USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > Steubenville > Century History of Steubenville and Jefferson County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, 20th > Part 2
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Sharon, William
Sharp, Benjamin L. 1155
Sharp, Benjamin M. 904
Sharp, George E .. 763
Sharp, George V. 555 Stringer, Benjamin F 1002
Sharp, Thomas A
555
Stringer, John W
641
Sharp, William L 763 Stringer, William H. 669
.
Shaw, Benjamin
337
Sheal. John F ...
757
Shepherd, A. J. 1119
P.M.E.
Shepherd, James T. 1147
Sherrard, John 104
Shively, Henry S .. 825
Shuster. William B.
735
Simeral, Charles 1). 1194
Simeral, James M ..
Sammons, Horace A
Simpson, James 937
Simpson. James A.
Simpson, James R.
Sinclair, Dohrman J
567
Sloane, William F.
Smith, Albert F. 661
Smith, Carl H.
Smith, Charles S.
1021
Smith, George 11
915
Smith, George W 701
Smith, Hon. Howard 11 950
Smith, James 1021
Smith, John K. 10×2
Smogor, F. A. 754
Suodgrass, James L 1012
Snyder. J. Frank 1112
Spaulding, Charles H. 1187
Spaulding, David 11.84
Specht. Charles 977 ...
Speedy, Thomas J. 1009
Spence, James 1076
Spencer, Capt. William 363
Sprague, Jonas B. 1037
Spruens, Thomas D. .1068
Spruens. William W. 1079
Stanton, Hon. Edwin M. 140
Stark, Charles W
Stark, Ross D .. 1082
Stark, Samuel R. 746
Stecker. Frank X. 1121
Steele, J. R ..
1090
Steinmetz, L. W 1069
Steinmetz, W. E. 926
Stephenson. James W 1034
Sterling. George B .. 1126
Stevenson, Matthew 750
Stewart, Alonzo C. 936
Stewart, Amanda R. 936
Stewart. Robert C .. 767
Still. John 674
Stokely, Eliza 422
Stokely, Gen, Samuel,
13%
Stokely, Capt. Thomas.
93
Stone. Edward B ..
353 Stone. Frank W. 785
Stone. Frederick A 999
Stonebraker. Harry B. Strayer. Dr. Walter A 670 Verwohlt. Chris 1070
Strobel, J. Frank 567
Strong. J. Harvey
99%
703
1173
1117
915
319
701
701
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18
INDEX.
PAGE
PALE
PAGE
Walker, Jacob
73
Wells. William 464
Wilson. Hans 363
Walker. Dr. Philip A.
935
Westfall, H. D ..
426
Wilson, Henry L.
832
Walker, Dr. Thomas W 933
Westmeyer, Henry 793
Wilson. John D
736
Walker, W. S.
Wetzel, Louis
110
Winn, John R ...
926
Wallace, Spence
Wheaton, J. F.
1075
Winters, John D.
771
Wanenmacher, John G.
Wheeler. James
311
Wintringer, Harry D.
Ward. John . 364
Wherry, James
Withrow, Merrick
201
Warren, George B.
1036
Warren, Robert A.
1111
Washington. George
.64-67-74
White. A. Gould.
114+
Wood. Charles R.
×43
Watkins, William
White, Daniel M.
599
Words, Harry .
1029
Watson, Allen M.
956
White Eyes, Chief.
114
Work. F. M.
862
Watson, John J.
746
White. James ,
1079
Wrenshall, Rev. John
720
Wait. John W
612
White, Timothy A. 1174
Wright, John C.
137
Waugh, John R.
Whitworth, C. C ..
Wright, Mary Tappan
353
Weatherson. James
6-7
Wickersham, IL L 1037
Wright, Richard
6-4
Weber, A. W. 096
Wildpret. Boyle's L
Wiles. Aaron M. 73-
Yocum, Cyrus M. ;12
Webster. Col. Geo. P 146
Wilkinson, Robert 1051
Yocum, Floyd M 776
Weber, Julius H ..
110%
Williams, Rev. I. 3.3.5
Yocum, John 598
Weems, Hon. C .. L
1014
Williams. Cortez L. 1132
Yost, William J. $70
Weigand. Rev. Joseph A 729
Williams, Ohediah J 3+3
Young, Capt. Charles T
604
Weldlay, Curtis A .. 576
Williams, William E 944
Welday, Hon. David M 693
Williamson, Col. David. . 94, 95, 96
W'elday, Harry J.
