A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus. Bob Hunter
gambled without stakes. First he won all of the young man’s money, then the would-be gambler’s watch, coat, pants, and boots, and finally the title to a farm that the boy’s father had recently given him. When the major asked the desperate boy what he had left, his answer was a sullen “nothing,” but Barker told him that he was wrong, he still had his honor, something the major had lost long ago. The next morning, the major paid the boy’s tavern bill and stagecoach fare and started him for home.
“Now if you will solemnly promise to never touch a card again as long as you live,” Barker said, “I will give you back everything I have won from you.”
Sadly, most gamblers weren’t so kind or so fortunate. Young’s own fortunes took a plunge, as did those of his famous cofeehouse. He sold the place in 1839 to Basil A. Riddle, who had been his assistant, and in 1843, it was sold again, this time to two men who changed its name to The Commercial. The building last housed a billiards parlor and was torn down in 1876.
Young tried to make it in more modest quarters on West Broad and failed, then tried a similar venture in Cincinnati and failed again. When he died there in poverty, some of his friends were going to bring his body back to Columbus for burial, but he had already been buried in a potter’s field.
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1. Statehouse Square between High, Third, State, and Broad Streets—Jarvis Pike cleared this land of native timber in 1815 and/or 1816 under the direction of Governor Thomas Worthington. Pike, who was the city’s first mayor in 1816–17, farmed the ground for three or four years after that, but not in the extreme western edge, where the Statehouse, state offices and federal courthouse were built. The square was enclosed by a rough rail fence, and Pike planted corn and wheat behind it until the fence began to deteriorate and was finally destroyed. The land sat unattended for many years, until the summer and fall of 1834, when Jonathan Neereamer enclosed it with “a neat and substantial fence” of cedar posts and white painted palings. This stood until 1839, when construction began on a new Statehouse. Prisoners from the Ohio Penitentiary were used to construct the foundation and ground ffloor of the new building. At that point, the paling fence was removed and replaced with an “ungainly” rough board fence twelve feet high designed to keep the “workers” from escaping. Completion of the Greek Revival building would take twenty-two years, mostly because there were long lapses in construction. The longest work stoppage—1840–48—came when legislation that made Columbus the state capital was due to expire. During that period, the completed basement and foundations were filled in with soil and the square was used as a pasture. Even during active periods, construction would sometimes stop during the harsh winter months and at times when the project exceeded its budget and new funding had to be arranged. Of the seven architects who served during the lengthy process, Nathan B. Kelley is probably the most notable; he used a great deal of ornamentation on the building’s interiors and was eventually fired because the commissioners overseeing the project felt it was too expensive and lavish for the original design. The masonry building, consisting mostly of limestone from a quarry on the west banks of the Scioto River, was opened to legislators and the public in 1857 when legislators began meeting there and most of the executive offices were occupied. The twelve-foot-high rough board fence surrounding the square came down at that time. The Statehouse was completed in 1861.
2. Northeast corner of High and State Streets—The first Statehouse was constructed here of stone and brick with a bell steeple in 1814. It was a two-story structure measuring 50 by 75 feet and had a balcony and a square roof. The top of the steeple was 106 feet high. The bricks in it were composed partly of bones—presumably human skeletons—dug up from the high mound that had been removed from the corner at High and Mound Streets. The building stood until it was destroyed by fire in 1857. President James Monroe and his traveling party came to Columbus and appeared at the Statehouse in the latter part of August 1817. The nation’s fifth president was welcomed there in a speech by State Treasurer Hiram M. Curry and replied by complimenting the “infant city” and its inhabitants.
3. Northwest corner of High and State Streets—The Ameri-can House was built here in the early 1830s by William McCoy. It became one of the most popular hotels in the city under William Kelsey, who took it over in 1842 and operated it for more than twenty years. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the Democratic candidate for president who ran against Abraham Lincoln in 1860, stayed in the American House. James Thurber’s Aunt Margery—Margery Albright—was a housekeeper there, and she remembered Douglas as the “tidiest lodger she ever had to deal with,” recalling that he sometimes even made his own bed. Douglas likely stayed there when he made a speech in Columbus on September 7, 1859, but he seems to have been a guest there on more than one occasion. Richard Bishop, governor of Ohio from 1878 to 1880, lived in the American House during part of that period. The hotel’s address of 85 South High Street changed to 20 West State Street in the 1890s when various businesses began occupying the frontage on High Street. The inn remained in business as the American Hotel until the early 1920s, when it became the Grand Hotel. The building was torn down in 1925–26, and a Kresge’s store opened in a new building there and remained for over forty years. Before the hotel was built, Robert W. McCoy’s dry goods store was on this site in 1820.
4. East side of High Street, 125 to 275 feet north of State Street—The first State Office Building, a plain, two-story brick structure 150 feet long and 25 feet deep, was constructed here in 1816, a little over a year after the construction of the first Statehouse. The office building had a rough stone foundation, a common comb roof of joint shingles, and four front doors. It housed the offices of the governor, auditor, treasurer, and secretary on the first ffloor and the state library, quartermaster, and adjutant general on the second. The clay for the brick used in construction came from the giant Indian mound that stood at Mound and High. The State Office Building was torn down in the spring of 1857, in preparation of the grading of the Statehouse grounds.
5. East side of High Street, 325 to 375 feet north of State Street—The US Court House, a plain, two-story brick building about 45 or 46 feet square, was erected here in 1820. It had a false façade and a roof that rose on all four sides to a small circular dome in the center. The courtroom and one jury room were located on the second ffloor. Offices for the clerk of court and marshal and a jury room were located on the first ffloor. Henry Clay was among the famous lawyers who argued cases here. Behind the US Court House, a long, one-story brick building was erected by the county in 1828 or 1829 for county offices. It was divided into four sections: the north room for the clerk of courts, the next for the recorder, the next for the treasurer, and the southernmost one for the county auditor. County offices were located here until 1840, when the new Franklin County Courthouse was erected at Mound and High. The back building was razed in 1857 prior to the grading of the Statehouse grounds. The US Court House was torn down in 1855.
6. 73 South High Street—The well-known Eagle Cofee House, the most popular and convivial drinking house and gambling establishment in town during the city’s early years, was a plain, two-story brick building that stood where the center of the main building of Rife Center is today. Its complete story is told in the introduction to this chapter.
7. 69 South High Street—The Goodale House was at this address between the American House and the Neil House for many years. Author William Dean Howells and his father stayed at this small hotel while Howells’s father was covering the Statehouse as a newspaper correspondent during the winter of 1856.
9. 63 South High Street—Max Stearn built the Majestic