Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 30

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II > Part 30

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).

EXILES.

They both are exiles ; he who sailed Great circles of the day and night, Until the vapory bank unveiled A land of palm-trees fair to sight.

They both are exiles ; she who still Seems to herself to watch, ashore, The wind, too fain, his canvas fill,

The sunset burning close before.

He has no sight of Saxon face, He hears a language harsh and strange ; She has not left her native place, Yet all has undergone a change.

They both are exiles ; nor have they The same stars shining in their skies ; His nightfall is her dawn of day, His day springs westward from her eyes.

Each says apart, -There is no land So far, so vastly desolate, But, had we sought it hand in hand, We both had blessed the driving fate.

THE HOUR GLASS.

Time is no rushing torrent, dark and hoarse, As thou hast heard from bards and sages old ; Sit here with me (wouldst thou the truth behold) And watch the current hour run out its course.

See how without uproar or sullen force Glides the slim, shadowy rill of atom gold, Which, when the last slow guileful grain is tolu, Forever is returned unto its source !

This is Time's stream, by whose repeated fall Unnumbered fond ones, since the world was new. Loitered as we, unwarned of doom the while ; Wouldst think so slender stream could cover all ? But as we speak, some eddy draws us too- Meseems dim grow thine eyes and dim thy smile.

212

MEDINA COUNTY.

FRAILTY'S SHIELD.

Look what arms the fenceless wield .- Frailest thing's have frailty's shield ! Cockle-boat ontrides the gale That has shred the frigate's sail ; Curlew skims the breaker's erest ; Swings the oriole in its nest ; Flower a single summer bred Lightly lifts its jaunty head When is past the storm whose stroke Laid the pride of eenturied oak ;

Where with fire the soil was bathed The white trefoil springs unscathed.

Fraile-t things have frailty's shield : Here a fly in amber sealed ;

There a bauble, tossed aside Under ancient lava-tide,

Meets the musing delver's gaze.

Time the king's memorial lays, Touching it with sportive staff, But spares Erotion's epitaph.

Frailest things have frailty's shield, Guarded by a charm concealed ; So the gaunt and ravening wild } Softens towards the weaning child,

And along the giddy steep

Safe one glideth, blind with sleep.

Art thou mighty ?- Challenged Fate Chooseth thee for wrestling mate ! Art thou feeble ?- Fate disarmned,

'Turning, leaveth thee unharmed. Thou that bendest shall not break ; Smiling in the tempest's wake. Thou shalt rise, and see around

How the strong ones strew the ground ;

Saving lightness thon didst wield. - Frailest things have frailty's shield !

WADSWORTH is eleven miles southeast of Medina, on the N. Y., P. & O. Rail- road. Newspapers : Banner, Independent, James E. Cory, editor and publisher ; Enterprise, Independent, John A. Clark, editor and publisher. Churches : one Methodist Episcopal, one Evangelical Lutheran, one Reformed, one Disciples, one Congregational, one Baptist, one Colored Baptist, one Church of God. Bank : Wadsworth, C. N. Lyman, president, J. K. Durling, eashier. Population, 1880, 1,219. School census, 1888, 698 ; Arthur Powell, sehool superintendent. Cap- ital invested in manufacturing establishments, $29,700; valne of annual product, $31,000 .- (Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.) The famous Garfield ejectors and in- jectors are made here. It is in a rich farming region, with abundance of eoal on the east.

SEVILLE is ten miles south of Medina, on the C. L. & W. Railroad. News- paper : Times, Independent, C. C. Day, editor and publisher. Bank : Exchange (Wideman, Shaw & Co.), F. P. Wideman, cashier. Population, 1880, 589. School eensus, 1888, 186.

LIVERPOOL is on the Rocky river, nine miles northwest of Medina. Popula- tion, 1880, 198.

LODI is eleven miles southwest of Medina, on the W. & L. E. Railroad. Newspaper : Review, Independent, H. E. Bassett, editor and publisher. Churches : one Methodist Episcopal and one Congregational. Bank : Exchange, John Tay- lor, president, A. B. Taylor, cashier. School eensus, 1888, 134.

