Citation: Thomas. A. Stiger, ed., The X Ray (Berea, OH: Baldwin University, 1896), p. 20.
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Albert Hallen, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, was born in Sweden, Sept. 22, 1858. He was educated at the gymnasia of Boras and Gothenburg. He graduated from the Institute of Technology at Gothenburg in 1878. In 1889 he received the degrees of A. B. and S. T. B. from Boston University. From Boston he went to Berlin University, Germany, where he studied for two years. The next year was passed as instructor in Hebrew in Boston University, from which be in the same year took his Ph. D. From 1892 to 1895, when he was elected to the chair of Mathematics in Baldwin University, he was president of the Methodist Theological School at Upsola, Sweden. In spite of the brief time he has been with us, his extensive field of knowledge and genial temperament have won for him many friends among the students.
Citation: “Dr. Fred Harris, B-W dean, takes three month leave for U. S. mission in Afghanistan,” Baldwin-Wallace College News Letter 27, no. 1 (1959): p. 23
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Dr. Fred E. Harris, academic dean of Baldwin-Wallace College, left early this month for Afghanistan on a United States government mission.
Dr. Harris will serve as a professional consultant in fundamental education at Kabul, the capital city of that nation which borders southern Russia.
His assignment, sponsored by the International Cooperation Administration, will keep him in Afghanistan for three months. Dr. Harris will return to his B-W duties in December.
Part of Four-Man Team
Dean since September, 1957, Dr. Harris first went to Washington D.C. where he met three other members of the four-man team which expected to arrive in Kabul, Sunday, Sept. 6.
In his absence, Dr. L. Nellie Shoemaker, chairman of the English department, will serve as acting dean of the college.
This is Dr. Harris' second assignment with an ICA project in five years. In 1954 he spent 13 months in the villages of Galatma and Manawat, Egypt doing similar work.
Met Dr. Bonds in Egypt
It was there that his association with B-W President Alfred B. Bonds, Jr. began. At that time Dr. Bonds was working with the government's Point Four program.
The purpose of Dr. Harris' assignment is to assist with the mass education of the Asian country. Agriculture, health, literacy, and family life are a few of the phases with which Dr. Harris will be working.
Citation: Joseph A. Rochford, ed., “Hartwell to Head Union,” The Exponent, June 9, 1970, p. 1.
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George E. Hartwell has been named acting director of the College Union to replace Keith G. Briscoe, who left on January 1 to assume a post as dean at Ohio's Steubenville College.
Hartwell, who came to B-W in the fall of 1968, has served as assistant director of the College Union since that time and has also been in charge of operations and coordinating conferences at the union.
Prior to coming to B-W, Hartwell served for six years as director of Food Services at the University of New Hampshire, a university from which he also received his B.S. degree.
Hartwell hopes to realize a better utilization of unused space within the union building and plans to work towards the development of a total program throughout the college as a member of the student personnel staff.
Steve Adams replaces Hartwell as assistant director of the College Union. Adams formerly served as program director and as house director for College Club. In addition to his new duties, he will retain the latter position.
Clark Drummond, director of the ACES program, will serve as acting director of Student Affairs, a position which aids in coordinating the workings of the various student organizations, and a position which Briscoe also held while director of the College Union.
Drummond will still continue us the director of ACES, with Mrs. Helen Richie, coordinator of the ACES programming, assuming greater responsibilities.
The appointment of a permanent night manager for the Union, Len Potter, was also announced this week.
Citation: Austin D. Patterson, 2021.
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According to the 1910-1911 German Wallace College Grindstone Yearbook, Edwin Havinghorst was the 3rd president of German Wallace College from 1908-1910, and was Professor of Comparative Religions. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Mt. Pleasant College in 1887, his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from The Boston School of Theology in 1890, and his Doctor of Divinity degree from Iowa Wesleyan University in 1899. Before he was President of German Wallace, he was President of his alma mater Mt. Pleasant College in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa from 1898-1908.
