Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 16

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

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 16

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Transportation .- For many years the principal means of communication be- tween Ohio and the Eastern States was by pack-horses. As roads improved Pennsylvania wagons, drawn by four or six heavy horses, were seen. Such was the difficulty of travel that in 1806 Congress ordered the construction of a national road from Cumberland Gap to the Ohio river, and from thence to the western boundary of the State. This road was finished to the Ohio in 1825 and com- pleted to the Indiana line in 1834. The first steamboat left Pittsburg for New Orleans in 1811. An event which greatly affected the prosperity of the North- western States was the opening of the Erie Canal through the State of New York in 1825. In 1824 wheat was sold in Ohio for thirty-five cents a bushel, and corn for ten cents. Soon after the completion of the Erie Canal the prices of these grains went up fifty per cent. In 1825 the Ohio Canal was begun and finished in 1830. Railroads were begun in Ohio in 1835 and the first completed in 1848. The influence of these improved facilities for transportation may be seen in the fact that in 1838 sixteen pounds of butter were required for the purchase of one pound of tea, now two pounds are adequate; then four pounds of butter would prepay one letter to the seaboard, now the same amount would pay the postage on forty letters. The price of farm produce advanced fifty per cent. on the com- pletion of the canals. The railroads appear to have doubled the price of flour, trebled the price of pork and quadrupled the price of corn.

Underdraining has for some years past occupied the attention of Ohio farmers, but only for a few years has its importance become generally understood. It has, however, been practiced to a limited extent for a long period. In the summer of 1830 the writer of this paper advised and superintended the construction of drains upon the farm of a neighbor in Lorain county for the double purpose of making useful a piece of very wet land and to collect spring water and make it available for stock. A year later the writer, with similar objects in view, put in a drain upon land which he now owns, and the drain then made is running well at present. Horse-shoe tiles were at first made by hand, but before 1850 tile machines had come into use. In consequence of clearing off the forests and the surface drainage necessary for crops many of the smaller streams and springs have ceased to flow in the summer months. This has compelled many farmers to pump water from wells for the use of stock. Well water has an advantage over surface water in its more uniform temperature. To make the water of deep wells available for stock, pumping by wind-mills has become very common since about 1870, when the first self-adjusting wind-mill was exhibited at the Ohio State Fair.

Soiling and Ensilage are among comparatively modern improvements. The ex- tent of the dairy interest in Ohio and the necessity of obtaining milk at all seasons to supply the needs of an increasing population had led to the prac- tice of cutting succulent green crops to feed to animals in their stalls when the pasture is insufficient. Growing rye, oats, peas and vetches, clover, lucern, young corn, Hungarian and other millets have been employed. To secure more juicy fodder in winter a method of preserving these and other green crops has

107

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN OHIO.

been adopted, numerous silos have been built and many dairymen are enthusi- astic in regard to the value of ensilage.

Animal Diseases .- One of the great improvements made in Ohio agriculture is due to the efforts of a number of well-educated veterinarians and the consequent better knowledge and treatment of animal diseases. It is doubtless true that a still larger supply of intelligent veterinarians is desirable and that a better knowledge of the nature and causes of disease by stock-owners is requisite, inas- much as this is essential to securing the proper sanitary management of stock. Although in the past the State has been backward in this particular, there is reason to expect more rapid advance in the future.

Agricultural Papers .- Among the agencies which have contributed to the prog- ress of agriculture in Ohio it is but just to place agricultural periodicals in the foremost rank. The first of these known to the writer was the H'estern Tiller, published in Cincinnati in 1826; The Farmer's Review, also in Cincinnati, 1831 ; The Ohio Farmer, by S. Medary, at Batavia in 1833; The Ohio Cultivator, by M. B. Batcham, in Columbus in 1845; Western Farmer and Gardener, Cincinnati, 1840; Western Horticultural Review, at Cincinnati, by Dr. John A. Warder ; The Ohio Farmer, at Cleveland; Farm and Fireside, at Springfield ; Farmer's Home, at Day- ton ; American Grange Bulletin, at Cincinnati.

County and State Societies .- As early as 1828 County Agricultural Societies were organized in a few counties of the State. These societies doubtless did good if only by getting men awake to see the dawn approaching. In 1846 the General Assembly passed a law for the encouragement of agriculture, which provided for the establishment of a State Board of Agriculture and made it the duty of the Board to report annually to the Legislature a detailed account of their proceed- ings, with a statement of the condition and needs of the agriculture of the State. It was also made the duty of the Board to hold an agricultural convention annually in Columbus, at which all the counties of the State were to be represented. This act and one of the next year provided for a permanent agricultural fund and gave a great stimulus to the formation of County Agricultural Societies. Since that time scarcely a county in the State has been without such an organization. In 1846 the Board met and organized by the choice of a President and Secretary and subsequently made their first report.

The First State Fair was held at Cincinnati on the 11th, 12th, 13th of September, 1850. At this fair Shorthorn and Hereford cattle were exhibited, and Leicester, South Down, Merino and Saxon sheep. Although the first State Fair was very different from the fairs of later date, it nevertheless made it easy to see something of the educational value of such exhibitions. Among other valuable labors inaugurated by the Board were many important investigations. Competent com- mittees were appointed to examine and report to the Board upon such subjects as Texas Fever, Hog Cholera, Potato Rot, Hessian Fly, Wheat Midge and a mul- titude of others equally interesting. Essays upon almost every agricultural topic were secured. Any person who has preserved a complete set of the Agricultural Reports will find in them a comprehensive and valuable cyclopedia of information. In these annual reports were directions for the profitable management of county societies and also of farmers' clubs. Such instruction has saved many organiza- tions from the more tedious process of learning only by· experience. Several State associations, each devoted to some special interest, have heartily co-operated with the State Board and held their annual meetings near the time of the Agri- cultural Convention for the mutual convenience of their members. Such are the State Horticultural Society, the Wool-Growers and Dairymen's Associations, various associations of Cattle-men, Swine Breeders, Bee Keepers, Tile Makers, Forestry Bureau, etc., each representing a special field, but working together for the general good.

Ohio Agricultural College .- Scarcely any subject has excited more interest in Ohio than that of agricultural education. Mr. Allen Trimble, first President of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, in his Annual Report to the General Assembly in 1848, recommended the immediate establishment of an Agricultural College in Ohio, in which young farmers should obtain not only a literary and scientific but an agricultural education thoroughly practical. In 1854 the Ohio Agricultural College was established. James H. Fairchild, James Dascomb. John S. Newberry

108

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN OHIO.

and N. S. Townshend arranged to give annually at Oberlin winter courses of lec- tures to young farmers upon branches of science most intimately related to agri- culture, viz., geology, chemistry, botany, comparative anatomy, physiology, me- chanics, book-keeping and meteorology, etc. These lectures were given for three winters in succession, twice at Oberlin and once at Cleveland. An effort was then made to interest the Ohio State Board of Agriculture and the General Assembly in the enterprise. The State Board appointed a committee of their number upon the subject ; this committee made a favorable report, and the Board then asked the Legislature for a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of the college at Cleveland and make its instruction free to all. This request was not granted, and soon after the first Ohio Agricultural College was closed.

Farmers' College .- Pleasant Hill Academy was opened by Freeman G. Cary in 1833 and prospered for a dozen years or more. Mr. Cary then proposed to change the name of the academy to Farmers' College and to adapt the course of study specially to the education of young farmers. A fund was raised by the sale of shares, a suitable farm was purchased, commodious buildings erected and a large attendance of pupils secured. Mr. Trimble, in his second report to the General Assembly, as President of the State Board of Agriculture, refers to Farmers' College and expresses the hope that the example found in this institution will be followed in other parts of the State. In his third annual report Mr. Trimble corrects the statements made in the former report in regard to Farmers' College ; he had learned that the agricultural department contemplated was not yet estab- lished. In September, 1856, that department, under three appropriate professor- ships, went into operation. Mr. Cary had earnestly endeavored to impress upon the farmers of Ohio the necessity of special agricultural education, and had made great efforts to supply the need. The Ohio Agricultural College had opened at Oberlin in 1854 and therefore has an earlier date.

Land Grant and Ohio State University .- In 1862 Congress passed an act donating lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for instruc- tion in agriculture and the mechanic arts. The Ohio State Board of Agriculture promptly sought to secure for the State of Ohio the benefits of the donation. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Board and many other citizens the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was not put in operation until September, 1873. In 1870 the law was passed to establish such a college, a Board of Trustees was appointed, a farm purchased, buildings erected, a faculty chosen and the following departments established :

1. Agriculture.

2. Mechanic Arts.

3. Mathematics and Physics.

4. General and Applied Chemistry.

5. Geology, Mining and Metallurgy.

6. Zoology and Veterinary Science.

7. Botany, Vegetable Physiology and Horticulture.

8. English Language and Literature.

9. Modern and Ancient Languages.

10. Political Economy and Civil Polity.

In May, 1878, the General Assembly changed the name of the Ohio Agricult- ural and Mechanical College to Ohio State University, probably thinking that the latter name better expressed the character of an institution having so many departments. The University has been in successful operation for fifteen years. Its first class of six graduated in 1878; the class which graduated in 1886 num- bered twenty-five. The teaching force and means for practical illustration are steadily increasing. New departments have been added-Civil, Mechanical and Mining Engineering, Agricultural Chemistry, Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy, etc. Two courses of study have been arranged for young farmers : the first occupies four years and secures a degree ; the second, or short agricultural course, is completed in two years.

A Geological Survey of Ohio was ordered by the General Assembly in 1836 and some preliminary surveys were made and reports published. The Legislature of 1838 failed to make an appropriation for the continuance of the work. In March, 1869, a law was passed providing for a complete geological, agricultural and

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE IN OHIO.

mineralogical survey of each and every county of the State. In pursuance of this law surveys have been made. Six volumes of reports, in addition to two volumes specially devoted to Paleontology, have already been published. These reports have been of great service and have given great satisfaction.

The Grange, or Order of Patrons of Husbandry, from its beginning had a most happy influence upon the families which have enjoyed its benefits. It has dem- onstrated to farmners the good results of organization and co-operation. A long way in advance of many other associations, the Grange admits women to equal membership and promotes the best interests of families by enlisting fathers, mothers and children in the same pursuits and enjoyments. The Ohio State Grange was organized in 1872. The National Grange, which was in existence some five or six years earlier, declares its purpose to be : " To develop a better and higher manhood and womanhood among ourselves, to enhance the comforts and attractions of our homes and strengthen our attachments to our pursuits, to foster mutual understanding and co-operation, to maintain inviolate our laws, and to emulate each other in labor to hasten the good time coming," etc.

Institutes .- In the winter of 1880 and 1881 Farmers' Institutes were held in some twenty-five or more different counties of the State. Every succeeding year the number of institutes and the interest in them has increased. Each institute usually continues for two days. The time is occupied by addresses and papers on topics related to agriculture and with questions and discussions upon subjects of special interest. The institutes were generally held under the management of the County Agricultural Societies. The Ohio State Board of Agriculture and the Ohio State University shared the labor when desired to do so. The effect of these meetings of farmers has been highly beneficial in very many respects.

The Ohio Experiment Station was established by the Legislature in April, 1882, and placed in charge of a Board of Control. The first annual report was made by the Director, W. R. Lazenby, in December of the same year. Since that time successive annual reports and occasional bulletins have been published and dis- tributed. The investigations reported relate to grain-raising, stock-farming, dairy husbandry, fruit and vegetable culture and forestry. Appropriations made by the State were limited and the work of the station was to the same extent restricted. In March, 1887, Congress made liberal appropriations for experiment stations, which, however, were not available until March, 1888. The congressional allowance puts new life into the work and inspires the hope that a period of rapid progress has been inaugurated. The Ohio Experiment Station is located upon the farm of the Ohio State University. This close association, it is believed, will prove beneficial to both institutions.

THE MINES AND MINING RESOURCES OF OHIO.

BY ANDREW ROY, LATE STATE INSPECTOR OF MINES.

ANDREW ROY was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1834. He attended school until he was eight years of age and then went to work in the coal mines. When he was sixteen his father and family moved to America and settled in the coal regions of Maryland. Young Roy remained with his parents a few years and then went west, working in the mines of a num- ber of Western States. In 1860, together with a friend, he was digging coal in Arkansas. The booming of the rebel cannon before Fort Sumter shook the woods of that half-savage State. Rby saw the gathering clouds of civil war and did not hesitate a moment. He threw down his tools, hastened east and joined a Pennsylvania company of volunteers. He served under McClellan in the bloody battles before Richmond, was shot through the body at Gaines' Hill and was left as dead by the retreat- ing Federals. The rebels, however, found him yet alive and sent him back to Libby Prison. In a few months he was paroled. returned home, had a surgical operation performed on his wound and recovered. He married Janet Watson in 1864, and a few years later moved to Ohio. After the dreadful Avondale disaster M .. Roy was sent by the miners to Columbus to urge upon the legislature the necessity of MOSSENGIONY. mining laws for Ohio. Governor Hayes ap- pointed him to serve with two others on a com- mission to investigate the condition of the ANDREW ROY. mines and report the same to the legislature. The result of the report was the passage of mining laws. Governor Allen appointed Roy mine inspec tor for four years, and Governor Foster did the same. In 1884 Mr. Roy retired from the office, enjoy. ing the respect of the miners of the State. During the time he held the inspector's office he gained a considerable reputation as a geologist. His efforts on behalf of the miners were unceasing, and he has been called the father of mining laws in Ohio. He is the author of several books on coal-mining and frequently contributes articles to the noted mining journals of the country. At present (1888) he resides at Glen Roy, a mining village in Jackson county, Ohio.

THE Ohio coal-field is part of the great Appalachian coal-belt which extends from Pennsylvania to Georgia and which runs through portions of nine different States, namely : Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. The State of Ohio contains about 12,000 square miles of coal-producing strata, the line of outcrop extending through the counties of Trumbull, Geauga, Portage, Summit, Medina, Wayne, Holmes, Co- shocton, Licking, Perry, Hocking, Vinton, Jackson, and Scioto. Outliers of coal strata are found in several counties west and north of this line, but they contain little coal of any value.

The coal measures of the State, as well as all the rocks of the geological scale, dip to the east at an average rate of twenty feet to the mile. Hence the eastern margin of the coal strata in the high land bordering the Ohio river in the counties of Belmont, Monroe, Washington and Meigs, attains a thickness of 1,460 to 1,600 feet.

These strata are separated into three divisions by our geologists and are known as the "lower measures," the "barren measures," and the " upper measures." The lower measures are about 550 feet thick, the barren measures 450 to 600 feet thick, and the upper measures about 600 feet thick.

In the lower measures there are twelve to fourteen different beds of coal which,

(110)

THE MINES AND MINING RESOURCES OF OHIO

in some portions of the coal-field, rise to minable height, and also many thin veing of no immediate commercial value. Besides the workable beds of coal there are numerous seams of iron ore, fire-clay, limestone, building stone of great extent and value.

In the barren measures there are no seams of coal of minable height that are worked, and but one seam that may be regarded as a workable vein.

The upper measures hold nine different beds which rise to three feet and upward, the thickest, most extensive, and by far the most valuable of the series being the lower bed of the series known as the Pittsburg vein. -

In the lower measures the lowest coal, known as No. 1 in Dr. Newberry's nomenclature, is extensively mined in the counties of Jackson, Stark, Summit, Mahoning and Trumbull. In the two last-named counties this coal is now well- nigh exhausted. It is known in market as the Briar-Hill coal, and enjoys a wide reputation as one of the best dry-burning or furnace coals in the United States.

The vein, as mined, ranges from two to five feet in thickness, and is met in troughs or basins which are separated from each other by extensive intervals of barren ground. Hence, while the greater portions of the townships of Brookfield, Vienna, Liberty and Hubbard, in Trumbull county, and nearly all of the town- ships of Mahoning county, in the Mahoning valley, are underlaid with coal- bearing strata, not one acre in fifty holds the coal where it is due. Similar con- ditions exist in Stark and other counties in the Tuscarawas valley as well as in Jackson county.

The swamps or basins in which this coal reposes are long, narrow and serpen- tine, and seem to have been formed by erosive agencies before the coal flora grew. The rocks underlying the coal are spread out in level sheets with the normal dip to the east, while the coal itself pitches and waves sometimes at an angle of twenty-five degrees. It grows gradually thinner as it rises out of the swamp until, on the edge of the basin, it disappears as a feather-edge.

The other beds of the lower measures which are in most active development are the Wellston coal of Jackson county and the Nelsonville or great-vein coal of the Hocking valley.

The Wellston coal lies about 100 feet above the lower, or coal No. 1, and is a seam of great purity and value. It is three to four feet thick, a homogeneous mass, of an open burning character, and is used for smelting iron in a raw state in the blast furnaces of Jackson county. The greater portion of the output of the mines, however, is shipped west and north to the vast coalless regions, and is used for household purposes and for generating steam.

The Nelsonville or great-vein coal is more extensively mined than any seam of the series. It is the thickest coal in the State, rising at many places in the Hocking valley to ten feet or more, and in the great majority of the mines of the Hocking region the coal is never less than five and a half feet thick. The bed is met in three divisions, known as the lower bench, the middle bench, and the upper bench, these benches being separated by two bands of shale. The lower bench is about twenty-two inches thick, the middle bench about two feet thick, and the upper bench from two feet to six feet, according to the height of vein. Where the seam rises to nine, ten and eleven feet, the unusual height is due to the union of two seams, a rider of the main seam, two to three feet thick, coming down upon the main seam.

There are a dozen districts in the State in which coal is extensively worked from some one or other of the lower beds of the State series. These are the Mahoning valley region, the Tuscarawas valley region, the Salineville region, the Coshocton region, the Dell Roy or Sherrodsville region, the Cambridge region, the Jackson region, the Ironton region, the Nelsonville or Hocking valley region, the Steu- benville region, the Zanesville region, and the Dennison region.

Only one seam is extensively mined in the upper measures: the Pittsburg seam, which is the coal worked at and around Bellaire and at and near Pomeroy, both regions being on the Ohio river. On Wheeling creek, a few miles east of Bellaire, as well as at several points along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, the Pittsburg vein is also quite extensively worked, but these districts may properly be included in the Bellaire region. The coal is opened by drifts, shafts, and slopes, according to the prevailing conditions of a district. Where

THE MINES AND MINING RESOURCES OF OHIO.

the vein is level free it is won by drift mining; but where it lies under cover at all points it is reached by shafts or slopes. Slopes are not suited to mine coal at depths exceeding 100 feet, and shaft mining is the favorite method.

None of the shaft mines of the State exceed 300 feet of perpendicular depth, and the majority of shaft mines are less than 125 feet deep. An opinion prevails among mining geologists that the lower coals, which are due on the Ohio river at Bellaire and Pomeroy 1,000 feet below the surface, do not exist there, and such practical facts as we have on hand-the result of boring for salt, oil, and gas- seem to encourage that view. There are extensive wastes or areas of barren ground in all the regions of the State, and it is never safe to count with absolute certainty on the presence of a seam of coal at any point of the coal-field until it has been found by prospecting on the hillside or struck by the driller's chisel in boring. These barren areas are due to a number of causes, such as water-spaces in the old coal-marsh, water-currents flowing over the coal vegetation while the peat bogs of the carboniferous age were undergoing decomposition, and mineral- ization, etc., etc. The seams are also liable to thicken up and to dwarf down to a mere trace, when followed from one county to another.

There are several varieties of coal in the Ohio coal-field, such as open-burning, or furnace coal, cementing or coking coal, and cannel coal. The first of these varieties is often used as it comes from the mine for smelting iron; while the cementing variety has to be converted into coke before it is fitted for the manu- facture of iron, for it melts and runs together in the act of combustion, forming a hollow fire, and hanging in the furnace. Cannel coal is smooth and hard, and breaks with a conchoidal fracture. This variety contains more gas than the ordinary free-burning and coking kinds. It burns with a bright flame, and the gas manufactured from it possesses high illuminating power. Cannel frequently changes to the ordinary bituminous variety, and vice versa.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 16

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