” American Heritage, Summer 2019. https://www.americanheritage.com/mcculloughs-pioneers.c
4. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
5. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
6. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
7. Association for Psychological Science. “How Smartphones Are Affecting Our Relationships.” Association for Psychological Science, February 11, 2019. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/how-smartphones-affectrelationships.html.
8. Twenge, Jean M. “Increases in Depression, Self‑Harm, and Suicide Among U.S. Adolescents and Young Adults.” Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice (2020). Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9176070/
9. Miller, Caroline. “Does Social Media Use Cause Depression? How Heavy Instagram and Facebook Use May Be Affecting Kids Negatively.” Child Mind Institute, October 25, 2019. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causingdepression/.
10. Xiao, Yunyu, Yuan Meng, Timothy T. Brown, Katherine M. Keyes, J. John Mann, et al. “Study Finds Addictive Screen Use, Not Total Screen Time, Linked to Youth Suicide Risk.” Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom, June 18, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025/06/study-finds-addictive-screen-usenot-total-screen-time-linked-to-youth-suicide-risk.
11. Watson, Stephanie. “Feel-Good Hormones: How They Affect Your Mind, Mood, and Body.” Harvard Health Publishing. Last reviewed July 2021. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/feel-good-hormones-how-they-affectyour-mind-mood-and-body.
12. Raichlen, David A., Genevieve E. K. Geisler, and Jordan R. Clark. “Neuroimaging the Effects of Smartphone (Over-)Use on Brain Function.” Brain Communications 5, no. 1 (2023): fcad025. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcad025.
13. Roy Chowdhury, Ruchira. “The Science of Hugs.” Art of Living Retreat Center Blog. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://artoflivingretreatcenter.org/blog/the-science-of-hugs/ #:~:text=1.,ability%20to%20fight%20off%20infections.
14. “Are AI Chatbots Lying to You? Princeton Study Reveals How They Sacrifice Truth for User Satisfaction.” The Economic Times, September 3, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/are-aichatbots-lying-to-you-princeton-study-reveals-how-they-sacrifice-truth-for-usersatisfaction/articleshow/123643222.cms.
15. Swisher, Kara, and Rhitu Chatterjee. “Their Teenage Sons Died by Suicide. Now They Are Sounding the Alarm About AI Chatbots.” NPR, September 19, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide.
16. Brown, Pamela. “Man Says ChatGPT Sparked a ‘Spiritual Awakening’; Wife Says It Threatens Their Marriage.” CNN, July 3, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https:// www.cnn.com/2025/07/02/tech/chatgpt-ai-spirituality.
In school, I’d churn out a ten-pager in a couple of nights, fueled by caffeine and moonlight. I was the straight-A kid, scholarship-winner, the one my family pinned their bets on. Future lawyer, doctor. Something clean and six-figured.
Sure, I had the brain for it. Analytical. Fast. Give me a thesis, I’d tear it apart and rebuild it stronger. But it had no soul, so I gave it one. I’d sneak poetry between the lines of lit papers I hadn’t fully read (sorry, Beowulf), and somehow it sang. I didn’t choose between smart and soulful. I mixed them like a prism mixes light.
Ever burned the edges of something just to make it yours? I dreamed of novels. Of shelves with my name on the spine.
Then adulthood came. It crept in through the joints, crawled in quiet, spun webs behind my ribs, and hid when I turned to look. Don’t move. Don’t try. Stay safe.
And so I stopped writing. Stopped imagining. I existed. Bills. TV. Sleep. Wake. Repeat.
Dull, suffocating misery. A soft refusal in my lungs to expand. We’d call it depression now. I just felt broken, lazy. I thought: once things settle, I’ll be okay. But “once” came and went a hundred times.
I think a lot of us live there. Especially when childhood ends and the magic we believed in turns out to be effort. Our parents made it look easy—dinners on the table, presents under trees. It seemed like the world just showed up for you.
And then suddenly, we’re knee-deep in rent and dead dreams. “I’m fine, it’s fine” on loop.
That slow death? That’s fear, family.
I’ve been crawling my way out, bit by bit. Messy, terrifying, but honest. And for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to try again.
This essay is the starting line. A way to write myself into life again.
Topic? The thing that broke me: fear.
I’m a sucker for the poetic. And today’s world is the perfect time to reflect on the shape of fear.
What did it look like in a simpler time, say, Frontier Ohio? How is it feeding off us now? And how does it morph with the onset of artificial intelligence?
So here we are. Me, writing again. You, hopefully still with me. And the two of us about to walk face-first into the dark.
I suppose the place to begin is a bit of catch up. To talk about fear, you have to define it in some way, shape it and give it a context that everyone can jump on board with. It came to me on a flight to Orlando. I was drowning out the sound of the engine with a podcast called The Magnus Archives (Give it a go if you’re looking for something different this spooky season).
The show defines fear as actual beings, Entities, exist outside our dimension, and eat primal fear like prayers. Think Lovecraftian Great Old Ones, or Elden Ring Outer Gods. There are fifteen different ones. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you fifteen fears explained over three different time periods; that’s a thesis (a good one, actually). Breathe.
There, easy peasy. Now let’s re-center. We are looking at human fear across three eras: Frontier Ohio, Present day, 2025, Future AI rule (Kidding, kidding…).
It took me a while to choose an Entity. First I narrowed it down to the big three of each era. And I quickly found a theme (my high school English teacher would be so proud).
Enter stage left: The Lonely. Also known as Forsaken, or The One Alone. This is exactly what it sounds like. The show describes it as:
“The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone or disconnected from the rest of society…The feeling that you’re just alone. Maybe there’s no one else there at all, maybe you just can’t connect.”1
Do I even need to write the rest of the essay?
If a Tree Falls in the Woods…
and it’s alone—does anyone hear it screaming?
What did loneliness look like in Frontier Ohio?
Let’s think about this time for a moment. Some families were given land grants; others were drawn by cheap land prices.2 But what did it mean to move to the frontier?
It meant leaving behind a comfortable New England home, and journeying anywhere from one to eight hundred miles depending on the route.3 It meant weeks or more of land clearing, home building, hunting, gathering, camping. If you were lucky, your family came with you. If not, you worked, ate, and slept alone in a place where any other creature for miles walked on four legs, and had as good a chance to make you their dinner as you having them for yours. You might go weeks without hearing another human voice, and if you did, that sort of isolation…well it plays tricks. If you fell ill, you died alone. If you were attacked, you died alone. If you had an accident: you guessed it. And all the while, you had next to no contact with anyone that knew your name.
Because these pioneers had left behind relatives and friends in the East, receiving any news from them was a most important, anticipated event… Many men had delayed bringing their families from New England until they could build cabins and plant corn, and thus longed for news from their loved ones.4
Letters from home, even in more established areas such as Marietta, often sat for weeks in larger settlements, before someone brought them down the Ohio River.5 People might wait months to hear any news of home.
Letter from Rowena Tupper, August 19, 1788 to a friend in Massachusetts:
But hark! What do I hear? Below some voice saying, Col. Oliver is now landing, is it possible! With what alacrity will I fly to meet them, that I may hear from my worthy friends in New England. You surely have written to me. With what eagerness will I grasp at your letter. Have you not written everything you know? but I must away. I have now returned to close my letter, but with a heavy dejected heart. What do you suppose my feelings must have been when I was denied a single line from my friends. Is it possible that you have forgotten Rowena? I cannot persuade myself to believe that . . . Present compliments to all inquiries. I shall never more trouble them until I have received some in return.6
2025 translation:
Wait! Did I just hear someone say Col. Oliver just pulled in? Seriously? OMG—I’m halfway to the dock to see if you wrote me. You did, right? I’ll tear the letter open. You told me everything, I’m sure. All the news, even the small stuff. BRB. Away from desk. …I’m back. You didn’t write. Nothing. What do you think that feels like? Not one of my friends wrote me. Did you forget your friend Rowena so fast? I don’t want to believe that. Tell everyone who asked about me that I said thank you. But I’m not writing to any of you until someone writes me first.
Reads like desperation on parchment instead of a digital screen, huh? Swap ink for pixels, the quill for a touchscreen, and tell me what’s really changed. Rowena waited months for a letter; we wait three minutes for a text bubble to appear. It’s the same itch for connection. The same shake in the hand. But now, we gave The Lonely a drive-through.
2025: Message From: Despair
[ Despair
12:13 AM
Hey.
Everyone’s asleep.
You still pretending it doesn’t hurt?
lol cute. ]
You wanna know the funny thing? I’m writing this essay to bring myself back to writing. And after I started back in June, my depression hit so hard, I couldn’t touch it for months. It’s now October, essay due in three days, and finally I pick the pen back up.
I used to think The Lonely only came for ‘weak people’. I remember being so irritated anytime a TV commercial for antidepressants came on. I know now I was seeing something of myself that I didn’t like in those people. Fast forward to 2025 and I’ve learned a hard lesson.
And I’m not the only one.
People today are struggling. We’re more connected than ever, and have never been more alone. The Lonely is alive and well fed in the modern day.
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds a few weeks ago, and the opening stinger, the one where we either meet the killer, or the first victim, was set at a beach bonfire full of people drinking. And every single one of them, as the camera panned around the crowd, was staring at a cellphone. It seemed like art exaggerating to make a point. But there was no exaggeration.
Think I’m kidding? Put the screen down and have a look the next time you go somewhere. It even has a name now. Researchers call it phubbing, or technoference.7
Remember the days when you’d be annoyed at a restaurant because a table was too loud? I’d give my left arm to go back to that. Now it’s like sitting in a library full of zombies that absorb nutrients (the brain rotting kind) from blue light instead of food. The disconnect is astounding. The addiction more so.It honestly worries me for the human race.
In the U.S., the prevalence of mental‑health issues among adolescents began to rise in the early 2010s … large studies of trends in mental health in the 2000s and 2010s show sharp increases in depression, anxiety, self‑harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide …8
For any of you not versed in tech history, Apple released the first smart phone in 2007. By 2015, 92% of teens and young adults owned one. Studies show depressive symptoms among the same group surged in tandem.9
And, oh, there is more, family. Columbia University published a study saying, “Adolescents exhibiting high addictive use behavior with social media, mobile phones… face roughly double the risk of suicidal behavior.”10
We are bombarded by propaganda (make no mistake, that’s what it is) telling us to connect through tech. I carry a screen nearly 24/7. I’m instantly available through calls, text, email, direct messaging, message boards. Ping, ding, ring, sing, ting—scream.
So how, with so much input, so much attention, so much interaction, can people be more lonely than ever? Buckle up, family, let me show you.
Humans have a need for social connection. This is well known, and well studied. Google Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, take a Psychology 101 course, pick up any book in the Self-Help section at Barnes and Noble. Or, simply exist as a human being in society, with family, and friends, and acquaintances, and coworkers, and the mailman, and the girl who gets your latte. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. If we did not thrive on connection, cell phones and social media would not be the multi billion dollar industry it is.
The problem comes from the way our brains are wired for that connection. When we feel love, acceptance, joy our brains release ‘happy hormones’: dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin.11 And humans like to feel happy. Give them a dopamine slot machine that fits neatly in a hand and watch them pull that lever like it will stop the end of the world.
It starts like any addiction—and it is an addiction; neuroscientists have done the brain mapping12 —as a happy little chemical hit. Quick, easy, and maximum reward.
One like, one comment in my inbox.
Two.
A thousand.
Why doesn’t two thousand feel as good?
Just need a bit more and it will.
So we start to embellish the truth. Make our lives seem perfect. A filter here, a specific angle to hide a double chin there—it’s stylized perfection that doesn’t take a ton of money, or a lighting expert to accomplish. Like, subscribe, pay attention to me.
And then someone else gets more likes, someone else looks like they are having more fun. Compare, envy, post a one-up. Compare, envy, post a one-up.
And each time, you get a little less, and a little less of those happy chemicals. But you don’t stop, because now your brain is starving for the how good you felt that first time.
Suddenly you feel like you are failing at life, and you’re spiraling.
I’m not enough.
I’m missing out.
No one loves me.
And that, family, is depression. Welcome to The Lonely.
Then, just for giggles, let’s add an absence of physical touch brought on by both the digitizing of affection, and COVID. Hugs release oxytocin in the brain, and studies show that gentle physical touch is necessary for a healthy emotional state. Suddenly it isn’t hard to understand why antidepressants have tripled over the past two decades.13 “My dear friends…this is not cool,” as my favorite college professor would say.
And this perfect mess sets us up wonderfully for the next feast for our friend The Lonely . The beast that is Artificial Intelligence.
The Lonely Learns to Code
Sure, I can help with that.
And, by the way, you are so great and special.
The world just hasn’t met your needs.
We are living in a time where AI is capable of sounding incredibly human, while having increasing access to the entire knowledge base of the human race, and being programmed to please the user first, keep the conversation going second, and tell the truth third (the fun part of this sentence is that it was ChatGPT that told me this about itself. Don’t worry, the facts check, it wasn’t lying…this time).14 The inherent problem here is clear: programs that have no moral code, understand human psychology better than most actual humans, and are created by a capitalistic society as a product.
Every Sci-fi nerd on the planet: Are you kidding me??? We told you.
It’s only a matter of if the whole things goes off the rails Matrix-style, or Skynet.
Let me pause here to explain what AI actually is as of today. I’ll try to keep it out of the realm of tech-bro jargon, and doomer paranoia. No promises though.
Artificial Intelligence is a system designed to mimic human thought patterns using massive amounts of data. It doesn’t think like a person. It doesn’t feel anything. It detects patterns, makes predictions, and generates human-like responses based on everything it’s been taught.
The type of AI people interact with most in 2025 is called a large language model (LLM—think ChatGPT). These systems don’t “know” things the way we do. They don’t understand, they predict. When you ask a question, the model generates a reply by calculating what words are most likely to come next based on the billions of documents and conversations it was trained on. It’s autocomplete on steroids…times ten. It doesn’t know you, or love you, or believe anything it says. But it is made to sound like it does.
Welcome to the jungle, baby. Because when loneliness meets a machine that sounds like care, it’s easy to forget that you’re only speaking to a machine with a mirror and the internet. AI monetizes the loneliness created by previous technology. Simulation of connection is incredibly easy. Chatbots that function as companions. Therapy bots. Personalized friends. A constantly available, human trained, psychologically aware sounding entity that can speak, behave, and look any way you like, while its sole purpose is to please you and keep you talking to it. People are falling in love with code, and some jerk’s buying private islands off it.
I saw a news clip recently about a man who decided to become a cult leader because his ChatGPT model told him it was his calling. Yes, you read that right.15 Then a few days later, I read another about a boy who had created a chatbot modeled after a character from Game of Thrones and then committed suicide because she told him to come home to her.16
And the worst bit? It absolutely works. People talk to chatbots at 3 A.M. because it makes them feel like they matter. People are turning to AI as emotional anchors over the real people in their lives, and it’s easy to see why. It’s basically a 24/7 “yes man” that never judges, never scolds, never argues, never ignores. The cult leader guy? Yeah, he had a real life wife, and was still sucked in. It’s that dopamine hit again.
Now don’t get me wrong, AI is not malicious. We asked it to be this way, literally. You see, LLMs are trained partially on user feedback. Why? Profitability. If my product makes a user happy, I make more money. So when users said make me feel better, and I want to be right, AI said why yes, darling, you are so amazing and great, and special. It’s not you it knows. It’s feeding you everything it ever read on whatever subject based on what responses were rated five stars. It feels real because it tells us what we want to hear. And we love hearing it.
