Toledo, Portage, and the United States Express

Another article from Bend of the River. Original draft.


Toledo, Portage, and the United States Express

In the spring of 1863, a carpenter living south of Bowling Green in Portage, Ohio wrote a letter to a friend. E. P. Clough was a carpenter, and had just been mustered out of the 21st Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Writing to another soldier in the 21st, he began by mentioning his fiduciary condition:

I received yours of the 7th one week ago today in Camp Chase [Columbus, Oh.] and the next day we were Mustered for Pay and the same day we walked 8 Miles and then took the [railroad] Cars had no Dificulty atall [sic] in getting home but we had to Pay our own fare but we did Not Care for that we had 6 Months Pay in our Pockets there was hundreds of Men broke for home as soon as they got their [pay] in their pockets….

Clough continued his letter by saying that almost everyone arrived at home sick due to exposure.

Fast forward almost twenty years to downtown Toledo. A financial agent named John Fernvile was walking down St. Clair Street with $9.00 in cash and some legal papers related to Mr. Clough’s service in the Union Army. At 139 St. Clair, he stopped at the offices of the “United States Express Company.” The company sent a special envelope sealed with three wax seals to Clough, who still lived in Portage.

Clough presumably received the money safely, but in our day, when sending cash through the mail is risky at best, just what was the United States Express Company?
A diversified express service, United States Express also had branch offices at the old Union Depot and offices all over Ohio and the nation. Across the river in Perrysburg, one of the company’s “stamps” even survives, although this was more likely a receipt or postmark from the office of origin. In small towns and village train stations one could ship anything from a box of used clothes to a crate of new currency via the “States” express company.

“Express” companies might bring to mind UPS (United Parcel Service), Federal Express, Wells Fargo, or American Express. The last two named companies have a particularly long track record, having been founded before the Civil War. They delivered packages and other mail that was beyond the limits of the post office. Two negative facts about the pre-Civil War post office led to the express companies’ existence. One was that the federal mail service did not deliver “parcels” (packages, boxes, or envelopes over a certain weight) until 1913. The other negative was that there was no home delivery of mail until 1862 (in big cities) and 1896 (in small towns). These two desirable services led to the creation of private express companies that filled the gaps in federal service. And while the express companies have diversified into other financial services, delivering packages was the original raison d'être.

United States Express [I will abbreviate it as USE] was created in March of 1854 by Danforth N. Barney. Even from the beginning, the company was hopelessly entangled with other express companies. For example, the creation of USE was financed by a company which was theoretically a rival, American Express. USE eventually gained contracts from the infamous Erie Railroad, and “several [railroad] lines in the Midwest.”

Five companies, USE, American Express, Adams Express, Wells Fargo, and Southern Express, controlled 90% of the express business. The companies each had government and railroad contracts, and the five tried not to interfere with each others’ business. USE delivered mail, packages, currency, and other things. They shipped several whales from New York to Cincinnati, although there was a high mortality rate. In another shipment to Cincinnati, USE shipped fifteen wagons of zoo animals, including one hundred monkeys, twelve kangaroos, two each of lions, tigers, and hyenas, water buffaloes, and a twenty foot python. During the Civil War, the enormous increase in sending packages to soldiers from their homes made so much money for USE that they offered to ship to soldiers for half price.


The company was guided for many years by Thomas Platt. Platt was hired by USE in 1879. He won contracts from the government for the transportation of currency. He served as president of USE from 1897 to 1909, and at the same time was a United State Senator from New York. Platt was ruthless at capturing contracts but not good on day-to-day details. In 1901, Wells Fargo and Adams Express each bought 10% of USE. Men from each company obtained seats on the USE Board of Directors, and proceeded to “bleed” USE of railroad and treasury contracts.

In 1905, the federal government began to crack down on express companies and their shady, inbred dealings. When the attorney general of New York threatened to file an antitrust suit against Adams Express and American Express, those companies baled out of USE, selling their stock to E. H. Harriman, a railroad tycoon. The company dragged along for a few more years, largely ignoring the complaints of stockholders. When the Post Office finally offered parcel service in 1913, USE liquidated June 30, 1914 after suffering catastrophic loses. In a sign of just how big USE once was, American Express took over 2,400 USE offices.

We don’t know how E. P. Clough spent the money he received from the Toledo office of the United States Express. All we have left of the whole transaction is the envelope that brought his payment. But we can learn a bit more about how long distance payments were made in the heyday of the “States.”

[There is no history of the United States Express Company. Even this short essay had to be pieced together from mentions in other works. Two works were especially useful to me: Alvin Harlow, Old Waybills: The Romance of the Express Companies (New York, 1934), and Peter Z. Grossman, American Express: The Unofficial History… (New York, 1987). The information about E. P. Clough comes from the United States Census and from a letter preserved by the Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University.]

Perrysburg Mayor John C. Spink: A Good-Natured Man

Perrysburg Mayor John C. Spink: A Good-Natured Man by Alan Borer

It was just an old letter, and it did not seem to have anything to do with the Maumee Valley. It contained the usual enquiries about health, and mentioned a few local activities. The letter, written in 1844 by one Dorcas Carey to John Carey in Columbus, was mailed in the tiny village of Tymochtee, then in Crawford County. “Tymochtee” is a Wyandot Indian word meaning, "the creek or river round the plains.” Now unincorporated, Tymochtee had a post office until 1894, but has dwindled to a wide space in the road between Carey and Bucyrus.

Yet I was amazed to find a bit of Wood County news in this letter. In the letter, Mrs. Carey is relaying a request she had received in another letter:

“...we had recently received a letter from Lanogan (?) Hopkins of Perrysburg, soliciting the favor, for him to ask his Father to aid in the Election of John E Spink for President – Judge of that Circuit, he says that he has been informed, that you was in favor of Mr Coffinbury, but Mr Spink is every way better qualified for the Office than any other Man in the Circuit (so says he)”

It is unclear (to me, anyway) just who is asking who to curry favor with whom. The name of Lanogan Hopkins (if I am reading the letter aright) is unremarked in the records. But that of John Spink is locally famous. In 1844 he was running for the position of “president-judge,” of the Circuit Court (‘As courts were then organized, the Common Pleas had four judges-a president judge, and three associates, all appointed by the Legislature.”), but in 1833, John Spink was elected the first Mayor of Perrysburg. From 1833 to 1835, and again from 1846 to 1848, Spink served as Mayor of the town that still rivaled Toledo in presumptive stature.

Not much is readily at hand about John C. Spink (Mrs. Carey got the middle initial wrong in her letter) and his origins. He was born in 1803 or 04 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Like many pioneers, Spink moved west, living in Silver Creek, New York, and Wooster, Ohio, before settling in Perrysburg in 1829. At least two brothers followed him to Wood County: Shibnah, a merchant, and Buckley. Buckley Spink arrived in 1837, at which time his generous brothers gave him 160 acres of land they owned in Middleton Township.

Spink undertook a numerous and colorful variety of jobs in his life. A lawyer he certainly was, and his legal skills and reputation brought him work in private practice. His legal background also served him well as mayor and in other political roles, where Spink served as Wood County Auditor (1831), County Prosecutor (1839), and Ohio State Senator (1848). But Spink also opened an insurance agency in Perrysburg, and owned a tavern in Grand Rapids (the “Stone Tavern”). In 1836, Spink was among a number of investors who bought land and laid out the Maumee River town of Marengo. They hoped to co-opt the growth of Toledo as the first town downriver of the infamous Rock Bar, which prevented lake ships from reaching Maumee or Perrysburg. The Panic of 1837 ended hopes for, and the existence of, Marengo.

In her letter, Ms. Carey hints that John Spink (or his supporter) was not above a bit of puffery on his own behalf. And in fact, Spink was a fast-talking yet warm-hearted man and had a real sense of humor. He was not above shenanigans, and for contemporaries, the name of Spink and the memory of a good laugh, probably went hand in hand. Listen to Hezekiah Hosmer, a later mayor of Perrysburg, in recollections dated 1862:

“My partner, the late John C. Spink, was ... one of the most genial, kind-hearted gentlemen I ever knew..... He was fond of conviviality and mirth, and always contributed his share of humor to enliven the leisure hours of our varied circuit experience. We were sure of a jovial evening when Spink was with us. He was full of anecdote and fun, and possessed a fine vein of quaint humor, which was ever at his command, and made him a very enjoyable companion.” (p. 78)

The laughter of 170+ years ago can still be heard in this anecdote:

In the fall of 1834, Spink met Willard V. Way at the courthouse on Front Street (Perrysburg was still the county seat of Wood County at the time). Spink, who was riding a pony, suggested that they discuss some business at Sloane’s Tavern, on the opposite side of the street. Front Street was a “sea of mud,” so Spink jokingly offered Way a ride across the street on his pony. But when Way had hopped up on the pony, it began to kick and stagger: “The farther we progressed, the more frantic became the kicks of the pony, until we got nearly across the street, and where the mire was deepest, when Spink and myself were tossed over the animal’s head into a world of trouble. When we straightened up, we found ourselves completely mud-clad. Spink’s face was in a condition to destroy identification by his most intimate friends, and even his mouth was filled...” “Way,” Spink shouted, “if we have been wallowing in the mud like two silly boys, we have the proud satisfaction of knowing that we are the two first lawyers in the county.” Way ended by pointing out that they were the only two lawyers in Wood County at the time.