CHIPPEWA LAKE is on the C. L. & W. Railroad, five miles southerly from Medina. There is a hamlet with an United Brethren church, express and tele- graph offiee. The lake is nearly two miles long, half as broad, and in places sixty feet deep. The lake is a popular summer resort for fishing and boating. A small steamer plies on its waters. There are there a hotel and pleasure grounds, where campers stretch thei- tents.

MEIGS COUNTY

MEIGS.

MEIGS COUNTY, named from Return J. Meigs, elected Governor of Ohio in 1810, was formed from Gallia and Athens, April 1, 1819, and the courts were directed " to be temporarily held at the meeting-house in Salisbury township." The surface is broken and hilly. In the west, a portion of the soil is a dark, sandy loam, but the general character of the soil is clayey.

Area about 400 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 59,039; in pasture, 95,062; woodland, 44,112; lying waste, 2,825; produced in wheat, 165,436 bushels; rye, 1,298; buckwheat, 269; oats, 73,338; barley, 1,032; corn, 313,447 ; broom-corn, 2,000 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 15,986 tons ; clover hay, 821; potatoes, 66,966 bushels; butter, 407,854 lbs .; cheese, 7,410; sorghum, 4,050 gallons ; maple syrup, 740; honey, 6,377 Ibs .; eggs, 365,060 dozen ; grapes, 9,360 lbs .; wine, 90 gallons; sweet potatoes, 1,384 bushels ; apples, 31,659 ; peaches, 11,584; pears, 501; wool, 273,023 lbs .; milch cows owned, 4,255. Ohio mining statistics, 1888 : Coal mined, 242,483 tons ; employing 501 miners and 144 outside employees. School census, 1888, 10,157 ; teachers, 274. Miles of railroad track, 30.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840. 836

1880.

Bedford,

566

1,720

Orange,

922

Chester,

1,479

1,752

Rutland,

1,412

2,340

Columbia,

674

1,116

Salem,

940

1,668

Lebanon,

621

2,020

Salisbury,

1,507

10,992

Letart,

640

1,365

Scipio,

941

1,720

Olive,

746

2,244

Sutton,

1,099

4,466

Population of Meigs in 1820, 4,480; 1830, 6,159; 1840, 11,455; 1860, 26,534; 1880, 32,325, of whom 24,481 were born in Ohio; 1,554, Virginia ; 1,101, Pennsylvania ; 230, New York ; 118, Kentucky; 88, Indiana; 1,148 German Empire; 780, England and Wales; 178, Ireland; 69, Scotland ; 30, France ; and 26, British America. Census, 1890, 29,813.

The mouth of the Shade river, which empties into the Ohio in the upper part of the county, is a gloomy, rocky place, formerly called the "Devil's Hole." The Indians, returning from their murderous incursions into Western Vir- ginia, were accustomed to eross the Ohio at that point with their prisoners and plunder, and follow up the valley of Shade river on their way to their towns on the Scioto.

The first settlers of the county were principally of New England origin, and emigrated from Washington county, which lies above. From one of these, now (1846) residing in the county, we have received a communication illustrating pioneer life :

People who have spent their lives in an old settled country can form but a faint idea of the privations and hardships endured by the pioneers of our new, flourishing and prosper- ous State. When I look on Ohio as it is, and think what it was in 1802. when 1 first settled here, I am struck with astonishment and can hardly credit my own senses. When I emi- grated I was a young man, without any pro- perty, trade or profession, entirely dependent on my industry for a living. I purchased sixty acres of new land on credit, two-and-a- half miles from any house or road, and built

a camp of poles seven by four fect, and five high, with three sides, and a fire in front. I furnished myself with a loaf of bread, a piece of pickled pork, some potatoes, bor- rowed a frying-pan and commenced house- keeping. I was not hindered from my work by company ; for the first week I did not see a living soul. but, to make amends for the want of it, I had every night a most glorious concert of wolves and owls. I soon (like Adam) saw the necessity of a helpmate and persuaded a young woman to tie her destiny to mine. I built a log-house twenty feet

