USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 19
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WAR.
In the "wolverine war" of 1835, when it seemed that there would be a clash of forces over the boundary between Ohio and Michigan, a regiment was called together at Miamisburg ready for action.
The Mexican war, which excited great interest at Dayton, will receive atten- tion in a special chapter.
MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
The important material interests that have been noticed have value only as they bear on personal qualities and conditions-educational, moral, social. The common school system had its birth in the period under review. The first steps were tentative and the results meager, but as beginnings they were important. The churches and Sunday-schools went on multiplying and increasing in strength.
BEGINNING OF THE Y. M. C. A.
The beginning of the Young Men's Christian Association in Dayton was prom- ising but was somewhat lacking in fulfillment. A communication signed "E." occupying a place in the editorial space of the Dayton Journal of July 8, 1858, called attention to the need of a Young Men's Christian Association, and an- nounced a meeting to be held at Wesley Chapel, to be addressed by Professor Milton Saylor, president of the Cincinnati Young Men's Christian Association, and others from that association. A local organization was effected but after a short time was discontinued.
THE PRESS.
The local press was represented by a number of daily and weekly publications and was for the most part able and of high character. The religious press, first represented by the United Brethren publications in 1853, became a strong factor in the moral and industrial growth of the city. All the subjects referred to im- mediately above will be presented in special chapters.
SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN.
JOHN W. VAN CLEVE, even down to the present time, and without disparage- ment to any one else, may be spoken of as Dayton's first citizen. He was the son of Benjamin and Mary Whitten Van Cleve, born June 27, 1801, being the first male child born in Dayton. At the age of ten he began to study Latin, at sixteen he entered Ohio University at Athens, and in his first year was employed to assist in teaching Latin. Writing to ask the permission of his father to teach, he said, "I think it would inform me in the Latin a great deal. I believe with one month's practice now in speaking the Latin I could speak very nearly as freely in it as I can in English." Mathematics was play for him. To his knowledge of Greek and Latin he added after leaving school a knowledge of French and Ger- man, being a practiced translator of the latter. He was skilled as a musician,
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painter, civil engineer, botanist and geologist. He used his ability in various directions for the benefit of his native city.
He was the founder of the Pleyel Society, a musical organization, dating from 1823, and an incorporator of the library in 1847. To him Dayton owes Woodland cemetery.
He studied law with Joseph H. Crane and in 1828 was admitted to the bar, though he did not become an active practitioner. In 1828, he acquired an in- terest in the Dayton Journal which he edited in whole or in part till 1834. He then entered into partnership with Augustus Newell in the drug business, he furnishing the capital and Mr. Newell having charge of the business. In 1851 he gave up active business and devoted himself to the following out of his own tastes and to the improvement of the city and the advancement of its people. In 1830, 1831 and 1832 he was mayor of Dayton and at other times served the city in various capacities. He was a stanch whig and took an active part in the Harri- son campaign in 1840. He was a man of large frame and weighed over three hundred pounds. He died September 6, 1858. The funeral took place in the Presbyterian church, Dr. Thomas E. Thomas delivering a befitting oration. It is a small but not unsuitable thing that Van Cleve park should be named in mem- ory of this gifted, accomplished and public-spirited man.
SAMUEL FORRER, one of the most skilled, industrious and trustworthy civil engineers of the west, was born January 6, 1793, in Pennsylvania. In 1814 and 1818, he made visits to Dayton. In 1818 and 1819, he was employed as a civil engi- neer in Hamilton county and in surveying United States lands. In 1820, he was employed to examine the summit between the Scioto and Sandusky rivers to as- certain the feasibility of uniting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by a canal. As engineer employed by the state in canal construction and management, canal com- missioner, consulting engineer in Ohio and Indiana, a surveyor and contractor in the building of railroads, his duties and responsibilities were many and varied. Soon after coming west, he made his home in Dayton, where in 1826, he was married, rearing here a large family. He served in 1839 as engineer and super- intendent of the turnpikes centering in Dayton, and in 1840, was made city surveyor and engineer. At various times, he was consulted on local engineering problems. He assisted Mr. Van Cleve in laying out Woodland cemetery. He died in Day- ton March 25, 1874.
