In March, 1846, the Mansfield and Sandusky City and Little Miami Railway companies advertised for proposals from the stage companies to connect, from Columbus, with their trains at Mansfield and Springfield a circumstance indicative of the progress of events. From different directions the railways were, by

that time, steadily approaching the capital.

In 1849, a daily line of stages between Columbus and Pomeroy, via Lancaster, Logan and Athens was established. "The daily line of D. Tallmadge to Lancaster," runs the announcement, "connects there with the line to Pomeroy newly established by Mr. Hoyt."

In August, 1850, Frederick Douglas delivered an address at Columbus, and on the following day undertook to pursue his journey castward in one of the Ohio Stage Company's vehicles, but after buying his ticket, and taking his place in the stage, was ejected from it on account of his color. So strong was the prejudice against the negro race at that time that the company felt obliged to make this concession to the predominating sentiment of the traveling public. From this affair some interesting legal proceedings resulted, an account of which will be elsewhere given.

This same year - 1850 saw the advent of W. B. & J. A. Hawkes in the local stage business of Central Ohio. This firm obtained mail contracts to numerous points from the capital, and ran its principal line of stages between Columbus and Portsmouth. Nothwithstanding the opening of railway lines, the firm did a thriving business, which was much enlarged, in both profits and extent, during the Civil War period. One of its notable employés was George Patrick, who was in the stage service as driver for thirtythree years, and bought a farm with his earnings.

On

Another event of 1850, already incidentally hinted at, deserves mention. the twentyeighth of August, in that year, General Otho Hinton, of Delaware, Ohio, was arrested in Cleveland on the charge of repeated robberies of the mail extending over a period of several years. Hinton was at that time an agent of the Ohio Stage Company, and had previously owned, but disposed of, an interest in the firm of Neil, Moore & Co., as we have already seen. He was a pretentious politician, of the most intolerant stripe, and had won his military renown by conspicuous service on the musterdays of the "cornstalk" militia. When the trouble with Mexico began, he denounced the Mexicans as savagely as he had been abusing his fellow citizens of opposite politics, and made a vainglorious tender of his services to the President. As he had already begun to pilfer the mailbags entrusted to his keeping, this exhibition of military bravado was probably intended to divert suspicion.

Repeated losses of money from the mails on routes traveled by Hinton, antecedent to the time of his arrest, had caused him to be watched. A government detective was placed upon his track, and decoy packages were sent back and forth through the mails for his especial benefit. On his trial, which began at Cleveland, September 11, on charges of stealing money from the mail between Cleveland and Columbus, and embezzling money at divers other places, Daniel M. Haskell, the Postmaster at Cleveland, testified that, on Sunday, August 4, 1850, he placed in the Wooster bag a package containing one thousand dollars in marked notes, knowing that Hinton would go in the same coach. Haskell sent forward John N. Wheeler

to Seville, Medina County, as a spy, and followed the coach himself to Mt. Vernon, where he arrived on Monday morning, August 5, about an hour and a half later than the coach. Wheeler boarded the stage at Seville. The passengers were Hinton, A. N. Thomas and two ladies named Sullivant. Nothing occurred until a point was reached about eleven miles north of Mt. Vernon when the coach halted, and Hinton helped the driver to unhitch. The time was three o'clock in the morning. All the passengers except Hinton remained in the coach, the shaking of which attracted Wheeler's attention, whereupon he saw Hinton get down from the vehicle holding in his hand a mailbag, which he took with him behind a shed. While Hinton was gone with the bag Wheeler distinctly heard, in that direction, the rustling of papers. Returning in from five to eight minutes, Hinton threw the bag into the front boot, and after sitting there for a moment, went into the hotel. Soon he came out again, got into the coach, asked Wheeler to change seats with him, and requested one of the ladies to let him have his carpetbag, which she was using for a pillow. He then put some papers in the bag, and resumed his former seat. When the coach arrived at Mt. Vernon, about five A. M., he retired to a room in the hotel. The night was clear and starlit, but moonless.

