Salesmanship helped get Columbus started in 1812

Columbus is a city occasionally concerned with selling itself to a waiting world.

There’s an ongoing interest in the image of Columbus – or the lack thereof – as the town presents itself to the public. New York is the Big Apple. Chicago is the Windy City. Cincinnati is the Queen City. And Columbus is and always has been – the Capital City. Perhaps that is identity enough; it certainly has been for its more than 210-year history.

Columbus is a created city. There was no town on the place known as Wolf’s Ridge until the Ohio General Assembly brought it into being on Feb. 14, 1812, to be a new capital city.

There had been many proposals put forth by various towns offering inducements to their location. In the end, the General Assembly accepted the proposal of four proprietors who offered 10 acres for a statehouse, 10 acres for a penitentiary and $50,000 – an immense sum at that time – for other improvements.

The four proprietors offered the site at the “Forks of the Scioto” as a civic obligation to the state and as a recognition that a central site made access to government easier for all Ohioans.

But with their ownership of the rest of the town plot, they also hoped to make some money selling lots of lots to lots of people. In an era before radio, television or the internet and not all that many literate residents, they sought buyers with an advertisement in local newspapers.

“FOR SALE: On the premises, commencing on Thursday, the eighteenth day of June next, and to continue for three days, in- and out-lots in the town of Columbus, established by an act of the legislature, as the permanent seat of government for the State of Ohio,” the ad read.

“Terms of Sale: One fifth of the purchase money will be required in hand; the residue to be paid in four equal annual installments,” it continued. “The town of Columbus is situated on an elevated and beautiful site, on the east side of the Scioto River, immediately below the junction of the Whetstone Branch, and opposite to Franklinton, the seat of justice for Franklin County, in the center of an extensive tract of rich fertile country, from which there is an easy navigation to the Ohio River.

“Above the town, the west branch of the Scioto affords a good navigation for about eighty miles, and the Whetstone Branch as far as the town of Worthington. Sandusky Bay, the only harbor on the south shore of Lake Erie (except Presque Isle) for vessels of Burthen, is situated due north of Columbus, and about one hundred miles from it.

“An excellent road may be made with very little expense from Lower Sandusky town (Fremont) to the mouth of the Little Scioto, a distance of about sixty miles. This will render the communication from the lakes to the Ohio River through the Scioto very easy by which route an immense trade must, at a day not very distant, be carried on which will make the country on the Scioto River rich and populous. The proprietors of the town of Columbus will, by every means in their power, encourage industrious mechanics who wish to make a residence in the town. All such are invited to become purchasers.

“Dated at Franklinton, April 13, 1812, and signed by the four proprietors (Lyne Starling, John Kerr, James Johnston, Alexander Mclaughlin).”

A later history of the city reported on the response to the advertisement.

“The widespread interest which had already been excited by the movement to found a new state capital in the woods of central Ohio was intensified by these alluring statements. Attracted by them, lot buyers and home-seekers came from near and far to view the ‘high bank of the Scioto’ of which so much had been said. They found very little there except paper plats and freshly driven stakes to indicate a town, or even a settlement, yet the promises of nature and of destiny alike conspired to make the locality interesting.

“Pursuant to announcement, the sales began on the eighteenth of June, 1812, and continued until they were sufficient to justify the commencement of public buildings. The lots sold were located mostly on Broad and High Streets and brought from two hundred to one thousand dollars each.”

As it turned out, the optimism of the proprietors and the initial purchasers was a bit premature. June 18, 1812, was the date the U.S. went to war with Great Britain. The War of 1812 continued for several years, and Franklinton prospered as a military base while little happened in Columbus.

The legislature began meeting in Columbus in 1816, while discovering that road and river traffic would be difficult. Columbus was an isolated frontier village and would remain one until the Ohio and Erie Canal and the National Road arrived in the 1830s.

Two of the proprietors – Starling and Kerr – died wealthy. The other two – Johnston and Mclaughlin – made bad decisions and died in poverty. Columbus, however, survived early setbacks and grew to become the largest city in land area and population in the state.

Local historian and author Ed Lentz writes the As It Were column for Thisweek Community News and The Dispatch.