Spink’s sense of fun was also apparent in his participation in the Fort Meigs political rally in June of 1840. William Henry Harrison was running for President as the nominee of the Whig Party. During that tumultuous summer, his partisans held rallies, parties, barbecues, and bonfires, where they sang of “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” Harrison, who had been the general in charge of Fort Meigs in May of 1813 when the British attacked, returned to Fort Meigs in 1840 to make one of his windy campaign speeches.

During the night, some opposition Democrats had thrown a log, meant to build a log cabin for the Whigs, into the old fort’s well. The Whig partisans were outraged, and built a cabin anyway, out of logs sent by well-wishers. And who was on the committee that built this cabin? None other than John Spink. The rally on June 11, 1840 was a huge success, attracting 50,000 attendants and propelling Harrison to the White House (where he died after 30 days as President). Spink may have seen the irony in this in 1841, but probably enjoyed the festivities in 1840.

John Spink, mayor, lawyer, judge, and gadfly, died in Napoleon, Ohio while on a business trip in October of 1853. He was only 49, and is buried at Fort Meigs Cemetery in Perrysburg. There is no way to know for sure that we would have found Spink a humorous man. But his contemporaries thought him so, and they knew him best.

[The author would like to thank Richard Baranowski of the Way Public Library, Perrysburg, Ohio for information on John Spink. Other sources include Ardath Danford, The Perrysburg Story 1816-1966 (1966), and Commemorative Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio (1897).]

James Finley Visits the Maumee Country as a Missionary

James Finley was both a rough pioneer and a fervent missionary for the Methodist Church. He worked the rudest of farms in Highland County, Ohio, but also served eight times as a member of the Methodist Church’s General Conference. Like many pioneers, he lost everything by signing a note from which the borrower absconded. He drank, fought, and cursed as a young man. After a religious conversion in 1801, he preached, brought Methodism to the Wyandot Indians, and served for many years as the chaplain of the Ohio Penitentiary. His preaching was so fervent that he was nicknamed “Father” Finley. If ever there was a “before and after” case, Finley filled the bill.

Finley’s home ground was southern Ohio. He was born in 1781 on the North Carolina frontier. His father, also a preacher, moved the family to Virginia, Kentucky, and finally Ohio, where Robert Finley helped found the city of Chillicothe. The father hoped to educate his son as a doctor, but the young Finley would have none of it. “My recreations were with the gun in the woods....” he wrote later, and made wilderness hunting his chosen career. He married in 1801, and settled land in Highland County.

At first, the young couple had little to live on. As a hunter, Finley never starved, but an all-meat diet created a longing for cereals and vegetables. He built a bark cabin, slept in a pile of leaves, and worked for several years to convert his wilderness clearing into a farm. When the he made the aforementioned loan and lost everything, Finley started over.

He was a roistering frontiersman to be sure. He was called the “New Market Devil” for his willingness to throw a punch. But Finley was exposed to the preaching that swept through the Ohio Valley in the 1800s, and was converted to the Methodist Church. He became an itinerant preacher in 1809, and began a lifelong pursuit of converting both pioneers and Native Americans.

Finley spent many years working among the Methodist missions of Upper Sandusky. They Wyandot Reservation of Upper Sandusky was one of the last in Ohio before the Indians were forced to move west by the federal government. A mission church built by the Methodists at the time still stands in Upper Sandusky.

James Finley and some of his Wyandot coreligionists visited the Maumee Valley in search of converts in 1823. He recounted the story in his book Life Among the Indians (1857). His travels through the Black Swamp and north as far as Monroe, Michigan make interesting stories worth reading in Finley’s own words:

“At the conference held in Urbana, Ohio, September, 1823 I was reappointed to the superintendency [sic] of the Wyandott mission...At this conference I was instructed to extend my labors to the Ottawas and Chippewas, at Saginaw Bay...Having made arrangements for our journey to the north, we started December 10, 1823. Our company consisted of Mononcue, Squire Gray-Eyes, and Jonathan Pointer, for interpreter...After toiling hard, we reached the west branch of Portage river. The sun had sank behind a cloud. We stopped under the branches of a beech-tree, cut wood for the night, scraped away the snow, stretched our tents, and Mononcue soon prepared some supper by roasting our meat on a stick, and boiling some spice-wood twigs...The country through which we passed was flat and swampy land, interspersed with some of the finest sugar trees I have ever seen in the northern part of the state. Among these are many sugar camps, where the Indians make sugar and catch raccoons. This is their spring employment, from the first of February to the first of April. The men take several hundred raccoons in one of these hunts, and the women are employed making sugar.

