History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920, Part 1

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 702

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920 > Part 1

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GENEALOGY COLLECTION

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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02279 7556

THE CAPITOL Seen from the corner of High and Broad streets. Judiciary Building at the left.

HISTORY

OF THE

CITY OF COLUMBUS,

OHIO ( France, Po)

FROM THE FOUNDING OF FRANKLINTON IN 1797, THROUGH THE WORLD WAR PERIOD, TO THE YEAR 1920

By OSMAN CASTLE HOOPER

977.102 C 72 h

COLUMBUS-CLEVELAND THE MEMORIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY J. R. FINNELL, President

1207850

Oliva Book Store-$10,00

Osman estaoper

INTRODUCTION

HIS narrative, covering a period of nearly a century and a quarter, has been prepared with a view to giving a concise and accurate ac- count of the life hereabout from the time of the arrival of the first surveying party down to the present. The story of the locality is told chronologically, with such reference to the Mound Builders and the Indians, the forests, the streams and the wild life as seemed necessary to show what human life preceded the white settlers and the nature of the region to which they came; and, from that point to the present-1797 to 1920-with an orderly presentation of the principal events of village, borough and city life. This panorama occupies the first thirteen chapters.

In the subsequent chapters, devoted to special features of city life, there is a similar effort to tell the story of each chronologieally. For instance, Chap- ter XIV. presents in order the various forms of government under which the people have lived from 1812 to 1920 and the names of the principal officials. Two chapters are given to publie utilities, their origin and development. Four chapters are given to Federal, State, county and city institutions, Universi- ties, public and private schools. The story of the religious life of the commu- nity occupies three chapters, while glimpses of the professions of law, medieine and journalism, of charitable work, of manufacturing, banking, transporta- tion, literary, musieal and art endeavor. and social and fraternal organizations are to be found in other chapters.

An effort has been made to place the men and women who have made the life of the city in their proper setting. Not all, of course, could be mentioned in a story so brief; but here at least are the leaders of their time who were hon- ored by their contemporaries and supported in their public activities.

It is a wonderful story-this of Columbus-marked by the courage and endurance of its earliest settlers, and by the foresight, perseverance, public spirit and benevolenee of the later comers. There has been continuous progress from the beginning till now, and the development of the last fifty years, crowned by the extraordinary patriotie endeavor of the World War period, must fill all with pride. Today, Columbus, with its 237.000 population, stands elate, a credit to the State and nation.

When this work was begun, nine men consented to serve as advisory editors as follows: Hon. Henry C. Taylor, Rev. Father Dennis J. Clarke, Dr. Ed- ward J. Wilson, Col. W. L. Curry, Mr. Herbert Brooks, Mr. Charles C. Pa- vey, Mr. John J. Pugh, Mr. Maurice Stewart Hague and Mr. John A. Kel- ley. The two first-named have since died and the books of their reeord have been elosed and sealed with the affeetion of the community. Acknowledgment of helpfulness is made to all of the advisory editors; to the previous histories of Martin in 1858, of Studer in 1873 and of Lee in 1892, from all of which something has been gleaned for the present work; also to the newspapers, city officials, city records and individuals who have given much material from dia- ries and letters. O. C. H.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

Beginnings of Ohio ..

II. The Settlement of Franklinton 11

III. Early Days in Franklinton. 15

IV. Franklinton and Its Neighbors 21

Columbus Born a Capital

VI. Borough Life Until 1834 32

VII. City Life from 1834 to 1860 37

VIII. In Civil War Time, by W. F. Feleh 46

IX. Leading Events from 1865 to 1900 53

x. Leading Events from 1900 to 1918 60

XI.

First Year of the World War.

XII.

Second Year of the World War

XIII. Back to Peace.

XIV. Columbus Government, Forms and Personnel

105

XV. Public Utilities I

115

XVI. Publie Utilities II ... 123

XVII. Travel, Tavern and Hotels. .

131

XVIII. Federal and Other Institutions 138

XIX. State Buildings and Institutions, by W. F. Felch 145

XX. Educational Institutions, by W. F. Felch and Helen Moriarty 155

XXI.

Public and Private Schools.

163

XXII.

The Bench and Bar

173

XXIII. The Press 180

XXIV. Religions Life-Protestant 187

XXV. Religious Life-Catholic, by Helen Moriarty 204

XXVI. Religions Life-Jewish and Others. 216

XXVII.

Manufacturing Industries

219

XXVIII. Railroads, by Clarence Metters 225

XXIX.

Street and Interurban Transportation 230

XXX. Charitable Institutions 237

XXXI. Financial Institutions 218

XXXII. Literary Life, by Helen Moriarty

257

XXXIII. Various Important Organizations. 263

XXXIV. Medical Profession and Hospitals. 269

XXXV. Secret and Social Organizations 276

XXXVI. Drama, Musie and Art 283

PAGE

CHAPTER I. BEGINNINGS OF OHIO

The Mound Builders and Indians- First White Settlements and Struggle for Possession-Indian I'illage at the Forks of the Scioto Attacked by Crawford and Dispersed-The Ohio Company, the Scioto Company and Symmes Purchase-Indian Power Broken and British Hopes Blasted-First Surveys-Topography, Geology and Soil of Franklin County.

There was a time, scientists tell us, perhaps ten thousand years ago, when much that is Ohio and all that is Columbus lay under a great mass of ice that spread southward from the North Pole. The ice may have been half a mile thick. Man may have been here then, in a state of development corresponding to that of the Esquimo, and he may have traversed the ice, with stone weapons hunting the mastodon, reindeer and walrus. The evidence of man's presence at that time is meager, and it may not be generally accepted as conclusive, but it is interesting. With regard to the ice, there is no longer reasonable doubt, and it is with a sense of awe that one thinks of the great transformtion that was wrought when, under the more genial sun, the ice began to melt and move, tearing the surface of the earth, digging the valleys, piling up hills, depositing great beds of gravel, dropping boulders here and there and cutting the courses for the streams; and when, later on, where all was once white as death, forests rose, fields grew green, birds came, flowers grew, animals of an- other sort roamed the forests and fishes swam in the waters. Surely, no greater change ever occurred on the face of the earth than that in Ohio when, with the ice cap removed, the earth sprang into newness of life.

;

The man of the Glacial period, if he was really here, left few traces. His successor, the Mound Builder, left many but of a character so dubious that scores of scholars for a hundred years have been seeking to solve the riddle of his existence. The Mound Builders are so called for lack of a better name. They did not christen themselves, and their only records are the mounds they built and the things that have been found in them. These mounds are numerous in Franklin county and there is record of some within the area now occupied by Columbus. The most notable of these stood where now is the corner of High and Mound streets. The first explorers found it forty feet high, with a gradual slope from the north, east and west, the southern side being an abrupt declivity. Its shape was that of a truncated cone, the diameter of the base being probably 300 feet and that of the upper surface 100 feet. In the development of the city, High street was projected through this mound at its eastern side, but as nothing of great significance was found-only a few bones and trinkets, evidently buried there at a time subsequent to the construction of the mound-the conclusion was reached that the mound was originally used as a signal station from which news, by means of bonfire and torch, was flashed to other stations up and down the valley. Another mound still stands two and a half miles northwest of the State House, north of the bend in the Scioto. Its base is 110 feet in diameter and the mound itself, twenty-one feet high, once commanded a view of the valley to the south for a considerable distance. This, too, was doubtless a signal station. A short distance north is a smaller mound, ten feet high and sixty-five feet across the base. Mounds are found also at Marble Cliff, Dublin and Worthington, along Alum creck, Big Walnut, and elsewhere in this county. In other counties of Ohio, the remains of these early inhabitants are even more numerous, and the conclusion is inevitable that even in prehistoric time when the primitive forests were young, Ohio was a favorite dwelling place of human beings.

