Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Elijah Boardman and Family

February 1, 2020July 9, 2021 / rtrube54 / 26 Comments

Elijah Boardman, by Ralph Earl – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

One of the things I’ve discovered is that many of the street and place names in and around Youngstown are connected to real people who played a role in area beginnings — John Young, James Hillman, Daniel Sheehy, John Struthers, Calvin Austin, and James Anson Campbell,. just to name a few. So I wondered if that was the case with Boardman. I discovered once again a figure who played a role in not only the Youngstown area, but also in our national beginnings.

Boardman is descended from one of the founding families of New Milford, Connecticut. Born in 1760, he grew up on a family farm on the Housatonic River. As was common in prominent families, he was educated by a private tutor, Reverend Nathaniel Taylor, until he enlisted in one of the early militia units to fight in the Revolutionary War at age 16 in 1776. He went first to Boston, and was later a part of the American forces defeated on Long Island, New York. He suffered ill health for about six months after the battle, and then was called up to fight the British on the Connecticut border until General Burgoyne surrendered, when he resumed his tutoring.

His rise began in 1781 when he trained as a shopkeeper in New Haven. Before the year was out, he set up his own dry goods shop in New Milford, along with his two brothers. In 1792, he married Mary Anna Whiting whose memoir provides a great deal of information about the family. In 1795 he became part of the Connecticut Land Company and an investor in the Connecticut Western Reserve. His investment entitled him to two townships, and by this means, he acquired Medina and Boardman townships.

While Boardman spent most of his time in Connecticut, he did survey the land in 1798, laid out the town center of Boardman Township (a marker for which with the initials E.B. was found in 1878-1879), and opened a sawmill, grist mill, and cloth mill on Mill Creek. Other early settlers were George Stilson who operated a tavern, Charles Boardman (no immediate relation that I can establish) and William Ingersoll opened a store, James Moody a tannery, and Andrew Webb a blacksmith shop. By 1806, the township was populous enough to set up its own township government, separating from Youngstown township government.

What kept Boardman in Connecticut was politics. One of his first political acts was to write to President Thomas Jefferson in 1801, enclosing a sermon that opposed the establishment of state supported religion. Others were advancing state support of the Congregationalists, putting other religious bodies at a disadvantage or even active persecution. He wrote:

“Feeling as I did that if a measure of this kind should be adopted it would eventually prove fatal to the Civil & Religious liberties of my country, and expressing these ideas to a Clergiman living in the Town to which I belong, it was found that he entertained ideas similar to my own, and in October last he delivd a discourse a copy of which his friends requested for the Press and, Sir, I have taken the liberty of Sending to Your Excellency one of those Sermons.”

He went on to serve as a state representative 1803-1805 and 1816, and state senator 1817-1821. He then went on to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1821 to 1823. In 1818, Sarah Hall Benham married Boardman’s son, Henry Mason, and a year later, the young couple moved to Boardman, where Henry took up the management of Elijah’s business interests on the Western Reserve. In 1828, Henry participated in and contributed to the building of the St. James Episcopal Church building, now known as St. James Meeting House in Boardman Park. A significant part of the Boardman family archives, housed at Yale University consists of correspondence between Henry and his father regarding his land holdings.

Elijah Boardman died in Boardman Township on one of his business trips to see his son. Both Henry and his son Elijah are buried in Boardman Cemetery. But the elder Elijah was interred in his home town of New Milford and the U.S. Senate declared a 30 day period of mourning in his honor. His life was a story of honor: enlisted in the Revolutionary War fight, building a prosperous business, taking the risks of investing in the Western Reserve, advocating for liberty from state established religion, and engaging in a long legislative career. Among these accomplishments, he founded and gave his name to Boardman, Ohio.

[I edited this post on July 9, 2021, based on comments below from a descendent of Boardman and further inquiry, I found some statements in this post likely inaccurate and have edited the post accordingly.]

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Ward Beecher Hall and Planetarium

January 11, 2020January 10, 2020 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Ward Beecher

Nothing like an astronomy class at 2 pm in the afternoon during your first quarter at Youngstown State to catch you napping. That was me. The reclining seats in the planetarium combined with the dimmed lights was the perfect recipe for an afternoon snooze. You just hoped nothing was said that would go on the test.

I had many classes in Ward Beecher during my years at Youngstown State (1972-76). I can’t say that I gave a thought to the name of the building at time. Only later did I realize that generally, college buildings bear the name of people (or their family) who gave large sums of money toward the construction of the building.