214

MEIGS COUNTY.

square-quite aristocratic in those days-and moved into it. I was fortunate enough to possess a jack-knife : with that I made a wooden knife and two wooden forks, which answered admirably for us to eat with. A bedstead was wanted ; I took two round poles for the posts, inserted a pole in them for a side-rail, and two other poles were inserted for the end pieces, the ends of which were put in the logs of the house-some puneheons were then split and laid from the side-rail to the crevice between the logs of the house, which formed a substantial bed-cord, on which we laid our straw bed-the only bed we had- on which we slept as soundly and woke as happy as Albert and Victoria.

In process of time, a yard-and-a-half of calico was wanted ; I started on foot through the woods ten miles to Marietta to procure it ; but, alas ! when I arrived there I found that, in the absence of both money and credit, the calico was not to be obtained. The dilemma was a serious one, and how to escape I could not devise ; but I had no sooner in- formed my wife of my failure, than she suggested that I had a pair of thin pantaloons, which I could very well spare, that would make quite a decent froek ; the pants were cut up, the frock made, and in due time the child was dressed.

The long winter evenings were rather tedious, and in order to make them pass more smoothly, by great exertion I purchased a share in the Belpre library, six miles distant. From this I promised myself much entertain- ment, but another obstacle presented itself- I had no candles ; however, the woods afforded plenty of pine knots-with these I made torches by which I could read, though I nearly spoiled my eyes. Many a night have I passed in this manner till twelve or one o'clock reading to my wife, while she was hatchelling, carding or spinning. Time rolled

on, the payments for my land became due, and money, at that time in Ohio, was a cash article ; however, I did not despair. I bought a few steers ; some I bartered for, and others I got on credit-my credit having somewhat improved since the calico expedition-slung a knapsack on my back and started alone with my cattle for Romney, on the Potomac, where I sold them, then travelled on to Litchfield, Connecticut, paid for my land and had just $1 left to bear my expenses home, six hundred miles distant. Before I returned I worked and procured fifty cents in cash ; with this and my dollar I commenced my journey house- ward. I laid out my dollar for cheap hair- combs, and these, with a little Yankee pleas- antry, kept me very comfortably at the private houses where I stopped till I got to Owego, on the Susquehanna, where I had a power of attorney to collect some money for a neighbor in Ohio.

I might proceed and enumerate scenes without number similar to the above, which have passed under my own observation, or have been related to me by those whose ve -. racity I have no reason to doubt ; but from what I have written you will be able to per- ceive that the path of the pioneer is not strewed with roses, and that the comforts which many of our inhabitants now enjoy have not been obtained without persevering exertions, industry and economy. What, let me ask, would the young people of the pres- ent day think of their future prospects, were they now to be placed in a similar situation to mine in 1803 ?" How would the young miss taken from the fashionable, modern parlor, covered with Brussels carpets, and ornamented with pianos, mirrors, etc., etc., manage her spinning-wheel in a log-cabin, on a puncheon floor, with no furniture except, perhaps, a bake-oven and a splint broom ?- Old Edition.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

The pioneer, who in 1846, supplied me with the foregoing sketch of his ex- periences also supplied me with what follows upon the early history of Pomeroy, and at this late day here give him credit. He was Amos Dunham, then an old man, and he was my host while here. Originally from Connecticut, he had that marked pronunciation then almost nniversal in the rustic regions of New England, which has disappeared entirely from every place-a sort of indescribable singing nasal tone, an inheritance from their ancestors in the rustic regions of Old Eng- land. Mr. Dunham possessed good native shrewdness and I recall his memory with pleasure. Would like much once more to hear some of that old-style talk with its odd expressions and drawling, lingering tones, the speech of other days. But nobody living can display this now departed accomplishment of the fathers -" more's the pity."

"Old times have gone, old manners changed ; A stranger fills the Scottish throne."

Pomeroy in 1846 .- Pomeroy, the county-seat, is on the Ohio river, seventy-six miles in a direct line southeast of Columbus, eighty below Marietta, and two hundred and thirty-four above Cincinnati. It is situated on a narrow strip of ground from twenty to thirty rods wide, under a lofty and steep hill, in the midst

MEIGS COUNTY.

of wild and romantic scenery. It contains one Episcopal, one Methodist, one German Lutheran, and one Presbyterian church ; a newspaper printing office, one flouring and two saw mills, two foundries, two carding machines, one machine shop, ten mercantile stores, and abont 1,600 inhabitants. It is a very flourishing town, deriving its importance principally from the coal mines situated here. We give below, in the language of a correspondent, an historical sketch of the village, with some notice of the coal mines.

The first settler within the limits of Pom- eroy was Mr. Nathaniel Clark, who came about the year 1816. The first coal bank opened in Pomeroy was in 1819, by David Bradshaw. Bentley took 1,200 bushels of coal to Louisville, and sold it for twenty-five cents a bashel, which was the first coal ex- ported from Pomeroy. As early as 1805 or 6 there had been an attempt at exporting coal from Coalport by Hoover & Cashell, but it proved unprofitable, and was abandoned after sending off one small load. About 1820 John Knight rented a large quantity of coal land from Gen. Putnam, at $20 a year, and com- menced working the mines. On the 15th of July, 1825, Samuel Grant entered eighty acres and Josiah Dill one hundred and sixty acres of Congress land, which lies in the upper part of Pomeroy. Subsequently, Mr. Dill laid out a few town lots on his land, but it did not improve to any extent until the Pom- eroy improvement commenced, in 1833. In 1827 a post-office was established here, called Nyesville, and Nial Nye appointed post- master. In 1840 the town was incorporated, and in June, 1841, made the county-seat.

In the spring of 1804 Samuel W. Pomeroy, an enterprising merchant of Boston, Massa- chusetts, purchased of Elbridge Gerry, one of the original proprietors in the Ohio Company, a full share of land in said company's pur- chase, the fraction of said share (262 acres) lying in the now town of Pomeroy. In 1832 Mr. Pomeroy put 1,000 bushels of coal into boxes and shipped them on a flat boat for New Orleans, to be sent round to Boston : but the boat foundered before it left Coal- port, and the expedition failed. In 1833 Mr. Pomeroy having purchased most of the coal land on the river for four miles, formed a company, consisting of himself, his two sons, Samuel W. Pomeroy, Jr., and C. R. Pome- roy, and his sons-in-law, V. B. Horton and C. W. Dabney, under the firm of Pomeroy, Sons & Co., and began mining on a large scale. They built a steam saw-mill, and com- menced building houses for themselves and their workmen. In 1834 they moved on, at which time there were twelve families in the town. In 1835 they built the steam tow-boat

Condor, which could tow from four to six loaded boats or barges, and will tow back from eight to twelve empty boats at a trip. It takes a week to perform a trip to Cincinnati and back, and she consumes 2,000 bushels of coal each trip. The company employ about twenty-five boats or barges, that carry from 2,000 to 11,000 bushels of coal, each averag- ing, perhaps, 4,000 bushels. The number of hands employed is about 200, and the num- ber of bushels dug yearly about two millions ; in addition to this, several individuals are engaged in the coal business on a small scale. Five steamboats have been built in this place by the Pomeroy company.

The mining of coal is mostly done at Coal- port, one mile below the corporation line. Here the company have laid out a town and been at great expense to prepare everything necessary for mining and exporting coal ; the railways are so constructed that the loaded car descending to the river draws up the empty one.

Immediately below Coalport is the town of Middleport, lately laid out by Philip Jones, which already contains several stores, and is building up fast. Adjoining Middle- port is Sheffield, a pleasant town, which bids fair to become a place of business. In all probability the time is not far distant when the towns of Pomeroy, Coalport, Middleport and Sheffield will be one continu- ous village.

About the year 1791 or 2 Capt. Hamilton Carr, a noted spy in the service of the United States, in his excursions through these parts discovered an enormous sycamore tree below the month of Carr's run, near where Mur- dock & Nye's mill now stands, which was subsequently occupied as a dwelling-house. Capt. Whitlock, of Coalport, informs me that he himself measured that tree and found the hollow to be eighteen feet in diameter. Capt. Whitlock further states, that as late as 1821 he took dinner from the top of a sugar-tree stump, in a log- house near where the court-house now stands, the only table the people had in the house.

The view shown in the engraving was taken at the mines at Coalport, nearly two miles below the main village of Pomeroy. Here horizontal shafts are run into the hill, at an elevation of more than one hundred feet above the river bed. The coal is carried out in cars on railways, and successively emptied from the cars on one grade to that below, and so on until the last cars in turn empty into the boats on the river, by which it is carried to market. The mining is conducted in

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846. POMEROY FROM THE COAL MINES.

C. F. Feiger, Photo., Pomeroy, 1886. POMEROY FROM THE OHIO RIVER,

217

MEIGS COUNTY.

a systematic manner, and most of those employed are natives of Wales, familiar with mining from youth.

Dr. S. P. Hildreth, in the twenty-ninth volume of Silliman's Journal, writes :

"The coal strata dips to the north two or three feet in a hundred yards, requiring drains to free them from the water when opened on the south side of the hill. Above the coal is a deposit of shale and ash-colored marly clay, of eight or ten feet in thickness, which forms the roof of the mines-superin- cumbent on which is a deposit of stratified sand rock, rather coarse-grained, of nearly one hundred feet in thickness. The shale abounds in fine fossil plants. In mining the coal, gunpowder is extensively used, a small charge throwing out large masses of coal. This coal being of the black slaty structure, abounds in bituminous matter and burns very freely ; its specific gravity is 1.27. Twenty grains of the coarse powder decompose one

hundred grains of nitrate of potash, which will give to this coal nearly sixty per cent. of charcoal. It must, therefore, be valuable for the manufacture of coke, an article that must ultimately be brought into usc in the numer- ous furnaces along the great iron deposit, a few miles south and west of this place. It is a curious fact that the coal deposits are very thin and rare near the Ohio river, from Pipe's creek, fifteen miles below Wheeling, to Carr's run, in this county. As the main coal dips under the Ohio at both these places, the inference is that the coal lies below the sur- face and could readily be reached by a shaft, first ascertaining its distance from the surface by the operation of boring."-Old Edition.

POMEROY, county-seat of Meigs, is 220 miles above Cincinnati, on the Ohio river, about eighty-five miles southeast of Columbus, at the terminus of the C. H. V. & T. Railroad, also on the K. & O. Railroad. The surrounding country is rich in coal and salt. There are two factories here for the manufacture of bro- mine from salt. County officers, 1888 : Auditor, J. N. Rathburn ; Clerk, H. C. Fish ; Commissioners, S. D. Webb, George Frecker, John N. Hayman ; Coroner, J. B. Scott ; Infirmary Directors, John Alkire, John Short, Thomas H. Gold ; Probate Judge, Lewis Paine ; Prosecuting Attorney, John H. Lochery ; Recorder, Marion Cline ; Sheriff, George Titus ; Surveyor, M. H. Watkins; Treasurers, George P. Stout, Robert Dyke. City officers, 1888 : A. B. Donally, Mayor ; William H. Huntley, Clerk ; George B. Stout, Treasurer ; Thomas Wheatley, Marshal ; M. L. Shrader, Street Commissioner. Newspapers : Democrat, Inde- pendent, C. I. Barker, editor and publisher ; Telegraph, Republican, E. S. Trus- sell, editor and publisher. Churches : 1 Episcopal, I Presbyterian, 1 Methodist, 2 Colored Methodist, 1 Baptist, 1 Colored Baptist, 1 German Catholic, 1 German Methodist, 2 German Lutheran, 2 German Presbyterian, 1 Welsh Presbyterian, 1 Welsh Congregational, 2 Welsh Baptist. Banks : First City, T. A. Plants, president, George W. Plants, cashier ; Pomeroy National, H. S. Horton, president, John McQuigg, cashier.

