(In 1891 Henry Howe released a three volume set on the history of Ohio. The section on Montgomery County is reproduced here - Editor)
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
OF
OHIO
IN THREE VOLUMES
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE STATE
HISTORY BOTH GENERAL AND LOCAL, GEOGRAPHY WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS COUNTIES, CITIES AND VILLAGES, ITS AGRICULTURAL, MANU-FACTURING, MINING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, SKETCHES
OF EMINENT AND INTERESTING CHARACTERS, ETC.,
WITH NOTES OF A TOUR OVER IT IN 1886.
ILLUSTRATED BY ABOUT SEVEN HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS
CONTRASTING THE OHIO OF 1846 WITH 1886-90
From drawings by the author in 1846 and photographs taken solely for it in
1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, and 1890, of cities and chief towns, public
antiquities, portraits, maps, etc.
THE OHIO CENTENNIAL EDITION
BY HENRY HOWE, LL.D.,
AUTHOR “HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF VIRGINIA”
AND OTHER WORKS
Vol. II
COLUMBUS
HENRY HOWE & SON
COPYRIGHT 1891 BY HENRY HOWE
1891
--------------------
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
MONTGOMERY
Montgomery County was named from Gen. Richard Montgomery, of the American Revolutionary army; he was born in Ireland, in 1737, and was killed in the assault upon Quebec, Dec. 31, 1775. This county was created May 1, 1803, from Hamilton and Ross, and the temporary seat of justice appointed at the house of George Newcom, in Dayton. About one-half of the county is rolling and the rest level; the soil of an excellent quality, clay predominating. East of the Miami are many excellent limestone quarries, of a grayish-white hue. Large quantities are exported to Cincinnati, where it is used in constructing the most elegant edifices; nearly all the canal locks from Cincinnati to Toledo are built with it. This is a great manufacturing county, and abundance of water power is furnished by its various streams, and it is very wealthy, with a dense agricultural population. The principal products are corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, flaxseed, potatoes, pork, wool and tobacco.
Area about 470 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 167,779; in pasture, 18,402; woodland, 34,134; lying waste, 9,624; produced in wheat, 639,886 bushels; rye, 4,655; buckwheat, 171; oats, 415,084; barley, 55,960; corn, 1,523,796; broom-corn, 67,759 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 15,104 tons; clover hay, 8,628; flax, 176,477 lbs. fibre; potatoes, 85,200 bushels; tobacco, 4,717,558 lbs. (largest in the state); butter, 827,943; cheese, 2,715; sorghum, 5,872 gallons; maple syrup, 13,934; honey, 4,018 lbs.; eggs, 635,473 dozen; grapes, 132,790 lbs.; wine, 6,301 gallons; sweet potatoes, 3,648 bushels; apples, 563; peaches, 15; pears, 1,725; wool, 15,747 lbs.; milch cows owned, 10,497. Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888: Limestone, 5,062 tons burned for lime; 195,537 cubic feet of dimension stone; 33,977 cubic yards of building stone; 422,558 square feet of flagging; 9,750 square feet of paving; 48,586 lineal feet of curbing; 1,352 cubic yards of ballast or macadam. School census, 1888, 26,797; teachers, 402. Miles of railroad track, 165.
|
Townships and Census |
1840 |
1880 |
Townships and Census |
1840 |
1880 |
|
Butler |
1,897 |
2,196 |
Madison |
1,594 |
2,306 |
|
Clay |
1,633 |
3,063 |
Mad River |
|
2,091 |
|
Dayton (city and township) |
10,334 |
38,678 |
Miami |
3,249 |
5,024 |
|
German |
2,629 |
3,451 |
Perry |
1,883 |
2,272 |
|
Harrison |
|
2,667 |
Randolph |
1,774 |
2,327 |
|
Jackson |
1,688 |
2,451 |
Van Buren |
|
2,953 |
|
Jefferson |
1,895 |
6,096 |
Washington |
2,259 |
1,784 |
|
|
|
|
Wayne |
1,045 |
1,191 |
Population of Montgomery in 1820 was 16,061; 1830, 24,374; 1840, 31,879; 1860, 52,230; 1880, 78,550; of whom 54,396 were born in Ohio; 4,059 Pennsylvania; 1,197 Indiana; 1,114 New York; 1,037 Virginia; 813 Kentucky; 7,894 German Empire; 2,574 Ireland; 664 England and Wales; 270 France; 207 British America; 159 Scotland, and 11 Norway and Sweden.
