Wednesday, October 3, 2007

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Oct. 3, 1861

At first glance, the pages of the Cleveland Morning Leader seem filled with the usual hodgepodge of old and less-old news, some of it meaningful to only a few readers: In Ravenna two earlier, a banker named George W. Woodward married Anna Lyman, daughter of a judge. Advertisements fill up to half of each page, including the first, where “Decker’s Fine Arts Hall” at 205 Superior St. offers “photographs, ambrotypes, and every style of sun picture.” If you lack the money to have a “likeness” made, you could go down Superior Street and around the corner to 3 Water St., where William Wagner offers “money advanced in sums to suit” in exchange for “security of every kind”—from pianos to carpets to “fire-arms.” But the war is increasingly intruding into the paper: the lead opinion piece urges voters next week to vote for candidates who support continued war, not peace with the South. “There are thousands of semi-secessionists in the state,” the essay snarls, calling them liars and appeasers. “There can be no honorable peace without war first,” the editor concludes. Elsewhere, a short article announces that the 3rd Ohio Cavalry commanded by Col. Louis Zahm will be buying horses daily for service in the war. And the Soldier’s Aid Society, a women’s organization at 95 Bank St. (“We calm the sick and wounded soldiers”) appeals for donations of hospital bedding, towels, dried fruits, jellies, and other useful items.

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