HISTORY OF OHIO BY CHARLES B. GALBREATH Secretary of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. A well known historian has stated that history, as it is written today, is taking more and more the form of monographs-contributions containing all information of value on the specific topic chosen. Possibly the state history of the future will be a series of monographs, consisting of many volumes, each devoted to the development of a single theme, by a specialist. Such a history would be complete and definitive. A number of histories of Ohio have been written. Taking into consideration the circumstances under which they were prepared, these are highly satisfactory, and the people of the state are under lasting obligations to their editors and authors. The first of these that presents a comprehensive view of Ohio was written and published by Caleb Atwater, the initial edition of which was published in 1833; the second edition brings down the record to 1838. It is a very creditable work, and one is impressed with its value when he considers the difficulties that must have beset the author in gathering his materials at this early date. In 1847 appeared the first edition of the Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe. Herodotus, as every school boy knows, is called the Father of History--the father of history down to his time, which was some 400 years before Christ. In a truer and better sense, Henry Howe was the father of the history of Ohio. Like Herodotus, he gathered his materials by travel, by contact with the places in which the history was made, and, as far as possible, by interviews with men who made the history. While Herodotus included in his narratives traditions and impossible stories that were related to him in an age when the oriental imagination had free rein, and the people with whom he came in contact had credulously absorbed the myths that had been handed down to them, Henry Howe with remarkably good judgment excluded from the materials that he gathered in every part of Ohio, traditions and reminiscences that bore their own refutation, and industriously collected manuscripts, early printed records and reliable personal statements of the men and women who were the builders of our state. In this work he made his successors for all time his debtors for basic sources of our history. The first edition of Howe's Collections, in a single volume, was followed by a number of editions bearing a later date but containing essentially the same material. The Centennial edition bears the copyright date of 1888. Forty years after his first survey of the state he again visited the different sections to gather materials for his final monumental work. In speaking of his second quest he said: "My tour had something of the character of an ovation. I was continually greeted with expressions of gratitude from men of mark for the good my book had done them in their young lives, in feeding the fires of patriotism, and in giving them an accurate knowledge of their noble state." He finished his tour in March, 1887, and worked industriously on the publication of the final edition of the Collections, which was published in three volumes, and later in two volumes. The state acquired by purchase the copyright from Mr. Howe, and many printings from the original plates have been made by authority of the general assembly. It |