Census, 1890, 100,852.
Among the early settlers of Montgomery county was Col. Robert Patterson. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1753, and emigrated to Kentucky in 1775. In 1804 he removed from Kentucky and settled about a mile below Dayton. He was the original proprietor of Lexington, Ky., and one-third owner of Cincinnati, when it was laid out. He was with Col. George Rogers Clarke in 1778, in his celebrated Illinois campaign; in the following year he was in Bowman’s expedition against old Chillicothe. In this expedition, according to Patterson’s memoranda, Bowman had 400 men. In August, 1780, he was also a captain under Clarke, in his expedition against the Shawnees, on the Little Miami and Mad River; was second in command to Col. Boone, August 19, 1782, at the battle of the Lower Blue Licks; was colonel on the second expedition of Gen. Clarke, in the following September, into the Miami country; held the same office in 1786, under Col. Logan, in his expedition against the Shawnees. He died, August 5, 1827. His early life was full of incidents, one of the most remarkable of which we give in his own language, as originally published in the Ohio National Journal:
Canoe Journey up the Ohio. – In the fall of 1776 I started from McClellan’s station (now Georgetown, Ky.) in company with Jos. McNutt, David Perry, James Wernock, James Templeton, Edward Mitchell and Isaac Greer, to go to Pittsburg. We procured provision for our journey at the Blue Licks, from the well-known stone house, the Buffalo. At Limestone we procured a canoe, and started up the Ohio river by water. Nothing material transpired during several of the first days of our journey. We landed at Point Pleasant, where was a fort commanded by Capt. Arbuckle. After remaining there a short time, and receiving dispatches from Capt. Arbuckle to the commandant at Wheeling, we again proceeded. Aware that Indians were lurking along the bank of the river, we traveled with the utmost caution. We usually landed an hour before sunset, cooked and eat our supper, and went on until after dark. At night we lay without fire, as convenient to our canoe as possible, and started again in the morning at daybreak. We had all agreed that if any disaster should befall us by day or by night that we should stand by each other, as long as any help could be afforded.
Attacked by Indians. – At length the memorable 12th of October arrived. During the day we passed several new improvements, which occasioned us to be less watchful and careful than we had been before. Late in the evening we landed opposite the island [on the Ohio side of the river, in what is now Athens county].then called the Hockhocking, and were beginning to flatter ourselves that we should reach some inhabitants the next day. Having eaten nothing that day, contrary to our usual practice, we kindled a fire and cooked supper. After we had eaten and made the last of our flour into a loaf of bread, and put it into an old brass kettle to bake, so that we night be ready to start again in the morning at daybreak, we lay down to rest, keeping the same clothes on at night that we wore during the day. For the want of a better, I had on a hunting-shirt and britch clout (so called), and flannel leggings. I had my powder-horn and shot-pouch on my side, and placed the butt of my gun under my head. Five of our company lay on the east side of the fire, and James Templeton and myself on the west; we were lying on our left sides, myself in front, with my right hand hold of my gun. Templeton was lying close behind me. This was our position, and asleep, when we were fired upon by a party of Indians. Immediately after the fire they rushed upon us with tomahawks, as if determined to finish the work of death they had begun. It appeared that one Indian had shot on my side of the fire. I saw the flash of the gun and felt the ball pass through me, but where I could not tell, nor was it at first painful. I sprang to take up my gun, but my right shoulder came to the ground. I made another effort, and was half bent in getting up, when an Indian sprang past the fire with savage fierceness, and struck me with his tomahawk. From the position I was in, it went between two ribs, just behind the backbone, a little below the kidney, and penetrated the cavity of the body. He then immediately turned to Templeton (who by this time had got to his feet with his gun in hand), and seized his gun. A desperate scuffle ensued, but Templeton held on, and finally bore off the gun.
