Century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens 20th, Part 18

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 1086

USA > Ohio > Clark County > Springfield > Century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens 20th > Part 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

quiesce; assuring him that if the uncle lays claim, in consequence, to some con- did resort to it, or gratified any other sideration and importance. little whim of the like nature, he would find himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey; and that he would do well to make his will before he went, as he would certainly want it before he had been in Britain very long.

"On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break, and presently the first cheerful rays of the warm sun came slanting on us brightly. It sheds its light upon a miserable waste of sodden grass, and dull trees, and squalid huts, whose aspect is forlorn and grievous in the last degree. A very desert in the wood, whose growth of green is rank and noxious like that upon the top of stand- ing water; where poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint on the oozy ground, and spouts like witches' coral from the crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie upon the very thres- hold of a city. But it was purchased years ago, and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to reclaim it. So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation and improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by some great crime.

"We reached Columbus shortly before seven o'clock, and stayed there to re- fresh that day and night; having excel- lent apartments in a very large unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were richly fitted with the polished wood of the black walnut, and opened on a hand- some portico and stone veranda, like rooms in some Italian mansion. The town is clean and pretty, and of course is 'going to be' much larger. It is the seat of the State legislature of Ohio, and

"There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to take, I hired 'an extra' at a reasonable charge, to carry us to Tiffin, a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky. This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage- coach, such as I have described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would, but was exclusively our own for the journey. To ensure our having horses at the proper stations, and being incom- moded by no strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to ac- company us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing with us, be- sides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats and fruit and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half past six o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.

"It was well for us that we were in this humour, for the road we went over that day was certainly enough to have shaken tempers that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below Stormy. At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads against the roof. Now one side was down deep in the mire, and we were hold- ing on to the other. Now the coach was lying on the tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in a frantic state, with all four horses stand- ing on the top of an insurmountable em- inence, looking coolly back at it, as though they would say 'unharness us. It can't be done.' The drivers on these roads, who certainly get over the ground in a

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manner which is quite miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage, corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a common circumstance on looking out of the window to see the coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, ar- parently driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at one un- expectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some idea of getting up be- hind. A great portion of the way was over what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of trees into a marsh and leaving them to settle there. The very slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from log to log was enough, it seemed, to have dis- located all the bones in the human body. It would be impossible to experience a similar set of sensations, in any other cir- cumstances, unless perhaps in attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. Never, never once that day was the coach in any position, attitude, or kind of motion to which we are accus- tomed in coaches. Never did it make the smallest approach to one's experience of the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.

"Still, it was a fine day, and the tem- perature was delicious, and though we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast leaving Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and home. We alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to

the great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we went forward again, gaily.

"As night came on, the track grew nar- rower and narrower, until at last it so lost itself by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least, that there was no dan- ger of his (the driver) falling asleep, for every now and then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick to keep himself upon the box. Nor was there any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying there was no room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could not have run away in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels. So we stumbled along, quite satisfied.

"These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling. The varying illusions they present to the un- accustomed eye as it grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality. Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in the center of a lonely field; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb; now a very common-place old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a thumb thrust into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student poring on a book; now a crouching negro; now a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man; a hunchback throwing off his cloak and stepping forth into the light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many glasses in a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding, but seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or not; and strange to say, I sometimes recognized in them counter parts of figures once familiar to

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me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten long ago.

"It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled against the coach on either side and obliged us all to keep our heads within. It lightened too for three whole hours, each flash being very bright and blue and long; and as the vivid streaks came darting in among the crowd- ed branches, and the thunder rolled gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely help thinking that there were better neighborhoods at such a time than thick woods afforded.

"At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble lights ap- peared in the distance, and Upper San- dusky, an Indian village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us.

"They were gone to bed at the log inn, which was the only house of entertain- ment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried with old newspapers, pasted against the wall. The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown was a large, low, ghostly room, with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the black night and wild country, and so contrived that one of them always blew the other

open ; a novelty in domestic architecture, which I do not remember to have seen be- fore, and which I was somewhat discon- certed to have forced on my attention after getting into bed, as I had a consid- erable sum in gold for our travelling ex- penses in my dressing-case. Some of the luggage, however, piled against the pan- els, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very much af- fected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do so.