603
Williamson, James Sr 635
Zende, Oito F. 1057
Welday. James P 877
Williamson, John T 79%
Zeyer, Henry 6-3
Wells, Richard
114
Wilson, George 49
Zink, Harry A 903
Wells, Robert T
927
Wilson, George P 91%
Zink, Dr. William R. 849
741
954
Whigham, James W
634
Wolfe. Thomas B.
Whitcomb, Burchard 794
Wolfe. William C.
337
Weber, John F.
1170
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JOSEPH B. DOYLE
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history of Jefferson County
CHAPTER I.
TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
Physical Features of the County-Formation of the Coals and Fire Clays-The Glacial Period and Its Work-Elevation and Climate.
For the physical beginning of what is and deep-cut ravines of Jefferson County now Jefferson County we must go to a past was then an estuary of the Gulf of Mexico, a body of brackish water variously esti- mated to have an area of 6,000 to 13,000 square miles, dotted with an archipelago, on whose islands grew the great tree ferns of the Carboniferous Age, and on whose sandy shores the wavelets left their ripple marks, which are perpetuated to the pres- ent day. Then the islands slowly sank beneath the waters, the forests became coal beds, and deposits of clay, sandstone and limestone, in alternate layers, preserved the black fuel of the future. so far distant that it cannot be counted in years, but must be estimated by ages. Could we see it there would be a far dif- ferent picture presented from what is shown at present, or even when man made his first appearance in this valley. There was no valley then, because there were no hills. There was no Ohio River, for the stream had not been born, much less chris- tened. As far as the eye could reach, and it could not reach very far unless there had been the vantage of some artificial ele- vation, there was apparently a dead level. All this went on quietly year after year and millennium after millennium, dis- turbed, according to the fish theory of pe- troleum, by an occasional cataclysm suf- ficient to destroy animal life, but not suf- ficient to make any general dislocation of the strata or serious interference with the process just described. It should be no- tieed, moreover, as will be seen later, that petroleum and petrolemn gas are found below the coal measures, indicating an carlier formation when fish life was most abundant. It was hard to distinguish the land from the waters. A tropical climate and steamy swamps encouraged a Inxuriant vegetation, and .immense ferns waved their fronds of dark green, while in the depths of the watery forests queer creatures, half fish and half reptile, disported, the vegetable kingdom preparing vast stores of coal for future ages, while the finny tribes, accord- ing to some authorities, were preparing to become the future prodneers of petro- leum. (?) Where are now the rugged hills
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20
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
But the subsidence finally came to an end and. the land began slowly rising. Then were formed the Allegheny Moun- tains, of which the western foot hills begin in this county. Then began the Ohio River to flow along the tops of the present hills, whose summits had not been worn down by the elements. Fully 400 feet above the present level it began that proe- ess of erosion which has worn its channel down to even below its present depths, fed by a mighty glacier that covered all the northern part of the state. As the river bed descended, the mouths of the streams flowing into it naturally kept going along with it, and hence we have the deep cross gorges starting at or near the western boundary of the conuty, and pursuing more or less directly an eastern course, contin- ually increasing in depth until the stream which was doing the work mingled its waters with those of the Ohio. While this naturally made the county more rugged, yet by cutting through the strata of fire clay, sandstone, limestone, coal, etc., it made these valuable veins easily accessible, a fact which has contributed not a little to the industrial development of the county, while in the creek and river bottoms the detritus of ages has produced some of the best farming lands in the state.
