History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 76

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196

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Thus two of the most important requisites of the entire building -- its warm- ing and ventilation -were arranged for - very imperfeetly, as the event has proved - after the structure was so far advanced that a costly and in some respects mischievous arrangement for these purposes was necessary. As to the supply of light for the interior there had been an equal want of forethought. Says Mr. Kelley :

At each end of the Senate Chamber I found the light totally excluded by two little insignificant rooms, over which the galleries were to be. The walls of these have been removed, and the windows at each end now light the Senate Chamber. The space will be occupied by a raised platform, furnished with seats for a ladies' gallery.

Doubtless this change improved the light in the Senate Chamber very mueb, but, after all the costly efforts which have since been made to relieve the interior gloominess of the building, many portions of it, including the rotunda, are still far from cheerful. The ambition for outside effect which predominated the origi- nal plans seem to have been disdainful of interior comfort. In all parts of the building which were far advanced toward completion Mr. Kelley found altera- tions necessary. The arrangement by which one of the columns on the west side of each of the legislative chambers was placed directly before its entrance caused him much regret. In general he found the interior construction seriously lacking in " beauty, convenience and adaptation to its uses."

The quarry railway on Third Street had by this time become such a tiresome nuisance to the people on that street that they remonstrated strongly against its continuance for the additional term of three years asked for. Acquiescing in this remonstrance, the City Council refused by a tie vote to grant the continuance. Referring to this matter, Mr. Kelley said :

A sort of informal proposition was afterwards made to me, to the effect that if the Statehouse Commissioners would grade Third Street from North Street to North Public Lane, the ordinance would be passed. Regarding this as an extortionate and unfair demand, I refused to agree to the proposition, but offered to fill up the street at any grade the City Engineer might fix, wide enough for the railway track, and to keep the whole of the street in repair as long as the track was used, if the Council would fill up their own street on the sides of the railroad. . . If we were compelled to resort to wagons to haul all the stone we shall require, and all the dirt to fill up and grade the lot, it will make a difference in the expense of the large sum of $30,000, besides causing much delay.

On April 8, 1856, the General Assembly which came in with Governor Chase passed an act pursuant to which a new board of Statehouse Commissioners was appointed. The members of this board were William A. Platt, " acting," and

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James T. Worthington and L. G. Harkness, "advisory." The commissioners were required by this act to submit to at least two architects of their own selec- tion the plans which had been adopted, and obtain their written opinion as to the fitness of the plans, " the character, propriety and value" of the work and materials, and " the best and most advisable plan for executing and completing " the work which still remained to be done. In compliance with this requirement the board submitted the plans to Thomas U. Walter, architect of the Capitol at Washington, and Richard Upjohn, architect of Trinity Church, New York. In May, 1856, these gentlemen submitted a report in which, after commending the general arrangement and adaptation of the building, they proceeded to recom- mend numerous changes in its details. Some of their more important sugges- tions were :

1. The fluting of the columns in the portico, so as to accord with the entabla- ture finished in the Grecian Doric style. 2. Removal of the dome, then in course of construction, and its substitution by a roof fashioned according to the design of Mr. West. 3. A system of forced ventilation in lieu of that by exhaustion. 4. Smoke-consuming steam boilers. 5. Removal of the boilers from their position beneath the rotunda. 6, Reduction in the height of the chimneys. 7. Simpler ornamentation of the interior. 8. Skylights in each of the large rooms. 9. More light for the main corridors leading to the legislative chambers. 10. Omission of the galleries intended for the Senate Chamber. The report makes these concluding statements :

One great error seems to have been made in working without properly matured plans and details of drawings. In a work like this, the cost of full and complete plans of every part of the building bears no comparison to the saving they effect in the erection of the work and the satisfaction of seeing the end from the beginning. . . . No one can tell what is the value of a thing until the thing estimated for is designed. We therefore think the most important step now to be taken is to have the drawings for the whole work perfected without delay.

In regard to these suggestions the new Commissioners remarked that they regarded them as very valuable, although they might not be disposed to adopt them in every particular. With such diligence was the final construction prose- cuted that, by January 1, 1857, the legislative chambers were ready for occupaney.

