05/08/2026
The Ohl Heartbreak
By Betty Hoover DiRisio
Edwin N. Ohl was a very wealthy ironman in the Shenango Valley who moved with his son from Sharon to New Castle, Pennsylvania near the turn of the 20th century. Ohl took over the management of the New Castle plant of Atlantic Iron and Steel Co.
Wealth, however, could not protect him from loss. Sallie, his first wife, died less than seven years after their marriage. They had one son, Frederick Pearson Ohl. Edwin would married his second wife, Carolina Williams, who tragically died barely a year later. While in New Castle he met his third wife, Catherine Bower, whom he married in 1894.
His married bliss was short lived. Edwin’s grief would soon worsen. He would lose his then only child in a racially charged altercation that would make national news. This was a time in U.S. history during post-Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era when racial tensions were high. Blacks were being lynched weekly, predominately in the South.
Edwin’s son, Frederick “Fred” graduated from New Castle High School in 1893 and was a member of its first football team. He briefly attended Kiskiminetas Springs Preparatory School. He then entered the Ivy League at Princeton College at Princeton, New Jersey.
Fred barely 19, was described as large for his age with a magnificent physique. He was captain of the freshman football team and a substitute on Princeton’s varsity team. He was reported as having a sunny temper and gentle disposition, never drinking and singularly free from bad habits.
On June 8, 1895 Fred along with two other friends, John M. Scott and Garrett Cochran, joined some twenty students at Anderson’s Saloon/Restaurant to discuss that day’s Yale-Princeton baseball game. After a number of hours, Ohl left the bar with these two friends.
Taking a shortcut to their destination, the three jumped over a couple of fences where they encountered two Black men, John S. Collins and Steven Downs. (Collins lost his job that day and had been drinking. He carried a pistol that he said he was selling to a man he was to meet later that night.)
Some racial words and threats were exchanged with the students. Collins said the students yelled at him “What is the matter with you N****r?” and that one of the students grabbed him by the coat and wanted to know what he was doing there. The students allegedly threatened to “do him up” unless he told them what he had in his pockets and that if they had him down South they would lynch him. Downs told Collins to “come on,” and not fight with the students.
The two groups separated. According to Cochran, he, Ohl, and Scott walked away, and crossed the street. Each then pulled a picket off of a fence, three-feet long by three-inches wide. The three then went back toward Anderson’s saloon.
They were on one side of the street and Collins and Downs were walking down the street on the other side. With the pickets in their hands, the students crossed the street and followed Collins and Downs. Collins and Downs went into an alley and then into the doorway at Anderson’s.
Collins was said to have called for the students to come in “with an oath and a threat.” The students ran for the entrance. Ohl followed Collins into the hallway and Cochran and Scott followed Ohl. One of the boys was heard saying, “Put away that pistol and I can whip you.” Another was heard to say, “You don’t want to fight a n****r with a pistol.”
Downs did not see the actual shooting but heard a scuffle before the shots. Collins claimed it was in self-defense. He only shot his pistol after Ohl hit him with the picket, and when they hit him again, he shot at the boys. In addition to being hit with the pickets, Collins claimed he had been grabbed around the throat.
Cochran said he saw a revolver in Collins’ pocket, and as he pulled it out, Cochran lunged at Collins who fired the pistol shooting him in the mouth. Two other shots were fired, both of which struck Ohl. Collins claimed that he was in fear for his life and just shot the gun, not aiming at anyone. Cochran claimed that neither he nor Ohl used the pickets as they were not close enough to Collins to do so. Cochran and Ohl were described as athletes and dwarfed Collins in height and size.
Word of Ohl being shot was sent home by fellow student and New Castle resident, James Kurtz. He sent Ohl’s father a telegram in the early morning hours of June 9th. Ohl languished for four days with his parents staying by the side of their only child. Fred died of peritonitis from this abdominal wound on June 12, 1895.
As the police were looking for Collins to arrest him, almost the entire student body of Princeton formed a mob looking for the culprit. The excited mob demanded that he be lynched shouting, “Hang him, hang him!” Some of the students had procured a rope and were marching to the jail in a body.
While the students were battering the door of the jail, the policemen were hiding Collins and Downs at the tennis courts on campus to avoid the mob. One of the policemen who took Collins and Downs into custody said that they were all frightened, and “I think that we would have given the negroes over to the mob if they had intercepted us.”
Garrett Cochran, the student wounded, was the son of J. Henry Cochran, a sitting Pennsylvania State Senator at the time. Sen. Cochran vowed to spare no expense at prosecuting the negroes.
Collins was indicted on charges of first-degree murder and atrocious assault on June 14, 1895. When arrested he had bruises around his throat and fresh cuts on his face. His murder trial began a month later on July 16, 1895.
He was represented by Senator William Daly, A former Judge and assistant US attorney from Hoboken.

Collins was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty-years of hard labor in the state penitentiary. He pleaded non vult (not admitting to guilt but not contesting the charge) to the indictment for atrocious assault upon Cochran, and received ten-years. That sentence ran concurrently with the first. Cochran would serve fourteen-years of prison before being released for good behavior as he was described as a model prisoner.
Garrett would go on to become captain of the Princeton football team and was a “famous end rusher.” He would later go on to coach at Princeton. While in college he was said to have made a reputation of being a “campus fighter.”
He became a millionaire in his own right accumulating his wealth in the Klondike after his graduation. When the First World War broke out he joined the military service and died in France of pneumonia in July 1918.
Living in New Castle Edwin Ohl and his third wife, Catherine, would have one child, Edwin N. Ohl, Jr., born February 19, 1901.
Edwin was a vestryman in the Trinity Episcopal Church and a member of its building committee to construct a new house of worship. The edifice was completed in 1903, and it is assumed that it was during this time that Edwin presented the church with a massive 14-foot by 18-foot ecclesiastical Tiffany window in memory of Fred. The resurrection of Christ is depicted in the window constructed almost entirely of Tiffany glass from the Tiffany Glass Furnaces. (Illustration Fred Ohl, photos: Resurrection Window, Trinity Episcopal Church, 212 N. Mill St., New Castle, Pennsylvania 2015)
