Lowell, Ohio History

The mail left Marietta every Thursday at 1 P. M. and arrived in Zanesville the following Monday at 8 A. M. When the first post office was established, the roads were well enough improved for the trip from Marietta to Zanesville to be made in 13 hours. Stagecoach horses were changed in the vicinity, tradition says at a barn behind E. Short's store. The Muskingum Valley Turnpike Company was incorporated in 1833, and the turnpike (through Lowell) was finished that year. Among the nine directors elected at the Marietta courthouse in 1839 were P. B. Buell and E. Short of Adams. Thirty-five years before this (1798) the first mail route in Ohio had traversed Adams Township from Marietta to Zanesville. Over this route, mail went from Marietta about noon on Thursday to arrive at Zanesville the following Monday.

 

From 1830 until December 1, 1968, Lowell's Post Office had been kept usually in the residence, tavern, or store of the successive postmasters. Adams Township's first post office was actually not in Lowell. There was another settlement about four miles up Cat's Creek, which apparently showed more promise in the early part of the 1800s as a post office was opened there about October 17, 1813.

 

This post office was located at Wheelock's Fulling Mill, and Daniel W. Wheelock was appointed the first and only postmaster. Mr. Wheelock's partners briefly in the milling business were Russel and Stephen Miller and Aratas Sadler, but this partnership had dissolved that year, leaving Mr. Wheelock to carry on the business that specialized in cloth dressing.

 

This post office was called "Cat's Creek Mills" and was discontinued in 1817. A mill continued operating there as late as 1875 on J. Conrad's property. This property, located almost exactly at the 4-mile marker of Cats Creek Road, is now owned by a Mr. Dutton. Remnants of the foundation of the mill were still visible as of a few decades ago.

 

Below the mouth of Cat's Creek, there had been an insignificant cluster of log cabins and a few frame and brick houses built since the time of the initial settlement here in 1789. A post office was established for this settlement on January 13, 1830, with Perez Barnum Buell as the first postmaster. No doubt this post office was located at the foot of the road later called Market Street, in the two-story square brick house that Perez and his brother, Salmon, built in 1823. This new post office received the name of "Carroll" in honor of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence. This office was served weekly by the Marietta-Zanesville stagecoach, on the road passing just in front of the Buell residence.

 

It was not until the 1830s when plans were made to install dams and locks on the Muskingum River for slack water navigation that anyone recognized that the "Carroll" settlement might have some future importance. One of these sets of locks and dams, as well as a mile-long canal, were to be put in at "Carroll" with Lyon, Buck, and Wolf as the contractors. This work was accomplished between 1837 and 1841 with Truton Lyon superintending.

 

Anticipating that factories would be built along the banks of the canal to take advantage of the available water power, thus making "Carroll" a manufacturing center, Postmaster Buell prompted to change the name of the post office to "Lowell", on February 7, 1837. Lowell was named after the great water mill and industrial town of Lowell, Massachusetts. In addition, there was confusion in the delivery of mail because the name "Carroll" was duplicated in Fairfield County, Ohio, as well as the new county of Carroll having been established in 1833.

 

Upriver from Buell's land, at the upper end of the canal, a land speculation company consisting of John Mills, Douglas Putnam, Enoch Rector, Elijah Short, and Noah Wilson, platted a town, on November 8, 1837, and gave it the name of "Lowell" to conform with that of the nearby post office. Perez Buell then laid out a rival town on his extensive land and named it "Buell's Lowell" on March 22, 1838.

 

The canal served the post office from the two villages, and thus, for convenience, was removed to the centrally located store of George Fleck, on October 9, 1839. Fleck came here from Pennsylvania and married Charlotte C. Devol of Adams Township in 1836. Perez Barnum Buell retired to his farm on the hill overlooking town where he had built a new house in 1835.

 

After steamboats began plying the Muskingum River in 1841, the Lowell Post Office was removed to Elijah Short's store near the river just below the mouth of Cat's Creek, on March 19, 1842. Short opened this store in 1822 and it was the first of its kind in Adams Township. He later got into monetary difficulties and Joseph Z. Barnett succeeded him as postmaster on July 8, 1845. He kept the office only nine months when Mrs. Sarah Davis, an English widow, replaced him, on April 16, 1846. Mrs. Davis was postmaster for only seven months, and was followed by Joseph C. Schofield, on November 20, 1846. Two years later, John A. Hutchison was named postmaster on September 27, 1848. The post office was located in his store in S. N. Merriam's saw mill on the Muskingum River just above the canal locks. The postmaster's annual salary at this time was about $100.

