Lorenzo Dow McCabe 1817-1897

With supporting contributions and documents from:
Paul amd Annie Grinton Kisseberth ’54,
Bix Newhard ’52, Janet McCabe Hoover Smithwick ’48, and
with contributions from many other family members

A most interesting story featuring a Beta Pin comes to us from Paul
& Annie Kisseberth ’54, Bix Newhard ’52 and Janet Smithwick ’48.
The story begins with the journey of the family’s patriarch, Lorenzo Dow
McCabe, a Beta from Ohio U. where he was #14 on that chapter’s roll.

Lorenzo Dow McCabe Family

Lorenzo Dow McCabe was born in Marietta, Ohio, January 7, 1817, and died in Delaware, Ohio, June 18, 1897. He was the son of Robert McCabe, a boot maker, and Polly McCracken McCabe. He was born in the Campus Martius Fort, where his father plied his trade. The fort had been built by Rufus Putman when he came west from Massachusetts. Since theirs was the largest space in the fort, whenever itinerant preachers came to Marietta, he spoke from their quarters. On the night that Lorenzo was born, the preacher was Lorenzo Dow, and the baby was named for him. Lorenzo Dow was one of the most famous itinerant preachers, and he traveled more miles than any other preacher.

Lorenzo was orphaned at the age of seven by the cholera epidemic which swept through the area. He was taken in by the local grocer and his wife who gave him shelter in the store. He slept on the counter at night, and told of the rats and mice which were his companions. The grocer had an arithmetic book from which Lorenzo learned basic math. He was largely unschooled, but was widely read so that he was able to pass the equivalency tests to enter Ohio University about 1830. Records at Ohio U indicate he was an excellent student of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and the Classics. He graduated from Ohio U. in 1843, and taught there for one year before being called to Delaware, Ohio, where he and three others laid the groundwork for Ohio Wesleyan University. One of the courses he taught was The Philosophy of Mathematics, and he later became head of the Department of Philosophy at OWU, sometimes serving as acting president.

In 1845, Lorenzo arrived in Delaware, having left his professorship at Ohio U. and having accepted a similar position at OWU. His Beta pin shows the date 4-18-1853, some 8 years after his move to Delaware, etched on the back.

Lorenzo’s Letter to his 1st wife Martha September 24, 845 Delaware, Ohio

“Dearest Martha, I do not intend to tax your eyes, time and patience with an epistle so long as the one I last sent you. I, however, have as much to write. My soul is quite as full as when last I communed with the best woman on the globe. I have made arrangements for boarding with our beloved brother Merrick [of Merrick Hall]. He has no objections to boarding me but they did not know about my city wife – they were fearful they would be too plain for her. I allayed. It will be quite pleasant for us. I am so glad because we will be more likely to seek after entire holiness of heart in the communion of so holy a man …

For the meantime I have fixed me a study in the college building for a home for the “old man”. I will give you a description of it. No. 1) Trunk, No. 2) a curtain under which to hang clothes, No. 3) fire place, No. 4) window, No. 5) window, No. 6) bed, No. 7) stove, No. 8) table, No. 9) desk, No. 10) wash stand, No. 11) door. [Lorenzo made an appropriate penciled drawing to coincide with the number key descriptions.] In looking over this building, I think that with some attention it might be made one of the finest college buildings in the whole country. The grounds are not now so pleasant as at Athens, but I think with an equal amount of care and attention they might be made to surpass. The trustees intend doing away with students boarding and rooming in college. That would then give us the entire building for recitation rooms, studios, apparatus rooms, a room for the reception of visitors and a laboratory.

The institution is worth – its buildings and grounds – $40,000. She has three agents now in the field soliciting donations. The stock is being taken I see for a railroad to pass through this place. If you look at a map of the state you will find that the place is near the center of Ohio and the intention is to throw all the conference territory together and from the solid state to make four conferences all to corner at this point. This then will be the center of its, i.e. the Church’s, efforts in the great cause of education in Ohio. If all this takes place, this must be the most popular, the most independent and the most useful institution in Ohio. But my heart tells me that I am in the region of futurity and futurity is all uncertainty.

