The Definitive Dwiggins no. 47—Cambridge, Ohio

Although W.A. Dwiggins was neither born there nor spent the most years of his childhood there, the town most closely associated with his early life is Cambridge, Ohio. [1] Cambridge is located due south of Cleveland and due east of Columbus in rolling hill country. It is the seat of Guernsey County. In the 1890s, when Dwiggins lived there, two railroad lines (the Baltimore & Ohio and the Cleveland & Marietta) ran through town, testifying to its importance. The B&O ran east/west from Benwood in West Virginia to Columbus before heading southwest through Washington Court House and Wilmington on its way to connecting with the B&O S.W. line at Midland City. The smaller, financially troubled C&M ran north/south from Marietta to Canal Dover—its northernmost endpoint despite the Cleveland in its name—where it hooked up with the Pennsylvania Railroad, its eventual purchaser. Cambridge was also situated on the Old National Road, the country’s first highway (now U.S. 40), with Wheeling Avenue doubling as Main Street.

Railroad Map of Ohio (1899). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In the 1890s Cambridge was a booming town. The population at the beginning of the decade was 4,361 and by the end it had nearly doubled to 8,241. [2] It was becoming a manufacturing and milling town. In 1890 the Cambridge Iron and Steel Works (later known as the Guernsey Works) was established on the northwestern outskirts of town at the end of North Second Street. Four years later the Morton Tin Plate Mill (later known as the Cambridge Works) was built in South Cambridge. Within a few years both mills became part of the monopoly American Sheet Steel and Tin-Plate Company. The Wills Creek Coal Company was established in 1896; and during Dwiggins’ sojourn in Chicago the Guernsey Earthenware Company (1900) and the Cambridge Glass Company (1902) were erected, leading to Cambridge’s current reputation for pottery and glassware.

American Sheet & Tin Plate Company (Guernsey Works) c.1910. Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

American Sheet & Tin Plate Company (Cambridge Works) c.1910. Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

Prior to the booming 1890s, the leading manufacturers in Cambridge were the Cambridge Roofing Company (established in 1882) and the Hoyle & Scott Planing Mill. The latter was founded in 1886 by William Hoyle, Dwiggins’ future father-in-law, and T.W. Scott. It was located at the intersection of Wheeling Avenue and North Third Street. Hoyle and Scott went on to establish the Hoyle and Scott Telephone Company as competition to the Bell Telephone Company in 1895. Incorporated as the Cambridge Home Telephone Company four years later, it succeeded in taking over the local Bell System. [3]

Hoyle & Scott Planing Mill c.1910. Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

In 1897, Dwiggins’ sophomore year in high school, Cambridge boasted twelve churches, seven hotels and six newspapers (four weekly and two daily). It had one art supply store and four bookstores that also sold stationery. Four clothing stores, two general stores, two drugstores, one grocery store, one bakery, one jewelry store, and one bank lined Wheeling Avenue west of the courthouse, the principal business district. There were no sidewalks and the streets, with the exception of the brick Wheeling Avenue, were not yet paved, making them muddy and treacherous in bad weather. (During high waters in March 1906, The Daily Guernsey Times wrote that, “”The mud is running down the Dewey avenue hill, like lava from a volcano.”)

The view of the business district of Cambridge below, taken c. 1909, is not that different from the way the town would have looked during Dwiggins’ high school days a decade earlier. The view is looking east up Wheeling Avenue toward the Guernsey County courthouse, identifiable by its clock tower. The clock tower at the far left is that of the Union School (later Central High School), located at the corner of North 7th Street and Steubenville Avenue, which Dwiggins attended from 1895 to 1899. At the lower left is the Cambridge Roofing Company. The railroad tracks in the foreground are those of the B&O. Wills Creek is obscured at the lower right by the trees lining its banks.

Panorama of Cambridge business district (c.1909).