THOMAS MORRISON was for many years one of the leading builders in Dayton. He was born of Scotch-Irish parents in Pennsylvania, August 9, 1792. After various experiences in moving to the west, the Morrison family passed through Dayton in 1805 to a farm up Mad river on which they settled. The parents soon dying the three sons worked together for a time building a log house, clearing and fencing the land, and planting a crop of corn. Thomas became a millwright, a carpenter and then a contractor. He made Dayton his home in 1809 in which year he had twenty-two days of schooling in one of the rooms in the Newcom tavern, making six months' schooling in all for him. From 1810 for many years he was the chief contractor in Dayton, there being few buildings of importance that were not built by him. His building operations extended also to other places. In 1822, he had a rich but unprofitable experience in flat boating. He was a rough and ready man of pioneer type, a natural leader, honest and unyielding. Ile
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died in 1878. David Morrison, his son, was one of the best constructive engi- neers in Ohio.
THOMAS BROWN was for many years the brick-maker and brick contractor of Dayton. His brick-yard was on Brown street, named after him. He and Thomas Morrison worked together on many buildings, each having his own part of the contract, beginning to work thus on the market-house built in 1829. Thomas Brown was born in New Jersey April 10, 1800. After learning his trade, he walked all the way from New Jersey to Lebanon, Ohio, later going to Xenia, and in 1828, coming to Dayton. He was employed as a contractor and builder till 1851. He served as a member of the the general assembly and a director of the state prison. Mr. Brown engaged in a number of commercial enterprises and later became member and president of the firm of S. N. Brown and Company. In 1824 he married Sarah Groome Brown, widow of his brother, John. One of his four children was S. N. Brown. He was a man of large executive ability, public-spirited and a true man in private life. He died in 1894, his life being almost the measure of the century.
HORACE PEASE was a worthy compeer of the men of large mold and genuine achievement already named. He was born in Connecticut in 1791. When eight- een years of age, in company with a cousin, he rode on horseback to the west. In 1827, he settled in Carrollton, engaging in the manufacturing of wines from fruits, and later in milling, having as an associate his brother, Perry Pease. In 1839, they moved to Dayton and established a flouring mill on Third street east of the canal. In 1834, he was a member of the legislature and at different times held other civil offices. He was connected with banking, the projecting of rail- roads, and with manufacturing. He was a student of literature and art, was fa- miliar with history, was an original thinker, as well as a path-breaker in various practical industries. He probably had as much to do in making plans for the old court house as any other man. The offer of a premium of two hundred dol- lars for plans was made April 15, 1844. Two months later, the premium was awarded to Howard Daniels, a Cincinnati architect, and Horace Pease, John W. Van Cleve and Samuel Forrer were appointed by the county commissioners special commissioners into whose hands the plans were placed. Some of them must have been consulted before the plans were drawn. They afterward made some changes chiefly in the line of enlargements. In the letting of the contract and the super- vision of the work. much was left to Mr. Pease. But before anything was prac- tically undertaken he resigned his offices in connection with the proposed struc- ture, probably seeing the unpleasant complications that were ahead. He was married to Ann Stiltz in 1821 and after her death to Sarah Belville in 1832. He died July 29, 1875. He was a gentleman of the old school, successful in all his business affairs, which success was but the pedestal for the larger structure of the man, the citizen, the head of a model home.
CHAPTER V.
PERIOD FROM 1860 TO 1880.
THE CIVIL WAR-LOCAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR -- EXPANSION-FLOOD OF 1866- PERIOD OF DEPRESSION-NEW JAIL-THE CIVIL WAR-DEED FROM COOPER HEIRS.
Though the events of the Civil war will be treated in the special chapter on military history, yet all the events of the time of that war were so determined or colored by it, that it is necessary to keep constantly in mind the fact and effects of that great conflict. While Dayton was somewhat removed from the scene of the war, the character of the struggle was in no community of the entire country more manifest than here. Dayton and Montgomery county included, on the one hand, many peace democrats, and, on the other, as outspoken and de- termined supporters of the war as could be found anywhere in the north. The local situation was shown, on the one side, by the astounding frankness of C. L. Valandingham in opposing the war and by the secret machinations of the Knights of the Golden Circle. On the other side, no words were too strong or violent to be applied to southern sympathizers, and no efforts that could be devised to promote enlistments or care for soldiers' families were neglected.
LOCAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR.
Manufacturing, commerce, travel, social events, agriculture, politics of course, and largely religion, were either shaping or shaped by the war. The depreciation of paper money and the scarcity of men made high prices. Machinery was made to take the place of the men in the field. The conditions before the war were left behind forever.
