Deducting capital, surplus and undivided profits, these banks have a net sum of eight and a half millions of resources against a little over six and a half of liabilities. The improvement of the currency which has taken place during the last fifty years of the period covered by this sketch is one of the most notable facts in the history of banking. As late as 1842 the writer, then a citizen of Warren County, Ohio, collected a note in Utica, Licking County, for the sum of sixty dollars. receiving the money he perceived that none of it was current in Warren County, but it was the best the debtor could pay. This event was brought back sugges tively to the writer's mind a few years ago by the casual inspection of a package of the national bank currency of twentyone localities in nineteen different States, every dollar of which was just as valid and just as current in one part of the American Union as in another. CHAPTER XXVII. THE PRESS. I. BY OSMAN C. HOOPER. [Osman Castle Hooper was born April 10, 1858, near Alexandria, Licking County, Ohio. His father, Richard Hooper, of English birth, was then postmaster and merchant in the village. His mother, Celestia (Castle) Hooper, was the daughter of Augustus Castle, one of those sturdy Vermont farmers who came in the early part of the century to make their homes in Ohio. Mr. Hooper attended school at Alexandria, at Central College and Columbus, and took a college course at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, graduating there in 1879 with the degree of A. B. He began newspaper work in the spring of 1880 on the Evening Dispatch, with which paper he has been connected in some capacity continuously, with the exception of about a year in 1886-7. In the spring of 1887, he became editor and part owner of the Sunday Morning News, à relationship which he still maintains.] Churches and newspapers were among the first outgrowths of that civilization which, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, came westward and laid claim to the Northwest Territory. The first settlement in Ohio was made at Marietta by the Ohio Company, April 7, 1787. The first church on Ohio soil was erected at Columbia, five miles above Cincinnati, in 1790, and the first newspaper in the territory now the State of Ohio, was established at Cincinnati by William Maxwell, November 9, 1793, under the name of the Sentinel of the Northwest Territory. The white population within the present State boundaries was, in 1790, about 3,000, the population of Cincinnati at the time of the beginning of Mr. Maxwell's venture being between 700 and 800. Chillicothe was laid out in 1796, and in 1800 the Scioto Gazette was founded by Nathaniel Willis and has existed ever since in various measures of prosperity and power. Similarly in other settlements, the newspaper came early as an essential exponent of the thought that was then moving these sturdy pioneers. It served, too, an educational purpose, and played no small part in directing the energies of the people even before the days of statehood. In 1803, Ohio was admitted to the Union as a State. Seven years later, there were fourteen newspapers published within its borders. Of these the principal ones were: The Scioto Gazette and the Supporter, both Federalist organs, published at Chillicothe; the Fredonian and the Independent Republican, both organs of the then Republican (now Democratic) party, also published at Chillicothe; the Whig and the Liberty Hall, both of Cincinnati; the Ohio Gazette and the Commentator, both of Marietta; the Ohio Patriot, of New Lisbon, and the Western Herald, of Steubenville. Papers were also published at Zanesville, St. Clairsville and Lebanon. As settlement and civilization progressed, the list of newspapers grew. Some of the earliest born served their purpose and died or passed out of existence for other reasons. But others came to fill the vacant places and to supply new wants, and there was continually a net gain in the number of papers. From the Columbus Gazette, now the Ohio State Journal, the following interesting table is taken : LIST OF NEWSPAPERS PUBLISHED IN OHIO IN 1821. SUNDAY EVENING, JANUARY 24 IMPORTANT.. Extract of a letter from Gen. Harrison, to Gov. Meigs, dated Head Quarters of the North Western Army, Rapids of the Miami, January 20, 1813. I have the pleasure to inform you that the detachment under col Lewis was completely sucpessful in its attack upon the part of the enemy at the river Rezin-their force then consisting of some hundreds of Indians and a company of mi litia which were placed behind pickets, were at tacked by our troops about 3 o'clock on the 18th inst. The action lasted until night, when the enemy were completely routed. The Indians suffered considerablytheir allies ran off with a piece of artillery in the commencement of the action our loss is about ten killed and two captains and 20 privates wounded. Gen. Winchester marched yesterday with 250 men to take the command at the river Rezin-He will have about 1000 effectives, and I am this moment despatching five companies more of Gen. Perkin brigade. FREEMAN'S CHRONICLE EXTRA, JANUARY 24, 1813. HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS W. Doherty & Co. Urbana. To convey some idea of the rapid growth of newspapers numerically speaking, it is necessary only to say that in 1826, sixty papers were published in Ohio. Eighteen of the fortyone published in 1821 had succumbed and thirtyseven new papers had been established. The business was quite as seductive and hazardous then as now, although the losses were not as large. The list of Columbus newspapers, living and dead, is a large one. Many of them were shortlived, and the available information about them is meager. are not to be had and the only obtainable fact about them, in some cases, is that Files they existed. The local publications are here considered biographically in the order of their establishment, and for greater convenience are divided and treated in the following order: First, political and general newspapers; second, the German press; third, the religious press; fourth, agricultural papers; fifth, medical journals; sixth, secret society papers; seventh, literary publications; eighth, law journals; ninth, educational papers; tenth, college periodicals. As the newspaper soon followed settlement in other parts of Ohio, so it was here. Lucas Sullivant laid out the town of Franklinton in 1797. Fifteen years later, or in 1812, the paper that must be honored as the pioneer newspaper of Columbus made its appearance. It was called the Freeman's Chronicle, and was published and edited by James B. Gardiner. Columbus, which has since grown up and absorbed the elder town, was just then being laid out. The publication office of the Chronicle was located on West Broad Street near the corner of what is now Sandusky Street, but the exact site is not identified. The first issue of the paper bore the date of July 4, 1812; the date of the last issue is unknown, but it was sometime in the year 1815. The Chronicle was a weekly of folio form, with five columns to the page. At the top of the first page, beneath the name, was printed this motto: Here shall the press the people's rights maintain, Here patriot truth its glorious precepts draw, There was no department devoted to editorial expression as is now the case with nearly all journals, but such remarks as the editor saw fit to make were inserted wherever and in whatever type their importance dictated or the emergency of the moment seemed to require. Roman, italic, and blackletter type, such as now used in advertisements, were used to convey the editor's ideas, as the occasion seemed to demand. Discussion, when entered upon, was conducted with Addisonian grandeur of style, and even the advertising partook of the "pomp and circumstance" of utterance. In the news columns there was very little about Franklinton; the space was devoted chiefly to news from Europe, Washington and the Indian wars in which "Old Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison, with headquarters at Piqua, and later at Franklinton, was then actively engaged. three to five months old, the Washington news was from three to five weeks old, and The foreign news was from |