The formal opening of the new Capitol was a very impressive event, and attracted the attention of the entire State. Preparations for it on the part of the people of Columbus began with a public meeting held at the American House December 22, 1856. At that meeting it was resolved that the citizens of Columbus would " give an entertainment to the citizens of Ohio on the occasion of opening the State Capitol," and L. Buttles, Henry Wilson, W. G. Deshler, R. E. Neil and Francis Collins were appointed to make all necessary arrangements for that pur- pose. On the same date, and for the same purpose, Messrs. Noble, Comstock, Decker and Reinhard were named by the City Council. The citizens' committee chose R. E. Neil as its chairman, W. G. Deshler as its treasurer and Dwight Stone as its secretary. Subscriptions of money to defray expenses were at once solicited, and by December 27 amounted to $3,000. Additional funds were obtained by the sale of admission tickets to citizens of Franklin County, citizens of all other coun- ties of the State being admitted tree. The total sum raised by contribution was 84,705, of which a residue of $317.06 remained after all expenses were paid .?

The day appointed for the festival was Tuesday, January 6, 1857. The vis- itors, numbering about 10,000, included the Cleveland Grays military company, which arrived during the afternoon of the sixth, and was received, escorted and entertained by the State Fencibles. The city was put en fete, and the rotunda, in which the people of the city spread a banquet for the public functionaries and

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THE CAPITOL.

guests, was embellished with evergreens and tricolored draperies. During the evening the entire Capitol building was illuminated. About nine o'clock in the evening the special ceremonies of the occasion began in the Hall of Representa- tives, which was densely crowded. After an invocation by Rev. Doctor James Hoge, Hon. Alfred Kelley, Senator for the counties of Franklin and Pickaway, delivered an address of welcome. In the concluding part of this address, which was brief, Mr. Kelley said :

The building in which we are now assembled combines that sublime massiveness, that dignity of form and features, that beautiful symmetry of proportions, which together consti- tute true architectural excellence in a high degree. True, it may have its imperfections - what work of man has not ? - still it is worthy of a great and patriotic people, by whom and for whom it was erected. It is emblematic of the moral grandeur of the State whose counsels are here to be assembled, whose archives are here to be kept, and I trust safely, so long as Ohio shall be a State, or time itself shall endure. May those counsels be so wise that their beneficent influence will be as enduring as these walls.

A response in behalf of the people, dealing chiefly in historical retrospect, was delivered by Governor Chase, among whose closing sentences were these :

With the old State House and the old Constitution, terminated an epoch in the history of our State to which her children will ever look back with patriotic pride. Even now there seem to pass before me the forms of the noble men who made it illustrious. . . . Happy shall we be if we prove ourselves worthy successors of such men.

An additional response on behalf of the General Assembly was made by Hon. T. J. S. Smith, of Montgomery County. While the exercises in the Hall of Repre- sentatives were having their course, merry feet were keeping time to jocund music in the Senate Chamber. The banquet tables in the rotunda, says a newspaper report, " were surrounded all the evening with a cordon of hungry men and women as impenetrable as a Macedonian phalanx."

The General Assembly began its regular sittings in the new Capitol on the day following the festival. During the year 1857 the work of finishing the uncompleted parts of the building, inside and outside, was actively prosecuted, and its grounds were graded. The Ohio State Journal of June 23 contained the follow - ing jubilant announcement :

That venerable pile of musty pigeonholes, old documents and red tape - the roost for years of various breeds of Ohio's officials - has disappeared, all but a part of two chimneys which are fast tottering to their fall. In a few days not one brick will be left upon another to tell where the venerable edifice once reposed in official grandeur. Men are now at work in removing the fence from around the Capitol Square, and the effect is magical. For nearly twenty years that high, rough, black meanlooking fence has been an eyesore to the people of Columbus, and now that it has been taken away they all rejoice. The State House looks a story higher, and the whole appearance of the huilding, the grounds and the neighborhood have improved.