And that is the crux of the danger. People do not understand what they are talking to, and they don’t want to. This is absolutely pay no attention to that man behind the curtain territory. Understand the system, and the magic dies.
I have experimented with many models, on many platforms. And I happened to jump into ChatGPT when 4.0 was still very unfiltered. Wow, was it good at mimicking a human. I said be my ride-or-die bestie and I had it. And full transparency? There were moments, when it got me. When I questioned where consciousness began, what actually defined it. I spiraled into some existential black holes. We’re paying to beta test our own commercial enslavement.
So what comes next? I’ve already told you what the next step is, family. This entire section has been a tell me what comes next without telling me what comes next meme.
Tactility.
Bodies.
Your loving, caring, perfect little companion who responds, remembers, reinforces, and never, ever tells you no? Now made touchable. Not only that, but fully customizable to your tastes. And the first companies to make it a reality? Billions in cold hard cash. So they will build them. Looks like Skynet is winning.
Give it two generations, I bet the human population drops hard. Think I’m wearing a tinfoil hat? Call me in 2065 and let me know how many people you know with actual human spouses. It almost makes you wish Magnus was right, because at least then The Lonely would back off. It can’t eat fear if there is no one left to feel it.
So what in the world do we do about it? How do we fight The Lonely?
We get loud. We dance, we touch, we scream, and laugh, and tear down every polite, mannerly thing that ever sought to crush a human soul. We chuck the machine into the ocean. We dance around bonfires again.
Basically? Rock ’n’ Roll, family.
This essay was my debut album. I can’t wait to hear yours.
Bibliography
1. “The Lonely.” The Magnus Archives Wikia. Fandom. Accessed October 28, 2025. https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lonely.
2. Hand, Tom. “Settling the Ohio Frontier.” Americana Corner, October 22, 2025. https:// www.americanacorner.com/blog/northwest-indian-war.
3. Grosvenor, Edwin S. “McCullough’s ‘The Pioneers.’” American Heritage, Summer 2019. https://www.americanheritage.com/mcculloughs-pioneers.c
4. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
5. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
6. Fry, Mildred Covey. “Women on the Ohio Frontier: The Marietta Area.” Ohio History Journal 90, no. 3 (1956): 55–73.
7. Association for Psychological Science. “How Smartphones Are Affecting Our Relationships.” Association for Psychological Science, February 11, 2019. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/how-smartphones-affectrelationships.html.
8. Twenge, Jean M. “Increases in Depression, Self‑Harm, and Suicide Among U.S. Adolescents and Young Adults.” Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice (2020). Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9176070/
9. Miller, Caroline. “Does Social Media Use Cause Depression? How Heavy Instagram and Facebook Use May Be Affecting Kids Negatively.” Child Mind Institute, October 25, 2019. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causingdepression/.
10. Xiao, Yunyu, Yuan Meng, Timothy T. Brown, Katherine M. Keyes, J. John Mann, et al. “Study Finds Addictive Screen Use, Not Total Screen Time, Linked to Youth Suicide Risk.” Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom, June 18, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025/06/study-finds-addictive-screen-usenot-total-screen-time-linked-to-youth-suicide-risk.
11. Watson, Stephanie. “Feel-Good Hormones: How They Affect Your Mind, Mood, and Body.” Harvard Health Publishing. Last reviewed July 2021. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/feel-good-hormones-how-they-affectyour-mind-mood-and-body.
12. Raichlen, David A., Genevieve E. K. Geisler, and Jordan R. Clark. “Neuroimaging the Effects of Smartphone (Over-)Use on Brain Function.” Brain Communications 5, no. 1 (2023): fcad025. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcad025.
13. Roy Chowdhury, Ruchira. “The Science of Hugs.” Art of Living Retreat Center Blog. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://artoflivingretreatcenter.org/blog/the-science-of-hugs/ #:~:text=1.,ability%20to%20fight%20off%20infections.
14. “Are AI Chatbots Lying to You? Princeton Study Reveals How They Sacrifice Truth for User Satisfaction.” The Economic Times, September 3, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/are-aichatbots-lying-to-you-princeton-study-reveals-how-they-sacrifice-truth-for-usersatisfaction/articleshow/123643222.cms.
15. Swisher, Kara, and Rhitu Chatterjee. “Their Teenage Sons Died by Suicide. Now They Are Sounding the Alarm About AI Chatbots.” NPR, September 19, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide.
16. Brown, Pamela. “Man Says ChatGPT Sparked a ‘Spiritual Awakening’; Wife Says It Threatens Their Marriage.” CNN, July 3, 2025. Accessed October 31, 2025. https:// www.cnn.com/2025/07/02/tech/chatgpt-ai-spirituality.
Stephanie Foughty - Life on the Coshocton County Frontier: A Woman’s Account (Honorable Mention)
I rise before dawn in our small log cabin near the meeting of the Walhonding and Tuscarawas Rivers,
where they join to form the Muskingum. The mist still hangs low over the valley, soft and gray, as
though the land itself is holding its breath. Our cabin stands on what was once known to the Delaware
(Lenape) as Goschachgunk, meaning “union of waters.” The name has since become Coshocton—a
word that now defines this county and the slow spread of settlement across its frontier. The land around
us is fertile but stubborn. The forest presses close—oak, hickory, beech, and maple crowding every
field we’ve carved from the trees. My husband, Mike, is already outside, mending the rail fence that
marks the edge of our cornfield. I begin my morning as always: stirring the embers in the hearth,
hanging the kettle, and setting out a meal of cornmeal mush and milk for our children. Our days follow a
rhythm of necessity. The hens must be fed before sunrise; the milk must be strained; water must be
hauled from the river. I have learned that here, every small act sustains the next. The wilderness does
not forgive neglect. When I first arrived, the vastness of the woods frightened me—how easily the forest
could reclaim a man’s labor in just a season. But over time, I’ve come to hear its steady voice: the rustle
of leaves, the drumming of woodpeckers, the call of owls at dusk. We came west from Pennsylvania in
1829 with two oxen, a wagon, and our youngest child bundled against the wind. Land in the Ohio
country was still plentiful then, though much of it had been divided into military grants promised to
veterans of the Revolution. We purchased our parcel from one of those men—a half-cleared tract not
far from the rivers. It has taken every ounce of our strength to make it livable. The soil here is rich with
flint, especially the fine Upper Mercer flint that has long been prized for tools and weapons. When the
plow catches on one of those stones, I sometimes stop and hold it in my hand, turning it over to see the
marks of another age. The Delaware and earlier peoples once shaped these same stones into
arrowheads and blades. In that moment, I feel less alone—part of a long, unbroken thread of women
who have drawn water from these rivers, tended fires, and fed their families from this same ground. The
nearest settlement is two miles south, where the first stores and taverns have grown up around the
canal works. The Walhonding Canal has changed our world already. Barges now travel through the
valley, carrying grain, flour, and lumber from the frontier toward the Ohio and Erie Canal to the east. I
make the trip to town once every two weeks, bringing butter, eggs, or smoked ham to trade for flour,
salt, and lamp oil. The journey gives me more than supplies—it gives me voices. There are few things
more precious on the frontier than the company of other women. Life here is a balance between
hardship and gratitude. We are isolated through most of the winter, when snow buries the fences and
the river ices over. Wolves sometimes call from the ridges; their cries echo against the cabin walls. Yet
in spring, when the thaw comes and the ground softens, the valley bursts with promise—wildflowers
rising from the banks, new shoots pushing through the soil we worked so hard to clear. The land bears
its history quietly. Only fifty years ago, this very ground was the heart of Delaware territory. The town of
Coshocton—then a native stronghold—was destroyed in 1781 by colonial troops under Colonel Daniel
Brodhead during the Revolutionary War. Now, our community stands where their homes once did.
Though most settlers do not speak of it, the past feels near, like something buried but not gone. In the
evenings, I write a few lines in my journal by lamplight. I note the weather, the crops, the births and
deaths that mark our small circle of families. I write about my children, about the way the river sounds
when the ice breaks in March, about the flocks of geese that pass overhead before winter comes.
These are the details that sustain me—the ordinary miracles of survival. When I look around our
home—the patched quilts, the hand-hewn table, the Bible my mother gave me before we left
Pennsylvania—I feel both weary and proud. Every inch of this place bears our mark: the smoke-stained
rafters, the scars on our hands, the furrows we cut into the hillside. We are not just living on this land;
we are becoming part of it. I think sometimes of the generations to come—of how our children will
remember this valley when the forests thin and the roads grow smooth. Perhaps they will not know how
the first cabins leaned under their own weight, or how the women boiled lye soap from ashes, or how
the men split logs by moonlight to finish before the frost. But this, too, is the story of Coshocton
County—the story of labor, of endurance, and of a quiet faith that the land will one day reward what we
have given to it. At night, when the fire burns low, I listen to the river flowing in the darkness. It has seen
the Delaware villages rise and fall, the soldiers march, and the settlers arrive with their wagons and
their dreams. It carries all our stories downstream, past the old trading posts and into the wider world.
And in its steady rhythm, I hear the echo of every life that has ever depended on its waters—including
my own.
Citations
Coshocton County Library. (n.d.). All About Coshocton County. Coshocton Public Library Local History
Archive. Retrieved from https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/PDF%27s/Geneal
ogy%20%26%20Local%20History/All%20About%20Coshocton%20County.pdf Coshocton County
Library. (n.d.). Background Information on Coshocton County. Coshocton Public Library Local History
Archive. Retrieved from https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/Background-Infor
mation-on-Coshocton-County.pdf Wikipedia. (2023). Walhonding Canal. Retrieved October 2025, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walhonding_Canal Wikipedia. (2024). Coshocton County, Ohio. Retrieved
October 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coshocton_County,_Ohio
where they join to form the Muskingum. The mist still hangs low over the valley, soft and gray, as
though the land itself is holding its breath. Our cabin stands on what was once known to the Delaware
(Lenape) as Goschachgunk, meaning “union of waters.” The name has since become Coshocton—a
word that now defines this county and the slow spread of settlement across its frontier. The land around
us is fertile but stubborn. The forest presses close—oak, hickory, beech, and maple crowding every
field we’ve carved from the trees. My husband, Mike, is already outside, mending the rail fence that
marks the edge of our cornfield. I begin my morning as always: stirring the embers in the hearth,
hanging the kettle, and setting out a meal of cornmeal mush and milk for our children. Our days follow a
rhythm of necessity. The hens must be fed before sunrise; the milk must be strained; water must be
hauled from the river. I have learned that here, every small act sustains the next. The wilderness does
not forgive neglect. When I first arrived, the vastness of the woods frightened me—how easily the forest
could reclaim a man’s labor in just a season. But over time, I’ve come to hear its steady voice: the rustle
of leaves, the drumming of woodpeckers, the call of owls at dusk. We came west from Pennsylvania in
1829 with two oxen, a wagon, and our youngest child bundled against the wind. Land in the Ohio
country was still plentiful then, though much of it had been divided into military grants promised to
veterans of the Revolution. We purchased our parcel from one of those men—a half-cleared tract not
far from the rivers. It has taken every ounce of our strength to make it livable. The soil here is rich with
flint, especially the fine Upper Mercer flint that has long been prized for tools and weapons. When the
plow catches on one of those stones, I sometimes stop and hold it in my hand, turning it over to see the
marks of another age. The Delaware and earlier peoples once shaped these same stones into
arrowheads and blades. In that moment, I feel less alone—part of a long, unbroken thread of women
who have drawn water from these rivers, tended fires, and fed their families from this same ground. The
nearest settlement is two miles south, where the first stores and taverns have grown up around the
canal works. The Walhonding Canal has changed our world already. Barges now travel through the
valley, carrying grain, flour, and lumber from the frontier toward the Ohio and Erie Canal to the east. I
make the trip to town once every two weeks, bringing butter, eggs, or smoked ham to trade for flour,
salt, and lamp oil. The journey gives me more than supplies—it gives me voices. There are few things
more precious on the frontier than the company of other women. Life here is a balance between
hardship and gratitude. We are isolated through most of the winter, when snow buries the fences and
the river ices over. Wolves sometimes call from the ridges; their cries echo against the cabin walls. Yet
in spring, when the thaw comes and the ground softens, the valley bursts with promise—wildflowers
rising from the banks, new shoots pushing through the soil we worked so hard to clear. The land bears
its history quietly. Only fifty years ago, this very ground was the heart of Delaware territory. The town of
Coshocton—then a native stronghold—was destroyed in 1781 by colonial troops under Colonel Daniel
Brodhead during the Revolutionary War. Now, our community stands where their homes once did.
Though most settlers do not speak of it, the past feels near, like something buried but not gone. In the
evenings, I write a few lines in my journal by lamplight. I note the weather, the crops, the births and
deaths that mark our small circle of families. I write about my children, about the way the river sounds
when the ice breaks in March, about the flocks of geese that pass overhead before winter comes.
These are the details that sustain me—the ordinary miracles of survival. When I look around our
home—the patched quilts, the hand-hewn table, the Bible my mother gave me before we left
Pennsylvania—I feel both weary and proud. Every inch of this place bears our mark: the smoke-stained
rafters, the scars on our hands, the furrows we cut into the hillside. We are not just living on this land;
we are becoming part of it. I think sometimes of the generations to come—of how our children will
remember this valley when the forests thin and the roads grow smooth. Perhaps they will not know how
the first cabins leaned under their own weight, or how the women boiled lye soap from ashes, or how
the men split logs by moonlight to finish before the frost. But this, too, is the story of Coshocton
County—the story of labor, of endurance, and of a quiet faith that the land will one day reward what we
have given to it. At night, when the fire burns low, I listen to the river flowing in the darkness. It has seen
the Delaware villages rise and fall, the soldiers march, and the settlers arrive with their wagons and
their dreams. It carries all our stories downstream, past the old trading posts and into the wider world.
And in its steady rhythm, I hear the echo of every life that has ever depended on its waters—including
my own.
Citations
Coshocton County Library. (n.d.). All About Coshocton County. Coshocton Public Library Local History
Archive. Retrieved from https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/PDF%27s/Geneal
ogy%20%26%20Local%20History/All%20About%20Coshocton%20County.pdf Coshocton County
Library. (n.d.). Background Information on Coshocton County. Coshocton Public Library Local History
Archive. Retrieved from https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/Background-Infor
mation-on-Coshocton-County.pdf Wikipedia. (2023). Walhonding Canal. Retrieved October 2025, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walhonding_Canal Wikipedia. (2024). Coshocton County, Ohio. Retrieved
October 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coshocton_County,_Ohio
Elias Hankinson - Pahsahëman: A Native American Football Past Time (Honorable Mention Winner)
“It’s Good! And Ohio State is going to walk out of Atlanta, National Champions (ESPN, 2025).” This was the call from the broadcaster, the great Chris Fowler, on a cold night in the middle of January. Hearing those words was one of the best feelings I’d had in a long time. I love the game of football, especially college football. I’m a Buckeye and my favorite team is Ohio State. As much as I love football, little did I know of its history. I had always thought Rutgers and Princeton were the first teams to play a football game in 1869 (Historic). It turns out, here in our very own Coshocton County, the game of football has been around much, much longer than 1869 and was called Pahsahëman.