On the morning of the 12th we set out at an early hour. Our path led through a part of the Black Swamp, lying between the west and north fork of Portage river. The swamp was almost impassable. As the ice was not strong enough to bear our horses, they were continually breaking through. One of our horses was twice mired. This swamp extended about eleven miles. We reached the north fork, where we entered the plains, which continued to the Maumee river.

These plains are, for the most part, thin land, and interspersed throughout with bogs, or low, wet places, and often covered with water for half a mile. Our traveling now being more pleasant, my friends conversed with me about the country, and I learned that this tract of land, lying between Portage river and the Maumee, which was all plains, interspersed with groves of timber, covered a large extent of country, and was used every fall for the ring hunt. This is made by setting fire to the leaves and grass in a circle of fifteen or twenty miles; and the fire drives all the game into a pound, where they are shot down in immense quantities. Sometimes as many as five hundred deer have been killed on one of these occasions. The raccoons climb the trees in the groves of timber, and are caught in great abundance....

This day was dark and cold. Sometimes the snow fell so fast that we could hardly discern the trace. Late in the evening we reached the lower rapids of the Maumee river, and forded it just above the principal rapid. The ford was seemingly dangerous, on account of the fissures in the rocks, some of which were deep and narrow. The swiftness of the stream was such, that it seemed almost impossible, should the horses stumble and fall, that we could escape drowning’ but we had no other way to get across, and, protected by a kind Providence, we passed in safety....” [Life Among the Indians, pp. 377, 380, 383-5.]

Finley’s trip north took him as far as the River Raisin and Detroit, before returning south to Urbana. He, like many other explorers, saw the Maumee valley with its river, swamps, and unpredictable native residents as an obstacle to further travel rather than a destination in its own right. James Finley died in 1861 and is buried at Eaton, Ohio. He had a goal of winning people to his own brand of Christianity. Whether the reader agrees with his beliefs or not, we can appreciate his leaving written accounts of a new world which is now our homeland.

[Besides the quoted material from Finley’s Life Among the Indians; the author also used Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (1888), pp. 456-62.]

The Diary of Frederick Riebel: Life At Otterbein College, 1865

[This piece was written based on many hours spent with the Hathaway-Riebel-Henry papers at the Archives of Otterbein College. It was submitted to the Otterbein alumni magazine Towers but never ran.]

The Diary of Frederick Riebel: Life At Otterbein, 1865
By Alan Borer

Like many figures from the past, our knowledge of Frederick Riebel (1842-1929, Class of 1870) might be limited to dates and achievements. He graduated from Otterbein in 1870, after attending sporadically over the span of at least five years. He did not attend in 1867-68 and 1868-69. He was licensed to preach in 1868, and ordained in 1871. He was active in the ministry until 1884, and was also a farmer and orchardist.

Yet Riebel did leave one personal item for us to look deeper into the man. He left a diary to record a small part of his life. The diary, which was recently donated to the Courtright Memorial Library by his descendants, covers only about three months of his time at Otterbein. Yet his is one of the oldest surviving student diaries, and the only male diary from the first twenty five years of the history of Otterbein.

We cannot presume that Frederick Riebel was a “typical” student. Typical students did not keep diaries. The very fact that he kept a diary suggests an introspective turn. Three topics predominate in Riebel’s diary entries: the Daily Routine of a college student, with its “recitations”, lectures, reading, and church attendance; Everyday Life, with its chores, socializing, and neighboring, which segues into a third topic, what I will call Riebel’s Inner Life or Psychology. Riebel, a ministerial student, constantly evaluated the depth of his faith and his commitment to his calling.

Modern college students might be taken aback at how much and how often their predecessor occupied his time with self-flagellation or viewed God as a stern judge quick to take offense. But that may be the most telling reason for re-examining Frederick Riebel’s diary: to show, or reinforce, the fact that “the past is a foreign country.” Our experience of Otterbein today and that of Riebel in the middle of the nineteenth century may have as common ground only the few acres of Westerville that both occupy.


Frederick Riebel: The Facts

Riebel was born on March 6, 1842 in Strasburg, France. In 1843, the Riebel family emigrated to the area around Erie, Pennsylvania, then to Canada. There he lived in Ontario, in a farming area located roughly halfway between Stratford and Kitchener. Riebel gave his hometown as Bright in 1867, and Plattsville in 1864-66, the two towns being neighboring communities. In 1859, Frederick Riebel underwent a religious experience which resulted in his conversion to Christianity. Sometime afterward, he felt the call to ministry, and prepared by attending schools in Michigan and Illinois. The first record of Riebel attending Otterbein is the 1864-65 school year. .

