USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > Early Dayton; with important facts and incidents from the founding of the city of Dayton, Ohio, to the hundredth anniversary, 1796-1896, > Part 13
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At an early date several medical societies were formed and met in Dayton, but in vain has an effort been made to trace their history. A call appeared in the Ohio Centinel for July 24, 1814, over the signature of A. Coleman, of Troy, for a meeting of the Seventh District Medical Society, to be held in Dayton at Major Reid's tavern, on the first Monday in September. On the 16th of October, 1815, Dr. John Steele, secretary of the Board of Censors of the Seventh Medical District of Oliio, announced in the Republican a meeting of the board at Dayton on the first Monday in November. All the physicians who had begun prac- tice within the Seventh District since 1812, were requested to appear before the censors for examination. The penalty for neglect on the part of censors to attend this meeting was removal
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EARLY DAYTON
from office and election of others to fill their places. A number of physicians in the Seventh Medical District met at Dayton July 3, 1816, and formed the Dayton Medical Society, which was to meet here on the first Mondays of April, July, and November. Dr. John Steele was elected secretary. The Montgomery and Clark County Medical Society was organized May 25, 1824, at Reid's Inn. Dr. John Steele was president ; Dr. Job Haines, secretary. Dr. William Blodgett is the only familiar Dayton name among the censors. At the annual meeting at Reid's Inn in 1828, Dr. William Blodgett was elected president, and Dr. Edwin Smith delegate to the medical convention. Among the members of the society were Doctors Job Haines, John Steele, and Hibberd Jewett.
Dr. Job Haines, mentioned above, was born and educated in New Jersey. Immediately after receiving his diploma as a physician, he came to Ohio, settling in Dayton in 1817. He was "remarkable for sound judgment and practical wisdom, as well as for modesty and humility." He stood high in his profession and in the estimation of the community in general; was Mayor of the city in 1833, and held other municipal offices. He was for forty years a member or elder in the First Presbyterian Church. The unobtrusive goodness, the quiet activity in benevolent work, of his daily life,-the fact that he was equally "a lover of truth, and a lover of peace, and a peacemaker," endeared him to all who knew him even slightly. Constant, year in and year out, were his gratuitous professional calls on the sick, poor, and afflicted. Never a day, probably, passed that he was not seen with a basket of nourishing food or dainties, wending his way to the bedside of one of these patients; and having made them comfortable physically, the visit closed, if the patient desired it, with a few words of prayer and a brief reading of the Bible. But he did not obtrude his religious views on others. He died July 23, 1860, aged sixty-nine.
The ladies of Dayton and the vicinity met at the house of . Mrs. Henry Brown, on Main Street, next to the Court-house, at . three o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 12, 1815, to organize the Dayton Female Charitable and Bible Society. Mem- bers were each required to contribute one dollar per annum for the purpose of purchasing Bibles, and to make a contribution of twenty-five cents every three months to the charitable fund. The society was organized for the purpose of gratuitously
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From a photograph by Wilder.
COLUMBIAN CENTENNIAL, OCTOBER 22, 1892 - A VIEW OF THE PROCESSION ON MAIN STREET.
a
1
From a photograph by Wilder
COLUMBIAN CENTENNIAL, OCTOBER 22, 1892-PUBLIC MEETING AT COOPER PARK.
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1812-1816
distributing the Bible and seeking the sick, the afflicted, and needy, particularly of their own sex, relieving their wants and administering to their comfort and giving consolation to them in their distress, as far as was in their power. The following ladies were elected officers of the society: President, Mrs. Robert Patterson; vice-president, Mrs. Thomas Cottom ; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Dr. James Welsh ; recording secretary, Mrs. Joseph H. Crane ; treasurer, Mrs. Joseph Peirce ; managers, Mrs. William King, Mrs. David Reid, Mrs. James Hanna, Mrs. James Steele, and Mrs. Isaac Spining. This was the first society of this kind organized in Dayton, though the ladies who formed it were previously and during the remainder of their lives noted for their benevolence and good works. A charity sermon for the benefit of the society was preached by Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, of Cin- cinnati, in the Methodist meeting-house on Sunday, June 25. A charity sermon was henceforth, as long as the Charitable Society existed, annually preached by Dayton ministers in turn.
Robert Strain opened in May, 1815, in his large brick building on the corner of Main and Fourth streets, the site of the United Brethren Publishing House, a travelers' inn, which was long a favorite tavern. A millinery shop was opened on June 26 by Ann Yamer on Main Street, south of Second. Besides attractive goods for ladies, she announced in the Republican a full stock of plumes and other decorations for military gentle- men, and that she was in need of a supply of goose-feathers. It will be seen that business was now advancing southward on Main Street.
The first market-house was opened July 4, 1815. The markets were held from four to ten o'clock in the morning on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The house was a frame building, and stood on Second Street, between Main and Jefferson. On either side of the interior were butchers' stalls, and there were stands for farmers and gardeners on the outside, under the wide-extending eaves. Two long horse-racks, or rails, extended from the build- ing along Second or Market Street-as the part of Second Street on which it stood was then called -nearly to Main Street. On April 1, 1816, an ordinance took effect which forbade the sale, within the corporation, on any other than market day, of butter, eggs, cheese, poultry, vegetables, fresh fish, or meat, with some exceptions as to meat and fish, which could be purchased every day before eight o'clock in the morning. Prices were low in
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1816; butter twelve and a half cents per pound ; eggs eight cents a dozen. Flour, however, was five dollars per barrel, and the next year six dollars.
The Watchman says in July, 1822, when flour was two dollars and a half a barrel, butter five cents a pound, chickens fifty cents a dozen, beef one to three cents per pound, and ham two to three cents per pound, that the Dayton price-list, published weekly in the newspaper, had been noticed in the Eastern papers under the head of "Cheap Living," and the low prices of marketing here attributed to the scarcity of money in the West. The Watchman assured the people on the Atlantic Coast that the great abundance of country produce of all kinds was the true reason that living was cheap in Ohio, and that money "is quite as plenty with us as notions in the Eastern States !"
In spite of wretched roads and lack of forage, large numbers of cattle, horses, and hogs were driven, after the War of 1812, from this neighborhood to the Eastern market. The Rev. Timothy Flint says, in his "Letters on Recollections of the Last Ten Years in the Mississippi Valley," that on his journey west in Novem- ber, 1815, he met a drove of one thousand cattle and hogs on the Alleghany Mountains, which were "of an unnatural shagginess and roughness, like wolves, and the drovers from Mad River were as untamed and wild in their looks as Crusoe's man Friday." These swine lived in the Mad River and Miani woods on beach- nuts and acorns, could successfully defend themselves and their young against wolves, and when desired for food were shot like other wild animals.
In 1815 there were about one hundred dwellings in Dayton, the majority of them log cabins. From 1814 to 1815 the revenue of the county was $3,280.51, an increase in one year of $1,431.64. The license for a store was fifteen dollars and the clerk's fee fifty cents in 1815.
Two clubs or societies of men were formed in July of this year-the Moral Society and the Society of Associated Bach- elors. The object of the first organization, as its name would indicate, was to suppress vice and to promote order, morality, and religion, and more particularly to countenance, support, and assist magistrates in the faithful discharge of their important duties, and in enforcing the laws against Sabbath-breaking, profane swearing, and other unlawful practices. The society is careful to state in its constitution that it is not its intention to exercise a censorious
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1812-1816
or inquisitorial authority over the private transactions or con- cerns of individuals. John Hanna was elected chairman ; George S. Houston, secretary ; managers, William King, Henry Robert- son, Matthew Patton, John Patterson, and Aaron Baker. The meetings of the Moral Society were held on the first Saturday in October, January, April, and July. On the 12th of August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the society assembled in the Meth-" odist meeting-house to listen to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Findlay. The Society of Associated Bachelors was intended for recreation, and usually met in Strain's bar-roon1. George S. Houston, secretary of the Moral Society, was at the same time president of the Associated Bachelors, so that the character of the two organizations could not have been as antagonistic as one might suppose. On the 24th of September, to the great satisfaction of the Moral Society, Mr. Houston was married to "the amiable Miss Mary Forman." Joseph John, secretary of the Associated Bachelors, was soon after married to Miss Jane Waugh, of Washington Township. The Republican made merry over the fact that both the president and secretary of the Society of the Associated Bachelors were married. Their successors were immediately elected-Dr. John Steele president, and Alex- ander Grimes secretary.
