CHAPTER V. OHIO--HER COACH, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT ERA.

At the close of the Revolution, a majority of the people cheerfully trusted to the wisdom and integrity of those who led the way to a country and conditions on which to found a republic. The patriots who unfurled the Declaration of Independence were glorified in the name of “United States of America.” And with thirteen stars, the red, white, and blue came forth a government strong and vigorous, honored and respected, amidst an epidemic of European wars. In the formation of the republican government, so few precedents were at hand that could be used as guides to the organization, the work was rendered herculean in character. But with General Washington, John Adams, Jonathan Dayton, Alexander Hamilton, and other patriotic Federalists, at the head, the people had no fears for the accepted Constitution. Still, the first President and his advisers were not blind to the dangers that surrounded the new republic. The First Congress (1789-90) assembled with but a small and uncertain majority favorable to the Constitution as adopted; and the combination of disaffected and opposing elements wore loud in their denunciations of the President and “_that instrument_;” and it required great wisdom, moderation, and concession to obtain the necessary contemplated amendments[23] and acts of Congress necessary to carry on and regulate the working operations of the several departments of the new government.

The citizens of the South, and those of the North were equally jealous of their interests. New England demanded a protective tariff, and the South “free-trade.” That which suited one locality was the policy not desired in another. Consequently, some states felt they were treated unfairly in _this_, and others in _that_, and a Congress failing to legislate special benefits to all found denunciations common with a disregard for law and order, occasionally amounting to open rebellion.[24]

At the very commencement of President Washington’s second term, things became stormy and taxed the wisdom of the man who had crowned a successful revolution, to manipulate the new machinery of a complex government into satisfactory running order. The cabinet and both branches of the legislative department were pretty evenly divided on the distracting questions of the times. France and England were at war--the French Republic expected reciprocal help from the United States. The Secretary of State (Mr. Jefferson) and Mr. Randolph, Attorney-General, contrary to the views of the President, espoused the cause of France, and were suspected of aiding Genet, the French minister, in issuing commissions to vessels of war to sail from American ports and cruise against the enemies of France.

Notwithstanding this, and the violent opposition of both houses of Congress, the President remained firm, that the people of the United States, under the circumstances, should not become involved in a war with Great Britain, and issued his neutrality proclamation, had the French minister recalled and accepted the resignation of the Secretary of State. Congress, however, persisted in doing all it could to strengthen the opposition to the President and bring on a war with England. When foiled in this, attempted by resolution to adopt the substance of Mr. Jefferson’s final report--“to cut off all intercourse with Great Britain, and as good _republicans_ or _democrats_, either wear the ‘national cockade’ as evidence of opposition to _neutrality_ and _friendship_ for _France_.”

The resolution passed the House but was defeated in the Senate, by the casting vote of Vice-President John Adams, and saved the nation from disgrace. The common people had been partially persuaded by the doctrines of Jefferson that federalism meant the establishment of a limited monarchy, and want of confidence in the people. This was giving the position of Washington and his followers a coloring much below their patriotic conceptions. They held a government of laws must have principle of energy and coercion; and it was the concentration of this energy in a federal government which the convention gave, and which, to carryout into perfection, induced the Washington policy.

Had it been otherwise, had Mr. Jefferson’s ideas of government been placed in his own hands for organization, with his unlimited confidence in the virtue of the people, and their capacity for self government in the final experiment, the Constitution would have crumbled to pieces in his own hands. At the end of eight years of Washington’s administration, 1797, the nation was at peace at home and abroad--all disputes had been settled amicably excepting that of France--the credit of the government was never better--ample provision had been made for the payment of the public debt--“commerce had experienced unexampled prosperity--American tonnage had nearly doubled--the products of agriculture had found a ready market--the exports had increased from nineteen millions to more than fifty-six million dollars--and the amount of revenues from imports exceeded the most sanguine expectations, and the prosperity of the country was unparalleled, notwithstanding great losses from belligerent depredations.” How different the story when Mr. Jefferson turned the high office over to Mr. Madison, March 4, 1809, as given in the report of a committee of the legislature of Massachusetts, January previous to the close of Mr. Jefferson’s administration.

“Our agriculture is discouraged, the fisheries abandoned, navigation forbidden; our commerce at home and abroad restrained, if not annihilated; our navy sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cutters or gunboats; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice interrupted, and the nation weakened by internal animosities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed to war with Great Britain, France and Spain.”

The most peculiar and damaging political view held by Mr. Jefferson was that appropriations by the government for national internal improvements were unconstitutional. This was enforced as a cardinal principle of his “_Republican-Democratic_” party, and so influenced his party successors, Madison and Monroe, that during their administrations, appropriations and surveys were refused on constitutional grounds. However good, influential and honest the actors may have been, it is quite evident the political influences of those in power, from the commencement of the administration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801 to the end of Monroe’s in 1825, blocked the wheels of progress in civilization under the pretext of reverence for the Constitution.

It was generally rumored in Ohio politics that the Jeffersonian party were opposed to expenditures for national internal improvements, and before entering the Union the state presented her influence with the Eighth Congress for a national highway, from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Ohio river at Wheeling, Virginia, and from Wheeling westward across the proposed State of Ohio. The measure passed Congress and was approved by President Jefferson as “a _war measure_ and bond of union,” instead of an “_unconstitutional improvement_.”

