USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III > Part 5
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Latty is composed of a collection of huts in the woods for laborers who are at work cutting down timber for hoops and staves that are made here. The soft timber is cut down by cross-cut saws; the hardest trees are chopped. The principal timber of the country is oak, cottonwood, hickory, basswood and syca- more in immense quantities. The sycamore, they tell me, is of great value for the inside of houses ; regarded as preferable to black walnut, ash or cherry, color resembling mahogany and beautifully grained.
Around Latty the trees had mostly been cut down by cross-cut saws. There are establishments here for making hoops and staves. Latty is a wild spot and very interesting to look upon. What piles of logs ! what almost acres of staves !- some under sheds and some in the open. Around stand the woods in the deadness of winter, their trunks largely white and hoary.
The cutting down the forests is mere child's play compared to the labor of the pioneers with the axe. Now there are firms of men who travel even into the heart of Ohio, where yet remain scattered large bodies of wood- land, with their portable saw-mills and make contracts to clear the land. They saw down the trees with cross-cut saws and convert them into lumber on the spot, living in the woods at the time in shanties and often with their families. By the use of the cross-cut saw a few men will clear one hundred acres in a few months and with a portable saw-mill of twenty-horse-power convert such a hard timber as oak into lumber at the rate of six thousand feet per day. I met, in travelling, one of a firm, Strack & Angell, of these modern clearers of the woods. He told me they had just cleared off in less than a year three hundred acres, yielding 900,000 feet of lumber.
Directing the Fall of Trees .- Such is the skill of these modern woodsmen that they will make a tree fall in any desired direction. If the top should lean as much as even ten feet over, say a gulch, and they wish it to lie in an opposite direction, they will work as follows : First, chip with an axe part way through the tree in the desired direction for its fall near its base, tlien on the opposite side begin with their cross-cut saw, driving in thicker and thicker wedges in the fissure made by the saw, which after a while changes the centre of gravity to the opposite side.
Costly Trees .- Sometimes trees of rare
value are found in the woods. I am told an enormous black walnut, some years ago, found in Williams county, brought $1,000, and a bird's-eye oak, very rare, discovered in Indiana, sold for $1,700. These were ex- orbitant sums, reached by furniture men in rivalry to each other.
Wild Game .- At a stopping-place in front of a cabin we saw some foxes chained and one of our passengers got out and played with them. The woods are full of foxes and wild game generally, as partridge, duck, quail, wild turkey, plover, jack-snipe, woodcock, etc.
Speech of the Twentieth Century .- In front of the cabins at Latty, the ground seemed alive with midgets, children playing in the warm, golden sunlight of a perfect December day. The air was pure and bracing ; nature calm and peaceful and it seemed as though the very spirit of liberty dwelt here in this wilderness for the growth and nurture of these little ones, and then I thought, in a twinkling the Twentieth Century, in the freshness of youth and hope, will be here and he will call out to them, "Come, I want you. That old fellow, the Nineteenth Cen- tury, is dead ; yes, dead as a hammer. You know, for you were at his funeral and nobody wept. We respect his memory, but will not put on mourning. He thought, as Old Father Time was notching out his last years, he had done great things in his day and generation. And so he had ; but oh, law me! it's not a circumstance to what I shall do with my one
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39
PAULDING COUNTY.
hundred years ; that is, starting with your help." And they will help him, even if they were born in the woods of Paulding, and the
nightly hooting of owls resounded from its dark, lonely recesses.
The original county-seat was CHARLOE, on the Anglaize river and Miami ex- tension canal, twelve miles south of Defiance. It was laid out about 1840 and was never but little more than a mere hamlet. Ockenoxy's town stood on the site of Charloe, named from a chief who resided there, and who was reported an obstinate, cruel man. The village derived its name later from Charloe, an Ottawa chief, distinguished for his eloquence and sprightliness in debate.
