History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 48

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 48

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" Then, in very relief, as it seemed, he went on and poured out a full confes- sion."

" Captain Henry," concludes this account, " says this is the most difficult case he had ever had anything to do with, or of which he has any knowledge in the annals of the criminal side of the postal service."

On July 20, 1877, one of the carriers on a route east of Washington Avenue was arrested on a charge of opening letters, and abstracting their money contents. He was caught by a decoy package, and confessed.

In December, 1885, frequent complaint was made of the loss of valuable letters which should have been received through the Columbus postoffice, and arrange- ments were in progress for the detection of the depredator, but before guilt could be established, the suspected person quitted the city.

In April, 1887, one of the most trusted carriers of the office fell under suspi- cion, and conclusive proofs of his abstraction of the valuable contents of registered letters was developed.

On February 26, 1888, a carrier was arrested on a similar charge.

A comparative statement of the business of the Columbus Postoffice for a series of years past, and of its present and past organization and equipment, would fitly conclude this branch of the subject, but the writer's request for this information not having been respected. it cannot be given.

The postmasters of Columbus and the dates of their service, from the origin of the city to 1890, have been as follows :

Matthew Matthews, 1813.14; Joel Buttles, 1814-29; Bela Latham, 1829-41; John G. Miller,3 1841-45; Jacob Medary,4 1845.47; Samuel Medary, 1847-49 ; Aaron F. Perry, 1849-53; Thomas Sparrow, 1853-57; Thomas Miller, 1857-58; Samuel Medary, 1858 61; John Graham, 1861-65; Julius J. Woods, 1865-70; James M. Comly, 1870-77; Andrew D. Rodgers, 1877-81 ; L. D. Myers, 1881-86 ; De Witt C. Jones, 1886-90; Andrew Gardner, 1890.

The telegraph being a twin agent with the mail, its introduction and develop- ment in Columbus may here be briefly sketched.

Samuel F. B. Morse, its inventer, first conceived the idea of transmitting intel- ligence by means of the electric current while voyaging across the Atlantic, from Havre to New York, in the packetship Sully, in the autumn of 1832. The original apparatus was advanced to a working condition in 1836, and was for the first time exhibited in practical operation at the University of New York in 1837. Morse's patient but almost hopeless struggles for the recognition and support of Congress finally triumphed during the night of March 3, 1843, when an act was passed, and became a law, appropriating thirty thousand dollars for the erection of a trial line between Washington and Baltimore. At a late hour of the evening, before this measure came to a final vote, Professor Morse retired to his room in despair; the

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next morning Miss Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, announced to him the good news of its passage. "As a reward for being the first bearer of this news," said the overjoyed inventor to Miss Ellsworth, " you shall send over the telegraph the first message it conveys." On May 27, 1844, from Mount Clare Depot, at. Baltimore, Professor Morse spoke by the wire to his young friend at Washington, saying he awaited her dispatch in conformity with his pledge. Her immediate and singularly appropriate response was :

WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!

Such was the first telegraphic message transmitted in America. Since that momentous honr what marvelous things this wondrous invention has accom- plished !

Its usefulness being incontestably proven, the extension of the telegraph was so rapid that in 1860 over fifty thousand miles of wire were in operation." By the middle of September, 1846, Morse's Magnetic Telegraph Line, as it was called, had been extended westward from New York City ria Troy, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Auburn and Rochester to Buffalo, and from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. A further extension from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Cincinnati had also been arranged for, and the company's agent, Henry O'Reilly, had already proposed, on conditions, to carry the line through Columbus. The Ohio River was reached by the Harrisburg line a month or two later, and by the end of July the polesetters, following the National Road westward from Wheeling, had passed Columbus and were pushing for Cincinnati, which place they reached about the tenth of August. In the meantime a stock subscription of five thousand dollars allotted to the capital had mostly been taken. After the polesetters had done their work the wires were quickly strong, and between seven and eight o'clock in the evening of Wednesday, August 11, 1847, the first telegraphic message ever received in Colum- bus came over the line from Pittsburgh. It was thus written out by Mr. Zook, the superintending operator :

PITTSBURG, August 11.

Henry O'Reilly presents his respects, by lightning, to Judge Thrall, Colonel Medary, and Mr. Batcham on the extension of the Telegraph within reach of the Columbus Press.

