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 8
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Judge Spining has several descendants living here. Among them may be mentioned Mrs. Louisa King, Mrs. Jennie S. Mul- ford, Mrs. Mary C. Wade, Miss Elizabeth G. Spining, Mrs. Sarah Stewart, and Mrs. Mary McG. Stewart.
William King, dissatisfied with Kentucky on account of slavery, emigrated from that State to this vicinity in 1801. He was a remarkable man, distinguished for his strong convictions
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and his conscientious determination to carry them out at what- ever cost. He was for many years an elder in the First Presby- terian Church, and had something of the Puritan and the Covenanter in his composition. He lived to a great old age, lacking at his death but three months of being one hundred years old. His two elder sons, John and Victor, removed to Madison, Indiana. His son Samuel married Mary C., daughter of John H. Williams. His daughter Jane married David Osborn. The Osborn family are descendants of Cyrus Osborn, who was here as early as 1797. Numerous grandchildren of David Osborn are living here ; for instance, David L. Osborn, Cyrus V. Osborn, James Steele Osborn, Miss Harriet E. Osborn, Miss Harriet McGuffy Osborn. The older grandchildren of William King are Miss Nancy King, William B. King, John King, Mrs. Har- riet Scott, and Mrs. Eliza Brenneman.
John H. Williams was an honored and highly esteemed citi- zen. His descendants are numerous and prominent. We can only mention Mrs. Hiram Lewis, Mrs. David Rench, Miss Susan Williams, Miss Nannie B. Williams, Mrs. Lucinda H. Campbell, John W. and Henry Stoddard, and Mrs. General S. B. Smith.
In December, 1803, Benjamin Van Cleve was appointed first postmaster of Dayton, and served till his death, in 1821. He opened the postoffice in his cabin, on the southeast corner of First and St. Clair streets. Previous to Mr. Van Cleve's ap- pointment the only postoffice in the Miami Valley, and as far north as Lake Erie, was at Cincinnati. From 1804 to 1806 the people north of Dayton as far as Fort Wayne were obliged to come here for their mail. In 1804 Dayton was on the mail-route from Cincinnati to Detroit, and the mail was carried by a post-rider, who arrived and left here once in two weeks. Soon after, a weekly mail, the only one, was established. A letter from Dayton to Franklin, or any other town on the route, was sent first to Cincinnati and then back again around the circuit to its destination. A second route was soon opened from Zanesville, Franklinton, and Urbana to Dayton. The next improvement was a mail from the East by way of Chillicothe, arriving and leaving Sunday evenings.
In 1808 a committee of citizens-Judge Joseph H. Crane, George Smith, William T. Tennery, William McClure, and Joseph Peirce-employed William George to superintend the carrying of the mail to Urbana. It was necessary at that date that those
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interested in a proposed new mail-route should raise a fund to defray the expense of it, but the Postmaster-General agreed to allow toward the expense all that was paid in for postage, etc., at the new offices. The following interesting agreement between the committee and the Urbana mail-carrier was found a few years ago among the papers of William McClure, editor of the Repertory, which his brother-in-law, Judge Jamies Steele, had- preserved :
"WITNESSETH, That the said George, on his part, binds him- self, his heirs, etc., to carry the mail from Dayton to Urbana once a week and back to Dayton for the term that has been contracted for between Daniel C. Cooper and the Postmaster- General, to commence Friday, the 9th inst., to wit: Leave Dayton every Friday morning at six o'clock; leave Urbana Saturday morning, and arrive at Dayton Saturday evening, the undertakers reserving the right of altering the time of the start- ing and returning with the mail, allowing the said George two days to perform the trip, the post-rider to be employed by the said George to be approved by the undertakers. They also reserve to themselves the right of sending way letters and papers on said route, and the said George binds himself to pay for every failure in the requisitions of this agreement on his part the sum equal to that required by the Postmaster-General in like failures. The said committee, on their part, agree to furnish the said George with a suitable horse, furnish the person carrying the mail and the horse with sufficient victuals, lodging, and feed, and one dollar for each and every trip, to be paid every three months."
Previous to this arrangement a public meeting had been called, where the committee on the new mail-route had been appointed.