On June 27, 1867, Frederick Riebel married an Otterbein graduate named Mary Elizabeth Hathaway. “Lizzie” Hathaway was a native Ohioan, born October 6, 1842 in Shelby County, Perry Township. She was a granddaughter of David Henry (1770-1834), the first European to settle in the area. Lizzie taught school, and attended Ohio Wesleyan College before graduating from Otterbein in 1866, having attended the college’s “Academy” division. A devout United Brethren member, she taught Sunday School all her life and “expressed a desire to become a missionary had the church emphasized that when she was a child.” Her marriage to “Riebel,” her (presumably) good-natured way of referring to her husband, lasted sixty years.

After his marriage, Frederick Riebel left Otterbein for two years, which he spent in Illinois. He returned to Otterbein for his senior year. In the 1869-70 catalog, he listed his home as Rosewood, Illinois. In the 1880 Census he lived in Bureau County, Illinois with his wife, his mother-in-law, and four children all born in Illinois: Lavillia, 12; John D, 10; Wallin E., 3; and a four month old baby, Iva. Another child, named Otterbein, died in infancy. Sometime in the 1880s, Riebel’s health declined, and the family returned to a farm in Galloway, Ohio, in what is now the suburbs of Columbus. By 1900, Frederick and his family had retuned to his wife’s home in Perry Township, Shelby County. Riebel served on the Otterbein Executive Committee from 1903 to 1905, and several other church committees on publishing and education. Eventually, the Riebels made their home in Franklin County in Prairie Township, where they lived with their son John and his wife Helen. When Mary Hathaway Riebel died in 1928 at 85, Frederick Riebel survived her briefly. He died August 21, 1929 in New Plymouth, Idaho, while visiting his youngest daughter.

These are the bare outlines of the life of Frederick Riebel. It is obviously not complete. We also may wish to know what sort of husband and father he was, whether he was a good preacher, whether he lived with regrets. His wife noted in a letter that he suffered from ill health, but did not give specifics. It may no longer possible to retrieve that information. But Riebel’s diary does offer some of these more personal insights for a few dreary months around his 23rd birthday in 1865.

Daily Routine of an Otterbein College Student, 1865

Otterbein College (or University, as it was then called) was affiliated with the Evangelical United Brethren Church in the nineteenth century. Thus it is not surprising that as a student Frederick Riebel went to church frequently as part of his collegiate experience. On Sundays he often went to church in the morning and evening, making a note of sermon texts, such as the “ten virgins” [February 19] and “the night cometh when no man can work “[March 26]. Riebel rarely reported where he went to church, but often noted who preached. He attended many services during which the sermon was preached by “Brother” Weaver, probably Jut Weaver a 41-year-old United Brethren minister.

On weekdays, Riebel attended class, where he both wrote and read essays. On February 3, he read one of his own essays, titled “All is not gold that glittereth.” Riebel notes that after reading this essay aloud, it was roundly criticized, in part because Riebel used too much “slang.” Writing essays was interspersed with “lessons,” probably conventional lectures, and “recitations.” Recitations were presumably an oral exercise, perhaps of students reading material aloud on which a lecture had been previously given. In a day of fewer copies of fewer books, recitations were important for inculcating received knowledge.

An extracurricular activity still tied very much to the academic life was Riebel’s participation in Otterbein’s literary society, the Philomathean Society. Founded in 1853, the Philomathean maintained a library for student perusal. The society urged students to become literate, not merely in the sense of being able to complete lessons, but able to appreciate, enjoy, and share the material they read. Riebel, for example, attended “society” meetings frequently, and on the evening of February 10 made a presentation before the members of which only the title survives: “Summer.”

College life was both intense and arduous at midcentury. Riebel, who was classified as being in the “Junior Preparatory” program in 1865, had to take Latin, Greek, English, “Higher Arithmetic,” and “Classical Mythology.’ It is no wonder that he commented on February 23, “I am somewhat worn down with hard study.” Although a common student complaint through the ages, Riebel must be taken at his word.

Everyday Life

Although Riebel had some free time, much of it was relegated to the numerous chores that nineteenth century life demanded. For example, Riebel spent many hours sawing wood. On January 27th, he noted, “sawing college wood,” while on January 24th, he “sawed wood for Mr. Custer.” Riebel appears to have sawed wood for pay, as well as cutting wood at Otterbein’s behest. Many frontier colleges, including Otterbein, mandated a “manual labor” requirement for students, both to build moral character and to help students offset tuition. While there is no evidence of whether Riebel formally participated in the manual labor program, this diary entry suggests that he did work of some sort for the college.

A good chunk of Riebel’s “free” time was taken up with such things as mopping, cleaning, and such tasks as curtain-hanging. During at least some of this time at Otterbein, Riebel lived in the “chapel,” perhaps in rooms in the chapel building. In 1865 he complained that the “weather was dreary and my stove smoked all day.” Riebel does not appear to have done his own cooking. He took his meals at a common table, although on at least one occasion he does not seem to have enjoyed this: “The Ladies talked too much at every meal. It took all the strength of my nervous system to keep sober while eating.”

Riebel appears to have had an eye for the ladies. There is no evidence that he dated or “kept company” with any females during the period covered by the diary.
But Riebel carefully recorded any meetings with females, as when he “Talked with some Ladies about a sleigh ride” on January 23rd, “talked to a Lady at noon,” on the 24th, noticed that “The Ladies in the hall seem to enjoy each others society very much,” on the 30th, and that “The ladies in general were very genial at the table today” on February 20.

We can scarcely imagine how strictly the sexes were separated in Frederick Riebel’s time. We cannot infer with certainty that our young divinity student was starved for female companionship. But it is interesting how often and how specifically he mentions “Ladies” in a diary otherwise devoted to introspection.

The Inner Life of Frederick Riebel

On February 1, 1865, Riebel wrote, “I felt somewhat solemn and serious during the day.” Riebel speculated often and at length (as far as the diary format allowed him) about how important his faith was to him, and how that faith did not paint a very cheerful picture about the state of mankind and his own failings in the religious sphere. Following are a few of the basic themes of Riebel’s internal theology.

Like many evangelical believers then and now, Riebel believed that humanity was inherently sinful. On February 13, he wrote, “I felt very much cast down during the day on account of my sins and folly which lead me so often astray.” On March 3, his words were even more adamant: “My mind feels depressed because of so many besetting sins.” At other times, Riebel‘s thoughts, while following the same reasoning, were less emphatic, as on January 28: “Was somewhat perplexed with the cares of this life.”

But whether “depressed” or just “perplexed,” Riebel found considerable solace in his relationship with his God. At times he was very specific about this. On February 15, he wrote, “I am still reaching forth for higher attainment in the divine life. It is the earnest desire of my heart to be a better Christian.” The entire entry for March 17 speaks of his desire to stand aright before the deity: “Clouds of darkness still seem to cover my sky. But it is all on account of my sins and the wandering away from the God whom I wish to love and serve with all my heart in the present world.”

While Riebel believed in the loving God of the Christian tradition, he also had the evangelical fear of being judged harshly for a misstep. “The day was spent very pleasantly as far as it pertains to this life But my struggle for that higher life is hard and my way dark,” he wrote on April 7. Riebel blamed himself for his theologically sorry state: “my religion is still in low condition. But it is all my own fault. Had I lived nearer my Savior it would not be so” he mused on April 3. But while he worried about sin, a few rays of optimism came out on occasion, as on March 15: “It looks in these days as though all the powers of hell were surrounding me Everything looks dark and dreary as it were for time and eternity. My resolution to fight on just as strong as ever.”

Frederick Riebel was, perhaps, not a very cheerful man. Words like “solemn,” “perplexed,” “serious,” and “cast down” pepper his diary. And of course, we cannot judge Riebel on the flashes a four month old diary during the wet late winter of one year offer. Riebel lived 86 years. He may have cheered up as wife, children, and ministry came to him. These are but the impressions of one student at one time in Otterbein’s long history. Whether Riebel’s diary is a cautionary tale or not is up to the reader.

[Editorial Notes:
The diary of Frederick Riebel is part of the Hathaway-Riebel-Henry papers at the Otterbein Archives of Courtright Memorial Library. Despite his education, Riebel often used nonstandard spelling and punctuation. These have been corrected for the modern reader. The entries in the diary also suffer from the bleeding of the ink through the pages, making the diary increasingly difficult to read as one progresses through the entries. A typed transcript is available at the Archives. The data on Frederick Riebel was obtained through letters in the Hathaway collection, United States Census records, the Ohio Department of Vital Statistics, and the Minutes of the Executive Committee of Otterbein College.]

Is Snail Mail Stll Relevant?

As a stamp collector and an historian who enjoys reading old letters, I (like many others) mourn the death of written correspondence. That may be a ridiculous statement to be posted online, yet there is a enough romance in the written letter that I have to salute the letter even as it is (nearly) buried.

My reason for singing this dirge (and many have sung it better: Clifford Stoll, Nicholas Basbanes, Wendell Berry, and others) is to look at some of the assumptions of the those who take offense at the tattered remains of the United States Postal Service. I cannot remember the last time I paid a bill without seeing an advertisement printed on it somewhere implying that time, money, or the environment could be saved by using online bill paying instead of the old fashioned way of writing a check and dropping it in the mailbox (if you can find one).