The grist-mill, and fulling-mill, and two carding-machines be- longing to Colonel Robert Patterson, two miles from town, were destroyed by fire on the 7th of October. This was a calamity to many poor families, as well as to the proprietor, as there was a quantity of cloth and wool belonging to customers in the mills. They were soon rebuilt.
This year D. C. Cooper was president and J. H. Crane recorder of the Select Council of Dayton. D. C. Cooper was elected State Senator, and George Grove and George Newcom Representatives in the Legislature. Aaron Baker, who had no opponent, was elected coroner. In 1815 Mrs. Dionicile Sullivan opened a school for girls, in which were taught reading, writing, sewing, letter- ing with the needle, and painting,-the first school of the kind in Dayton.
Daniel C. Cooper was a member of the Legislature in 1816, and also president of the Town Council. Joseph Peirce was recorder ; trustees, Aaron Baker, H. G. Phillips, Ralphı Wilson, O. B. Con- over, and George Grove. On the evening of April 22, 1816, the first theater was held in Dayton at the dwelling of William Huff-
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man, on St. Clair Street. The much-admired, elegant comedy called "Matrimony, or The Prisoners," and the celebrated comic farce called "The Village Lawyer," were, the advertisement states, to be given, and between the play and the farce were to be presented two recitations, "Scolding Life Reclaimed " and "Monsieur Tonson," a fancy dance, and a comic song, " Bag of Nails." Tickets, fifty cents. Curtain to rise at half past seven precisely. Gentlemen were requested not to smoke cigars in the theater.
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From a photograph by Wolfe.
NEWCOM'S TAVERN IN 1894. ( USED AS A GROCERY.)
Main Street Hose-House.
Miami River.
Mouth of Mad River. Newcom's Tavern. Landing-Place. From a photograph by Appleton. THE LANDING-PLACE AND NEWCOM'S TAVERN IN JANUARY, 1896.
CHAPTER VIII
1816-1835
NEW Brick Court-House of 1817-Ferries-First Bridges-Sabbath-School Association -Sunday-School Society -Game Abundant-Flights of Wild Pigeons-Migrations of Squirrels-Fish-Stage-Coaches-St. Thomas Episcopal Church -Christ Episcopal Church -Shows- Volunteer Fire De- partment, 1820 to 1863- Leading Citizens Active Members-Feuds Between Rival Engine Companies-Financial Depression, 1820 to 1822-Fever --- --- Lancasterian School-Francis Glass -Gridiron Newspaper - Miami Re- publican and Dayton Advertiser -- George B. Holt-Consolidation of Watch- man and Republican-Dayton Journal-Contribution to the Greek Cause- James Perrine, First Insurance Agent-First Baptist Church Built-Let- ter from Dayton in 1827-Canal Agitation-Dinner and Reception to De Witt Clinton-First Canal-Boat Arrives-Enthusiasm of the People-Ex- tension of Canal by Cooper Estate-Law Providing for Election of Mayor -Town Divided into Wards -Temperance Society -New Market-House - Rivalry Between Dayton and Cabintown-Private Schools-Manual- Training School-Seely's Basin-Peasley's Garden - Miniature Locomo- tive and Car Exhibited in Methodist Church-Daytonians Take Their First Railroad Ride-Seneca Indians Camp at Dayton-First Public Schools-School-Directors-Steele's Dam -General R. C. Schenck -Polit- ical Excitement-Council Cuts Down a Jackson Pole-Cholera in 1832 and 1833-Silk Manufactory -The Dayton Lyceum-Mechanics' Institute -Six Libraries in Dayton-Eighth of January Barbecue-Town Watch- men-Lafayette Commemorative Services.
IT became necessary, on account of the increase of county business, to build a new Court-house in 1816. Finished in 1817, it was of brick, two stories high, forty-six feet front and twenty feet deep, and cost one thousand two hundred and forty-nine dollars. It stood on the corner of the Court-house lot. The Watchman rented the upper story in 1818, "at fifty dollars per year and free publication of the annual report of the treasurer and election notices." For same time the second-story rooms were rented for lawyers' offices.
In the spring of 1817 the advertisements of D. Stout, saddler, J. Stutsman, coppersmith, and Moses Hatfield, chairmaker, appeared for the first time in the Watchman. This year George
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Newcom was elected State Senator, and William George and George Grove members of the lower house; D. C. Cooper, presi- dent of the Town Council ; W. Munger, recorder ; John Patterson, corporation treasurer.
Until 1817 Daytonians could only cross the rivers by fording or in a ferry. In December, 1817, a bridge at Taylor Street over Mad River, built by the county for one thousand four hundred dollars, was finished. It was a high, uncovered bridge, painted red. It fell into the river in 1828, but was rebuilt at once. In January, 1817, a stock company was incorporated to build the red toll-bridge across the Miami at Bridge Street. The following gentlemen were the incorporators: Robert Patterson, Joseph Peirce, David Reid, H. G. Phillips, James Steele, George S. Houston, William George, and William King. It was not fin- ished till 1819. The people were very proud of this bridge, which the Watchman describes as "a useful and stately structure, . . . little inferior in strength and beauty to the best of the kind in the State, and renders the Miami no longer an obstruction to the free intercourse with our neiglibors on the other side."
The Sabbath-School Association, the first organization of that kind in Dayton, was formed in March, 1817, through the influ- ence of Rev. Backus Wilbur, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church-a very popular man, for whom a number of prominent citizens were named. He died in 1818. The inscription on his monument at Woodland Cemetery was written by the celebrated Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Princeton. A long obituary of Mr. Wilbur was published in the Watchman February 18, 1819. The Sabbath-School Association held its meetings in the new Presbyterian church. An annual fee of twenty-five cents entitled any one to membership. All denominations were repre- sented, and most of the children of the town seem to have been enrolled. The list of names preserved in the history of the First Presbyterian Church is very interesting. Donors of five dollars or more became life-members. The society was managed by ladies, the officers consisting of a first and second directress, a secretary, treasurer, and five managers. The managers appointed the superintendent and the male and female teachers. The first board of managers consisted of the following ladies : Mrs. J. H. Crane, Mrs. Ayres, Mrs. Dr. Haines, Mrs. Hannah George, and Mrs. Joseph Peirce. Mrs. Sarah Bomberger was the first superintendent, and held the position for nearly twelve years.
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1816-1835
Mrs. George, mother of Mrs. Bomberger, was for several years secretary, and was very efficient. Mrs. Bomberger was the daughter of Judge George, a leading citizen, who came to Day- ton about 1805. In 1810 she married William Bomberger, who was county treasurer for fourteen years. Their children were George W., Ann, who married Peter P. Lowe, and William, who removed to Colorado and died there. In the spring of 1822 Mrs. J. H. Crane, first directress of the Dayton Sabbath-School Association, reported that they had distributed one hundred and sixty-five books during the previous year, had one hundred and twelve tracts and five miniature histories of the Bible on hand, and $19.75 in the treasury.
The Methodist Sunday-School Society was organized in July, 1818. Their meetings were held in the academy building. Adults and children were taught to read, and instructed in the Bible and catechism. There were, of course, no public schools here at that date.
D. C. Cooper and H. G. Phillips were the only persons in Day- ton owning carriages in 1817.
The old Newcom Tavern was reopened in December by Blackall Stephens. The tavern was now called the "Sun Inn," and the swinging sign was decorated with a large picture of the sun. In an advertisement in the Watchman, with the sun flaming at its head, the house is described as " pleasantly situated on the bank of the Miami River," and the advantages of the inn, its comforts, sufficient supply of bed-linen, furniture, and other necessaries are set forth at length.
Game was nearly as abundant here at the date we have now reached as it was twenty years earlier. Mr. Samuel Forrer says in his reminiscences of Dayton in 1818 : " I remember that I killed three pheasants on the present site of Mr. Van Ausdal's house, in Dayton View. Quails, rabbits, etc., were found in plenty in 'Buck Pasture,' immediately east of the canal basin, between First and Second streets. Wild ducks came in large flocks to the ponds within the present city limits, but the ponds have since been mainly wiped out by drainage; and the fox-hunters had a great time on occasion by visiting the 'Brush Prairie,' within two miles of the Court-house. Deer, wild turkeys, and other ganie were killed in the neighborhood, and venison and wild meat were easily obtainable in Dayton." In 1821 Mr. H. G. Phillips frequently advertised a few coonskins for sale-used for caps.
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EARLY DAYTON
The Watchman in April, 1822, notices a squirrel-hunt in Mont- gomery County lasting a day and a half, in which one thousand squirrels were killed, and their scalps produced in evidence.
Within the recollection of Robert W. Steele, as late as 1830 and 1840, game and fish were still abundant. An occasional deer could be found, and wild turkeys and pheasants were often shot by hunters. Squirrels and quails were thick in the woods and fields, and in the fall inimense flights of wild pigeons alighted in the woods to feed on the mast. At irregular intervals one of those strange migrations of squirrels would occur, for which no satisfactory cause has been given by naturalists. Starting from the remote Northwest, they would come in countless numbers, and nothing could turn them from their course. Rivers were no impediment to them, and boys would stand on the shore of the Miami and kill them with clubs as they emerged from the water.
The rivers were still full of fish. No more delicious table-fish could be found anywhere than the bass, when taken from the pure, clear water of the Miami and Mad rivers of that day. On the mill-race, which has since been converted into the Dayton View Hydraulic, stood Steele's sawmill, which ran only in the daytime. At night the water was passed through a fish-basket, and each morning during the fish season it was found filled with bass of the largest size. In 1835 one Saturday afternoon a seine was drawn in the Miami, between the Main Street and Bridge Street bridges, and two large wagon-loads of fine fish were caught. Whatever hardships the pioneers of Dayton may have endured, they were in the enjoyment of luxuries that would have tickled the palate of an epicure. Fish-baskets, alluded to above, were usually made by building a dam on the riffles, so as to concen- trate the water at the middle of the river, where an opening was made into a box constructed of slats, and placed at a lower level than the dam. Into this box the fish ran, but were unable to return. A basket of this kind remained on the riffle at the foot of First Street as late as 1830.
Previous to 1818 people wishing to visit Cincinnati were obliged to travel by private conveyance. But in the summer of this year a Mr. Lyon drove a passenger-coach from Dayton to Cincinnati once a week, beginning his trips in May. On June 2 D. C. Cooper, of Dayton, and John H. Piatt, of Cincinnati, began run- ning a weekly mail-stage between the two towns, passing through Springdale, Hamilton, Middletown, and Franklin. Two days
Jail.
Old Court-House.
New Court-House.
From a photograph by Appleton.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY BUILDINGS.
From a photograph by Wolfe.
GOVERNMENT BUILDING AND POSTOFFICE.
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1816-1835
and a night were required for the trip, the night being spent in Hamilton. The fare was eight cents a mile, with an allowance of fourteen pounds of baggage. John Crowder, a colored barber of Dayton, and his partner, Jacob Musgrave, also colored, drove a coach and four that carried twelve passengers to Cincinnati and return in 1820. Timothy Squier ran a stage to Cincinnati in 1822. Five o'clock in the morning was the hour of starting by coach. Worden Huffman owned the stage-line to Columbus, which con- nected at that place with a coach to Chillicothe. In June, 1825, stages commenced running twice a week between Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. When this line was first established, it was thought by many that all interested in it were throwing their money away. It was not long, however, before it became necessary to increase the number of trips to two a week, and finally a daily stage was established. In 1827 we were connected with Lake Erie by triweekly coaches, the trip taking four days. Daily coaches were started June 25, connecting at Sandusky with steamers for Detroit and Buffalo, and at Mt. Vernon with a stage for Cleveland. The fare to Cincinnati was three dollars, six dol- lars to Columbus, and twelve dollars to the lake. Four hundred and ninety-seven passengers by stage passed through Dayton in 1825. In 1828 there were stage-lines in every direction, twenty coaches arriving here every week.
In the era of ungraveled roads, when the coach went bumping over rough wagon-ruts, or splashing into deep mud-holes, or stuck fast in the mire, the journey to Cincinnati was a serious undertaking. It was ten or fifteen years later than 1825 before a short and pleasant trip could be made over an excellent turn- pike in an "Indian bow-spring coach," which was superior to all sorts in use. A guard accompanied each coach, and the drivers were well behaved, and understood their business. In 1840 there were two daily lines of these coaches, owned by J. & P. Voorhees, one leaving at eight in the morning, and the other in the evening.
In 1818 George Grove and Judge George were elected members of the Legislature, and Warren Munger town recorder. George Newcom was elected State Senator in 1819, and Henry Stoddard and John Harries Representatives. The number of voters in Dayton in 1819 was seven hundred and sixty-five, and the number in Montgomery County two thousand seven hundred and eighty-five.
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EARLY DAYTON
In 1819 St. Thomas Church -the first Episcopal church in Dayton-was organized by Bishop Chase with twenty-three members. In 1831 Clirist Episcopal Church was organized by Rev. Ethan Allen, and in 1833 they built the first Episcopal house of worship erected in Dayton on South Jefferson, near Fifth Street.
Shows in Dayton were few and far between at that period. In 1819 an African lion was exhibited in the barnyard of Reid's Inn for four days, from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon. Patrons were assured that they would be in no danger, as the lion, "the largest in America, and the only one of his sort," was secured in a strong cage. Twenty-five cents admittance was charged; children, half price. In April, 1820, "Columbus," a large elepliant, was on exhibition in the carriage-house of Reid's Inn-admittance, thirty-seven and a half cents; children, half price. In 1823 the advertisement of a menagerie, containing an African lion, African leopard, cougar from Brazil, Shetland pony with rider, ichneumon, and several other animals, appeared in the newspaper. A band, composed of ancient Jewish cymbals and numerous modern instruments, accompanied the show. The show at Reid's Inn in 1824 contained but one elephant. The first circus which appeared in Dayton exhibited in Reid's barnyard July 19, 20, and 25, 1825. No more circuses came till 1829, when two exhibited, both on July 5 and 6. In August, 1827, a travel- ing museum, consisting of birds, beasts, wax figures, paintings, etc., visited Dayton. One of the articles exhibited is advertised in a style worthy of Barnum, as "that great natural curiosity, the Indian mummy, which was discovered and taken from the interior of a cave in Warren County, Kentucky, where it was probably secreted in its present state of preservation for one thousand years." These museums, carried in cars or vans drawn by horses, traveled all over the Western country in early times. When they reached a town or village, the horses were unhar- nessed, and the cars were fastened together so as to make a continuous room for the display of the curiosities. .
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