USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Centennial history of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 30
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"In case any township should be unrepresented in the meeting, those present will take the liberty of nominating suitable persons for said absent townships.
Ralph Osborn, Gustavus Swan, Christian Heyl, Lucas Sullivant, Samuel G. Flenniken, John A. McDowell."
A subsequent paper says: "The hunt was conducted agreeable to the instructions in our last paper. On counting the scalps, it appeared that nine- teen thousand six hundred and sixty scalps were produced. It is impossible to say what number in all were killed, as a great many of the hunters did not come in."
The hunting or killing of deer was successfully practiced by candle or torch light, at night, on the river. The deer in warm weather would come
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into the river after night to eat a kind of water-grass that grew in the stream, and the hunters, by taking a canoe, and a bright light in it, could let it float down stream, and the light appeared to blind the deer until they could float near to them and shoot them with ease.
An Honored Pioneer.
A writer in the Ohio Statesman of Tuesday morning, February 22, 1870, apropos to the death of a prominent Columbus pioneer referring to the fam- ilies of 1805-7-8; the Miners, the Whites, the Stewarts, the Johnsons, the Worthingtons, the Shannons, the Stambaughs, the Ramseys, the Moohreys, the Sharps, the Deckers, the Rareys and the Olmsteds, recalls old memories. The occasion of the publication was the demise, on the Sunday preceding, of Colonel Philo H. Olmsted, the then oldest, as well as the pioneer repre- sentative of the Olmsted family.
Colonel Olmsted had long been one of the leading figures in early Colum- bus, both in civic and military affairs. He was a non-com. of the celebrated Franklin Dragoons, which escorted President James Monroe from Worthing- ton to Columbus in 1817 and later was its commander. The Dragoons were organized during the war of 1812 and continued as an organized body until 1832.
The paper referring to a then noteworthy event says: "On Saturday, August 31, 1822, Colonel Olmsted participated in the grand squirrel hunt, which resulted in the capture of nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty scalps," a fuller account of which event is given elsewhere in this work. Colonel Olmsted had filled the office of mayor and many other public offices, had been identified with the Columbus newspaper press, was foremost in all public affairs, and his death naturally effected the entire community with sorrow and sincere regret.
On the evening of February 21, the editors and printers of the city as- sembled in the office of Governor Edward F. Noyes, and organized by electing Colonel Charles B. Flood, president, and Hon. John Greiner, secretary. On motion of Grafton Pearce, the following persons were chosen to report resolu- tions expressive of both public and private sentiment: Judge W. B. Thrall, Colonel C. B. Flood, Grafton Pearce, A. B. Laurens and William H. Bushey. In their report the committee referred to Colonel Olmsted's long and valuable services in pushing forward the city of Columbus and eulogized his many good qualities.
CHAPTER XII.
ROSTER OF COLUMBUS STATESMEN FOR A CENTURY.
Mention is made elsewhere of the action of Hon. Alfred Kelly, in pre- venting the repudiation, by the legislature of Ohio, of its canal bonds in the year 1841. The mansion below, which is still standing in a perfect state of
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preservation, was the first building, public or private in the state capital, which could lay claim to architectural pretensions.
Mr. Kelly, who probably had never studied architecture, was the architect of the building, and superintended, as well, the laying of every stone, the designing of every column, and the finishing of every cornice and chimney. It was this house and its once beautiful grounds that he pledged for the pay- ment of his note for some thirty thousand dollars for money, borrowed in New York, to pay the overdue interest on the bonds of the state issued to build the Ohio canal system, the banking house preferring the private cit- izen's note to the special bond issue of the state to meet the interest charges. The legislature had passed through one house, a bill to repudiate the canal debt, and was awaiting Mr. Kelly's return to pass it through the other, in the event the emergency interest bonds had not been negotiated.
Then it was that this old berea stone mansion saved the escutcheon of Ohio stainless, for had not the interest charges been paid, repudiation would have been inevitable under the dreadful stress of the financial depression that hung like a pall over the entire Ohio Valley. When it become known what Kelly had done-how he had jeopardized his entire fortune (and it was a large fortune in Columbus for that day) with absolute faith in the resources and integrity of the state and its government, it inspired men in every sec- tion with confidence, optimism and the determination to go to work and create prosperity by their united efforts.
