USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II > Part 75
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council ; 18, citizens. The route of the procession was thus prescribed : North on High to Long, by countermarch south on High to Town, west on Town to Front, south on Front to Mound, east on Mound to Third, north on Third to State, west on State to High, thence on High to the Public Square. "Order of exercises at the bower :" 1, Prayer ; 2, original ode; 3, Declaration of Independ- ence ; 4, ode ; 5, oration ; 6, ode ; 7, benediction. After these exercises the Square was to be vacated in order that the public dinner might be served.
The day of the ceremony was ushered in with an artillery salute and a burst of martial music. The weather was propitious. Three military companies had arrived the evening before from Lancaster. They were the Black Hawk Braves, Captain Burnett; the Lancaster Guards, Captain Myers, and the German Guards, Captain Witty. After passing over the route mapped out for it, the procession, which was very large for those days, entered the Capitol Square. Here, as its head of column approached the northeast corner of the foundations, where the huge stone to be laid was hanging by many ropes over the companion piece on which it was to rest, one of the bands struck up Hail Columbia. In the presence of a crowd of five or six thousand people the exercises were here conducted accord- ing to programme. The ceremony of depositing the cornerstone was performed by ex-Governor Jeremiah Morrow, whose brief and appropriate address concluded with the following sentences :
I pronounce that Ohio, a member of this great republic, by her assembled people this day lays the cornerstone of her future capitol. Let the foundations be deep and strong; let the materials be of nature's most lasting gifts - durable, imperishable ; let the edifice rise in solemn, simple grandeur, a monument of chaste and classic beauty. And may the light- nings of heaven, which scathe, and the whirlwind and storm which prostrate the works of man, pass by and spare this home erected by a mighty people and consecrated to social and constitutional government. And may the councils of truth and justice and public virtue preside in its halls; may discord and faction be put far from them; and may a free and united people, who reared it, and whose temple it is, watch over and cherish within its walls the form and spirit of their republican institutions. And may the blessings of a benign Providence, now and through all coming time, rest upon this people, and upon this house, the work of their hands. I now lay the cornerstone of the Capitol of Ohio!
The stone was then lowered to its place, covering a cavity in the centre of its pedestal in which were deposited, sealed up in strong glass jars, the following articles: Copy of the Declaration of Independence, constitution of the United States and of each of the twentysix States then composing the Union, ordinance of 1787, Statutes of Ohio, copy of the Bible, copy of Transactions of the Histori cal and Philosophical Society of Ohio, specimen United States gold and silver coins, 150 newspapers, various statistical works and periodicals, specimen agricul- tural and manufacturing products, reports of the State institutions, and a glass tube, hermetically sealed, containing a scroll bearing the following inscription :
The cornerstone of the Capitol of Ohio, in the United States of America, was laid under the direction of the Commissioners by Jeremiah Morrow, ex-Governor of the State, and one of its earliest Pioneers, in the presence of the officers of State and a large concourse of citizens, on the 4th day of July, in the year of our Lord 1839, at Meridian, being the sixty- third anniversary of our National Independence. The State of Ohio, being the sixteenth State admitted into the Union, was organized into an independent State in the year of our Lord 1802.
The ceremonies being completed, Reverend Mr. Cressy pronounced a benedic- tion, after which the procession was again formed and moved to the corner of Broad and Fourth streets, where " a soulstirring ode " by William D. Gallagher was sung by " an excellent choir," and a Fourth of July oration was delivered by John G. Miller. After this oration the procession returned to the Capitol Square
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where " a superb dinner " prepared by Mr. George, " was served up under a very tasefully arranged bower." At this dinner numerous toasts were proposed and responded to.
After these ceremonies and festivities work upon the foundations was resumed and continued until the end of the season of 1839. The commissioners planned to erect a basement story, and collect materials for the interior walls, during the ensuing year, but the repeal of the act for the erection of the Capitol, which took place on March 10, 1840, set all these calculations at naught. The events which led to and attended this repeal and the efforts which followed it to remove the seat of government from Columbus, have been narrated in the first chapter of this volume. Owing to these proceedings all work upon the Capitol was suspended for six years. Meanwhile the foundations of the building, not yet raised to the surface level, were covered with earth, and the high board fence which surrounded its grounds became dilapidated and weatherbeaten. The expenditure in the work up to the time of its cessation amounted to nearly $50,000.
