Ohio History Journal

JOHN CAREY, AN OHIO PIONEER

 

By MURIEL KINNEY1

 

I am proud that I have done my share of work.2

John Carey, a mere child, came to Ohio with his parents in

1798 and in 1822 he again migrated into the "New Purchase"

where he "cut a hole in the wilderness" and built a home which

was typical of early American patriarchal plantations. Here he

lived for fifty-three years, taking active part in whatever con-

cerned the development of the new State, Ohio, in which he

always took great pride.

He was descended from a Norman French family somewhat

renowned in the development of England from the time of Wil-

liam the Conqueror, belonging to that branch of the Carey family,

deriving from Sir John Carey, or Carew, who was banished to

Ireland in the disturbances between his friend Richard II, and

Henry, who at a later date became Henry IV, king of England.

The immigrant, Thomas Carey, received his grant to an estate in

Maryland from Cecil, Lord Baltimore, in 1666 and settled on land

called, "Carey's Adventure" on Great Manny Creek, Somerset

County, Maryland.    Thomas's son, Edward, migrated again

into what is now the state of Delaware3 and settled on Her-

ring Branch and Rehoboth Bay, while his brother John settled

further south on the Indian River. This territory later came

into dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland but ulti-

mately became a part of the province of Delaware. John Carey

of Ohio was descended from Edward of Herring Branch, being

sixth in line from him and counting many a Quaker lady in his

ancestry. His father, Stephen Brown Carey, migrated soon after

his marriage, into Monongalia County, Virginia, where, among

1 Miss Muriel Kinney is preparing a book manuscript of the life of Carey and

should be most happy to receive any items concerning him which may be preserved

in private papers.

2 John Carey in a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, April

13, 1860.

3 This incident occurred after the Penn grant and the beginning of the settlement

of Pennsylvania.

(166)

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER              167

beautiful surroundings but under the stern vicissitudes of pioneer

living, John was born on April 5, 1792. Less than six years later

his father again took up his trek, this time into the Ohio country,

crossing the Ohio River at the mouth of the Scioto on March 17,

1798.

John Carey remembered this journey, especially the crossing

of the Ohio when the spring break-up was flushing the river with

huge cakes of ice and tons of murky water. They crossed on the

west side of the Scioto, where, in those days, a miserable village

called Alexandria squatted in huts which had been built by

Wayne's army in 1793-4. They crossed in a "Kentucky Boat," a

flat raft made of green saplings and propelled by long poles, which

were used both for pulling and pushing. Three other families were

in the party, that of Stephen Smith, probably that of William

Brown and a third whose name no one seems to have recorded.

Stephen Carey soon left the village and settled west of it upon the

banks of a small stream which still bears his name, Carey's Run.

Here he built a cabin and a grist mill, the first in Scioto County.

A little later he sunk vats and began the tanning business, which

John's elder brother William later took over, and ultimately moved

to Portsmouth on the east side of the Scioto. John, as he himself

related, was soon put to work at whatever a boy could do. There

was no school or church but the Carey family were not wholly

without culture. Books had been part of the luggage brought

from Virginia. The children all learned to read and write and

Stephen Carey, "a great reader," would entertain them evenings

reading from the Bible, the Constitution of the United States, the

Declaration of Independence, the sayings of "Poor Richard," and

the speeches and utterances of the "Fathers of our country"--

Washington, Madison and Jefferson. The children learned the

Constitution and Declaration by heart and were taught to honor

God and their country. Nor were the evening readings all of a

serious nature. John remembered how he loved to hear his father

recite the poems of Robert Burns.

After a few years, perhaps in 1803, or 1804, a school house

was built "under the hill back of Alexandria" and thither John

went with eager feet. However, in the evening of his life, he

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168    OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

wrote, "All my schooling was less than six months and by those

totally lacking in qualifications."

In 1804 John Carey became a post-boy. This resulted from

an advertisement appearing in the Scioto Gazette which at that

time was published by Nathaniel Willis, at Chillicothe. This

advertisement was signed by Gideon Granger, postmaster general,

and asked for bids for carrying the United States mails, one route

specified being from Chillicothe to Alexandria. Willis himself

took the contract but sub-let it to John who had gone to Chilli-

cothe for the purpose of obtaining it. In writing of this experience

later in life Mr. Carey said, "When I was about twelve years old

I was made post-boy. . . . I continued in this occupation for

two years during which time I had the opportunity of meeting

practically every man of eminence in the state." Chillicothe at

that time was the capital of the State and home of many of the

State's most eminent men. The lad had much to do with Governor

Edward Tiffin, his brother, Postmaster Joseph Tiffin, with Duncan

MacArthur and Thomas Worthington, at that time United States

Senator and later governor of the State of Ohio. This gentleman

liked the young post-boy so much that he wished to adopt him;

but John, although he hungered for the education which Worth-

ington promised, refused because he belonged to his parents and

they had need of him. All of these gentlemen demonstrated in-

terest in the lad and gave him errands to perform in the doing of

which he won their complete confidence. The second year of his

postboyship was carried in his father's name. The original of this

contract in the Post Office Department at Washington, is signed

by Granger and has a seal attached which, until very recently was

unknown. It represents the god Mercury in flight and bears an

inscription which may be translated as "Seal of the Postmaster

General."⁴ The contract shows that the salary was one hundred

fifty dollars.

Apparently John's services were required at home after the

second year and he returned to Carey's Run to help his father on

the Ohio flats farm and his brother William in the tannery. In

 

4 This inscription had been deciphered as Sigil Mac Gen Nunciorum but in order

to make a sensible translation it was read Sigil Mag Gen Nunciorum.

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                    169

 

1810 he joined a rifle company which was organized in Ports-

mouth and in 1812, when Governor Return J. Meigs called for

troops to march against the Indians, John enlisted in the rifle com-

pany captained by David Roop. He was ranked as second corporal.

William Carey marched in the same company as private. They

proceeded along with the company under John Lucas first to Chil-

licothe, where they received their arms and equipment, then follow-

ing the company from Chillicothe under MacArthur, they marched

to Dayton where they were met by the volunteers from Cincinnati,

as well as by the regular army contingent under General William

Hull Hull took command and conferred on MacArthur the title

of Colonel in the regular army as he had already been styled in the

militia of Chillicothe. By now MacArthur, Lewis Cass and James

Findley, all life friends of John Carey, were in the company, and

in the case of Cass and Findley this may have been their first

meeting. At the Maumee Rapids Hull received official notice of the

declaration of war5 with England together with instructions for his

campaign.

There were two incidents of fighting during the campaign,

one occurring at Brownstown, between the Maumee and Detroit.

In this battle Roop is said to have distinguished himself in the

use of the tomahawk and also for fleetness in running. John Carey

must have been in this battle as he belonged to Roop's company.

The other incident, or series of incidents, was in the expedition to

the river "Aux Canards" which was undertaken to clear the road

for the main army to Malden. Here again Carey was present, for

in a speech made in the campaign of 1848, when Cass was running

for President he related that he was in the same boat with Cass

and MacArthur and that he could not remember, or had not

noticed, which one was the first to jump on the shore of the

enemy.⁶ He never voluntarily referred, however, to this war ex-

 

5 It was from this point that William Hull sent a small boat with munitions,

etc., and it was supposed that the news that the United States had declared war and

that Hull had arrived was purposely put into the same boat by Hull on a previous

understanding with General Isaac Brock. The boat was captured and this was the first

news which Brock had of the declaration of war.

6 The way he came to tell this story was that during the campaign a great deal

had been made of the fact that Lewis Cass had been the first man to land on enemy

soil and that, rather than surrender his sword, he had broken it. Carey was asked

about it because he was known to have been near-by. He also said that Cass did not

break his sword because he had seen him surrender it.

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170    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

perience. Its mention always brought quick color and an angry

mutter of, "Cowardly! Dastardly!"

