Centennial History of Columbus and Franklin County. William Alexander Taylor
In the latter part of August, 1817, President Monroe and suite passed through this county, on their return from Detroit after his northern tour of inspection of the public fortifications, etc. They were met at Worthington by the Franklin Dragoons, commanded by Captain Vance, and escorted to Columbus, where proper arrangements had been made for the reception; and the President was received in the state house, and welcomed to the capital by a neat and appropriate speech from Honorable Hiram M. Curry, then treasurer of state. To which the President made a suitable reply, complimenting the "infant city," as he called it, and its inhabitants.
They traveled on horseback, and were generally escorted from one town to another by the military, or some distinguished citizens. They rode fast, generally in a canter. Mr. Monroe wore the old-fashioned, three-cornered, cocked hat—his dress otherwise was in plain, citizen style. His face was effectually sunburnt from exposure.
This troop of dragoons was first organized in time of the war of 1812, and continued until 1832. or 1833, when they disbanded. They were commanded by the following, successive captains: Joseph Vance, Abram J. McDowell, Robert Brotherton, P. H. Olmstead, Joseph McElvain and David Taylor.
Captain Vance was a fine military officer, and was in the service, in different grades of office, during the greater part of the war. He was among the early settlers of the county; married in Franklinton in 1805, and remained a resident of the county the balance of his life. He was a surveyor and for many years the county surveyor; was one of the conspicuous citizens of his day, and highly respected. He died in 1824.
Captain McDowell was a military officer of portly and commanding appearance. He was afterward promoted to the rank of colonel, which title he bore through life. He was among the early settlers of the county, and held the office of clerk of the courts and county recorder many years. He was afterward mayor of the city of Columbus. Was a man of free and jovial disposition, and always had warm friends. He died in the fall of 1844, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.
Captain Brotherton was the third commander of this popular troop, and was. from that, promoted to the rank of colonel, which title he bore through life. He was a native of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and came to Franklinton when a youth, and resided in this county ever after. He married a daughter of Captain Kooken, a family of high respectability. He was of a mild and sociable disposition, and became very popular, apparently without an effort on his part. He served two constitutional terms of four years each, as sheriff, and filled that critical and unpleasant office with peculiar ease and kindness, and was never charged with oppression. He died in November, 1837, aged about forty-five years.
Captain McElvain, like his predecessors in the command of the troops, was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Ohio militia, and bore the title of colonel through life. He died suddenly on the 7th of February, 1858, at his residence in Worthington, aged about sixty-five years. Colonel McElvain was one of the first residents of Franklin county. He came here with his father and family, when he was a child, in the spring of 1798, and remained here ever since. He was in turn farmer, merchant, hotel-keeper and public officer.
He was many years an assistant at the Ohio penitentiary. He held the office of county treasurer four years, and was superintendent of the county infirmary a number of years, and discharged the duties of his office with kindness and urbanity.
First Toll Bridge.
The first toll bridge in Columbus was erected in 1815-1816 by Lucas Sullivant. It was erected across the Scioto on the road leading from Columbus to Franklinton. The bridge was erected under a charter granted by the legislature. This charter or franchise printed elsewhere in full, passed to the ownership of Joseph Sullivant, when the estate of his father, Lucas Sullivant, was divided among his heirs. The National road when located in 1832-1833 crossed at practically the same point, and the superintendent in charge agreed to erect a free bridge at the expense of the United States government, on condition that Sullivant's rights under the charter were abdicated. Public-spirited citizens on both sides of the river subscribed eight thousand dollars, and Franklin county, through its board of commissions, added two thousand dollars, and the ten thousand dollars thus raised was paid to Mr. Sullivant, for the abdication of his charter rights.
The First Pestilence.
The summer and fall of 1823 exceeded anything before known for sickness. The whole country was little else than one vast infirmary—whole families were frequently prostrate without well members enough to take care of the sick ones. The diseases were bilious and intermittent fevers, of all types, from the common fever and ague to the most malignant. Although the mortality was great, still it was not excessively so in proportion to the number of sick.
Many prominent men were taken off that season, amongst whom were Lucas Sullivant, Judge John A. McDowell, Judge John Kerr, David S. Broderick, Barzillai Wright, keeper of the penitentiary, and others. The ensuing year, 1824, was also very sickly, but not so much so as 1823. Amongst the prominent old citizens carried off this year were Captain Joseph Vance. Billingsby Bull, Esquire, James Culbertson, John Starr, Sr., and others.
First Court House East of the River.
In 1824 the county seat was removed from Franklinton to Columbus and a commodious brick building and jail was erected at the spot where the great stone Temple of Justice on the block bounded by Mound and Fulton and High and Pearl streets now stands.
First Extension of High Street.
In 1823 a road was opened extending from the then north end of High street to Worthington drawn at a tangent. This road obviated the use of the former thoroughfare, especially in muddy weather, extending up the Scioto and the Olentangy. This stream, formerly called Whetstone is, by a law passed in February, 1833, to restore the Indian names to certain streams, called Olentangy; and the stream sometimes called Big Walnut and sometimes Big Belly is named Gahannah, though it is said that the name Gahannah is only applicable to that stream below the junction of the three creeks, Blacklick, Walnut, and Alum—that the Indian word Gahannah signifies three united in one.
The First Silk Factory.
One often sees in the lawns of the city and along the roadways and boulevards leading out into the suburbs that species of mulberry tree which produces a luscious white berry. Along in the '30s, and a little later perhaps, its stately Latin name, Mora Multicaulus, was on all lips, and young and old prophesied in its name of fortunes so fabulous that Aladin's lamp looked as insignificant, as a fortune getter, as an emaciated firefly under a full moon in August. During the excitement enterprising people made money selling the mulberry trees, or bushes, to other people, who planted and nurtured them for a few years, when they would be able to feed vast colonies of silk worms, which would spin fortunes in silk for the tree owners.
The Mora Multicaulus sellers insured the growth of their trees, taking one-half in cash when they were "set out" and the other half the next year, when they come into full leaf and demonstrated their health and abilities to grow under Ohio's climate. The original purveyors made money, but the mulberry growers, the silk worm herders and silk manufacturers did not succeed so satisfactorily. In fact they did not succeed at all, save in having delicious fruit for table use during the mulberry season. Joseph Sullivant, A. S. Chew and some others formed a company, set out an immense Mora Multicaulus field, contracted for the product of the silk worms in all directions and erected and equipped a big frame silk factory on the west side, but never made a yard or a skein of silk, but abandoned the enterprise, and an antiquarian could not locate the site of the factory at this day if he tried.
This Mora Multicaulus business was then and since then denounced and pointed out as a fake and a humbug. But was it?
Almost immediately following the Mom Multicaulus failure came the "sugar beet" craze, and it turned out to be a worse humbug than the silk worm business, and history so records it, interspersed at various points by strong implication, with expletives, objurgations and impolite remarks. And yet how unreasonable is "history" with respect to the sugar beet? It came too early or under adverse circumstances, and was whistled down the wind. May it not be that the Mora Multicaulus came ahead of time in this latitude, earning only distrust because it came at an inopportune season of the continent's