Nothing was done toward resuming the erection of the building until March 13, 1844, when the General Assembly adopted a resolution appointing W. A. Adams, Samuel Medary and Joseph Ridgway, Junior, as commissioners " to report a modification of the plan for a new Statehouse." This commission submitted a report recommending certain changes in the plan originally adopted, and accom- panied its recommendations with specifications and drawings showing "in detail the whole design and arrangement of the proposed erection." Here the matter again rested until, on February 21, 1846, a second act " to provide for the erection of a new Statehouse " was passed.3 This act, like its predecessor of 1838, pro- vided for the appointment of three commissioners to supervise the work, and gave them authority to appoint a superintendent, an architect, and other agents to act in their behalf. The plan submitted by the commission of 1844 was adopted, with such modifications in details as might seem, during the progress of the work, to be expedient. To the construction all the surplus labor and net profits of the Ohio Penitentiary were appropriated with a reservation that the debt which the prison officers had incurred in purchasing the stonequarry and in building a rail- way thercto, together with a previous appropriation of prison labor to the asylum for the insane," should first be paid. The commissioners appointed were W. A. Adams, Samuel Medary and Joseph Ridgway, Junior. In the report at the close of 1846, these gentlemen express regret that owing to poverty of resources but little progress had been made during that year. Only seventeen convicts per day, on the average, had been furnished from the prison, and the time of these had been mostly consumed in laying the foundations of the inner walls and excavat- ing for the foundations of the west front. In 1847 still less was accomplished, and the patience of the people of Columbus with the chaotic and hideous condi- tion of the Capitol Square began to show signs of exhaustion. The Ohio State Journal of August 10, 1847, gave expression to a popular feeling by no means con- fined to Columbus in the following words :
No citizen of Ohio visits the seat of government without experiencing a feeling of mortification at the appearance of the dilapidated old concern dignified hy the name State House. Standing in a conspicuous part of the city, and exposed as it is to a very unfavorable contrast with the private edifices which surround it on every hand it is a disparagement to the State. The visitor turns impatiently from the spectacle, and for relief looks for the new Capitol which was commenced some ten years ago to supplant the present uncomfortable warehouse of the State's wisdom and unsafe depository of the State's archives, treasure and literature. He looks - hut his view is intercepted by an unsightly and rickety old board fence enclosing the public square in the very heart of the city, constructed some ten years since to secure convicts while employed upon the work of the new building. Should he persevere and get within this uncouth enclosure he would find it occupied with shapen and shapeless materials - rough ashlers, and perfect ashlers - strewn with promiscuous con- fusion, and overgrown in many places with rank weeds and thistles.
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Similar sentiments were thus poetically expressed :
All hearts were light, and faces bright, Some eleven years ago, When that new fence was put around The State House Yard, you know ; For all expected soon to see In grandeur and in style, Arise above that pine board fence A vast and noble pile. But then we felt some little pride, Alas ! that it has flown ; Or, that we buried it beneath Yon massive corner stone.
And now that fence has grown quite old And bears marks of decay ; And many a post has rotted off As time has passed away, And many a board has fallen down, To show to passers by The base of that stupendous work Which was to pierce the sky. But then, etc.
The children all rejoice to see It tumbling to the ground ; And even some of riper years. Smile as they pass around ; They smile to think on bygone hours When free from every care They used to play upon the green In that old public square But then, etc.