ANTWERP is ten miles northwest of Paulding, twenty-one west of Defiance, on the M. W. St. L. & P. R. R. and Wabash canal.
City officers, 1888 : W. F. Fleck, Mayor; A. E. Lane, Clerk ; O. S. Apple- gate, Treasurer ; Joel Dresser, Marshal. Newspaper: Argus, Republican, W. E. & N. H. Osborn, editors. Churches : 1 Presbyterian, 1 Catholic and 1 Christian. Population, 1880, 1,275. School census, 1888, 471 ; A. K. Grubb, school superintendent.
Antwerp has 2 large stave factories, one of which combines with it the manu- facture of dressed and rough lumber; 2 factories for tobacco, candy, and jelly pails and cannicans-small, wooden cans-axle grease boxes, 1 patent hoop manu- factory, flouring mill, etc. It is an excellent market for grain and live stock, and it exports largely poultry and wild game, as wild turkeys, ducks, quail, partridges, etc.
PAYNE is eight miles southwest of Paulding, on the N. Y. C. & St. L. R. R. Newspaper : Review, Republican, W. J. Johnson, editor and publisher.
Manufactures and Employees .- N. E. Prentice, flour, etc., 9 hands ; P. H. Hy- man, lumber and staves, 18 ; Payne, Hoop & Co., hoops, 41 ; H. F. Schnelker & Co., staves, 24 ; Payne Review, printing, 2; Jacob Ream, lumber and flooring, 10; Miller & Zind, wagons, etc., 3 .- State Reports, 1887.
School census, 1888, 354. Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $60,000. Value of annual product, $65,000 .- Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.
CECIL is six miles north of Paulding, on the W. St. L. & P. and C. J. & M. Railroads.
Manufactures and Employees .- J. B. Bugenot, Bros. & Co., staves and head- ing, 50 hands ; M. Simpson, lumber and tile, 6 .- State Report, 1888.
School census, 1888, 115.
DAGUE is six miles south of Paulding, on the C. J. & M. R. R. School census, 1888, 130.
LATTY is three miles south of Paulding, on the C. J. & M. and N. Y. C. & St. L. Railroads. School census, 1888, 169.
OAKWOOD is eleven miles southeast of Paulding, on the Auglaize river and N. Y. C. & St. L. R. R. School census, 1888, 136.
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40
PERRY COUNTY.
PERRY:
PERRY COUNTY was formed March 1, 1817, from Washington, Muskingum and Fairfield, and named from Commodore Oliver H. Perry. The surface is mostly rolling, and in the South hilly ; the soil is clayey, and in the middle and northern part fertile.
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Area about 410 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 66,700; in pasture, 102,176 ; woodland, 33,929; lying waste, 2,487 ; produced in wheat, 159,585 bushels; rye, 2,898; buckwheat, 212; oats, 54,621; barley, 108 ;; corn, 517,542; meadow hay, 23,029 tons ; clover hay, 883 .; potatoes, 34,286 bushels ; tobacco, 500 lbs .; butter, 431,940; sorghum, 2,087 gallons ; maple syrup, 11,472 ; honey, 3,005 lbs .; eggs, 370,713 dozen ; grapes, 20,286 lbs .; wine, 270 gallons; sweet potatoes, 1,643 bushels; apples, 3,944; peaches, 1,017; pears, 622; wool, 334,183 lbs .; milch cows owned, 4,747. Ohio min- ing statistics, 1888 : Coal mined, 1,736,805 tons, employing 3,301 miners and 433 outside employees ; iron ore, 10,129 tons ; fire-clay, 45 tons ; limestone, 4,217 tons burned for fluxing.
School census, 1888, 8,063; teachers, 195. Miles of railroad track, 139.
TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.
1840.
1880.
TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.
1840.
1880.
Bearfield,
1,455
997
Monday Creek,
986
1,636
Clayton,
1,602
1,164
Monroe,
999
1,780
Coal,
3,836
Pike,
3,059
Harrison,
1,034
1,562
Pleasant,
1,053
Hopewell,
1,544
1,284
Reading,
3,936
3,367
Jackson,
1,700
1,896
Salt Lick,
1,243
3,970
Madison,
1,167
714
Thorn,
2,006
1,900
Population of Perry in 1820 was 8,459; 1830, 14,063; 1840, 19,340 ; 1860, 19,678 ; 1880, 28,218, of whom 22,528 were born in Ohio; 1,165, Pennsylvania ; 523, Virginia ; 149, Kentucky; 136, New York ; 48, Indiana ; 1,346, England and Wales; 925, Ireland; 269, Scotland; 249, German Empire ; 56, British America ; 39, France; and 17, Sweden and Norway. Census of 1890, 31,151.
COAL AND IRON.
Perry is the largest coal-producing county in the State. It also produces large quantities of hematite iron ore. A few miles south of McLuney Station, Bearfield township, a valuable deposit of black-band ore has been discovered and quite extensively worked on the Whitlock farm, for Moxahala furnace. Within three miles of New Lexington, the so-called Baird ore is mined quite extensively on many farms. It has been demonstrated that the Baird ore of Perry county is the limestone ore of the Hanging Rock district.
Monday Creek, Salt Lick, Coal and Monroe townships belong to the Hocking Valley coal field, constituting an important portion of what is known as the " Great Vein " territory, in which the Middle Kittanning scam ranges from five to thirteen and one-half feet in thickness.
The coal mines of the northern and central townships of Perry are similar in character to those of Muskingum county ; they are specially adapted to domestic uses and for making steam. The Columbus and Eastern railroad is doing much for the development of the coal fields of this region.
This county was first settled by Pennsylvania Germans, about the years 1802 and 1803. Of the carly settlers the names of the following are recollected : John
41
PERRY COUNTY.
Hammond, David Pugh, Robt. McClung, Isaac Brown, John and Anthony Clayton, Isaac Reynolds, Daniel Shearer, Peter Overmyer, Adam Binckley, Wm. and Jacob Dusenbury, Jolin Poorman, John Finck, Daniel Parkinson, John Lashley, Peter Dittoe, John Dittoe, and Michael Dittoe. The first church erected in the county was at New Reading ; it was a Lutheran church, of which the Rev. Mr. Foster was the pastor; shortly after, a Baptist church was built, about three miles east of Somerset.
The road through this county was, " from 1800 to 1815, the great thoroughfare between Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and the Eastern States, or until steamboat navigation created a new era in the history of travellers-a perpetual stream of
VIEW AT THE COAL MINES, SHAWNEE.
emigrants rolled Westward along its course, giving constant occupation to hundreds of tavern-keepers, seated at short distances along its borders and consuming all the spare grain raised by the inhabitants for many miles north and south of its line. Groups of merchants on horseback with led horses, laden with Spanish dollars, travelled by easy stages every spring and autumn along its route, congre- gated in parties of ten or twenty individuals, for mutual protection, and armed with dirks, pocket pistols, and pistols in holsters, as robberies sometimes took place in the more wilderness parts of the road. The goods, when purchased, were wagoned to Pittsburg and sent in large flat boats, or keel boats, to their destina- tion below, while the merchant returned on horseback to his home, occupying eight or ten weeks in the whole tour."
Somerset in 1846 .- Somerset, the county-seat, is forty-three miles easterly from Columbus, on the Macadamized road leading from Zanesville to Lancaster, from each of which it is eighteen miles, or midway, which circumstance gave it, when originally laid out, the name of Middletown.
