History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 44

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 44

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The engineer is instructed to make further examination on the summit between the waters of the Great Miami and the Auglaize, and to explore the several practicable routes in order to form an estimate of the probable expense of constructing a canal on eachi.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

Mr. Jerome is now tracing the route of a feeder from Cuyahoga River to the Tuscarawas and Killbuck summits. The project of taking a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River east of the Scioto is not abandoned.

The work of the engineers was arduous. " All the routes were along the valleys of streams, with only here and there a log cabin, whose inmates were shivering with malarial fever. These valleys were the most densely wooded parts, obstructed by swamps, bayous and flooded lands, which would now be regarded as impassable. Between 1822 and 1829 Isaac Jerome, Seymour Kiff, John Jones, John Brown, Peter Lutz, Robert Anderson, Dyer Minor and William Latimer, of the engineers, died from their exposures, and the diseases of the country. Chainmen, axemen, and

rodmen suffered in fully as great proportion. . .. Of twentythree engineers and assistants, eight died of local diseases within six years. Mr. Forrer was the only one able to keep the field permanently, and use the instruments in 1823."1

Among the engineers who survived, continues the writer just quoted, was David S. Bates (chief engineer after Judge Geddes), Alexander Bourne, John Bates, William R. Hopkins, Joseph Ridgway, Junior, Thomas I. Matthews, Samuel For- rer, Francis S. Cleveland, James M. Bucklang, Isaac N. Hurd, Charles E. Lynch, Philip N. White, James H. Mitchell, and John S. Beardsley.

Samuel Forrer was longest in the field. His services in connection with the canals began in 1820, when Mr. William Stecle, an enterprising citizen of Cincin- nati, at his own expense, employed him to ascertain the elevation of the water- shed between the Sandusky and Scioto above Lake Erie. A report of this work was part of the information transmitted to the General Assembly by Governor Brown. During the season of 1822 Mr. Geddes surveyed nine hundred miles of canal routes, and Mr. Forrer ran his levels over a space of eight hundred miles with a single instrument. The total cost of this work was but $2,426.10.

There was much rivalry and contention between the advocates of different routes, that crossing the Sandusky divide being the shortest, least elevated above the lake level, and enjoying most popular favor until the surveys and explora- tions of Engineers Bates and Forrer in 1824 demonstrated that its water supply was inadequate. After the preliminary reports of the surveyors and commissioners were made, the beginning of construction awaited the necessary compromise of these rivalries until February 4, 1825, when the General Assembly passed an act providing for building the Ohio Canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth, via Licking Summit, and the Little Miami Canal between Dayton and Cincinnati.2 By the same act a board of Canal Commissioners was created to supervise the construc- tion, and also a Canal Fund Commission to provide means for the work by bor- rowing money, as Mr. Kelley had suggested, on the credit of the State. By the law, Ethan Allen Brown, Ebenezer Buckingham, Junior, and Allen Trimble were named as Canal Fund Commissioners, and by resolution adopted on the day the law was passed, Alfred Kelley, Micajah T. Williams, Thomas Worthington, Ben- jamin Tappan, John Johnson, Isaac Minor and Nathaniel Beasley were appointed Canal Commissioners.

Extensive preparations were made for the ceremonious commencement of the work. For the celebration of this event, the Licking Summit was chosen as the place, and July 4, 1825, as the time. New York's great Governor, De Witt

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Clinton, accepted an invitation to be present, and set out from Albany in June, accompanied by his aides, Colonels Jones and Reed ; by Colonel Solomon Van Ren- selaer who had campaigned in Ohio as an officer under General Wayne ; by Messrs. Lord and Rathbone, capitalists, who had loaned the State money with which to commence the canal,3 and by United States District Judge Conkling. This dis- tinguished party arrived at Newark on the beautiful afternoon of July 3. There being no houses near the spot where the work was to begin, rough board booths were built in the woods, and plank tables were spread for the grand feast which Gottlieb Steinman, a hotelkeeper of Lancaster, had been engaged to prepare. The roasts and broils for the dinner were prepared upon the ground, says a his- torian of the occasion, " bnt all the fancy part of the dinner, including pastry, ete.," was cooked at Lancaster, twentytwo miles distant.+

The day fixed for the celebration was an ideal Fourth of July, clear and sum- mery. The atmosphere had just been cleansed by a copious rainfall, and was fresh and invigorating. Throngs of people came from near and far; Columbus sent a large contingent ; and so great was the crowd, and so intense the pressure of its enthusiasm and curiosity, that a company of cavalry had to be drawn up to pre- serve sufficient open space for the decorous observance of the programme. A large force of volunteer militia was present, equipped and uniformed at its gayest and best. Governors Clinton and Morrow, accompanied by their aides and a retinne of civil and military officers, arrived at the appointed time from Newark Directly afterwards the two Governors were conducted to the spot on the Summit where the first strokes were to be made in breaking ground for the canals of Ohio. There, says the historian above quoted, "Governor Clinton received the spade, thrust it into the soil, and raised the first spadeful of earth, amid the most enthusiastic cheers of the assembled thousands. The earth was placed in what they called a canal wheelbarrow, and the spade was passed to Governor Morrow, a statesman and a farmer. He sank it to its full depth, and raised the second spadeful. Then commenced a strife as to who should raise the next. Captain Ned. King, com- manding the infantry company present from Chillicothe, raised the third ; then some of the guests of Governor Clinton's company threw in some dirt, and the wheelbarrow being full, Captain King wheeled it to the bank. It is impossible to describe the scene of excitement and confusion that accompanied this ceremony. The people shouted themselves hoarse. The feeling was so great that tears fell from many eyes."5

The firing of a hundred guns announced that the great work of building the Ohio Canal had been begun. As soon as quiet could be restored, the eager thousands who had witnessed the ceremony gathered around a platform erected in the shade of the beech woods, and listened to an address by United States Senator Thomas Ewing. After the address, the State officers, invited guests, and others who would buy tickets took their seats around the tables, at which the Governor of New York was accorded the place of honor. As most of the people had brought their luncheons with them, the enterprising host who provided the repast is said to have been a loser by the operation.

From the Summit, Governor Clinton was escorted on the fifth to Lancaster, . where he tarried over night. Attended by a " great concourse," he journeyed to

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Columbus on the sixth, and on the seventh was formally received and weleomed by Governor Morrow at the Capitol. The occasion was a great one for the little borough, and every effort was made to impart to it a due measure of dignity and circumstance. Governor Clinton was ushered into Columbus, we are told, by a civic and military escort in which General Warner and suite, Colonel P. II. Olmsted's squadron of Franklin Dragoons, Captain Hazel's Company of Light In- fantry, Captain Andrew McElvain's Rifle Corps and Captain O'Harra's Artillery bore a conspicuous part. Hon. John R. Osborn, who, then a boy, was present in the surging throng, thus referred in an address of 1867' to the Statehouse eere- monies :

The Governors, under escort of the military, Colonel Olmsted commanding, were met in the hall of the House of Representatives by a dense crowd. . .. Jeremiah Morrow, the slender, straight, intellectual-looking statesman, welcomed the stoutly-built, well-fed, burly- looking Governor of New York to the Capital of the State of Ohio. Full of the greatness of that occasion, and alive to the future destinies of the State of Ohio, the welcome to the Governor, and the excitement of the people, made a deep and lasting impression on my young imagination.

Governor Clinton replied appropriately to the hospitable words addressed to him, eulogizing Ohio and her canal enterprise. At the conclusion of the cere- monies he was oscorted to the Robinson Tavern, "sign of the Golden Bell, on the lot where the Johnson Building is now ereeted, and partook of a public dinner."8

The letting of contracts for construction of the canal immediately followed the commencement ceremonies at Licking Summit and first took place at Newark. As to the manner of doing the work, the engineers made the following require- ments, to be embodied in the contracts :

All trees, saplings, bushes, stumps and roots are to be grubbed and dug up at least sixty feet wide ; that is, thirtythree feet on the towingpath side of the centre, and twentyseven feet on the opposite side of the centre of the canal; and, together with all logs, brush and wood of every kind, shall be removed at least fifteen feet beyond the outward part of said grubbing, on each side ; and on said space of fifteen feet on each side of said grubbing, all trees, saplings, brush and stumps shall be cut down close to the ground, so that no part of them shall be left more than one foot in height above the natural surface of the earth.

