John Hiram Beckley was born in 1857 and was Susannah Reigle Beckley’s first son; she had three daughters before him. This novelization of John Hiram’s life serves as a sequel to my first book, “Oh! Susannah”, and readers will discover ties in “Gilded!” to the earlier historical fiction work yet stands on its own without need for introduction. 

The cover shows John Hiram on the left as a fifty-five-year-old man in 1913 who is experiencing his first time away from his farm, which was in Palermo, Carroll County, Ohio. His adventure had taken him on a train to Dennison, Ohio in Tuscarawas County, about fifteen to twenty miles away to visit his youngest brother, Edward Lindsay. Edward was a well-known person in Dennison as he was one of the town’s firemen and used his connections to impress his older brother during his visit. One of the highlights was a ride on the city’s streetcar depicted here by the local newspaper photographer. John Hiram told the local reporter, “It was nothing like I expected. I expected to see the cars elevated. I had no idea they would be running along the ground.” 

The streetcar that January morning in 1913 had a special passenger; Albert Kail who is pictured on the right. Kail was an employee of the streetcar company as a conductor, and he was being reassigned back to his old route. Kail was onboard that morning familiarizing himself when he bumped into the Beckley brothers. Introductions were made as a matter of courtesy, and this is when John Hiram and Albert Kail recognized each other and reminisced of their old schoolboy days in Arabia, Carroll County, from nearly fifty years past!   

John Hiram Beckley spent his entire life within the ten-mile Carroll County, Ohio farm belt stretching from west (Palermo) to east (Harlem Springs). His story is mainly based within the Palermo/Algonquin farming community but also touches upon national and international events that occurred between 1870 to 1943.   

The middle years of Beckley’s life, commonly referred to as “The Gilded Era”, chronicled the growth of America after the Civil War and all the changes wrought from the country’s rapid industrialization. The impact of these changes on the lives of everyday people, especially those who were small time farmers like Beckley were brought to the fore by author Mark Twain, who in one of his early manuscripts, “The Gilded Era”, sarcastically questioned much of the change being forced upon people. 

“Gilded” means covered in a thin layer of gold and Twain warned the public that the chief end of men, businessmen especially, was to get rich; not necessarily improve the public’s lives. Thus, Twain’s famous quote, “What is the chief end of man? - to get rich. In what way? Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.” Industrialists required labor, and many workers exchanged laboring on a farm to work at a factory. The notion that one was better off receiving regular pay from a company emerged and consequently, the general idea of “city folk” being smarter than the “country folk” developed. And yet during this time, most everyone, no matter where they labored, experienced an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor.    

John Hiram toiled on his farm consisting of one hundred forty-three acres until he was well into his seventies and never used mechanized farm equipment. His modest farm provided for his family’s needs and with little leftover to sell at the local mill. John’s brothers, Simon and Levi, were far more successful on their tracts of land, two townships east of John’s farm. However, John Hiram Beckley’s dream of owning land was to earn a simple living from it and eventually pass his progress from all his hard work on to his son.   

In the story, “Gilded!”, Twain’s skepticism is lived out in John Hiram’s everyday life, and with it, Beckley’s perspective on each new and improved invention that was introduced to Americans. He was eighty years old before experiencing the marvel of electricity within his farmhouse; he had no indoor plumbing. Beckley never owned nor drove an automobile despite hundreds of cars during the 1920’s being driven locally. John Hiram never used a bank, nor did he invest in the stock market. And yet, he was keenly articulate and intelligent, keeping up with the world around him through his avid reading of the local newspapers and listening to the popular opinions of his fellow farming neighbors.  

It was John Hiram Beckley’s desire, though, to live a simple life. And despite being tucked away in the rolling green hills of Carroll County, Ohio, “Gilded!” tells the story of how he and his family weren’t isolated enough to totally insulate themselves from the outside events taking place during their lifetime.