HAVIGHORST, EDWIN STANTON (1865-1952), German-American minister and educator, was born at Springfield, Ill., Nov. 7, 1865. He was graduated from both the Mount Pleasant German College, founded in 1873 by his father, Rudolph Havighorst, and from Iowa Wesleyan University in 1887, and from the School of Theology, Boston University in 1890. Iowa Wesleyan University conferred an honorary D.D. upon him in 1899. Although he was English-trained, he devoted his life with fervent loyalty to German-American Methodism until it became absorbed in the American conferences. Admitted to the St. Louis German Annual Conference of the M. E. Church, he served pastorates at Moberly, Mo.; Bloomington, Ill. and Burlington, Iowa (1890-97). In 1898 he was elected president of the Mount Pleasant German College, Iowa, and held this office for ten years. He brought the school to a peak of academic achievement, gathered a strong faculty, and edited a college magazine. In 1908 he became president for two years of German Wallace College, Berea, Ohio. Following a six-year pastorate (1910-16) at First German, Kansas City, Mo., he became pastor of the German Methodist Church and principal of the Enterprise Normal Academy, Enterprise, Kan. From 1917-27, he was professor and dean of the German Theological Department, Central Wesleyan College, Warrenton. Mo. Pastorates at Warrenton, La Plata and Weston, Mo. occupied him until 1948, when he retired at the age of eighty-two. He died in Moberly, Mo., on Dec. 11, 1952.
Louis A. Haselmayer, The History and Alumni List of the Mt. Pleasant German College. N.d.
Jubiläumsbuch der St. Louis Deutschen Konferenz.
Citation: "Office of the President; President Robert C Helmer," bw.edu, about.
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The ninth president of Baldwin Wallace University, Dr. Helmer has established himself as a dynamic leader in higher education with demonstrated strengths in curriculum development, enrollment, campus life, fundraising and facility development. In his tenure at BW, Dr. Helmer led the formation of the BW 2019-2023 Strategic Plan which sets a roadmap for institutional strength and purpose in the coming decade, oversaw the establishment of new academic programs and helped to secure the largest single gift in BW history.
Dr. Helmer provides leadership and expertise to a number of national, state and local organizations through board membership including service as a trustee for both the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC). At the state level, he sits on the boards of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio (AICUO) and The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges (OFIC). In Northeast Ohio, Dr. Helmer's board service includes The United Way of Greater Cleveland, Southwest General Hospital and Saint Joseph Academy. He is a 2015 graduate of Leadership Cleveland.
Before arriving at BW on July 1, 2012, Dr. Helmer served nine years as president of Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio, where he led the creation of new academic programs, more than doubled student enrollment, established an intercollegiate athletics program and expanded the campus physical plant to include new residence halls and a student center.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and The Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, Dr. Helmer received his Ph.D. from Marquette University and his J.D. from the University of Toledo. His scholarly interests are in early Christian origins and apocalyptic literature.
An active and vocal advocate for student success, Dr. Helmer often can be seen at campus athletic events, academic programs and performances; he also engages with the BW community via Twitter. Follow President Helmer on Twitter at @BWPres.
Citation: Dwight L. Dumond, ed., Grindstone (Berea, OH: Baldwin-Wallace College, 1921), p. 153.
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A. B., German Wallace College, 1889; Special Work, University of Berlin; 1890; President of St. Paul's College, St. Paul Park, Minn., 1895-1900; Professor in German Wallace College, 1900; D. D., Central Wesleyan College, Warrenton, Mo., 1908; Professor in Baldwin-Wallace College, 1913.
Citation: Deane R. White, ed., Grindstone (Berea, OH: Baldwin-Wallace College, 1922-23), p. 28.
Look for a slender, scholarly looking man, his wavy hair tinged with gray, a twinkle in his eye and decision in the set of his jaw.
Since Christmas he has carried a brief case: "A Christmas present," he says, but his daughter adds, "Yes, from himself."
Look under the H's in "Who's Who in American Methodism" and there you will find his name. It's the only one of its kind there.
Most of us take at least one of our courses in four years under him. A great many of us come back for more in spite of note books, whole volumes of them.
