History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 157

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664

USA > Indiana > Randolph County > History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships > Part 157

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William and James are married, the former with four and the latter with three children. They are still in the morning of life, and may enjoy the hope of many active and snecessful years in their vocation, a calling alike honorable to themselves and useful to their fellow-men.

Smith Bros., in the spring of 1882, established a grist mill at Harrisville, which seems to be doing good and acceptable work.

W. A. WILEY & CO., GRAIN DEALERS.

The warehouse now occupied by this firm was built in 1858 by D. J. Manzy & Burnett. It was sold to Wharton & Moore; then to W. & F. G. Wiggs, in 1868; then to Wiggs & Wiley in 1876. and to W. A. Wiley & Co. in 1878.

The partners were William A. Wiley and Simon Hendrick. The house is one of long standing, and has always borne a high reputation, and done a strong and healthy business. The pres- ent firin are fine, genial gentlemen, and good business men. Mr. Wiley is an efficient member of the Disciple Church, being chorister and Sunday School Superintendent, and Mr. Hen- drick belongs to the Presbyterian Church, is a leading mem- ber and a Ruling Elder. They are both highly esteemed by their friends and the public. The partnership was ended in the fall of 1880 by the expiration of its term, but Mr. Wiley continues the business alone at the same place.

At the present time (February, 1882), Mr. Wiley is engaged in business in Chicago. His home, however, is still at Union City. Whether his employment there will be permanent time will reveal.

There are also several other grain buyers in Union City - C.

W. Pierce, Messrs. Wellborn and Lambert & Son; some mention is made of them elsewhere.

Mr. Pierce and also Messrs. Wellborn have mills for manu- facturing meal and chop feed, which work is done by them ex- tensively.

George W. Wiggs, agent for Charles W. Cummings, grain exporter. Philadelphia. His agency at this place began in 1876, buying about five hundred thousand bushels the first year. Since that time, his purchases of wheat and corn have risen to an amount varying from 1.500,000 to 2,500,000 annually. Sometimes a quantity equal to 1,000 to 2,000 cars has been bonght by him during a single month.

The orders and the purchase are made by telegraph, and the grain shipped direct to Philadelphia or New York. Union City seems very favorably located for a business of this sort, and Mr. Wiggs operates throughout the State of Indiana with great effi- ciency and signal success.

GRIST MILL-NEW PROCESS.

This mill was placed in a building which had been erected for a bagging factory in 1869 by Mathers, in connection with a flax mill. After running the works for some time, he failed, and the building was bought for a grist mill. Bowersox & Reeder placed in the building a new-process mill, abont 1874, at a cost of about $15.000, and the establishment has been in operation ever since. It was in the hands of Bowersox & Reeder till Oc tober, 187S; then of Reeder & Co. till the winter of 1880-81, at which time the property came into the hands of Dr. Joel N. Con- verse, now of Chicago; and the mill is now operated by Harry Converse, under the firm name of Converse & Co. The mill con- tains three run of buhrs for wheat and one for corn, besides an- other run for the process of regrinding. The present capacity of the machinery is 350 bushels of wheat in twenty-four hours, with two run of buhrs.

The new process consists of machinery for the purifying and regrinding of the middlings. They pass through a kind of fan- ning mill that subjects them to an air blast, which cools and puri- fies by removing the woody fiber and the germ of the kernel, and after that the middlings pass to the special run and are re- ground, and the substance is then conveyed into the head of the bolt, and the flour thus obtained is the finest of the whole. There is also a bran duster, which consists of a cylinder with re- volving brushes, which brushes the bran and takes every dust of flour therefrom, and the flour thus obtained is of an excellent quality. And the quantity saved, moreover, is considerable, since the makers propose to sell the proprietors a new bran duster, and to wait for payment until the amount saved thereby shall be equal in value to the price of the machine. The machinery in the mill is very excellent, and the results accomplished are of the highest order. New works have been added during the pres- ent year to the value of $1,500 or over, it being the determina- tion of the enterprising proprietors to make all the appliances of tho mill equal to the very best in the region.

GRIST MILL -- UNION CITY, OHIO.

This mill was built before 1855 by McMillen, and owned by McMillen, Burnet & Stubbs, Burnet. Hayes & Stubbs, Cranor & Fisher, Rogers, Weimar. McFeely, the latter becoming its pro- prietor in 1879.