 

After being located in the mill for about two years, the Lowell post office was moved to the store of Alfred Regnier, son of Dr. Jean Baptiste Regnier, founder of Aurelius Township and the village of Macksburg. Alfred's son, John Baptiste Reginer II, a clerk in his father's store, was named postmaster, on January 13, 1851.

 

The post office returned to George Fleck's store (probably on Main Street), on May 30, 1853. It was then located in the store of James S. Williamson, an Irishman, for four years beginning on March 24, 1855. 

 

Henry Wolf, from Bavaria, was named postmaster of Lowell, on March 24, 1859, and the post office was then located in his store at the foot of Liberty Street (where Riecker Brothers was later), between the bridges. This was a convenient place for forwarding and taking the mail off the U.S. Mail packet steamboats "Emma Graham" and "Lizzie Martin" as they passed through the locks.

 

The post office was then placed in the Mattern and Rice store on Main Street, on December 21, 1863. This store was owned by Bavarian immigrants Philip Mattern and Peter Rice.

 

John R. Spooner, son of the Lowell physician, Dr. Cyrus Spooner, was appointed postmaster on July 20, 1865, and the office was located in the Tilton dry goods store building. This office and store was visited by robbers in May 1866.

 

Philip Mattern began a second and lengthy tenure, and the post office was moved back to the Mattern and Rice store on January 29, 1868. This store was also robbed on May 18, 1870. $700 in money and stamps were stolen.

 

On August 17, 1885, Augustus W. Sprague was appointed postmaster. He kept the post office in a small building below the bridge on the upper side of the street near the locks, again for the convenient transfer of the mail to and from the mail packet boats "Lizzie Cassel" and "General H. F. Devol".

 

The post office was returned to Main Street to the store of Arthur D. Stanley, who received his appointment on April 11, 1889. Among the observations of a traveling reporter for the Marietta Register on September 29, 1891: "A. D. Stanley is postmaster. The office is kept in his store, drugs,  stationery, etc., His father, Rev. Frederick Stanley, assists, a cheerful retired Baptist minister past 60 years of age."

 

By political change, once a popular procedure, the post office was moved to Edward W. Dean's cigar store on Main Street across from Billy Ray's barber shop, on July 17, 1893. Politics again caused the post office to be returned to Stanley's drug store on July 7, 1897. Upon the death of Arthur D. Stanley, his widow Mrs. Kate B. Stanley was appointed his successor on June 27, 1906. She also continued in the drugs, jewelry, notions, etc. business until the building was destroyed by fire during the 1913 flood.

 

During this period some of the other government employees at the Lowell Post office were: Fred M. Stanley, assistant Postmaster; Flora Spies, clerk; and the rural carriers Philip Augenstein, Albert D. Newton, Don B. Stanley, and John R. Wening.

 

Following the store fire, the post office was placed in the Lowell National Bank building on the canal bank along Main Street. The post office kept all of its stamps and money in the bank vault at night. J. Dean Stanley was named acting postmaster on January 2, 1920, after his mother remarried and resigned. After only four months in the office, Dean's brother, Don B. Stanley, who had been a rural carrier for several years, was appointed postmaster on May 10, 1920.

 

Benjamin Bowden succeeded Stanley as postmaster on June 27, 1933, the date of his acting appointment. Among the five rural mail carriers out of the Lowell post office at this time were Edward Baesel, Elmer Henngiger (1920-1961), and Harold Augenstein (1929-1966). Howard E. Wilking was acting postmaster starting on April 15, 1941.

 

On May 10, 1938, Postmaster Bowden announced that a special cachet featuring Lowell's early fortified settlement would be issued in connection with the National Air Mail Week program from May 15-21.

 

Miss Helen B. Owen, was appointed postmaster on May 7, 1942. Miss Owen continued to operate the post office in the bank building until about May 1948 at which time it was moved to the Wagner building (later Jean's Hair Styling) on Walnut Street. Because the bank had owned the post office boxes, Postmaster Owen had to buy them from the bank. She paid $150 for them.

 

By 1950 mail was sent and received to and from Marietta and Zanesville three times daily. One of each of these trips was made by a B. & O. train down and up the valley. The others were made by bus or by car, star-route fashion, from Marietta.

 

The Lowell post office was averaging somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 stamp cancellation receipts annually by 1950, and was also doing a postal money order business of some $45,000 per year primarily for mail-order goods and insurance premiums. 

 

There were five postal employees, including the three carriers, who served 366 families in the open country. More than 230 village families were served from the Post Office.

 

The Post Office was open for service from 6:50 a.m. until 6:40 p.m. except for Sundays and holidays. Today, the post office is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 8:30 a. m. to 11 a. m. on Saturdays.

