USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 45
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The author here quoted proceeds to present an overwhelming array of facts and arguments in favor of maintaining and perfecting the canal system. Ilis con- clusions are sound. There is no country in the world possessing such a system which has not found its usefulness indispensable, no matter how many railways have followed it.
The first collector of canal tolls at Columbus was Joseph Ridgway, Junior, whose office was at the Ridgway Warehouse, at the foot of West Broad Street, to which nearly all the boats ascended to discharge and receive freight. The next five collectors, in the order of their service, down to 1858, were M. S. Hunter, David S. Doherty, Charles B. Flood, Samuel McElvain and Benjamin Tresenrider.
Attempts at the steam navigation of the canals, have at various times been made. On September 14, 1849, the " canal steam packet Niagara," said to have been the first boat propelled by steam on the Ohio canals, arrived at Dayton. On September first, 1859, the arrival of the steamer Enterprise at Columbus, with a cargo of seventeen hundred bushels of coal, was announced. In 1860 the City of Columbus, a very handsome steam canal packet, belonging to Fitch & Son, of this city, plied regularly between the capital and Chillicothe. In November, 1859, Fitch & Bortle, of West Broad Street, who were then competing with the stages, announded that in the following spring they would put a line of steam packets on the canal between Columbus and Portsmouth.
This chapter may appropriately close with the following succinct exhibit of the canal lines and property of the State as they now exist, taken from Ryan's History, above quoted :14
The Miami and Erie system, being the main canal, from Cincinnati to Toledo, 250 miles, the canal from Junction to the state line 18 miles, and the Sidney Feeder 14 miles, making in all a total of 282 miles ; the Ohio Canal, extending from Portsmouth to Cleveland, a distance of 309 miles, together with 25 miles of feeders, or a total of 334 miles; the Hocking Canal, 56 miles long, and the Walhonding, 25 miles; the Muskingum Improvement, extending from Dresden to Marietta, a distance of 91 miles, cannot now be listed as a part of the State's prop- erty - the general government controls and maintains it. So, exclusive of the latter, there is a total canal mileage of 697 miles owned by the state of Ohio. In addition to this, there are necessary adjuncts and a part of the public works in the shape of reservoirs. These are as follows : Grand Reservoir in Mercer County, covering 17,000 acres ; the Lewistown in Logan County, 7,200 acres ; the Lorain in Shelby County, 1800 acres; Six Mile in Paulding County
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IHISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
2,500 aeres ; Licking in Licking County, 3,600 acres, and the Sippo in Stark County, 600 acres, making a total in reservoirs of 32,100 acres. The Paulding Reservoir, with its 18 miles of canal, from Junction to the Indiana line, has lately been practically abandoned, and is no longer a permanent part of the Public Works of Ohio.
NOTES.
1. Colonel Charles Whittlesey, in Howe's Historical Collections.
2. Passed in the Senate by a vote of 34 to 2; in the House, by 58 to 13.
3. In their report of December 9, 1825, the Canal Fund Comissioners state that they have made arrangements with Lord & Rathbone, of New York, for a loan of $400,000, gross, $390,000 net, for which certificates were to be given at 97} for the gross amount, at five per cent. semiannually, redeemable at the pleasure of the State after 1850.
4. History of Licking County, by N. N. Hill, Junior.
5. Ibid.
6. Martin's Ilistory of Franklin County.
7. Before the Franklin County Pioneer Association.
8. Martin's History.
9. Ohio State Journal.
10. Ohio State Journal, May 3, 1827.
11. For an inspection of this and other letters written by Mr. Jewett, the author is in- lebted to Mrs. Richard T. Clarke, of Columbus.
12. Conversation with the author.
13. A ITistory of Ohio ; by Hon. D. J. Ryan. 1888.
14. Ibid.
CHAPTER XXII.
MAIL AND STAGECOACH.
In 1760 Benjamin Franklin, then Deputy Postmaster-General, startled the people of the American colonies by proposing to run a mail "stage wagon " between Philadelphia and Boston once a week. The schedule time of this vehicle each way was just six days, beginning on Monday morning and ending on Saturday evening, weekly. In 1775 Thomas Jefferson was occupied ten days in making the journey to Philadelphia, and was obliged to hire a guide to pilot him through the wilderness. During the War of Independence, it has been said, there were but five coaches in New York City, and these had been brought over from England. In 1550 there were but three coaches in Paris; in 1625 hackney coaches, and in 1829 omnibuses, were first introduced in London. The first American coach factories, three in number, were established in New York about the year 1786 ; public stages made their advent in 1800. The mail and passenger carrying vehicles of the colonial and early national period were clumsy and comfortless. They dashed at a furious rate along the smooth streets of the towns and villages, but covered their distances laboriousty and tediously on the primitive roads of the country. The journey from Baltimore to Pittsburgh required twelve days, and was made in peril of lurking Indians.
