"Molly Pitcher" - A Poem by Katherine Brownlee Sherwood

Molly Pitcher

by Kate Brownlee Sherwood

 

'T was hurry and scurry at Monmouth town,
For Lee was beating a wild retreat;
The British were riding the Yankees down,
And panic was pressing on flying feet.

Galloping down like a hurricane
Washington rode with his sword swung high,
Mighty as he of the Trojan plain
Fired by a courage from the sky.

“Halt, and stand to your guns!” he cried.
And a bombardier made swift reply.
Wheeling his cannon into the tide,
He fell 'neath the shot of a foeman nigh.

Molly Pitcher sprang to his side,
Fired as she saw her husband do.
Telling the king in his stubborn pride
Women like men to their homes are true.

Washington rode from the bloody fray
Up to the gun that a woman manned.
“Molly Pitcher, you saved the day,”
He said, as he gave her a hero's hand.

He named her sergeant with manly praise,
While her war-brown face was wet with tears—
A woman has ever a woman's ways,
And the army was wild with cheers.

 

https://www.biography.com/military-figure/molly-pitcher -

Check this website for more information.

Isaac Ruth Sherwood and Katherine Brownlee Sherwood, Part 2

 

 

 The Sherwood family lived in Toledo most of their lives.  In 1880, when Isaac was a probate judge in Lucas County, they lived on Erie Street with their two children, James B. and Nora K. (Lenora), and a servant, Lucy Holden.  By 1900, they had moved to 2123 Ashland Avenue, Toledo, with a granddaughter, Katherine, 9, and a niece, Katherine, 20, who both attended school.

 In 1900, Kate Sherwood delivered the memorial address for Decoration Day in Defiance, and her daughter, Lenore, sang for the event.

 

 

 

In 1910, Isaac was a representative to the U.S. Congress at age 73.  Still residing on Ashland Avenue, Katherine, 65, had living with her: her niece, Katherine Duncan, 25, a public school teacher; Katherine Sherwood, a granddaughter; John and Lenore Pyle, daughter and son-in-law, and Helen Pyle, 20, a lodger.  Dr. John Pyle was a physician with his own surgical practice.  A servant, Ida Mahroan, helped keep the family going.

 Katherine Margaret Brownlee Sherwood was quite notable in her own right.  Born to Judge and Mrs. James Brownlee in Mahoning County on September 24, 1841, she was known as the "Poetess of the Congressional Circle."  Kate wrote popular, patriotic poetry, was a prominent suffragette, a newspaper correspondent and editor, and an organizer of the Women's Relief Corp for the GAR.

Katherine died on February 15, 1914, while in Washington, D.C.  Her obituary appeared in newspapers across the states.  The Washington D. C. Times ran this obituary on February 15, 1914:

 

Katherine was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Toledo; her husband continued to serve in Congress until 1921.  Much was made of Congressman Sherwood's 80th birthday with many national papers reporting on the event.  This article  (Toledo Bee origin) from the Xenia Daily Gazette appeared in the newspaper on August 14, 1918:

  "SHERWOOD IS EIGHTY YEARS OLD

 Veteran Congressman , Strong, Vigorous and Active

at Age Most Men Have Retired 

 General Issac R. Sherwood, veteran Congressman, celebrated his eightieth birthday anniversary, Friday, August 17.  The Toledo News Bee of that date has the following interesting story regarding him.

Isaac R. Sherwood, M. C., is 80 years old today, yet he is one of the most prominent and most active figures in the public eye in Ohio and in the United States.  Snow white hair are his hair, eyebrows, and stubby mustache.  But he carries his six feet straight as a young hickory, and his 220 pounds like a man of 45.  His eyes are as bright and as keen as a youth.

 

'My doctor examined me yesterday,' said General Sherwood in his home at 2122 Ashland Ave.  'He took my blood pressure and says it's that of a man of 45; says I'm in better physical shape than I was ten years ago.  I know he's right, too, for that is the way I feel.'

