(First in the series)

Leslie Townes Hope could easily have been one of the most famous residents (aka, BOB HOPE) but I didn’t find that youthful stopover in his official web site. But this true account is one claim to fame that many natives of Lancaster Ohio have in regard to the B.I.S. (the Boys' Industrial School). Bob often joked about his English heritage by saying, “I left England at the age of four when I found out I couldn’t be King.” He was fifth in a family of seven sons. But I am wandering from my story.

The Boys' Industrial School has to be one of many success stories of Lancaster, Ohio, and the United States for that matter. According to a short piece I found on the internet by Leona L. Gustafson, “It was the first penal institution in America to make the ‘open system’ experiment, and so successfully was it operated that twenty-eight states have used the Lancaster school as a model.”

On this state property of 1200+ acres, six miles south of Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, the population ranged in boys aged 8 to 18 serving time to have demerits cancelled by exemplary deportment. This system was quite different from typical reform schools since the property was not surrounded by walls and was entirely free from bolts, bars or other signs of restraint.

In this brief series of essays it is my hope to tell the story of how our state penal system worked in the last half of the 19th century and through the middle of the 20th century to teach young men virtue was to be found in industry – or hard sweat related work instead of learning how to make “easy money” in crime. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop” was not an easy thing to find “on the hill” (as the B.I.S. was called by its inmates). While the boys lived there they were introduced to nearly all the common occupations of that period of history and “…taught useful mechanical knowledge and at the same time contribute to the comfort and support of their fellows. Chief among these trades are blacksmithing, floriculture, tailoring, baking, printing, carpentering, telegraphy, stenography, brick making, shoe-making, dairying, cooking, etc.” The residents (inmates) of the B.I.S. operated and maintained the property of the state tending their own electric and steam plants as well as a working farm, laundry and poultry facilities. They even had a musical band and several battalions of regimentation overseen by competent military personnel. Whenever there were parades in downtown Lancaster you could always count on seeing the B.I.S. boys march in precision drill style. Limited sports activities were also a part of the program.

Facts and figures for such an institution might be staggering to our 21st century minds but some facts taken from The Industrial School Journal, dated September, 1930, will give a good example of what went on back then:

INSTITUTION NOTES

THE POULTRY YARD now has 596 laying hens and 1596 cockerels and pullets. During the past month 382 chickens were dressed for the dining rooms.

ACTIVITIES IN THE BAKERY for the month of July were 19,995 loaves of bread, 3,350 pies, 18,995 cookies, 1,250 slabs coffee cake, 14,350 buns and 1,560 rolls.

STATISTICS detailing the birthplace by States of the 72 boys committed to this school during July, were: Ohio 46, Pennsylvania 9, West Virginia 3, Tennessee 2 and one each from Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and one each from Hungary, Italy and Poland.

OF THE 72 BOYS COMMITTED to this school during the month of July, we find the causes of commitment to be: Auto theft 14, burglary 19, delinquent 3, (delinquent) stealing 1, destruction of property 1, immoral 3, incorrigible 7, forgery 2, stealing 20, truancy 1 and tampering with an auto, 1.

THE POPULATION of the school, July 31st, by Families, was as follows: Ohio Cottage, 90; Highland 86; Herrick, 80; Bushnell, 76; Lagonda, 65; Hocking, 63; Muskingum, 65; Harris, 73; Pattison, 73; Cuyahoga, 34; Scioto; 83; Auglaize, 3; Nash, 63; Harmon a, 63; Harmon B, 69; Union, 52; Maumee, 51; Farm Cottage No. 1, 6, making a total of 1,094.

An incidental note explaining the names of the cottages is to mention the names, as most Ohio natives will note, were named after the counties of the State and other names of significance to the administration of the school. Each “family” (cottage) was assigned an officer, usually a husband and wife team.

As mentioned earlier, the Boys’ Industrial School had their own print shop, and the material above is from the 66-page journal. Another publication the boys produced was the B.I.S. Journal Scrap Book. The following humor is an example of the brand of humor of those days:

A FINE POOR EFFORT

‘Twas midnight on the ocean, not a horse car was in sight,
When I stepped into the corner store to get myself a light.
The man behind the counter was a woman, old and gray,
Who used to sell bananas on the road to Mandalay.
She said, “Hello there stranger,”
Her eyes were dry with tears,
She put her head beneath her feet and stood that way for years.
Her children were orphans except one tiny tot,
Who lived alone across the street above the vacant lot.
As we gazed out through a tight shut door, a whale went drifting by,
His legs were hanging in the air; he wore a green necktie.
The quietness of the noise was still, the evening star was dawning.
A dead horse galloped up and said, “we won’t be home until morning.”
“Women and children first,” he said as he passed his plate for more.
Then took his hat from the rack and hung it on the floor.
An ax came walking through the air,
The clock struck twenty-six,
I dropped my eyes up toward the sky and saw a flock of bricks,
And when they buried him in the evening, when the grass was parched with dew,
He took his razor with him, in case his whiskers grew.

(Above from Page 19 of the B.I.S. Journal Scrap Book)

It appears the boys in the print shop got a chance to smile in spite of their confinement and duties. The boys did all the typesetting (by hand and some by machine most likely--this is an assumption based on a comment in the Journal on Page 61, “The printing department is one of the better equipped shops of the institution) and then printed these books on letterpress equipment popular in that day. The Scrap Book was 24 pages, plus the cover.

More to come from old records of the Boys’ Industrial School once in Lancaster, Ohio.

THE WORDWRIGHT