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Th» GruriBtStMia'fTkaradav, Noimbrr i*. I WOGranville as it was by Minnie Hite MoodyAuthor deserves a bookA young woman who lives in a distant Male, bui has Ohio connec tions, recently wrote me. asking questions about Mary Hartwell Catherwood. on some phase of whose work she is writing her doctoral dissertation.I feel that a book should be wnucn about Mrs. Catherwood indeed, a number of years ago two Granville women now passed away. Ruth Sharer Marlow (Mrs. Wayland Marlow) and her dear fnend. my mother, had planned such a work as a joint project, and had already begun it.But Mamma died in 1938, and although Mrs. Marlow was probably the last living person who knew more about Mrs. Catherwood than anyone else, somehow she never finished the book.Mary Hartwell was bom at Luray, Licking County. December 16.1847, and died at Chicago, December 26. 1902. Of her. critics have said that she was the first American novelist of any significance bom west of the Appala chians.Furthermore, she was the first woman writer of any prominence to acquire a college education, not from a school in the East, but from a new college sprung up in Ohio.That was the Granville Female College, which stood where the Granville Inn stands at present— indeed, the Inn’s annex. the stuccoed building at the rear (brick, in my childhood), erected in 1865, was bui It as a gymnasium and c lassroom auxiliary to the GFC. Mary Hartwell, while she attended Granville Female College, boarded and roomed across Broadway in the quaint cottage with gingerbread trimmings, now. I believe, 341 East Broadway. Her girlhood home was in Hebron, a town she deals with unpleasantly in some of her stones, such as Craquc-o-Doom.In contrast, she writes with af-lecuon of the Luray farming area, the pigeon swamps and Buckeye Lake, using a Granville setting for her novel “A Woman in Armor.’ and for her juveniles ’Rocky Fork,’ and “Bony and Ban.In addition to Mary HartwellCatherwood, Hebron, which may choose to call her one of its authors, but which she in her writings claimed as the scene of much childhood unpleasantness, has every nght to name David Tod Gi I liam. who was bom there in 1844. and grew up to be not only the author of many important medical hooks, but was for years Ohio's foremost gynecologistHe also devised the Gilliam operating table and many surgical instruments. At least one of his books was a novel, but the list of his works contains such volumes as The Pdckcthook of Medicine’ and 'Essentials of Pathology.Hebron also sometimes lays claim to George Amos Dorsey, author and anthropologist, whose books include the naughty novel. ’Young Love.’ published in 1917— innocent reading these days!—and ’Nature of Man,’ 1927; also ’The Evolution of Charles Darwin.’ published the same year. His best-known work, published in 1925, is Why We Behave Like Human Beings.’ Granville often is given as his birthplace, and his parents’ home, sull standing at the northeast comer of West Broadway and North Mulberry Street, often is pointed out as the place of his birth. Not so. however. I accosted him point-Mank on the subject.one time when he and I both were home to Granville on visits. He laughed, saying. I never deny it. That house is so much younger than I am. I feel younger every time some stranger tclh me I was bom in it. His funeral was held in its parlor, however, he died in New York City. March 29. 1931. aged 63. After graduating from Denison, and from Harvard, he became nationally known as a traveler, having visited every country in the world in hisstudy of anthropology. He is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery.One of my favorite Licking . County authors, and a favorite too of my daughters, who as little girls summering in Granville demanded to go to see her. is Mrs. Eleanor You mans of Pataskala, whose delightful Skiitcr-cat books provided names for many of our Georgia cats, and many happy hours for children from here to yonder.Pc haps her finest book—one which will ne* cr go out of style— is Mount Delightful.* the story of Ellen Evans, who was Mrs. Youmans* grandmother, who in 1832 came with her family from Carmarthenshire, South Wales, to the Welsh Hills, northeast of Granville.One author of whom I wish I knew more, was Oliver Coomer. who. as Oil Coomer, wrote dime novels. He was horn cast of Newark in 184$. and left that locality carl for the West, about which he wroic stones of the old-fashioned Wild West type, the plots of some of them purloined in later years lor the movies.He lived into fairly recent times—at least I recall reading his death announcement somewhere, the result of an automatic accident in Iowa, perhaps in the 1920s or •30s.
Newspaper Details
Granville Sentinel
Granville, Ohio, US
Thu, Nov 29, 1990
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Janet P.
NA, 06 Feb 2017
Other Publications Near Granville, Ohio
Granville Commencement Daily
Granville Licking Pioneers Minutes and Isaac Smucker Scrapbooks
Granville Times and Denisonian
Granville Denisonian
Granville Times
