USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 29
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 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
This general summary of the canal systems of Ohio, and glanee into the conditions of later times than the period of this chapter, is necessary to show what a tremendous work was assumed by the people of 1820-40, and how earnestly they set about building the foundation of the greatness of the State.
But even before the canals were completed, as appears from Judge Chase's reference in 1833, railroads were being discussed. Rail- roads, without steam power, had been in use for some time in the older parts of the country, and the Baltimore & Ohio railroad had its begin- ning as a tramway of this character. But in 1828-30 the South Carolina railroad was built for steam power, Stephenson having dem- onst rated the applicability of the steam engine to land transportation. In 1830 citizens of Huron, Seneca, Crawford, Delaware, Logan, Clark and Champaign counties, petitioned the legislature for the incorporation of a company to build a railroad from Sandusky to Dayton with a branch to Columbus. This was to be a railroad with strap iron for rails and horses as the motive power.
Following this there was a rush for the incorporation of railroad companies and the legislature of 1531-32 granted charters to eleven. These were the Richmond, Eaton & Miami railroad company. to con- nect Richmond, Ind., with some point on the Miami canal; the Mad River & Lake Erie, from Dayton by way of Springfield to Lower Sandusky ; the Franklin, Springboro and Wilmington, a feeder for the Miami eanal ; the Erie & Ohio, to connect the northeastern inland counties with the Ohio river: the Pennsylvania & Ohio, from Pitts- burg to Massillon ; the Milan & Newark, a feeder for the Ohio canal ; the Columbus, Delaware, Marion & Sandusky, to connect the State capital and lake coast : the Cincinnati & St. Louis, an ambitious trunk line ; the Milan & Columbus, the Chillicothe & Lebanon and the Port Clinton & Sandusky. Most of these projects, it will be observed, were
254
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
intended to be auxiliary to the canal system. But the actual rail- roads, with sufficient mileage to work a considerable change in trans- portation methods, came much later in the history of Ohio.
Meanwhile there was great activity in the building of turnpike roads, by companies that were chartered to establish these lines between important points and obtain their remuneration by tolls. The first of these was the Columbus and Sandusky turnpike, incorporated by John Kilbourne in 1823, and aided by a donation of over 30,000 aeres of publie land by Congress. It was finished in 1834, at a cost of about $75,000. The great highway was, of course, the National road, to complete which to Zanesville, Congress made an appropriation of $170,000 in 1827, and to continue it through the State made another appropriation in 1829, the land sales fund proving inade- qmate. This road, eighty feet wide, with stone foundation and maeadam surface, with massive stone masonry where necessary and quaint covered bridges over the larger streams, is worthy to rank with the great highways that commemorate the Caesars and Napoleon. "There is nothing like it in the United States. Leaping the Ohio at Wheeling, the National road throws itself aeross Ohio and Indiana, straight as an arrow, like an ancient elevated pathway of the gods, chopping hills in twain at a blow, traversing the lowlands on high grades, vaulting over streams on massive bridges of unparalleled size."# Over it passed the pioneers who built states west of Ohio. All along its course today are sleeping villages, once the subjects of fond expectation and ambition, that died long ago and remain only to preserve the memory of the past, as well as thriving, bustling towns and a score of cities that represent the flower of American civilization. If one would study America at her heart, and understand her marvel- ous growth, there is no way so easy as to follow the path of the pioneer over the Alleghanies and the Ohio, and aeross hill and valley on the National road. The crossing of the Ohio was made by ferry at first, and later by a great bridge that was the marvel of the west. The management was in the hands of the State, and after 1836 under the supervision of the board of public works. On the average there was a toll gate every ten miles on the National road, and the tolls were varied for the different sorts of business. A "chariot, coach, or coachee and horses," must pay 1531 cents, a horse and rider paid six cents, every passenger in a mail coach was taxed four eents, and a score of cattle could be driven through for 20 cents. School children, clergymen, the United States mail and United States troops and State militia were passed free. At these rates the road did not pay, as the annnal expense averaged $100,000, and the greatest annual receipts (in 1×39) were about $62,500.
* From "The Old National Road." by Archie Butler Hulbert, a work to which we are indebted for the facts on this subject.
255
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS.