And that determination was carried out, the six per cent bonds, which were so nearly repudiated, went to a premium, and holders, for half a cen- tury, asked to have them refunded, the last refunding being at a shade above three per cent, and still they commanded a premium, and when no further extensions would be made at even three per cent, the holders reluctantly came to the state treasury and accepted the principal-some not calling for their money for years after the bonds matured.
It seems singular to us of the present day, that the state did not acquire this historic estate, lying north of Broad and extending east and west from Fifth street to Grant avenue, after its owner had passed away, and maintain it for all time in some appropriate form as a memorial to the unselfish patriotic citizen who saved the honor of his adopted state unsullied, by putting all his earthly possessions in peril sooner than permitting the shame and disgrace of repudiation to befall it.
Once this beautiful property might have been preserved intact. Now it is impracticable. But if we cannot understand the lack of commonwealth's appreciation of one of its real benefactors, what will our children and our children's children think of it and of us?
Brief Sketches of Prominent Men of the City, in Congress and on the Bench.
Columbus and Franklin county can boast of many distinguished states- men, who served their people well during the century. The work of some of them would merit a volume; of some of the others almost as much, but a
THE KELLY MANSION.
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brief summing up of each will suffice to excite the reader's interest in the wider histories of their achievements. Beginning with those who being resi- dents served the city, county and district in the congress of the United States are :
James Kilbourne.
James Kilbourne was born in New Britain, Connecticut, October 19, 1770, and died in Worthington, Franklin county, Ohio, December 9, 1850. He was a man of great force of character and did much toward the upbuilding of the commonwealth of Ohio during the first three decades of the century. He was reared on his father's farm and in early life was apprenticed to a cloth manufacturer and afterward became the manager of the business. Sub- sequently he was instrumental in introducing different kinds of manufactur- ing enterprises into the new state, which eventually made it largely inde- pendent of the east.
When the Northwest Territory was erected by the ordinance of 1787 and the institution of slavery prohibited therein, young Kilbourne set about organizing an emigration. society in Connecticut to form a settlement in the society in the Scioto valley. The Scioto Emigration Company was organized and conducted by him to Ohio in 1803 and located in the Scioto valley in the northern portion of Franklin county, where a large tract of land was pur- chased and divided among the stockholders and the town of Worthington founded. Later he brought out other colonies and assisted in locating them to advantage.
The promotion of education, religion and agricultural and manufactur- ing industries occupied his mind to the exclusion of ambitious political projects. He accepted public office under protest and only to oblige his friends. He was elected to the thirteenth congress in 1812, from the fifth district, embracing almost one-half of the superficial area of the state, com- posed of Licking, Delaware, Knox, Franklin, Madison, Fairfield, Champaign, Montgomery, Miama and Darke, which have since been subdivided into almost twice as many additional counties. In 1814 he was reelected to the fourteenth congress and was renominated for the fifteenth but absolutely refused to take a third election. He was one of the commissioners to settle the disputed boundary line between Virginia and the Northwest Territory. He was also the commissioner to select for the state of Ohio the public lands allotted for canal purposes and afterward known as the canal lands. He was an active and energetic advocate of roads, canals, railways and all forms of internal improvement.
In 1820 he was chosen a presidential elector and cast his vote for James Monroe. He acted with the democratic party up to 1824, when he began to diverge from it, supporting Henry Clay. With the organization of the whig party, he wholly severed his political relations with the democracy and be- came an ardent whig, taking an active part in the campaigns of 1836, 1840 and 1844. He was, however, always tolerant in his party views.
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Jeremiah McLene,
Of Ross, and later of Franklin county, was not only one of the leading democrats but one of the leading public men of the state during the first thirty years of its history. He entered public life in 1807 as a member of the house of the sixth general assembly, representing Ross, Franklin and Highland. He served a single term. He was active in the militia organiza- tion and became a major general.
He served as secretary of state for twenty-three years consecutively, hav- ing been elected by the legislature in 1808, and reelected seven times in suc- cession, to terms of three years each. In 1832 he was elected to the twenty- third congress from the eighth district comprising Franklin, Madison, Pick- away, Delaware and Marion counties, and was reelected from the same dis- trict to the twenty-fourth congress in 1834. He was an elector on the Jack- son ticket in 1832.
General McLene was born in Pennsylvania in 1767. In early life he emigrated to the territory of Tennessee, where, as a boy, he became acquainted with and warmly attached to General Andrew Jackson. From Tennessee he came to Ohio. He died at Washington, D. C., March 19, 1837, from a cold contracted while attending the inauguration of President Martin Van Buren.
Heman A. Moore,
Of Franklin county, was elected to the twenty-eighth congress in 1842 from the tenth district, Franklin, Licking and Knox counties, and died in 1844 before the expiration of his term and was succeeded by Alfred P. Stone. He was born in Plainfield, Vermont, in 1810, and came to Ohio when a young man and served as adjutant general of the state for a brief period. He died in Columbus, April 3, 1844.
Alfred P. Stone
Was chosen to the vacancy caused by the death of Heman A. Moore in the twenty-eighth congress, 1844, from the tenth district, as above. On the 15th of June, 1856, William H. Gibson resigned the office of treasurer of state and Mr. Stone was immediately appointed to the vacancy by Governor Salmon P. Chase. At the October election, 1857, he was elected as a repub- lican to the same office over James R. Morris, democrat, by a vote of 160,618 to 158,942. At the October election, 1859, he was reelected over William Bushnell, democrat, by a vote of 184,567 to 170,413. He served for a period of five years in the office. Mr. Stone was born in Hampshire county, Massa- chusetts, on the 28th of June, 1813, and came to Ohio when a young man. He died in Columbus, Ohio, August 2, 1865.
Samuel Galloway.
Samuel Galloway was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, March 20, 1811, and located in Columbus in early life, where he rose to distinction as a lawyer
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and an orator. He was a whig and afterward a republican, and while a recog- nized leader in these parties, never sought for the distinction of office, pre- ferring the practice of his profession. He was noted for his incisive ability on the stump during the political campaigns for nearly a third of a century. He served a single term in congress, being nominated by his party without solicitation and was elected to the thirty-fourth congress in 1854 from the twelfth or capital district, composed of Franklin, Licking and Pickaway, which had elected Edson B. Olds, democrat, at the preceding congressional election.
Samuel Sullivan Cox.
Samuel Sullivan Cox was one of the imposing features in democratic politics in Ohio from 1852 to 1867 and afterward in the city of New York. He was born in Zanesville, Ohio, September 30, 1824, and died in the city of New York, September 10, 1889. He graduated from Brown University in 1846, studied law, was admitted to the bar and began practice at Zanes- ville in 1849. In 1853 he removed to Columbus and became editor of the Ohio Statesman, in which position he displayed unusual literary ability. In 1855 he became secretary of legation at Lima, Peru, but returned to Ohio in 1856 and was elected to the thirty-fifth congress from the twelfth district, Franklin, Licking and Pickaway counties. He was elected from the same district in the thirty-sixth congress in 1858, and to the thirty-seventh in 1860.
In 1862, at the decennial apportionment of the state, he was placed in the seventh district, made up of the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark and Greene, which was regarded as safely republican, but in 1862 it elected him to the thirty-eighth. He was again a candidate for the thirty-ninth in 1864, but was defeated by a few votes.
He removed from Ohio to New York in 1866 and formed a law partner- ship with Algernon Sidney Sullivan, this soon becoming one of the leading law firms of the metropolis. In 1868 the democracy of his new district sent him to congress, where he remained almost continually the rest of his life. His only unsatisfied ambition was his failure to be elected speaker of the house of representatives, which he nearly attained on two or three different occasions.
He was a man of rare wit and humor, a brilliant lecturer and orator of great force and originality. For a long period he was one of the regents of the Smithsonian Institute. He was a man of practical ideas and applied them in legislation. To him was most largely due the organization of the life- saving service, and increased compensation for letter carriers, and vacations without loss of pay. Mr. Cox traveled extensively in Europe and northern Africa, between 1880 and 1885. In 1885 he was appointed minister to Turkey by President Grover Cleveland. He enjoyed a wide reputation as an author. Among his best known books were "The Buckeye Abroad," "Eight Years in Congress," "Free Land and Free Trade." "Three Decades of Legislation" and "Why We Laugh."
Hugh J. Jewett.
Hugh J. Jewett was born in Hartford county, Maryland, in 1812, and died in he same state when past the age of seventy-five. The most of his
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life, however, was passed in Ohio, at Zanesville and Columbus, where he was a leading lawyer, banker, railway president and promoter and democrat leader. He came to Ohio when a young man and was admitted to the bar at St. Clairsville in 1840, where he began the practice of his profession. In 1848 he located at Zanesville and entered the banking business, and was made president of the Muskingum branch of the State Bank of Ohio in 1852. He was a presidential elector in 1852 and supported Franklin Pierce for president.
He was a member of the senate of the fifty-first general assembly and a member of the house in the fifty-eighth, and in 1853 was appointed United States district attorney for the district of Ohio. In 1855 he entered upon his railway career and became manager and afterward president of the Central Ohio road. He was subsequently connected officially with several of the lead- ing Ohio railroads, in 1872 became receiver of the Erie road of New York, and managed its affairs for ten years. He was a candidate for congress in 1860 but was defeated. In 1861 he was a candidate for governor and was defeated by David Tod, republican, by a vote of 206,997 to 151,774. He was an unsuccessful candidate for United States senator in 1863.
He was elected to the forty-third congress in 1872 from the twelfth dis- trict, Franklin, Pickaway, Fairfield, and Perry counties, and resigned in 1874 to assume charge of the Erie railway. He retained his residence in Ohio until 1887 and then returned to his ancestral home in Maryland.
George L. Converse.
George L. Converse, of Columbus, was born in Georgesville, Franklin county, Ohio, June 4, 1827, and died in Columbus in 1898. He was a lawyer of much ability and a prominent democrat leader for a quarter of a century. He attended the public schools and graduated from the Denison University, Granville, Ohio, in 1849. In 1851 he was admitted to the bar and became a leading attorney, both in civil and criminal law.
He represented Franklin county in the house of the fifty-fourth, fifty- fifth, sixty-first and sixty-second general assemblies, and was speaker of the body during the sixty-second general assembly. He was elected to the forty- sixth congress in 1878 from the ninth district, Franklin, Pickaway, Madison, Fayette and Delaware counties, and was reelected to the forty-seventh in 1880 from the same district.
In 1882 he was elected from the thirteenth district, Franklin, Fairfield, Hocking and Perry counties, to the forty-eighth congress, and joined with Samuel J. Randall and other tariff democrats in defeating the democratic tariff reform measures of that session. His democratic constituents refused him a fourth nomination, and he retired to private life. During the last ten years of his life he was not in active sympathy because of the tariff issue.
Joseph H. Outhwaite.
Joseph H. Outhwaite, of Columbus, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, De- cember 5, 1841, and was educated in the public schools of Zanesville and
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taught for two years in the high school of that city and for three years sub- sequently was principal of the grammar school in Columbus. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1866 and practiced law at Osceola, Missouri, from 1867 to 1871, when he returned to Columbus and became a leading attorney. He was elected prosecuting attorney of Franklin county in 1874 and reelected in 1876, and held many local offices of trust in later years.
In 1884 he was elected as a democrat on the tariff reform issue to the forty-ninth congress from the thirteenth district, Franklin, Fairfield, Hock- ing and Pickaway counties, and was reelected in 1886 from the thirteenth district, then composed of Franklin, Fairfield, Hocking and Perry; elected from the same district in 1888 to the fifty-first; and was elected to the fifty- second in 1890 from the ninth district, Franklin, Madison and Pickaway; and was elected a fifth time in 1892 from the twelfth district, Franklin and Fairfield. He played a conspicuous part in congress during the ten years of his service. He was appointed on the board of ordnance and fortifications by President Cleveland and still retains that position. In 1896 he disagreed with the leaders of his party on the money question and supported John M. Palmer for the presidency on the single gold standard platform.
David K. Watson.
David Kemper Watson, of Columbus, was born on a farm near London, Madison county, Ohio, June 18, 1849, and was graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1871. Two years later he was graduated from the law department of the University of Boston and admitted to the bar. He was assistant United States attorney for the southern district of Ohio under the administration of President Chester A. Arthur, and in 1887 was unanimously nominated by the republican state convention for attorney gen- eral of the state; was elected and reelected in 1889. In 1892 Attorney General Miller appointed him special counsel for the United States in the suit brought by the government against the Pacific railroads.
In 1894 he was nominated and elected to the fifty-fourth congress, as a republican, from the twelfth district, Franklin and Fairfield counties. The district was largely democratic, but he carried it over Joseph H. Outhwaite, democrat, by a plurality of 1,591, and was defeated in 1896 by John J. Lentz, democrat, in the same district by less than 50 votes. In 1898 he was ap- pointed by President Mckinley as a member of the commission to codify the laws of the United States.
John J. Lentz.
John Jacob Lentz, of Columbus, was born near St. Clairsville, Belmont county, Ohio, January 27, 1856; attended district school and the St. Clairs- ville high school; taught school four years; graduated from the National Normal University, Lebanon, Ohio, in 1877; attended University of Wooster one year; graduated from University of Michigan with degree of A. B. in.
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1882; took both law courses at Columbia College, New York city, receiving the degree of LL. B. in 1883; admitted to the bar at Columbus in October, 1883, and since 1887 has been a member of the law firm of Nash & Lentz; for five years was one of the examiners of the city teachers; and was appointed a trustee of Ohio University by Governor Mckinley; in the democratic state convention, at Cincinnati, in 1893. Although refusing to permit his name to be presented to the convention he was voted for as a candidate for gov- ernor. He was elected national president of the American Insurance Union in September, 1896, and reelected in 1897, 1898 and 1899. He was voted for as a candidate for the gubernatorial nomination in 1897 and again in 1899, although again refusing to permit his name to be presented to the conven- tion. In 1896 he was elected to the fifty-fifth congress, as a democrat from the twelfth district, composed of Franklin and Fairfield counties, and was reelected from the same district in 1898 to the fifty-sixth. In the famous contest which resulted in the election of, Marcus A. Hanna by the Ohio legis- lature, in January, 1898, Mr. Lentz was the only democrat who received a vote for United States senator. He was permanent chairman of the democrat state convention held at Dayton, August 23 and 24.
In the first session of the fifty-sixth congress, no resolution attracted wider attention than that introduced by Mr. Lentz to investigate the use of the United States army in Idaho in connection with the labor troubles in the Coeur d'Alene mining district. The investigation was vigorously prosecuted by Mr. Lentz and closely followed by organized labor throughout the coun- try, and attracted universal attention among all who watch the use of the military arm of the government. Mr. Lentz, although he has been in public life but a short time, has attained that eminence as an orator that he has been called upon to speak in almost all the principal cities from Milwaukee to New Orleans, and from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.
Emmett Tompkins,
an eminent attorney and son of former Congressman Cydnor B. Tomp- kins, was born in McConnelsville, Ohio, September 1, 1853. In 1865 he removed to Athens, both his parents being deceased. At Athens he entered the law offices of General Charles H. Grosvenor and Judge Joem Welch, with whom he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1875, entered at once upon the practice and rose to great prominence in the profession. He served two terms as a city solicitor of Athens; two terms as mayor, and two terms as a representative in the general assembly of Ohio. He removed to Co- lumbus to enter the broader field of his profession and in 1900 was chosen to congress and served one term. Since then he has been in the practice of his profession.
Judge De Witt C. Badger.
Judge Badger was elected to congress in 1902, and served one term. He is now in the law practice in Ohio.
TYPICAL COLUMBUS BANK AND OFFICE BUILDING, Columbus Savings and Trust Company, High and Long.
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SOME TYPICAL OFFICE BUILDINGS. NORTH CAPITOL SQUARE.
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Edward L. Taylor, Jr.
Edward L. Taylor, Jr., was elected to the congress in 1904; reelected in 1906, is still incumbent, and is the republican nominee for reelection. Longer sketches of the two gentlemen immediately preceding appear elsewhere in this work.
United States Senator A. G. Thurman.
Had it fallen to the lot of Plutarch to have written the lives of Allen Granberry Thurman and John Sherman he would have drawn the inevitable parallel between them. Politically they were antipodal. Personally they were on the friendliest footing. Mentally they were giants of equal stature.
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