OHIO'S UNSUNG PENITENTIARY RAILROAD
by WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN*
Had James Thurber spent his youth in
Columbus two generations
before he did, he would now be regaling
us with anecdotes about
a curious little railroad operation
that enlivened the city for a few
years. By antiquarians and connoisseurs
of the early iron horse, it
is sometimes whimsically hailed as the
first railroad into Columbus,
a palm that more literal-minded
scholars award to the Columbus
and Xenia line.
Looked at, on the other hand, in a
cold, material light, the little
railroad in its early stages is seen to
have been the key to the
legislative maneuvers of a group of
Columbus businessmen. By
capitalizing on the return of the Whigs
(the Republicans of their
day) to power in the state government,
and using the tiny rail line
as a stalking horse, these men
succeeded in selling the state a
quarry, in providing some indirect
state aid for their Columbus and
Xenia Railroad, and in warding off the
recurrent threat to move the
capital to another city.
When Ohio decided in 1838 to build a
new capitol, or statehouse
as it was always called, it began to
look as if the state fathers would
ere long be as well provided for as the
state's convicts and lunatics,
both of which groups had just been
supplied with fine modern
quarters. Much limestone was bought,
the cornerstone laid, and a
rousing celebration held to start the
building on its way. Suddenly
the legislature repealed the entire
project. Their sagacity had been
foully reflected on by certain young
men of Columbus, the law-
makers declared in a fit of pique,
stimulated by some clever anti-
Columbus politics. Sentiment flared for
moving the capital to a
more appreciative city.
A little group of Columbus businessmen
stepped into the breach.
They got through the legislature a
harmless-looking resolution
which said nothing as to a statehouse
but appointed commissioners
* Walter Rumsey Marvin is executive director
of the Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana
Library Association. The subject of his
doctoral dissertation was "Columbus and the
Railroads of Central Ohio Before the
Civil War" (Ohio State University, 1953).
254
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 255
to see about buying a quarry near the
city. The limestone would
be used for new canal locks (why any
were needed was not re-
vealed) and public buildings, and would
surely be cheaper than
the stone the state had been buying.
The commissioners were also
told to find out how much a right of
way would cost (by impli-
cation, from the quarry to Columbus)
and to report to the next
session. There the matter rested for
four years while the lawmakers
took no further action. The
businessmen, however, were not idle,
and in 1844 they pushed three measures
through the legislature,
though one failed to be signed and to
become a law.
Since they lacked the votes for openly
committing the state to
Columbus as the permanent capital and
for resuming work on the
embryonic statehouse, they settled for
the next best thing. That
was a resolution which merely called
for bringing in a revised set
of plans for a building to be erected
at some unspecified "seat of
government." Three commissioners
were put in charge: Joseph
Ridgway, Jr., of Franklin County, in
which Columbus is located,
and William A. Adams of Muskingum
County, both of whom had
been commissioners for the abortive
building effort of 1838, and
Samuel Medary, also of Franklin County.
As their second move the Columbus
entrepreneurs secured a
charter for a railroad to be known as
the Columbus and Xenia,
which would run to the latter town and
there connect with a line
going to Cincinnati. A rail connection between
the state's biggest
city and the state capital (if it
stayed at Columbus) sounded like a
profitable venture. This was not the
first railroad launched in
Columbus, but it was to be the first to
get beyond the talking stage
and start digging.
The charter named commissioners, as was
nearly always done in
those days, to see to the organization
of the company. Three were
from Columbus and four from other
places along the line. The
Columbus commissioners were Samuel
Medary, the same man ap-
pointed as one of the statehouse
commissioners; Joseph Ridgway,
Sr., uncle of Ridgway, Jr., another
statehouse commissioner (with
whom he was often confused in
contemporary writings because of
the similarity in names), and William
Dennison, Jr., son-in-law of
256
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
the Columbus transportation magnate
William Neil, known as
"the stagecoach king."