Here's to trips, tests, lessons, Sociology and Dr. Hertzler, long may they reign.
Citation: Frances Mills and Marion Cole, eds., “Berea Improvements Are Lasting Tribute To Dr. C. W. Hertzler,” Baldwin-Wallace Alumnus 27, no. 2 (1949): p. 18.
In the passing of Dr. C. W. Hertzler on January 21, the college and the community shared a deep sense of loss, for to each he had contributed many years of able and distinguished service.
Born in Burlington, Ia., on February 22, 1867, the son of a wagon manufacturer, he received his early education in the public schools and in the business college of his home town. His college training, begun in Iowa Wesleyan University, was continued in Baldwin-Wallace College where he was graduated in 1889.
He entered the Methodist ministry and served churches in Illinois until 1892, when he was granted a year's leave of absence which he spent in study at the University of Berlin and in travel in Southern Europe, Egypt and Palestine. His marriage to Lily May Zorn of Burlington, Ia., took place the following year. She passed away in 1932.
Transferring his conference membership to Minnesota, Dr. Hertzler served a country circuit for two years. He was elected in 1895 to the presidency of St. Paul's College, St. Paul Park, Minn., where he remained until 1900 when he was called to the chair of practical theology in Nast Theological Seminary, Berea. From 1905 to 1914 he also served as associate editor of Deutsch-Amerikanische Zeitschrift fuer Theologie und Kirche, and was author of a book published in 1908. In 1914 he was made head of the department of sociology in Baldwin-Wallace College and continued here to the time of his retirement from active teaching in 1937.
Dr. Hertzler made important contributions to the life of his community. Serving with the Red Cross during World War I, he later was instrumental in founding the Community Welfare Council of Berea and served as its president for sixteen years, guiding its development into one of the most outstanding welfare organizations in the county.
Following his retirement, Dr. Hertzler's life was quietly spent in a compact little brick bungalow flanked at the back by a spacious garden to which he gave enthusiastic personal supervision and labor. It was a place to which he happily resorted for reading or solitude, or for fellowship with family and friends.
Of his family Dr. Joyce O. Hertzler, his son, of the University of Nebraska, and his daughters, Mrs. Verna Beyer of Berea and Mrs. Ruth Stillinger of Houston, Texas, remain.
Memorial services were held in the former Emmanuel Methodist Church with Dr. Louis C. Wright, Dr. Delo C. Grover, Rev. W. H. Phillips, pastor of the Methodist Church of Berea, and Dr. E. C. Unnewehr, as soloist, participating.
Citation: Albert L. Marting, ed., “Honorary Degrees,” Baldwin-Wallace Alumnus 23, no. 2 (1945): p. 4.
Joyce O. Hertzler, son of Dr. Charles W. Hertzler, professor emeritus of Baldwin-Wallace, was graduated from B-W in 1916 with a degree of Bachelor of Arts. Following graduate work at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the latter institution in 1930. He has been for 22 years professor of sociology and for several years chairman of the Department at the University of Nebraska. As a social scientist he has made pioneer studies in this field and is the author of four books and other related scientific articles. He has been an active participant in the programs of national, regional and local professional organizations.
See: student web exhibit, curated by Chase Augustine at https://herzerfossils.weebly.com/.
Citation: A. R. Webber, Life of John Baldwin, Sr. of Berea, Ohio (The Caxton Press, 1925), 40.
"Josiah Holbrook was born in 1788. Graduated from Yale College in 1806. Opened on his farm East, about 1819, one of the first schools in America, which sought to teach a popularized form of natural science and to combine manual labor with education. Boys in the school were allowed to pay a portion of their expenses by laboring on the farm.
"He founded the 'Lyceum Village,' of Berea, Ohio, in 1837."
Citation: “Mr. L. S. Honaker elected Prof, of Physical Education,” The Exponent, October 3, 1917, p. 1.
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Mr. L. S. Honaker has been elected Professor of Physical Instruction and Athletic Coach in Baldwin-Wallace College. Coach Honaker is a graduate of Roanoke College of Roanoke, Virginia, and has taken graduate study in the University of Illinois, specializing in Physical Training and Coaching.
