A Year of Steady Business--Factories and Rail Roads on Paper, &c., &r.

We find but little evidence of material change in the business or population of the city this year. The cotton trade was considerable and of growing proportions, and the movement for the settlement of the contiguous territory in Alabama still contributed to the improvement of business.

The first election under the amended charter, dividing the city into six wards, was held on the first Saturday in January this year, and resulted in the choice of the following gentlemen, the elections for Aldermen being made by each ward separately:
Mayor, Jas. S. Calhoun
Aldermen-1st Ward - Hiram Read, R. Hooper
2d Ward-H. S. Smith, S. R. Andrews
3d Ward-J. L. Lewis, Wiley Williams
4th Ward-A. B. Davis, R. A. Ware
5th Ward-W. S. Chipley, L. C. Alien
6th Ward-M. Brooks, George C. Hodges

At the first meeting of this Council the following appointments were made:
Attorney, A. Lawhon
Marshal, N. M. C. Robinson
Treasurer, John Bethune
Clerk, J. L. Roberts
Bridge keeper, W. Gilbert
Sexton, Wm. Gehee
Health Officer, W. K. Schley

The citizens in January requested the banks of the city to suspend specie payments, the banks of the country generally being in suspension. The Bank of Columbus suspended in accordance with this suggestion, but resumed before the year was out. The Insurance Bank would not suspend. The Planters' and Mechanics' Bank went into operation this year, Gen. D. McDougald, President; Directors, D. McDougald, H. S. Smith, M. W. Perry, Hiram Read, W. B. Ector, Thomas Berry, John Banks. A. B. Rozan was Cashier, and M. Robertson, Book-keeper.

Another Columbus bank at that time was the "Farmers' Bank of Chattahoochee" J. S. Calhoun, President; D. Hudson, Cashier.

On the 15th of January the Committee of Ways and Means were instructed by Council to report an ordinance authorizing the issue of city bonds to the amount of $750,000 to be loaned to the Chattahoochee Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia. The Committee reported this ordinance at a meeting of Council held on the 20th of January. The plan was for the city to loan these bonds to subscribers to the capital stock of the company, after they had paid 25 per cent, of their subscriptions in cash, or had executed to the city mortgages on their real estate to secure the payment. The city, also, was to subscribe for 2,000 shares in her corporate capacity. This ordinance was passed on the 29th January. It was reported to Council in March that a sufficient amount had not been subscribed to the capital stock of the company, the condition being that three times the amount of the city's bonds should be subscribed before they were to be issued. But we find that a few weeks afterwards the city subscribed her 2,000 shares of stock, giving a mortgage on the bridge to secure her payment of 25 per cent, of the same, and turned over to the Railroad and Banking Company the mortgages on real estate given by individual stockholders.

At a meeting of the stockholders held on the 24th of March, it was reported that 10,255 shares had been subscribed, and 8,465 were represented.

In June the Commissioners stated in a letter from New York that they had negotiated $300,000 of the loan at 7 per cent., and the amount wanted could have been had upon the same terms, but it was deemed advisable to delay a negotiation of the remainder until fall.

The city this year issued its change bills or "shinplasters," of denominations from 6 1/4c. to $2, to the amount of $50,000.

The Court House on its present location was commenced this year, the city paying one-third and the county two-thirds of the cost. The contractors were W. & J. Godwin, and the price $30,000.

By an ordinance adopted on the 14th of April, the Mayor was made a salaried officer, and his salary fixed at $1,000 per annum; but the Council, at its last meeting in December of this year, repealed that portion of the ordinance making the salary $1,000. On the 17th of May the City Council voted a donation of $2,000 in aid of the citizens of Charleston, S. C., which city had been afflicted by a very destructive fire. The Columbus Guards also contributed $100 and the citizens several hundred dollars more. The Sexton reported the number of burials in the city cemetery from the 1st of February to the 8th of August, 46, of which 14 were infants, one drowned, one murdered, one suicide. The Mayor announced in August that the city was entirely healthy, with not a case of fever of any kind within the corporate limits.

A committee appointed to examine certain improvements on Woolfolk's sand bar, made by Col. Asa Bates, State Commissioner, reported to Council in October that in their opinion the improvements were of such a character as materially and permanently to improve the navigation at those points, making them navigable at any stage of water when steam boats of ordinary draught could pass other points of the river heretofore considered much less difficult than they were.

The city authorities were this year having built a new market house at the intersection of Broad and St. Clair streets.

Girard was making a contest with Columbus for the trade of the surrounding country. The people over there had a fine wharf opposite Columbus, and early in April the first steamer (the Frances) discharged one hundred barrels of freight upon this wharf.

An effort was made this year, through the press, to induce capitalists to utilize the vast water power of the Chattahoochee in the manufacture of cotton. A writer signing himself "A Friend to Manufacturers," and who stated that he had seen some stupendous manufactories at the North propelled by water, declared that he had never seen such advantages for this purpose as were to be found in Columbus and within one mile of it. He said:

"I see a great source of wealth looming up to the people of this section, both in the corporate limits and above the city. I was actually astounded in viewing the splendid estate of Mr. James C. Cook, extending one mile on the meandering river, and within that distance it has been actually surveyed by a competent engineer, and that it has a fall of one hundred and seventy-five feet, and to all appearance it cannot be less. Every one hundred feet, by aqueducts which appear to have been forced through the solid granite by some mighty convulsion of nature, a splendid location for factories could be selected. It would well compensate any one to go and behold what nature has done, and what art and the superior genius of man permits to lie idle and waste, except the piscatory pleasures which its hospitable owner occasionally derives in drawing from its pure waters the numerous family of the finny tribe, from the bream, trout and shad to the sturdy rock."

