Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 1

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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GEN

J ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03619 7173

Gc 977.1 H83 v.1

LANDY, PHOTOGRAPHER, CINCINNATI, 0.

FARIS, DAGUERREAN, CINCINNATI, O.

HENRY HOWE, 1846. AGE 30 YEARS. When on his first historio tour over Ohio

HENRY HOWE, 1886. AGE 70 YEARS. When on his second historio tour over Ohio.

Time changes us all and happy that change where Justice Truth and Love which can know no change grow in beauty with the passing years

Columbus 0 1888.

Henry Nowe

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

... OF ...

OHIO

IN TWO VOLUMES.

AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE STATE :

HISTORY BOTH GENERAL AND LOCAL, GEOGRAPHY WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS COUNTIES, CITIES AND VILLAGES, ITS AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING, MINING AND BUSINESS DEVELOP- MENT, SKETCHES OF EMINENT AND INTEREST- ING CHARACTERS, ETC., WITH NOTES OF A TOUR OVER IT IN 1886.

ILLUSTRATED BY ABOUT 700 ENGRAVINGS.

CONTRASTING THE OHIO OF 1846 WITH 1886-90.

FROM DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR IN 1846 AND PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN SOLELY FOR IT IN 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, AND 1890, OF CITIES AND CHIEF TOWNS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, HISTORIC LOCALITIES. MONUMENTS, CURIOSITIES, ANTIQUITIES, PORTRAITS, MAPS, ETC.

THE OHIO CENTENNIAL EDITION.

By HENRY HOWE, LL. D. AUTHOR "HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS CF VIRGINIA" AND OTHER WORKS

Volume I.

PUBLISHED BY THE STATE OF OHIO. C. J. KREHBIEL & CO., PRINTERS AND BINDERS. CINCINNATI, OHIO. COPYRIGHT 1888 BY HENRY HOWE.

1907

PREFACE.

[This is the Preface to the first edition issued in 1847, and printed from the old plates.]

INTRODUCTORY to this work, we state some facts of private history. In the year 1831, Mr. John W. Barber, of New Haven, Ct., pre- pared a work upon that our native city, which combined history, biog- raphy and description, and was illustrated by engravings connected with its rise, progress and present condition. Its success suggested to him the preparation of one, on a similar plan, relative to the State. For this object he travelled through it, from town to town, collecting the materials and taking sketches. After two years of industrious application in this, and in writing the volume, the Historical Col- lections of Connecticut was issued, a work which, like its successors, was derived from a thousand different sources, oral and published.

As in the ordinary mode, the circulation of books through "the trade," is so slow in progress and limited in sale, that no merely local work, however meritorious, involving such an unusually heavy outlay of time and expense as that, will pay even the mechanical labor, it, as well as its successors, was circulated by travelling agents solely, who thoroughly canvassed the state, until it found its way into thousands of families in all ranks and conditions,-in the retired farm-house equally with the more accessible city mansions.

That book, so novel in its character, was received with great favor, and highly commended by the public press and the leading minds of the state. It is true, it did not aspire to high literary merit :- the dignified style,-the generalization of facts,-the philosophical deduc- tions of regular history were not there. On the contrary, not the least of its merits was its simplicity of style, its fullnes of detail, in- troducing minor, but interesting incidents, the other, in "its stately march," could not step aside to notice, and in avoiding that philosophy which only the scholastic can comprehend. It seemed, in its variety, to have something adapted to all ages, classes and tastes, and the un- learned reader, if he did not stop to peruse the volume, at least, in many instances could derive gratification from the pictorial represen- tation of his native village,-of perhaps the very dwelling in which he first drew breath, and around which entwined early and cherished associations. The book, therefore, reached MORE MINDS, and has been more extensively read, than any regular state history ever issued; thus adding another to the many examples often seen, of the productions of industry and tact, proving of a more extended utility than those emanating from profound scholastic acquirements.

This publication became the pioneer of others: a complete list of all, with the dates of their issue, follows:

1836. THE HIST. COLL.OF CONNECTICUT; by John W. Barber.

1839. ¥ MASSACHUSETTS ;" John W. Barber.

1841.

NEW YORK ;

J.W.Barber and H.Howe

1843. " PENNSYLVANIA ;

" Sherman Day.

1844.

NEW JERSEY ;

" J.W.Barber and H.Howe

1845.

VIRGINIA ;

" Henry Howe.

1847. 56

OHIO :

" Henry Howe.

PREPACK.

from this list it will be perceived that OHIO makes the SEVENTH state work published on the original plan of Mr. Barber, all of which thus far circulated, were alike favorably received in the states to which each respect. ively related.

