Alfred Kelley
Alfred Kelley was a banker, canal builder, lawyer, railroad executive, and state legislator in the state of Ohio in the United States. He is considered by historians to be one of the most prominent commercial, financial, and political Ohioans of the first half of the 19th century.
Kelley is known as the "Father of the Ohio and Erie Canal" for his successful legislative attempt to establish the Ohio and Erie Canal. He was one of the canal's first two "acting commissioners", and oversaw its construction and completion. He was the president of Columbus and Xenia Railroad and the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, and pushed for a state charter for the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad. For this, he is known as the architect of Ohio's rail system.
As a member of the Canal Commission Fund, he helped save Ohio from bankruptcy in 1841 and 1842. As a state legislator, he led the investigation into and secured the resignation of two Ohio State Treasurers for financial malfeasance, successfully proposed legislation abolishing imprisonment for debt, created the State Bank of Ohio, reformed the state's tax system, and successfully proposed legislation to create the first state oversight of public education.
Kelley was notably the first lawyer and prosecuting attorney in Cleveland. He became the youngest member of the Ohio General Assembly at the age of 25, and returned to the legislature numerous times, until he became the oldest serving in the assembly.
Early years
Alfred Kelley was born in Middlefield, Connecticut, on November 7, 1789, to Daniel and Jemima Kelley. He was the second of six children. The Kelleys were of English descent, having lived in Connecticut since at least 1690. The Stows were an important English land-owning family which emigrated to Massachusetts in 1630 and then Connecticut in 1650.Alfred's uncle, Silas Stow, was the land agent for Nicholas Low, who owned the township that later became Lowville, New York. At the urging of Silas Stow, the Kelleys moved to Lowville in the winter of 1798–1799. Daniel built and operated a gristmill, and Jemima dispensed medication and medical treatment to the settlers in the area. Having attended public school in Middlefield and Lowville, Alfred enrolled at Fairfield Academy in Fairfield, New York, in 1804. Daniel Kelley was appointed a judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas in 1805, and held various other public offices in Lowville and Oneida County. The Kelleys became moderately wealthy. In 1807, Alfred began the study of law under Jonas Pratt, a judge of the New York Supreme Court.
Daniel Kelley was increasingly unhappy with the Stow family's liberal religious views, which were beginning to influence his sons. Another of Alfred's uncles, Joshua Stow, was one of the original investors in the Connecticut Land Company. By royal charter, the Connecticut Colony laid claim to most of the lands west of the colony between the 41st and 42nd parallels of north latitude. In 1786, Connecticut ceded all its land claims to the government of the United States in exchange for cancellation of its American Revolutionary War debts. Connecticut retained only those lands known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, an area bounded by Lake Erie on the north, Pennsylvania on the east, and the 41st parallel of north latitude on the south. The Western Reserve extended for exactly to the west, and came to an abrupt halt. On August 3, 1795, the state of Connecticut sold the Western Reserve to the Connecticut Land Company for $1.2 million. Joshua Stow was a member of the party led by Moses Cleaveland which surveyed the Western Reserve in 1796. Encouraged by his uncle's descriptions of the lush lands of the Western Reserve, Alfred's eldest brother, Datus, traveled to the nascent settlement of Cleveland in early 1810. Although he returned almost immediately, Alfred emigrated to Cleveland in May 1810. He made the journey on horseback, accompanied by Joshua Stow and a medical student, Jared Potter Kirtland.
Business and legal career in Cleveland
Alfred Kelley was admitted to the bar on November 7, 1810. He was the first lawyer to practice in Cleveland. The local court immediately appointed him prosecuting attorney for Cuyahoga County—a position he held until 1822. In one of his most notable cases, he prosecuted a slave-hunter for kidnapping in 1820. He won the case.In 1811, Kelley and 16 others formed the first library association in Cuyahoga County.
Largely through the efforts of Kelley, Cleveland was incorporated as a village by the state of Ohio on December 23, 1814. The village's first elections were held on June 5, 1815, and Kelley was elected the first president of the village unanimously. Kelley held the position only a few months, resigning on March 19, 1816.
Kelley bought several properties in and around Cleveland. In 1814, he purchased a parcel of land near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. This property was defined by Water Street in the east, W. Lakeside Avenue on the south, the Cuyahoga River on the west, and Lake Erie on the north. Kelley constructed a home on this land in 1816. It was only the second brick house in the village of Cleveland. The structure was intended as a residence for his parents, but his mother died before it was completed. Kelley and his wife took up residence there instead, occupying the house until 1827. Kelley and his brothers Datus and Irad formed a general store in January 1815. They erected a brick building on Superior Avenue at the intersection with Bank Street. Kelley also purchased a peninsula on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River, where he established a farm. In 1833, he sold most of this land to local merchant Joel Scranton. The area thereafter became known as "Scranton Flats" or the "Scranton Peninsula".
Kelley was a major investor in and helped organize the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie in August 1816. It was the first bank in Cleveland. The bank survived the Panic of 1819, but its finances were in such disarray that it was reorganized in 1820. Kelley was named one of 11 members of the reorganized bank's board of directors, and elected the bank's president in 1823. The bank's charter expired in 1842, its affairs wound up, and its assets distributed to its investors in 1845.
The same year that Kelley helped organize the Commercial Bank, he and 13 others formed the Cleveland Pier Company to build a pier into Lake Erie. This structure, located at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, was erected on sand without pilings and storms soon destroyed it.