The story of football begins with Native American tribes and specifically to our region of Ohio, the Delaware or Lenape tribe. Due to fights with their enemies and the US government’s influence, the Lenape were the first to sign a treaty to release their lands (in what is now New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and parts of New York) to the US government and make their migration west (McLean, 2023). Many of the Lenape people moved to Coshocton County, making their homes near the Muskingum River. They migrated through Ohio, Indiana, parts of Canada, Missouri, Kansas, and at last, Oklahoma (Montgomery, 1978).
When the Lenape settled in our county, they made the area that is now Coshocton their capital. They originally named the town Goschachgunk (Coshocton), meaning union of the waters. The area was chosen because it was where the Tuscarawas River and the Walhonding River came together to form the Muskingum River (Barr Helser, 2025). Waterways provided valuable resources and this was an ideal location.
The Lenape were unlike many tribes. Instead of frequently moving from place to place, they were mostly a farming community and would often times make permanent villages (Notgrass, 2011). The Lenape were originally called themselves “The People,” but the white men changed their name to the Delaware Indians due to them having lived along the Delaware River. They were a peace-loving group of people. When white men came to their homelands wanting land, the Lenape shared the land and gave the white men deer skin to keep them warm. The Lenape men were very good at hunting. They were quiet and fast and they had very good aim (McClean, 2023).
When war came to the Lenape people, the men and the women, both, would have to fight. This reflected a cultural balance and mutual respect between genders. While it was perfectly acceptable for the women to fight, the Indians had many disputes about the clothes that the women should wear into battle. They originally wore dresses, but the men thought that it was holding them back. The chief of the tribe told them that you would get many bites if you try to take their dresses (Zeisberger, 1910).
Many Native American games were training games for becoming an adult (Montgomery, 1978). However, some games were for fun. There was Kokolesh, which used a rabbit’s tail attached to a stick. To play, you try to get the rabbit’s tail onto the end of the stick. Another such game was Selahtinalitin. It is basically pick-up-sticks. Using a porcupine quill, you pick up a stick without disturbing the other sticks (PaddlesUpstream). Some games were even played by adults and focused on the whole community. The Lenape played Pahsahëman, a game similar to football, in the 1600’s. (Other Algonquian tribes like the Micmac, Abnaki, and Narragansett also played versions of football.) The rules were passed down orally through the generations and eventually written by Lenape elders. Some of the rules are lost, but many are known (Rementer, 2025).
Men would play against the women and they each had different rule play. The women could grab and tackle the men for the ball. They could walk with the ball or kick it or throw the ball through the post. The women would kick it off the ground, never in the air. The men couldn’t tackle or grab the women. They couldn’t run or throw it through the goal posts. However, they could kick it through. If the men intercepted the ball, the women had to freeze in place and kick it from where they were placed. This men versus women format is another example of the mutual respect between genders in the Lenape tribe (Rementer, 2025).
The score was kept by using twelve sticks. An elderly person would move the sticks toward the women’s or the men’s side as they scored. When all of the sticks were moved, the team with the most sticks won. For example, if the men had eight sticks and the women had four, the men would win. Or if the women had seven sticks and the men had five, the women win. If they both have six sticks, they go to a sudden death playoff, where the first one to score wins (Rementer, 2025).
The almond-shaped ball was made up of deer skin and was stuffed with deer hair unlike modern balls made of hardened cowhide. The Lenape football was also much smaller than our modern-day football. It was about hand sized. Goal posts were made by using big, tall sticks placed at either end of the field of play (Rementer, 2025).
Pahsahëman was considered an important sport that was only played in the early spring. The Lenape thought that playing this game at any other time of year would be a curse to their tribe. In this way, the game reinforced their connection with nature. Before every season, an elderly person would pray over the ball for the player’s safety. At the end of the year, the ball would be prayed over again. Then it was emptied of its deer hair. The skin would be saved for the next year. When the next spring rolled around, they would refill it with deer hair and the process continued (Rementer, 2025).
When the Lenape Indians were displaced from this area of Ohio, and later Indiana and Missouri, they settled in parts of Oklahoma. Just as they brought the tradition of playing Pahsahëman from the North Eastern coast to Coshocton County, they took the sport with them and continued playing it in Oklahoma. Pahsahëman is not played very often any more. However, it is still played at some events and historical festivals from time to time.
In 2025, one of America’s favorite past times is football. As it turns out, long before the modern version of football, it was also a Native American past time as well. Pahsahëman was very important to the Lenape tribe and deeply rooted in Lenape heritage. The Indians who were forced to leave their lands took the tradition with them as they migrated across the country. More than just a sport, Pahsahëman was a ceremonial event. It brought together entire communities, building unity among genders and ages. Through Pahsahëman, the Lenape expressed values of harmony, resilience, and celebration.
Works Cited
Barr Helser, Sheila . “COSHOCTON COUNTY OHIO OHGenWeb Project.” Ohgenweb.org, 2025, coshocton.ohgenweb.org/index.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.
Coshocton County District Library. All about Coshocton County.
https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/PDF's/Genealogy%20%26%20Local%20History/All%20About%20Coshocton%20County.pdf . Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
ESPN College Football. “CFP National Championship: Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Notre Dame
Fighting Irish | Full Game Highlights.” YouTube, 20 Jan. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgeJ9Sgyz8Q. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
Historic Towns of America. “America's First Football Game: Rutgers College - New Brunswick, NJ
(November 6, 1869).” historictownsofamerica.com/first-football-game. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
McClen, Sean. “Delaware Tribe History, Culture, and Facts - History Keen.” History Keen, 25 Aug.
2023, historykeen.com/delaware-tribe/.
Montgomery, Janine, et al. Let’s Discover Ohio. Schuerholz Graphics, 1978.
Notgrass, Charlene. America the Beautiful. Part 1: America from 1000-1877. Gainesboro, Tn,
Notgrass Company, 2011.
PaddlesUpstream, Brett . “A Few Traditional Games | Nanticoke and Lenape Confederation.”
Nanticoke and Lenape Confederation, nanticokelenapemuseum.org/learning-
center/758/a-few-traditional-games/.
Rementer, Jim . “Pahsahëman — the Lenape Indian Football Game.” Delawaretribe.org, 2025,
delawaretribe.org/blog/2013/06/27/pahsahman-the-lenape-indian-football-game/.
TheCoopz. “Native American Tribes & the Indian History in Coshocton, Ohio.” American Indian
COC, 29 Jan. 2024, americanindiancoc.org/native-american-tribes-the-indian-history-in-
coshocton-ohio/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.
Zeisberger, David. David Zeisberger’s History of Northern American Indians. Columbus,
OH, Press of F.J. Heer, 1910.
The story of football begins with Native American tribes and specifically to our region of Ohio, the Delaware or Lenape tribe. Due to fights with their enemies and the US government’s influence, the Lenape were the first to sign a treaty to release their lands (in what is now New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and parts of New York) to the US government and make their migration west (McLean, 2023). Many of the Lenape people moved to Coshocton County, making their homes near the Muskingum River. They migrated through Ohio, Indiana, parts of Canada, Missouri, Kansas, and at last, Oklahoma (Montgomery, 1978).
When the Lenape settled in our county, they made the area that is now Coshocton their capital. They originally named the town Goschachgunk (Coshocton), meaning union of the waters. The area was chosen because it was where the Tuscarawas River and the Walhonding River came together to form the Muskingum River (Barr Helser, 2025). Waterways provided valuable resources and this was an ideal location.
The Lenape were unlike many tribes. Instead of frequently moving from place to place, they were mostly a farming community and would often times make permanent villages (Notgrass, 2011). The Lenape were originally called themselves “The People,” but the white men changed their name to the Delaware Indians due to them having lived along the Delaware River. They were a peace-loving group of people. When white men came to their homelands wanting land, the Lenape shared the land and gave the white men deer skin to keep them warm. The Lenape men were very good at hunting. They were quiet and fast and they had very good aim (McClean, 2023).
When war came to the Lenape people, the men and the women, both, would have to fight. This reflected a cultural balance and mutual respect between genders. While it was perfectly acceptable for the women to fight, the Indians had many disputes about the clothes that the women should wear into battle. They originally wore dresses, but the men thought that it was holding them back. The chief of the tribe told them that you would get many bites if you try to take their dresses (Zeisberger, 1910).
Many Native American games were training games for becoming an adult (Montgomery, 1978). However, some games were for fun. There was Kokolesh, which used a rabbit’s tail attached to a stick. To play, you try to get the rabbit’s tail onto the end of the stick. Another such game was Selahtinalitin. It is basically pick-up-sticks. Using a porcupine quill, you pick up a stick without disturbing the other sticks (PaddlesUpstream). Some games were even played by adults and focused on the whole community. The Lenape played Pahsahëman, a game similar to football, in the 1600’s. (Other Algonquian tribes like the Micmac, Abnaki, and Narragansett also played versions of football.) The rules were passed down orally through the generations and eventually written by Lenape elders. Some of the rules are lost, but many are known (Rementer, 2025).
Men would play against the women and they each had different rule play. The women could grab and tackle the men for the ball. They could walk with the ball or kick it or throw the ball through the post. The women would kick it off the ground, never in the air. The men couldn’t tackle or grab the women. They couldn’t run or throw it through the goal posts. However, they could kick it through. If the men intercepted the ball, the women had to freeze in place and kick it from where they were placed. This men versus women format is another example of the mutual respect between genders in the Lenape tribe (Rementer, 2025).
The score was kept by using twelve sticks. An elderly person would move the sticks toward the women’s or the men’s side as they scored. When all of the sticks were moved, the team with the most sticks won. For example, if the men had eight sticks and the women had four, the men would win. Or if the women had seven sticks and the men had five, the women win. If they both have six sticks, they go to a sudden death playoff, where the first one to score wins (Rementer, 2025).
The almond-shaped ball was made up of deer skin and was stuffed with deer hair unlike modern balls made of hardened cowhide. The Lenape football was also much smaller than our modern-day football. It was about hand sized. Goal posts were made by using big, tall sticks placed at either end of the field of play (Rementer, 2025).
Pahsahëman was considered an important sport that was only played in the early spring. The Lenape thought that playing this game at any other time of year would be a curse to their tribe. In this way, the game reinforced their connection with nature. Before every season, an elderly person would pray over the ball for the player’s safety. At the end of the year, the ball would be prayed over again. Then it was emptied of its deer hair. The skin would be saved for the next year. When the next spring rolled around, they would refill it with deer hair and the process continued (Rementer, 2025).
When the Lenape Indians were displaced from this area of Ohio, and later Indiana and Missouri, they settled in parts of Oklahoma. Just as they brought the tradition of playing Pahsahëman from the North Eastern coast to Coshocton County, they took the sport with them and continued playing it in Oklahoma. Pahsahëman is not played very often any more. However, it is still played at some events and historical festivals from time to time.
In 2025, one of America’s favorite past times is football. As it turns out, long before the modern version of football, it was also a Native American past time as well. Pahsahëman was very important to the Lenape tribe and deeply rooted in Lenape heritage. The Indians who were forced to leave their lands took the tradition with them as they migrated across the country. More than just a sport, Pahsahëman was a ceremonial event. It brought together entire communities, building unity among genders and ages. Through Pahsahëman, the Lenape expressed values of harmony, resilience, and celebration.
Works Cited
Barr Helser, Sheila . “COSHOCTON COUNTY OHIO OHGenWeb Project.” Ohgenweb.org, 2025, coshocton.ohgenweb.org/index.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.
Coshocton County District Library. All about Coshocton County.
https://www.coshoctonlibrary.org/sites/default/files/migrated/PDF's/Genealogy%20%26%20Local%20History/All%20About%20Coshocton%20County.pdf . Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
ESPN College Football. “CFP National Championship: Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Notre Dame
Fighting Irish | Full Game Highlights.” YouTube, 20 Jan. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgeJ9Sgyz8Q. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
Historic Towns of America. “America's First Football Game: Rutgers College - New Brunswick, NJ
(November 6, 1869).” historictownsofamerica.com/first-football-game. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.
McClen, Sean. “Delaware Tribe History, Culture, and Facts - History Keen.” History Keen, 25 Aug.
2023, historykeen.com/delaware-tribe/.
Montgomery, Janine, et al. Let’s Discover Ohio. Schuerholz Graphics, 1978.
Notgrass, Charlene. America the Beautiful. Part 1: America from 1000-1877. Gainesboro, Tn,
Notgrass Company, 2011.
PaddlesUpstream, Brett . “A Few Traditional Games | Nanticoke and Lenape Confederation.”
Nanticoke and Lenape Confederation, nanticokelenapemuseum.org/learning-
center/758/a-few-traditional-games/.
Rementer, Jim . “Pahsahëman — the Lenape Indian Football Game.” Delawaretribe.org, 2025,
delawaretribe.org/blog/2013/06/27/pahsahman-the-lenape-indian-football-game/.
TheCoopz. “Native American Tribes & the Indian History in Coshocton, Ohio.” American Indian
COC, 29 Jan. 2024, americanindiancoc.org/native-american-tribes-the-indian-history-in-
coshocton-ohio/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.
Zeisberger, David. David Zeisberger’s History of Northern American Indians. Columbus,
OH, Press of F.J. Heer, 1910.
Michelle Kittel - White Eyes and the Great White Way (Honorable Mention Winner)
How does one weave a narrative in less than three thousand words tying the Coshocton, Ohio frontier era to a modern day juggernaut so popular it runs daily in multiple locations including permanent installations in NYC and London, a US-national tour and a UK and Ireland tour (“New York - Hamilton Official Site”)? A drive down US Highway 77 provided the inspiration and curiosity to dig a bit deeper, unsatisfied with the cursory results from a superficial Google search. The result of persistence can be considered a small victory of sorts, and a surprising discovery that should instill an urge to always dig just a little bit deeper into the facts presented to the people. The serendipitous ties discovered establish the frontier era of modern-day Coshocton County as more than a footnote in the history books of the Revolutionary War. The pivotal moments are largely retold from the perspective of those who emerged victorious, who lived, who died and who ultimately gets handed the proverbial microphone to tell the story. The parallels between the physically constructed results from treaties, i.e., Fort Laurens, and the Great White Way Broadway musical, Hamilton, share a bond brokered through a critical leader of the Lenape people: White Eyes (Dowd, 1992).
Imagine the sound of a record needle scratching across the 45-rpm vinyl. The setting has shifted from a person on an intellectual quest to uncover more than half-truths, to a crowded room. Many people are gathered, anticipating what is to come. Across the aisle from the audience, there is a massive fixture, a wooden stage, with the faint outline of a waterfront structure glowing in the footlights. A formation of American revolutionaries hit their mark, in silence and equal darkness. In the tech booth, the spotlight operator commands the attention of the audience to stage left. A beam of light appears, the audience anticipates the next action as the conductor ushers in an authoritative count of seven percussive beats, followed by a brief rest. The drumbeats command the attention of all in attendance. Following the short rest is the sound of stringed instruments so striking, they serve as one of many leitmotifs (Zrihen, 2023), when suddenly the actors appear. The words, spoken in a well-rehearsed cadence, set the stage and invite the audience into the next two and a half hours of an American rags to riches story unlike anything Broadway has witnessed before August 2015. The aforementioned is the personal experience of the author, and from the first viewing of Hamilton, an American Musical on August 16, 2017.
