USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > Centennial history of Coshocton County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 19
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Fraternal organizations are widely represented, including the Masons, Elks, Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen, Forresters of America, United American Mechanics, Maccabees, Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, Pathfinders, National Union, Protected Home Circle, American Insurance Union, Woman's Relief Corps, King's Daughters, and women's auxiliary orders in various lodges. The Greek letter societies, Phi Sigma Chi and Alpha Pi, were organized by Coshocton High School graduates in recent years.
Religion and politics have been wisely kept apart by public senti- ment in Coshocton County, exerting a certain restraint upon elements which would convert a minister of the gospel into a political wire- puller. But occasionally there have been exceptions when a misguided individual has imagined his position in the pulpit vested in him a polit- ical authority. Such a one made an assertion to the writer which shows to what extent personal vanity or blind egotism is excited in one become drunk with power. It was in the November political cam- paign of 1908, after the clergyman in question had been through the
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county local option fight the previous month which for him was replete with novel experience. There were days in succession, he related im- pressively, when his clothes were never off. With an air of supreme confidence he declared that he could elect or defeat any man. He wrote letters over the county calling on voters who opposed the saloon to support candidates whom he named as men after their own hearts. People knew how ridiculously the facts were misrepresented by the amateur politician in the pulpit, and the county repudiated his selec- tions at the polls. Soon afterward he was asked to resign his charge, and he left the church. It is to be hoped that any future political activity in which he may enlist will be freed from an unholy alliance with a probate judge who treats children's snowballing as a crime.
Temperance movements in Coshocton County are described in Rev. William E. Hunt's historical writings as dating back to the days of the Washingtonians, the Sons of Temperance, Cadets of Temperance. Good Templars, and Women's Leagues. About forty years ago the saloon issue was before the people of Coshocton in the election of mayor and council. The Citizens ticket which represented anti-saloon forces was elected by a vote of 143. The total vote for all tickets was 350. The new council passed the McConnellsville ordinance and Mayor Hiram Beall vigorously enforced the law, closing four saloons while others were placed under much restraint. The historian continues that "The taxpayers grew restive under the expenses of trials, and public sentiment failed to support the movement, and in due course put into the controlling municipal places those who, while preserving the form of the ordinance, had no sympathy with its spirit."
Four years later women in Coshocton organized a crusade, visit- ing saloons, praying on the sidewalk in front in rain and snow, ex- horting saloonkeepers to close their business. Mass meetings were held nightly, and prayer meetings in the mornings. Men were asked to sign pledges not to drink, and women sat near saloons as pickets. blanketed and with warm bricks at their feet. Finally saloons sur- rendered their stock, with the understanding that they would be paid for it. Barrel heads were knocked in and the gutters ran with liquor, while the bands played, the church and courthouse bells rang, men shouted, and women sang and cried and prayed.
Hunt's Historical Collections continue : "Then came a lull. Prosecutions, under the temperance ordinance, were now tried. Money
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was wanted, and came in slowly. Somehow a great deal of liquor was still drunk. With little observable signs of trade-none when the pickets were around-the breath of many still had the odor of beer, or what even seemed more discouraging, whisky; because indicating a readiness to take stimulant in even more concentrated and damaging form."
The change in public sentiment appeared in the next election, and soon thereafter the ordinance of 1870 underwent changes. Within six months after the beginning of the crusade Coshocton had more saloons than before.
In after years came the Beal local option law, and under it town- ships in this county voted out saloons.
Last October 22, under the new Rose law, an election was held by the county on the question of voting out the saloons. The petition for the election was circulated by men and women over the county. Church bells were rung before the election. There had been twenty- six saloons, all in the city of Coshocton, and four were closed several weeks before election. The county option fight overshadowed every other issue in the political campaign that fall. People scarcely gave a thought to any other question, even of such national importance as the election of a President, while the one consideration regarding the public policy and fitness of candidates for local offices was the ques- tion "Are you wet or dry?"
The county option election drew out the heaviest vote ever polled in the county, 7,774. It resulted in an anti-saloon majority, rolled up by the townships outside Coshocton, excepting Crawford, the only one in the country that voted "wet." The city of Coshocton gave a wet majority of 877, but so large was the dry majority in the county that the anti-saloon vote carried the county by 584.