DEAFENED IN BATTLE

The Congressman's deafness,requiring an artificial eardrum, is no sign of age or infirmity.  That came from the concussion of a shell as he led his regiment into action in the Civil War. 

The General's career is brief: Orphan farmer's boy, struggling student, school teacher, printer, newspaper man, politician, soldier, horseman, statesman.  He has been a success in every line of work he has undertaken.

When he retired from active life more than thirty years ago, in his 50th year, he had made himself a school teacher, a lawyer and a newspaper man.  He had entered the army as a private and finished as a brigadier general, brevited by Lincoln for repeated distinguished service. He had served two terms as Secretary of the State of Ohio. He retired to his horses, his newspaper, his books.

A generation later, he came back.  In 1906 he led the Democrats in his congressional district, the Republican by over 18,000.  He secured 42 majority over his Republican opponent, Elmer G. McClelland of Wood County.

'My second time on earth,' says Congressman Sherwood.  He referred to his election to Congress as a Republican from this district in 1872, defeating the popular Frank Hurd.  

Isaac R. Sherwood is of English and Scotch descent.  His grandfather fought the English with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga.  His father fought them in 1812.

WANTED AN EDUCATION

Bereft of his father, he went to school in the winter, working the other months.  The system did not suit him.  He worked for two consecutive years as a farm hand, and then took his money for a continuous school course, choosing Horace Mann, then the first educator of the country, as his instructor.  

The youth attended the law school at Poland, Ohio, afterwards the Cleveland law school.  Having qualified as a lawyer, he went to setting type on the Mahoning County Register at Youngstown.

At the age of 22, he bought the Williams County Leader at Bryan.  Two years later he ran for probate judge and was elected.  The following year, he was elected Mayor.  Then Fort Sumter was fired upon.  James B. Steedman and E. P. Bassett of Toledo went to Bryan for volunteers.

The first volunteer in northwestern Ohio was Mayor Isaac R. Sherwood.  With him lined up, within 24 hours, 107 Williams County stalwarts who were formed into Company C, Fourteenth Ohio.

 

 Officers of the 111th O.V.I- Standing: B. S. Southworth and I. R. Sherwood.  Seated: J. W. Mock, Capt. W. M. Beals, George W. Berry and Jerry Bowlin

Mayor Sherwood served as a private for $11 a month until four months later when the regiment was disbanded.  Then he enlisted in the 111th Ohio and was elected Lieutenant.  Sherwood took part in the first battle of the war at Phillipi, West Virginia.  He was made Adjutant and the Major over the Captains at their own request.  Then through 42 battles, he rose to Lieutenant and Colonel. In December 1864, he was recommended by every officer of the brigade, with the approval of Major General Schofield, and was brevetted a brigadier general. 

LEADS THREE PARTIES

The general, then 30 years of age, refusing from President Grant the appointment of Secretary of New Mexico, returned to newspaper work, but public service sought him, and he was elected, as a Republican, Secretary of State in 1868 and again in 1870.  Then in 1872, the Toledo district sent him to Congress.  He was elected Probate Judge of this county in 1878 on the National Greenback party, and in 1881 as a Democrat.

He retired from politics until called on to lead the desperate Democrat campaign in this district in 1906.  He defeated James H. Southard for Congress in 1908 by 2,100; his fellow veteran J. Kent Hamilton in 1910 by a still large majority; 'the young man candidate,' Holland Webster, in 1912, by over 9,000; and William Cordell by over 13,000.  He never knew defeat at the polls.

FOUNDED NEWSPAPER

In addition to his newspaper career at Bryan, he owned and edited the Canton News-Democrat, weeklies at Wauseon and Bryan, helped to found the Toledo Commercial, owned and edited the Toledo Sunday Journal, and owned the American Sportsman, Cleveland.  For a time, he wrote editorials for the Cleveland Leader.

