Blain & Co., periodical and news depot; Blake, Domigan & Co., carriage and coachmakers; D. Brooks, chairmaker, High, between Rich and Town; Charles Knoderer, Cannon Tavern, Friend, west of High, south side; Cole & Standish, foundry, Front, near Last Street; S. Clark & Co., druggists, 139 High; E. Cloud, lumber, northeast corner Third and Friend; W. Downs & Co., copper, tin and sheetiron ware; H. DeWitt, carriage maker; J. & C. Eldridge, grocers; A. & D. Hayden, grocers, Buckeye Block; James Lennox, Junior, engineer and millwright; H. Lyndall, Daguerrean artist; Rufus Main, grocer, Broad, between High and Front; J. H. Mitchell, drygoods, Broadway Hotel, East Broad; William Murphy, grocer, corner Broad and Front; Augustus Platt, brass founder, corner Front and Spring; Price & Hughes, cabinetware, Rich, between High and Front; Reinhard & Fieser, printers, Mechanics' Hall; Siebert & Lilley, bookbinders, High, opposite Public Offices; E. A. Stoughton, Daguerrean rooms; S. Thompson, grocer, southwest corner High and Friend; W. B. Thrall, printer. A directory of the city was published this year, in book form, by John Siebert.

1849 Fischer & Schneider, Eagle Drugstore; William Blynn and Thomas S. Baldwin succeed Platt & Blynn in jewelry; Finch & Flynt dissolve partnership; Fay & Kilbourn, do.; Field & Field do.; Preston & Wetmore do.; O. S. Hunter retires from Morrison & Hunter; Mills & Smith, real estate; L. Preston & Co. removed to Neil's New Block; Kelley & Blackmore, architects.

1850 A directory of the city was published this year by E. Glover and William Henderson. The following business memoranda are mostly taken from its pages: E. Glover, printer, opposite the Franklin House; J. Schoyerer, druggist, Mechanics' Hall; Leamon & Hurley, Marbleworks; A. A. Clark, jeweler, 187 High; Brown & Buck, jewelers, south of Clinton Bank; Hall, Case & Co., manufacturers of edged tools, State Avenue; H. G. Hood, gunsmith, 109 High; B. R. Van Houten, millinery, north of the American; William Say & Co., brewery, corner Front and Mulberry Alley; Lennox & Hegenbotham, machinists, Broad, near Third; Edward T. Rees, saddles, harness and trunks; Reader & Williams, undertakers; Ambos & Lennox, Eagle Foundry and Machine Shop; P. Hayden, manufacturer of builders' and mechanics' hardware, State Avenue, north of Broad; J. H. Felch, draughtsman and engraver; J. Ridgway & Co., castings, plows and steam engines; Gaver & Sewell, merchant tailor, Neil House; V. Burkley & Co., clothing; A. Reed, musical instruments, High, north of Neil House; William Richards, drygoods, Odeon Buildings, High Street; Kelton & Bancroft, drygoods, Commercial Row; B. E. Smith, drygoods, Odeon Buildings; P. Bain, drygoods, next door north of Neil House; Stage & Frisbie, grocers, forwarding and commission, southwest corner High and Friend; O'Reilly's Atlantic, Lake & Mississippi Telegraph, City Bank Building, corner High and State; Ohio Mutual Insurance Company; Wade's Cleveland & Cincinnati Telegraph, Odeon Building; J. H. Stauring, groceries and commission, corner High and South Public Lane; Buttles, Comstock & Co., forwarding and commission, head of the canal; Hanes & George, grocers, forwarding and commission, Buckeye Block; A Frankenberg, drygoods and groceries, 212 High; Fitch & Hale, forwarding and commission, Railroad Building, opposite the Ridgway Foundry;

W. M. Garrett, grocer, High, opposite Franklin House; P. Conrad, grocer, southeast corner Third and Gay; Rufus Main, grocer, 65 High; G. M. Peters, Green Lawn Farm, milk delivery; Bain & Horton, ironmongers, 63 High; George McDonald and John Miller (John Miller & Co.), grocers; J. W. Constans, boots and shoes; J. M. McCune & Co., hard ware; John Rickley, liquors, High, between Town and Rich; F. C. Sessions & Co. (F. C. Sessions, L. B. Harris), drygoods, four doors south of the American Hotel; Kilbourn & Jones, hardware, Goodale's Row; J. D. Osborn & Co., drygoods.