Third on the Columbus agenda was an
attempt to get the state to
build a few miles of railroad from a
quarry to the penitentiary on
the edge of the city. There convict
labor would dress the stone for
building purposes. A bill to this
effect passed both houses, but then
fate turned against the promoters. The
measure failed to become
law "by both houses adjourning
before the bill was signed by the
speakers."1
What lay behind this puzzling episode
is not shown, although
the aim of the bill was clear: to have
transportation facilities ready
for the huge quantities of limestone
which the new capitol would
need as soon as the lawmakers gave the
green light. The measure-
ments of the building when finally
completed--304 feet by 184 feet,
with foundation walls 12 to 15 feet
thick--give an idea of the
amount of stone involved.
The railroad to a quarry had double
value for Columbus. By
building it the state would virtually
commit itself to keeping the
capital where it was. Some of its
track, furthermore, and a bridge
it would have to build possibly could
be used by the railroad from
Columbus to Xenia, thereby furnishing
indirect state aid to that
project. Every foot of someone else's
rails its trains could travel
over meant so much less capital the
infant corporation had to raise.
It needed all the adventitious help it
could get, for during the rest
of 1844 the company was unable to sell
even the minimum amount
of stock its charter required for
organization.
The legislative accomplishments of the
Columbus promoters were
a good beginning, but they still had a
long way to go. That fall
the results of the elections brought
very welcome aid. Ohio was
carried by the Whigs, the businessmen's
party, to which all the
group except Medary seem to have
belonged. The result was a
legislature more sympathetic to their
goals. By way of icing on the
cake, one of the two state
representatives chosen in the Columbus
district was the younger Ridgway, the
statehouse commissioner,
1 "Report of the Directors of the
Ohio Penitentiary for the Year 1844," Ohio
Legislative Documents (Columbus, 1845), Vol. IX, Doc. No. 32, 4-5.
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 257
who was completing a term as state
senator. He held at the same
time several other public offices.
With the Whigs back in power in Ohio
the group from Columbus
rolled up their sleeves when the
legislature met in January 1845.
One of their first moves was a dinner
party given by Ridgway, Jr.,
at the Neil House, the city's leading
hotel, to win votes for their
program. This time they felt sure
enough of themselves to intro-
duce a bill openly providing for the
completion of the statehouse.
The bill also authorized the purchase
of a quarry to furnish the
stone and the construction of a rail
line to transport it. The latter
two provisions were the same as
provisions in the ill-fated bill of
the year before.
The new measure touched many local
interests. The city as a
whole naturally wanted to see the
capitol finished. At least two
quarry owners hoped to sell to the
state. The Neil House manage-
ment foresaw increased trade when the
new statehouse, located
across the street, would be in use. The
Columbus and Xenia Rail-
road stood to benefit in several ways.
Finally, the Neils, who owned
the hotel, were related by marriage to
the owner of one of the
quarries and were the chief promoters
of the railroad to Xenia, in
which both quarry owners also were
interested.
As a bit of lobbying the Ridgway dinner
was an oddity, for
ladies were present, dancing was
enjoyed, the guests sang a great
deal, and there was a large crowd, but,
the Ohio State Journal
reported, "They had no wine."
Whether the italicizing of "wine"
was the reporter's way of hinting that
they did, nevertheless, have
ardent spirits, or whether it meant
they served no champagne (often
referred to merely as wine) may never
be known.2 In any case the
legislators gave the Columbus group
much of what they had sought
during that session of the general
assembly.
It would be unjust to the lawmakers to
conclude from this that
they acted solely in response to lobby
pressure. To pass measures
helpful to business interests was to
act in accordance with Whig
principles. The same session overhauled
the banking structure of
the state, repealed various laws
objectionable to businessmen, and
2 Ohio State Journal, January 24, 1845.
258
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
incorporated more new railroads than
had been chartered for a
number of years.
The final item on the Columbus program
was more help for the
city's leading rail project, the
Columbus and Xenia Railroad. People
were not subscribing to its stock, so
the legislature was appealed to
for amendments to the charter to make
it easier to sell shares. The
most important change was doubtless
that which allowed a buyer
to make his down payment of five
dollars per share by signing a
note instead of putting up the cash.