In the Ohio Wilderness the use of wheels for mail and passenger transporta- tion necessarily awaited the development of roads and highways. Until then, the communication of the settlements with their neighbors and distant friends was at best precarious and occasional. " When the mailcarrier tramped from Pittsburgh to Warren, along a trait that led through great solitudes of forest, he cumbered himself with no heavy mailbag," says a recent historian of those times, "but carried his bundle of letters in a pocket handkerchief. When the settlement through which his route led possessed no postmaster, the carrier seated himself on a log, or stump, sorted out the mail marked for that neighborhood, left it in care of the nearest cabin, dropped his budget of gossip from the outside world into the hungry minds of those about him, and trudged away upon his lonely journey. Cleveland's first postmaster transformed his hat into an office, carrying the mail therein, and delivering it to its owners as he met them, or had time to seek them at their homes."!
In Franklin County the postal service began in the summer of 1805 at Frank. linton. Adam Hlosae took the first mail contract, and was also the first post- master. Colonel Andrew MeElvain, employed, in his boyhood, as the first post-
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
carrier under Ilosac, thus describes the service he performed :" " The route then was on the west side of the Scioto. A weekly mail left Franklinton each Friday, stayed over night at Markly's Mill, on Darby Creek, next day made Chillicothe, and returned to Thompson's, on Deer Creek, thence home on Sunday. When the route was first established there was no postoffice between Franklinton and Chilli- cothe, but during the first winter there was one established at Westfall, now in Pickaway County, afterward one at Markly's Mill, about that time changed to Hall's Mill. I was the first appointed carrier, and did carry the first mail to Franklinton, and was employed in that business about one year, during the winter and spring, having twice to swim Darby and Deer Creek, carrying the small mail- bag on my shoulders. . . . I commenced carrying the mail at thirteen years old. There was not a house but William Brown's on Big Run, between Franklinton and Darby, and but a cabin at Westfall and Deer Creek to Chillicothe. It was rather a lonesome route for a boy. . . . There was no regular mail to Worthing- ton, but their mail matter was taken up by a young man employed as a clerk in a store - I think Mr. Matthews."
The successors of Mr. Hosac in the Franklinton Postoffice are thus named by Martin : 3 1811, Henry Brown ; 1812, Joseph Grate; 1813, James B. Gardiner : 1815, Jarob Kellar; 1819, Joseph McDowell ; 1820, William Lusk; 1831, W. Ris- ley. A few years after Risley's appointment the office was discontinued.
As to the efficiency of the service in the delivery of news, even at the capital of Ohio, during the first decade of the century, the following editorial remark of the Chillicothe Gazette of January 9, 1809, is significant : " We have had but one eastern mail for several weeks: of course no very late news from Congress."
Prepayment of postage was not required, and until 1816 the rates, fixed by law, were graded according to distance of carriage, as follows: For a single letter, which meant one composed of a single piece of paper, eight cents under forty miles, ten cents under ninety, twelve and a half cents under 150, seventeen cents under 300, twenty cents under 500, and for all distances over five hundred miles twentyfive cents. An act of 1816 readjusted this scale and charged an additional rate for each additional piece of paper, and four rates for each letter weighing more than one ounce. The use of the weight standard combined with that of distance as a measure of postage, dates from 1845. For many years during the earlier his- tory of the service letters were carried by express between the principal cities at lower rates than those of the postoffice.
Payment on delivery was the original rule and practice in the collection of postage, but was by no means rigidly adhered to, as witness the following an- nouncement of Postmaster Hosac, dated October 1, 1812 :
Experience proves how inattentive many people are to pay the postage of News papers received through the medium of the postoffice. Those in arrears for postage may not expect to receive any more papers unless arrearages are paid. Letters will not be credited on any account without a previous arrangement.
To the Hon. James Kilbourn, founder of Worthington, belongs the honor of having brought about the establishment of the first postoffice opened in Columbus. On June 22, 1813, Mr. Kilbourn, then a Representative in Congress, addressed the following letter to Hon. Gideon Granger, Postmaster-General :
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MAIL AND STAGECOACH
DEAR SIR: I am requested to make application to the Postmaster General for the estab- lishment of a postoffice in the town of Columbus, in the State of Ohio, with which request I readily comply, believing that the propose b establishment would be of public utility.
Columbus is now established as the permanent seat of government of that State, and is situated in the County of Franklin, on the east bank of the Scioto River, immediately op- posite the confluence of the two main branches of that stream, sixtythree miles north of Chil licothe and nine miles south of Worthington.
Would also take the liberty of nominating to you Matthew Matthews as a suitable person for the office of Deputy Postmaster at that place. Communications may be addressed to him through the postoffice at Worthington.
JAS. KILBOURN.
In the latter part of this letter Mr. Kilbourn recommended the appointment of John S. Wilis, Judge-Advocate of the Northwestern Army, as postmaster for that army Mr. Matthews, who was a clerk in the branch store of the Worthington Manufacturing Company managed by Joel Buttles, was appointed, as suggested, to be postmaster at Columbus, He did not formally open an office, but seems to have distributed from his desk the mail brought over from Franklinton. He resigned in 1814, and was succeeded by his employer, Joel Buttles, who retained the office until the advent of the Jackson Administration in 1829 - fifteen years - when he was displaced for partisan reasons
A postal service for the capital had no sooner been established than its irregularity began to be complained of. Perhaps a little taste of its conveniences made the people too eager to appreciate the difficulties of increasing or maintain- ing them. The weekly mail carried on horseback between Chillicothe and Frank- linton was frequently interrupted by high water, and sometimes did not arrive for the space of two weeks. "During the last winter," says the Franklinton [ Freeman's] Chronicle of January 15, 1813, " at no time did the mail arrive two weeks in succession regular, and now it seems to take the same course." And that at a time when the people were cager for news of the war then in progress ! " The postmaster at Marietta," continnes the Chronicle in the issue just quoted, "is in the habit of sending two mails for this place each week, one by the way of Chillicothe, the other by way of Zanesville." The editor proceeds to state that these mails, if promptly forwarded by the intermediate postmasters, should reach Franklinton simultaneously, but cites an instance in which that coming through Zanesville arrived rin Worthington fourteen days late, and that, too, with important War Department dispatches for General Harrison.
In manifest hope of relief the Chronicle of March 26, 1813, makes the following announcement :
We most sincerely congratulate the public on the establishment of an Express Post from Chillicothe by Franklinton and Delaware to the Rapids of the Miama. It will leave t'hilli- cothe every Wednesday and Saturday, at one o'clock p. M , and arrive at Franklinton every Thursday and Sunday at about four o'clock r. M. Returning it will pass here on Tuesday and Friday evenings, and arrive at Chillicothe every Wednesday and Saturday at one o'clock r. M. It will travel on the west side of the Scioto River until it arrives at Franklinton, where it will eross the river and proceed on the east side of the Scioto and west side of the Whet stone to Delaware - from thence to Upper Sandusky and along the new road to the Rapids. It will go in three days from Chillicothe to the Rapids, and in the same time from the Rapids to Chillicothe. As this post will detain but fifteen minutes at the Franklinton postoffice. persons having letters to send to the Rapids should put them into the office on Wednesday and
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
Saturday evenings by eight o'clock -and to Chillicothe on Tuesday and Friday afternoon by four o'clock.
As to what was meant by an " express post " we have the following statement from Mr. John L. Gill :+
When General Jackson's inaugural message was sent ont [March 4, 1829], it was by express mail, which had horses stationed at every ten miles from Washington City to St. Lonis. The mail was carried in a valise similar to some of those now carried by commercial travelers. This valise was swung over the postboy's shoulder, and he was required to make his ten miles on horseback in one hour without fail. At the end of his route he found a horse saddled and bridled ready for a start, and it took but a moment to dismount and remount, and he was off. The rider was furnished a tin horn with which he used to announce his coming. His arrival here was about ten A. M., and it was amnsing to see the people run to the postotlice when the post rider galloped through the streets blowing his horn. The few letters carried by this express bore double postage.
On September 8, 1814, the Hon. James Kilbourn, Representative in Corgress from the Fifth Ohio District, published a circular in which be announced that, al his solicitation, the following " postroads " - rontes - had been established :
From Athens, the seat of the Ohio University, on the Marietta ronte by New Lancaster to Columbus, and from Columbus by Franklinton and London, in Madison County, to Xenia in the county of Green, there intersecting with the old post route from Cincinnati. Also [but in this Mr. Kilbourn claims only to have assisted] from Columbus through the south- east part of Madison County, by Washington in the county of Fayette, to Hillsborough in Highland County, in the direction and with a view to its future extension to Augusta in Kentucky.
Mr. Kilbourn claimed to have also suggested the opening of routes from Granville to Columbus, from Franklinton to Springfield, and from Delaware to Sandusky, but the Postmaster-General did not regard these as immediately necessary.
In the early part of 1814 the eastern mail for Columbus continued to be for- warded from Marietta rin Zanesville and Worthington, and often came in away behind time, causing great complaint. The editor of the Franklinton Chronicle inveighs bitterly against this arrangement as one of inexcusable awkwardness, which prevents him from receiving his eastern exchanges " until their contents have become stałe by republication in all the Zanesville and Chillicothe papers."
The distinction of providing the first wheeled passenger and mail service through Columbus belongs to Philip Zinn, a native of York County, Pennsylvania, who came to Ohio in 1803. Before quitting his native State, Mr. Zinn had con- ducted one of the "mountain ships " by which produce and merchandise were exchanged across the Alleghanies. "He carried the mails north, south, east and west of Columbus," writes one who knew him,5 " when they could easily have been deposited in the top of his hat, and started the first coach or hack that plied regu- larly through the capital. The direction of travel then was north and south, and Mr. Ziun's conveyance carried the wayfarer from Chillicothe along the Scioto and Whetstone to Delaware. In these labors he relied mainly upon his sons Henry, Daniel and Adam; in fact Daniel often drove the little roundtopped twohorse hack that found its way into Columbus by the old river road, entering Broadway near Ridgway's Foundry. No doubt his tin horn then made more agreeable
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MAIL, AND STAGECOACH.
music than the shrill whistle of the locomotive does at the present day. He often carried the great ( ! ) East-and- West mail on horseback."
Mr. Zinn's service began in 1816, under a contract to carry tho mail once a week between Columbus and Chillicothe. In a short time, says a writer in the Ohio Statesman, a semi-weekly mail was arranged for, and in 1819. or thereabouts, Mr. Zinn contracted to carry the mail in coaches to Delaware. In 1820-21, pur- sues the same writer, " an attempt was made to carry the mail in stages from Zanesville by Newark and Granville to Columbus, by a Mr. Harrington, but proved unprofitable, and the coach was run very irregularly."
A schedule of arrivals and departures of mails, published by Postmaster Joel Buttles in January, 1822, is here reproduced, with the hours omitted :
Eastern - Arrives every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and is made up every Mon- day, Wednesday and Friday.
Southern - Arrives every Wednesday and Saturday, and is made up every Monday and Thursday.
Northern - Arrives every Monday and Thursday and is made up every Sunday and Wednesday.
Western -Arrives every Saturday and is made up every Wednesday.
Piqua -Arrives every Thursday and is made up every Sunday.
Eastern, via Newark- Arrives every Wednesday and is made up every Saturday.
Washington, Ky .- Arrives every Monday and is made up immediately.
N. B. The mail is always closed thirty minutes before the time of departure.
The Columbus Gazette of May 30, 1822, announced that the following new mail routes, of local importance, had been established at the last preceding session of Congress :
From Columbus by Springfield, Dayton, Eaton, thence to Indianapolis, in the State of Indiana ; thence by Vandalia, in Illinois ; thence to St. Lewis, in Missouri.
From Columbus to Sunbury, through Harrison and Genoa townships.
From Columbus through Marysville, the seat of justice in Union County, by Zanestield to Bellefontaine, in the county of Logan.
From Norton, in the county of Delaware by Claridon to the City of Sandusky.
From Bellefontaine in Logan County, by Fort Arthur and Findlay to the foot of the Rapids of the Miami of the Lake.
