Between the Lines: Family History and Quirky Stories From Our Forgotten Past

   Tom Taylor never served in the Civil War, but he decided in 1863 to support and promote Abraham Lincoln and his policies as a young newspaper founder, publisher and editor. He continued in this rough-and-tumble line of work, when newspapers even in small towns often had competition.      Thomas Stanfield Taylor (1840-1908) was born in South Bend, the son of Edmund Pitts Taylor and Phoebe Stanfield. He had several powerful connections in his family tree. He was the nephew of Lathrop Minor Taylor, co-founder of South Bend, and at times his father’s business partner. His uncle Samuel Hanna was Fort Wayne’s most important leader, probably its wealthiest citizen and a state legislator.       Tom was also named for his uncle Thomas Stillwell Stanfield, who started out as a clerk at Lathrop Taylor’s general store, studied law, and became an Indiana congressman and judge of circuit court. During the Civil War he helped organize troops and served as an advisor to Governor Oliver P. Morton. T

  Newspapers in the 1870s and beyond almost all had a column with a name like “Gleanings,” “Brevities” or “Town Topics” in which the editor commented on local happenings, seasonal changes, who was visiting in town and so on. I’ve compiled collections of these from the two places the Barbour branch of my family were living in during this era: Coffeyville, Kansas and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Almost all my earlier “Gleanings” articles were from Coffeyville, however. these are Fort Wayne items. Compiled from September 1869 The public schools of this city will open for the fall term on Monday next. (Sept. 6) We do not desire to interfere with the rights of humanity to appease their appetites at various eating booths…in our city, but having, through the assistance of a watermelon rind, performed an evolution equal to a first-rate gymnast in a circus, in which our heels changed position with our head, we do enter our editorial protest against the miscellaneous scattering of the refuse matter from