After the surrender by Hull the soldiers were paroled and

carried by British transports to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River,

now the port of Cleveland. At that time this city had indeed been

surveyed and put on the map but as a settlement it hardly ex-

isted. There was only an inn7 and a few log cabins, although

Newburg, four miles inland, was already a thriving village. From

this point the soldiers made their way homeward as best they

might. Many struck across to the Scioto Trail following it south

and it seems likely that the Carey boys went this way passing

through Worthington.

When they arrived home late in September, they found that

arrangements had been made for the family to move to Brown

County, the following spring. William then assumed charge of

the Carey's Run property and the tannery. John helped his

father put in the wheat on the new farm, returning later to help in

the moving. While this move was in progress he received an

offer to go as a boatman on the Ohio River for a dollar a day,

under one Captain House. With his father's consent he accepted

this offer and on April 4, 1813, he returned home with fourteen

dollars in his pocket. The next day he was to be twenty-one

years of age, "his own man" at last, and with three dollars in his

pocket, a gift from his father out of the fourteen which he had

turned over to him, and his father's blessing on his head, he left

home to seek his fortune. In his own words, "I had long since

determined, when I became my own man, to leave the place where

my very soul had felt the anguish that a sensitive heart could

under the prospect of misery and degradation. My aim was for

Worthington."

Worthington was in those days a center of education and

refinement and Carey has said that he was soon received by the

best people in the town and was always well treated by them.

Here he made lasting friends, one of whom was Philander Chase,

later bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the first to hold

 

7 This inn, a mere log hut, was Carter's Tavern, a model of which may be seen

in the Museum of the Western Reserve Historical Society at Cleveland.

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER              171

 

that office west of the Alleghanies. He was employed at a dollar

a day, but does not tell for whom he worked the first two years in

Worthington. He boasted that he missed only one day during the

entire time, when he paid a visit to his parents. Charles Lan-

man's Dictionary of Congress, 1862 edition, makes the statement

that in 1814 Carey assisted in building the first stone house in

Columbus. In 1815 he hired out to Roswell Wilcox as superin-

tendent of the mills which Wilcox had just erected on the Olen-

tangy River, or, as it was then called, the Whetstone. Wilcox was

one of the founders of Worthington, a millwright and an inventor.

The mills referred to were a grist mill and a saw mill which stood

on the left bank of the river. After Wilcox's death they were

operated by the Hess brothers. The dam was still to be seen as

late as June, 1934, just above the Doddridge Street bridge in Co-

lumbus. Carey also bought land of Roswell Wilcox which he

farmed. In 1817 he married his employer's daughter, Dorcas,

built a house on his farm, and lived there until 1824. The house

was still standing not so many years ago, at the corner of High

Street and Maynard Avenue. He sold this farm to his wife's sis-

ter's husband, Apollos Maynard. Later it was subdivided into

city lots and is now fairly covered with houses from the river to

Indianola Avenue and from Oakland to Blake. It was in the

house on this farm that the four older children of John and Dor-

cas Carey were born.

During the second year after his marriage he superintended

the construction of mills on Alum Creek east of Columbus, and

when they were completed he rented and operated them for five

years. It was while operating these mills that he visited "The

New Purchase" and bought land on Tymochtee Creek. He also

purchased land in Seneca County, acquiring altogether 540 acres.

This was in 1822 and it would seem that he must have accom-

panied Colonel James Kilbourne of Worthington on his surveying

expedition. There is a very persistent tradition that Carey "blazed

the trail" from Columbus to the lake, but this is the road which

Kilbourne surveyed in 1822 and which was called "the Kilbourne

Turnpike" for many years. Surveying is not usually done by a

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172    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

single man, therefore Carey may have been one of Kilbourne's

surveying party.

However that may be, in 1822 he began to clear his newly

purchased land. In 1823 he continued the work and by early sum-

mer of 1824 he had built his house, put in crops, piled wood for

fires and prepared the place for the home-coming in early October.

His friend William Brown, accompanied him on this trip and on

October 7, 1824, the two families with their belongings started

for their respective new homes. They made the seventy odd

miles in five days over a road which even then was not much

more than a "trace," and there were cattle, horses, sheep, hogs,

chickens and geese in the train.

The home to which the Carey family came was a lovely spot

and the house, although rude, was so much better than pioneer

houses generally that for years it was considered quite grand. It

was of hewn logs, and is said to have been the first hewn log house

in that part of Ohio. There were smooth board floors and plas-

tered walls, both of which were at that time and place quite

unusual. The home site was surrounded by maples on a gentle

eminence, some thousand or fifteen hundred feet from the river.

The next spring Wilcox came to superintend the building of

a sawmill for his son-in-law, and a few years later he erected a

carding mill. These mills were the first of their kind in that

region and aided for many years in building up the community.

Dorcas Carey had planned her garden before her arrival and

a part of the cleared land was devoted to that. It was a fascinat-

ing place, planted with roots brought originally from England by

her Pinney ancestors--roses, tulips, "flowers de Luce," sweet-

scented white violets and squills, not to mention herbs, ornamental

and medicinal, as well as for seasoning and dyeing.

By 1825, as is shown by a letter from David H. Beardsley,⁸

then State Senator, John Carey was interesting himself in public

affairs. "It gives me great pleasure," he wrote, "to state that your

 

8 The various histories of Cleveland which have been consulted agree in saying

that Judge David H. Beardsley went to Cleveland from Lower Sandusky, now Fre-

mont; but the pre-Cleveland letters to Carey are all dated from either Columbus, while

he was in the Senate, or from Little Sandusky. Little Sandusky is still on the map

by that name. It is now a very small village, but in early times was much larger and

quite important. It is some twelve miles south from Upper Sandusky.

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER              173

road bill has passed the Senate this morning and was sent down to

the House of Representatives. The commissioners named in the

bill are John Carey of Crawford County, John McIlvain of

Franklin County, and Wilson Vance of Hancock County." This

was the State road from Upper Sandusky to Fort Defiance. Later

on in the same term of the General Assembly Crawford County

was organized. This was earlier than Carey wished but his rea-

sons for wishing delay are not apparent. It was also during

this same session that he was appointed associate judge for Craw-

ford County. This was the first Court of Common Pleas to be

organized in the new county. Ebenezer Lane was appointed pre-

siding judge and this may have been the first acquaintance be-

tween these two gentlemen who were later associated in many of

the enterprises looking toward the development of the State.

Carey however considered that his appointment had been made

through the friendly feeling of his acquaintances in the General

Assembly rather than on their best judgment. He accepted the

appointment as a courtesy to these friends but at the same time

declared his unfitness and before the term expired resigned. The

title of "Judge" however, clung to him through life.

In 1828 he became a member of the General Assembly in the

lower House. This afforded occasion for correspondence between

him and his wife which helps to reveal his character and activities.

In a letter dated December 21, 1828, he wrote, "The proceedings

of the General Assembly are as yet uninteresting. I have had the

occasion to take the floor on four or five occasions and once in the

chair." On January 24, 1829, Dorcas wrote that lest she should

not have another opportunity she was sending a horse by Squire

Shannon for Carey's return home.

The business and political letters of this period have little of

interest. There was a dispute about the boundary line between

Crawford and Hancock Counties in which Crawford County won,

apparently through John Carey's exertions. There was a matter

of redistricting the authorized medical districts of the State and

in this matter he was appealed to in behalf of Wood County,

which had been lost sight of, and whose citizens appealed to Carey

to see that justice was given them. Judging from all these letters

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174    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

it would appear that there was a common understanding that John

Carey could be depended upon to fight for a just cause.

The official reports of the General Assembly are meager.

Occasionally the "ayes" and "nays" are called for but the reasons

for members voting as they did is not made clear. In general the

importance of roadmaking stands out as a major problem. It is

interesting to note that a report was made relative to a survey for

a railway from Dayton to Lake Erie. This must be considered

the initial appearance before the Ohio Legislature of the Mad

River and Lake Erie Railroad with which Carey was identified

throughout its difficult history.

There was a law passed reforming the Judiciary in which the

right of appeal was recognized. Canals, the Ohio and the Miami,

were reported on, an asylum for teaching the deaf was provided

and this was of a special interest to both John and Dorcas Carey.

