Today marks the anniversary of the surrender of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army. (The entirety of the Confederate Army was made up of several smaller armies with Lee's being the largest. The others followed suit over the next 16 months.) When the fighting was over someone asked President Lincoln, "How did you keep Mexico from joining the Confederacy?" President Lincoln's answer was simple.

"Thomas Corwin."

Corwin was born in Kentucky, but grew up in Lebanon, Ohio. He served as a wagon boy in the War of 1812 (a nickname that would follow him. We have a piece of folk art of him with the same name) and would later establish a law practice with Durban Ward. 

Corwin went on to serve Ohio politically in the Ohio House of Representatives, the Governor of Ohio, and as a US Senator. Also known as the Great Orator, Corwin was said to be quite eloquent in his speeches and as "a born humorist" (according to peer, Benjamin Perley Poore). As a senator, he was being groomed for the Presidency but his outspoken stance opposing the Mexican-American War all but doomed his political career. Under the newly elected President Abraham Lincoln however, he was appointed Minister to Mexico due to his now strong relationship with the country's leadership developed from Corwin taking his believed in yet unpopular stance on the Senate floor despite the consequences to his political career.

Though the Confederacy courted Mexico several times throughout the Civil War, Mexico always refused due to their relationship with Corwin.

1908 Buick Model D
On display in Harmon Museum.
​Gift of the Ertle Family

David Dunbar Buick, Walter Marrs and Eugene Richard started building the Model B automobile in Flint, Michigan in 1904.

The Model D was the first full-sized Buick to join the smaller Model B in 1907. The Model D has a four-cylinder, 255.0 cubic inch T-head engine that was installed in the front with a rear-wheel drive and was one of the only cars with side valves that Buick made. The brakes on the Model D are mechanical with levers attached to the rear axel and drive shaft.

FUN FACT: 1908 was the last year Buick used kerosene for their lamp headlights. 

In honor of Memorial Day, listen to the stories of those that made it home.
In Honor & Remembrance is a collection of conversations with over 35 veterans ranging in age from 27 to 96, covering wars and conflicts from World War II to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Excerpt taken from:
The History of Warren County Ohio
Part III. The History of Warren County by Josiah Morrow
Chapter VIII. The Distinguished Dead

​This distinguished member of the bar was born at Lebanon December 17, 1807. His father, Enos Williams, was an early teacher of Warren County, and held several important civil offices, and among others, that of County Recorder for a period of fourteen years. John Milton received a good English education. In his boyhood, he assisted his father in the Recorder's office, and also wrote in the office of the Clerk of Court. His handwriting was legible, bold and rapid, and the training he received as a copyist at the court house was of benefit to him in his future profession. He studied law with Judge George J. Smith, and, before he had reached the age of twenty-four years, on the 7th of June, 1831, was admitted to the bar at a term of the Supreme Court held at Lebanon, with Judges Peter Hitchcock and Charles R. Sherman on the bench. Gen. Robert C. Schenck, who had completed his legal studies under Thomas Corwin, was admitted at the same time and place.

Young Williams was poor, and was compelled to rely wholly on his own exertions. In after years, he wrote: "When I went out into the wide, wide world in business, on my own hook, I had two dilapidated shirts and a poor suit of clothes to match them. I opened my office in a cellar, with three musty old Ohio statutes, given me by my old father, which he had held as a public officer. This was my entire stock in trade." He soon acquired distinction at the bar. Not long after he began practice, he became Prosecuting Attorney —a position he held for twelve consecutive years. He was candid with his clients, and never misrepresented a case in consultation to encourage litigation. He charged lower fees for his services than other lawyers of the same rank. His popularity and personal influence with the masses were very great. For several years, he had a larger number of cases on the dockets of the courts than any other lawyer of the county, and was the attorney on one side of almost every important case. He could readily sway the minds of jurymen, and in the examination of witnesses he exhibited consummate skill. In 1850, he was elected a member of the convention which framed the second constitution of Ohio, and in 1857 he was elected Representative in the General Assembly of Ohio as an independent candidate over the regular Republican nominee. He was Major of the militia, and was uniformly known as Maj. Williams. In politics, he was a Whig, and afterward a Republican.

The last years of the life of Maj. Williams are a sad history, over the details of which it is best that the mantle of oblivion should be drawn. Habits of intemperance separated him from his wife and family, and brought him to misery and want before he was yet old. He saw the extremes of life. He rose from poverty and obscurity to wealth and distinction; he sank again to obscurity and poverty. When possessed of considerable means, accumulated by his own energy and ability, he erected for his residence one of the finest mansions which had, up to that time, been constructed in the county; he died without a home. When the legal proceedings were commenced which took from him the ownership and control of his property, he wrote and read in the court in which he had practiced with eminent success: "God help me! I am a miserable and ruined man! Let the curtains of oblivion rest over the whole affair until that great day when all things shall be brought into judgment." He died July 21, 1871, aged sixty-four years, and was buried in the Lebanon Cemetery.

