Among the multitude of great men assembled on this occasion, no one did more or was nearer and dearer in the hearts of the people than the man who mastered mathematics, Greek, Latin, and law, while a “hireling” at the Kanawha Salt Works; the man who did his reading at night by the light of the furnace or a “log-cabin luminary,” a lard lamp; the man who received the first collegiate degree of A.M. ever issued in the North-west; the orator of the day, Hon. Thomas Ewing. No such universal and intense enthusiasm was ever before, or again will be, so overwhelmingly manifested in Ohio as that of the opening of the canals; no other object for public demonstration is likely will ever approach it in importance. Governor Clinton and party were escorted from Newark to Columbus by the state militia, legislature, county and state officers and eminent citizens. And in reply to Governor Morrow’s reception, Governor Clinton said: “I find myself at a loss for language to express my profound sense of the distinguished notice taken of me by the excellent chief magistrate of this powerful and flourishing state, and by our numerous and respected fellow citizens assembled in this place, I feel that my services have been greatly overrated, but I can assure you that your kindness has not fallen on an ungrateful heart--that I most cordially and sincerely reciprocate your friendly sentiments, and that any agency I may have had in promoting the cardinal interests to which you have been pleased to refer, has been as sincere as it has been disinterested. “When Ohio was an applicant for admission into the Union, it was my good fortune to have it in my power, in co-operation with several distinguished friends, most of whom are now no more, to promote her views and to assist in elevating her from a territorial position to the rank of an independent state. This was an act of justice to her and duty of high obligation on our part. At that early period I predicted, and indeed it required no extraordinary sagacity to foresee, that Ohio would in due time be a star of the first magnitude in the federal constellation; that she contains within her bosom the elements of greatness and prosperity, and that her population would be the second, if not the first, in the confederacy. “The number of your inhabitants at the next census will probably exceed a million. Cultivation of the soil has advanced with gigantic strides--your fruitful country is teeming with plenty, and has a vast surplus beyond your consumption of all the productions of agriculture. Villages, towns and settlements are springing up and extending in all directions, and the very ground on which we stand, but a few years ago a dreary wilderness, is now a political metropolis of the state, and the residence of knowledge, elegance and hospitality.