At the end of the session the Columbus
promoters could point
to substantial gains. They had failed,
it is true, to secure legislation
to complete the statehouse and thus to
assure the permanent location
of the capital in their city; that was
too much to pry out of a
legislature still smarting from the
injured feelings of earlier years.
Nevertheless their railroad to Xenia
had been helped and the
purchase of a quarry and the
construction of the related rail line
had been approved. It came as no
surprise the next year when the
lawmakers went all the way and voted to
complete the statehouse.
In the debate on buying a quarry it is
significant that the bill's
supporters made no mention of the
provision to build the little
railroad. They based their argument on
the importance of keeping
the convicts in the penitentiary
employed at tasks such as stone-
cutting, which was not considered to
compete with free labor. The
authorization for the rail line clearly
had the earmarks of a legis-
lative "joker."
That the line to the quarry was
promoted with an ulterior purpose
seems probable. In addition to building
a bridge and following a
route that could be used for a short
distance by the railroad to
Xenia, the state's line as first
planned had two more aspects service-
able to another railroad. They appeared
in the text of the bill as
originally introduced.3 First,
the line was to be equipped with the
still conventional wooden rails, but in
such manner "as in the future
to admit the addition of iron
rails." Second, the tracks were to
start at the site of the new
statehouse, go to the penitentiary, and
thence to the quarry. This would have
provided a right of way
3 Ibid., January 18, 1845.
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 259
into the very heart of the city, with
obvious possibilities for the
future. It would not have been likely,
furthermore, that after so
much effort and expense the legislature
would subsequently decide
to move the statehouse to another city.
The legislature must have
had some doubts about these rather
tendentious provisions, for
they were struck out of the bill.
What quarry to buy was to be decided by
the penitentiary
authorities. Their choice narrowed to
two, owned respectively by
a prominent Democrat and a prominent
Whig. The property
farther from the city, and somewhat
cheaper, belonged to Samuel
Medary, the statehouse and railroad
commissioner, who had a far-
reaching reputation as the fiery editor
of the Democratic party
organ, the Ohio Statesman of
Columbus. The slogan "Fifty-four
forty or fight!" has been
attributed to him.4 He was a dynamic
figure, deeply involved in several
business enterprises as well as in
politics. Some years later during the
Civil War his extreme anti-
war utterances nearly caused him to be
lynched.
How shrewd a businessman the Democratic
mouthpiece was, is
seen in the condition he proposed when
offering his property for
sale. He demanded the free use as a
common carrier of the rail-
road which the state was to build to
the quarry. Since he seems to
have envisioned that little line as
part of the railroad to Xenia, he
would have possessed, had the sale been
made, a most valuable
privilege.
Nearer to the city and more expensive
was the quarry belonging
to William Starling Sullivant, the
Whig, who was a close associate
of William Neil, the "stagecoach
king" and hotel owner. Neil's
son, Robert E., had recently married
Sullivant's daughter. In busi-
ness and banking affairs Sullivant
prospered so greatly that a few
years after the time with which we are
concerned he could retire
from money-making activities and take
up the career of amateur
scientist.
When it was announced that Sullivant's
property was to be
bought, Medary let fly a blast charging
the Whig penitentiary au-
4 William Alexander Taylor, Centennial
History of Columbus and Franklin County,
Ohio (2 vols., Chicago and Columbus, 1909), II, 74.
260
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
thorities with wrongly favoring one of
their own. A public meet-
ing, of which it is safe to guess that
he was an instigator, denounced
the choice, and a torrent of editorials
in his Ohio Statesman followed
suit. From this distance, nevertheless,
Sullivant's quarry looks like
the better buy. Medary's outcries did
not last long, for in a little
while he gave up his interest in the
newspaper, perhaps because he
had lost his job as state printer when
the Whigs abolished the
position.
