Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 143

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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The great drawback to Australia has been the terrible drouths by which in entire dis- tricts the sheep all perish. Of late years this evil has been lessened by the sinking of artesian wells and extensive tree planting, by which the annual rainfall has been increased. The lives of the wool-growers there are des- olate from the vast size of their ranges, their nearest neighbor often being fifteen or twenty miles away. In 1888 Australia had about eighty millions of sheep, and the United States about fifty millions, so the former is now the greatest wool-producing country on the globe, we ranking second, South America third and Russia the fourth.

Profits of Sheep-raising .- Asour talk upon the sheep industry in Harrison county be- gan on Boyle's Hill, it was finished in Mr. Shotwell's office in the evening, of which I took notes, and here repeat verbatim. "I do not know," said he, "a single farmer who has followed for life the growing of sheep, without diversion to other crops, but what has become wealthy. Land pastured by sheep improves year by year from their droppings. The tendency of sheep in sum- mer is to seek the highest point of a hill to get the cool breezes. In winter they also get near the summit, but on the leeward side if there be any wind ; the coldest air, being the heaviest, always sinks into the valleys. The result is that the rain distributes their manure from the top to all the lower parts of the field.

"Some years ago the late Judge Brinker- hoff, of Mansfield, was riding with me in this region, and inquired, 'Why is it that your hills are all so fertile? Our hill-tops are generally poor soil; our best lands are the valleys.' 'Because,' I replied, 'we raise sheep.' The products of the hill soil-hay, grass, corn, oats, etc .- are of a more nutri- tive nature than those of the rich bottom lands of the Tuscarawas and Ohio valleys, although the growth is not so rapid. Our experienced farmers therefore pay five cents more a bushel for our hill corn than for that raised elsewhere. This hill land will produce from twenty to forty bushels more to the acre than the alluvial soil. I own valley lands on the Tuscarawas and Stillwater, and I get nearly twice the quantity per acre of corn, grass, etc., from the hills, and the richest of butter and cheese is made from hill grass.

"As I have spoken of the profits of sheep- raising, I will give you some statistics. On a farm of a quarter of a section, 160 acres, 325 sheep can be conveniently pastured. Such a farm would be valued at about $5,000. The value of such a flock now would be about $650. With proper care and feeding corn and hay, all of which one man alone could do, the annual clipping would be about seven pounds per sheep ; total, 2,275. At 33} cents, the present price, this gives $758.33 for the wool. Then the increase of sheep is

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double at the end of the year, which, at $2 each, is $650. This added to the product of the wool, gives $1,308 as the annual produc- tion of the farm. There is still another item of profit. . With a view to avoid over-stock- ing, the farmers select in the fall their largest, strongest sheep of the older class, and fatten them over winter, and in the spring, after clipping, they are sold East for mutton pur- poses. About 200, generally wethers, are annually sold on such a farm, at $5 each, thus enhancing the total profits to $2,308.

"The more you feed and care for a sheep in the winter, the heavier and better in the staple will be his fleeee. Just after the war wool brought as high as $1.10 per pound. The very old ewes are sold in the fall at fair prices -say $2 each-are shipped eastward to the neighborhood of the cities, and then sold to a class of farmers who manage to have them drop their lambs early in February, feed the ewes on. milk-producing slops, which rapidly fattens and increases the weight of the lambs. These lambs are tender and delicious, and

often bring $5 each. The ewes arc then clipped and slaughtered, the carcass thrown to the hogs, and the pelts turned over to the leather men. The large bank deposits in our town are mostly from the wool-growers of Harrison county.

"The sheep, as his coat shows, belongs to a cold climate; hence he flourishes in the mountain countries of Europe north of the 40° latitude, or in Australia south of the 40° latitude, where it is alike cold."

Sheep-raising in Texas is comparatively a failure. To find there the proper climate, elevation is required, and then grass is scant. On the warm lowlands his wool is not re- quired, and nature allows him to grow hair.

The most certain productive crop in our county is the corn, which averages seventy- five bushels to the acre-have known 120 bushels. The average wheat is twenty-five bushels-have known forty. Oats average from sixty to 100 bushels ; hay, one and a half to two tons-often have the heaviest hay on the summit of the hills.