At length, in the spring of 1848, the work began to be pushed with some energy. William Russell West and J. O. Sawyer were appointed architects and general superintendents; Jacob Strickler was named as special superintendent ; stone from the State quarry was arranged for; labor, both free and convict, was engaged, and on May 5 a local chronicler wrote : " Operations are resumed in the construction of the new State House, under the provisions of the act of the last session." To this announcement one of the commissioners added these state- ments :
The architects at present employed are Messrs. West and Sawyer, of Cincinnati, the former a pupil of Mr. U. Walter, the architect of the Girard College, and the latter a superin- tendent of construction of the same building. Mr. Henry Walter, the gentleman to whom was awarded the first premium for a plan for the new State House, and who has measurably retired from business, was, in connection with his son, architect of the Catholic Cathedral in Cincinnati. The plan of the interior of the new State House has been somewhat modified, and in the opinion of the Commissioners considerably improved. while the exterior remains with but little alteration. The foundation for the interior, with exception of that for the rotunda, has not been laid ; and the preparations now in progress are not for new and addi- tional foundations. The elevation of the building will be no greater than was originally designed, the level of the first floor being fourteen feet eight inches above the top of the present foundations, and about twelve feet above the level of High Street, opposite the centre of the Public Square. It is the intention of the Commissioners to have the basement walls put up this season so as to be in readiness for the commencement of the ground arches early next spring.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
The expenditures upon the building in 1848 amounted to about $20,000 cash and 84,220 in convict labor at forty cents per day. At the close of the year the basement walls were still incomplete. In 1849 a railway track was laid to the bottom of the stone quarry, and machinery was provided for hoisting and trans- porting the stone with diminished trouble and expense. The basement walls were completed, and by the close of the year the building had risen fourteen feet above the surface of the ground.
In 1850, the work, stimulated by a generous appropriation, and facilitated by improved steam machinery, made commendable progress, notwithstanding the cholera epidemic then prevailing. In addition to about eighty convicts, a force of free stonecutters was employed, and by the close of the year the building had risen nearly thirty feet above the original surface. The expenditure for the year amounted to 868,383.45. Joseph Ridgway, Junior, of the Commissioners, died of cholera at Mt. Vernon, in August. His successor, appointed in the following March, was William S. Sullivant.
Early in the spring of 1851, the winter coverings were removed from the walls, and the work resumed. The quarry railway had meanwhile been extended on Third Street to the Capitol Square for the transportation of stone thither by loco- motive traction. To the force of convicts employed, numbering this year about one hundred, were added about thirty hired stonecutters. The increase in the height of the exterior walls during the year was about twenty feet ; the aggregate height reached was about fortyeight feet. The total expenditure was $99,383.95 ; the architect asked for the next year an appropriation of 8250,000.
Before the season of 1852 opened an unexpected motive for hastening work on the new Statehouse was given by the destruction of the old one by fire. This event occurred on Sunday morning, February 1. The Ohio State Journal thus described it :
Yesterday morning, about four o'clock, the cry of fire rang through our streets. It was soon ascertained that the Old State House was on fire. The watch first discovered it in the centre of the Senate Chamber, and on the floor. This was nearly extinguished when it was discovered that the timbers overhead and near the belfry were on fire. Soon it burst out through the roof, and the entire belfry was quickly in flames. The engines could not reach the fire, and it was then evident that the venerable old edifice in which the legislature of Ohio has met for the last thirtyfive years was doomed to destruction. The belfry, after burning brilliantly for a few minutes, came down with a crash upon the floor of the Senate Chamber. The roof then gradually fell in and the upper story of the building was a mass of flames. An effort was made to confine the fire to the Senate Chamber and upper rooms, but there was too heavy a mass of burning matter on the floor to be extinguished and soon the flames reached the Hall of Representatives. The origin of the fire has not been ascertained. The desks, chairs and furniture had been removed, and the entire building was then resigned to its fate. In the Senate Chamber very little was saved. We learn that the clerk's papers were all secured, but that a large mass of documents, journals, constitutional debates, &c., were consumed. The loss of the State is not great, as it is hoped that hy 1853-4 the State House will be so far completed as to permit the session of both houses in the new halls.
The Ohio Statesman s account said :
The fire originated near the bell, in the cupola, and hy dropping through to the Senate Chamber floor communicated rapidly with other parts of the building. The Sergeant-at- Arms of the Senate rushed in as soon as they discovered the fire in that Chamber, and with much trouble and by the assistance of others succeeded in saving the official records of the Senate, and most of the valuable hooks, papers and a part of the furniture. The furniture, carpets, books, records and papers of the house were all saved by the timely and energetic efforts of the House officers, members and citizens.