He has had under his care the Physical work in the Industrial School of Western Tennessee, which work he successfully handled for two years. And during the past three years he was coach at Lincoln College, Lincoln, Illinois. So we find him to be an all round athlete, playing1: football, baseball, basketball; and engaging in track sports.
We feel very confident in Coach Honaker's ability which, together which his straight-forward and pleasing personality, will build up such teams as Baldwin-Wallace will be proud of.
Citation: Thomas. A. Stiger, ed., The X Ray (Berea, OH: Baldwin University, 1896), p. 23.
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Walter C. Howell, instructor in voice and harmony, was born in London, Eng., Feb. 17, 1864. His early education was received in a private school. After coming to America he studied music in the Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and also in Cleveland School of Music. In 1890 he became a professor in Baldwin University, which place he has held until the present, having been very successful in his work.
Citation: John J. Martin, ed., The X Ray (Berea, OH: Baldwin University, 1900), p. 21.
Walter C. Howell was born in London, England, February 17, 1864. His education in that country was received in a private school In Ohio he studied music, both in Cincinnati and in the Cleveland School of Music. In 1899 he became a professor in Baldwin University. His success as instructor in voice and harmony is everywhere acknowledged.
Citation: A. R. Webber, Life of John Baldwin, Sr. of Berea, Ohio (The Caxton Press, 1925), 177-188.
The life of John Baldwin, Sr., would not be complete without a chapter devoted to his great and faithful co-worker in the early days of the university, Fletcher Hulet, one of the strong, unselfish Christian characters of his time, a pioneer boy in the woods of Brunswick, Medina County, this State.
He raised and educated a large family of able and noble citizens, though he himself was self-instructed outside of college halls, while toiling for others. He became a fine mathematician and historian, as will appear later.
John Baldwin, Sr., drew Fletcher Hulet to himself and his work because of the faith he had in him, a confidence that was never betrayed, and resulted in his erecting and donating to the university its largest building, known as "Hulet Hall," a stone structure, the first floor of which contained recitation rooms, and the upper the auditorium for chapel services, commencement day exercises, and lectures. When the old campus was sold to the Cleveland Stone Company, it was taken down and rebuilt with the same blocks on the present campus and still bears its former name, "Hulet Hall." He was gathered to his fathers many years ago, but in good deeds still lives in his posterity and benevolences.
Fletcher Hulet, like his co-worker, John Baldwin, was unselfish and ever a toiler with his hands, side by side with his workmen.
Old citizens, still living, recall seeing him night after night cutting blocks by his lantern for the building long after his workmen had gone to their beds, so anxious was he that it should be completed before his summons came. He was spared to see it dedicated and filled with students and large audiences many times.
The cost of the structure consumed nearly half of his entire estate, but he realized the truth of the Scriptural statement that "The night cometh when no man can work."