All trees that might do injury by falling were cut away for an additional space of twenty feet. It was required further that the canal and its banks should be so constructed that the water in its bed should be in all places at least forty feet wide at the surface, twentysix feet wide at the bottom, and four feet deep; each bank to rise at least two perpendicular feet above the waterline; the towingpath, always on the lower side of the channel, to be ten feet wide at its upper plane, never more than five feet above the waterline, and to have an outward piteh at its upper sur- face of six inches. In crossing all ravines and watercourses, the bed was to be supported by substantial culverts of stone. All locks were to be ninety feet long, fifteen feet wide in the clear, and from six to twelve feet high, as required by cir- cumstances.

The first contract let embraced the section extending from the point of break - ing ground southward to the Deep Cut, south of which a contract was taken by Colonel John Noble. Bidders from New York obtained some of the heaviest jobs, such as that of the Licking Reservoir. The price paid for eutting and filling was

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from nine to thirteen cents per cubic yard and for grubbing and clearing from two to ten dollars per chain. At the second letting, which also took place at Newark, the socalled Deep Cut and the South Fork Feeder were taken. The Cut, about three miles long, and twentyfour feet in average depth, was divided into two sections and let at fifteen cents per cubic yard, the northern section to Scoville, Hathaway & Co., of New York, and the southern section to Osborn, Rathburn & Co., of Columbus. The New York Company sublet its contract to Hampson & Parkinson, of Muskingum County, who afterwards abandoned it at a loss. The Columbus company completed its work, but was obliged to ask for, and received advances on the original contract making the average cost abont twentyfive cents per cubic yard.

The ordinary laborers on the canal were paid eight dollars for twentysix working days, beginning at sunrise and ending at sunset. They were well fed, lodged in temporary shanties, and received, at first, regular "jiggers " of whisky gratis. The "jigger " was a dram of less than a gill, taken at sunrise, at ten o'clock, at noon, at four o'clock, and at supper time. As it resulted in mischief, Commissioners M. T. Williams and Alfred Kelly after a time caused it to be dis- continued. As the work was paid for in cash, it was eagerly sought by farmers and their sons in order to obtain ready money, which was then very scarce and hard to get.

The workmen who were exposed to the malarial atmosphere of the swamps were often severely scourged by the febrile disorders of the period. " The past season," says a contemporary chronicle of January 16, 1828, " has been peculiarly unfavorable for the vigorous prosecution of the work on the Ohio Canal. Much rain fell in the spring and the early part of the summer, particularly in the northern part of the State; and since the middle of October few days have occurred in which work could be carried on to advantage, owing to the same cause. The heavy rains which fell in the latter part of June and first of July, succeeded, as they were, by weather extremely warm and dry, or some other cause to us unknown, occasioned the prevalence of sickness to an alarming extent, especially in the valley of the Tuscarawas and Muskingum. The alarm created by the prev- alence of fevers along the line of the canal did not cease to operate in deterring laborers from coming on to the work until long after the cause of alarm had ceased to exist."9

On Monday, April 30, 1827, work on the lateral branch of the Ohio Canal, connecting the capital with the main stem at Lockbourne, was formally begun at Columbus, and duly celebrated. The newspaper account of the ceremonies of the occasion states that, at two o'clock P. M., about one thousand citizens of Columbus and vicinity assembled at the Statehouse, where a civic and military procession was organized, in which Captain Joseph McElvain's Company of Dragoons, Cap- tain Foos's and Captain A. McElvain's Riflemen, the Columbus Artillery and the officers of State took part. Marshaled by Colonels McDowell and MeElvain, and led by General Warner and staff, the procession moved to the appointed spot on the east bank of the Scioto, where a short address was delivered by Hon. Joseph R. Swan. At the conclusion of the address, General Jeremiah McLene, then Secre- tary of State, and Nathaniel MeLean, Keeper of the Penitentiary, first took the

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implements in hand and excavated a barrowful of earth which was wheeled away by Ralph Osborn and Henry Brown, Auditor and Treasurer of State, amid the applauding shouts of the multitude. The procession then re-formed, and moved to the brow of the hill, a few rods north of the ground on which the Penitentiary then stood, where a " cold collation " prepared by Christian Heyl was dispensed. After the feast, toasts were drank in honor of Ohio, the Ohio Canal, the Canal Commissioners and the citizens of Columbus. In the evening the event of the day was further signalized by a ball, numerously attended, at the house of Mr. Browning.