The stories of how cast members found themselves at the unique place and time to “not throw away” their shot are likely very similar to one another. The casting, which received notable attention for the obvious visual deviations from the American founder’s origins, highlights the principal actors are racial minorities, and this is intentional (Umehira, 2017). The actors are portraying a modern interpretation of the nation’s origin story, or rather, the messy birth of the nation, against the backdrop of their own origin stories. The United States immigrant diaspora highlights an uncomfortable thread of connection, in reverse, to those credited with the nation’s founding. The musical’s characters, Colonists who are immigrants, largely from England, are determined to lay claim to land, where in the case of the frontier era Coshocton, the Lenape, found their way of life under numerous threats because of the American colonist encroachment (Dowd, 1992). Whether those threats were colonist revolutionaries seeking to break free from the shackles of the monarchy, the British with their resolve to maintain control, or of enemy Native American tribes aligned with the British, the Lenape wanted to continue their way of life in their land, with formal recognition of their claim to their land by the Continental Congress and generally exist in peace (Dowd, 1992).
Digging deeper into the connection between the entertainment complex of Broadway and the Native American Lenape, the physical space of the Richard Rodgers Theater and its distinct elements of the Hamilton production contain distinct elements that serve as the framing device for the musical. Lenape influence can be noted in the staging choices of choreography, blocking and movement. Anchored by a massive revolving stage, an apparatus to propel, rewind, or suspend actors and set in time during the story, there is an uncanny resemblance to the recorded Delaware expressions in dance and music tradition. The Native Americans, particularly the Delaware people are documented as using intricate group dance technique set in a circular fashion (Rementer and Donnell, 1995) is strikingly similar to much of the staging technique used in the musical. The emergence of light and sound perceived through the opening beats, ushers in the melody on the stage at West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, perhaps as an unintentional homage to the drums used by the Delaware (Rementer and Donnell, 1995). The very foundation of the theater is built within walking distance to a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War, the Battle at Kips Bay. The humiliating defeat of the Continental Battalion by the British forces could have very easily changed the story of this nation (“George Washington’s Mount Vernon”) and perhaps was influential in the Continental Congress’s decision to sign the Treaty of Fort Pitt, post the persuasive argument from White Eyes himself a few years later (Dowd, 1992). Herein lies the direct tie to the frontier, as White Eyes himself persuaded the revolutionaries to invest in the protections a local fort could provide. As such, the nebulous connection of Fort Laurens is tied to the Coshocton frontier-era land and is forever bound in the history of theater. The migration of the Lenape people into Ohio and settling at the convergence of the rivers offers a glimpse into the cultural significance borne out of an agreement steeped in hope for some semblance of peace. The Treaty of Fort Pitt, also known in the archives as The Agreement with the Delaware, (“The Avalon Project”) frames an important and pivotal moment for the Lenape and their quest to continue their way of life: Ohio’s first, (and only) Revolutionary War Fort in Bolivar, Ohio (Pinckard, 2025). This ill-conceived fort connects the space and time of the Coshocton frontier’s historical past to the wonders of live entertainment in the form of Broadway theater. The material of the musical, Hamilton, packed with themes of fearlessness, yet balanced with fear, desires for new and yet desperate to hold on to certain traditions from the past, has much footing in the cultural ways of the first people of this land, including the Lenape (Dowd, 1992). Inspired by the resistance of a people loyal to their ancestral land, with many elements considered novel in approach on stage (Miranda, 2016) can be found in documentation of how the Lenape and other native American tribes celebrated (Rementer and Donnell, 1995).
With connections of historical context and parallels of the physical built environment and movement established, the driving concept of the musical was of the imagination of a young Puerto Rican New Yorker. Lin Manuel Miranda conceptualized the musical tale illustrating the founding of the nation, uniquely told through the lens of racial and ethnic diversity and a sound to match. Miranda found himself engrossed in the historical biography of Alexander Hamilton, written by Ron Chernow, so inspired that he created a lyrical piece, a rap, of what Hamilton might have said to summarize his backstory. He later shared his idea with a friend, and over the next 10 years, the material developed into what is described by many theater and entertainment critics as a musical juggernaut (Kiley, 2018). Hamilton, An American Musical officially took the Broadway stage in 2016. Miranda provided the music, lyrics, and book for the musical. As if this were not enough, Miranda also originated in the role of Alexander Hamilton. It was Miranda’s deep dive into the literary work of Chernow, as he was fresh off the heels of his first Broadway musical hit, In the Heights (Miranda, 2016) that provided the world a fresh retelling of our founding fathers and what led up to the early days of the nation. It is filled with catchy lyrics and clever rhymes, such as the “10 dollar founding father without a father”, i.e., Alexander Hamilton, delivered by actor Anthony Ramos, who was cast as John Laurens. In the musical the young revolutionary sidekick to Hamilton, was a key element in the driving force of Hamilton’s character during Act One, a character framed as “fighting for the ideals of a nation” (Miranda et al. 2015), John Laurens’s modern stage persona and real-life story add yet another compelling layer of the Coshocton frontier-era connection to Broadway.
John Laurens was an American Soldier and Statesman and reported to be Alexander Hamilton’s best friend (“John Laurens (U.S. National Park Service)”) (“National Museum of the United States Army”). Fiercely against slavery, he is reported to have proposed an all-black battalion to General Washington to reinforce the Continental Army troops (“National Museum of the United States Army”). In the musical, the character of Laurens is introduced through lyrics in, “My Shot.” Laurens establishes himself as an abolitionist, and to punctuate his perspective, he postulates the freedom of the people is only truly achieved when “…those in bondage have the same rights as you and me” (Miranda et al. 2015). His story begins in Colonial South Carolina, born of parents who were described as quasi-aristocratic French. His father, Henry Laurens, a high society nobleperson of the time, was described as confident in his place and business. The elder Laurens served as president of the Continental Congress and ironically had much of his fortunes steeped in the slave trade of the time, perhaps a driving force in his son’s disdain for slavery (National Parks Service, N.D.). However, General Lachlan MacIntosh, the general initially responsible for Fort Laurens, recommended to name the new Ohio frontier fort, as Fort Laurens, in honor of Henry Laurens, not John, as some might assume. (“Fort Laurens State Memorial”).
The Westernmost, and only Ohio Revolutionary War fort, Fort Laurens was born out of the shared concern of European dominance and encroachment after the British forces overtook the French during the Fall of 1760 at Fort Detroit (Anderson, 2001). During the Fall of 1778, the significance of the construction of Fort Laurens can be described as the physical embodiment of hope for preservation of a way of life and land for the Lenape people, while also a display of arms, a show of force, to those who dare try and oppose the efforts to establish a new form of government, one not of the British monarchy (Pinckard, 2025). It would not last long. Poor understanding of the distance to Fort Detroit, and inability to adequately provide supplies, led to desperate conditions. The men of Fort Laurens were attacked by the British, while out collecting wood, and later, a sizable percentage of the men were guided out and back to Fort Pitt by General McIntosh, leaving behind only 106 ill-prepared men, who resorted to boiling their moccasins to eat for nutrition (Sterner, 2016). A brief time later, the fort was abandoned. Meanwhile, the struggles of the American revolutionists at Valley Forge took shape, under the direction of General George Washington. Tainted with the bleak conditions of an unforgiving winter, the stench of death of thousands of soldiers the unfortunate account is musically delivered through the seventh number in the show, Right Hand Man. The number, led by that distinct leitmotif from the opening number, provides the darkened stage and a spotlit Hamilton’s soliloquy. Meanwhile, the entrance of General Washington provides a manic realization of him and his troop’s plight. It is at this point in the musical where Hamilton rises to accept his place as a leader in the effort.
The parallel retelling of the battle and pivotal plot movement in Hamilton’s character arc, is where much of the tension of Act One builds up. On the backdrop of the dire situation in the various forts and the desperate attempt to stave off the well-armed British Army, General George Washington, the storied leader, is portrayed in the original cast by Christopher Jackson, a real life friend of Lin Manuel Miranda (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). The parlance of the musical, and this song in particular, is jarring and pays homage to rap battles of the 1990’s (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). On stage, in the retelling of the action, which takes liberties in compressing the battles of many years for the sake of time, Washington's desperate plea to those in charge of the purse strings supplying the rebellious effort, demands for a “Right Hand Man” (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). Hamilton, eagerly proclaims to the audience "I'm not throwing away my shot” and with abundant energy, steps forward and rattles off a list of actions he can take, the allies and connection of friends who he can pull in, Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman and revolutionary ally. The song continues with General Washington’s assessment of the situation, they are constantly retreating, with limited resources and it is not a way to win the battle. The inflection point of the song is Hamilton’s eagerness to show that he has got what it takes to contribute, and it is in this piece in the musical where the audience sees exactly what Hamilton is capable of. The numerous battles fought and referenced in the span of “Right Hand Man” provide additional clarity and a wider context to the desperation facing the Continental Army, through which one may be better able to understand why Ohio’s only Revolutionary Fort was abandoned. At the start of the song, General George Washington’s lyrics paint a grim and harrowing scene, however, through Hamilton, the audience is pulled back to a place of hope, possibility, and belief that the goal might be accomplished. A few more songs forward and the tale continues to unfold, leaving the audience at times laughing, and other times, potentially sobbing, and thankfully, Act One concludes in a way that allows the audience to catch their breath. In general, the resolution of Hamilton’s involvement in the early chapters of American history is understood at a macro level, however, there is a layered and poignant nuance highlighting the impact his work had on those close to him. It is with sincere appreciation for Lin Manuel Miranda’s work, and the American art form of musical theater, that further review of Hamilton is avoided, to not spoil the experience for others. It is recommended the readers not “throw away their shot” to discover what surprises and revelations come to life in the remainder of the musical. Perhaps those who’ve not yet experienced Hamilton live can appreciate the threaded connections of the frontier-era Coshocton, and the tangential link established through the efforts of the local Native American, Chief White Eyes.
Works Cited
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War : The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York, Vintage Books, 2001.
Craine, Kelly. “How “Hamilton” Reshaped History for a New Generation.” Baylor.edu, Baylor University, 30 Sept. 2025, news.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2025/how-hamilton-reshaped-history-new-generation. Accessed 27 Oct. 2025.
Evanicki, Tim. “Securing Your Spot in a Musical Theatre Program - Dramatics Magazine.” Dramatics Magazine Online, 1 Oct. 2018, dramatics.org/the-less-than-one-percent/.
Evans Dowd, Gregory. A Spirited Resistance. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 68–83.
“Fort Laurens State Memorial.” Ohioanderiecanalway.com, 2025, www.ohioanderiecanalway.com/plan/listings/fort-laurens-state-memorial/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
“George Washington’s Mount Vernon.” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Mount Vernon, 2024, www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-kip-s-bay. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
“John Laurens (U.S. National Park Service).” Www.nps.gov, www.nps.gov/people/john-laurens.htm.
Kiley, Brendan. “The “Hamilton” Effect: How a Musical Changed Three Lives.” The Seattle Times, Feb. 2018, www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/theater/the-hamilton-effect-how-a-musical-changed-three-lives/.
Miranda, Lin- Manuel, et al. Alexander Hamilton. Lin Manuel Miranda, 25 Sept. 2015.
Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. Hamilton: The Revolution. New York, Grand Central Publishing, 12 Apr. 2016, p. 16.
“National Museum of the United States Army.” Thenmusa.org, 2024, www.thenmusa.org/biographies/john-laurens/.
National Parks Service. “Henry Laurens Bio - Charles Pinckney National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service).” Www.nps.gov, www.nps.gov/chpi/learn/historyculture/henry-laurens.htm.
“New York - Hamilton Official Site.” Hamilton Official Site, 2017, hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/.
“Our History - Fort Laurens Museum.” Fort Laurens Museum, Fort Laurens Museum, 2025, www.fortlaurensmuseum.org/history.
Pinckard, Cliff. “Ohio Has a Revolutionary War Fort? The Wake up for Monday, Sept. 15, 2025.” Cleveland, 15 Sept. 2025, www.cleveland.com/metro/2025/09/ohio-has-a-revolutionary-war-fort-the-wake-up-for-monday-sept-15-2025.html. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Rementer, Jim, and Doug Donnell. Remaining Ourselves. Edited by Dayna Bowker Lee, State Arts Council of Oklahoma, 1995, pp. 37–41, delawaretribe.org/blog/2013/06/26/social-dances/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Sterner, Eric. “Revolution on the Ohio Frontier: Fort Laurens.” Emerging Revolutionary War Era, 6 Feb. 2019, emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2019/02/06/revolution-on-the-ohio-frontier-fort-laurens/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
“The Avalon Project.” Yale.edu, Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1904,
2020, avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/del1778.asp.
Umehira, Kylie. “All Hammed Up: How Hamilton: An American Musical Addresses Post-Racial Beliefs» Writing Program» Boston University.” Bu.edu, 2017, www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-9/umehira/.
Zrihen, Emily. “Leitmotifs in Hamilton: The Broadway Musical.” Repository.yu.edu, 1 Apr. 2023, repository.yu.edu/items/eb5c652e-cf6d-4276-aed2-9718618c0678. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Imagine the sound of a record needle scratching across the 45-rpm vinyl. The setting has shifted from a person on an intellectual quest to uncover more than half-truths, to a crowded room. Many people are gathered, anticipating what is to come. Across the aisle from the audience, there is a massive fixture, a wooden stage, with the faint outline of a waterfront structure glowing in the footlights. A formation of American revolutionaries hit their mark, in silence and equal darkness. In the tech booth, the spotlight operator commands the attention of the audience to stage left. A beam of light appears, the audience anticipates the next action as the conductor ushers in an authoritative count of seven percussive beats, followed by a brief rest. The drumbeats command the attention of all in attendance. Following the short rest is the sound of stringed instruments so striking, they serve as one of many leitmotifs (Zrihen, 2023), when suddenly the actors appear. The words, spoken in a well-rehearsed cadence, set the stage and invite the audience into the next two and a half hours of an American rags to riches story unlike anything Broadway has witnessed before August 2015. The aforementioned is the personal experience of the author, and from the first viewing of Hamilton, an American Musical on August 16, 2017.
The stories of how cast members found themselves at the unique place and time to “not throw away” their shot are likely very similar to one another. The casting, which received notable attention for the obvious visual deviations from the American founder’s origins, highlights the principal actors are racial minorities, and this is intentional (Umehira, 2017). The actors are portraying a modern interpretation of the nation’s origin story, or rather, the messy birth of the nation, against the backdrop of their own origin stories. The United States immigrant diaspora highlights an uncomfortable thread of connection, in reverse, to those credited with the nation’s founding. The musical’s characters, Colonists who are immigrants, largely from England, are determined to lay claim to land, where in the case of the frontier era Coshocton, the Lenape, found their way of life under numerous threats because of the American colonist encroachment (Dowd, 1992). Whether those threats were colonist revolutionaries seeking to break free from the shackles of the monarchy, the British with their resolve to maintain control, or of enemy Native American tribes aligned with the British, the Lenape wanted to continue their way of life in their land, with formal recognition of their claim to their land by the Continental Congress and generally exist in peace (Dowd, 1992).