L'pon this road and the other turnpikes that were opened to travel, coach lines were established, and at the little towns were many famons taverns. The pioneers of these ancient hostelries were those at St. Clairsville and Zanesville as early as 1799, on the Zane road, that from a bridle path for mail carriers and boatmen returning from Louisiana developed into the first wagon road northwest of the Ohio. At one of these famous taverns, the Sign of the Orange Tree, at Zanes- ville, the legislature met in 1>10-12. The Sign of the Green Tree at the same town boasted of entertaining President Monroe and Lewis ('ass. The first at Columbus was the Lion and Eagle, opened in 1813 under another name. Griffith Foos had a pioneer tavern at Spring- field before the National road arrived, and afterward Billy Worden's became famous at that place, where the traveler from the east changed coaches for Cincinnati and the South. Some of the land- Jords were really owners of land and prominent men." For the freight men there were many wagon houses. Wherever the traveler stopped he could find in the winter season a great fire-place with a roaring log fire and in all seasons a bar that dispensed the favorite beverage, whiskey, at two drinks for a "fip" ( six and a quarter cents). The coach lines were frequently associated with the tay- erns, and at first there was brisk competition, often redneing the fare materially, as, from Richmond to Cincinnati, from five dollars to fifty cents. There were races, too, swift and furious, by rival coaches. The great coach line on the National road was the National Road Stage company, and its main rival was the Good Intent line, both with headquarters at Uniontown, Pa. The Ohio National Stage company, with headquarters at Columbus, operated westward from the capital. There were smaller lines, such as the Landlord's, Pilot, Pioneer, Defiance, and June Bng. As years passed, combinations or "mergers" were formed. The Neil, Moore & Co. line, of Columbus, was forced to sell to the National, "Will- iam Neil becoming one of the magnates of the latter company, which was in its day a greater trust than anything known in Ohio history." In 1835 the daily lines running from Columbus were the Mail Pilot line to Wheeling, a twenty-four hour trip, including five hours' rest at St. Clairsville: the Good Intent coach for Wheeling, in twenty hours, to connect with the Baltimore and Philadelphia stages; and the Mail Pilot line to Cincinnati, making the journey in thirty-six hours, including six hours at Springfield. There was also a daily line for Chillicothe, and coaches every other day to Cleveland, San- dusky City and Huron, two-day trips. There was a stage line from Buffalo to Cleveland and Detroit, going through the terrible Black Swamp, in which horses would occasionally drown, and six
* Senator Kerr, in 1821, kept hotel at the "Sign of the Scioto Ox." at Chilli- cothe, where, according to his advertisement, one might get a meal for twenty cents, and "lodging, in clean sheets, for ten cents."
256
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
horses could sometimes do no more than five miles a day. When lake navigation closed, communication with the northwest was almost entirely cut off.
Over these roads the United States mail was carried under the same system as prevails today. There were express mails cor- responding to the present fast mail trains, and they made remarkable speed. The contract time in 1837 between Washington and Wheel- ing was thirty hours, to Columbus 1512 hours more, and from Comum- bus to Indianapolis twenty hours. This was accomplished, of course, by relays of good horses. By this means it was possible to carry mail and a few passengers from Washington to New Orleans in 153 hours. Ordinary mail coaches made the trip from Wash- ington to Columbus, over the mountains, in three days and sixteen hours. The coaches were handsome affairs, lined with plush, gen- erally with three seats inside, and room for one more with the driver. The first Troy coach, the finest of them all, costing about $500, came over the road in 1829. All the coaches bore names, suggested by the faney of the owners, and their comparative comfort and specdiness were discussed far and wide. Sometimes, on the National road. as many as twenty coaches might be seen following in line : one might find at the wagon houses a hundred horses, stamping and feeding and resting from the burden of the caravan : while droves of cattle were plodding eastward, thrown in tumult now and then by the blast of a horn announcing the approach of a hurrying stage. Such were the roads of Ohio in the days of the stage coach, particu- larly in 1530 to 1850. It is a story of the past, that the youth of today finds difficult to picture in imagination. He can hardly under- stand that apostrophe of Thackeray's to the okl stage coaches: "Where are you, charioteers ? Where are you, O rattling Quieksil- ver. ( swift Defiance ? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns have died away."