Dorcas had suffered since early childhood with poor hearing,

owing to the effects of scarlet fever, and the infirmity grew with

increasing years. A bill for the improvement and better regula-

tion of the public schools was passed. In whatever concerned

improvement of economic, social or political conditions Carey was

always actively interested. The Assembly finally adjourned on

the twelfth of February.

In 1830 the Carey family numbered six children, four girls

and two boys. As the family grew and Carey's position in the

community assumed greater and greater importance it became

necessary to build anew. Sometime in the early 'thirties the hewn

log house was moved down below the cherry orchard and a new

frame house took its place above. In this dignified dwelling was

seen the influence of his Chillicothe days, when he was made

familiar with the houses of the old Virginia families who had

settled there. It would have been an ornament to any country-

side in its strong, simple lines, every detail of which declared hon-

est intention and good taste.

In 1832 some of Carey's friends were asking him to become a

candidate for the State Senate but apparently he did not think

favorably of it. An associate and friend, Otway Curry, one of

the early literary lights of Ohio, under the date of December 10,

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                     175

1832, wrote, referring to the State Legislature, "I have seen some

of your friends who say that nothing but a broken neck shall save

you from taking the track next year." He did not go, however

the next year, but in 1836 he was again in Columbus representing

his county. Again his friend Beardsley throws some light on his

character. Beardsley had removed from Little Sandusky⁹ to

Cleveland in 1826 and wrote to Carey from there, asking his in-

fluence in the chartering of a corporation in which he was inter-

ested. At the close of the letter is this paragraph: "As I am

fully acquainted with the character of the person to whom I write,

I do not, of course, expect your support unless you shall think its

passage entirely consistent with the public interest."

During this term Carey visited the theatre and wrote to his

wife of it, saying, "A gorgeous display of nonsense and mockery

set forth by a set of knaves for the amusement of fools." Another

letter of this period is interesting as showing that corruption is

not wholly of the twentieth century. He wrote:

We have a novel case before us for this day's action. Mr. Silas G.

Strong, one of the lobby members of the House of Representatives and a

minister of the Gospel, offered Cushing, a member, one thousand dollars to

procure his vote and interest in the passage of a bill to improve the naviga-

tion of Black River. Cushing informed the House thereof and Strong was

immediately taken into custody and stands arraigned before this House for

trial at three o'clock today.10

In a letter to her husband written January 9, 1837, Dorcas

Carey referred to James Russell's planetarium, asking him if he

had seen it and added, "My mind has been quite excited with a

wish to behold the ingenuity of man displaying the beauteous

movements of the heavenly bodies."11

There was much trouble in those days over banking and

money. President Andrew Jackson had withdrawn Federal funds

from the United States Bank, which gave rise to wild speculation

throughout the country and a speculative inflation on the part of

the state banks which finally resulted in the great panic and de-

9 See footnote 8.

10 This matter occupied some time in the State Legislature finally resulting in

a verdict of "guilty"--the punishment, a reprimand from the speaker before the

House. Friends of the accused tried to secure a rehearing but in vain. Carey

was apparently in agreement with the verdict.

11 James Russell was a native of Worthington, Ohio. His Planetarium is de-

scribed in the American Journal of Science (New Haven), 1842, 400. Exhibited first

in Worthington, it was then taken to Columbus and later on a tour of the eastern

cities. It was considered a marvel of scientific invention.

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176     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

pression of 1837. Mrs. Carey wrote to her husband asking if

it was safe to keep small bills, under fives, on hand and he advised

her to refrain from    accepting them   as far as possible and not to

keep them longer than necessary.¹²

Under date of January 18, she wrote of his business at home:

"There has been good sleighing for nearly three weeks and the

boys13 have been improving the time by hauling saw-logs. It

appears to me there is more logs now in the yard than I ever

saw at one time before. The boards are dwindling daily."

The General Assembly took a recess of a week in the latter

part of January and after Carey's return to it, Mrs. Carey wrote:

"What a quarrelsome place you live in, Mr. Carey. Can so much

political excitement result to the benefit of the community or be

agreeable to your feelings?"¹⁴ And in a later letter she reproached

him:

You tell me, Mr. Carey, for the gratification of myself and Mrs.

Gormely, that you have participated in the concerns of Legislation by making

speeches and the one you made the day before you wrote was pronounced a

good one. A small gratification, indeed, to know you have made good

speeches and then be deprived of a perusal.

Mrs. Carey had the Ohio State Journal for information but,

although speeches were sometimes mentioned the text was never

given and only very rarely an abstract.

John Carey shared his room in Columbus with Colonel Hezi-

kiah Gorton and Curry, both of whom were ill during the ses-

sion, Curry seriously so.    Carey mentioning that Mrs. Curry had

been sent for, wrote to his wife about it, and her reply contained

the following:

I was happy to learn that you were enjoying good health and that

Colonel Gorton was improving but the information in regard to Mr. Curry's

12 Monetary difficulties caused much discussion everywhere after the loss of the

United States Bank and "wild cat" money did not cease to be a disturbing element

until the National Bank System was inaugurated in 1863. Alfred Kelley's Bank Bill

which finally went into effect in Ohio in 1845 did much to stabilize currency in that

state and it is said that this bill was used as a model by Secretary Salmon P. Chase

in forming the National Banking Law of 1863. Carey worked hard for the

passing of the Kelley Bill in the State Legislature of Ohio and did much to help

in the framing of it. It was before the State Legislature for a long time and was

worked over at different times.

13 The term "boys" as here used must refer to hired men as the Carey boys

were both away at school at this time.

14 This great excitement was anent the appointment of a man as United States

Senator in place of Senator Thomas Ewing. Ewing had taken a conspicuous stand

against the President in the matter of removing funds from the United States Bank

and when his term expired the Democrats were determined to appoint one friendly

to the administration while the Whigs were strong for Ewing.

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                177

 

sickness impressed my mind with very different feelings. I was however,

much gratified to learn that you devoted the time that was spared you from

public duty to his attention and doubt not but your attention was cheerfully

bestowed. Mrs. Curry, too, requires some attention. She is, I presume,

among strangers taking care of a sick husband. Mr. Carey will comply with

my wishes by bestowing a brotherly kindness toward her, and alleviating

her cares.

The General Assembly adjourned late in the day of April 3.

It was in 1832 that John Carey's father died. He had made

one more move after his son Isaac married, leaving the Brown

County place to Isaac and going over the county line to Emerald

where he lived with his youngest son, Joshua, and there he died.

His grave, together with that of Sarah, his wife, may be seen today

in the Earl Cemetery near Fincastle. Sarah outlived her husband

some years which she spent at the Brown County home under the

care of Isaac and his wife, Catherine.

It has often been stated that John Carey was Government

Agent for the Wyandot Indians. This is a mistake. His land

bordered on the Wyandot Reservation and he proved so good a

friend to the Indians that they called him their "Good White

Father," and they called Dorcas Carey the "White Queen." Their

devotion and gratitude is testified by many letters and documents.

As to the agency: Colonel John Johnston was Indian Agent for

all that region south of the Detroit River and Lake Erie from

1805 to 1829, when, with Jackson's Administration he was super-

ceded in Ohio by Colonel John McIlvain, followed in 1835 by

Purdy McIlvain, who continued in office until 1843 when the Wy-

andots were removed to the West. There were, it is true, sub-

agents but these are also entirely accounted for in the Indian Ar-

chives at Washington and John Carey is not among them. His

name occurs not infrequently in these documents in connections of

various sorts but never as agent for the Government. In fact as

one reads of the duties of these sub-agents it becomes clear that

Carey could not have carried those tasks with all the other affairs

which ran through his hands during the years from 1829, when he

is said to have been appointed, and in 1843 when the Wyandots

sadly left their old hunting grounds for the land beyond the

"Father of Waters." What has, undoubtedly, led to the assump-

tion that he was officially connected with the Indians is the fact

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178   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

that throughout his residence in their neighborhood he advised and befriended them so that it was a generally known fact that they would transact no business of importance without consulting him. This, however, was only a part of his general policy of standing by the weaker man to see justice done. As Carey felt the need all his life of the education which he had so strongly craved, and admiring the polish and refinement in

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JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                     179

expressing thought which he saw       in others and which he at-

tributed to their superior advantages in the way of schooling,

he did not intend that his children should suffer from the same

lack. His interest in educational matters15 is evidenced in his leg-

islative career, his activities in the county and neighborhood, and

in his family concerns. Both his boys attended school at Milan

where the Careys had become interested in Huron Institute while

the Rev. E. Barber was in charge. This gentleman's wife and

Mrs. Carey had previously been friends in Worthington. Barber

left the institute in 1836, but the boys continued in attendance.

