USA > Ohio > Licking County > Granville > The history of Granville, Licking County, Ohio > Part 11
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146
METEORIC SHOWERS.
" leaders " with a single long line, the great stately, tower- ing ark following majestically behind; the air meanwhile loaded with the tinkling of two or three dozen bells; he made a sight to beliold. Youngsters waited on his track with staring eyes and gaping mouth, until he drew up before the door at his destination. There was an advertisement that new goods had come to town that modern enter- prise might well envy. Doors had to be locked to keep people out until goods could be arranged, although calico was fifty cents a yard.
The deaths were twenty-eight ; among them Isaac Sturges, December 21st, aged fifty-one.
In 1833, was erected the two-story frame Academy building at the southwest corner of Main and Fair Streets, with a stone. basement room used many years as a prayer and conference room by the Congregational Church. The rooms above were used by the Academy. [See special chapters.]
Mr. Chauncy Humphrey erected the three-story frame building in which for years he carried on the tinning busi- ness. It was long the only three-story building in the place. The frame was put up by L. Bushnell, on a contract, for $300.
The one hundred and six subscribers who had constructed the feeder extension, petitioned the Legislature to take possession of it, keep it in repair and collect tolls, in all regards as they did with the rest of the canal works, which petition was acceded to.
Certain contracts of business firms at this time show that the canal and this extension was of benefit to Granville. Mower & Co. contracted to deliver in Cleveland 270 bbls. of prime pork at $7.50 per bbl., and 90 cents for transportation. The same firm at the same time contracted for 300 bbls. salt to be delivered to themselves.
On the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 13th, occurred the memorable phenomenon of the Meteoric Shower. There were none of the sharp reports or bursting balls or auroral waves observed elsewhere. It was but the quiet, gentle,
147
STREETS OF GRANVILLE.
beautiful, prolonged rain of glowing sparks that died as they neared or touched the ground. Here, there, everywhere, they fell like lighted snow-flakes at the gentle beginning of a snow storm, each leaving a fine luminous track behind it. The morning bell was rung rather boisterously in the hope of waking people up to see the sublime.spectacle. Some were panic stricken and expected the end of the world. One old lady rose, went into the street and shouted in terror. But most of the people appreciated it at once as an unusual natural phenomenon. It was a season of rapt enjoyment until the display was lost in the rising day.
About this time, the bridge over Raccoon on the Columbus road became unsafe, the planks were torn up, and only a line of them for the use of footmen was left. It is said that Leveret Butler returning home late one dark night, not knowing the condition of the bridge and unconscious of his danger, was borne safely across the planks by his old white horse. Next morning the tracks verified the fact.
The following lines, written by Mr. George Bliss, who so- journed here temporarily at the time, will show how our streets appeared to stranger eyes. The original ode had nine stanzas :
" Hail! widely famed Granville, illustrious town, The residence both of the fop and the clown; Of greatness and littleness, beauty and worth, And all the strange things that abide upon earth.
" How oft down thy sidewalks so artfully laid, As down silver streets I have carelessly strayed; I've stood and securely looked down on the mud, That fain would have spattered me o'er if it could.
" Here Liberty walks in her native array, And flashes abroad the effulgence of day. She lights up the path of the swine which we meet, Of sheep and of cattle which herd in the street.
" By the side of the temple where worshipers go, A fountain stands open, nor ceases to flow, Where the goose and the duck' hold their revels by day, And the bull frog at night sings his musical lay."
148
ARRIVALS.
Mr. David Partridge arrived from Vermont, and with him Messrs. Seth Wetherell, Seymour Wood, and a Mr. Jordan.
Rev. Henry Carr began preaching to the Baptist Church July 27th, the first pastor whose entire time was given to the church.
There were nineteen deaths during the year. Horatio G. Mower, March 29th, aged thirty-two; Matthew H. Critchet, April Ist, aged fifty; Mrs. Joshua Linnel, August 2d, aged forty-two; Asahel Griffin, November Ist, aged sixty-six ; Mrs. Sereno Wright, jr., December Ist, aged twenty.
149
ANNALS, 1834.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The year 1834 was a memorable one for Granville. The year opened with great apparent prosperity. The season was an early one, all nature smiling in verdure, and giving great promise of harvests. The Rev. George Denison began his labors with the Episcopal Church in February, so that all the churches were enjoying regular means of grace. The schools were flourishing. Two efficient men at the head of the Literary and Theological Institute were carrying it forward to success. Misses Grant and Bridges came in June and took charge of the Female Academy, and it found its new home in the building prepared for it. There were between seventeen and eighteen hundred inhabitants in the township. Money was circulating in quantities sufficient to make business easy, and our business men were prosperous.
But now begins a great reverse. Mr. Little enumerates no less than seven distinct forms of chastisement in which Providence visited the place, some of them common to a larger section, or the whole country ; others circumscribed to Granville and its vicinity.
The first of these was financial embarrassments. These had two leading causes ; one general, the other local. The general cause was the disturbed system of banking in the country ; the other, the death of Col. Lucius D. Mower and the settling up of his large estate.
Mr. Mower was born at Barre, Massachusetts, May 1, 1793. He was in early life a carpenter, and while he lived he was the most competent and sagacious business man that Granville produced. He naturally went to the front, whether with his brothers, his business associates or his fellow citizens. He was foremost among his peers. He was a practical man, a man of energy, quick to decide, and fitted to command. He would get down, if necessary, among his workmen on the ground to ex- amine the lower valves of his bellows, or he could exhibit the
150
FROST - DROUTH - FLOOD.
most gentlemanly manners in social life. He was of medium stature, slight build, and sanguine temperament. Nothing waited where his presence was felt. His energy quickened every movement of those about him, and those who served him had to move with animation and intelligence. H'e was the oldest in a large family of brothers and sisters, all of whom died of consumption. Failing health at last led him to seek unavailingly for recuperation in the climate of Florida. He died at St. Augustine at the age of forty-one years.
For years Mr. Mower had been a leading man of business in the community. His sagacity had guided the Furnace Company to success, and his energy had driven forward our mercantile enterprises. Other men followed hard after him, but he can scarcely be said to have had an equal. When his living influence was withdrawn from business circles, pro- duction and trade both felt the privation. But more than this, the withdrawal of a large amount of capital from use, and of money from circulation in the settlement of his estate, seriously affected the people, until other energies could step in and a partial return of the capital be effected.
Another visitation was the heavy frost which fell upon this region on the night of the 15th of May. The corn, the early wheat, and almost all the fruit were destroyed; the blackberry, wild cherry, and a few currants being the only varieties of fruit, large or small, wild or cultivated, that offered any supply. Many wheat fields were plowed up or turned to pasture, and the corn had to be re-planted.
A third calamity was the drouth which immediately followed the frost, no rain falling until July. The streams almost vanished and the upland pastures and crops were drying up. The water in the feeder did not suffice for trans- portation purposes.
A fourth was the flood-the memorable flood! After nearly seven weeks of drouth, the wheat that the frost had left was turning yellow, the re-planted corn that grew on the bottom lands was getting ready to top out, and a few had commenced work in their scanty meadows. On the night
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151
THE FLOOD.
following the Ist of July, about eleven o'clock, the rain began to pour down in frightful torrents, and so continued for two hours. For two hours more it fell moderately. There was one continuous glare of lightning and roar of thunder. The reflection on the ground revealed the appearance of a lake of waters. The lightning seemed to run in all directions over the ground. One who had freight delayed in the lock below for want of water to float it, had been heard the afternoon before, standing on the weight beamn of the lock, after an ineffectual attempt to float the boat upon the upper level, to wish it might rain for twenty-four hours as hard as it rained at Noah's flood. The severity of the rain that followed made a deep and serious impression upon him in connection with his expressed wish. The hands at the night work of the furnace had to stop and protect the works from the rising waters. The moulding floor was flooded. The water was so high the water wheel would not work. The blast was checked, and the full charged furnace. was in danger of cooling off and being ruined. Nothing more was seen of that boat in the lock, or its freight. The region over which this rain fell extended thirty iniles up and down the valley, and twelve miles across it, Granville being in the center and experiencing the heaviest fall. Every vessel out of doors was full, so that no accurate measurement of the fall could be made. It was variously estimated from one to three feet. In the morning the banks of the stream were crowded by people gazing on the wonder. The entire bottom was flooded. South of the village tlie Raccoon had spread so as to flow a few rods into the burial lot. There the citizens stood and saw trees, shrubs, rails, crops, domestic animals, timbers, boards, everything that could float, rushing madly by with the turbid waters, and without means to remedy or save. Dams gave way, locks on the canal left their moorings, bridges were floated from their piers. In some places the stream was nearly a mile wide, and if bounded by hills within a narrower bed, it went rolling by like a great river. When
152
FLOOD AND SICKNESS.
the water subsided it left a wide track spread with desolation. It was swept bare of fences, and one could ride through the farms for miles. Here and there was an accumulation of driftwood, weeds and rails, the pile all soaked through with muddy water. Farmers were searching for rails, some claiming they could tell their own rails by the timber, or by the peculiar manner of setting the iron wedge in splitting them. Others would claim whatever lodged on their own land. By this last rule probably some of the plantations below New Orleans fared as well as some of the farms along the valley; and the man who took them by the other gen- erally drew a laugh upon himself for his conceit. .
The next judgment was the sickness. The months of July and August were unusually warm. The filth of the flood lay scattered over the bottom lands reeking in the sun. Miasm loaded the air, it entered the homes of the people by day and by night, they labored in it, slept in it, ate in it, traveled, visited, lived in it, and without remedy. Sickness began to increase immediately. By the Ist of September out of four hundred and fifty inhabitants of the village, one hundred and forty were sick with the fever. Some entire families were down. Mr. Asher's family of eight were all sick at once; both parents and two children died. In Mr. Little's family of eight, all were sick, but not all at once, and three of them died. All of Mr. Starr's family were sick save one. The same was true of L. Bushnell's family and also of L. E. Bancroft's On the 5th of September there were five deaths. The first Sabbath of October, it being communion Sabbath, so many were sick that no meeting was held The Town Council ordered that the church bells should no more be tolled for deaths and funerals according to the custom, because the continual tolling drove business away from the town. The order was obeyed, but it had an effect contrary to that intended; for word at once went out that the mortality of the place was such that they dared not toll the bell, and people staid away more than ever. The physicians
153
SPIRITUAL DECLENSION.
were worn out and agreed to take the streets in turn, and call at every house. Some of the streets having fewer on the sick list than others, they could alternately snatch a little rest. All schools in the village or within a mile of the village were stopped. The morning, noon and evening bells ceased to ring because the noise was painful to the sick. The streets were deserted of all save the short funeral pro- cessions of ten or a dozen followers, and silence reigned everywhere but for the moans of the sick and the wails of the sorrowing. During the year there were eighty-five deaths.
In the midst of the sickness, Rev. Dr. Cooley, pastor at Old Granville, who was then sixty-two years of age, visited the colony that twenty-nine years before had gone out from his flock. The meeting was a sad one, inasmuch as he found them suffering, sick and dying. But his ministrations at the sick bed side and at the burial of friends was most comfort- ing to them. On departing he received from them the gift of a young horse all fitted out for his horseback ride home.
The other two inflictions of which Mr. Little speaks are of a moral nature, one of them being an unusual religious declension. His observation is that times of great sickness are distracting to the mind. Care, anxiety, watching, irregularity do not foster habits of religious duty. That which brings us near to eternity does not always make us spiritually minded.
That which he mentions last needs to be told in Mr. Little's own words, or to some, and at this day, it might not appear so plainly an infliction of evil. It was the intro- duction of the anti-slavery agitation. His objection to it is not to the fact, but the manner of its introduction.
Mr. Thomas Jones, whose sons have taken a prominent position in our community, arrived from Pennsylvania, coming two years previously from Wales. Mr. Ebenezer Partridge also came to the place from Vermont. The brothers James and Eliphelet Follett, also from Vermont, arrived and
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154
DEATHS.
went into the dairy business on the Fassett farms, pushing the business with energy. Mr. John Parker, a brother-in- law, followed them the next year.
Among the eighty-five deaths were, Wm. H. Brace, Jan- uary 20th, aged thirty-seven; Joseph Linnel, Sen., January 2Ist, aged seventy-nine; Eliphas Thrall, March 15th, aged sixty-six; Elder James Berry, July 29th, aged thirty-six; Wm. Paige, September 26th; John Starr, September 21st, aged forty-six; Mrs. Lucy Little, wife of Rev. Jacob Little, October 2d, aged thirty; John Asher, December 14th, aged forty-five; Lucius D. Mower, at St. Augustine, Florida, Wednesday, February 19th, aged forty-one; John Starr, September 21st, aged forty-five.
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155
ANNALS, 1835-39.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The events of 1835 come chiefly into some special chapter. It was the year of the formation of the Welsh Methodist Church. [Which see.] It was the year of the noted burg- lary, which led to the detection of the perpetrator, and the cessation of a series of burglaries that had been going on for some time. [See Our Criminal Record.] Rev. Edmund Garland arrived from Maine and commenced the Male Acad- emy. [Which see.] It was the year of Mr. Theodore D. Weld's visit to Granville. [See Anti-Slavery Excitement.] February 19th, the charter for Granville Female Seminary was given. [Which see.]
About this time appeared a new and very taking invention in the Reflector Baker. It was made of tin, and had two re- flecting surfaces, which, as it stood before the fire, threw the heat from above and below upon a pan and its contents in the middle. It would bake bread, johnny-cake and pies, roast a turkey or other meats, warm up a meal, and perform other culinary operations neatly and promptly. It greatly relieved the tedium of cooking before an open fire, and re- mained in vogue until the cooking stoves and heating stoves banished the old-fashioned open fire-place.
The deaths were thirty-seven ; among them, Mrs. Daniel Shepardson, March 25th, aged fifty-one; Charles French, July 25th, aged forty-five ; Mrs. Clarissa Palmer, a missionary among the Cherokees, who, failing in health, was on her way from her mission station to friends in the East, when she reached Granville and could proceed no further, dying September 8th, aged fifty; Mrs. P. W. Taylor, December 3Ist, aged thirty-one; Luna, wife of Ormond Rose, Decem- ber 28th, aged forty ; Deacon Lemuel Rose, September 13th, aged seventy-one.
He was of no more than medium stature and rather inus- cular. His characteristic was firmness in his adherence to
156
THE MEETING - HOUSE REPAIRED.
right. While the pulpit was vacant, after Mr. Jinks' term of service, as the audience one Sabbath came into church to hear a sermon read, they found the deacons examining a stranger to see if it would do to invite him to preach. They finally allowed him to take his stand below the pulpit and begin service. He had proceeded but a little way when something dropped from his lips which they did not approve. Deacon Rose immediately sprang to his feet, saying : "There ! that will do! no more ! you need not preach any further !"
And stop he had to, while the deacons proceeded to con- duct an orthodox meeting by reading a printed sermon.
The next year, 1836, was that of the Anti-Slavery State Convention, and the mob that sought to break it up. [See Anti-Slavery Excitement.]
The dead were thirty-nine; of whom were, Mrs. Alfred Avery, January 24th, aged thirty-three ; Mrs. Samuel Mower, March Ioth, aged sixty-nine ; Mrs. Patty Nichol, March 12th, aged fifty ; Major Grove Case, April 4th, aged fifty-seven ; Mr. Enoch Graves, April 15th, aged sixty-nine ; Mrs. Deacon Walter Griffith, May 21st, aged fifty-nine; Deacon Ebenezer Pratt, September 5th, aged eighty-five; Daniel Baker, Esq., December 19th, aged seventy-three ; Frederick Cook, Sep- tember 15th, aged thirty-six; Sarah, wife of Benjamin Cook, September 19th, aged seventy-three; Byron Hayes, March 6th, aged thirty-five.
In 1837, the Congregational meeting house was repaired at an expense of $1,500. The old steeple was cut down about twelve feet, all that surmounted the belfry being taken away. This, being considered a very difficult undertaking, was suc- cessfully accomplished by Nathan Phelps, with the help of Star Sturges, in two days. The old belfry was simply capped over with a dome covered with tin. The chief changes were in the audience room. The pulpit was cut down to half its former height, the window back of it was closed up entirely, the space being covered inside by a piece of Roman archi- tecture; columns, two square and two round and fluted, standing on the platform, were surmounted by an entablature
157
THE FIRST PIANO.
with few ornaments. The seat of the pulpit was a sofa, inade by Mr. Freeman Haskell. The galleries were lowered in front, the ceiling underneath falling from the wall, where it barely cleared the tops of the lower windows, to the sup- porting pillars about two feet. The face of the galleries being also considerably less in height than the old one, the entire audience could look the minister face to face without obstruction. The face was an open balustrade of turned pilasters, behind which was stretched a continuous piece of crimson camlet. The pews also gave place to slips, which were a trifle over six feet long. Of this audience room, Dr. Little, on a leaf found among his papers, says : "It had the mechanic philosophy of the seats around the Grecian games ; one row of heads rising above another, so that everybody could see everybody. The speaker not needing to look up or down, was about equally at home with all his hearers. It was the best speaking arrangement in the State, if [not] in the United States."