The following are extracts from the pen of a cultured lady, Mrs. Emma James, of Minneapolis, that appeared in an article a few years ago, published in a paper of that city, relative to the life and character of Fletcher Hulet. It reads:
"Fletcher Hulet was one of a dozen or more sons and daughters of John Hulet, who fought in his younger days at Bunker Hill and who, not far from the close of the War of 1812, brought his family West, settling at Brunswick when Fletcher was a lad of twelve or thirteen. There was no more schooling for the Hulet children, but the brothers, as they grew up, became famous in that new country for their personal daring and their mastery of tools and were sent for, far and near, at house raisings and all other important exigencies of pioneer life calling for sturdy and helpful strength. Fletcher embraced religion one day when he had stopped by chance to rest his ox team under the shade near a camp ground where Russell Bigelow (my father's first presiding elder) was preaching. He was a man of remarkable power, and under his burning words was formed in the soul of that young backwoodsman the resolution strong to fashion motive and to color fate. In that same hour he dedicated himself to the cause of education. When he had acquired a farm of his own, he proposed marriage to Miss Fanny Granger, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had come out to Brunswick to visit her sister, Mrs. Dr. Somers. The circumstances of their marriage were pithily told in an extended memorial to Mr. Hulet, published after his death in 1882: 'Fletcher Hulet never had an hour to spare, nor a day to visit, from the earliest record to the day of his death; never went fishing, or cooning, or gunning, unless he went for meat; and so, true to his traditions, when he made up his mind to go East for his promised bride, he found so many last things to be done before leaving, so much more to be finished before winter, that instead of leaving in September, as he had planned, it was only when the danger of the lake's closing at Buffalo became imminent that he broke away and made all speed for Berkshire. There he remembered to his dismay that three weeks of publishing the banns must go before a legal marriage could be solemnized. No three weeks could he wait unless he made up his mind to stay all winter, and so he made up a party consisting of the bride, her sister and husband (Mr. and Mrs. Jason Langdon), and they came on together over the New York line where no law of publishing the banns stood in their way and were married on the sixteenth day of December, 1829, by Rev. A. H . Dumont, in Schodak, New York. The first article purchased by the young husband after they reached their new home was an arithmetic, then a slate, and the sturdy, self-reliant young man of twenty-six sat down at the feet of his better-educated wife to learn arithmetic. Late into the night, after hard days' works, he studied, and soon outstripped his teacher. Then he bearded the teacher of the district, taking as full compensation for the same an evening hour of assistance on his books; for arithmetic was no sooner finished than algebra was attacked, then geometry and astronomy, mechanics and history. What he touched he never laid down until he had absorbed it all.'
"In the young village of Berea every man who aspired to be a 'leading citizen' bought, as soon as he could afford it, an interest in a stone quarry, and worked in it with his men, side by side, as was the fashion; for grindstones and building stones were, and still are, the characteristic product of the place. The incipient village, in fact, was built upon valuable quarry lands, and the quarrying operations now have encroached dangerously near to that most cherished God's Acre lying well to the eastward on a sunny slope, which was a berry patch when we children went blackberrying and beechnutting, in all the joy of newcomers, and where in after years were laid the dear dead I have called by name, and alas! how many other forms whose voices joined the evening song around that old piano. Mr. Hulet was the donor of half the ground for this cemetery to the village. He was also a trustee of Baldwin University, and on its campus, in course of time, he built as his munificent donation to the school, the third and finest of its three main buildings out of the stone from his own quarry, and some of it cut by his own hands on moonlight nights, so anxious was he that every dollar he had set apart for it in his own mind should go as far as possible. Its cost was ten thousand dollars at a time when he estimated his entire property to be worth not more than thirty thousand dollars.
"Another exceedingly interesting pen picture of Fletcher Hulet, by his talented daughter, Mrs. Harriet Hulet Walker, wife of one of the most successful business men of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was read by her at a Hulet reunion, appeared in the Berea "Advertiser," July 29, 1887, from which I quote the following:
"FLETCHER HULET
"In attempting to furnish a brief sketch of the life of my father, Fletcher Hulet, I am surprised and pained to discover how little I know of him. I know when he was born, when married, when died, when he moved from this town to that, what business occupied his time, and what church he attended.
"So do many others know many or all these things-so does the town record know a multitude of isolated facts regarding many people, but is that an acquaintance that would enable one to sketch life or character?
"By nature, and by the unfortunate repressive habit of the times and family in which he was reared, the soul, the better part of the man, became a sealed book, and alas! she who knew him best is not here to help open the seals. It is only by little indications, here and there, that we may spell out the good, grand heart that beat under a sometimes rough, sometimes cold, always distant exterior.
"As nearly as I can put them in a few words, the main historical points of his life are as follows:
"Fletcher Hulet was born in Lee, Massachusetts, April 9, 1803. In his thirteenth year he emigrated with his father's family to Brunswick, Medina County, Ohio, passing through Cleveland when it boasted of three stores-all built of Jogs. He drove an ox team the whole distance, and even space for roads was hardly cut through the magnificent forests which then covered the Western Reserve. "I suppose the life of the pioneer boy differed little from that of the ordinary farm boy of the time. I make no manner of doubt that he wore the rough, hard, uncompromising clothing of home manufacture, both of cloth and cut, which seemed some way to enter into and become a part of the angular, uncompromising character of the race that grew up in that generation.
"The Hulets were from the first, father and son for many generations, born mechanics, and so it came about that old John Hulet and his multitude of boys had not been many months in the new country before the word went abroad that they were cunning workmen at all that style of handicraft so needed and so hard to get in a new country. They could frame a house or lay out a barn, and when weary days had been spent in boring and mortising and neighbors came together for 'raising,' the 'mortise' and the 'tenon' came together like hand and glove, or like lover and lady. No Hulet frame ever ref used to join or was weak in the corners. They could hew a beam without a line, and no line could detect an error. More than that, they could build a mill, chaining any little frolicsome noisy stream to the big 'overshot' or 'undershot' water wheel of their own construction, and make it saw their lumber or grind their corn or wheat; or later on, card and spin and weave the coat off their sheeps' backs onto their own. But it was much later on in their history that such luxuries were indulged in.
"These special gifts for mechanics gave the family a broader scope than would have been their privilege if they had but the one occupation of farming. They were in great demand and went to Akron and Tallmadge and Marietta, and all up and down the State.
"Fletcher inherited his full share of this mechanical and inventive bent of mind, and if he had had advantages might have made a brilliant record either in astronomy, mathematics, or mechanical inventions. He made much of what came in his way, for such a mind as his could not be caged or forbidden to grow. His desire for an education filled his whole life, and without knowing it, he had it.
"My father was converted at sixteen and remained a Christian all his life, being from the first, I think, a Methodist. Farther on I wish to refer more at length to the incident of his conversion.
"At twenty-four he made the acquaintance of Fanny Granger, of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, sister of Mrs. Dr. Ezra Somers, at whose home in Brunswick she was visiting. The acquaintance grew into something warmer than friendship, and when her visit was over and she returned to her home, she left behind her a promise to share the life and fortunes of the backwoods miller-mechanic, who in his way looked up to her as something better than human.
"(I am not writing her life, but you who knew my mother, 'Aunt Fanny,' know why my pen refuses to pass her in silence. She stands alone in my knowledge of women. There are no more like her. 'Her children rise up and call her blessed.')
"The young couple were married in 1829, in Herkimer, New York.
"In due time children were born to the thrifty couple in their fine red two-story house on the farm. That house with its four fireplaces and wonderfully molded wood mantels, all the work of his own hands, with the china closet over the parlor mantel, in which for years rested the gorgeous white china dinner set with the little sprig of green scattered here and there. Do you remember it? The cream pitcher stands before me as I write. There were three outside doors to that house as I remember-the back door which led to the barn, the side door which led to the wagon-house and street, and the front door that was not often opened that led through the entry to the 'spare room' or out to the yard with its two rows of roses reaching from house to street. Will I ever forget the wonderful striped roses that grew in the yard? My story rambles; to return to the children. Four girls and two boys were born to this family, and with their first appearance the burning desire for education took with the young father a new turn. He must educate his children.
"Word went out over northern Ohio that Uncle John Baldwin was building a three-story brick building, fifty feet long, and was going to give that, and five acres of land, to the Northern Ohio Conference for an 'institute,' a school that should be a great Methodist educating center. Fletcher Hulet scratched his head, shook his hat on a little tighter with one of his characteristic little quick jerks of the head, walked out of the shop, sat down on the work-bench and began to whittle. How long the stick lasted history saith not, but after events go to show that on that evening's meditations hung the turn of life of the family and that he recognized in this move of Mr. Baldwin his chance to educate his family to his mind. At all events the neighborhood, the church, and even his wife were electrified with surprise at his quiet announcement that he was going to leave the farm, build in Berea, and go there to live, and 'let his girls and boys go to Uncle John Baldwin's school.' To say was to do, and when the school opened in the fall of 1847 (?), there stood a small two-roomed shanty not a stone's throw from it, out of which issued at the first call of its bell, Martha, 16; Margaret, 14; Clara, 12; and Gilbert, 10; and their boarder, Sam Stebbins, aged 22. A quaint household, all taking membership in the new school.