Later all of the children except Napoleon, the oldest, attended

school at Worthington, where there were opportunities for both

boys and girls and where they were among relatives and friends.

Many letters were sent back and forth during these school

days. A quotation from a letter from Mrs. Carey to her son,

MacDonnough while he was attending school at Milan is enligh-

tening:

I am well pleased, MacDonnough, to preceive you are engaged and

feel the importance of a good education. You express a wish to stay at

school two or three years. I for one should be gratified if you improve well

this opportunity. (You know I am an advocate of learning. It is far prefer-

able to riches.) While you are trying to obtain intellectual knowledge you

must adopt correct and fixed principles of action that will sustain a good

character through life. You must cultivate habits of virtue, intelligence and

good conduct. You will thereby rise to a respectable standing in society;

your conscience will approve you, the approbation of your friends you will

deserve and obtain, Providence will smile upon your efforts and ways and

happiness will attend you.

The eldest daughter, Emma, wrote from Worthington in No-

vember, 1838: "There is no school this afternoon and I cannot

recreate myself more pleasant than to let my thoughts return

home where the beatitude of love and friendship always dwell."

Later, in December: "I am boarding with Miss Marsh.... Miss

Marsh is one of the most excellent ladies I ever knew." This

was Miss Serepta Marsh, principal of Worthington Female Semi-

nary. A little later in the season Emma wrote an interesting

description of St John's Church in its Christmas greens. The

terms of the seminary at that time were evidently two, a summer

15 In scanning the meager records of the State Legislature it is noticeable that

Carey was strongly for all measures calculated to improve educational facilities and

especially for those bringing educational advantages to the poorer classes.

• 14
 

180     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

and a winter term. On March 20, 1839, Mrs. Carey wrote to

Emma:

The time is drawing near that the present term of your school will be

out. I should be pleased to gratify your wish to stay another term

because I believe it is your love of learning and a desire to improve your

mind more, that you wish it; but it cannot be now. You must relinquish

that idea for the present, and come home. We are all anxious to see you.

Your sisters talk about you every day. We expect to see you improved and

may we not be disappointed. Bring your mind and all that you have learned

with you and put it in practice in view of your parents and then we will

better know if it will be for your good to go again.

Remember that there are a few lessons here that you have not com-

pleted (and I fear if you stay away much longer you will forget what you

have learned.) The economy of household affairs is taught here and perhaps

it may be classed among the most important branches of Female Education.

The next fall three of the children journeyed to Worthington

from their home on the Tymochtee. They were Emma, Mac-

Donnough and Eliza. Eliza wrote of their journey to her brother

Napoleon, who was at school in McCutcheonsville:

The first day we had a very pleasant ride as far as Marion where we

called at the tavern. Thence, accompanied by Mrs. Bowen, over to May

Brotherton's not calculating to stay more than a few moments but we were

so pleasantly received that we thought it would not be hardly polite to

leave. In the evening Mrs. Butler accompanied us over to Judge Bennett's

where we spent a part of the evening very pleasantly. In the morning I

awoke and to my great astonishment found it was raining which continued

until about ten o'clock. On account of the rain it made the ride tolerable

unpleasant.

They continued, however and on the third day reached Co-

lumbus, where they stayed with Uncle George Pinney Wilcox,

returning to Worthington the fourth day after leaving home.

After they were established in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Cowles,

Emma wrote to her mother, "I think you would like to know

something about us this evening, if so you will find us in a

small and comfortably furnished room with our study table drawn

up before the fire, Eliza just snuffing the candle preparatory to

resuming her studies." This room, by the way, may be identified

at the Central Hotel in Worthington as the one at the head of the

stairs, which was enlarged when the building was remodeled.

Further on in this same letter is a bit which reveals some of

the economic difficulties of the time. Uncle Pinney had gone

to Iowa to attend a public sale of lands. The sale being post-

poned until March the family had expected him home for some

• 15
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                 181

time and were greatly concerned for his safety. Emma wrote:

"They think Uncle would attempt to remove the money from

Dr. Maynard's, the place where they had concealed it, to de-

posit it in the bank at St. Louis, and, it being all in silver, he

might meet with some difficulty in the removal." To protect the

United States Treasury, the Government was requiring payment

for public lands in specie.

In a still later letter Emma refers to local affairs:

Thanksgiving Day Col. Kilbourne invited Mr. Cowles' folks and Eliza

and I to eat dinner at the hotel where he boards. He said he did not give the

dinner so much in honor of the Governor's proclamation as he did for the

Nomination of Gen. Harrison for the Presidency, the news of which he had

heard the night before. Col. Kilbourne was in high spirits and in the eve-

ning he formed another party exclusively of gentlemen, and I suppose had

high times.

Simeon Wilcox, a cousin of Mrs. Carey, was keeping this ho-

tel at the time, which must have been the old Kilbourne house

rented to Wilcox as a hotel.

There has come to light but one letter from the hand of John

Carey to his daughters away at school. After accounting for the

other members of the family at home, he wrote: "Your father

is in the chimney corner nursing a bad cut toe. It was cut almost

off. I sewed it on and it is getting better as fast as can be ex-

pected." The letter is a long one full of parental affection and

advice, which continues: "As I have not been in the habit of ad-

dressing you on this or that subject you must not therefore infer

that I feel indifferent on any subject that most remotely interests

your welfare. It was because I knew you had in your dear

Mother an able and judicious advisor and councilor." Again,

"The first duty of man is to his God, and in a faithful discharge

of that duty you may embrace all others." Usefulness was an

essential part of his code as is seen in the following: "The im-

portance of an education depends much upon its application after

it is received. I have thought there was more anxiety in many

now-a-days to get a fashionable education than a useful one."

Emma had her wish a year later (1840) of remaining for the

summer term and it was during this term that General William

Henry Harrison, the presidential candidate, visited Worthington.

Emma wrote her sister, Cinderella:

• 16
 

182    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

I had the esteemed privilege of seeing Gen. Harrison and being intro-

duced to him  .... The Whig young ladies were conducted by the Whig

young Gentlemen to the hotel. The Whig old ladies assembled at Dr.

Morrow's. The Democrats either stayed at home or crept to some private

dwelling to peep out of the window.

There had been talk already in 1838 of the Whig candidate

for 1840. Joseph Ridgeway, a friend of John Carey, who was at

that time in Congress, wrote him under date of May 14, 1838:

In relation to your opinion on the proper candidate for the next presi-

dent, I fully concur. I accord all that you do to our distinguished citizen,

Henry Clay, but whenever I look over this extended nation, in connection

with the support which Gen. Harrison received in 1836, I irresistably have

come to the conclusion that he is the man whom the people will delegate to

honor over all other men.

During the campaign Carey was very active. Mrs. Carey

wrote her son, MacDonnough, "You have already been informed

that your father is frequently from home. He is trying to aid in

assuring the election of Gen. Harrison." He is known to have

attended the great celebration at Fort Meigs, taking Mrs. Carey

with him, but Mrs. Carey's letter describing the affair is lost.

Emma refers to it as making the whole affair vivid and clear to

her. Carey's friend Curry wrote the fine campaign song with the

"Buckeye Cabin" refrain sung to the tune of "Highland Laddie."

Although untaught in music Carey was a fine singer with a rich

baritone voice, a lively sense of rhythm and absolute pitch. Mrs.

Carey wrote Emma that "he has spoken at many Whig meetings

and some where the two parties met together for debate." Since

Harrison is said to have been "sung into office" Carey, no doubt,

did as much with his singing as with his speaking to assure his

election.

The fifth decade of the nineteenth century saw many

changes in the Carey family. It was the time, perhaps of John

Carey's greatest vigor. He had prospered in his private business.

The original purchase of land in 1822 had been increased more

than ten fold; his home farm, now nearly a thousand acres, was

in good cultivation and well stocked; the saw-mill was doing a

good business and boards were being shipped to points outside the

county; he was operating a stone quarry on the other side of the

Tymochtee; the carding mill was supplying not only the farm

people but the professional weavers who had come into the neigh-

• 17
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER               183

borhood; his children were now well grown and before 1850 all

but two were married. Emma died in 1842 and in 1849 Cinder-

ella's fiance, Thomas Cooper, died and she had remained at home.

To comfort her she had her brother MacDonnough's little daugh-

ter, Allethea, whose mother, in dying had left the child to the care

of "Aunt Cinda." The eldest child, Napoleon, enlisted in the

Mexican War but took sick in camp and after a long illness died

at home in 1846, leaving his young wife and unborn child, a

daughter named for her Aunt Emma. This child was often at

the Carey's for both Dorcas and John devotedly loved the little

ones.

In 1843 John Carey was again elected to the General

Assembly. Judge Sanford S. Bennett, in writing of his nomina-

tion said:

In communicating this information I am confident that I shall create

anything but pleasurable emotions in your breast. Still it may be some satis-

faction to know that the nomination was unanimous. . . . Under existing

circumstances I think there is little doubt of your election and I hope and

trust that you will not decline.

After his arrival in Columbus he wrote his wife: "Don't

laugh when I tell you that I was offered the Speaker's Chair but

I knew too much to put myself in a situation which I was not

qualified for."

There had been some agitation during the previous session

concerning the erection of the new county of Wyandot. In Feb-

ruary, 1843, Guy C. Worth wrote to Carey, "Our friend and

colleague, Renick . . . thinks you had better make another trip to

Columbus for the purpose of inducing the Whig representatives

to be all in their seats when our county question comes up." It

may be that his interest in the erection of Wyandot County was

the motive in accepting the nomination. However that may be,

he worked very hard on this matter during his third term in the

House. He succeeded in putting the measure through, but it was

defeated in the Senate, and therefore at the next session, although

he was not a member, he went to Columbus, and using his in-

fluence both with the representatives' and senators, succeeded in

having the bill passed. In recognition of his services in this matter

he was made chairman of the meeting held in March, 1845, at

• 18
 

184     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Upper Sandusky for the purpose of nominating officers in the new

county.l6

It was during his 1843-4 term that John Carey was solicited

to become a candidate for governor. His old friend, Judge Wil-

liam Brown, wrote:

I feel much gratified that you have been solicited to become a candidate

for Governor and also for the Speaker's Chair. You appear to think your

friends overrate you. ... I will venture to give you my opinion ... without

attempting to point out your merits or qualifications, I will say at once, that,

in my humble opinion, you would make an excellent Governor.

In writing to his wife on this subject he said: "I shall not be

a candidate for Governor, you may rest assured, though you may

rest assured I have been hardly pressed by some of the most in-

fluential men in the State and from all quarters of the State -- but

no go." And in a later letter he said:

We had a large convention and, as you may see by the papers, Mr.

Bartley of Richland received the nomination, which was very satisfactory.

He is the father of Mrs. Thompson,17 of Norwalk.... You will see that I

am not to be Governor at this time but you may rest assured that I had hard

work to prevent it, even up to the hour of the assembling of the Committee

on Nominations I was pressed to accept; but you know I told you I was a

patriot and would do nothing to injure the interest of our beloved country.

Tell Mrs. Starr it was hard work to prevent me from becoming a great man.

This was late in the winter of 1844. At about this time he

was urgently pressed to give a course of lectures at Chillicothe on

phrenology. This science, or pseudo-science, was in great vogue

in those days on both sides of the Atlantic and well accredited.18

It was also in the eighteen-forties that John Carey took con-

spicuous part in his railroad enterprise. When he became a can-

 

16 The Wyandot Telegraph on March 8, 1845, reported a meeting held March 5

in Upper Sandusky to nominate county officers.

John Carey was called to the chair and A. M. Anderson was appointed

Secretary. A committee was appointed to make nominations and the following

men were accordingly nominated:

Commissioners: William Griffin                                    L. A. Pearse, Sheriff

Charles Merriman                      A. M. Anderson, Auditor

Jonathan Kear                            William M. Buell, Treasurer

John D. Sears, Prosecuting Attorney

A. Root, Surveyor

Jno. Ragan, Coroner

Signed, John Carey, President

A. M. Anderson, Secy.

17 This Mrs. Thompson was the wife of Dr. Edward Thompson, president of

Norwalk Seminary for several years, during which time some of Carey's children

attended school there. She was much beloved by the students and highly esteemed

in the community.

18 The Phrenological Journal was one of the periodicals which Carey regularly

subcribed to, and in the papers of the day it was reviewed along with the North

American Review and other magazines of the better type.

• 19
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                     185

didate for Representative in the Thirty-sixth Congress in 1858,

one of the opposition papers ridiculed a pro-Carey colleague for

making the statement that Carey, of himself and unaided had

created the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad. Well, hyperbole,

like smoke, has significance, and it is certain that he was one of

the most active and efficient of the promoters of that enterprise.

He favored it when it came before the State Legislature in 1829;

he lobbied for it in 1831 and in 1836 he sponsored the revised

charter. He gave the land in 1843 on which the town of Carey

now stands to help in the difficult matter of financing the road;19

was responsible for the passage of the Act enabling the company

to borrow the half million dollars needed in 1845, and was presi-

dent during one of the most difficult years--1845-46. These are

all conspicuous services but his inconspicuous labors were of no

less importance, namely financial and moral support throughout

the long and difficult struggle of this railroad to become a fact.

In these days of streamlined, vestibuled trains, crossing the

continent in a few hours, with financing of divers enterprises run-

ning to millions of dollars, it is hard to realize the difficulties

confronting those "crazy men" less than one hundred years ago

who believed in the steam locomotive and the development of the

country through transportation facilitated by the "iron-horse." In

1840 out of eleven railroads in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michi-

gan five used the steam locomotive, the other six used horse power.

The first locomotive engine put in operation in the United States

was Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb on the Baltimore and Ohio, in

1829. It was only two years later20 that the Ohio Assembly voted

a charter to the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad. Six years

after the little Tom Thumb made its appearance (1835), William

Henry Harrison turned the sod in Sandusky City marking the be-

ginning of construction of the "first railroad west of the Alle-

 

 

19 The eighty acres which were surveyed into town lots by the engineer of

the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad was deeded to the company by Carey for a

money consideration but the money was paid in railroad stock, thus yielding ready

cash (from the sale of lots) to the company and a future payment to Carey in case

the road arrived at a dividend-paying condition.

20 A letter to Carey from William Brown dated December 28, 1831, states that

the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Bill had passed both houses and become

law. The date ususally given is 1832 but that is the date of the issuing of the

charter, not the action of the Legislature authorizing it.

• 20
 

186   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

• 21
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                            187

ghenies," 21 and the year following, to facilitate the construction,

the first locomotive engine was bargained for. This was the San-

dusky,²² shipped on October 14, 1837, by canal and lake to San-

dusky City, arriving there on November 17. Thus it is seen that

the promoters of this road were really "crazy men" with faith in

that newfangledness, the steam locomotive.²³

The financing of the road was difficult. In the first place no

one knew what the cost should be, nor were the engineers, ex-

perienced in the construction of railroads. The first survey,

made by an engineer brought from New York City, proved un-

suitable and the first construction quite inadequate. At the time

that Carey became president the road had been completed to

Tiffin and beyond, but the construction from Sandusky to Tiffin

had already been proved inadequate and was to be rebuilt. At the

same time the work was pushed forward toward the south. All

of this made for added expense and more complex problems. An

estimate had been made that half a million dollars would be re-

quired to carry on the work for that year and Carey, before he

had become president, had "seen through" the State Legislature

the enabling act for borrowing this amount. Lane undertook to

raise the money in the East, but the Mexican War coming on at

the critical moment made money tight. The railroad had, up to

that time, paid no dividends to stockholders, which discouraged

 

21 During the session of the State Legislature, 1831-1832, eleven railroad charters

were issued but only the Mad River Railroad out of this number ever became in

actuality a railroad. Therefore, it is fully entitled to this claim of priority.

22 The Sandusky, a celebrated engine, was the first ever manufactured by the

Rogers, Grosvenor and Ketchem Co. of Patterson, New Jersey, and is said to be the

first engine ever to carry a regular steam whistle. It was manufactured by William

Swinburne, whose training had been that of a carpenter. This man took the spoiled,

ineffective engine made by a pattern-maker, imported from England for the purpose,

and made it over into the Sandusky.

23 The data for the Mad River Railroad has been obtained from various sources:

Letters written to Carey before, during, and after his presidency of the road; files

of the American Railway Journal, Reports of the Mad River Railroad; files of the

Sandusky (Ohio) Clarion; the newspapers of Upper Sandusky and Tiffin, and Laws

of Ohio. The railroad reports were secured from various sources, the most important

being from the Bureau of Railroad Economics at Washington, D. C. It should

perhaps have been stated that this railroad was Sandusky's reply to the action of

the State Assembly in accepting the report of the Canal Commissioners in 1826.

Sandusky had hoped to become a terminal point for one of the canals but in the

final report the only lake terminal was Cleveland. The Miami Canal terminated at

Dayton, and the object of the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad was to connect

with the canal there, but when the Little Miami Railroad emerged into being the

two roads combined, thus making an all-year-round connection between Cincinnati and

Sandusky. It was a great and grand day when this twin project was completed

and the "journey from Cincinnati to New York could be made in three days and

one hour and all by steam." Carey was interested also in the Little Miami Railroad

but not to the same extent as the Mad River.

• 22
 

188    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

investors. It was a case of "no egg, no chicken and no chicken,

no egg." For without money they could not carry on, and as

Lane wrote, unless the track were laid no one would loan the

money. Letters written to Carey at this time were from the engi-

neer, Robert Myers Shoemaker, the treasurer, Robert Patterson,

and from Lane, financial agent. Those from the first two gentle-

men told of strikes, empty cash boxes and querries as to how to

carry on without funds, not to mention various critical situations

demanding the president's immediate presence. Those from Lane

urged the actual laying of iron which the mills still failed, for

lack of advance payment, to deliver. The old road must be relaid

and at the same time construction pressed further south, all with-

out money and without iron. How it was accomplished still re-

mains somewhat mysterious but by the end of the year the road

was completed to Bellefontaine and a beginning made on the

branch road to run from Findlay to Carey. No doubt all of these

gentlemen pledged their private purses to carry on. In the house

at Tymochtee, in Dorcas Carey's herb-closet was a cherry chest

which held the family reserve of gold and silver. It is told that

the danger line, below which the family never ventured to deplete,

suffered violence during this year. John Carey resigned at the

close of the year. His eldest son, as related above, died in Octo-

ber, 1846 and, to all Carey's other private affairs was added the

the necessity of being more closely at home with his sorely

stricken wife; but his interest in the "old Mad River Road" never

waned and in 1849, he had the satisfaction of knowing that it was

paying its stockholders handsome dividends and reserving funds

for emergencies.24

In 1850 the then new town of Upper Sandusky was very

much interested in securing the passage through its confines of

the proposed railroad leading from Pittsburgh to Ft. Wayne and

Chicago. In their negotiations it developed that, in order to secure

this advantage the county must raise fifty or sixty thousand dol-

lars by taxation. Upper Sandusky, naturally was for it; but quot-

ing from Leggett, Conway & Co.'s History of Wyandot County,

 

24 See footnote 28

• 23
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                     189

Ohio (Chicago, 1884, p. 561-2), under the sketch of the Hon.

George W. Berry it is to be noted that

the opposition was led by Hon. John Carey.... The principal objection to

the then new road was the enormous taxes it would inflict, and so high ran

the opposition, and so earnest the interest in its behalf, that political parties

dissolved and found their level in local bearings. The high standing of the

Hon. John Carey, the fact that he was one of the first settlers of the terri-

tory now known as Wyandot County, and these qualities fortified with a

disposition not to brook opposition, which heretofore had given him the

name of "Old Invincible," was so impressive upon the minds of the people

that they looked with foreboding upon any project that did not meet with

his pleasure, and when his protest took the prominence of a public discus-

sion . . . there was a good deal of despondency as no one seemed willing to

tilt a lance with the old hero of the Tymochtee. Mr. Carey was earnest and

aggressive and threw all his old time vigor and dash into the opposition. For

a time he seemed to have everything his own way, and his challenge for

debate upon the stump went unheeded, until Mr. Berry (then but a short

time in the county), finding that none of the older citizens would measure

arms with Carey, took up the gauntlet in defense of the new railroad. Five

appointments were made for joint discussions, only two of which Carey at-

tended. He found in the young attorney a resistance he could not encompass.

Carey and Berry, however, became good friends, each respect-

ing the other's prowess.²⁵

All through life Carey had been active physically, never

avoiding any labor, however strenuous. At some time late in

1849 or early in 1850 he sustained a bad rupture from which he

never fully recovered and which was followed by a critical illness

of some month's duration. This condition and the fact that Mrs.

Carey was in declining health influenced him to make a change in

his residence. He owned a neat farm of 400 acres on the out-

skirts of Careytown and to this he removed in 1853. His only

remaining son, MacDonnough had lost his wife, Lydia Beebe,

in 1846 when their daughter was three months old. In 1851 he

remarried and to him John Carey gave the old farm place with its

mills and quarry. There was a competent farmer on the Carey

town farm, so that here Carey could devote himself to overseeing

his various affairs without that strenuous physical exertion to

which he had been accustomed, but which was now forbidden him.

He was busied with overseeing his other tenant farms, the grain

 

25 In December, 1853, when this railroad had carried its tax program and con-

structed its road as far as Petterson (a station on the Mad River and Lake Erie

Railroad) and a locomotive had actually made the trip, a grand dinner was given

at which one of the toasts was: "To the opponents of our undertaking." The hatchet

was buried.

• 24
 

190     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

elevator which he had erected near the tracks of the Mad River

Railroad some years earlier, and the various matters of public

interest and duty to which he was continually called.

His family now consisted of his wife, one daughter, Cinderella,

one, and sometimes three little granddaughters, Allethea, Emma,

Napoleon's   daughter, and     Cinderella, Eliza's  child.   "Aunt

Cinda" gave lessons to these three nieces who grew up almost like

sisters, spending so much time in their grandfather's home.

In its issue for July 9, 1857, the Wyandot Pioneer published

a ticket for the ensuing State elections naming Salmon P. Chase26

for governor, and John Carey, lieutenant governor. In the same

issue an editorial states:

In reference to the office of Lieutenant Governor the Hon. John Carey

is our preference and we name him for that office. Judge Carey is one of

the oldest residents (if not the oldest) of our state and in him, we believe

the people of the State will find all the traits of character that combine in an

eminent degree.

Carey did not, however, become a candidate. It was another

case of "no go." This was in the early days of the Republican

party. Carey had always been a Whig but with the formation of

the new party he had joined and become a delegate to the National

Republican Convention at Philadelphia in June 17, 1856.

In 1858 there was great excitement concerning the admission

of Kansas. The LeCompton Constitution had been defeated in

the House, when certain of the Representatives, including Law-

rence Hall27 of the Ninth District of Ohio (which included

Wyandot, Crawford, Seneca, Marion, Sandusky, Hardin and

Ottawa Counties) revamped the measure and tried again to pass

it. Hall had at first pleased his constituents by voting against it

but when he joined with others to press it through in new and,

as the local papers declared, "ten times worse" form, there was

great displeasure. The district had always been strongly Demo-

cratic, counting a sure majority of 2000. In the anger excited by

Hall's action in this matter, the Republicans, who had for the most

 

26 When Carey went to Worthington in 1813, Chase was living there with his

uncle, the rector. Carey, although a younger man, must have known him then.

27 This was Lawrence W. Hall, originally a Union Democrat, who seems to

have turned at this juncture into a "Peace-at-any-price-Democrat," voting with the

Vallandigham party in 1863. Indeed he was one of those arrested for treason during

those trying days.

• 25
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER                191

part been Whigs, saw a chance for victory if they could put up a

strong candidate. They chose Carey while the Democrats renomi-

nated Hall. At first the Democratic press, forgetting all of the

wickedness they had ascribed to Hall, declared that they would

beat "old Judge Carey to the tune of 2000." Later on in the cam-

paign, however, they began to feel some misgivings and accord-

ingly their abuse of the Republican candidate grew constantly

more virulent and much more copious. There is not space here

to recount the whole story, but a few examples will suffice. Under

the caption, "Who is John Carey?" appear these: "He is an old

fogy who thinks the earth is flat and that Niagara Falls is the

place where the water runs off." "He is the rich man's candi-

date." "He is a pampered, silk stockinged aristocrat." "He is

determined to deprive the poor working man of his rights." Carey

laughed at these slurs, saying, "Everyone knows they are lies."

But the Republican press could not keep silent.28 It fairly

screamed, "Everybody knows that John Carey is a hard working

farmer." As election day approached the Democratic papers,

which only boasted four pages to an issue sometimes gave one full

page of abuse to the Republican candidate.

The final count showed Hall had 841 votes to Carey's 1062.

The Republicans were jubilant as it was the first time in history

that the Democrats had been defeated in the "Old Ninth."

Although Carey had considered himself, since his sickness, an

old man, indisposed to battle with the world and longing for that

quiet and peace to which he felt his active, not to say strenuous,

life had entitled him, he now put on new strength, making fre-

quent speeches during his campaign and later, at Washington,

throwing himself heart and soul into the stormy vortex of the

Thirty-sixth Congress. While working hard at his various duties,

in order to keep himself physically fit, he made a point of walking

at least three miles a day. As a speechmaker, according to the

testimony of the time, he was vigorous and convincing. His train-

ing had made him see things clearly and his character made him

 

28 Some of his friends, also, could not keep silent. His old adversary, George

W. Berry, came out with a letter in the Wyandot Pioneer to clear Carey of a

slander which he considered too base to be allowed to pass. He took pains, however,

to say that Carey knew nothing of his writing the letter.

• 26
 

192     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

earnest in presenting his ideas; but there were no elaborate periods

or ornaments of fine language in his speeches. Sessions in the

House at this time were extremely stormy and in several of his

speeches29 he made strong pleas for moderation and gentlemanly

conduct. He was shocked at the vituperation thrown around. He

appealed to men to be intelligent and rational. He pled for rea-

sonable action and less emotion. He claimed that close attention

to the real issue clarified the situation in any dispute and made ad-

justment easy. A letter written him by a stranger living in New

York City, says:

I am gratified to see the calm and considerate manner with which you

have reviewed the unhappy controversy now so prominent; and, so far as

I have seen, you appear to have placed the real cause of difference between

contending parties on its true basis....

I think your speech will do much good at the North both for its argu-

ment and the spirit with which it was delivered.

This "real cause," Carey had said, was "the excitement which

tends to cloud the issue, irrelevant matter assuming force through

lack of emotional control . . . and tends to bring about hard feeling

and delay or prevent a solution." His claim was that a dispas-

sionate examination of the Constitution, and the utterances of the

men who framed the Ordinance of 1787, would quiet matters and

lead to peace. He said, "I do not believe that under the Constitu-

tion we have any more right to touch slavery in the states where

now it is, than we have to interfere with the private property of

our neighbors." But he stood strictly against further compromise

and unequivocally against disruption. The Constitution, accord-

ing to his view, acknowledged no such thing as secession, there-

fore secession was treason.

It has been frequently stated in sketches of John Carey that

he was responsible for the creation of the Department of Agricul-

ture.30 This is not strictly true, although he had much to do

with it and in the history of the Department his name should have

honorable mention. Upon his arrival in Washington he was made

 

29 Carey's speeches may be found in the Congressional Globe, 36 Congress.

30 Data on the Department of Agriculture from various sources are: The Con-

gressional Globe; a pamplet entitled Lincoln and Agriculture, published by the De-

partment of Agriculture; a manuscript prepared by A. C. True; Historical Sketch of

the Department of Agriculture, by Charles H. Greathouse, and various other refer-

ences. Letters written to Carey in regard to his speech on agriculture are in the

possession of the writer.

• 27
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER               193

chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and when he came to

inspect his duties in that capacity he was horrified to find to how

mean a corner this, to him, very important branch of activity on

the part of the Federal Government, had been assigned--"a mere

desk in one corner of the Patent Office!"  He effected in his

committee a preamble and resolution which he presented to the

House, praying that a separate Department be created to look

after the affairs of that fundamental industry. The House was

too absorbed in the slavery question to pay very much heed, but

later he addressed a Committee of the Whole on the subject. This

was called the John Carey Speech on Agriculture and the House

was enough interested to order 10,000 extra copies of it printed and

copies were asked for from all parts of the country, North, South,

East and West. This speech was delivered on April 27, 1860.

In it he quoted Madison as saying at the time the Constitution was

framed that the agricultural class was the great class out of which

legislators would be chosen and therefore its interests would be

looked after by them. He called attention to the change which

had taken place in that body since Madison's day, saying that per-

haps a dozen farmers only had seats there, and, as a result, "your

agricultural interests in the government are committed to a clerk

in one corner of the Patent Office, who peddles out seeds. That

is about the extent of the care given to the great agricultural in-

terests of the country."

Again in May when a bill for appropriations to agriculture

was being discussed he took the floor to plead for a separate de-

partment, saying that, so long as there was no responsible person

under the Government to see that measures adopted were properly

carried out, it was of very little use to pass measures of any sort,

no matter how good they might be and, what seems rather remark-

able, he brought forth the argument that a scientific study of the

productive value of different grains as well as other scientific re-

search could only be effectually carried out through a separate

department of Cabinet rank because it could be done effectively

only by using the Government's Foreign Service for collaborat-

ing with agricultural departments of other countries.

This was not, however, the first time in our history that a

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194     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Department of Agriculture had been advocated. A certain Penn-

sylvania farmer, named Isaac Newton, had urged the same thing

upon the attention of Presidents Harrison, Zachary Taylor and

Millard Filmore; and he was then urging it upon James Buch-

anan. He renewed his plea after the inauguration of Abraham

Lincoln, the Department soon after becoming a fact. How much

may have passed between Carey and Lincoln on the subject, is

difficult to say, since all that appears in the record are the speeches

and the many repetitions that the creation of the department was

due to him, together with the testimony of letters showing interest

in what some call his "great work."

In one of Carey's speeches he mentioned the fact that he ex-

pected never to be in the House again. His friends took this up

and immediately began trying to induce him to change his mind.

His old friend Beardsley, wrote him from Cleveland, under date

of August I, 1860:

I learn with much satisfaction through an intelligent gentleman of

your District, that your constituents are anxious that you should be a candi-

date for reelection--that indeed no other Republican can be elected in your

District, and it is the intention of the party to insist upon your running

again. If this be true, if the state must be disgraced by sending a bogus

Democrat31 to represent the 9th District in case you decline, patriotism, I

think, demands your acquiescence.

Charles Foster wrote him on June 6, 1860: "We think you

are the only man that we can elect and in the present contest we

do not wish to be beaten in the old 9th." Solicitations of the most

urgent nature kept pouring in on him from every quarter. He

wrote to Foster on June II:

I am now in the sixty ninth year of my age and before my present

term ends I shall be in my seventieth. My wife is now over seventy and in

a very feeble state of health and at times almost distracted owing to the ef-

fect of a diseased condition of her nerves, requiring that attention which is

due from a husband to his wife. My family was much opposed to my being

a candidate before and to reconcile them I said I would not be a candidate

again.

When you come to add to the above the fact that from the strict at-

tention that I have been obliged to give to my duty my health has become

much enfeebled and daily I find myself more and more losing my vigor,

I am only a demonstrator of folly if I should again accept my present

position.

31 The term "Bogus Democrat" refers to the "Peace-at-any-price-Democrats"

as opposed to the Union Democrats. Beardsley was a Democrat of the Union party.

• 29
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER   195

 

Nevertheless, he was finally persuaded. The following is

from John Sherman:

DEAR SIR

I have accepted the invitation for Tiffin on the 1st of August and hope

to meet you there. From the general desire in your District I perceive you

will be called upon to surrender your wish not to be a candidate. I hope

you will do so.

The Tiffin Weekly Tribune recounts the scene of his nomi-

nation:

The Congressional Convention for placing in nomination a candidate

for Congress, assembled last Tuesday at Forest .... But one desire per-

vaded the breasts of all and that was that "Old Mud-Sill"³² should be re-

nominated and be persuaded to again be a candidate .... When the motion

was made that John Carey should be renominated by acclamation, it was

seconded by a hundred voices and carried by three loud and vociferous yells

that fairly raised the roof.

The wildest enthusiasm prevailed and the feelings of the multitude

were almost unbounded.--Loud calls were made for Carey and a commit-

tee was appointed to wait on him.

The meeting adjourned to the open air and the old "mud-sill" mounted

a box and made one of his characteristic speeches, which we wish every

voter in the District could have heard. It came from the heart and went to

the heart. It was the voice, not of a politician, or office seeker but of

An Honest Man.

Also an editorial entitled "John Carey" in the Wyandot

Pioneer for August 23, 1860, runs as follows:

There is no man living within the bounds of our county in whom the

yeomanry have so much confidence as they have in Judge Carey and we

know of no man who is so richly deserving of the unlimited and undivided

confidence of the people as is our old farmer Congressman. His honesty

of purpose, his industry, his remarkably strong common sense together with

his faithfulness to every trust confided to him, have won the respect, the

esteem, and we had almost said adoration, of every honest man who

knows him.33

 

32 This term comes from  early methods in railroading. The road was first

graded, then heavy oak mud sills were laid, and on top of these and pinned to them

with heavy wooden pins were the ties. Next came the wooden rails covered with

strap-iron nailed on with iron spikes. The term as applied to men was first used

by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina. He applied the word to the

free laboring man of the North as opposed to the Negro slaves of the South. The

Democratic press of the Ninth District Ohio having been "booed" for calling Carey

a "silk stockinged aristocrat" adopted the term "Mud-sill" and the Republicans took

it up and made a boast of it.

33 The Wyandot Pioneer for July 12, 1860, quoted the Bucyrus Journal at great

length on Carey. A few extracts follow:

In the first place old John Carey is one of those men whose integrity, even

in the smallest matters, is not only above reproach, but above suspicion .... His

every act and deed will bear the closest scrutiny and the most searching

inquiry....

His ability is of no common order. A man of but little schooling, he has

been an extensive reader and a close observer and, possessing a powerful and

vigorous mind and astute judgment, it is almost impossible for him to err ....

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196     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Apparently his old antagonist, Berry, was the only one of

his friends who doubted his election. The district was still very

strongly Democratic even to the extent of "Peace-at-any-price-

Democracy" as opposed to the loyal Democrats. The man nomi-

nated by the Democrats was Warren P. Noble, a young attorney

of Tiffin, very well thought of. The election showed that Carey

had poled many Democratic votes; for Noble's majority was 930

instead of the normal 2000.34

His defeat does not seem to have depressed him. Although

he had done his best since his nomination, to win the contest, he

had felt all along as he had expressed himself to Foster, in the

letter already quoted. His interest in public affairs never relaxed.

He was never too tired to serve the community in which he

lived. He was on the committee to look after the welfare of

those families whose men had gone to the war and perhaps during

that troubled time his ministrations to the poor were greater than

at any time in his life. He was also much in demand as a

speaker.

It was in 1863 that the great fight to preserve the Union in

Ohio occurred. The "Peace-at-any-price Democrats" had joined

those societies whose purpose it was to defeat the Administration

and join the Confederacy. Although Clement L. Vallandigham,

their leader, had been banished, he was nominated for governor

in Ohio and made acceptance from Niagara Falls, Canada. The

loyal Democrats and the Republicans made common cause to

defeat him, finally electing John Brough. This was a most ex-

citing campaign, taxing all loyal men, whether Democrats or

Republicans, and one which stirred Carey deeply.

Mrs. Carey's health continued to fail, and in 1867 she died.

This event, in Carey's own words, was the saddest in his life.

A letter to one of his granddaughters a few years later says:

"I think of every one of my children and grandchildren every

 

We are aware that Mr. Carey has expressed a determination not to be

a candidate but when the Republican Party of the 9th unanimously request him

to remain there for two years longer, he will consent, not only for the good of the

Party, but for the public, to reconsider his determination   ... If he accepts

the nomination he will be elected by an overwhelming majority.

34 The strength of the opposition is measured somewhat by the State election

of 1863 when the Vallandigham ticket received in this district a majority of almost

3 to 2 whereas in the State as a whole the Brough ticket received an overwhelming

majority.

• 31
 

JOHN CAREY, OHIO PIONEER               197

day of my life and of my dear wife every hour in every day."

His younger grandchildren remembered him only as he was in

these later days, after his wife's death and after the affliction

which had troubled him increasingly since 1850 had taken so

much of his strength that he walked always with a cane. He was

nevertheless, entirely erect in his carriage, with not a trace of a

stoop to his shoulders, and his voice strong, cheerful and hearty.

During his declining years the Woman's Temperance Crusade

swept the State. Carey had always been a man of moderation in

all things, in his eating and drinking as in everything else. That

some people drank to excess disgusted him with them, not with

drinking, and had no more effect upon his own habits than the

fact that some people overate and others failed to control their

emotions. When this movement arrived in the neighborhood he

at first looked askance at it. One of his daughters, however,

was much interested, all of them more or less so. He, according

to one writer, "looked deeply into the matter and decided that

the crusade was right." Whatever the cause or the process of

the conversion, it is a matter of record that on the next day after

the burning of his daughter in effigy in the main street of Carey-

town, he put on his silk hat, and, straight as an arrow, marched

at the head of the procession of women who paraded down Main

Street singing hymns. And he stood reverently on the sidewalk,

hat in hand with bowed head, while one of the women offered

prayer in front of one of the saloons. It is also told of him that

from that day until his death he never touched a drop of alcoholic

liquor of any sort. He became interested in the fact that intoxi-

cants were sold to minors and took legal action for stopping the

practice. He did not always agree with other men, but he stood

undeviatingly by his own convictions of right and justice, so that

it was commonly said that his name was a synonym for integrity.

One of the stories told of him for many years after his

death was of his conduct in "lean years." His farming was

scientific and as a result his crops were universally good. In

the "lean years" he would retain in his store-houses more than

he needed for seed grain. Men would come offering high prices

for some of this grain because his seed was supposed to have

• 32
 

198    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

something magic about it. Why else did he always have good

crops? But this seed grain was not to be bought with money.

It was given freely to those farmers who were too poor to buy.

In these later years his chief interest was in his children

and grandchildren. He had accumulated wealth so that, with

proper management they should always have abundance, but no

one knew better than he that wealth was not all; and he was most

solicitous that, in all the finer things of character and culture, his

grandchildren should not lack. His ideals were still those that

had governed his own youth--integrity, kindness, reverence for

God and devotion to country.

In acknowledging a daguerreotype portrait, Beardsley wrote

to his life-long friend, saying: "It is the portrait of the man I

should wish my son to take as the model for his own life."

On March 17, 1798, John Carey crossed the Ohio River into

the State whose interests he held always in honor, and on the

seventy-seventh anniversary of this crossing he made that other

ford whence there is no return. Courageously were both cross-

ings made, and as tribute to his life was the love which bound

to him friends from coast to coast.

• 33