Saltillo's Headless Angel of "Death"

Nestled in a peaceful pocket amidst the quiet hills and forgotten back roads of Ohio's Amish country lies a small, rural cemetery. The cemetery itself would seem unremarkable to most, except that it is home to what you could call a local legend. As you approach the cemetery, it comes into your field of vision atop a hill, alongside a country road that is mostly marked by Amish buggy tracks. The sign for Salem Cemetery is worn from years of Northeastern Ohio weather:

As your gaze meets the cemetery, most of the stones are small and humble, a hallmark of rural Holmes County cemeteries. Soon you will see a most out of place, prominent pillar, a memorial for the Conrad family, on which a ruined but glorious angel rests. The angel's head, wings, and hands have been smashed; she is zigzagged with green spray paint as well: 

A flurry of legends surround the angel, who is often referred to as "The Angel of Death". If one is brave enough to gaze upon her at the stroke of midnight, she is said to turn her head and look in the eyes of the unfortunate person who is fated to die next. After her head was broken off, the story evolved to say her head materialized to give you the stare of death. A full story can be read here:

The Angel of Death in The Daily Record

On my visit, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The wind whistling through the pine trees may have been a little eerie, but there was no angel flying to greet me on that gusting breeze! An addition has been made to the original marker to depict how the angel originally looked:

The whole cemetery is in sorry shape, with a large tree having toppled over most of it and been left to lie on broken tombstones:

Feel free to make your own visit to the cemetery and the angel of Saltillo, and make your own conclusions. 

A Tuesday which dawned like any other...

... however, March 1st, 1692, would see the beginning machinations of the Salem Witch Trials, a gruesome catalyst in early American history. The day began by examining Sarah Osborn, Tituba, and Sarah Good for supposed witch marks. These marks could be any sort of mole, birth mark, or other physical abnormality. Sarah Good's own husband, William, actually sought out Goody Hannah Ingersoll, who was performing the search for said witch marks, to tell her of a peculiar mole Sarah had near her right shoulder. How had Sarah come to being held as a witch and her fate being further sealed by her own husband?

Sarah Good began life as Sarah Solart on July 21st (July 11th, O.S.), 1653. Her father, John, was a relatively successful innkeeper. Upon his death in 1672, however, Sarah received no sort of inheritance from his estate. At this point, her fall into poverty slowly began. When Sarah married a laborer and former indentured servant named Daniel Poole, they accrued a great deal of debt due to, I would assume, Sarah having no inheritance to contribute to the marriage, and/or Daniel's lack of earning power (I do not know where their debts came from, as I could not find a solid answer in the texts I have seen). When Poole died in 1682, Sarah inherited his debts and her new husband, William Good, became responsible for them, as well. By 1692, the couple was homeless because creditors took what little they owned, including all their land, in order to pay back the debts they inherited from Poole. The people of Salem knew Good as a pushy beggar by the time accusations of witchcraft came about. Her social status sadly made her a likely target for blame when Abigail Williams and Betty Parris were asked to name who afflicted them in the middle of their screams and contortions. 

Sarah's fall into poverty, in a society which placed an unhealthy value on self penitence and hard work, was her biggest downfall. Being different from the majority of God fearing, strict, and unyielding Puritans was not easy, and Sarah Good paid with her life, and the life of her infant daughter, Mercy. Mercy was born while Good was in prison, and died shortly before her mother was hanged on July 29th, 1692 (July 19th, O.S.). Even Good's other child, four year-old Dorothy, was imprisoned on suspicion of witchcraft. Sarah maintained her innocence and that of her daughter until her end. We can only hope she found peace after the trauma and utter cruelty that brought about her demise. 

Collinwood School Fire

The shrill bell of a fire alarm and a practice evacuation can be an annoyance during the work or school day for many. However, these precautions save lives, and came about in large part due to the tragedy that was the Collinwood School Fire. 

March 4th, 1908, Ash Wednesday, started out like a normal school day for the teachers and students at Lakeview Elementary in Collinwood, which is now a part of Cleveland. Ruddy, smiling children were at their desks, ready to learn, not knowing what would happen next. Around 9:00 am, the building was engulfed in flames when an overheated steam pipe caught a wooden joist on fire (Or when an overheated boiler in the furnace room ignited loose timber... I have read different accounts of what sparked the blaze). Half of the children and teachers escaped, and the other half were trapped inside. Those who were trapped were unable to get out due to a fast spreading fire, large, wooden stairwells fueling the fire, and frightened children who blocked exits that were too small to begin with. Within a half an hour, fire had swept through the school and killed 172 students, teachers, and rescuers. By the time Collinwood's fire department arrived, the building was nothing but charred bricks. 

