The section of the Miami and Erie canal connecting Dayton and Cincinnati opened in 1829 and the railroads started to arrive in the 1850s.
But before then you could still travel between the Gem and Queen cities.
The details are described by Dayton biographer Charlotte Reeve Conover in her work Dayton, Ohio: An Intimate History, originally published in 1931.
As Conover describes, one of the visionary ideas of the early 1800s
was a weekly passenger and mail service between Cincinnati and Dayton … The roads were still bad but improving, as they always do under the inevitable demands of wheeled vehicles.
When passengers were exasperated to the proper pitch by the number of ribs they sacrificed to the jolting on the trip up from Cincinnati, the beginnings of the Dixie Highway were laid …
When enough passengers got wet crossing fords they demanded more and better bridges. In 1818 the first weekly coach service was started between Dayton, Franklin, Middletown and Hamilton and in 1819 the first bridge was built over the river at Stratford Avenue and Salem Avenue.
The roads were toll roads and the bridges were toll bridges. Tollhouses stood at equal distances which protected against violators of the law by leaning poles like a well-sweep across the road which the toll keeper could lower and raise at will.
In those years the journey to Cincinnati was a long one. Conover continues:
On Third Street in front of the courthouse (which in 1818 was a two story building flush with the sidewalk) was the starting and arriving place for the Cincinnati stages.
Twelve persons could be accommodated in each vehicle; three on the back seat, three on the front, three on smaller seats between the two and two beside the driver. At first there were no springs, later these were supplied.
Eight cents a mile was the fare and fourteen pounds the allowance per person for baggage. The Cincinnati coach left Dayton at five o’clock Friday morning and arrived at its destination late on Saturday evening, Friday night being spent at Hamilton.
Today we might complain about traffic on I-75, but at least we don’t have to leave at 5am, sit with eleven other people, pay tolls to cross bridges and make an overnight stop on our way.
Photo credit Dayton Metro Library
You spoke of a journey from Dayton to Cincinnatt by canal boat and train but your photos are only about the portion
Of the route in Dayton. Are there remaininh structures between the two cities or have these been lost to history? What obstacles were encountered along the way? Did they build any tunnels? Were parts of the canal route above ground level on bridges? Are there any surviving canal houses or locks? How many men worked on the pfoject? Were they native born, Irish of Chinese? There is so much more to know about this early achievement