The association was formed and a constitution adopted. As cash in those days was a very much scarcer thing than it is now, the salaries of clerks being very small, the library was operated on very limited means for a long period.

During the hot summer weather of 1835 the library was temporarily closed because of the failure to get money to employ a librarian. For a few months the entire duties of librarian, porter and janitor were performed in turn by the officers and directors. They gave out books, swept the rooms and cleaned the lamps. There was no gas or electric lights in those days.

Donations of money were solicited from merchants, and the sum of $1,800 was obtained. By the end of the year 1835 the library contained 750 volumes, and many leading papers were on file in the reading room.

In the winter of 1836, Mr. Doolittle was elected librarian, and a special charter for the association was obtained from the legislature.

In 1838 the first printed catalogue was published and sold at a moderate price to such members as chose to purchase. The expenses over and above these receipts were paid by a few gentlemen.

In the year 1839 the number of paying members was increased to 500, and all the debts of the association, for the time being, were discharged. This year Mr. James Wildy was elected librarian. Matters began to improve and the number of volumes in the library increased.

In 1840 the association moved its quarters to the old College Building on Walnut Street, paying a rent of $300. The building was the predecessor of the present one.

In 1841 a new catalogue was prepared and published, which showed over 3,000 volumes in the library. There were then more than 600 members and the annual receipts amounted to $2,000.

In 1843 gas was first introduced into the library and reading room. Previous to that time the association, like the community at large, had depended for light on the use of tallow candles and lard oil.

On Sunday morning, January 19, 1845, the College Building was entirely destroyed by fire, but by great exertions of the members and the citizens generally, all the books of the association were saved, and the little damage done was covered by insurance. This fire, however, resulted in an arrangement with the trustees of the Cincinnati College for the present quarters occupied by the library.

By great exertions there was raised, chiefly by subscriptions from merchants, the sum of $10,000 to pay for the fee-simple of its quarters, and $1,600 in addition for furnishing the rooms. The association took possession of its new quarters in May, 1846, amid the general congratulations of all the members and their friends.

In those days of small things it is well to acknowledge that $11,600 contributed by the merchants for the purpose showed great liberality.

8 S. OF O. L.

From 1835-1842 lecture courses were conducted by the association. Among the lecturers were Joseph L. Benham, Judge Timothy Walker, Dr. John Locke, and William Green.

Finding it too expensive to employ lecturers from a distance, some of the officers and their friends took the bold step of delivering their own lectures. These were very well received by the community, and if they did not enlighten the people on the subjects of which they treated, they at least had the benefit of teaching their authors the subject of composition and delivery.

In the winter of 1843-44 these lectures were delivered by Messrs. R. M. W. Taylor, Richard A. Whetstone, Lewis J. Cist, and others. The following year lectures were delivered by Messrs. J. T. H. Headley, J. F. Annan, James Calhoun, George S. Coe, John D. Thorpe, William Watts, James Lupton, and John W. Ellis. All these were active members of the association.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 21, 1869, the College Building occupied by the library again took fire and burned for several hours, destroying much of the building but not leveling it with the ground. The second floor, however, used for the library and the reading room, was so badly injured as to be untenable, and much damage to the books and other property of the association was done by fire and water, especially the latter. Books were temporarily removed until the rooms were repaired and re-occupied. The library still remains in this building, and the rocms are justly regarded as one of the pleasantest retreats in the city for the members of the association and their friends. The files of newspapers and magazines are very numerous and choice, and the books of the library are kept up with the progress of publication in all the lines of popular demand. There are now on its shelves 65,000 volumes, 1,000 of which have been added within the past year. The endowment fund is $40,000 and the annual income about $5,000. Miss Carrie R. Gaither are acting librarians. president of the association.

Miss Alice McLean and John E. Bruce, Esq., is

CIRCLEVILLE.

CIRCLEVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

That the library spirit was early manifest in Circleville is evident from the fact that the village papers, published as far back as 1834, contain notices, from time to time, which read as follows:

"The next meeting of the Circleville Atheneum will be held at the Library room on Monday evening, instant."