A month afterward no bar in the city sold liquor. A few dispensed near-beer and soda water. The rest were succeeded by other lines of business.
Coshocton has experienced a few months as a dry town as this record goes to press. Much liquor is bought elsewhere by mail and received here by express and freight, while suitcases are known to leave Coshocton empty and return loaded with wet goods. Beer drink- ing gave way to the whisky bottle in the hip pocket.
CHAPTER XVII
OUR SOIL, CLAY, TIMBER AND CROPS AS VIEWED BY GOVERNMENT OBSERVERS-OIL AND NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT-MARKET CONDITIONS-FISH AND GAME.
In the U. S. Geological Survey of clay deposits in Ohio, 1903, the government expert reports that the best clays in the State are found in the coal measures, and the counties which these underlie include Coshocton. The report adds that the clay deposit known as the Put- nam Hill limestone horizon covers a coal seam called the Brookville coal, and a valuable clay deposit is found in the central coal measure counties at this level. This which is largely worked in Muskingum County, continues in good volume and of good character through Co- shocton County, where it forms the basis of the important building- brick industry. By the advanced method employed here there is a superior product manufactured, impervious to moisture and of a va- riety of attractive buff, cream-colored and darker terra-cotta tints.
Just before the Civil War there was oil extracted from the cannel coal in the hills of Bedford Township where the C., A. & C. now runs to Warsaw. Colonel Metham and William Stanton acquired coal lands, and on these there burned the fires of many retorts built by companies from elsewhere. The upright boiler-shaped retorts of cast iron were filled with coal and heated outside. The vapors were con- veyed through the worm, and about forty gallons of crude oil were dis- tilled from a ton of coal.
Then came the great strike of petroleum oil in Pennsylvania, and the manufacture of oil here was doomed.
In after years oil prospecting in this county engaged considerable capital. There was drilling in various sections, but few wells were located, and these were limited producers. Many Coshocton dollars went into a hole in the ground.
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There was oil prospecting in the New Castle region nearly half a century ago, and gas began flowing.
Drilling on W. H. Crawford's land in Jackson Township, and in the Warsaw region took place in earlier stages of local prospecting.
Nine years ago when the Scio oil boom was at its height John N. Kissner prospected in Coshocton County, drilling in the townships of Tuscarawas, Lafayette, Franklin and White Eyes. On the Burt, Rogers and Miller lands along the Panhandle a flow of natural gas is still supplying part of West Lafayette. There is a limited produc- tion of oil on John Hall's land near Coshocton.
The oil production in the Bloomfield region is limited.
The most recent oil prospecting in the county includes the drilling on the Wolfe farm half a mile south of Isleta, the wells sunk at Helmick and Buckalew Run, and the developing in Linton Town- ship near Birds Run where four gas wells are flowing and good oil prospects are reported.
The topography of Coshocton County is described in the U. S. Government survey as belonging partly to the great plateau of eastern Ohio. The surface is sharply rolling and in places rough and hilly, the hills maintaining a general summit level of eleven hundred to twelve hundred feet above the sea, and no point of land rising to any mountainous height above the surrounding upland country. Our hills, says the government observer, have a domelike slope, character- istic of the weathering of the sandy shales of the region, and there are no ridges of any considerable extent.
The whole county is drained by the Muskingum River, which is formed near the county center by the confluence of the Walhonding and the Tuscarawas. From this point three beautiful and fertile val- leys radiate to the county borders-the Muskingum to the south, the Tuscarawas to the east, and the Walhonding to the west.
In addition to the alluvial lands of these valleys there are areas along Killbuck Creek, a tributary of the Walhonding, where a broad valley extends northward and along Wills Creek, skirting the southern border of the county, while a strip of such land connects the valley of Wills Creek and the Tuscarawas valley-probably a former channel of the Tuscarawas. It is west of the town of West Lafayette, parallel- ing the present valley of the Tuscarawas, from which it is separated by a broken range of hills. It extends southward, merging into the
PRESENT OIL DEVELOPMENT NEAR BLOOMFIELD.
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valley of Wills Creek near Plainfield. The slopes of this valley are several miles in width, and the alluvial land ranges in width from one-fourth mile to a mile.
The bottoms along the rivers average almost a mile in width. The sedimentary materials of which they have been built are ar- ranged in terraces, five of which may be counted in some places, but usually only three are well marked. The lower bottoms are so little elevated above the streams that they are subject to overflow in periods of high water. The surface of the land may be washed away or added to by the floods. Such variations may amount to three or four inches in a single flood. The average deposit is a silty loam, but quite near the river beds of sand or gravel may be thrown down. The higher terraces, standing forty to sixty feet above the level of the river. have a gently rolling surface composed of gravelly loam.
The hills, with their covering of residual material, rise abruptly above the valleys. In some places, as in the upper valley of the Walhonding, the rocks rear aloft in palisades above the stream.
Over the greater part of the county the prevailing rock is a sand- stone, a specimen of which is exhibited in the Museum of Natural History, New York.
While coal may be seen in nearly every hill, the thickness is variable and the extent of the bed uncertain. In some places the bed attains a thickness of more than three feet: in others it pinches out entirely. The easily mined deposits on nearly every farm have given the farmers an abundant supply of fuel for home use, and many of them derive an income by mining coal for the market when the farm work is not pressing.
The DeKalb silt loam occupies the whole of Coshocton County, with the exception of the stream valleys. The original rocks that made up the DeKalb silt loam areas contained some iron, and this is mani- fested in the soil by occasional iron concretions.
Where the land is still in forests of hardwood in the northern part of the county lumbermen are getting out ties and posts, while considerable Coshocton County timber has gone into ships on the Great Lakes.
The Miami loam occurs as strips along the Muskingum, the Tus- carawas, Walhonding and other streams which have developed flood plains. This loam is pronounced the best corn land of the area, and
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the valleys of the principal streams have long been famous for their production of corn.
The yield of corn is sometimes as much as sixty to eighty bushels an acre. Timothy hay is largely produced from this soil.
The Miami gravelly loam occupies the higher terraces along the larger streams. The type is extensively developed near West Lafay- ette on White Eyes Plain, the ancient bed of a vanished river. The other extensive development is around Coshocton, where the broad, level terrace of this material forms a beautiful location for the town.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture reports that "A most pleas- ing feature of the economic conditions which prevail in Coshocton County is the comparatively equal distribution of wealth among the farmers. As a general rule they own the land they cultivate. The barns and other farm buildings are well constructed and suitable for the needs of the present system of agriculture. The dwellings are usually comfortable two-storied frame buildings, and occasionally structures of brick. Slate is invariably used for roofing." In recent years houses in Coshocton and West Lafayette have been constructed of cement blocks.
The most important crops of Coshocton County's area are corn, hay, and wheat, in the order named. The average annual production of corn exceeds a million bushels' mostly grown on the river lands. The county's average yield is thirty-two bushels to the acre.
Although the wheat acreage is still about equal to that of corn, the average yield is only twelve bushels an acre. Oats yield well.
The county has ranked first among the sheep-raising counties of Ohio, and is still among the leaders in fine-wool breeds.
Cattle are raised chiefly for home consumption of beef, milk and butter. It is remarkable that, in a country so admirably adapted to grazing, the dairy products should be barely sufficient to supply the needs of the local markets, and sometimes inadequate even for this purpose. In the last winter Coshocton paid thirty-two cents a pound for butter. Eggs were forty cents a dozen. In northeastern town- ships for years much milk has been hauled to factories making Ohio Swiss cheese.
Coshocton offers a profitable market for all kinds of country produce. A few years ago Wednesday and Saturday mornings were
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designated market days on which farmers and local dealers sell produce from wagons on the curb along Courthouse Square.
A State improvement to develop the water power of the canals and maintain the water supply between Roscoe and Dresden has re- cently been completed. The Walhonding canal has been widened to forty feet, with a depth of six and a half feet.
In the Six-Mile dam, where the water of the Walhonding is diverted into the canal the chute for fish to flop their way up the center of the dam has been built according to direction of the State Fish Commission.
