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February, 2009 Chillicothe's contributions to Ohio and the United States instill a keen sense of pride among its residents, and this heritage is reflected throughout the community. Chillicothe also lends its name and character to fictional settings, due in part to its place in history but more probably to its distinctive name and presumed Midwestern innocence. As many entries in this collection suggest, Chillicothe can be seen as Everytown USA. "Chillicothe in Story and Song" now features 51 accounts from novels, short stories, motion pictures, songs, newspaper and magazine commentaries, a Broadway play, a print and an animated cartoon, a folk tale, a television program, a humor magazine, and a fabricated news report. Chillicothe's role in fictional works sometimes is due to historical or geographical necessity, while in some the action occurs here but could be set anywhere, and in others the name is mentioned only in passing. Most of the authors clearly refer to Chillicothe, Ohio, and not to one of its counterparts in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, or Texas, but it not always is clear why they have their characters born in, pass through, reside in, or hear of Chillicothe. Present-day Chillicothe, founded in 1796, was not the first town of that name in what is now Ohio. An earlier Chillicothe, known also as Chillicothe Town and Old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami River near present-day Xenia in west-central Ohio was the largest of at least seven Shawnee villages named Chalahgawtha, meaning "village" or "gathering place." One of them was on the site of today's Chillicothe, and another was near present-day Frankfort. The eleven entries added since the October 2008 edition are marked NEW. Entries are listed chronologically, except where some naturally belong together, such as those about the original Chillicothe. Persons who provided leads or assisted in obtaining needed documents are acknowledged with their permission in brackets. We invite anyone with ideas for "Chillicothe in Story and Song" to send them to Tom Thomas at 257 Independence Drive, Chillicothe OH 45601, or at <lawscience@roadrunner.com>. William "Billy" Ireland (1880-1935) was born and raised in Chillicothe and at age nineteen started his thirty-six-year career as editorial cartoonist for The Columbus Dispatch, rejecting offers over the years from "big city" papers because he wanted to be near his native Ross County, which he frequently visited and where he is buried in Grandview Cemetery. Other papers often reproduced his cartoons, but his real pride for nearly three decades was his full-page The Passing Show that appeared in color every Sunday. The more than 1,200 of them typically consisted of ten to twenty illustrated commentaries on happenings around the state, replies to readers' questions, travel notes, anecdotes about the human condition, and curiosities that amused him. Ross County frequently appeared on this page, including reports on autumn foliage and foxes with bobbed tails along Paint Creek, tributes to the troops at Camp Sherman, announcement of the Farmers' Fall Festival in Chillicothe, experiences of diverse characters in the fictional town of Tick Ridge, and the highly unlikely predictions of "Deb Parsons, the Chillicothe Prophet." He enjoyed featuring the Great Seal of Ohio as a backdrop in his cartoons and drawings, and his interest was instrumental in creating Great Seal State Park. Ireland for years championed the improvement of Ohio's public roads. A Passing Show in 1923 depicted an inscribed tombstone that he suggested might be found in the Scioto Valley: "He was a hale and hearty man / Who trusted in the Lord, / But he drove to Chillicothe / In a nineteen seven Ford. / His nervous system wilted, / Too heavy was his load; / He rattled through the pearly gates / Upon a gravel road." Lucy Caswell's Billy Ireland (2007) handsomely reproduces over 100 each of his cartoons and Passing Shows, including the ones mentioned here. James Thurber related in his "Boy from Chillicothe" article for The New Yorker in 1952, reprinted the same year in The Thurber Album, a story Ireland told him when Thurber also was at the Dispatch in the early 1920s. "[A farmer] drove over to a preacher's house in Chillicothe one day, with the mother of his five children and the kids themselves, running in age from six months to eleven years. 'Me and Elviry want to git married,' he said. The parson was surprised and said, 'These, I take it, are the children of a previous marriage.' The farmer shook his head. 'No, they ain't, Reverend,' he said. 'Y'see, me and Elviry's been plannin' to drive over here an' git hitched ever since I met her at the huskin' bee back in 1909, but the roads has been too bad.'" Ireland in 1908 published Teck Haskins at Ohio State, an unusual booklet consisting of a two-page introduction to the fictional Teck, followed by seventy-six full-page cartoons portraying his experiences at the university. Teck was raised in Yellowbud, a community twelve miles north of Chillicothe, but he devoted far more attention to activities on the wharf along the Ohio & Erie Canal than to chores on the family farm, so his father sent him to OSU to take a course in its agriculture department. The cartoons start with his arrival on campus in the autumn of 1908, where he renewed his friendship with a student athlete from Chillicothe, joined Si Eta Alfalfa fraternity, called often at the women's dormitory, and became an ardent and vocal football fan who scouted opposing teams, gained sideline privileges, and traveled to all road games. He visited Yellowbud for the 1908 presidential election with plans to see friends in Chillicothe, and he delivered the Yellowbud election returns by canal boat to Chillicothe. When the football season ended, the university called Teck to task for neglecting his studies, and he reluctantly returned home. [Allan Pollchik]

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