In April, 1822, John Stearns announced that, " having prepared himself' with a good stage and horses," he intended "running a stage the ensuing season from Chillicothe to Lower Sandusky," and other lake points, and " from Columbus to any part of the State." The first line between the capital and Mount Vernon was established in the same year by C. Barney, who, two years later, was associated with C. W. Marsh in running a line from Columbus to Lower Sandusky, then called Portland. In 1823, to the great delight of the people, an uncovered carriage, called a stage, drawn by two horses, began making trips once a week between Co- lumbus and Zanesville. The road being in an excerable condition, and laid for a great part of the distance with corduroy, two days were required for the journey from terminus to terminus.
This Zanesville line was doubtless one of the enterprises of Mr. William Neil and his associates. Mr. Neil was a native of Kentucky who had come to Ohio in 1815, and settled at Urbana. During a visit at the capital in 1818 he was the guest of Captain Joseph Vance, then owner of the land now constituting the State
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS
University farm, of which he afterward -in 1828 -himself became the owner. On this occasion he made arrangements for a commercial expedition to New Or- leans, which did not rosult favorably. At a later date, becoming by invitation cashier of the Franklinton Bank, he located in Columbus, and in 1822 began the mail-carrying enterprises, in the development of which, and of the passenger traffic, he made himself the chief, and Columbus the center, of one of the most ex- tensive systems of stage lines in the Union.
During the year 1822, Mr. Neil, in association with Jarvis Pike, became pos- sessed of Philip Zinn's interest, and undertook to carry the mail three times a week between Columbus and Chillicothe. About the same time, the firm also ob- tained contracts for running a line of mail wagons between Columbus and Zanes- ville, which service was soon afterwards extended to Springfield, Dayton and Cin- cinnati. Gradually Mr. Neil and his associates acquired control of additional lines, cansed the mails which had been reaching Columbus by cross roads to come thither direct, and diverted the great through postal service from other channels to the capital. As these combinations were perfected. both mail and passenger service rapidly developed, and we find in May, 1826, the announcement by William Neil and A. I. McDowell that their line of mail stages would thenceforth run through from Cincinnati, rid Dayton and Columbus to Portland in four days. Each pas- senger was allowed twentyfive pounds of baggage. In 1827 the Cincinnati and Portland service was changed from tri weekly to daily, and the tri-weekly line between Columbus and Chillicothe also furnished daily service during the months of January and February.
Meanwhile new lines of local mail service multiplied rapidly. The proposals of the Postal Department, published in the summer of 1827, show the following routes with Columbus connections :
From Lancaster via Courtwright, thrice a week, twentyeight miles.
To Lower Sandusky (Portland) rig Worthington, Delaware, Norton, Rocky Creek, Marion, Claridon, Burgess, Little Sandusky, Upper Sau lusky, Tymochtee, Oakly, Fort Ball, Fort Seneca and Bloomingville, once a week, one hundred and ten miles. Between Colum- bus and Delaware this line carried the mail three times a week in twohorse stages.
To Lower Sandusky three times a week.
To Piqua via Worthington, Dublin, Darby, Mechanicsburg, Urbana, Monroe and Troy, seventyeight miles, twice a week.
To Zanesville, via Granville. Hanover and Newark, sixtysix miles, thrice a week, in stages.
To Ripley via Franklinton, Georgesville, Duff's Fork, Bloomingburg, Washington, Lees burg. Hillsborough, Scott, New Market, West Union and St. Clairsville, one hundred and three miles, once a week.
The condition of the roads was still such, however, as to greatly impede the service, as witness the following announcement of April 10, 1828 :"
The several mail stages have commenced running through this place [Columbus]. The unfavorableness of the season, until within a short time, bas rendered it impossible to trans- port the mail otherwise than on horseback. This has no doubt been a serious drawback on the contractors.
In April, 1828, the following announcement was made :
The subscribers have established, and have now in complete operation, a line of Post Coaches on the following routes, viz :
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MAIL. AND STAGECOACH
From Portland, three times a week, through Mount Vernon, Columbus, Springfield, &c., to Cincinnati, in four days.
From Wheeling to Cincinnati, daily, by way of Columbus, Springfield. Dayton and Leb- banon, through in less than four days.
From Cleveland three times a week through Wooster, Mount Vernon, Columbus, Spring- field, etc., to Cincinnati in four days.
From Portland three times a week through Lower and Upper Sandusky, intersecting the above lines at Springfield, through in four days.
This announcement was signed by William Neil, Robert Neil and Jarvis Pike, of Columbus : H Moore & Co., of Wheeling; T. Squier & Co., of Dayton, and J. Satterthwaite & Co., of Lebanon.
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