Our rivers are the home of the pike, that tyrant of fresh waters, as our salmon is the king. Large and small mouthed bass, speckled bass and catfish are caught here. That game member of the pike fam- ily, the muskellonge, attains considerable size here. M. G. Hack, who is associated with C. E. Ransom in the extensive dry goods house of Coshocton, is a local expert with rod and reel who won the Blue Hole Fishing Club prize with a 24-pound muskellonge caught in the Tuscarawas above the bridge near West Lafayette. There is much fishing in the Walhonding between Coshocton and Warsaw, and also in the Muskingum. A 41-pound muskellonge is among the record catches in the county.
Quail, duck, rabbit and coon are favorite game here for hunters, and the man with the gun has been known to come miles from cities to shoot Coshocton game. Fox hunters of this county are represented in the Central Ohio Sportsmen's Association. The Game Protective Association to prevent poaching and to uphold the game laws has been organized here. The county is noted for fine bird dogs which have won prizes in leading kennel shows of the country.
Poultry fanciers in the county have exceptionally high-class rep- resentatives of the feathered aristocracy.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION-CHANGES IN A CENTURY - PROGRESS AGAINST QUACKERY-THE LOCAL NEED FOR A HOSPITAL.
In all its hundred years the community was never without those members of the medical profession maintaining always the highest ethical standard. The enlightened public understanding in later years has aided materially in discountenancing methods intolerable to the legitimate practitioner. The physician or surgeon giving first con- sideration to the welfare of the community is unrelenting in opposing the unscrupulous element which exploits healing qualities that do not heal.
What progress there has been here against quackery may be in- ferred from such circumstances as that eye-glass humbug who paid for local newspaper endorsements of his treatment of eye troubles and who, when he happened to call at a home where a victim was absent. cheerfully asked for a photograph on which he could fit the glasses just as well. At least that particular fraud would not find Coshocton money quite so easy in these times.
The fraudulent use of the title of doctor has misled victims in the county whose health as a result has suffered untold misery; and cases are known where lives were sacrificed. But people are coming to learn that no honorable physician need travel over the land, inviting the sick, the lame and the halt to come to a hotel for free consulta- tion. That word free is the luscious bait at which ignorance was ever wont to nibble.
The hardships of long drives through winter and storm at all hours of the day or night are incidents in country practice known to the profession of the county today as they were known to physicians in the past. For the public the coming of the telephone has brought with it the added feeling of security that in sudden illness the doctor
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can be reached at once instead of risking dangerous delay by driving miles to call him.
All systems of medical treatment are represented here. The reg- ular practice' or allopathy, prevails. The eclectic system is followed by some physicians, and the homeopathic school ranks next in number.
The city needs of Coshocton include especially a hospital, the in- stitution which the community at large would find advantageous, while particularly serviceable in the accident cases attending the present extent of manufacturing and other industrial operations in the county. Dr. Jesse McClain, with all the facilities for surgical cases which can be handled under existing conditions, impresses the advantage that would come with hospital appliances and equipment for treatment of cases compelled to undertake dangerous trips in en- feebled condition to distant hospitals.
One of the most wholesome changes in public sentiment is the dis- appearance of the oldtime prejudice against going to a hospital. Peo- ple have come to realize that the sufferer's welfare is to be trusted to the care of an institution where everything is especially provided for the sick, and where trained nurses prove an efficient auxiliary to the doctor's care.
The Coshocton County Medical Society, organized in recent years, meets quarterly in the Carnegie Library. Dr. E. C. Carr is Presi- dent. His is a medical family. His son is practicing in Chicago, and his father, Dr. J. G. Carr, has been longest in the practice of any of the present physicians in the county.
Local members of the profession have been called to fill various public offices, as told elsewhere. The office of coroner, now filled by Dr. J. D. Lower, has been assigned to doctors for years.
The U. S. Board of Examining Surgeons, passing on cases of ap- plicants for soldiers' pensions in this county consists at present of Dr. J. G. Carr of Coshocton, Dr. F. H. Yarnell of West Lafayette, and Dr. A. M. Henderson of Roscoe.
CHAPTER XIX
COSHOCTON NOTES-BANKING-COUNTY FAIR-WORK OF BRUSH AND PEN-OUR SUCCESSES ABROAD- "AND THE WITCHERY NE'ER LEAVES YOU ONCE YOU CALL COSHOCTON HOME."
