History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 20

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912

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THE WELLSVILLE ROLLING-MILL.

The career of the old Wellsville rolling-mill for the first two decades after it was founded was a checkered one, including a woeful array of business failures, a later period during which its product made it famous among iron men the country over, and, still later, a leading part in the titanic struggle of 1901 between the then newly organized United States Steel Corpora- tion and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. In the early days of the history of the mill it was looked on as a complete failure ; after almost 30 years of spas- modic operation, the steel "combine" pro- nounced the plant one of its best paying prop- erties.

In 1873, one William Morgan, at the head of a party of mechanics, coming from Pitts- burg, but most of them having recently come over from Wales, proposed to the people of Wellsville to build a mill for the manufacture of tin plate, on condition that the town would render certain assistance. A committee of citi- zens took up the matter, and in a short time $16,000 in money and real estate was placed at the disposal of a co-operative association, which was styled the American Tin Plate Com- pany. The men themselves had but little capi- tal; but very soon they had buildings, and equipped with machinery and stock represent- ing a value of about $75,000 they began the manufacture of tin plate-the first, it is claimed, 'ever made in this country. Chiefly through lack of working capital, however, the enterprise failed in a few months. The opera- tives, about 50 in number, with their families- strangers in a strange land-were in dire dis- tress. But they were helped by the town peo- ple and country folk as well. The Welsh peo- ple are proverbial for their quaintly sweet sing- ing of songs ; and for a time men and women would go from place to place, singing their beautiful Welsh songs in return for the provis- ions given them.

A company backed by A. Marchand, of Alliance, attempted to make something out of the mill, but with no better success than the original projectors. In 1877 the plant was sold

by the sheriff to satisfy original claims, and was bought in for Black, Daker & Company, of Pittsburg ,but another failure followed in about a year. Then, a year or so later, parties who still held claims against the old concern turned it over to W. D. Wood, of Pittsburg, and it was at once equipped with new machinery and put in condition to "make good."

The W. Dewees Wood Company had an extensive plant at that time at Mckeesport, and the Wellsville plant was taken over to in- crease the company's capacity for the fine plan- ished and Russian iron of which it was the sole producer in the United States. The product of the Wellsville mill was therefore unique under the Wood management, and the product of much higher value than the sheet steel mills operated elsewhere in the country. Persifor F. Smith, of Pittsburg, was manager of the plant from the time of the Wood purchase. The Wood interests were among the last to be brought into the American Sheet Steel Com- pany on its organization in 1898, and when the "combine" assumed control, P. F. Smith was made manager of all the Western plants of the sheet steel company, with headquarters at Pitts- burg, D. S. Brookman becoming manager at Wellsville.

MILLS AT IRONDALE AND LISBON.

Wellsville's early venture was no exception in the history of the attempts during the '70's and the '80's to make tin plate in America. Many enterprises with the same end in view met disaster in different parts of the country during that period. It was not until the pas- sage of the Mckinley tariff by Congress in 1889 that the American mills succeeded in the effort to wrest the market from the Welsh and English manufacturers. And, singularly enough, what is claimed to have been the first mill in America to make tin successfully under the Mckinley tariff was started only a few miles from Wellsville, at Irondale, just over the Columbiana and Jefferson County line. A sheet steel mill' had been built at Irondale in 1870, by Morgan & Hunter, of Alliance. The mill operated only a few years, and then shut

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down. When the Mckinley tariff made tin a protected industry, William Banfield, of Wells- ville, headed a company which took over the old mill and converted it into a tin plate plant ; and here, in 1890, was produced the first American. tin that ever competed successfully with the Welsh product in the American mar- ket. The Irondale mill, and its tin, figured prominently in the tariff campaigns of the next few succeeding years as an argument for pro- tective tariff ; and the mill continued to operate, with William Banfield as manager, until the organization of the American Tin Plate Con- pany, in 1899, which absorbed the Irondale plant, and then in turn was itself absorbed in 1901 by the United States Steel Corporation.

Lisbon first made tin in 1894. The town in 1893 offered a substantial bonus to the Beaver Tin Plate Company, an organization of prac- tical tin men, and a 6-mill plant was built the following. year on the banks of the Little Beaver. C. W. Bray, of Youngstown, was president of the company; I. M. Scott, of Bridgeport, secretary and treasurer, and George Evans, superintendent. The plant was successfully operated by the original company until the organization of the "tin plate com- bine," to which it was sold on December 19, 1898.

STEEL STRIKE OF 1901.

All three of these plants, the Wellsville, Irondale and Lisbon, played a prominent part in the battle between the steel workers and the newly organized Steel Corporation in 1901. All were properties of the "combine" at that time-as was also the Salem nail-mill, but the Salem plant had never been unionized, and ran steadily throughout the struggle.

The United States Steel Corporation had taken possession of the plants of its subsidiary companies early in 1901. The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, at its convention. in Milwaukee that year, had virtually thrown down the gauntlet to the newly organized combine. The first gun of the strike was fired at the Wellsville mill. In June the management at Wellsville announced

the discharge of a number of its workmen, among them men who had been attempting to unionize the plant. The Wellsville mill was at that time being run "open"-union and non- union men being allowed to work in the plant,. by agreement between the men's organization and the American Sheet Steel Company. The: reinstatement of the discharged men was de- manded, and on the refusal of the Wellsville management, President T. J. Shaffer, of the men's organization, called a strike at all sheet steel mills under his jurisdiction. Within a week the strike had extended to every Steel Corporation plant controlled by the Amalga- mated Association in the country. During July and August the fight centered at Lisbon and Wellsville, the "combine" attempting to oper- ate both mills non-union. At Wellsville the. attempt succeeded; at Lisbon it failed. Late in August the Irondale mill was also successfully reopened. The struggle was settled in Sep- tember, but the Wellsville mill remained non- union, and the Steel Corporation never re -. opened the Lisbon and Irondale plants.

The mill at Lisbon lay idle until January. I, 1905, when it was purchased from the Steel Corporation by persons representing the Na- tional Brass & Copper Company, of Pittsburg, and refitted as a copper and brass mill. The Irondale plant was dismantled, and the machin- ery taken to Chester, West Virginia, opposite East Liverpool, where a plant had been built in 1897, by Pittsburg parties, for the manu- facture of sheet steel, and had been sold to the- American Sheet Steel Company on its organ- ization, but had never been operated by the "combine." This mill was started in 1902, and ran steadily.

During the first years of the new century, Wellsville citizens made efforts to increase the- iron interests of the city. After a fire. which destroyed the works of the Carroll-Porter Boiler & Tank Company, on lower Penn ave- nue, Pittsburg, in 1901, the Wellsville Board of Trade offered the company a bonus of $10,000 in cash and $15,000 worth of land to locate its new works in Wellsville. The com- pany built in Wellsville in 1903, opening on: November 30th of that year. J. W. Porter was

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the head of the concern, but in 1905 the active management was given over to J. W. Porter, Jr., and J. E. Porter.

Other extensive foundries, growing out of the pottery and clay-working industries of East Liverpool, grew up at that place during the latter half of the century, for the manufacture of clay-working and pottery machinery-of which more extended mention is made in the chapter on clay and pottery manufactures in this work.

STATISTICS ON PRODUCTION.

Statistics on the production of iron and finished metal products in Ohio have generally been meager and unreliable, and in some years no tabulated report by counties has been pre- sented by the Secretary of State. For instance, in his report for, the year 1870-71. the Secre- tary of State says that Columbiana County is credited with the manufacture of 19,767 tons of pig-iron, but, having received no report on this industry from 19 counties of the State, he (leclines presenting any table of results. In 1873 the report shows 33,901 tons of pig-iron made at Leetonia, and none made at any other point ; 4,487 tons of bar, nail and rod iron were produced ; 1,000 tons of stoves and hollow ware and 611 tons of all other castings: 165 steam engines and 129 boilers. In 1875 the county is credited with the following production of ma- chinery : Sugar and grain mills, 60; portable sawmills, 23: reaping, mowing and threshing

machines, 311 ; plows, 100; steam engines, 73; boilers, 67. The report for 1878 showed 38,400 tons of pig-iron produced; two lonely tons of sheet iron and 185 tons of boiler iron ; 1,200 tons of stoves and hollow ware and 400 tons of all other castings.

The report for 1880 showed 65,093 tons of pig-iron produced; 5,614 tons of bar. nail and rod iron ; 900 tons of sheet iron ; 1,760 tons of stoves and hollow ware; 668 tons of all other castings; and tin, copper and sheet iron ware to the value of $4,600. It is remarkable that the report of the Secretary of State for 1903 does not give the statistics of iron and steel and their products.

The production of iron ore was never large in Columbiana County: and, with the opening of the great fields of superior ores in the Lake regions, Ohio ceased to be an important State in iron ore production. In 1887 the produc- tion of iron ore reached its height in Ohio, the State reports showing 87.965 tons of black- band and 287.500 tons of hematite to have been produced in that year. From that time it gradually declined, the State mining report for 1903 saying: "The iron industry of the State has come to be of such limited output that it scarcely rewards any effort to collect statistics, only two counties reporting for the year 1903, Lawrence and Scioto. The total amount pro- (luced was 12,995 tons, a gain of 2,314 tons over the year 1902, when four counties re- ported on the output of iron ore.

CHAPTER XII.

GROWTH OF CLAY MANUFACTURES.

Twelve Miles of Pottery and Fire-Clay Works Along the County's Southern Front-Sixty Years of the Earthenware Industry-Dismal Days of the '50's, When Pottery Manu- facturers Peddled Their Own Product-Birth of the White Ware Industry-"Hard Times" and Years of High Tariff -- Two Great Labor Struggles-Clear Skies, and Ex- pansion-Output Grows to $8,000,000 ! Ycar-The Allied Clay Products.

Early in the history of manufacturing in the West, the clay-working and earthenware industries of Ohio centered along the river in the vicinity of East Liverpool and Wellsville. Before the close of the century, East Liverpool had been made the central point of manu- facture by the general ware potteries of Amer- ica; while throughout the district spoken of as the "East Liverpool district" the making of earthenware, porcelains and china, stone- ware and cements, sewer-pipe, tile, terra-cotta, brick and fire-clay products sprang up-and clay-working became the chief industry of the county, notwithstanding the prominence ac- chieved at several points in the county by iron and steel and the allied metal trades. The pioneer pottery manufacturers at East Liver- pool were the first in the world to relegate to oblivion as a commercial factor the "potters' wheel," famed in story and in song as the im- plement of the worker in all ages, by the intro- duction of machinery and labor-saving devices. The machinery to be found in the "clay shops" of the modern earthenware factory was in use in East Liverpool a decade before the English potter learned its worth and adopted it.

The tribes of American Indian who in- habited the territory from which Ohio was formed showed a rude knowledge of pottery be- fore the white man first set foot on the shores

of America. The English settlers in Virginia and the Dutch in New York made a coarse type of pottery in the 17th century. And very early in the history of Columbiana County set- tlers could be found building rude kilns or ovens, taking the clay that was to be found on every hand, and fashioning it into articles for domestic use. These were made from clays usually found near the surface, in which there was a sufficient admixture of iron to give the product a reddish appearance when burned. The wares were usually porous, very absorbent when not glazed, and easily broken. John Kountz made some of this old ware on the old "Kountz place," east of Wellsville, in 1817. In 1826 Joseph Wells made red and stoneware in a little shop attached to his residence in Wellsville, and continued the business until 1856. Philip Brown, Oliver Griffith, Samuel Watson and others made the same primitive ware at Lisbon (then known as New Lisbon), at an early date. It is also recorded that a kiln of brick was burned in 1806 for the build- ing material for the Friends' Meeting House erected in that year in Salem; and that in 1812 Thomas Hughes began operating a log-cabin pottery on Main street in Salem, which he later sold to Christian Harman, who conducted the business until 1840. Cement and brick were also made at primitive plants, at Williamsport

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and in the vicinity of Sprucevale early in the century.

The wealthier inhabitants of the West in those early days bought imported ware-the "Liverpool" queensware brought over from England at that period being highly celebrated for durability and beauty. It was the only white ware seen in the Western country until the people became wealthy enough, half a century later, to indulge in the luxury of im- ported English, French and German chinas and porcelains.

No attempt was made to utilize the clays found along this portion of the Ohio Valley in a commercial way until 1840; so that in 1905 the pottery industry of the county was but 65 years old. During the 65 years, how- ever, Columbiana County had become the first county and East Liverpool the first city in the Union in the output of general ware and electri- . cal porcelain fixtures; while in total value of all clay porducts and wages paid in their manu- facture the county was easily first in the State.

In 1840 the total production of general ware in East Liverpool was less than $2,000. In 1905 there were about 85 general ware pot- teries in the country, with a total capacity of .647 kilns. Of this total, East Liverpool had 239 kilns, while the potteries elsewhere in the county and district-including those at Se- bring, which were barely beyond the county line and were the result of East Liverpool en- terprise-added 55 kilns more, or a total of 294 kilns for Columbiana County-over 45 per cent. of the entire capacity of the general ware potteries of the United States. The pot- teries at East Liverpool represented in 1905 an annual output of $7,170,000, and the invest- ment in the plants was estimated at $10,755,- 000. They employed over 9,000 men, women and children, and the total actual wages paid averaged $143,400 every two weeks, or $3,728,400 annually.

The first impetus to the industry was of course obtained through the finding of the clays suitable for the manufacture of the old- fashioned "yellow ware," which abounded in the hills of the county. But as the quality of the ware improved, and the manufacturer be-

gan producing the white granite and porce- lains of the later days, the old Ohio River clays were wholly abandoned, and the materials had to be obtained from Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and many points in the South, and not a little of the finer "ball-clays" were im- ported from England. Strangely enough, even after all the material for the better grades of ware had to be shipped into Columbiana County from elsewhere, the pottery business thrived and grew where it had been planted by the pioneer yellow ware makers of half a century before, and that in spite of lack of transportation facilities and other disadvant- ages. With the fire-clay industries, however, the story of the progress of the half century is somewhat different, for the materials .for tile, pipe and brick are still obtained at the point of manufacture.

BENNETT'S FIRST POTTERY.

James Bennett had been a packer in a yel- low ware pottery at Woodenbox, Derbyshire, England. In 1838 or 1839 he emigrated to America, stopping first in Cincinnati. There he heard rumors of working clays to be found in the hills along the river below Pittsburg. William G. Smith, of East Liverpool, who was then trading in merchandise along the river, met Bennett at Cincinnati and advised the young Englishman to look at the clays about East Liverpool. So Bennett traveling partly by river and the latter stages of the journey on foot, reached the strugling town in the latter part of 1839.

Bennett judged that the clay in the hills about the town would produce an excellent quality of yellow ware. He had no money, but he interested in his project Anthony Kearns and Benjamin Harker. Kearns was at that time one of the town's most influential citizens, owner of two or three houses and the only steam sawmill of which the town could boast, located on the river bank below the western end of Second street. Benjamin Harker also had means, and had come from the potting district of England. Bennett, Kearns and Harker built the pottery in the win-

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ter of 1839-40. It was located near the saw- mill, almost opposite the western end of Sec- ond street, on ground long since washed away by the Ohio River. The building was about 40 by 20 feet, and adjoining it was the one small kiln, in the erection of which the owners had the assistance of George Hollingsworth and George Thomas.

Early in the spring of 1840 the first kiln of yellow ware was burned. It consisted mainly of mugs. Two crates of the ware were purchased by Isaac W. Knowles, then a young man barely 21, who had come to East Liver- pool from Jefferson County eight years before. Knowles took his purchase down the river in a trading boat, peddling the ware through the principal settlements. Bennett himself took out the remainder of the kiln and peddled it through the country, the two men clearing all told about $250.

Benjamin Harker at that time owned clay lands along the river above the old town. An old account book of his shows that in 1840 he sold Bennett considerable clay. George D. Mc- Kinnon, then living above the town, leased Ben- nett a piece of clay land in the same year, and has claimed that Bennett opened up a clay bank immediately. Whether Harker's or Mc- Kinnon's clay was burned in Bennett's first kiln is, therefore, a disputed question.

During the first two years the little industry seemed in a fair way to languish and die. The clay was crude, and the burning in the small kiln often resulted in spoiling much of the ware. The output of each kiln was peddled about through the country, and with the money real- ized Bennett returned from each trip to East Liverpool, paid his men and started his pottery anew. Hard times were coming on, and Ben- nett went to George Smith, who, with M. Thompson, was running a store at Second and Union streets. "I've experimented with this clay," he said, "till I haven't money or credit to buy a five-cent loaf of bread or a pound of butter. I must quit." Smith offered him credit, and other citizens came forward with assistance. By the following year, 1841, the business had so prospered that Bennett sent out to England for his brothers, Daniel, Edwin

and William, who, with Edward Tunnicliff, a dishmaker, joined him in that year. Other practical potters from England followed, and the Bennetts soon found competition. But they continued to make yellow ware until 1845, when they removed to Birmingham, now a part of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and built a pottery there. A few years later the brothers moved on East to Baltimore, where they and the genera- tion that followed them became wealthy in the pottery business.

On the departure of the Bennetts in 1845, their plant was leased by the firm of Thomas Croxall & Brothers, composed of Thomas, John, Samuel and Jesse Croxall, who operated it until it was destroyed by fire in 1852 ...

A half dozen men followed the Bennetts as soon as the success of the new venutre seemed assured .~ Benjamin Harker was the first. In the latter part of 1840 he built a kiln into one corner of an old log house east of the 'town, at the foot of the hillside land in which he had found clay, and started a pottery which he afterward called by the high-sounding title of the "Etruria Pottery." He succeeded so well that within a year or two he sent to England for his brother, George S. Harker, and together through the '40's they made yellow ware at the little plant, and prospered. George S. Harker, at the time of his arrival in East Liver- pool, was reputed to be a wealthy man, and the unloading of the Harker trunks from England was an event of some note. The wise old women of the town declared the trunks were filled with gold. The Harkers were, indeed, the first firm, during the years that followed, to abandon the primitive plan of peddling each kiln of ware as it was fired, and to ship their product on orders to points nearby. The firm was known even during the '40's in Pittsburg for the excellence of its goods.

Back about 1832 Edward Carroll, a mem- ber of the Society of Friends, and a prominent merchant of Lisbon, was induced to come to East Liverpool during the excitement incident to the project for the building of a new State road. William G. Smith built for Carroll a brick warehouse and dwelling on the southeast corner of Second and Union streets, and there

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the Lisbon man opened a commission house. Then, buoyed up by the hope of the building of a new railroad from Liverpool to Lake Erie, Carroll bought property at the corner of Sec- ond and Washington streets, and started to build what he promised to make the finest hotel in the eastern half of the State, to be called the "Mansion House." In 1833 he opened his ho- tel and store in the new structure, which though frame and only two stories in height, was built of hewed timbers, and was considered a mar- vel in elegance in those days. But in 1836 or 1837 Carroll failed, and the big building was thrown idle. Here, then, in the relic of the old hotel, the third pottery in the town was estab- lished in 1843, which for nearly two-thirds of a century bore the old name of the "Mansion Pottery." The original firm was composed of James Salt, James Ogden, Frederick Mear and John Hancock-the last named being the mod- eler who afterwards made famous the old "Rebecca" teapot, which gave to East Liver- pool a reputation through a dozen States. They began operations in 1842, the firm a few years later becoming Salt & Mear, and during the latter '40's being known as the most prosperous firm in the town. This new plant received the larger portion of the first party of practical operative potters who came over from England to the "new pottery country." But in 1851 Salt moved away and the Mansion Pottery sus- pended operations. William G. Smith, who had in the meantime gone into the commission business in Pittsburg, returned the following year, and, with Benjamin Harker, began oper- ting the old plant. Associated with them was James Foster, and later Smith's son, Daniel J. Smith. But with his varied interests in the new town, William G. Smith went down dur- ing the "hard times" of the early '50's, and failed in 1857. Foster, with George Garner, took over the Mansion Pottery when the crash came, and continued to operate it.

After the destruction by fire in 1853. of the old Bennett works, then being run by the Croxalls, John Croxall, Thomas Croxall. Jo- seph Cartwright and Jonathan Kinsey organ- ized the firm of Croxall & Cartwright. Thomas Ball had built a pottery at the southwest cor-

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History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 20

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844 Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 912

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912