[Pg. 61]
MAJOR JEREMIAH R. MUNSON AND
GENERAL JOHN SPENCER.
In the year 1805, two
men settled within the limits of this County, who subsequently
attracted to themselves a large share of public attention,
figured extensively in high military and civil positions, and
who enjoyed to an unusual extent, the public confidence and
regard. These men were major Jeremiah R. Munson,
and General John Spencer. They were
both undoubted patriots - both, early in the war of 1812,
entered the military service of their country - both were
included in General Hull's capitulation at Detroit
- both subsequently re-entered the army - both were shot and
narrowly escaped death - both made good military or war records
- both were summoned, I believe, as witnesses at the Court
Martial of Hull - both were honorably discharged from the
army - both served creditably as Representatives of Licking
County in the State Legislature - both were men of energy,
enterprise, and great popularity - both possessed fine social
qualities and commanding influence - both were men of ambition
and of honor - both had strong convivial proclivities - both
merited and enjoyed high consideration - the floods engulfed
them both, one a little more, the other a year less than half a
century ago - both reached the end, when they had passed but
little beyond "the noon of life;" and when the limpid waters of
the Raccoon closed over the despondent, despairing Munson, a
gallant, patriotic, generous life went out; and when the heroic
Spencer passed out of sight, in the midst of the swollen,
turbid, fast-flowing waters of the North Fork, a brave heart
ceased to beat, a patriotic life came to an end, a gallant
soldier died, an upright Magistrate ceased to be, an
incorruptible Legislator was o more, an honest man passed on to
his final reckoning! Both shared largely in the
commiserations of "troops of Friends," sincere, devoted.
A POLITICAL WHIRLWIND.
A most extraordinary
political excitement pervaded Licking County, as well as the
country at large, during the year 1840 - the year of "the
log-cabin-hard-cider and coon-skin campaign." As
indicated, it was not a local but a general tornado raging with
more or less fury, in all the States of the American Union, but
in none of them was the hurricane wilder than in Ohio, and in no
locality did it rage more furiously than in "Old Licking."
The people were wont to meet in immense crowds, and became
intensely excited under the
[Pg. 62]
declamatory harangues of wranglers, demagogues and stump
orators. The inflammatory appeals of the party press of
the country, addressed to the passions, super-added to the
fanatical and exciting speeches of the heated partisans, and
candidates for public offices, roused the people as they had
never been roused before, and worked them up to fever heat,
producing a state of wild delirium among them, hitherto
unparallelled in the history of the country and never
afterwards approached in infuriated fanaticism. The stormy
passions of the masses were lashed into uncontrolable fury, who
often displayed an intensity of feeling wholly unknown before,
and manifested a degree of extravagance and wildness in the
discussion of political questions that was a marvel to the few
sober-minded men of both parties, that remained in a measure
unaffected in the midst of the frenzy that had seized upon the
multitudes. These abnormal manifestations characterized
one portion of the people, while the other portion, little, if
any less excited or delirious, erected their lofty hickory
poles, surmounted them with huge hickory brooms, and displayed
living roosters in various ways and in every conceivable manner,
as the representative of antagonism to the coon, while their
speeches about equaled in defamation of character the ribaldry
of the doggerels sung by the former. And all this
hullabaloo, this frantic madness, resulted from a determination
of the party of the first part, to prevent the re-election of
Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson,
and substituting for them General William H. Harrison and John
Tyler - this and nothing more! The question was, shall we
elect General Harrison or Martin Van
Buren President? Licking County decided by about
200 majority in favor of the latter. The great gathering
of the clans during the year, was in Newark, on the 4th of July,
Thomas Corwin being the Whig orator of the occasion, and
John Brough the Democratic. Sam. White and
Joshua Mathiot were the chief local orator of the former
and B. B. Taylor and James Parker of the latter.
