Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 40

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916

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TURNPIKES.

"An inexhaustible supply of excellent ma- terials for road-making-what is frequently designated the lime-stone gravel, though in reality largely composed of granitic pebbles- is found in the drift deposits, from which hundreds of miles of turnpikes have been already constructed in the country, thus af- fording free communication between farm and market at all seasons of the year. The smaller boulders of Canadian origin are selected from the gravel-banks for paving- stones, and transported to the neighboring cities. In regions where stone suitable for macadamized pikes can be obtained, good roads can be had, even though gravel is wanting, but at largely increased expense above that of gravel turnpikes. The dis- tricts which are supplied with neither can certainly never compete in desirability with these gravel-strewn regions."

Benj. Van Cleve, one of the original settlers of Dayton, gives in his journal an interesting account of the survey, in the autumn of 1795, of the purchase made by Gov. St. Clair, Generals Dayton and Wilkinson and Col. Ludlow from Judge Symmes.

Two parties set out, one under Daniel C. Cooper, to survey and mark a road, and the other, under Capt. John Dunlap, to run the boundaries of the purchase. Mr. Van Cleve says : "On the 4th of November Israel Ludlow laid out the town at the mouth of Mad river and called it Dayton, after one of the proprietors. A lottery was held, and I drew lots for myself and several others, and engaged to become a settler in the ensuing spring."

JOURNEY BY LAND TO DAYTON.

In March, 1796, three parties left Cincin- nati, led by William Harner, George New- come and Samuel Thompson. Harner's party was the first to start; the other two companies left on Monday, March 21, one by land and the other by water. Harner's party came in a two-horse wagon over the road begun, but only partially cut through the woods by Cooper, in the fall of 1795. The other party that travelled by land walked. They were two weeks on the road. Their furniture, stoves, clothes, provisions, cook- ing utensils, and agricultural implements and other property, as well as children too small to walk, were carried on horses, in creels made of hickory withes, and suspended from each side of pack-saddles. It was a difficult matter to ford the creeks without getting the freight and the women and children wet.

Trees were cut down to build foot-bridges across the smaller streams. Rafts were con- structed to carry the contents of the creels and the women and children over large creeks, while the horses and cattle swam. Their rifles furnished them with plenty of game, and their cows with milk, at meals.

Thompson's party came in a large pirogue down the Ohio to the Miami, and up that stream to the mouth of Mad river.

VOYAGE UP THE MIAMI TO DAYTON.

At the close of each day the boat was tied to a tree on the shore, and the emigrants landed and camped for the night around the big fire, by which they cooked their appetiz- ing supper of game and fish and the eggs of wild fowls, for which the hunger of travellers was a piquant and sufficient sauce. No doubt their food, as described by other pioneers,

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was cooked after this fashion : Meat was fastened on a sharpened stick, stuck in the ground before the fire, and frequently turned. Dough for wheat bread was sometimes wound around a stick and baked in the same way. Corn bread was baked under the hot ashes. "Sweeter roast meat," exclaims an enthusi- astie pioneer writer, "than such as is pre- pared in this manner no epicure of Europe ever tasted. Scarce any one who has not tried it can imagine the sweetness and gusto of such a meal, in such a place, at such a time."

ARRIVAL AT DAYTON.

The passage from Cincinnati to Dayton occupied ten days. Mrs. Thompson was the first to step ashore, and the first white woman, except, perhaps, the captive Mrs. McFall, rescued by Kentuckians in 1782, to set her foot on Dayton soil. Two small camps of Indians were here when the pirogue touched the Miami bank, but they proved friendly, and were persuaded to leave in a day or two. The pirogue landed at the head of St. Clair street, Friday, April 1. The following brief entry is the only allusion Benjamin Van Cleve makes in his "Jour- nal" to this important event in the history of Dayton : " April 1, 1796. Landed at Day- ton, after a passage of ten days, William Gahagan and myself having come with Thompson's and MeClure's families in a large pirogue."

We can easily imagine the loneliness and dreariness of the uninhabited wilderness which confronted these homeless families. There were three women and four children-one an infant-in the party. "The unbroken forest was all that welcomed them, and the awful stillness of night had no refrain but the howl- ing of the wolf and the wailing of the whip- poorwill."

DAYTON BLOCK HOUSE.

During the summer of 1799 an Indian war was apprehended, and a large block house was built for defensive purposes. It stood on the Main street bank of the Miami. The threatened attack did not come, and it was never used as a fort, but was converted into a school-house, where Benj. Van Cleve, the first Dayton schoolmaster, taught the pioneer children.

EARLY POSTAL FACILITIES.

December 13, 1803, Benjamin Van Cleve was appointed postmaster. Probably in the spring of 1804 he opened the office in his cabin, on the southeast corner of First and St. Clair streets. He served till his death in 1821. Previous to 1804 the only post-office in the Miami valley, and as far north as Lake Erie, was at Cincinnati, and from 1804 till about 1806 the people to the north of Day- ton, as far as Fort Wayne, were obliged to come to our office for their mail. In 1804 Dayton was on the mail route from Cincin-

nati to Detroit, and the mail was carried by a post-rider, who arrived and left here once in two weeks. But soon after Mr. Van Cleve opened the post-office a weekly mail was established. Only one mail a week was received for several years, the route of which was from Cincinnati through Lebanon, Xenia and Springfield to Urbana ; thence to Piqua ; thence down the Miami to Dayton, Franklin, Middletown, -Hamilton and Cincinnati. A letter from Dayton to Franklin, or any other town on the route, was sent first to Cincin- nati and then back again around the circuit to its destination. No stamps were used, but the amount of postage due was written on the outside of the letter. Postage was sometimes prepaid, but oftener collected on delivery. Mr. Van Cleve frequently inserted notices similar to the following in the news- papers : "The postmaster having been in the habit of giving unlimited credit heretofore, finds it his duty to adhere strictly to the in- structions 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 will be delivered in future without pay, nor papers without the postage being paid quarterly in advance." Now that postage for all dis- tances is equal and very low, we can hardly realize the burden and inconvenience the high and uncertain postage rates imposed upon the pioneers. Money was very scarce and difficult to obtain ; and to pay twenty- five cents in cash for a letter was no easy matter.

In 1816 the rates of postage were fixed as follows : Thirty-six miles, six cents ; eighty miles, ten cents ; over one hundred and fifty miles, eighteen and three-fourth cents ; over four hundred miles, twenty-five cents. News- papers anywhere within the State where printed, one cent. Elsewhere, not over one hundred miles, one cent and a half. Maga- zines at one cent a sheet for fifty miles ; one cent and a half for one hundred miles; two cents for over one hundred miles. Pam- phlets and magazines were not forwarded when the mail was very large, nor when car- ried with great expedition on horseback. For a good many years the Eastern mail was brought to Wheeling by post-riders, and thence down the river to Cincinnati in gov- ernment mail-boats, built like whaling craft, each manned with four oarsmen and a cox- swain, who were often armed. The voyage from Wheeling to Cincinnati occupied six days, and the return trip up stream twelve days.

A PIONEER LIBRARY.

In the spring of 1805 the Dayton Library Society was incorporated by the Legislature. It is creditable to the pioneer citizens of Dayton that among the first institutions es- tablished were a public library and an acad- emy. In 1805 the first Act of Incorporation of a public library granted by the State of Ohio was obtained from the Legislature, and

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in 1808 the Dayton Academy was incorpor- ated.

NAVIGATION OF THE MIAMI.

The Great Miami was navigable both above and below Dayton during the great part of the year for keel boats, which were built like canal boats, only slighter and sharper, as well as for flat boats, till about 1820, when the numerous mill-dams that had by that time been erected, obstructed the channel. From that date till 1829, when the canal was opened, freighting south by water, except what was done in flat boats during floods, was almost abandoned. The boats were often loaded with produce taken in exchange for goods, work, or even for lots and houses, for busi- ness men, instead of having money to deposit in bank or to invest, were frequently obliged to send cargoes of articles received in place of cash South or North for sale. Cherry and walnut logs were sometimes brought down the river on the flat boats. The flat boat- men sold their boats when they arrived at New Orleans, and, buying a horse, returned home by land. The foundations of many fortunes were laid in this way. Flat boats were made of ".green oak plank, fastened by wooden pins to a frame of timber, and caulked with tow or any other pliant substance that could be procured," and were inclosed and roofed with boards. They were only used in descending streams, and floated with the current. Long, sweeping oars fastened at both ends of the boat, worked by men stand- ing on the deck, were employed to keep it in the channel, and in navigating difficult and dangerous places in the river. The first flat boat was launched in the winter of 1799, near McDonald's Creek, by David Lowry. It was loaded in Dayton with grain, pelts and five hundred venison hams, and when the spring freshet raised the river started on the two months' trip to New Orleans. The voyage was safely accomplished.