'A master politician,' they say of Sherwood.  No opponent has been shrewd enough to trap him.  He makes no unnecessary declarations, seeks no troubles.  But he is prompt and fearless to go on record on real issues.  He asks no handicap for his years, his soldier record, or public service.

FINANCED OWN FIGHTS

And one of the most political sayings is, 'I never allowed any men to contribute a dollar to me for my campaigns.' 

 A few months ago, his wife, one of the brightest and best-beloved women in Toledo, Kate Brownlee Sherwood, died.  His daughter now makes his home for him.

In Washington, Congressman Sherwood is regarded as a phenomenon. The oldest man, in years, in Congress, he is the only representative who drives a team. He drives the fastest team in Washington and makes it a point to drive a new pair every year.

On both sides of the Capitol building, they do honor to the general.  The house fills when he speaks.  His memorial address to the Confederate veteran, George Washington Gordon, is one of the traditions of congressional oratory.  He is chairman of the Houses' busiest committees, pensions, and has done more for the welfare of the old soldier comrades than any other man in or out of Congress.

CHATAUQUA? TOO BUSY

The general has been solicited repeatedly for the Chatauqua courses, but 'I am too busy just now,' the veteran says. 'Sometime later, maybe.'

'I think my father remains young, said Mrs. Leonore Sherwood, 'because of his sense of humor and because he has never lost his interest in affairs of all kinds.'

And of this, he is privately very proud - he has owned more fast horses than any man in Ohio.  

And, at 80, unbent, unshaken, unafraid, he is looking forward, unruffled, to further years of useful and happy life."

When he was 88 years old, he wrote a book, Memories of the War, which he self-published.  At the end, he lived in the Scottwood Apartments in Toledo with his daughter.  A fire broke out in the apartment house in the spring of 1925, and since that time, General Sherwood's health deteriorated due to the smoke inhalation.  He kept on until October, 1925, when he died of pernicious anemia.

His funeral was held at the Collingwood Presbyterian Church in Toledo.  "The funeral will have a military aspect, the thinning ranks of the General's war buddies and veterans of the Spanish American war and World War being in the funeral cortege.  The eleven surviving members of the 111th Regiment led by Sherwood during the Civil War will have places of honor in the funeral train." (Defiance Crescent-News, October 16, 1925)

The last time he was elected was in 1922 at the age of 87.

Burial in Woodlawn Cemetery, Toledo, Ohio

 

Isaac Ruth Sherwood - Namesake of Sherwood, Ohio - Part 1

When Johnson Miller from Snooksville wrote

to his state representative in 1873, regarding a petition for a new post office, it was approved by Representative General Isaac R. Sherwood.  Miller suggested in his letter that the new post office be named after Sherwood, and so it was.

As time went on, Isaac R. Sherwood distinguished himself in many areas of government and journalism, giving pride to the little village of Sherwood, Ohio, of Defiance County.

Of English and Scotch descent, Isaac Ruth Sherwood was born on August 13, 1835, in Stanford, New York.  In the 1850 census, he was enumerated with his mother, Mariah, 45, a widow, who had real estate valued at $10,000.  He had two older siblings, James, then 22, and Jane, 19.  With them, lived Peter Yeoman,79, a carpenter.  Mariah's maiden name was Yeoman, and so it might be assumed that this was either her father or some other relation.

Isaac eventually moved to Ohio, where he attended college at Antioch College, and studied law at the Ohio Law College in Cleveland, Ohio.  He began a career in journalism as editor of the Williams County Gazette in 1858.  In October 1860, he dove into politics, winning the election for Probate Court Judge in Williams County, Ohio.  (In all his political endeavours, he never lost an election!)

On March 21, 1859, he married Katherine Margaret Brownlee, known as "Kate."

The Soldier

In April, 1861, President Lincoln put out the call for 75,000 volunteers for the Union.  The patriotic Sherwood resigned his position as Probate Judge and enlisted in the 14th Regiment in Toledo, Ohio, on April 25, 1861, for a three month period.

He was promoted to a full Private on August 13, 1861. 