An investigation as to the origin of the fire was made, under joint resolution, but came to no satisfactory conclusion. Circumstances strongly indicate that the origin was incendiary. The use of the old United States Courthouse was immedi-
Maurice Evans
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ately tendered for the sittings of the Senate, and was accepted. The House was accommodated in Mr. Neil's Odeon Hall. At the beginning of the ensuing session - December 6 - the Senate transferred its sittings to the Ambos Hall, which had been handsomely fitted up for its accommodation. The House continued to meet in the Odeon. Thus the two branches of the General Assembly were again brought near together, albeit obliged to communicate with one another by way of the street. This arrangement was resumed during the sessions of 1853-4 and 1855-6. In 1854-5 no legislative session was held. In the winter of 1856-7 the General Assembly convened for the first time in the new Capitol.
On March 18, 1852, an act was passed " to provide for the more efficient and expeditious completion of the new State Honse." This seems to have been a case of partisan " reorganization." Pursuant to this act an entirely new board of commissioners was appointed. Its members were Edwin Smith, S. H. Webb and E. F. Stickney. These commissioners appointed one of their own number - S. HI. Webb - to be general superintendent of the construction in all its departments. They retained William R. West as architect, made J. K. Linnel clerk, and appointed the following foremen : J. R. Edwards of masonwork, James Pasco of stonecut- ting, Gideon Walton of carpenterwork and Martin Maguire of the stonequarry. Eighty convicts and 135 other workmen were employed in the Capitol Square ; the force at the quarry numbered about one hundred. An appropriation of $200,- 000 for the ensuing year was asked for. In July, 1853, Ambos & Lennox, of Col- umbus, contracted to furnish the iron framework for the roof at a cost of $37,837. Owing to difficulty in procuring iron, the contractors did not make as rapid pro- gress as they expected to ; nevertheless, by the end of the season, they had a con- siderable part of the framework in position. Copper for the roof, at 333 cents per pound, was contracted for, and about eighty cases of this material were delivered. Before 1853 closed, the columns and pilasters for the legislative chambers, all of Pennsylvania white marble, were in position ; cost, 817,750. On June 15, a repor- ter of the Ohio Statesman wrote :
The stonecutters make the yard ring with the elink of their chisels. The hewn stones move upward to their places. The oxen and locomotives are busy at work. The boys in stripes move pretty briskly for the warm weather. The central columns are rising upward.
Same paper, October 18:
We see that the whole row of the front columns have been put in. The front begins to present a fine appearance. Within a week the frieze and cornice will be put on. . . . A great many visitors are moving over the building.
Saine, October 24 :
Five large derrieks, we believe they are ealled, adorn the summit of the State House. Their long arms are continually reaching out, picking up with their big elamps, big stones, and flinging them into their proper places with great rapidity, considering their size. The giant Demigods when they fought against Heaven did not pluck up the trees and burl the mountains with more facility.
The massive columns of the castern facade were placed in position during the winter of 1853-4. On April 18, 1854, the architect, William R. West, resigned ; his successor was N. B. Kelley, appointed May 11. In his letter of resignation Mr. West said :
The present Commissioners, on coming into office, in addition to the architect " thought it indispensably necessary to have one general superintendent over all the departments." It was next thought necessary to remove, with one exception, every master mechanic on the building, as well as the superintendent of the stone quarry - one whose energy, intelligence
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
and knowledge of the courses of stone from which I wished to have all the important blocks quarried, rendered invaluable. These men, familiar with the work under their charge, have suddenly to give place to new hands, some unqualified and some unwilling to perform their duties. Order, system and subordination soon came to an end. Workmen sometimes received directions from the President of the Board, and sometimes from the architect. Of those given by me, some were obeyed, some were disregarded, and some were counter- manded by the clerk ; and I found that I no longer had that control and supervision of the work without which no architect can have his plans properly carried out. The result of this change of system has been to produce delay, to cause useless expense, and seriously to affect the proper construction of the house; in all of which is involved the reputation of the architect. Of the work which, two years ago, I estimated would be completed at this time, the eastern portico and pediment are not yet completed, the third floor is not yet arched, the cupola is not begun.
