USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of Dayton, Ohio. With portraits and biographical sketches of some of its pioneer and prominent citizens Vol. 1 > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Five dollars reward was offered in August for the arrest of disturbers of the peace, who, during the past year, had been in the habit of hoisting flood gates, throwing open inclosures, and doing a variety of other mis- chief after night.
August 21st the Montgomery County Bible Society was organized at a meeting of which Joseph HI. 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, corresponding secretary; George S. Houston, recording secretary ; managers, John Miller, John HI. Williams, John Patterson, David Reid, James Hanna, O. B. Conover, Daniel Pierson, Robert Patterson, James Slaght, John B. Ayres, Joseph Kennedy, Hezekiah Robinson, and Robert McConnel.
On the 3rd of September, 1822, the Watchman contains the prospectus of the Gridiron, a weekly newspaper edited and published by John Anderson-a sheet much dreaded by persons politically or otherwise obnoxious to the editor and contributors, and on which "evil doers received a good roasting." A bitter political contest was being waged in Dayton at this period, and members of both parties published the severest and most unjustifiable attacks on their opponents.
General William M. Smith's brigade assembled for drill and parade in
148
HISTORY OF DAYTON.
Dayton on the 12th of October. The brigade was principally composed of young men, all well equipped, and though the roads were sloppy and. some of the companies had eight or nine miles to march, the command was on parade at an early hour. The Watchman says that this was the most brilliant muster ever witnessed in Dayton.
There were forty-eight burials at the Sixth Street graveyard in 1822.
William M. Smith was appointed postmaster in 1822, and held the office one year. E. Smith, afterwards widely known as Dr. Edwin Smith, assistant postmaster, attended to the delivering of the mail for several months after Benjamin Van Cleve's death in December, 1821. George S. Houston was appointed postmaster in 1823 and served till 1831. The postoffice was in the two-story brick building, still standing near the north- east corner of Second and Ludlow streets. Mr. Houston also kept a small stock of books, principally religious, for sale at the postoffice.
The Dayton Foreign Missionary Society was organized in 1822. 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.
In 1823 George B. Holt began to publish a weekly Democratic newspaper, the Miami Republican and Daily Advertiser, which was con- tinued till 1826. A biography of Judge Holt will be given in the chapter on the "Bench and Bar."
The road to Cincinnati in the spring of 1823 was almost impassable, and the making of a turnpike was urged, but without success.
In 1823 the first Dayton musical society was organized, and John W. Van Cleve was elected president. The association was called the Pleyel Society and held its meetings in the grand jury room of the court house. None but members were admitted.
A meeting to raise money for the Greek cause was held at Colonel Reid's inn February 9, 1824. Simcon Broadwell was chairman of the meeting, 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 in New York.
The Watchman urges the corporation this spring to procure a fire engine, drain and turnpike the streets "instead of making canals of them," fill up several ponds within the town which needed attention, and · provide some means of weighing hay. But it was several years before these improvements were made.
On Saturday morning, June 12, 1824, an accident happened which
149
DAYTON FROM 1813 To 1825.
threw a gloom over the little town. A party of six young ladies, four gentlemen, and two boys had gone out in a pirogue on the Miami, and while trying to pass through an open place in a fish dam at the cast end of First Street, the boat struck the limb of a tree and upset. All the young people barely escaped with their lives, and Miss Rue, a girl of seventeen, in spite of the efforts of the only two of the party who could swim to save her, was drowned.
At this period there were on the Miami above Franklin fifty flouring mills, making at least two thousand barrels of flour annually; one hundred distilleries, making two hundred barrels of whisky each, and four thousand barrels of pork a year were packed, statistics which are given as an indication of the improvement of the Miami valley.
Twenty-four people of color left Dayton on October 21, 1824, for Hayti. Their expenses were paid by the Haytien government, which was inviting negro emigrants from the United States and sent an agent to New York to take charge of the large numbers who were willing to go. Nearly all of those who went from here soon found their way back again to Dayton.
On the night of November 16th George Groves' hat store, containing over a hundred fur and a number of wool hats, was burned, the loss being about one thousand dollars. Mr. Hollis, a watchmaker in the same building, which was frame, lost his tools, but saved the watches left with him for repair. This fire, which was the first of any size that had . occurred since 1820, created a good deal of excitement, as the corporation ladders were not in their place in the market-house, and the whole dependence for extinguishing the fire was on the leather buckets belong- ing to citizens. Again there was a demand that council should purchase a fire engine and buckets, and see that the ladders were kept in some proper and convenient place, where they might be found when needed. An ordinance was accordingly 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 Phila- delphia in the spring of 1825 should be furnished with two hundred and twenty-six dollars and directed to purchase a fire engine.