With such imperfect resources as have been available, this record has now been brought up to a point where it connects with the city directories. There, for the present, it will rest.

The following interesting sketch of the later drygoods trade, by Mr. William G. Dunn, one of the veterans of that trade, fitly concludes this chapter:

After an experience of thirtyfive years in the City and State of New York as a retailer of drygoods (except four years as a buyer in a wholesale house) I looked for a location further west, and finally decided upon Columbus, Ohio, where I opened business under the firm name of William G. Dunn & Co., in April, 1869. I chose Columbus because it was pleasantly and centrally situated with a good prospect for enlargement; also because the drygoods business there did not seem to be overdone, and was conducted upon the oldtime plans, trade being held to each store mainly by the influence of the salesman and credit, as it still is in many country stores. The influence of the salesman was more depended upon than the value of the goods. The retail business was at that time all done south of Broad Street, and mostly on High Street, but there were som › store; on Town and Friend streets. The firms then in existence were Osborn, Kershaw & Co., Hea lley & Co., Gilchrist & Gray, Richards & Holmes, James Naughton, Fay & Co., Jesse Stone, Kenyon & Wiggin, Bell & Co., Eberly, and a few smaller stores on Friend Street and South High.

I hired my first store of Mr. David Deshler from April 1, 1869, on the corner of North High and Linden Alley. The good old gentleman very kindly cautioned me, as he feared it was too far north for a retail store to succeed; several merchants also expressed the same opinion. I opened at the appointed time, and was successful from the start. The people seemed pleased with a one price store and good merchandise. Our sales the first year amounted to $170,000. From that time until my close I have had a very steady business, running up as high as $273,000 per year My trade has embraced not only a large number of Columbus families, but also many from neighboring cities. When we changed to the department system, we lost considerable country trade, as our customers still desired to deal with the clerks they were acquainted with, and go all round the store with them; but our loss was more than made up by increase of trale, in the city. Most of the larger stores now conduct their business on the department plan.

In the year 1885 I purchased a lot on which I built, in 1886, my present store on the east side of High Street, between Gay and Long. Many persons prophesied failure, but the store being light and convenient, it helped the business and our family trade steadily increased. This year, 1889, I have withdrawn from the active part of the business and changed the firm name to Dunn, Taft & Co.

During the last twenty years 1869 to 1889-many changes have taken place, and I believe but one firm retains its original name, viz. James Naughten. A few retired, some failed, others removed on account of the strong competition, and some new firms were made out of old ones. There are nearly, perhaps quite, fifty drygoods stores in this city today, and there are many more in the outskirts of the city than there used to be. The expense of carrying on the business is much greater than it was twenty years ago, and especially so in the heart of the city. The people are wealthier, and require more attention and larger

stocks; but larger stocks mean more taxes, and more attention means more clerks and expenses, as do also the telephone, electric light, delivery of goods, use of water, steam heat, cleaning and sprinkling streets, private watchmen, and sundry other necessaries not incident to the carlier trade. To offset these difficulties we have an increased volume of trade in the sale of better goods which also pay a better profit. Homespun goods, or their imitations, such as flannels, jeans, carpets, hosiery, etc., can hardly be sold at all; even country people want more stylish and better fabrics. To illustrate, we can hardly sell any but "regular made" hosiery, whereas we used to sell almost altogether the cutup hosiery.

Such are some of the more recent changes in the retail trade in drygoods. Other branches of mercantile business, such as the traffic in groceries, drugs, and hardware, have undergone a like metamorphosis. The general store, in which the people of the olden times were accustomed to purchase everything they wanted, from silks to sugar, and from books to whisky, has vanished from the path of metropolitan progress. New modes of life have produced new wants and new methods of supplying them which, less than a generation ago, were unknown and scarcely thought of

CHAPTER XXVI.

BANKS AND BANKING.

BY JOHN J. JANNEY.