A Forlorn Condition. – In the meantime I made from the light, and in my attempt to get out of sight, I was delayed for a moment by getting my right arm fast between a tree and a sapling, but having got clear and away from the light of the fire, and finding that I had lost the use of my right arm, I made a shift to keep it up by drawing it through the straps of my shot-pouch. I could see the crowd about the fire, but the firing had ceased and the strife seemed to be over. I had reason to believe that the others were all shot and tomahawked. Hearing no one coming towards me, I resolved to go to the river, and, if possible, to get into the canoe and float down, thinking by that means I might possibly reach Point Pleasant, supposed to be about 100 miles distant. Just as I got on the beach a little below the canoe, an Indian in the canoe gave a whoop, which gave me to understand that it was best to withdraw. I did so; and with much difficulty got to an old log, and being very thirsty, faint and exhausted, I was glad to sit down. I felt the blood running and heard it dropping on the leaves all around me. Presently I heard the Indians board the canoe and float past. All was now silent, and I felt myself in a most forlorn condition. I could not see the fire, but determined to find it and see if any of my comrades were alive. I steered the course which I supposed the fire to be, and having reached it, I found Templeton alive, but wounded in nearly the same manner that I was. James Wernock was also dangerously wounded, two balls having passed through his body; Jos. McNutt was dead and scalped; D. Perry was wounded, but not badly, and Isaac Greer was missing. The miseries of that hour cannot well be described.
Wernock’s Resignation. – When daylight appeared we held a council, and concluded that inasmuch as one gun and some ammunition was saved, Perry would furnish us with meat, and we would proceed up the river by slow marches to the nearest settlements, supposed to be one hundred miles. A small quantity of provisions which was found scattered around the fire was picked up and distributed among us, and a piece of blanket, which was saved from the fire, was given to me to cover a wound on my back. On examination, it was found that two balls had passed through my right arm, and that the bone was broken; to dress this, splinters were taken from a tree near the fire that had been shivered by lightning, and placed on the outside of my hunting shirt and bound with a string. And now, being in readiness to move, Perry took the gun and ammunition, and we all got to our feet except Wernock, who, on attempting to get up fell back to the ground. He refused to try again, said that he could not live, and at the same time desired us to do the best we could for ourselves. Perry then took hold of his arm and told him if he would get up he would carry him; upon this he made another effort to get up, but falling back as before, he begged us in the most solemn manner to leave him. At his request, the old kettle was filled with water and placed at his side, which he said was the last and only favor required of us, and then conjured us to leave him and try to save ourselves, assuring us that should he live to see us again, he would cast no reflections of unkindness upon us. Thus we left him. When we had got a little distance I looked back, and distressed and hopeless as Wernock’s condition really was, I felt to envy it. After going about 100 poles, we were obliged to stop and rest, and found ourselves too sick and weak to proceed. Another consultation being held, it was agreed that Templeton and myself should remain there with Edward Mitchell and Perry should take the gun and go to the nearest settlement and seek relief. Perry promised that if he could not procure assistance he would be back in four days. He then returned to the camp and found Wernock in the same state of mind as when we left, perfectly rational and sensible of his condition, replenished his kettle with water, brought us some fire and started for the settlement.
Wernock’s Death. – Alike unable to go back or forward, and being very thirsty, we set about getting water from a small stream that happened to be near us, our only drinking vessel an old wool hat, which was so broken that it was with great difficulty made to hold water; but by stuffing leaves in it, we made it hold so that each one could drink from once filling it. Nothing could have been a greater luxury to us than a drink of water from the old hat. Just at night Mitchell returned to see if Wernock was still living, intending, if he was dead, to get the kettle for us. He arrived just in time to see him expire; but not choosing to leave him until he should be certain that he was dead, he stayed with him until darkness came on, and when he attempted to return to us, he got lost and lay from us all night. We suffered much that night for the want of fire, and through fear that he was either killed or that he had ran off; but happily for us our fears were groundless, for next morning at sunrise he found his way to our camp. That day we moved about 200 yards farther up a deep ravine, and farther from the river. The weather, which had been cold and frosty, now became a little warmer, and commenced raining. Those that were with me could set up, but I had no alternative but to lie on my back on the ground, with my right arm over my body. The rain continuing next day, Mitchell took an excursion to examine the hills, and not far distant he found a rock projecting from the cliff sufficient to shelter us from the rain, to which place we very gladly removed. He also gathered pawpaws for us, which were our only food, except perhaps a few grapes.