Early in January, 1846, we, with some previous time spent in preparation, commenced our tour over Ohio, being the FOURTH state through which we have travelled for such an object. We thus passed more than a year, in the course of which we were in seventy-nine of its eighty-three counties, took sketches of objects of interest, and every where obtained information by con- versation with early settlers and men of intelligence. Beside this, we have availed ourselves of all published sources of information, and have received about four hundred manuscript pages in communications from gentlemen in all parts of the state.

In this way, we are enabled to present a larger and more varied amount of materials respecting Ohio, than was ever before embodied ; the whole giving a view of its present condition and prospects, with a history of its settlement, and incidents illustrating the customs, the fortitude, the bravery, and the privations of its early settlers. That such a work, depicting the rise and unexampled progress of a powerful state, destined to a controlling influence over the well-being of the whole nation, will be looked upon with interest, we believe : and furthermore expect, that it will be received in the generous spirit which is gratified with honest endeavors to please, rather than in the captious one, that is dissatisfied short of an unattainable perfection.

Whoever expects to find the volume entirely free from defects, hes but little acquaintance with the difficulties ever attendant upon procuring such ma. terials. In all of the many historical and descriptive works whose fidelity we have had occasion to test, some misstatements were found. Although we have taken the best available means to insure accuracy, yet from a variety of causes unnecessary here to specify, some errors may have occurred. If any thing materially wrong is discovered, any one will confer a favor by ad. dressing a letter to the publishers, and it shall be corrected

Our task has been a pleasant one. As we successively entered the va. rious counties, we were greeted with the frank welcome, characteristic of the west. And an evidence of interest in the enterprize has been variously shown, not the least of which, has been by the reception of a mass of valua. ble communications, unprecedented by us in the course of the seven years we have been engaged in these pursuits. To all who have aided us,-to our correspondents especially, some of whom have spent much time and re. search, we feel under lasting obligations, and are enabled by their assistance to present to the public a far better work, than could otherwise have been preduced. H. H.

INTRODUCTION TO THE CENTENNIAL EDITION.

A ONCE aged friend of mine, now no longer aged, was wont to refine a very beautiful life with golden scraps of philosophy that seemed to fit in with the varying incidents of seeming good or ill that he or his friends met on their path- way. One of his expressions was: " We don't know what is before us."

When, in 1847, I had written the preface on the preceding pages I could little imagine that forty years later I should make a second tour over Ohio and put forth a second edition Not a human being in any land that I know of has done a like thing. It is in view of what I have been enabled to do for a great people I regard myself as having been one of the most fortunate of men. A spot is now reached which even in my dreams could not have been visioned, and I here rejoice that in the year 1839, now just half a century, I turned my back on Wall Street, with its golden allurements, where I had passed more than a year, to follow an occupation that was congenial with my loves and would widely benefit my fellow-men. "He that hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent," but he that labors to spread knowledge in the form of good books that will reach the humblest cabin in the wilderness will feed his own soul, and earth and sky be a delight in his eyes all his days through.

When, in 1846, my snow-white companion, Old Pomp, carried me his willing burden on his back entirely over Ohio it was a new land opening to the sun. Its habitations were largely of logs, many of them standing in the margins of deep forests, amid the girdled monsters that reared their sombre skeleton forms over a soil for the first time brought under the benign influence of human culti- vation.

So young was the land that in that year the very lawmakers, 84 out of 107, were born strangers. The list of the nativities of the members of the legisla- ture, which I have saved from that day, is as follows: Pennsylvania, 24; Ohio. 23; Virginia, 18; New York, 10; all the New England States, 18, of whom 6 were from Connecticut ; Maryland, 7; Europe, 6; Kentucky 1, and North Caro- lina, 1. Only four years before had the State grown its first governor in the per- son of Wilson Shannon, born in a log-cabin, down in Belmont county, in 1802, and to be soon thereafter a fatherless infant, for George Shannon, whose son he was, in the following winter, while out hunting, got lost in the woods in a snow- storm, and, going around in a circle, at last grew sleepy, fell and froze to death. The present governor, J. B. Foraker, that very year of my tour, was born in a cabin in Highland county, July 5th, the day after the American flag had been thrown out joyously to the breeze while booming cannon announced the seven- tieth anniversary of that great day when the old bell proclaimed liberty and independence throughout the land.

The very State Capitol, as is shown on these pages, in which the legislature assembled, was a crude structure that scarce any Ohio village of this day would rear for a school-house. But the legislators made wise laws, and on the night of

INTRODUCTION TO THE CENTENNIAL EDITION.

their adjournment in that year, after having been absent from their families for months, were hilarious as so many school-boys, and to my astonished eyes from their seats some of the more frolicsome were pelting each other with paper wads.