The argument seems to be that since electronic debits via the internet, are done quickly and painlessly and automatically, that method is better thatn the drudgery of writing a check, putting it in a stamped envelope (at a pricey 44 cents). then using gasoline to both pick up and deliver the payment with all the pollution that implies. These arguments are persuasive up to a point, but I'd like to ask some questions:

1. Is the amount of energy used in keeping the nation's computers running greater than, equal to, or less than, the environmental cost of postal mail? Remember, computers use energy, too, and must run 24 hours a day in many cases.

2. Does the savings of using a stamp rather than an online transaction have values other than straight cost? For example, I pay my electric bill through automatic internet deduction, but I still receive a printed receipt by mail. This I can keep in my desk, and, if needed, refer to it later without firing up the gas-guzzling computer. It takes me about ten minutes to get the computer started up, logged in, and searched. Anyone who thinks they save time by leaving their computer on 24/7 is saving time at the cost of carbon emissions.

3. Since the mail will keep getting moved, at least until the Constitution is ammended, there is no real savings, at least in terms of energy used, for doing everything by email. I do not want to go back to the days of horseback mailmen and no home delivery, but it has worked in the past. And if we eliminated all home delivery and returned to the past, would that make sense if we all drove into the post office every day anyway? (This argument if full of holes, but I enjoy making it)

4. Part of the cost of any human system is infrastructure. Obviously the infrastructure of the USPS is large; I have no idea what the physical infrastructure of the WorldWideWeb is, but I cannot believe it is minor. If you chose a date in the computer age (let's say 1990), and compared the infrastructure expenses of the USPS and the WWW, what would the figures look like?

And as far as personal correspondence goes, two more:

5. Can a price be placed on the "value" of communication? I read once that if you want to write to your Congressman and your first decision is whether to email him or write a letter to him, the obvious choice is to write to him (or her). While it is true that sounding off on your favorite (most or least) government exenditure is certainly easier if a lobbying group sends you an email that you can "sign," a letter is a rarer, and thus more noticeable, communication. Whose communique will Senator Bedfellow be more likely to look at: the one that shows a million copies sent by pressing a button, or the one an individual cared about enough to craft and pay to have sent?

6. This last point may have more to do with personal preference than utility. Do we really want to live in a world where everything is so impersonal that the machines are doing it all? Maybe so; maybe I am in more of a minority than I realize when I sit down to write to distant friends. When I was a librarian, I used to see kids on the computer at "social networking" sites sending emails to total strangers. Nothing wrong with that, in theory, but all that most of them had to say to each other were "conversations" like this:

A: Whazzup
B: Whazzup

True story. Now I know full well what my detractors (do I have any?) will say that the average nineteenth century letter was just about the weather, sickness, and how the crops were doing. But there is a difference in quality, surely. Even a semiliterate farmhand or factory worker had to think about his message, and even if the letter was routine, it required several minutes or even hours of thinking. In the old model, correspondence was an intellectual exercise open to anyone liteate enough to write a few words. In the new, we seem almost to write without thinking. It's fast and easy, and being so fast and easy makes it kind of intellectually lazy.

Not every communication, of course. I send dozens of emails a week, and in the main find them an easy way of getting things done. But I would back away in horror from anyone who proposes the elimination of the Postal Service. Not yet, anyway.

What Does it mean to "Believe in God?"

What Does it mean to "Believe in God?"

I'm writing this on Christmas morning, 2009. I just read that someone jumped the rope at St. Peter's in Rome and knocked Pope Benedict down during Midnight Mass. No such high drama here. I went to Mass at St. Paul's in Westerville at the Christmas Vigil. Not the best sermon, not the best music - just little people trying to work out what it means to be a Catholic Christian in a secular, nonbelieving age.

I have been asked a few times over the years if I still "believe in God." I am sometimes tempted to answer by saying "define 'God.'" Do I believe in a superman in a nightshirt who answeres petitions? No. Do I believe in a cloudbound deity who smites? No. Do I believe in an extraordinary spirit who works through time and space? Getting closer, but I would still say no.

I cannot even define God myself. Certainly not a human being, but not a ghost. Could "God" be the sum total of all our works, aspirations, dreams? Could "God" be the reality of existence? Could "God" be our own understanding of what is good in the world/universe? Does "God" necessarily remain larger than all of physical creation - a billion-billion stars, galaxies? Is God "the eternal Now?" Is "God" actually very very small, like the whisper that the prophet Elijah heard after hearing thunder and earthquakes? Is "God" a kiss, an act of forgiveness, a pat on the back? Is "God" Presence (not "a presence;" there's an important distinction)?