The contracts for the canal dam across the Scioto, and the Columbus Locks were taken by Messrs. William and Andrew McElvain and Benjamin and Peter Sells; for the Fourmile Locks by Aaron Lytle, and for the eight locks at Lockbourne by a Granville company comprising Messrs. Monson, Fassett, Taylor and Avery. The first mile of excavation was done by Penitentiary convicts, fortyfive of them, it was stated, having signed an agreement by which their punishment was com- muted to work on the "Columbus Lateral Canal."10 Progress in the work was slow until 1829, when Nathaniel Medbery and John Field took charge of it, and pushed it as rapidly as possible to completion. The assignment of sections at the letting of December 9, 1829, was as follows: Number 6, McElvain & Hunter ; 9, Nathan Spencer ; 10, Watkins & Shannon ; 11, Sanford B. Allen ; 12, Hunt, Bayless & Millar; 13, Frezell & Boardman ; 14, Sidney S. & F. Sprague; 15, and 16, Aaron Smith ; 17 and 20, Simon Doyle & Sons; 18, Reeseman & Hayes; 19, J. L. Vance and Love & Love; 21, and 22, Meek & Wright. John Loughry, of Columbus, was contractor for Section 101, including the aqueduct over the Scioto River at Circle- ville.

Water was let into the canal for the first time at Licking Summit on Saturday, June 23, 1827, and on the same date and at the same place, a boat was launched in the presence of a large crowd of spectators. This boat, called the " Experiment," be- gan making short excursion trips from the Summit a few days later. Boats first arrived at Dayton from Cincinnati, on the Miami Canal, in February, 1829, and in November of that year the Ohio Canal, excepting a few sections in Tuscarawas and Licking Counties, was ready for the water from Newark to Lake Erie. The first boat through from Cleveland arrived at Newark July 10, 1830, and with the open- ing of navigation in the spring of 1831, the boats of the Troy and Erie Line began receiving freight and passengers at Newark for Cleveland and New York.

On Tuesday, September 13, 1831, water was let into the Columbus Branch, usually called the Feeder, for the first time, and at 8 P. M., on Friday, the twentythird of the same month, the firing of cannon announced the arrival of the canalboat, Governor Brown, from Circleville, with "several of the most respectable citizens of Pickaway County" on board. In its circumstantial account of this important epi- sode in the commercial history of Columbus the Weekly Ohio State Journal of Sep- tember 29, 1831, says :

The next morning, at an early hour, a considerable number of ladies and gentlemen of Columbus repaired on board to pay their respects to their visitors, and after the delivery of a brief but very appropriate address by General Flournoy, and exchanging those friendly salu- tations and cordial greetings which the occasion was so well calculated to call forth, the party

Lovedes Halbsauce

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proceeded back to Circleville accompanied a short distance by a respectable number of our fellow citizens, and the Columbus band of music.

On Monday afternoon [September 26] at about half past four o'clock, the canalboats Cin- cinnati and Red Rorer, from the Lake ria Newark, entered the loek at the mouth of the Colum- bns Feeder, where they were received by a committee appointed for the purpose, and pro ceeded under a national salute of twentyfour guns and music from the Lancaster Band to a point just below the bridge, where the commanders were welcomed in the name of the citi- zens of this town by Colonel Doherty, in a very neat address. . . . A procession was then formed, when the company proceeded to Mr. Ridgway's large Warehouse, and partook of a collation prepared in handsome style by Mr. John Young. A third boat, the Lady Jane, ar- rived soon afterward, and was received in a similar manner. ... On Tuesday morning [twentyseventh] the boats, having disposed of their freight, took their departure back for Cleveland, in the same order, and with the same ceremonies, as on their arrival, a large number of ladies and gentlemen, together with the Columbus Band, accompanying the welcome visitors as far as the Fivemile Lock. Here they were met by the Chillicothe and George Baker, which took our fellow citizens on board, and reached this place at about two r. M, when they were received in the same manner as the preceding. Since that time several other boats have ar- rived, and we indulge the pleasing hope that the navigation between our thriving town and the Lake, which has been commenced under such favorable auspices, will prove as advan- tageons to all parties as the most sanguine friends of the canal policy have at any time antic- ipated.