The new architect, Mr. Kelley, was invested with general supervisory author- ity, and was allowed a salary of $1,500 per annum. Charles Rule, of Cincinnati, contraeted to furnish and put down all the flooring tiles, which were to consist of Italian white and American black, white and blue marble, the tiles varying, accord- ing to quality, from one to one and onehalf inches in thickness. James Lennox contracted to furnish the wroughtiron watertanks and Nelson A. Britt to put on the copper roof. At the end of 1854, all the stonework was completed except the stairways and the enpola. For and during the year 1855 the following contracts were made: Goodwin & Mahon, Cincinnati, gaspipes: James H. Johnson, Cin- cinnati, plumbing ; Charles Rule, Cincinnati, marble balusters and rails for the interior stairways and the marble rostra for the presiding officers of the General Assembly ; Dale & Son, Cincinnati, plastering ; H. Cummings, Cincinnati, paint- ing and glazing ; J. R. Schroder & Company, Cincinnati, locks ; J. B. Platt, New York, glass; Corry & Webster, New York, registers and ventilators; James Len- nox, Columbus, heating apparatus; Columbus Machine Manufacturing Company, wrought and east ironwork for the eeilings. The commissioners aimed to have the legislative chambers ready for use by the end of 1855, but were unable to do so. Their report for that year was accompanied by an elaborate one from the archi- tect, Mr. Kelley, who made these important statements :
Upon examining the plan and structure of the building, I found a radical defect in the entire absence of any means for ventilation. There were no flues for this necessary purpose, nor were there any apparent means which could have been intended to supply this serious want 6 . . There was no provision for any system of warming the corridors, rotunda and passages of the vast building. . . . In order to supply the flues for ventilation, I was com- pelled to adopt one of two expedients. I had either to cut into the solid stone walls in every room, and in some of them in several different places, and to construct flues within the masonry ; or I had to case the walls inside with brick, between which and the main walls the fines might be placed. After mature consideration I determined upon the latter plan as the cheapest and best. In applying it, therefore, I have had to line the whole of the build- ing, as it were, with brick inside the outer or main walls. This portion of the work has been completed in all the rooms except those of the Senate, Library and Supreme Court.
Mr. Kelley adopted a plan for combining the heating and ventilation in one system. The apparatus for the supply of heat comprised four large steam boilers placed under the rotunda, and connected by pipes with eighteen air chambers sit- nated in different parts of the basement. The cold air was admitted into these chambers " by openings in their walls at the base," and, on being heated and rari- fied by contact with the interior steampipes from the boilers, rose by conducting flues between the main walls and their sheathing to the different halls and apart- ments of the building. Mr. Kelley's plan for removing the deoxygenated air is thus described in his report :
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In the east open courts of the building two great ventilating stacks are erected. They are constructed of bushhammered limestone, and their dimensions are 13 feet 5 inches at the base, 10 feet three inches at the top, and 100 feet high. They are finished at the summit with a cornice and blocking. Connecting with these stacks at the bottom, and in fact empty- ing into them, is a vast system of underground circular brick flues - air stoves. By them the hot air is to be received from the removing flues, which take it from the rooms, and convey it into the stacks. . . . To construct these we had to penetrate the old foundations in forty or fifty places, and had also to cut passages through the basement walls in above thirty places. . . . In order that the air sewers might exert a sort of suction force to draw the spent air from the spent air flues, so that it may be by them withdrawn from the rooms, a strong current was needed from the mouths of the sewers to the tops of the stacks. This has been obtained by means of the smoke and waste steam. From the vault under the floor of the rotunda in which the boilers and furnaces are placed, capacious underground flues are constructed by which the smoke, waste steam, gases and vapors are carried into the stacks. These heated elements enter the stacks above the mouths of the air sewers and causing immediate rarification, create a partial vacuum by reason thereof. Up to this the cold air at the bottom of the stack rushes and thus creates a strong ascending draft which carries off and exhausts the flues.
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