View of Wheeling Avenue between North 7th and North 8th Streets, Cambridge (1907). The visible interurban streetcar line was established c.1903 by the Cambridge Power, Light and Traction Co.

In the spring of 1903 Dwiggins moved back to Cambridge from Chicago where he had been working as a commercial artist in a studio with his former teacher Frederic W. Goudy. [4] He was eager to be at home with his mother and grandmother and to be reunited with his high school sweetheart, Mabel Hoyle. Over the course of the next few months Dwiggins spent time sketching aspects of Cambridge.

His efforts first appeared in vol. I, no. 7 of The Tattler, “a magazine for the few” published weekly by Dwiggins with former classmates Ed Stockdale, Allan Barnes, Fred McCollum and Daily Doyle. [5] His drawing of the Cambridge Works of the American Tin Plate Company (signed and dated October 15, 1903) was accompanied by this text:

On this page is a cut of the Cambridge Works of the American Tin Plate Company, as seen from the northeast. This mill was built by Cambridge capitalists in 1896 and was an independent mill until 1898 when it passed into the hands of the trust and was enlarged. In 1900 the tinning department was destroyed by fire, but the mill has been running almost constantly since the big strike in 1901. The outcome of the present shutdown is not known, but it is rumored that the mill will be moved to another place. [6]

The Cambridge Works of the American Tin Plate Company. Illustration by W.A. Dwiggins (dated October 15, 1903). Excerpted from The Tattler, vol. I, no. 7 (October 23, 1903). Boston Public Library, 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Box 35, Folder 33.

The drawing of the Cambridge Works was followed by a woodcut of the Old Covered Bridge (often called the Double Bridge) in The Tattler, vol. I, no. 9 (November 6, 1903). The bridge, built in 1828, spanned Wills Creek at the point where the Old National Road changed from Wheeling Avenue to Dewey Avenue. It survived the Great Flood of 1913 but was closed to traffic the following year. [7] It is one of the most famous images of Cambridge, appearing in numerous postcards and photographs—unfortunately undated. Most views, like the two images below, show the bridge from the direction of Wheeling Avenue on the northern side of Wills Creek.

Dwiggins’ woodcut followed this convention, though he chose to show the bridge partially from the side in order to emphasize its wooden construction. He romanticized the bridge by leaving out the numerous advertisements that plastered its entrance. His accompanying text, however, is both nostalgic and clear-eyed. He appreciated the bridge’s longevity, but acknowledged that it was not fit for the age of the automobile and would need to be replaced.

The double bridge which crosses Wills Creek at Dewey avenue [sic] is one of the few pioneer landmarks left to Cambridge. Erected in 1828 when the town took a very small part in the march of civilization, the structure has served many long years without complaint, patiently lifting the wayfarer over the water, like an amiable ferryman. Many years have rained and beamed upon its gray shingles from the time when pioneer wagon and stage coach passed under its arches till now when the effortless automobile glides over its worn planks. Mankind has a warm place in its heart for age that has ripened through patient service, and those of us who love the old bridge mourn the necessity that must replace it with a younger and stronger structure. [8]

A letter to the editor (signed EMS), printed in The Tattler vol. I, no. 10 (November 13, 1903), proclaimed, “The articles of Will A. Dwiggins on the railway depots and the old bridge are very exact in their truth and should be read with profit by our city law makers. The old bridge should have been torn away long ago and it has no right to stand in the way of modern improvement.” [9]

The Old Covered Bridge, Cambridge. Undated postcard (pre-1913).

Old Covered Bridge, Cambridge. Undated photograph (pre-1913).

The Double Bridge, Cambridge. Woodcut illustration by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Excerpted from The Tattler, vol. I, no. 9 (November 6, 1903). Boston Public Library, 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Box 35, Folder 33.

An advertisement in The Tattler vol. I, no. 13 (December 11, 1903) announced a portfolio of ten prints of scenes in and around Cambridge from the Guernsey Shop for sale. Dwiggins’ name was not mentioned, nor were the specific scenes described. “The Guernsey Shop Co. will give an exhibit of the art drawings,” reported The Daily Jeffersonian on December 17, “in their office rooms in the Branthoover-Johnson Building on West 8th Street, Monday and Tuesday of next week, to which all are invited. The exhibit will include a number of drawings of scenes in and around Cambridge.” Two days later the newspaper told its readers that the portfolios of prints “are selling rapidly and are splendid souvenirs. Don’t fail to get one of them.” The ten scenes were finally revealed to be “Old National Bridge, West Eighth Street, B. & O. track from cemetery, Central School, On Willis Creek [sic], Three Towers, Tunnel Hill, Old Davis Corner, An Old Hostelry and Eighth Street Hill.”—though Dwiggins was still not identified as the artist. [10] The illustrations in The Tattler of the Cambridge Works and the Old Covered Bridge were not part of the portfolio.

The prints were made from zinc photo-engraved plates of pen-and-ink drawings made by Dwiggins. The first print in the portfolio was the Old National Bridge, another name for the Old Covered Bridge. The print in the portfolio was from a different perspective than the woodcut of the bridge in The Tattler. This time the advertisements on the facade were partially indicated.

Old National Bridge. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

Old National Bridge. Zinc plate mounted on wood block. Courtesy of Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

The second print was labeled “West Eighth Street”. The view is south from Steubenville Avenue toward Wheeling Avenue. The Second United Presbyterian Church is in the foreground with the Park Hotel to its left. The Branthoover-Johnson Building, located at 115 West 8th Street, is probably the next building over. The Tattler‘s offices were on its second floor. [11] Off to the left unseen is the Guernsey County Courthouse, a building that, despite its prominence, is not included in Dwiggins’ portfolio.

West Eighth Street. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

The Guernsey County Courthouse was begun in 1881 and completed two years later. Located on Wheeling Avenue between West 8th Street and East 8th Street, it is the heart of Cambridge. In this view, West 8th Street is to the left. The Soldiers’ Monument, in the forefront, was erected on June 9, 1903.

Guernsey County Courthouse (1881), Cambridge, 1906. The Soldiers’ Monument is in the foreground.

The third print is of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks at the point where the Ninth Street Bridge, which veers off of South 9th Street, crosses Wills Creek. On the other side of the tracks is the 8th Street hill (the subject of Print no. 10). The houses on the bluff are along Turner Avenue. The large building nearly in the center of the picture is the Methodist Protestant Church with the building to its right being the back of the Cambridge Foundry. The large building, partially obscured by a tree, is the back of Hammond’s Opera House, the principal venue for entertainment in Cambridge.

This is the most detailed illustration in the portfolio. It is more self-conscious. The treatment of foliage and clouds is similar to some of the commercial illustrations that Dwiggins was doing at this time such as a bookplate for Elizabeth Mary Hill and a cover for The House Beautiful (May 1902). This is the only print in the series that is signed by Dwiggins (WAD 03).

The loose sketchy quality of the majority of the portfolio drawings is refreshing since Dwiggins’ mature illustrations tended to be stiff and carefully rendered. The most notable exception to this statement is his edition of Tartarin of Tarascon (Limited Editions Club, 1930).

B&O Tracks. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

Union High School (later the Central School and the Cambridge High School). Undated postcard.

Central School. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

It is unclear at what point the Union School, built in 1874, officially changed its name to the Cambridge High School. As early as 1876 it was informally referred to as the Cambridge High School. And it was the Cambridge High School from which Dwiggins graduated in 1899. But, in his illustration of the building Dwiggins called it the Central School, a reference to the fact that after 1893 it was no longer the only school in town. [12] The school was located on Steubenville Avenue between North 7th Street and North 8th Street, roughly a block away from the courthouse. On its left in the illustration is the Methodist Episcopal Church and on its right is the United Presbyterian Church.

