Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 42

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

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The Hospital is the largest single building of the Home, and will accommodate 300 pa- tients ; beside this are several branch hospi- tals. The wards are perfectly warmed and ventilated, and everything supplied for the comfort and health of the inmates, and it is believed to be one of the best hospitals in the country.

The Cemetery and Monument .- More than 3000 of the disabled veterans who were resi- dents of the Central Home since its establish- ment have died and been buried with military honors in the grove west of the Hospital, which had been tastefully laid out for a ceme- tery. "Their comrades, officers and men have erected there a beautiful monument of Peru white marble, fifty feet high, and sur- mounted with a splendid figure of a private soldier. It was unveiled on the 12th of Sep- tember, 1887, by the President of the United States, with grand ceremonies and in the presence of 25,000 people. On the pedestal are the words ' To our fallen Comrades ' and 'These were honorable men in their gener- ation.' On the base are four figures, beauti-

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE U. S. SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' HOME, NEAR DAYTON.

Its area is about a mile square, and it is a town of some 5000 people, with but few women and children. The Hospital is the long building on the right with several towers. To the left of it is the Church and Memorial Hall. To the left of these appears the Campus, a large open space. Facing the Campus is a line of barracks; above these appears the Dining Hall, a

huge square building. The vessel at the left hand lower corner indicates the lake. The monument at the upper right hand corner, with circling dotted spots for grave stones, stands in the centre of the Cemetery. In summer multitudes of flower-beds ornament the grounds, tenderly cared for hy grim- visaged veterans who in youth shouldered muskets and marched to the war.

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fully carved in Italy, representing the four arms of the service, viz. : 'Artillery, Infan- try, Cavalry, and Navy.' The entire cost of the monument was $16,000 from 16,000 veterans, each paying one dollar. The base is surmounted by tablets, on which are en- graved the names of all who are buried in the cemetery."

Schools and Labor .- An excellent feature of the institution is a school where the vet- erans are taught various useful branches. Here men who lost their right arms are taught to write with their left, while instruc- tion is given in book-keeping, wood-carving, as well as telegraphy, and most trades can be acquired here. It has been the steady policy of the institution to encourage labor of every kind by establishing workshops and by making the cultivation of flowers and fruits, etc., one of the features. About a dozen different trades are carried on, includ- ing printing and book binding.

The Dining Room building in its two dining rooms has a capacity for seating 3000 persons. All the cooking and serving is done by the veterans, and the food is of the best and in great variety, The cost of food is about seventeen cents per day to each man. In amount it is great. A recent dinner for 4300 veterans consumed of beef over 2000

pounds, of bread, 2700 pounds, of sugar, 240 pounds, of potatoes, 50 bushels, of coffee, 1200 gallons, and 900 pies.

The post-office does a large business, the annual receipts of pieces about 140,000, and the laundry work is also great. The weekly wash averages 36,000 picces. Machinery moved by steam, and steam itself accomplish marvels here in the line of domestic labor.

Since the organization in 1867 to June, 1888, the number admitted were 22.397, and from nearly every State. The largest from Ohio, viz., 7510; Pennsylvania, 3662; New York, 3579; Indiana, 2187 ; Illinois, 1091 ; Kentucky, 811, etc. A larger part of these as at all the branches were foreign born, mainly German, Irish and English. In their newly-adopted country they were generally without family ties, and when disabled while fighting for its flag, they were "doubly en- titled as loyal foster-sons of the mother Re- public to a full share of its bounties."

The number of veterans enrolled in 1888 at the Central Home was 5936, and present for duty, 4500, the rest being off on furlough, largely visiting their families and friends. The cost of running the institution in 1888, exclusive of repairs, was $705,270.21 or $131 .- 18 per man, including shelter, food, and clothing.

THE GREAT HARRISON CONVENTION, 1840.

Never in the history of the Northwest has there been a more exciting presiden- tial campaign than that which preceded the election of General Harrison, and nowhere was the enthusiasm for the hero of Tippecanoe greater than in Dayton. A remarkable Harrison convention was held here on the date of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, and tradition has preserved such extravagant accounts of the num- ber present, the beauty of the emblems and decorations displayed, and the hospi- tality of the citizens and neighboring farmers, that the following prophecy with which the Journal began its account of the celebration may almost be said to have been literally fulfilled : " Memorable and ever to be remembered as is the glorious triumph achieved by the immortal Perry, on the 10th of September, 1813, scarcely less conspicuous on the page of history will stand the noble commemoration of the event which has just passed before us."