This, however, was not considered, by Mr. Jefferson nor his party, binding in policy as a precedent; but Ohio politicians thought differently, and from necessity and importance of the subject kept it agitated in and out of Congress. And in 1816, after an able and full discussion of the constitutionality and expediency of a system of internal improvements by the general government, both houses of the Fourteenth Congress passed a bill appropriating the bonus which the United States Bank was to pay the Government for the charter, to purposes of internal improvement; but the bill was returned to Congress by the President (Mr. Madison) with his veto involving constitutional scruples, and the measure failed to become a law.

Notwithstanding both houses of Congress were at times favorable to improvements, the majority was not often found conservative, and in 1822 killed a small appropriation to repair the Cumberland road, built and controlled by the Government.

A small majority of the Eighteenth Congress, in 1823 and 1824, came around partially to the grounds occupied by the Ohio people on the subject of improvements, and made an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, authorizing the expenditure on surveys, plans and estimates of such roads and canals as the President might deem of national importance.

President Monroe, after mature deliberation, gave the bill his approval. At that date, a portion of the New York and Erie Canal was in operation, and as an orator was very convincing and converting. This could not justly be called a “war measure,” nor a “bond of union;” and was universally accepted as a second precedent in favor of “internal improvements,” and ended the Jeffersonial dynasty as far south as the City of Washington; and in 1829 Andrew Jackson, in direct opposition to his supporters in the South, New England, and in New York, followed the precedent of Ex-President J. Q. Adams, indorsing the action of the Twentieth Congress, which declared the _constitutionality and expediency_ of such improvements.

This fixed the policy of the Government for all future time, Ohio, feeling proud in the active part she had taken, having the honor of bringing about the first national internal improvement in the United States.

Although the Government had changed its policy, the political education of the people had been such that many good citizens had little or no desire for changes or improvements that might destroy or disregard the sanctity of the constitution; nor could it be claimed they were much in favor of improvements of any kind--things were good enough. They did not expect to have every thing in the world, and were satisfied if things would remain as they were; they did not want any thing better than the easy routine in which they had spent much of their lives. The New York Canal was talked of as a private enterprise; but for what purpose above the cost of labor could not be stated, as there were no _surplus productions_ in the country calling for a market, and so far Ohio people were “high _protectionists_ of _home industries_,” and did not favor the introduction of “_cheap foreign goods, nor imported labor_.” They raised flax and wool, and, with the spinning-wheel and loom, manufactured the wearing apparel and household goods, and so sure as

“Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long,”

the average citizen felt amply supplied with the necessaries of life, and could not well ask for more. He plowed his little piece of cleared ground with a “bull-plow,” having a wooden mold-board and cast-iron share; harrowed in his wheat, rye, oats, and turnips with a wooden-toothed harrow; dropped his corn by hand, and covered it with the hoe. Every spring he made enough maple-sugar for home consumption, and to exchange for tea, coffee, and salt; and if he had a few spare bushels of grain, they were taken to some one of the many copper-stills scattered over the country. And to him there was no encouragement for the improvement in wealth of state by establishing a commerce or trade that would sap the foundations of its home industries. And he feared for the future prospects of the North-west should the existing prohibitory tariff be removed between the East and West by cheap transportation, believing it would destroy home manufactures, diminish the price of labor, and produce “_panics_ and _paupers_” beyond state ability and charity to maintain. The “flax-breaker’s” occupation would be gone; carding-machines, spinning-wheels, and looms, would no longer be manufactured or used, and the vast multitude of laborers carrying on these “infant industries” would be thrown out of employment and be “obliged to _steal_ or _starve_.” Even the young woman, who makes an honest living by spinning sixteen “cuts” daily, at fifty cents a week and boarded, would be thrown upon the cold embraces of the world, and thousands of other honest poor would be ruined for want of _protection_ against such an influx of “pauper labor and foreign manufacture.” And the man of _one idea_ considered the condition of “home industries,” under contemplated internal improvements, as discouraging, as a “prospective repeal of a protective tariff.”

As early as 1807, Jesse Hawley conceived the idea of a canal from the Hudson river to Lake Erie--a distance of three hundred and fifty miles--believing it would be a profitable investment for the state and nation, that it would populate the North-west and establish important commercial relations with western states. But the newspapers pronounced Jesse “_a crank_,” and refused to make public his thoughts upon the subject. But this did not change the opinions of practical business men, whose talk of canals and intersecting canals did not meet with much favor among legislators, which, perhaps, represented the sentiments of their constituents. And it took nearly half as long as it did the people of New York to build the Erie canal, for those of Ohio to understand that a canal, commerce and free trade, would increase labor and enrich a state. And for the timely commencement of the great work the people of Ohio are much indebted to W. Steele, of Cincinnati, for his trial surveys and intelligent letters upon the subject at an early day, when few persons entertained the practicability of such an undertaking.

