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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 205 CHAPTER IX TRANSPORTATION Construction of Roads and Highways—Taverns—The Canal—Railroads and Electric Lines—The Mails TRANSPORTATION In no way can we see the century's progress better than to turn to our splendid system of turnpikes, steam and electric lines and compare them with early clays of transportation and travel in the county. For a long time there were no roads at all, only the buffalo trails and Indian paths, and these zig-zagged in every direction. They were at first used by the men who opened the wilderness and were followed by the blazed ways from one settlement or town to another. As the various settlements grew and the people increased in numbers, better roads became necessary, and the settlers began to construct them. Long before the days of the turnpike came corduroy roads, which were constructed by the men and boys of the neighborhood with their axes and oxen. The men would cut down trees, split the large ones into rails and haul them with the ox teams to the worst places in the road. They would first lay brush in the road to, support the logs and prevent them from sinking too deep in the mire, then place the logs and rails on top of the brush and shovel mud over them. The lack of good roads was a detriment to the settlement of the county. While neighbors were few and far between yet milling had to be done, and this necessity, to some extent, brought about the construction of better roads than the first primitive ones but many years elapsed before these rude country roads gave way to the magnificent turnpikes which now reach in every direction. As early as 1806 congress took a hand on road building in Ohio for in this year it passed an act making a road from Cumberland, in the state of Maryland, t0 the state of Ohio, and it was this act which enabled Thomas Jefferson to become the official father of the national road. While this famous thoroughfare did not touch Shelby county it passed through a portion of Miami and Montgomery and was the first great highway from the east to the west and did much to open up the Miami valley and its adjacent territory. It was conceived in the brain of Albert Gallatin, a Swiss, who was secretary of the treasury under Jefferson. It was to cost $7,000,000 and to reach from the Potomac to the Mississippi. It passed through the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and was one of the most important steps in that movement of national expansion which followed this - 205 - 206 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY conquest of the West. The eastern division of the road at a cost of $3,000 per mile was finished in 1817. Travel across the Alleghany mountains into the Ohio basin began and in 1825 congress authorized the extension of this great road into the state. As this highway stretched westward travel over it became tremendous and in a short time vehicles of every description crowded the new thoroughfare, and its opening gave rise to many stage lines which competed with one another for the traffic. These cumbersome vehicles usually had three seats inside and could comfortably carry nine passengers. Many were decorated and richly painted, the linings being often of silk plush. Some were long, unsightly affairs without springs or braces and the harness was heavy and uncouth. There were fifteen-inch back bands and high bands of ten inches and the braces were little less than loads of chains. As to speed ten miles an hour was considered ordinary and competition on stage line travel was always at fever heat. Toll was charged all along the national road from the first. The gate keepers were appointed by the governor and usually received a salary of $30 a month. Rude taverns sprang into being every few miles with gaudily painted signs denoting entertainment for man and beast, and in short everywhere along the road the scenes were lively and unceasing. An old road house which may be recalled by some of the older people was that known as Munford's tavern on the Wapakoneta pike at Anna, seven miles north of Sidney. It was kept by a genial old man of the name of Munford and in time became the place of entertainment for Sidney parties wh0 journeyed thither to partake of his famous chicken suppers. Shelby county now has 720 miles of turnpike roads constructed at a cost of about $4,000 a mile, which, of course varies in different localities. The material for the making of good pikes has had to be brought from inconvenient distances for this county does not furnish good gravel enough for such uses as its gravel is commingled with too much clay to make it available. For the year ending August 31, 1911, the total expenditures on pikes was $30,396.04, no new ones being constructed.- About three miles are being constructed this summer of 1912 in Jackson and McLean townships at a cost of $12,000. The width of these pikes is forty feet much narrower than the ones constructed years ago. The cost is met by the county paying 50 per cent and the township and. property owners 25 per cent each, The pride of Shelby county was for many years the "St. Mary's pike" on the line of an old road formerly projected to connect Sidney with St. Marys. This road, of excellent ,width, was carried on a perfectly straight line for a distance which falls short by but a few rods of thirteen miles, wholly in this county. The engineer who constructed most of the pikes in Shelby county was David W. Pampel, who was a useful and prominent citizen, became a director in the German American bank and met a tragic death in the nineties of the Big Four station as he was alighting from the cars, being crushed between the train and the platform. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 207 THE CANAL The canal is older than the Christian era and has always been recognized as a great aid to civilization. It was employed as a means of navigation and communication by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Hindus and Chinese and the Royal Canal of Babylon was built more than 600 years before Christ. The first canal in the United States of any consequence was the Erie canal, 336 miles long connecting the Hudson river at Albany and Troy with Lake Erie at Buffalo. It was begun in 1817 and opened with great ceremony in 1825 at a cost of $7,602,000. The great success of the Erie canal induced the people of Ohio to begin the work of canal building for this state and the history of the struggle is one of long continuous effort. During the period of settlement in the Northwest, roads such as we know them now were quite as little known to the widely separated communities in Ohio as were railroads. With very few exceptions they were only widened bridle paths, improved in swampy places by patches of corduroy construction, but almost impassable in the spring and fall. Thus in the absence of roads, overland transportation for trade was impracticable and productions of any kind were of no value so long as they could not be shipped cheaply to the consumer by water. The need of cheaper communication was keenly realized from the time of the first settlement west of the great barrier, the Alleghanies, and most keenly by those situated some distance from any river or stream cut off from the usual modes of transportation by canoe, flatboat, "keel-boat" or "ark." In 1847 the first resolution relating to Ohio canals was introduced into the state assembly, and the friends of the project entered actively into the fall campaign to elect men pledged to vote for internal improvements, and not without success. As years went by interest in canals increased and in 1830 congress debated the question of granting government lands in Ohio for canal purposes. Not all the states could view this internal improvement in Ohio as one of national interest and Webster in his famous reply to Mayne declared this very question, What interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio? is full of significance. This was nineteen months after congress had granted the lands to aid the Ohio and Indiana canals. February 4, 1825, the legislature decided to construct the Ohi0 and Erie canal, following the old Scioto-Muskingum route from Cleveland to Portsmouth and the Miami canal, following the Great Miami river from Dayton to Cincinnati. It also promised to extend the Miami canal to Toledo in a few years. The work on the Ohio and Erie commenced at once and the pay for laborers was 30 cents a day, with plain board, and a "jiggerfull of whiskey." The work on the Miami canal was not to be begun until December 1, 1831, by legislative enactment and did not commence until 1833. The cost of this work was paid in part by land grants from the government and from Ohio and Indiana. Congress by an act approved May 24, 1828, granted to the 208 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY state of Ohio a quantity 0f land equal to one-half of five sections in width on each side of the canal from Dayton to the Maumee river at the mouth of the Auglaize so far as the canal should traverse public land. The act reserved to the United States such alternate section of the land unsold, with the provision that such reserved land should not be sold at less than $2.50 per acre. The number of acres included in his grant was 438,301.32. Indiana then conveyed land granted to her by congress for canal construction, March 2, 1827, as lay within Ohio, if the latter would build the Wabash and Erie canal from the Indiana state line to Lake Erie. Ohio then received further grants from congress by act of May 24, 1828, of 500,000 acres of government land for canal purposes. These three land grants gave to Ohio a total of 1,230,521.95 acres of land to be sold for the aid of her canals. The state has sold most of these lands for $2,257,487.32 and has remaining, principally within the limits of the Grand Reservoir, land worth perhaps $100,000. The Wabash and Erie canal was completed in 1842, being 67.75 miles long from its junction with the Miami extension canal to Toledo and having a water surface width of 60 feet, a bottom width of 46 feet, and a depth of 6 feet. The Miami Extension canal was completed three years later, 1845, and was 114 miles long, 5 feet deep, 36 feet wide at the bottom, and 5 feet wide at the top. A little later navigation also began on the Miami canal and on November 28, 1837, three boats crowded with citizens, left the basin six miles north of Cincinnati and proceeded to Middletown with the most perfect success. The progress of the boats was about three miles an hour, including locks and other detentions. In 1841 the Miami and Erie canal was completed to Dayton, which place remained the head of navigation six years when the canal was completed to Piqua. This afforded cheap transportation to Cincinnati. It was found to be the very thing the people needed and they were not slow t0 take advantage of it. By an act of the legislature March 14, 1849, the three canals previously known as the Miami canal, the Miami Extension canal, and the Wabash and Erie became known as the Miami