Category: Civil War Akron (1861-1865)

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Lucy A. Morse Tibbals, 1835-1894

On that day in October 1894 when Lucy A. Morse Tibbals was buried, all of Akron society – male and female – seemed to be crowded into the First Methodist Church to say goodbye to a friend and community leader.

Lucy A. Morse was born in Randolph, a small town in Portage County, Ohio, on July 9, 1835. She came to Akron in 1852 with her parents Huron and Althea. On Oct. 26, 1856, she married Newell D. Tibbals, an ambitious attorney who had just come to Akron the year before. Her husband had an eye on a political career. A Republican, he was elected the city’s prosecuting attorney in 1860, the city’s first city solicitor in 1865 and state senator in 1866. In 1875, he was elected judge of the Common Pleas Court. During the Civil War, he was a sergeant in the Ohio voluntary infantry.

Back in Akron, his wife performing her own war duty. She was an active member of the Akron Soldiers Aid Society. Affiliated with Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission, the Akron society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to the hospitalized wounded and sick soldiers. These women spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods for the Army in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded and sick soldiers. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners. Virtually every month, the Summit Beacon reported the contributions that Tibbals and the other Akron women made to the war effort through the Soldiers Aid Society. According to the Portrait and Biographical Record of Portage and Summit Counties, Ohio(1898), Tibbals “made a host of friends during the war.”

After the war, she gave up neither her friends nor her community activities. She was one of the organizers of the Dorcas society, out of which the Akron board of charities grew. She even served as superintendent of the industrial branch of that board.

Both she and her husband were active in the Buckley Post of the Grand Army of the Republic: she as a trustee of the Woman’s Relief Corps and he as commander of the Post. The Woman’s Relief Corps provided support for the Civil War veterans and their families.

Tibbals also got involved in the Ladies’ Cemetery Association, serving as president for one term. She also helped establish the Summit County Children’s Home. A member of the First Methodist Church, she remained active in its Woman’s Missionary Society.

When her death was announced at the Akron court house, Judge A.C. Voris called a meeting of the bar and its members unanimously approved a resolution to attend her funeral. The funeral must have been crowded. Not only did the attorneys in the city attend, so did the Buckley Post of the GAR and the Woman’s Relief Corps.

–Kathleen L. Endres

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Pamphila Stanton Wolcott, 1827-1899

Pamphila Stanton Wilcott was a woman who had always been defined in terms of her male relatives. She was the daughter of a prominent Steubenville, Ohio, physician. She was the sister of Edwin Stanton, secretary of War during the Civil War. She was the wife of a brilliant Akron attorney, who became assistant secretary of War. But Pamphila Stanton Wolcott deserves some credit of her own. She has been generally credited with organizing the Akron Soldiers Aid Society during the Civil War.

Pamphila Stanton was born in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1827; she was the daughter of David Stanton, a physician, and Lucy Norman. She was bright young woman but always stood in the shadow of her older brother Edwin. It was through her brother, then a successful attorney, that she met her future husband Christopher Parsons Wolcott. Young Wolcott was studying law with Edwin Stanton and his partner. In 1844, Pamphila Stanton and Christopher Wolcott married and moved to Akron.

Christopher Wolcott was a man on the make. He was a brilliant attorney and soon became the senior partner in the prosperous Akron law firm of Wolcott & Upson. But he would soon make his mark in politics. Governor Chase appointed Wolcott as the state’s Attorney General. In 1861, he was appointed Judge Advocate General. By 1862, he was working in Washington, D.C. with his brother in law and mentor Edwin Stanton at the War Department. Wolcott was assistant secretary of War. Wolcott was also a workaholic. His long days — the Summit Beacon reported that he worked from 6 a.m. until 2 a.m. every day — led to his early death in 1863.

While Christopher Wolcott was off traveling the state as Attorney General or working in Washington, his wife cared for the couple’s three sons and carried on her own life in Akron. She came into her own during the Civil War.

Pamphila Stanton Wolcott is generally credited with starting Akron’s Soldier’s Aid Society. She also served as its first president. Affiliated with Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission, the Akron society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to the hospitalized wounded and sick soldiers. The Soldiers Aid Society members spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods for the Army in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners.

By 1862, she had retired from the leadership of the Soldiers Aid Society. Her husband’s ill health demanded her full attention.

Politically well connected, Pamphila Wolcott went on to hold a government position in Washington in the pension department from 1878 to 1882, during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, a president from Ohio.

At the time of her death, the Beacon Journal observed that Wolcott was extremely bright, very well connected politically and “happiest when working for the cause of charity.”

–Kathleen Endres

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Adeline Myers Coburn, died 1887

Adeline Myers Coburn began her long involvement in community activism during the Civil War. After the war, she dedicated her life to the cause of temperance.

Born in New York, Adeline Myers married Stephen H. Coburn, a physician, in 1839. The couple moved to Akron in 1848.