In the winter of 1825 Thomas Morrison erected hay scales on Fourth Street, near Ludlow, charging thirty-seven and a half cents for weighing one ton and twenty-five cents for weighing one half ton. The boundaries of the streets were at this date not very clearly defined, houses being few and far between, and the scales, which were near the corner of Fourth and Ludlow streets, were described in the newspapers as " on Main Street, one square west of Strain's tavern," now the United Brethren book store.
-
--
-
1
٤٠
150
HISTORY OF DAYTON.
The wholesale prices of provisions in Dayton in the spring of 1825 were as follows: Flour, two dollars and seventy-five cents per barrel; whisky, seventeen to seventeen and one half cents; leaf lard in kegs, six and one quarter cents; butter in kegs, six cents; country sugar in barrels, seven to seven and one half cents; feathers, twenty-five cents; beeswax, thirty to thirty-one cents; wheat, forty-five cents per bushel.
In the spring of 1825 occurred the trial and execution of John McAfee for the brutal murder of his wife. The trial occupied the 2d and 3d of March. He was proved guilty, and sentenced by Judge Crane to be hung on March 28th. He was hung at three o'clock in the after- noon of that day, on the gallows erected on what is now West Third Street, a short distance east of the Third Street Bridge. The carriage in which the prisoner, accompanied by Father Hill, a Catholic priest who had come up from Cincinnati twice before to visit him, was taken at ten A. M., from the jail to the place of execution, guarded by Captain Conrad Wolf's riffe company and Captain Squier's troop of horse. The prisoner made confession of his crime just before he was executed, and though he professed penitence, such was the indignation against him that the calling out of the militia was probably a necessary measure. This was the first execution in Dayton, and produced great excitement in the town and country; early in the morning crowds began to flock in from the country, and nearly the whole population of this part of Montgomery County was assembled at the gallows. It is a matter of congratulation that such brutalizing public executions are no longer tolerated.
In April, 1825, a gentleman reached Dayton from Philadelphia, via Cincinnati, in eight days by stages and steamboats. Very recently the trip had taken from two to three weeks. Daytonians began to feel that they were becoming close neighbors of the people of the Eastern States.
€
-----
CHAPTER X.
Canal Agitation-Dinner to De Witt Clinton-First Canal Boat Arrives-Enthusiasm of the People-Trade by Wagon to Fort Wayne-Dayton in 1827-Medical Spring-Traveling . Museum-First Fire Wardens-Excitement at Fircs-Flood in 1828-Dayton Guards- Business in 1828 - Price of Property -- Temperance Society-New Market House --- Rivalry Between Dayton and Cabintown-Seely's Basin-Peasley's Garden-Miniature Locomotive and Car Exhibited in the Methodist Church-Daytonians Take Their First Railroad Ride-Seneca Indians Camp in Dayton-Steele's Dam-General R. C. Schenck -Fugitive Slave Captured in Dayton-First Railroad Incorporated-Flood of 1832 -- Relief Sent to Cincinnati Flood Sufferers-Political Excitement-Council Cut Down a Jackson Pole-Cholera in 1832-Silk Manufactory Established - Eighth of January Barbecue-Procession of Mechanics, July 4, 1833-Taverns-Town Watchinon-Bridge Over the Miami-Lafayette Commemorative Services-Fire Guards -- One Story Stone Jail Built - First Carriers' New Year's Address - Board of Health- Fire Alarm- R. A. Thruston.
THOUGH we shall be carried beyond the date we have now reached, it will be well to give in this chapter a full account of the canal.
A meeting was called at Colonel Reed's inn on the evening of June 29, 1821, to appoint a committee to cooperate with committees 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 Cincin- nati passed the legislature 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 governor 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 half past two P. M. Governor Clinton and his suite, Messrs. Jones
151
152
HISTORY OF DAYTON.
.
and Reed; Governor Morrow, Hon. Ethan A. Brown, Hon. Joseph Vance, Messrs. Tappan and Williams, canal commissioners, and Judge Bates, civil engineer, arrived at Comptou'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.
The Watchman suggested in October that it would be a wise plan to run the canal, which had not yet been located, down the middle of Main Street. It stated that the channel need not be made wider than forty feet, which, if the sidewalks now sixteen and a half feet wide were reduced to twelve feet, would leave a wagon road thirty-four feet broad on either side of the water and make Main Street the handsomest street in the State. The earth taken from the canal, the Watchman asserted, would fill every hole and level every street in town. It was feared that the canal would be located a mile from the,court house, which would seriously injure the town.
The Dayton and Cincinnati canal was put under contract in 1825, and was ready for navigation early in 1829. The cost of the canal was five hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars.