"My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond his power of endur- ance, he turned out again and fled for shel- ter to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This was not a very politic step, as it turned out, for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted around it so hid- eously that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering till morn- ing. Nor was it possible to warm hin when he did come out by means of a glass of brandy; for in Indian villages the leg- islature, with a very good and wise inten- tion, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern- ; keepers. The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the Indians never fail to procure liquors of a worse kind at a dearer price from travelling ped- lers. "

CHAPTER XI.

RAILROADS AND TRACTION LINES.

Building of Railroads-First Railroad-N. Y. P. & O .- Springfield, Jackson & Pomeroy-I. B. & W .- Present Railroad Systems-Traction Lines-Street Railways-Telegraph-Telephone; Bell Company, Home Company.

BUILDING OF RAILROADS.

"Singing through the forests, Rattling over ridges, Shooting under arches, Rumbling over bridges; Whizzing through the mountains, Buzzing o'er the vale,

Bless me! this is pleasant, Riding on the rail."

It has been observed by those who have made a study of such matters, that many of our great lines of transportation fol- low the "trail" made by wild animals or by the original inhabitants. There is no doubt but that one of these trails extend- ed from the Ohio River, at a point where Eagle River enters it in Brown County, north through the City of Springfield, and to Sandusky City on the Lake. This trail may have been joined in or near our city by another one leading from Cincinnati, and thus we find that the earliest rail- roads in Ohio follow this trail from Cin-

cinnati to Sandusky. About the time that railroads came into existence, the canal system of our state was being agitated. Several canals had been projected or partly built making connection between the Ohio River and Lake Erie at Cleve- land.

Before the advent of railways to Springfield, goods were received in Cen- tral and Southern Ohio by way of the National Road running east and west through Ohio by way of Wheeling and Baltimore, by four-horse coaches. The time was four or five days, or, if that route was not taken, the other one pre- senting itself was by way of Lake Erie, using the Buffalo and Erie Canal. When Buffalo was connected with the Hudson River, both by canal and railway, it was at once seen that a railway from San- dusky to Cincinnati would furnish an ex- peditious method of transporting mer- chantable articles from the East to Cen- tral and Southern Ohio.

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As early as 1817 the legislature con- sidered a resolution relating to a canal between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, and on June 5, 1832, the Cincinnati, San- dusky and Cleveland Railroad, or, as it was then known, the Mad River & Lake Erie, was granted a charter, and in 1837 the Little Miami Railroad was begun. The construction of the Mad River & Lake Erie Railway, like most railroad building of that time, did not progress very rapidly and the line did not reach Springfield until 1848.

Lake Erie Railroad at Springfield to form a continuous line from Cincinnati to the lake.

In 1850 the Columbus & Xenia Railroad was built which now forms a part of the Pennsylvania system running through South Charleston and with which the Little Miami is connected.

In the same year the Cincinnati, San- dusky & Cleveland Railroad was extend- ed to Dayton and we then had two com- peting railroads to Cincinnati, the latter road making connection at Dayton with

DOIAM NO

E.& K.R.R.

CWRICH

FIRST RAILROAD.

The first railroad to enter Springfield was the Little Miami Railroad, and this event happened on Thursday, the 1st day of August, 1846, the "locomotive Ohio" being the one which drew the first train of cars into our city. The Mad River & Lake Erie entered on September 2, 1848. The locomotive bringing its first train of cars on this road was called 'the "Sen- eca."

It was the aim of the Little Miami by

making connection with the Mad River & the C. H. & D. The first train left for Dayton in 1851. In that year construc- tion of the railroad from Springfield to London was begun, which was completed in 1853.

Likewise the railroad from Springfield to Delaware, which was then designated as the Springfield, Mt. Vernon & Pitts- burg Railroad, had its inception in the same year, 1851.

Afterwards the road from Springfield to London was continued under a charter

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of the Columbus, Springfield & Cincinnati Railroad, and the first train ran from Springfield to Columbus in 1871.

N. Y. P. & O.

In 1864 the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad was constructed in Clark Coun- ty. The intention of its promoters was to form a through line from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It was built as a broad-gauge line, being one foot wider be- tween its track rails than the ordinary road. Those in charge of its construction did not look upon Springfield as a city of sufficient importance to make the con- nection of their line with it a profitable enterprise, therefore they did not go through the city, a mistake which, long before this, has caused regret to those in- terested in its fortunes. Its gauge was afterwards changed to that of the stand- ard width, and its name to the New York. Pennsylvania & Ohio, and it is now known as the "Nypano" and is under lease and control of the Erie system.