The delirium manifested itself in the oft-repeated
gathering together by the populace, in immense meetings, at
distances so remote as to necessitate an absence of a number of
days to the partial neglect of their usual avocations. The
further irrational manifestations of the excited crowds while
going to, and returning from those monster meetings, as well as
while present at them consisted of singing songs and rolling
balls - of riding from place to place in canoes on wheels, and
of hauling with oxen or horses, from town to town, miniature log
cabins, erected upon wheels partially covered with coon-skins,
[Pg. 63]
(the ridge-pole of the roof being generally embellished with one or more
live coons,) and to whose corners were clinging, by way of
adornment, full grown statesmen, nibbling at corn-dodgers or
section of Johnnycake, and sipping at a gourde of hard-cider,
and at intervals signing, on the highest attainable key,
doggerel songs in the interest of "Tippecanoe and
Tyler too." A few of the Trades and Industries and
Arts were also represented in miniature, on wheels, at the great
Conventions, and temporarily operated, sometimes while in
motion. Some large log-cabins, built of heavy logs, and
furnished with buckeye-chairs, were built in which to hold
neighborhood meetings, and in front of which the trunk of the
largest accessible buckeye tree was erected, surmounted with a
cider-barrel and a gourd attached! One of these
log-cabins, with the usual adjuncts, was erected in Newark and
used for many months for the practice of the oratory, the
eloquence, the minstrelsy peculiar to that year.
GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS.
| CANDIDATES |
YEAR |
TOTAL VOTE |
| |
1810 |
|
|
| Return Jonathan Meigs |
|
220 |
|
| Thomas Worthington |
|
179 |
399 |
| |
1812. |
|
|
| Thomas Scott |
|
433 |
|
| Return Jonathan Meigs |
|
206 |
639 |
| |
1814 |
|
|
| Thomas Worthington |
|
553 |
|
| Othniel Looker |
|
5 |
558 |
| |
1816. |
|
|
| Thomas Worthington |
|
640 |
|
| James Dunlap |
|
20 |
699 |
| |
1818. |
|
|
| Ethan Allen Brown |
|
195 |
|
| James Dunlap |
|
71. |
196 |
| |
|
|
|
[Pg. 64]
| CANDIDATES |
YEAR |
TOTAL VOTE |
| |
1820 |
|
|
| Ethan Allen Brown |
|
864 |
|
| William H. Harrison |
|
238 |
|
| Jeremiah Morrow |
|
108 |
1210 |
| |
1822 |
|
|
| William W. Irwin |
|
993 |
|
| Jeremiah Morrow |
|
371 |
|
| Allen Trimble |
|
238 |
1602. |
| Othniel Looker |
1824 |
|
|
| Jeremiah Morrow |
|
1155 |
|
| Allen Trimble |
|
521 |
1676 |
| James Dunlap |
1826 |
|
|
| Allen Trimble |
|
2092 |
|
| Alexander Campbell |
|
16 |
|
| Benjamin Tappan |
|
11 |
|
| John Bigger |
|
6 |
2125 |
| |
1828 |
|
|
| John W. Campbell |
|
1791 |
|
| Allen Trimble |
|
1065 |
2856 |
| |
1830 |
|
|
| Robert Lucas |
|
1224. |
|
| Duncan McArthur |
|
1077 |
2301 |
| |
1832 |
|
|
| Robert Lucas |
|
2059 |
|
| Darius C. Lyman |
|
1599 |
3658 |
| |
1834 |
|
|
| Robert Lucas |
|
2201 |
|
| James Findlay |
|
1390 |
3591 |
| |
1836 |
|
|
| Eli Baldwin |
|
2578 |
|
| Joseph Vance |
|
2136 |
4714 |
[Pg. 65]
| |
1838 |
|
|
| Wilson Shannon |
|
3162 |
|
| Joseph Vance |
|
3353 |
6933 |
| |
1840 |
|
|
| Wilson Shannon |
|
3580 |
|
| Thomas Corwin |
|
3353 |
6933 |
| |
1842 |
|
|
| Wilson Shannon |
|
3485 |
|
| Thomas Corwin |
|
2755 |
|
| Leicester King |
|
193 |
6433 |
| |
1844 |
|
|
| David Tod |
|
3856 |
|
| Mordecai Bartley |
|
3443 |
|
| Leicester King |
|
299 |
7598 |