On March 2, 1817, Kelley met with eight others in Brooklyn Township to form an Episcopal congregation named Trinity Parish. Holding services in the township, Cleveland, and occasionally in the village of Euclid, it was the first Christian church formally organized in Cuyahoga County.
Early legislative career
In October 1814, Alfred Kelley was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. He was the youngest member of the state legislature, barely old enough to meet the Ohio constitution's age requirement for holding public office. He was re-elected in 1815 and 1816.Kelley did not seek office in 1817 or 1818, but was elected again to the House in 1819. He served a single term, and did not run for reelection. His legislative accomplishments in this short period were numerous. Kelley successfully proposed that the Ohio House create a finance committee, and the members elected him its first chair. Within weeks, he authored a report which argued for taxation of land according to value and not use. No action was taken on the report; it would not be until 1846 that the state's property tax laws were changed. Kelley was also one of five members of the legislature appointed to a special committee to investigate financial malfeasance by Hiram M. Curry, the Ohio State Treasurer, and his predecessor, William McFarland, both of whom had incurred substantial deficits, embezzled funds, and exhibited incompetence. Curry resigned, the first state official to do so for corruption. Some of Kelley's legislative proposals were less successful. He introduced the first bill barring imprisonment for debt, but it did not pass. He also supported a bill to allow free African Americans to testify in court against white citizens, but this also did not win enactment.
Involvement with the Ohio & Erie Canal
Support for a north-south canal in Ohio
In 1816, the state of New York asked the state of Ohio's aid in building the Erie Canal. The request was referred to the Ohio House committee on public works, which was chaired by Kelley. He wrote a report endorsing the project, but the Ohio General Assembly did not act on New York's request. Kelley and others came to believe that a canal linking the Ohio River with Lake Erie would greatly benefit Ohio. They frequently communicated with New York Governor DeWitt Clinton and those building the Erie Canal, and circulated glowing reports about construction progress and the ease with which financing was obtained. They also worked to build a coalition strong enough to overcome parochial opposition to an Ohio canal.In one of his first acts as Governor of Ohio, in December 1818 Ethan Allen Brown proposed construction of a canal between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. A financial panic occurred between March and August 1818 that led to a severe national recession that militated against any consideration of a major spending bill like the canal. The recession finally eased in the spring of 1821.
Role on the investigating commission
Kelley was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1821 and again in 1822. On January 31, 1822, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation authorizing the appointment of a commission to investigate the feasibility of building the canal proposed by Governor Brown. Five different routes were described in the authorization bill, and the commission was charged with assessing each of them. The seven individuals appointed to the commission were Ethan Allen Brown, newly sworn in on January 3 as a U.S. Senator; Ebenezer Buckingham Jr., who had surveyed much of central Ohio; former Madison County judge Isaac Miner; former U.S. Senator Jeremiah Morrow; former Ohio State Senator and prominent Steubenville attorney Benjamin Tappan; former governor and U.S. Senator Thomas Worthington; and Alfred Kelley. Morrow resigned after being elected governor of Ohio in the fall of 1822, and was replaced by Micajah Williams, a Cincinnati banker, on January 27, 1823.Kelley drafted the report of the investigatory commission. He grasped the need for a statewide transportation network, and realized that only the state government could be the catalyst for making this improvement. His expansive vision for the state was moderated by a strong commitment to careful planning and strong cost–benefit analysis.
Kelley and Williams did most of the work of the investigating commission. They examined and surveyed routes, collected data, wrote economic studies, and analyzed construction techniques to determine the best means of building the canal. Kelley traveled to New York to see the kind of construction technology used there, consulted with Erie Canal construction supervisors and state officials, and procured as much information as he could on how the canal was financed. Kelley purchased engineering and surveying instruments from firms on the East Coast, identified engineers available to work on the canal, and obtained a $1,400 appropriation for the State Library of Ohio so it could purchase books on canal engineering and construction. This work gave Kelley critical insight into the importance of design and the mastery of detail.
The investigating commission issued its report on January 21, 1824. The report recommended that the northern terminus be near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. The canal route followed the Cuyahoga from Cleveland to Akron, the Tuscarawas River from Akron through Dover to Coshocton, the Muskingum River from Coshocton to Zanesville, and the Licking River from Zanesville to Newark. The proposed route then proceeded overland from Newark south to Licking Summit Reservoir and then overland again to Baltimore and Carroll before turning northwest toward Canal Winchester. Thereafter, the report recommended that the canal generally follow Big Walnut Creek to Columbus, and then the Scioto River south from Columbus through Chillicothe to Portsmouth on the Ohio River. The investigating commission also recommended simultaneous construction of the Miami and Erie Canal from Cincinnati at least as far as Dayton.
Opponents of the canal accused Kelley and other investigating commissioners of recommending a route along which they already owned land, enriching themselves. These accusations appear unfounded. The commission had surveyed the other routes and extensively documented their unfeasibility, and historian Harry N. Schreiber has observed that there is no evidence in the commission's papers or Kelley's private correspondence to suggest any impropriety. Nor did the report actually designate Cleveland as the northern terminus. Instead, it required the canal to be built along the route with the most water.
To placate its critics, the investigating commission had the route between Sandusky and Columbus resurveyed by a new engineer. Once more, the investigating committee rejected this route as lacking enough water to sustain the canal. The investigating commission issued its updated report on January 8, 1825.