As the ruined building cooled, tender care was taken to remove the bodies of victims to makeshift morgues for identification. 19 of the teachers and children could not be identified, and their remains were buried under a memorial to all who perished at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland:

Depending on your perspective, the angel is either comforting the children as the fire approaches, or caring for the souls of the children who perished. 

After the disaster, fire codes in schools became top priority across the country. Warning systems, evacuation plans, clear exits, steel fire escapes and frames for buildings, etc., all became required in schools and other buildings. 

* * * 

One of the makeshift morgues

Burial of unidentified victims of the fire at Lakeview Cemetery

Footage taken of aftermath of fire and burial at Lakeview Cemetery

More information

Plain Dealer piece by Rachel Dissell

The Assassination of President Garfield

Most American schoolchildren can tell you all about the dastardly John Wilkes Booth and the fatal shot he inflicted upon President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater... but what do most Americans know about the assassination of President James Garfield? "Not much" is probably a pretty common answer, so I'll share some of the basic facts:

-President Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a delusional man who felt as though Garfield owed him an appointment to a consulship in Paris because of a speech he wrote in support of Garfield during the 1880 election (The speech was never actually given; Guiteau printed copies and handed them out). 

-Guiteau put off his shooting of President Garfield at least once because he did not want Mrs. Garfield to witness the shooting, which would further upset her after a recent bout with malaria. 

-The shooting took place on July 2nd, 1881, at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station (The National Gallery of Art stands here now) in Washington D.C. 

-In a heartbreaking turn of events, Secretary of War Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was at the station to see the President off. The shooting made him think of his father, and he is quoted as saying "How many hours of sorrow I have passed in this town".

-President Garfield was shot from behind at point blank range in the waiting room at the station. One bullet nicked his shoulder, and the other missed his spine and lodged behind his pancreas. 

-Although the shooting happened on July 2nd, the President did not pass away until September 19th. During that two and a half month period, the President was bedridden and suffered a great deal. An autopsy revealed that his body was filled with pus, thanks in part to doctors sticking their dirty fingers in his bullet wound; doctors weren't yet aware of the link between cleanliness and infection prevention. 

-The trial of Charles Guiteau was a complete spectacle. During the trial, Guiteau: Sang songs, recited poems, passed notes with people in the audience, posted an ad in the New York Herald looking for a wife, and tried to claim he wasn't responsible for the President's death because of the doctor's malpractice towards him. Nevertheless, Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882. 

-Garfield and his wife Lucretia rest in a crypt under the Garfield Memorial in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, OH. 

The Garfield Memorial

 Dedication plaque

Statue of President Garfield (Interior of the Memorial)

 Statue from the side

 Caskets of the President and his wife, Lucretia (The urns in the background contain the ashes of their daughter and son-in-law)

First White Child Born in Ohio - John Lewis Roth

The permanent presence of Europeans/whites in Ohio can be traced back to present day Tuscarawas County. On July 4th, 1773, John Lewis Roth's birth in the mission house at Gnadenhutten marked the first time a white child had been born in Ohio. His father was Johann Roth, and his mother was Maria Agnes Roth. Johann was a clergyman who served whites and natives in Ohio and Pennsylvania from roughly 1756 until his death in 1791. Maria served alongside him and gave birth to three or four children (I am confused as to how many children they had because they were all sons, and although they were all given a distinct middle name, they were all given the first name 'John'...). It's hard to imagine how perilous it must have been for a woman to live in relative wilderness while heavily pregnant, never knowing if her survival or that of her child was guaranteed. 

Plaque reads:

This tablet marks the birthplace of the

first white child born in the Moravian

mission house at Gnadenhutten

John Lewis Roth

Born July 4, 1773 - Died Sept. 25, 1842

Buried at Bath, PA

Erected by the Ohio Society Daughters of the American Colonists

1934

The reconstructed mission house in the background is the same location where, in 1782, native Christian converts would be massacred. It is hard to consider European/white colonization of the Americas as a triumph when their presence brought such great suffering to the natives they encountered. 

Mother and Father of John Lewis Roth on Find a Grave:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=80143011

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=80143083

Massacre at Gnadenhutten

Alas! alas! for treachery! the boasting white man came

With weapons of destruction - the sword of lurid flame;

And while the poor defenseless ones together bowed in prayer.

Unpitying they smote them all while kneeling meekly there.