Sherwood mustered out of the 14th on August 13, 1861, and reenlisted in the 111th Ohio Infantry, Company S.  He was highly regarded and was promoted many times. On September 6, 1862, he was named First Lieutenant and Adjutant.  By February , 1863, he was a Major and in January, 1864, a Lieutenant Colonel.  By September, 1864, he was promoted to Major and in October, 1865, he was given the honorary promotion to Brigadier General.

The Defiance Democrat published a speech by Sherwood on March 7, 1895 on the occasion of the 30th reunion of the soldiers.

Nason Marcus wrote this in his Glenburg news column:

"I picked up recently a copy of the history of the 111th O.V.I., by Captain W. S. Thurston.  It was just out last fall and is interesting reading.  The regiment was out three years, mustered with 1000 men; mustered out 432 men.  The youngest man in the regiment was but 17 years.  Oldest man, 51 years.  Regiment was in eleven different states, and engaged in 26 battles and 2 sieges.  The siege at Knoxville lasted from Nov. 17 to Dec. 24; the other from July 28 to Sept. 2.

One of the 'boys in blue' handed me a leaflet containing the parting address of Isaac R. Sherwood, lieutenant-colonel brevet brigadier general.  He was the only regimental officer that went out and returned with his regiment.  He is yet living and is editor of the Canton News-Democrat.  His address is:

'Soldiers of the 111th Ohio, we are about to separate as soldiers and go to our homes as citizens.  Before we part, allow me to thank you for the generous courtesy you have always shown me as your commanding officer.  The work which we enlisted to perform has been well done, and you go to your homes with the proud assurance of having participated in the most decisive battles of the war.

For your heroic conduct at Franklin, you were complimented in 'General Orders' and on twenty battle fields, you have carried the tattered flag of the 111th Ohio in the front lines and sustained it triumphantly.

I do not part with men with whom I have been so intimately associated for three long years, without feelings of regret.  These soldier friendships, formed in bivouac and on the battlefield will never be forgotten; and I shall ever remember your unswerving fidelity with the liveliest emotions of pleasure  You go to your homes as American citizens, knowing what it has cost to maintain our national integrity.  Show by upright, honorable lives, my fellow soldiers, that you fully appreciate those sacrifices.

Remember our brave comrades who fell at Stone River, Huff's Ferry, Londen Creek, Campbell's Station, Knoxville, Strawberry Plains, Rocky FAce, Resaca, Dallas, Burnt Hickory, Pine Mountains, Kenesaw, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Utoy's Creek, Lovejoy's Station, Columbia, Franklin, Nashville and Fort Anderson.  Many of them are lying in unknown graves.  Let us ever cherish their memory with reverence.  Let us show by our lives that we fully appreciate those noble sacrifices of our brave comrades and extend our sympathies and charity to the soldiers' widows and the dead soldiers' friends.

Brave Comrades, farewell; may Almighty God bless you; and may a grateful people reward you for your many and daring sacrifices for country, liberty and peace."

The Father

When Isaac came home in 1865, he would have found his wife, Katherine at home with two little children who had been born within the duration of the war.  (Katie's father was Judge James Brownlee (1800-1879), of Mahoning County.)   In 1860, Isaac, 24, and Catherine, 18, lived in Bryan, Williams County, with Maria Sherwood, 23, and James Turner, 16, Jr. Printer, born in England.  Who was Maria Sherwood - both she and Isaac reported personal wealth of $2000.  Was this an inheritance?  Was this Isaac's mother with a mistake on the age? No sister of that name was found on the census, so further investigation would be needed.

In 1868, Isaac Sherwood was elected Ohio Secretary of State and he gave that as his occupation in the 1870 census of Bryan, Ohio.  He had real estate worth $5,000 and a personal estate of $2,000.  Kate, 37, kept house and cared for James B., 8, and Irena (sic Lorena) 7, while William Fiddler, 17, was there as a laborer.

 

                  To be continued...