Postage, usually not prepaid, but collected on delivery, was high, and money scarce. Few ever had a dollar in their posses- sion. The Government would not accept payment in corn or pelts. Stamps were not used, but the amount due-usually twenty-five cents-was written on the outside of the letter, which was not enclosed in an envelope. It was a trial, especially in years when people had little in their own town to interest or amuse them, and were separated by a journey of many weeks from friends in the old home from whence they had emigrated to Dayton, to return the letter handed them at the office, because they had no money to pay postage. Mr. Van Cleve was a man of the period, and had a fellow-feeling for his penniless, but not necessarily poverty-stricken neighbors, and for a time he allowed them to take their unpaid-for mail. Soon, however, such notices
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as the following were of frequent occurrence in the newspapers : " The postinaster, having been in the habit of giving unlimited credit heretofore, finds it his duty to adhere strictly to the instructions of the Postmaster-General. He hopes, therefore, that his friends will not take it amiss when he assures them that no distinction will be made. No letters delivered in the future without pay, nor papers without the postage being paid quarterly in advance."
Mr. Van Cleve's successor as postmaster was George S. Hous- ton, who came here from New Jersey in 1810, and entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, H. G. Phillips. Like Mr. Van Cleve, he was an unusually public-spirited citizen, as reports of societies and meetings in the old newspapers show, and a man of many avocations. From 1821 till his death, in 1831, he was editor-in-chief of the Watchman, cashier of the Dayton Bank, and postmaster. The postoffice was at his resi- dence, a brick dwelling, still standing on the north side of Second Street, near Ludlow.
Joseph Peirce and Judge Joseph H. Crane, who signed the agreement with the Urbana mail-carrier, were very prominent citizens. They married sisters-the daughters of Dr. John Elliott. Joseph Peirce was born in Rhode Island in 1786, and was brought to Marietta in 1788 by his father, who served in 1779 as an aid-de-camp on the staff of General Horatio Gates, was a shareholder in the Ohio Company, and in 1789 one of the founders of Belpre, Ohio. Joseph Peirce spent his childhood in the stockades, Farmers' Castle, and Goodale's Garrison, in which the people of Belpre took refuge during the Indian war. About 1805 he came to Dayton, and in 1807 entered into a partnership with James Steele, which continued all his life. They retailed, as the manuscript advertisement which they circulated states, "all sorts of goods, wares, and commodities belonging to the trade of merchandising." He was a member of the Legislature in 1812. A letter written by him to a friend at this time refers in an interesting manner to the war then in progress. "Great unanimity prevails among the members [of the Legislature ] so far. You no doubt have seen Governor Meigs's message. You will, in a few days, see the patriotic resolutions, approbating the general Government, that have been passed. I doubt we have promised more than most of us would be willing to perform, should we be put to the test. To-day I think we shall pass a
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law furnishing our militia on duty with about $5,000 worth of blankets." Dayton was the rendezvous of the Western troops in this war, and our merchants sold largely to the army, waiting, however, many a long month before they received their pay from the Government. Mr. Peirce was president of the Dayton Bank from 1814 till his death in 1821 of the fever which swept away a number of valuable citizens. The obituary notice published in - the Watchman says that he received from his fellow-citizens many and various marks of their respect and confidence, and faithfully discharged the duties of all the public positions to which he was called. Fully appreciating the importance of a canal from the Ohio to Lake Erie, he was endeavoring to secure its construction when he died. He was an ardent sup- porter of Mr. Cooper in the latter's plans for the benefit of the town, and was held in the highest regard by his fellow-citizens in all public, business, and social relations. He was the father of J. C. and the late J. H. Peirce, and the grandfather of J. Elliott, Sarah H., Elizabeth F., and Howard F. Peirce, Mrs. H. E. Parrott, S. W. and J. P. Davies, Mrs. R. C. Schenck, and Mrs. Joseph Dart.
Judge Joseph H. Crane, the grandfather of J. F. S. and J. H. Crane, was noted for profound learning in his profession. He was a man of "wide and varied reading, and prodigious memory, especially familiar with English history and the English classics and poets." He aided in selecting the first books bought for the Public Library, and would buy only works of the highest character. The Dayton library and schools and other institutions received an impetus in right directions from cultivated and far- sighted men who came here in the first ten or twelve years of the history of the town, which is felt at the present day, and will never cease. Judge Crane came to Dayton when twenty-one, at the invitation of Mr. Cooper, from New Jersey, where he had studied law in the office of Aaron Ogden, a noted lawyer and statesman. He became invaluable as attorney and counselor to Daniel C. Cooper and the early settlers. He was elected to the Legislature in 1809. His colleague, David Purviance, in a letter to William McClure, editor of the Repertory, in the possession of one of the authors, says under date of December 29, 1809: "Mr. Crane is the only lawyer who is a member of the House of Representatives. He conducts with prudence, and is in good repute as a member." Crane was a young man and had his
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reputation to win at this period. He served in the War of 1812, enlisting with the other gentlemen of the town as a private, but at St. Mary's was promoted to sergeant-major of the post. From 1813 to 1816 he was prosecuting attorney, and was made judge in . 1817. In 1828 he was elected to Congress, and served eight years. From 1836 till his death, in 1851, he practiced law in Dayton, venerated by all for his high character and great ability.