Haste now became the watchword along
both the state's railroad
and the private company's. The
penitentiary immediately took title
to Sullivant's quarry and advertised
for bids as the first step in con-
structing their rail line. Soon
thereafter they agreed with the Co-
lumbus and Xenia Railroad to erect a
two-track bridge, that com-
pany to pay half the cost. Its share
came to $5,589.
The promoters of the private enterprise
railroad were in just as
much hurry. With rail companies forming
all over the state, the
far-seeing Neils did not want their
concern to lag behind. As soon
as possible the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad started taking sub-
scriptions for its stock, and in a
suspiciously short time reported
that enough had been sold to comply
with the revised charter and
to allow the company to organize. It
later developed there had
been gross padding of the
subscriptions.
The stockholders, or, more accurately,
those who had signed notes
for their holdings, met at once and
elected a board of directors
which included many familiar names:
William Neil, his son
Robert E., the two Ridgways, Medary,
and Sullivant. The elder
Neil was made president and Ridgway,
Jr., secretary. The latter
had just been reelected to the Columbus
city council, on which he
had already served for eight years.
The company promptly sent out a
surveyor--identified only as
"General
Stockton"--accompanied by two directors, who mapped
a preliminary route fifty-four miles
long from Columbus to Xenia.
A second and more accurate survey was
made three months later.
Not long thereafter, and as suddenly as
they seemed to be doing
everything else, the directors laid off
their engineering force and
halted all work by the company. It was
not resumed for two years.
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 261
The penitentiary railroad, which was
just as often called the state
railroad, the quarry railroad, and the
Olentangy railroad (although
it did not cross that tributary of the
Scioto River), was meanwhile
pushed along without delay. The three
miles of track, much of it
on an embankment to avoid floods on the
Scioto, and the bridge
over that river were completed about
the first of September 1846.5
Operating the line was the task of the
directors and warden of
the penitentiary. By now one of the two
directors was Ridgway, Jr.,
the Pooh-Bah of Columbus. What time he
had left over from the
iron foundry, the warehouse, and the
freight-forwarding businesses,
all of which he conducted with his
uncle ("known through the state
as 'Honest Jo'"),6 he was
free to devote to his duties as a director
and secretary of the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad, member of the
city council, city recorder, statehouse
commissioner, and state repre-
sentative, in addition to his new role
of penitentiary director.
From being a stalking horse in
legislative politics the state's little
rail line before long was figuring as
an important campaign issue in
what were called the 1847 Railroad
Elections. The people in Ohio's
local communities had the right, under
certain conditions, to hold
a referendum on using public funds to
buy stock in railroad, turn-
pike, and similar companies. Whig
voters generally supported such
government aid for business, whereas
the Democrats were inclined
to remember their Jacksonian principles
and vote against "monop-
olies" and higher taxes.
In Columbus and Franklin County the
backers of the line to
Xenia had teamed with a group
supporting another proposed rail-
road in an effort to obtain a
referendum vote on $200,000 aid to
the two lines. If the vote was
favorable, each road would get
$50,000 from the city and the same sum
from the county. The
second line, which planned to run from
Columbus to Cleveland,
numbered among its promoters many of
the same men involved in
the Columbus and Xenia company,
including Medary, Sullivant,
the Neils, and the Ridgways.
5 "Special Report of the Directors
of the Penitentiary, etc.," Ohio Legislative Docu-
ments (Columbus, 1847), Vol. XI, Pt. 1, Doc. No. 46, 650.
6 Cleveland Herald, February 24, 1851.
262
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Columbus had to have railroads, the
supporters of public aid
declared, and pointed to the benefits
to the taxpayers that rail
service would bring: prices for farm
products would rise, manu-
facturing would be stimulated,
population would increase, and
many more. It was also argued that rail
service would make Co-
lumbus more accessible and hence
strengthen its chances of remain-
ing the state capital. That year there
had been another revival of
the threat to move the seat of
government elsewhere, a threat
fortified by the fact that so little
actual work had been done on the
new statehouse.