The cry of slaughtered innocence went loudly up to heaven;

And can ye hope, ye murdering bands, ever to be forgiven?

We know not - yet we ween for you the latest lingering prayer

That trembled on your victims lips was, 'God, forgive and spare!'

Taken from a collected history of the Gnadenhutten Massacre, compiled by the Gnadenhutten Monument and Cemetery Association, founded on October 7th, 1843

Obelisk memorial erected on the 100th anniversary of the massacre 

The Gnadenhutten Massacre was one of the darkest days in Ohio's history. On March 8th, 1782, nearly 100 Delaware natives, who were Christian converts, were massacred by Pennsylvania militiamen. These men, women, and children had committed no crime; their only fault was to belong to the same tribe as other natives who had committed raids and murders against white settlers in Pennsylvania. 

The natives who were massacred had returned to their former village at Gnadenhutten (Meaning "Huts of Grace" in German) for food supplies. The Continental Army had forced the natives living at Gnadenhutten to relocate to the banks of the Sandusky River, for fear that they may conspire with the British. After the natives began to starve at their new settlement, they begged the Continental Army to allow them to return to Gnadenhutten to retrieve the corn crops they had been forced to leave in the fields months earlier when they were relocated. Natives were permitted to return to former settlements in Gnadenhutten, Salem, and Schoenbrunn, to collect food only. 

Raids had been perpetrated by other bands of Delaware natives in Pennsylvania during this time. These natives were aligned with the British, and committed horrible crimes towards innocent civilians. The Christian Delaware natives aligned themselves with peace, but supported the Continental Army. However, Pennsylvania militiamen who saw the deaths of their friends and family members were hungry for revenge, and their judgement was severely impacted by their grief (Afterwards, some of the militiamen regretted their involvement, as the slaying did nothing to ease the loss of their loved ones). 

The militiamen first came upon Gnadenhutten under the guise of peace. They pretended to offer the struggling natives protection, so as long as they surrendered their weapons and allowed the militiamen to take them to safety in Pennsylvania. The natives did not hesitate to give up their weapons and accept the protection of the militia, under Col. Williamson. What the natives did not know was that other lone natives in the town and surrounding area had already been murdered on sight, so they would not warn others of the militia's coming. As the natives left the fields they had been harvesting to re-enter the town, believing themselves to be rescued of the hunger and upheaval they had been through recently, they did not notice the disorder and blood spatter until it was too late. All of the natives were seized by the relatively few militiamen, who now had an advantage, having taken all of the weapons from the natives earlier. 

A reconstruction of the cooper's cabin, one of the "Slaughter Houses", on its original site

Cooper cabin marker

The militiamen voted in the night to kill all of the natives, rather than take them prisoner. The natives had been confined to separate cabins, one for men, the other for women and children. During the last night of their lives, the Christian natives prayed and sang, preparing themselves for death. 

On the morning of March 8th, 1782, their prayers were interrupted by militiamen asking them if they were ready to die. This was how the brutal events commenced. The natives were led in pairs to "Slaughter Houses", where they were bludgeoned and scalped in rapid succession. Two teenage boys were able to escape and hide under one of the killing cabins. It was through their survival that the events of this terrible day were made known to others. 

Rear view of memorial obelisk and reconstruction of the mission house, where it is believed that the bodies of the natives were burned

View of the obelisk memorial from the corner of the mission house

After the natives had all been killed, their bodies were thrown into the mission house, and the entire town was set ablaze. The bodies of the slain were left in the ruins of their village for nearly 20 years until friendly, loving souls laid them to rest in a burial mound in the village. 

Burial site of the slain Delaware natives 

Burial mound marker

Historical marker

A visit to Gnadenhutten is a humbling experience. I visited on a rainy day, with little sun and lots of chill in the air. Maybe the weather added to my mood, but the entire area filled me with a great deal of melancholy. Explaining the feeling is difficult, but walking around the cabins and burial area filled me with this unusual heavy feeling, and I was very aware of my surroundings and the state of mind of all of the parties involved, however odd that may sound. As I moved on to the adjoining cemetery, the feeling lifted. When I came back to the murder site, the feeling returned. It was not an overbearing or unpleasant feeling, but it made me appreciate the gravity of this event and the impact it had on history. 

Natives who lived in Ohio tortured white captives extensively after Gnadenhutten. Many years later, the great Tecumseh would even remember this event as a day when innocent natives begged for mercy and found none. Natives were wronged and pushed farther and farther from the life they knew, until they lost almost everything that had once been theirs; villages, farmland, hunting ground, culture, etc. 

