When the twelve, and more, had signed the call and thus made it operative, a meeting was held in the office of General Ewing, No. 155 Broadway, on November 13, 1885. There was then no question of success, and the gentlemen present went to work in a mood to make that success of the most pronounced character. General Ewing was elected president pro tem., and Mr. David F. Harbaugh secretary pro tem. A committee of ten upon permanent organization were appointed, and consisted of the following gentlemen: C. W. Moulton, William Perry Fogg, Cyrus Butler, J. Q. Howard, Mahlon Chance, M. I. Southard, David F. Harbaugh, Warren Higley, Calvin S. Brice, and Joseph Pool. When an adjourned meeting was held, on the 20th of the same month, additions were made to this foundation committee, in the persons of Messrs. Carson Lake, John W. Harman, and Homer Lee.
The committee were already prepared with a report. They had drafted a provisional constitution, and prepared by-laws, and proposed that these should be printed and sent to the Ohio men in New York, to discover how many would favor the movement, and agree to support it. Such action was ordered, the new fundamental law of a society not yet organized was sent broadcast, and responses invited. One hundred subscribing names were made the requisite; they were furnished, and twenty-five in addition. Thus encouraged, there was a call from the President, and on the evening of January 13, 1886, over one hundred of the sons of Ohio were found together in the parlors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
The meeting was prolific of results. The Ohio Society of New York, was called into being. Officers were elected; arrangements made for the preparation of a constitution that would be in exact accord with the purposes there declared. The first officers there chosen constituted a corps which was of itself a guarantee of successful results. General Thomas Ewing was elected president; Whitelaw Reid, General Wager Swayne, Col. William L. Strong, Hon. Hugh J. Jewett, and Algernon S. Sullivan were chosen vice-presidents. Homer Lee was made recording secretary and Carson Lake, corresponding secretary; while Col. William Perry Fogg was assigned to the responsible position of treasurer. A governing committee consisting of Henry L. Burnett, chairman, Calvin S. Brice, Andrew J. C. Foye, A. D. Juilliard, George Follett, Stephen B. Elkins, Jerome D. Gillett, C. W. Moulton, Joseph Pool, were selected. The president and vice-president were directed to prepare the constitution; the invitations of certain hotels managed by Ohio men to use their parlors for gatherings until permanent quarters could be secured, were accepted; and the president-elect delivered a striking address upon assuming office, that throws so strong a light upon the purpose and spirit of the gathering, that the writer is tempted to quote somewhat freely therefrom.
“We have met to-night” said General Ewing, “as sons and foster sons of Ohio resident in New York City to complete the foundation of a new society in our National Metropolis. Full as this city is of organizations of men, she has, I think, none such as this. The ties of religion, charity, politics, science, art, literature and common occupation draw and hold people together in numberless associations which have filled Manhattan Island with splendid edifices. So, too, the sympathies of a common race and history have founded Societies of St. Patrick, St. Andrew, St. George and many others, at whose annual reunion, the wit, song and sentiment of the fatherlands warm the hearts of their sons in this land beyond the sea. And here, also, is an American society which has at several crises in the last fifty years exerted a considerable influence on public opinion, and the annual reunions of which are watched with eagerness everywhere throughout our land where the sons of New England, from their distant homes, look proudly and fondly back on their grand old mother.
“But the New England Society is composed of the sons of six States. This is a society of the natives or former residents of a single State—Ohio, the State first born of the American Republic. I do not say she was the first received into the Union, for Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee all preceded her. Vermont was admitted in 1791, Kentucky in ’92, Tennessee in ’96 and Ohio not until the 29th day of November, 1802. But these three older States begun life as Colonies of Colonies, each exclusively owned by and settled from its parent colony—Vermont from New York, Kentucky from Virginia, and Tennessee from North Carolina. ‘The territory northwest of the Ohio river’ was the first land ever owned by the United States. It was a vast and pathless wilderness—an Empire in embryo—when, in 1784, Virginia, with magnificent generosity, presented it to the Union. It was not until ten years later, when the savages, who had been allies of Great Britain throughout the War of the Revolution, were routed and subdued by Mad Anthony Wayne, that agricultural settlements, except under the shadow of block-houses, first became possible. Then the veteran soldiers of the Revolution, broken in fortune, but aflame with the love of liberty and triumphant from the long struggle for independence, flocked there from every one of the glorious thirteen; hewed out homes in the primeval forest, paid for lands in the long-dishonored certificates of indebtedness given for their service in the Revolutionary War, and thus founded the first State which sprung from the womb of the Republic.
“We are proud of Ohio,” continued the General, “for her heroic birth, her honorable achievements, and her glorious destiny. She ‘sits in the centre,’ belongs to no section, and is a bond of all. Her sons who meet here to-night are at home in New York. We do not come together as strangers in a strange land to seek relief from the depression of inhospitable influence. No; New York is not inhospitable. She is merely too big and too busy to note who comes or goes. Her gates landward and seaward, are thrown open to the world. She is a focus of all the great forces of American life. Much that is best and worst in it is developed here; and the struggle of a new comer for a footing is always severe, and generally unsuccessful. But New York is more truly cosmopolitan than any other city in the United States, or, perhaps, in the world; and there is little of race or sectional prejudice to bar the path of merit from whatever quarter it may come.
“We found this Society because we love Ohio, and would cherish her history, her traditions, her recollections of home and camp and forum. How often do we look back to the days and scenes of our life there to revive the sweetest influence and the dearest memories of existence.
“But we have aims for our Society beyond the culture of the memories and affections of other days. We hope to make it felt in this great field of thought and action as a generator of wholesome intellectual and moral forces. When this meeting was called for permanent organization there were one hundred and fifteen signers of our Constitution. Under the direction of a judicious Governing Committee, the number will doubtless be increased to several hundred. Our membership of non-residents will perhaps be equally large. We should make something more of such good and abundant material than a mere social club. I am far from insensible to the pleasures of convivial reunions, and hope our society may have many of them, and that I may long be of the number present. But we can have some good work out of it as well as plenty of recreation. For instance, with the aid of our western and southwestern brethern, who, like ourselves, have drifted into this fence corner of the Republic, we might help it to throw off its colonial subserviency to English politics and manners, and gradually Americanize it. We can thus repay in kind the debt of gratitude we owe the East for its missionary efforts a generation ago, when it was the seat of power in the Union, and the now imperial West was but a half subdued wilderness.
“Ere long we can command means, I hope, to fit up and maintain an accessible, commodious and permanent club house, the halls of which will be a pleasant rendezvous for members and their friends, where the ideas and policies of East and West may meet in intelligent and friendly encounter, and where sectional prejudice may be worn off in the attrition of social intercourse; where we may see files of the Ohio newspapers, and note the current of life at our old homes; where our brethern who come East may meet, or learn where to find their friends, and get information and help in their business; where Ohio men and women who are eminent or rising in any worthy field of effort may have cordial recognition and a helping hand, if needed; and where those who have unfortunately fallen in the struggle for a foothold here will not be forgotten. In conclusion, gentlemen, I venture to express the hope that our Society may be from the outset, and continue to the end, so aristocratic that wealth can not buy a membership for vice, and so democratic that none will be excluded by needless cost of membership from an association which their virtues and talents would adorn.”
The foundation was thus laid; the story of the superstructure will be deferred for the present.