Very prominent features of Ohio life in those days were the prevalence of drunkenness and gambling, and, as was said by Mrs. Frances Trollope, who spent some, years in Cincinnati, "the most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco." There must have been considerable truth in the pictures presented by Charles Dickens in "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "AAmerican Notes," thongh America bitterly disclaimed the likeness. No less striking than these and some other disagreeable features was the intense religions spirit that animated a great part of the people. This had a powerful inthience for good, and at the same time afforded a lodgment for graceless adventurers. In 152s the people of Guernsey county were agitated by the appearance of an individual named Joseph C. Dylkes, a handsome well-dressed man, who made his advent mysteriously at the Leatherwood creek camp-meeting, with a peculiar snort and
257
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS.
shout, "Salvation." He annonneed himself as the Messiah and obtained a considerable following until some museular unbelievers ran him out of the county. He is remembered as "the Leatherwood God."
In 1×30 a new religion appeared at Pahnyra, N. Y., with the pub- lieation of "the Book of Mormon," which was immediately followed by the organization of "the Church of Latter Day Saints," which was to play a considerable part in the history of America, and form an incident of the annals of Ohio. In the beginning of the new religion there was Joseph Smith, who as a boy had the reputation of being one of the most careless and good-natured of a family devoted to hunting and fishing and poverty. Strange to say, he was noted both for extreme taciturnity and the telling of marvelous stories. He had thoroughly read the Bible and discarded its authority and that of the modern churches, when a peculiarly shaped stone, resembling quartz, was dug up in the vicinity and became a neighborhood won- der. Young Smith's reading had probably been more extensive than his neighbors suspected, for he put this stone to the nses of the crystal sphere of the Rosierneians. Through its use he began to see hidden treasures, but had no success in finding them. From that he advanced to special revelations in tranee, and finally announced that he was abont to discover a buried book of golden tablets, on which were inscribed the records of the lost tribes of Israel, who had been the original inhabitants of America, and had left this golden book as the foundation of the true religion. The book was duly found, or said to have been, and with it a pair of miraenlous spectacles, by the use of which the dead and forgotten language might be read by Joseph Smith. When he had made the "translation," it was printed as the basis of a new and true religion. There was no difficulty in obtaining believers ; indeed, converts are easily found at the present dav.
It is elaimed that an Ohio man was innocently implicated in the foundation of this new church. Solomon Spaulding, a graduate of Dartmonth, who had failed in business in the east and in Ohio ran an iron foundry, living at Conneant from 1809, wrote a romance as early as 1812, in which he ascribed the origin of the Indians to the lost tribes of Israel, and gave an imaginary account of their migra- tion and habits of life. This was never published, and Spaulding died in 1816, but as soon as the Book of Mormon became famous, old neighbors who had heard him read portions of his story declared that Smith's book was founded upon Spaulding's romance. In later years Spaulding's manuscript, or, at least, one of his romance mannseripts, was recovered in the Sandwich islands, and a critical comparison with the Mormon book made by President James HI. Fairchild, of Oberlin college. Ilis verdiet was that this theory of the origin of the "golden book" was purely imaginary. "The
I-17
258
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
manuscript has no resemblance to the Book of Mormon, except in some very general features. There is not a name or an incident common to the two." The discussion is hardly material, however, as bearing upon the claim of supernatural origin for the Book of Mormon. The theory that the Indians were the lost tribes of Israel is very much older than either Spaulding or Smith, and the notion of finding ancient tablets or manuscript in mystical rocky vaults is as ancient as the Arabian Nights.
But from the first, it was evident that the gospel of Mormon was sufficiently authentic for a large portion of humanity, and the prac- tieal part of the scheme, which was migration and colonization, was very attractive to many. Soon after the formation of the church the prophet received a revelation that "Zion" should be located at Kirt- land, Ohio. There, in a beautiful farming country, on the east branch of Chagrin river, the rapidly increasing community estab- lished itself in January, 1831, laid off a town and bought farms, and in 1834 spent about forty thousand dollars in the building of a tem- ple. Sidney Rigdon, a printer to whom has been ascribed the author- ship of the book of Mormon and familiarity with the romance of Solomon Spaulding, became the leading financial genius of the town, and a bank was organized, without incorporation, of which he was president. This issued paper money in profusion. Some of it, reaching Pittsburg, was returned for redemption, but Rigdon calmly replied that the notes were not intended for redemption, but for cireulation. In this sentiment he was in full accord with many of the Gentile "bankers" of his day.
