Old Alexandria

Granville and Fickleness

Fradrick Blood was thrilled when the Granville Feeder was completed.  The Davisons and Watsons were able to make the trip from Yorkshire, England, to Newark, Ohio, almost entirely on a ship.  In their journey, they had a 15-mile overland trip to get around Niagra Falls before boarding another ship.  People in Alexandria and Granville knew this.

When plans for the Ohio Canal were made and the businessmen of Granville heard of them, they wanted direct access to the Canal.  In time, a plan was developed to build the Granville Feeder.  This feeder canal linked the Raccoon Creek as it runs south of Granville to the main canal south of Heath - then called Lockport - approximately where the feeder from the then new Buckeye Lake feed into the canal.  Along the way, a bridge was built to carry the Feeder over Ramp Creek and an arch bridge - the Showman Bridge - was built over Raccoon Creek before the canal crossed Cherry Valley and tied into the Raccoon Creek southeast of Granville.  The Showman Arch Bridge still stands, it is the bridge on Cherry Valley Road that crosses the creek.  The Raccoon was widened south of Granville and dams built to create a turning basin for canal boats.  Granville finally had access to the world.

One of the earlier businesses of Granville was Munson's Furnace.  Iron ore had been found in the area and Munson build a furnace to refine the ore and pour castings.  Munson's cast iron cookware was especially popular in the area then.  With the Granville Feeder, Munson's Cookware could be sold world-wide.  Munson had a daughter, named Jerusha, who married Elias Fassett.  Fassett became involved with the Central Ohio Railroad as a land purchasing agent.  His job was to buy rights-of-way for the new Central Ohio Railroad (CORR) as they made their way across central Ohio.

Started in Zanesville, the CORR was originally intended to link to the Ohio River at Wheeling.  Meanwhile, another railroad ran from Pittsburgh to Wheeling.  It became apparent that they could do much more than that and soon began laying rail into central Ohio.  The railroad went through Black Hand Gorge and followed the approximate route of the canal as it entered Newark.  At Newark, the railroad connected with the B&O, which ran north along Mt Vernon Avenue, and continued west out of town.  The tracks curved southwest and crossed Lancaster Road a few miles south of Granville at Union before heading to Outville (Kirkersville Station), Pataskala, Summit, and into Columbus Depot.  Among railroaders, this is known as the Panhandle Route.

This served as a point of aggravation to Granville businesses.  Once again, vital transportation had managed to by-pass them.  To make matters worse, the route was developed by a local resident.  Fassett even went so far as to make his home on a bluff south of Granville complete with a widow's walk so he could watch his trains pass.  In what must have been seen as providence or irony by some, Fassett died on that widow's walk of a sudden heart attack.  Following his death, rumors spread about how Fasset had made some under the table transactions to gain what we remember now as Bryn Mawr.

Even a spur into Granville would have been cost-prohibitive.  With the canal, you simply had to dig a ditch, widen the Raccoon, build a dam, and make a turning basin.  A railroad would require a turntable, engine house, yard, coal dock, and water tank - expensive at the time.  The Granville Spur did not happen.

One Granville entrepreneur was able to make a modest income from the railroad.  A hack would transport you and your baggage from Granville to Union Station for the modest fee of 50-cents.  Fifty cents, in those days, would pay for a generous dinner of the finest food.  Since many of the people taking the train were associated with Denison University - student and faculty - thrift was in order and walking the three or four miles to Granville became a necessity.  It is said a path was worn across the back of the old County Home property as travelers were able to cut a half-mile off their walk as they left Union.

By the 1880s, Granville got what it wanted.  The Toledo & Ohio Central entered Licking County from Centerburg to Croton (Hartford), Johnstown, Alexandria, Clemons, then Granville.  From Granville, the railroad made an easy right to cross the Cherry Valley on its way to Central City.  Today we know Central City as the area of Cherry Valley Road surrounding the Market Basket.  From Central City the railroad ran to Thurston and into southeast Ohio.

At Granville, the T&OC served several facilities.  Munson's Furnace and Louis Fassett were long gone.  Granville embraced to T&OC and in return, the T&OC had multiple sidings to serve the usual grain elevator, lumber yard, warehouse, and coal yard.  Additionally, there was a planing mill, the water department, and a grist mill to be served.  At Central City, goods could be transferred to the CORR, usually the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sent east or west.  Granville businessmen would certainly have thought themselves to be 'on the map.'

Even Alexandria was nicely accommodated by the T&OC with a siding, a coal yard, lumber yard, grainery, corn bin, and warehouse.  Residents of Alexandria had access to passenger and freight service as well as a telegraph office.