In 1807 John Finck erected the first log-cabin in the vicinity of this place. Having purchased a half-section of land he laid out, in 1810, the eastern part of the town ; the western part was laid ont by Jacob Miller. They became the first settlers : the first died abont eleven and the last about twenty years since. The present name, Somerset, was derived from Somerset, Penn., from which place and vicinity most of the early settlers came. The board of directors of the Intheran seminary at Columbus have voted to remove it to this place. The town contains 1 Lutheran, 2 Catholic and 1 Methodist church ; 1 iron foundry, 1 tobacco ware- house, 3 newspaper printing offices, 16 mercantile stores and about 1,400 inhabi- tants. A very large proportion of the population of the county are Catholics. They have in the town a nunnery, to which is attached St. Mary's seminary, a
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42
PERRY COUNTY.
school for young females. It is well conducted and many Protestant families send their daughters here to be educated .- Old Edition.
About two miles south of Somerset are the buildings shown in the annexed view. The elegant building in the centre is St. Joseph's church, recently erected; on the right is seen the convent building; the structure partly shown beyond St.
Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846. SAINT JOSEPH'S CHURCH AND CONVENT.
Joseph's church is the oldest Catholic church in the State, the history of which we give in an extract from an article in the United States Catholic Magazine for January, 1847, entitled " The Catholic Church in Ohio."
The first chapel of which we have any authentic record that was ever consecrated to Ahnighty God within our borders was St. Joseph's, in Perry county, which was solemnly blessed on the 6th of December, 1818, by Rev. Edward Fenwick and his nephew, Rev. N. D. Young, of the order of St. Dominic, both natives of Maryland, and deriving their jurisdiction from the venerable Dr. Flaget, who was then the only bishop between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi. This chapel was first built of logs, to which an addition of stone was subsequently made, so that it was for a considerable time "partly logs and partly stone." When the congregation, which consisted of only ten families when the chapel was first opened, had increased in number, the logs disappeared and a new addition, or, to speak more correctly, a separate church of brick, marked the prog- ress of improvement and afforded new fieilities for the accommodation of the faith- ful. An humble convent, whose reverend inmates, one American, N. D. Young, one Irishman, Thomas Martin, and one Belgian,
Vincent de Rymacher, cheerfully shared in all the hardships and privations incident to the new colony, was erected near the church, and from its peaceful precincts the saving truths of faith were conveyed and its divine sacraments administered to many a weary emigrant who had ahost despaired of enjoy- ing those blessings in the solitude which he had selected for his home. The benedictions of the poor and the refreshing dews of heaven descended on the spiritual seed thus sown. It increased and multiplied the hundred fold. New congregations were formed in Somerset, Lancaster, Zanesville, St. Barnabas. Morgan county, Rehoboth and St. Patrick's, seven miles from St. Joseph's, and in Sapp's settle- ment and various other stations still more distant was the white habit of St. Dominic hailed by the lonely Catholic as the harbinger of glad tidings and the symbol of the joy, the purity and the triumphs which attest the presence of the Holy Spirit and the fufihnent of the promises made by her divine founder to the church.
At this place a number of young men are being educated for the priesthood of the Dominican order. A large library is connected with the institution, which affords facilities to the students in becoming acquainted with church history and literature. Among them are the writings of many of the fathers and rare books, some of which were printed before the discovery of America .- Old Edition.
FOLGER CINE
THE PERRY COUNTY COURT-HOUSE, NEW LEXINGTON.
OLIVER H. PERRY.
A.ARNDT SADDLE. AND
HARNESS MAKER
M. F.SCOTT
Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.
CENTRAL VIEW IN SOMERSET.
The old County Court-House shown on the right is yet standing, and M. F. Scott still in his store ready for customers.
43-44
45
PERRY COUNTY.
SOMERSET, for many years the county-seat, is seven miles northwest of New Lexington, the present county-seat, on the Straitsville Branch of the B. & O. Rail- road. City officers, 1888 : D. O. Brunner, Mayor ; Thomas Scanlon, Clerk ; Owen Yost, Solicitor ; E. T. Droege, Treasurer ; W. C. Weir, Marshal and Street Commissioner. Newspaper : Press, Labor, W. P. Magruder, editor and publisher. Churches : 1 Lutheran, 1 German Reformed, 1 Catholic and 1 Methodist. Pop- ulation, 1880, 1,207. School census, 1888, 361; J. B. Phinney, school superin- tendent.
In the old description of Somerset we have spoken of the female academy of St. Mary's. It has long been a famed institution. It was established at Somerset in 1830 by Bishop Fenwick, the first Catholic Bishop of Cincinnati. Years after our visit it was destroyed by fire, and it was removed to about four miles east of the capitol building at Columbus. It was incorporated in July, 1868, under the direction of the Dominican Sisters. It is now widely known as the "Academy of St. Mary of the Springs," and is a highly popular institution. It is near Alum creek, a branch of the Scioto, and under the general charge of Bishop Watterson. The building is large and commodious. "The location is unsurpassed in its salu- brity and beauty of landscape; the distracting sights and sounds of the bustling world are excluded by shady groves and sloping hills."
St. Joseph's Church, shown in the view taken in 1846, was also destroyed by fire, but another replaces it and with a noble college building standing by it.
TRAVELLING NOTES.
SOMERSET, May 21 .- Somerset has changed but little. The old picture fits even to this day. As I was making the drawing for it a brother of Phil Sheridan, then 9 years old, on his way to school, looked over my shoulder as he now tells me, while Phil himself was clerking it in the town somewhere-may be saw me seated in a chair near A. Arndt's sign. The old sign has gone-no longer creaks in the wind-catches no snow-gone, too, is Andy. Nobody lives forever. The old court-house is still standing, with the same old inscription over the door, with its Irish bull-
"Let Justice be Done IF the Heavens should Fall."
The one-story brown building beyond it exists now only in my picture; never was asparkling gem set in the brow of Somerset. It was Garlinger's grocery-a great institution in the times of the thirsty and free fights.
Free Fights .- Says an old citizen to me: " I remember one muster-day, about forty years ago, seeing a crowd of men pouring out of that grocery and indulging in a free fight, and all wearing red warmers, i. e., roundabout loose jackets of red flannel. At that time there were often fights on the square. When parties had a grievance, they would put off settling it until muster-day. Then they would have it out, rough and tumble, often with rings around. The fight over, they would become good friends again. Frequently these fights would be to see who was the best man." "In those days, when any farmer was sick, his neighbors would get in his crops and take good care of him."
"They do that now ; don't they ?"
" No !" he replied ; " but they don't fight any more."
The sign "M. F. Scott," is gone, but the building is there, and so is M. F. Scott ; for I found him on an evening and had an hour's chat with him. Mr. Scott is a small, hale, rosy-checked old gentleman, 74 years of age, hair of snow and never was sick a day. I think he is of Irish extraction or birth. He told me he came here in 1838, and paid $7 per 100 pounds freight for his goods from Philadelphia, and " now," added he, " the charge being fifty cents, some of my neighbors com- plain of the extortionate charges of railroads.
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46
PERRY COUNTY.
Phil. Sheridan's Boyhood .- I asked about Phil. Sheridan. He replied, "Sheridan was a very bright, trusty boy. Before going to West Point he clerked for various parties in town ; once clerked in this very store." I asked, "How did he get his appointment ? " " Why, he got it himself. There was a va- caney from this district, when he wrote to Gen. Richey, our member of Congress, that he wanted it." In speaking of it, years afterwards, and just after Stone River, Richey said : "It was at the close of the Mexican war ; the pressure upon me was so tremendous for a cadetship, backed by strong, influential recommendations, that I was in great anxiety which way to move when I got Phil.'s letter backed by no one. I knew him, and it was so manly and so spirited that I that very day went to the War Department and ordered the warrant to be made out, fearful that if I deferred it some malign in- fluence would be brought to bear to make me reject the application ; and having done it, I had a deep sense of relief."