In its issue of August 29, 1850, the Cleveland Plaindealer contained the following statements:

Yesterday our town was thrown into great commotion by the announcement that General O. Hinton, a gentleman who has represented himself in these parts as the Ohio Stage Company, but who, in fact, was merely a pensioned agent of said company, was arrested on a charge of robbing the mail of some seventeen thousand dollars. . . . He was arrested in this city yesterday afternoon, and large quantities of the marked money contained in those [decoy] packages found on his person. He was examined before Commissioner Stetson and bound over in the sum of ten thousand dollars. He applied to several of our citizens without effect. . . . The following handbill in glaring capitals met our gaze this morning:

Five Hundred Dollars Reward will be paid for the arrest and confinement, in any jail of the United States, of General O. Hinton, Agent for the Ohio Stage Company. Said Hinton was under an arrest, charged with robbing the mail of the United States on the fifteenth instant, and a portion of said money was found on the person of said Hinton at the time of his arrest. He is a man about fiftyfive or sixty years of age; weight one hundred and eighty or ninety pounds; has dark hair, almost black, very fleshy, stout built, florid complexion, and looks as though he was a hard drinker, but is strictly temperate.

D. D. HASKELL, Special Agent Postojice Department.

Cleveland, Ohio, August 29, 1850. The events which led to these announcements may be briefly stated. On the fifteenth of August a moneypackage was taken from the mailbags between Columbus and Cleveland. Hinton was on the coach from which the theft was committed, and on his return to Cleveland August 28 was arrested, as stated, by Officer McKinstry. After a preliminary hearing before the United States Commissioner, instead of being locked up in jail, as a less pretentious criminal would have been, he was permitted to occupy his room in the Weddell House where three persons remained with him as a guard. During the night these addleheaded watchmen dropped to sleep, leaving the key in the door. Thus invited, Hinton arose, went out, locked the door from the outside and disappeared. Some time later, a great outery was raised by the imprisoned guards, calling for help and release.

Hinton was retaken near Wellsville, on the Ohio River, September 3, and on the fifth was brought by the Deputy Marshal to Columbus, where, as the news

paper report states, he "put up at the Neil House." The next day he was taken back to Cleveland. At Zanesville, on his way to Columbus, he was permitted to harangue the crowd which gathered to see him, asserted his innocence, and declared that his reason for attempting to escape was the excessive bail exacted. After a hearing at Cleveland, he was brought back, September 17, to Columbus, where, on October 10, 1850, he was arraigned, entered a plea of not guilty, and in default of fifteen thousand dollars bail, was committed to jail to await his trial before the United States District Court. Before his commitment he asked and was granted permission to make a statement in his own behalf, and, says the Statesman, “for half an hour he spoke with the voice of a Stentor." On October 19, 1850, his bond was fixed at ten thousand dollars for his appearance at the next term of court, January 17, 1851, and on motion of the defendant's counsel, a continuance of his case was granted. On April 16, 1851, the required bond was filed with P. B. Wilcox, United States Commissioner, and Hinton was discharged. His case was never brought to a final issue. Owing to his prominence, and social connections, public sympathy was wrought upon in his favor, and he quietly disappeared, forfeiting his bond. We next hear of him, a few months later, on the Pacific Coast, where he spent, undisturbed, the remainder of his days.

As soon as the railways had taken up the through mails, a crisis in the fate of the old stage lines was reached, as witness the following advertisement of the Ohio Stage Company, dated at Columbus, June 17, 1853:

STAGE COACHES FOR SALE.

Fifty superior coaches, sixes, nines, fourteens and sixteens, for sale cheap at our shop at Columbus, Ohio. Stage proprietors would find it to their interest to call and examine, as we intend to sell.

Just one year later, in June, 1854, a large part of the company's stock and equipment was transferred to Iowa, for service on the stage routes of that State. Charles J. Porter, a veteran employé, had charge of the caravan.

Thus do the agencies of material and social progress forever change. With the coming of the locomotive, the stagecoach ceased to be a leading or very conspicuous factor in the development of the Capital City.

NOTES.

1. J. H. Kennedy, in the Magazine of American History for December, 1886.

9.

Don't You Remember; by Miss Lida R. McCabe. 1884. 10. Ibid.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MAIL AND TELEGRAPH.

Down to the opening of the railway lines in 1853, complaints of irregularities and failures in the postal service were incessant. In frequent instances inefficiency of management and office duty were pointedly charged, perhaps indiscriminately in some cases but in others, and too frequently, with apparent reason. The appointment and removal of postoffice officials and employés, from the highest to the lowest, for predominantly partisan reasons, which, with moderate qualifi. cation, has been the practice, ever since the elder Adams retired from the Presidency in 1829, has been a costly and constant detriment to the efficiency of the mail administration, and has been responsible for three fourths, at least, of all the inefficiency and unfaithfulness with which it has been properly charged. On the other hand, it should be considered that the difficulties in the way of the prompt, swift and sure transmission of the mails, prior to the advent of the railway era, and the vastly improved facilities which have followed it, were very great. Storm, flood, accident and the bad keeping of roads all made themselves incessantly felt as interfering contingencies. In such cases, when the true causes of delays and miscarriages were not, and could not be, popularly understood, the postoffice officials were often heedlessly blamed.