FISH BASKETS.

Fish baskets, of which there is frequent mention in the newspapers of the day, were made by building a dam on the riffles so as to concentrate 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.

Paul D. Butler, on the 21st of August, 1809, gives notice in the Repertory of his intention to navigate the Miami from Dayton to the mouth of Stony Creek as soon as the season will permit, and forewarns all persons obstructing the navigation by erecting fish baskets or any other obstructions, that he is determined to prosecute those who erect them. He and Henry Desbrow soon after proceeded to build two keel boats.

They were built during the winter of 1809-1810 in the street in front of the court-

house, and when finished were moved on rollers up Main street to the river and launched. They ascended the Miami to the Laramie portage (see Shelby County), which was as far as they could go. Then one of the boats was taken out of the river, and drawn across to the St. Mary's. For some time this boat made regular trips on the Maumee. and the other on the Miami, the portage be- tween them being about twelve miles across. A freight line which did good business was thus established between Dayton and Lake Erie by way of the Miami, Auglaize and Maumee rivers.

During the last week of March, 1819, eight flat boats and one handsome keel boat loaded here, shoved off for the landing for the mar- kets below, and several flat boats loaded with flour, pork and whiskey also passed down the Miami. This year a second line of keel boats was established for carrying grain and pro- duce up the Miami. At Laramie it was transferred, after a portage across the land intervening between the two rivers, to other boats, and transported down the Maumee to the rapids, which was the point of transfer from river boats to lake vessels. At the rapids there was a large warehouse for stor- age of cargoes.

In May, 1819, Daytonians were gratified to see a large keel boat, upwards of seventy feet in length and with twelve tons of merchandise on board, belonging to H. G. Phillips and Messrs. Smith and Eaker, arrive here from Cincinnati. She was the only keel boat that had for a number of years been brought this far up the Miami. as the river between here and its mouth had been much obstructed.

Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, 1825, were unusually exciting days in Dayton among boatmen, millers, distillers, farmers, merchants and teamsters, as a fleet of thirty or more boats that had been embargoed here by low water left their moorings bound for New Orleans. Rain had begun to fall on Wednesday, and continued till Friday, when the river rose. "The people," says the Watchman, "flocked to the banks, return . ing with cheerful countenances, saying, 'The boats will get off.'

"On Saturday all was the busy hum of a seaport ; wagons were conveying flour, pork, whiskey, etc., to the different boats strung along the river. Several arrived during the day from the North. On Sunday morning others came down, the water began to fall, and the boats carrying about $40,000 worth of the produce of the country got under way." The whole value of the cargoes that left the Miami above and below Dayton dur- ing this freshet was estimated at least $100,000. Some of the boats were stove and the flour damaged, but most of them passed safely to their destination. Twelve boats left here for New Orleans in February, 1827, from Montgomery and Miami Coun- ties, chiefly loaded with flour, pork and whiskey. Their cargoes were worth about $20,000. In February, 1828, the last boat, loaded with produce for New Orleans, left

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here by the Miami. The next year freight began to be shipped south by canal. As late as 1836, and perhaps a year later, when the canal was opened to Piqua, the line of boats to the north was continued.

EARTHQUAKES.

A comet was visible in 1811, and this, to- gether with the series of earthquakes through- out the Ohio Valley, which occurred during that and the succeeding year, and neither of which had been experienced before since the settlement of the western country, were re- garded with terror by the superstitious, who considered them evil portents, and ominous of private or public misfortune.

The first earthquake shocks occurred on the 16th and 17th of December, 1811, and the inhabitants of Dayton were kept in con- tinual alarm by repeated shocks. The first and by far the severest was felt between two and three o'clock in the morning.