SPRINGFIELD, JACKSON & POMEROY.

In September, 1874, the Springfield, Jackson & Pomeroy Railroad was organ- ized and was intended to extend from Springfield to the Ohio River. It was one of the first narrow-gauge roads in the state. Quite a number of Springfield cit- izens invested in the stock of the company and many of them found, after the rail- road was wound up by a receiver, that they were compelled to pay a second time under the constitution liability that then applied to a stockholder in a corpora- tion, the full amount of their original

stock. This road was open in 1878 and had but a short life, for in 1879 it was sold at a receiver's sale and its gauge was changed to that of standard width, and it was then called the Ohio Southern Rail- road.

I. B. & W.

In 1881 the railroad was finished be- tween Springfield and Indianapolis, be- ing a continuation of the road that ex- tended from Peoria to Indianapolis, and was known as the I. B. & W. This road, after going through the usual vicissi- tudes attending new railroads, was finally merged into the present Big Four system. The last railroad that was built in Spring- field was an extension of the Ohio South- ern from Springfield to Lima. This oc- curred in the year 1893.

PRESENT RAILROAD SYSTEMS.

Out of these various originally con- structed railroads we now have but four systems entering the city-the C. C. C. & . St. L., known as the Big Four, now con- trolling by lease or purchase the lines leading from this city to Sandusky and Cleveland by way of Columbus and by way of Delaware, Cincinnati and Indian- apolis; the Little Miami, forming a part of the P. C. & St. L., or Panhandle sys- tem; the N. Y. P. & O., which has freight connections in the city over the D. T. & I., and is a part of the Erie system; and the D. T. & I. Railway, which is the old Ohio Southern with a northern termination of what was formerly the Ann Arbor & Lake Michigan Railway.

The total mileage of railways in Clark

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County is about 125 miles, with an as- and women talking, and children crawl- sessed value of $1,346,000.

For a number of years citizens of Springfield have been clamoring for bet- ter depot facilities, and at this writing it seems that proper buildings may be erect- ed in the near future.

There are thirty-eight passenger trains in and out of the city daily over the C. C. C. & St. L. Railroad, four. over the D. T. & I., four over the P. C. & St. L., and eight over the Erie.

The following from Dicken's descrip- tion of a ride on the New England Rail- road in 1842, not inappropriately de- scribes some of the experiences on a rail- road train at this day.

"The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is only to be equalled by the ap- parently desperate hopelessness of there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal; nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted, "WHEN THE BELL RINGS LOOK OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE." On it whirls headlong, dives through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which inter- cepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and dashes on hap-hazard, pell-mell, neck or nothing, down the middle of the road. There-with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and men smoking,

ing, and pigs burrowing, and accustomed horses plunging and rearing, close to the very rails -- there-on, on, on-tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars, scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting, un- til at last the thirsty monster stops be- neath a covered way to drink, the people cluster round, and you have time to breathe again."

TRACTION LINES.

The first traction or inter-urban line that entered Springfield was the Dayton branch of the D. S. & U., in 1899. Later this line was extended to Urbana and Bellefontaine, and in 1901 the line to Columbus, which is known as the C. L. & S., was completed. They were both a part of one system and were finally sold by receivers, and are now known as the I. C. & E. inter-urban line.

In 1903 the traction line leading from Springfield to Xenia was completed, and in 1904 the S. T. & P., a road leading from Springfield to Troy, was finished.

In the same year a road was organized as the Springfield, South Charleston and Washington C. H. Railroad, which by lease enters into the city over the Xenia road, and was completed as far as South Charleston. It is now in the hands of a receiver, with great uncertainty as to what may be its future.

A line has been projected leading from Springfield south to Clifton and Cedar- ville, with the object in view of ultimately reaching Cincinnati, which has been pro- moted by Mr. George H. Frey, Jr., of this

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city, and will probably be built sooner or later.

Another line was projected south to Clifton and Washington C. H., but this has been definitely abandoned.

The result of construction of these various traction and railroad lines is that Springfield is one of the most accessible cities in the state and this fact has con- tributed very largely in securing the loca- tion of the fraternal homes now in our locality.

STREET RAILWAYS.

The first street railway built in Spring- field was under an ordinance passed June 8th, 1869, and was put in operation the following year. It extended from Foun- tain Avenue west on High Street to Isa- belle, and down Isabelle to Main, where it reached the power house; i. e., a stable for the mules.