In the last years of the 19th Century, a new invention, the first of its kind, connected Granville to Newark with service starting on December 28, 1889.  By now, Granville merchants did not want it.  It would be a relatively short-lived phenomena we know as the Interurban.  Granvile's merchants liked their business.  To them, the interurban would whisk people, and with it sales and profits, to Newark.  In their opinion, the interurban would cause Newark to grow and Granville to languish.

The interurban was not the railroad.  It was a single car powered by electric motors.  The Newark & Granville Electric Street Railway, later known as the Columbus, Buckeye Lake & Newark Traction Company, then the Columbus, Newark, & Zanesville Electric Railway, built a modern powerplant in Hebron to serve their needs.  These cars were primarily involved in passenger service, although most would carry local freight.  most cars tended to be around 50 to 60 feet long and ran on the same type of track the railroad uses - rails at 4 feet 8-1/2 inches apart.  Most ran an overhead power line - a catenary - which the car accessed through a pole mounted on the roof.  These cars, over good tracks, were capable of rapid acceleration and high speeds.  Today, the modern equivalent is called Light Rail.

Eventually, the Interurban fell to the automobile, but not without a struggle.  The Interurbans often began as small, privately held companies that quickly became public companies and began a series of buy-outs and mergers that resulted in at least a regional network of fast transportation.  On some Interurbans, speeds over 60 MPH were obtained.  It was quite possible, in the 1920s to take an interurban from Granville and see relatives who had moved on to Indiana and Illinois.

The interurbans made travel easy.  Long time St. Albans resident Dorothea Lynd, who grew up in Kirkersville, had a dilemma when she transferred at Hebron.  Her mother would give her the interurban fare and send her Newark to obtain something the family business needed but was always tempted to transfer to the interurban car to Buckeye Lake for recreation.

The popularity of the automobile placed the governments in a position to improve roads from dirt trails suitable for wagons to smooth, often paved, roads suitable for the cars of the day.  The Interurban companies saw government investment in highways - without compensitory investment in the Interurban - as unfair competion.  By the 1930s, the Interurbans fell.

The railroads saw good and bad in this.  The automobile was still not a viable alternative for long-distance travel.  While interurbans took much of the financial burden of unprofitable local passenger service away from the railroads, the railroads emphasized new, state-of-the-art long-distance passenger service.  Express trains with names like the Spirit of St. Louis - named after Lindbergh's Trans-Atlantic Flight, The Penn-Texas, The Cincinnati Limited, The Indianapolis Limited, and The American, all leaving New York City, passed south of Granville.  Many World War II veterans remember these trains as the trains they rode when they came home from war to family and friends waiting for them in Newark.

Life-long resident of St Albans, Ed Hankinson, recalls that in the 1950s, State Route 161 was a seldom traveled gravel road.  In the late 1950s, the Ohio Department of Transportaion (ODOT) improved the road and made it a two-lane highway.  At the time, ODOT purchased sufficient righ-of way to make it a four-lane highway.  I recall seeing giant shovels tearing through the hill at Dugway to build a four-lane highway, the Newark Expressway.  The once popular Delaware Road, which passed through downtown Granville, split at White Point to become the Delaware Road and Worthington Road, was now circumvented by the then new '161.'  The Delaware Road portion then entered Alexandria as Granville Street before going through downtown Alexandria to Johnstown.  My earliest memories of traveling to Newark took us down this old route.  Now, Alexandria and Granville are exits from the expressway that connects to the Interstate system in northeast Columbus and leads to Newark and beyond.

The passing of the T&OC through Granville made the Granville Feeder obsolete, and the feeder was filled in at Granville by 1880.  Trains stopped running through Alexandria sometime in the early 1970s, probably due to multiple washouts of the track bed into Reese's field near Northridge Road.  Passenger service along the Panhandle Route was over about the same time; the airlines were hauling passengers now.  To get to Newark from Alexandria, you get on State Route 161, officially State Route 37, and travel at speeds unimaginable to Jerusha Munson while her father poured iron into sand molds to make skillets...  but you still have to wait for the light to change in Alex.

 

A canal boat on the Erie Canal. The Davisons and Watsons would have come to Newark on a boat like this.

T&OC passenger train arrives in Alexandria. The photo would have been taken around 8 AM. The train is heading east. Notice the absence of trees - this location is now canopied with trees.

The Interurban crosses a creek near Kirkersville. US 40, the Old National Road, is on the right. In towns, the interurban tracks would run down the center of US 40 creating what would be considered something quite unsafe today.