In the campaigning, the opponents of
public aid largely ignored
the line to Cleveland, concentrating
their fire on the Columbus and
Xenia Railroad. They denounced most of
all the use of taxpayers'
money to reimburse that company for its
share of the cost of the
penitentiary railroad's bridge over the
Scioto. Just why this point
mattered so much none of the objectors
bothered to make clear,
although one surmises they balked at
bailing out somebody or
something. Financial impropriety also
seems hinted at, but what
it was remains concealed in
circumlocutory prose.
The election put Medary, who was back
as editor of the Ohio
Statesman, squarely on the spot. He had been one of the earliest
and most enthusiastic supporters of the
Columbus and Xenia road
and was also a strong advocate of
railroads in general--"the rail-
road movement" it was then called.
But as editor of a Democratic
paper he had to follow the party line,
to use today's term, which
opposed taxing the people for public
aid to railroads and similar
internal improvements. In consequence,
although his Ohio States-
man could not give the proposal an editorial blessing, it
refrained
from attacking it and even printed a
number of letters in its favor.
The Ohio State Journal, a Whig
organ, strongly urged an affirm-
ative vote.
When the dust finally settled after the
balloting, it was apparent
that any qualms over the relations of
the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad and the penitentiary line had
been of no moment. The
county voters by better than two to
one, and the city voters by
almost four to one showed that they
wanted rail service and were
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 263
willing to be taxed for it. Most
central Ohio voters at similar
elections elsewhere that spring also
favored the iron horse.
The triumph of the railroad supporters
was a foretaste of the
better days ahead for Columbus. Things
at last were looking up
after the long depression touched off
by the panic of 1837. The
Mexican War was giving a lift to
business; the first telegraph line
into the city began operation and
enabled the Ohio State Journal
and the Ohio Statesman to appear
as dailies throughout the year
instead of only when the legislature
was in session; the first postage
stamps went on sale. That fall (1847)
the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad, which had persuaded the
influential Alfred Kelley to be
its head, advertised for bids from
contractors; five or six other local
rail projects, most of which would die
a-borning, hopefully opened
stock subscription books.
The state's quarry and railroad were
doing wonderfully well.
Large quantities of stone were sold to
the contractors building the
line to Xenia, stone which, the
legislature later complained, should
have been sold to the statehouse
commissioners. The commissioners,
it seems, had had to buy stone from
other quarries to keep the work
going on the capitol, which had been
reauthorized in 1846.
The reply of the penitentiary
management is not on record, but
one may assume that it did not fail to
point out that it had been
made responsible for producing enough
profits from the labor of
the convicts to pay for the quarry, its
railroad, the operating
expenses of the institution, and other
items besides. The legislature
may have been impressed, but in 1849 it
took the quarry, the rail
line, the limekilns, and all related
"apparatus" out of the control
of the directors and warden of the
penitentiary and put them into
the hands of the statehouse
commissioners "for the purpose of
enabling them to procure stone for the
said State house with the
greatest economy."7
Ridgway, Jr., it will be recalled, was a mem-
ber of both groups.
The little rail line, which its new
management chose to call the
state railroad, was extended two
thousand feet to reach another
stratum of limestone, but its operations
must have been severely
7 Ohio General Laws, XLVII
(1849), 48.
264
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
curtailed by an epidemic of cholera.
That summer the disease struck
the city, and especially the
penitentiary, with great violence and
took the lives of many convicts.
The following summer (1850) the disease
broke out again but
the inmates suffered relatively little.
One of the directors, however,
the ubiquitous Ridgway, Jr., was a
victim. Another was the talented
wife of Sullivant, from whom the state
had bought the quarry.
Sullivant later took Ridgway's place as
a statehouse commissioner.
Epidemiologists remark on the fact that
more than once in those
years an outbreak of disease followed
the opening of a new rail
line, as was the case here, for the
Columbus and Xenia Railroad
had begun operations a few months
earlier.