Other shocks occurred January 23, 1812, again on the 27th, and the last on February 13th, when the motion of the earth was from the southwest.

Although no material damage was done by these earthquakes, the people, and animals and fowls as well, were very much alarmed. Persons who experienced it in youth, spoke of it in old age with a shudder of horror.

ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST CANAL BOATS.

In January, 1829, the citizens of Dayton were gratified with the sight, so long de- sired, of the arrival of canal boats from Cin- cinnati. At daybreak, Sunday, January 25th, the packet, Governor Brown, the first boat to arrive here from the Ohio, reached the head of the basin. This packet was appro- priately named, for since 1819 Governor Brown had been engaged in urging the con-

nection of the two towns by means of a canal. In the afternoon the Forrer arrived, followed at dark by the General Marion, and during the night by the General Pike. Each boat was welcomed by the firing of cannon and the enthusiastic cheers of a crowd of citizens assembled on the margin of the basin.

The Governor Brown was henceforth to make regular trips twice a week between Dayton and Cincinnati. It was the only packet fitted up exclusively for passengers, and was very handsomely and conveniently furnished. The master, Captain Archibald, was very popular and accommodating. The Alpha, which also made regular passages, was commanded by M. F. Jones, of Dayton. A part of the Alpha was prepared for pas- sengers. A fleet of canal boats, the Governor Brown, Forrer, General Marion General Pikce, accompanied by the Alpha, with a Dayton party, were to have made the first return trip to Cincinnati in company, but their departure was prevented by a break in the canal at Alexandersville.

MINIATURE RAILROAD.

In 1830 Stevenson ran the first locomotive in England over the Manchester and Liver- pool railroad. The same year a miniature locomotive and cars were exhibited in Day- ton in the Methodist church. The fact that council, by resolution, exempted the exhibi- tion from a license fee, and that the Metho- dist church was used for this purpose, illus- trates the deep interest felt by the public in the then new and almost untried scheme to transport freight and passengers by steam over roads constructed for the purpose. A track was run around the interior of the church, and for a small fee parties were car- ried in the car. A large part of the then citizens of Dayton took their first railroad ride in this way.

THE CAPTURE AND SUICIDE OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE.

In 1832 a fugitive slave was captured in Dayton and carried off by his master, who lived in Kentucky. The occurrence produced the greatest excitement and indignation in the community. All that was necessary to prove the detestable character of the fugitive slave law was an attempt to enforce it. The following account, from the Dayton Journal, of the affair, by an eye-witness who was not an Abolitionist, though his sympathies were all with this negro, is worthy of in- sertion in the history of Dayton :

"A short time ago a negro man, who had lived in this place two or three years under the name of Thomas Mitchell, was arrested by some men from Kentucky, and taken before a justice under a charge of being a slave who had escaped from his master. The magistrate, on hearing the evidence, discharged the black man, not being satisfied with the proof brought by the claimants of their rights to him. A few weeks afterward some men, armed and employed by the master, seized the negro in our main street, and were hurrying him towards the outskirts of the town, where they had a sleigh in waiting to carry him off. The negro's cries brought a number of citizens into the street, who interfered, and prevented the men from taking him away without having legally proved their right to do so. The claimants of the negro went before the justice again, and after a long exami-

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nation of the case on some new evidence being produced, he was decided to be the slave of the person claiming him as such. In the meantime a good deal of ex- citement had been produced among the people of the place, and their sympathies for the poor black fellow were so much awakened that a proposition was made to buy his freedom. The agent of the master agreed to sell him, under the suppo- sition that the master would sell him his liberty, and a considerable sum was sub- scribed, to which, out of his own savings, the negro contributed upwards of fifty dollars himself. The master, however, when his agent returned to Kentucky, refused to agree to the arrangement, and came himself the week before last to take the negro away. Their first meeting was in the upper story of a house, and Tom, on seeing those who were about to take him, rushed to the window and endeav- ored, but without success, to dash himself through it, although, had he succeeded, he would have fallen on a stone pavement from a height not less than fifteen feet. He was prevented, however, and the master took him away with him and got him as far as Cincinnati. The following letter, received by a gentleman in this city, gives the concluding account of the matter :

POOR TOM IS FREE.

