#11: Walter C. Hood, 1874-1875

Walter C. Hood was a Deputy United States Marshal of the Southern District of Ohio and a 1860 census worker in Ohio before Governor William Allen him appointed  State Librarian. On March 26, 1874, Governor Allen appropriated an $1,800 annual salary for the State Librarian. Hood was known as a newspaper editor and credited with launching the Portsmouth Times. State Library Commissioners Governor W. Allen, Secretary of State A. T. Wikoff, and Hood praised the cataloging work of William Holden and Miss Harbaugh in the Annual Report of the Commissioners of the Ohio State Library for 1874. They also requested authority to expend a balance of $2,964, left from the $12,000 appropriation in 1873, to enlarge the library’s skylight and cover the floor with carpeting. On February 4, 1875, Hood became the second State Librarian to die while in office. The year before his death, he wrote down his wishes for his funeral, and the note was found in his office at the State Library following his death.  His personal burial requests were to be placed in a plain wood coffin and carried on a wooden frame by a group of men, and that no funeral notices or unnecessary expenses occur.