The strata in this county have a general dip to the southeast, so that if it were not for the faet of the drainage being towards the east being somewhat greater than the dip of the strata we would expect the low- est stratum to come to the surface at the northwest corner of the cannty, hut as Yellow Creek in the north end falls towards the east at a more rapid rate than the strata dip in this direction we must go to the mouth of that ereck, seventeen miles north of Steubenville, to find the lowest exposed strata of the county. Were a shaft to be sunk there we might abtain from the remains of animal and plant life a geological history back at least to the be- ginning of the stratified rocks. At this point above the bed of the stream a short distance below the C. & P. Railroad we
find a seam of coal three and one-half feet thick, known in the reports of the Ohio Geological Survey as the Creek vein, or No. 3. Nos. 1 and 2, mined in other parts of Ohio, are below drainage and are not exposed in this county. Coal No. 4, known as the Strip vein, occurs about twenty feet above the Creek vein at the level of the C. & P. Railroad, and is generally about two and one-half feet thick. The Roger vein, No. 5, is found about seventy-two feet above the strip vein, but in the railroad cutting north of the creek disappears to a mere trace, reappearing in paying quan- tity a few miles further north. Fifty feet higher we come to what is here known as the Big vein, one of the most persistent and important coal seams in the world, labeled in the survey as No. 6. Two hun- dred yards above the month of the creek the Diamond mine, now abandoned, was in this seam. The bone coal, six inches thick, under the main seam, proved a veritable mine of fossilliferons life, and largely through the labors and study of the late Sam Huston, connty surveyor and after- wards state commissioner of highways, more than fifty new species of fossil fishes and batrachians have been discovered and described. There were parts of the mine where well preserved specimens were se- eured by the hundred, teeth by the thou- sand, and the surface of almost every slab was covered with scales, showing the abun dant life that thronged these lagoons and swamps. Prof. Newberry, of the Ohio Geo- logical Survey, in Vol. I, Paleontology, published in 1873, refers to the above de- seribed locality, with the fact that up to that time abont twenty species of fishes had been obtained from that deposit with at least as many amphibians, all found here for the first time, although two or three species have since been met with in this or adjoining states. Most of the fishes found here were four to eighteen inches long, some of them beautifully marked, and Prof. Newberry says:
"We learn from a careful study of the deposit, that there was in this locality at
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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
the time when the coal was forming, an open lagoon, densely populated with fishes and salamanders, and that after a time this lagoon was choked up with growing vegetation; and peat (which afterwards changed to cubical coal) succeeded to the carboniferous mud (now cannel) that had previously accumulated at the bottom of the water. The fishes of this pool were mostly small, tile-scaled ganoids, belong- ing to the genus Eurylepis. Though here extremely abundant, they have not been found elsewhere. There were also in this lagoon two, or perhaps three, species of C'elacanthins (one of which is so closely allied to C. Lepturus of the coal measures of Europe, that they should perhaps not be separated) and yet this genns has been nowhere else recognized on the American continent. There are also found here the thin scales from one to two inches in diam- eter, some ornamented and some plain, and also the lance-head teeth of the Rhizodus, and the teeth and spines of Diplodus. On the whole, this must be looked upon as one of the interesting localities of vertebrate fossils known on this continent, and it is even doubtful whether any other equals it in the number of new species or in their zoological and geological interest."
Many of these specimens have found their way into prominent museums of the country, while quite a number remain in the late Mr. Huston's private museum, to- gether with a collection of sigillaria, stig- inaria, ferus and other flora of the coal period.
From the fifty or more varieties of fossil fishes discovered in the cannel coal at Lin- ton, many of which are found nowhere else, we have selected five typical speci- mens for illustration. No. 1, the Colacan- thans Elegans, was six to eighteen inches in length, and a near relative of the C. Lep- turas of the English coal measures. Nos. 2 and 3, Enrylepis Tuberculatis, were three inches long, and No. 4, the E. Cor- rugatus, slightly larger. No. 5, the Palon- isens Peltigerns, was five inches long.
This coal seam extends westward to
Perry County coal field and eastward through the state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel at the east of the Allegheny Mountains passes through this seam, the west end of the tunnel being above the coal, and the east end below it. At the Diamond mine the greatest thick- ness of the coal is about eight feet, some- times less, overlaid by a solid ledge of sandstone, forming a model roof so that rooms were driven thirty feet wide for long distances without props.
Formerly what is known as the Steuben- ville shaft coal was considered synchro- nous with No. 6, or the "big vein," at Yel- low Creek, but a more thorough investiga- tion has led geologists to place it with the Roger vein or No. 5, which would make it of more recent formation. However this may be, and the proposition is not undis- pnted, there is no doubt according to all the authorities that the limestone coal of the Wills Creek section (Lower Freeport) is plainly the shaft coal of Steubenville. It is exposed in the bed of the Ohio just above Wills Creek; was reached at a depth of seventy-five feet in the Cable shaft above Alikanna, eighty in the Bustard shaft at the north end of Steubenville, 221 feet in the Market Street or High shaft, 188 feet at the Jefferson (now La Belle), 210 feet in the O. & P. or Averick, 240 in the Borland and 234 at Mingo, two miles below. All these workings have been abandoned except the High shaft and La Belle.
The coal beds above enumerated, with their associated limestones, fire clays, sand- stones and shales, form what are called the lower coal measures, because, so far as dis- closed, there are no persistent seams below them that can be depended on over any great extent of territory. The combination has been the foundation of the industrial resources of this portion of the Ohio Val- ley, and the basis of all the manufacture of coke, steel, fire brick, pottery and other products of this region.
From the heavy sandstone roof covering coal No. 6 coming upward 500 to 600 feet, we reach vein No. 8, popularly known as
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
the Pittsburgh coal. This interval includes the Lower Barren conl measures, because the seams therein are thin and not of work- able thickness for any distance. While the coal may be anywhere from three to eight feet thick at a certain place, it is liable to thin ont to a trace or disappear entirely within a few yards. These measures are, however. very rich in fossils, especially what is known as the crinoidal limestone. which in some cases is a compact mass of shells und other remains. What are known as pentaerinoids are found here in ahun- dance. They were a low form of animal life, immured like the coal to the rock on which they grew, having a flower shaped mouth ready to take in their prey as it came along. This limestone is about half way up the series, and may be found in greater or less abundance in nearly all our valleys. This ledge seems to mark the limit of marine life, as the fossils found above it are land plants, insects and land and fresh water shells, marking the last direct invasion of the ocean into this section.
The Pittsburgh or No. 8 coal above this during the last seventy-five or 100 years has probably supplied three-fourths of the domestic consumption of the county. Cropping ont on the hilltops, it was so ne- cessible that alnost every farmer conld have his own coal bank, while its compara- tive cleanliness and excellent burning qual- ities with freedom from ash or sulphur made it a general favorite. Shafts were seldom needed to reach it, und the favorite method of mining was by means of entries or "banks" driven into the hillside with sufficient slope to secure natural drainage. This coal is the lowest stratinn of what is called the Upper Productive coal measures. which include 200 or 300 feet of the rock- in this county. The seam is one of the most persistent and uniform coal seams known. and is always found of workable thickness and fine quality, where the earth covering is sufficient. It erops out along the hill- sides in this and adjoining counties and is a leading prodnet in West Virginia and
western Pemsylvania. The millions of bushels conveyed down the Ohio River with every rise are a striking exhibit of its com mercial importance. In this county it shows itself in the highest hills of Ross, Knox, Steubenville and Sulem Townships. and has a fair exposure in Island Creek. Wayne, Cross Creek, Wells and Warren. It nuderlies nearly all of Smithfield und all of Mt. Pleasant except a small urea eut ont by Short Creek and Long Run. At its exposures on these strenms in Mt. Pleasant Township it lies nearly 400 feet above the Ohio River, or nearly 1,000 feet above the sea level. Science Hill, in the western part of Mt. Pleasant Township, rises over 1,300 feet above the orean level, and consequently 300 feet above the Pitts. lungh >em. The overlying strata con- tain several mimportant coal seams and a large amount of limestone interstratified with sandstones and shales. No fossils Inve been found here, but although this is not the highest point in the county it con. tains the highest geological struta.
Above and below the Pittsburgh coal are limestone strata whose disintegrations have contributed largely to the fertility of Jefferson County hilltop farms, by which they were able to rival the over lauded tracts within the limits of the drift period. The soil of all this section was at an early date discovered to be better adapted to the raising of fine wooled merino sheep than any other section in the United States, and for many years this was a leading industry in the farming sections of eastern Ohio, West Virginia Panhandle und western Pennsylvania. It was a great boon to the vonty, otherwise its agricultural produet. iveness would have been largely confined to the bottom lands in the narrow valleys.
While the work of erosion previously mentioned had been gradually wearing off the jagged summits of the hills and eating ont the valleys, another geological era. known as the drift or ghicial period, was approaching. The drift did not reach into Jefferson County, but indirectly at least it affected it very materially. Its inthence
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No. 3 Gravel Bank. 9 miles below Steubenville, where was found the first evidence of Pre-glacial Man In the Ohlo Valley.
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Indian Cave opposite Steubenville, used as a Tomb.
2
1
3
5
Fossil Fishes discovered In the Coal Measures at Linton, mouth of Yellow Creek.
1. Coelacanthus Elegans,
2. Eurylepis Tuberculatis.
3. Enrylepis Tuberculatis.
4. Eurylepis Corrugatos.
5. Palaoniscus Peltigerus.
25
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
indirectly contributed to the formation of the latter part of the Ohio River canon by furnishing water for erosion, but later its more direct influence was felt in the deposi- tion of gravel to a considerable depth and especially in the sand and gravel terraces of the Ohio Valley, which are very decided at Toronto, Steubenville and below Bril- liant and Portland Station. During the construction of the Panhandle railroad bridge at Steubenville the original rock bed of the river was found to be 150 feet below the surface of the present gravel bed, and it was necessary to build the piers on cribs resting on the gravel, a eiremm- stance which necessitated a reconstruction of several piers a couple of years since. How were these terraces formed, and how elid the original bed of the river come to be filled up? Not by the ordinary action of the river, which was erosion rather than filling, and which is now engaged in wear- ing a new channel through the accumulated gravel. Geologists are pretty well agreed that at the close of what is known as the Tertiary period there was a tremendous arenmulation of ice and snow, similar to that now existing in northern Greenland, which covered a great portion of the north- ern hemisphere. Either propelled by its own weight as are the Alpine glaciers to- day, or by an elevation of the land, this vast accumulation moved slowly south- ward, grinding and scratching the rocks in its path and carrying huge boulders from their home in the far North, dropping them on what are now the fertile plains of northern Ohio, where they are of interest to the traveler and a nuisance to the l'armer.
As we have said, this great ice sheet did not reach Jefferson county, but it came very near it. The sontherly line of the glacier in the United States strikes Cape Cod in Massachusetts, following Long Island into New Jersey, thence across the northern end of that state and Pennsyl- vania it recedes back nearly to Lake Chan- tauqua, thence sweeping southwestwardly it enters Ohio at Achor, in Colombiana
County, twelve miles north of the Ohio River, just tonches the northern border of Carroll, takes in about one-half of Stark, passing just south of Canton, thence by a semicircular sweep including Millersburg, in Holmes County, curving around into Knox, thence south with a slight trend towards the west it reaches the Ohio River at Ripley, thence proceeding almost due west it crosses the river a short distance into Kentucky, twenty-five miles above Cin- cinnati. We need not follow it further westward. Had it not been for the cross- ing of the river Jefferson County's con- nection with the drift or glacial period would have been confined to its service as a feeder to the tributary streams which flowed into the Ohio and specimens of small boulders carried by water from the ter- minal moraines and scattered along the river beaches. But when the big glacier slowly crept into the river bed and climbed up the Kentucky hills, depositing its boul- ders more than 500 feet above the water level, one result was inevitable, a result that can be seen on a smaller scale every time the spring freshets break up the ice which has formed from shore to shore. An immense ice dam was formed at least 500 or 600 feet high. A little water might work its way through and under the ice, but the bulk would be retained, forming a long, narrow lake extending back into valleys of the Allegheny and Monongahela, and suhnerging the present site of Pittsburgh to a depth of over 300 feet. This theory of a great ice dam at Cincinnati has been vigorously attacked, but so far no other adequate explanation of these river ter- races has been afforded. Of course, the first terraces with their sand and gravel holding small granite and other boulders with other foreign objects would be found near the present hilltops, but the rains of thousands of years have carried most of them into the lower valleys. Naturally all streams tributary to these upper rivers would be affected in similar manner to the main stream, and we find adjacent to them. as might be expected, terraces of sinaller
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26
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
size. As the waters receded, perhaps with long halts at intervals, successive terraces were formed down to the present flood lev- els. Probably the best example of these terraces to be found in this vicinity are at Holliday's Cove, W. Va., just opposite the upper end of Steubenville. That the high wooded hill which separates that val- ley from the present river was once an island is demonstrated by the most cursory examination, the terrnees not only contain- ing the usual sand and gravel, but fresh water shells and other evidence of fluvial life.
With the disuppenrance of the Drift and change of climate the present era may be snid to have begun, and to-day we owe our productive soil, well watered valleys, and rich farms to the erosive action of these streams long ago, and our alluvial bottom Innds to the work of the Drift period.
Like the remainder of the state, the eli- mate of Jefferson County varies consid- erably, although as a rule without the in- tense extremes of heat and cold which mark some of the sections further west. Pos- sibly the coldest weather ever registered here was in February, 1899, when the ther- mnometer registered from 20 to 25 degrees below zero. Ten to twelve degrees below is, however, considered extremely low, the thermometer seldom falling far below the zero mark. Ninety-eight in the shade is considered extreme hot summer wenther, so the range ny be considered about 100 degrees. Hot summer nights are few in number, and the hilltops especially are gen- erally subject to light breezes. The sum- mer heat enables corn to grow rapidly and make a paying crop, which a cool season would prevent, and thus offset any advan- tages of n mild winter. As to the average temperature a series of observations ex- tending over six years gives the following :
January
31.60
July .. 75.60
February
32.60
August
.73.80
March
39.30
September
.67.60
April
.55
Detober .53.40
May
64.10
November .41.40
June
.73.60
December .32.60
Annual mean fur six years.
.. 54
Observations of inches of rainfall for thirty-seven years give the following. which insures safe and, as a rule, abundant erops.
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