Polygamy was not yet practiced, but the Mormons were the objects of considerable persecution, nevertheless, and the failure of their bank in 1837 left them at the financial merey of their enemies. Brigham Young, a native of Vermont, joined the Kirtland commun- ity in 1832, and in May, 1835, the twelve apostles, of whom he was one, set ont to gather proselytes. Another colony, planted in Mis- souri, was driven out by state authority, winning the Mormons some sympathy as victims of slave-state perseention. But the main body remained at Kirtland until 1838, when they were forced to join their western brethren at Nauvoo, Ill. Of their subsequent history it is not the province of this work to treat, except to note that in a inneh later period ( 1853) a branch calling themselves the "reorgan- ized church" returned to Kirtland, swept out the long abandoned temple, and re-established the organization in Ohio, after a lapse of half a century.
The elcetions of 1832 showed that the Jackson party was gaining strength in Ohio. The Jackson electoral ticket, headed by Benja- min Tappan, received >1,246 votes, and Henry Clay, the idol of the west, was given but 76,539. Clay suffered from the enmity of the Anti-Masonie party, one of the curiosities of American politics, that
259
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS.
grew up after the disappearance of William Morgan in 1526, and in 1832 had a presidential ticket in the field. Two years later the Ohio legislature was asked to investigate freemasonry, but the select com- mittee on the subject reported that " Masonry is the same everywhere that it is here, and here as it is everywhere else," and the question should be left "to the salutary action of enlightened political opin- ion."
At the State election in the same year, Robert Lucas, the unsuc- cessful Jackson candidate for governor of two years before, was suc- cessful by over eight thousand majority over Darius Lyman. The State being redistricted under the new apportionment, with nineteen congressional distriets, a notable delegation was elected, including Robert T. Lytle, of Cincinnati, father of Gen. William H. Lytle; Thomas L. Hamer, of Brown county; Joseph H. Crane, of Dayton, judge for twelve years and eight years in Congress ; Samuel F. Vin- ton, of Gallipolis; William Allen, of whom something will be said later; Jeremiah MeLene, the veteran secretary of state; Joseph Vance, who had been in Congress since 1821; Humphrey Howe Leavitt, afterward United States district judge for Ohio, Elisha Whittlesey, a member of Congress since 1822; and Thomas Corwin, for whom this was the second election. Thomas Corwin, son of Judge Matthias Corwin, was a native of Kentucky but had been reared in the Little Miami valley. He was a wagon boy in the war of 1812, became a lawyer and was twice elected to the legisla- ture before he was first sent to Congress in 1830. I'ntil 1840 he was regularly re-elected. During these ten years he acquired national fame as an orator and humorist. Corwin was a fleshy man, of kindly face and manner, with most expressive gray eyes, lighting a clean-shaved but very dark face. His perfect and mobile mouth aided his shaggy eyebrows in producing those inimitable expressions of countenance that heralded some humorous remark. His genius was real, and he could have been great without the weapons of sar- casm and ridicule which no one else could handle as effectively .*
The last term of Benjamin Ruggles as United States senator expir- ing in 1833, Thomas Morris was elected by a small majority over John W. Campbell. Morris, son of a Pennsylvania preacher and the daughter of a Virginia planter who refused her inheritance of slaves, was reared amid the religions and anti-slavery influences of Clermont county, and afterward became conspienous as an opponent of slavery, but his party had not yet divided on that question, and he was an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson. In 1809 he had been elected to the supreme court over Thomas Worthington, Lewis C'ass and Ethan Allen Brown, and for ten years from 1813 he had
* A young orator he is said to have thus admonished: "If you would suc- ceed in life you must be solemn, solemn as an ass. All the great monuments of the earth have been built over solemn asses."
260
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
been a prominent member of the state senate. Ilis services in reor- ganizing the judiciary of Ohio and promoting publie education and internal improvements were of great value.