Ninth Street Bridge. Undated postcard. Looking south from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks across Wills Creek.

Wills Creek. Photograph from “Greater” Cambridge, Ohio: Illustrated and Descriptive Center of the Great Guernsey Valley compiled by W.L. Russell for The Cambridge Business Men’s Association (Cambridge, Ohio: Press of Callihan & Stottlemire, 1910). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

On Will’s Creek. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

“On Will’s Creek” [sic] is a view of the Ninth Street Bridge from the east. The composition almost exactly matches that of an undated photograph (above) in a 1910 book published by The Cambridge Business Men’s Association to tout Cambridge. [13] Who took the photograph and when? Perhaps Dwiggins did as an aid to creating his drawing. Certainly it was the sort of technique he would have learned at The Frank Holme School of Illustration. If so, did Dwiggins base his other illustrations of Cambridge on photographs as well rather than sketching directly from nature?

Three Towers. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

“Three Towers” is a view of the Central High School (at left), the Guernsey County Courthouse (center), and the Methodist Episcopal Church (at right). It is the only print to show (albeit briefly) the courthouse. The view seems to be from an undeveloped lot between North 5th Street and North 6th Street where Gomber Avenue then ended. [14]

B&O Tunnel. Undated postcard.

The Old Spring & Tunnel. Undated postcard from the Guernsey Historical Society website.

Tunnel Hill. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

“Tunnel Hill” is a view of the B&O tracks as they cross Wills Creek and enter Tunnel Hill on the west side of Cambridge, just south of where Steubenville Avenue crosses the creek. The hill was named after the railroad tunnel which was opened in 1854, linking Cambridge with Zanesville. Four seams of coal were discovered in the hill in the 1870s and by the 1890s there were several coal companies operating mines there. Dwiggins’ illustration is very similar to two undated postcards (one in black-and-white, the other colored) on the Guernsey County Historical Society website, again raising the question of his method of working.

Old Davis Corner. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

Old Davis Corner is the only print in Dwiggins’ portfolio that includes people, possibly farmers who have come to town to conduct legal business. The old Davis Block was located on Wheeling Avenue “at Public Square”, the name for the square that housed the Guernsey County Courthouse and Guernsey County Jail. Both are out of view at the left. The old Davis Block was named for a grocery operated by Jim Davis in the 1870s. It was home to several lawyers and a cobbler. It is not to be confused with the Davis Block between North 7th Street and West 8th Street, anchored by the Davis Dry Goods Co. at 711–715 Wheeling Avenue. The latter opened for business on October 16, 1901. [15] In 1903 the Old Davis Corner, the low building at left, was home to The Cambridge Herald newspaper, a music store, barbershop and grocery store. The tall building next to it housed the Old National Bank and a millinery store. Behind the low building at right was the offices of The Jeffersonian newspaper.

An Old Hostelry. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

The building in the forefront of An Old Hostelry is the Arcade Hotel, newly purchased in 1903 by Cy Swaim, a former pitcher for the local Casey Colts baseball team. [16] The hotel was located on that site as far back  as 1883, hence the name “An Old Hostelry.” The Arcade Hotel (sometimes called the Hotel Arcade) was located on Wheeling Avenue, opposite the B&O Depot and the Depot Hotel, at the corner of North 5th Street. The Old Covered Bridge was a block away at the left.

8th Street Hill. Print by W.A. Dwiggins (1903). Courtesy of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library.

The final print in the portfolio is of South 8th Street as it climbs the bluff above the B&O tracks to Turner Avenue. I have no explanation for the object hanging from the sky in the middle of the picture. It is not a streetlight and there are no churches on South 8th Street. 8th Street Hill forms a triptych with On Will’s Creek and B&O Tracks. They are three perspectives on a location that no longer exists. The South 9th Street Bridge was replaced in 1965 by a modern concrete bridge that joins Southgate Parkway in the flats to South 8th Street at the top of the hill.