The mill contains four run of buhrs, three for wheat and one for corn, etc., and has a capacity of 100 barrels in twenty-four hours. The mill has for some time been doing but little, yet it is capable. under proper and efficient management, of good, thorough, reliable work.

A cooper shop is maintained in connection with the mill, for the supply of barrels for the use of the establishment to send its flour to market.

GROCERS.

There has been a good supply of these needful establish- ments from the beginning, and the number is now greater than ever. in fact, too great for detailed mention. The biographies of several of the principal citizens thus engaged will be found in their appropriate places, but for an account of the establish- ments themselves we have no room.

447

WAYNE TOWNSHIP.

J. T. Hartzell, hardware, has for several years carried on an extensive and constantly increasing business. There seems to be hardly any limit to his activity and enterprise. He is at pres- ent a dealer in tin, stoves and hardware; has a turning factory; deals extensively in lumber; has a wagon shop; runs wagons for peddling, for pumps, for lightning rods, for sewing machines; he has lately bought the wood and timber on 100 acres, and is engaged in having the wood and timber removed from the land; owns a saw-mill for the manufacture of lumber, etc. He employs about forty hands. It is hard to tell what will spring up next under his omnipresent energy.

He has also started manufacturing at Greenville, Ohio. It has been said that he will remove entirely from Union City to Greenville, Ohio. Whether the rumor has any foundation can- not now be told. At this writing (August, 1882), Mr. Hartzell's business has been mostly transferred to the town above named, though he still holds his residence at Union City.

There are two other hardware establishments-that of Jaqua & Kuntz and that in connection with the lumber works of Witham, Anderson & Co., in charge of George Gregory. They are carried on chiefly for the sale of hardware for building pur- poses.

HEAT FENDER COMPANY.

During the summer of 1882, a new association, called the Heat Fender Company, was created in Union City for the purpose of manufacturing a newly patented invention for conveying away surplus heat from stoves used for heating purposes during the summer. The company has purchased the property formerly oc- cupied by the Electric Light Company, on the south side of Pearl street, near the railroad tracks, and it is the intention and expectation to enter extensively upon the manufacture and sale of the article in question. A considerable capital has been in- vested with the hope and prospect of certain and abundant re- turns. The invention was patented August 13. 1882, by B. S. Hite, of Mexico, Mo. Three companies have been organized for the manufacture of the heat fender-at Mexico Mo., at Union City, Tenn., and at Union City, Ind. The company at Union City, Ind., was organized August 14, 1882: capital, $50,000; share, $100. Officers-John Butcher, President; A. G. Waymire, Vice President; Preston N. Woodbury, Secretary; A. B. Cooper, Treasurer; John S. Starburk General Manager; John Butcher, A. G. Waymire, Preston N. Woodbury, Jolin S. Starbuck, John L. Reeves, Henry Retenour, Directors. The machinery will soon be on hand and ready for operation. A considerable force will soon be employed, and by another year it is expected that one hundred to one hundred and fifty hands will be engaged in the business of the establishment.

UNION CITY HOSE COMPANY NO. 1.

This company was formed December, 1873, the number being limited to thirty members, R. J. Clark being chosen Foroman.

In 1879, the number of members was increased to forty. The present Foreman is Jacob S. Bowers, who is also Chief of the Union City Fire Department. The company hold monthly meetings for business, and have an appropriate uniform, with snitable laws for the government of their conduct as members of the company. It is composed wholly of volunteers. The fine for non-attendance at regular meetings is 10 cents, and for ab- sence at fires 50 cents. The signal for meeting is five taps of their bell. Meetings for drill are held at the call of the Fore- man. They own two hose reels and 1,000 feet of lose. Alarms often test the promptness and speed of the firemen, and they answer with great alacrity to the call, but fortunately, few real and extensive fires have occurred in the city since the creation of the hose company.

In 1881, the hose company visited Sidney, Ohio, by invita- tion, on the 4th of July, and in 1882 the Sidney boys were en- tertained at this place. The entertainments on both days were liberal and generous.

HOTELS.

The Branham House was opened in 1856, and has been the leading hotel of the place ever since. Several other public houses have been kept, among which have been the Star House, the Butcher

House, State Line House, etc. The Butcher House has been run by Messrs. Butcher, Doty, Barnes, Anstin, Winslow and others.

