Temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson meets John Calvin Van Pelt, the ex-saloon keeper who had previously been known as "the wickedest man in Ohio," on a cold, winter's morn in Hillsboro back in 1874.

Around noon on a sunny day in the year of our Lord 1874, bells were ringing in the town of New Vienna. Local saloon keeper John Calvin Van Pelt, who had earned the sobriquet of the “wickedest man in Ohio,” had announced to the New Vienna temperance crusaders that he had made a decision regarding his establishment, the Dead Fall Saloon, and would reveal his resolution that afternoon.

People closed up their places of business and rushed from all part of the town toward John Calvin Van Pelt's depot. An immense crowd of men and women assembled before the scene of so many prayers and songs. Each looked at the other, and wondered what was going to happen next.

Within a fortnight after the Temperance Crusade was inaugurated in Hillsboro, three or four of the leading counties in Southern Ohio were taken by storm. It was written that as fast as the news could be carried to neighboring towns, they caught the spirit and began the crusade of prayer and song. At one point, the “eyes of the whole country” began to be turned on New Vienna.

Among the leaders developed during the early days of the crusade was Mrs. Henry Foraker, one of whose sons, Joseph B. Foraker, afterward was governor of and senator from Ohio. Mrs. Foraker was a serious, almost solemn-looking woman and as quiet and home-loving a woman as ever knitted away a long winter evening by the fireside.

It was the winter of 1873-74, and the ladies had waged a war on alcohol in uptown Hillsboro. We talked earlier about how their mission was to “overcome and vanquish the liquor-sellers with love and kindness alone” and had targeted the establishment of William Henry Harrison Dunn, one of the booze sellers in town.