CINCINNATI, Jan. 24, 1832. DEAR SIR :- In compliance with a request of Mr. J. Deinkard, of Kentucky, I take my pen to inform you of the death of his black man Ben, whom he took in your place a few days ago. The circumstances are as follows : On the evening of the 22d inst., Mr. D. and company, with Ben, arrived in this city on their way to Kentucky, and put up at the Main Street Hotel, where a room on the up- permost story (fourth) of the building was provided for Ben and his guard. "All being safe, as they thought, about one o'clock,

when they were in a sound sleep, poor Ben, stimulated with even the faint prospect of escape, or perhaps pre-determined on liberty or death, threw himself from the window, which is upwards of fifty feet from the pave- ment. He was, as you may well suppose, severely injured, and the poor fellow died this morning about four o'clock. Mr. D. left this morning with the dead body of his slave, to which he told me he would give decent burial in his own graveyard. Please tell Ben's wife of these circumstances.

Your unknown correspondent,

Respectfully, R. P. SIMMONS.

Tom, or, as he is called in the letter, Ben, was an industrious, steady, saving little fellow, and had laid up a small sum of money ; all of which he gave to his wife and child when his master took him away. A poor and humble being, of an unfortunate and degraded race, the same feeling which animated the signers of the Declaration of Independence to pledge life, fortune and honor for liberty, determined him to be free or die."

THE "MORUS MULTICAULIS " MANIA.

In 1839 the Dayton Silk Company was in- corporated, with a capital of $100,000. . The company advertised that they had on hand one hundred and fifty thousand eggs for gra- tuitous distribution to all who would sell to them the cocoons raised from the eggs. They published fifteen thousand copies of a circu- lar, giving all requisite information on the subject of silk culture, which were freely dis- tributed. It was proposed to introduce the cultivation of the variety of white mulberry known as Morus Multicaulis. The leaves of the Morus Multicanlis, unlike those of the other variety, could be used the first year in the rearing of silk-worms. Farmers were advised to turn their attention to this valuable crop, and many of them did so; and the raising of silk-worms became the fashion. The trees sold in the East for from seventy- five cents to one dollar and fifty cents apiece,

and the demand for them was increasing. The people were assured that one acre had been known to produce as high as seventy- five pounds of silk the first year from the cuttings, and it was believed that fifty pounds could be produced the first year without in- jury to the trees. This silk company, like a former one, proved a failure.

The mention of the Morus Multicaulis tree recalls to memory one of those strange manias that occasionally sweep over the country. The tree had recently been introduced from China, was of rapid growth, and furnished abundant food for silk-worms. It was be- lieved that the cultivation of this tree and the use of its leaves to feed silk-worms, would make the United States the great silk- producing country of the world. The most extravagant price was paid for young trees and thousands of acres planted. Widespread ruin was the result, and hundreds of persons lost their all in this wild speculation.

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DESCRIPTION OF DAYTON IN 1846.

The following sketch of Dayton, in 1846, was supplied for our first edition by Mr. John W. Van Cleve, the first-born child of the settlers. A sketch of his life will be found on a few pages beyond.

The thriving city of Dayton is in this county. This is a beautiful town. It is regularly laid out, the streets are of an unusual width, and much taste is dis- played in the private residences-many of them are large and are ornamented by fine gardens and shrubbery. The following sketch is from a resident :

Dayton, the county-seat, is situated on the east side of the Great Miami, at the mouth of Mad river, and one mile below the southwest branch. It is 67 miles westerly from Columbus, 52 from Cincinnati and 110 from Indianapolis. The point at which Dayton stands was selected in 1788 by some gentlemen, who de- signed laying out a town by the name of Venice. They agreed with John Cleves Symmes, whose contraet with Congress then covered the site of the place for the purchase of the lands. But the Indian wars which ensued prevented the exten-

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

VIEW IN DAYTON.

[The above view was taken near the corner of First and Ludlow streets. In front is shown the elegant residence of J. D. Phillips, Esq., and the First Presbyterian church; on the left, the cupola of the new court-house and the spires of the German Reformed and Second Presbyterian churches appear.]

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 40

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 916

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916