Chautauqua

Chautauqua

When you travel northeast from my hometown here in northeastern Ohio and head for the small village of Smithville, seven miles away, you will quickly find yourself in farmland. The surface of the earth rolls a little bit but is mostly level and has been farmed for many, many years. My county is a very agricultural one, maybe even the premier agricultural county of Ohio. A lot of corn and soybeans are grown around here along with some wheat, alfalfa and some other forage crops. Apple orchards are common. Two of the big crops grown northeast of my home are pumpkins and potatoes. A large farmer in this part of the county has turned some of his potato acres into a pumpkin farm and he does major business in the fall selling them for jack-o-lantern carving and pumpkin pie making. He also charges admission to his farm for people to walk through the corn mazes he creates every fall. But his primary crop is potatoes and he grows hundreds of acres of them each year.

Near the edge of one of his potato fields, not too far from the village of Smithville, lies a wooded area containing some ravines, a smallish stream, many acres of second-growth timber, briars and brambles and assorted downed trees, grapevine and brush-choked areas. The ground is rough and uneven. There used to be a village street that ran through this area but it was abandoned early in the 1900's and now is almost undetectable. This area is also supposed to contain the hiding place of a very interesting area which dates back to the end of the 19th century.

A place I've been hunting for many years.

Some history of the area might be enlightening:

Between the years of 1899 and 1915 this plot of ground was the location of the Point Breeze Chatauqua. Chautauquas evolved from an institution in Chautauqua, New York, where, in 1873, John Hale Vincent and Lewis Miller proposed to a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting that secular as well as religious instruction might be included in the summer outdoors Sunday-school institute. This institute evolved into an eight-week summer program offering adult courses in the arts, sciences and humanities. Thousands of people attended each year.

Other communities were inspired to form their own local Chautauquas and from 200-300 ended up being formed across the country. These local groups brought authors, explorers, musicians and political leaders to lecture and to entertain.

Point Breeze was one of those local Chautauquas. It was formed in 1899 as a 10-day event which was so successful on its initial year that it moved to a 16-day format the following year. Those 16 days encompassed 3 weekends. This local chatauqua had many important people lecture and entertain during its 17-year run including William Jennings Bryan, who gave his famous “Prince of Peace” oration, John R. Clarke – silver-tongued Irish orator, Fredrick A. Cook of North Pole fame, Ohio's governor Myron T. Herrick, Cy Young and George Sisler – baseball players, the Illinois Glee Club and many other important people and groups of the day. Admission was 10 – 15 cents.

From its beginning, the religious feature was stressed. Sunday morning worship services were held on the campgrounds for those who had traveled to and camped for the 16-day event each year. On “big” Sundays it's said you could count a thousand buggies parked in nearby fields which had brought the visitors to enjoy the music and the lectures. At the same time, several hacks brought people from Madisonburg off the Cleveland and Southwestern Interurban trollies and from Weilersville from the Pennsylvania trains.

Point Breeze stressed lectures, music and the outdoor life. It flourished in the days before radio and television when it was enjoyable to be outdoors on a pleasant summer afternoon or evening. Many families camped out on the chautauqua grounds, enjoying the outdoor life, the companionship of like-minded other folks along with the education and entertainment of the scheduled events. Baseball games were also common during the run of the chautauqua.

One of the greatest reasons that Point Breeze folded after its 1916 meeting was probably the automobile. Mobility made it possible to travel greater distances for entertainment of the same sort in Canton, Cleveland and Akron. Also, in 1916 the United States was gearing up to enter World War I which it did the following year.

After the demise of the chautauqua the ground was more-or-less abandoned. The years took their toll and the area is now virtually impassible.

I had heard the story of the Point Breeze Chautauqua back when I was getting into the hobby of metal detecting. I thought then that it might be a great place to hunt for early coins, so I took a number of trips out to that area. The part of the land that's still wooded is extremely rough with downed timber, many brushy patches massively overgrown with heavily-thorned briars and dense undergrowth. It's difficult to even get into the area now, let alone being able to swing a metal detector. I've visited this patch of woods a dozen times over the years and each trip was a difficult endeavor usually resulting in numerous bloody cuts and skin rips from the giant thornbushes. I found a few rusty horseshoes, many brass shotgun shell bases from the hunters in the woods over the years but not much else. I've poured over the maps of the area and read all I could about the chautauqua.

And I've dreamed about it. A lot.

I can just picture several thousand people wandering around in those woods, camping, playing baseball, sitting and listening to famous people and musicians.

And losing things. Coins, jewelry, all kinds of metallic items. Also remember that during that time period gold and silver were the coin of the realm. Read that once more. Gold and silver. If they dropped a single coin it would be valuable today, perhaps very valuable. Can you imagine several thousand people moving around in that area over 16 days and believe they didn't lose anything?

Nope. Me neither.

So somewhere in that couple hundred acres of woods and fields there has to be some good stuff in the ground. Perhaps a lot of good stuff!

Maybe I just haven't hit the correct thicket, the right slope, the patch of trees that grew over the honey holes where the coins lie? Maybe the woods have been logged and are now part of the massive potato fields that are adjacent to the woods and the coins have been keeping company with the spuds for a century or so. Maybe I need to go back there with my new detector and give 'er another try?

One gold coin would pay back decades of research and work. Just one.

I'll let you know if I do any good. I can almost see the gold piece laying in the soil now, waiting for me, calling me.

It's time to go get him!