The instruments worked well for fifty or sixty hours, then stood motionless. A day, a night, and another day passed, and still they refused to speak. The case was particularly provoking, because just then important news was expected from Mexico. An electric storm " between Wheeling and Pittsburgh " was said to be the cause of the trouble. At last the current resumed its work, but not long. Another break occurred, of which we read in the Statesman of August 18 this ex- planation :

In consequence of some arrangements for working the whole line to Cincinn iti the tele- graph at Columbus will be suspended for two or three days, after which its operations will be constant.

HENRY O'REILLY.

On which the editor comments with restrained and pardonable emotion :

We hardly know what to say to the above. We can scarcely excuse it on any terms. For two days the machinery would not work here in consequence of the electricity of the atmosphere, and today, when the weather is fine, the apparatus is removed to Cincinnati without a moment's notice. But we forbear to say what we feel just now.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

By the intensity of his disappointment bere recorded we may measure the editor's joy in making the following announcement in the evening Statesman of August 25 :

We have the telegraph once more in operation in this city. Mr. Smith arrived this morning with the instrument to work it, and has been transmitting messages for some hours.

For some time " The Latest Streak " was the Statesman's favorite caption for telegraphic news. In the issue of the paper for October 5, 1847, it serves to intro- duce the following incident :

During a thunderstorm this morning, the lightning took a notion to work the Telegraph on its own hook, but made sad work of it. Running along the wires, it entered the Tele- graph office in this city, and melted the wrapping of the magnet so that the communication was cut off for several hours.

On the next day the instruments were silent again, " the line being ont of order between Wellsville and Pittsburgh."6

During the month of November, 1847, a telegraphic line was strung between the new capital and the old one - Columbus and Chillicothe.

On March 10, 1848, we read that the castward line was "out of order beyond Zanesville," which, observed a mortified editor, "is peculiarly aggravating at a time like the present, when the publie mind is upon the qui rire in reference to the deliberations of the Senate upon the treaty" [with Mexico].1

This interruption, caused by some derangement between Wheeling and Pitts- burgh, continued for some days. Meanwhile a few belated news dispatches were received ria Wheeling and Cincinnati.

In May, 1848, a second wire was stretched between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, the first one having earned a dividend of six per cent. during its first six months, and proved insufficient to accommodate the business. The new line paid a dividend of three per cent. for its first quarter, ended September 30.

The first notable bogus dispatch which startled the general publie was one sent over the wires July 20, 1849, announcing that President Taylor had died of cholera at Washington. The actual death of the President occurred almost pre- cisely one year afterwards.

During the summer and autumn of 1849 the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincin- nati telegraph line was strung, ria Wooster, Mount Vernon, Washington and Wilmington. Mr. Wade, then of Milan, Ohio, was superintendent of its construc- tion. Its wire, approaching from the north, touched Columbus October 30. To Colonel J. J. Speed, then having general charge of telegraph extension in Ohio, was attributed the remark that within sixty days from that time every county town in Ohio of two thousand inhabitants-Dayton alone excepted-would be reached by one or more of the Morse lines.

On May 3, 1851, the public was informed that telegraphic wires would imme- diately be strung along the railway from Cleveland cia Columbus to Cincinnati, and thence to St. Louis. This line, it was stated, would use " House's Printing apparatus, that furnishes the news in good English instead of a row of dots and straight lines."

The House instrument was introduced in the Columbus office about September 1, 1851. The office of the O'Reilly lines was then at the corner of High and State

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streets. By November 1, 1851, three wires connected Columbus with Cincinnati.

Attempts to join the opposite shores of the Atlantic with a telegraphie cable began in 1857, and reached their first successful result in August, 1858. The in- spiring thrill of delight with which the English-speaking races of two hemispheres received the news of this sublime triumph of the human mind can scarcely be for- gotten by those who experienced it. What happened in Columbus on that memora- ble occasion is thus recorded under date of Angust 17, 1858 :ª

The announcement last evening that a dispatch was expected from the Queen to the President ria the Atlantic Telegraph Cable excited general interest among our citizens. About eight o'clock it was announced that the dispatch had been received. The telegraph office, the banking house of Miller, Donaldson & Co., Swayne & Baber's office and the Gazette office were brilliantly illuminated. The band in the Statehouse yard discoursed music for the entertainment of the crowd, and rockets, Roman candles, etc., were let off from various points. The Vedettes repaired to their armory, and soon the sounds of the spirit- stirring drum and the earpiercing fife were heard issuing therefrom. Shortly after ten o'clock they turned ont for parade, and marched through the streets firing volleys of mus- ketry. During the whole evening the streets [illuminated with bonfires] were filled with people.