Digging deeper into the connection between the entertainment complex of Broadway and the Native American Lenape, the physical space of the Richard Rodgers Theater and its distinct elements of the Hamilton production contain distinct elements that serve as the framing device for the musical. Lenape influence can be noted in the staging choices of choreography, blocking and movement. Anchored by a massive revolving stage, an apparatus to propel, rewind, or suspend actors and set in time during the story, there is an uncanny resemblance to the recorded Delaware expressions in dance and music tradition. The Native Americans, particularly the Delaware people are documented as using intricate group dance technique set in a circular fashion (Rementer and Donnell, 1995) is strikingly similar to much of the staging technique used in the musical. The emergence of light and sound perceived through the opening beats, ushers in the melody on the stage at West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, perhaps as an unintentional homage to the drums used by the Delaware (Rementer and Donnell, 1995). The very foundation of the theater is built within walking distance to a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War, the Battle at Kips Bay. The humiliating defeat of the Continental Battalion by the British forces could have very easily changed the story of this nation (“George Washington’s Mount Vernon”) and perhaps was influential in the Continental Congress’s decision to sign the Treaty of Fort Pitt, post the persuasive argument from White Eyes himself a few years later (Dowd, 1992). Herein lies the direct tie to the frontier, as White Eyes himself persuaded the revolutionaries to invest in the protections a local fort could provide. As such, the nebulous connection of Fort Laurens is tied to the Coshocton frontier-era land and is forever bound in the history of theater. The migration of the Lenape people into Ohio and settling at the convergence of the rivers offers a glimpse into the cultural significance borne out of an agreement steeped in hope for some semblance of peace. The Treaty of Fort Pitt, also known in the archives as The Agreement with the Delaware, (“The Avalon Project”) frames an important and pivotal moment for the Lenape and their quest to continue their way of life: Ohio’s first, (and only) Revolutionary War Fort in Bolivar, Ohio (Pinckard, 2025). This ill-conceived fort connects the space and time of the Coshocton frontier’s historical past to the wonders of live entertainment in the form of Broadway theater. The material of the musical, Hamilton, packed with themes of fearlessness, yet balanced with fear, desires for new and yet desperate to hold on to certain traditions from the past, has much footing in the cultural ways of the first people of this land, including the Lenape (Dowd, 1992). Inspired by the resistance of a people loyal to their ancestral land, with many elements considered novel in approach on stage (Miranda, 2016) can be found in documentation of how the Lenape and other native American tribes celebrated (Rementer and Donnell, 1995).
With connections of historical context and parallels of the physical built environment and movement established, the driving concept of the musical was of the imagination of a young Puerto Rican New Yorker. Lin Manuel Miranda conceptualized the musical tale illustrating the founding of the nation, uniquely told through the lens of racial and ethnic diversity and a sound to match. Miranda found himself engrossed in the historical biography of Alexander Hamilton, written by Ron Chernow, so inspired that he created a lyrical piece, a rap, of what Hamilton might have said to summarize his backstory. He later shared his idea with a friend, and over the next 10 years, the material developed into what is described by many theater and entertainment critics as a musical juggernaut (Kiley, 2018). Hamilton, An American Musical officially took the Broadway stage in 2016. Miranda provided the music, lyrics, and book for the musical. As if this were not enough, Miranda also originated in the role of Alexander Hamilton. It was Miranda’s deep dive into the literary work of Chernow, as he was fresh off the heels of his first Broadway musical hit, In the Heights (Miranda, 2016) that provided the world a fresh retelling of our founding fathers and what led up to the early days of the nation. It is filled with catchy lyrics and clever rhymes, such as the “10 dollar founding father without a father”, i.e., Alexander Hamilton, delivered by actor Anthony Ramos, who was cast as John Laurens. In the musical the young revolutionary sidekick to Hamilton, was a key element in the driving force of Hamilton’s character during Act One, a character framed as “fighting for the ideals of a nation” (Miranda et al. 2015), John Laurens’s modern stage persona and real-life story add yet another compelling layer of the Coshocton frontier-era connection to Broadway.
John Laurens was an American Soldier and Statesman and reported to be Alexander Hamilton’s best friend (“John Laurens (U.S. National Park Service)”) (“National Museum of the United States Army”). Fiercely against slavery, he is reported to have proposed an all-black battalion to General Washington to reinforce the Continental Army troops (“National Museum of the United States Army”). In the musical, the character of Laurens is introduced through lyrics in, “My Shot.” Laurens establishes himself as an abolitionist, and to punctuate his perspective, he postulates the freedom of the people is only truly achieved when “…those in bondage have the same rights as you and me” (Miranda et al. 2015). His story begins in Colonial South Carolina, born of parents who were described as quasi-aristocratic French. His father, Henry Laurens, a high society nobleperson of the time, was described as confident in his place and business. The elder Laurens served as president of the Continental Congress and ironically had much of his fortunes steeped in the slave trade of the time, perhaps a driving force in his son’s disdain for slavery (National Parks Service, N.D.). However, General Lachlan MacIntosh, the general initially responsible for Fort Laurens, recommended to name the new Ohio frontier fort, as Fort Laurens, in honor of Henry Laurens, not John, as some might assume. (“Fort Laurens State Memorial”).
The Westernmost, and only Ohio Revolutionary War fort, Fort Laurens was born out of the shared concern of European dominance and encroachment after the British forces overtook the French during the Fall of 1760 at Fort Detroit (Anderson, 2001). During the Fall of 1778, the significance of the construction of Fort Laurens can be described as the physical embodiment of hope for preservation of a way of life and land for the Lenape people, while also a display of arms, a show of force, to those who dare try and oppose the efforts to establish a new form of government, one not of the British monarchy (Pinckard, 2025). It would not last long. Poor understanding of the distance to Fort Detroit, and inability to adequately provide supplies, led to desperate conditions. The men of Fort Laurens were attacked by the British, while out collecting wood, and later, a sizable percentage of the men were guided out and back to Fort Pitt by General McIntosh, leaving behind only 106 ill-prepared men, who resorted to boiling their moccasins to eat for nutrition (Sterner, 2016). A brief time later, the fort was abandoned. Meanwhile, the struggles of the American revolutionists at Valley Forge took shape, under the direction of General George Washington. Tainted with the bleak conditions of an unforgiving winter, the stench of death of thousands of soldiers the unfortunate account is musically delivered through the seventh number in the show, Right Hand Man. The number, led by that distinct leitmotif from the opening number, provides the darkened stage and a spotlit Hamilton’s soliloquy. Meanwhile, the entrance of General Washington provides a manic realization of him and his troop’s plight. It is at this point in the musical where Hamilton rises to accept his place as a leader in the effort.
The parallel retelling of the battle and pivotal plot movement in Hamilton’s character arc, is where much of the tension of Act One builds up. On the backdrop of the dire situation in the various forts and the desperate attempt to stave off the well-armed British Army, General George Washington, the storied leader, is portrayed in the original cast by Christopher Jackson, a real life friend of Lin Manuel Miranda (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). The parlance of the musical, and this song in particular, is jarring and pays homage to rap battles of the 1990’s (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). On stage, in the retelling of the action, which takes liberties in compressing the battles of many years for the sake of time, Washington's desperate plea to those in charge of the purse strings supplying the rebellious effort, demands for a “Right Hand Man” (Miranda and McCarter, 2016). Hamilton, eagerly proclaims to the audience "I'm not throwing away my shot” and with abundant energy, steps forward and rattles off a list of actions he can take, the allies and connection of friends who he can pull in, Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman and revolutionary ally. The song continues with General Washington’s assessment of the situation, they are constantly retreating, with limited resources and it is not a way to win the battle. The inflection point of the song is Hamilton’s eagerness to show that he has got what it takes to contribute, and it is in this piece in the musical where the audience sees exactly what Hamilton is capable of. The numerous battles fought and referenced in the span of “Right Hand Man” provide additional clarity and a wider context to the desperation facing the Continental Army, through which one may be better able to understand why Ohio’s only Revolutionary Fort was abandoned. At the start of the song, General George Washington’s lyrics paint a grim and harrowing scene, however, through Hamilton, the audience is pulled back to a place of hope, possibility, and belief that the goal might be accomplished. A few more songs forward and the tale continues to unfold, leaving the audience at times laughing, and other times, potentially sobbing, and thankfully, Act One concludes in a way that allows the audience to catch their breath. In general, the resolution of Hamilton’s involvement in the early chapters of American history is understood at a macro level, however, there is a layered and poignant nuance highlighting the impact his work had on those close to him. It is with sincere appreciation for Lin Manuel Miranda’s work, and the American art form of musical theater, that further review of Hamilton is avoided, to not spoil the experience for others. It is recommended the readers not “throw away their shot” to discover what surprises and revelations come to life in the remainder of the musical. Perhaps those who’ve not yet experienced Hamilton live can appreciate the threaded connections of the frontier-era Coshocton, and the tangential link established through the efforts of the local Native American, Chief White Eyes.
Works Cited
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War : The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York, Vintage Books, 2001.
Craine, Kelly. “How “Hamilton” Reshaped History for a New Generation.” Baylor.edu, Baylor University, 30 Sept. 2025, news.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2025/how-hamilton-reshaped-history-new-generation. Accessed 27 Oct. 2025.
Evanicki, Tim. “Securing Your Spot in a Musical Theatre Program - Dramatics Magazine.” Dramatics Magazine Online, 1 Oct. 2018, dramatics.org/the-less-than-one-percent/.
Evans Dowd, Gregory. A Spirited Resistance. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 68–83.
“Fort Laurens State Memorial.” Ohioanderiecanalway.com, 2025, www.ohioanderiecanalway.com/plan/listings/fort-laurens-state-memorial/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
“George Washington’s Mount Vernon.” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Mount Vernon, 2024, www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-kip-s-bay. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
“John Laurens (U.S. National Park Service).” Www.nps.gov, www.nps.gov/people/john-laurens.htm.
Kiley, Brendan. “The “Hamilton” Effect: How a Musical Changed Three Lives.” The Seattle Times, Feb. 2018, www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/theater/the-hamilton-effect-how-a-musical-changed-three-lives/.
Miranda, Lin- Manuel, et al. Alexander Hamilton. Lin Manuel Miranda, 25 Sept. 2015.
Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. Hamilton: The Revolution. New York, Grand Central Publishing, 12 Apr. 2016, p. 16.
“National Museum of the United States Army.” Thenmusa.org, 2024, www.thenmusa.org/biographies/john-laurens/.
National Parks Service. “Henry Laurens Bio - Charles Pinckney National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service).” Www.nps.gov, www.nps.gov/chpi/learn/historyculture/henry-laurens.htm.
“New York - Hamilton Official Site.” Hamilton Official Site, 2017, hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/.
“Our History - Fort Laurens Museum.” Fort Laurens Museum, Fort Laurens Museum, 2025, www.fortlaurensmuseum.org/history.
Pinckard, Cliff. “Ohio Has a Revolutionary War Fort? The Wake up for Monday, Sept. 15, 2025.” Cleveland, 15 Sept. 2025, www.cleveland.com/metro/2025/09/ohio-has-a-revolutionary-war-fort-the-wake-up-for-monday-sept-15-2025.html. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Rementer, Jim, and Doug Donnell. Remaining Ourselves. Edited by Dayna Bowker Lee, State Arts Council of Oklahoma, 1995, pp. 37–41, delawaretribe.org/blog/2013/06/26/social-dances/. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Sterner, Eric. “Revolution on the Ohio Frontier: Fort Laurens.” Emerging Revolutionary War Era, 6 Feb. 2019, emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2019/02/06/revolution-on-the-ohio-frontier-fort-laurens/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
“The Avalon Project.” Yale.edu, Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1904,
2020, avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/del1778.asp.
Umehira, Kylie. “All Hammed Up: How Hamilton: An American Musical Addresses Post-Racial Beliefs» Writing Program» Boston University.” Bu.edu, 2017, www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-9/umehira/.
Zrihen, Emily. “Leitmotifs in Hamilton: The Broadway Musical.” Repository.yu.edu, 1 Apr. 2023, repository.yu.edu/items/eb5c652e-cf6d-4276-aed2-9718618c0678. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Susan Nolan - Roots & Rough on Rats (Honorable Mention Winner)
Rhoda Clesson Cox Hart, a lifelong resident of Coshocton County, and amateur genealogist back when researchers combed files in country records, visited libraries and cemeteries, and talked to the old folks, wrote in her Family Group Sheet notes for her great-grandfather, Thomas Slaughter:
The story told by the old people is Thomas Slaughter fed his first wife poison by little bits till she died so he could marry Isobell Densmore. Sophia was Dr. Slaughter's daughter-in-law and he didn't find out what was wrong with her in time to save her. Was never proven.
Clesson’s great-grandmother, Sophia Senter Slaughter died in September 1874 at age 32 leaving behind seven children. Baby Horace was only four months old. Clesson’s grandmother, Rhoda Ann, was twelve when she took over Horace’s care. Thomas did marry 24-year-old Isobell Densmore a year later. They were married thirteen years and had no children together. Dr. Slaughter outlived his son by eleven years (Hart, 1970). How hard it must have been to be a doctor in those times, and to have suspected his own son of poisoning his wife.
Dr. Slaughter was born James Henry Slaughter to Henry Slaughter and Penna Ann Taylor in Virginia township, Coshocton County, Ohio, on 31 December 1816. He was the youngest of five sons, and ninth of ten children. His father, known as “Old Hickory,” settled in Virginia township in 1812 (Hills, p. 620). Henry’s father, Joseph, and brothers Joseph and Samuel, also settled in Coshocton County all from Farquier, Virginia (Hart, 1970).
Dr. Slaughter’s obituary published on page 1 of The Democratic Standard on 13 October 1899 notes he was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings and “by dint of untiring effort and personal merit, he worked his way up to a position of usefulness and prominence.” He was a medical practitioner for 50 years who during his life “ministered to the physical ailments of a small army of patients” (The Democratic Standard, 1899). He outlived his first wife, seven siblings, and three of his children. Two of his daughters died in childbirth with their babies (Hart, 1970).
The story told by the old people is Thomas Slaughter fed his first wife poison by little bits till she died so he could marry Isobell Densmore. Sophia was Dr. Slaughter's daughter-in-law and he didn't find out what was wrong with her in time to save her. Was never proven.
Clesson’s great-grandmother, Sophia Senter Slaughter died in September 1874 at age 32 leaving behind seven children. Baby Horace was only four months old. Clesson’s grandmother, Rhoda Ann, was twelve when she took over Horace’s care. Thomas did marry 24-year-old Isobell Densmore a year later. They were married thirteen years and had no children together. Dr. Slaughter outlived his son by eleven years (Hart, 1970). How hard it must have been to be a doctor in those times, and to have suspected his own son of poisoning his wife.
Dr. Slaughter was born James Henry Slaughter to Henry Slaughter and Penna Ann Taylor in Virginia township, Coshocton County, Ohio, on 31 December 1816. He was the youngest of five sons, and ninth of ten children. His father, known as “Old Hickory,” settled in Virginia township in 1812 (Hills, p. 620). Henry’s father, Joseph, and brothers Joseph and Samuel, also settled in Coshocton County all from Farquier, Virginia (Hart, 1970).
Dr. Slaughter’s obituary published on page 1 of The Democratic Standard on 13 October 1899 notes he was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings and “by dint of untiring effort and personal merit, he worked his way up to a position of usefulness and prominence.” He was a medical practitioner for 50 years who during his life “ministered to the physical ailments of a small army of patients” (The Democratic Standard, 1899). He outlived his first wife, seven siblings, and three of his children. Two of his daughters died in childbirth with their babies (Hart, 1970).