The oldest hotel in town was built on the north side of Pearl street, opposite the post office. The building was erected in July, 1852, and was opened for travelers under the name of the Forest House.

Since that time it has passed through. many hands, bearing now the appellation of the Malen House. The State Line House was built very early, and has been open as a hotel nearly or quite all the time since its first erection; for some years past under the control of William Orr. The Star House, now in the hands of Mr. Baker, and occupied as a boarding house, is said by the early settlers to have been the first frame building erected on the present site of Union City.

Solomon Young, Union City, Ohio, has been a resident of the vicinity for at least thirty years. He is said to have been the first butcher in the place. He has been a farmer and trader, latterly a grain buyer, and at present a dealer in ice. He con- structed a pond in the fall of 1880, and during the succeeding winter stored there several hundred tons of ice, and now deals out the cooling substance through the summers of fearful heat, greatly to the comfort of the citizens of the town. He in- tends to bore down into the vast subterranean river which has already been tapped in various places, to utilize still further its valuable waters by filling therewith his enlarged ice pond. Great, indeed, is the ingenuity of man, and wonderful his fore- thonght; and unnumerable are the methods and the contrivan- ces by which grievances are removed and comforts are increased and multiplied, and one of the best of them all is this one of storing up the frozen products of the cold of winter to temper, the torrid heats of a burning summer. Long may the ice man flourish, and his tribe increase, till the luxury of ice in summer may be brought within the reach of all! Mr. Young has in the late fall of 1881 purchased the old Orr Building, in Union City, Ohio, one of the first erected in that town, and is now (December, 1881) engaged in repairing and improving the property and the premises for a more remunerative and successful use.

There is also another ice denler in town besides Mr. Young. an account of whose business is not now at hand. Besides these, some establishments procure ice during the winter for their own summer supply. Great quantities of this precious solid are used in these days. The egg and butter and poultry men, the butchors, the grocers, etc., employ much ice to preserve their commodities at a proper temperature. Hotels and private fami- lies alike patronize the ice business on an extensive scale; in fact, the production of cold in hot weather is, in these latter days, a wonderful promoter of comfort; and, although ice can even now be supplied at a surprisingly low rate, let us fondly hope that the time is not very far in the future when ice may come to be not a luxury at the command only of the rich, but a necessary of life and within easy reach of the masses of the people.

PETER KUNTZ, LUMBER WORKS.

This establishment is large, and growing larger and more ex- tensive every year. [For a statement in detail, see account pre- viously given, as also biography of P. Kuntz. ]

WITHAM, ANDERSON & CO.

The lumber yard on the ground now occupied by this firm was established by Samuel Carter in 1858. Afterward Carr & Co. operated there; now Witham & Anderson occupy the place. The business of that yard has grown with the place and region till the amount of lumber handled has come to be something won . derful. They deal in all kinds of humber and honse furniture, including hardware. The firm receive about seven hundred car loads of lumber yearly, or probably a larger quantity than that.

They have all needed machinery for working lumber-sur- facing machines, matching machines, siding saw, wood-worker, cut-off saws, mortising machines, tenon machines, lathes, jig saws, molding machines, frizzers, etc., etc. They employ thirty to forty hande, and sell above $100,000 per year.

The average stock on hand, including real estate and fixtures, may be estimated at $50,000.

448

HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

RARDWOOD LUMBER.

Abont 1875, Thomas Jones, of Union City established a Ium- ber yard for handling the various hard native woods marketed in the region. After operating alone for one year, Simon Hed- rick became his partner for two years. About January, ISSO, a new firm was formed, consisting of Jones, Benner & Ebert, which exists at the present time. Their business has steadily increased till they have come to operate on ang'extensive scale. They buy logs, and procure their manufacture into lumber of various kinds at the different points of purchase and storage. They get lumber from Dawn, Ansonia, Boundary City, Green- ville, Palestine, Winchester, Union City, Dunkirk, Redkey, Hartford City, Shideler, Muncie, Recovery, etc. At Recovery and Hartford City the firm maintain depots for original ship- ment, having at Recovery alone at this time 100,000 feet of lum- ber prepared for market.