EXPANSION.
Notwithstanding all of the interruptions and losses caused by the war, the gain in population for the ten years preceding 1870 was ten thousand, three hun- dred and ninety-two, a gain of more than fifty per cent as compared with the population in 1860. Within this decade the fire department proper had its be- ginnings, and the police department was rapidly assuming form. Already, too, steps were taken providing for a city water system. In this period, a number of Dayton's most important industrial and commercial institutions were established.
In 1866, the Wayne avenue market house was built by an incorporated com- pany over Seely's ditch. Dayton's first street-railway, the Third street line, was
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constructed in 1869. Rapid transit by horse power was understood to put the city fully abreast the times. The greatest feature in this era of progress was the locating near Dayton of the central branch of the National Military Home. Special factors on the religious side were the locating in Dayton in 1866 of the Christian Publishing Association, and the permanent establishment in 1870 of the Young Men's Christian Association.
FLOOD OF 1866.
One of the greatest floods in the history of Dayton occurred in September, 1866. Robert W. Steele, who wrote from personal observation, thus describes the devastation wrought:
"There were scenes of desolation on every hand. From the summit of the ridge in East Dayton there was a wide prospect of water in the valleys and broad, open pools above Bucktown. The corn in the fields, as far as the eye could reach, was standing up in seeming defiance of the floods. At the head of the hydraulic there was a wide crevasse, and from that point down to Spinning's corner, there was an indiscriminate mass of drift lumber, staves, barrels, bridge timber, shingles, hen coops, outhouses, and frame shops of every description. The side tracks of the railroad in that vicinity were undermined, and the rails stretched across gaps in the embankments. One of the most weary scenes was that of women ankle deep in mud, collecting their scattered household treasures for the resumption of housekeeping, and the men busily engaged in fishing their effects out of the water and mud of Mad river.
"Manufacturers suffered much from the mixing and piling up promiscuously of their movable and floatable property. Above Jefferson street the torrent made a clean sweep in a direct line, striking the dwellings, tearing up the fences, etc. The main force of the current struck Butz's corner at the foot of the bridge em- bankment, and seriously threatened the house, but only the pavement was torn up and a few cartloads of gravel washed away. At Sixth street the embankment on the west side leading to the change bridge was cut, closing the carriage way, the bridge going, too. The volume of water rushing through this channel was ten feet deep and about one hundred feet wide. It, however, threatened more than it destroyed. There was no water between the canal and Fifth street in Oregon, the canal bank not giving way. Just below Fifth street there was considerable damage done, the Oregonians blaming Seely's ditch. The back water entered from the south, and most of the people who lived in two-story houses moved their furniture and carpets to the second floor. Those in cottages were compelled to take refuge with their more fortunate neighbors.
"In South Dayton, west of the canal, the people were sorely afflicted; the water was several feet deep in most of the houses. The water did not find its way to the West End until Wednesday afternoon. The residents on Second street were generally more fortunate, the water taking possession of not more than one-third of the houses."
The total losses were estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Afterward the channel of the Miami river was widened by adding iron spans to the Third and Bridge street bridges. The additions were made in 1867, and
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YCENL-PR
PHILLIPS HOTEL
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1868, at a cost of about ten thousand dollars each. In March, 1867, the contract was let for the Washington street bridge. "
PERIOD OF DEPRESSION.
The period from 1870 to 1880 showed less progress. The gain in population was only a little over eight thousand. The period of inflation following the war led to the panic of 1873. Yet this decade had to its credit the establishment of some new manufacturing establishments and the enlargement of others. This period was the heyday for the manufacture of hay rakes in Dayton. John Dodds, B. C. Taylor, John W. Stoddard and Company, the Barney and Smith Company, the Farmers' Friend Company, with Benjamin Kuhns president, the Ohio Rake Company organized in 1884, were large manufacturers of rakes and other agri- cultural machinery. When the summer shut-down came for closing the business of the one year and gauging the demands of the next many men were idle for a number of weeks.
The Dayton and Southeastern Railroad was completed to the Jackson county coalfields in 1881. The cost to the citizens of Dayton was very heavy but they obtained cheap coal. The railroad company was first incorporated in 1871, but it required a number of combinations and extensions of railroads to complete a system, and then a receiver to conduct the business. In 1871, the Wayne Avenue and Dayton View street railroads were chartered.
·In 1871, Union Biblical Seminary was located in Dayton and in 1878 St. Eliz- abeth's Hospital was founded. A great stride was made in provisions for public safety in the organization in 1873 of the metropolitan police force.
NEW JAIL.
A jail proportionate to the rank and needs of Montgomery county was com- pleted in 1874. The jail at the corner of Main street and the railroad had scarcely been completed till complaints began to be made against it-both as to its con- struction and size. March 8, 1869, the commissioners sought an interview with Architect J. Hodson, of Indianapolis, in respect to plans for a new jail and ten days later he submitted plans for which it was agreed that he should have two and one-half per cent on the cost of the jail. There was much contention as to where the jail should be located. At length ground west of the court house belonging to Boyer and Jameson was decided on and secured. April 6, 1871, the auditor was directed to advertise for bids and May 29, 1871, the contract was awarded to Rouzer and Rouzer for eighty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars. Later and at different times modifications were made in the plans so as to include a number of extra features. The entire building was to be fire- proof. The front or residence part was to be faced with Buena Vista stone. The prison walls were to be lined with quarter-inch plate iron. A boiler-house for the heating apparatus was to be built outside of the jail proper. Differences arose as to the cost of the jail under the modified plans and finally the commis- sioners contracted with Rouzer and Rouzer to finish the foundation and arranged with the architect to draw up new plans, including the modifications already
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thought necessary, and called anew for bids. July 30, 1872, the contract was awarded to Marcus Bossler for one hundred and fifty-four thousand dollars, he having until July 30, 1873, to complete the building. It was not, however, till February 8, 1875, that the building was accepted, the cost at that time having been increased to one hundred and ninety thousand dollars, though the date 1874 may be given as the time for the completing of the jail.
The building is two stories high, with a mansard roof, and consists of the jailer's residence, in which there are six dwelling rooms and two rooms used for the female department, and the prison proper, in which there are twenty-six cells, arranged in two tiers, with a hall running between and a corridor around the whole. The residence part is thirty-six feet, fronting on Third street : is faced with dressed freestone, and has a circular flight of steps leading from the street to the entrance. The cost of construction, including the price paid for the lot and the superintendent's salary, made the entire cost exceed two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Though the jail is regarded as very secure, yet prisoners at different times have escaped. In one case, a prisoner escaped by sawing a circular opening through the ceiling of his cell.
DEED FROM COOPER HEIRS.
The plat of the city of Dayton was made by D. C. Cooper. In consequence of this, in case of the vacating of streets and alleys dedicated by him or of the changing of the use or the sale of lands donated for public purposes, such lands would revert to the D. C. Cooper heirs. A recent court decision is to the effect that the land in vacated streets and alleys goes to the adjacent property. But there were valuable real estate interests that such a decision would not reach. The city of Dayton, therefore, sought and on August 8, 1872, obtained from the Cooper heirs, in consideration of eighteen thousand dollars paid by the city, a quit claim deed for all lands, of whatever character deeded or dedicated by D. C. Cooper for public use, and also for lands later deeded or dedicated by his son, D. Z. Cooper, for public use. An exception was the burial lots south of Fifth street conveyed to the Presbyterian church. To satisfy the Cooper reversionary rights to this ground, the church paid the sum of eight thousand dollars. The Methodist church likewise profited by securing a release of reversionary rights to burial lots. Mention has already been made of the deed of D. Z. Cooper given to the city in 1836, whereby the city was authorized to lease lots numbered 94, 95, and 96, situated north of Second street from Cooper park, for the meet- ing of expenses connected with the maintenance of the park.
Dayton in this period was quite conservative. She seemed not to have grasped the largeness of her possibilities. She may, however, have been gathering her breath for a new advance.
CHAPTER VI.
PERIOD FROM 1880 TO 1909.
NEW COURT HOUSE-COUNTY MEMORIAL BUILDING-POST-OFFICE BUILDING- SOME OTHER BUILDINGS-APARTMENT HOUSES AND SKYSCRAPERS-HOTELS- STREET-PAVING - SEWERS - BRIDGES- DAMS ACROSS THE MIAMI-RECLAIMED LAND-FLOODS-RECENT INVENTIONS AND APPLIANCES-SOME NOTABLE OCCA- SIONS - COLUMBIAN CELEBRATION - DAYTON'S CENTENNIAL - THE WRIGHT CELEBRATION-WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT-DR. CUSTER'S INVENTIONS- NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS-PERSONAL SKETCHES-ROBERT W. STEELE-MARY DAVIES STEELE-MARY BELLE EAKER-HARIET N. STEVENS-LEWIS B. GUNCKEL -PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR-W. D. HOWELLS.
In 1880, Dayton had a population of thirty-eight thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight. Recovering from the panic of the seventies, the city made rapid progress in all lines up to the panic year of 1893. Notwithstanding the scattering of the people, common to all manufacturing centers in times of financial depres- sion, Dayton was able to report a population in 1900 of eighty-five thousand, three hundred and thirty-three. So anxious were the people to have a creditable showing for the progress made in a century that in 1896, the centennial year, on representations made to the general government, Dayton was recognized as having in that year a population of eighty-five thousand.
Beginning with 1897 a tide of unprecedented prosperity set in which con- tinued in full force for a period of ten years. The reaction which came in the fall of 1907 it has required two full years to overcome.
Dayton has shared the advances and reverses of the country at large, but amidst all changes has gone forward enlarging her boundaries and strengthening her institutions. Men in their individual character figure less than formerly. Institutions representing the intelligence, conscience and purpose of the many bulk more largely. The social, the collective, has become more prominent. The personal is not thereby necessarily made to suffer, but is rather brought into a realm of higher adjustments. Many things belonging to the more recent times, must, under the new conditions, be treated in special chapters, but a general view of the course of events and of the outcome of more than a century of progress, is worthy of an earnest effort.
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NEW COURT HOUSE.
The court house erected in the years 1846 to 1850, and of which Dayton was at first so proud, was soon found to be inadequate. March 3, 1857, the county auditor was authorized by the county commissioners to advertise for a vote of the people on the question of building a new court house on the north part of the court house lot, the building to be of brick and not to exceed forty thousand dollars in cost. The structure would have been to the stone court house what the county of- fices building was to the first court house, the proposition was defeated by the de- cisive vote 412 for and 3916 against. Ten years later, on March 13, 1867, an act was passed by the state legislature authorizing the commissioners to build a new court house. May 5, 1869, the commissioners paid Kellogg and Burrows eight hundred dollars for their plans for a new building and it was agreed that they should receive four hundred dollars more for superintending the construction of the same, if the commissioners should decide to build. None of these plans were carried into effect. May 9, 1872, Cleggs Hall, on Third street was rented for the use of the superior court and the law library. July 14, 1879, another call was made for plans, and plans submitted by Peters and Burns were adopted. Later, plans submitted by Leon Beaver were substituted and formally adopted, Novem- ber 21, 1879, he receiving a premium of three hundred dollars for the best plans. Mr. Beaver was a local architect. A second premium of two hundred dollars was given to E. E. Myers of Detroit, and a third of one hundred dollars to Thomas Boyd of Pittsburg. Contracts were awarded February 23, 1880, but on March II, 1880, these contracts were annulled in consequence of the estimates and bills of cost not having been sent in.
On April 28, 1880, plans and specifications were again approved and June 2, 1880, the contracts were awarded as follows : excavations, H. J. Cair, eight hun- dred and seventy-four dollars; foundation, Kramer & Poock, four thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars; brick work, J. Clark & Company, thir- teen thousand six hundred dollars; Fireproofing, Johnson & Company, thir- teen thousand five hundred dollars; concreting, Daniel Slentz, five hundred dollars ; floor-tiling, Carpenter & Raymond, two thousand three hundred and thirty-one dollars and ninety cents ; plastering, Hollinger & Brother, two thousand eight hundred dollars : painting, Thomas D. Hale, two thousand eight hundred sixty-four dollars and forty-three cents ; glass, Lowe Brothers, six thousand three hundred twenty-four dollars and eighty-five cents ; carpenter work, B. N. Beaver. fourteen thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars; iron work, McHoes & Lyon, thirty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars; plumbing, Gibbons & McCor- mick, two thousand seven hundred and seventy-five dollars ; galvanized iron work, George W. and E. E. Buvinger, six thousand one hundred and twenty-one dollars ; cut stone work, Leopold Cutter & Company, forty-five thousand five hundred dollars. The architects total estimate of the cost of the structure was one hundred and seventy-four thousand nine hundred forty-five dollars and twenty-one cents. The excavations and the building were begun in the summer of 1880 and the building was completed in 1884. The building while without striking architec- tural effects is an imposing and tasteful structure. It is entirely faced and or-
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