Sometimes the call would state that the meeting would be held at the Court House, but usually the library room was assigned; and a long evening was assured for the discussion of some such timely subject as "Should Immigration to the United States from Foreign Countries be Encouraged?" or "Should Statutes Against Usury be Abolished?" by the request that the members should assemble at "early candle lighting." But this mode of reckoning time may have been the innocent means of working great wrong to some members of this learned society; for if Mrs. Smith, residing on the sunny side of the street, added to this natural advantage a frugal mind,-like the famous Mistress John Gilpin --she may have postponed lighting her candle until Mrs. Jones, residing over-the-way in blissful reliance upon Providence as to the future supply of tallow, had had her two "dips" burning for a good half hour. Therefore when Mr. Smith would arrive at the meeting, Mr. Jones had had ample time to put forth his best arguments, thus leaving poor Mr. Smith in the embarassing position of being obliged to reply, in a suitable manner, to propositions which he had not heard.

But the fact that the Atheneum flourished for several years, and that in their meetings there were settled for the guidance of future generations the momentous questions of taxation and immigration proves that our early citizens were strong enough not to be deterred by slight inconveniences.

In the Herald we find under the caption "Circleville Atheneum," the following notice:

This institution was incorporated by the Legislature last winter," (Feb. 28, 1834). "Its Library consists of about one thousand volumes embracing a great variety of subjects. In April its officers for the current year were elected; and on the first Wednesday of May instant, an inaugural address-tasteful, appropriate and impressive-was delivered by the president, at the Methodist Meeting House to the members of the association and large assemblage of citizens."

Among the list of officers appended is found the name of Sylvester Dana, Esq., Librarian.

In seventy years, our names will, no doubt, look as odd to searchers through dusty newspaper files, as does the name of Sylvester Dana, Esq., look to us.

And surely Sylvester Dana, Esq., might justly feel a thrill of that pride which, by some, is supposed to belong exclusively to the modern up-to-date librarian; for truly a library of one thousand volumes “embracing a great variety of subjects" is not such a mean acquisition, established in a spot where, twenty-five years before, the Indian tent was the only human habitation.

Though you, Sylvester Dana, Esq., never wrestled with the mighty problems of relative position and card catalogues: though to you the merits of the Cutter Author Table and the Dewey Decimal Classification

were of no interest, because unknown; to you, who by diligently making known to your patrons the "great variety of subjects" contained in your thousand volumes (though without aid from Poole or Fletcher) perhaps first aroused in this town the library spirit, thus, in an indirect way, making it possible that I should know a little of these later mysteries-to you, my earliest predecessor, I make my profound obeisance.

There is, to my mind, no doubt that the beginning of a library is its most important period, for though the books may be scattered and lost, as was the case with the library of the "Circleville Atheneum," this first enterprise will, after a time, occur to the minds of others and be an incentive and guide to a renewed effort.

Dating from 1845, the "Pickaway Lyceum" flourished—an institution running along the same lines as the "Atheneum" of an earlier day. They had debates, at their meetings, usually held in the room of a private school, notices of which appeared, at regular intervals, in the village papers. Finding the notices had suddenly come to an end without, however any indication that the "Lyceum" had suffered a like fate, I sought council from, alas! a newspaper man, and gained the prosaic information that "very likely they failed to pay for their ‘ad' and it was dropped."

But it is evident that the organization continued to exist, for several years, even without newspaper patronage; for coming from the dim and mouldy past is a tradition to the effect that in 1851 the building in which library books were kept was burned, and that the books were moved, for safe-keeping, to the Everts school, where they formed the nucleus for a school library.

By a visit to old Everts two facts were verified: that the Pickaway Lyceum existed until 1851, and that this organization owned the library in question, for though the search threatened to prove disappointing, from the fact that almost all former labels had been removed before pasting the latest one, at last, in one book, was found the "Pickaway Lyceum" label.

But that these books were, perhaps, regarded more as a public than as a school possession seems obvious from the fact that included in our collection, to-day, is a set of Dugald Stewart's works, in seven volumes, bearing the same label and imprint "Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown, 1829."

Whether or not the books of earlier publication, many of which we have, belonged to the "Atheneum" or the "Lyceum" collections, there is no way to determine.

There seems to be a feeling, among some of our citizens, that the "Pickaway Lyceum" and the old "Lyceum" room at Everts school building had a direct association; but I am sure this idea is erroneous, and that the only foundation it has is the similarity of names, and the fact that in