In September, 1847, I published my book in Cincinnati with 177 engravings, mainly from my drawings. Seven years of my young life had been given to the travel-very much of it pedestrian-over four States of the Union, and making books upon them-New York and New Jersey in connection with Mr. J. W. Bar- ber, and Virginia and Ohio alone. For thirty years Cincinnati was my home. There my children were born and there I devoted myself to the writing and 'publishing of books, a very secluded citizen, mingling not in affairs of church nor State, still paying my pew-rent and always voting on election days a clean ticket. In my life a third of a million of my books have gone out among the people and done good-gone out exclusively in the hands of canvassers number- ing in the aggregate thousands and penetrating every State in the Union.

In 1878 I returned to my native city, New Haven, and the proud, stately elms appeared to welcome me, there in that charming spot where even the very bricks of old Yale seem to ooze knowledge. In September, 1885, I resolved to again make the tour of Ohio for a new edition. The romance of the project and its difficulties were as inspirations. Since 1846 Ohio had more than doubled in population, while its advance in intelligence and resources no arithmetic could measure.

No publisher or capitalist, even if I had desired, which I did not, had the courage to unite with me-the enterprise was too risky, involving years of time and many thousands of expense, its success depending upon the uncertain tenure of the life of a man entering his seventieth year. Furthermore, any publisher would have looked upon my enterprise simply from the money-making point of view. I should have been hampered for the means to make the work every way worthy. I could brook no restrictions and would not give the people of this great State any other than the best and most complete results of my efforts. The book must be brought down to the wonderfully advanced point of the Ohio of to-day. I could not in the years of labor required supply the capital to do this, but my health was and is perfect, and I have a light body to move. I formed my plan. First I went among my fellow-townsmen of means for a sub- scription loan to fairly launch me upon the soil. They responded nobly, more than glad to aid me, looking upon me as the instrument for a public good. Some of them had been school-boys with me. Together we had conjugated in the old Hopkins Grammar School : "Amo, amas, amat," "I love, thou lovest, he loves," and this was a second conjugation.

In the meantime Judge Taft, Gov. Hoadley and ex-President Hayes had written me encouraging words. I had known the three from their early lives. The latter invited me to his home and was my first subscriber in the State. My plan for getting over Ohio was by obtaining advance-paying subscribers. And so good was the memory of the old book and so strong the love of the State with its leading men upon whom I called that it worked to a charm. My tour had something of the character of an ovation. I was continually greeted with ex- pressions of gratitude from men of mark for the good my book had done them in their young lives in feeding the fires of patriotism and in giving them an accurate knowledge of their noble State. It had been the greatest factor extant to that end, and, as Mr. R. B. Hayes, who has had no less than ten copies in the course of his life, once wrote, has been of an inestimable benefit to the people.

INTRODUCTION TO THE CENTENNIAL EDITION.

Sometimes the expressions of those upon whom I called were too strong for my humility. One old gentleman said : " What! you are not the Henry Howe who wrote our Ohio History ?" " Yes." With that he sprang for me, grasped me around the waist, hugged me, lifted me off my feet and danced around the floor. Short of stature, but strong as a bear, there was no resisting his hug. Speaking of it afterward, he said he never did such a thing before-embracing a man ! But when I told him who I was a crowd of memories of forty years came upon him and he was enthused beyond control. In other cases old gentlemen brought in their children to introduce to me. In many places visited I did not offer my subscription list. Time would not allow ; only when funds were short did I pause for the means to move. Beside, it is not honorable to draw upon the resources of generous spirits beyond absolute necessity.

Everywhere I made arrangements with local photographers and took them to the standpoints I selected for views to be taken. These were for new engravings to make a pictorial contrast of the Ohio of 1846 with that of 1886. About one hundred were seen.

My tour finished, in March, 1887, I returned my family to Ohio-to Columbus -for a permanent home, where, in connection with my son, I am now publishing the work, and will endeavor to give every family in Ohio an opportunity to obtain it through township canvassers. In no other possible way can the people be reached and a fair remuneration given for the extraordinary labor and expense.

No other State has in its completeness such a work as this, and none under the same extraordinary circumstances of authorship. The introductory articles are written by the best capacity in the State upon the subjects treated. Sketches of those contributors are given with their articles, as I wish the living public and that unborn to know about the gentlemen who have thus aided me.