and Erie canal, and so it has remained to this day. It is impossible to state the value of this canal to the country through which it passes. The whole length of the Miami and Erie canal, including 32 miles of feeders, is about 300 miles and cost $8,062,680.80. The gifts of land by the state greatly reduced the cost to the taxpayers. The income from canals in Ohio is about $130,000 annually and in 1912 it will amount to $150,000. It was not until the completion of reservoirs or feeders that the canal entered upon the era of its greatest prosperity. For many years it was the means of transportation and travel. The worth of the canal was soon apparent to every one. Shortly after it was put in operation wheat advanced in price and before 1840 merchandise was brought from New York City to AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 209 Dayton by the all water route of ',T00 miles in 20 days at a cost of $17.25 a ton. The route followed the Erie canal to Buffalo, the lake to Cleveland, the Ohio canal to Portsmouth, the Ohio river to Cincinnati, and the Miami canal to Dayton. The "canal counties" at once took the lead in industrial and agricultural growth, a lead they never lost as today these thirty of the eighty- eight counties contain fifty-two per cent of the state's population. A dam was constructed in Logan county across the Miami river and a reservoir of several thousand acres formed and another dam at Port Jefferson across the Miami turning a part of the water into a feeder, nine miles long, which runs through Sidney and enters the main canal at Lockington, being entirely within Shelby county. Port Jefferson, at the head of the feeder, cherished bright prospects and saw in mind's eye a flourishing city but the advent of railways dissipated its hopes. THE MAILS The transportation of the mails in the early days of Shelby county was poor and primitive. When one considers the mail service of the present day, the fast mail trains, the free rural delivery, the commodious postoffices and other mail faculties enjoyed by the people, a comparison with the old mail service provokes a smile. There was but little correspondence before the introduction of steam for it required days to get a letter through to its destinations; postage stamps had not come into use, but the amount of postage due was written on the outside of the letter. The old fashioned letters were written on a single sheet and so folded as to form the envelope. The address was placed on the blank page, a stick of red sealing wax held over the flame of a candle and a bit of the heated substance dropped upon the fold and allowed to cool. Now and then the writer if she were a young lady, would stamp the impression of her ring on the wax and the letter was ready to post. Mucilage then was unknown. If two sheets of paper were used the postage was doubled. Thus you can see how necessary it was to have the power to condense. Rates of postage in those early days differed greatly from those of today. They were regulated by distance and not by weight. The charge was 6 1/4 cents for 50 miles or less; 12 1/2 cents for from 50 to 150 miles; 18 3/4 cents up to 300 miles; and over that 25 cents to any part of the United States. Today a letter may be sent from Sidney to London, England, for two cents and to the ends of the earth for five cents. The first mail route in the Northwest territory was established in 1799 from Wheeling, West Virginia to Limestone, Kentucky, the mail to be carried once a week each way, the whole distance being 226 miles. Nor was the transmission of the early mails, no matter how they were carried, conducted in safety for the mail robber was abroad in the land. Some of the mails brought to this country eighty years ago came by post riders to Wheeling and thence down the Ohio to Cincinnati in mail boats, built like 210 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY whaling craft, each manned with four oarsmen and a coxswain, armed, thence by post roads to the Miami region. The voyage from Wheeling to Cincinnati occupied six days and the return trip up stream twelve days. The blowing of a horn announced to the people of the neighborhood the arrival of the mail. The early postoffices of the county were generally log structures, but they answered the needs of the times well enough. The postmaster was frequently merchant, cabinetmaker and government official all in one for his salary was small and business was not heavy. The mail bag was never filled to overflowing and the few recipients of its contents were indeed the lucky ones. We can hardy realize the burden and inconvenience the high and uncertain postage rates imposed upon the pioneers as money was scarce and difficult to obtain. The first postoffice in Shelby county was established at Hardin in 1819 with Col. James Wells postmaster and was in a shop in which he worked at his trade as a hatter. The next year he removed to Sidney which had been made the county seat and continued as postmaster until 1841. He was during his period as postmaster auditor, clerk of courts and recorder of the county thus showing that salary of postmaster could not be depended on for a livelihood. The following postmasters have served the people of Sidney since 1825 with their term of service given. This list was furnished by the postoffice department at Washington. There is a discrepancy in the dates furnished by the county records and those from the first assistant postmaster general as to the establishment of the Sidney postoffice, which can not be reconciled by the writer.