Nor did the complaints, or their causes, by any means cease until railway transportation had been made far more efficient and reliable than it was at the beginning. After the public had become accustomed to count the time of mail transmission by hours instead of days, it was just as impatient of a brief delay as it had before been of a long one. Yet the history of the mail service since the steamcar began to be its adjunct, has been one of steady and rapid improvement. One of the most marked and significant features of this progress has been the cheapening of the rates of postage. In 1845 Congress took an important step in that direction which proved to be of great popular benefit, although it caused a deficit in the postal revenues. By an act passed in that year rates were established as follows: For a letter weighing not more than half an ounce, five cents under and ten cents over three hundred miles, and an additional rate for every additional half ounce or smaller fraction. Newspapers were free under thirty miles, but for distances over that, paid one cent within, and a cent and a half for distances over one hundred miles without the State where published. The transmission of mail matter by express was prohibited unless the postage was first paid.

By an act passed March 3, 1851, still more important changes were made, and the letter rate was fixed as follows: For a letter weighing not over half an ounce,

under 3,000 miles, three cents, if prepaid, and if not prepaid, five cents; over 3,000 miles, six and twelve cents; to foreign countries with which postal arrangements had not otherwise been made, ten cents for not over 2,500 miles, and for more than that distance twenty cents. Weekly newspapers to actual subscribers were free in the county where published; outside of the county quarterly charges were made according to the distance.

By an act which took effect July 1, 1855, the letter rate was reduced to three cents on single inland letters for all distances under three thousand miles, and prepayment of all inland letter postage was required. The lowest quarterly postage on newspapers and periodicals weighing not more than four ounces each, and sent to actual subscribers was five cents weekly. The latest revisions of postage were made by the laws of 1872, 1874, 1875, and 1885, which established, in substance, the rates which now prevail.

With cheaper postage came greater multiplicity of routes, a vast increase of business, and greater speed by water as well as by land. The steamer Pacific, which arrived at New York April 19, 1851, had made the trip from Liverpool in less than ten days, which, up to that time, was the most rapid trip which had been achieved. Postoffices were fitted up on the railway trains by which distribution was greatly facilitated. On accommodation trains of the Bee Line this was done in the summer of 1851. Office organization and the facilities of local distribution were greatly improved. The system of registration of valuable letters was first introduced by act of March 3, 1855. This was followed by the money order system, first established in the United States November 1, 1864. Postal notes were first issued in September, 1883. The foreign transmission of money by mail took effect between this country and Great Britain October 2, 1871. Postal cards at a cost of one cent each were authorized by act of June 8, 1872, and were first issued in May, 1873. By 1874 the number of railway postoffice lines had reached sixtyfour, and covered an aggregate distance of 16,400 miles. On July 1, 1884, the railway mail service had in its employ over four thousand clerks, and covered an aggregate length of routes exceeding 117,000 miles.

A uniform system of free delivery, first authorized March 3, 1863, was established on July 1 of that year in fortynine cities. During the first year of its existence the system employed 685 carriers, but on July 1, 1884, its service extended to one hundred and fiftynine cities, and employed 3,890 carriers.

In 1870 popular expressions on the subject of free delivery for Columbus were invited by Postmaster Comly, but the responses were, at first, not favorable. The postmaster nevertheless made request to have the system introduced in the city, but was met with refusal at the Department. In 1873 his efforts were renewed, and being seconded by popular favor, were successful. Sixty street boxes arrived in June of that year, and, by permission of the City Council, were attached to lampposts, the distribution on High Street being one to every square. Off of High Street none were placed nearer to that thoroughfare than two squares, except on Town Street. On the postmaster's nomination, the Department appointed ten carriers, the first to serve in Columbus, viz.: Orlan Glover, Thomas C. Jones, John M. Merguson, James K. Perrin, Thomas C. Platt, Wesley P. Stephens, James F. Grimsley, Robert N. Vance, John II. Condit, and Joseph Philipson. The service began July 1, 1873, and was successful beyond anticipation. In August the busi