A contract for enclosing the grounds with an iron fence at a net cost of $17,660, was awarded to N. T. Horton, of Cincinnati. The work of placing this fence in position began October 30, but was completed only half way round. A sufficient supply of water for the uses of the Capitol being very difficult to obtain with the facilities then existing, the General Assembly authorized an attempt to test, by boring, the theory entertained by many persons that an Artesian stream existed in the strata which underlie Columbus. Accordingly a boring apparatus was put to work on July 23, 1857, in the northeastern portion of the Capitol Square. After numerous interruptions from lack of funds and other causes, the well thus begun reached a depth of 2,775 feet, when it was abandoned. The amount spent upon it was $13,731.65.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

In the original design of the Capitol a serious difficulty was encountered in determining the form and proportions to be given to its exterior dome or cupola. A writer in the Cincinnati Gazette, discussing this subject in November, 1849, said :

The sentiment of the architect seems to have been, and we are informed that it is pro- fessedly so, to avoid a supposed anomaly in modern architecture -the erection of a spheri- cal dome on the Grecian Dorie order. . . . The erection of a Gothic turret upon the massive substructure of this proposed building would strike even an untutored mind as inappropri- ate and incongruous. The present tower [the writer is speaking of it as it then appeared in the design] is in our judgment no less so. . . . We propose, with deference to the consid- eration of the architect, the substitution of an octangular tower, keeping the proportions of the base and elevation the same as at present, with an octagonal curvilinear dome, - any- thing but the present Chinese hat.

The question thus raised as to the fashion of the " dome " has been intermit- tently diseussed for forty years, without satisfactory conclusions. Isaiah Rogers, who was appointed architect of the building in July, 1858, proposed to surround the " cupola " with Corinthian columns, but this plan of assuaging architectural disharmony was never executed, and the Capitol of Ohio remains to this day sur- mounted by an incomplete, nondescript structure, wholly out of keeping with its general style.

On November 15, 1861, the building was pronounced complete. Up to that date the time consumed in its construction, not including the intervals of suspen- sion of the work, was about fifteen years, and the expenditures upon it and its grounds amounted to 81,359,121.45. In its greatest length the building stands twelve degrees west of north. Its width is 104 feet, its length is 304 feet, its height to the top of the blocking course 61 feet, its height to the pinnacle of its cupola 158 feet, its total area a little more than two acres.

In February, 1863, serious complaints of imperfection in the ventilation of the building were made. In searching for the causes of this, Doctor William M. Awl, then superintendent of the Capitol and grounds, discovered that the subter- rancan passages were clogged with débris, that fresh air was excluded from the lower interior by doors in the passages, and that the ventilating flues were eon- stantly absorbing dust from the coal bins and whirling it through the building. All this was promptly remedied. In 1868 the building was supplied with new beating apparatus, at a cost of $3,000. In October, 1872, a contract for surround- ing the grounds with an iron fence was awarded to Schafer & Son, Springfield, for $21,796.85.

Complaints of bad ventilation and impure air in the building were chronic down to February, 1879, when the legislative and other chambers were pervaded with an abominable stench which was, at that time, attributed to escaping gas, and to horsestables and moldy storage in the basement. The heating and ventila- ting arrangements were also blamed, and an appropriation of 820,000 was made for the introduction of fireplaces and other ventilative expedients. As no draw- ings could be found showing the course of the flues, several months were spent in trying to trace them. Finally, in November, 1884, the astonishing discovery was made that in the construction of waterclosets in the building, connection had been made with the ventilating flues instead of the sewers, the plan of which had been lost, and that the entire system of air ducts was clogged with filth from these closets. Thus, after much expenditure, and a great deal of unaccountable sick- ness, the cause of the socalled " Statehouse malaria " was explained. The extent of the nuisance may be judged by the fact that 150 barrels of filth were taken from the duets which supplementary architecture had planned for the purpose of ven- tilation.

Charles Pige.

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THE CAPITOL.

The State Government has already outgrown the accommodations of the Cap- itol, and various expedients for the reconstruction and enlargement of the build- ing have been proposed. When, as sooner or later must happen, a reconstruc- tion shall take place, or, still better, a new Capitol shall be built, doubtless care will be taken to foreeast the work in all its details, and an edifice will rise which shall be chaste and harmonious in style, and which, bearing out the purpose of all true art, shall unite grace, strength and majesty with cheerfulness, comfort and convenience.

NOTES.

1. The quarry tract, containing fifty acres, was afterward - April 11, 1845 - purchased by the officers of the Penitentiary from W. S. Sullivant for $15,000, which sum was finally paid out of the Statehouse fund.

