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 14
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Cooper's Mills were burned on the 20th of June, 1820, and four thousand bushels of wheat and two thousand pounds of wool destroyed. They were soon after rebuilt by H. G. Phillips and James Steele, executors of the Cooper estate. This was the first fire of any importance that occurred in Dayton, and led to the or- ganization of the first fire-company. Council provided ladders,
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which were hung on the outside wall of the market-house on Second Street, and also passed an ordinance requiring each householder to provide two long, black, leather buckets, with his name painted thereon in white letters, and keep them in some place easily accessible in case of an alarm of fire. Before this no public provision for putting out fires had been made.
On the night of November 16, 1824, George Grove's hat-store and the shop of Hollis, the watchmaker, were destroyed, the loss being about one thousand dollars. This fire, which was the first of any size which had occurred since 1820, created a good deal of excitement, as the corporation ladders were not in their place at the market-house, and the whole dependence for extinguishing the fire was on the leather buckets of citizens. An ordinance was passed threatening persons removing the public ladders from the market-house, except in case of fire, with a fine of ten dollars, and providing that a merchant who was going to Philadelphia in the spring of 1825 should be furnished with two hundred and twenty-six dollars and directed to purchase a fire-engine.
On March 10, 1827, soon after the engine arrived, the first vol- unteer fire-company of Dayton was organized. George C. Davis was captain. At the same time a hook-and-ladder company, of which Joseph Hollingsworth was captain, was formed. John W. Van Cleve was appointed by Council chief engineer of the Fire Department. The following fire-wardens were appointed : James Steele, Abram Darst, Dr. Job Haines, and Matthew Patton. It was the duty of the wardens to periodically inspect the fire apparatus. A board of fire-guards was soon after appointed, whose duty it was to isolate and take charge of the neighborhood where the fire occurred while it was in progress and immediately afterward. The church bells sounded the fire-alarm, and fifty cents were paid to each sexton when the fire happened after nine in the evening. The one who rang his bell first received a dollar. The engine was a small affair, filled with the leather buckets, and the water was thrown by turning a crank in its side. Not much care was taken of it, for at a fire that occurred in 1831 it could not be used, as it was filled with ice, the water not having been taken out after a fire which had occurred several weeks before. A second engine was bought in 1833 and a third in 1834, by sub- scription.
In 1827 householders who had not themselves procured fire- buckets were provided with them by the town, the wardens
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distributing them at the engine-house, a frame building on the Court-house lot near the Main Street alley. Council expended $112.50 on buckets, half of which were kept at the engine-house and the rest at private dwellings. Buckets kept by citizens were for twenty years inspected every April by the wardens.
An alarm of fire brought out the whole population of the town, and the greatest excitement and confusion prevailed. Double lines were formed to the nearest pump, one line passing down the full buckets and the other returning the empty ones. Women were often efficient workers in these lines. The water in a well would soon be exhausted, and a move had to be made to one more remote. It was hopeless to contend with a fire of any magnitude, and efforts in such cases were only made to prevent the spreading of the flames.
In 1828 the following fire-wardens were appointed: James Steele, George W. Smith, Alexander Grimes, Matthew Patton, and Warren Munger; engineer, John W. Van Cleve. In 1833 a company, called the "Safety Fire-Engine and Hose Com- pany, No. I," was formed and offered its services to Council. To it was entrusted the new hand-engine, the "Safety," which had suction-hose and gallery-brakes, and five hundred feet of hose. The following were the first officers of the company : Foreman, James Perrine; assistant foreman, Valentine Winters ; secretary, J. D. Loomis; treasurer, T. R. Black; leader of hose-company, Thomas Brown ; assistant leader, Henry Diehl ; directors, William P. Huffman, Jacob Wilt, Peter Baer, Henry Biechler, and Abraham Overlease. Fire-cisterns were built this year under the streets at First and Main, Third and Main, and Fifth and Main, and elsewhere. The cisterns were pumped full from neighboring wells, or filled by the engines, with hose, from the river or canal. In 1834 Alexander Grimes, I. T. Harker, John Rench, D. Stone, and others formed a company called the "Fire-Guards." They carried white wands, and it was their duty to protect property and keep order at fires. The following fire-wardens were appointed in 1836: First ward, Matthew Patton and Moses Simpson ; second ward, James Steele and Abram Darst; third, Musto Chambers and Samuel Shoup ; fourth, John Rench and David Osborn; fifth, A. Artz and William Hart.
A fire occurred here in 1839 which on account of bad manage- ment excited much indignation. According to the newspaper
From a photograph by Wolfe.
CITY BUILDINGS.
From a photograph by S. C. McClure.
DAYTON PUBLIC LIBRARY AND COOPER PARK.
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report, while the work of preservation was going on outside, an officious crowd, as was apt to be the case in those days, was playing havoc within doors. "In their eagerness to save the owners from loss by fire, they wrenched the doors from the hinges, pulled the mantels from their places, shattered the windows, and broke the sash." The next issue of the paper contained the following card from officers of fire-companies :
"Each company claims for itself the right to control its engine, hose, and pipe, and any interference by an individual not a mem- ber of the association is calculated to create useless altercation and to retard the effective operation of the firemen. The brakes of our engines are always free to those who desire to render effective aid. All we ask is that those who are not connected with the Fire Department would either remain at a distance or work at the engines, believing, as we do, that the confusion created at fires is occasioned by those who are not connected with the engines.
"E. W. DAVIES, President Second Engine Company.
"E. FAVORITE, Vice-President.
"V. WINTERS, Foreman Safety Engine and Hose Company.
"FREDERIC BOYER, Assistant.
"E. CARROLL ROE, President Enterprise Company."
It was difficult to maintain order in a volunteer fire department even when Dayton was a village, but as it grew into a city and the rougher elements of society were largely represented, fires became scenes of wildest excitement and disorder. There was a constant rivalry between the different companies as to who should reach the conflagration first, as to which engine threw the first water, as to which officer or private member deserved most honor for heroic or long-continued service. This led to bitter feuds : the hose of an engine was sometimes cut by members or adherents of another company ; while striving for the most advantageous position or engaged in an altercation on other points, the men frequently came to blows and fought each other instead of the fire; stones were thrown, ladders, trumpets-any- thing that came handy was used as a weapon of assault or defense, and both firemen and spectators were often seriously injured. Going to a fire was like facing a mob, yet everybody went, whatever hour of night or day the flames broke out : suclı unusual excitement was not to be missed by the men and women of our then quiet little town. Every boy and nearly every ina11 in town forty or fifty years ago was almost as ardent a partisan of the Independent Fire-Company, the Vigilance, the Deluge,
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Oregon, etc., as of the political party to which by inheritance or conviction he belonged. But from 1856 there was, among the conservative class of citizens, a growing discontent with our unmanageable Fire Department. In 1863 the first steam-engine was purchased and our present splendidly equipped and perfectly ordered paid department inaugurated.
The flush times during the War of 1812 were followed by a serious and general depression in business throughout the United States, and the growth of Dayton till 1827 was slight. Gold and silver were withdrawn from circulation to the great injury of business in this region, where good paper currency was scarce. During 1820, 1821, and 1822, sales of all kinds were made by means of barter. Wolf-scalp certificates, called log- cabin currency, were taken instead of cash. There was some talk of returning to cut-money-dividing silver dollars into quarters, and Mexican quarters into three dimes. The Dayton Bank suspended specie payment several times during this period.
H. G. Phillips was president of the Town Council, and G. S. Houston recorder, in 1820; Aaron Baker, Luther Bruen, David Henderson, William Huffman, and Dr. John Steele, trustees. A fever prevailed during the summer and fall of 1821. There were seven hundred cases, and thirteen died. The population was one thousand. This year the three ponds southwest of town were drained-the "first two into the tail-race, and the other into the outlet from Patterson's pond to the river." Matthew Patton was president of Council, and G. S. Houston recorder, in 1821.
August 21, 1822, the Montgomery County Bible Society was organized at a meeting of which Joseph H. Crane was chairman, and G. S. Houston secretary. Dr. Job Haines was elected president ; William King, Aaron Baker, and Rev. N. Worley, vice-presidents ; Luther Bruen, treasurer ; James Steele, corre- sponding secretary; George S. Houston, recording secretary ; managers, John Miller, John H. Williams, John Patterson, David Reid, James Hanna, O. B. Conover, Daniel Pierson, Robert Pat- terson, James Slaght, John B. Ayers, Joseph Kennedy, Hezekiah Robinson, and Robert McConnel. This year was also formed the Dayton Foreign Missionary Society. James Steele was elected treasurer, and Job Haines secretary. The membership fee was fifty cents a year, which could be paid in money, clothes, kitchen furniture, or groceries, to be sent to the Indians, of whom a number still lived in Ohio.