I’ve written about others whose names are on YSU buildings: Kilcawley, Beeghly, Maag, and Jones. But never Ward Beecher. Like many others I’ve written about, I discovered a family that has invested deeply in Youngstown. And I was left with an unanswered question.

Ward Beecher’s family traces back to Connecticut, where his father Leonard, and mother, Ruth Webster Beecher lived. She was the daughter of Noah Webster, of dictionary fame. Their son Walter came to Youngstown at age 19, around 1864 and became involved in a number of community enterprises including the Ohio Powder Company and the Mahoning Bank. He married Eleanor Price, whose family owned a large farm extending along South Belle Vista from Mahoning Avenue to Bears Den Road. Price Road is named after the family and their homestead is now part of the Franciscan Friary on South Belle Vista.

Ward was born September 27, 1887 and graduated from the Rayen School in 1907, going on to study metallurgy at Carnegie Institute of Technology followed by war service with the 309th Engineers in France in World War 1. He returned to Youngstown and in 1923 married Florence Simon, a granddaughter of Col. L. T. Foster, after whom Fosterville is named. He worked for a time as an auditor with Republic Rubber Company, as secretary and treasurer of the Lau Iron Works, and treasurer of Powell Pressed Steel. From 1922 on, he occupied a number of positions at Commercial Shearing and Stamping Company, ending up as Vice President of Finance. He also followed his father’s footsteps, serving as a director of the Mahoning Bank. He attended a directors meeting the day of his death.

He took a major interest in the development of Youngstown State, contributing significant funds for the construction of the science hall and planetarium that now bears his name, which opened in 1967. One of his stipulations was that the planetarium would always be free to the public.

Like many other business leaders of his generation, he served as a leader and benefactor of a number of Youngstown organizations from the Salvation Army to Boys’ Club, as well as the Youngstown Club, the Youngstown Country Club, the Elks, and other organizations. In the late 1950’s, the Beechers sold the Price homestead, where they were living to the Franciscan Friary. Later on, they made substantial contributions for improvements.

After this time, the Beechers moved to Boardman, where they lived together until Ward’s death on October 26, 1970. He was buried, along with many other famous Youngstown residents, at Oak Hill Cemetery. Florence Beecher lived until 1991, supporting a number of Youngstown cultural institutions including the Mahoning Valley Historical Society and the Butler Institute of American Art whose Beecher Court is named in her honor.

The family and the foundations established by Ward and Florence Beecher continue to invest in Youngstown. In 2006 Eleonor Beecher Flad, the Beechers’ daugher, and the Ward Beecher and Florence Simon Beecher Foundations contributed significant funds for a state of the art star projector in the planetarium to replace the one that had been there even before I was a student. Similar contributions were responsible for the construction of the Eleanor Beecher Flad Pavilion on the west side of the DeYor Center, a performance and event space to complement the beauty of Powers Auditorium and renovations of Lanterman’s Mill in the late 1980’s. Eleanor Beecher Flad is now an emeritus trustee of the YSU Foundation, serving for many years as one of the few women trustees of the Foundation.

I mentioned a question. Beechers have played an important part in American history. Both Lyman Beecher and Henry Ward Beecher were abolitionist preachers and leaders, also coming from Connecticut. Henry Ward Beecher’s sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. From the online family trees I accessed, I could find no connection, despite the shared names. It would not surprise me that there would be a connection, and I’d love to find it.

What I do know is that Ward Beecher, and his family have left an indelible imprint on the educational, cultural, charitable, religious, and historic institutions of the city. I may have been napping as a student, but I find myself deeply grateful now for the investment in both time and financial resources this family has given Youngstown.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Christmas Tree Twinkler

December 28, 2019December 28, 2019 / rtrube54 / 23 Comments

On Christmas Day, we were visiting with my son and his wife. While we were there, he gave me the box of ornaments you see above. Mutual friends, whose son works with my son, passed along this box of ornaments, which had belonged to one of their parents, knowing of our interest in all things Youngstown (yes, we are getting a reputation!).

So I thought I would look into the history of The Christmas Tree Twinkler (or as some people call them, spinners). In the process, I found a fascinating account of the man who invented it, the Plakie Toy Company in Youngstown who manufactured it, and the Hoover family who started the company which lasted until 1992.

John Garver grew up on a farm outside Youngstown, learning to tinker as he had to repair farm implements. After college in Indiana, he returned to teach at Boardman High School. He continued to tinker. Eventually he had ten patents to his name including the patent for The Christmas Tree Twinkler (you can see his patent drawings in this Popular Mechanics article). He created the dual brake pedal used in driver training vehicles and machines that could throw tennis balls, footballs, and baseballs (he even wrote a book on baseball cybernetics).

The Twinkler was a simple idea: mount a spinner on a pin inside a hollow plastic cylinder within a decorative birdcage or star. Place it above a Christmas tree light (one of the old C7 lights that generated a bit of heat) and the heat would set the spinner in motion, hence the twinkling. The idea for the star apparently came from his wife, who was cutting star cookies and suggested putting a spinner in the middle. He patented it in 1954, took it to one of his classes, and mentioned that he was interested in marketing his invention.

It turns out that one of his students was Dean Hoover, son of Frank and Dorothy Hoover, who had a toy company called Plakie Toys based in Youngstown. In 1932, Frank Hoover returned to Youngstown after a stint of working in steel plants in Detroit. He started out manufacturing custom gearshift nobs for manual transmissions. By 1935, his business began to struggle with the rise of the automatic transmission. By then he had married and had an infant son Dean. One day, he spotted his infant son having a great time shaking some plastic squares strung on a chain, and the idea for a plastic toy company was born. The company name, Plakie, came from “play key.” During the war, they diverted to wood toys because plastic was scarce. Right after the war, his father purchased one of the first blow mold machines in the world, and the business was off and running.

So Plakie was a natural fit for manufacturing John Garver’s invention. They began selling them at Strouss, selling as many as 1,000 in a day. Eventually they were manufacturing over three million of them a year. They had a few problems. The biggest was that if the ornaments were too close to the lights, the plastic would melt (it is kind of amazing in light of this to receive a full intact set!). There were problems with the machine that cut the pins, which were sometimes dull, preventing the spinner from twirling.

The big problem was the advent of artificial trees, which could be flammable. Cooler midget lights were invented, but they did not get hot enough to make the spinners move. Still, it is estimated that there could be as many as ten million of these still out there, probably stashed away in attics. They are a collectible and I found them selling online for anything between $15 and $50.

Frank Hoover died in 1960. Dorothy took over the company at that time and shifted the focus of the company to cloth products for children–blankets, crib sheets, cloth toys, cloth covered book, dolls, and dust ruffles. The companies sales grew to $4 million a year during this time. Eventually production costs and competition led the company to close its doors in 1992.

John Garver lived until 2015. He actually kept working on a Twinkler design using anodized aluminum until his death in 2015.

I don’t remember these ornaments from my childhood. I would have been fascinated back then, and I delight in their designs even now. They are one more point of Youngstown pride–both invented and manufactured in the Mahoning Valley.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Penalty Flag

December 14, 2019December 18, 2019 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Photo by Hector Alejandro [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr

We love that yellow flag when it is thrown against the opposing football team and groan and complain when it is thrown against one of our home team guys. But did you know that the penalty flag is a Youngstown invention and first used on one of our own venerable football fields? It is an invention more famous (or infamous) than its inventor.

Dwight “Dike” Beede was the coach of the Penguin football team from the beginning of the Youngstown football program in 1938 until 1972. Before coaching at Youngstown, he coached at Westminster College and Geneva College, both nearby schools in western Pennsylvania. In fact, his first football game in Youngstown was a decade before he became Youngstown’s coach. On September 24, 1927, Westminster College played Carnegie Tech at South High Stadium in the first college-level game played in Youngstown.

Until 1941, penalties were signaled by the blowing of horns or whistles. Often, neither the players nor the fans could hear them, and when they could, the sound was irritating. Before a game against Oklahoma City University, played on October 17, 1941, Beede shared an idea with his wife, Irma. He asked her to sew together bright red cloth from an old Halloween costume with white stripes from old sheets. Lead sinkers used in fishing were used on one end to weigh down the 16 inch by 16 inch flag. Irma Beede has been named “The Betsy Ross of football” for her contribution. The opposing coach and the officials agreed to use the flags in the game, played at The Rayen Stadium, where Youngstown’s games were played until Stambaugh Stadium was opened in 1982.

The flag caught on. One of the officials, Jack McPhee used the flags in an Ohio State-Iowa game attended by league commissioner Major John Griffith. Griffith liked the idea and mandated its use in the Western Conference, now the Big Ten. In 1948, professional football adopted the flag, changing the color to yellow in 1965.

Dwight “Dike” Beede coached football for forty years. His last year, 1972, as a coach was my first year as a Youngstown State student. His later years were predominated by losing seasons. Things were a bit better in 1972 when he and the team finished 4-4-1, perhaps because of the talented leadership of Ron Jaworski, known as the “Polish Rifle,” who later went on to an NFL career with the Eagles, and then a broadcast career.

What most don’t realize is that Beede actually finished his 40 year career with a winning overall record of 175-146-20, and a 147-118-4 record at Youngstown. He had 17 winning seasons including an 8-2 record in 1947 and an undefeated season in 1941, not to be repeated until the Tressel years. He created the “spinner” play. In 1957 he was named Small College Coach of the Year.

Off the field, he taught forestry and held the status of Associate Professor in the Biology Department. He was a dedicated tree farmer and on the Ohio Forestry Advisory Council. He retired at the end of his 1972 season, and died just a month later, on December 10, 1972, from a drowning accident in Little Beaver Creek near his farm in Elkton. His son, Ruud, also died from drowning in 1957.

In 1982, the playing surface at Stambaugh Stadium was named Beede Field. He was part of the inaugural class named to the Youngstown State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985. In Mosure Hall, on the fourth level of Stambaugh Stadium, visitors can see two of the original penalty flags used in that first game in October of 1941, the idea of Dwight “Dike” Beede, and the creation of Irma Beede, that changed the game of football forever.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Leon A. Beeghly

November 23, 2019December 2, 2019 / rtrube54 / 17 Comments

Beeghly Center, By Greenstrat – Own work, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

I spent a lot of time at Beeghly Center as a student at Youngstown State. I had a number of classes there including an utterly forgettable health class, a number of psych classes (my major), and a memorable philosophy class with Professor Thomas Shipka. Then there was the physical conditioning class! Of course we went to many basketball teams coached by Dom Roselli as well as concerts. I first heard James Taylor live in Beeghly Center. Amazing that he is still performing!

I never thought “who was Beeghly?” Beeghly was Leon A. Beeghly. He was not a Youngstown native, born in 1884 and raised in a small northwestern Ohio town named Bloomville in Seneca County. After college at Tri-State University in Indiana he began working with the France Company of Bloomville, that operated a number of stone quarries. Eventually the company moved to Toledo. It was here that Beeghly became interested in slag, a by-product of steel production used in concrete, road bases, railroad ballast, waterway construction, and even for soil amendments in agriculture.

Beeghly first formed a slag company in Toledo, but quickly realized that the blast furnaces of Youngstown offered a far greater output of this material. He joined with two other men whose names are also well-known on the Youngstown State campus, William E. Bliss and William H. Kilcawley, in forming the Standard Slag Company of Youngstown. He served as company president. In 1918, he and his wife Mabel and four children (Charles, James, Thornton, and Lucille) moved to Youngstown.

Beeghly continued to work with inventors to develop new processes and products including the cold forming of metal resulting in the Cold Metal Products Company where son Charles was involved before becoming president and chairman of Jones and Laughlin Steel, at that time the fourth largest steel company in the country. James and Thornton and later-born John all were involved in Standard Slag. Last-born son Thomas served as president of International Carbonic Company of Santa Ana, California.

In 1940, Leon Beeghly formed the L. A. Beeghly Fund, to which the family has continued to contribute. This fund has invested in a number of religious, charitable, scientific and literary causes, as well as ten college buildings (two at Youngstown State with the new education building) at nine college campuses. Beeghly was a director for Youngstown Sheet and Tube and headed the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce three times. He led initiatives as diverse as vocational training and mental health care.

Leon Beeghly died in 1967. He was recognized at the time not only as a successful industrialist, but as a supporter of inventors and entrepreneurs and technological development, as well as a community leader and philanthropist. His family has continued Beeghly’s philanthropic tradition, with Youngstown State being one of the most significant beneficiaries. Beeghly Physical Education Center opened December 2, 1972 (at the end of my first quarter on campus), built in part with donations from the Beeghly family. More recently, Beeghly Hall became the home of Youngstown State’s College of Education. In 2017, a $1.5 million gift was announced from Bruce and Nancy Beeghly toward a new endowment to the college as well as two graduate fellowships in Electrical and Computer Engineering and in Business Administration.

For over 100 years the Beeghly family has provided both industrial leadership and philanthropic investment in the Mahoning Valley. Their recent gifts suggest an investment in Youngstown’s future. Leon Beeghly always cared about encouraging technological development coupled with supporting the educational foundations needed for any technological advance. His grandchildren are carrying on that work, an important piece in the economic rebirth of Youngstown.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Jared Potter Kirtland

November 2, 2019August 23, 2025 / rtrube54 / 10 Comments

Jared Potter Kirtland, By Allen Smith – The Ohio Journal of Science, vol. 30 (3) – 1930, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

He grew up in Connecticut and took his medical training at Yale. He was Poland, Ohio’s first physician. His home in Poland was a stop on the Underground Railroad. His father Turhand helped lay out the settlement of Youngstown and has a town east of Cleveland named after him. He has two snakes and a rare warbler named after him. He served in the state legislature, taught at medical schools at both ends of the state and started a natural history museum. He was an ornithologist (birds), an ichthyologist (fish), and horticulturalist (plants). If anyone could ever have been said to have lived an interesting life, it would be him. And until this week, I never heard of him.

He is Jared Potter Kirtland. I’m reading a biography of Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist, who I discovered spoke at several gatherings in Salem and Youngstown. It made me explore Underground Railroad stops in the area (a post for another time). Along the way, I came across this statement in The Underground Railroad From Slavery to Freedom by William Henry Siebert: “Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, a distinguished physician and scientist from Ohio, kept a station in Poland, Mahoning County, where he resided from 1823 to 1837.” So I searched for more material on Kirtland and discovered this interesting life, part of which was lived in the Mahoning Valley.

He was born on November 10, 1793 in Wallingford, Connecticut. His father Turhand was a land agent with the Connecticut Land Company that was involved in the settlement of Ohio’s Western Reserve. Turhand owned various pieces of land throughout the Western Reserve, including in Poland, and the town that would eventually bear his name. His diary for August of 1798 records him assisting John Young in the survey of Youngstown. He was involved in establishing schools and libraries throughout the Western Reserve including a library in Poland in 1805. Later, he was a State Senator for Trumbull County and a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Warren. He contributed to the founding of Western Reserve College, originally in Hudson (and still the home of Western Reserve Academy).

Jared remained in Connecticut in his youth, enrolling at Yale College in 1811 and then in the first class of the new Medical College at Yale in 1813, graduating in 1815. He thought about moving to Ohio to join his father but remained in Connecticut until the death of his first wife in 1823. He became the village of Poland’s first physician with a rapidly growing practice. Turhand built a larger home at what is now Rt. 224 and Ohio. In 1828, he was elected to the Ohio legislature, where he served three terms. He played a key role in the passage of legislation of the Ohio and Pennsylvania canal that played a major role in the industrial growth of Youngstown. Perhaps his statewide contacts led to his next opportunity, that took him forever away from the Youngstown area.

From 1837 to 1842, he taught Medicine at the Medical College of Cincinnati. Then in 1843, he moved to Cleveland, where he helped establish the Cleveland Medical College at Western Reserve University, where he taught until his death in 1877, occupying the chair of theory and practice.

Kirtland was something of a Renaissance man, with interests in a number of fields of natural history. He assisted in the first geological survey of Ohio. He owned a farm in East Rockport, (now Lakewood, Ohio) and was interested in advancing horticulture and agriculture throughout the state. Kirtland’s warbler, Kirtland’s snake and the forest vine snake (Thelotornis kirtlandii) bear his name. He helped found the Cleveland Academy of Natural Science in 1845, which now is the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. In 1851, he served on a committee to ensure the safety of Cleveland’s water supply. He offered his services examining young men entering the army during the Civil War at age 70. He died in Rocky River, Ohio on December 11, 1877 at age 84.

Both Turhan and Jared Kirtland played important roles in the Youngstown and Western Reserve area. Jared was one of the early station masters of the Underground Railroad as the efforts to aid fugitive slaves in their flight to Canada developed. He was a frontier physician, and perhaps one of Ohio’s earliest scientists. He played a key role in Youngstown’s industrial growth as well as contributing to the growth of Cleveland. I’m glad to finally know something of his story.

Sources:

“Biography of the Kirtland and Morse Family,” OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.

“Jared Potter Kirtland, Wikipedia.

Ted Heineman, “Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, M.D., LL.D. (1793-1877)” Riverside Cemetery Journal.

Turhan Kirtland, with Introduction by Mary L. W. Morse, Diary of Turhand Kirtland, While Surveying and Laying Out the Western Reserve for the Connecticut Land Company, 1798-1800

“Turhand Kirtland,” Find A Grave.

Wilbur Henry Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. (New York: MacMillan, 1898), p. 104.