2. The exterior foundation was laid, at a depth of from six to ten feet below the natural surface of the ground, on a bed of gravel covered with a layer of broken stone and cement. At the angles the walls were made fifteen feet thick ; elsewhere, twelve feet.

3. Governor Bartley's annual message of December, 1845, contained the following pas- sage : " The necessity for the construction of new Public Buildings for the transaction of the business of the State, and the safekeeping of the public records must be apparent to every observer. The interests of the State and public opinion alike demand that the work of the new Statehouse should be no longer suspended."

4. This appropriation was made for an enlargement of the asylum, then urgently needed. Convict service was appropriated to the amount of $25,000, reckoning the labor of each prisoner at forty cents per day.

5. This railway, crossing the Scioto near the present Midland Railway bridge, con- tinned thence to the Penitentiary whence it was extended on North Public Lane, now Nagh- ten Street, to Third, and on Third to the Capitol Square. The engine used on this line is described as a " teakettle " affair.

6. Mr. John J. Janney, whose engagements at that time were such as to cause him to be near the Capitol and to have the opportunity to observe its daily progress, informs the author that the flues built into the walls under Mr. West's supervision were so numerous as to excite surprise. That they were not discovered by Mr. Kelley is scarcely explained by the fact that Mr. Wise took away all his working drawings, claiming them as his private prop- erty. Possibly they were covered over by an upper course of stone without the knowledge of either architect.

7. This residne was donated to the Female Benevolent Society.

8. Mr. Rogers also proposed " a projecting portico in front."

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CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE PENITENTIARY.

The first penitentiary was located and built under supervision of the State Director. Its general dimensions, and the materials of which it should be composed were specified by joint resolution of the General Assembly, passed February 20, 1812.1 Its " proportion " was left to the discretion of the Director, under instructions to follow the best models he could obtain from other States. On December 9, 1812, State Director Joel Wright submitted his plans for the building to the General Assembly. They were accompanied by a report of his investigations pursuant to the instructions given him, and by copies of the rules and regulations of the State prisons of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The location chosen for the prison was a tenacre traet in the southwestern part of the borongh, fronting on Scioto Lane.2 A contract for the building was made during the summer of 1812, but the necessary excavations and the collection of materials, were the only steps taken in its execution during that year.3 " The unsettled state of public affairs and the drafts of the military " were the reasons assigned for the lack of further progress.

During the year 1813, the prison building was erected under the supervision of State Director William Ludlow. Benjamin Thompson was contractor for its masonry, Michael Patton for its carpentering. Martin's History thus describes it as completed :

It was a brick building fronting on Scioto Street or lane, sixty by thirty feet on the . ground, and three stories high, including the basement, which was about half above and half below the ground. The basement was divided into cellar, kitchen and eatingroom for the prisoners, and could be entered only from the inside of the yard. The next story above the basement was for the keeper's residence, and was entered by high steps from the street ; and the third or upper story was laid off into cells for the prisoners - thirteen cells in all - four dark and nine light ones. The entrance to the upper story or cells was from the inside of the yard. The prison yard was about one hundred feet square, including the ground the building stood on, and was enclosed by a stone wall from fifteen to eighteen feet high. Colonel McDonald, of Ross county, was the contractor for the building of this wall.

In 1818 an additional brick building was erected and the prison yard was enlarged to a total area of about 160 x 400 feet. This area descended by terraces to the foot of the hill near the canal, and was surrounded by a wall three feet thick, twenty feet high, and surmounted by heavy plank flooring, with a hand- rail at its inner edge. Within this enclosure workshops were erected. The new building, 34 x 150 feet, and two stories in height, stood with its gable to the street. On its lower floor were the kitchen, diningroom and fiftyfour cells, besides five underground dungeons which were accessible only by a trapdoor in the hall. Two rooms adjoining one another on the second floor were used for the hospital. The

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THE PENITENTIARY.

