Blog 4

Cy Young Award

In Major League Baseball, two pitchers, one in the American League and one in the National League, receive the Cy Young award for being the best pitcher in their respective league. The prestigious award was named after Baseball Hall of Fame and Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame pitcher Denton "Cy" Young.


Cy Young was born and raised in Gilmore, a small farming community located in southern Tuscarawas county. After playing non-professional baseball for a team in Carrollton, Young accepted an offer to play for Canton's minor league team. Not long after, he joined the Majors by playing for the Cleveland Spiders (a name far more terrifying and threatening than the current Indians we know today).

Cy Young wearing a Cleveland cap in 1909

By the time Young entered the pros, he was known for his incredibly quick fastball. These lightning fast pitches earned him the nickname Cyclone, which eventually shortened to "Cy". Cy Young remained a professional baseball player for over 22 years and retired at the age of 44. At the time of his retirement in 1911, Cy Young recorded 511 career wins, pitched 749 complete career games, and pitched 7,356 career innings. These three records are still held by Young almost 107 years later.


Young came back to Tuscarawas county after retirement and lived in Newcomerstown until his death in 1955. In the following year in 1956, the Cy Young Award was posthumously dedicated to Young. Ever since then, this award has been given annually to the best pitcher or pitchers in baseball. With a very short list of famous people coming from Tuscarawas county, I am glad that one of the greatest players in baseball history was born and raised in the same county as my own.

Troop Train Accident

The Troop Train accident

Coshocton county is a small county and other than The Historic Roscoe Village it has vary little other historic events or places. One of those exceptions is the Memorial to The Troop Train Accident where a civilian passage train called the “Spirit of St. Louis” crashed into a military train injuring a total of 278 military troops were injured and 33 of those injured “Thirty-three members of two batteries of 109^th Field Artillery Battalion, were killed.” ("Troop Train Accident"). The Troop Train accident occurred September 11^th, 1950 near the city of West Lafayette and was caused of the negligence of an engineer by the name of Willie E. Eller. The “Spirit of St. Louis” was been driven by Mr. Eller when it rammed into the back of the military train carrying the 109^th Field Artillery Battalions train injuring most of the troops located in the last 3 cars of the train and killing 33 National Guard troops. At a military inquiry regarding this incident it was revealed the Mr. Eller’s train was running late, had ignored a stop signal, and was going to fast when it slammed into the troop train. September 13^th, 1950 the bodies where placed on a train in Columbus and with national guards and planes dropping flowers during the trip they arrived at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of September 14^th, 1950. A memorial of this tragic event remains in Township road 25 in West Lafayette.

This accident was a tragedy that easily could have been prevented. We can learn from history about our mistakes. If Mr. Eller would have taken his time and obeyed the law as he was supposed to and had not have gotten into a hurry this entire incident could have been prevented. Modern Society seems to be in such a rush that we often forget that accidents and disasters such as The Troop Train accident are caused by rushed carelessness. Let’s learn from this tragic incident and stop rushing and speeding to make up time because that is what causes accidents.

Coshocton Fire Department Link containing full story and list of casualties as well as pictures: http://coshoctonfire.org/troop-train-accident/nggallery/slideshow

Citation:

“Troop Train Accident.” Coshocton Fire Department, Wilkes-Barre Record Almanac, coshoctonfire.org/troop-train-accident/nggallery/slideshow.

Blog Post 4

The Gnadenhutten Massacre

            On March 8^th 1782, the Gnadenhutten Massacre occurred. A group of 165 Pennsylvania militiamen killed 90 unresisting men, women, and children. The massacre occurred because it was a retaliation for the deaths and kidnappings of Pennsylvanians; however, the Christian Indians were not a part of the previous attacks on the them. It was the Shawnee Raiders behind it. They attacked the Wallace’s Residents in Washington County in Pennsylvania, taking Mrs. Wallace and her three children. Later, the Raiders killed Mrs. Wallace and her children by impaling their bodies on the end of small tree trunks. The Savages went through Gnadenhutten and sold some of items including Mrs. Wallace’s dress. Some think that the Raiders planted that there. David Williamson was the leader of the force of the militiamen. They set out for the Moravian Villages including Gnadenhutten.

           

         The majority of the American Indians moved away from Gnadenhutten previous years. Although, some had return to plant and harvest crops. On March 7^th 1782, the Indians surrendered to the militiamen; they were locked up in two of the houses. The men where in one house and the women and children where in another. The village was searched, and they did find Mrs. Wallace’s bloody dress. They took a vote if they should put the Indians to death. There were only 18 out of 165 voted for mercy. The next day, March 8^th, the militiamen took the Indians into a cabin and killed them with tomahawks, mallets, and knives. They counted 90 deaths, but they took 96 scalps; only 2 boys escaped.

      

           The picture above is the burial site of the Indians. A missionary found the remaining skeletons about five years later and buried them in a big grave mass. This is located behind a museum still to this day. Some say you can hear screams of the victims. Some said they have seen ghostly figures walking around the area.   

Blog #4

Newcomerstown Schools

Newcomerstown is a small village south of New Philadelphia. The first school here started as a one room log house teaching all grades in 1856. In 1955 a tornado came through the town damaging many of the school buildings. The East and the West school got completely destroyed during the tornado so they decided to build two new buildings.