Rescuers Arrive. – Time moved slowly on until Saturday. In the meantime we talked over the danger to which Perry was exposed, the distance he had to go and the improbability of his returning. When the time had expired which he had allowed himself, we concluded that we would, if alive, wait for him until Monday, and if he did not come then, and no relief should be afforded, we would attempt to travel to Point Pleasant. The third day after our defeat my arm became very painful. The splinters and leaves and my shirt were cemented together with blood, and stuck so fast to my arm that it required the application of warm water for nearly a whole day to loosen them so that they could be taken off; when this was done, I had my arm dressed with white oak leaves, which had a very good effect. On Saturday, about twelve o’clock, Mitchell came with him bosom full of pawpaws, and placed them convenient to us, and returned to his station on the river. He had been gone for about an hour, when to our great joy we beheld him coming with a company of men. When they approached us, we found that our trusty friend and companion, David Perry, had returned to our assistance with Captain John Walls, his officers and most of his company. Our feelings of gratitude may possibly be conceived, but words can never describe them. Suffice to say that these eyes flowed down plenteously with tears, and I was so completely overwhelmed with joy that I fell to the ground. On my recovery, we were taken to the river and refreshed plentifully with provisions, which the captain had brought, and had our wounds dressed by an experienced man, who came for that purpose. We were afterwards described by the captain to be in a most forlorn and pitiable condition, more like corpses beginning to putrify than living beings.
While we were at the cliff which sheltered us from the rain, the howling of the wolves in the direction of the fatal spot whence we had so narrowly escaped with our lives, left no doubt that they were feasting on the bodies of our much-lamented friends, McNutt and Wernock. While we were refreshing ourselves at the river, and having our wounds dressed, Captain Walls went with some of his men to the place of our defeat, and collected the bones of our late companions, and buried them with the utmost expedition and care. We were then conducted by water to Captain Wall’s station, at Grave creek.
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE MISCELLANIES
The following series are from the pen of Mr. Robert W. Steele as originally communicated to the “History of Dayton” a large octavo of seven hundred and twenty-seven pages, published in 1889 by Harvey W. Crew. Mr. Steele is a Christian gentleman, who has devoted a large part of a long life to the highest interests of the public. He was born in Dayton, July 3, 1819, of an honored parentage, his ancestry having been of that Scoth-Irish Presbyterian stock that settled in the Valley of Virginia. He graduated in 1840 at the Miami University; was for thirty years member of the Dayton Board of Education and long its president; has been connected with the Dayton Public Library from the beginning; is a member of the State Board of Charities and of the State Board of Agriculture. Several of the other articles which follow are also contributed by him as the account of the great Harrison Convention of 1840. Sketches of Daniel Cooper, the Van Cleves, etc.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES
Fertile soil. Timber.
Long before any permanent settlement was made in the Miami Valley, its beauty and fertility were known to the inhabitants of Kentucky and the people beyond the Alleghanies, and repeated efforts were made to get possession of it. These efforts led to retaliation on the part of the Indians, who resented the attempt to dispossess them of their lands, and the continuous raids back and forth across the Ohio River to gain or keep control of this beautiful valley, caused it to be called, until the close of the eighteenth century, the “Miami Slaughter-house.” The report of the French Major Celoron de Bienville, who, in August 1749, ascended the La Roche or Big Miami River in bateaux to visit the Twightwee villages at Piqua, has been preserved, but Gist, the agent of the Virginians, who formed the Ohio Land Company, was probably the first person who wrote a description in English of the region surrounding Dayton. Gist visited the Twightwee or Miami villages in 1751. He was delighted with the fertile and well watered land, with its large oak, walnut, maple, ash, wild cherry and other trees, “The country,” he says, “abounded with turkey, deer, elk and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen feeding in one meadow; in short, it wants nothing but cultivation to make it a most delightful country. The land upon the Great Miami River is very rich, level and well timbered, some of the finest meadows that can be. The grass here grows to a great height on the clear fields, of which there are a great number, and the bottoms are full of white clover, wild rye and blue grass.” It is stated by pioneer writers that the buffalo and elk disappeared from Ohio about the year 1795.