In 1804 Colonel Robert Patterson, whose name often occurs in the history of Kentucky and Ohio during the last years of the eighteenth century, came here from Kentucky. He settled on the farm now the site of the Cash Register Works, which have given his grandsons an international reputation in the business world. Colonel Patterson's early life was full of adventure and hairbreadth escapes from Indians and other perils of the Western wilderness. He was born in 1753 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, and began his military career as a member of a company of rangers raised to protect the frontier of his native State from Indians. When twenty-one, he and several other young men started in boats from Fort Pitt for Kentucky, with nine horses and fourteen head of cattle, and supplies, imple- ments, and ammunition. At Limestone Creek, in Kentucky, they met, "guarding a little corn-patch with their tomahawks," Simon Kenton and Thomas Williams, the only white men in what is now that State. In 1777 Patterson and his party cleared land and planted corn near a big spring, naming their camp "Lexing- ton," in honor of the Revolutionary battle. Later, he entered land and laid out the city at this point. In 1787 he was one of the founders of Cincinnati. He accompanied General George Rogers Clark in the Illinois campaign in 1778, and Colonel Bowman in the expedition against the Shawnee towns at old Chillicothe in 1779; served as captain in 1780 in General Clark's raid on old Chillicothe and old Miami; was in command of a company of Logan's regiment in Clark's campaign, in 1782, against Indians at Piqua, on the Miami, and at Laramie. Colonel Logan's command camped three days at the mouth of. Mad River; that is to say, at Dayton. In 1786 Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, commissioned Robert Patterson a colonel in the "State Line." In 1786 his regiment of Colonel Logan's division marched to destroy the Macacheek towns on Mad River. But for these battles and victories over the Indians, in which Colonel Patterson was for many years engaged, the Dayton
From a portrait in possession of J. H. Patterson.
COLONEL ROBERT PATTERSON.
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settlement would have been an impossibility. His part in the history of our city is of the greatest importance, for he helped win its site from the Indians, and secured a peaceful and pros- perous home for the pioneers. He was present with his regiment at "St. Clair's defeat" in 1791. In the War of 1812 he had charge of transportation of supplies from Camp Meigs, near- Dayton, north to the army. All his later years he was a sufferer from wounds received in his campaigns.
Colonel Patterson's wife died in 1833. They had nine children, all deceased. Their son Jefferson (like his father, always called Colonel) was born in Dayton May 27, 1801, and was a man of high character and an influential citizen. He was a member of the Legislature at the time of his sudden death in 1863. Colonel Jefferson Patterson married, in 1833, Julia, daughter of Colonel John Johnston, who survives him. Colonel Johnston was a very noted man in Indian affairs, being in the employ of the United States Government. He succeeded in both doing justice to the Indians and securing the safety of the white inhabitants even during the War of 1812. Colonel Jefferson Patterson's children, Robert, S. J., J. H., and F. J. Patterson, and Mrs. J. H. Crane, are well known. Colonel Robert Patterson's daughter Catharine married, first, Henry Brown; second, Andrew Irwin ; third, H. G. Phillips. Her children, the late Judge R. P. and Henry L. Brown, Mrs. Charles Anderson, and A. Barr Irwin, were long prominent in Dayton. Mr. Irwin and Mrs. Anderson now live in Kentucky.
After Benjamin Van Cleve closed his blockhouse school, children were dependent upon their parents for instruction till 1804, when Cornelius Westfall opened a school, probably on Main Street, next the High School lot. He was a Kentuckian, and, after he ceased to teach, was for many years clerk of the Miami Court of Common Pleas. His successor as teacher, in 1805, was Swansey Whiting, an educated man from Pennsylvania, who became a physician.
The town of Dayton was incorporated by the Legislature February 12, 1805. The act of incorporation. provided for the election, by freeholders who had lived in Dayton six months, of seven trustees, a collector, supervisor, and marshal. The trus- tees were empowered to elect a treasurer, who need not be a member of their board, and to choose a president (in effect, mayor) and a recorder from their own number. The board of
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trustees was known as "the Select Council of the city of Day- ton." Till 1814 annual public meetings were held, where esti- mates and expenditures for town improvement and government purposes were discussed and authorized by popular vote. Meet- ings of the Select Council were, for ten years, held at residences of members. Councilmen were fined twenty-five cents if thirty iminutes late. In 1805 Council proposed raising the expenses of the town, which were seventy-two dollars, by taxation. But the proposition was defeated at a meeting of voters called to discuss it. Seventeen voted against taxation, and thirteen for it.
The first brick house erected in Dayton was McCullum's Tavern, two stories high and built in 1805 on the southwest corner of Main and Second streets. It was used as a hotel till 1870, when it was converted into a business house. In 1880 it was torn down. A bell in a belfry on the Second Street side of the roof called guests to breakfast, always served before daylight, and to the other meals, also ready at early hours. In 1812 a picture of the capture of the British frigate Guerrière by the American frigate Constitution, was painted on McCulluni's sign, a large one fastened to a tall post on the pavement in front of the house. A highly colored engraving of this naval battle was a favorite ornament of Dayton parlors at that period. From 1805 to 1807 the county court was held at McCullum's, the commis- sioners agreeing to pay him twenty-five dollars a year for the use of as much of his house as would be needed.
The Dayton Social Library Society was incorporated by the Legislature in 1805, Mr. Cooper, who was a member of the Leg- islature at that date, no doubt attending to the matter. This was the first library incorporated in Ohio. The incorporators were Rev. William Robertson, Dr. John Elliott, William Miller, Ben- jamin Van Cleve, and John Folkerth. John Folkerth was treasurer ; Robertson, Miller, and Elliott, directors. It is credit- able to our pioneers that a library and an academy were estab- lished as early as 1805 and 1807. Benjamin Van Cleve was appointed librarian, and the books were kept at the postoffice, at St. Clair and First streets. When he died, Squire Folkerth took charge of them at his office, in the one-story extension of the building on the northeast corner of First and Main streets. Bor- rowers were assessed three cents for a drop of tallow, or for folding down a leaf, and in proportion for any other damage, and were fined one quarter of the cost of a book lent to a person not
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belonging to the society or allowed to be taken into a school. It was determined by lottery who should have the first choice, and so on, for each proprietor. The constitution provided for a monthly business-meeting of proprietors in the log-cabin meet- ing-house. In 1822 the Gridiron advertises a farce to be given by the Thespian Society for the benefit of the library. John W. Van Cleve said of this library : "The number of books is small, but they are well selected, being principally useful standard books, which should be found in all institutions of the kind. Among them are the North American and American Quarterly Reviews for the last few years." September 8, 1835, Henry Stoddard, William Bomberger, and J. W. Van Cleve, committee, advertised the library for sale at auction at the clerk's office at 2 P. M., Saturday, the 12th inst.
CHAPTER V
1805-1809
FIRST Disastrous Flood-Emigrants from New Jersey -Charles Russell Greene-Ferries-First Court- House-First Newspaper-First Brick Stores-James Steele-Robert W. Steele-Dayton Academy-James Hanna-John Folkerth-First Teachers in the Academy- William M. Smith-James H. Mitchell-E. E. Barney-Trustees of Academy in 1833 -Collins Wight -Milo G. Williams-Transfer of Academy to Board of Education -Henry Bacon -Luther Bruen-Antislavery Excitement- Arrest and Suicide of a Fugitive Slave-Colored People Leave Dayton for HaytiA Colonization Society Formed-Antislavery Society -- Union Meeting-House, Principally Built by Luther Bruen-Dr. Birney and Mr. Rankin Mobbed -Dr. H. Jewett-Dr. John Steele-Advertise- ment of a Runaway Slave-Jonathan Harshman-First Brick Residence -The Cannon "Mad Anthony "-Rev. James Welsh, M.D .- Dr. John Elliott-Town Prospering - No Care Taken of Streets or Walks-Grimes's Tavern - Alexander Grimes-Reid's Inn-Colonel Reid-Second News- paper, the Repertory-Advertisements in the Repertory-Matthew Patton - Abram Darst-Pioneer Women.
IN March, 1805, a disastrous flood-the first of any importance that had occurred since the settlement of Dayton-swept over the town plat. No levees had been built at this date, and when the town began to raise them they were repeatedly washed away. It took long and painful experience to teach the lesson that levees must be high and strong. John W. Van Cleve describes this flood in an address on the "Settlement and Prog- ress of Dayton," delivered in 1833 before the Dayton Lyceum, a literary society, having a public library connected with it. The address was printed in a morning paper.
"In the spring of 1805," Mr. Van Cleve says, "Dayton was inundated by an extraordinary rise of the river. In all ordinary freshets the water used to pass through the prairie at the east side of the town, where the basin now is; but the flood of 1805 covered a great portion of the town itself. There were only two spots of dry land within the whole place. The water canie out of the river at the head of Jefferson Street, and ran down to the common at the east end of old Market Street, in a stream which
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From a drawing by Eugene Wuichet.
THE OLD ACADEMY, 1833-1857.
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a horse could not cross without swimming, leaving an island between it and the mill. A canoe could be floated at the inter- section of First Street with St. Clair, and the first dry land was west of that point. The western extremity of that island was near the crossing of Main and First streets, from whence it bore down in a southern direction towards where the sawmill now stands, leaving a dry strip from a point on the south side of Main Cross Street [now Third ], between Jefferson Street and the prairie, to the river bank at the head of Main Street. Almost the whole of the land was under water, with the exception of those two islands, from the river to the hill which circles round south and east of town from Mad River to the Miami. The water was probably eight feet deep in Main Street, at the Court- house, where the ground has since been raised several feet.
"In consequence of the flood, a considerable portion of the inhabitants became strongly disposed to abandon the present site of the town, and the proposition was made and urged very strenuously that lots should be laid off upon the plain upon the second rise on the southeast of the town, through which the Waynesville road passes; and that the inhabitants should take lots there in exchange for those which they owned upon the pres- ent plat, and thus remove the town to a higher and more secure situation. The project, however, was defeated by the unyielding opposition of some of the citizens, and it was no doubt for the advantage and prosperity of the place that it was."
Some of us can remember how certain aged pioneers used to upbraid the founders of the town for putting it down in a hollow, instead of on the hills to the southeast, and expatiate on the folly which the people were guilty of in voting against the removal, after the terrible freshet of 1805, to high ground. "Some day there will be a flood which will sweep Dayton out of existence," those ancient men and women used to prophesy to their grand- children.
In no way did Daniel C. Cooper confer a greater benefit upon his town than by inducing a number of men of superior educa- tion, character, and business capacity to come here from his native New Jersey and other States, between 1804 and 1808. About 1804 or 1805 arrived Charles Russell Greene, whose sister / Mr. Cooper married. He was born in Rhode Island, but as, like his cousin Joseph Peirce, he was the son of a shareholder in the Ohio Company, his youth was spent at Marietta. The boys who
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came to Oliio in 1788 received a good education, for the com- pany employed excellent teachers; and if these had been wanting, men, of whom there were many, of the ability and knowledge of Isaac Peirce and Charles Greene, fathers of Joseph Peirce and Charles R. Greene, were capable of instructing their sons themselves. When Charles R. Greene first came to Dayton, lie was in business with Mr. Cooper. Afterwards he had a store of his own. He succeeded Benjamin Van Cleve in 1821 as clerk of the court, a position for which he was eminently fitted. He was remarkably elegant and fine-looking. An old gentleman who was a child when Mr. Greene died was fond of relating how admiringly the boys used to watch this handsome, graceful man, mounted on a beautiful, spirited white horse, taking his daily ride down Main Street out into the country. Mr. Greene married a daughter of Henry Disbrow, a prominent Dayton business man. They had six children: Luciana Zeigler, married J. D. Phillips ; Sophia, married E. T. Schenck; Eliza, married David Z. Peirce; Cooper, died unmarried ; Harriet, married David Jun- kin; Charles H., married Adeline D. Piper. All are deceased except Mrs. Schenck. Mrs. C. R. Greene died November 3, 1873.
Mr. Greene was a highly esteemed citizen, and his death in 1831 threw a gloom over the whole community. Even the man who, while under the influence of liquor, caused his death admit- ted that he had killed his best friend. The indignation against the murderer was intense. At a fire, which occurred here on the night of September 10, 1833, Mr. Greene, one of the fire-wardens, ordered Matthew Thompson, who was looking idly on, to assist in passing water in the leather buckets to the little engine, which was now always used in addition to the buckets. Thompson refused, and offering some resistance when the order was repeated, Mr. Greene was obliged to use force to compel him to obey. The next day, on the complaint of Thompson, Mr. Greene was summoned to appear before the squire. While he was being questioned, Thompson struck him with a club, death resulting in a short time. Mr. Greene's sister, Mrs. Cooper, by her third . marriage became the mother of Major Fielding Loury, the father of Charles G. and Sophie Loury, Mrs. Anna Dana, and Mrs. Elise L. Smith.
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