The following extracts from a letter published in the Olive Branch, February 27, 1821, on the “Project of a Canal,” is but a fair specimen of the philanthropy of the times, and says:

“Nothing can be of more importance to the State of Ohio than the making of a navigable canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. That it is practicable to make such canal admits not of a doubt. Were it made, and the Hudson and Erie canal finished, we should have an easy and cheap highway on which to transport our surplus produce to the New York market. I have had the level between the Scioto and the Sandusky bay at Lower Sandusky. From the summit level on the most favorable route for a canal that I am acquainted with, to Lower Sandusky, the descent, agreeable to the report of Mr. Farrer, whom I employed for the purpose of taking the levels, is 318 feet.... And by the report of the engineers employed by the State of Virginia, they make the Ohio river at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river 83 feet lower than Lake Erie. If those levels are to be relied on, and we ascertain what is the amount of descent in the Ohio river from the mouth of the Great Kanawha to the point where the canal is intended to communicate with the Ohio, we will then know what will be the whole amount of lockage required. If we allow 50 feet for the descent, the lockage will be as follows: From Lake Erie to the summit level, 318 feet; and from summit level to Ohio river, 433 feet; making the whole amount, 751 feet. I do not know how near this estimate is to the truth, but I am satisfied in my own mind the lockage would be between seven and eight hundred feet.

“The estimate of the commissioners for making the New York canal is $13,800 per mile. Owing to the reduction in the price of labor it is found it can be made for much less money. The ground for making a canal across the State of Ohio is much more favorable than that over which the New York canal is now making. Although there would be more lockage on the Ohio canal than on the New York, yet it is believed it can be made at less expense than an equal distance of the New York canal. When we take into consideration the low price at which labor can be had, and the advantage to be gained by the employment of experienced engineers now employed on the New York canal, I think I hazard but little in saying that a canal can be made across this state for $12,000 a mile.”... “I am aware that some will say that ‘the State of Ohio is too young and too poor to undertake this mighty project.’ But I deny that the State of Ohio is either young or poor. She contains at this time more than 500,000 souls, and ranks fourth or fifth state in the Union. Can a state with such a population (of industrious people, too) be poor? It has been justly remarked, ‘_That population is power_; and _industry is wealth_,’ so I contend that we are both _powerful_ and _rich_.

“The inquiry of some will be, how is the money to be raised to dig this ‘mighty ditch?’ Raise it in the same way New York does--borrow it on the credit of the state. Many there are, I have no doubt, who will _doubt_ whether money can be borrowed on the credit of the state. To such I would say, go and try. If we stand at the base of a hill and look up, without making an effort to ascend, we will never reach its summit....

“Although it cost $2,400,000 (to make 200 miles), it might not be necessary to borrow any thing like that sum. The distribution of the sum required would go to the people of the state, and give more relief from their present pecuniary embarrassments than can be had from any laws enacted for that purpose. As the lands in the vicinity of the canal belonging to the general government would be greatly enhanced in value, I think it not improbable that Congress will make a donation to the state of a body of land in the vicinity, so far as it passes through their territory; if so, it would aid very much in making it.

“A member of the House of Commons once asked an eminent engineer for what purpose he apprehended ‘rivers were made.’ His answer was ‘to feed navigable canals.’ Such was the opinion of a great man, and such indeed must have been the opinion of many others, for we find canals in Great Britain in many places running parallel with navigable rivers. Persons unacquainted with the cheapness at which goods are transported on canals, are surprised when they learn that a ton weight can be transported at the rate of one cent a mile. The illustrious Fulton, but a short time previous to his death, gave it as his opinion that goods could be transported on the New York canal, when completed, at the rate of one cent a ton per mile. We find him supported in this by Col. C. G. Haines, corresponding secretary to the New York association for the promotion of internal improvement.

“Mr. Phillips, in the preface of his history of ‘Inland Navigation,’ says: ‘All canals may be considered as so many roads of a certain kind on which one horse will draw as much as thirty horses do on ordinary turnpike roads, and the public would be great gainers were they to lay out upon making every mile of canal twenty times as much as they expend upon making a mile of turnpike road.’ And Sutcliff, in his treatise on canals, says: ‘That within the last twenty-five years there has been expended on canals in England more than one hundred and thirty million dollars.’ A country is never made poor by making internal improvements, even if the people are taxed to make them. If money be taken from the people, it is again paid out among them, and kept in circulation.

“When the canals through Ohio and New York are finished, I have no doubt but that two-thirds of the surplus produce of all the country watered by the Ohio and its tributary streams above the falls, would pass through them to the New York market. That it would be to the interest of every shipper to give the preference to New York is obvious.... The amount of produce that perishes on the way and at New Orleans every fifteen years, would itself more than pay for building a canal across the State of Ohio. During the spring tides, when the principal part of the produce of the western country is carried to New Orleans, that market is glutted, and the shipper is very often pleased at being able to return home with half the money his cargo cost him.

“If Mr. Fulton’s estimates as to the expenses at which goods can be transported on canals be correct, the expenses of transporting a barrel of flour to the City of New York (allowing ten barrels for a ton), will be as follows:

From Ohio river to Lake Erie, 200 m. 20c Down the lake, 260 m. 20c New York canal, 353 m. 35c Down the Hudson, 160 m. 15c

“Total nine hundred and seventy-three miles for ninety cents. To this must be added the tollage of both canals. The lowest rate at which flour at present is freighted to New Orleans from the falls is $1.25 per barrel. Nor is it probable that the price will be reduced, as the boat which cost $100 to $150 is generally thrown away at New Orleans, or sold for a sum not exceeding the tenth part of their cost.

“It will be recollected, that while our produce is carried to New York at the cheap rate quoted above, that our foreign goods can be brought through the same channel at the same rates, from sixty-seven cents to one dollar and twelve cents per ton. More or less of these goods the people will have, and the cheaper the rates at which they can be furnished, the better for the country. And besides, it must be recollected if they are brought across the mountains, by way of Pittsburg, or from New Orleans by way of the Mississippi and Ohio, that the expense of transportation is paid to citizens of other states; if brought over the Ohio canal, the money saved in the state thereby, would, in twenty five years, amount to more than the whole cost of the canal.

“It must be admitted that the risk on the canal and lake is much less than on the Ohio and Mississippi, and the time required to carry the produce that way much less. By turning the trade from New Orleans to New York, we would save thereby the lives of many of our most enterprising and useful citizens, who would otherwise fall victims to the diseases of the lower Mississippi. The State of Kentucky has lost more of her citizens by the New Orleans trade within the last fifteen years than she lost by the late war, and it is known she bled at every pore.

“Lateral canals may be made from the main canals in many places, which will serve to collect to the main canal the rich products of the soil through which they pass, and at the same time afford means of furnishing the country with many of the necessities of life at prices greatly below what they now cost without the canal. I will only name the article of salt, which by means of the canal may be furnished to people in the interior of the state from the salines of New York at a price but little, if any thing, exceeding fifty cents per bushel. It is impossible to calculate the benefits that may be derived to the people of this state by the making of the canal. In its progress it will, no doubt, lay open rich beds of minerals. It will lay us, as it were, alongside the Atlantic. It will, in short, _elevate the character of the state, and put it half a century in advance of her present situation_....

“It only remains for the legislature of Ohio to apply the means within their reach to accomplish this desirable object. When accomplished, there can be no doubt but that it will produce a sufficient revenue to defray the expense’s of the state government.

“W. STEELE. _Cincinnati, Ohio, 1820._”

The arguments made for internal improvements were good; but to the child of nature such talk became a source of alarm. To destroy the forests would diminish the game supply, and he soon began to feel the country was becoming too highly civilized for good and easy living; that buckskin breeches and tow trowsers were already being discarded for imported goods. And when the spirit of advancing civilization came within sight, he who had no fence around his cabin, or little else besides sunflowers or a peach tree to indicate manual labor near the unbounded premises, sold his land at a small advance, and, with family and dogs, moved out to “Ingianny.”

Previous to 1820 the inhabitants of the North-west had very little prospect that agriculture would ever be the “road to affluence.” The natural barriers to transportation were viewed as permanent obstacles. A water-way was ridiculed by high authority, which pronounced it little short of madness, and the newspapers in the East had shown the impracticability; and the Western land-owner manifested but little dissatisfaction. He found his way to this country in order to live, and was happy in finding enough to make it easy. He anticipated but little from agriculture as a source of profit. In the Eastern states it had not given satisfaction. But with the population increasing and foreign demand improving, and facilities for transportation better, things showed they were undergoing a change in the older states; and the markets were becoming better, with better management of farms and farming, than at any period since colonial times.

In 1823 Charles A. Goodrich, of Hartford, Conn., wrote: “Until within a few years agriculture, both as a science and art, is receiving much of that attention which its acknowledged importance demands. It is beginning to be regarded, as it should be, not only as the basis of subsistence and population, but as the parent of individual and national opulence.”

At this date corn was selling to feeders at six cents per bushel in Ohio, and wheat at twenty-five cents. But a few years later agriculture in the North-west was beginning to be regarded as the “basis of subsistence and parent of individual and national opulence,” also.

The idea of a prospective market for the products of the soil, that would well remunerate the labor of production, was already being felt, and creating an enthusiasm and preparation for farming on a larger scale. Labor was plenty and wages fair, and the work of destruction of timber and increasing the acreage for cultivation went on rapidly. Large areas were deadened to facilitate the removal, and the sunshine in many places found its way to earth, where it had been excluded for ages. And the common squirrel hunter soon underwent an expansion of character that led on to eminence in agriculture, art, science, commerce, courts, congress, and cabinet. The things said and done caused the legislature, in 1822, to pass an act authorizing the employment of engineers to examine and report the “practicability of making a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river;” and in 1825, after four years of the most arduous labor and discussion, the work was determined upon, and Governor De Witt Clinton and others, among whom were Solomon Van Rensselaer, of Albany, and United States Judge Conkling and Mr. Lord, of New York, were invited to be present at the commencement of the great work, which was to have its beginning three miles west of Newark, July 4, 1825.

The people of the entire state were under high excitement at the new era which seemed approaching so rapidly, and acted quite differently from what they likely would at the present day on the commencement of a public enterprise. Then many thousands assembled to see “The Father of Internal Improvements,” and to hear what “the best-looking man the nation had ever produced” had to say on the subject of which he was the reputed father.

The time was near at hand, and on the arrival of the great Governor of New York at Cleveland, the ovation was grand; he was welcomed by Governor Morrow, state legislature, officials, military organizations, and by the people. And flags, and guns, and noisy display were beyond the power of description. And before the sun had risen, July 4, 1825, every thoroughfare to Newark was crowded with all kinds of loaded vehicles; men and women on horseback, and men, women, and children on foot--many of whom had traveled all night in order to reach the appointment on time. And the wonder was, where all the immense, uncounted, and unaccountable mass of human-beings came from.

The day was fair and the air cool and balmy, as Ohio atmosphere is after recent July showers. Newark at this time had less than one thousand inhabitants, but the country surrounding was amply large to accommodate the crowd which desired to pay their respects to the man whose influence, energy, ability, and perseverance were able to advance civilization, at once, half a century, by the magic wand of public improvements. And when Governor Clinton’s carriage appeared on the public square at Newark, thousands of voices rent the air with loud and long huzzas of welcome; and to which was added, the firing of one hundred guns. And the immense procession at once began moving for the spot prepared for the ceremony of the “_spade_ and _barrow_,” three miles in the country. Governor Clinton took the first spadeful amid the enthusiastic shouts of thousands. The Ohio Governor, squirrel hunter, statesman, and farmer, next sunk the implement its full depth. And so from one to another the spade passed, until the wheel-barrow could hold no more, and was taken to the designated dump by Captain Ned King, of Chillicothe, amid one wild, indescribable, and continuous cheering.

Hon. Thomas Ewing was orator of the day, and when the Governor of New York attempted his reply, the bursts of applause were so great he was obliged to pause, “and being unaccustomed to such demonstrations and tokens of respect, shed tears in the presence of his worshipers.” After the addresses the entire audience, estimated at not less than ten thousand, dined in the shade of the wide-spreading beech trees, the underbrush having been cleared off from several acres for the purpose, and seats arranged and tables spread with a sumptuous dinner for all, furnished by the liberality of one man, Goetleib Steinman, of Lancaster, Ohio.

The regular toasts were limited to thirteen, but the volunteers were still going on when the editor of the Olive Branch retired late in the evening.

1. General George Washington.

2. The President of the United States.

3. The Governor of Ohio.

4. The man who guided by the unerring light of science with vigorous and firm mind, has led and now leads his countrymen in the splendid career of “internal improvements”--our honored guest.

5. The great State of Ohio.

6. Legislature.

7. The Canal Commissioners.

8. Ohio Canal--The great artery of America, which will carry vitality to all the extremities of the Union.

9. State of New York--She has given to the world a practical lesson what freemen can do when determined to secure their own happiness.

10. Henry Clay--the able supporter of “internal improvements.”

11. General Bolivar--The Washington of South America.

12. The power of free government.

13. The fair sex of our country--In prosperity the partners of our joys, and in adversity our greatest solace.

VOLUNTEER--

By De Witt Clinton--The Ohio Canal--A fountain of wealth, a chain of union, a dispenser of glory.

By General Van Rensselaer--The memory of General Wayne--By his sword, the way was cleared for the settlement of the country.

By I. Johnston--National Improvements--A fit subject for national pride.

By Wm. Lord--Thomas Jefferson--A man with one mistake.

The 4th of July, 1825, only a few months prior to the completion of the New York Canal, machinery was put in motion to revolve until the end of time. On this day the policy of the state government in favor of internal improvements was permanently inaugurated. Even the few opposing minds of those who had never seen the walls of China, but wished to maintain the state secluded from the commercial world by means of the high tariff (the barriers nature had vouchsafed to the inhabitants), weakened in their ideas of “home protection,” or at once became favorable to the doctrine of _reciprocity_, which at that early date was the “soft” or synonym for _free trade_. And when it became satisfactorily demonstrated that improvements would increase the amount and price of labor, as well as the values of its products, such individuals changed to vociferous advocates of a canal, saying: “If the canal can secure such prices for the products of the soil, and in return furnish foreign cheap supplies, we can afford to abandon looms and spinning-wheels, and let supply and demand take care of themselves.” And the energetic boards of construction were unanimously supported by the people, and soon completed eight hundred miles of canals and one thousand miles of toll-roads, with a disbursement of over fifteen million dollars, borrowed money. The state, however, suffered no inconvenience on this account; its credit was good, and all that was necessary to obtain funds as fast as needed was to call upon the Lord who came to Ohio with Governor Clinton at the opening.

Among the multitude of great men assembled on this occasion, no one did more or was nearer and dearer in the hearts of the people than the man who mastered mathematics, Greek, Latin, and law, while a “hireling” at the Kanawha Salt Works; the man who did his reading at night by the light of the furnace or a “log-cabin luminary,” a lard lamp; the man who received the first collegiate degree of A.M. ever issued in the North-west; the orator of the day, Hon. Thomas Ewing. No such universal and intense enthusiasm was ever before, or again will be, so overwhelmingly manifested in Ohio as that of the opening of the canals; no other object for public demonstration is likely will ever approach it in importance.

Governor Clinton and party were escorted from Newark to Columbus by the state militia, legislature, county and state officers and eminent citizens. And in reply to Governor Morrow’s reception, Governor Clinton said:

“I find myself at a loss for language to express my profound sense of the distinguished notice taken of me by the excellent chief magistrate of this powerful and flourishing state, and by our numerous and respected fellow citizens assembled in this place, I feel that my services have been greatly overrated, but I can assure you that your kindness has not fallen on an ungrateful heart--that I most cordially and sincerely reciprocate your friendly sentiments, and that any agency I may have had in promoting the cardinal interests to which you have been pleased to refer, has been as sincere as it has been disinterested.

“When Ohio was an applicant for admission into the Union, it was my good fortune to have it in my power, in co-operation with several distinguished friends, most of whom are now no more, to promote her views and to assist in elevating her from a territorial position to the rank of an independent state. This was an act of justice to her and duty of high obligation on our part. At that early period I predicted, and indeed it required no extraordinary sagacity to foresee, that Ohio would in due time be a star of the first magnitude in the federal constellation; that she contains within her bosom the elements of greatness and prosperity, and that her population would be the second, if not the first, in the confederacy.

