Fifty years and over of Akron and Summit County : embellished by nearly six hundred engravings--portraits of pioneer settlers, prominent citizens, business, official and professional--ancient and modern views, etc.; nine-tenth's of a century of solid local history--pioneer incidents, interesting events--industrial, commercial, financial and educational progress, biographies, etc., Part 76

Author: Lane, Samuel A. (Samuel Alanson), 1815-1905
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Akron, Ohio : Beacon Job Department
Number of Pages: 1228

USA > Ohio > Summit County > Akron > Fifty years and over of Akron and Summit County : embellished by nearly six hundred engravings--portraits of pioneer settlers, prominent citizens, business, official and professional--ancient and modern views, etc.; nine-tenth's of a century of solid local history--pioneer incidents, interesting events--industrial, commercial, financial and educational progress, biographies, etc. > Part 76

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THE CONCLUSION .- On the collapse of the organization here, several of the members sought and obtained admission into a fam- ily of "Shakers" in the southern part of the State, Mr. Charles Clapp, a former partner of the late Harvey B. Spelman, in the dry goods trade in Akron, separating from a most estimable wife (sister of Hon. Marvin Kent) among the number, and who for the past forty-five years has been a highly respected and useful member of that society. The many other members of the Second Advent church quietly accepted the situation, and though some became confirmed skeptics and scoffers at every form of religion, the most of them soon again affiliating with other church organizations, but some still holding to the doctrine of the speedy Second Advent of Christ upon the earth, in its most literal sense, though fixing no particular date for his appearance. ,

Thus is briefly given a history of one of the most wonderful, as well as one of the most exciting religious delusions of the Nine- teenth Century, and especially proper among these chapters, because of the very conspicuous part in the great "Spiritual Farce" that was played by so large a number of the people of Akron and Summit county. .

CHAPTER XXV.

M ATTHEW CANFIELD READ,-

born in Williamsfield, Ashta- bula county, Ohio, August 21, 1823; at 12 removed with parents to Mecca, Trumbull county ; worked on farm and attended district schools till 18; pursued preparatory studies in West- ern Reserve Seminary, atFarmington, and at Grand River Institute, in Austinburg; entered Western Re- serve College in 1844, graduating in 1848, afterwards receiving the degree of A. M. from his Alma Mater; taught school in Columbus and Gustavus ; read law with Chaffee & Woodbury, at Jefferson; was married, August 28, 1851, to Miss Orissa E. Andrews, of Homer, N. Y., who has borne him four children - William H. A., a member of the Toledo Bar; Charles P., a contractor and builder in Hud- son; Mary O., living at home, and Janet A., recently teaching in Asylum for Imbeciles at Columbus, Ohio. At close of law studies, Mr. Read took editorial control of the Hudson Family Visitor (elsewhere written of), at same time teaching one year in Grammar School of West- ern Reserve College; then opened law office in Hudson ; during the war officiated as general relief agent of United States Sanitary Commission, Western Department; at close of war was deputy revenue collector, and later assistant geologist on the Geological Survey of Ohio; had charge of archæological exhibits of Ohio at Centennial Expositions at

BENEDICT

MATTHEW CANFIELD READ).

Philadelphia and New Orleans, and for several years held the position of lecturer on Zoology and Practical Geology in Western Reserve College ; also, besides having filled several local offices-township clerk, justice of the peace, mayor, etc .- in addition to his law practice has been exten- sively employed in the exploration of mineral lands for private parties.

GEOLOGY OF SUMMIT COUNTY.

BY MATTHEW C. READ, A. M.

S the name indicates, this county is situated on the Summit, or A divide, between the waters of Lake Erie and the Ohio River. Akron, also, is the top-the Summit. From these names it has been often assumed that here is the highest land in the State. But this is a mistake. The door-sill of the Court House, at Akron, is 452 65-100 feet above Lake Erie, and the highest land in the county, in Richfield township, 675 feet. The highest hills of Rich- land county are 910 feet above the Lake, and the summit between the Scioto and Miami, in Logan county, 975 feet, which is prob- ably the highest land in the State. The surface of the county is greatly diversified and has taken its final form as the result of several causes.

615

CANYON FORMATION.