The arrival in 1850 of this first
"real" railroad occurred in the
same year as the introduction of
artificial gas light and the holding
of the second Railroad Elections in
Columbus and Franklin County.
This time, however, the voters
decisively rejected a plan to put
$150,000 more of taxpayers' money into
three new rail projects.
The identical plan was resubmitted the
following year and beaten
by still greater majorities. Then a new
state constitution forbade
subsidies of the sort.
The year of the 1851 Railroad Elections
was the year the little
railroad--the state road--really came
into its own. From being a
stalking horse and a campaign issue it
was now to become a source
of innocent merriment to the people of
Columbus. In order to
save carrying the rough blocks of
limestone through the city streets
on carts, some of them drawn by oxen,
rails were extended from
the tracks of the Columbus and
Xenia--over which the quarry cars
could be run across the river and into
the city--past the railroad
depot to Third Street, and then south
to the capitol in the heart of
the city. The stone was dressed at the
latter site by convict labor.
(This was in accord with the plan
proposed back in 1844.)
From a source which railroad historians
have not yet verified, a
locomotive--to take the place of
animals--was obtained and put
into service. Iron rails had by then
replaced the earlier wooden
ones. Also still debatable is the
locomotive's name. That would be
a matter of no consequence to most
people, but to the subdivision
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 265
of ferro-equinologists, whom we may
call locomotive genealogists,
the life story of every early engine
has a value all its own. Some
day the ancestry of what people in
Columbus referred to as "a tea
kettle affair" may come to light.8
The locomotive arrived the day of the
election, April 7, 1851, to
the accompaniment of a brief mention in
Medary's Ohio Statesman:
"The Locomotive for bringing stone
from the State quarries, made
its first appearance this morning in
the State House yard, and pro-
duced quite a sensation."9 A
month later the same paper gave the
operation somewhat more attention:
The work of our new State House
"goes bravely on" and the building is
beginning to make considerable show.
The "Penitentiary Train" rushes in
the rocks with railroad speed, and the
workmen in the yard dress and lay
them up, "like a thousand of
brick."10
In a few days the Statesman's Whig
competitor, the Ohio State
Journal, joined the fun by printing an alleged letter written
in an
imitation of broken French. Headed
"Aulentangie River Expose,"
it began:
Citizen Sammedarie: Mercredi, 14 Mai,
We go to State House Yard,
Aulentangie Depot, three o'clock. We
stay dere half hour--cars not go;--
we stay dere hour entiere, and cars not
go!--we stay dere hour and a
half-tree quarter-and den cars not go!
Den we swear!--par Diable!
Sacre! Mon Dieu! Conducteur see we grow mad; he say, "ascend de
cars!"
we ascend. Den de cars leave State House
Depot--no cushion, no seat, no
top to de cars! We sit on dirty boards!
(Sacre!). Den we grow more mad;
say one imposition! Very damned! and
promise to publish Aulentangie
Compagnie in de Journelle!11
And more to the same effect.
This comical account of a ride on the
open "stone cars," such as
are found in many a quarry today, was a
parody of a letter in a
previous issue of the same paper.
Written in broken English by a
8 Alfred E. Lee, History of the City
of Columbus (2 vols., New York and Chicago,
1892), II, 577.
9 Ohio Statesman, April 7, 1851.
10 Ibid., May 10,
1851.
11 Ohio State Journal, May
16, 1851.
266
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
party of well-to-do Mexican travelers,
it had complained of uncivil
treatment at the Columbus railroad
station, where they had had to
change cars en route from Cincinnati to
Cleveland. (The line to
Cleveland, for which the voters
approved public aid in the 1847
Railroad Elections, had opened a few
months before.) Language
difficulties were apparently the source
of their trouble, if one may
accept the conductor's explanation,
printed the next day.
Use of French as a form of wit and
humor was popular at the
time. The word "Aulentangie"
was intended to be a French and
hence comic way of writing
"Olentangy," the name of the Scioto's
tributary. "Citizen
Sammedarie" was a salutation to Samuel Medary,
whose Whig opponents bore down heavily
on what they stigmatized
as the radical, the locofoco, the
Jacobin tendencies of the Democrats.
The phrase was evidently designed to
evoke shades of the French
Revolution as well as of Louis
Philippe, the "citizen king," de-
throned in 1848.
Both newspapers relished little squibs
about the railroad to the
quarry. A number of church
"PicNics" were held in a beautiful
grove on the quarry property, which
they reached by the Olentangy
Train, the Statesman reported,
adding on one such occasion the
pious sentiment, "We hope they may
have an agreeable time of it."
This folksy manner of writing about a
quarry worked by convict
labor was soon dropped, but not until
the Ohio State Journal had
had the last word:
Among the conveyances to the rural
districts in this vicinity, the Olentangy
Railroad must not be forgotten. A ride
on the open stone car, in a hot sun,
across the Franklinton fields, makes
the cool water in the quarry taste un-
usually refreshing, and makes the shady
lawns in the vicinity doubly welcome.
The quarry itself is a great hole in
the rocks, from which many big stones
have been taken, and a few more of the
same sort are left.12
The ramshackle little line to the
penitentiary clearly seems to have
engendered, for a time at least, a cozy
feeling in the hearts of the
people.
Like its big brothers, the state
railroad had its share of accidents.
12 Ohio State Journal (weekly edition), June 24, 1851.
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 267
About half a year after it had been put
in service the locomotive
was being taken to Cincinnati for
repairs when it hit a cow, was
thrown off the tracks, and
"entirely demolished." Whether a new
one took its place or whether it was
put together again is not
apparent from the records. The next
spring a state line train ran
into a gravel train on the Columbus and
Xenia, but without serious
consequences. In the fall an accident
caused injuries to a worker,
and a few weeks later another accident
resulted in a death.
Surgeons' bills for these and other
injuries sustained "during the
performance of the locomotive
labor" had been presented to them,
the statehouse commissioners declared
in their 1852 report to the
legislature. What, they wanted to know,
should they do about
them? Subsequent reports gave no
answer.
Fire destroyed the old statehouse in
1852, making the speedy
completion of the new one an urgent
matter. Faster deliveries
could be expected from the state
railroad, now that the limestone
was carried to the building site without trans-shipment
at the
Penitentiary. To do this had meant
using the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad tracks across the river and
into the city, a matter no doubt
easily enough arranged in view of the
close relations between the
two carriers. Like the serpents in the
statue of Laocoon and his
?ons, it is hard on occasion to
distinguish between the two lines,
and particularly hard to trace their
routes, at times coinciding and
?t times distinct.
Contemporary maps agree neither as to
the number nor location
of the islands in the Scioto; over them
the tracks passed, in part
by bridge and in part by what appears
to have been a causeway.
Most probably both railroads used the
same route and bridge (or
?auseway) from a point slightly west of
the river to a switch on
?large island. Thence the state's line
crossed over to the peniten-
tiary by its own bridge, and the
Columbus and Xenia continued on
by another bridge over a small island
to the east bank. To what
??tent their lines were identical
between the west bank of the
??cioto and the quarry property is
likewise uncertain.
The importance attaching to these
details lies in showing how
much use the privately-owned railroad
was able to make of the
268
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
route built by the state--and thereby
save itself some construction.
Yet the saving seems much less than the
promoters probably hoped
for.
A still more puzzling aspect of the
route followed by the state
railroad is this: in some cases it
appears to have crossed certain
pieces of property with nothing on
record to show that the state
either owned the property or had an
easement in it. This applies
to the stretch between the west side of
Franklinton and the west
bank of the Scioto, but not, it should
be noted, to the quarry
property itself or to the stretch
between the quarry and the west
side of Franklinton.
The Columbus and Xenia Railroad was also
decidedly casual as
to land holdings until in 1860 it set
about regularizing its titles.
It would appear, in short, that
sometimes both the state and the
company laid their tracks first and
settled with the property owners
later.
