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DONN
PIATT, the eminent journalist, author, jurist and
diplomat, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 29th of
June, 1819, and was educated partly in Urbana and at the
Atheueum, now St. Xavier College, Cincinnati. He
studied law under his father, and was for a time a pupil
of Tom Corwin. In 1851, he was appointed
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton, and
afterward served as Secretary of Legation at Paris,
under Hon. Y. Mason, of Virginia, during
Pierce's and Buchanan's
administration. When the Minister was attacked
with apoplexy (from which he died in October, 1859.) and
our subject served as Charge d'Affaires for nearly a
year.
On his return home, Col. Piatt engaged actively
in the Presidential canvass in behalf of Abraham
Lincoln. In company with Gen. Robert C.
Schenck, he stumped Southern Illinois, and his
services were publicly acknowledged by the
President-elect. During the Civil War, he served
on the staff of Gen. Schenck He was Judge
Advocate of the Commission which investigated the
charges against Gen. Buell, and favored his
acquittal. After the war, he became the Washington
correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial,
in which position he distinguished himself as a
writer of great brilliancy, often somewhat indifferent
to the facts, but never to the absurdities of the
pretensions to greatness on the part of many
Congressmen. In fact, he kept most of the leaders
constantly in "hot water," inaugurating what has proved
the now almost in variable custom of "writing down"
everything Congress does. His criticisms were
frequently just: it is the rare exception now that the
complaints of the would-be cynics are worthy of
credence.
Whatever Col. Piatt's mistakes were, and no
doubt he made many, the good he accomplished attoned
for and overshadowed them. The excellence of his
literary work; his unquestioned fearlessness, manliness
and independence; his respect for the church; his
dislike and exposure of snobbery, conceit, affectation
and inefficiency in high official stations, are to be
highly commended. He subsequently founded, and for
ten years edited. "The Washington Capitol,"
making it so odious to many Government officials, that
at their instance, during the Presidential controversy
of 1876, he was indicted; but, as he naively said,
"though trying very hard, never got into jail." On
the contrary, he sold the paper at a very handsome
figure and returned to the peace and quiet of Mac-o-chee,
where he engaged in literary work and farming. His
entertaining volume, "Memories of the Men who Saved the
Union," whom he designated as Lincoln, Stanton,
Chase, Seward and Gen. George II. Thomas
is sharply critical, but the strong passages and just
appreciation of the great deeds of great men more than
atone for this fault, if it be one. The
Westminster Review describes it as "the record of
great geniuses by a genius."
Col. Piatt published a delightful little book of
love stores, true to life and of pathetic interest,
mostly war incidents, called "The Lone Grave of the
Shenandoah, and Other Tales." In 1888, he edited
Belford's Magazine as a free-trade journal and
made the tariff issue strangely interesting and
picturesque. Soon after the close of the campaign,
he retired from the editorship and returned to his home,
where up to the time of his death he was engaged with
Gen. Henry M. Cist of Cincinnati, upon a life of
Gen. George H. Thomas, which he left uncompleted.
In 1865, he was elected on the Republican ticket as
Representative from Logan County to the Ohio
Legislature. "I made a fight for negro suffrage" he
afterwards said, "and won by a decreased majority.
Then, after spending a couple of winters at Columbus, I
quit by manipulated consent." He had opposed
legislation, taken an active part in pushing the negro
suffrage amendment through, and was accused of doing
more legislating for Cincinnati, his old home, than all
the Hamilton County delegates together. His
brilliancy as a speaker, and usefulness in the committee
room, were widely recognized and praised.
It is not generally known that it was Donn Piatt
who supplied the word "crank" in its present peculiar
and popular use. "Twisting the British Lion's
tail" is a pet phrase derived from the same source.
"The cave of the winds," as applied to the National
House of Representatives, and the "fog bank" for the
Senate, are other well-known offsprings of his pen, and
"Wanamakered," a term of more recent invention,
expressive of the discharge of Government employes on
political grounds, is still another.
As he appeared before the pubic, the most remarkable
thing about this most remarkable man was his
versatility. He was equally successful as a poet,
politician, historian, dramatist, critic, wit, lawyer,
judge, diplomat, theologian, soldier, orator,
journalist. In each and every line of work
mentioned, he has made a distinct and separate
reputation that is national. In all combined, he
has won fame that extends wherever the English and
French languages are understood. No two men looked
at him alike. One was captivated by his wit,
another impressed by his profound thought, another
charmed by his exquisite literary style, and another
shocked by his keen, remorseless sarcasm. In each
heart that knew him he left a monument of different
design. Millions admired him, thousands loved him,
hundreds hated him, all respected him. In more
ways than one, his, though not the greatest, was
certainly the most remarkable character of the century.
Col. Piatt contracted the illness which resulted
in his death while on a trip to Cincinnati to attend a
re-union of the literary club of which he had long been
a member, and at which meeting he prophesied his early
death. It was on his way home from that meeting at
which he said in a speech, "In another year Donn
Piatt will have joined the silent majority," that he
caught the cold which led to the fatal disease. On
the day following the election, on which he was forced
to take to his bed, he said to his relatives as they
called to see him, "This means death." He was
conscious till within a few hours before his death, and
almost his last words were: "Well, I must die, why not
die now?"