If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. There is a small museum, but it was not open when I visited. 

The World of David Zeisberger

David Zeisberger is by no means a name many people recognize from their history books. Unfortunately, his important role in the founding of Ohio goes largely unnoticed. The late 18th century brought unjust bloodshed to the Native Americans who converted to Christianity and attempted to live peacefully in Ohio. Ohio was considered the frontier at this time, with land ideal for farming and natural resources in abundance. However, the peaceful Christian settlements, consisting of both Native American and European inhabitants, saw little peace or permanence. Zeisberger founded the first settlement in Ohio, and unfortunately had to see the great horrors that came upon the Native Americans he tried to help...

Zeisberger was born in Moravia (Which is now a part of the present day Czech Republic) on April 11th, 1721, and came to the British colonies in the 1730s. Moravian Christians began establishing settlements on the frontier in Pennsylvania, in order to preach to Native Americans in places untouched by Europeans. It was here that Zeisberger found his calling. Before coming to Ohio, he lived with Delaware, Mohawk, Iroquois, and other Native American groups in Pennsylvania. The rights of Native Americans were argued through Zeisberger's tongue, as he became fluent in the languages of different tribes.

Delaware natives and Moravian missionaries first came to Ohio in 1772, due to weakening relations with colonists in Pennsylvania. Colonists were beginning to assert their independence from Britain, and their were also asserting claims on lands that had belonged to tribes for generations. Pennsylvania was becoming more divided, as natives took sides, and it became a dangerous place to live, with frequent raids and conflict. The first Moravian/Delaware settlement in Ohio was Schoenbrunn, meaning 'beautiful spring' in German. Schoenbrunn was home to the first school and church in Ohio, and it began to thrive. At its most populous point, Schoenbrunn was home to nearly 400 men, women, and children. As the American Revolution began, and many Native Americans sided with the British, the soon-to-be Americans began to wonder if the Moravians were plotting against them in their settlement, alongside the Delaware natives they considered their neighbors. Zeisberger and his fellow missionaries and converts left Schoenbrunn in 1777, moving closer to present day Coshocton, in order to quell suspicion that they were conspiring with the British. The British arrested Zeisberger in 1782 at Fort Detroit in Michigan and held him for treason, since he often reported the movements of the British to colonial forces, It seemed that the strife in Pennsylvania had followed them to Ohio, and it was during this time that the Gnadenhutten Massacre occured.

Colonists grew even more suspicious of the Delaware natives Zeisberger converted and lived alongside. Delaware natives who did not live alongside Moravian missionaries often fought against the colonists, and too often there was no differentiation between the Christian natives and other Delaware groups. The Christian Delaware natives were accused of leading raids against settlers in Pennsylvania, which they vehemently denied. Pennsylvania militiamen, angry over the raid led by another group, wanted revenge. They voted to kill the Christian natives (It is rumored that a bloody dress was planted in one of the cabins of the Christian natives, so a guilty verdict could be jusified and achieved). The Delaware natives spent the night before their execution in prayer and sang hymns to soothe their children.

On March 8th, 1782, the Delaware natives were led to their deaths in present day Gnadenhutten. Two "killing cabins" had been set aside; one for men, and one for women and children. Death was brought to nearly 100 natives by means of blunt force trauma and scalping. After the murders, their corpses were piled in the cabins and set on fire. Relations between natives and Europeans was never the same, with much killing taking place on both sides.

After Zeisberger was released from British custody, he took many of his native converts to Michigan to start new settlements, since Ohio was now a place of massacre and fear. Ohio continued to call to Zeisberger, and he eventually came back and established a new mission near present day New Philadephia/Goshen Township. It was here that Zeisberger died, on November 17th, 1808. As he lay on his death bed, witnesses stated in their diaries that native converts sang hymns to Zeisberger, bringing him comfort in his final hours. He was laid to rest by European and native settlers who had a feast in his honor after his death.

The cemetery in which David Zeisberger was laid to rest is modest and peaceful. Delawares and Europeans rest side by side, and Zeisberger himself rests next to Chief Killbuck, who has a small town in Holmes County named after him.

Schoenbrunn Village is just a few miles away from the cemetery, as is Gnadenhutten. I encourage you to learn more about this incredibly interesting and perilous time in our history!

David Zeisberger:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13640377

Schoenbrunn Village:
http://www.ohiosfirstvillage.com/

Gnadenhutten Massacre:
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Gnadenhutten_Massacre?rec=499