USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 25
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Undoubtedly Jonathan loved beauty, and wished to create beauty and happiness, else why the apple trees, the gifts of gay prints and ribbons to his child friends? It was of his own choice that he always slept upon the floor before the cabin fireplace, but his motive was a wish not to incommode his host's family. For the same reason, he would not sit at the table lest some one of the children of the family had to wait, but he was a welcome guest at
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all cabins. His life ended March, 1843, at the end of a prematurely warm day, when he reached the home of William Worth, near Fort Wayne, after a long tramp. His supper of bread and milk was eaten while he sat, of his own choice, on the western doorstep, and from the same lowly pulpit he read, aloud, the Beatitudes. Then he lay down, as usual, on the floor to sleep-a sleep from which he emerged only to enter that which knows no waking. His burial in the old David Archer cemetery was attended by old settlers' families from miles around and from the city. In after years the original oak slab which served for a headstone rotted away, and for a time the exact location of the grave was uncertain, but in 1912 it was rediscovered in digging for another grave (the old cemetery is still in use) and the headstone above the now double grave bears inscriptions for both occupants. A bronze tablet (set in a natural boulder) dedicated to the memory of the deeds of Jonathan Chapman, was placed in Swinney park at Fort Wayne in 1916.
Logan County Formed. The new county was separated from Champaign December 30, 1817, by an act of legislature, only its southern boundary being determinate for some time after. The "act" provided for the location of a temporary seat of justice at the tavern of Edwin Mathers "or other convenient place" until a permanent site should be established. The separation was directed to take effect March 1, 1818, and the act was signed by Duncan Mc- Arthur, then speaker of the lower house. The land comprising the county was referred to as "Congress and Virginia Military Lands," and the final fixing of the northern boundary was not com- pleted for some years, being delayed by disputes with Hardin county relative to the relocation of the old surveys. The arbitrary division of the county into townships, followed slowly as settlement progressed.
Logan county received its name in the act of legislature creat- ing it, and it was bestowed in honor of Gen. Benjamin Logan of the American Army, whose forces first opened by means of the "expedition," the territory of the Miami headwaters to white settle- ment. There is a somewhat popular error, frequently met with, that if the county was not named in partial reference to "Logan the Mingo," the name Logan at least had an Indian origin. This is quite without foundation, the truth being that the only Logans who had hereditary right to the name were of direct Irish ancestry, if not of direct importation from Ireland. The name belongs to the unnumbered Irish names ending in "gan." Logan the Mingo (Indian name Tah-gah-jute) was born at Shamokin, Pennsylvania, the half-breed son of a white Canadian named Shikellamy, who at the time was the chosen chief of the Indians collected in that vicinity. Tah-gah-jute succeeded his father in that capacity. James Logan, an Irish Quaker and celebrated scholar, came to America with William Penn in the first half of the eighteenth century, and at the time Tah-gah-jute reached manhood, he was acting governor of the Pennsylvania colony. Tah-gah-jute conceived a great admira- tion for him, and adopted his name (with or without sanction of the owner) a custom quite common among Indians of all tribes. Later,
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as "Logan, Chief of the Mingoes" Tah-gah-jute migrated to Ohio, where the troubles began. "Mingo" was merely a term applied by Indians to any group of Iroquois living in exile from their own territory. "Logan Chief of the Mingoes" was in no way connected with the Indians of Logan county, nor concerned in the conflicts there. Incidentally, his celebrated "speech," was inaccurately reported by the trader, John Gibson, for Logan never had a child, and his wife outlived him, although he attempted to kill her, while intoxicated, and believing that he had done so, fled. Being pursued by relatives, who followed him to carry this tiding, the fugitive, who was discovered at last near the shore of Lake Erie, was killed, in resisting capture, by Tod-hah-dos, the son of his sister, who alone of the Mingo's blood had been a victim of the white raids in Ohio. This is a digression, however, and is to be pardoned, because intro- duced to make clear a point which is of interest to every Loganite.