In a private letter written from Columbus to a friend November 1, 1831, Mr. Isaac Appleton Jewett makes the following interesting statements with refer- ence to the opening of the canal :11

Since September 22 we have had more than eighty arrivals of boats laden with eastern merchandise, destined to almost every section of the Mississippi Valley. I have seen boxes labeled for Cincinnati, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Arkansas, crowded together in a single warehouse, waiting for transportation to the head of the Miami Canal [Dayton] to be conveyed thence to their several places of destination. The final completion of the canal to the Ohio River will, of course, supersede the necessity of landing goods at this place for states further west. [Until the thio Canal was com. pleted from Newark to Portsmonth in 1832, western bound shipments from Cleveland were brought to Columbus, and transported thence by land to Dayton, whence they were for- warded by the Miami Canal to Cincinnati.]

The boats which have arrived here full have been compelled to depart empty. We have not yet gathered our pork, beef, flour and grain together for transportation to every quarter of the world. This is a fart which evinces the incredulity of our worthy farmers with regard to the rapid completion of the canal, and their shortsightedness with regard to its powerful operation upon their interests when completed. ... They would have set a man down as mad who had ventured to make to them the assertion two years ago that in 1831 three hun- dred thousand bushels of wheat might be sold in Columbus for cash, or that one hundred thousand barrels of beef and pork might be here put up for transportation to the Eastern States.

Truly the canal had wrought a commercial revolution for C'entral thio, the full scope of which the people, so long accustomed to wilderness isolation, were slow to realize.

" The first canalboats seemed like fairy palaces," says Mrs. Emily Stewart, and we may well believe her. " They were painted white, and the windows had green shutters and scarlet enrtains. The inside panels of the cabin contained mirrors and pictures. The officers of the passenger boats were gentlemen. The cabin was a dining and sitting room in day time, but was converted into a sleeping apartment

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at night. There were staterooms at each end for ladies, whose comfort was further promoted by the attentions of a polite and diligent stewardess.

For years after the canal was opened the boats always came in with a band of music playing on board. The captain of the boat usually played the clarionet for the entertainment of the passengers. The horses were changed every ten miles, and always moved on the trot.

Leaving here by packetboat in the morning, at nine o'clock, the passengers reached Chillicothe at nine P. M. A trip to Europe now is nothing to a eanal trip then. On the journey to Chillicothe passengers took dinner and supper on board. The moals were superb. Everything was well cooked and elegantly served.

Verily, canal travel was not so bad, after all. We are rather disposed to ridi- cule it now as we rush through the country fast as the wilderness pigeons flew, but after all do we enjoy travel any more than did the canal passengers of the thirties who floated as fast as a horse could trot through the aromatic summer woods and meadows of Ohio in the cosy cabins of the Sylph, the Ware and the Red Bird ?

When the opening of the Columbus Branch was being celebrated in Septem- ber, 1831, a prominent citizen who was a spectator but not a participant is said to have remarked : " Make as much ado as you like over your muddy ditch, but before twenty years pass by most of its traffic will be carried on wheels." The prediction came true, and in less than twenty years a poetical cynic, inspired by the steamfiend, was singing in the Columbus newspapers in the following ironical strain :

A life on the raging canawl, A home on the raging deep, Where through summer, spring and fall The frogs their revels keep. Like a fish on a hook I pine, On this dull unchanging shore ; Oh give me the packet line And the raging canawl's dread roar.

Once more on the deck I stand, On my own swift gliding craft ;

The hosses trot off on the land And the boat follows close abaft. We shoot through the turbid foam, Like a bullfrog in a squall, And like the frogs, our home We'll find in the raging canawl.

The sun is no longer in view, The clonds have begun to frown, But, with a bumper or two, We'll say, let the storm come down,

And this song we'll sing, one and all, While the storm around us pelts, A life on the raging canawl, Oh, we don't want "nothin' else."

Yet the canals have not ceased to be useful ; probably never will. The patient, strong, foreseeing men who conceived the system, and carried it through enor-

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mous difficulties to completion, performed a work the beneficent effects of which will neither cease nor be forgotten while the State endures. " For thirty years," says Ryan's History of Ohio, "these waterways were the great controlling factors of increasing commerce, manufactures and population. Through their influence villages became cities, towns were built where forests grew, farming developed into a profitable enterprise, and the trade and resources of the world were opened to Ohio. The newly found markets for farm products added fifty per centum to their prices, thus enlarging the field of agriculture, and bringing wealth to the State hy its extension. . . While they have put into the State Treasury over six millions of dollars more than they cost . . . as regulators of our domestic trans- portation charges, their effect has been marked and admitted. ... Every canal line in Ohio has an effective and tangible influence over the freight charges of the railroads.""

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 44

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202