History of Local History

This section includes descriptions of violence and the historic use of offensive language and imagery.

Benjamin Douglass is part of a long tradition of local historians.

Local historical writing in the US started in the early 1800s in New England. Early local historians wrote town and county-wide histories that celebrated the Puritan settlers. This section shows the similarities between Douglass and these early authors’ views, and explores local and state historians in Ohio who influenced Douglass. It also exposes the disturbing connection between Benjamin Douglass and debunked racial pseudoscience. The authors that influenced Benjamin Douglass had many things in common: they were all white, had similar careers, and they had many of the same views on Indigenous people as Douglass that date back to the early days of white settlement in America.    

New England: Birthplace of American Local History

Image 1: Market Square in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1853. From Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion. Wikimedia Images. Public Domain. Image 2: “Abbot Hall, Andover Massachusetts” Phillips Academy Andover, 1829. Boston Public Library via Picryl, Public Domain.

In the early 1800s, local historical writing was popular in New England; particularly in Massachusetts. Early local historians wrote about the Puritan colonies and their earlier settlers. New England had the country’s oldest white settlements, and local historians wanted to prove that their communities were important in helping the new country form.¹Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 27.  

Early local historians wanted to share information about their communities, but they also wanted to memorialize the early settlers as having the right to “virgin lands” where Indigenous people already lived. In New England, Indigenous people still lived in the area even though local historians denied their existence.² O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, xii. They viewed their towns as sites of progress, founded by moral, upstanding, Christian pioneers.³Kammen, On Doing Local History, 14. Early local historians also used materials collected from early state and local historical societies, and first-hand accounts from living early settlers to write their works, ensuring that the white perspective was recorded.⁴Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 32. Local historians did not hold degrees in history, but came from all sorts of professional backgrounds: doctors, lawyers, religious leaders, businessmen, and more that occupied the middle or upper middle classes.⁵Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 28. In New England, local historians also tended to be clergy.  

Comparing early New English local histories to Benjamin Douglass’s writing shows many similarities, especially in how they viewed Indigenous people.

Early local historians in New England wanted to memorialize the early white settlers of their communities.

In the genre of American local history, they founded many of the traditions of writing local history that Douglass would then bring to Wayne County, including the minimization of Indigenous perspectives in favor of white perspectives.⁶ O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, xiii-xiv.  In the quotes above, we can see both Douglass and early New Englanders praise early European settlers, claim that Europeans were the “first” settlers and portray them as more intelligent than Indigenous people. These themes would continue as local history expanded into the Midwest.

Local History in Ohio 

As white settlement spread, local historians outside of New England began to write more histories of their towns, cities, and counties.⁷ Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 80.

In places that were more rural, like many places in Ohio, the county level was the preferred way to record history.⁸Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 108. Russo notes that most county historians were outsiders motivated by profit, but Douglass more closely resembles early generations of local historians. When Douglass sat down to write his history of Wayne County, he found inspiration from prior generations of local and state-wide historians. All of these authors were middle or upper-middle class, white, and male, and their reasons for writing their books all had to do with celebrating the pioneers and justifying their settlement on formerly Indigenous lands. These included:  

Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe (1848) 

Born in 1816 to a successful printer, Henry Howe had the closest relationship with local historical writing in New England. ⁹Smith, Henry Howe the Historian, 314. While it was most popular in Massachusetts, local historical writing also took root in Connecticut in the 1840s, while state histories date back to the early 1800s.¹⁰Russo, Keepers of Our Past, 38. See Trumbull, A Complete History of Connecticut. John Warner Barber published a local historical survey of counties in Connecticut in 1836. Henry Howe, who was working as a bank clerk at the time, was so inspired by this work that he visited Barber’s office and asked to be a business partner. Together, they toured New York and New Jersey and wrote two successful books about both states.  

In 1846, Henry Howe arrived in Ohio to write a short history of each county in Ohio. While he did not live in Ohio, he relied on the testimonies of those who did to supply the stories featured in his book. This was the first time that anyone had written a history of Wayne County, Ohio. Henry Howe recorded some stories that were then reflected in Benjamin Douglass’s work. An example is the Stibbs Mill incident that both authors blamed on a few Indigenous men who were smoking their pipes next to a gunpowder barrel. Outside of telling similar stories, Henry Howe had similar views to Douglass about the Indigenous people and white settlers of Ohio and Wayne County.  

For example, both viewed the history of Wayne County and Ohio as a gradual change from a “wilderness” to a place of progress, thereby justifying Indigenous removal:  

Both also only count white settlers as the “first settlers” of Wayne County, despite their discussion of Indigenous settlements: 

After Howe, other historians would go on to write state and county-wide histories that influenced Douglass’s work. 

History of the State of Ohio by James Wickes Taylor (1854) 

In 1854, James Wickes Taylor wrote his History of the State of Ohio, which only covers Ohio’s early settlement history. Taylor studied law like his father, but then went into journalism and established the Cincinnati Morning Signal in 1845.¹¹Blegen, James Wickes Taylor: a Biographical Sketch, 153-155. He was also involved in politics as an anti-slavery Democrat and Free Soiler.¹² Blegen, James Wickes Taylor: a Biographical Sketch, 156-157. When Taylor wrote his History of the State of Ohio, he was the Ohio state librarian. He intended for this book to be used in schools, but it later would be used as a reference book for local historians like Benjamin Douglass. After he wrote this book, he was an advocate for education in Ohio, and also became more interested in the settlement of Minnesota and the upper northwest.¹³Blegen, James Wickes Taylor: a Biographical Sketch, 158-159. In 1862, he wrote letters to the St. Paul Daily Press urging for the removal of Indigenous people from Minnesota and paints them as “heathens” that should not be given sympathy and be wiped out if they do not comply with removal.  

Given that he was an advocate for western settlement in the 1850s, Taylor similarly writes Ohio’s early history as a story of conquest, though he is focused on the time period between 1650 and the creation of the territorial government under the Northwestern Ordinance of 1787.

While he does give Indigenous people in Ohio more space in his work, and less negative stereotypes to go along with his portrayals, he still ultimately views them as inferior to white settlers:  

However, sometimes Douglass took information from Taylor’s work and applied his own negative interpretations.

For example, he quotes information from Taylor’s writing about the Shawnee on page 165, who at first allied with the French and then the British. Douglass extends upon Taylor’s narration to claim that,  

“It will thus be readily perceived that these three nations…the Delawares, Wyandots, and Shawnese… were distinguished for bloodthirstiness, stubborn antagonism to the Americans,…and were, moreover, particeps criminis ¹⁴ Latin phrase for one who commits a crime. to many of the atrocities that blacken the pages of our border history.”  

Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (1878), 165. 

While Douglass took information from and expanded on James Wickes Taylor’s work, he also found helpful information from other other counties, such as Ashland County, Wayne County’s western neighbor.

History of Ashland County, Ohio by H.S. Knapp (1863) 

Like James Wickes Taylor, Horace Knapp was a journalist. In 1848, Knapp combined several local titles to make the Ohio Union (which would later become the Ashland Union). He was in charge of that paper until 1853. In 1854, he moved to Columbus to run the Ohio State Democrat. He returned to Ashland in 1857 and ran the Ashland Union. With the 1860 election, and Knapp’s refusal to support Democratic presidential nominee Steven Douglass, Knapp stepped down as editor of the Union.¹⁵ Hill, History of Ashland County, 114. Knapp is also listed as a lawyer in Ashland County. ¹⁶ Hill, History of Ashland County, 120. 

Douglass cites Knapp when discussing early settlement topics such as Captain Crawford’s Campaign and Johnny Appleseed, as Ashland County was a part of Wayne County until 1846. ¹⁷ Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, 198.

Knapp and Douglass also carry similar interpretations of Indigenous history:  

History of Ashland County, Ohio was an especially influential work because Wayne County and Ashland County were so close together. Combined, Benjamin Douglass used the works of Howe, Wickes Taylor, and Knapp to access information, while he also carried similar interpretations to these authors and earlier local historians from New England.

Local history is almost as old as the United States itself.

From its inception, local history has always been about uplifting some stories at the expense of others. Benjamin Douglass’s narration of Wayne County’s history falls right in line with older accounts about New England’s Puritans and Ohio’s white settlement. However, another book casts a long shadow over Douglass’s work.

Natural History of the Human Races, by John P. Jeffries (1868) 

When you open Douglass’s book, the first thing you see is a portrait of a man. It’s not Ben Douglass, but one of his colleagues: John P. Jeffries. Like Douglass, Jeffries was a local lawyer and was involved in state-wide and national politics. ¹⁸ Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, 452-453. In Douglass’s introduction, we find out that Jeffries helped Douglass write this book, and especially helped him write about the geology and Indigenous history of the area.  

How did Jeffries help Douglass?  

Along with his political and legal career, Jeffries also wrote a book called The Natural History of the Human Races (1869). Douglass compliments this book and calls it “ethnological truth” and says that Jeffries has “written, collected, and condensed much valuable history concerning the American Indian.” ¹⁹ Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, 172; 454. Given that Douglass compliments it so highly, it is important to know what Jeffries wrote about, read, and believed.  

What is History of the Human Races?

This book adopts a view of biodeterminism: it argues that humans can be grouped into distinct, unequal races that have unchanging traits.²⁰ Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 52. Of course, these so-called “scientific” observations always seem to favor those in power.²¹ Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 53. Douglass includes the following review of Natural History of the Human Races in History of Wayne County, Ohio:  

Jeffries uses stereotypes and the outdated, debunked practice of phrenology as “proof” that Indigenous people were inferior to white people. Craniometry and phrenology were forms of scientific racism that used skull measurements to assume information about a person’s intelligence, morality, or personality.²² Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 57. Gould argues that craniometry equated overall skull size to intelligence, while phrenology studied how different parts of the brain determined different traits. Both fields were popular in the nineteenth century, though beliefs about the inequality of races is much older.²³ Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 63.

Founders of the field, such as Louis Agassiz and Samuel George Morton, used skull measurements to “prove” that different racial groups were actually different species and that white people were superior to all other races. Jeffries re-publishes data collected by Samuel George Morton (see pages 108 and 241) whose books, such as Crania Americana (1839) justified Indigenous removal by arguing that their skull sizes proved that they were not as intelligent as Caucasians and were “averse to cultivation:” meaning that they did not use their lands properly.²⁴ Morton, Crania Americana, 5-6.   

Skull measurements by Dr. Morton on page 108-108 of Natural History of the Human Races. Internet Archive, no known restrictions on copyright.

However, Samuel Morton used faulty measurements to produce faulty data.²⁵ For a complete debunking of Morton’s data in Crania Americana, see Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, pages 88-92. For example, Samuel Morton skewed his data to make Caucasian skulls seem larger, and even other scholars at the time criticized Morton for not distinguishing between male and female skulls.²⁶ Menand, 110-111; Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 92.  

Phrenologists like Morton influenced how Jeffries and Douglass discussed Indigenous people and their histories: all are based on the idea that Indigenous people are racially inferior and that white Americans deserve their lands more. 

Douglass and Jeffries: How are they similar?  

Douglass and Jeffries both have the same ideas about Indigenous people as overall inferior to White Americans. Although Jeffries states that white settlers committed “egregious wrongs”²⁷ Jeffries, Natural History of the Human Races, 204. against Indigenous people, he argues for their inferiority at length:  

 Jeffries and Douglass share the same ideas on the inferiority of Indigenous people, which for Jeffries is also proven by science:  

Similarly, we can see from Jeffries’ perspective that Christianity was a sign of racial superiority:  

“The savage knows not God… he is pleased to describe…a ‘happy hunting ground’ — a place of endless ease and pleasure. But the Christian looks forward with joy to the moment when his immortal spirit…shall pass to heaven, and dwell with the Saints and Christ forever”  

John P. Jeffries, Natural History of the Human Races (1869), 362. 

This explains why Jeffries and Douglass characterize Christian Indigenous people more positively:

Both agreed that Indigenous people were bound to fade away, as proven by the lack of evidence of their existence in places like Wayne County and Ohio: 

Both also frame the Battle of Fallen Timbers as a battle between the wholly superior Americans and the inferior Indigenous confederacy: 

Similarly, both minimize the removal of Wayne County’s Indigenous nations: 

“[The Wyandottes] occupied these lands until July 1843, when they emigrated to their present place of residence, west of the Mississippi, having disposed of their lands by treaty in 1842. At the time of their emigration they numbered about 700.”  

John P. Jeffries, 244, quoted by Benjamin Douglass on page 164 

Knowing that Douglass largely agreed with Jeffries, we can see now why Douglass would claim that white Europeans were the first settlers, the “bringers of civilization” or why Indigenous people were inherently violent. We can also see why Douglass would gloss over Indigenous removal with euphemisms like “emigration”. Ultimately, through the stereotypes that we see in Douglass’s books and books that came before his, there is the idea that white Europeans are superior to Indigenous people. For Douglass and Jeffries, these ideas were also based on the false “science” of phrenology.

A Lasting Impact

Local history in the US was a product of the nineteenth century, but is still influential today.

A long history of white-centered local history and the practice of racial pseudoscience, which has since been discredited, inspired Benjamin Douglass’s History of Wayne County, Ohio. The result is Ben Douglass’s usage of stereotypes to narrate local Indigenous history. In the last few decades into today, local historians still utilize Douglass as a source. While some authors criticize Douglass’s usage of stereotypes, many of the assumptions present in Douglass’s work appear in newer books and articles. Meanwhile, the full legacy of Indigenous people in Ohio and Wayne County remains underrepresented.  

Continue to Douglass’s Legacy

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