 

Postmaster Owen said that in those days the post office was open all day. One person went home for lunch and the other kept the post office open. 

 

The Government was also a little more careful with money in those days and it was part of the postmaster's job to try to find the cheapest place in town to rent for an office.

 

While first class mail was carried by truck, known at that time as "Star Route", evening papers came up on the train. 

 

The B. & O. railway station at Lowell was closed in the fall of 1943. Since that time there has been no local freight agent, but a railway expressman handled both incoming and outgoing materials, meeting the passenger train and delivering packages daily through the 1950s. He would also handle express money orders in connection with the other express business.

 

The current post office was built in 1968 and was dedicated on December 1, 1968. The government paid for all furnishings, including new key lock boxes. The postal employees at that time were: Mrs. Charlotte Wagner, assistant postmaster, Mrs. Kathryn Heldman, clerk; Harold R. Bules and Walter V. Okey, rural carriers; and Gale C. Augenstein and Russell Parsons, substitute carriers.

 

The dedication of the post office was a big day. The program, which took place at Lowell Elementary, included U.S. Rep. Clarence Miller, Robert Secrest, Mayor Clarence Luton, and postal and village officials. The Fort Frye Band provided music. After the program, the crowd moved to the post office for the ribbon cutting and flag raising by the American Legion color guard.

 

The third post office opened in Adams Township was on the west side of the Muskingum River, between Equity and Lowell. This post office was named "Parker". George C. Parker was appointed postmaster on April 18, 1882. The post office was closed on August 8, 1883.

 

The fourth post office opened in Adams Township was across the river from Coal Run on the Devol farm where a railroad station was established following the completion of the Zanesville & Ohio Railroad in 1888. The post office, called "Equity", as well as a small stock of groceries were kept in the little station house behind William Allen Devol's house. Miss Adda J. Sprague was appointed the first postmaster on October 4, 1888.

 

In 1891, a traveling correspondent for the Marietta Register wrote: "Equity is the next office past Lowell. This is on the road opposite of Coal Run and three quarter mile away, a mere station. The locality has had the name Fairplay and wanted the post office so called but it was too common a name (and there was already a Fair Play Post Office in Jefferson County, Ohio). So, if they couldn't have Fairplay they accepted Equity as about as good. Miss Ada Sprague is postmaster and station agent. The office is open on arrival of all trains and most of the day besides."

 

Miss Sprague resigned on account of ill health and after she died on October 6, 1892. William Devol's son, Howell Seibert Devol, became postmaster of Equity, on October 14, 1892. Devol's positions as postmaster, station agent, and grocer at the tiny station were not lucrative ones and he was primarily a farmer. His postmaster's salary for the year 1893 was $32.94.

 

The name of the Z. & O. Railroad line was changed to the Ohio & Little Kanawha Railroad about October 1899 and this line was absorbed by the Baltimore & Ohio company in 1902. The Equity Post Office was then discontinued because of declining business on December 31, 1902.

 

An overview of Lowell's Postmasters: P. B. Buell was appointed postmaster of Carroll, on January 13, 1830. When the name of the post office was changed to Lowell on February 7, 1837, Buell was reappointed. The succeeding postmasters and the dates of their appointments were: George Flick, 1839; Elijah Short, 1842; Joseph Z. Barnett, 1845; Sarah Davis, April 16, 1846; Joseph C. Schofield, November 20, 1846; John A. Hutchinson, 1848; John B. Regnier, 1851; George Flick, 1853; James S. Williamson, 1855; Henry Wolfe, 1859; Phillip Mattern, 1863; John Spooner, 1865; Phillip Mattern, 1868; Augustus W. Sprague, 1885; Arthur D. Stanley, 1889; Edward W. Dean, 1893; Arthur D. Stanley, 1897; Kate B. Stanley, 1906; J. Dean Stanley (acting), January 2, 1920; Don B. Stanley, May 10, 1920; Benjamin E. Bowden, 1933; Howard Wilking (acting), April 15, 1941; Helen Owen, May 7, 1942; M. Charlotte Wagner (officer-in-charge), October 31, 1969; M. Charlotte Wagner, March 6, 1971; Freda Neill (officer-in-charge), December 1, 1989; Danny L. Hickerson, March 10, 1990; Jerri Lang (officer-in-charge). January 5, 1993; Donald E. Mathias, February 6, 1993; Kenneth L. Offenberger (officer-in-charge), December 23, 1996; Kenneth L. Offenberger, May 10, 1997, John R. Kiser, October 6, 2012; Bonnie Hage (officer-in-charge), 2018?; Angela D. Lewis, March 30, 2019; Erin J. Loch (officer-in-charge), November 21, 2019.