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In 1820 the Lancasterian or "mutual instruction" system of education was exciting great interest. Sharing in the general feeling in favor of the new method, the trustees of the Dayton Academy determined to introduce it in that institution. The trustees at that time were Joseph H. Crane, Aaron Baker, William M. Smith, George S. Houston, and David Lindsly. A house specially adapted to the purpose was built of brick on the north side of the academy, and consisted of a single room sixty-two feet long and thirty-two feet wide. The floor was of brick, and the house was heated by "convolving flues" underneath the floor. The walls were thickly hung with printed lesson-cards, before which the classes were marched to recite under monitors selected from their own number, as a reward for meritorious conduct and scholarship. For the youngest scholars a long, narrow desk, thickly covered with white sand, was provided, on which, with wooden pencils, they copied and learned the letters of the alphabet from cards hung up before them.
The following are some of the rules adopted for the government of the school :
"The moral and literary instruction of the pupils entered at the Dayton Lancasterian Academy will be studiously, diligently, and temperately attended to.
"They will be taught to spell, and read deliberately and dis- tinctly, agreeably to the rules laid down in Walker's Dictionary ; and in order to do that correctly they will be made conversant with the first rules of grammar. The senior class will be re- quired to give a complete grammatical analysis of the words as they proceed.
"They will be required to write with freedom all the different hands now in use on the latest and most approved plan of pro- portion and distance.
"There will be no public examinations at particular seasons, in a Lancasterian school every day being an examination day, at which all who have leisure are invited to attend."
In 1821 the trustees adopted the following resolution, which would hardly accord with the present ideas of the jurisdiction of boards of education, or the authority of teachers :
"Resolved, That any scholar attending the Lancasterian School who may be found playing ball on the Sabbath, or resorting to the woods or commons on that day for sport, shall forfeit any badge of merit he may have obtained and twenty-five tickets ;
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and if the offense appears aggravated, shall be further degraded as the tutor shall think proper and necessary ; and that this resolution be read in school every Friday previous to the dis- missal of the scholars."
Gideon McMillan, who claimed to be an expert, having taught in a Lancasterian school in Europe, was appointed the first prin- cipal. In 1822 he was succeeded by Captain John McMullin, who came with high recommendations from Lexington, Virginia.
In 1823 there was a unique Fourth-of-July celebration under the direction of Captain John McMullin, of the Lancasterian School. A procession, composed of the clergy of the town, the trustees, and two hundred scholars, marched from the school on St. Clair Street to the First Presbyterian Church, where the Declaration of Independence was read by Henry Bacon, and a sermon delivered by Rev. N. M. Hinkle. It seems that Captain McMullin had served as a soldier, for the Watchman, in a notice of the celebration, says : "Captain John McMullin appeared as much in the service of his country when marching at the head of the Lancasterian School, as while formerly leading his com- pany in battle."
In 1823 Francis Glass, an interesting man and remarkable scholar, taught a boys' school in Dayton.
The Watchman, on the 3d of September, 1822, contained the prospectus of the Gridiron, a weekly newspaper, edited and published by John Anderson, with the view of exposing and reforming people whose views of right and wrong differed from his own. The editor pledged his honor, liberty, and his life, if necessary, to the success of the Gridiron. The sheet was much dreaded by persons politically or otherwise obnoxious to the editor and contributors, and on it "evil-doers received a good roasting." Its motto was,
. Burn, roast meat, burn, Boil with oily fat; ye spits, forget to turn."
The subscription price was one dollar per year, payable one-half yearly in advance, and it was printed on what was described as good medium paper, in octavo form. Thomas Buchanan Read, then living in Dayton, with his reputation all to win, was one of the contributors. A bitter political contest was being waged in Dayton at this period, and members of both parties, both in conversation and print, abused each other in a style that at the present day would have occasioned trial for slander. The Grid-
From a photograph by Appleton.
STEELE HIGH SCHOOL.
From a photograph by Wolfe.
CENTRAL DISTRICT SCHOOL.
-
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iron published the severest and most unjustifiable attacks on its opponents, or on unobtrusive citizens. Sometimes the broad burlesque or caricature of the articles excites a smile, but they are seldom even amusing. The writers are not restrained by truth, honor, or good taste, but indulge in wholesale abuse, which is unredeemed by genuine wit or humor. It is no wonder that such a scurrilous paper had a short career.
George B. Holt, better known now as Judge Holt, began to publish and edit, in 1823, a weekly Democratic paper, called the Miami Republican and Dayton Advertiser, which was continued till 1826. It was eleven by twenty-one inches in size. Judge Holt was a native of Connecticut, born in 1790, admitted to the bar of Litchfield in 1812, and came to Dayton in 1819. In 1828 he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Mont- gomery County by the Legislature, serving till 1836; elected again in 1842, serving till 1849. He was a member of the Ohio Legislature in 1824 and 1827, "and was conspicuously connected with some of the most important early legislation of the State." In 1825 the first act establishing free schools was passed by the Legislature. Judge Holt was an earnest and active advocate of the measure, and to him was greatly due the passage of the act. In 1850 Judge Holt, who "had a high reputation as a lawyer, and was popular among all classes of the people," was elected a member of the convention called to adopt a new constitution for the State of Ohio. He was prominent in the convention, which many of the most noted men in the State attended. From this period till his death, in 1871, he took little part in political or professional life, though he was an ardent supporter of the Union in the War of the Rebellion. He was learned in his profession, and was a man of keen, strong intellect and literary tastes. He was a member of the Presbyterian Churchi, and highly esteemed as a citizen. He has three daughters-Miss Eliza and Miss Martha Holt and Mrs. Belle H. Burrowes-and several grand- children.
In 1826 William Campbell, of Westmoreland County, Pennsyl- vania, purchased and consolidated the Dayton Watchman and the Miami Republican. The new paper was published weekly, and was called the Ohio National Journal and Montgomery County and Dayton Advertiser. After a few weeks it was sold to Jephtha Regans, who, in 1827, sold one-half interest to Peter P. Lowe, and they carried it on together till 1828. It was Whig in politics,
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and its motto was, "Principles and not men, where principles demand the sacrifice." It was thirteen by twenty inches in size, with five columns to the page. The paper was now called the Dayton Journal and Advertiser. In 1828 J. W. Van Cleve purchased Mr. Lowe's interest. In 1830, Mr. Regans having died, Mr. Van Cleve entered into partnership with Richard N. Comly. In 1834 William F. Comly bought Mr. Van Cleve's share in the paper. Its size was increased to a seven-column folio, and it became the largest paper published in Ohio. Any one examining the files of the Journal of this date in the Public Library cannot but feel a pride in the fact that early Dayton had a newspaper of such excellence, whether as to print, or editorials and contribu- tions. The owners' chief aim was to publish a paper of the high- est character. R. N. Comly left Dayton many years ago, but William F. Comly is well known to the younger, as well as the older, generation of citizens. In his management of the Journal he exhibited a breadth of view, generosity, public spirit, and thorough disinterestedness of which only the noblest class of men are capable. The Journal, without regard to the popularity or financial success of the editor, advocated every city reform and improvement, and was a wonderful power for good. In so unobtrusive and matter-of-course a way was Mr. Comly's work for Dayton done that probably few are aware how greatly indebted the town is to him. In 1840 the Journal was changed to a daily, then to a triweekly. Since 1847 it has been published as both a weekly and daily.
February 9, 1824, a meeting was held at Colonel Reid's inn to raise money for the Greek cause. Simeon Broadwell was elected chairman, Dr. Job Haines secretary, and George S. Houston treasurer. One hundred and fifteen dollars were collected, and William M. Smith, George W. Smith, and Stephen Fales were appointed a committee to remit the money to the Greek Fund Committee of New York.
This year John Compton was president of the Town Council, and J. W. Van Cleve recorder.
The revenue of the town for 1825 was one hundred and seventy- two dollars.
In June, 1826, James Perrine was appointed agent for the Pro- tection Insurance Company of Hartford, and was the first person engaged in that business in Dayton. Mr. Perrine was just begin- ning his long and honorable career as a merchant in Dayton.
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There were eight hundred and forty-eight voters in Dayton Township in 1827. The population within the corporation was one thousand six hundred. Dr. John Steele was president of the Town Council, and R. J. Skinner recorder. George B. Holt was elected State Senator this year, and Alexander Grimes and Robert Skinner Representatives.