Old Photographs of Sherwood by John L. Miller

 

Meetings Cancelled for 2020

  

 

 

The Executive Board of the Defiance County Genealogical Society met in July and decided to cancel all general meetings for the rest of 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  In January, the board will meet again and assess the situation.

Because of this lack of meetings, it was decided to extend the memberships of all who joined in 2020 through 2021.  If you were a member in 2020, you will be a member next year, too.  If you would like to join, please find our membership application at this web address: http://defiancecountygenealogy.org/join.html

Frank L. Forlow's Raw Deal - Part 1

Frank Forlow began his law practice in Defiance, after graduation from the law school at Ohio Northern University. Then he was charged with embezzlement and forgery, and although acquitted, he had a reputation to restore.  Unfortunately, a disgruntled acquaintance sought to slander him more in the Cincinnati Enquirer, causing quite a scandal concerning an illegitimate child.  Could he fight these claims and restore his practice and esteem in the community?


The following article appeared in the Huntington Democrat, Huntington, Indiana on Thursday, June 8, 1893 on page one:

"A RAW DEAL

IS GIVEN ATTORNEY FRANK FORLOW BY THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER

A SENSATIONAL ARTICLE PUBLISHED WHICH MR. FORLOW DENIES.

The following telegram from Defiance, Ohio, was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer Tuesday.  It says:

'Defiance, O.  June 2. Hicksville society is much wrought up by tonight over the separation of Mr. Forlow and his wife.  Mr. Forlow, it will be remembered, is the man who a year ago was arrested and stood indicted on eleven counts for forgery and embezzlement.  He was for several months confined to the county jail, after which he stood trial on one of these counts, but the accusers failed to connect him.  During all these trying times, his young wife stood nobly by him, and did all in her power to bring about her husband's acquittal.

Having won in the first suit, the other cases against young Forlow were all nollied in court last week, and he was again a free man.  Forlow raked together some money after this and went to Indiana to look up a location to again renew the practice of law, finally deciding upon Huntington as the field of operation.  He had secured what seemed to be a good opening there and expected to return home and removed there in about a week.

 But on arriving at Hicksville, he found his wife ill and ease and unwilling to receive him.  In his absence in Indiana, she had made the astounding discovery that her husband was the father of an illegitimate child now one year old, its mother being Miss Ella Wolfrum, formerly private secretary to Mr. Forlow in his law office.  The mother told Mrs. Forlow that her child belonged to Mr. Forlow and that he would be compelled to make good the damage she had sustained.  This was too much for the brave little woman.  She broke completely down and wept bitterly.  Mrs. Forlow is the only daughter of a prominent and wealthy lawyer and judge of Jopland (Joplin), Missouri.  She separated her effects from his, and when Mr. Forlow arrived, she told him that she would ship his goods to Huntington and hers to Jopland.

Forlow confessed all to his wife and begged her to accompany him to Huntington.  This she refused, saying that she could not spender her money to pay for an illegitimate child.  Forlow told her he could not in the bottom of his heart, blame her, and finding no way of reconciling her, he left last night for parts unknown.  It is likely that Miss Wolfrum will attempt a restitution.  Mrs. Forlow, the noble. but now broken-hearted wife, left tonight on the Wabash for her father's home in Missouri.'

And so ended the report of the Cincinnati Enquirer, all based on purposeful lies, according to Frank Forlow.  Someone wanted to discredit him, and he knew who it was.  The Huntington newspaper article continued...

"The article was shown to Mr. Forlow by a Democrat man Tuesday.  He said, 'There is nothing to that story.  I am perfectly able to clear myself of everything and will do so.  My wife has not left me. She has only gone to Joplin, Missourie, to remain until I get settled here and as soon as that is done, she will return here.  She has not been home for three years.  She went to Joplin today and I came as far as Huntington with her.  I will give the Democrat a complete statement in a day or two that will tell my side of the case.'