The development of the Miami Valley has shown that the glowing accounts of the early explorers as to the fertility of the soil were not too highly colored. Beautiful and fertile as the Miami Valley is, no part of it surpasses, if it equals, the region immediately surrounding Dayton. The “MAD RIVER COUNTRY,” as this region was called by the first pioneers, was the synonym for all that was desirable in farming lands.
RIVERS.
Dayton is fortunate in its location at the confluence of four important streams – the Miami, Mad River, Stillwater and Wolf Creek. Each of these streams has its valley of great beauty and fertility, and these valleys produce large and profitable crops of every variety. As reported in the United States census report of 1880, the total value of farm products in Montgomery County in 1870 was three million two hundred and eighty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-nine dollars, a greater amount than was produced by any other county in Ohio. An incidental advantage resulting from the four-river valleys is the facilities they afford for the construction of railroads, which, through them, may reach Dayton on easy grades, and at comparatively small cost. No doubt to this cause may be partly attributed the fact that, with Dayton as a centre, ten railroads radiate in every direction.
BUILDING STONE AND GRAVEL.
One of nature’s chief gifts to Dayton is the building stone that underlies a large part of Montgomery County. Of especial value is the Niagara, or, as it is commonly called, the Dayton stone. So extensive are the beds of this stone that Professor Orton, the State geologist, pronounces it inexhaustible.
Another article, which at first thought may be considered of little value, is of the greatest importance. Gravel is so abundant and so cheap that we seldom reflect what an important part it has played in the development of the country. Professor Orton says: “It is not easy to set a proper estimate upon the beds of sand and gravel of Montgomery County until a comparison is instituted between a region well supplied with such accumulations and another that is destitute of them. The gravel knolls and ridges with which in the southern and eastern portions of the county, almost every farm abounds, afford very desirable building sites, and are generally selected for such purposes. Land of the best quality for mortar, cement and brick-making is everywhere within easy access.
TURNPIKES.
“An inexhaustible supply of excellent materials for road-making – what is frequently designated the lime-stone gravel, though in reality largely composed of granite pebbles – is found in the drift deposits, from which hundreds of miles of turnpikes have been already constructed in the country, thus affording free communication between farm and market at all seasons of the year. The smaller boulders of Canadian origin are selected from the gravel-banks for paving-stones, and transported to the neighboring cities. In regions where stone suitable for macadamized pikes can be obtained, good roads can be had, even though gravel is wanting but at largely increased expense above that of gravel turnpikes. The districts which are supplied with neither can certainly never compete in desirability with these gravel-strewn regions.”
Benj. Van Cleve, one of the original settlers of Dayton, gives in his hournal an interesting account of the survey, in the autumn of 1795, of the purchase made by Gov. St. Clair, Generals Dayton and Wilkinson and Col. Ludlow from Judge Symmes.
Two parties set out, one under Daniel C. Cooper, to survey and mark a road, and the other, under Capt. John Dunlap, to run the boundaries of the purchase, Mr. Van Cleve says: “On the 4th of November Israel Ludlow laid out the town at the mouth of Mad river and called it Dayton, after one of the proprietors. A lottery was held, and I drew lots for myself and several others, and engaged to become a settler in the ensuing spring.”
JOURNEY BY LAND TO DAYTON.