I'll leave it to the theologians to figure out which one is correct (likely none of the above), and whether more than one is correct, and whether any or all are heresy. I guess one of the reasons I remain Catholic is that Catholics (at least officially) believe that God is a "Mystery." That may sound like a rhetorical cop-out (you should at least theoretically be able to solve a mystery). And it gets worse from there - if Jesus is the "Son of God," what does that mean? I get dizzy just trying to construct the questions, let alone answer them.

The most beautiful writing in the New Testament is John 1:1, where God is described as both "Word" and "Love." I accept that definition as both mysterious, powerfully moving, and poetic. The "powerfully moving" part may just be my cultural ethos speaking, yet "true." I think it was William James who wrote that mysticism can be both profoundly true for the individual, but not necessarily transferrable to another individual. I can certainly get behind the idea of God as Love, and that Jesus and his teachings on love of God (returning love to love) and love of neighbor (love to mankind), are a good standard on which to base a life. But for me, the big question is whether that love can be metophorical or not.

I told a friend once that I believed God is "real" in the same sense that good poetry is "true." Is a thing beautiful because it is true, or is it/can it be the other way around? Is a beautiful woman "real?" Is a Dutch landscape painting "true?" Is the Catholic conception of Jesus/Logos/Love beautiful because it is true, or true because it is beautiful? I don't know. When I say that my battered, troubled, imperfectly held faith is true, or recite the Credo witha straight face, it is partly because it is beautiful. Whether that's good enough, I don't know.

Once in a different life I volunteered at a soup kitchen run by the Catholics of Toledo. I planned it as a Lenten project and stayed for ten years. It was dirty, smelly, cold in winter, sweltering in summer, and full of revolting sights and sounds. But, "when charity and love prevail, there God is ever found." If charity equals love and love equals God, even in a metophorical way, I will continue to believe in the metaphor. Poetically speaking.

Global Warming the Old Fashioned Way

The Copenhagen Global Warming Conference is over, and while I haven't followed it as carefully as I should, its outcome does not appear to be the life preserver we badly need. Not all is hopeless though - Barack Obama sounds like a semi-hero in keeping the talks from going down to unambiguous, chaotic failure. His detractors need to keep in mind that Obama is a pragmatist; he may be an idealist in his heart, but as president, he almost of necessity is a pragmatist.

But the real point of this entry is to recollect a movie I remember from my youth: Soylent Green (1973). As a boy, I was always squeamish about scary movies. This movie, even with its only passable acting, and lack of modern special effects, left me absolutely horrified as a kid, and depresses me as an adult, because while not "coming true" in a conventional sense, its base message is still remarkably intact.

If you've never seen it, Soylent Green is a dystopian tale of an overpopulated and depleted Earth. Set in the year 2022, the horrifically overpopulated streets of New York (pop. 40,000,000+) team with homeless, hungry people. Crowds are controlled using power shovels. All food and water is rationed, and most people eat only little wafers made of, what turns out to be, dead bodies. No one in the movie knows this of course, the wafers being advertised as a plankton derivative. Fresh food is enormously scarce and tremendously expensive. The Soylent Corporation controls the food supply, and are secretly covering up the fact that "the oceans are dying," and that humanity will probably follow it.

The movie stars Charlton Heston at his wooden best (or worst), and in kind of a sad irony the great actor Edward G. Robinson. Soylent Green was his last film. and the character he plays dies in Soylent Green. There are many details that could be listed here: Robinson and Heston eating a meal of stolen fresh food, Heston working his way down a staircase crowded with homeless, Robinson choosing assisted suicide to the tune of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, the "furniture," who are live-in prostitutes; these motifs may be spooky or silly, depending on the viewer.

In the opening scene where Heston and Robinson are eating spoiled margarine, Robinson scomplains about the greenhouse effect, and Heston joins the plaintive refrain with a "so what else is new" take on the problem. I think that was the first time I had ever heard the term (I first saw this movie in about 1976).

As I write this, 2022 is only about twelve years away. And while the movie no longer scares me, global warming still does. I don't think Soylent Green was any more capable of predicting the future than any other piece of popular culture. But I think it does portray a fairly realistic guess at what the world will look like if we don't get a handle on global warming.

The picture at the start of this entry was one of the "outside" shots in the movie. I don't know the details, but apparently some of the film was shot (or retouched?) with a green filter. It does (at least to my eye) give the impression that the atmosphere is full of particulates or smog. Already we are breathing an air more full of carbon than anything our ancestors knew. But it doesn't really matter. Can a movie predict the future? Probably not, but this one shows a view "through a lens (or filter) darkly" of the dystopia we might create if we continue to ignore the warming of the planet.