Flowing through Dayton, Ohio is a narrow, sluggish canal which runs past a row of ugly frame buildings. One of these buildings is the office of the toll collector, and in the year 1868, the collector was a young man by the name of 24 years old, Mr John Henry Patterson. Many a night after the lights of Dayton had blinked out, young John Patterson worked at his desk, listening to the swish of water beneath the cracked window...