County Seat
Offers were made by different settlers of sites for the pro- posed capital of the new county, the commissioners, Richard Hock- er, John Hopkins and Solomon Smith, at first accepting that of lands lying about two miles south of Zanesfield, possessed by Solomon McColloch, Samuel McCoid and Joseph Hedges. In the month of April, 1819, the "said commissioners" were informed by the Court of Common Pleas that "a good and sufficient title in fee simple" was unobtainable for the proposed site, whereupon they accordingly selected another site, offered by John Tullis, Leonard Houtz and William Powell, whose proposition included the liberal terms quoted below from the court document furnished the historian by Mr. W. W. Riddle. The site in question was, of course, the land upon which the heart of Bellefontaine was soon afterward located. After designating in technical terms the exact location of the tract, the offer reads :
"We, the undersigned, will give, for the use of the county, the Public Square, a sufficient lot for public worship, and burying ground, and in addition to the above lots, as much ground as will make one hundred acres, the whole to be laid out in lots, and to give the county an equal half of said lots, as they may be numbered, beginning with the lowest number, or the highest number, the town directors to take the first choice, we the next, and so on, alternately. Also to convey the lots to be given as aforesaid in fee simple, with covenants of warranty. Given our hands this 4th day of May, 1819."
No mention is made in the court journal quoted of the name of the new county seat, but in the year following the title Bellefon- taine appears an accepted thing. It is well understood now that the name was selected not in reference or compliment to any other town or family of that name, but as descriptive of the crystal springs in which the locality abounded, and possibly in special reference to Blue Jacket spring, the site being that of Chief Blue Jacket's former residence. Further on in the proposition of Messrs. Tullis, Houtz and Powell, the southern boundary of the town was fixed
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as "a line running due east and west," and so located as to include "the big spring." The long misprized gift to the town was at the foot of the slope, south of the old Blue Jacket cabin in which (with some improvement, doubtless,) John Tullis, sr., then made his habi- tation. The word "Bellefontaine," meaning "beautiful fountain," was suggested by a daughter of John Gunn, who, it will be remem- bered, is said to have been a man of scholarly attainments, and whose daughters were also unusually accomplished ladies.
The town was laid out March 18, 1820, by the proprietors and the town director, Solomon McColloch, duly appointed and au- thorized by the court. Based upon the southern boundary line, the plat was divided into sixteen blocks, standing "four square" with the world-or so it was honestly intended by the early survey- ors. Cincinnati (now Main) and Columbus avenues intersected at the center, the public square lying at the southeast angle of the intersection. Chillicothe and Sandusky avenues extended east and west to south and north of Columbus, and Mad River and Detroit streets ran north and south to the east and west of Cincinnati street. The outer edges were simply designated "corporation limits" and only thirty feet was allowed each for roadway. The lots averaged fifty-five feet in width, by two hundred and twenty feet in depth. The cemetery was located in the northwest corner of the plat, and many years later, after the removal to the new city of the dead, the plot was transformed into a pretty little park (Powell), in which a memorial boulder and bronze tablet was placed a few years ago by Miss Mary Powell, in honor of her grandfather, William Powell. Needless to say, the whole plat lay almost unimproved, and mostly lost in a thicket of trees and underbrush, through which the projected streets had yet to be hewn. The Blue Jacket cabin, in which lived the senior Tullis, was the only structure within the limits of the plat. The whole was done as written down. The town director was ordered by the court to attend public sales, and authorized to make private sales at his own discretion if he believed the county should profit thereby, and in particular authorized to sell to William Powell, "Lot 114, on which some improvement is made." In the mammoth game of "tit-tat-toe" between the county and the proprie- tors (scarcely as smile-provoking to the participants as it seems to- day), the county had taken all the lots with "even numbers." These lots were offered at public sales, the first of which was held the first Tuesday in June, 1820. The plat was filed for record August 12, 1822. Solomon McColloch held his responsible office, for which he gave bond in the sum of $10,000, until 1831, at which time a further entry in the court journal reads : "Solomon McColloch comes into court and tenders this resignation of the office of town director.
which resignation is accepted by the court " 'who thereupon appointed Benjamin S. Brown his successor, with Henry H. McPherson, David P. Alder, and Anthony Casad for his sureties. Dr. Benjamin S. Brown was still acting in the capacity as late as 1841, and doubtless continued to act until the county's properties were finally disposed of.
Among the very earliest settlers of the new town were Joseph Gordon, Nathaniel Dodge, Anthony Ballard, William Gutridge,
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Thomas Haines and John Rhodes. Joseph Gordon, well known as an early post-rider for the army, and mail carrier in the settlements, erected the first house, a log cabin, at the west end of the lot at the northwest corner of Cincinnati and Chillicothe streets. He lived in this house, and, soon after, built a larger one on the corner, with a low attic story above, which he sold to Anthony Ballard, who kept a tavern there for a year or two. Robert Paterson then occupied it for a time as a store and residence, while buying and building else- where, and Dr. Lord also lived there, and had a small office building adjacent. On the southeast corner of the same streets, where the Dowell block stands, Dr. Lord erected, in 1830, a frame building which he rented for tavern purposes, different tavern keepers of the times running the place, which went by various names. Walter Slicer and Patrick Watson are said to have been hosts there. On the northeast corner of these streets was erected the first brick building within the original town limits. John W. Marquis was the the builder, and its first occupant was a man named Mitchenor. It subsequently was torn away and rebuilt by Walter Slicer, whose family residence was maintained in the new building for many years. It was afterward remodeled into a business house, and has for many years now been occupied by the Patrick Fogarty grocery. Slicer's property included not only the residence, but several lots to the north on Main street, and a large section to the east and south on Chillicothe. Mrs. Anna B. Blessing, youngest daughter of the Slicers, now living on East Chillicothe street, has vivid recollections of the life of the old home.
Public Buildings
Adjoining the Slicer lots on Cincinnati (or Main) street space was reserved for a temporary courthouse which should serve until a permanent courthouse could be afforded by the young com- monwealth. The temporary building was a stout wooden struc- ture, two stories high and twenty-four by thirty-six feet in size, set upon an eighteen inch foundation of stone. The sum of $1,294, was allowed for building. The contract for it was completed by Vachel Blaylock, in 1822, and in the following winter Blaylock made the furnishings of the court room, "a good, substantial bar, three sets of jury boxes, one table five feet square and two smaller tables," receiving $60 for the work. (Solomon McColloch after- ward bought this property, in 1825.)
The services of all the earliest churches were held in this old court house. The home of Robert Patterson, located immediately north of it, accommodated the Presbyterian mid-week prayer-meet- ings. Patterson's holdings extended north to the corner of Main street and Court avenue, and east on Court to Opera street. On the corner he built his store, and added, in both directions from it, the lines of small buildings which came soon to be known as "Patter- son's Row," and which survived until 1879, when they were torn away to make room for more modern buildings.
The first jail was built by Blaylock at the same time, on the northeast corner of the public square, and was constructed of logs,
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one wall within another, the interstice of ten or twelve inches filled in with loose stones. The floors above and below were of logs, and all logs used in the building were hewn, fifteen inches square. Roofs and subsequent additions of equal strength made it sufficient for the accommodation of the county's prisoners for nearly fifty years, until 1870, when the new jail and sheriff's residence at the corner of Mad River and Court streets was erected. In 1833 contracts were let to William Bull, John Wheeler and George Shuffleton, all of whom were citizens, for the erection of a permanent court house, of brick and stone, which was to cost, all told, $2,050, and was com- pleted in 1833, in which year two additional office buildings, erected one on either side of the court house, were built by William Watson, at an expense of $650. The new court house did duty for many public services which are not in the usual category, yet were emi- nently proper in themselves. Churches were organized there; cele- brations of national and municipal events were held in it; political meetings were not barred from it; entertainments, professional and amateur, were staged in it, in addition to the tremendous legal battles fought before its bar of justice. Concerts and theatricals given by the Bellefontaine talent of those decades cannot be recited now, but a glance through old scrapbooks and newspapers tells many a tale of men who are only remembered as "grave and reverend seigneurs." And great artists appeared before the audiences there.
In the meantime, the temporary court house was having its second "day." Purchased by Peter Leister, it was altered and en- larged by him, and opened as a tavern in 1834, and in the next ten years became a famous hostelry, which lost none of its prestige when it passed, in 1844, into the keeping of Walter Slicer, whose fame as a host is still a proverb. The first bell ever hung or rung in Belle- fontaine was that at Peter Leister's tavern.
Other taverns were opened, almost too numerous for anything but mere mention. William Bull had one of these, at the site of the Tremont block, on Main street. Daniel Workman, whose daughter married Nathaniel Dodge, a fellow merchant, kept a store and tavern in a building erected by him at the corner of Columbus and Main streets, which was afterward occupied as a shoe store by John B. Miller, and in 1846 purchased by William Rutan, who erected the first Rutan building-three stories high-the same year. This was kept as a hotel for a few years, then converted to mercantile pur- poses. A building of logs, put up for a store (kept by John Rhodes, the first Bellefontaine merchant), stood on the northwest corner of the same streets, where the Watson block was built in after years, which was also operated as a tavern for some years. The Simpson House, built at the corner of Mad River and Auburn streets, was a pretentious brick structure, which afterward became the home of Hiram B. Strother, and has been torn down. The Black Horse tavern was a resort which even in that unmistakably rough time was regarded with public disfavor and even repulsion, but it stood far outside the northern limits of the town. The Fountain House, situated on West Chillicothe, close to the railroad, was a later affair, and a well-kept place of entertainment for the traveling public. It burned about 1872. Another, known as the Branham House, erected
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on West Chillicothe avenue (north side), between the tracks, was removed to make room for the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway depot.
Hotels. None of these, however, ever held the same place in public estimation that was occupied by the old court house tavern, under its various landlords. Everybody knows that every tavern in those early days had a "bar," and that those bars did inestimable damage to the youth of the town, and did not remarkably improve the morals of their elders. The evil may for the greater part, in the case of the famous old tavern under consideration, be ascribed to "the times" and the manners, both of which have changed. What horrifies the present day citizen was then taken for granted. And certain it is that the best of Bellefontaine society-and that is to say something !- centered its social life and innocent gaiety in Walter Slicer's old hotel. It was there that the youth of Bellefontaine danced many a night away to the music of "the old band." It was there that Coates Kinney penned the immortal lines of "The Rain Upon the Roof," the poem having shaped itself in his brain while walking in from a home on the West Liberty road, where he had spent the previous night under the rafters of a farm house, listening while "the melancholy darkness gently wept in rainy tears." There, too. the poet brought his lovely bride, to be greeted by the elite of the town in a gay fète given in her honor. Many a great man rested under its roof, and many a newcoming solid citizen sojourned there while choosing or building a home. The house was bought in 1855 by John B. Miller, a native of New York, who came to Bellefontaine in 1832, by way of Cincinnati, where he stopped temporarily, and where he married Miss Susanna Thurston. When the Mexican war broke out Mr. Miller entered the service of the government, was recruiting officer, and went into the fight as a lieutenant. After establishing himself in the tavern, which he again improved and enlarged, he changed the name to the "Union House," under which title it remained until torn down in 1880.
The Union House continued the success of the past, the wide acquaintance of its landlord, who was an enthusiastic admirer of the best in dramatic and musical art and artists, attracting the best of transient custom to his hotel. Like Peter Leister and Walter Slicer, he had a family of beautiful daughters, and social life still centered for a long time about the hospitable house. Of the Leister daughters, the three eldest married, respectively, William Newell, Robert H. Canby, and Andrew Gardner, jr. The elder Miss Miller, Sarah J., married Thomas Hubbard, sr., then editor of the Gazette, and founder of the Examiner, and was the mother of the distinguished Hubbard family of today. The younger daughter, Miss Mary Miller, lives on East Auburn street, with her brother, Dr. Frank Miller. Other members of the Miller family have achieved distinction in different lines far away from their native city.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil war, Lieut. Miller again re- sponded to his country's call, and was recruiting officer for the county, also a soldier in the field, returning in 1864 as Capt. Miller. During his absence in the service, Capt. Miller provided a private home for his family, placed his financial affairs in the hands of
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Andrew Gardner, a man who deserved and held the confidence of everyone, and left the tavern in the keeping of "Long" Jim Moore, who was faithful unto his very sudden death from heart disease, just before the proprietor's return. From 1864 to 1877, when he died, Capt. Miller was personally the host of the Union House. Under his remime the old "bar" was forever abolished. The house was maintained by the family until 1879, when it was sold to be torn down for the erection of the Opera block.
In 1853, in the wave of prosperity which followed the coming of the railroad, the Hotel Logan was built on East Columbus ave- nue, opposite the court house, the builder being David Whitehill, who very shortly afterward left Bellefontaine, never to return. The hotel was opened and conducted for the first year or two by Nehemiah McMichael, veteran clock seller and mender of old Belle- fontaine, who had also conducted the Rutan House during its career as a hotel. Cooley and Leonard also operated the hotel at some period, but most definitely remembered among the scant details that survive the mist of time, are the Lamisons, who kept the place with all of elegance that pertained to the time and circumstances. The two Misses Lamison were popular young ladies, who, with the Miller sisters, and the Slicer girls and others, composed a gay group, whose grown-up graces their younger sisters envied from a perspective of short frocks and pinafores. One of the Lamison sisters became Mrs. Underwood of Lima, and another married Dr. Travis. Both are deceased.
The hotel has undergone many changes, additions being built at both the east and west ends, and of its many managers, several, like the Lamisons, Lanes and Dickinsons, have left grateful mem- ories in the Bellefontaine mind, while some others are better soon forgotten. It is now in good hands, but its days of public service are probably near an end, on account of its advanced age. It is the sole surviving relic of ante-bellum hotels in Bellefontaine.
The Hotel Ingalls was erected in 1873 by Thomas Miltenberger, whose name it at first bore. Whether Bellefontaine, which had outgrown its tavern days, had not yet arrived at the age of hotels, cannot be said, but the big new hotel which was undertaken with such high hopes brought financial ruin to its builder, and its custom languished for twenty years or more. Some time ago it was pur- chased by Howenstine' and Huston, who renovated it and intro- duced modern improvements, and now, under good management, it is enjoying a prosperity its young days never knew. The same firm also own the old Hotel Logan, which is managed by Robert Berndt ("Bobby Burns"), while the Hotel Ingalls is operated by John C. Alexander and Eldin Reed.
Business and home building kept pace with the development of the town, whether that is considered fast or slow. It was, doubt- less, average. The great cyclone of 1825 did little damage to the new village, the brick house of Leonard Houtz, built outside the corporation limits, being the only building injured. It was a two- story brick, and the top story was neatly removed by the tornado. Mr. Houtz replaced the roof on the story that was left, and so the house remained ever after.
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THE STORY OF LOGAN COUNTY
After John Rhodes, who failed as the town's first merchant, Thomas Armstrong bought the property of William Powell at the site of the First Presbyterian church, and had the first store of the times. Afterward Armstrong occupied a site where the Logan hotel was built.
The Lot T. Janney store opened about 1821 in a one-story log structure at the site of the Melodeon building. The Robert Pat- terson store was started in 1824. Janney kept a tavern next to his store, as also did John Wheeler, who built a large two-story wooden house north of Columbus avenue, on the west side of Main street, and built up a trade and custom of wide extent. In this store Wil- liam G. Kennedy, who came from West Liberty in 1835, began his career as a captain of local industry. Isaac Gardner arrived in Belle- fontaine about 1828 or 1830, a young man just of age, and embarked in mercantile business in what had been the McClanahan tavern, at the present site of the Wissler dry goods house, opposite the court house. Here he laid the foundation for the famous Gardner store, which held first place in Bellefontaine for so many years. For a long time he had as partner Noah Z. McColloch, whose attractive young cousin, Eliza Reed-the daughter of Elizabeth Zane-he afterward married. "General" Isaac Gardner became a foremost citizen of the town, and is to be counted one of the real builders of Bellefontaine, having had a hand in the promotion of every improve- ment up to the time of his retirement from active life. He died in 1894. The Gardner store was removed in after years to the Wat- son corner, where it was long the gathering place for congenial souls. Let no one imagine for an instant that those gatherings indicated ordinary loafing or gossip. They included the best men of old Bellefontaine, in a day when clubs and societies and read- ing rooms did not exist, and were the board upon which were spread feasts of reason with a flow of soul which in this day of haste can never be duplicated. There are still a few men living who remember hearing the voice (not professional) of Dr. B. S. Brown at the door of the "corner store," inquiring in his inimit- able tones, "Is there any man within who has leisure for intel- ligent conversation?" and the answering chorus of welcome from the rear. And those conversaziones! What a pity it is that there was no Boswell loafing there to jot down the wit and wisdom of the village Johnson! In 1846, Howe, the historian, found eleven dry goods stores in a village of six hundred and fifty inhabitants. Today, with nearly ten thousand population, the dry goods trade is taken care of by four great department stores, the Annat, Den- man, Morris and Wissler establishments, which display a greater variety of textile merchandise than could have been found in the most metropolitan store of 1846. Leather goods and saddlery were handled by William Rutan and Abner Riddle, who came from West Liberty in 1846 and 1848 respectively, and were partners in business. Mr. Rutan built the first three-story block in the town, and the presence of these men in the affairs of Bellefontaine was a great impetus.
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