By Kevin Eigelbach
NKyTribune reporter
Our generation didn’t invent fake news – or lying in politics.
For proof, check out the diary that Petersburg resident Lewis Loder kept from 1857 to 1903.
Undated photo of James and Leon Loder with their father, Lewis Loder (photos courtesy of the BCPL).
A tavern and inn owner, Loder also served as a justice of the peace and coroner. He often made diary entries about local politics.
In July 1859, he wrote of listening to a candidate for lieutenant governor speak for two and a half hours. The candidate was a member of an opposing political party, Loder wrote, and “not half he said was true.”
Loder’s diary is an invaluable source for anyone who’s interested in the history of Petersburg, a small town in Boone County on the Ohio River between two Indiana towns, Aurora and Lawrenceburg.
It’s filled with interesting anecdotes about life 150 years ago that help bring history alive, said Bridget Striker, local history coordinator for the Boone County Public Library. It tells funny stories and sad stories that show us human nature hasn’t changed.
“We can look at the stories and relate to the people,” she said.
When Loder lived there, Petersburg was the biggest and most successful town in Boone County, Striker said. It was home to the Boone County Distillery, which produced a phenomenal amount of whiskey before it went out of business, she said.
The diary’s first entry in January 1857 describes how William Snyder hauled whiskey with two four-horse teams, weighing 6 tons apiece, across the frozen river. It adds that Loder himself filled his ice house with river ice that day.
In February of the same year, he notes that a still at the distillery blew up and a man named William Olds was badly scalded. He died the next day.
In June of the same year, Loder records hearing his first case as justice of the peace: The Commonwealth of Kentucky versus James Bradley. He levied a fine on Bradley of one cent, plus court costs.
Most of the entries are brief – only a sentence or two long. Some of them are rather prosaic, such as the entry for March 26, 1857: “Loder planted potatoes.” The diarist sometimes refers to himself in the third person.
Other entries record more serious and sometimes violent events:
*March 19, 1858 — “The Negro boy of Miles Marcuses was hung at Burlington he swung off 25 minutes past one o’clock P.M. & hung 26 minutes then cut down he was hung by James Calvert;”
*March 11, 1859 – “Sarah Ann Powell (11 years old) raped by Wm Brown;
*May 11, 1859 – “I held an inquest over a young Girl found in the Nat Holmes Supposed to be 14 or 16 years old She was a good deal Decayed & some of her flesh cut off of her legs & arms;”
*Feb. 6, 1862 – “Peter Mills Daughter had a child & threw it into the privy L A Lodor coroner summoned a Jury and held an inquest over the child;
*Feb. 7, 1862 – “Doctor Graves held a Post mortem Examination on the child & says the Child was born alive the child then was buried in the Grave Yard below Petersburg by L A Lodor.”
The house of Lewis Loder still exists and has been maintained in Petersburg.
The diary doesn’t say what happened to the mother.
It does describe or refer to 44 cases of murder, 17 instances of suicide and nine references of people committed to asylums, said Julie Ashton, who’s counted these things as part of her master’s degree project in public history from Northern Kentucky University.
“There’s a lot of violence in the diary,” she said.
One incident that surprised her was when a woman who went to bed and was found the next morning dead on the floor. It was assumed that she fell out of bed and broke her neck, Ashton said, which seems a bit sketchy.
The diary is full of interesting information, Ashton said.
“His diary captivates the reader, drawing them in further and further until you can’t help but want to know more about each entry,” she said.
Starting on Dec. 1, she plans to present more of her research into the Loder diary and also the diary of Juila Dinsmore, of Dinsmore House fame, in an exhibit at the main library’s local history department.
More information about Lewis Loder and the Loder Diary is available at the Boone County Public Library. A transcript of the Loder Diary is available here.
Contact the Northern Kentucky Tribune at news@nkytrib.com