“The number of your inhabitants at the next census will probably exceed a million. Cultivation of the soil has advanced with gigantic strides--your fruitful country is teeming with plenty, and has a vast surplus beyond your consumption of all the productions of agriculture. Villages, towns and settlements are springing up and extending in all directions, and the very ground on which we stand, but a few years ago a dreary wilderness, is now a political metropolis of the state, and the residence of knowledge, elegance and hospitality.

“I have considered it my solemn duty in concurrence with your worthy chief magistrate, your very able canal board of finance and superintendence, and other patriotic and enlightened citizens of this state, to furnish all the resources in my power in aid of the great system of internal navigation so auspiciously commenced on the fifteenth anniversary of our national independence.

“This is a cause in which every citizen and every state in our country is deeply interested; for the work will be a great centripetal power that will keep the states within their federal orbits--and an adamantine chain that will bind the Union together in the most intimate connection of interests and communication. It therefore secures, not only the prosperity of Ohio, but the union of the states and the consequent blessings of free government; and now I think it my duty to declare that I have the utmost confidence in the practicability of the undertaking, and the economy and ability with which it will be executed. In five years it may, and will be completed, in all probability, and I am clearly of the opinion, that in two years after the construction of this work, it will produce an annual revenue of at least a million dollars, and hope this remark may now be noted, if any thing I say shall be deemed worthy of particular notice, in order that its accuracy may be tested by experience.

“I beg you, sir, to accept the assurance of my high respect for your private and public services, and to feel persuaded that I consider your approbation and the approbation of patriotic men an ample reward for my service, that a benevolent Providence may have enabled me to render to our common country.”[25]

From Columbus the party was escorted to Springfield, Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati, receiving public dinners and the most extravagant and enthusiastic demonstrations of appreciation and respect by thousands of citizens. At Cincinnati the party were invited guests to an entertainment given in honor of Henry Clay.

While Governor Clinton was in Cincinnati, he yielded to the pressing invitation to go to Louisville and render an opinion on the question then in dispute between Kentucky and Indiana, as to which side of the river was the better adapted for a canal around the falls. His decided opinion was in favor of Kentucky, to which all parties assented, and the canal was constructed accordingly.

On returning home, the Governor passed through Portsmouth, Piketon, Chillicothe, Circleville, Lancaster, Summit, and Zanesville, via Pittsburgh, receiving every-where the most distinguished attention.

All business for the time was suspended. He and his party were every-where treated as Ohio’s invited guests; and the Governor was attended by all the county officers, eminent citizens, and multitudes to the next county line, where a like escort was in waiting with the best livery the country could produce; halting at each county town, for a grand reception, ornamented with speeches, toasts, flags, and firearms.

Thus the benefactor of the nation passed from one county to another, across a great state, and as soon as the advance-guard came in sight of any town, the bells of all the churches, public buildings, and hotels, gave their long and merry peels of welcome--the cannon roared and a vast crowd of waiting citizens of town and country marched forward with huzzas and banners of “Welcome--welcome--to the Father of Internal Improvements.”

The following extract, written at the time by a cool-headed representative of the state, is expressive without coloring or exaggeration:

“The grave and the gay, the man of gray hairs and the ruddy-faced youth; matrons and maidens, and even lisping children, joined to tell his worth, and on his virtues dwell; to hail his approach and welcome his arrival. Every street, where he passed, was thronged with multitudes, and the windows were filled with the beautiful ladies of Ohio, waving their snowy white handkerchiefs, and casting flowers on the pavement where he was to pass on it.”

No king, emperor, president, or statesman; no manufacturer of personal or political enthusiasm, even of palace-car order, ever obtained that intensity and spontaneous manifestation as was shown “The Father of Internal Improvements,” on his passage through the state.

And it is yet a sorrowful reflection to memory, that such magnetism, ability, and influence for good did not live to see the Lake Erie and Ohio Canal completed; that his life’s sacrifices, in physical and mental efforts for the advancement of civilization in the North-west, have been so soon almost forgotten. But more; that his good works should have been so cheaply recognized at his death by a state he had enriched by making himself so poor. But it is never too late to be just, nor too long to right a wrong.

About this time, an era of “_prosperity_” had already dawned in the East, and was heralded from mouth to mouth--from the Ohio river to Lake Michigan--that the “Erie Canal” was completed, and the first fleet of boats left the Hudson, October 26, 1825, laden with emigrants for the North-west.

On the banners this fleet carried were the significant words, “The Star of Empire Westward Takes its Way,” and the cannons were heard and answered from Buffalo to New York City.

This canal proved a success even beyond the expectations of the most sanguine; and a line of commerce was at once established from tide-water to the western chain of lakes, and soon filled the new states with population and their ports with merchandise. And the Ohio protectionist, who had been so fearful of an influx of “pauper labor” and the products of “_foreign industries_,” found his own state, while discussing it, ready to disburse fifteen million dollars for day labor in the construction of internal improvements. And the Squirrel Hunter, whose life was one of education, development, power, and progress, hailed with delight the opportunity to work on the Lake Erie canal, twenty-six dry days of twelve hours each, for the sum of eight dollars. It was the first privilege ever offered in Ohio to obtain so much money in so short time, without encroachment upon his store of squirrel and coon skins.