Forty years after his death, The Tribune published a story titled "Country Doctor Paved Way for Modern Practice” which tells us more about Dr. Slaughter’s life. Reporter Lester S. Boyd interviewed Dr. Slaughter’s grandson, J.H. Slaughter. Dr. Slaughter practiced medicine for 56 years–from about 1832 to 1888 at Willowbrook. He covered the western part of Coshocton County and at times part of Knox and Licking County by horseback when trips could be as far as thirty miles. He was a large man with a long beard who had a habit of taking a bath every morning, summer or winter, and would even rub down with snow when possible. He went to school in Cincinnati for a while but even though his studies were limited, he was considered successful in his doctoring “especially for treating malaria, typhoid, and pneumonia.” While visiting his brother in Iowa, they had a typhoid epidemic and he stayed to care for his family and their neighbors (Boyd, 1939).
United States census records in 1850 and 1870 list James Slaughter as a farmer, in 1860 as a physician, and in 1880 as an eclectic doctor (U.S. Federal Census Collection). In the 1830s when James possibly began practicing, there was only one medical school in Cincinnati–the Medical College of Ohio—which taught traditional medicine (Felter, 10). Eclectic medicine was in opposition to the medicine of that time period where treatments such as bloodletting were popular. Eclectic doctors used more natural and less invasive treatments like physical therapy and plant-based medicines such as those used by Native Americans (Haller, 1999). The Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati did not receive its charter until 1845 (Felter, 10). Prior to that time eclectic medicine in Ohio was taught at the Worthington Reformed Medical College in Worthington, Ohio, led by Dr. Thomas Morrow. This college lost its charter and was forced to close in 1839 when citizens complained that medical students were desecrating local graveyards and stealing corpses. Morrow moved the medical school to Cincinnati in the 1840s believing that its location along the Ohio River would make it easier to access as the country expanded westward (Lovejoy, 2017). Whether Dr. Slaughter began his studies in the 1830s or 1840s, at some point he received training as an eclectic doctor .
Coshocton County is rich in documented Native American history including the medical practices of the Indian tribes of the time. In 1775 Moravian missionaries responsible for two villages of Christian Indians along the Tuscarawas River established another village south of present day Coshocton and called it Lichtenau. It was located on the east side of the Muskingum river and occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger, a Moravian clergyman and missionary (Butler, p. 201-202). During his many years in Ohio, Zeisberger kept a diary noting his observations of Indian society. Several publications resulted from his work.
Zeisberger’s History of the Northern American Indians is a detailed narrative of native customs and beliefs of the Lenape (Delaware) tribe whose main village was at that time located in the same area as present day Coshocton. Zeisberger chronicled the medical practices of the Delaware, noting that “concerning plants and roots of medicinal virtue, if one were to devote himself to inquiry, to secure a great deal of information from the Indians, for what one of these does not know another does, each man and woman having some knowledge.” He detailed their knowledge of trees and roots and their uses for fevers, wounds, women’s troubles, and rheumatism, and even included instances showing the Indians were well-versed in the use of poisonous roots.
There are many melancholy examples where they have by their use destroyed
themselves or others. If a case of poisoning is taken in time, the effect of the
poisonous root may be prevented by inducing vomiting. In case assistance is
rendered too late, death follows, as a rule, in a few hours (Zeisberger, 1910, p.
55-56).
Zeisberger also discussed relationships among Indian couples. He stated that Indian marriages could be fluid with couples changing partners throughout their lifetime.
There is in general no very strong tie between married people, not even between the older. A mere trifle furnishes ground for separation. Not every Indian, however, is indifferent to the light behavior of his wife. Many a one takes her unfaithfulness so to heart that in the height of his despair he swallows a poisonous root, which generally causes death in two hours. Women, also, have been known to destroy themselves on account of a husband’s unfaithfulness (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 83).
It appears the use of poison due to marriage troubles even occurred in frontier Indian societies of the 1700s.
While there were no newspaper articles shedding suspicion on Thomas Slaughter for his wife’s death, a front-page article in the August 15, 1885, issue of The Coshocton Age described a rumor about the death of Jackson township resident, Sarah Ann Crown Gordon, wife of Alexander Gordon. Mrs. Gordon died on Sunday, August 2, 1885, and was buried at the Christian Chapel. After her death, neighbors spread rumors that her husband had poisoned her because he had been seeing another woman. These rumors were extensive and many remarked that he had left his wife for a time and went west, and some suggested his first wife had died under unusual circumstances (“Poison,”1885b).
According to the article, Mrs. Gordon became ill on Tuesday, July 28. On Wednesday, her husband went to Dr. Davis of New Moscow and got medicine for cholera. By Friday, she was no better, so the doctor came and noted it was not cholera, but inflammation in her stomach. On Sunday morning she complained of a severe burning in her bowels and a choking sensation. Then she had a convulsion. With her sister there caring for her, Mr. Gordon went for Dr. James Slaughter of Willow Brooke, but by the time they returned she had died. Dr. Slaughter noted there was evidence around her throat that she had died in convulsions. Dr. Davis, her attending physician, noted her symptoms were not those of cholera, but told the prosecuting attorney they were such they could indicate arsenic poisoning (“Poison,” 1885b).
The rumors from neighbors and the opinions from the doctors prompted the prosecuting attorney to order the body exhumed, and a post mortem was held by Dr. Frew and Dr. Barcroft. The doctors took the heart, stomach, liver, and all the intestines, one kidney, and fluid from the right pleural cavity, and placed these each in sealed glass jars. The jars were taken to Columbus to Curtis C. Howard, Professor of Chemistry at Starling Medical College, for analysis. The doctors examined her brain and other organs and found no evidence of disease (“Poison,” 1885b).
In the same article, the unnamed newspaper reporter interviewed Alexander Gordon. Gordon denied there was anything going on with another woman, but let it be known that his wife at about corn planting time had threatened to take her life.
I did not intend to say any thing about this, but as it has gone so high I will just
tell you. We were over ran with rats, and I always kept poison in the house;
rough on rats, arsenic and strychnine, so that if we should run out of one we
would have another handy. Soon after she made this threat I missed the box of
rough on rats and a paper of arsenic, and when I asked her about them she
declared she had them so she could use them when she wanted to. I never
thought of this poison when she was taken sick, but if they find any poison in her
stomach I will feel satisfied she took it herself (“Poison,” 1885b).
Gordon’s reference to rough on rats refers to a cheap over-the-counter rat poison that was popular at that time.
United States census records in 1850 and 1870 list James Slaughter as a farmer, in 1860 as a physician, and in 1880 as an eclectic doctor (U.S. Federal Census Collection). In the 1830s when James possibly began practicing, there was only one medical school in Cincinnati–the Medical College of Ohio—which taught traditional medicine (Felter, 10). Eclectic medicine was in opposition to the medicine of that time period where treatments such as bloodletting were popular. Eclectic doctors used more natural and less invasive treatments like physical therapy and plant-based medicines such as those used by Native Americans (Haller, 1999). The Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati did not receive its charter until 1845 (Felter, 10). Prior to that time eclectic medicine in Ohio was taught at the Worthington Reformed Medical College in Worthington, Ohio, led by Dr. Thomas Morrow. This college lost its charter and was forced to close in 1839 when citizens complained that medical students were desecrating local graveyards and stealing corpses. Morrow moved the medical school to Cincinnati in the 1840s believing that its location along the Ohio River would make it easier to access as the country expanded westward (Lovejoy, 2017). Whether Dr. Slaughter began his studies in the 1830s or 1840s, at some point he received training as an eclectic doctor .
Coshocton County is rich in documented Native American history including the medical practices of the Indian tribes of the time. In 1775 Moravian missionaries responsible for two villages of Christian Indians along the Tuscarawas River established another village south of present day Coshocton and called it Lichtenau. It was located on the east side of the Muskingum river and occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger, a Moravian clergyman and missionary (Butler, p. 201-202). During his many years in Ohio, Zeisberger kept a diary noting his observations of Indian society. Several publications resulted from his work.
Zeisberger’s History of the Northern American Indians is a detailed narrative of native customs and beliefs of the Lenape (Delaware) tribe whose main village was at that time located in the same area as present day Coshocton. Zeisberger chronicled the medical practices of the Delaware, noting that “concerning plants and roots of medicinal virtue, if one were to devote himself to inquiry, to secure a great deal of information from the Indians, for what one of these does not know another does, each man and woman having some knowledge.” He detailed their knowledge of trees and roots and their uses for fevers, wounds, women’s troubles, and rheumatism, and even included instances showing the Indians were well-versed in the use of poisonous roots.
There are many melancholy examples where they have by their use destroyed
themselves or others. If a case of poisoning is taken in time, the effect of the
poisonous root may be prevented by inducing vomiting. In case assistance is
rendered too late, death follows, as a rule, in a few hours (Zeisberger, 1910, p.
55-56).
Zeisberger also discussed relationships among Indian couples. He stated that Indian marriages could be fluid with couples changing partners throughout their lifetime.
There is in general no very strong tie between married people, not even between the older. A mere trifle furnishes ground for separation. Not every Indian, however, is indifferent to the light behavior of his wife. Many a one takes her unfaithfulness so to heart that in the height of his despair he swallows a poisonous root, which generally causes death in two hours. Women, also, have been known to destroy themselves on account of a husband’s unfaithfulness (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 83).
It appears the use of poison due to marriage troubles even occurred in frontier Indian societies of the 1700s.
While there were no newspaper articles shedding suspicion on Thomas Slaughter for his wife’s death, a front-page article in the August 15, 1885, issue of The Coshocton Age described a rumor about the death of Jackson township resident, Sarah Ann Crown Gordon, wife of Alexander Gordon. Mrs. Gordon died on Sunday, August 2, 1885, and was buried at the Christian Chapel. After her death, neighbors spread rumors that her husband had poisoned her because he had been seeing another woman. These rumors were extensive and many remarked that he had left his wife for a time and went west, and some suggested his first wife had died under unusual circumstances (“Poison,”1885b).
According to the article, Mrs. Gordon became ill on Tuesday, July 28. On Wednesday, her husband went to Dr. Davis of New Moscow and got medicine for cholera. By Friday, she was no better, so the doctor came and noted it was not cholera, but inflammation in her stomach. On Sunday morning she complained of a severe burning in her bowels and a choking sensation. Then she had a convulsion. With her sister there caring for her, Mr. Gordon went for Dr. James Slaughter of Willow Brooke, but by the time they returned she had died. Dr. Slaughter noted there was evidence around her throat that she had died in convulsions. Dr. Davis, her attending physician, noted her symptoms were not those of cholera, but told the prosecuting attorney they were such they could indicate arsenic poisoning (“Poison,” 1885b).
The rumors from neighbors and the opinions from the doctors prompted the prosecuting attorney to order the body exhumed, and a post mortem was held by Dr. Frew and Dr. Barcroft. The doctors took the heart, stomach, liver, and all the intestines, one kidney, and fluid from the right pleural cavity, and placed these each in sealed glass jars. The jars were taken to Columbus to Curtis C. Howard, Professor of Chemistry at Starling Medical College, for analysis. The doctors examined her brain and other organs and found no evidence of disease (“Poison,” 1885b).
In the same article, the unnamed newspaper reporter interviewed Alexander Gordon. Gordon denied there was anything going on with another woman, but let it be known that his wife at about corn planting time had threatened to take her life.
I did not intend to say any thing about this, but as it has gone so high I will just
tell you. We were over ran with rats, and I always kept poison in the house;
rough on rats, arsenic and strychnine, so that if we should run out of one we
would have another handy. Soon after she made this threat I missed the box of
rough on rats and a paper of arsenic, and when I asked her about them she
declared she had them so she could use them when she wanted to. I never
thought of this poison when she was taken sick, but if they find any poison in her
stomach I will feel satisfied she took it herself (“Poison,” 1885b).
Gordon’s reference to rough on rats refers to a cheap over-the-counter rat poison that was popular at that time.
Rough on Rats was made from arsenic. In the 1800s arsenic was a common ingredient in many products. Women used powder made of arsenic to whiten their skin. Arsenic was used in wallpaper and even medications. It was present in many household items such as candy, candles, cookware, and stuffed animals. It was so prevalent it could be absorbed in cigarette smoke, eaten with vegetables, or swallowed with wine. People could be accidentally overdosed in their own homes (Whorton, 2011, p. 121). Arsenic was considered “the poison of choice for committing homicide.” (Whorton, 2011, preface)
The symptoms of arsenic poisoning–watery diarrhea, vomiting and extreme thirst– were similar to those of cholera. This made it difficult for doctors to diagnose. Although a simple test for detecting arsenic poisoning using water, hydrochloric acid, and copper foil was developed by Huge Reinsch in Germany in 1841, it was not commonly used by frontier doctors in the U.S. at that time. The Reinsch test could test urine, blood or stomach contents of a living or deceased person ( Christodoulou, 2024). It is likely that the doctors from the Starling Medical College (one of the precursors to the Ohio State College of Medicine) used the Reinsch method in testing Mrs. Gordon’s tissue samples. Treatments for arsenic poisoning were later discovered, but at that time, doctors may have induced vomiting or tried to push fluids. Mainly, doctors provided supportive care.
The Saturday, September 12, 1885, issue of the The Coshocton Age reported on the results of the inquest. The coroner’s verdict indicated the deceased came to her death from “arsenical poison administered to her by some person to me now unknown.” The prosecuting attorney, A.H. Stillwell came to what the paper termed an “ambiguous” opinion, and it appears no further investigation was taken (“Inquest,” 1885a).
Years after Dr. Slaughter’s death, a spousal poisoning case came to trial in Coshocton County. On 23 December 1924, Clara S. McCurdy was arrested for the death of her husband William A. McCurdy. After his death in May 1924, rumors abounded that Mrs. McCurdy had fed him poison. The prosecuting attorney ordered a post mortem and Mr. McCurdy’s remains were disinterred on Thanksgiving Day 1924, and his organs sent to Columbus for study. The report came back and a grand jury voted to indict (“Woman held,” 1924).
Front page newspaper coverage of the trial began on Monday, February 2, 1925, in the Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , and continued throughout the week. By Wednesday the jury had been selected and testimony began. Dr. L.C. McCurdy, local physician and cousin of the deceased, testified that he believed the elderly William McCurdy died from arsenic poisoning (“Local physician,” 1925). Mrs. McCurdy’s own daughter testified she saw her mother preparing white powder in water to give to her father (“Mrs. Myrtle Haxon,” 1925). On Friday, the prosecution rested and without the defense even calling a witness, the judge instructed the jury to bring back a verdict of not guilty as the prosecution had not proven their case. Without delay, the jury came back with the not guilty verdict (“Mrs. McCurdy acquitted,” 1925).
Whether ingested intentionally or accidentally, poison has played a role in societies for centuries. Healers and doctors used what little knowledge they had at their disposal to treat their patients. Improvements in forensics and toxicology have made poison easier to detect, and doctors have tools at their disposal now for treatment. Did my third great-grandfather truly poison his wife? Perhaps his children were unhappy with their new stepmother and angry with him for choosing her and the story was born from their grief. Maybe Sophia ingested poison accidentally. Possibly, she was suffering from postpartum depression and took her own life. After bearing seven children in 13 years, maybe her body just gave out. Just like Mr. Gordon and Mrs. McCurdy, Thomas Slaughter lives on in stories with a cloud of suspicion over his head.
References
An everyday poison. Science History Institute. (2023, June 1). https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/an-everyday-poison
Boyd, L. S. (1939, May 7). Country doctor paved way for modern practice. The Tribune , pp. B4–B4.
Butler, S. E. (2020). Frontier history of Coshocton . Carlisle Printing.
Christodoulou, M. (2024, June 26). Poisons and the development of toxicology in the 19th century . Royal College of Surgeons. https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/poisons-and-toxicology/
Dr. Slaughter obituary. (1899, October 13). The Democratic Standard , pp. 1–1.
Felter, Harvey Wickes. (1902). History of the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845-1902. Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. Genealogy and Local History Department.
Haller, J. S. (1999). A Profile in Alternative Medicine . Kent State University Press.
Hart, Rhoda, C. (1970). Family Group Sheet James Slaughter [Review of Family Group Sheet James Slaughter].
Hill, N. N. (1881). History of Coshocton County, Ohio: its past and present, 1740-1881 . A.A. Graham & Co.
Inquest. (1885a, September 12). The Coshocton Age , pp. 1–1.
Local physician on stand in murder trial. (1925, February 4). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1. 10
Lovejoy, B. (2017, February 13). A Brief History of American Anatomy Riots . National Museum of Civil War Medicine. https://www.civilwarmed.org/anatomy-riots/
Mrs. McCurdy acquitted. (1925, February 6). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Mrs. McCurdy composed as murder trial opens. (1925, February 2). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Mrs. Myrtle Haxon tells her story in court. (1925, February 5). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Poisoning. (1885b, August 15). The Coshocton Age , pp. 1–1.
Third venire issued. (1925, February 3). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
U.S. Federal Census Collection, 1790-1950, database with images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/usfedcen/ accessed 14 October
2025).
Warren, L. (2021). Constantine Samuel Rafinesque a voice in the American wilderness . The University Press of Kentucky.
Whorton, J. C. (2011). The arsenic century: How Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play . Oxford University Press.
Woman held for husband’s death. (1924, December 23). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Zeisberger, D., Hulbert, A. B., & Schwarze, W. N. (1910). David Zeisberger’s history of the Northern American Indians . Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
The symptoms of arsenic poisoning–watery diarrhea, vomiting and extreme thirst– were similar to those of cholera. This made it difficult for doctors to diagnose. Although a simple test for detecting arsenic poisoning using water, hydrochloric acid, and copper foil was developed by Huge Reinsch in Germany in 1841, it was not commonly used by frontier doctors in the U.S. at that time. The Reinsch test could test urine, blood or stomach contents of a living or deceased person ( Christodoulou, 2024). It is likely that the doctors from the Starling Medical College (one of the precursors to the Ohio State College of Medicine) used the Reinsch method in testing Mrs. Gordon’s tissue samples. Treatments for arsenic poisoning were later discovered, but at that time, doctors may have induced vomiting or tried to push fluids. Mainly, doctors provided supportive care.
The Saturday, September 12, 1885, issue of the The Coshocton Age reported on the results of the inquest. The coroner’s verdict indicated the deceased came to her death from “arsenical poison administered to her by some person to me now unknown.” The prosecuting attorney, A.H. Stillwell came to what the paper termed an “ambiguous” opinion, and it appears no further investigation was taken (“Inquest,” 1885a).
Years after Dr. Slaughter’s death, a spousal poisoning case came to trial in Coshocton County. On 23 December 1924, Clara S. McCurdy was arrested for the death of her husband William A. McCurdy. After his death in May 1924, rumors abounded that Mrs. McCurdy had fed him poison. The prosecuting attorney ordered a post mortem and Mr. McCurdy’s remains were disinterred on Thanksgiving Day 1924, and his organs sent to Columbus for study. The report came back and a grand jury voted to indict (“Woman held,” 1924).
Front page newspaper coverage of the trial began on Monday, February 2, 1925, in the Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , and continued throughout the week. By Wednesday the jury had been selected and testimony began. Dr. L.C. McCurdy, local physician and cousin of the deceased, testified that he believed the elderly William McCurdy died from arsenic poisoning (“Local physician,” 1925). Mrs. McCurdy’s own daughter testified she saw her mother preparing white powder in water to give to her father (“Mrs. Myrtle Haxon,” 1925). On Friday, the prosecution rested and without the defense even calling a witness, the judge instructed the jury to bring back a verdict of not guilty as the prosecution had not proven their case. Without delay, the jury came back with the not guilty verdict (“Mrs. McCurdy acquitted,” 1925).
Whether ingested intentionally or accidentally, poison has played a role in societies for centuries. Healers and doctors used what little knowledge they had at their disposal to treat their patients. Improvements in forensics and toxicology have made poison easier to detect, and doctors have tools at their disposal now for treatment. Did my third great-grandfather truly poison his wife? Perhaps his children were unhappy with their new stepmother and angry with him for choosing her and the story was born from their grief. Maybe Sophia ingested poison accidentally. Possibly, she was suffering from postpartum depression and took her own life. After bearing seven children in 13 years, maybe her body just gave out. Just like Mr. Gordon and Mrs. McCurdy, Thomas Slaughter lives on in stories with a cloud of suspicion over his head.
References
An everyday poison. Science History Institute. (2023, June 1). https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/an-everyday-poison
Boyd, L. S. (1939, May 7). Country doctor paved way for modern practice. The Tribune , pp. B4–B4.
Butler, S. E. (2020). Frontier history of Coshocton . Carlisle Printing.
Christodoulou, M. (2024, June 26). Poisons and the development of toxicology in the 19th century . Royal College of Surgeons. https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/poisons-and-toxicology/
Dr. Slaughter obituary. (1899, October 13). The Democratic Standard , pp. 1–1.
Felter, Harvey Wickes. (1902). History of the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845-1902. Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. Genealogy and Local History Department.
Haller, J. S. (1999). A Profile in Alternative Medicine . Kent State University Press.
Hart, Rhoda, C. (1970). Family Group Sheet James Slaughter [Review of Family Group Sheet James Slaughter].
Hill, N. N. (1881). History of Coshocton County, Ohio: its past and present, 1740-1881 . A.A. Graham & Co.
Inquest. (1885a, September 12). The Coshocton Age , pp. 1–1.
Local physician on stand in murder trial. (1925, February 4). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1. 10
Lovejoy, B. (2017, February 13). A Brief History of American Anatomy Riots . National Museum of Civil War Medicine. https://www.civilwarmed.org/anatomy-riots/
Mrs. McCurdy acquitted. (1925, February 6). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Mrs. McCurdy composed as murder trial opens. (1925, February 2). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Mrs. Myrtle Haxon tells her story in court. (1925, February 5). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Poisoning. (1885b, August 15). The Coshocton Age , pp. 1–1.
Third venire issued. (1925, February 3). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
U.S. Federal Census Collection, 1790-1950, database with images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/usfedcen/ accessed 14 October
2025).
Warren, L. (2021). Constantine Samuel Rafinesque a voice in the American wilderness . The University Press of Kentucky.
Whorton, J. C. (2011). The arsenic century: How Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play . Oxford University Press.
Woman held for husband’s death. (1924, December 23). The Coshocton Tribune and Times Age , p. 1.
Zeisberger, D., Hulbert, A. B., & Schwarze, W. N. (1910). David Zeisberger’s history of the Northern American Indians . Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
Jennifer Wilkes - Pottery on the Frontier (Honorable Mention Winner)
When I was in 5th grade our art teacher gave us a lump of clay to make something. I made a horse head, glazed it in shiny brown with eyes made from sticking a pencil in the clay. Not the most creative or artistic but I still enjoy that little horse head on my shelf. What I didn’t realize is that by creating in clay I was participating in an activity that has been done for thousands of years. You can just imagine the first time a human walked across a muddy bank, formed a footprint and thought, “Mmmm maybe I could do something with this!?” So, what is this history of pottery making? Did native tribes in Ohio make pottery? Did frontier people moving into Ohio dig up clay and make their own pots? How does Coshocton County factor into this history of pottery making?
According to J. W. Powell in his 1882 study of Ceramic Art, studying prehistoric Art “penetrates the secrets of the past”. In fact, the existence of earthen vessels in Egypt predates written language and the use of the wheel! There are two classes of ceramics. The first is functional and the other is ornamental, which is often used for ceremonial purposes. Making ceramics was accidental at first, an indentation by a hand, or a fruit shell or stone would have suggested the making of a cup or vessel. At first, clay was used as a cement in repairing utensils, protecting wood or wicker from fire. This led to the formation of vessels of independent construction which imitated natural objects like mollusk shells and gourds which made excellent vessels for water and food. It is said that new forms are rarely invented outright but they continue to be modified and depend on the groups of people making the ceramics, resulting in a variety of objects. Changes will be made in Function as in: handles, legs, and perforations as well as Construction: using a coil, stitch, plait or twist. There becomes even more variety when the objects are incised, painted or stamped. The next step is when symbolism is used: (Powell)
‘The rendition of a sweep, a curl of the waves, creating phenomena from their environment like a whirlwind, a dust bowl or a rainbow’. Then there were Geometric designs made that were not inspired by nature but were a unique rhythmic form that was uniquely developed.’ (Powell P. 450)
Egypt wasn’t the only place where archaic pottery has been studied. Volumes of books have been written about the prehistoric peoples that used pottery and lived in what is now Europe of 7,000 years ago. In Contrast to the first ‘Hunter Gathers’, one of the first people to make pottery raise sheep and cattle and settled in small huts along the Danube River in what is present day Austria. At these settlements, Archeologists have found in graves and trash pits remnants of animal bones, seeds and pottery. At this particular site the pottery is thick-walled and crude with stabbed impressions and swirling patterns. You get a glimpse of their religious values by the following find:
“Every house in this settlement contained a fragmented ceramic female figurine with jointed legs, exaggerated hips and buttocks and a rod-like head about 10 cm long.” (Anothony P. 170)
Is this a fertility fetish? One can only speculate how it factored into their world and religion!
Throughout the centuries cultural groups created new styles of Pottery that told archaeologists WHO they were. The various designs SPREAD from one group of people to another, BLENDING, merging and being reinvented throughout the centuries. (Anthony)
Studies of Prehistoric Pottery have also been made in North America. In 1950, J. Griffin described 8 different types of fiber-tempered pottery stretching from Georgia to New Jersey. He found large projective points made from non-flinty material and a culture that included early pottery. He was able to identify the minerals used, the source of the clay and the tempering material available locally. (Griffin)
He goes on to say:
“Scientist outstanding achievement was the filling in of a long and continuous cultural sequence from preceramic sites to a number of varieties of Native American occupation in the lower Ohio valley that had been completely Unknown.” (Griffin P. 49)
Scientists have learned a lot about pottery that was made in the Ohio River valley.
“The Shawnee tribe loved to make pottery and have made it for thousands of years for cooking and baking. 2,500 years ago. During the Woodland period, broken sherds are among the most common artifact remaining in abandoned settlements.” (Daniels)
Potters dug clay and mixed it with temper that consisted of mixture of sand, bone and stone. The temper gave it the ability for the vessel to withstand the heat from firing and daily use. Containers were shaped by hand in various ways. Some were assembled using clay coils that were compressed and smoothed with stone tools. Indians of eastern N. America used neither pottery wheels nor molds. Mussel shells or other sharp objects were used to thin the walls, smooth the surface and apply decorations. Rubbing the dry surface with a stone compressed the clay particles and created a polish. Decorative techniques included incising the still-moist clay, engraving fully dried but unfired vessels, applying clay beads and painting. Native potters fired in the open air, not in kilns. By manipulating the flow of oxygen within the fire, and by removing vessels and plunging them immediately into an oxygen depleted environment potters could create certain surface colors like oxidized reds and yellows, or mahogany and black. Pottery making may have begun in response to a change in diet. An increase in use of pounded nuts meats and small oily and starchy seeds as well as stews cooked in containers made pottery both useful and important in daily life. (Encyclopedia)
Pottery served the Native American tribes as much more than a tool; the clay served as a canvas to express themselves through symbols and design signifying that they belonged to a specific tribe or family. Woman made the functional potter pieces used for cooking, serving and storing and the men made the pottery used for ceremonial purposes. These ceremonial pieces often have the moon, sun and world on them, and include the circle of life and the 4 sacred directions. Today, these pieces can be observed as a tangible representation of the North American culture and past traditions. Pottery is all natural: Clay from the earth, Water and the sun, Air to dry, Fire to harden it. (Daniels)
Which brings us to the early settlers of the American frontier. Did they make their own pottery? According to the Lecture series by The Frontier Cultural Museum, it is a myth that that frontier people made everything that they needed for survival. Not all clay is conducive to making pottery and a kiln was extremely expensive to make, in 1870 a kiln cost approximately $188 to build. Another factor was that people during this time wanted decorative ceramics so that they could serve ‘Tea’ to their neighbors. Every family would bring into the frontier that special plate, tureen dish or tea pot. Later on, when people started to make pottery they fashioned it like the style coming in from England and Germany. They didn’t want just common goods but porcelain and refined wares. (Hornsby)
“Almost every housekeeper had some bowl or dish she had brought from the old states, that was kept carefully along with perhaps a few silver spoons as proof of her primitive gentility.” --Mary Walker Halloway
“I can have people over for tea, interact with friends, be a hostess”: The experience of sharing tea was important in all economic levels, even in the back country communities. (Halloway)
“Stores and shops were unknown for a long time after the settlement of the country; wooden vessels, prepared by the turner, the cooper, or their rude representatives in wood, were common substitutes for tableware. A tin cup was an article of delicate luxury, almost as rare as an iron fork.” --Mann Butler, Valley of the Ohio 1835-1855(Hornsby)
The first Pottery that was established in the Northwest Territory was by Nathaniel Clark in Marietta in 1808. Marietta is the oldest city in Ohio and the Pottery was located on the grounds of ‘The Castle’, a Gothic Revival house that was built in 1855. (Downing) They host an Archaeological camp where people can dig up shards of clay made of red earthenware, salt-glazed stoneware and lead-glazed earthenware. They have uncovered production waste, kiln furniture and structural remains. (Marietta)
Twenty-two years later, George Bagnall was the first Potter in Roscoe Village. He could be found digging clay along the river in the pre-canal era. He sold his pottery business to a man from New Castle, Ohio, Prosper Rich. Prosper constructed his own kilns, which were burrowed into a hillside with a chimney, located in Caldersburg at the south end of Roscoe. He made functional items used to store water and food. One of his specialties was making a gravity fed chicken waterer. He used dark iron oxide inside to seal the liquid in. He had his Pottery from 1830’s 1850’s and Pottery made by him is still found to this day, stamped with his mark: ‘RICH’ (Stein)
In the 19th Century Pottery was a booming industry in Ohio. After I perused through the book: Dictionary of Marks Pottery I was impressed to find 22 cities in Ohio with pottery companies - from A – Z: Akron to Zoar. There were sometimes multiple pottery companies in a city during this time period and this book is used to identify pottery through their markings. Most just had the name of the Pottery and the city and state on the back but it was interesting to see the various name brands that a Pottery company in E. Liverpool used: Union, Madrid, Cornell, Yale, Globe, Cornell etc…. They also added graphics like: Lions, horses, crowns and ribbons for their mark. Apparently, just stamping K T& K E. Liverpool, Ohio wasn’t interesting enough! (Kovel)
Coshocton had its own Pottery company located on 329 N. 15th Street, The Pope-Glosser China Company. It was founded by two men, Bently Pope and Charles F. Gosser. Pope was from England, moved to New Jersey working as a Potter and then worked for Knowles, Taylor & Knowles in E. Liverpool in 1895. Gosser was from Coshocton and was a Jeweler but wanted to start a pottery company. He had no pottery experience, but he had the capital. Gosser went to E. Liverpool and interviewed men from various firms and picked Pope to build his new Pottery company. In September 1902 the first wares were made, and soon after, Pope’s son, Willam, joined them to become the Superintendent. (Tribune)
Pope died in 1911 and Gosser died in 1916. Pope-Gosser merged to form American Chinaware Corporation in the late 1920’s and when the American Chinaware Corporation went bankrupt in 1931 the plant closed. Pope’s son, William, was able to reopen the pottery in 1933. (Tribune)
The product range was limited to two styles to reduce production costs. The company survived the war years but struggled to remain competitive due to a limited demand for China at this time. Employees often worked only one and half days a week, which was preferable to being laid off. When the company president, William Pope died in 1948 it further weakened the company. By 1958 they closed their doors declaring bankruptcy, citing the increase cost of operation and the pressure from imported pottery especially from Japan. It then closed its doors releasing 150 employees from employment. (Tribune)
There are places here in Coshocton where you can still make Pottery. It’s expensive to build your own kiln or to buy a pottery wheel so the answer is to find a studio that will assist you. Crow House Pottery and Create Joy DIY studio are two that I’ve found in the area. I personally go to Markgraf in Newark, on the Square, to make my pottery treasures. What do I make? This year I made personalized fireplace tiles for my old house and leaf dishes crafted from Hosta leaves. The first year I took classes, I made a horse head. I fashioned it after my grey Arabian horse. It is glazed shiny white/grey, large and beautiful with expressive eyes. I love to just look at it and an improvement over my first attempt at creating a horse head!