The construction of the canal was at first "violently opposed as a ruinous and useless expenditure." But as soon as the law authorizing the expenditure was passed, and before the canal was located, the rapid im- provement of Dayton and the increase in population proved the wisdom and foresight of those who since 1818 had been agitating the subject of canal improvements in the Miami valley. One of the objections against · the canal urged by opponents of the project was that it could not be made to hold water. As the bed of the canal ran through loose gravel, there seemed to be force in the objection, and indeed some difficulty of this kind was experienced. The bottom of the canal, however, soon " puddled " and became water tight.
The canal commissioners, on December 28, 1826, authorized Micajah T. Williams to make "the final location of that part of the Miami canal lying within the limits of the corporation of the town of Dayton." To the great satisfaction of the citizens, who had feared it would be located outside the corporation, it was located "on the common, between the saw mill race and the seminary, on St. Clair Street."
The canal was put under contract in the spring of 1827. At the bidding for contracts there was much competition, and proposals were
: i
1
1 -
-
153
CANAL AGITATION.
made by upwards of six hundred persons. The contractors began work about the first of June. The excavation at the basin between Second and Third streets was commenced on Monday, September 3d. In the evening a salute was fired in celebration of the event at the commons, now Library Park, where a large crowd was assembled.
The first canal-boat built in Dayton was launched near Fifth Street on Saturday, August 16, 1828, at two P. M. The citizens were invited to assemble at the firing of the cannon to witness the launch. The boat was called the Alpha, of Dayton, and was built for McMaken & Hilton by Solomon Eversull. The Alpha was pronounced by many superior to any boat on the line of the Miami canal. As the water had not yet been let into the canal, a temporary dam was built across the canal at the bluffs, and water was turned in from the saw mill tail-race at Fifth Street. Trial trips were then made from the dam to Fifth Street and back. The Dayton Guards, the military company of boys, organized a few weeks before, made the first trip on the Alpha.
Friday evening, September 26, 1828, water was first let into the canal by the contractors from the mill race at the corner of Fifth and Wyandot streets. Most of the water leaked out through the embankment along the river at the bluffs, in Van Buren Township, and on November 24th there was a break in the embankment at that point.
On Wednesday, December 17th, a party of ladies and gentlemen made a trip on the Alpha to Hole's Creek. On Monday, December 22d, she took a party to Miamisburg, beyond which place the canal was not com- pleted, returning Wednesday. Christmas there was a second excursion to Miamisburg which returned Friday. Samuel Forrer was the engineer of the Miami Canal in 1829.
In January, 1829, citizens of Dayton were gratified with the sight, so long desired, of the arrival of canal-boats from Cincinnati. 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 appropriately named, for since 1819 Governor Brown had been engaged in urging the connection 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 handsomely and conveniently furnished. The master, Captain Archibald, was very popular and accommodating. 11
154
HISTORY OF DAYTON.
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, Captain J. D. Archibald, master; Forrer, Captain Campbell, master; General Marion, Captain Clymer, master; General Pike, Captain Swain, master; accom- panied 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.
The people made a festival of the completion of the canal, which, they congratulated themselves, had begun a new era of prosperity for the town, and took every occasion to celebrate the event. . On the evening of February 5, 1829, the canal being frozen over so that naviga- tion was impossible, Captain Archibald, of the Governor Brown, which was embargoed by the ice at the basin, gave a handsome collation on board to a number of ladies and gentlemen. The next evening the captains of a number of boats lying in the basin partook of a canal supper at the National IIotel, and drank a number of toasts suitable to the occasion.
On the 16th of April a steam canal-boat called the Enterprise arrived here. Two cords of wood were used in the passage from Cincinnati to Dayton. For many years it was believed that steam could be used in propelling boats on the canal, but after a fair trial it was found to be impracticable.
Sometimes in the spring of 1829 as many as twenty-six canal-boats arrived here in a week. During the month of April seventy-one boats arrived and seventy-seven left Dayton. The number of passengers from Cincinnati and intermediate places towards Dayton was nine hundred and eighty-six. The total value of articles shipped was forty-three thousand one hundred and seventy-three dollars. The toll collected here during the year 1829 amounted to six thousand seven hundred and thirty- eight dollars and thirty-one cents. In 1831, twelve thousand forty-seven dollars and sixty-four cents, and in 1833, seventeen thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and three cents were collected. The Journal states that the number of persons traveling on the canal per week in 1832 was probably not less than one thousand, exclusive of the people employed on the boats.
