Tuesday 13th October 2009 - The Lepper Library

          The County seat of Columbiana County is Lisbon.  It has a rather splendid diner, called the Steel Trolley.  It seems an ideal place for breakfast, if I can persuade them to "hold" the carbs.

          They provide the morning newspaper.  Local papers here (actually, all papers here are local: you have to turn to inside pages for national news, and even further for international, which comes as snippets) usually carry a police reports page, and it's alway worth a read.  This morning's gem is about a man reporting, in the middle of the day, that his children are at home alone, and are telling him they can see men with rifles.  When officers attend, the paper says they found that the men "were involved with the youth day at the Baptist Church".  They seemed to think that was an adequate explanation.

 

          The County Library is in a splendid Victorian building, and is called the "Lepper Library" because it was endowed by one Victoria Lepper in 1892.  It has a nice little local history section and the usual set of solicitous grown-up ladies.  I will be happy here for a few days.

          The whole area around Glasgow was known as the "Scotch Settlement" since about 1800.  The census records show large numbers of people born in Scotland.  In particular, there are a large number of Mc Bane/Bain/Beans.  Somehow or other, in the middle of nowhere, one of the McBanes got to be postmaster, and it looks like, in 1839, the Post Office got called Glasgow.  Thirteen years later, in 1852, this same William McBane platted the village of Glasgow.  It would be reasonable to suppose he called the village after the post office.  Why he called the Post Office Glasgow is harder to guess.  The McBanes first arrived here in 1804, and it was them who encouraged all these Scots to migrate.  Perhaps they all came from Glasgow, or thereabouts.  They would probably have sailed from Greenock to Baltimore.

          By 1870, it is on the map

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The publisher of the atlas is given as C O Titus.  That's got to be some classicist's rude joke, hasn't it?

          The map maker has used the abbreviation "Jno" for quite a lot of names.  I can't figure out what that's short for.  There are lots of people on internet discussion sites with the same problem.  The people who are sure of themselves say it's short for John (although not by very much).  Those not-so-sure think it might be Jonathan.  But the atlas shows all three.  The argument is finally settled for me when I see a portrait of a General whose name is known to be John, and he has signed his name Jno.

 

          I encounter a lady in the local history section who is an expert on covered bridges.  She can even tell what kind of trusses they are made with.  She tells me there is one nearby which has been rebuilt beside a fancy restaurant.  The township Glasgow is in is called Madison Township.  I think she might be angling for something.