Adeline Coburn’s name first surfaces in Akron newspapers in 1861 when she was named one of the directors of the newly organized Soldiers Aid Society in the city. By 1862, she was elected vice president of the organization and in 1863 she was listed as president. The Akron Soldiers Aid Society was affiliated with the Cleveland Sanitary Commission. During the Civil War, the Akron women knitted mittens and socks for the soldiers. The Akron society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to the war effort. The women packed food and other goods for the Army in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to the central organization located in Cleveland and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded soldiers. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners. Every month, the Beacon reported the happenings in the Soldiers Aid Society and invariably the name “Mrs. Dr. Coburn” was listed as a donor.

She also led Akron women in opposing imported goods by organizing and served as president of the Akron Auxiliary of the Ladies National Covenant during the Civil War. In 1865, she helped collect clothes for Freedmen.

By 1874 she was heavily involved with the temperance cause. Indeed, her involvement predates the organization of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) itself. In March 1874, Coburn signed the call for a temperance rally at the First Methodist Church. It was the rally that kicked off Akron’s famous Temperance Crusade of 1874, where women went to the saloons of the city and prayed outside for the end of the liquor trade. By the end of the year, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was organized in Cleveland.

In 1874, Coburn was elected treasurer of the Summit County Temperance Convention; in 1877, she was Akron’s delegate to the Ohio WCTU; in 1883, she was president of the Akron WCTU.

Although temperance clearly was the focus of her post-Civil War energies, Coburn also became involved with the Dorcas Society, serving as a work director in 1875, and the Ladies Rural Cemetery Association.

When Coburn died in 1887, she left one daughter Mrs. Jacob A. Kohler.

–Janelle Baltputnis

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Elizabeth Davidson Buchtel, 1821-1891

Buchtel is a well known name throughout the Akron community. There’s Buchtel Hall, Buchtel College, Buchtel Avenue, Buchtel High School. That acclaim is due, in no small part, to the generous service of Elizabeth Davidson Buchtel.

Elizabeth Davidson was born in Union County, Pa., in 1821. She married John Richards Buchtel in 1844. The marriage represented a union of temperaments and a commitment to social improvement.

It is difficult to trace Buchtel’s involvement in antebellum reform groups. By the Civil War, however, she was involved with the Akron Soldiers Aid Society. She never held a position in the association, but in 1864 she volunteered for the small committee that solicited donations of machinery, manufactures and mechanical products for Cleveland’s giant Sanitary Fair. The appointment was an ideal one. Her husband, who raised enlistments and bounty money during the Civil War, was also the agent of the Canton Buckeye Reaper and Mower Works.

After the Civil War, she and her husband dedicated much time and energy to the founding of a new college in the city. The Buchtels, both members of the Universalist Church, lobbied to get the proposed Universalist College for the city and then donated much time and money to the enterprise. In the end, the new college (now The University of Akron) was named after John Buchtel.

After the Civil War, the Buchtel name was synonymous with temperance. In 1874, John Buchtel ran for secretary of state on the Prohibition ticket. That same year, Elizabeth Buchtel signed the call for a temperance meeting at the First Methodist Church. That meeting led to the now famous Temperance Crusade of 1874 where Akron women visited saloons and prayed in the streets in an attempt to close down the liquor traffic in the city.

At the age of 59, Elizabeth Buchtel was paralyzed. She died in Akron in 1891.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

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Cornelia Wadsworth Beebe, 1819-1884

Akron never had its own Sanitary Fair but the city still had a role to play in Cleveland’s tremendously successful fair in 1864. A small band of Akron women, including Cornelia Wadsworth Beebe, helped make that success possible.

Born in Edinburg (Portage County, Ohio), Cornelia E. Wadsworth married Joseph Alvin Beebe from Connecticut. Her husband opened the Akron Book Store in 1838 but made his money with the Allen Mill and the Summit Beacon newspaper.

Besides her involvement with the Sanitary Fair, Beebe often donated food and supplies to the Akron’s Soldiers Aid Society for use in the hospitals that cared for the sick and wounded soldiers during the Civil War. However, Beebe never held a position with the aid society.

Her legacy as a woman of service lived on as her daughter Helen became secretary and treasurer of the city’s Soldiers Aid Society.

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Eliza Smith Barber, 1817-1899

Eliza Barber, a hardworking and dedicated mother of nine, was a director of the Middlebury Soldiers Aid Society during the Civil War. Middlebury became the sixth ward of the city of Akron.

Barber was the wife of George, a peddler-cooper-inventor who settled in Middlebury in 1828. Before the war, the Barber family was already involved in the hand manufacture of matches. The Barber Match Company truly was a family enterprise, with sons selling matches door to door.

The Barber family sent one son off to fight in the Civil War. George H. Barber died of dysentery. Back in Middlebury, his mother worked hard with the Soldiers Aid Society so others would not face a similar plight. The Middlebury Soldiers Aid Society, always smaller than its Akron counterpart, sent food and supplies through the Cleveland Sanitary Commission that, in turn, shipped them on to the field hospitals that needed the goods. Barber and the other women of the Middlebury Soldiers Aid Society knitted warm winter clothes for soldiers and collected food and bandages to hospitals that aided sick and wounded soldiers. The women also raised money by hosting “dime socials” and dinners.

After the Civil War, she watched her surviving children become leaders in the Barber Match Company. She saw the service she began in her community and church – First Presbyterian Church — flourish.

–Angela Abel

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Roxana Jones Howe, 1805-1875

After beginning her career as a teacher in Bath Township, Roxana Howe began a second career in community leadership in Akron following her marriage. Born in Bristol, N.Y. in 1805, Roxana King Jones married Richard Howe in 1827 in Bath, Ohio. The couple had six children.

It’s difficult to track Howe’s antebellum community activism. The Beacon lists her as being on the Ladies Committee for the 1852 Fireman’s Festival. Her involvement during the Civil War is more clearly documented. In 1861, she was a director of Akron’s Soldiers Aid Society and served for a time as vice president of the group. She also contributed money, food and goods to the organization during the Civil War. The Akron Soldiers Aid Society was affiliated with Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing . Soldiers Aid Society members spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods for the Army in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded soldiers. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners.

Throughout her life, Howe attended and worked at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Akron. She also utilized her experience as an educator to teach Sunday school at the church. Howe was memorialized with a window in the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Akron.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

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Mary Hickox Bronson, 1777-1858

Mary Hickox Bronson, along with her husband, embarked upon a project, which many would not dream to assume. Bronson and her husband independently formed the Episcopal Church in Akron.

All expenses, including the erection of the building, as well as other administrative costs were funded by the Bronsons.

After the dedication, Bronson lent her services to the church as an active member of the congregation. In 1889, the church was renamed the Bronson Memorial Church to recognize the commitment and support of Bronson and her husband.

Photo from Emily Bronson Conger’s book, An Ohio Woman in the Philippines (1904)

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Mary Ingersol Tod Evans, 1802-1869

Mary Ingersol Tod Evans, a pioneer in philanthropic service to the Akron area, was decades ahead of her time.

Born in Youngstown, Mary Ingersol Tod was the daughter of a judge. She was married twice. Her marriage to John McCurdy of Warren produced three children. Her first husband died in 1830. She then married Dr. Dana D. Evans of Akron. He died in 1849.

Evans became a leader and role model in 1851 through her involvement with the Young Men’s Association Women’s Committee. A year later in 1852 she served on the Ladies Committee of the Fireman’s Festival.

During the Civil War, she was active in Akron’s Soldiers Aid Society, although never an officer in the organization Affiliated with Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission, the Akron Soldiers Aid Society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to soldiers away fighting the Civil War. These Akron women spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods to be used in Army hospitals in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners.

Evans also served as the matron of the Northern Ohio Hospital for the Insane. Evans is best known for establishing the Ladies Cemetery Association. Evans believed that the Akron Rural Cemetery deserved to be as beautifully kept as the rest of the city. A live-in groundskeeper seemed to be the solution.

She enlisted the help of her sisters, Julia Ford and Grace Perkins, as well as many community women. Together, they sponsored concerts and other events, raising funds to build a residence for a groundskeeper. Evans submitted what seemed to be an early press release, encouraging the Akron Daily Beacon to promote the event.

Evans remained active until her death in 1869.

Photo courtesy of the Beacon Journal.

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Elizabeth Smith Abbey, 1807-1874

A woman dedicated to the preservation and success of the Akron community, Elizabeth Abbey contributed much of her life to helping her neighbors before, during and after the Civil War.

She was born Elizabeth Smith in Connecticut in 1807, married Henry S. Abbey in 1830 and settled in Akron with her husband in 1835. Her husband was the owner of prosperous jewelry store in the city.

She was affiliated with the Congregational Church, at the time the denomination of some of the most affluent and most community-minded women in the city. Abbey was also recognized for her participation as a member of the Ladies Committee of the Fireman’s Festival in 1852.

A decade later in 1862, Abbey was president and founding member of Akron’s Soldiers Aid Society. Affiliated with Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission, the Akron society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to the hospitalized wounded and sick soldiers. These women spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods for the Army in a small room above a store on South Howard Street. The food and goods were shipped to Cleveland’s Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding “dime parties,” socials and dinners.

Abbey also served as secretary, as well as original member of the Ladies National Covenant, an organization opposed to the import of goods during the Civil War. In 1865, she also collected clothes for freedmen.

Even until her death, Abbey remained active in the community, backing the Ladies Cemetery Association.

No photo is available of Elizabeth Abbey.

–Angela Abel