| |
1846 |
|
|
| David Tod |
|
3175 |
|
| William Bebb |
|
3021 |
|
| Samuel Lewis |
|
278 |
6474 |
| |
1848 |
|
|
| John B. Weller |
|
3438 |
|
| Seabury Ford |
|
3269 |
6707 |
| |
1850 |
|
|
| Reuben Wood |
|
3485 |
|
| William Johnson |
|
3759 |
|
| Edward Smith |
|
222 |
6466 |
| |
1851 |
|
|
| Reuben Wood |
|
3286 |
|
| Samuel F. Vinton |
|
2546 |
|
| Samuel Lewis |
|
201 |
6033 |
| |
1853 |
|
|
| William Medill |
|
3454 |
|
| Nelson Barrere |
|
1136 |
|
| Samuel Lewis |
|
1072 |
5662 |
[Pg. 66]
| |
1855 |
|
|
| William Medill |
|
2530 |
|
| Salmon P. Chase |
|
2128 |
|
| Allen Trimble |
|
722 |
5380 |
| |
1857 |
|
|
| Henry B. Payne |
|
3438 |
|
| William Dennison |
|
3030 |
6468 |
| |
1861 |
|
|
| Hugh J. Jewett |
|
3582 |
|
| David Tod |
|
3014 |
5496 |
| |
1863 |
|
|
| John Brough |
|
3842 |
|
| Clement L. Valandingham |
|
3839 |
7681 |
| |
1865 |
|
|
| George W. Morgan |
|
3804 |
|
| Jacob D. Cox |
|
3152 |
6956 |
| |
1867 |
|
|
| Allen G. Thurman |
|
4441 |
|
| Rutherford B. Hayes |
|
3155 |
7596 |
| |
1869 |
|
|
| George W. Pendleton |
|
4406 |
|
| Rutherford B. Hayes |
|
3107 |
7513 |
| |
1871 |
|
|
| George W. McCook |
|
4298 |
|
| Edward F. Noyes |
|
3115 |
|
| Gideon T. Stewart |
|
12 |
7425 |
[Pg. 67]
| |
1873 |
|
|
| William Allen |
|
4115 |
|
| Edward F. Noyes |
|
2749 |
|
| Gideon T. Stewart |
|
143 |
|
| Isaac Collins |
|
56 |
7063 |
| |
1875 |
|
|
| William Allen |
|
5142 |
|
| Rutherford B. Hayes |
|
3617 |
8759 |
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS
OF LICKING COUNTY.
[Inadvertently omitting
two names in giving the list of Licking County's Presidential
Electors, on page 27, we give the list again, this time in full,
as follows]
| Daniel Humphrey |
served in |
....................... |
1856 |
| James R. Stanbery |
" " |
|
1864 |
| William D. Hamilton |
" " |
|
1868 |
| Isaac Smucker |
" " |
|
1872 |
| Edward M. Downer |
" " |
|
1876 |
MAIL FACILITIES AND POST OFFICES.
The advance in
Mail facilities, and the increase in Post Offices from time to
time, well illustrate the growth of our County. During the
first five eyars after the first settlement of the County,
Zanesville was or nearest Post office. Newark was then
made a post town, and some years thereafter a Post office was
established in Granville. A weekly mail, carried on
horseback, supplied these offices. A Post Office was
established at Utica about 1815, and not long thereafter one was
established in Hanover at Chester Well's, and another between
Newark and Utica, called Newton Mills. These were the
principal offices before 1825, except those at Johnstown,
Vandorn's, and Homer, numbering eight in all, which were chiefly
supplied by the two mail routes, one crossing the County East
and West, the other North and South, run by two-horse, and
sometimes four-horse stages, twice a week. After 1828 came
the ponderous, fast-going four-horse coach, running daily at
about seven per hour. Afterwards came the packets, and the
pony express - now we have our principal mails carried daily or
twice a day in Rail Road Cars moving
[Pg. 68]
at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Our Post Offices now
numbering thirty-five in all, there being on or more in almost
every Township of the County, so that probably not a single man
in Licking County but lives within less than five miles of a
Post Office.
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