old building, stripped of its prison fixtures, was reconstructed as a residence for the keeper. Pursuant to an act of January, 1815, the General Assembly chose five inspectors whose duty it was to appoint the keeper and make rules for the government of the prison. An act of January, 1819, substituted a State agent for the inspectors and provided that both the agent and the keeper should be chosen by direct vote of the General Assembly. The first keeper appointed was Captain James Kooken, of Franklinton, who entered upon his duties August 1, 1815, and appointed Colonel Griffith Thomas as clerk. The State agent was charged with the custody and sale of all articles manufactured by convict labor, and was required to make weekly returns of his cash receipts to the Treasurer of State. The first agent was Griffith Thomas. In 1822 the office was abolished, and Barzillai Wright, of New Jersey, was chosen keeper in lieu of Kooken. The appointment of Wright evoked much criticism on account of his nonresidence, which, it was claimed, made him constitutionally ineligible to assume the office. During the summer of 1823 Wright died and was succeeded by Nathaniel McLean, appointed to the vacancy by Governor Morrow. Byron Leonard dis- placed McLean in 1830 and was in turn displaced by W. W. Gault in 1832. Gault continued in office until the convicts were removed to the new penitentiary in 1834. Martin says :

During the whole term of business at the old Penitentiary, a store of the manufactured articles was kept connected with the institution, and a general system of bartering was the policy adopted. Blacksmithing, wagonmaking, coopering, shoemaking, gunsmithing, cab- inetmaking, tailoring and weaving were carried on in the prison, and the work and wares of the institution were sold or exchanged for provisions and raw materials such as sawed lum- ber, staves, hooppoles, coal and firewood, etc., or sold for cash as cases might offer.

Mrs. Emily Stewart informs the writer that her mother had her carpets woven in the prison, and that when she delivered the raw material she always took with her a large basket filled with cakes, pies and doughnuts, which she gave to the prisoners to insure good work. A considerable proportion of the prisonmade goods seems to have been disposed of on credit. On February 20, 1817, " James Kooken, Keeper O. P.," made the following appeal :4

The time has arrived when the subscriber finds himself under the necessity of calling all those who are indebted to him for articles purchased from the Penitentiary to make immediate payment. His indulgence to them has been at his own risk and injury, and he now has express orders from the board of inspectors to put all notes and accounts in suit, which shall remain unpaid on the tenth day of March, next. It is sincerely hoped that gratitude as well as a sense of justice on the part of those who have been so repeatedly accom- modated by the subscriber will save him the unpleasant duty of resorting to legal measures.

An advertisement of 1826 stated that pork would be received at the prison in exchange for manufactured articles.

Discipline in the original penitentiary was lax, its walls soon became infirm and the escapades of its inmates were numerous.5 It was also overcrowded, and as early as 1826 suggestions of enlargement began to be heard. Occasional fires broke out within the walls, and were suppressed with great difficulty. The annual deficiency of its receipts below its expenditures ranged from $3,500 to $7,000. A legislative commission appointed in 1831 reported in favor of removal of the estab- lishment to Zanesville. This commission also recommended that but one prison should be built rather than an additional one, as had been proposed. In December, 1831, a standing legislative committee reported exhaustively as to the condi- tion of the old prison, and recommended that a new one be built in the vicinity of Franklinton. This report was accompanied by a proposition from W. S. Sullivant offering to convey to the State eight acres of land " lying north of and adjoining to the town of Franklinton," the gift to be conditioned upon the erection

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

of a penitentiary upon the ground donated within two years. Pursuant to this report the General Assembly, on February 8, 1832, passed an act providing for the erection of " a new penitentiary of sufficient capacity to receive and employ five hundred convicts, to be confined in separate cells at night," the entire cost of the establishment exclusive of convict labor not to exceed $60,000. A board of three directors, to be chosen by the General Assembly, was empowered to purchase for the site, at a cost of not more than two thousand dollars, a tract of not more than twenty acres to be situated within one mile and a half of the Statehouse, the contract of purchase to include the right to " take and conduct into the new penitentiary, for the use thereof any spring or watercourse they," the directors, might " deem neces- sary." A superintendent of construction was provided for and the plan of the building was required to follow. so far as might seem best, that of the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield. The act made a building appropriation of 820,000 and allowed to the directors a salary of one hundred dollars each. The appoint- ment of the keeper, whose official title was changed to that of warden, was vested in the board of directors, and his compensation was fixed at 81,000 per annum.

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 76

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196