Ghost Stories: The movement on the move
Lead Summary
By
Steve Roush-
Ladies and gentlemen, as we left the year of our Lord 1874 last week, former New Vienna saloon owner John Calvin Van Pelt was in Hillsboro meeting with local temperance crusaders like Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson and many others.
Van Pelt had been known as “the wickedest man in Ohio,” but much like Saul of Tarsus, took up the cause that he fought so long and became one of its most shining apostles. Turns out, he is about to join forces with one of the prominent temperance leaders – Dr. Dio Lewis.
We spoke briefly of Diocletian “Dio” Lewis back in early February. But for a bit more background, Lewis was born on a farm on March 3, 1823 in Auburn, N.Y., so he would have been 50 years old during the temperance crusade of 1873-74. Much earlier, when he was 12 years old, he left school to work in a cotton factory. Lewis later worked at a hoe, axe and scythe factory and went back to attending school.
At age 15, he started teaching school, and at 18, organized a school in Lower Sandusky, Ohio (now Fremont). He extended the curriculum to include algebra, geometry, Greek and Latin. This so impressed the townsfolk (it certainly impresses me) that they constructed a building for the school, and when a certificate of incorporation was obtained for it, they named the school the Diocletian Institute in his honor. However, severe illness obligated him to give up the school after a year, and he never went back.
Instead, he decided to get into medicine, and worked for three years in the office of the physician for the Auburn State Prison and also studied at the Harvard Medical School.
In 1852, Lewis gave up his medical practice and moved south after his wife, Helen, began showing signs of tuberculosis. Three of Helen’s sisters had died of the disease, and Dr. Lewis claimed to have used homeopathy to cure his wife’s tuberculosis. His so-called “Consumption Cure” became well-known and profitable. Helen worked with Lewis on his publications, writing her own column on dress reform and woman’s health. Dio Lewis lectured on health topics and temperance, and in the 1870s, Lewis and his mother began leading groups of followers into saloons to pray for their closure. He later lectured in churches claiming miraculous results from
conducting such “Visitation Bands.” Lewis’ actions and lectures inspired others to similar action, thus initiating the Women’s Crusade against alcohol.
Lewis gave a public address in Hillsboro on his 1873 fall tour through Ohio. As we detailed months ago, that began the well-known crusade that drove the booze sellers out of business, not only in Hillsboro, but all over the state.
During the crusade, Dio Lewis was described as “a fine specimen of the physical man, six feet in height, with a muscular development and freshness of appearance that was a walking argument in favor of his great theory – temperance. His mental faculties were also about as well developed as his physical. He had decided views of the whole question, and was never at a
loss for words or facts to sustain them.”
In Cincinnati, Lewis and a “temperance party” that included John Calvin Van Pelt and four members of the press, representing the Cincinnati dailies and the New York Tribune, started on its travels.
They were headed to Xenia, where a rousing meeting was to be held that same night. When the train reached Loveland, Dr. Lewis was handed a dispatch asking him to “step off at Morrow” and give the temperance workers “some advice and encouragement.”
Turns out, much of the advice and encouragement came from one John Calvin Van Pelt.
Let’s pause for now, and we’ll continue next week.
Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at roush_steve@msn.com.
Van Pelt had been known as “the wickedest man in Ohio,” but much like Saul of Tarsus, took up the cause that he fought so long and became one of its most shining apostles. Turns out, he is about to join forces with one of the prominent temperance leaders – Dr. Dio Lewis.
We spoke briefly of Diocletian “Dio” Lewis back in early February. But for a bit more background, Lewis was born on a farm on March 3, 1823 in Auburn, N.Y., so he would have been 50 years old during the temperance crusade of 1873-74. Much earlier, when he was 12 years old, he left school to work in a cotton factory. Lewis later worked at a hoe, axe and scythe factory and went back to attending school.
At age 15, he started teaching school, and at 18, organized a school in Lower Sandusky, Ohio (now Fremont). He extended the curriculum to include algebra, geometry, Greek and Latin. This so impressed the townsfolk (it certainly impresses me) that they constructed a building for the school, and when a certificate of incorporation was obtained for it, they named the school the Diocletian Institute in his honor. However, severe illness obligated him to give up the school after a year, and he never went back.
Instead, he decided to get into medicine, and worked for three years in the office of the physician for the Auburn State Prison and also studied at the Harvard Medical School.
In 1852, Lewis gave up his medical practice and moved south after his wife, Helen, began showing signs of tuberculosis. Three of Helen’s sisters had died of the disease, and Dr. Lewis claimed to have used homeopathy to cure his wife’s tuberculosis. His so-called “Consumption Cure” became well-known and profitable. Helen worked with Lewis on his publications, writing her own column on dress reform and woman’s health. Dio Lewis lectured on health topics and temperance, and in the 1870s, Lewis and his mother began leading groups of followers into saloons to pray for their closure. He later lectured in churches claiming miraculous results from
conducting such “Visitation Bands.” Lewis’ actions and lectures inspired others to similar action, thus initiating the Women’s Crusade against alcohol.
Lewis gave a public address in Hillsboro on his 1873 fall tour through Ohio. As we detailed months ago, that began the well-known crusade that drove the booze sellers out of business, not only in Hillsboro, but all over the state.
During the crusade, Dio Lewis was described as “a fine specimen of the physical man, six feet in height, with a muscular development and freshness of appearance that was a walking argument in favor of his great theory – temperance. His mental faculties were also about as well developed as his physical. He had decided views of the whole question, and was never at a
loss for words or facts to sustain them.”
In Cincinnati, Lewis and a “temperance party” that included John Calvin Van Pelt and four members of the press, representing the Cincinnati dailies and the New York Tribune, started on its travels.
They were headed to Xenia, where a rousing meeting was to be held that same night. When the train reached Loveland, Dr. Lewis was handed a dispatch asking him to “step off at Morrow” and give the temperance workers “some advice and encouragement.”
Turns out, much of the advice and encouragement came from one John Calvin Van Pelt.
Let’s pause for now, and we’ll continue next week.
Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at roush_steve@msn.com.