The East school had 7 rooms and the West school had 17 rooms and an auditorium. The West school had a cafeteria so the students at the East school were bussed to the West school to eat lunch.

Newcomerstown Middle School

The Middle school today used to be where the high school was in 1924. It consisted of 3 floors and an auditorium. In 1965 the new High school building was built, it was one floor and had a multi-purpose room which consisted of a flat floor and bleacher seats around the outside.

Newcomerstown Highschool

In 1967 a new athletic stadium was built beside the high school. It is called Lee Stadium.

Lee Stadium

Newcomerstown schools have come a long way from when they began. Every schools history is important not just Newcomerstown schools history.

Blog 4: Tuscarawas County Italian-American Festival

~~The Tuscarawas County Italian-American Festival~~

  The Tuscarawas County Italian-American Festival was a fantastic small scale festival (founded in 1989) taking place in Downtown Dover that celebrated the Italian culture within the local community. The festival itself consisted of a stage where musical performances took place, food vendors, games, and more. The performances of the Dominic Greco band (run by former high school band director Frederick Delphia) was one of the festival's most popular attractions. It was quite a small festival that was locally funded however, for the two decades that the festival ran it was an event that many local people enjoyed and took pride in.

  Many people in this community come from Italian descent so the whole purpose of this festival was to celebrate that culture through things like italian music, italian food (strombolis are my favorite!) and more! One of the founders of this festival, Bob Mueller of Dover, is of Italian descent himself and has expressed on numerous occasions how thankful he has felt throughout the years to have had such a good run with the festival. Though the festival came to an end in 2015 due to insufficient funds, Mueller and the rest of the community remain thankful to have been able to enjoy it while we could. 

  I feel that this festival is still important to talk about though it no longer exists because it is my hope that one day maybe it will return, or perhaps we can have a Guatemalan-American festival some day to appreciate the Guatemalan culture that is so prevalent in our community just like we did with Italian culture! I feel it is so important to appreciate our history and to know where we come from. There are so many cultures in this community (particularly German, Italian, and Guatemalan I've noticed) and it would be wonderful to give each culture the amount of appreciation we gave for the Italian culture through the Italian-American Festival. 

Blog post 3

            

         “Growing up isn’t always easy and when you have a dad in the military it’s even worse. “ My boyfriend of 3 years hasn’t always had the easiest life especially being a military brat as he calls it. He grew up in several various places in California and went to over 7 different schools out there not counting the ones that have been in Ohio. 

            While growing up in California he got to go to Disney land, six flags etc but he says, “It was nothing to walk down from his house and enjoy the beaches and see the sea life in the water splashing around.” Unfortunately, but since he was always moving from military base to another one he didn’t always get to go down to the beach as often as he had liked. He never had a chance to make any friends either because he was always moving around.

            After his dad had retired from the military they decided to move to where his mother was from which is Ohio. Where he attended Harrison Central for 2 years until they decided to move to Dover. When they moved to Dover he had decided to go to Buckeye Career Center and take up landscaping.  There’s a story he always tells me about the one day he was out front at Buckeye and was moving the law, and as he was the moving the law the Performing Arts Center had collapses         while the workers where working on it. When I asked him how he felt about it all he could say was he was extremely shocked at what he had witness and he didn’t know what to do at that point in time.

            I believe it’s good to hear a story from someone that’s not from this state or around here but had manages to find his way around here. Thanks to him we have a beautiful daughter and a beautiful life started out for us.  I think not to many people saw the PAC center fall while it was being built which it’s always interesting to see someone else’s point of view and I enjoy hearing of the things he got to enjoy as a child in California.

Blog Post 3: A Humble Beginning

My Grandma

Not everyone has the same upbringing. That is what makes us so unique. Our many different diversities shape us into who we are today. My biggest role model did not have the happiest, most luxurious upbringing. In fact, it was a very humbling upbringing. My biggest role model is my Grandma, Judy Williams.

Over a cup of coffee (or maybe several cups), my Grandma and I dove into some of her childhood memories. Some good and some not so good. One memory that is such a sweet one to hear is that of her freshman year homecoming.

My Grandma on her wedding day at age 19
Just 4 years after her Freshman year

She was fifteen years old and a freshman at Dennison High. Her home life was not the greatest. There was no money but her family was full of hard working people. “We didn’t ask for anything but, we were proud of everything we worked for”, she told me. She was always a little bit insecure about not having a lot of money. My Grandma has told me numerous times about the fact that she only had a few dresses and a couple of pairs of socks growing up. I’m sure that was not an easy thing to deal with while being in high school.

It was football season and time for the big homecoming. Students were to vote on who would represent their class as the 1956 Homecoming Attendant. Much to her surprise, Judy Williams was voted freshman class attendant! While to some, this would be an honor, to her it was a stress. The class attendants were to walk across the football field at the homecoming game in their nicest attire. That was the problem… She did not have anything nice to wear.

Homecoming week came and a kind neighbor of my Grandma allowed her to borrow one of their daughters’ dresses for the big night. “This was a really humbling time for me because I felt popular enough to be the homecoming attendant but I had to borrow my dress! It was an honor and at the time, an embarrassment”, she said.

I take so much from this story. It shows that money does not always matter most to people. She had no money, yet students felt she deserved the freshman homecoming attendant award. Character and kindness truly can speak louder than money can. I am so glad she was voted the attendant. She deserves that honor every day, if I could give it to her.