SAYS HE WILL RETURN

The approach of the Cincinnati Enquirer in this city Tuesday containing the sensational article concerning Frank L. Forlow, the young attorney from Hicksville, Ohio, who proposed to locate here, created quite a surprise.  Mr. Forlow was shown the article and advised the Democrat to print it, saying he had nothing to conceal.  

He was asked in regard to the charges in the article and said:

'It is a fact that I was arrested, charged in embezzlement and forgery on several counts.  It is also a fact that I was tried on both charges and acquitted in the common pleas court of Defiance County, Ohio.  I was, for a short time, confined in the county jail on the above charges.

I was in Muncie, Marion, Bluffton, and Huntington last week, looking up a location and decided on Huntington.  

Ever since my trouble above referred, my wife and I have been boarding at the Swilley Home in Hicksille, Ohio.  Our goods have been packed for more than a year - whatever was not sold two years ago. My wie had arranged to go home for the summer two months ago and only waited until I had a place to locate before going.

I arrived home from Huntington last Saturday and found my wife at the Swilley House and made known to her my plan.  Monday morning I hired a dray and took part of our goods to Antwerp, leaving part in Hicksville, and shipped them to Huntington, except trunks, etc. my wife took with her.

My wife accompanied my as far as Huntington and I purchased her ticket for Joplin, Missouri.  In Fort Wayne, we stopped off there between trains.  My wife and I have had no trouble over any woman on earth.'

Who is this Miss Wohlford (Wolfrum) mentioned, Mr. Forlow, was asked.

Miss Wohlford was at one time a clerk in the office of which I was a member of the firm, but left and went to Toledo about three ears ago and for the past year has been in Cleveland, O.  My wife, I know, has not seen Miss Wohford for three years past and I have not seen her for more than two years.  I am not the father of any child either legitimate or otherwise.  We have never had any children.  I have been married for 7 1/2 years. My wife and I have lived pleasantly together during all those years and our relations are now what they have always been.  It is absolutely false that our effects were divided in any way.'

'Do you know the Enquirer correspondent at Defiance?'

'I know him and know that he entertains no feelings of friendship for me and he owes me $40 for which I have his note, being past due.'

'Can you give your references from Defiance?'

'I refer anyone desirous of learning the truth of this whole matter to any resident of Defiance society where I am well known and have lived all my life.'

Mr. Forlow said that Rev. Miller, the M.E. minister of Defiance, was on the same rain as he and his wife came west on and knew him very well.  

Mr. Forlow was then asked what he was going to do.  He said: 'In locating here now, I should be placed at a great disadvantage by the publication of this story which has appeared in the Enquirer.  I have just been to the Wabash freight office and had my goods rebilled to Joplin, Missouri, where my wife will refute these slanderous charges against me, as she is well known there.  Her father is a large manufacturer of mining machinery, not a judge as the Enquirer correspondent says.  I like Huntington, and would liked to have located here now, had not the disadvantage arisen that I speak of.

1908 Joplin, MO

 Mr. J. G. Parrot, the well known machine man, who was formerly of Defiance, O., came into the Democrat office at this time with a copy of the Enquirer at hand and seemed very angry over the appearance of the article. 'Stay here, Frank,' he said, and we will prove these charges false.'

Mr. Parrot said 'Frank has an uncle who is very jealous of the boy.  His grandfather left Frank quite a good deal of money and this uncle has tried to put him on the wall.  In this way, these charges of forgery were brought.  I don't think there is a word of truth in that woman story.  A. Schrack, the Enquirer correspondent at Defiance, O., is the editor of a one horse paper at Defiance called the Crescent.  He has been trying to down the Defiance Democrat and regular Democratic organizations.  I don't think Schrack is worthy of belief in this matter.  I think the Enquirer has done the young wife a great injustice.'

Mr. Forlow left on the 9:00 train for Joplin, Missouri, to which place his goods had been rebilled.  In leaving, he said that after remaining at Joplin, perhaps a month or so, he expected his return to Huntington with his wife and locate here in the practice of law."

to be continued...