Innumerable flags and Tippecanoe banners were stretched across the streets from roofs of stores and factories, or floated from private residences and from poles and trees.

INCOMING CROWDS.

People began to arrive several days before the convention, and on the 9th crowds of carriages, wagons and horsemen streamed into town. About six o'clock the Cincinnati delegation came in by the Centreville road. They were escorted from the edge of town by the Dayton Grays, Butler Guards, Dayton Military Band, and a number of citizens in carriages and on horseback. The procession of delegates was headed by eleven stage coaches in line, with banners and music, fol- lowed by a long line of wagons and carriages. Each coach was enthusiastically cheered as it passed the crowds which thronged the streets, and the cheers were responded to by the oc-

cupants of the coaches. Twelve canal boats full of men arrived on the 10th, and every road which led to town poured in its thou- sands. General Harrison came as far as Jonathan Harshman's, five miles from town, on the 9th, and passed the night there. Early in the morning his escort, which had encamped at Fairview, marched to Mr. Harshman's and halted there till seven o'clock, when it got in motion, under com- mand of Joseph Barnett, of Dayton, and other marshals from Clarke county.

GEN. HARRISON'S ESCORT.

A procession from town, under direction of Charles Anderson, afterwards governor of

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Ohio, chief marshal, met the general and his escort at the junction of the Troy and Spring- field roads. The battalion of militia, com- manded by Capt. Bomberger, of the Dayton Grays, and consisting of the Grays and Wash- ington Artillery, of Dayton ; the Citizens' Guard, of Cincinnati ; Butler Guards, of Hamilton ; and Pequa Light Infantry, were formed in a hollow square, and Gen. Harri- son, mounted on a white horse, his staff, and Gov. Metcalf and staff, of Kentucky, were placed in the centre. "Every foot of the road, between town and the place where Gen. Harrison was to meet the Dayton escort, was literally choked up with people."

The immense procession, carrying banners and flags, and accompanied by canoes, log cabins furnished in pioneer style, and trap- pers' lodges, all on wheels, and filled with men, girls and boys, the latter dressed in hunting-shirts and blue caps. One of the wagons contained a live wolf, enveloped in a sheep-skin, representing the "hypocritical professions" of the opponents of the Whigs. All sorts of designs were carried by the dele- gations. One of the most striking was an immense ball, representing the Harrison States, which was rolled through the streets. The length of the procession was about two miles. Carriages were usually three abreast, and there were more than 1,000 in line.

"GRANDEST SPECTACLE OF TIME."

The day was bright and beautiful, and the wildest enthusiasm swayed the mighty mass of people who formed the most imposing part of "this grandest spectacle of time," as Col. Todd, an eye-witness, termed the pro- cession. The following description of the scene, quoted by Curwen from a contempo- rary newspaper, partakes of the excitement and extravagance of the occasion : "The huzzas from gray-headed patriots, as the banners borne in the procession passed their dwellings, or the balconies where they had stationed themselves ; the smiles and bless- ings, and waving kerchiefs of the thousands of fair women who filled the front windows of every house ; the loud and heartfelt ac- knowledgments of their marked courtesy and generous hospitality by the different delega- tions, sometimes rising the same instant from the whole line ; the glimpses at every turn of the eye of the fluttering folds of some one or more of the 644 flags which displayed their glorious stars and stripes from the tops of the principal houses of every street ; the soul- stirring music, the smiling heavens, the ever- gleaming banners, the emblems and mottoes, added to the intensity of the excitement. Every eminence, housetop and window was thronged with eager spectators, whose accla- mations seemed to rend the heavens."

"Second street at that time led through a prairie, and the bystanders, by a metaphor, the sublimity of which few but Westerners can appreciate, likened the excitement around them to a mighty sea of fire sweeping over its surface, 'gathering, and heaving. and

rolling upwards, and yet higher, till its flames licked the stars and fired the whole heavens. ' "

AN AUDIENCE OF SEVENTY -EIGHT THOU- SAND.