Lebanon native and wealthy real estate developer William Elmer Harmon founded the Harmon Foundation in New York in 1922. Originally the new foundation supported the creation of playgrounds throughout the United States, the production of films about biblical subjects, and health care programs. However, it is better known today as the first major foundation supporting African-American creativity and ingenuity.
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William Elmer Harmon's father was an officer in the 10th Cavalry regiment, a black unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Being raised among the soldiers had an impact on the young boy, and formed an accepting attitude toward African-Americans. Later in life, Mr. Harmon was moved after meeting a young African American artist in New York who was unable to sell his paintings because of his race.
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With a new focus, the Harmon Foundation began presenting cash awards in 1925 to African-Americans for distinguished achievement in eight fields: fine arts, literature, music, race relations, business, religious service, education, and science. Between 1927 and 1933, the Harmon Foundation was one of the first to give national recognition to the achievements of African-Americans.

Joyce Lovins Browning is a native of Ohio growing up in the Harrison and Okeana areas.  She has been performing Living History for over 19 years.  She retired after 20 years as the Naturalist Coordinator from Great Parks of Hamilton County in 2018, and now enjoys working as a part-time Tour Coordinator for Ohio Travel Treasures, sending groups on wonderful bus tour adventures.  She'll be portraying Annie Oakley in our April Lunch and Learn.

​Anna Middleton (1786-1861) On March 29, 1805, when she was 19-years-old, Anna Middleton became the first woman and the second person west of the Appalachian Mountains to become a Shaker. Anna was also a former enslaved African American. Anna was from Virginia and was freed by “her owner” shortly after coming to Ohio. Old Shaker records at the Union Village in Warren County called her, “honest and kind-hearted.” In 1805, because of her gender and race, the non-Shaker “world” would have treated Anna as a second-class citizen or lower. That was not the case at Union Village. Anna was a Shaker for 56 years. She died on April 10,1861; a month short of her turning 75. Two days after her death, on April 12, Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina was attacked by Confederate troops beginning the Civil War. In 1895, 89-year-old Job Mullin from Springboro, a known member of the Underground Railroad, the secret network that helped enslaved individuals obtain freedom, wrote, “I can give but three names of [UGRR] stations- Shaker Village, Waynesville, and Springboro.”

- written by John Zimkus

​James Richard Mills (1932-2013) James Mills was Lebanon, Ohio’s first African-American mayor. He was born in Lebanon on August 8, 1932. A 1950 graduate of Lebanon High School, he served in the U.S. Army in Korea. He and his wife Loretta had three children. An avid musician, he was active in the Bethel AME Church, where he sang in the choir and acted as church treasurer. He was also a member of the Lebanon Kiwanis Club and the Lebanon Softball Association. For 39 years he worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation. After serving on the planning commission and community development committee, he was elected to the Lebanon City Council in 1993, and became Lebanon’s mayor in 1997, serving in that role until 2001. Mr. Mills died on October 12, 2013. James Mills once said, “Having been born and raised in this city, I have grown to really care about it and all the things that make it what it is today. . . I really want . . . to serve all the citizens of this lovely city.”

- written by John Zimkus

On this day, in 1815, the burned U.S. Library of Congress is re-established with Thomas Jefferson's personal collection of 6,500 volumes. The previous collection, then housed in the Capital building, had been burned on August 24, 1814 as part of an attack on Washington during the War of 1812. Invading British troops marched into Washington under order to lay waste to the unfinished Capitol and other public buildings. The resulting fires reduced all but one of Washington D.C.'s major public buildings to ruins, and only a severe thunderstorm saved the Capitol from being completely destroyed. 

Unfortunately, a second fire, on Christmas Eve of 1851, burned the Library of Congress again, destroying nearly two thirds of Jefferson's original collection.

Today, January 20th, is Inauguration Day. However, it wasn't always this way. The first Inauguration Day, in 1789, was on March 4th. This four month period was needed to count votes and relay numbers to Washington.

This lengthy Lame-Duck period created several problems throughout history. In the months following the 1860 election, as states succeeded from Union, Lincoln was unable to act and outgoing president, James Buchanan. chose to do nothing. The final straw was in 1933, when president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had to wait months to enact his New Deal plan in the midst of the Great Depression. ​

With the advancement of technology, such a long period was no longer needed. Congress ratified the 20th Amendment in 1933, changing Inauguration Day to January 20th, The first time a president was sworn in on this day was four years later, when Roosevelt was sworn in for a second term.