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Notes Introduction 1. Charles W. Calhoun, “The Political Culture: Public Life and the Conduct of Politics,” in The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America, ed. Charles W. Calhoun (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 239–40. 2. Rutherford B. Hayes to Donn Piatt, November 7, 1869. Charles Richard Williams, ed., Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1922), 2:69. 3. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt used the label for writers such as Lincoln Steffens , Upton Sinclair, and Ida Tarbell, who were exposing corruption in America. He took the term from the muck-raker in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, who looked only downward , raking up straw and dust, but would have seen a celestial crown if he had looked up. That was not Piatt, however, who, although he attacked those he viewed as corrupt, could also write inspirational fiction and, in his later years, Christian homilies. 4. The Capital (Washington, D.C.), January 23, 1873, 1. 5. There are thirty-one references to Piatt, many of them describing horseback rides, dinners, and other meetings, in Garfield’s diary. See Harry James Brown and Frederick D. Williams, eds., The Diary of James A. Garfield (Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967–81). 6. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (London: Macmillan, 1890), 2:660. 7. Robert C. Schenck to his daughter Sally, November 23, 1860, quoted in Lloyd Ostendorf , Mr. Lincoln Came to Dayton (Dayton, Ohio: Otterbein Press, 1959), 35–36. 8. Until now the only biography of Piatt has been Charles Grant Miller, Donn Piatt: His Work and His Ways (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1893). 1. Big Fire and His Family 1. There were several Roosevelts named Nicholas. This one was a great-great-uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt. 198 Bridges text.indb 198 7/31/12 10:29 AM 2. The line of descent from René to Donn Piatt, worked out by Piatt family researchers , is summarized at http://www.angelfire.com/ar/pyeatt. There is more than one spelling of the name. Some Piatts pronounce the name “Pie-att,” but at the Piatt Castles it is pronounced “Pee-att.” 3. Jacob Piatt made a sworn declaration of his service in the Revolution on August 4, 1832, when he was eighty-five, in order to gain pension benefits under recent legislation. The text of his declaration can be viewed at http://persi.heritagequestonline.com/hqoweb/ library/do/revwar/results/image?urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3Brevwar%3B50725%3B3 8150%3B1%3B&offset=0. 4. Miller, Donn Piatt, 12. Hannah Cook McCullough Piatt was said by Miller to have been a descendant of Captain Cook, the explorer, but she was born two years before he married, and in any case it is believed that he left no direct descendants. 5. The stories are “Hetty” and “Old Shack,” in Donn Piatt, The Lone Grave of the Shenandoah, and Other Tales (Charleston, S.C.: BiblioBazaar, n.d.; reprint of 1888 edition). 6. Donn Piatt, Poems and Plays (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1893), 34–35. 7. Caroline Piatt Morris and Elizabeth McCullough Smith, A Memorial Biography of Benjamin M. Piatt and Elizabeth, His Wife (Washington, D.C.: Gray & Clarkson, Printers, 1887), 21. The biography was written by the Piatts’ granddaughters, cousins of Donn Piatt. There are copies in the Piatt Castle archives [hereafter Castle archives], West Liberty, Ohio, and the library of the Ohio Historical Society at Columbus. 8. Morris and Smith, Memorial Biography, 33. 9. Piatt had been appointed attorney general by Governor Ninian Edwards on October 28, 1810. Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. 17, The Territory of Illinois 1814–1818 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950), 634–35, 646–47. 10. Miller, Donn Piatt, 22. 11. “Cincinnati’s First Banker,” clipping from unidentified newspaper, series I, box 1, Castle archives. 12. Henry B. Peetor, “Cincinnati’s First Banker,” Cincinnati Enquirer, n.d., quoted in Morris and Smith, Memorial Biography, 24–27. A letterbook of John Piatt, with copies of wartime correspondence with Major General William Henry Harrison and Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr. about purveying rations, is in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. 13. The Literary Club of Cincinnati 1849–1949: Centennial Book (Cincinnati: Roessler Brothers Printers, 1949), 14. 14. Mrs. Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher, & Co., 1832), 46–89. 15. Captain Basil Hall, Travels in North America (Edinburgh: Cadell and Co., 1829), 3:388. 16. Morris and Smith, Memorial Biography...

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