The Boyhood Home of Sheridan .- The next morning after this conversation I sketched the boyhood home of Phil. Sheri- dan. His father was a laboring man, and took contracts for macadamizing the Na- tional Road and other roads. The house was occupied by the family in their more humble days. In his later years he built a neat cottage residence about half a mile south of the town. He died at the age of 75 years from blood-poisoning, which originated fron a kick at night in the wrist from a vicious horse, the wound not healing.
The old homestead is but three minutes' walk from M. F. Scott's store, and yet quite out of town. Somerset, like the old towng built upon the National Road, and like other macadamized thoroughfares, consists mainly of a single street with the buildings compact, like poor pieces of cities set down in the country. Such places have no pleasant vil- lage aspects, and therefore make one sad in thinking of what "might have been."
The main building of the old homestead consists of three rooms only, and is unoccu- pied and dilapidated, and we have tried to make it look as it did in "Phil.'s " boyhood days, and so have introduced the boy gallop- ing on a horse around the corner, which is supposed to be " Phil." as he then was, pre- paring, unknown to himself, for that later ride, "Up at morning, at break of day."
The wing this way, consisting of a single room, was built in 1847, and is occupied by Mr. Zortman and wife, laboring people. Germans, of course, they are. for they had flowers blooming in the windows of their very humble home. I asked Mrs. Maggie Morris, who lived next door, the name of the street. She answered, "I don't know ; some call it the 'Happy alley.'" The Happy alley has upon it bnt three or four houses, and commands a grateful, open prospect of green fields and sweet smelling slopes, falling away down to the locking valley, fifteen miles away to the south, and where, some
three years ago, one night, when the mills at Logan were burned, the light was seen red- dening the sky.
From here, on the left, over an apple or- chard, quarter of a mile away, on a slight hill, stands the old St. Mary's. It was a female seminary, with nunnery attached. St Mary's has been removed to Columbus. It brought back pleasant recollections of hospitable en- tertainment there, and at St. Joseph's, from the Catholic Fathers and Sisters.
Talk upon Corn and Grapes .- From the cottage I walked to the present Sheridan homestead, half a mile south. Passed a large field where two men and three boys were hoeing open ground for corn, while two girls were following them, planting. They wore sunbonnets and their aprons were filled with the kernels, which they held up with one hand and dropped from the other-a pleasant sight. My companion, Mr. - , a friend of the Sheridan family, said : "In corn-planting the women and the girls often lielp. Under the most favorable weather corn will mature in ninety days from plant- ing ; sometimes it requires 120 days. The ground must be right as to moisture. If too wet, the corn will decay. The season being short the planting has to be hurried ; hence, all of a family help. The heavy frost of June 5, 1859, destroyed the wheat of this region. Yet that was one of the most fruitful years here known, for the entire population turned out, put in varied crops, and, the au- tumn being long and warm, everything ripened."
"Some fifteen or twenty years ago," he continued, "there was a great furore here- abouts for planting grapes, the soil and cli- mate seeming especially adapted to them, the varieties being Catawba, Ives' Seedling, Delaware and Concord, the last the most prolific. Some parties went into it so largely that it ruined them. For a while, wine was made largely and sold even as low as eighteen cents a gallon, and even then there was no market. Physicians were anxious to pre- seribe it, but Americans can't be taught to drink sour wines.'
The Sheridan Homestead .- I found this to be a neat, simple cottage of wood with eight rooms. It stands back about twenty yards from the road, midst trees and shrub- bery. Among these were evergreens and honeysuckles climbing trellis-work. The lo- cation of the cottage is in a small valley, in front of a grove, now called "Sheridan's Grove." A big tree stands by the house. marking the spot where, in the campaign of 1840, Harrison, Corwin, Ewing and Hamer addressed political meetings. Here, too, in the grove was held the first meeting of the three years' men in the civil war.
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