MIAMI COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY [Part 4] (published 1880) *************************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. *************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by LeaAnn Rich leaann1@bellsouth.net April 2, 1999 *************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Henry Howe LL. D. Piqua in 1846 Piqua is another beautiful and thriving town, eight miles above Troy, and also on the river and canal. It was laid out in 1809 by Messrs. Brandon and Manning, under the name of Washington, which it bore for many years. The town plot contains an area of more than a mile square, laid out in uniform blocks, with broad and regular streets. On the north and east, and opposite the town, are the villages of Rossville and Huntersville, connected with it by bridges across the Miami. It contains one New and one Old School Presbyterian, one Methodist Episcopal, one Methodist Wesleyan, one Episcopal, one Baptist, one Associate Reformed, one Lutheran, one Catholic and one Disciples church; one high school, a town hall, and a branch of the State bank. The manufacturing facilities in it and vicinity are extensive. The Miami furnishes power for one wool-carding and fulling factory, three saw mills, one grist mill adjacent to the town, and a saw and grist mill, with an oil mill below the town. The water of the canal propels a saw mill, a clothing and fulling factory, with a grist mill. A steam saw mill, a steam grist mill and tannery, with two steam iron turning and machine establishments, constitute, with the rest, the amount of steam and hydraulic power used. With these are over one hundred mechanical and manufacturing establishments in the town, among which are twenty five cooper shops, that business being very extensively carried on. There are also fifteen grocery and variety stores, twelve dry goods, three leather, one book and three hardware stores; a printing office, four forwarding and three pork houses; and the exports and imports, by the canal, are very heavy. South of the town are seven valuable quarries of blue limestone, at which are employed a large number of hands, and adjacent to the town is a large boat yard. In the town are 600 dwellings, many of which are of brick and have fine gardens attached. Along the canal have lately been erected a number of three story brick buildings for business purposes, and the number of business houses is 98. During the year 1846 eighty buildings were erected, and the value of real estate at that time was $476,000. The population of Piqua in 1830 was less than 500; in 1840, 1,480; and in 1847, 3,100. The Miami River curves beautifully around the town, leaving between it and the village a broad and level plateau, while the opposite bank rises abruptly into a hill, called "Cedar Bluff," affording fine walks and a commanding view of the surrounding country. In its vicinity are some ancient works. From near its base, on the east bank of the river, the view was taken. The church spires shown, commencing on the right, are respectively, the Episcopal, Catholic, New School Presbyterian, Wesleyan Methodist, Old School Presbyterian and Baptist. The town hall is seen on the left. The old view of Piqua was taken a few rods only below the present bridge, both occupying the same site. In 1846, when a part of John Randolph's negroes were driven from Mercer county, they camped here at this place in tents. Three years later John Robinson's elephant fell through the old bridge. From the Miami County Traditions we annex some facts respecting the history of Piqua: Jonathon Rollins was among the first white inhabitants of Miami County. In connection with nine others he contracted with Judge Symmes, for a certain compensation in lots and land, to become a pioneer in laying out a proposed town in the Indian Country, at the lower Piqua village, where is situated the pleasant and flourishing town under that name. The party left Ludlow Station, on Mill creek, in the spring of 1797, and proceeded without difficulty to the proposed site. They there erected cabins and enclosed grounds for fields and gardens. But the judge failing in some of his calculations was unable to fulfill his part of the contract, and the other parties to it gradually withdrew from the association, and squatted around on public land as best pleased themselves. It was some years after this when land could regularly entered into the public offices; surveying parties had been running out the county, but time was required to organize the newly introduced section system, which has since proved so highly beneficial to the Western States, and so fatal to professional cupidity. Indian Grief-- Some of these hardy adventurers settled in and about Piqua, where they have left many worthy descendants. Mr. Rollins finally took up land on Spring Creek, where he laid out the farm he now occupies(1839). While this party resided at Piqua and for years after, the Indians were constant visitors and sojourners among them. This place appears to have been, to that unfortunate race, a most favorite residence, around which their attachments and regrets lingered to the last. They would come here to visit the graves of their kindred and weep over the sod that entombed the bones of their fathers. They would sit in melancholy groups, surveying the surrounding objects of their earliest attachments and childhood sports--the winding river which witnessed their first feeble essays with the gig and the paddle-- the trees where first they triumphed with their tiny bow in their boastful craft of the hunter-- the coppice of their nut gatherings-- the lawns of their boyhood sports, and haunts of their early loves-- would call forth bitter sighs and reproaches on that civilization which, in its rudest features, was uprooting them from their happy home. Pioneer Assertion-- The Indians at Piqua soon found, in the few whites among them, stern and inflexible masters rather than associates and equals. Upon the slightest provocation the discipline of the fist and club, so humbling to the spirits of an Indian, was freely used upon them. One day an exceedingly large Indian had been made drunk, and for some past offense took it in his head to kill one of his wives. He was following her with a knife and tomahawk around their cabin, with a posse of clamorous squaws and papooses at his heels, who were striving to check his violence. They had succeeded in wresting from him his arms, and he was standing against the cabin, when several of the white men, attracted by the outcry, approached the group. One of them, small in stature but big in resolution, made through the Indian crowd to the offender, struck him in the face and felled him to the ground, while the surrounding Indians looked on in fixed amazement. When the country had developed somewhat, flatboats were constructed at Piqua on the riverbank. They were about seventy feet long and twelve wide. They were loaded with flour, bacon, corn on the cob, cherry lumber, furniture and other products and taken down the river, sometimes to New Orleans. From thence the boatmen often walked all the way home again, passing through what was then called the Indian Nations, Choctaws and Chickasaws. Navigating the Miami was risky, especially in passing over mill-dams and following the channel through the "Ninety-nine Islands," a few miles below Troy. It required the utmost skill and quickness to guide the unwieldy craft through the swift, crooked turns. Piqua is eight miles north of Troy, on the Miami river and the Miami & Erie Canal, at the crossing of the P.C. & St.L. and D.&M. Railroads. City officers, 1888: G.A. Brooks, Mayor; J.H. Hatch, Clerk; Clarence Langdon, Treasurer; Walter D. Jones, Solicitor; W.J. Jackson, Engineer; James Livingston, Marshal. Newspapers: Call, Republican, J.W. Morris editor and publisher; Dispatch, Republican, D.M. Fleming editor; Evening Democrat, Democratic, J. Boni Hemsteger editor and publisher; Leader, Democratic, Jerome C. Smiley & Co. editors and publishers; Miami Helmet, Republican, I.S. Morris editor and publisher; Pythian News, Knights of Pythias, Harry S. Frye editor and publisher. Churches: Methodist 3, Presbyterian 2, Baptist 3, Lutheran 1, Episcopal 1, Catholic 2, German Methodist 1. Banks: Citizen's National, W.P. Orr president, Henry Flash, cashier; Piqua National, John M. Scott president, Clarence Langdon cashier. Manufactures and Employees The Piqua Straw Board Co., paper and straw board, 62 hands; Bowdle Bros., machinery and castings, 13; I.J. Whitlock, builders woodwork, 25; C.A.&C.L. Wood, builders woodwork, 30; The Fritsche Bros., furniture, 10; the Wood Linseed Oil Co., linseed oil, etc., 8; the Piqua Manufacturing Co., mattresses, etc., 35; L.W. Fillebrown, machinery, 5; the Piqua Handle Co., agricultural implements, 43; the Piqua Straw Board Co., paper, 25; the Piqua Oatmeal Co., corn meal, 10; Snyder & Son, carriage shafts etc., 111; C.F. Rankin & Co., handlers of malt, etc., 15; Leonard Linseed Oil Co., Linseed oil, etc., 20; W.P. Orr Linseed Oil Co., linseed oil, etc., 22; J.L. Schneyer, lager beer, 4; Mrs. L.E. Nicewanner, flour, etc., 5; the Piqua Hosiery Co., hosiery, 76; the F. Gray Co., woolen blankets, etc., 62; L.C. & W.L. Cron & Co., furniture, 165; Cron, Kills & Co., furniture, 178.--Ohio State Reports, 1888. The Bentwood Works are the largest of the kind in the Union. Over a million bushels of flaxseed are annually crushed, making it the largest linseed oil center, and, excepting Circleville, no other place equals or surpasses it in the production of straw board. On the Miami are extensive and valuable limestone quarries. Population, 1880, 6,031. School census, 1888, 2,717; C.W. Bennett, school superintendent. Capital invested in industrial establishments, $968,500. Value of annual product, $1,626,000.--Ohio Labor Statistics 1887. Census 1890, 9,090. The manufacturing prosperity of the city is largely due to its excellent system of water works. The canal is over six miles in length, and contains within its prism and reservoirs therewith connected at least 150 acres of water line, at an elevation of thirty eight feet over the city, and three falls, aggregating fifty two feet six inches, for hydraulic power. A recent acquisition of Piqua is in a beautiful library building. It was the gift of Mr. J.M. Schmidlapp, a prosperous merchant of Cincinnati, who wished the citizens of this his native town to remember him by what would prove of lasting benefit. ==== OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List ====