Tag Archives: Civil War

The Isaac Pollack House

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In 1854, two Jewish immigrants named Isaac Pollack and Solomon Rauh began a business partnership dealing whiskey and wine in Dayton from a warehouse on West Third Street.

Eight years later in 1862, Pollack served as a corporal in the civilian Squirrel Hunters during the Civil War and was regarded as a hero after the Squirrel Hunters successfully defended Cincinnati from an attack by the Confederate army. At the end of the war, Pollack and his friend Rauh started to build two identical homes on West Third Street.

Twin Houses

Source: Dayton International Peace Museum Website

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This Day in History – June 27th, 1872

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Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872 in Dayton, Ohio on Howard Street. His parents were former slaves who escaped from Kentucky, then met in Dayton after the war. He published his first works in 1892 while working as an elevator operator. Overall, Dunbar wrote twelve books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels, and a play before his death in 1906.

My lady love lives far away,
And oh my heart is sad by day,
And ah my tears fall fast by night,
What may I do in such a plight.

Why, miles grow few when love is fleet,
And love, you know, hath flying feet;
Break off thy sighs and witness this,
How poor a thing mere distance is.

My love knows not I love her so,
And would she scorn me, did she know?
How may the tale I would impart
Attract her ear and storm her heart?

Calm thou the tempest in my breast,
Who loves in silence loves the best,
But bide thy time, she will awake,
No night so dark but morn will break.

But though my heart so strongly yearn,
My lady loves me not in turn,
How may I win the blest reply
That my void heart shall satisfy.

Love breedeth love, be thou but true,
And soon thy love shall love thee, too;
If Fate hath meant you heart for heart,
There’s naught may keep you twain apart.

This Day in History – May 1st, 1863

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In a speech in Mount Vernon on May 1, 1863, Clement Laird Vallandigham declared that the Civil War was being fought to gain “the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites.”

He went on to say that President Abraham Lincoln was using the war as an excuse to squelch Constitutional rights.

Days later, federal troops broke down the door at his home on Wilkinson and First Streets in Dayton. He was arrested for violation of General Order 38, which prohibited declarations of sympathy for the Confederacy.

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

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Please help us remember those who have died while serving in our country’s military.

Interestingly, the holiday originated after the Civil War in 1868 as “Decoration Day,” when a group of veteran Union soldiers known as the “Grand Army of the Republic” established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of Union soldiers with flowers.

Please have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend!

The Escape of John Wilkes Booth

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This story is only indirectly connected to Dayton, but too fascinating not to share!

In 1924, Whitney Bolton, editor of the Dayton Daily News, wrote an article telling of the escape of John Wilkes Booth, after interviewing reporter John Young. At age seven, Young had attended the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre with his father. It was a night Young would never forget.

Near the end of the second act, a shot rang out and a man crashed to the stage, brandished a long knife, yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis!” and ran away, a significant limp in his step.

Years later, Young interviewed James Kelley, a man who had been a member of the Richmond Theatre Company with John Wilkes Booth. Booth and Kelley had shared a dressing room and the services of a young dressing valet named Henry.

When the war started, Booth became passionate for the South, at first enthusiastically, then slowly becoming sullen and angry. The change in his mood caused John Wilkes Booth to be fired from his acting job. Booth left for Washington, and took Henry with him. He left behind a number of play manuscripts with scribbled notes in his handwriting. Kelley kept the manuscripts.

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Dayton’s Last Hanging

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Harry Adams seemed to be on the right path for the first time in his life. Born as Francis Daniel Spealman, he had a tumultuous past involving running away from home and a life of crime, including jail time. Finally, using his acquired skill as a shoemaker, he was able to land a job as a cobbler for St. Mary’s School in Dayton. Although he was known to enjoy the drink, the consistent work kept him out of trouble. That is, until he met a woman named Lou Huffman.

Huffman was proprietor and madam to a house on Pearl Street in Dayton’s Red Light District. It did not take long for Harry to fall in love with her and move into her house. He helped Huffman operate her business and was available to her every beck and call.

It was during this time that a soldier named Henry Mulharen (also spelled Mulharon) was making his way to Dayton after receiving a $50 pension (a sum equivalent to nearly $900 today). Mulharen planned to visit the Soldier’s Home to get treatment for an injury he received as a soldier in the Civil War. Mulharen and a friend of his, a man named Woodward, met Adams at the brothel, where he introduced them to Jennie Smith, one of the girls working there.

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The Story of Jordan Anderson

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Jordan Anderson was a slave until the Civil War, when Union Soldiers freed him. He took his family to Dayton, where they settled and he obtained work as a servant, janitor, coachman, etc. until 1894 when he became a sexton at a church.

In July of 1865, Colonel P.H. Anderson, his former owner, wrote Jordan a letter asking him to return to his plantation and help him bring in the crops after the war. Through his employer, Valentine Winters, Jordan responded with the following letter, sent to the Cincinnati Commercial and subsequently published.

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