Their shipments are wholly to New England and the Eastern sea board, consisting of ash, oak, walnut, wild cherry, etc. As a specimen of their work it may be stated that in twenty-four days, during the winter of 1880, the firm paid out $9,400 at their office in Union City, Ohio, alone for logs, which were sawed into lumber on the ground by a mill hired by them, and set up in the yard for the purpose. Within eighteen months past, the amount of lumber handled by them has been in equal in value to $100,- 000 to $120,000. The amount of advantage which accrues to the farmers and producers of the region by means of the enter- prise and the capital of such energetic business men is almost beyond belief. A few years ago timber stood ou the ground a burden and a nuisance, costing untold labor and toil to clear its bulk from the face of the land and mako ready the soil to re- ceive the precious seed for the hoped-for crop. with nothing to show for the labor expended but the ashes left upon the ground by the consumption of the log heaps burned in the clearings.

Now the value of the timber alone far exceeds that of the land itself. Even the elm and the buttonwood, utterly worthless heretofore either for fuel or for merchandise, have come to pos- sess a large marketable value, and it is now not a very uncom- mon occurrence that two or three trees out and hanled to market will bring money enough to purchase a full aere of the soil on which they stood, with all the timber growing thereupon. Thus it is that the "middlemen" immensely enhance the worth of articles of commerce, and not infrequently absolutely create a large and profitable valne for commodities which otherwise would have possessed none at all.

LUMBER YARD, UNION CITY, OHR).

Peter Kuntz, the veteran lumber dealer in Union City, and Rufus A. Wilson, his former partner in that business, have en- tered into a new partnership, and established a new lumber yard on the Ohio side, immediately east of the State line, which may, in timo, taking into account the well-known and long-tried activity and business tact of the enterprising proprietors. be- come an important and extensive establishment.

MERCHANTS.

The number of stores in Union City from first to last has been somewhat large. Within a short time after the commence- ment of the town, six stores were in successful operation. We are unable to name the persons who have from time to time sold goods to the citizens of the aspiring town and the inhabitants of the surrounding region. In truth, the trade centering at this railroad point was for years comparatively farge. Grain was wagoned from far north to Recovery, Portland, New Corydon, and the goods sold by Union City merchants found their way far and wide throughout the northern woods. And for many years the business men of the embryo city were opposed to the extension of the Dayton & Union Railroad northwardly to Portland, bo- cause it would deprive them of the wagon trade from that sec- tion. Of late years the two rival establishments owned by Messrs. Bowers and Kirschbaum seem to have absorbed all the others, except indeed a single one rejoicing in the ownership of J. T. Shaw, who has held his ground in spite of all the difficul- ties for seventeen or oighteen years, and who still maintains his

hold upon the confidence of his customers of past years, and doubtless gains others also by means of reliable goods and fair dealing.

It is somewhat remarkable that in a town of some four thousand people only three dry goods stores can to-day be found. Two of them, however, are very extensive, and the other one commands a substantial patronage. Some account of each will be discovered in the biographies of their proprietors respect- ively.

EGG, BUTTER AND POULTRY HOUSE, TURPEN & HARRIS, PROPRIETORS.

Among the kinds of business created by the needs of modern civilization hardly any is more remarkable or more noteworthy than the one here described. And that so extensive an establish- ment as the one now under consideration should spring up and flourish in a town so small and comparatively obscure as Union City is a curious specimen of the freaks of business, or rather of the certainty with which a combination of capital and business skill will create facilities for business and command assured and abundant success.

Mr. Harris came here not very many years ago with slender means, working for W. S. Osborn on a salary. After becoming acquainted, he was offered one-fourth interest in the concern, which netted him $1,000 the first year. He went in with E. H. Turpen, a substantial grocer of the place They borrowed some money and undertook the pork-packing business, and, the year being a fortunate one, they realized a considerable amount. They built their brick edifice for their grocery business, took Mr. Osborn's packing house on shares for a year, and then bought him out. This business has grown greatly in their hands, having increased from $75,000 a year to $500,000 annually. They have managed also two other establishments of the kind, one at To- ledo, Ohio, and one at Goshen, and while carrying on these they are supposed to have handled more trade of this kind than any other firm in the United States. They now have only the estab- lishment at Union City, and handle more business of this sort than any other tiri in the State of Indiana. This firm was the first in the West to employ a refrigerator for purposes of preser- vation of their goods, and now they conduct that branch of the business on a very large scale. They pack each winter 425 tons of ice, and have a capacity of storage at once for 4,000 barrels of eggs, which capacity is often utilized to the ut- most. They handle yearly 2.000,000 pounds of butter, two to three hundred thousand pounds of poultry and 15,000 barrels of eggs. They throw away of spoiled eggs sometimes 1.000 dozen in a single day during the busy season. The temperature of their packing apartments is maintained throughout the entire season at about thirty-eight, only six degrees above freezing point. This establishment is an illustrious example of the necessity and tho publie advantage of "middlemen, " so bitterly decried by many in the community. Withont something of the sort carried on by them. the egg and butter business would be, during the hot season, nearly a dead loss, since for private parties to preserve and market these commodities at such times would be nearly im- possible.