In 1834 Governor Lucas was re-elected, receiving a majority of 3,294 over the Whig candidate, Gen. James Findlay, of Cincinnati, who, since the war of 1812, had been four times elected to Congress (1824-30). During the Jackson administration he was one of the conspicnous figures of Washington as he long had been in the Miami country. A bluff, hearty man, of corpulent person, he dressed in the aristocratie blue and buff and carried a gold headed cane, recall- ing Washington Irving's picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall. It was told of him that at the time when goverment lands were being forfeited and resold in the Miami valley, he, as receiver of the land office, mounted a stump one day to offer a poor man's land and improvements. "I trust there is no gentleman-no, I will not say that, no raseal-here so mean as to buy his neighbor's home over his head," was the encouraging remark of the auctioneer. "Gentlemen, I offer the lot for sale. Who bids ?" Needless to say, there was no sale .*
Beginning his second term Governor Lucas was soon confronted with a crisis in the boundary controversy with Michigan, that had been dragging along without any serious outbreak since the war of 1812. The northwest corner of Ohio, as established by Harris, remained undisputed, but from that point eastward two lines diverged so that Manmee bay lay between them on the lake. Michi- gan claimed to the southern line, and Ohio to the northern, and the sanction of Congress could be cited in approval of both lines as the true boundary.
Mammee City, laid out by Maj. William Oliver and others in 1817, was the main settlement north of the Maumee river, for some years. In 1832 Vistula, a little settlement at the mouth of the river, was "boomed" by Capt. Samuel Allen, of Lockport, N. Y., and Major Stickney, the famous Maumee valley pioneer, and Major Oliver, Micajah Williams and the Comstock brothers began the revival of the neighboring village of Port Lawrence. This activity was due to the near approach of the time when the lower Maumee would be connected by canal with the Wabash river and the Ohio at Cinein- nati. The promoters were nearly all Ohio people, the future of their enterprises depended on the public works of Ohio, and they naturally appealed to the legislature of Ohio to hasten the boundary dispute to a settlement, so that their future city might grow up in the nurture and admonition of Buckeye legislation. It was a matter of no little importance that the Maumee canal should not find itself termin- ating in another state and feeding with the wealth of Ohio a city of
* Ben. Perley Poore's Reminiscences.
261
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS.
Michigan. There was also much anxiety about the control of the lake terminus of the Wabash & Erie canal, for which Congress had voted aid in Ohio land in 1822-23. New observations of latitude, made under act of Congress in 1832, by Engineer Talcott, showed that the originally proposed line, if extended as required by the enab- ling act of 1802, would not touch the international boundary in the middle of Lake Michigan, and coming to land again in the east would throw into the territory of Michigan a considerable part of the Con- neetieut reserve. It was confidently expected that Congress, to avoid such an absurdity, would confirm the alternative line proposed by the constitution of Ohio, which Congress had constructively approved.
The outbreak began after the legislature of Michigan, in prepara- tion for admission as a state, instructed Secretary Mason, acting governor of that territory, to appoint commissioners to treat with Ohio, Indiana and Illinois regarding disputed boundaries. When Governor Lneas received a communication from Mason he referred it to the Ohio legislature, which passed an act February 23, 1835, affirming the jurisdiction of Wood, Henry and Williams county to the Harris line, and gave notice to Congress that it "ill becomes a million of freemen to Immbly petition, year after year, for what justly belongs to them and is completely within their control."
Mason, as soon as he perceived from Governor Lucas' message that Ohio would maintain her claim to the disputed country, sent a bel- ligerent message to his council, which by enactment prohibited the exercise of official functions by citizens of Ohio in the territory, under pain of a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for five years. Undaunted by this, Governor Lucas appointed Uri Seely, of Geanga, Jonathan Taylor, of Licking, and John Patterson, of Adams, to retrace and establish monuments on the Harris line. Mason called out his militia under Gen. Joseph W. Brown, about a thousand strong, who encamped at Toledo, and Governor Lucas ordered Gen. John Bell, with about six hundred men, to Perrysburg. By the last of March Governor Lucas and his staff and the boundary com- missioners were at Perrysburg, and matters were ripe for war between Ohio and Michigan when two embassadors sent by President Jackson, Richard Rush, of Philadelphia, and Benjamin C. Howard, of Baltimore, appeared on the scene, and persuaded the belligerent governors to dismiss their armed forces. Benjamin F. Butler, attorney-general of the United States, gave his opinion that until Congress acted otherwise, Michigan had the right to Maumee bay, but no harm could come from the resurvey of the Harris line. Accordingly the Ohio commissioners and a posse for protection started to retrace the line from the northwest corner, but after work- ing cast about forty miles General Brown swooped down upon them and dispersed the party, putting several Ohioans under arrest and in jail. There was also a close watch kept for "treason" within the
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.