When lifted above the ocean, to an elevation much above the present level, it remained for a long succession of ages, subject to ærial erosion, until canyons were cut through the rocks to the depth of over one thousand feet. One of these canyons is now substantially occupied by the Little Cuyahoga, and by the Cuyahoga from their junction to the Lake. Another commences on the north line of Northfield township and extends southeasterly through Mud Brook Lake, thence through Stow, Tallmadge, Springfield and the eastern part of Green. A branch of the main canyon passes through Akron, Summit Lake, and thence along the chain of lakes through Coventry and Franklin, with branches from Norton and Copley.

Owing to the erosions of these canyons, the rock surface between them was disintegrated and a soil formed capable of sus- taining a forest vegetation, but, from the want of a mingling of the material, everywhere lacking in some of the mineral ingredients of the most productive soil. The deep canyons produced such an efficient drainage as seriously interfered with continued fertility and left a barren rock surface in many places bordering the canyons. This was the first chapter of the formative influences producing the present topography.

The second filled these canyons, widened out the upper parts of them into valleys, crushed the rock surfaces, pulverized the fragments and commingled them with the debris of all the north- ern rocks. This work was done by Nature's great ice plow, coming down from the frozen regions of the north, loaded with the minerals of all the rocks of the north. Moving slowly over the surface of the state, with the pressure of a mass of ice several thousand feet in thickness, it left upon the surface of the north- ern townships of the county a thick deposit of unstratified clay drift containing fragments of all the local rocks mingled with the load brought down by the glacier.

In the central and northern parts of the county, the waters flowing from the retreating glacier carried away the most of the clay, ground the residue into sand, and left the surface diversified by swamps and lakes, the sites of immense masses of grounded ice left by the glacier on its final retreat. The evidence is pretty con- clusive that there were two such invasions of the ice, the last one leaving its marked impression upon the topography of the county.

Upon the withdrawal of the ice, lakes and lakelets, some of large size, covered much of the surface. Water from the hills silted up the bottoms of these lakes and deepened their outlets; the renewed vegetation encroached upon their margins, and con- verted all the shallower ones into swamps, sometimes bridging the surface of the water and leaving buried lakes. This process is continuous, and, unless checked by artificial means, all the lakes will become swamps, the swamps will become drier and all, in the end, become capable of tillage.

Since the drift, surface erosion has materially modified the topography in other respects. The filling of the canyons diverted many of the streams from their old beds and compelled them to seek new channels. The most conspicuous instance is that of the Cuyahoga river, which has cut itself a new channel, mostly through solid rock, from above Kent, in Portage county, to its

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junction with the Little Cuyahoga. Other streams emptying into the Cuyahoga have opened similar but smaller rock channels.

The time required for such results is very long, but not as long as a superficial observation would indicate. If the surface wear of the running water alone did the work the time required would be almost illimitable. The work accomplished by this agency is shown at Kent, Portage county, and by the rock chan- nel above Cuyahoga Falls, where the superficial action of the run- ning stream has been the only excavating agency. At Cuyahoga Falls, and below, it has been an undermining process. The soft argillaceous shale, under the sand rock, has rapidly disintegrated, making an abrupt precipice, at one time over one hundred feet high, with a protruding overhanging rock which finally broke down by its own weight, and this process, continued, carried the falls up stream many thousand times faster than would result from surface erosion alone. Such is the mode of all rapid canyon making.

STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY.

Something about six hundred feet in thickness of the rocks of the county can be studied from their out-crops. The lowest is Devonian, the upper part of the Erie shale, of which about one hundred feet is exposed in the valley of the Cuyahoga, from the north line of the county to near Peninsula. It is a soft argilla- ceous shale, with thin bands of impure fossiliferous limestone, and contains no valuable minerals.

There is a sharp transition from the Erie to the Cleveland shale directly above it. This is a highly bituminous black shale, lying in blocks and splitting easily into thin layers. It is exposed in all the streams emptying into the Cuyahoga, below Peninsula. As it resists erosion, and the Erie below it is soft and friable, it uni- formly produces a cascade or water fall in the streams which cut both these shales, the rapid erosion of the Erie undermining the Cleveland shale, until the projecting mass breaks down and falls into the chasm below, so that the falls are slowly but steadily retreating up the stream.

This shale was made the base of the Waverly or sub-carbon- iferous system, by Prof. Newberry, in his reports upon the geology of the State, but Prof. Orton, the present State geologist, unites it with the Erie and Huron shales, under the nanie of the Ohio shales, and calls all Devonian. All the molluscous fossils contained in it are regarded, by expert paleontologists, as car- boniferous. These are sparingly found, except in the upper layer, where, in places, they are very abundant. The weight of evidence is decidedly in favor of Prof. Newberry's classification. This shale is remarkable for the large collection of monster fishes obtained from it in neighboring counties, described by Prof. New- berry, in the Paleontology of Ohio, and in Vol. XVI of the monographs of the United States Geological Survey. Careful search may lead to the discovery of interesting fish beds in this shale in Summit county. It contains so much carboniferous matter that it could be profitably mined and distilled for petroleum, if the supply from wells should fail.

Next above the Cleveland is found the Bedford shale, so called from the fine exposure of it in the gorge at Bedford, Cuyahoga county. In Summit it is more argillaceous than in Cuyahoga,

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STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY.

and therefore more easily disintegrated. Its out-crop is generally concealed by its debris, covered with soil and vegetation, but in some places, in Boston township, there are sandy layers exposed, which would make fine flagging. .

Above this is the Berea grit, the same as the Independence, the Berea and Amherst stone, called in the east the Ohio stone. It is, in this county, about sixty feet thick, mostly in thick layers, and an admirable building stone. The quarries at Peninsula have long been noted for the amount and excellence of their out-put, and have furnished the best stone for oat mills obtainable in this country. Some of it is nearly white, very hard, with a sharp grit and can be quarried in almost any size desired. It rises above the bottom of the valley, near the south line of Boston township, and is found on each side of the valley, at an increasing height and distance from the river, to the north line of the county. At Brandywine there is a precipitous fall of the creek over its out- crop, and it forms precipitous bluffs below on each side of the stream. In places, the bluff on the north side is curiously covered with calcareous tufa, deposited from the water coming from the soil above charged with lime, and flowing down the surface of the bluff. The amount of stone that can be cheaply quarried, from exposures along the valley of the Cuyahoga, is practically un- limited.

Above this is the Berea shale, of about ten feet in thickness, black, highly bituminous, containing coal fossils, and of no value except to the geologist. It is a well defined geological land mark extending to the Ohio river.

Next in the series is the Cuyahoga shale, taking its name from the exposure of it in the Cuyahoga river below Cuyahoga Falls. It is, in this county, about one hundred and seventy-five feet thick, and composed mainly of soft argillaceous shale. Near the top, below Cuyahoga Falls, it carries a band of impure lime- stone which makes a fair water lime, and was quarried for this . use in the building of the Ohio canal. It is the horizon of a thin band of limestone found at Richfield, and in the neighboring counties, rich in molluscous fossils. Near the middle there is about twenty feet of very hard, fine-grained sandstone, which resists erosion and has produced what is called the Big Falls in the river. It is from this bed that the paving stone is taken in Trumbull county, successfully used in Warren, and to some extent in Akron. The bed in this county is in thicker layers, harder, will resist abrasion better, and, although harder to quarry, will make a inore durable road-bed than the Trumbull county stone.

This shale, in the Cuyahoga Valley, carries abundant speci- inens of "Cone in Cone," the character of which has been a puzzle to geologists and paleontologists. Examined in place, it is seen to be generally associated with bands of blue carbonate of iron, and is probably not organic, but a peculiar semi-crystallization of clay.

Above this is the carboniferous conglomerate, a conspicuous feature in the landscape at Cuyahoga Falls, at the Boston ledges, and at other places. It is about one hundred feet thick and the surface rock in more than half of the county: Its quarries furnish vast quantities of bridge and foundation stone, and some of them furnish excellent building stone. At Wolf's quarry, near Akron,

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and at a quarry near Cuyahoga Falls, it is colored red by iron oxide, giving it a highly ornamental character as a building stone. The quarries in Twinsburg are extensively worked, and some of the rock is ground for use in the iron mills of Cleveland. It con- tains many rounded pebbles of quartz, which, in places, and especially near the base of the foundation, detract from its value, but it contains an inexhaustible supply of material, accessible, with little stripping, for all ordinary uses. Its fossils, so far as known, are all vegetable.

This is the base of the coal measure rocks, and should be care- fully studied by all prospectors for coal; for it is certain that here no workable coal will be found beneath it. It bordered the old marshes, in which our lowest coal was deposited, and rose in many places above the marshes, so that coal may be found at a lower level than the conglomerate, but never below it. A thin bed of conglomerate is occasionally found above the coal, but this is the debris from the true conglomerate, where it rose in bluffs above the coal marshes, and was carried down and mingled with the covering of the coal.

From twenty-five to fifty feet above the conglomerate, is the normal position of coal No. 1, of the Ohio Geological Reports, the interval being occupied by from two to six feet of fire clay, with argillaceous or sandy shales below. The territory in which this coal may be found, embraces substantially the whole of Franklin and Green townships, the larger parts of Tallmadge, Springfield and Norton, about half of Coventry, and the southwestern corner of Copley.

The coal was originally deposited as peat, in a series of swamps, much like the marshes now covering the surface. It does not form a continuous sheet over any large area, but lies in a series of connected basins of very irregular shape. It is to the superior quality of this coal, and its proximity, to Akron, that this city is. indebted, in a large degree, for its remarkable prosperity. Few cities, even in the center of the coal fields, have had the advantage. of a cheaper or better fuel. While this fact has been recognized, and persevering search made for new deposits, it is by no means. certain that all the coal in the county has yet been discovered .. The indications from the ordinary drill and sand pump are often misleading. The diamond drill should be used for testing the- territory, and when the coal is found to be so thin as to be worth- less, it may lead, by a channel sometimes tortuous and narrow, to- workable deposits.

This coal, in the "swamps," or central part of the old marshes, reaches a thickness of from four to six feet. It is the same as the . old Brier Hill coal of Mahoning county, the standard of excellence for all bituminous coals. An addition of a few hundred acres to the known supply of this coal in the county, would result in so many advantages as to justify renewed search for it.

The normal cover of the coal is an argillaceous shale, generally black, next to the coal, and above this a heavy sand rock from fifty to seventy-five feet thick. This sandstone sometimes comes down to the coal, and sometimes "cuts out the coal." This cutting out of the coal, by the sandstone, may require a word of explana- tion for the reader not conversant with geological literature. All the rocks of the county are sedimentary, deposited in water.

619

OIL AND GAS POSSIBILITIES.

When clay alone was deposited above the coal, we know that the water which brought it in moved with only a very slight current, as it carried with it nothing but clay. The sandstone above shows a more rapid movement of the water, with force enough to bring in sand and carry away the clay to quieter water. Some- times the current was so rapid as to carry away the clay already deposited, removing it down to the surface of the old marsh, and sometimes carrying away, also, the accumulation of carboną- ceous matter which was waiting its change into coal. This is the cutting out of the coal by the sand stone.

The general dip of the rocks of the county is to the southeast so that, in places in Green township, coal No. 1 is not less than two hundred and fifty. feet below the surface. It is probable, in many cases, test borings have not been carried deep enough.

Above the sandstone, last mentioned, is a bed of shale and sandstone from fifty to seventy feet thick, carrying a thin and worthless seam of coal, and capped with a thick bed of fire clay, extensively mined in Springfield township. This is the under clay of coal No. 3, two to four feet thick, of poor quality, with four feet of limestone above it, which, in places, carries a fair quality of iron ore. There is an interval of about thirty feet between this limestone and coal No. 4, in Green township, which is not of first quality, but reaches a thickness of four feet and is capped with four feet of limestone.

These two beds of limestone would furnish a large amount of good material for road making, enough, supplemented by the scattered granite boulders brought in by the drift, and the banks of water-washed gravel, to put all the roads in the county in good condition. This is a work which would promote the best interests of the country and the city and deserves the careful consideration of the county commissioners.

The coal horizons of the county, where the coal is either want- ing, or too thin to work, furnish inexhaustible supplies of sewer pipe and potters' clay, and have furnished the basis for most important and profitable industries. But, as intimated above, our peat marshes, so numerous in the county, represent the first stages in coal making, and the same causes which resulted in the under- clay of the coal, have given us like under-clay, in our peat marshes. The manufacturers of sewer pipe and pottery will soon turn to these peat marshes for their best clay, which is thoroughly wash- ed, will need no grinding, and can generally be mined more cheaply than that now used. The peat, which must first be re- moved, can be largely composted and used as a fertilizer, or dried and used as a fuel, with which to burn the ware. When the deposit in each locality is exhausted the marsh will be restored to its old condition of a lake.

GAS AND OIL.

It will be expected that in a geological sketch of the county, something will be said about gas and oil. There is no doubt that gas can be found in most of the townships of this county, if persevering search be made for it. The singular phenomena occurring in Coventry township, where there have been repeated' explosions with a fissuring of the surface, as if by miniature earth- quakes, indicate a constant escape of gas which, in winter,

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AKRON AND SUMMIT COUNTY.

imprisoned by the frozen earth, has at times acquired a tension sufficient to rupture the frozen covering and cause explosions, which the citizens compared to the explosion of cannons.

Gas and oil springs are to be found in various parts of the' county, and the deep wells drilled in the Cuyahoga valley have in several instances yielded gas. Further, all the well known hori- zon of gas and petroleum are below the surface of Akron, and may be reached by drilling. But the horizon of the Mecca oil, the Berea sandstone, is cut by the Cuyahoga valley and so thoroughly drained that there is little chance of obtaining from it any important yield.

The Huron shale which underlies the Erie, the latter being the lowest rock exposed in the county, is an important horizon for the hydro-carbons. But the sandstones which are found above it in the productive regions, are wanting here, and the conditions fav- oring a large production do not exist. Many wells drilled into the Erie shale, in northeastern Ohio, have produced gas in consider- able quantities which has maintained a persistent flow for many years.

Doubtless the same result can be obtained in this county, by sufficient trials, without any reasonable hope of a supply sufficient for the use of a city like Akron, but in many cases sufficient for lighting and heating a few dwellings, or for the wants of a single manufacturing establishment.

The important horizon, in Ohio, is the Trenton limestone, which, according to the indications of the drill, is over 3,000 feet below the surface at Akron. This rock furnishes large quantities of oil and gas, but, as far as is now shown, only along the summit of anti-clinals, and in limited areas where the rock is of a peculiar character. According to Prof. Orton's deduction, from test drill- ings, there is a moderate anti-clinal in the Trenton and its cover- ing rocks passing through Akron, and this, so far as it goes, is a favorable condition. But the depth of the Trenton rock below the surface places it practically beyond reach. While moderate sup- plies of gas can doubtless be obtained from the shales, no great fortunes, and no great "boom" can be secured by the search either for gas or oil.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SUMMIT COUNTY'S RAILROADS-ANCIENT AND MODERN-FINISHED AND UN FINISHED-RISE, PROGRESS AND COLLAPSE-RESURRECTION, COMPLETION AND SUCCESS-HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS SUNK, BUT THE PEOPLE BENEFITED -THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE IN AMERICA -SINGULAR BOILER EXPLOSION-LONGEST RAILROAD IN THE WORLD IN 1834, ONLY 130 MILES - WONDERFUL PROGRESS IN 60 YEARS -AKRON AND SUMMIT COUNTY IN THE VAN -- A TRULY INTERESTING CHAPTER.

BRIEF REMINISCENT HISTORY.

AT the beginning of the present century railroads were wholly unknown, either in the Old. World or the New, and though some rude tramways had come into vogue, for mining and grading purposes, the longest railway in the United States, as late as 1827, was that from the Manch Chunk, Pa., coal mines to the Lehigh river, twelve miles; the loaded cars being propelled by their own gravity and the empty cars returned to the mines by mules; the- mules, in turn, being transported from the mines to the river in cars constructed for that purpose.

But from this time on, railroad enterprise took a deep hold upon the public mind and several short lines were constructed for passenger travel in the Eastern States, propelled by horse-power, the first locomotive to turn a wheel, upon the American continent, being a clumsy English affair, called the "Stourbridge Lion," landed in New York in 1829.

FIRST AMERICAN-BUILT LOCOMOTIVE.

The first locomotive built in the United States, probably, was. called the "Best Friend," constructed at the "West Point Foundry Shops" in the city of New York, in the Summer of 1830. It was built for the Charleston, S. C., and Augusta, Ga., railroad, and was transported from New York to Charleston by the ship Niagara, in October of that year. The trial trip was made on a short section of the completed road out of Charleston, November 2, 1830, running, according to the Charleston Courier, "on the wings of the wind, at the varied rate of fifteen to twenty miles an hour, annihilating time and space, and, like the renowned John Gilpin, 'leaving all the world behind.'"

SINGULAR BOILER EXPLOSION.

The "Best Friend" was used in the completion of the road, a Mr. Darrell acting as conductor and engineer of the construction train, with negroes, only, as assistants. On the morning of June 30, 1831, while being ended about upon the turn-table, the negro fireman becoming alarmed at the large amount of steam which was- blowing off, and wasted as he supposed, placed his hand upon the lever of the safety valve, causing an explosion by which the boiler

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Author: Lane, Samuel A. (Samuel Alanson), 1815-1905 Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Akron, Ohio : Beacon Job Department Number of Pages: 1228

Author: Lane, Samuel A. (Samuel Alanson), 1815-1905
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Akron, Ohio : Beacon Job Department
Number of Pages: 1228