The Enquirer, on the 30th of August, made a strong appeal on this subject. It predicted that by engaging in this enterprise Columbus "could in ten years be what Lowell then was; that instead of 5,000 she would number her 25,000 in habitants, supplying the entire South and West with her manufactured goods. Bright dreams of the past! how fervently we wish that the splendid cotton mills which we now have may accelerate a movement which has up to this time fallen short of realizing this prediction, but which the success of the manufacturing establishments now in existence proves to have been reasonable and sagacious.

A proposition to water the city by bringing it in pipes from streams in the locality was submitted to Council this year.

A census of the city completed in August of this year, made the whole number of inhabitants 4,265--a very small gain over the enumeration of 1837.

The health of the city this year was good.

Incidents

On the 18th of October, Mayor Calhoun, by advertisement, offered a reward of $500 "for the apprehension and conviction of the incendiary, or incendiaries, who fired the Court House and Clerk's Office on the morning of the 15th inst."

We find the following notice of this fire in the Sentinel and Herald of Oct. 18th:

"On Monday morning, between the hours of three and four o'clock, the alarm of fire was given, and the lurid flame was seen bursting forth in the direction of the Courthouse square. On hastening to the spot we found the Courthouse wrapped in flames, as also the offices of the Clerks of the Superior and Inferior Courts, standing on the same lot, some twenty yards distant from the Courthouse, and being entirely separate. The old Courthouse was but trifling in value, and besides our city authorities are in the act of building a new one; but the great inconvenience and loss consequent upon the fire is found in the fact of the Clerks' offices being destroyed, together with all the books, papers, &c., connected with the offices, and appertaining to the Superior Court, more especially as the fall term of said Court was to have commenced its session on the same day of the catastrophe namely, last Monday.

"This was doubtless the work of an incendiary, some pitiful, base wretch, who probably stood amenable to the requirements of the law at the present term of Court, either in criminal or civil prosecutions, and who lighted the torch with his own vile hand that he might witness at the dead hour of the night, when vigilance herself had fallen asleep, the consummation of his fiend like wishes, and have the hellish pleasure of saying to himself thus perished the record."

The Superior Court met on Monday morning at the Council room, was organized, and in consequence of the destruction of the Courthouse and Clerk's office by the fire, adjourned till the second Monday in December next.

Augustus Owens, of Girard, was killed near the entrance of the race course in Columbus, in February, by a man named Fox.

Dr. S. M. Ingersoll obtained from Council the privilege of washing the loose sands of the Chattahoochee for gold; but the locality being so far from the gold region, no remunerative results are reported.

In April the steamboat DeFlore, on her way to Columbus, sunk below Fort Gaines.

An event which shocked the city, on the 30th of May, was the suicide of Mr. E. Sigourney Norton, mentioned in preceding pages. He cut his throat with a razor, being, it was supposed, under the influence of liquor.

It was announced on the 14th of June that the Enquirer would thereafter be published by Flournoy, Marks & Chapman.

A young man named Kernin was drowned, in June, in the river opposite the city.

The receipts of cotton from September 1st, 1837, to June 14, 1838, were 42,453 bales.

The 4th of July was celebrated with the usual spirit. Prayer by Rev. A. T. Mann; Independence Ode by the choir of Trinity Church; Reading by N. L. Howard, Esq.; Oration by J. H. P. Campbell, Esq.

The first bale of new cotton was received on the 23d of August, from the plantation of John Woolfolk, and sold at auction.

A great religious revival in August and September was reported by the Enquirer.

By the caving in of a sewer near the market-house, upon which a number of men were at work, one white laborer and two Negroes were smothered to death.

A long drought, that had lasted for nearly nine weeks, was broken by rains about the middle of September, but they came too late to save the crops, which were cut very short.

The steamboat Floridian, with a valuable cargo of goods for Columbus, was sunk on the 6th of November about 100 miles above Apalachicola. Loss about $70,000, not insured. The "Columbus Cotton Factory" was in active operation this year, spinning cotton yarns and carding wool.

James Van Ness was Postmaster.

James Hitchcock, Monoah D. Robison and R. W. Carese, were Justices of the Inferior Court,

The steamboat Irwinton, on her downward trip in May, with two hundred bales of cotton on board, was sunk to prevent her total destruction by fire.

Receipts of cotton from 1st October, 1837, to 1st October, 1838, 42,878 bales. Quotations--for Oct. 1st, 1838, Oct. 10�c, Oct. 11th, 10�c to 11�c.

The City Treasurer's report, made on the 9th of October, showed the receipts for the 3d quarter of the year $7,035.96, of which $3,640 was from the issue of city bills, $1,930 from the bridge, and $1,168.91 from taxes. Balance in city treasury, $6,837.

Personal

The county officers for this year, elected in January, were:
James Bethune, Sheriff;
Gerard Burch, Clerk of the Superior Court
Jos. D. McLester, Tax Receiver
B. G. Kenney, Tax Collector
J. E. Lamar, Surveyor
_____ Nicholas, Coroner
J. C. Holland and H. C. Sapp, Justices of the Inferior Court

At the October election, J. S. Calhoun was elected State Senator, and Thomas C. Evans and J. H. Howard Representatives.

Hon. Marshall J. Wellborn was Judge of the Chattahoochee Circuit.

Rev. Samuel K. Hodges was P. E. for the Columbus District, and Revs. Thomas Samford and Alfred T. Maun ministers at Columbus.

We notice the names of the following business men for the first time: