The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1950-02-23

sOill appear IN Forthcoming
issues.
"John Beatty, Squire"
Diamonds in the dust--the quaint
little yarns of forgotten men who
for a century and longer have slept
under little monuments which today
mean nothing, all over Ohio. Come
and gone through the years there
have been a million of them, their
little markers obliterated by the
elements, fallen down or carted away
to make somebody a doorstep.
Even when the name and two
dates on the gravestone can be
deciphered it means no more. I'm
less they were somebody really i'm
portant in the state or nation they
were just one of the herd who have
gone before-long before.
Take old John Beatty, for example.
Now who of you ever heard of John
Beatty? Once he was big shot
locally-only locally, but his story,
like a million more lost ones, is
worth retelling.
First Milan Postmaster
Beatty was the first postmaster at
Milan, Erie County, which gave the
world Thomas A. Edison. But it was
in 1916 that the post office was
established and the name of the town
then was Beatty" The settlers
around there were poor and few of
them could raise the shilling it took
to get a letter out of the post office.
Postage was a shilling a letter then
and they came COD.
So Beatty let everyone have their
letters anyhow and never made re-
turns to the Post Office Department.
That suited everybody but the gov
eminent and the Post Office Depart
ment discontinued the office in 1919
leaving Beatty out of job.
Beatty was Methodist preacher
and from 1916 to 1910 preached
every, Sunday in some settlers cabin
or in a log school, After losing the
post office he opened store.
First Vessel Built
The first vessel built in what now
is Erie County was made by Abijah
Hewitt and Eleazer Bell on the bay
shore few miles southeast of
Sandusky. Its first cargo was a
stock of general merchandise for
Beatty's store-including a keg of
brandy which had not been declared
at the customs house.
On Lake Erie the vessel was seized
and confscated. Beatty's merchan-
disc was locked up and put under
guard and the case reported to the
revenue department. Mails We're
slow then and Beatty grew tired OF
waiting for the possible release OF
his stock of goods.
Finally he got a body Of his
friends together, drove his teams and
wagon to the wharf, brushed the
revenue officers aside, then broke
into the warehouse and carried off
his stuff.
He got into a lot of trouble about
that-not because of the undeclared
brandy but because of the way he
got possession of it. Years after
wards, he was compelled to pay the
costs and penalties accruing out OF
the affair."
Pioneer Justice of Peace
For years Beatty was pioneer
justice of the peace and ran things
in his own peculiar way, never fail
ing to sign himself esquire" Once,
before another justice, when he was
prosecuting a boy who had stolen
some candles from his store, he call
ed the squire aside and fixed the
case. Fixed it to make the penalty
lighter on the thief.
Beatty had testified that the
candles "were worth 81, every penny
of it." Then remembering that the
penalty for a theft of S4 or over
was the whipping post, he had a
change of heart He told the Judge:
81 swore that the candles were worth
81 but omitted to state that it was
the retail price. As the boy stole
the whole box, I'll make them to him
at Wholesale $685." The boy was
not whipped.
In 1928 Beatty moved from Milan
to Sandusky and in 1888 was elected
mayor. The old church on the public
square there was built by him at his
own cost and donated to the Wesley
an Methodist Society but later was
used by the Lutherans.