In March, 1796, three parties left Cincinnati, led by William Harner, George Newcome and Samuel Thompson. Harner’s party was the first to start; the other two companies left on Monday, March 21, one by land and the other by water. Harner’s party came in a two-horse wagon over the road begun, but only partially cut through the woods by Cooper, in the fall of 1795. The other party that traveled by land walked. They were two weeks on the road. Their furniture, stoves, clothes, provisions, cooking utensils, and agricultural implements and other property, as well as children too small to walk, were carried on horses, in creels made of hickory withes, and suspended from each side of pack-saddles. It was a difficult matter to ford the creeks without getting the freight and the women and children wet. Trees were cut down to build foot-bridges across the smaller streams. Rafts were constructed to carry the contents of the creels and the women and children over large creeks, while the horses and cattle swam. Their rifles furnished them with plenty of game, and their cows with milk, at meals.
Thompson’s party came in a large pirogue down the Ohio to the Miami, and up that stream to the mouth of Mad river.
VOYAGE UP THE MIAMI TO DAYTON.
At the close of each day the boat was tied to a tree on the shore, and the emigrants landed and camped for the night around the big fire, by which they cooked their appetizing supper of game and fish and the eggs of wild fowls, for which the hunger of travelers was a piquant and sufficient sauce. No doubt their food, as described by other pioneers, was cooked after this fashion: Meat was fastened on a sharpened stick, stuck in the ground before the fire, and frequently turned. Dough for wheat bread was sometimes wound around a stick and baked in the same way. Corn bread was baked under the hot ashes. “Sweeter roast meat,” exclaims an enthusiastic pioneer writer, “than such as is prepared in this manner no epicure of Europe ever tasted. Scarce any one who has not tried it can imagine the sweetness and gusto of such a meal, in such a place, at such a time.”
ARRIVAL AT DAYTON.
The passage from Cincinnati to Dayton occupied ten days. Mrs. Thompson was the first to step ashore, and the first white woman, except, perhaps, the captive Mrs. McFall, rescued by Kentuckians in 1782, to set her foot on Dayton soil. Two small camps of Indians were here when the pirogue touched the Miami bank, but they proved friendly, and were persuaded to leave in a day or two. The pirogue landed at the head of St. Clair street, Friday, April 1. The following brief entry is the only allusion Benjamin Van Cleve makes in his “Journal” to this important event in the history of Dayton: “April 1, 1796. Landed at Dayton, after a passage of ten days, William Gahagan and myself having come with Thompson’s and McClure’s families in a large pirogue.”
We can easily imagine the loneliness and dreariness of the uninhabited wilderness which confronted these homeless families. There were three women and four children – one an infant – in the party. “The unbroken forest was all that welcomed them, and the awful stillness of night had no refrain but the howling of the wolf and the wailing of the whippoorwill.”
DAYTON BLOCK HOUSE.
During the summer of 1799 an Indian war was apprehended, and a large block house was built for defensive purposes. It stood on the Main street bank of the Miami. The threatened attack did not come, and it was never used as a fort, but was converted into a school-house, where Benj. Van Cleve, the first Dayton schoolmaster, taught the pioneer children.
EARLY POSTAL FACILITIES.
December 13, 1803, Benjamin Van Cleve was appointed postmaster. Probably in the spring of 1804 he opened the office in his cabin, on the southeast corner of First and St. Clair streets. He served till his death in 1821. Previous to 1804 the only post-office in the Miami valley, and as far north as Lake Erie, was at Cincinnati, and from 1804 till about 1806 the people to the north of Dayton, as far as Fort Wayne, were obliged to come to our office for their mail. In 1804 Dayton was on the mail route from Cincinnati to Detroit, and the mail was carried by a post-rider, who arrived and left here once in two weeks. But soon after Mr. Van Cleve opened the post-office a weekly mail was established. Only one mail a week was received for several years, the route of which was from Cincinnati through Lebanon, Xenia and Springfield to Urbana; thence to Piqua; thence down the Miami to Dayton, Franklin, Middletown, Hamilton, and Cincinnati. A letter from Dayton to Franklin, or any other town on the route, was sent first to Cincinnati and then back again around the circuit to its destination. No stamps were used, but the amount of postage due was written on the outside of the letter. Postage was sometimes prepaid, but oftener collected on delivery. Mr. Van Cleve frequently inserted notices similar to the following in the newspapers: “The postmaster having been in the habit of giving unlimited credit heretofore, finds it his duty to adhere strictly to the instructions of the postmaster-general. He hopes, therefore, that his friends will not take it amiss when he assures them that no distinction will be made. No letters will be delivered in future without pay, nor papers without the postage being paid quarterly in advance.” Now that postage for all distances is equal and very low, we can hardly realize the burden and inconvenience the high and uncertain postage rates imposed upon the pioneers. Money was very scarce and difficult to obtain; and to pay twenty-five cents in cash for a letter was no easy matter.