Showman Arch Bridge as it crosses Raccoon Creek. The canal is long gone, replaced by Cherry Valley Road. The bridge got the name Showman Arch Bridge because it was next to the Showman Farm, had arches, and was a bridge.

A 50-foot interurban passenger car in Newark. Notice the pole on the top that carries electric power from an overhead wire to the motors. This car is traveling away from us. The interurban also ran 'Combines' that had a baggage compartment at the front and would carry local freight. One popular item of freight was milk. The interurban would stop at farms to pick up milk, eggs, and other farm perishables.

Dining in style on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Spirit of St. Louis. This train stopped in Newark at 5:54 AM, Columbus at 6:38 AM. Traveling light overnight, in Columbus, the train would take on dining and kitchen cars before continuing the journey west to St. Louis. This was an express train and made stops only at major cities along the way.

T E A Y S   V A L L E Y

I must have been a junior or senior in at Northridge when I had a chance to flirt with some young ladies from Teays Valley High School.  I thought it was cool that they had 'TV' on their uniforms and they were Vikings - Teays Valley Vikings - but Vikings none-the-less!  I have long since forgotten the names and faces of these young ladies, but from time to time I wondered why Teays Valley is Teays Valley.  I always thought, 'Well, why is anything named what we name it?'  English is a quirky language;  we park on driveways and drive on parkways.  Maybe some guy named Teays owned a valley...

Teays Valley Vikings

Northridge Vikings

Then I found out it is called Teays Valley because Teays River used to flow through there.  A long, long time ago, the Teays drained the western side of the Alleghanies through Ohio as it flowed to the Mississippi River.  For our purposes, the Teays River ran through Chilicothe on its way to London, then west into Indiana.  An ancient tributary, the Groveport River, drained Licking County.  The Groveport ran south somewhere between here and Newark.  Geologists tell us no human ever laid eyes on this ancient river system, but it must have been something to behold.  In some parts, it flowed slowly through broad, flat plains.  In other places, the Teays cut through huge limestone cliffs.  Then the glaciers came.

The glaciers stopped around Alexandria.  When they did, they dammed up the Teays causing water to drain southwards to the newly formed Ohio River.  Geologists tell us that when the glaciers melted, they deposited thousands of tons of gravel scoured from the north as the weight of the ice cap traveled south.  This formed the aquifer on which Alexandria sits.  Over time, soil covered this gravel and the Raccoon Creek formed to drain these soils.  Other experts say the the aquifer was formed from buried portions of the Teays and the Groveport.  Trees grew and covered Ohio in a thick forest.  Wildlife inhabited this forest and freely populated it so that game was plentiful.  This is the Ohio that the Moundbuiders would know.

The Moundbuilders had a path through here.  Today, the Bike Path follows the approximate route the Moundbuilders took on their way to and from the Newark Earthworks and Flint Ridge.  St Albans had a few mounds, some of which have been excavated and others plowed down over the years.  Indian implements and arrowheads are still found around.  On a personal level, some ten years ago, I found a stone hammer left behind by Indians over a thousand years earlier.  Some local residents have a fine arrowhead collecion found in the fields and yards of Alexandria and St. Albans.

The Seneca Indians called it  Ohiːyo'.  Then, French and Dutch explorers found the Ohio River.  Dutch fur traders called it 'de Cubach.'  In 1669, the French explorer LaSalle took an expedition from Quebec to somewhere above Pittsburgh and followed the Alleghany River as far as the falls (Louisville) before returning to Quebec.  LaSalle claimed La Belle Riviere for the French.  The British came along, the French and Indian War was fought with the result that the Old Northwest Territory was ceded to the British while the French retreated to Canada.  The American Revolution was fought and the British more-or-less expected the United States would stay east of the Alleghanies.  That did not happen.

Thanks to ancient rivers and glaciers, there have always been gravel pits around here.  In the early 1900s, there was a gravel pit on the west side of Alexandria just south of where Jersey Mill Road branches off State Route 37.  This gravel pit supplied Alexandria with gravel for making cement and as material for foundations and sidewalks during the housing boom of the early 1900s.  I have also heard that the run-off from this gravel pit produced such fine and perfect mud that area children were able to make thes best mud pies.  This gravel pit remained in operation until their tools wore out.

As a child, the gravel pit was located along State Route 37.  I recall in the early 1960s when a large shovel was moved through town.  The tracked shovel was accompanied by about ten men, four or five on a side, who would lay an old tire in front of the tracks, then hurry back to behind the tracks to pick up a tire the shovel had just passed over and move it to the front.  This was done to protect the asphalt from the steel tracks.  Traveling at just 2 or 3 MPH, the shovel eventually made its way to the gravel pit west of town.

Why is Teays Valley is called Teays Valley?  Now you know.  Who were those young ladies?  Can't remember...   nothing personal.  Still, there are times when I would like to time travel and take a scenic cruise down the Teays and see herds of Wooly Mammoths roaming the land.

The S. S. Anderson Hotel & Restaurant

Without Washington Carlock, several Alexandria businesses and families would not be.

"Wash" was born in Bergen, NJ, on May 8, 1808. At some point a generation or two earlier, the family changed their name from Gerlach to Carlock, probably to disguise their Heidelberg heritage. Many German families did this following the American Revolution. The family moved to Alexandria in the Fall, 1850, although family lore says they crossed the Ohio River on Christmas Day, 1850. "Wash" and his wife Lydia Jane Ellyea had several children, one of which was a middle son he named after himself. "Wash" died in Alexandria on April 21, 1875. One of "Wash's" daughters was Temperance, who married into the Thorp family. Another married into the Hammond family. Floyd Carlock was well known along with "Wash's" son Henry Carlock as local millers. Velma Peebles, of recent memory, was also a descendant of this family. Perhaps less well known was Myrtle Carlock, daughter of Washington B. Carlock, Jr., who was born on August 25, 1874, in Alexandria. On December 7, 1892, she married Samuel Scott Anderson, a young entrepeneur who owned a business in town.

Samuel Scott Anderson was born on August 17 or 19, 1872 in Appleton, Ohio, the youngest of the four children of William H. and Mary (Gosnell) Anderson. It is not known exactly when Sam came to Alexandria, but he was certainly in town at least as early as September 1892, probably earlier. It is also certain that he liked to cook.

We must also know another person in Alexandria. On February 17, 1887, Richard Johnson died. Richard was the town barber. The town needed a new barber.

An 1895 photograph appears on page 240 in the history of Alexandria of Sam Anderson's Barbershop, Laundry, Telephone Exchange, and residence. Across the alley on the same side of the street stood The Old Tavern, which by now was Davison's Wagon Shop. On the downtown side of Sam's Barber Shop was the Town Hall. Across the street - the building still stands with porch and balcony removed - is what I believe is the old S.S. Anderson Hotel. A photograph appears on page 239 of the Alexandria history. It would appear as if Sam was quite an industrious fellow.

What would Sam serve? He would have had a soup, stew, or even a consumme. The entrees could have been roast beef and maybe steak, some sort of roasted, baked, stewed, or fried chicken, a pork dish, lamb, fish and maybe local game. Sides would have been Noodles, Potatoes, and Vegetables. Sam kept some bread around as well. For dessert, Sam would have had pie and perhaps ice cream. With Harry Buxton in mind, Sam would probably serve Oysters and Crackers. In the Lunch Room, Sam probably had a variety of sandwiches featuring local hams and cured meats or some other rapidly prepared dish. Local farmers could easily keep Sam well stocked. Today, were we to see his menu, we would likely make a remark about Comfort Food.

When the Business Block was rebuilt in 1905, Sam moved his hotel downtown, well... one block east and across the street. The Post Office then moved into Sam's Old Hotel. At least now, the new S.S. Anderson Hotel was in a new concrete block building instead of an old, dry wood-frame building. With Alexandria's well-documented fires, this would have been a prudent move. The picture of the hotel shows guest lodging on the upper floor and I estimate Sam had at least 10 rooms. The ground floor appears to be a restaurant. In the basement was a lunch room and billiard hall. Outdoor stairs from the street level down to the Billiard Room have since been filled in. It is not known how long the hotel remained in business. What is known is that by June 1, 1918, Sam moved his family to Mansfield where he opened a cafeteria at the new Westinghouse plant.

In 1918, the fast-growing Westinghouse Company opened a plant in Mansfield that covered 100,000 square feet. By 1943, during the height of World War II, the plant had grown to 42.7 acres and was a vital industry in the war effort. Sam was obviously a busy man with a large number of Westinghouse employees to feed. The plant was eventually closed in 1990 during an in-house financial restructuring, long after Sam and Myrtle had passed away.

Sam and Myrtle continued to live in Mansfield to their deaths. Sam passed away at the age of 80 on November 21, 1952. Myrtle outlived Sam by 12 years before dying on December 27, 1964.

As for the new S.S. Anderson Hotel... in my youth, the building was owned by George Price and was used as apartments. The old S.S. Anderson was owned by Earl Thomas and housed the Bailey family. I cannot tell you what happened between 1918 and 1960 at the new S.S. Anderson.  Sadly, George passed away a number of years ago; it is now too late to ask him.

