USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 30
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country claimed by Michigan. Two citizens were arrested by the sheriff and taken to jail at Monroe for advising disobedience to the laws of Michigan, and two others who raised the Ohio flag at the little settlement near the bay, now beginning to be known as Toledo, were promptly apprehended. This created great excitement through- out Ohio and a special session of the legislature was called in June, which appropriated $300,000 to enable the governor to enforce the survey and proteet citizens of Ohio from "abduction."
To emphasize the claims of Ohio the county of Lneas was created in the disputed region, with Toledo as the county seat. The state troops were put in readiness for action, and ten thousand were reported in condition to take the field. But the Michigan officers continued to make arrests, and in the summer of 1835 Major Stick- ney, Judge Wilson (an Ohio officer), and others were arrested and lodged in the Monroe jail. The major's son, Two Stickney, stabbed the Michigan sheriff and escaped. The affair has its myths also. A justice of the peace, under Ohio commission, fled to a sugar camp in the woods, and was fed by the robins! Finally an Ohio embassy was sent to Washington to see General Jackson, and these gentlemen, Noah H. Swayne, # William Allen and David T. Disney, wrought a change. The president removed Secretary Mason from office, but before retiring from the fieldl he and General Brown had another famous campaign. Governor Lucas, in September, assembled mili- tia at Miami, and Colonel Vanfeet was detailed to escort a set of Ohio judicial and county officers to Toledo to put Lucas county in running order. Brown at once occupied Toledo with his militia, and the Ohio officials and soldiers beat a hasty retreat. This was the end of hostilities. An amicable arrangement was made with the new acting governor of Michigan, and Governor Lucas finished his state line survey in peace, suspending all other operations until Congress should aet.
When the matter went before Congress John Quincy Adams declared that never before in his life had he known "a controversy in which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelming on the other." But there was more right on the Ohio side than he saw. Furthermore, it has been suggested, Mr. Van Buren, the politician of the Jackson administration, looking forward to 1836, would not offend Indiana and Illinois, and as those states had both encroached on the original south boundary of Michigan, why should not Ohio ?? Swayne, Allen and Disney found favor in their labors at Washington, able arguments were made by Senator
* Swayne was a Virginian of Pennsylvania descent, who had removed to Coshocton in 1815. and was appointed United States district attorney for Ohio by President Jackson in 1831, at the age of twenty-six years.
+ But VanBuren failed to carry either of those states, and did carry Mich- igan.
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Ewing and Representative Vinton, and in June, 1836, Congress held that the Ohio constitution, having been solemnly accepted, authorized Ohio to annex the disputed territory. Michigan was compelled to abandon the contest and accept the upper peninsula in compensation before she could be admitted as a state. It is not sur- prising therefore that the Ohio legislature passed resolutions request- ing Senators Ewing and Morris to vote in favor of expunging the resolutions censuring President Jackson for his conduct in relation to the United States bank.
This victory created enthusiasm in the Maumee country, and served to attract general attention to the prospects of the region. The Wabash & Erie canal was located in 1836, and fifteen cities were projected between the mouth of the river and the rapids. The Erie & Kalamazoo railroad, the pioneer railroad of the west, projected by Dr. Samuel O. Comstock, of Toledo, in the winter of 1832-33, and chartered in Michigan, was completed to Adrian in 1836, with oak rails covered with strap iron, and business was begun with horse power. In 1837 the first locomotive was put on this road. But it was ten years before this new country was fairly launched in the channels of prosperity.
The State was now in another period of speculation and expansion, due in great part to the expenditure of five millions of borrowed money on the canals, and the promise of railroad building. Many railroad companies were incorporated, and many banks. A notable instance was the incorporation of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust company, in 1834, with a capital of two million dollars to be sub- seribed, with banking privileges and the right to issue notes to the amount of twice the deposits. In 1836 the legislature required the banks to stop issuing notes smaller than $5, with the alternative of paying twenty per cent of their dividends as a tax. But the inflation had gone too far to check.
The Mad River & Lake Erie railroad, incorporated in 1832, was partly under contract in 1834, and promised to connect Sandusky and Springfield with the terminus of the Miami canal at Dayton. Work was begun in 1835 and a small portion was opened in 1838 for horse power, but the line was not completed until 1851. The first Ohio railroad completed was the Painesville & Fairport, three miles long. in operation with horse power in 1837. Meanwhile the South was leading in railroad enterprise, and at Cincinnati it was proposed to build a railroad to Springfield, to connect with the Sandusky line, and another to Lexington, Ky., to connect with the great southern system. As a result the Little Miami railroad was chartered in 1-36 and work begun in 1537, laying a strap iron track, but this was not completed until nearly ten years later. The Cincinnati & Charles- ton railroad was incorporated in South Carolina, and the Cincinnati leaders in enterprise were in correspondence with John C. Calhoun
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and Robert Y. Hayne over the prospeets of miting these two cities. At Cincinnati, O. Fairchild, E. D. Mansfield and Dr. Daniel Drake were leaders in railroad promotion and the city had a board of inter- nal improvements, appointed in 1835, composed of John S. Williams, George W. Neff, Alexander McGrew and others.
Along the south shore of Lake Erie, "sparsely settled as it was, were platted city lots at every indentation of the coast, and one spee- ulator, wilder than the others, predicted one solid city from Buffalo to Cleveland."" In various places on the lake shore, in 1836, land sold for a higher price than it commands now, after the growth of population in seventy years.
Through these years of pioneer effort in Ohio, children were born in rude cabins, or brought from the east to be reared in the forests or little straggling towns, who were to be the leaders of the nation in their manhood. Such men as Leonard Bacon, Matthew Simpson, Edwin M. Stanton, and Allen G. Thurman, among the elder men of Ohio birth or rearing; a little later. Ulysses S. Grant, the two Sher- mans, George HI. Pendleton, and still later, Benjamin Harrison, Phil Sheridan, Haves, Garfield, MeKinley, Foraker, Edison, Howells, MacGahan, Thomas Buchanan Reid and Whitelaw Reid, may be named among those who had their boyhood lives in Ohio between 1810 and 1850. Bacon, in after years, gave in Inminons phrase his memories of early infinences :
"Our home life, the snowy winter, the blossoming spring, the earth never plowed before and yielding the first crop to human labor, the giant trees, the wild birds, the wild flowers, the blithesome squirrels, the wolves that we heard howling through the woods at night but never saw, the redskin savage sometimes coming to the door-by these things God was making impressions on my soul that must remain for- ever, and without which I should not have been what I am."
Michel Chevalier, a French visitor at Cincinnati in 1834, wrote that he observed at his hotel table "a man abont medium height, stout and muscular, and of abont the age of fifty years, yet with the active step and lively air of youth. I had been struck with his open and cheerful expression, the amenity of his manners, and a eertain air of command which appeared through his common dress. That is,' a friend explained. General Harrison, clerk of the Cincinnati court of common pleas.' " When the Frenchmen expressed his wonder at this transformation in the general's fortunes it was explained that he was living thus, in quiet, awaiting an opportunity to become pres- ident of the United States. "But," said the friend, "at this wretched table you may see another candidate for the presidency, who seems to have a better chance than General Harrison. It is Mr. MeLean, now one of the judges of the supreme court of the United States."
* Historical address by C. P. Leland.
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But it was Harrison who had the best chance, and in 1836 he was named as the first candidate of the Whig party for the presidency of the United States. He carried Ohio by a vote of over 105,000 to 97,000 for VanBuren, and he also carried Indiana and Illinois in the west, but as there were three other candidates, including Daniel Webster, in the field against VanBuren, the latter was easily elected. This is the first year in which an Ohio man was before the people for the presidency.
For governor, the Whig candidate was Joseph Vanee, one of the Ohio, pioneers of Scotch-Irish strain, born at Washington, Pa., in 1786, who came to Urbana with his father in 1805, and served as a militia general, and as one of the guides of Hull's army. In politieal life he had been prominent as a legislator, but was princi- pally distinguished as a member of Congress for fourteen years (1821-35). In that body he had been a sturdy fighter for the National road, and protective tariff, to the extent of aronsing the ire of the "strict constructionists." Vance was a stout man, of average height, had the peculiarity of keeping his right eye nearly closed ; on duty observed the conventionalities of black broadeloth, but in relaxa- tion fancied a blouse and jeans trousers of pioneer cut ; socially was most agreeable, and as a public speaker was strong and earnest. He received 92,204 votes, his opponent. Eli Baldwin, 86,158.