In 1816 the rates of postage were fixed as follows: Thirty-six miles, six cents; eighty miles, ten cents; over one hundred and fifty miles, eighteen and three-fourth cents; over four hundred miles, twenty-five cents. Newpapers anywhere within the State where printed, one cent. Elsewhere, not over one hundred miles, one cent and a half. Magazines at one cent a sheet for fifty miles; one cent and a half for one hundred miles; two cents for over one hundred miles. Pamphlets and magazines were not forwarded when the mail was very large, nor when carried with great expedition on horseback. For a good many years the Eastern mail was brought to Wheeling by post-riders, and thence down the river to Cincinnati in government mail-boats, built like whaling craft, each manned with four oarsmen and a coxswain, who were often armed. The voyage from Wheeling to Cincinnati occupied six days, and the return trip up stream twelve days.
PIONEER LIBRARY.
In the spring of 1805 the Dayton Library Society was incorporated by the Legislature. It is creditable to the pioneer citizens of Dayton that among the first institutions established were a public library and an academy. In 1805 the first Act of Incorporation of a public library granted by the State of Ohio was obtained from the Legislature, and in 1808 the Dayton Academy was incorporated.
NAVIGATION OF THE MIAMI.
The Great Miami was navigable both above and below Dayton during the great part of the year for keel boats, which were built like canal boats, only slighter and sharper, as well as for flat boats, till about 1820, when the numerous mill-dams that had by that time been erected, obstructed the channel. From that date till 1829, when the canal was opened, freighting south by winter, except what was done in flat boats during floods, was almost abandoned. The boats were often loaded with produce taken in exchange for goods, work, or even for lots and houses, for business men, instead of having money to deposit in bank or to invest, were frequently obliged to send cargoes of articles received in place of cash South or North for sale. Cherry and walnut logs were sometimes brought down the river on the flat boats. The flat boatmen sold their boats when they arrived at New Orleans, and, buying a horse, returned home by land. The foundations of many fortunes were laid in this way. Flat boats were made of “green oak plank, fastened by wooden pins to a frame of timber, and caulked with tow or any other pliant substance that could be procured,” and were inclosed and roofed with boards. They were only used in descending streams, and floated with the current. Long, sweeping oars fastened at both ends of the boat, worked by men standing on the deck, were employed to keep it in the channel, and in navigating difficult and dangerous places in the river. The first flat boat was launched in the winter of 1799, near McDonald’s Creek, by David Lowry. It was loaded in Dayton with grain, pelts and five hundred venison hams, and when the spring freshet raised the river started on the two months’ trip to New Orleans. The voyage was safely accomplished.
FISH BASKETS.
Fish baskets, of which there is frequent mention in the newspapers of the day, were made by building a dam on the riffles so as to concentrate the water at the middle of the river, where an opening was made into a box constructed of slats and placed at a lower level than the dam. Into this box the fish ran, but were unable to return. A basket of this kind remained on the riffle at the foot of First street as late as 1830.
Paul D. Butler, on the 21st of August, 1809, gives notice in the Repertory of his intention to navigate the Miami from Dayton to the mouth of Stony creek as soon as the season will permit, and forewarns all persons obstructing the navigation by erecting fish baskets or any other obstructions, that he is determined to prosecute those who erect them. He and Henry Desbrow soon after proceeded to build two keel boats.