"The family were identified with the school from the first term until the breaking out of the war, which took the youngest son, Marshall, then but a lad of less than sixteen, into the ranks; Clara and her husband remaining some years longer as teachers.
"The next year after the opening of the school, the homestead so long occupied by the family- nineteen years-on the farm, was changed for the most stylish house in town.
"A few years later the first piano ever heard in Berea was purchased for this new house and many were the head-shakes over Fletcher's extravagance. What a marvelous source of pleasure was that old piano! It is linked with all my childish memories, and many a long and pleasant evening did my father devote to listening to its notes. His passion for music lasted as long as his life and I make no manner of doubt is a part of his being yet.
"Soon after settling in Berea, he took an interest in the quarry business, which he followed with varying success through his whole business career. He also haJ other enterprises in hand- mills, farms, buildings, etc., etc.-out of all of which he acquired quite a large fortune.
"To go back many, many years.- ln good old Elder Bigelow's time it came to pass that the people of God went out into the wilderness to worship, as was their habit, holding camp meeting, but the blessing seemed to be withheld; no mourning sinner~ asked for prayers, no converts gladdened the air with their shouts, and the people went home downcast and sorrowful. But one day during that meeting, as Elder Bigelow himself stood in the pulpit, the people smiled to hear the 'Whoa!' 'Gee!' of an oxteamster ring through the woods. A boy had been to Tallmadge to mill and was on his way home with the grist. Hearing the minister's voice, he halted his oxen under a shady tree, strolled within hearing, with his ox-whip on his shoulder, and leaning against a tree took in the earnest words. No one noticed him; old Elder Bigelow was no more eloquent for his listening, but he was there just the same. Soon the flies worried his cattle, and he went on his way, having heard a third or half of the sermon, but conviction settled down upon him. He went but a little way, before he again halted his team, threw himself on his knees, and cried to God for pardon; nor did he rest until he felt that he had made his peace with his heavenly Father. Strangely enough that sermon was no exhortation for repentance, but on the duty of the nation and the church to educate, and of men of means to give of their substance to support educational institutions. In the first hour of his conversion he registered a vow to get an education himself, and through life to do all in his power to forward the cause. Old Elder Bigelow went to his rest, but the boy remembered his promise and his resolutions. Then there came a day when the Baldwin University, with his daughter's husband at its head, needed and must have a new chapel building, and the trustees looked at one another sorrowfully for there were no funds for its erection. Then Fletcher Hulet, the unrecognized boy convert of the camp meeting, arose, told the story of his early conversion and resolutions, and offered to build the chapel, giving one-half the cost of whatever style of building they might choose to erect- all of which he afterward did, and seven of Elder Bigelow's grandchildren saw its erection and shared its benefits.
"In politics our father was for many years an old-time Democrat. The writer learned her letters, spelling them out of the headlines of the weekly family paper, 'Cleveland True Democrat.' But over and above all he was a true, strong Free Soiler, and swung naturally through the tempestuous times through the Fremont Party into the straight Republican ranks, where he stood to the end. He was intensely interested in the leading political issues of the day, though despising the dirt and trickery of the common politician. The celebrated Fugitive Slave Act wrought him to a white heat. The scene rests distinctly in the memory of the writer when he first read the text of the bill. He threw the paper on the table and walked the floor in uncontrollable agitation, shedding tears even in his grief and indignation that such could have been made a law. 'We are every one of us as much slaves,' he said, 'as though there were chains on our wrists. We are as much slaves as the blackest Negro in the Southern cotton fields. I am ready to fight, and will fight, or go to jail before I will submit. And I tell you, Fanny, this settles in my mind what I have long felt-that the curse of slavery will never be wiped out till it is wiped out in blood.' He lived to see the prophecy literally fulfilled.
"Naturally his interest in the war was all-absorbing. His years were against him or he would have taken the field when Marshall enlisted; and when Morgan threatened Cincinnati, he shouldered his gun and went to the front."
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