Here is what makes history personal. Most houses in Alexandria had a barn. These residential barns were built for a horse or two and a buggy or wagon. They all had lofts for hay. Once the automobile came along, these barns were used as a garage or for storage - horses were no longer needed. While playing in the neighbor's back yard - Edith Irwin's back yard - something caught my eye in the old, grass covered driveway back to the barn. I dug it out of the grass and dirt with my fingers thinking I had found money. Once I knocked off the dirt, I became confused. It said "FIVE CENTS" on one side. Money? On the other side it said S.S. Anderson Hotel and Restaurant. I had found a token from the S.S. Anderson Hotel and Restaurant that had been lost decades earlier by Lawrence Irwin as he walked to the barn to tend to his horse.

The grave of Samuel Scott Anderson. His wife, Myrtle Carlock Anderson is buried beside him. Their son, Harry died in 1955 in Mansfield and their daughter Enid married Robert Hayes in Mansfield and remained there. — at Mansfield Memorial Park Inc.

H A R D S C R A B B L E

In another article, I talked about S. S. Anderson and his contribution to Alexandria.  I also mentioned Myrtle Carlock, his wife, but focused instead on Wash Carlock's heritage.  Myrtle's family needs a mention.

Some communities make it, some disappear, and others were very loosely defined.  Alexandria and Jersey, at one time, had the necessities of life before becoming a bedroom communities as work was found in larger cities.  Ash and Beech disappeared under roadways and corporate development.  Scott's Corners and Clemon's Station never really were developed beyond the occassional store, church, school, small factory, or rail stop and telegraph office.  One community came and went without much fanfare - Hardscrabble.  All that remains is Hardscrabble Road, Township Road 18, which runs from near Clemons in the south to Concord in the north.

Merriam-Webster defines hardscrabble as "being or relating to a place of barren or barely arable soil,"  hardly a good name for a farming community.  Yet, a community grew on Hardscrabble Road and Battee Roads.  One of the larger farms - 109 acres - belonged to Elias Funderburg.  The Funderburg family tree lists Elizabeth Dupler as Elias' wife.  Elizabeth's mother was a Helser.  Members of the Helser family owned surrounding farms.  Sadly, Elizabeth died in 1865.  Elias remarried.  The Federal Census of 1870 records:  Elias Funderberg, 45; Matilda Funderberg, 41; Mary K Funderberg, 17; Emily (Emma) E Funderberg, 15; Amanda J Funderberg, 12; Martha A Funderberg, 8; John J Funderberg; 5; and farm hands Henry Focht, 15; Wm H Hartsough, 25.  Unfortunately, Elias died in 1875.  Elias' second daughter, Mary, married Washington Carlock, Jr., and their daughter Myrtle married S. S. Anderson.

What, then, made Hardscrabble a community?  Was it a community of farms run by loosely related families?  There was more.

There was Hardscrabble school.  In these days, schools were run by subscription.  Today, we might call it tuition.  At the northwest corner of Elias Funderburg's farm, where the eastern portion of Battee Road intersects Hardscrabble Road, was a log cabin.  This cabin was a settler's home and was converted for use as a school...   Hardscrabble School, although I have heard it called Battee School and Hammond's School, depending on the time period.

Schools were very local then.  Another school was located across Lobdell Creek at the southeast corner of Mounts Road and Lobdell Road.  What mattered was walking distance.  The school would run two terms - one starting in late summer and the other in winter.  The winter term was more attended as older boys had less chores on the farm.  This term was also more likely to have discipline problems.

There was a church as well, St. Albans Christian Union Church.  This church was located north of the school on Hardscrabble Road where today's Corner Road takes off to the east.  Corner Road does not exist on 19th Century maps.  It is difficult to determine the denomination of this church.  At times, St. Albans Church associated with the Methodist Church in Alexandria while at other times St. Albans Church associated with the Alexandria Congregational Church.  There are also connections to Concord and New Way.

The church began their meetings in 1850 and 1851 in the Hardscrabble school house with a revival led by Oscar Baker from the Free Will Baptist Church in Concord.  Another record from the Alexandria Methodist Church in 1859 shows Elisha Battee as the officer in charge of Sunday School classes at St. Albans Church.  By 1872, a permament structure for the church was built at the Hardscrabble crook.  The building was built by Daniel Battee, Joseph Mowry, and John Wainscott and was a Christian Union Church.  The Christian Union Churches were organized at the Deshler Hotel in Columbus in 1864 as an attempt to unite various Protestant sects.  Many local families were part of this church...   the Battees, Brooks, Hammonds, Thorpes, Drakes, and Bishops.

So, once again, what makes a community?  All that remains of Hardscrabble are tombstones.