In 1824, the year before the completion of the Erie canal, prices of produce still ranged low: twenty-five cents for wheat and six cents for corn, with no market or demand excepting for making whisky with copper stills. But when the Erie canal was finished and the Ohio and Lake Erie under way, prices on all kinds of produce advanced more than two hundred per cent, with such an unlimited demand that the improvements converted every body into favor with public works. And times became better in Ohio than ever before--corn advanced to forty and fifty cents and wheat to seventy-five and one dollar per bushel; and with the state distribution of millions of money, and her rich and productive soil, she was lifted out of the groove of idle content into the bright sunshine of prosperity and improvement.

It soon became manifest that internal improvements increased the demand and prices of the products of the soil, with a diminution in value of most all kinds of manufactured articles used in exchange. The salines of New York killed the salt manufacture in Ohio as effectually as free trade did the business of the wheelwright, the reelwright, the manufacturer of looms, reeds, flyers, hackles, plows, nails, and other “infant industries.” All were ended by the canal; and a man or boy who desired a new hat had, no longer than 1825, to go to a “_hat shop_” and have his head measured with a tape-line, and diagram registered, with full directions of minor matters--material, color, and price--and then wait the making.

By means of the New York canal, peddlers were offering for sale almost every thing enjoyed in the East, “at unprecedented low prices;” and even the meridian mark in the south doorway was of no use any longer, except to regulate a Yankee clock. These Connecticut time-pieces were distributed to nearly every resident landholder in the state at sixty dollars or less, on a year’s credit, in the form of a note with six per cent interest--a clock that cost the peddler two dollars and fifty cents at a New England factory.

Traveling merchants of all kinds flocked into the North-west like squirrels at moving time, and the epidemic struck Pennsylvania so disastrously that the Hon. John Andrew Schultz, at the time governor of that state, is reported as having memorialized the legislature for a law preventing this class of non-residents from perambulating the country, selling articles of no value, and often base counterfeits of things of domestic use, saying that in his neighborhood, “They were palming off counterfeit basswood nutmegs, when every body knows the genuine are made of sassafrac.”

The opening of the canal trade gave interest and amusement to thousands of persons. On the day appointed citizens came long distances to witness the filling of the ditch with water, and the floating of boats as they came along in the pride of the names they bore in honor of favorite citizens living along the line, as “The James Rowe,” “The Dr. Coats,” “The James Emmitt,” “The Sam Campbell,” “The General Worthington,” etc., lettered in gold, all of which was purely complimentary to the individual, and not thought of as an advertising dodge, although it may have suggested afterwards its advantages in this line to members of the Board of Public Works.

The remarkable advancement in the prosperity of the state resulting from the canals exceeded the expectations of their best friends so far that it will probably ever remain as the most notable era in the history of the state. Increased prosperity and rising civilization advanced step by step. From the pack-saddle to the freight-wagon, stage-coach, canal-boat, steamboat and railroad, each served or is serving a good purpose in the elevation of the social, intellectual and moral faculties of American citizens.

From the organization of the state until the introduction of canals and railroads, inland transportation of merchandise and travel was done by means of stage-coaches and freight-wagons. The coaches were stoutly constructed, with leather suspensions for springs, with inside dimensions for nine persons, and somewhat like a Chicago street-car--enough room outside for all who were able to find a place to “hang on.” At the rear each coach was provided with a capacious boot for the accommodation of Saratoga trunks and U. S. mail-bags. The driver had an elevated outside seat in front, and proudly pulled the strings on four spirited horses, which were driven in relays of ten miles, and under favorable circumstances would, in this way, make eight miles an hour, including stops for changes, and times of arrival and departure at the stations were very punctually made on good roads.

Often it became amusing to see how easy a good-hearted driver who loved his team, as many drivers did, could favor it by letting the horses walk up each little ascent, but when in sight of the change would blow the horn and crack the whip, and go in flying, with a mark “behind time” for the next driver and relay to make up. But the “make up” seldom came, and it was nothing unusual in a distance of two hundred miles to find the coaches fifteen to twenty hours behind the schedule time.

There were no improved roads north of Columbus for nearly fifty years, and during the wet season, or thawing of the frozen road-bed, staging became slow and laborious. If not mixed with pleasure, it was the only means of inland intercourse of a public character the inhabitants could look to.

Charles Dickens, on his way from Columbus, Ohio, to Buffalo, N. Y., _via_ Sandusky City, in 1842, accurately describes the roughness of traveling by stage-coach and the jolting of the corduroy roads over bogs and swamps, and says: “At length, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, a few feeble lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us. They were gone to bed at the log inn, which was the only house of entertainment in the place, but soon answered our knocking, and got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried with old newspapers pasted against the wall.

“The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown was a large, low, ghostly room, with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening upon the black night and wild country, and so contrived that one of them always blew the other open, a novelty in domestic architecture which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our traveling expenses in my dressing case. Some of the luggage, however, piled against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do so.

“My Boston friend climbed up to bed somewhere in the roof, where another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This was not a very politic step as it turned out, for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted around it so hideously that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering till morning. Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of a glass of brandy, for in Indian villages the legislature, with a very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern-keepers.”

For want of roads, traveling by coach was slow and laborious, in all the north-western states. In 1840, the writer was treated to a five cents per mile ride across the State of Michigan, from Detroit to New Buffalo, now Benton Harbor, on Lake Michigan, a distance of two hundred miles. It was mid-winter, but not frozen hard, and required nearly three days and two nights of joltings and fatiguing monotony. The joys felt on arriving in sight of steamboat navigation are still fresh in the recollections of the past.

Stage coaches had their centers for distribution in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, and were used in the principal mail lines over the state. Here too, the African skin became a perplexing question. The dictum of slavery had to be respected. If a colored person desired to be carried to a given point, he could prepay to such--his money was never refused on any account but for his color there was no time-table of departure or arrival. If no objections were raised by a passenger, he would at once be started on his way as an outside incumbrance. But if at any time while on the route, at a station or “change,” a passenger should be added who objected to riding in the same coach with a “_free nigger_,” as was no unusual thing, the colored passenger would be obliged to stop off and wait for a coach containing more liberal sentiments, or take the road on foot. This treatment on all the coach lines was witnessed so frequently that it ceased to call forth marks of disapproval. The principle in a milder form appears to have been transferred from the old stage-coach to the great railroad Cincinnati built South, by ignoring the constitution of the state, and as some thought at the time, subsidizing the Supreme Court. On this road the American born citizen with African blood, however remote the descent, or great the admixture, is refused admittance to coaches accorded to all other nationalities. Why? it is not necessary to state.

The wagons for freight were large and strong, and, having a cover of white canvas, gave them the name of “Prairie Schooners.” They were usually drawn by six horses, and on long routes traveled in companies; and trains could be seen moving slowly along in line, all laden with merchandise of the East, or on their way East, carrying the products of Ohio industry to an eastern market. The style of the “schooner” and the wagons themselves have “been out of print” so long, not one appeared on exhibition at the Centennial World’s Fair. They were all of the same pattern, and as “near alike as peas;” differing in every respect from the emigrant wagon of later date.

The bed or body of the “schooner” was formed by a stout frame-work of the best seasoned bent-wood, and put together as immovable and durable as any railroad coach body of the present day. The shape, covering, etc., is shown by annexed illustration. The teams were composed of large draft-horses. The “near” wheel-horse carried a saddle, in addition to his harness, for the accommodation of the driver. This saddle-horse, with the near front animal, or “leader,” constituted the managing horses of the whole team. All orders were given, as required, to these; they were always wakeful, watchful, and obedient. A good leader and a reliable near wheel-horse were boastful prizes of their owners; and most teamsters in those days owned their entire outfits, and were exceedingly kind to their animals.

What may seem peculiar, whether having four or six animals in the team, the driver used only a single line--one string attached to the “leader,” and to him, with the aid of the “saddle-horse,” safety and correct actions of all the members of the team were assured.

Many were the thousands of tons these lines carried over the mountains. But the tread of the caravan and the crack of the “black-snake”[26] were no longer heard on the Alleghanies after the completion of the Erie Canal (in 1825); and ceased entirely as a system of transportation on the operation of the Ohio Canal (in 1832). The “schooners” and “Branches of the United States Bank” wound up and quit business in Ohio about the same time. It was an off year for political speculators. President Jackson vetoed the bill to renew the charter of that monster monopoly entitled “The United States Bank,” an institution owned and controlled by a few wealthy foreign and American citizens, who were receiving exclusive privileges, favors, and support from the government.

Ohio did not feel the suspension of this great monopoly with its thirty-five millions so severely. Millions of money had just been distributed over the state for labor in the construction of internal improvements, and with canals, coaches, and steamboats, and agriculture in a nourishing condition, the prosperity that seemed lost in the ruins of speculation and bankruptcy, proved a small impediment in line of progress or march of empire.

The people did not become idle or discouraged; farming interests were increasing all the time, and more attention was directed to schools and education than ever before; and civilization was manifestly and permanently on the advance. Still the conditions of trade suffered serious embarrassments connected with the unstable condition of the currency or money of the country. Bank-notes of one state were at a heavy discount in every other. This, with bank and individual failures, caused much inconvenience for a time, but things soon grew better. Population and aggregate wealth of the state increased, and in 1847 gave the greatest yield of produce ever previously harvested, and which, owing to the “Irish famine,” was disposed of at speculation prices, and the state went on to prosperity and comparative excellence and influence.

The mass of descendants of pioneers in Ohio looked forward to agriculture as the source of subsistence and independent competency. “Millionaire,” in early days, was a word seldom used, and entirely unknown in biography. The pioneer saw the necessity for the promotion and advancement of true civilization, that every citizen should own a home--a place he might call his own--a place to live and labor for the good of himself and others. And not until the introduction of the railroad president, private palace cars, trusts, combines, and transformation of the public service into party machines for becoming suddenly rich, did the more observing recognize the true estimate and sound brotherhood existing with the gold bags of the nation. Nor did the poor suspect that combined wealth would ever dream as did the thirsting Turk at midnight hour--“that Liberty, her knee in suppliance bent, should tremble at its power.”

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Sixteen articles of amendment to the adopted Constitution were approved by Congress, September, 1789, ten of which were approved by the states.

[24] Excise act in Pennsylvania in 1794. This revolt required fifteen thousand armed men to quell, and cost the United States $1,000,000.

[25] Editor “Olive Branch” (No. 2).

[26] Whip.