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Until the 1870s, the postmaster of any town could send and receive mail free of charge. Despite what we moderns see as seemingly endless changes in the mail rate, postage on the frontier was higher. When the first United States postage stamp was issued in 1847, it cost 5 cents to send a letter four hundred miles, ten cents if further. When you realize that the average worker earned less than a dollar a day, mail rates were comparatively high. Thus the postmaster’s franking privilege was a much sought after plum. Not so in the case of Orlando Evans. Evans was served postmaster of Defiance, Ohio, from March 18, 1842 until March 13, 1845, but got that job early. The lifetime of hard work in politics and other occupations came later, and ended in California!
Orlando Evans was a son of pioneer parents. His father, Pierce Evans, had been a soldier during the War of 1812. Posted to Fort Defiance, at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers, he noted how beautiful the surrounding country was. He returned to the Maumee Valley in 1822. He started a general store where the town of Defiance now stands. Doing well in business, he became an associate judge of the Common Pleas Court. Long lived, Pierce Evans died in 1862.
Pierce Evans’s oldest son was Orlando Evans, our postmaster. Orlando was born around 1820. The village of Defiance was then in Williams County; Defiance County would not be carved out until 1845. If the records are correct, Orlando Evans was a very young man as postmaster. He filled several other minor offices in Defiance County. Booted out of the postmastership when James K. Polk became President in 1845, his next position was as Clerk of Courts, which he held until 1852. He also served as Recorder, Trustee, “Director” of education, and Cemetery Trustee, several of which he held concurrently.
In the Census of 1850, Orlando Evans was listed as a “merchant,” living comfortably with his wife Louisa, daughter and two servants, one of whom was African-American. By 1860, he had vanished from Ohio, while his family lived on in Defiance. What happened? Although the details are sketchy, legend has it that Orlando Evans moved to California to join the Gold Rush. We do know that by 1870, Orlando and Louisa were living in Bridgeport Township, Nevada County, California and that his occupation was listed as “miner.”
In the end, we do not know what became of Orlando Evans. His name appears in California voter registration files until 1876. After that, the trail goes cold. He may have moved back to Ohio, or moved somewhere else in California. We cannot be sure given available records. One thing is sure: Orlando Evans lived through exciting times. Not bad for the young postmaster of Defiance.
John Amon’s Halloween Party
Halloween was not celebrated nationally until the early twentieth century. As it gained in popularity, the holiday moved from being an underground, back-alley, prank-filled occasion for mischief to a safe, well-supervised holiday that respectable children could enjoy. The change was such that even the “society” pages featured Halloween-themed news.
One example of the “better” sort of celebration was a Halloween party given by the family of John J. Amon (1863-1933) in Perrysburg on Monday evening, October 29, 1905. “The house was artistically decorated with Jack-o-lanterns and autumn foliage, plants and fruits.” The large group (24 children!) played games such as “feeding the ghost” and other holiday favorites followed by a four course supper. A “fortune cake” was presented for dessert. The partygoer who was served a slice containing a thimble was doomed never to marry. However, this was not taken very seriously. The guest who found the thimble was one Harry Fuller of Toledo. Fulton, the Perrysburg Journal pointed out, was a football player, and “not without feminine admirers.”
“At an early hour the guests dispersed all with the hope that again in the future they might be ‘counted in’ ‘At the Sign of the Black Cat.’” Whether the Amon house was actually decorated with a poster or sign of a black cat, or the family had a pet cat, is a little hard to tell from a hundred years later. Either is possible. or the phrase might have been the fantasy of a journalist.
John Amon, whose family hosted the party, could afford to do a party well. The son of immigrants from Bavaria, Amon conducted a hardware shop at 117 Louisiana Avenue, and was in business there from 1891 to 1926. Amon and his wife had a large family; eight children at the time of the Halloween party. Three of his daughters, Eva, Myra and Marie (ages 19, 15 and 13 respectively) were on the party guest list. Whether they had urged their father to throw the party or it was their father’s idea is unknown. The family lived on Front Street near Elm in Perrysburg.
The Amon family contributed much to Perrysburg. John Amon Sr (1823-1889) was one of a group of Bavarian Catholics from the same parish that migrated together and settled in and around northern Wood County in 1872. Not surprisingly, Amon Sr. was an active member of St. Rose parish in Perrysburg. He also held minor offices in Perrysburg Township. Whether the father built the stylish, narrow store at 117 Louisiana and passed it on to his son, or the son acquired it in another way is not known for certain, but the structure is still known as the Amon Building.
John Amon Jr. died in 1933. Two daughters at the Halloween party lived in Perrysburg all their lives. Myra became a teacher, and married a man named Frank Kaltenmark. In his old age, John Amon came to live with his daughter and son-in-law at their home on Louisiana Avenue. Marie Amon married John Hayes, an electrician. They lived on Front Street. Eva married an immigrant named Vetel Leterman, and disappeared from the record.
In a country made up of immigrants, identity mixes and thins out depending on who married who. John Amon Jr, a staunch German Catholic, saw one of his daughters marry a fellow German and one marry a man of Irish blood. Halloween has Scottish roots, but has come to be celebrated universally. Like many a family, the old stock has mixed with new, and melded a new reality - not unlike the holiday.
[Quotes are from Perrysburg Journal, November 3, 1905.]