The messages exchanged between President Buchanan and Queen Victoria are next quoted. That of the Queen contained ninetynine words, and occupied in its transmission sixtyseven minntes. The cable continued to work until September 1, then ceased. The cause of its failure is one of Old Ocean's secrets. The first permanently successful cable across the Atlantic was laid in 1866.

In April, 1863, Mr. George Kennan closed his engagement as a night operator in the Columbus office, and went to Cleveland. Mr. Kennan has since distinguish- ed himself on the lecture platform, and in literature.

"Opposition " lines of telegraph erected by the United States Company es- tablished working connections with Columbus during the year 1864. They were under the local supervision of Thomas Golden. Altogether about twenty wires ran into the city at that time. On March 16, 1866, the lines of the United States Telegraphic Company were locally merged with those of the Western Union. In April, 1868, the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company opened an office in Colum- bus for general business.

At two o'clock P. M., on May 10, 1869, a company of citizens, assembled at the office of the Western Union, listened to the telegraphic signals of the strokes by which the last spike was driven in the construction of the Union Pacific Railway. Simultaneous announcement of this event was made in like manner at the offices of the Union in all parts of the country.

The business of the Western Union office during the month of March, 1874, may thus be summarized : Messages received and sent, 6,500; messages forward- ed or repeated, 16,230, special news dispatches sent, 65,000 words; Associated Press dispatches received, 200,000 words. The apparatus with which the office was at that time equipped included a $1,200 switchboard, two sets of duplex instruments, two sets of automatic repeaters, three testing instruments, a Siemens galvanometer, and a Colland battery. The location of the office was on North High Street, near the Neil House -W. A. Neil's building - where it had remained for seventeen or eighteen years. On April 1, 1877, it was transferred to the southeast corner of High and State streets.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

For comparison, as indicating the growth of the telegraph business in Colum- bus and of the city itself, the following statement of the business of the Western Union office during the year 1891, for which the writer is indebted to S. M. Dunlap, the present manager, is here inserted : Messages sent, 178,701 ; messages received, 193,431 ; messages relayed, 437,976; total number of messages for the year, 810,108; press specials sent, 2,750,250 words; press specials received, 1,700,- 520 words; total press specials sent and received, 4,450,770 words. This state- ment does not include the dispatches of the Associated and United press associa- tions which pass over the . Western Union wires, amounting to thirty thousand words daily.

On December 12, 1876, the District Telegraph Company was organized ; eap- ital stock, 850,000. Its purpose was that of supplying a convenient means for de- livery and collection of telegraphic messages, and for commanding the execution of all manner of family and business errands within the city precincts. The system had already been in successful operation in various other cities. In January, 1880, the company had in its employ fifteen uniformed messengers; the present number, so says Mr. George Cole, the manager, is fortyeight. From the fact that but two messengers were needed during the Civil War period, the growth of the company's business may be inferred.

In January, 1880, the American Union Telegraph Company opened an office in Columbus, only to be absorbed one year later by the Western Union. In De- eember, 1881, the Mutual Union Company obtained the permission of the City Coun- cil to erect its poles through the city. This corporation also soon fell under the control of the Western Union, and a later rival, the Postal Telegraph Union, was not long in reaching a similar fate.

The first practical test of the telephone in Columbus was made by the Elec- tric Supply Company during the State Fair, in the autumn of 1878. At that time a line of telephone communication was erected on Long Street, connecting the Supply Company's office with the Fair Grounds, and so successful was the experiment that five working lines were soon afterward put into operation. The Telephone Exchange, Mr. George H. Twiss manager, was organized January 1, 1879, and one year later there were ninety lines and two hundred and fifteen telephones in daily use in the city. In April, 1880, the Columbus Telephone Company was incorporated by C. W. Ross, George H. Twiss, A. W. Francisco, William D. Brickell and George F. Williams ; capital stock, $50,000. In 1881 this company extended its lines to Westerville, Worthington and other neighboring villages. Within a period of less than two years from the organization of the Telephone Exchange, over five hundred telephones were in use in the city. In April, 1883, connections were made with Circleville and Chillicothe, and by that time, or soon afterwards, Groveport, Canal Winchester, Carroll, Lithopolis, Lan- caster, Shadeville, Kingston, Clarksburg, Williamsport, Dublin, Delaware, Galena, Sunbury, Reynoldsburg, Pataskala, Granville, Newark, Hilliard, Plain City, West Canaan, Marysville, Magnetic Springs, Richwood, London, Lilly Chapel, Big . Plain, West Jefferson, Mount Sterling, Summerford, Midway, Lafayette, South Charleston, Springfield, Urbana, Mechanicsburgh, Greenville, Dayton, Troy, Piqua, St. Paris, and other places within like radius had been brought into speak-

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ing connections with the capital. In favorable atmospheric conditions even t'in. cinnati could be hailed and talked to.

During the last seven years the extension and improvement of the telephone service in the city have been quite in keeping with its carlier development. What its Inture may be, and what still more marvelous things may yet be accomplished with the mysterious agent which serves it, no prediction, scarcely a hypothesis, may be safely ventured.

NOTES.

1. Ohio State Journal.

2. Jbid.

3. Mr. Miller was a brotherinlaw to President. John Tyler.

4. Died in 1847.

5. In 1866 the telegraph service of the United States, exclusive of government, railway and private lines, had in nse 170,000 miles of wire, and employed nearly twentythree thousand persons.

6. Ohio Statesman, October 6, 1847.

7. Ohio State Journal.

8. Ibid.

9. 11.id.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BEGINNINGS OF BUSINESS.

The first trade of the Franklinton colony consisted chiefly of barter with the Indians, and the distribution of supplies to the settlements. Goods were brought from the Ohio River on the backs of packanimals, or were carried up the Scioto in skiffs. Many of the settlers went personally to Chillicothe for their flour and salt. Few of them indulged in the luxury of " storegoods; " their clothing was mostly homemade. Implements of husbandry were bought, by those able to buy them, of the traders in Franklinton. Tea, and other luxuries of light weight, were obtained through the mail or by special arragement with the postcarriers, after these re- sources became available. As rapidly as new trails and roads were opened, new supplies were brought in, mercantile stocks were enlarged, and trade increased proportionately. The risks of transportation were considerable, but prices were high and profits large. The exchange of trinkets and cheap, showy stuffs for the peltries and wild fruits brought in by the Indians formed an important and lucra- tive traffic.

The War of 1812 imparted a great stimulus to trade in Franklinton, as has already been narrated. Money was plenty while the war lasted, and labor in great demand. The limited local supplies of produce found ready sale at good prices, to the purveyors of the Northwestern Army. The founding of the capital, coming at the same time, added uo little to the general thrift of all the settlements at and near the Forks of the Scioto. The erection of the public buildings created an additional demand for labor, skilled and unskilled, and produced an expenditure of money very large for the place and period. Portions of the wild forest which had hitherto been almost worthless, suddenly took on extraordinary values. Specula- tion was rife, and the profits of merchandizing, and army contracts, made fortunes for those who had the opportunity. Thus matters went on until the war closed, when there came a reaction. The National Treasury was heavily weighted with war debt, the currency of the States was in an execrable condition, and the evils of speculation and inflation were quickly followed by those of depreciation, stagna- tion and collapse. Business became languid, labor idle and distressed, and money, worthy of the name, almost impossible to get. Wages were paid exclusively in trade, and all business degenerated into mere barter. Whisky being a supposed remedy for the prevalent fevers, as well as a consolation for other hardships of the frontier, it was in active demand, and virtually became a standard of values. Numerous private stills for its manufacture were established, and it was both

[368]

Chay At. Firiobic

...

PHOTOGRAPHED BY BAKER.

Residence of Mary L. Frisbie, 750 East Broad Street, built in 1886-88.

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BEGINNINGS OF BUSINESS.

offered and received in purchases, and the payment of debts. Doctor Hoge is said to have lost some of his parishioners because they would not accept it in discharge of pew rent. All the stores sold it, as a matter of course, along with drygoods, groceries and hardware, and its use was well nigh universal. On August 23. 1821, the weekly Gazette of Columbus made this announcement :

Goot merchantable whiskey will be taken in payment of debts dne thi+ office, at twenty five cents per gallon, if delivered by the first of November next.

The reactionary business depression which began soon after the close of the War of 1812 dragged wearily on for ten or twelve years. Not until 1825-26 did the burden of its distress begin to be lifted. Its effects in Columbus have been de- scribed so circumstantially and graphically in the letters of Mrs. Betsy Green Deshler heretofore quoted, that nothing needs to be added to her statements to make the picture of that doleful time sufficiently impressive. We turn from it to other and more pleasing details in the business growth of the capital.

As soon as the borough of Columbus began to take form by the erection of cabins and the opening of taverns, it attracted much of the trade of Franklinton, as has been stated. The most important establishments which thus transferred their business from the west to the east side of the river were mentioned in a pre- ceding chapter. The subsequent record of these firms is limited almost exclusively to the meager and occasional advertisements which appeared in the borough news- papers. Among the partnership and individual business enterprises thus men- tioned, inclusive of Franklinton, were the following :

1812 - Henry Brown & Co., Richard Courtney & Co., J. & R. W. McCoy, Samuel Culbertson, Robert Russell, Samuel Barr and Jeremiah Armstrong. It is related, as indicating the vicissitudes of business at that period, that Mr. R. W. McCoy, in buying out a partner's interest, stipulated that payment should be remitted in case of destruction of the goods by the Indians.

1813 -L. Goodale & Co., J. Buttles & Co., and Starling & DeLashmutt.

1814 -D. F. Heaton, Tailor; Starling & Massie, General Store; Eli C. King, Tanner; John McCoy, Brewer, and Joseph Grate, Silversmith. Another early silversmith was Nathaniel W. Smith, who made a business in " grandfather clocks," and employed Stephen Berryhill, a schoolteacher, to set them up for him.

1815-J. & R .. W. McCoy, drygoods, groceries and liquors.

1816 -Lyne Starling & Co.

1817 -Goodale & Buttles and Henry Brown & Co., who bought out the general store of Starling, Massie & Brotherton. Samuel Cunning arrived during this year, from Pennsylvania, and erected a tannery.

1818 -Samuel Barr & Co. are the most extensive advertisers of this year, and announce a stock consisting, "in part," as follows :

All kinds of cloths and drygoods, notions, paper hangings, boots and shoes, books and shawls, saddles, bridles and portmanteaus, Bibles, looms, shoe- and scrubbing-bruslies, groceries, hymnbooks, queen's-, glass-, hard- and tinware, wines, whetstones, Glauber's salts, stationery, all kinds of spices, drugs, medicines and dyestuffs, bells, shrub, fryingpans, to- bacco and cigars, crosscut saws, cradles, bedcord, powder and lead, oilcloth, copper teakettles, Jamaica spirits, salmon, French brandy, coffee, tea, shoepegs, sugar pocketbooks, umbrellas, Morocco and calfskin, Scott's Commentaries, steelyards and whiskey.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

Such may be considered a fair illustration of what constituted a complete "store " stock in those days.

Among the other names which appear in the advertisements of the year 1818 are those of Hiram M. Curry, Jeremiah McLene, Ralph Osborn, Abram I. MeDowell, Captain Joseph Vance, Doctor John M. Edmiston, Henry Brown & Co., James Kilbourn, William Neil, Robert Russell, Orris Parish, Joseph Olds, Junior, John Kilbourne, Delano & Fay, and Franeis Stewart. William A. MeCoy, then a lad of seven years, arrived in 1818, and was employed in the store of his uncle, R. W. McCoy, in which he afterwards became a partner.

In 1820 we find the advertisements of William Platt, cutlery, John Warner, silversmith, and John Kilbourne, bookstore.

In 1821 Atkinson & Martin advertised that they will make " hats of every de- scription, to order, on the shortest notice," and that they will pay the highest price, in cash, for muskrat skins. James Culbertson, landlord of the Foxchase Tavern, indicates the prevailing condition of trade in this year by the announce- ment that he will accept " whiskey, sugar and linen " in payment of all debts due him. Francis Stewart advertises a store stock comprising " drygoods, groceries, ironmongery, queen's-, china-, glass- and tinware; books and stationery ; also, one ease of elegant straw and Leghorn bonnets; salt, powder, lead, cordage, iron, steel, castings, nails, whiskey, tobacco, segars, &c., &c., &c." Russell & Leiby figure among the advertisers of the year. John F. Collins, blacksmith, "continues to shoe horses, all round, with the best of iron, for the moderate price of one dollar," but adds twentyfive cents to this price when " steel toes " are expected. " Edward Smith, Gent.," announces himself as " Senior Shaver of the metropolis of the State of Ohio," and in half a column, or so, of magniloquent phrase warns the public against " those itinerant impiricks " of his " profession " who " periodically annoy the regular practitioners in this borough." Gentleman Smith " fondly trusts " that the " distinguished statesmen and literati" whom he counts as his patrons will continue to reward " his unwearied exertions for the public good."

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 48

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