The legislature elceted at the same time had a Democratie major- ity of one on joint ballot, but a few scattering votes kept the election of a United States senator in January, 1837. to succeed Thomas Ewing, in doubt until the eleventh ballot, when Senator Ewing was defeated by William Allen. This gentleman, who enjoyed the dis- tinetion of being the first Ohio senator of the new Democratic party, was a tall young man, with a voice of remarkable power, and an elo- quence that aroused much enthusiasm. In the late campaign he had aroused a tremendous outery by a story that the women of Chilli- cothe, when they presented a sword to Major Croghan, had voted a petticoat to General Harrison. Born in North Carolina, Allen had come to Chillicothe in boyhood, January, 1819, from Virginia, to make his home with his sister, the mother of Allen G. Thurman. When a young law student he was a suitor for the hand of Effie MeArthur, and being refused by her father, he entered the political field spurred by the hope of a prominence that should warrant the favor of even a governor and general. Running for congress in 1832, he defeated General MeArthur, the opposing candidate, by one vote, and gained such popularity that, as has been noted, he became the successor of Thomas Ewing in the United States senate at the age of twenty-seven. He held the position for twelve years. Miss Me Arthur meanwhile was married to an Alabamian, but after his death the union that was the dearest of Allen's ambitions took place in 1845. Two years later she died, and Senator Allen withdrew from
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public affairs, living at the old MeArthur homestead, Fruit Hill, almost in solitude for many years, devoting his time to the study of literature and science, even refusing the office of minister to Great Britain when tendered by President Buchanan.
The most important thing in the administration of Governor Vance was the school law of March, 1838. The free schools were vet poorly supported, but there was continual agitation for better things, sustained largely by the "Western College of Teachers," organized as a result of the efforts of the Academie Institute of Cin- cinnati, which called a convention of the friends of education in the Mississippi valley at Cincinnati in 1831. An educational conven- tion was held at Columbus in January, 1838, presided over by Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, who had been sent to Europe by the State to study the Prussian educational system. A committee of this convention, headed by Edward D. Mansfield, of Cincinnati, prepared a memorial to the legislature, embodying the principles of the new school law of 1838, which fairly established the modern system of education in Ohio. Furthermore, there had been apportioned the State, in 1536, a share of the surplus in the United States treasury amounting to two million dollars, and in accordance with the recommendations of Gov- ernors Lneas and Vance, this was set apart as an irrevocable school fund.
Other interesting happenings were, the appointment of the first geological corps of the State, composed of W. W. Mather, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, Dr. J. P. Kirtland, Dr. John Locke, C. Briggs, C. Whittle- sey, and J. W. Foster ; provision for the erection of a new statehouse, the appointment of a new canal commission, and a legislative protest against the annexation of Texas.
The geological survey of 1:38-39, though soon abandoned, brought into notice Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, a native of Conneetient, who became an authority in zoology, and founded the Cleveland academy of natural sciences in 1845: Charles Whittlesey, also of Connecticut birth, one of the Tallmadge colony of 1813, a graduate of West Point and in the army during the Black Hawk war, who kept up antiqua- rian researches after the survey ceased, made a geological survey of the Lake Superior copper mines in 1945 and was afterward in the geological service of the United States. He was a colonel in the war of 1861-65, founded the Western Reserve historical society in 1467, and published many books and pamphlets. Samuel Preston Hil- dreth, another doctor of the survey corps, of Massachusetts birth, came to Belpre in 1806, was a natural history collector, the pioneer weather recorder, and the pioneer historian of the Muskingum val- ley, publishing several books. Dr. Caleb Briggs, a citizen of Iron- ton, surveyed the coal and iron regions, and did work of great value. Foster, in later years, was a noted antiquarian and author. Dr.
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William W. Mather, a descendant of Cotton Mather, eame to Ohio from the New York survey, and was qualified by education at West Point and a professorship there. He afterward was a citizen of Jackson county, and taught chemistry in several Ohio colleges.