And as for my own part, no one living has had an equal and like experience, and my self-appointed task has absorbed the best of which I am capable. To call it a history tells but a part of the truth. So broad its scope that, to speak figuratively, it is the State itself printed and bound, ready to go into every family in the State, to show the people of every part concerning the whole collectively, and each part in succession, and in all the varied aspects that go to form the great Commonwealth of Ohio, and the history that went to make the sons of Ohio the strong men they are, ever appearing in the front in every department of activity and acquisition.

Wherever I have introduced living characters my rule has been to admit only such as the public at large should know of, and never to the knowledge of those introduced if it could be avoided. None have been allowed to pay their way into this book, and, where portraits have been engraved for it, it has been at my expense. Sketches of living men with their portraits are herein, which they will never learn from me personally. I have adopted this course to make the work clean throughout, feeling that the people will sustain me in perfect uprightness.

Throughout are occasionally introduced TRAVELLING NOTES, so that it should combine the four attractions of HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, BIOGRAPHY, and TRAVELS. The observations of one travelling over the same ground after a lapse of forty years would naturally be interesting. This feature enables me to make it more useful and instructive to the young, and to give some of the philosophy that has come from experience, and which has helped to brighten and make glad my own

INTRODUCTION TO THE CENTENNIAL EDITION.

way so well that, though the rolling years have at last whitened my locks, within I still feel young, move with agility, and love the world the better the longer I live in it. "I love the world," wrote old Isaac Walton; "it is my Maker's creature; " but how much stronger would not that old fisherman love it were he here now. Human life never had such a full cup as in these our days of expand- ing knowledge and humanities.

When I began this work I did not anticipate bestowing upon it so much time and labor, but as I progressed my ambition enlarged, and so I enlarged the plan. Throughout, my great struggle has been financial, but in the darkest hour when beside this burden I was brain-weary from incessant work and diversities re- quiring thought and the turning aside for investigation, I had full faith I should triumph. Providence would not allow such a work for such a people to perish. From the citizens of the State I have received, with a single exception, no direct pecuniary aid other than by advance payments of subscriptions. This exception was Mr. Henry C. Noble, of Columbus, who, in the last dark, trying moment, most generously came to my rescue, and then the fog lifted that had gathered around the very summit of final success.

Of my old townsmen in New Haven who, in 1885, first aided me for a start, I am more especially indebted to Profs. Henry W. Farnam and Salisbury, of Yale; Henry T. Blake, attorney-at-law; Dr. E. H. Bishop; Charles L. English, ex-banker, and Dr. Levi Ives. Of the twenty-seven on the list five have since finished their life-work and passed away, viz., Henry C. Kingsley, Treasurer of Yale; Major Lyman Bissell, U. S. A .; Robert Peck ; Thomas Trowbridge, shipping merchant, and John Beach, attorney-at-law. Prof. S. E. Baldwin, of the Yale Law School, was the first subscriber anywhere to this work.

One effect of my work will be to increase the fraternal sentiment that is so marked a characteristic of Ohio men wherever their lot is cast, and that leads them to social sympathy and mutual help. And if we look at the sources of this State love we will find it arises from the fact that, Ohio being the oldest and strongest of the new States of the Northwest, by its organic law and its history has so thoroughly illustrated the beneficence and power of that great idea embodied in the single word AMERICANISM.

But I must here close with the observation that I have passed the allotted age of human life, and, although in sound health, cannot expect for many more years to witness its mysterious, ever-varying changes. But it will be a just satisfaction to me if, in my declining days, I can see that this work is proving of the same widespread benefit to the present people of Ohio as did that of my young life to those of forty years ago.

HENRY HOWE.

41 Third Avenue, COLUMBUS, O., January 1, 1889.

CONTENTS.

VOL. I.

PAGE

Buckeye Songs .. 202

Bullit, Capt., Boldness of. 693

Burkhalter, Christian ..... 847

Burnet, Judge Jacob 816

Purnet Woods ..

795

Bureau, John Peter Romaine, Notice of 681

"Buskirk's Battle" 963

Byxbe, Col. Moses, Sketch of .. 551

Campbell, Col. Lewis D., Sketch of. 349

Canal, Sandy and Beaver. 359

Captain, A Sick 776

Captina, Battle of. 307 Captivity and Escape of Sam'l Davis 953

Capture and Escape of Dr. John Knight 882 Carney, Gov. Thomas, Notice of. 558 Carpenter, Charles, Notice of. 585 Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, Notice of 359 Cary, Alice. 835

Cary, Gen. Samuel F 838 Cary, Phoebe. Cary Homestead 837 835

Case, Leonard, Sketch of. 513 Cass, Major, Allusion to. 344

Cascade at Clifton.