In 1827 the Baptist society, organized in 1824, built, on the alley on the west side of Main Street, between Monument Avenue and First Street, its first church, costing two thousand dollars.
The following is an extract from an interesting letter written December 1I, 1827, by a person living in Dayton to a friend in New Jersey :
"I will now give you some account of our town. There are in it at present thirteen dry-goods stores, four public inns, seven- teen groceries, one wholesale warehouse, two printing-offices, three wagon-maker shops, one carriage shop, four blacksmith shops, two sickle shops, one tinner shop, one coppersmith shop, three hatter shops, seven shoemaker shops, seven tailor shops, three tanyards, three saddler shops, three watchmaker shops, one brewery, one flour-mill with three run of stone, one sawmill with two saws, one fulling-mill, one set of carding-machines, and a cotton factory. There are six schools,-three with male, three with female, teachers, -- one tallow-chandler, and two tobacconists. We have a market-house one hundred feet long, and it is well supplied. There have been brought to it during the last summer and fall twelve to sixteen beeves a week, and other meat, poultry, and vegetables accordingly. The produc- tions of the country are much greater than can be consumed. The article of butter is very great. One merchant has taken in and sent to foreign markets thirty-two thousand six hundred pounds within one year. We have pork in the greatest of plenty. I was employed last year in taking in pork for Phillips & Perrine. We took in upwards of eighty thousand pounds at $1.50 per hundred. I started with it about the middle of Febru- ary, and took it to New Orleans. This is the second trip I have made down the long and crooked streams of the Ohio and Mis- sissippi. I shall commence taking in pork for Phillips & Perrine on Monday next, but I rather think I shall not take it to New Orleans for them this time, unless they give ine higher wages. I went for them the other trips for fifty dollars the trip, thie distance by water being over one thousand five hundred iniles. I was gone each trip nearly ten weeks."
Thirty-six brick buildings and thirty-four of wood were erected in town during 1828. The population was one thousand six hundred and ninety-seven. Twenty stages arrived weekly. Dr.
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John Steele was president of the Town Council, and John W. Van Cleve recorder.
A meeting was called at Colonel Reid's inn on the evening of . June 29, 1821, to appoint a committee to cooperate with com- mittees in other places to raise means to pay for a survey of the route for a canal from Mad River to the Ohio, and to ascertain the practicability and expense of such a canal. Judge Crane was chairman of this meeting, and G. S. Houston secretary. The following gentlemen were appointed to collect funds to pay for the survey : H. G. Phillips, G. W. Smith, Dr. John Steele, Alexander Grimes, and J. H. Crane. The law authorizing the making of a canal from Dayton to Cincinnati passed the Legis- lature in 1825.
On the 4th of July, 1825, Governor De Witt Clinton, of New York, assisted at the inauguration of the Ohio Canal at Newark. At a public meeting of the citizens of Dayton, James Steele and Henry Bacon were appointed a committee to wait on the Gover- nor at Newark and invite him to partake of a public dinner in their town. Resolutions were also adopted and preparations made for his reception. Mr. Steele returned from Newark on the evening of Wednesday, the 6th, and reported that the Governor had accepted and would be here on Saturday. A number of gentlemen of Dayton and a detachment of the troop of horse commanded by Captain Squier met the Governor at Fairfield and escorted him to town. At 2 : 30 P.M. Governor Clinton and his suite, Messrs. Jones and Reed, Governor Morrow, Hon. Ethan A. Brown, Hon. Joseph Vance, Messrs. Tappan and Williams, canal commissioners, and Judge Bates, civil engineer, arrived at Compton's Tavern, on the corner of Main and Second streets, where they were received by the citizens. Judge Crane made an address of welcome, which was responded to by Governor Clinton. About four o'clock the guests and citizens sat down to an elegant dinner prepared for the occasion at Reid's Inn. Judge Crane presided, and Judge Steele and Colonel Patterson acted as vice-presidents. The dinner closed with appropriate toasts. In the evening Judge Steele gave a reception to Governor Clinton at his residence, on the site of Music Hall. The house, which stood far back from Main Street, as well as the yard, was bril- liantly illuminated. Governor Clinton addressed the people from the porch which ran along the Main Street side of the house. On account of his advocacy of canals, Governor Clinton
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