was brought from Franklinton. In after years Mr. Robe was a teacher in the Worthington Academy. Mr. Griswold opened the first tavern in the colony in his cabin on his arrival in 1803, and in 1805 built the first frame house in the settlement. In this cabin was also kept the first store of the colony. The store-keeper was Nathan Stewart, who was also a distiller.

The colony was well provided for the winter, and, owing to the foresight of its founders, the people were spared many of the privations of pioneer life. Most of their supplies could be obtained at Franklinton, where the mail was secured; or, by going down the river, if open, to Chillicothe, many of the luxuries of life could be obtained.

People are inclined to "link their fortunes" under all conditions of life. February 10, 1804, ere the colony was a year old, Thomas Stevens, Esq., of Franklinton, in the log school house in that village, united in marriage Abner P. Pinney and Miss Polly Morrison, and Levi Pinney and Miss Charlotte Beach, every one in the village being present.

The spring of 1804 larger clearings were made, and more extensive crops planted. No new settlers seemed to have arrived, and no deaths occurred, hence the number of inhabitants remained the same. As the summer advanced, preparations to celebrate the Fourth of July in the best style possible, were made. A novel and ingenious plan was evolved by some patriot. At that time the Union was comprised of seventeen states, Ohio being the last one admitted. Seventeen gigantic trees, representing the several states, were simultaneously felled at sunrise, the crash of their downfall and the cheers of the people resounding through the forest. The Declaration of Independence was, no doubt, read, and the usual flow of Independence oratory undoubtedly prevailed. Drunkenness was not countenanced, and here was held one of the first temperance Fourth of July celebrations in Ohio. Nearly all adults of this colony were members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and here, in this settlement, was constituted the first church of this denomination in Ohio. Mr. Kilbourn had charge of the church and officiated several years as its minister. He also visited other parts of Ohio, baptized children and performed other duties in

cumbent on him in this office. At one time he was called to preach in the hall of the General Assembly in Chillicothe, both houses adjourning to hear him. The growing colony demanded more and more his attention, and finally, after inducing Bishop Chase to come to Ohio in 1817, he relinquished all ministerial duties.

Two years after the colony was started, Mr. Kilbourn built a grist mill on the Olentangy. Two years after, Preserved Leonard brought water from Brush Creek in troughs, about onefourth of a mile. Water thus brought, turned an overshot wheel. In 1804, Colonel Kilbourn erected the first brick house in the settlement, which is yet, I think, standing. In May of this year he also surveyed the village plat. In 1805, he was appointed a civil magistrate, and captain of all the militia of the frontier. The Greenville treaty line was only twenty-eight miles north of Worthington, and hence, the duties devolving upon him as guardian of the people's safety, were by no means light. He opened an Indian trading house, where he became acquainted with the natives, and wherein he also made money by their trade.

In 1805, he explored the south shore of Lake Erie, and selected the site of Sandusky City as a trading point. It was almost due north from Worthington, and became a great northern depot for trade in the Scioto valley. Soon after he was appointed by Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, Surveyor of Public Lands, and under his direction, in nine years the survey was completed. In 1806, he was one of the first trustees of the Ohio University at Athens, and two years after was also appointed one of three commissioners to locate the seat of Miami University. About the same time he was elected major of the frontier regiment, then lieutenant colonel, and finally, during his absence, and against his will, colonel, which latter office he declined to fill, resigning his commission.

Worthington College was chartered in 1817, and Colonel Kilbourn elected President of the corporation, which office he filled several terms. This year, he was appointed by the President, the commissioner to settle the boundary line between the public lands and the great Virginia reservation. This duty was

performed amid much peril and hardship. Soon after its completion he was elected to the Thirteenth Congress. During his absence he was unanimously re-elected colonel, and this time accepted the office. In 1814, he was re-elected to Congress and served one term, declining a re-nomination. About this time he also embarked in the manufacture of woolens, expecting the war tariff would continue, which, however, was not the case, and about 1820 he found himself, at the age of fifty years, almost penniless. His large family was unprovided for; large unproductive mills at Steubenville and at Worthington were on his hands, and he must begin life anew. His rod and compass were resorted to again, and as a result, more roads, townships, boundary lines, etc., were surveyed by him than by any other person in this part of Ohio. He soon acquired a comfortable property, and was soon also engrossed in public affairs.

This company through which his losses occurred, the Worthington Manufacturing Company, was established by Colonel Kilbourn and others. Colonel Kilbourn was President

and general manager. A large factory was built in 1814 or 1815, on a tract of land west of town, where woolen cloth was made, leather tanned, cabinet work done, and hats and caps. manufactured. Stores were opened in Franklinton, and in the new State Capital, then two or three years old, and employment furnished many people. Paper money was issued and a sort of banking business carried on. The company failed in 1819 or 1820, with large losses to all investors. Worthington has the distinction of being the first town in this part of Ohio to start a newspaper. In 1811, Colonel Kilbourn and a few friends started the Western Intelligence, a small, energetic four page sheet, issued weekly. Two years later the paper was sold to Columbus parties, who moved it, with the printing office, to that growing town, where it became established, and where, to-day, its continuous successor lives as the Ohio State Journal.

In 1823-4, Colonel Kilbourn was a member of the Ohio Legislature; again in 1838–39, the latter year being also presiding officer at the ceremonies of laying the corner-stone of Ohio's present Capitol. The next year he was presiding officer of the

great Whig convention, held February 22. Colonel Kilbourn was, by this time, seventy years of age, and, beginning to feel the infirmities of life, he declined all public trusts, save that of assessor for Franklin county, which office he filled until 1845. During this time he delivered many public addresses on all varieties of national and state questions, his interest in public affairs continuing to the end of his days.

The decline of life came about 1848, and two years after, at the ripe old age of eighty years, he died at his home in Worthington. He had seen the place a forest-a wilderness; he left it the homes of affluence, and the dream of his life, the labor of his body and mind fulfilled.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN OHIO.

PROF. WILBUR H. SIEBERT, A. M.

It is a rare reform movement that begins with a concensus of opinion in favor of the reform among the thinking men of the day. We have, nevertheless, such a movement to consider in this paper.

It is strange, indeed, but nevertheless true, that at first there was general agreement North and South, that slavery was expensive, wicked, cruel, detrimental to a developing statehood, destructive of public as well as private morality. Those who used their eyes to see and were in localities where they could observe, were most outspoken in their condemnation of slavery, most favorable to its abolition. We need not be surprised then to find southern gentlemen like Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Gadsden, Laurence and Pickney in agreement with northern philanthropists like Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, Hamilton, Livingston, Governor Morris and others in the declaration made by Mr. Madison, viz., that he thought "it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of property in men."* Roger Sherman expressed, no doubt, a general hope when he stated that "the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States, and that the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it." It seems clear, moreover, that in this early period the prevailing sentiment of the people—the multitude of the South, as in the North, was "decidedly opposed to slavery." The evil was thus generally admitted to be an evil, and no one openly advocated its perpetuation."†

It is a sad fact, nevertheless, that slavery did perpetuate

Given under the auspices of The Ohio Archæalogical and Historical Society, in the Entertainment Room, Trinity Parish House, Columbus, O., Tuesday evening, November 13, 1894.

* "An Hist. Research, respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, as Soldiers," by Geo. Livermore, 1863, p. 51.

† Supra, p. 22.