724

Catholics of St. Martin's 340

Central Insane Asylum 630

Chase, Bishop Philander. 988

Chase, Hon. Salmon P., Boyhood Pranks of. 613

Chase, Sec'y Salmon P 829 Cheese Industry on the Western Reserve 690 Chillicothe, Old 692

Cholera, The Asiatic .. 761

Cincinnati a Literary Centre. 788

Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce 707

Cincinnati Clubs and Club Life. 800 Cincinnati Court House Riot of 1884 806 Cincinnati, Early Intellectual Life of .... 822 Cincinnati, Eminent Citizens of, in Cab- inet and Field. 772

Cincinnati Expositions. 799

Cincinnati Incorporated .. 755

Cincinnati in the War Times 765

Cincinnati in 1847 755

Cincinnati in 1888. 781

Cincinnati Jail Riot of 1848. 808 Cincinnati Newspapers in War Times. 778

Cincinnati, Settlement of. 747

Cincinnati, Siege of. 772

Cincinnati Southern Railway. 794

Cincinnati Under Martial Law. 773

Cist, Charles. 831

Cist, Henry M. 832

Cist, Lewis J 832

Civil War, Ohio in the 150

Clarke, Robert. 840

Cleveland, Its Past and Present.

503

Cleveland, Gen. Moses, Sketch of 510

Brown, Hon. Ezekiel, Notice of. 551 Climate, Ohio. 87

Broadhead's Expedition. 480

Brough, Gov. John ..

515

Buckeye State, Why Ohio is Called. 200

PAGE.

Abbott, David, Escape of. 579

Abolitionists, Salem 449

Academies and High Schools 143

Agriculture in Ohio, History of. 100

Amimens, Sketch of the. 339

Amusing Incidents. 277

Ancient Works, .... 264, 285, 325, 470, 552, 586 Andrews, Lorin, Ohio's First Volunteer 253

Andrews, S. J., Sketch of. 511

Animal Intelligence.

891

Anthony, Charles, Notice of. 404

Anti-Slavery Societies. 280

Appleseed, Johnny .. 260

Arbor Day Celebration, First in Ohio. 802

Armstrongs, Notice of .. 609

Arnett, Rev. Dr., Notice of. 45

Art Museum and Art Academy ..

707

Ash Cave ...

931

Ashtabula Harbor 273

607

Bachelor Hermits, The Two 489

Badger, Rev Joseph. 279

Bark Cutters, The ... 231

Baldwin, John, Notice of. 526

Baum, Martin.

847

552

Beatty. John, Sketch of. 581

150

Bebb, Gov. William, Sketch of .. 350

Beckett, William, Sketch of. -598

Beecher, Hon. Philemon, Notice of 824

Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman

Beecher, Catharine .. 824

784

Benedict, Platt. 945

Bingham, Hon. John

889,

902

Bishop, Gov. Richard M. 813

Black Hoof, Sketch of .. 299

Black Watch, A Veteran of. 405

Black Swamp. 903

Blind Institution for the .. 637

Bloss, G. M. D., Sketch of .. 422

Blue Jacket. 908

Blue Jacket, Sketch of .. 300

Bockinghelas, Notice of. 550

Bodily Exercises. 279

Boone, Daniel, Anecdotes of. 693

Boquet, Col. Henry, Sketch of 476

Boquet's Expedition. 472

Boulders . 93

Bowman, Expedition of .. 694

Boynton, Gen. H. V. 852

Bradstreet's Expedition. 565

Bravery of Capt. McClelland .. 878

Breckinridge, Reminiscences of. 674

Brilliant Women ... 787

Brown, Gov. Ethan Allen. 812

Climatic, Changes.

535

Clinton, Gov. George, Sketch of.

423

Coal Trade on the River, The Early

322

Assault on Gen. Jackson

Bears and Wolves .. 278, 317, 492,

Beatty, Gen. John, Sketch of. 349

Beer Gardens and Music.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Cockerill, Col. John A., Notice of. 229

Coffin, Levi .. 826

Coffin, Catharine. 827

Coffinsberry, Andrew. 870

Cole, Thomas 972,

979

Colleges and Universities. 144

College Lands, Settlement of. 283

"College of Teachers" 822

Collier, James. 979

Columbia Pioneer Celebration 808

Columbia, Settlement of. 747

Confederate Conspiracy at Sandusky 572

Contraband Soldiers. 780

Cooke, Eleutheros, Sketch of 574

Cooke, Jay, Anecdote of. 582

Coon-Skin Library. 288

Copperas Works. 973

Coppock, Edwin, Last Letter of. 453

Copus Tragedy, The. 257

Corwin, Thomas, Anecdotes of. 403

Coshocton Campaign 480

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 1

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006