[John Jay Janney was born near Lincoln, then known as Goose Creek Meetinghouse, Loudoun County, Virginia, April 25, 1812. The founder of the Janney family in this country was Thomas Janney, an eminent clergyman, who arrived at Philadelphia in 1683, and settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Janney, the subject of this sketch, was just one month old when his father died leaving him solely to the care of his mother. From his sixth to his fifteenth year he attended the Friends' school at the Goose Creek Meetinghouse, and at the age of twenty spent six months in a day school at Alexandria. Dissatisfied with the institution of slavery, he quitted his native State and removed to Warren County, Ohio, where, from 1833 to 1848, he was engaged in teaching, landsurveying, and, for a short time, in keeping a village store. For three winters, beginning with that of 1844-5, he served as a clerk in the lower house of the General Assembly. In the autumn of 1847 the Hon. Samuel Gallo · way, then Secretary of the State and Commissioner of Common Schools, tendered him the position of chief clerk in his office, which position Mr. Janney accepted and held until the end of Mr. Galloway's term in 1851, by which time, without his knowledge, he had been elected Secretary of the Board of Control of the State Bank of Ohio, in which capacity he served until the expiration of the charter of the Bank in 1865. He was then appointed and served for one year as Assistant Postmaster of Columbus, from which position he passed to that of Secretary and Treasurer of the Columbus & Hocking Valley Railway Company, wherein he remained until July, 1881, when the road was sold to nonresidents. Mr. Janney has always been fond of literature and busy with his pen. A friend of free schools, he wrote the first official decision ever made in Ohio, giving colored children a place in the common schools of the State. He aided in establishing a public library, which is still in existence, at Springboro, Ohio, and soon after his removal to Columbus took a prominent part in establishing the Atheneum Library and Readingroom. As a member of the City Council he was the author of an ordinance passed by that body January 15, 1872, establishing the present Public Library and Readingroom of this city. Mr. Janney has been repeatedly elected and appointed to positions in the municipal and township government. From 1852 to 1855 he was a member of the City Board of Education, of which body he was for two years the Treasurer. He was a member of the Board of Health in 1867; a member of the City Council from 1868 to 1871; Trustee and Treasurer of the Public Library and Readingroom from 1880 to 1886; Director of the Columbus Atheneum and Readingroom from 1853 to 1858; Director of the Ohio Penitentiary in 1861; member of the Board of Police Commissioners; member of the Tyndall Association from 1870 to 1880; member of the Columbus Horticultural Society, and part of the time its Secretary, from 1850 to the present time; member of the State Horticultural Society since 1880; member and Treasurer of the Prisoners' Aid Society, the predecessor and forerunner of the present Board of State Charities; a teacher in the Sabbathschool of the Ohio Penitentiary from 1850 to 1865; Chairman, Secretary or Treasurer of the Whig and Republican city and county committees during many years, and Secretary and Treasurer of the Republican State Committee during the memorable campaigns of 1863 and

1864. Mr. Janney's parents were members of the religious society of Friends, to which he has also borne a lifetime attachment, and in the yearly meetings of which, at Waynesville or Richmond, Indiana, he has taken an active part.]

At the time of, and during many years subsequent to the location and establishment of the city of Columbus, the business of banking, not only in Ohio but throughout the country, was in a very crude and chaotic state. Generally the socalled banks of that day were established literally without capital or experience on the part of the manager. Notes for circulation were scarce, and when obtained were of very doubtful value. In a communication to the legislature of Ohio, by Ralph Osborn, Auditor of State, in the winter of 1820, on Finances and Rates of Taxation, he said:

Having previously written to the officers of the banks on the subject of exchange in May last, I called upon the officers of the banks to redeem their paper with current funds, and from the Miami Exporting Company, five thousand dollars in specie was obtained; four thousand dollars deposited on interest, the residue retained (being then to'erable current) for the purpose of redeeming Audited Bills. The balance of that paper remaining in the treasury and on deposit is $11,081.00.

With the Bank of Cincinnati no exchange could be had; and after gaining every possible information of the solvency of this institution, and being assured by the officers that every honorable means should be used for the speedy redemption of their paper, a deposit of that paper was made, bearing interest, being in amount $6,801; a hundred dollar post note being rejected, as an altered note, $6.901.

With the Lebanon Miami Banking Company, a small exchange was made.

With the Urbana Banking Company no exchange could be made; having demanded of the cashier the endorsement of their paper, he objected, and I declined making the deposit, they having previously failed in their engagements with the late Treasurer of State, to this department.

With the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Cincinnati nothing could be obtained in exchange but one hundred and seventy dollars of scrip of the Corporation of Cincinnati, bearing interest; the notes on hand and scrip are in amount $409.

For the paper of the banks of Burlington, Greensburg, Georgetown and Columbia (Ken.) no exchange could be had in that State; the amount of which is $60.

No opportunity yet offered to try the exchange of the following paper, but I have no doubt the greater part is irremediably lost to the State: