In 2014 I featured a series of blog posts introducing you to 2,014 names. For the most part they were names that were brand new to me as well. Some names may be more familiar but I found the meaning or origin or some other aspect of the name made it worthy of inclusion here. You may love some of the names, you may hate some, but hopefully you enjoy learning about all of them.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

State Representative from Adams County, Ohio - Josiah Lockhart 14th Legislative Session 1815-1816

What I find to be the most interesting pieces of business mentioned, are that they moved the state capital to Columbus, outlawed dueling, and in the process of setting up laws to restrict 'gaming' two types are mentioned. One, is shooting a gun across a city street. The other is exhibiting a puppet show for pay.




from the book Ohio statesmen and annals of progress: from the year 1788 to the year 1900 ... By William Alexander Taylor, Aubrey Clarence Taylor


Oh, yes, Josiah Lockhart is my 4th Great-Grandfather. And I notice among the men he served with at least one he would have already known from his service in the War of 1812 - Duncan MacArthur, who was the General commanding the Regiment he served in.


Sidenote: I got to thinking about WHY you would outlaw puppet shows and realized, well, not all puppet shows are put on by your local library or Mr. Rogers. Puppet shows could have had rather vulgar humor and so they may have felt that this contributed to tearing down the moral fabric of society - profanity, crude jokes, and obscene acts, albeit by puppets but encouraged by the crowd, and the crowd encouraged by the show. Just in case anyone else was as innocent about that as I was at first glance!

2 comments:

  1. Very interesting! I am the finance officer for a school system, and since I am a notary public I swear in the board members at the beginning of their terms. The statement includes, 'and I do solemnly swear that I have not fought a duel with deadly weapons, nor do I intend to fight a duel with deadly weapons' - rather archaic but still in the system in Kentucky!

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  2. That's actually very interesting. And that they still have the same thing in the swearing in oath. I wonder if it took longer for some parts of the country to get this new approach to be widely followed, in other words, once the laws were passed, how long before most people actually followed them?

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