Texas, of which the American colonization had been begun by a Connectieut man in 1821, had gained a considerable population of slaveholders while vet a state of the United States of Mexico. But Mexico was opposed to slavery, and in 1829 the government deereed emancipation. Trouble resulted, but the government gave way to the Texas settlers. The South demanded expansion, and the United States made propositions for purchase. These were not entertained, and American immigration was prohibited. Sam Houston, having a domestic falling-out, resigned the office of governor of Tennessee to live among the Indians, and went to Texas as a filibuster, it might be said, but success made him a "patriot." In 1835 war began and Texas declared independence in 1836. AAdventurous spirits flocked to the banner of the new republic, even from Ohio. On June 14, 1836, a company under Capt. James Allen, editor of the Cineinnati Republican, left that eity to join General Houston. On March 6th, twelve days before President Jackson visited the city of Cincinnati, David Crockett and his band at the Alamo were besieged and mas- sacred. But the Texas colonists and filibusters were soon vietorious at San Jacinto, and, the independence of Texas being established, talk of annexation was begun. A great many people of the north could see nothing in it but an "unholy slavery crusade."
The war in Texas was immediately followed by a war in Canada, and another series of filibustering attempts enlisted other adventur- ous Ohioans. This, however, was not considered very reprehensible in the north. The rebellion in Canada, led by Mackenzie, occurred in 1837, and upon its practical suppression a considerable number of fugitives took refuge in the United States and enlisted sympathy. It was imagined that with some assistance the people of Canada would rise and drive out the "British tyrants," as the Texans had driven out the Mexicans. Van Rensselaer led the operations against Canada in the east, and "General" Handy, of Illinois, was the commander of the Patriot army of the Northwest. In Ohio the leader was Ineius V. Bierce, a native of Conneetient and a graduate of Ohio university, who had begun the practice of law at Akron in 1>25. He devoted his time and money to the cause of Canadian liberation. and had many assistants. Some Ohioans were with Sutherland in the attempt to capture Fort Malden from Bois Blane island in Jan- mary, 1838, which resulted in the capture of the filibustering schooner, and the loss of one killed and eight wounded. General Handy collected seven hundred men on Sugar island, but was com- pelled by the governor of Michigan to disband his troops. In March, Sutherland made another attempt, occupying Pelee island,
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with four hundred men, but the British descended upon them, and, according to a Canadian account, killed about sixty and took nine prisoners." The Canadian Refugee Relief association was formed in the United States, with Handy as the head, and Hunters' lodges were organized along the border, and a convention held at Cleveland in September, 1838. The members were pledged to "expel the British tyrant from North America." Bierce was made commander-in-chief in August, and troops were recruited in Michigan, under General Putnam of Canada, under Col- onel Harnell in Ohio, and under General Birge in the east. A concerted invasion was to be made, but Birge was precipitous and sent Colonel Von Schoultz, a Pole who had enlisted a body of his banished countrymen in the enterprise, from Saekett's Harbor to cap- ture Prescott. The expedition was disastrous, and after a battle the invaders were captured, and Schoultz and ten of his men were exe- euted. Notwithstanding this disaster General Bierce and 150 men made an invasion of Canada from Detroit, December 3d, cheered by the populace, and attacked Windsor, burning the militia barracks and a steamer, but his men were soon compelled to take flight. Colonel Prince, the British commander, reported: "Of the brig- ands and pirates twenty-one were killed, besides four who were brought in just at the close and immediately after the engagement, all of whom I ordered shot upon the spot, and it was done accord- ingly." This was as tragic and essentially as barbarous as the Alamo affair, but there were no more raids, and Canada was not annexed. General Bierce returned to Akron, and was called before the United States court in January, 1839, on the charge of violating the nentral- ity laws, but the grand jury refused to indict him. There was bitter feeling against England arising out of disputes regarding the Oregon and Maine boundaries, and the Ohio legislature, by resolution about this time. indicated the same sentiment that William Allen expressed in the memorable phrase, "Fifty-four forty or fight."
Another war of this period was carried on by the United States from 1835 to 1842, against the Seminole Indians in Florida, by Gen. Winfield Scott, and later by General Jesup, Harrison's brigade major in 1×12, and Gen. Zachary Taylor. Ohio contributed some soldiers and officers, notably young Lieut. William Teenmseh Sherman, son of Judge Charles Sherman, and adopted son of Thomas Ewing, who left West Point in 1>40, and had his first experience of war on the St. Johns river.
