USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of Erie County Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 9
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Over the Oriskany is a calcareous sandstone from which the lime is dis- solved by exposure, leaving it a rough porous rock resembling the Oriskany, but containing different fossils. It is called the Schoharie grit. It is not found here. 1
The most interesting member of the Devonian system is the Corniferous limestone-so called from the balls of hornstone contained in it. It is a mass- ive, calcareous rock, containing a very small percentage of earthy matter, and abounding in fossils, especially corals, which in some places may be regarded as ancient coral reefs. In this State it forms two belts of outcrops on opposite sides of the Cincinnati upheaval. It is an open sea deposit, the calcareous cen - ter of a group of sediments, the product of a great submergence in the Devon- ian age ; the counterpart in its general features to those which are found in the parallel deposits of the Upper and Lower Silurian series.
The fossils of the Corniferous are very numerous and of unusual interest, the most striking being the remains of huge ganoid fishes, similar in general char- acter to those of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. This is the most inter- esting and important rock in this county. It is the rock on which the City of Sandusky stands, and that which forms Marblehead and Kelly's Island.
At Sandusky the upper layers of the Corniferous formation are composed of a blue limestone of from twenty to twenty-five feet thick, and is known to the geology of the State as the Sandusky stone. It is largely used for building and flagging. The High School building is of this stone and numerous other buildings and dwellings in the city. It makes an excellent flag-stone but long wear renders it dangerously smooth. The lime industry at Sandusky is large. The lime is made from the lower courses of the Corniferous exposed at Mar- blehead, and is burned there and at Sandusky. This stone is white and has a larger percentage of lime than even the Kelly Island stone, which is the same. The white limestone lies too deep at Sandusky for economical purposes.
Overlying the Corniferous is a series of shales and limestones called the Hamilton group. In Ohio is usually a soft blue limestone. In this county it can be seen at Prout's Station on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It under- lies a narrow belt of territory extending southwesterly from the lake shore at a point half way between Sandusky and Huron to the Lake Shore Railway, be- tween Monroeville and Bellevue.
The Hamilton is overlaid by a great mass of black shales called the Huron shales. It forms the banks of the Huron River at Monroeville and below. It
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
can be seen a few miles east of Sandusky in Huron township, on the Lake Shore Railway at what is called the "Slate Cut." In some places it is interstratified with clayey matter. It is highly bituminous, containing about ten per cent. of combustible matter. From this bitumen, by slow, spontaneous distillation, pe- troleum is evolved, and flows out in springs at a number of localities. The pro- cess of distillation also gives rise to gas springs, which are found over the out- crop of this formation. This shale in some places contains concretions of im- pure limestone, seen along the Huron River where this shale forms the banks, being washed out by the action of the water. These concretions are sometimes almost absolutely spherical. Some of them contain the bones or teeth of huge fishes. The Huron shale forms a belt of outcrop running across the State from the lake to the River near Portsmouth.
Above the Huron shale lies a series of green and blue shale called the Erie, the lower of which are somewhat interstratified with the upper Huron. The Erie shales form the lake shore from the Pennsylvania line to Erie county. It does not appear further west.
We now reach the highest group of rocks found in the State, called the Carboniferous system, because it holds nearly all the beds of coal that have been worked in this country and in Europe. We have in this county only the ower strata of this system, called the Waverly group, the lowest of which is the Cleveland shale. This can be seen in the banks of the Vermillion River. It is black and bituminous. It is unusually well exposed in the vicinity of Cleveland, whence its name. In its lithological character it is hardly to be dis- tinguished from the Huron shale. The fossils, however, are bones, scales, and spines of fish of small size, and of Carboniferous types, while the Huron contains the remains of fishes of enormous size, and of most peculiar structure, and such as belong to the forma of the Old Red Sandstone.
Next above the Cleveland shale is a bed of shale sometimes blue or banded in color, but more generally red. This is called the Bedford shale, and is con- spicuously shown in the valley of the Vermillion River, and is exposed at many places in this section immediately underlying the Berea sandstone. It serves as an important guide to those seeking that stone.
The Berea sandstone is, geologically, the highest stone in the county, the outcrop of which enters the county on the east line about half a mile from the lake shore, thence it sweeps round to the south and west, passing through Ber- linville and a little east of Norwalk. Within the area lying south and east of this line, the Berea underlies most of the surface, but is very generally covered and concealed by the drift materials, and it is only where its more compact and massive portions have resisted the action of erosive agents, that these have been left in relief - that it projects above the surface. The hills in which the Am- herst and Brownhelm quarries are located, and the elevation, Berlin Heights, are all masses of this character. They were once bluffs on the lake shore, and
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everywhere show marks of the action of water and ice. This stone is largely quarried in the county, and some grindstones are made.
Above the Berea is a limestone, a conglomerate and the coal measures, the balance of the Carboniferous system, but they nowhere appear in this county -we therefore have no coal in this county.
We have no representatives in this State of the age of reptiles, the periods of which are Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. They are found in some parts of the continent.
Above these are formations and deposits of what is called the age of Mam- mals, consisting of two periods, the Tertiary and Quaternary. No representa- tives of the former are found in the State, but of the latter we have abundant. They consist of Glacial Drift, Erie Clay. Forest Bed, Iceberg Drift, Terraces and Beaches.
The latter period presents a complete change in the physical condition of our continent, and apparently of the whole northern hemisphere; a change not ex- ceeded by that which takes place upon our surface in the alternation from mid- summer to mid winter. We have evidence that during what is called the Drift period, the climate had changed from that of an all-pervailing warmth to an arctic cold. While in the Tertiary the climate of the Southern States was car- ried to Greenland. In the Drift period the present climate of Greenland was brought as far south as the Ohio River. Greenland is now nearly buried under snow and ice, and in a large part of the coast, access to the interior is barred by the great glaciers which flow from the interior to the sea. Precisely such must have been the condition of much of North America during the glacial pe- riod, for we find evidence that glaciers covered the greater part of the surface down to the latitude of about forty degrees.
The materials known as the Drift deposits are beds of sand, gravel and boul- ders, and have received the name of Drift, because they have been transported or drifted from their places of origin.
The most important facts which the study of the drift has brought, are that in most localities where the nature of the underlying rocks is such as to retain inscriptions made upon them, the upper surface of these rocks is planed, fur- rowed or excavated in a peculiar and striking manner, evidently by the action of one great denuding agent. Examples of this planing are abundant about Sandusky and on the islands. A good specimen can be seen at Monk's ship- yard, and almost anywhere where the upper surface of the coniferous lime- stone is exposed at Sandusky.
Beneath the drift deposits the rock surfaces are in many localities excavated to form a system of basins and channels, often cut several hundred feet below the lakes and rivers that now occupy them. The Vermillion and Huron Riv- ers exhibit this phenomenon and prove that the surface of the lake was once at least one hundred feet lower than now.
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
Upon the glacial surface are found unconsolidated materials, the lowest of which is blue clays, stratified in thin layers containing no fossils, but conifer- ous wood and leaves; after the clay, sand, gravel and boulders in large quan- tities were transported from the region north of the lakes and spread over a large area south of them ; these were floated to their places by ice bergs.
Following the water period ensued an era of continental elevation, which progressed until the present level was reached and the drift deposits raised several hundred feet above the ocean level. This took place slowly and was marked by periods of repose. In these intervals of rest our terraces and lake ridges were formed. These ridges mark old shore lines-such is now being formed at Cedar Point. The "ridge roads" are well known and mark the lines of the principal ridges. No boulders are found on the ridges, so that they are of more recent date than the action that deposited the boulders. In some of the ridges in this county is found a yellow sand, light and loamy, and largely used as a moulding sand.
The drift deposits have been removed from a great part of Erie county. In the southern part of the county the boulder clay is found covering the rock surface. This is blue, or where exposed and its iron oxidized, reddish yellow unstratified clay, thickly set with angular fragments of shale taken from the lake basin. With these are small boulders usually ground and striated, derived from the old rocks north of the lakes.
In this part of the county are also found beds of sand and the lake ridges which rest on the boulder clay. These ridges are the effect of shore waves and are old beaches formed when the lake stood much higher than it does now and in the same manner that Cedar Point sand ridge is now forming, and which will ultimately dike out the lake. The part of the county north of the last lake shore, which is the ridge at Castalia, and thence east imperfectly par- allel with the present shore, from which the drift has been removed, is covered by a fine sediment mixed with vegetable remains, making a remarkably rich soil, having the characteristics of the prairie soils of the West.
The formation of the lake ridges was the last in the sequence of events which make the history of our surface geology, and brings us down to the present time, which seems a period of rest; but every day sees something taken from the barrier of Niagara and at no distant day, geologically speaking. Lake Erie will have shared the fate of all lakes and have been drained to its bottom.
The solid earth under our feet has a history as well as the people who have lived on its surface. We learn that once a great part of this country was buried under ice like Greenland. Earlier still it had jungles of palms and other tropical plants ; yet further back it lay beneath a wide ocean ; and be- yond that time can be traced many still more remote periods, when it was forest-covered land or wide marshy plains, or again buried under the great
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AGRICULTURE OF ERIE COUNTY.
sea. Step by step we may follow this strange history backwards and with as much certainty we trace the doings of Julius Caesar or William the Conqueror.
Every quarry and ravine where the naked rock comes to view offers an attraction if we seek to find there the remains of some of those lost forms of plants which covered the land or of those long extinct tribes of animals which once tenanted the sea. These fossils will become not mere things to wonder at. We learn what they most resemble in the present living world and will not rest content until we have seen all that we can discover of the light which they throw upon the former condition of the district in which we find them. Geology thus becomes not a task to be conned from books, but a delightful companion in every walk and ramble, when we find
" Tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in everything."
CHAPTER XII.
AGRICULTURE OF ERIE COUNTY.
A GRICULTURE is the pioneer of civilization. It levels the forest, plants its home in the wilderness, upturns the primal, fertile soil of the prairie, and makes alike the " wilderness and solitary place to blossom as the rose." But very little attention has been paid in the past to the agricultural history of Erie county. A history fragrant with noble sacrifices, privations untold and daring heroic deeds unselfishly performed by the early pioneers. They builded wiser than they knew. Their wildest dreams could not have pictured the ex- tent, the grandeur and prosperity of the agriculture of to-day. The crude im- plements of those early times, the wooden, mold-board plow, the sickle, the flail, the scythe, have been replaced with riding silver steel plows, the self binder, the steam thresher and mower of to-day. The log house has long been a thing of the past, and in its stead rises the stately mansion richly upholstered and furnished, of the wealthy farmers of this age. The scrubby live stock of years ago has been wonderfully metamorphosed into sleek Herefords, creamy Jer- seys, prancing Hotspurs and black shining Berkshires grunting out their sat- isfaction at the present state of things.
The improvement in the farmer's home life has been. still more marked as the grandest result of this new order of things. The farmer of to-day, for at least a part of the year, is a man of leisure, in fact he is becoming a man of in-
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
telligence. He reads the best books relating to his calling, the daily papers, the leading magazines and works of the best literature. Through the Grange and kindred organizations he is becoming versed in parliamentary law, skilled in expressing his thoughts in debate and fitted for the highest duties of citizen- ship. Life means much more to him than to father and grandfather before him. His horizon has been infinitely expanded, his opportunities for improvement multiplied, and his enjoyments proportionately increased.
Erie county is emphatically calculated for every variety of husbandry. Its location on the south side of Lake Erie very much modifies its temperature, while its variety and fertility of soil make it possible to cultivate any crop or fruit usually raised in the lake regions, with quite reasonable hope of success.
Beginning at the lake, the limestone crops out near the surface and the soil, a rich, black loam, is admirably adapted for wheat, grapes and other fruits. A few miles south a sandy ridge is very well adapted to produce potatoes and gen- eral farm crops, and still farther south the rich prairie produces corn, oats, wheat and grass in native luxuriance. Erie county is the banner wheat county of Ohio, having produced in one year an average yield of 25.2 bushels per acre for the entire wheat acreage, the largest yield produced by any county in the State. Its total wheat produced that year was 657, 100 bushels. The average crop of corn aggregates 700,000 bushels, and oats 400,000 bushels. Erie county is one of the foremost in the yield of potatoes, ranking fourth in the State and all kinds of vegetables grow rankly. It has over 4000 acres in orch- ards. Its annual apple crop in fair seasons is one half million bushels. Peaches are a leading fruit crop. The grape crop is second only to one county in the State and averages about four million pounds annually, while its wine manu- facture has reached colossal proportions. Unsurpassed shipping facilities, thorough cultivation, a fertile soil, nearness to market, make the farm lands of Erie county exceptionably valuable.
The wooded portions of the county have not materially changed in the past few years. There is a disposition to stay the farther devastation of the forests. Careful underdraining has done much to redeem the waste places and make highly profitable farm operations, where in swales and low swamps mias- matic diseases prevailed. It is safe to say that one-half of the farm lands of Erie County are thoroughly underdrained. From the latest statistics at our command we find that there are in Erie county 158,435 acres of farming land exclusive of towns and villages; at seventy-five dollars per acre would be worth in round numbers about $12,000,000. Number of horses 5781, value $500,000 ; cattle 9476, value $190,000 ; mules 50, value $5,000 ; sheep 30,000, value $90,000 ; hogs $943, value $50,000 ; carriages 1134, value $75,000; watches 446; value $10,000 ; other farm property $500,000.
Let us look a moment at the productions of the farm lands of the county for 1886. Wheat, 247,824 bushels ; rye, 2,477 bushels ; buckwheat, 10,943
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AGRICULTURE OF ERIE COUNTY.
bushels ; oats, 294,676 bushels ; barley, 36,219 bushels ; corn, 564,863 bush- els ; butter, 394, 117 pounds ; potatoes, 301,306 bushels, ranking third county in the State ; apples, 76,749 bushels ; wool, 606,665 pounds ; eggs, 197,245 dozen ; grapes, 2,571,045 pounds ; wine, 71,170 gallons pressed. While the above figures are not absolutely accurate they are a close approximation to the amount of farm products for the main crops for the above named year.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
Closely identified with the agricultural prosperity and growth of the county, are the different farmers' societies that have had a wonderful influence in up- lifting and elevating the masses by bringing people of all classes together and infusing a spirit of mutual dependence and interest in each other. Prominent among these is the Erie County Agricultural Society.
Its history properly antedates the formation of Erie county it having been first known as the Huron County Agricultural Society, organized in June, 1833. We have before us an exceedingly interesting manuscript volume, the records of the Erie County Agricultural Society from 1833 to 1878. To its pages we are largely indebted for many facts in the early history of the society. At the time mentioned Huron county embraced the present limits of Erie. We copy from the minutes of the first meeting : "In pursuance of an act of the Legisla- ture of the State of Ohio, passed February 25, 1833, to authorize and encour- age the establishment of agricultural societies in the several counties of the State, public notice is hereby given that a public meeting will be held at the court house in Norwalk on the last Friday of June, 1833, for the purpose of organizing an agricultural society to be called the Huron County Agricultural Society." Accordingly the meeting was held as above and one of the first, if not the first agricultural society in the State was organized by the election of the following officers : Amos Woodward, president ; Timothy Baker, vice-pres . ident ; Lemuel Morse, Levi Barnum, Lester Cone, John Millen, John Fulton, Aaron Corbitt, Arunah Eaton, Wm. P. Mason, Daniel Beach and Charles B. Simmons, directors. Eben Boalt, treasurer; John V. Vredenburg, corre- sponding secretary ; Joseph M. Root, recording secretary.
The first annual fair was not held until October 18, 1838 at Norwalk. We append the program : " The Throne of Grace was first addressed by the Rev. Mr. Higgins; Agricultural address, by F. B. Sturgis Esq ; awarding premi- ums." From the reports of the latter we cannot refrain from taking a few items. Best acre of corn, George Powers, sixty- three bushels shelled. Best one-half acre of potatoes, John D. Allen, one hundred bushels. One half acre beets, J. V. Vredenburg, one hundred and twenty-five bushels. Samuel Pres- ton is reported to have raised from seven square rods of ground, at the rate of six hundred and eighty-five bushels of potatoes per acre. We find first pre- mium on " improved cooking stove " given to William Gallup, the only uten- 12
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
sil of any kind on exhibition. The amount in premiums offered at this fair was $70. At a meeting of the Agricultural Board, December 14, 1838, a propo- sition was received from Licking County Agricutural Society to send delegates with them to Columbus for the purpose of organizing a State agricultural so- ciety and O. Jenny and J. V. Vredenburg were sent as delegates.
At the second fair held at Norwalk, October 17, 1839, $118 was offered as premiums, and at the end of the year sixty-seven dollars were in the treasury. In 1840 $129 were offered as premiums, but no account of a fair being held is given. The fair for 1841 was held at Norwalk, November 2. There is no record of any fairs being held in 1842-3-4-5-6 and 7.
HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
Agreeable to public notices in the newspapers of the two counties, on the 15th of March, 1848, the above society was organized in the sheriff's office in the court house at Norwalk, and a constitution adopted. This district society em braced the limits of Huron and Erie counties. In the spring of 1838 the county of Erie had been organized from the northern townships of Huron county. The complete formation of Erie county as it now is, was not com- pleted until 1840. Platt Benedict was the president of this new society, Benj. Benson, secretary, and Luke S. Stow, of Erie, one of the directors. The latter was afterwards one of its efficient secretaries. It held its first fair at Norwalk, October 12, 1848. This new district society, organized from the two counties. seems to have been heartily supported from its inception. At the annual meeting in March. 1849, the officers of 1848 were re-elected and Andrew Ainsley, of Erie, added to the directors. A premium was offered for the best farm essay to be read at the coming fair, an example worthy to be com- mended to our fair managers now.
This fair of 1849 was held at Milan, and the Press said : " The display in all the departments far exceeded any previous fair, and was attended by at least three times the number of spectators. It is pleasing to note the growing interest manifested in agricultural and industrial affairs, and we confidently an- ticipate the day when Erie and Huron counties will rival in their efforts those of any other in the State." In competition on field crops the following yields were reported per acre : Wheat, 342 bushels ; corn, 135 bushels ; barley, 584 bushels ; oats, 652 bushels ; potatoes, 360 bushels. In 1850 Philo Adams, of Erie, was president ; E. M. Barnum, secretary, and Isaac T. Reynolds one of the directors. from Erie. The time of holding the fair, October 10 and II, at Norwalk. The number present. 8,000. One of the best points made by the speaker of the occasion, who gave the agricultural address, was: " That the ulterior object of these annual gatherings for competition is an improvement in the breed of farmers-of men."
In 1851 Philo Adams was president, I. T. Reynolds vice-president, and
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AGRICULTURE OF ERIE COUNTY.
Luke S. Stow, secretary. The fair was held at Milan, October 8 and 9; the number estimated to be present, 10,000.
The fifth annual fair was held at Norwalk, in 1852, October 5, 6 and 7. The members of the society numbered at this time 800. The amount re- ceived from all sources $2, 129.75 ; amount expended $1,083.53; amount on hand at end of fiscal year $1,046.22, a very good financial showing.
At the annual meeting January 20, 1852, two resolutions were offered to the effect that the connection between the two counties in this society be dis- solved, and that the Board of Managers be requested to settle up the affairs of the society. These resolutions were referred to a committee, and the commit- tee, at a subsequent meeting, reported adversely and the resolutions voted down. The fair in 1852 was held October 5, 6 and 7, at Norwalk, and over $1,000 offered as premiums on a largely increased variety of articles. The entries numbered 700. The best one acre wheat, 453 bushels; one acre corn, 101 bushels, shelled ; one acre oats, 74 bushels ; one acre potatoes, 382 bush- els. No manure was applied to the soil to raise any of these premium crops.
In 1853 I. T. Reynolds was president, L. S. Stow, secretary, and the fair was held at Monroeville.
The seventh and last fair of the two counties jointly, was held at Norwalk, October, 1854, and like its predecessors was profitable and successful.
At the annual meeting January 2, 1855, after a spirited debate, the follow- ing resolutions were adopted :
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