They were built during the winter of 1809-1810 in the street in front of the courthouse, and when finished were moved on rollers up Main street to the river and launched. They ascended the Miami to the Laramie portage (see Shelby County), which was as far as they could go. Then one of the boats was taken out of the river, and drawn across to the St. Mary’s. For some time this boat made regular trips on the Maumee, and the other on the Miami, the portage between them being about twelve miles across. A freight line which did good business was thus established between Dayton and Lake Erie by way of the Miami, Auglaize and Maumee rivers.
During the last week of March, 1819, eight flat boats and one handsome keel boat loaded here, shoved off for the landing for the markets below, and several flat boats loaded with flour, pork and whiskey also passed down the Miami. This year a second line of keel boats was established for carrying grain and produce up the Miami. At Laramie it was transferred, after a portage across the land intervening between the two rivers, to other boats, and transported down the Maumee to the rapids, which was the point of transfer from river boats to lake vessels. At the rapids there was a large warehouse for storage of cargoes.
In May, 1819, Daytonians were gratified to see a large keel boat, upwards of seventy feet in length and with twelve tons of merchandise on board, belonging to H. G. Phillips and Messrs. Smith and Eaker, arrive here from Cincinnati. She was the only keel boat that had for a number of years been brought this far up the Miami, as the river between here and its mouth had been much obstructed.
Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, 1825, were unusually exciting days in Dayton among boatmen, millers, distillers, farmers, merchants and teamsters, as a fleet of thirty or more boats that had been embargoed here by low water left their moorings bound for New Orleans. Rain had begun to fall on Wednesday, and continued till Friday, when the river rose. “The people,” says the Watchman, “flocked to the banks, returning with cheerful countenances, saying, ‘The boats will get off.’
“On Saturday all was the busy hum of a seaport; wagons were conveying flour, pork, whiskey, etc., to the different boats strung along the river. Several arrived during the day from the North. On Sunday morning others came down, the water began to fall, and the boats carrying about $40,000 worth of the produce of the country got under way.” The whole value of the cargoes that left the Miami above and below Dayton during this freshet was estimated at least $100,000. Some of the boats were stove and the flour damaged, but most of them passed safely to their destination. Twelve boats left here for New Orleans in February, 1827, from Montgomery and Miami Counties, chiefly loaded with flour, pork and whiskey. Their cargoes were worth about $20,000. In February, 1828, the last boat, loaded with produce for New Orleans, left hereby the Miami. The next year freight began to be shipped south by canal. As late as 1836, and perhaps a year later, when the canal was opened to Piqua, the line of boats to the north was continued.
EARTHQUAKES.
A comet was visible in 1811, and this, together with the series of earthquakes throughout the Ohio Valley, which occurred during that and the succeeding year, and neither of which had been experienced before since the settlement of the western country, were regarded with terror by the superstitious, who considered them evil portents, and ominous of private or public misfortune.
The first earthquake shocks occurred on the 16th and 17th of December, 1811, and the inhabitants of Dayton were kept in continual alarm by repeated shocks. The first and by far the severest was felt between two and three o’clock in the morning.
Other shocks occurred January 23, 1812, again on the 27th, and the last on February 13th, when the motion of the earth was from the southwest.
Although no material damage was done by these earthquakes, the people, and animals and fowls as well, were very much alarmed. Persons who experienced it in youth, spoke of it in old age with a shudder of horror.
ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST CANAL BOATS.
In January, 1829, the citizens of Dayton were gratified with the sight, so long desired, of the arrival of canal boats from Cincinnati. At daybreak, Sunday, January 25th, the packet, Governor Brown, the first boat to arrive here from the Ohio, reached the head of the basin. This packet was appropriately named, for since 1819 Governor Brown had been engaged in urging the connection of the two towns by means of a canal. In the afternoon the Forrer arrived; followed at dark by the General Marion, and during the night by the General Pike. Each boat was welcomed by the firing of cannon and the enthusiastic cheers of a crowd of citizens assembled on the margin of the basin.
The Governor Brown was henceforth to make regular trips twice a week between Dayton and Cincinnati. It was the only packet fitted up exclusively for passengers, and was very handsomely and conveniently furnished. The master, Captain Archibald, was very popular and accommodating. The Alpha, which also made regular passages, was commanded by M. F. Jones, of Dayton. A part of the Alpha