Half a century ago the sign of a bank marked a 5x16 room in Second Street, Coshocton, where notes were shaved by James M. Brown, afterward implicated in the county treasury robbery. The county's strong-box was endangered a subsequent time when entrance was effected through a basement window in the courthouse. Marks of the jimmy may be seen today on the hall door of the treasurer's office, and in the door of the vault is a hole made by a drill, but the cracksman became alarmed and fled.
The beginning of general banking here was by W. K. Johnson & Co. about 1852, and twenty years later the business was conducted by John G. Stewart. The assignment by the Stewart bank in 1885 caused serious losses.
The Farmers' Bank was started by J. P. and Alfred Peck and Samuel Irvine who later was succeeded by Charles E. Spangler. In 1897 the bank went into the hands of a receiver, George A. Hay, who was enabled to pav eighty-five per cent to creditors. The settlement of other accounts was in charge of Alfred Peck.
Thomas C. Ricketts established a banking house in Coshocton in 1855, and in 1872 organized the First National Bank in association with Houston, Jackson and F. C. Hay, and Henry C. Herbig, cashier. This institution, the Commercial National Bank of today, has reached a record of more than a million dollars in deposits. The present of- ficers include J. W. Cassingham, President; E. L. Lybarger, Vice- President ; R. B. Caldwell, Cashier ; W. J. Winters, Assistant Cashier. The first three are associated with the following as directors: George A. Hay, John H. Hay, David Davis, B. Worth Ricketts, Charles B. Hunt, John Lorenz.
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In 1898 the Coshocton National Bank began business, advancing in a few years to a strong position in financial affairs of the commun- ity. The officers are: M. Q. Baker, President; W. R. Pomerene, Vice-President : T. L. Montgomery, Cashier; Merrel B. Smith, As- sistant Cashier. With the first three the following serve as directors : H. C. Strong, F. E. Pomerene, E. O. Selby, Ed. H. Wilson, Dr. H. R. McCurdy, W. A. Himebaugh.
In 1903 the People's Banking and Trust Company was established in Coshocton, and in the six years to date the deposits have been in- creasing toward the half-million mark. The officers consist of J. L. Rue, President ; E. W. Adams, George M. Gray and T. H. Wheeler, Vice-Presidents; R. H. Mills, Cashier ; L. E. Baughman, Assistant Cashier : C. H. Magruder, Teller. Besides the first four the directors include: L. P. Gallagher, F. M. Marshall, P. C. Shipps, M. T. Moore- head, W. B. Litten, O. P. McGinnis, A. P. Stewart, J. A. Hesket' James Scott, D. G. Whittemore, H. M. Ewing.
In Warsaw the Farmers and Merchants Bank Company was es- tablished 1901. The officers are Adam Strome, President; James L. Beck, Vice-President ; Frank E. Whittemore, Cashier. The five directors include the first two officers and W. W. Frederick, Eugene Laughlin and James H. Elder.
In West Lafayette, 1902, the West Lafayette Bank Company be- gan business. The officers include William Gorseline, President; T. J. Platt, Vice-President; H. A. Sicker, Cashier; E. A. Leighninger, Assistant Cashier. In addition to the president and vice-president the directory comprises J. L. Rogers, F. R. Klein, I. B. Mizer, Henry Rehard and Robert Porteus.
Among Coshocton's financial institutions are the Home Building, Loan and Savings Company, organized 1882. John C. Fisher is President; W. A. Himebaugh, Secretary; T. L. Montgomery, Treasurer.
The Citizens Building and Loan Association began operations in Coshocton 1892. The officers are W. A. Mizer, President; G. F. Schauweker, Vice-President; C. B. Hunt, Secretary and Treasurer.
From the first county fair held in 1850 at Plainfield and the sub- sequent fairs held in the Court Square, and in Hickory Street, with the racing on the Canal Lewisville road, and the fairs of the sixties
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held between Orange and Main streets and then along Chestnut Street' there has been much progress to the present annual October gather- ings on the beautiful fairgrounds along South Seventh Street. The fine grove of oaks, the exhibit buildings, including the auditorium seat- ing three thousand, where the annual Chautauqua is held, and the half-mile race track altogether constitute one of the best fairgrounds in the State.
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