We append to the sheep statistics from Mr. Shotwell, some items from an article, " The American Wool Industry," by E. H. Ammidown, in the North American Review, August, 1888.

The American wool-clip amounts to about 300,000,000 pounds per annum, and varying in value from $75,000,000 to $95,000,000. It stands sixth in value as an American agri- cultural product, being surpassed only by corn, hay, wheat, cotton and oats. "Our 50,000,000 of sheep are worth over $2 each, say in all $100,000,000. If the annual pro- duct of mutton for food, and the increase of the flocks, were added to this, it would total- ize $125,000,000. Sheep husbandry is the only great farm industry in which every sec- tion of our country shares. The annual gain

from the fertilization of the soil by the drop- pings of the sheep is estimated to be fully $50,000,000.

If this industry was abandoned, the decline in value of the sheep-farm lands, comprising 112,000,000 of acres-much of which would be then unused and all deteriorate in fertility -at $2.50 an acre, would be $280,000,000. So the advantages of continuing the industry seem imperative to the well-being of the country. We now supply one-sixth part of the wool produced in the world, so far as is statistically known.

REMINISCENCES OF EDWIN M. STANTON.

Edwin M. Stanton, the great war Secretary, had his beginning in Cadiz as a lawyer. The great example of his life was intensity of purpose. Not another member of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, not even Mr. Lincoln himself, could perhaps here compare with him. He was a giant in will, with mighty passions to enforce it. To crush out the rebellion at all hazards absorbed his full powers. Governor Morton, in acknowledging on a certain occasion receipt of money from Mr. Stan- ton, wherein authority was assumed to meet a great patriotic end, wrote him : " If the cause fails, you and I will be covered with prosecutions, and probably imprisoned or driven from the country." To this Stanton replied : " If the cause fails, I do not wish to live." Whatever he undertook he went in to the death. If death was to come, it would be for him no more than for others; he could die but once. His care was in what he engaged, and, as a lawyer, never undertook what he thought was a bad case. The cause succeeded, but his intense labors, under the might of an intense patriotism, killed him as effectually as ever soldier was killed by bullet.

It has been our privilege to make the acquaintance here of Mr. Stewart B. Shotwell, attorney-at-law, who was a student two years in the office with Mr. Stanton. To us, in conversation, he made the following statement :

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1886.

PORTRAIT AND BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL G. A. CUSTER.

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HARRISON COUNTY.

Stanton I knew intimately. He first studied law in Steubenville with Daniel L. Collier. He came to Cadiz in 1836, and went into partnership with Chauncey Dewey, and remained here until 1840, but the partnership existed until 1842. Dewey was an old law- yer of the Whig persuasion, and shortly after his coming, Stanton was elected prosecuting attorney on the Democratic ticket-an office he held three years.

Dewey was a man of very decided ability. had been educated at Schenectady, a pupil of the celebrated Dr. Nott, was a thoroughly read lawyer, and had especial ability with a jury. Stanton was then but twenty-two years of age, with broad shoulders, but light in person, weighing about 125 pounds, and height five feet eight inches. He was very near-sighted. The people here at first called him "Little Stanton."

He appreciated the ability and skill of his senior partner, at once placed himself under his tutelage, and owed much of his early suc- cess to him. He would often say to us, "Well, we are all Dewey's boys." Often, in coming into the office in the morning, Dewey would say, "Stanton, what do you think about this case ?" After Stanton had expressed his ideas, Dewey would take pen and put the points as he thought they should be presented, and hand the paper to Stanton, and Stanton invariably followed his guidance : he was his mentor. Mr. Dewey was then forty years of age; he died in 1880, aged eighty-four.

Stanton was very methodical, kept his pa- pers and office in perfect order, and his in- dustry was marvellous. He would read law sixteen hours a day and keep it up ever. I never saw a man with such capacity for work. I have known him to work all day in court and until nine o'clock at night, trying cases and then filing them. Then he would get into his buggy, ride to Steubenville for some paper or authority bearing on the case, be back at court-time next morning, after riding a distance of fifty miles, and work all day fresh as ever. He was physically compact ; put up exactly for the labor a lawyer has to endure.

Ordinarily he cared nothing for society of women, but he was exceedingly attached to his first wife. When she died he shut him- self in his room and spent days in grief. Then seeing it was breaking him down, he rallied and plunged into business.

He seemingly was of a cold nature; never any gush. He was thoroughly upright ; and if he had an important case he would make full preparation to win, even eating in refer- ence to it, so as to have full possession of his powers. He was temperate ; but sometimes, if he had a tight place to go through, would take a little stimulus. He spoke with ease, voice on a high key, and monotonous in man- ner, but strong and combative, hanging on with a bull-dog like tenacity, brow-beating and ridiculing witnesses. He did not care if the whole public was against him. He would face them all, and feel he was their master.

I once heard this anecdote, which illus- trates how everything had to bend to his main purpose. He had travelled into the then wilderness of Illinois, in pursuit of evi- dence in an important case, when, in a cabin where he had put up for the night, he found the family were originally from Steubenville and neighbors, living within a square of him. They had known him in his child days ; he had been playmate with their son, but he had outgrown their recollections. Any other man, in the glow of feeling consequent upon such a discovery, would have made himself known, but he refrained, from the thought that it might in some way militate against his success in the main object of his jour- ney, if it should be known he was in the country, and so left as he came-an entire stranger.

Ordinarily men would wilt under his de- nunciations ; sometimes feel like retorting with physical violence. He knew this, and sometimes, when the court adjourned, asked the sheriff to take his arm and accompany him to his office, as I believed for protection. This was not from cowardice, but because he felt it was wise to avoid a physical combat. He stood in awe of no human being. Every man was alike so far as that was concerned. His moral courage was immense. His likes and dislikes were very strong, and with his especial friends he was exceeding social and courteous. He was profound in legal prin- ciples, a safe lawyer in a good case ; but if he thought a case was desperate, would not go into court. The stories of his rough lan- guage to the people who came to the war- office are true. Simon Cameron, his prede- cessor, when he sent for Gen. Mcclellan, would wait for hours ; when Stanton sum- moned him there was no delay.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF A HERO.

After Cadiz, my next objective point was New Rumley, a hamlet high on the hills, three miles northeasterly from Scio, at which last I arrived by the cars about noon. New Rumley is a spot of historic interest, for here was born, Dec. 5, 1839, Gen. Geo. A. Custer, the famed cavalry leader of the war. I wished to sketch his birthplace and learn of his beginnings. I had scarcely got off the cars at Scio, and was standing on a narrow platform running from the depot on a line by the railroad track, when a young man at my side cried, "Look out !"

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It was the Pittsburg and St. Louis express coming at forty or fifty miles an hour, and close on to us. In a twinkling I saw an object coming for me, end over end. I gave a spring and as it came threw my entire weight on my right leg, and as it passed it struck the other a stinging but glancing blow on the inner side. Then I saw it was the Scio mail-bag.

I limped up to the village tavern, dined and then found a farmer who was going within two miles of New Rumley, and would take me in his wagon there for a consideration. I got in, we turned round a little hill, left Scio behind, and went up the valley of Alder creek, Thursday, 1 P. M., June 11, 1886. My com- panion was a little man with black hair and little black beads of eyes set back far in his head, his face thin and shrivelled, and, what is rare for a farmer, he wore glasses. He said his age was forty-three years, his name G. M. Toussaint and that he and Gen. Pierre Gustavus Toussaint Beauregard, of the Confederate army, were second cousins, their grandfathers having been brothers. It enhanced my interest in him to thus learn he was of French Huguenot stock, for I have a sprinkling of the same blood in my veins.

A Ride with a Farmer .- The wagon we were in was on springs, drawn by two mares, each having a little colt trotting lithe and pretty by its side, so we counted in all six, two of a kind, two men, two mares and two colts. He was anxious to know my business ; thought I had something to sell. Upon telling him, he said his wife went to school with Custer. He was quite a dressy young man, and when he came home on furlough from West Point, brought home among other things full twenty pair of cadet's white panta- loons for his folks to wash. My companion was a horse-fancier, and bragged about his horses ; they were of an honored ancestry, and he went on to give their pedigree. On naming over their ancestors, he was astonished that I had never heard of them ; he doubt- less would have been more astonished if I had told him what was a fact, that in my entire life I had never put a horse in a car- riage, nor liad buckled on a curry-comb. The colts as I looked down upon their petite, graceful-rounded forms, each trotting by the side of its mother, looked very sweetly. I asked him about how much each would weigh. He replied two hundred pounds. I could scarcely believe this until he told me he had failed only a few days before in an effort to carry one of them into his barn.

A Bit of Natural History .- The valley we were passing up was perhaps a third of a mile wide, with bounding hills of some two hundred feet high. We passed some sheep grazing. At one place they stood still and in silence in a ring, perhaps fifty of them, their heads down to the ground and noses together ; their bodies ranged like the spokes of a wheel from a centre. I inquired, " What is that for?" There had been a slight shower, and the sun had come out warm. "The flies bother them, stinging their noses," he said. In the fence-corners were other sheep and their noses were also to the ground. I subsequently learned it was an instinct of nature. There is a peculiar fly, the Oestrus ovi's, which crawls into the nostrils of a sheep and deposits an egg. This hatches a worm

which makes its way into the brain and in- variably kills the sheep. From this doubtless originated the expression as applied to a human being, "He has got a maggot in his head."

Everything that has life, man, animal or vegetable, appears to receive injury from some other life. The innocent sheep are not the only victims to the winged enemies. Late in the summer there is a large fly, the Oestrus bovis, large as a bumble-bee, which annoys cattle, punctures the skin and deposits an egg along the spine. Under the spring sun that egg develops into a grub with an ugly black head, and makes his way out of the hole to the infinite annoyance of the animal. The grub is thus occupied for weeks, while the itching at times is so intolerable that the animal runs around the field with tail out, perfectly frantic. Then the common expres- sion among the farmers is that it has "the warbles." Often twenty or thirty grubs will at once make their way out. When an animal has largely been infected with the pests, it injures the hide for the purpose of leather.

Having come out, the grub goes into the ground and after a little he puts on wings- they are not angel wings-and some day he starts on his aerial flight, becomes the great ugly fly we have described, to follow the same egg-hatching, egg-depositing business of his illustrious ancestors. The fly from which the horse gets into his greatest trouble is the Oestrus equi. He often alights on the front of the horse, where stinging him the animal nips at, catches and swallows the fly. That is just what the fly was after-to be swallowed. Housed in the stomach of the horse, he then proceeds about his business, to lay eggs. These hatch grubs sometimes to the num- ber of a hundred or more, which attach themselves to the coats of his stomach and feed thereon and often to the death of the horse. This affliction is called " the bots."

Friend Toussaint opened upon another topic dear to his heart-religion. A neighbor of his was far gone in consumption; notwith- standing, seemed as worldly-minded as ever

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HARRISON COUNTY.

"I told him, " said he, " he ought not to be thinking about driving sharp trades-that he ought to go and get religion, for in a few weeks probably, he would have to meet his God. For ought he knew, it might be no more than two weeks." Then he dwelt upon the influence of religion here on earth, illus- trating it by the story of a travelling man he once read of, who stopped at a strange house in a wild, lonely spot, and he didn't like the looks of the people, was on a sort of tremble ; was afraid he might be robbed and murdered in his sleep. But when bed-time came, bis ferocious-looking host opened a little cup- board, took out a book and said, "Let us pray," whereupon a load was lifted from the heart of the travelling man, and he slept that night "like a top." Thus my friend with interesting talk upon horses, sheep, Custer and religion, beguiled the way.

New Rumley appears .- A mile or more be- fore reaching New Rumley I saw in the far dis- tance, on the top of a very high hill, a cluster of trees, roof tops, and a church spire, and that my companion pointed out as New Rumley. I looked at it with intense interest, the birthplace of a hero ; ached to be there. When we had ascended nearly to the top of the hill, the horses rested for a few mo- ments, while the colts kneeled down each beside its respective mother, and rested also, while I made notes. Another short pull up hill, then a sudden turn to the right, and we were in New Rumley. The first ob- jects at its entrance I found to be two churches, just alike, facing each other as sentinels, on opposite sides of the road. They were freshly painted, and white as snow. It was pleasant thus to have the gospel greet one at the very threshold of the place. I couldn't help thinking so, but the huge white forms, spread out to the right and left of me so broodingly, somehow made me think of angels' wings, ready to bear people up to heaven. On one side of the street it was done after the manner of the Methodist brethren, and on the other of what they speak of abridgingly as the "You Bees," -- and spell out "United Brethren."

New Rumley is little more than a name- a hamlet set on a hill-a single street with a single store, that of T. H. Cunningham, and a few scattered dwellings, of which only three or four can be seen at one view. The highest part is where they put the angels' wings, and the birthplace of him whom Sitting Bull called the "Yellow Hair." From thence the street descended ; there was a sort of hollow spot in the wavy ground and then it ascended in a lesser wave, and where its farther course was hidden by trees. Where

it went then I know not, only I was told the followers of Martin Luther had a sanctuary somewhere there. I went into the store, a little room, and made the acquaintance of Mr. Cunningham, an elderly person. Some barefooted boys seeing me, a stranger, go in, entered and stood in silence listening. Where they came from I don't know, but men and women lived together around in little, half- concealed cottages, and where that happens, boys and girls will spring up fresh and healthy as daisies in an old cow-pasture. I in- quired if there was a General Custer growing up among them; got no reply. The boys seemed to think with the poet

" Das Schweigen ist ihr bester Herold."

That is-" Silence is golden."

Custer's birthplace in the early part of this century, 1820, was a log tavern, kept by one Andrew Thompson. It was clapboarded fifty years ago. It is brown, going to decay, some clapboards off, and others hanging by a single nail Locust trees stand before it; their fragile leaves tremble in the softest zephyrs. I borrowed a backless chair and drew the pretty scene shown, with the coni- cal spire of the "You Bees" in the dis- tance.

Having made the sketch, I went to the house. Some women were sitting in the front room, sewing and chatting, passing away their lives in simplicity and comfort appar- ently, with little possessions and little cares. They were simply clad. There was no bric-à- brac about to dust. no card basket for calling visitors. No splendid equipage with liveried footman and gaily attired visitors had ever called to inspire jealousy and create heart- aches up to that door, but the air was pure, and on June days it oft came in laden with the fragrance of new-mown hay.

The place seemed as the top of the world, and the eye possessions of its inhabitants vast. From it to the west I could look down the pretty valley through which I had come with friend Toussaint of pious frame and sprightly colts, and then all around met my eye a leafy world of hills for miles and miles away; and in one spot far to the north, a little village peeped forth in the vast out- spread of living green. A Sabbath-like calm rested upon all things. This was the high spot of earth, where the "Yellow Hair" first opened his eyes ; where the wintry winds have a high old time, and silvery toned bells wake the echoes on Sabbath day mornings. A Sabbath in the country. How beautiful it is ! Rest, music, prayer and thoughts of the heavenly choir. Glory Hallelujah !

The high places of earth like this are the glory spots for the lifting the heart of man. Earth and sky are there full spread before his vision to bring his spirit into the very presence of the Infinite. At night the stars pass over him in their grand procession athwart the mighty dome, and by day the bright sun moves over the vast expanse, the sun, blessing mother of morning, noon and night, which in its day's journey typifies the life of man.

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HARRISON COUNTY.

And cloud land is all above him, ever moving between earth and sky, and ever changing in its forms, its lights and its shadows, which it runs over the whole earth ; often throwing all around in gloom while the far distant peaks stand out. like hope, bright in the light of a heavenly effulgence. Clouds seem as if from the hands of God while dispensing refreshing showers, and by their beauty oft fill the sensitive heart with gratitude in its sense of possessing such an exquisite source of joy ; and this sense will sometimes give expression as here in my verse.

SUMMER CLOUDS.

The gorgeous Alps of summer skies In softest tints oft mass in view, Where seraph forms in fancies' dreams Recline beneath the tender blue.

And floating on their beds of fleece, Those spirits of the azure deep Look down upon our earthly fields, Where Time his generous harvests reap.

While we in Fate's remorseless chains May hapless seem in vales of woe ; Still onward float the beauteous clouds, Still cheer us with their genial glow.

O summer clouds ! our hearts like thee But take their beauty from on high ; The light that gives the charm to life,

The love that soothes us when we die.

PARTING DAY.

By the patriarch's dying couch Some angel hand the curtain lifts ; While parting day's celestial tints Enchanting spread beyond the rifts.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 143

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006