Manufactures and Employees .- Excelsior Salt Works, 50 hands ; Roller Mill Brewing Co., 12; Buckeye Salt Co., 40; Coal Ridge Salt Co., 60; Geyer & Newton, flour, etc., 10; Sugar Run Mill, flour, etc., 5; Pfarr & Genheimer, floor- ing, etc., 4; John S. Davis & Son, doors, sash, etc., 10; the Telegraph, printing, 8 ; J. C. Probst & Son, furniture, 34 ; Mcknight & Fisher, wagons and buggies, 5; Pomeroy Machine Co., engines, etc., 10 .- State Report, 1888. Population, 1880, 5,560. School census, 1888, 1,745 ; Morris Bowers, school superintendent. Capital invested in industrial establishments, $445,500 ; value of annual product, $494,000 .- Ohio Labor Statistics, 1887. United States census, 1890, 4,726.

BIOGRAPHY.

VALENTINE B. HORTON, who died at Pomeroy, January, 1888, at the age of 86 years, was a native of Windsor, Vt. He was educated for the law, practised two years in Cincinnati, and then came to Pomeroy, where he engaged for the remainder of his life in mining and manufacturing. He did probably more than any other person to de-

velop the coal, salt and iron industries of this region. He was a member of the Ohio Con- stitutional Convention in 1850; represented the Republicans in Congress two terms, and in the last (the Thirty-seventh) was on the Committee of Ways and Means ; was a del- egate in 1861 to the Peace Congress in Wasb- ington ; for over forty years was a trustee of

218

MEIGS COUNTY.

the State University, and five times a mem- ber of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. Financial reverses marred his de- clining years, much to the regret of people in this entire region of Ohio, wherein no man that ever lived was more beloved and respected. His name was a synonym for uprightness and humanity.

One of his daughters is the wife of Gen. John Pope, another of Gen. M. F. Force, while a son, SAMUEL DANA HORTON, born

at Pomeroy, January 16, 1844, educated at Harvard and Berlin, has attained a world- wide reputation by his monetary works. In 1876 he published a treatise on "Silver and Gold, and their Relation to the Problem of Resumption," the first of a series of works advocating the settlement of the silver ques- tion by a joint action of nations. This policy was adopted by Congress, and he has been identified with its advancement in Europe as delegate to the International Monetary Con- ferences of 1878 and 1881, as an author.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

"What's in a name ?" Pomeroy. Divide the syllables and you have Pome- apple, roy-King ; i. e., Apple King. Pomeroy is a unique spot, fruitful in interest, and requires the pen of genius to adequately describe. Failing to find such we use our own :

Pomeroy is the most prominent spot on either of two strings of mining villages ; one string on the Ohio side of the river and the other directly opposite on the West Virginia side. On the Virginia side, beginning at the down-river end, they are : West Columbia, Newcastle, Clifton, Mason City, Valley City, Hartford City and New Haven. On the Ohio side, beginning also at the lower end, are : Middleport, Pomeroy, Minersville and Syracuse. Each string is about ten miles long.

On the Ohio side the hills mostly so encroach upon the river that it leaves but little room for buildings. The adjoining cugraving illustrates this, from my pencil sketch, taken in 1846, from a point then called Coalport, now Middleport. Ascend the hill in the rear of Pomeroy and you will see it is at the north point of a bend in the river, the river coming from the south and going to the south, one to your right, the other to your left. Looking to the north inland you will find a ravine there and then another hill. Behind that is another hill and then another ravine, with a third hill and another ravine, and so on I know not how far, in repetition as the crests and hollows of the ocean waves.

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 II, Part 30

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 916

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916