Brookville American, June 1852

Connersville

On Friday last we visited our neighbors on the canal above us. Connersville is decidedly a pleasant place, and by a judicious use of some of their spare capital might make it decidedly more so.

They have the means. There is not probably a town in the state of the population with as much real capital. Yet they have not made a single turnpike, nor any other improvement, except the large amount they invested in the canal.

And they may make as many canals and railroads as they please, they will never be truly independent, and suited for the enjoyment of home and domestic life, until they have good common roads.

Railroads will not add to the business of the place, as much as it would for them to run turnpikes west to Fairview, northwest to Benton, north to Milton, east to Brownsville, and south to West Union. These roads they need, and they will have them as soon as they can be cured of leaping too high and too far.

The prospect was favorable on Saturday last for the speedy completion of the railroad from Hamilton, Ohio, through Oxford, Liberty, Connersville, to Rushville.

Arrangements by which this is to be effected have been entered late with the Cincinnati and Hamilton Company.

Notes: West Union was also known as Everton.

Connersville did invest large sums of money in the Whitewater Canal, which helped boost a large furniture industry -- dominated by oligarch William Newkirk -- by providing hydraulic power.

Link to the Newkirk mansion (beware of eventual link rot).