After marching through the principal streets, the procession was disbanded by Gen. Harrison at the National Hotel, on Third street. At one o'clock the procession was reformed and moved to the stand erected for speeches. Upon a spacious plain east of Fourth street and north of Third, Mr. Samuel Forrer, an experienced civil engineer, made an estimate of the space occupied by this meeting and the number present at it. He says : "An exact measurement of the lines gave for one side of the square (oblong) one hundred and thirty yards, and the other one hundred and fifty yards, including an area of nineteen thousand five hundred square yards, which, multiplied by four, would give sev- enty-eight thousand. Let no one who was present be startled at this result or reject this estimate till he compares the data assumed with the facts presented to his own view while on the ground. It is easy for any one to satisfy himself that six, or even a greater number of individuals, may stand on a square yard of ground. Four is the number as- sumed in the present instance; the area measured it less than four and one-half acres. Every farmer who noticed the ground could readily perceive that a much larger space was covered with people, though not so closely as that portion measured. All will admit that an oblong square of one hundred and thirty yards by one hundred and fifty, did not at any time during the first hour include near all that were on the east side of the canal. The time of observation was the commence- ment of Gen. Harrison's speech. Before making this particular estimate I had made one, by comparing this assemblage with my recollection of the 25th of February conven- tion at Columbus, and came to the conclusion that it was at least four times as great as that." Two other competent engineers meas- ured the ground, and the lowest estimate of the number of people at the meeting was 78,000 ; and as thousands were still in town, it was estimated that as many as 100,000 were here on the 10th of September.

HOSPITALITY OF DAYTONIANS.

Places of entertainment were assigned del- egates by the committee appointed for that purpose, but it was also announced in the Journal that no one need hesitate " to enter any house for dinner where he may see a flag flying. Every Whig's latch-string will be out, and the flag will signify as much to all who are ahungry or athirst." A public table where dinner was furnished, as at the private houses without charge, was also announced as follows by the Journal : "We wish to give our visitors log cabin fare and plenty of it, and we want our friends in the country to

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help us." A committee was appointed to take charge of the baskets of the farmers, who responded liberally to this appeal.

THE SPEAKERS.

The convention was addressed by many noted men. Gen. Harrison was a forcible speaker, and his voice, while not sonorous, was clear and penetrating, and reached the utmost limits of the immense crowd. Gov. Metcalfe, of Kentucky, was a favorite with the people. A stonemason in early life, he was called the "Stone Hammer," to indicate the crushing blows inflicted by his logic and sarcasm. The inimitable Thomas Corwin held his audience spellbound with his elo- quence and humor, and Robert C. Schenck added greatly to his reputation by his incisive and witty speeches.

In 1842 another Whig convention was held in Dayton, which nearly equalled in numbers and enthusiasm that of 1840. The object of the convention was to forward the nomina- tion of Henry Clay for the Presidency. Mr. Clay was present and addressed an immense audience on the hill south of Dayton, now occupied by the Fair Grounds. At a morn- ing reception for ladies, at the residence of Mr. J. D. Phillips, where Mr. Clay was stay- ing, a crowd of women of all ranks and con- ditions, some in silk and some in calico, were present. Mr. Clay shook hands with them all, afterwards making a complimentary little speech, saying, among other graceful things, that the soft touch of the ladies had healed his fingers, bruised by the rough grasp of the men he had received the day before.

BIOGRAPHY.

DANIEL C. COOPER was born in Morris county, N. J., November 20, 1773. He and one brother constituted the family. Mr. Cooper came to Cincinnati about 1793 as the agent for Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey, who was interested in the Symmes purchase. He obtained employment as a surveyor, and his business gave him an opportunity to examine lands and select valuable tracts for himself. In 1794-1795 he accompanied the surveying parties led by Col. Israel Ludlow through the Miami valley. As a preparation for the settlement of Dayton, he, by the direction of the proprietors, in September, 1795, marked out a road from Fort Hamilton to the mouth of Mad river. During the fall and winter be located one thousand acres of fine land near and in Dayton. In the summer of 1796 he settled here, building a cabin at the southeast corner of Monument avenue and Jefferson street. About 1798 he moved out to his cabin on his farm south of Dayton. Here, in the fall of 1799, he built a distillery, "corn cracker" mill, and a saw mill, and made other improvements.

St. Clair, Dayton, Wilkinson and Ludlow, on account of Symmes' inability to complete his purchase from the United States, and the high prices charged by the government for land, were obliged to relinquish their Mad river purchase. Soon after the original proprietors retired Mr. Cooper purchased pre-emption rights, and made satisfactory arrangements with land-owners. Many interests were in- volved, and the transfer was a work of time. He was intelligent and public- spirited, and to his enlarged views, generosity and integrity and business capacity much of the present prosperity of the city is due. He induced settlers to come to Dayton by donations of lots ; gave lots and money to schools and clinrches ; pro- vided ground for a graveyard and a public common, now known as Cooper Park, and built the only mills erected in Dayton during the first ten years of its history. He was appointed justice of the peace for Dayton township, October 4, 1799, and served till May 1, 1803, the date of the formation of the county. In 1810-1812 he was president of the Select Council of Dayton. He was seven times elected a member of the State Legislature.

About 1803 he married Mrs. Sophia Greene Burnet, who was born in Rhode Island, and came to Marietta with her parents in 1788. Mr. Cooper died July 13, 1818. When he died his affairs were somewhat involved, but by prudent and conscientious management of his property the executors, H. G. Phillips and James Steele, relieved the estate from embarrassment, and it henceforth steadily increased in value. Every improvement of this large property benefitted the city.

BENJAMIN VAN CLEVE was a typical man, and, as a good representative of the best

pioneer character, is worthy of especial no- tice. He kept a journal, from which the in-

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cidents mentioned in the following sketch have been mainly drawn. He was the eldest son of John and Catherine Benham Van Cleve, and was born in Monmouth county, N. J., Feb. 24, 1773. His ancestors came from Holland in the seventeenth century. His earliest recollection was the battle of Monmouth, which oceurred when he was five years old. He remembered the confusion and the flight of the women and children to the pine swamps, and the destruction of his father's house, stock and blacksmith's shop by the British. The refugees in the pine woods could hear the firing, and "when our army was retreating many of the men melted to tears ; when it was advancing there was every demonstration of joy and exultation." His father served with the New Jersey militia during nearly the whole of the Revolution. He removed to Cincinnati, January 3, 1790. Benjamin Van Cleve, who was now seven- teen, settled on the east bank of the Licking, where Maj. Leech, in order to form a settle- ment and have a farm opened for himself, offered 100 acres for clearing each ten-acre field, with the use of the cleared land for three years. John Van Cleve intended to assist his son in this work, but was killed by the Indians.

Benjamin Van Cleve, by hard work as a day-laborer, paid John Van Cleve's debts, sold his blacksmith's tools to the quartermas- ter-general, and tried to the best of his abil- ity, though a mere boy, to fill his father's place. Much of the time, from 1791 till 1794, he was employed in the quartermas- ter's department, whose headquarters were at Fort Washington, earning his wages of fifteen dollars a month by hard, rough work.

He was present at St. Clair's defeat, and gives in his "Journal " a thrilling account of the rout and retreat of the army, and of his own escape and safe return to Cincinnati.

In the spring of 1792 he was sent off from Cincinnati at midnight, at a moment's notice, by the quartermaster-general, to carry des- patches to the war department at Philadel- phia. At that day such a journey was a long and weary one, and although the authorities were satisfied with his services and accounts, they did not pay him until March, 1793. In connection with this visit to Philadelphia, he mentions drawing a plan of the President's new house, reading " Barclay's Apology,' and a number of other Quaker works, and purchasing twenty-five books, which he read through on the voyage from Pittsburg to Cincinnati ; entries which are all very charac- teristic of the man.

In the fall of 1785 he accompanied Capt. Dunlap's party, to make the survey for the Dayton settlement. April 10, 1796, he ar- rived in Dayton with the first party of settlers that came. In the fall of this year he went with Israel Ludlow and William G. Schenck to survey the United States military lands between the Scioto and Muskingum rivers. "We had deep snow," he says, "covered with crust ; the weather was cold and still. so that we could kill but little game, and were

twenty-nine days without bread, and nearly all that time without salt, and sometimes very little to eat. We were five days, seven in company, on four meals, and they, except the last, scanty. They consisted of a turkey, two young raccoons, and the last day some rabbits and venison, which we got from some Indians."

August 28, 1800, he married Mary Whit- ten, daughter of John and Phebe Whitten, who lived in Wayne township. In his "Journal " occurs this quaint record of the event : "This year I raised a crop of corn, and determined on settling myself and hav- ing a home. I accordingly, on the 28th of August, married Mary Whitten, daughter of John Whitten, near Dayton. She was young, lively, industrious and ingenuous. My prop- erty was a horse creature and a few farming utensils, and her father gave her a few house- hold and kitchen utensils, so that we could make shift to cook our provisions ; a bed, a cow and heifer, a ewe and two lambs, a sow and pigs, and a saddle and spinning-wheel. I had corn and vegetables growing, so that if we were not rich we had sufficient for our immediate wants, and we were contented and happy.'

Benjamin Van Cleve, though self-educated, was a man of much information, and became a prominent and influential citizen. In the winter of 1799-1800 he taught in the block- house, the first school opened in Dayton. From the organization of Montgomery county in 1803, till his death in 1821, he was clerk of the court. He was the first postmaster of Dayton, and served from 1804-1821. In 1805 he was one of the incorporators of the Dayton Library. In 1809 he was appointed by the legislature a member of the first board of trustees of Miami University. He was an active member of the First Presbyterian church.

His valuable and interesting "Journal," only a small part of which has been printed, contains almost all the early documentary history of Dayton now in existence. The files of Dayton newspapers, 1808-1821, for- tunately preserved by him and presented to the Public Library by his son, John W. Van Cleve, furnish the largest part of the material for that period of the history of the town now obtainable.

Mr. Van Cleve's graphic description in his "Journal " of St. Clair's defeat, is considered the best account of that terrible rout and massacre ever written, and has been published many times. His manuscript journal, writ- ten for "the instruction and entertainment of his children," is now in the possession of his great-grandson, Mr. R. Fay Dover, of Dayton. It is written in a beautiful hand, as legible as copperplate, and is adorned with a neatly-executed plan of Fort Defiance, drawn and colored by the author.

JOHN W. VANCLEVE was born June 27, 1801, and tradition says was the first male ehild born in Dayton. His father, Benjamin VanCleve, was one of the band of first settlers who arrived in Dayton April 1, 1796.

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John W. VanCleve from his earliest years gave evidence of a vigorous intellect of a re- tentive memory. When hut ten years old his father wrote of him, "My son John is now studying Latin, and promises to become a fine scholar." At the age of sixteen he entered the Ohio University at Athens, and so dis- tinguished himself for proficiency in Latin that he was employed to teach that language in the college before his graduation. As is not often the case with students, he was equally proficient in mathematics. In after life he mastered both the French and German languages, and made several translations of important German works. He was as re- markable for his thoroughness as for his ver- satility. There were few things that he could not do and do well. He was a musician, painter, engraver, civil engineer, botanist and geologist. He condueted a correspondence and madeexchanges with naturalists in various parts of the United States, and collected and engraved the fossils of the surrounding country and made a herbarium of the plants indige- nous to this region. Plates of the engraved fossils and the herbarium have been placed in the Dayton Public Library, which, with other specimens of his handiwork also found there, will convince any one that his accomplish- ments have not been exaggerated.

He studied law in the office of Judge Joseph McCrane, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. Not finding the practice of the law congenial, he purchased an interest in the Dayton Journal, and edited that paper until 1834. After being engaged in other business for a few years, in 1851, he retired and gave the remainder of his life to his studies and to whatever eould benefit and adorn his native city. Unmarried and possessed of a competence he might have lived a life of idle- ness, but, by nature he was the most indefa- tigable and industrious of men.

While not seeking political preferment he did much public service. He was elected and served as mayor of the city in 1831-32. He also served at various times as City Civil En-

gineer, and in 1839 compiled and lithographed a map of the city. He was an ardent Whig, and entered enthusiastically into the cele- brated political campaign of 1840, writing many of the songs and furnishing the engrav- ings for a campaign paper called the Log Cabin, which attained great notoriety through- out the United States. He was one of the founders of the Dayton Library Association, now merged in the Public Library, and the invaluable volumes of early Dayton news- papers from 1808 to 1847, was his gift to the library.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 42

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