There’s something special and therapeutic about making a piece of pottery. Kneading the clay in your hands, feeling it and letting the lump of earth speak to you as to what it wants to be. This creative process has been going on for thousands of years. From Egyptian urns to the first farmers on the European continent making vessels, to Shawnee Natives making ceremonial bowls, to frontier pottery made along the Ohio banks and on to 19th & 20th century pottery made here in Ohio. There has been a long chain of Potters throughout the centuries. They are Artists, creating and making something useful, for ceremonies or just making something beautiful to look at and enjoy.
WORKS CITED
Powell, J. W., Smithsonian Institute – Bureau of Ethnology Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art, Washington Government Printing office 1886
Griffin, J., Prehistoric Pottery of Eastern United States, University of Michigan 1950
Anthony, David W., The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton University Press 2008
Kovel, Terry & Ralph, Kovel’s Dictionary of Marks Pottery & Porcelain 1650-1850 Crown Publishers, NY, NY 1986
Downing, Dr. Brandon, ‘Visions of the New Nation in the Northwest Territory’, Muskingum County History talk at Ohio University Zanesville, January 15, 2025
The Coshocton Tribune, “Quality preferred. The Story of an ideal” The Pottery, Glass & Brass Salesman. October 1938 “pope-Gosser China is Rich in Historical Value” Vol. 74 No. 22
Mazrim, Robert F. & Walthall, John A., Academia, 2012 edu/7998707/Ceramics_on_the_Western_Frontier_Fort_Massac_1794_1814_Midcontinental_Journal_of_Archaeology
Mariettacastle.org.about. History 418/4th Street Marietta, Ohio
Hornsby Heindl, Brenda, 2020 Lecture series ‘Ceramic and the Early Frontier – Forging an American identity through clay, Encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/native-American-pottery
Daniels, Mike, ‘Native American Pottery’, Oklahoma City, OK https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/explore/native-american-pottery/ 2025
Stein, Stacy, Education Manager, Roscoe Village, Coshocton, Ohio Interview March 1, 2025
According to J. W. Powell in his 1882 study of Ceramic Art, studying prehistoric Art “penetrates the secrets of the past”. In fact, the existence of earthen vessels in Egypt predates written language and the use of the wheel! There are two classes of ceramics. The first is functional and the other is ornamental, which is often used for ceremonial purposes. Making ceramics was accidental at first, an indentation by a hand, or a fruit shell or stone would have suggested the making of a cup or vessel. At first, clay was used as a cement in repairing utensils, protecting wood or wicker from fire. This led to the formation of vessels of independent construction which imitated natural objects like mollusk shells and gourds which made excellent vessels for water and food. It is said that new forms are rarely invented outright but they continue to be modified and depend on the groups of people making the ceramics, resulting in a variety of objects. Changes will be made in Function as in: handles, legs, and perforations as well as Construction: using a coil, stitch, plait or twist. There becomes even more variety when the objects are incised, painted or stamped. The next step is when symbolism is used: (Powell)
‘The rendition of a sweep, a curl of the waves, creating phenomena from their environment like a whirlwind, a dust bowl or a rainbow’. Then there were Geometric designs made that were not inspired by nature but were a unique rhythmic form that was uniquely developed.’ (Powell P. 450)
Egypt wasn’t the only place where archaic pottery has been studied. Volumes of books have been written about the prehistoric peoples that used pottery and lived in what is now Europe of 7,000 years ago. In Contrast to the first ‘Hunter Gathers’, one of the first people to make pottery raise sheep and cattle and settled in small huts along the Danube River in what is present day Austria. At these settlements, Archeologists have found in graves and trash pits remnants of animal bones, seeds and pottery. At this particular site the pottery is thick-walled and crude with stabbed impressions and swirling patterns. You get a glimpse of their religious values by the following find:
“Every house in this settlement contained a fragmented ceramic female figurine with jointed legs, exaggerated hips and buttocks and a rod-like head about 10 cm long.” (Anothony P. 170)
Is this a fertility fetish? One can only speculate how it factored into their world and religion!
Throughout the centuries cultural groups created new styles of Pottery that told archaeologists WHO they were. The various designs SPREAD from one group of people to another, BLENDING, merging and being reinvented throughout the centuries. (Anthony)
Studies of Prehistoric Pottery have also been made in North America. In 1950, J. Griffin described 8 different types of fiber-tempered pottery stretching from Georgia to New Jersey. He found large projective points made from non-flinty material and a culture that included early pottery. He was able to identify the minerals used, the source of the clay and the tempering material available locally. (Griffin)
He goes on to say:
“Scientist outstanding achievement was the filling in of a long and continuous cultural sequence from preceramic sites to a number of varieties of Native American occupation in the lower Ohio valley that had been completely Unknown.” (Griffin P. 49)
Scientists have learned a lot about pottery that was made in the Ohio River valley.
“The Shawnee tribe loved to make pottery and have made it for thousands of years for cooking and baking. 2,500 years ago. During the Woodland period, broken sherds are among the most common artifact remaining in abandoned settlements.” (Daniels)
Potters dug clay and mixed it with temper that consisted of mixture of sand, bone and stone. The temper gave it the ability for the vessel to withstand the heat from firing and daily use. Containers were shaped by hand in various ways. Some were assembled using clay coils that were compressed and smoothed with stone tools. Indians of eastern N. America used neither pottery wheels nor molds. Mussel shells or other sharp objects were used to thin the walls, smooth the surface and apply decorations. Rubbing the dry surface with a stone compressed the clay particles and created a polish. Decorative techniques included incising the still-moist clay, engraving fully dried but unfired vessels, applying clay beads and painting. Native potters fired in the open air, not in kilns. By manipulating the flow of oxygen within the fire, and by removing vessels and plunging them immediately into an oxygen depleted environment potters could create certain surface colors like oxidized reds and yellows, or mahogany and black. Pottery making may have begun in response to a change in diet. An increase in use of pounded nuts meats and small oily and starchy seeds as well as stews cooked in containers made pottery both useful and important in daily life. (Encyclopedia)
Pottery served the Native American tribes as much more than a tool; the clay served as a canvas to express themselves through symbols and design signifying that they belonged to a specific tribe or family. Woman made the functional potter pieces used for cooking, serving and storing and the men made the pottery used for ceremonial purposes. These ceremonial pieces often have the moon, sun and world on them, and include the circle of life and the 4 sacred directions. Today, these pieces can be observed as a tangible representation of the North American culture and past traditions. Pottery is all natural: Clay from the earth, Water and the sun, Air to dry, Fire to harden it. (Daniels)
Which brings us to the early settlers of the American frontier. Did they make their own pottery? According to the Lecture series by The Frontier Cultural Museum, it is a myth that that frontier people made everything that they needed for survival. Not all clay is conducive to making pottery and a kiln was extremely expensive to make, in 1870 a kiln cost approximately $188 to build. Another factor was that people during this time wanted decorative ceramics so that they could serve ‘Tea’ to their neighbors. Every family would bring into the frontier that special plate, tureen dish or tea pot. Later on, when people started to make pottery they fashioned it like the style coming in from England and Germany. They didn’t want just common goods but porcelain and refined wares. (Hornsby)
“Almost every housekeeper had some bowl or dish she had brought from the old states, that was kept carefully along with perhaps a few silver spoons as proof of her primitive gentility.” --Mary Walker Halloway
“I can have people over for tea, interact with friends, be a hostess”: The experience of sharing tea was important in all economic levels, even in the back country communities. (Halloway)
“Stores and shops were unknown for a long time after the settlement of the country; wooden vessels, prepared by the turner, the cooper, or their rude representatives in wood, were common substitutes for tableware. A tin cup was an article of delicate luxury, almost as rare as an iron fork.” --Mann Butler, Valley of the Ohio 1835-1855(Hornsby)
The first Pottery that was established in the Northwest Territory was by Nathaniel Clark in Marietta in 1808. Marietta is the oldest city in Ohio and the Pottery was located on the grounds of ‘The Castle’, a Gothic Revival house that was built in 1855. (Downing) They host an Archaeological camp where people can dig up shards of clay made of red earthenware, salt-glazed stoneware and lead-glazed earthenware. They have uncovered production waste, kiln furniture and structural remains. (Marietta)
Twenty-two years later, George Bagnall was the first Potter in Roscoe Village. He could be found digging clay along the river in the pre-canal era. He sold his pottery business to a man from New Castle, Ohio, Prosper Rich. Prosper constructed his own kilns, which were burrowed into a hillside with a chimney, located in Caldersburg at the south end of Roscoe. He made functional items used to store water and food. One of his specialties was making a gravity fed chicken waterer. He used dark iron oxide inside to seal the liquid in. He had his Pottery from 1830’s 1850’s and Pottery made by him is still found to this day, stamped with his mark: ‘RICH’ (Stein)
In the 19th Century Pottery was a booming industry in Ohio. After I perused through the book: Dictionary of Marks Pottery I was impressed to find 22 cities in Ohio with pottery companies - from A – Z: Akron to Zoar. There were sometimes multiple pottery companies in a city during this time period and this book is used to identify pottery through their markings. Most just had the name of the Pottery and the city and state on the back but it was interesting to see the various name brands that a Pottery company in E. Liverpool used: Union, Madrid, Cornell, Yale, Globe, Cornell etc…. They also added graphics like: Lions, horses, crowns and ribbons for their mark. Apparently, just stamping K T& K E. Liverpool, Ohio wasn’t interesting enough! (Kovel)
Coshocton had its own Pottery company located on 329 N. 15th Street, The Pope-Glosser China Company. It was founded by two men, Bently Pope and Charles F. Gosser. Pope was from England, moved to New Jersey working as a Potter and then worked for Knowles, Taylor & Knowles in E. Liverpool in 1895. Gosser was from Coshocton and was a Jeweler but wanted to start a pottery company. He had no pottery experience, but he had the capital. Gosser went to E. Liverpool and interviewed men from various firms and picked Pope to build his new Pottery company. In September 1902 the first wares were made, and soon after, Pope’s son, Willam, joined them to become the Superintendent. (Tribune)
Pope died in 1911 and Gosser died in 1916. Pope-Gosser merged to form American Chinaware Corporation in the late 1920’s and when the American Chinaware Corporation went bankrupt in 1931 the plant closed. Pope’s son, William, was able to reopen the pottery in 1933. (Tribune)
The product range was limited to two styles to reduce production costs. The company survived the war years but struggled to remain competitive due to a limited demand for China at this time. Employees often worked only one and half days a week, which was preferable to being laid off. When the company president, William Pope died in 1948 it further weakened the company. By 1958 they closed their doors declaring bankruptcy, citing the increase cost of operation and the pressure from imported pottery especially from Japan. It then closed its doors releasing 150 employees from employment. (Tribune)
There are places here in Coshocton where you can still make Pottery. It’s expensive to build your own kiln or to buy a pottery wheel so the answer is to find a studio that will assist you. Crow House Pottery and Create Joy DIY studio are two that I’ve found in the area. I personally go to Markgraf in Newark, on the Square, to make my pottery treasures. What do I make? This year I made personalized fireplace tiles for my old house and leaf dishes crafted from Hosta leaves. The first year I took classes, I made a horse head. I fashioned it after my grey Arabian horse. It is glazed shiny white/grey, large and beautiful with expressive eyes. I love to just look at it and an improvement over my first attempt at creating a horse head!
There’s something special and therapeutic about making a piece of pottery. Kneading the clay in your hands, feeling it and letting the lump of earth speak to you as to what it wants to be. This creative process has been going on for thousands of years. From Egyptian urns to the first farmers on the European continent making vessels, to Shawnee Natives making ceremonial bowls, to frontier pottery made along the Ohio banks and on to 19th & 20th century pottery made here in Ohio. There has been a long chain of Potters throughout the centuries. They are Artists, creating and making something useful, for ceremonies or just making something beautiful to look at and enjoy.
WORKS CITED
Powell, J. W., Smithsonian Institute – Bureau of Ethnology Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art, Washington Government Printing office 1886
Griffin, J., Prehistoric Pottery of Eastern United States, University of Michigan 1950
Anthony, David W., The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton University Press 2008
Kovel, Terry & Ralph, Kovel’s Dictionary of Marks Pottery & Porcelain 1650-1850 Crown Publishers, NY, NY 1986
Downing, Dr. Brandon, ‘Visions of the New Nation in the Northwest Territory’, Muskingum County History talk at Ohio University Zanesville, January 15, 2025
The Coshocton Tribune, “Quality preferred. The Story of an ideal” The Pottery, Glass & Brass Salesman. October 1938 “pope-Gosser China is Rich in Historical Value” Vol. 74 No. 22
Mazrim, Robert F. & Walthall, John A., Academia, 2012 edu/7998707/Ceramics_on_the_Western_Frontier_Fort_Massac_1794_1814_Midcontinental_Journal_of_Archaeology
Mariettacastle.org.about. History 418/4th Street Marietta, Ohio
Hornsby Heindl, Brenda, 2020 Lecture series ‘Ceramic and the Early Frontier – Forging an American identity through clay, Encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/native-American-pottery
Daniels, Mike, ‘Native American Pottery’, Oklahoma City, OK https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/explore/native-american-pottery/ 2025
Stein, Stacy, Education Manager, Roscoe Village, Coshocton, Ohio Interview March 1, 2025