*"The Canadian Rebellion of 1837," by D. P. Read.
CHAPTER XI.
"BEFORE THE WAR."
GOVERNORS WILSON SHANNON, 1838-40 ; THOMAS CORWIN, 1840-42; WILSON SHANNON, 1842-44; THOMAS W. BARTLEY, 1844; MORDECAI BARTLEY, 1844-46; WILLIAM BEBB, 1846-49; SEA- BURY FORD. 1849-50; REUBEN WOOD, 1850-53; WILLIAM MEDILL, 1853-36; SALMON P. CHASE, 1856-60.
T' HE political unrest in Ohio at this time made it impossible for a governor to retain office more than one term. In 1838 Governor Vance was defeated by Wilson Shannon, the first native governor of Ohio. He was born in Belmont county February 24, 1803, of Pennsylvania-Irish stock, pursued col- lege studies at Ohio university and Transylvania university ( Ken- tueky), read law under Charles Hammond and David Jennings, and became successful in that profession at St. Clairsville, and a leader in the Jackson party. Though defeated for Congress in 1832, he was victorious over Vanee by a vote of 107,884 to 102,146. Vance's defeat was probably due to his permitting, just before election, the arrest of John B. Mahan, for assisting in the escape of a runaway slave. The abolition movement of that period was then at its height, with three hundred anti-slavery societies in the State, and the State society under the leadership of Leicester King, an able Whig lawyer of the Western reserve.
Another important element in the campaign was the anxiety of the anti-slavery people to return a legislature favorable to the re-elee- tion of Senator Morris, who had become famous as the channel for the presentation to Congress of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia. When John C. Calhoun attempted to exact a pledge from Congress that slavery should not be disturbed, Morris was the foremost of those who met him in debate. Conso- quently, in the election, many Whig votes went to Democratie anti- slavery candidates for the legislature, or were withheld. When the legislature met, Morris was asked to give an account of his Demo- cratie faith, and while he was sound on the banks and the tariff, he
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boldly admitted that he was for abolition. Consequently he was dropped by his party.
The Whig legislators voted for Ewing. But the Jackson men easily elected, on the first ballot, Benjamin Tappan, of Steuben- ville, a native of Connecticut, who had come to Ohio in 1799 to found the town of Ravenna, on the land of his father, who bore the same name. He had served seven years on the circuit beneh (1816-23), as a lawyer in active practice stood at the head of his profession, and in politics was one of the Jacksonian leaders, heading the electoral ticket in 1832. Since 1833 he had been United States district judge. He is described as a man of perfect self-poise, and never found withont resource in emergency. Something is learned of him from the memory that he was called "Old Ben Tappan." and more from the fact that under his tutelage Edwin MeMasters Stan- ton # was prepared for public life.
Morris, after the legislature of his state had refused to re-elect him, replied, in February, 1539, to the famous speech of Henry Clay, intended to discourage agitation of a dangerous question, and boldly declared that the negro would vet be free. Though he had lost the favor of the majority in his State, he had the verdict of John G. Whittier, that "Thomas Morris stands confessed the lion of his dav."
Not only did the Ohio legislature rebuke Senator Morris for stir- ring up the slavery question, but it passed a fugitive slave law, inipos- ing heavy fines or imprisonment upon any who should encourage the running away of Southern property. A resolution was passed, also, declaring that blaeks and mulattoes in the State had no constitutional right to petition the legislature on any subject. The revulsion against agitation was so strong that the abolition movement was seri- ously checked for some years after 1840.
The same legislature that elected Tappan refused to grant the prayer of John B. Mahan, of Brown county, for compensation for sufferings he had endured through arrest under a requisition from the governor of Kentneky, charged with assisting the escape of slaves, an acensation it was found impossible to prove. Only one senator voted in favor of Mahan, and that was Benjamin F. Wade, of about the same age as Salmon P. Chase, and like him, a tall, imposing man, but who, unlike Chase, had been reared in poverty in Massachusetts, had shoveled dirt on the Erie eanal, and coming to Ohio in 1621, read Enelid and the Bible by the light of a pine torch in nights when he was weary with wood chopping. ITe had been admitted to the bar in 1528, and afterward became a partner of Joshua Reed Giddings, of
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