To accommodate the State Fair, which was held here in 1870, a line was extend- ed west to and south on Western Avenue to the Fair Grounds. During fair times it was quite a success, but afterwards hardly had sufficient revenue to furnish horse feed. The mule and the empty car did not give much indication of what the street car service of Springfield some day might prove to be.

During the winter months it will be re- membered that the donkeys had trouble in pulling the cars up the Limestone Street hill. To facilitate the handling of traffic an extra pair of mules was stationed at Pleasant Street and hooked on as the cars began to go up the long incline.

About 1873 the entire line was sold, including horses and cars, for $2,000 to

Charles H. Harris. By reason of George Spence being one of its early promoters it was given the name of "Spence's Short Line." It had a precarious existence un- til its final absorption by the Citizens' Street Railway Company, organized in December, 1882.

On February 16, 1883, at a meeting of the stockholders of the Citizens' Railway Company, Asa S. Bushnell was instructed to ascertain from the owners of the street car line what they would take for the property. The directors of the Citizens' Company were D. W. Stroud, B. H. Warder, A. S. Bushnell, W. A. Scott and Ross Mitchell. Mr. Bushnell reported at a subsequent meeting that the property could be secured for $14,000. He was authorized to make an offer of $13,000, and the owners, P. P. Mast and D. W. Stroud, accepted it and gave a deed for the property. This railway in the hands of the new owners commenced street car extension in earnest and made extended improvements in various directions. I. Ward Frey built the first electric line in 1891, leading from an addition that he had laid out in the south and called Lands- downe, north on Center to High, then east on High to Fountain Avenue, and north on Fountain Avenue to McCreight Avenue.

The Citizens' Street Railway was pur- chased by the Springfield Railway sys- tem, which was organized in 1892. In June of this year application was made to run all cars by electricity, and this com- pany absorbed the Frey line and now owns and controls all the street car lines in the city, having one central transfer station at the corner of High and Limestone streets. The mileage of this road in the

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city is about thirty miles and it furnishes ing located at No. 105 South Limestone very convenient access to all parts of the Street. city. Oscar T. Martin is president and John H. Miller manager of the company. TELEPHONE COMPANIES.

TELEGRAPH.

The first telegraph system was in- stalled in Springfield in 1848 by Ira An- derson, under the old Pittsburg, Cincin- nati and Louisville Company, generally called the O'Reilly Line. This line was in operation during the presidential canvass of 1848. George H. Frey, Sr., set up the next instrument in 1849. This was the Cincinnati and Sandusky Company's property, better known as the Morse Line. These two companies consolidated into the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1849. In 1864 Mr. John W. Parsons, now superintendent of the Masonic Home, took charge. Mr. Parsons was connect- ed with the telegraph business as a mes- senger boy from 1852.

In 1863 the Atlantic and Pacific Com- pany opened an office, James P. Martin- dale, now a resident of South Charleston, conducting the affairs of this company for a time.

The American Union Telegraph Com- pany opened up in 1880, and in 1881 all these lines were consolidated with the Western Union, which controls the major part of the business to this day, George R. Carter being now manager and having been for a number of years. In connec- tion with the Western Union there is con- ducted the American District Telegraph Company and the Postal Telegraph Cable Company, and they have had an office at No. 110 South Limestone Street for some years, the other telegraph companies be-

BELL COMPANY.

The first telephone company to operate in this city was organized July, 1880, and operates the Bell system. It is controlled by the Central Union, with its headquar- ters at Chicago. It has a long distance communication with almost every city in Ohio and pretty generally throughout Clark County, having branch exchanges at Enon, Harmony, New Carlisle, North Hampton, New Moorefield, Pitchin, South Charleston, Tremont City, Thackery and Vienna Cross Roads. The service of this company is now reasonably good. Major R. B. Hoover has been manager of the Bell System, with the exception of an in- terregnum of about five years, since 1891.

The Bell Telephone occupy nice quar- ters of their own on East High Street, next to the Lagonda Club Building. This company moved into their present build- ing, which cost, including ground, about $40,000, on March 4, 1900.

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Century history of Springfield, and Clark County, Ohio, and representative citizens 20th, Part 18

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co. Number of Pages: 1086

Author: Rockel, William M. (William Mahlon), 1855-1930, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 1086