The house then began to be warmed by two furnaces in the basement, which were great box stoves enclosed in brick walls.
In 1837, the Female Academy obtained its first piano. The agent being East soliciting funds, uninstructed, pur- chased the piano and sent it out. When it arrived "it was an elephant on their hands." The Trustees had no room for it, no teacher ready to give instruction, and probably no scholars ready to take lessons. Two of them went to Mr. H. Hamlen, and proposed he should take it into his house and give lessons. He replied that the extent of his knowledge of the piano was that he once heard one that was being played as he passed a house in Boston. He had never tried to play one. But the Trustees would not take no for answer, so the instrument went to his house. He was then giving lessons in vocal music once a week in Lancaster. A gentlemen was there giving lessons on the piano. Mr. Hamlen procured an old instruction book, received one lesson a week, and returning
158
SHIN - PLASTERS.
home handed it over at once to eight young lady pupils. That was the beginning of the Granville Conservatoire of Music.
Knowles Linnel being Mayor and Samuel Bancroft, Re- corder, the Town Council authorized the issue of " corpora- tion promissory notes " (" shin plasters ") of the denomina- tions of 50c., 25c., 121/2c., IOC., 614c., and 5c., the total amount of issue not to exceed $1000; to be signed by the Mayor, and to be redeemable at his office in current Ohio bank notes, on demand. They were issued, as they were by all other corporations around, to facilitate trade, because of the exceeding scarcity of silver money. They answered a good purpose temporarily, and in due time were redeemed and passed out of use.
There were thirty-eight deaths during the year; of whom were, Mrs. Ruhama Hayes, wife of Deacon Hayes, by acci- dent, July 4th, aged seventy-one ; Mr. Sherlock Mower, July 14th, aged forty; Mr. Lucius Cook, of small-pox-escaping from his keepers in delirium he ran without clothing two miles before he could be taken, grew immediately worse and died, May 19th; Miss Abigail S. Smith, a teacher in the Female Seminary, May 19th, aged nineteen ; Mrs. Miriam C. Nye, June 21st, aged twenty-six; Margaret Benjamin, January 17th, aged ninety-five.
In 1838, the Episcopalians completed and occupied their house of worship. It was a frame structure, erected on the southeast corner of the public square, 64 x 54 feet, with a steeple. It was finished exteriorly in imitation of granite blocks, and the interior finish was an advance upon that of the other churches. The basement contained a very con- venient vestry room. The audience room had a gallery across the north end over the front door, which was furnished with a small pipe organ, the first and for a long time the only one in the place. There were seatings for 350 persons. The architect was a Mr. Morgan, who about the same time erected the residence of Mr. Alfred Avery, now Mr. E. M. Downer's. The first stucco work done in the place was upon this church
159
A SEVERE DROUTH.
and by Mr. Orren Bryant, who came to Granville in 1835, and afterward lived a short distance this side of Alexandria. [For a view of this church, see 1885.]
The Baptists during the year put a bell of large size in their belfry ; and the Episcopalians having mounted one not long after, the three church bells began to ring their Sabbath peals in unison, and so continued to do for a long time.
Dr. E. F. Bryan and family arrived in Granville from Akron, in November. The canal closed the day after their goods arrived in Newark. It was difficult at that time to rent a dwelling, and they spent the winter in two rooms of Esq. Thrall's house. In the spring, Rev. Henry Carr shared his house with them, and in the fall they found accommoda- tions in the house of Dr. Paul Eager.
The year was remarkable for another severe drouth, little rain falling for nine months. Crops throughout the State were short and produce rose to fabulous prices. The public springs, the wells and cisterns were often dry. This state of things led to the digging of the public wells and the con- struction of a cistern which might be used in case of fires.
The deaths were twenty-nine; among them, Lewis Sturges, Jan. 6th, aged eighty-one; Capt. G. Werden, Feb. 2d, aged sixty-two; Mrs. Susanna Graves, Feb. 2d, aged ninety-one; Samuel Mower, Mar. 7th, aged seventy-one; Martin Root, Mar. 19th, aged fifty-six ; Mrs. Ruth, wife of Dea. S. Winchel, Apr. 19th, aged sixty-one; Dea. Leonard Bushnell, May Ist, aged forty-five ; Capt. Josiah Graves, July 5th, aged sixty- five; Mrs. Prudence Tyler, July 7th, aged forty-five.
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