He died Nov. 12, 1891, and left a widow but no
children. He was twice married, his first wife
being the well-known authoress, Louise Kirby, and
the surviving wife her sister Ella, both
daughters of Timothy Kirby, a pioneer millionaire
of Cincinnati. The mother of Mrs. Piatt,
Amelia (Metcalf) Kirby, was born in Virginia, and
when a child accompanied her parents to Batavia,
Clermont County, Ohio, where she was married.
It was in the charming valley of the Mac-o-chee and on
a wooded hillside facing the sun, that Col. Piatt
built of stone and oak and elegant mansion, known
through all the country round as "The Castle" - built
it, like his fame, to last through centuries. As
seen from this great stone mansion, the valley of the
Mac-o-chee presents as fair a vision as ever delighted
the eye of man. Of it Tom Corwin summed up
a description in the few words: "A man can better
live and die here than any place I have ever seen."
Little wonder that he should write:
"My days among these wilds were spent
In restful, calm repose;
No carking cares or discontent
Disturb life's fitter
close.
Beyond these wooded hills, I hear
The world's unceasing
roar.
As breaks upon some inland ear
The tumult of a shore."
About a mile to the southwest of the residence, and hid
from it by woods and hills, is the pioneer
burying-ground of the Piatts. It is
situated on a hillside beside an old log church, now in
decay, that was erected when a few pews would seat the
entire settlement. On the brow of the hill, facing
the sunset, is the massive tomb in which rest the
remains of two generations of the family. On the
top of the tomb, directly over the entrance, is a
monument and medallion of Louise, the wife of
Donn Piatt's youth, and on the reverse side of the
marble block is chiseled an epitaph that is one of the
most touching ever composed. It was written by the
bereaved husband and is as follows:
"To thy dear memory, darling, and my own
I built in grief this monumental stone;
All that it tells of life in death is thine,
All that it means of death in life is mine;
For that which makes thy purer spirit blest
In anguish deep hath brought my soul unrest;
You, dying, live to find a life divine.
I, living, die till death hath made me thine."
In his private home life,
Col. Piatt, displayed a phase of his character as
truly remarkable as that in which he appeared before the
public. The tender devotion to his invalid wife
was the pivot on which his many-sided character
revolved. Hers was the only hand that could guide
him, her will the only one he recognized as superior to
his own. Her rule was one of love, and his
submission was his sweetest joy. He realized the
treasure he had in her possession and simply sought to
be worthy of it, for a more refined or nobler woman
never blessed the life of any man.
Mrs. Ella (Kirby) Piatt, was born in Cincinnati,
Ohio, on the 17th of March, 1838, and was married to
Col. Piatt in 1866. Her father, Timothy
Kirby, was a native of Connecticut, and was born
Nov. 10, 1797, was reared in the Old Bay State, and came
to Cincinnati when a stripling of seventeen. His
father, Zebulon Kirby, was born in Middletown,
Conn., Feb. 25, 1766, and died Aug. 17, 1821, and the
grandfather, Thomas Kirby, was born in
Middletown, Conn., in 1729, and died on the 10th of
July, 1810. He was of English descent, Timothy
Kirby was a large real-estate dealer and banker, his
bank being on Third Street, in Cincinnati. He was
a very prominent and wealthy man of that city and there
died on the 10th of January, 1876. His wife died
in 1866. They were the parents of eight children,
four sons and four daughters, two of whom died in
infancy. The others besides Mrs. Piatt were
Louise, born Feb. 8, 1829, died in 1881;
Clinton, born Mar. 29, 1831; Charles
(deceased), and Julia, born May 10, 1816, widow
of Gen. Henry Banning, four times Member of
Congress from Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Mrs. Piatt is the sixth child and third
daughter. Until about the age of seventeen, she
was reared in Cincinnati, having all the advantages the
schools of that city afforded, and when about that age
she went to Paris, France, where she received thorough
instruction in French and Spanish. Besides being a
fine musician and a very sweet singer, she is an artist
of unusual ability, having some very fine portrait
paintings of her own work. She has full control of
a vast amount of property in Cincinnati and of her large
estate in the Mac-o-chee Valley. A member of the
Catholic Church, she is a liberal contributor to its
support, and in addition to the chapel in her house, is
now building a Catholic Church in memory of her late
husband, which will cost $5,000. The monument will
be surmounted by a bronze statue of Col. Piatt by
Quincy Ward, formerly of Urbana, Ohio, but now of
New York City.
Accompanying this sketch of his life, a portrait of
Col. Donn Piatt is presented, and a view of "The
Castle," that ideal rural home which adorns the valley
of the Mac-o-chee.
Source: Portrait and Biographical Record of
Auglaize, Logan and Shelby Counties, Ohio. Publ.
Chicago: Chapman Bros. 1892 - Page 133
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Record of
Auglaize, Logan and Shelby Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Chicago: Chapman Bros. 1892 - Page 346