What is fascinating about Dwiggins’ portfolio of prints is his selection of what to show of Cambridge. It is inexplicable that he did not show the Guernsey Court House, though he did illustrate the buildings to the west and east of it. Churches are only shown incidentally. More notably, Dwiggins deliberately did not include any illustrations of industry in his portfolio. There are no drawings of the various mills, mines, railroads (other than the B&O tracks devoid of trains), and factories that were essential to Cambridge’s economic prosperity. There are no automobiles in the illustrations, only an occasional cart or wagon. It seems that Dwiggins wanted to show Cambridge in a pre-industrial romantic light. Perhaps such views were more salable, especially as Christmas gifts. How well Dwiggins’ portfolio sold is unknown. It was priced at $1.00. [17]

Advertisement for a collection of ten prints of views of Cambridge. The Tattler, vol. 1, no. 14 (December 18, 1903). Boston Public Library, 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Box 35, Folder 34.

Down Will’s Creek from Tailor’s Dam. Pen and ink drawing by W.A. Dwiggins (July 7, 1901). Boston Public Library, 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Box 34, Folder 15.

ADDENDUM
Two years before he published his portfolio of Cambridge views, Dwiggins made a pen-and-ink drawing that seems to have presaged the series. It is labeled Down Will’s Creek from Tailor’s Dam and is dated July 7, 1901. I cannot find any reference to Tailor’s Dam, but C.P.B. Sarchet, in his history of Guernsey County, mentions a dam at Taylor’s farm that was built for the Gomber Mill. The location was on Wills Creek south of the Cambridge cemetery near the intersection of the B&O Railroad and the C&M Railroad. This is just downstream from the South 9th Street Bridge. [18]

The date of the illustration indicates that Dwiggins, who was still working with Goudy in Chicago at that time, was in Cambridge visiting his mother, grandmother and girlfriend Mabel Hoyle. [19]