The state's locomotive and string of
"stone cars" after a few
years of rattling up and down the
streets ceased to be a source of
fun to the Columbusites and became a
nuisance. When, in 1855,
the statehouse commissioners requested
the city to renew its per-
mission to keep the tracks on the
streets, they were refused. The
citizens of Third Street had presented
a unanimous remonstrance,
complaining grievously of the injury
done their property and the
danger to their families because of the
railroad. The vote in the
city council being tied, the motion for
renewal was lost, an action,
the capitol's architect wrote, which
was "induced by entire mis-
apprehension or whim."13
The commissioners were doubtless
provoked by this lack of co-
operation, but it is unlikely that it
worked any great hardship on
their undertaking. Construction of the
capitol had so far advanced
that a year and a half later the
building was opened for use,
although not until 1861 was it entirely
completed.
Not long before the building was first
used, the commissioners
had begun to wind up the affairs of
their railroad. The legislature
13 Annual Report of the State House
Commissioners for the Year 1855 (Columbus,
1856), 15.
Ohio's Unsung Penitentiary
Railroad 269
ordered them to take down and remove
"the old quarry bridge
near the penitentiary," and
carefully instructed them to salvage
the iron and timber. The next year the
lawmakers authorized the
commissioners to sell their locomotive
and convert their iron rails
into a fence around the statehouse. The
commissioners duly ad-
vertised the engine for sale but found
no buyer. After two years
the legislature ordered the auditor of
state to try his hand at selling
it. Since the financial reports of the
following years contain several
items showing the sale of scrap iron
and no item indicating the sale
of a locomotive, the engine's fate may
be guessed at.
Toward the end of the Civil War the
"General Government,"
as the United States was referred to,
built a hospital for sick and
disabled soldiers on the southern part
of the quarry property, near
the beautiful grove where the
"PicNics" had been held. After the
war the establishment was turned over
to the state of Ohio for a
soldiers' home. Within three years the
state vacated the place, and in
due course the buildings were disposed
of as surplus material. In
the quarry itself the state is said to
have continued using convict
labor until operations there ceased
some thirty years ago. Thurber
was living in Columbus about that time.
OHIO'S UNSUNG PENITENTIARY RAILROAD
by WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN*
Had James Thurber spent his youth in
Columbus two generations
before he did, he would now be regaling
us with anecdotes about
a curious little railroad operation
that enlivened the city for a few
years. By antiquarians and connoisseurs
of the early iron horse, it
is sometimes whimsically hailed as the
first railroad into Columbus,
a palm that more literal-minded
scholars award to the Columbus
and Xenia line.
Looked at, on the other hand, in a
cold, material light, the little
railroad in its early stages is seen to
have been the key to the
legislative maneuvers of a group of
Columbus businessmen. By
capitalizing on the return of the Whigs
(the Republicans of their
day) to power in the state government,
and using the tiny rail line
as a stalking horse, these men
succeeded in selling the state a
quarry, in providing some indirect
state aid for their Columbus and
Xenia Railroad, and in warding off the
recurrent threat to move the
capital to another city.
When Ohio decided in 1838 to build a
new capitol, or statehouse
as it was always called, it began to
look as if the state fathers would
ere long be as well provided for as the
state's convicts and lunatics,
both of which groups had just been
supplied with fine modern
quarters. Much limestone was bought,
the cornerstone laid, and a
rousing celebration held to start the
building on its way. Suddenly
the legislature repealed the entire
project. Their sagacity had been
foully reflected on by certain young
men of Columbus, the law-
makers declared in a fit of pique,
stimulated by some clever anti-
Columbus politics. Sentiment flared for
moving the capital to a
more appreciative city.
A little group of Columbus businessmen
stepped into the breach.
They got through the legislature a
harmless-looking resolution
which said nothing as to a statehouse
but appointed commissioners
* Walter Rumsey Marvin is executive director
of the Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana
Library Association. The subject of his
doctoral dissertation was "Columbus and the
Railroads of Central Ohio Before the
Civil War" (Ohio State University, 1953).
254