Whether the Indians the white man found here were identical with the Mound Build- ers, or were a different race succeeding them, is still a matter of scientific dispute, with the weight of opinion at present in favor of the former theory. But that need not be dis- cussed here. The Indian occupants of Ohio were the first of whom there is definite knowl- edge. These, according to Randall, were the Eries, who were conquered and dispersed by the Iroquois. The latter came from the west, allied themselves with the Miamis for the purpose of fighting the Eries, and subsequently fought their allies, establishing what they long continued to regard as proprietorship of the land. Other Indians-the Wyandots, the

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

Mingoes, the Shawnees and Delawares-were here, but were always regarded by the Iro- quois as mere tenants. It was the Wyandots who raised corn on the lowlands west of the Scioto river, now West Columbus, and built lodges in the forest on the eastern bank, now the heart of the city. But the Mingoes also were here, and in the fall of 1774, they main- tained a town or rendezvous near the point where the Olentangy empties into the Scioto. At the time of Lord Dunmore's punitive expedition into Ohio, the Mingoes were the least submissive. One of their chiefs, Cornstalk, had led the allied Indians in the battle of Point Pleasant and, though he participated in the peaec parley on Pickaway Plains, had not given his assent to the treaty. Logan, another distinguished Mingo warrior, at least nominally a chief, bitter because all his relatives had been killed by the whites, remained away, but sent a pacifie message of rare cloquenee, which has been handed down as "Logan's speech." With regard to the attitude of the Mingoes, Lord Dunmore was not satisfied and, to make sure that there were no sparks of hostility left behind, directed Captain William Crawford and 240 men to proceed against the Mingo rendezvous at the junetion of the Scioto and the Olentangy. The latter had some white prisoners and horses they had stolen, and it was suspected that they intended to slip away with their booty and hold themselves free to carry on the war. Captain Crawford and his men arrived at the camp of the Mingoes just as they, warned of the attack, were leaving. There was some fighting, six Indians were killed and others wounded, the white captives were released and horses and plunder, afterwards sold for 400 pounds, were captured. Most of the Indian warriors escaped. And so it happened that the only act of violence done to the Indians in the interior of Ohio by the Dunmore expedition occurred within what is now the city of Columbus.

It is interesting to know that this fighting, if it can be called such, occurred chiefly on the east bank of the Scioto below the mouth of the Olentangy, near the present Penitentiary site. Joseph Sullivant has located the scene by repeating in an address before the Pioneer Society in 1871 what he as a boy had heard from the lips of Jonathan Alder and others. Alder, captured in Virginia by a party of Indian marauders, was brought into Ohio and adopted into the tribe, lived among them and was here when the first settlers came. What he knew and told to Mr. Sullivant, he got from the older men of the tribc. As to the loca- tion of the Mingo villages, Mr. Sullivant had also the testimony of John Brickell and two other white men who had been captives among the Indians. By their joint testimony, the principal village was near the Penitentiary site, but there were two others-one on the east side of the Scioto, a mile and a half south of Broad street, and another at the west end of the Harrisburg (Mound street) bridge.

Alder's story of the attack by Crawford's men, as narrated by Mr. Sullivant, was that "in the fall of 1774, when all the male Indians of the upper village, except a few old men, had gone on their first fall hunt, one day about noon, the village was surprised by the sudden appearance of a body of armed men who immediately commenced firing upon all they could sec. Great consternation and panic ensued, and the inhabitants fled in every direction. One Indian woman seized her child, five or six years of age, and rushed down the bank of the river and across to the wooded island opposite, when she was shot down at the farther bank. The child was unhurt amid the shower of balls, and hid in a large hollow sycamore stand- ing near the middle of the island, where he was found alive two days later when the warriors of the tribe returned, having been summoned by runners to the scene of disaster." According to this account, Captain Crawford's victory was easily won and was quite lacking in the heroic.

By the treaty made by Lord Dunmore with the Ohio tribes, the Indians were to give up all prisoners ever taken by them in war with the whites; also all negroes captured and all horses stolen since the last war; they were not to hunt east of the Ohio and the whites were not to hunt on the west side. The hope of peace lay in keeping the Indians and whites apart. But it was a vain hope. The shot at Lexington that was "heard around the world," was heard also on the borders of the Ohio country. British intrigues with the Indians against the colonists began. There were raids and punitive expeditions into the Ohio country, much fighting and many atrocities with which this particular section happily had nothing to do. It was a spoil of war, rather than a seat of hostilities. The War of the Revolution ended with the surrender of Cornwallis, September 19, 1781. The American colonies tinis gained their independence, but the fighting in the Ohio country went on. The British troops in the interior yielded but sullenly to the agreements of the peace treaty and

BEGINNINGS OF OHIO

continued to fan the fires of Indian opposition. The infant nation had come into prospec- tive possession of a vast territory extending from the northern boundary of Florida to the Great Lakes and from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river, and the Indians, at a conference in January, 1786, acknowledged the United States to be "the sole and absolute sovereign of all the territories ceded by Great Britain." But what was professed in word was denied in action by both the British and the Indians whom they incited to revolt, as will be seen.

Upon the eastern border of the promised land, the tide of migration beat with in- creasing force after the close of the Revolutionary War. But when the British and Indians had been dispossessed, new troubles arose. To whom did the territory northwest of the Ohio river belong? To the several states or to the infant nation as a whole? The entire terri- tory, out of which were subsequently carved the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, was claimed by both New York and Virginia, while Massachusetts and Connecticut each laid claim to a considerable part. There were years of heated discus- sion, which put the very life of the nation in jeopardy, and then, under the leadership of New York, the several states relinquished their claims, thus putting the general government in possession except that Connecticut reserved a tract in northeastern Ohio, later known as the Western Reserve, and Virginia retained for herself the tract in Ohio which lies between the Seioto and Miami rivers. Some of the land thus retained, Connecticut gave to her citi- zens to reimburse them for losses in the Revolution, and the remainder she sold to create a common school fund. Virginia's reservation was for the purpose of distributing bounty to her soldiers, many of whom had fought for the possession of the land. The discussion of this ownership question was one of the things that showed the weakness of the Articles of the Con- federation and brought about the formulation and adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1788.

Congress, on May 20, 1785. provided for a survey of the western domain, and sur- vevors sprang to the work only to meet the obstacle of Indian opposition and to be turned back. After some preliminary meetings, the Ohio Company, having in view a settlement in the new territory, was organized at the Bunch of Grapes tavern in Boston, March 1, 1786. General Rufus Putnam was made president of the board of directors; Major Win- throp Sargent, secretary, and Richard Platt (later chosen) treasurer. Other directors were General Samuel H. Parsons, Rev. Manasseh Cutler and General James M. Varnum. By the following March 250 shares of $1,000 each had been taken, and in October, 1787, the con- tract with the federal government for the purchase of 964,285 acres on the Ohio river extending from the mouth of the Muskingum river, was signed. The purchase price was 662/3 cents an acre, to be paid in public securities then worth about twelve cents to the dollar.

Then arose the Scioto Company of Colonel William Duer and others, of New York, whose enterprise, so far as government was concerned, clashed with that of the Ohio Com- pany. By compromise, the purchase was extended to include 1,000,000 other acres lying west and north of the Ohio Company's tract, the purchase price to be the same and to be paid in four annual installments. The Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory was adopted hy Congress, July 13, 1787, and by the same agency General Arthur St. Clair was chosen Governor; James M. Varnum, Samuel H. Parsons and John Armstrong, Judges, and Winthrop Sargent, secretary. Later, when Armstrong declined to serve, John Cleves Symmes was chosen.

Thus was the stage set for the coming of the colonists and the making of a new civili- ation. The Ordinance was a noble. forward-looking document, second only to the Consti- tion itself in importance and virtue. The leaders of the Ohio Company were superior in- tellectually and morally, and the expedition which landed at the mouth of the Muskingum, April 7, 1788, was composed of men and women of high purpose and strong courage. Reaching the seene of their adventure under the leadership of General Rufus Putnam, they found the flag flying from Fort Harmar, built nearly three years before, and the fort occu- pied by a detachment of United States troops. There the colony established itself, its sturdy members playing a great part in the building of the State. The Scioto Company was less fortunate, for its business was chiefly speculation. Duer, its leader, sold some shares for the Ohio Company and thus assisted it in making its payments to the government; but its larger operation was in selling land to people in France. Several hundred of these French

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

purchasers came to America and settled on their supposed possessions, only to find that the Seioto Company had defaulted in its payments and could give no elear title. Congress in 1795 relieved their distress by making to them a grant of 24,000 aeres in the eastern part of Scioto county.

In 1787, John Cleves Symmes bought from the government 1,000,000 aeres fronting on the Ohio river, and Benajmin Stites, who was interested with him, brought a party of twenty-six who landed, November 18, 1788, at a point now within the corporate limits of Cineinnati, naming their settlement Columbia. Another colony, headed by Matthias Den- man, December 28, the same year, settled on a tract of 640 aeres, bought of Symmes, directly opposite the mouth of the Lieking river. Symmes himself eame with a colony in Febru- ary, 1789, and settled at North Bend below Cincinnati, or Losantiville, as the Denman colony was first ealled. In 1791, the French colony already alluded to settled at a point they ap- priately ealled Gallipolis. In the same year, Colonel Nathaniel Massie, surveying in the Virginia Military distriet, founded Manchester on the Ohio river, and in 1796 he laid out the town of Chillicothe. The first settlement in northern Ohio was made by General Moses Cle(a)veland. July 4, 1796, at the mouth of Conneaut creek, the colonists coming from Con- nectieut. In September of the same year he laid out a town at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, which was named for him and has sinee beeome the largest eity in the State.

The coming of the colonists only angered the Indians who were still being excited to hos- tility by the British, and there were many sanguinary raids and much fighting. General St. Clair, in an effort to make the territory safe, led 2,000 soldiers to defeat by Little Turtle and his warriors in Mereer county. In 1793, General Anthony Wayne was dispatched with an army of 3,000 to subdue the vietorious Indians, severely defeated them at Fallen Timbers and foreed the treaty of Greenville, by which the Indians released all their lands in the territory except a few specified reservations, the Indians taking $20,000 in merchandise and a personal annuity of $9,000 to be apportioned among the contracting tribes. The Indians were to deliver up all eaptives and keep the peace forever. The battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 has been referred to as really the first confliet of the Revolution. With equal truth, the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 may be considered the last, for it was not till then that the Indian power was broken and the last British hope destroyed.

Thereafter, new settlements sprang up rapidly, the first General Assembly was created and organized as provided in the Ordinance of 1787, and met with the Governor, at Cinein- nati, September 16, 1799.

There is agreement by all the early travelers that the Ohio wilderness was most alluring. Pages could be filled with the record of their rhapsodies at the spectacle of the Ohio river with its heavily forested banks, the floeks of wild geese and dueks upon its waters, the noble trees grown to maturity as Nature willed it, the abundance of turkeys, quail and singing birds and the bears, wolves, buffaloes, deer and other animals visible to the travelers on the rude eraft of the river. Short trips up the Muskingum, Seioto and Miami proved also the high quality of the interior. Everywhere the territory seemed to these and other chronielers who traversed the country from the river to the lakes to be a veritable unbroken paradise, offering all that man could ask, not only in woodland treasures, but also in well- watered plains, "level as the ocean and seemingly bounded only by the distant horizon and covered with the most luxuriant growth of grass and herbs."

It is not strange that to such a country people were attracted even from Europe, as were the French of the Gallipolis colony. Nor ean there be wonder that those who had fought in the War of the Revolution or had suffered because of it looked eagerly to the territory as their future home. As we have seen, Virginia and Connectieut made special reserva- tions to eare for their fighting men and war sufferers. Congress also provided land for those who fought the battles for independence and later for the security of life and property in the new domain. The region about Columbus is notable for a land division having these rewards in view. Three of the four denominations of land in Franklin county are of this sort. At the north extending south to Fifth avenue, east of the Seioto, are the United States Military lands, set apart by Congress in 1796, to satisfy certain elaims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War. From Fifth avenue south, lies the Refugee traet, four and a half miles wide and extending forty-eight miles east from the Scioto. It was appro- priated by Congress for the benefit of Canadians and Nova Seotians who had espoused the cause of the colonies in the War of the Revolution. When all the claims had been satisfied,

BEGINNINGS OF OHIO

the remainder of the tract was sold, as in the case of other public land. All the land west of the Scioto river lies in the tract that Virginia reserved for her soldiers and is know as the Virginia Military district. That which lies south of the Refugee tract and a small tri- angular piece south of Fifth avenue and bordering the river are known as Congress lands because they are of the great body of land which was sold direct to settlers.

In the surveys there was a lack of uniformity which has since proved very troublesome. The United States Military district was divided into townships five miles square and each

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History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920, Part 1

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941 Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 702

Author: Hooper, Osman Castle, 1858-1941
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Columbus : Memorial Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 702