They gather the products of the farmers through a region hundreds of miles in extent, giving a constant and reliable price, and buying the whole product of the region, no matter how great the amount nor how dull the general market may be. They make their purchases, put the articles into a marketable condi- tion, and. holding till the glut ceases, forward at a proper time for a remunerative sale, thus making a good profit for themselves indeed, but paying to the farmers at home, moreover, more than they could possibly realize at the general markets. The value of their labors to the community is therefore immense, effecting a saving to the producers of an amount far greater than even the profits which by their skill and forethought they are enabled to realize for themselves. In fact the "middleman" business. so much decried and so little understood, is, on the whole, the source of nearly all the profit which acernes to any class.

For the producers to market their own commodities would be utterly impossible, except at a ruinous loss. But by means of the despised and condemned "middlemen "of all kinds, convey- ors, transporters, wholesale and retail dealers, agents and what

449

WAYNE TOWNSHIP.

not, business, instead of being ruinons and impossible, becomes for the whole country and the universal world, and for producers as well as for "middlemen" a grand, glorious, triumphant suc- cess. This branch may at times, like every other department of activity, be over done, but if that ever occurrs the matter very soon rights itself and an equilibrium takes place. Turpen & Harris procure their merchandise over a great extent of territory, through portions of Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. By agents at the principal shipping points, on salaries or on commission, by local agents, by wagons traversing the country and in every prac- ticable way they succeed in gathering almost incredible amounts of these products of the farm. So delicate, so frail, so perish- uble, which nevertheless come to be and solely through the enlight. ened skill by which their capital and labor are constantly con- trolled, the source of immense profit to the producers and to the country at large. They employ at Union City alone about thirty hands. The buildings in which their extensive business is car- ried on are not, indeed, as they do not need to be, showy and ex- pensive, yet in those humble edifices is handled an immense and well nigh incredible amount of merchandise, the value of which is created almost wholly by the energy and skill with which they employ the means under their control in this important depart- ment of commerce. [For other packing houses, see John S. Starbuck. ]

PARKS, ETC.

In the spring of 1880, James Moorman, of Winchester, donat- ed a fine tract of ground nearly in the heart of the town for a city park, to be kept and used for that exclusive purpose.

Some rather remarkable incidents were connected with Moor- man's Park. The property some years ago belonged to William P. Debolt, Esq. He mortgaged it with other property to secure the payment of money, became unable to pay and the mortgage was foreclosed and the lands sold by the Sheriff James Moor- man bought the property. Mrs. Debolt refused absolutely to leave the premises. A long and bitter legal struggle arose. Mrs. De- bolt was put off by the officers of the law, but she immediately returned, and for weeks in the heart of winter, amid frost and rain and snow, did that resolute woman persist in holding fast by lodging on the porch of the dwelling, which was locked and watched by Deputy Sheriffs to keep her from entering. James Moorman made her offers, but they were rejected with scorn. At length, weary with the struggle, he donated the lots to Union City, which the council accepted. much against the judgment of many of the citizens, since it seemed to them to be taking up a dispute without occasion. Mrs. Debolt was at last taken by the Sheriff to Winchester, by order of Judge Monks. to answer for contempt of court, but was let go under strict promise that she would surrender the fort. There has been no further trouble, and the siege of " Fort Debolt" is only a memory of the past. In the course of the struggle, some one who was in sympathy with the lady stopped the chimney-top and raised the cry of fire. The officers inside opened the doors in alarm. Mrs. Debolt rushed in in spite of attempted force to prevent her and gained pos- session, and kept it till taken to Winchester, as before stated.

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History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 157

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman Number of Pages: 664

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664