I begin to love Delaware very much. It seems much like Athens. Same hours for prayers, same hours for recitations, the same subjects and the same classes. I am treated with that respect and attention that every honest hearted man deserves. Brother Merrick has charge of the institution. We have 3 professors and 2 in the preparatory department, 75 students, more expected. I have 4 recitations daily … The students looked as if they thought they never saw it done on this fashion when I announced the rules of my classroom and the requisitions of my department. I want to push up the Mathematical Department higher than ever in any college in the country – ‘east or west’ … ”

Lorenzo’s Life in Delaware

Upon his arrival in Delaware, Lorenzo started the philosophy and religion departments at OWU. Later, for two short periods of time, he served as interim President of OWU. In a letter to Ann Grinton from her father (Harry Grinton) he noted that Lorenzo was one of the founders of the Beta Chapters at both Ohio U,and OWU as well as one of the founders of the Miami Triad. During their years in Delaware, Lorenzo and his 2nd wife Calista became good friends of Rutherford B. & Lucy Hayes. The ladies were “bar bashers” and became two of the founders of the W.C.T.U. “Lemonade Lucy, so-called due to her tee totaling ways. She had all the wine glasses in the White House turned upside-down.” Further, Lorenzo performed the marriage of Rutherford and Lucy, presided over their 25th anniversary at the White House. When the Hayes and Lorenzo attended church after the anniversary celebration, the streets of Washington
were so muddy that Rutherford walked to church, while Lucy and Lorenzo rode in the carriage. The carriage is on display at the Hayes museum in Fremont, Ohio. Lorenzo often visited the White House and presided over Rutherford’s funeral on the grounds of the Hayes Museum and home in Fremont, Ohio.

Lorenzo’s Portraits

While in the White House, President Hayes commissioned oil paintings of Lorenzo and Calista and presented them as gifts in gratitude for their friendship. Lorenzo also had his portrait painted in New York City while on a speaking tour. It is said he pawned his gold watch to have the portrait painted. We think it was painted by Winner, but we find no signature. The portrait is in the possession of Holly Hoover Smithwick-Roy in Portland, Oregon. It was on this trip that Lorenzo met Calista Clark who had a girls’ academy in Albany, N.Y. She later became Lorenzo’s second wife. She was a very strong-minded lady, and insisted on taking her pet monkey on their wedding trip on the Erie Canal from New York to Ohio. The monkey managed to wreak havoc on the canal barge, tearing down curtains, and causing much destruction.

Lorenzo’s Letter to President Lincoln

From Janet McCabe Hoover Smithwick — greatgranddaughter of Lorenzo Dow McCabe … Regarding the L.D. McCabe letter to President Lincoln, Janet writes, “The original of the letter to Lincoln regarding the Emancipation Proclamation is in the archives, I believe, at the Dayton Theological Seminary” [now called the United Theological Seminary, 1 of 13 Methodist seminaries in the US and located in Dayton, Ohio]. The subject was L. D. McCabe’s Letter to Abraham Lincoln Concerning the Stand of the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Emancipation [Note: A copy of the full text of the letter is available by contacting the editor or by going to www.thetachapterbtp.org and from the news menu select “current news”.]

Excerpts From “Ohio Wesleyan’s First Hundred Years” By Henry Clyde Hubbart, Ph.D, Copyright 94 In 1934, Professor Henry Clyde Hubbart became head of the History and Social Science Department at Ohio Wesleyan University, his special fields being American history and modern Europe. Following are direct quote excerpts where Professor McCabe is mentioned, with appropriate page references from Hubbart’s book entitled “Ohio Wesleyan’s First Hundred Years”.

• McCabe’s arrival at Delaware and OWU In 1845, Athens (Ohio U) temporarily closed its doors, and Lorenzo Dow McCabe, Athens graduate (1843), and professor (1844) came to Ohio Wesleyan as Professor of Mathematics and Mechanical Philosophy.

• William D. Godman comments on Professor McCabe Describing his later college experiences, William D. Godman (1st OWU Graduate in 1846) tells of his acquaintance with “Tutor Williams, a young man”. To him Professor McCabe, who came in 1845 as the new Professor of Mathematics, was “a rare specimen of manly beauty, the most popular professor in the early history of the university”. We catch our first, fleeting glimpse of Lucy Webb, our first “co-ed”. The Webbs lived in one of the campus cottages, located southeast of the present site of Merrick Hall.

• A Strange Civil War Return of a Veteran Student Charles Cardwell McCabe (1860), nephew of the professor, and Chaplain of the 122nd O.V.I., was reported in the Delaware Gazette of June 24, 1863, as having been taken prisoner. Later released, he served the college as financial agent, became famous as the “singing chaplain” and as a lecturer on his experiences in Libby Prison, besides, being elected a Methodist bishop. A strange war story centers around Captain Alfred E. Lee (1859). Severely wounded at Gettysburg, reports had it that he had died and the college had assembled in chapel to honor him with a memorial service. Professor McCabe was ready with his speech, when suddenly Lee himself, just arrived in Delaware, hobbled into the room. The versatile professor substituted an address on missions, and Lee himself subscribed $100. Later he served as Consul-General to Frankfort-on-theMain as editor of the Ohio State Journal.

• McCabe’s role in the construction of Merrick Hall [Referring to the difficulty in completing the construction of the Merrick Science Building]. Finally, when the building was opened in 1873, it provided quarters for the young science professor, Dr. Edward T. Nelson, and for two faculty men who were to serve with distinction for several decades, the one, L. D. McCabe, especially known as a great inspirational force, and the other, Hiram M. Perkins, as an effective mathematics teacher.

• A Civil War veteran speaks John B. Schwin (1869), who lived until 1942, bearer of the alumni cane, has described conditions in the vigorous post-war years.
“One man in my class was forty years old. It was a common thing to see men with an arm or a leg missing. Chaplain McCabe, the great singing bishop, frequently visited the college, and the whole student body would gather on the campus and join with him in one great festival of song.”

• McCabe’s acting presidency and the union with the Female College During McCabe’s acting-presidency (1873-1876) the demand for action crystallized, but opponents [referring to the 1877 union of the Female College with OWU, an all male school to
that point] pointed out “insuperable obstacles”. The buildings were remote from each other; the scheduling of recitations would be difficult; certain classes would still have to be held at Monnett. Would the girls obtain scholarships or would they pay tuition? “The university has endowment and no tuition; the college, tuition and no endowment. The Board of Trustees went on record against union as late as June, 1875. The two institutions were solidly crystallized; why unite them?

The final action of the Board of Trustees came in June, 1877. A special committee presented a report which in its preamble ventured the following statement: “It is conceded that modern tendencies are in favor of coeducation and the most conservative of the higher institutions of learning are yielding to advancing public sentiment.” The almost insurmountable obstacle was felt to be the location of the Female College. Finally came the fateful resolution:
That if the Trustees of the Ohio Wesleyan Female College deem it best to discontinue the active operation of their institution and to transfer its property, after its debts are paid, to the trustees of the University, we would accept such property and open the University to girls upon the same terms as men.

• A Sketch of Professor McCabe In the Payne faculty two men were outstanding personalities. Lorenzo Dow McCabe, graduate of Ohio University in 1843, a man of remarkable personal magnetism, and one who in 1845, when he came to Delaware had impressed young Godman with his luminous face, bright eyes and “manly beauty,” was now at his prime as a faculty figure. Beginning in 1864, he had already served fifteen or more years as Professor of Philosophy. Like Merrick committing himself unreservedly to the college, his total term of service was fifty years; for two periods, 1873-76 and 1888-1889, he was its acting-President.

Versatile and changeable in mood, with his vivid imagination, flashes of wit and bursts of eloquence, he showed some of the marks of genius. His method of teaching Butler’s Analogy was by a rather rigid memoriter system, but formalism yielded to an element of surprise by a trick he used for several years of calling on students by number from a basket of blocks on which the numbers were inscribed. Then, too, in a moment of excitement of righteous indignation, textbook and formal philosophy went by the board and he spoke out freely from his vivid personal experience and imagination. “It was then,” said Berne Jones (1889), “that we really learned philosophy.” A loyal Republican, McCabe felt extreme reverence for the magic name of Ulysses S. Grant, and the protective tariff was to him little less than a sacred dogma. Sparring matches between McCabe and Professor Semans, Democratic free trader, became a campus tradition. The “pernicious doctrine of evolution,” just coming to our campus called forth McCabe’s blasting condemnation.

• McCabe in the classroom Inevitably, later, students became acquainted with Professor Lorenzo Dow McCabe, theologian, philosopher, author, and sometime acting-President. When he called students by name to rise and recite they were expected to continue until he stabbed a forefinger at another student, perhaps clear across the room, with the demand “take it there.”

• McCabe on the object of a liberal arts education Professor McCabe had maintained that the object of the liberal arts college as “to develop all the powers of the soul as an end but not as an instrument,” and the catalogue as late as 1901 maintained that the classical course was unequalled in securing “correctness in mental processes”.

• Dedication of the University Hall & Gray Chapel Elaborate dedication exercises made the commencement season of 1893 most memorable. On June 20, 1893, Governor William McKinley delivered a memorial address for our ex-trustee, Rutherford B. Hayes. Dr. Payne took the floor and by subscription raised $15,000 toward the payment of the debt (University Hall & Gray Chapel). On June 21, speeches were made by the Honorable John Sherman, United States Senator, Mrs. Anna Sanborn Clason, class of 1859, and
Dr. David H. Moore, editor of the Western Christian Advocate. At the dedication ceremonies held in the afternoon, Bishop Henry W. Warren delivered the dedicatory sermon, followed by Dr. Payne in a vigorous attempt to raise the residue of the debt. “Chaplain McCabe was there to lead the singing. All who have ever been present when Dr. Payne or Chaplain McCabe or both of them came in conflict with a church debt know the result,” said the Practical Student.

• Student Life Under Bashford As to discipline, Professor McCabe in his acting-Presidency (1888-1889) denounced “rebukes, threats, suspicions and espionage…Never in our history has there been more decorum and propriety in our chapel service.”

• McCabe Approach to Philosophy In 1860 Lorenzo Dow McCabe, earlier engaged in the fields of mathematics and physics, took over Biblical literature and moral philosophy, and in 1864, became Professor of Philosophy, which chair he held for more than thirty years. Extended accounts of (Professor Frederick) Merrick and McCabe are given elsewhere. The approach to philosophy under McCabe is well illustrated by the catalogue statement for the years from 1881 to 1895: The subjects taught in the department are the facts of mental phenomena, embracing the cognitions, feelings and the cognitive powers; the cause and laws of mental action; the necessary laws of thought; the philosophy of the beautiful in nature and in art; the science of pure being; the history of philosophy; the principles of national wealth and prosperity; the secret of success in the construction and delivery of discourses; the evidences of Christianity; and the Analogy of Bishop Butler. The inspiration, enlargement and even development of all the mental and moral faculties are the great objects sought by the head of this department of the university.

Lorenzo’s Family Tree
Following his 1st wife’s passing, Lorenzo and his 2nd wife, Harriet Calista Clarke had 3 children. One of them, a son, John Jay McCabe and his wife, Effie Eugenia Capps McCabe, had 4 daughters: (1) Katharine Laura McCabe Grinton [Annie’s mother], (2) Miriam Dow McCabe Hoover [Janet Smithwick’s mother] and (3) Josephine Calista McCabe Newhard [the Newhard’s mother] and (4) Emma Eugenia McCabe Moore. John Jay, also an OWU graduate class of ??, remained in Delaware and became the pastor of Asbury Methodist Church. It is through this family lineage that the following table shows some of the primary connections of the family with Beta Theta Pi and / or Ohio Wesleyan University.

Among the OWU, Beta and Greek connections in this family are the following:

Lorenzo Dow McCabe Ohio U & OWU Professor, Inter. Pres., #14 on OU Beta Roll
John Jay McCabe OWU ’?? Beta #165 on Theta Chapter Roll
John McCabe??? OWU ’?? Beta #203 on Theta Chapter Roll
Harry Grinton Connecticut Wesleyan Beta at Connecticut Wesleyan
Katharine McCabe Grinton OWU ’19 No Greek Affiliation
Joe Newhard OWU ’43 Beta #685 on Theta Chapter Roll
Mary Calista Newhard Adams OWU ’47 Pi Beta Phi
Persis Effie Newhard Snoke OWU ’54 Pi Beta Phi
Mary Snoke Junham OWU No Greek Affiliation
Andrew Junham OWU Phi Gamma Delta
Hillary Junham OWU 2000 No Greek Affiliation
Miriam Dow McCabe Hoover OWU ’13 No Greek Affiliation
Harold Smith Hoover OWU ’12 Delta Tau Delta
Janet McCabe Hoover Smithwick OWU ’48 Gamma Phi Beta
Bix Newhard OWU ’52 Beta #837 on Theta Chapter Roll
Paul Kisseberth OWU ’54 Beta #884 on Theta Chapter Roll
Annie Grinton Kisseberth OWU ’54 Kappa Alpha Theta
Mary Grinton Beeghly (Annie’s Sister) OWU ’48 Delta Gamma
Tom Beeghly (Beeghly Library Family) OWU ’48 Phi Delta Theta
Mary Kisseberth Bedson (Annie’s daughter) OWU ’79 Pi Beta Phi
Scott Bedson OWU ’81 Phi Kappa Psi

Lorenzo’s Pin & Portrait Displays

The oil portraits of Lorenzo and his wife, commissioned by their friend President Rutherford B. Hayes, are currently on display in the Paul and Annie Grinton Kisseberth home. Lorenzo’s portrait is shown to the right. Of most significance to Beta, the McCabe family has generously agreed to place the Lorenzo Dow McCabe Beta pin on loan to the Theta Chapter House Corporation which in turn will transmit by loan to the Beta Theta Pi administrative offices in Oxford, Ohio with appropriate material to tell this story. The McCabe pin, shown to the right, will be appropriately displayed in the Beta Museum.

Editor’s Note

It is with the deep appreciation and thanks to the McCabeGrinton-Newhard-Kisseberth-Smithwick-Beeghly family that the Theta Chapter House Corporation has accepted possession of the Lorenzo Dow McCabe pin for use of the House Corporation and for loan to the national Beta Theta Pi administrative offices in Oxford, Ohio for an appropriate display at the Beta Theta Pi Museum. December 14, 2006 • Thomas J. Tatham, Editor, Theta Data • A publication of the Theta Chapter House Corporation of Beta Theta Pi.