HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY
CHAPTER XXI.
LANCASTER AS AN INCORPORATED VILLAGE AND CITY---FORMATION OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY.
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Samuel Rainey, elected in 1881, is the present incumbent. The city elections are held on the first Monday of each April. The financial showing fifty years later than the foregoing exhibit, by way of contrast, will measure the growth of the population and business of Lancaster for a half century. The gross receipts for the two years of 1875 to 1877, from all sources, for city purposes, and not in- cluding school funds, as shown by the treasurer's books, was $61,437.56; and the total expenditures for the same time, not including school funds, was $53,220.08, leaving a balance to the credit of the city of $8,217.78. There is likewise a showing, that during the two former years, $5.00 were paid to Thomas Ewing by the village for legal advice, and that during the two latter years, about $1000.00 were paid for counsel. The burdens the city bears is a legitimate part of its history. It supports ten churches at an annual expense of about $15,000, exclusive of Sunday school and missionary collections, and the building and repairing of church edifices. The amount levied on the city for corpora- tion purposes, and to meet the interest on city bonds, school bonds and other purposes, with not fall short of $30,000 annually. In addition to the foregoing the city has built---within the last ten or fifteen years two new school buildings, at a cost of about $80,000, including the cost of building lots. The annual levy for school purposes alone, including interest on school bonds, is about $26,000. These burdens are sustained by a population of something less than eight thousand souls. Lancaster has always, until within the last twenty-five or thirty years, been a slow-growing, conservative community, though possess- ing many superior local advantages. But its growth has been steady and substantial. There are perhaps a greater proportion of its citizens who live under their own roofs, than any other town of Ohio of equal or approximate population. Within the last dozen or more years, its manufacturing and other interests have been greatly extended. Lancaster has acquired abroad, a reputation almost classic, more especially in its early history, which it owes not to its institutions of learning, but to an unusually large number of distinguished citizens who found their way to it. The death rate in Lancaster during forty years is probably in about the same ratio of other communities, though the place sustains a repu- tation for general healthfulness and exemption from epidemic disease. The epidemic of 1823, elsewhere referred to, has never had an approx- imate parallel in the place. But the natural death rate may be noticed. The citizens of Lancaster of forty years ago, who were past the middle age, and who were the leading business men and women of the place are all dead. Less than a dozen business men of Lancaster of 1840 are alive, and the few there are of them remaining have, with few exceptions, retired from active duty. An entirely new popu- lation has come in. The Lancaster of to-day is in no respect the Lancaster of forty years ago, neither socially, commercially nor in any single one of its features. In August 1850, Lancaster suffered a visitation of cholera. The disease was prevailing in Columbus at the time, and it was supposed to have been brought to Lancaster by a foot-man, who walked down142
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of this ground have been sold as town lots and improved. Up to the present time more than twenty other additions have been added to the original plat of the town of Lancaster. The Hop Company addition, comprising the northeast part of the Fifth ward is among the largest. Its principal street is Hop avenue, running north and south. This is properly Talmade's addition, as Theodore Talmade laid the ground off into town lots after having purchased it of the Hop Company, in which he was a large stockholder. The ground originally contained about eighty acres. Joseph C. Kinkead laid out an addition, situated chiefly between the north end of Broadway and Chestnut streets. Thomas Ewing's addition was to the southeast corner of the city, and extended down to the east graveyard. Hunter's addition borders on the west side of the east graveyard, embracing Maple street. There is also an addition called "Hunter's heirs' addition," all belonging to the original tract. Carter's addition lies along Main street, east of the hill. John C. Weaver. being the owner of some land over the hill and in the present southeast part of the city, laid it off into lots, which he sold. John G. Willock made an addition to the north part of town. His lots were on North Broadway near the fair grounds. The Wagonhals addition is on North Columbus street, in the northwest part of the city. At an early day a man named Branstadt laid out and sold a number of lots in what is now known as the "Hood neighborhood." John Latta laid off and sold some lots lying north of Mill street, between Broadway and Columbus streets. The section of buildings south of Columbus street, between Pratt's tanyard and the old Logan road, is known as Giesy addition. Daniel Sefford made two additions to Lancaster, one east of the hill and on the north of the Zanesville pike, the other north of Mill street, between Broadway,and Columbus street. Hugh Boyle's addition was on Mulberry street, embracing the Keitz corner, and extended up Broadway to the first alley on the north side, and also extending on Columbus street. Henry Sutsen sold some lots on the west side of the canal, embracing the old tanyard. East of Broadway and south of Main street, additions were made to the original plat of Lan- caster by Michael Garaghty, John Reber, and Jesse B. Hart. The Cox heirs' addition is principally on King street, between Broadway and High streets. Abraham Syfert made a small addition to East Lancaster. Thomas Sturgeon has made additions to various parts of the city, but chiefly to the northeast part, on both sides of Mulberry street, east of High street. John H. Tennent sold one tier of lots on the south side of Chestnut street and west from Maple. Tunis Cox was the proprietor of a small addition of town lots in the vicinity of the old starch factory, on the north bank of the canal. Rising's addition comprises a number of lots in the north part of the city, lying between Broadway and Columbus streets. The plat of a town of the same size as Lancaster was originally is among the county records, though not half a dozen persons now living have ever heard of it. The name of this paper creation was "The Town of Fairfield." It was surveyed and platted by John Murphy in 1802, and was regularly entered in the recorder's office. The lots were all numbered and the streets named. It is not certain that any lots144
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