Twenty hours from Cincinnati to Dayton by canal was considered a rapid trip. Merchandise was brought here from New York by water in twenty days. The cost of freight per ton was seventeen dollars and twenty-five cents. The route was by the Erie canal to Buffalo; thence by Lake Erie to Cleveland; thence by the Ohio canal to the Ohio River,
-
-- ------- ----
155
CANAL AGITATION.
and down the river to the Miami canal, and up the canal to Dayton-a distance of one thousand one hundred and fifty-two miles.
The completion of the State canal, which ended at Second Street, was soon followed by the construction of a new basin, beginning at the terminus of the original one and extending to First Street. It was con- structed by the Basin Extension Company, formed by II. G. Phillips and James Steele, executors of the Cooper estate and others, and incorporated by the legislature February 4, 1830. Its object was to draw business to that part of town, through which it passed. The work began in the spring of 1831. The basin ran through a ten-acre lot belonging to the Cooper estate, and the portion of the ground not used for the basin, embankment, and tow-path, was laid off in lots and sold by the executors. In 1845 the work commenced some time before of extending the canal from First Street to its junction with the canal near the aqueduct was completed.
Until the extension of the Miami canal to the north in 1841, Dayton was at the head of navigation, and supplies of every kind for this region for a long distance around were forwarded from here. A brisk trade with Fort Wayne as a distributing point was kept up, and wagon trains were constantly passing between the two points. Swaynie's tavern at the head of the basin was the favorite resort of the wagoners, and his large stable yard was nightly crowded with wagons. and his tavern with the drivers.
The eccentric Lorenzo Dow preached in Dayton on Friday, April 28th, at three o'clock in the afternoon and created a great sensation.
The first "jubilee of the United States," commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, was celebrated July 4, 1826, by a procession from the court house, services at the brick church (First Presbyterian ), a dinner at Mr. Rollman's tavern at the head of Main Street, and a picnic at the Medical Spring. The Declaration of Independence' was read by John W. Van Cleve and an oration was delivered by Peter P. Lowe.
The Watchman for July 25th is in mourning for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the news of whose death, three weeks before on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, had just been received.
James Perrine was appointed in June the agent of the Protection Insurance Company, of Hartford, and was the first person engaged in this business in Dayton. Mr. Perrine was just beginning his long and honorable career as a merchant in Dayton.
Horse thieves were so troublesome .in the town and country in 1826 that a publie meeting was called at the court house on July 15th to devise
..
156
HISTORY OF DAYTON.
means for their arrest. At the meeting a society for the pursuit and capture of horse thieves was formed and very efficient work was done by. the members, who were called out whenever horses were missing. This is the nearest approach to a vigilance committee we have ever had in Dayton.
A Colonization Society was formed in Dayton November 24, 1826. The following gentlemen were appointed a committee to solicit sub- scriptions to the constitution: Aarou Baker, Henry Stoddard, Luther Bruen, O. B. Conover, and S. S. Cleveland.
Great advantage was anticipated from a spring located near the present buildings of the St. Mary's Institute, on Brown Street. The water from the spring was copious, and contributed to the volume of water in Rubicon Creek, which in early times was a mill stream. The water was analyzed, and it was claimed that it was medicinal and equal in curative qualities to the best springs that were places of popular resort. A bath house was built, a place for refreshments opened, and a plan proposed for a hotel, which was never carried out. Although now just outside of the corporation limits, at that time it was sufficiently distant from the town to afford a pleasant drive, and during the summer months the spring was a place of resort for the Dayton people. Fourth of July celebrations and pienies were often held there. It was confi- dently expected that a fashionable watering place would be established and the town greatly benefited. The water proved to be simply chaly be- ate and all hopes of attracting public attention to the spring were abandoned.
There were eight hundred and forty-eight voters in Dayton Township in 1827. The population within the corporation was sixteen hundred. George B. Holt was elected State senator this year, and Alexander Grimes and Robert J. Skinner representatives.
This year the Baptist society, which was organized in 1824, built its first church, costing two thousand dollars, on the alley on the west side of Main Street, between Monument Avenue and First Street.
In August, 1827, a traveling museum, consisting of birds, beasts, wax figures, paintings, etc., visited Dayton. One of the articles exhibited is advertised in a style worthy of Barnum, as: "That great natural curi- osity, the Indian mummy, which was discovered and taken from the interior of a cave in Warren County, Kentucky, where it was probably secreted in its present state for preservation for one thousand years." These museums, carried in cars or vans drawn by horses, traveled all over the Western country in early times. When they reached a town or village, the horses were unharnessed, and the cars were
---- --------- ---
157
CANAL AGITATION.
fastened together so as to make a continuous room for the display of the curiosities.
In 1828 Henry Best opened a jewelry store. He removed in 1836 to his building on Main Street, where the business is still carried on by his son.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.