NOTES
[1] Dwiggins was born in the small crossroads hamlet of Martinsville, Ohio in 1880. Within a few months, he moved with his parents to Richmond, Indiana where he lived for over eleven years. After his father’s death in January 1890, Dwiggins and his mother moved about for several years before finally settling in Cambridge in September 1895. Dwiggins spent his high school years in Cambridge, leaving town in November 1899 to study art in Chicago. He returned to Cambridge in the spring of 1903 and remained there until the fall of 1904 when he accepted Frederic W. Goudy’s invitation to join him and the Village Press in Hingham, Massachusetts. Thus, Dwiggins spent only five years of his life in Cambridge, Ohio.
[2] Cambridge was still a small town compared to both Richmond, Indiana (population 16,608 in 1890) and Zanesville, Ohio (population 21,009 in 1890) where Dwiggins had previously lived. And it was dwarfed by Chicago’s population of just under 1.7 million during the years 1899–1903 that Dwiggins studied and worked there.
[3] The business information is taken from Stories of Guernsey County, Ohio: History of an Average Ohio County by William G. Wolfe (Cambridge, Ohio: published by the author, 1943); and Guernsey County, Ohio by Cyrus P.B. Sarchet (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Company, 1911). The former is notable for having several illustrations (pp. 202, 444, 539) of Cambridge by Dwiggins in it, though he goes unmentioned in the text. For the history of the tin-plate trust see The Tin-Plate Industry: A Comparative Study of Its Growth in the United States and Wales by D.E. Dunbar (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), Chapter V.
[4] Exactly when Dwiggins left Chicago for Cambridge in 1903 is unclear. In different memoirs Will Ransom mentions meeting Goudy just after Dwiggins had left town, providing dates of March 16 on one occasion and March 27 on another. Yet, there is an envelope from Dwiggins to his mother in Cambridge mailed from Park Ridge, Illinois (a Chicago suburb), postmarked April 30. The earliest confirmed evidence of Dwiggins in Cambridge in 1903 is a note in the September 4, 1903 issue of The Daily Jeffersonian that Eva Dwiggins and W.A. Dwiggins have moved to Beatty Avenue. Microfilm reel 20892, Ohio Historical Society, Archives, Library Division (Columbus, Ohio).
[5] The first issue of The Tattler was September 11, 1903. Its twenty-second and last (with the name spelled Tatler) was July 2, 1904. Although listed as the art editor on the masthead of the early issues, Dwiggins was the driving force behind the publication. Over the course of it eleventh month existence the names of his cohorts shifted several times. A future number of The Definitive Dwiggins will focus on  the fascinating content of The Tattler, which can best be described as a mixture of muckraking, satire, and juvenilia.
[6] Dwiggins’ history is not entirely accurate. As indicated above the Morton Tin Plate Mill (which became the Cambridge Works) was opened in 1894 and became part of the trust 1898. The 1901 strike was led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. It ended disastrously for the union. According to Dunbar the next strike occurred in 1909. See The Tin-Plate Industry: A Comparative Study of Its Growth in the United States and Wales by D.E. Dunbar (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), pp. 55–58.
[7] The bridge is widely described as having been destroyed in 1913. However, an article in The Ohio Journal of Commerce May 15, 1914, p. 198 announces that the bridge will be closed to traffic, indicating that it was still in existence and open to pedestrians. Lori Mitchell of the Finley Room, Guernsey County Library has supplied me with a number of newspaper articles indicating that a “temporary” bridge, erected after the 1913 flood, remained in use until the current viaduct was opened in 1925. This temporary bridge must have been erected in the second half of 1914.
[8] The Tattler, vol. I, no. 9 (November 6, 1903).
[9] EMS was probably Ed Stockdale, the managing editor of The Tattler.
[10] See The Daily Jeffersonian, December 17 and 19, 1903. Microfilm reel 20892, Ohio Historical Society, Archives, Library Division (Columbus, Ohio).
[11] The Tattler was originally published from 719 Wheeling Street (above a drugstore on the north side of Wheeling Avenue between North 7th Street and West 8th Street) until no. 12 when it moved to 115 West 8th Street.
[12] The South Side School was built in 1893 and the Lofland School in 1895. For the history of Cambridge schools, though not any illumination on their naming, see Guernsey County, Ohio by Cyrus P.B. Sarchet (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Company, 1911), vol. I, pp. 129–130.
[13] The photograph is part of a collage of five photographs of Wills Creek in “Greater” Cambridge, Ohio: Illustrated and Descriptive Center of the Great Guernsey Valley compiled by W.L. Russell for The Cambridge Business Men’s Association (Cambridge, Ohio: Press of Callihan & Stottlemire, 1910). None of the photographs is individually labeled or dated.
[14] The undeveloped lot is shown on the aerial map of Cambridge, Ohio 1899 by T.M. Fowler.
[15] See The Cambridge Jeffersonian March 5, 1896, p. 1 for the Jim Davis grocery store; and The Cambridge Jeffersonian October 10, 1901 for the announcement of the Davis Dry Goods Co. Newspapers.com.
[16] See The Cambridge Jeffersonian September 3, 1903, p. 1. Newspapers.com.
[17] The first advertisement in The Tattler, vol. I, no. 13 (December 11, 1903) did not provide a price for the portfolio. The advertisement in The Tattler, vol. I, no. 14 (December 18, 1903) gave a price but did not list the subject of all ten prints. The portfolio was for sale at Dollison’s art store, W.T. Secrest’s general goods store, and D.M. Hawthorne, a drugstore.
[18] Guernsey County, Ohio by Cyrus P.B. Sarchet (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Company, 1911), vol. I, p. 393.
[19] There are only two newspaper notices of Dwiggins’ presence in Cambridge that summer. Both are from August with the second indicating that he returned to Chicago on August 10. There are no notices concerning his arrival in town.