USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 43
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Peaches, pears, cherries. plums and quinces are found on most of the farms of the county, being largely used by farmers' wives for canning pur- poses and also for jellies, butters, jams, preserves, and pickles and pastry purposes. The last annual agricultural report for Greene county gives the following returns for orchard products: Peaches, 22 acres, 338 bushels; pears, 8 acres, 134 bushels ; cherries, 6 acres, 84 bushels ; plums, no acres, 3 bushels; other small fruit, 6 acres, 166 bushels. No separate returns are made for berries of any kind.
LIVE STOCK.
The growth of the live-stock industry in Greene county would make an interesting study, but the absence of available statistics makes it impossible to follow the story in detail. For at least a quarter of a century after the county was organized the use of oxen was universal, not only for plowing and doing all the hauling on the farm and to market, but the ox-team was the only team many farmers owned. Many a Greene county pioneer, whose grandson now drives his automobile to the county seat on Saturday after- noon, had nothing but his ox-team to bring him to the county seat. Some- times, he had an ox and a horse, or a mule, hitched up together.
It would be easy to write a volume of considerable size on the live-stock industry of Greene county. The historian has found that there are farmers in Greene county who rank among the best stock raisers in the United States. There is at least one cattle breeder and one sheep raiser who have international reputations. And then there are farmers who have horses and hogs which take prizes at stock shows all over the country. Even the humble chicken has its devotees. It is not too much to say that the farmers of Greene county have carried away more prizes at the Ohio state fair than the farmers of any other county in the state. They have also exhibited at other state fairs
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and at national exhibitions, winning prizes from one end of the country to the other.
One of Greene county's farmers, O. A. Bradfute, helped to organize the International Stock Show at Chicago, and for years has been winning first prizes on his cattle. The Williamsons have won more prizes with their sheep than any other breeders in the United States, and have had the satis- faction of having calls for their sheep from all parts of the world. Bryson with his horses and Foust with his hogs are two more Greene county farmers who have brought fame to the county in their respective lines. This is to mention only a very few of the well-known live-stock breeders of the county.
The following pages give in a general way the growth of the live-stock industry of the county without mentioning by name the scores of farmers who have been leaders in breeding. The biographical volume gives inter- esting sketches of a majority of the stockmen, and there may be seen a full account of the work they have been doing to improve the live stock of the county, state and nation. Among the breeders of the county of note who have come to the attention of the historian are the following, listed alpha- betically : Andrew, Ankeney, Bradfute, Bryson, Cherry, Corry, Creswell, Cummins, Dobbins, Foust, Gerlaugh, Grinnell, Hawkins, Jobe, Kelly, Lackey, Orr, Peterson, Pollock, Turnbull, Watt and the Williamsons.
LIVE STOCK FOR SHOW PURPOSES.
With the beginning of the County Agricultural Society in 1833 there was more attention paid to the improvement of all kinds of live stock, but unfortunately all the first records of the society are lost, so it is impossible to tell just what action the society did take in regard to the matter. But the step taken in 1830 regarding sheep, followed by the beginning of the county fair three years later, marks a new step in the live-stock industry of the county. Whatever may have been the standing of the farmers of the county in earlier years, the fact remains that in 1918 they stand at the top in the live-stock industry in Ohio. 1
The statement has been frequently made, and not disputed, that Greene county produces more pure-blood, registered live stock, more varieties and of a higher class, than any other spot on the globe for its size. This is a pretty comprehensive statement, covering, as it does, the globe, but the facts seem to warrant the assumption. The live-stock breeders of the county have been exhibiting at the state fair at Columbus for more than a quarter of a century, and in some years there are as many as twenty exhibitors from the county. On more than one occasion they have won as much as two thousand dollars in prizes on their horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. There have been hundreds of first prizes won at the state fair by farmers from
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Greene county, and not a few at national exhibits. In fact, it is actually true that the cash prizes won by Greene county exhibitors at the state fair total more than the combined winnings of any other three counties in the state. Many of the best stockmen have been exhibiting for years at the state fairs of other states and at live-stock shows all over the United States. Blooded live stock raised in Greene county is shipped to practically every state in the Union, and on more than one occasion it has been shipped to Europe.
One of the greatest showings the county has ever made was at the St. Louis Exposition in 1903, when five of the breeders of the county competed with the best that the whole world had to offer-and carried home one hundred and forty prizes. Of this magnificent total there were about fifty first prizes and championships, including, as they did, some of the most valuable prizes offered. The International Stock Show held at Chicago each year has seen Greene county stock exhibited, and there is not a year that some champion- ships are not won by the local breeders. A bull from the herd of O. A. Bradfute has been champion of his class for three successive years, a record that has never been equalled by any bull, dead or alive, ancient or modern. Another Greene county bull has achieved a record almost as good. Wherever a cattleman may be found in the United States, he will have heard of Lucy's Prince and Whitehall Sultan.
Greene county is proud of the fact that one of its sons, O. A. Bradfute, was one of the nine men who helped organize the International Stock Show at Chicago, and that he has been on the board of directors of the show from the time of its establishment. The United States does not have any other county as well represented with officers and directors of the leading live- stock pedigree registry associations of America as Greene.
The county has fine herds of cattle-Jersey, Polled Jersey, Guernsey, Shorthorn, Aberdeen-Angus, Hereford, Red Poll, Polled Durham; fancy flocks of sheep-Cheviot, Cotswold, Merino, Oxford Down, Southdown, Shropshire Down, Hampshire Down, Lincoln; sturdy droves of hogs-Ches- ter White, Duroc Jersey, Berkshire, Poland-China ; unexcelled stables of horses.
HORSES.
The horse has been the companion of man for centuries. Shakespeare has his "King Richard" even offering to give his kingdom for a horse, and there were many pioneers who gave a quarter of a section of land for a horse, and a very ordinary beast at that. The horse accompanied some of the first settlers into the county, proof of which is found in the listers' returns for 1803. In the records of the common pleas court for 1803, under date of (27)
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August 26, there may be seen a list of the live stock of the county as returned by the listers for taxation. There were only four townships at the time, but they covered an immense amount of territory. Mad River township, for instance, included all of the present county of Champaign and a strip as wide as that county northward to the Michigan line. But here are the figures for the horses: Beavercreek township, 241 ; Cæsarscreek township, 77; Sugarcreek township, 123; Mad River township, 243; total for the county, 684. Cæsarscreek reported one stallion. The horses were listed for taxation at thirty cents a head. This statement of the number of horses refutes the idea so often heard that there were so few horses in the beginning of the county's history.
The horse gradually displaced the ox, although the plodding ox was better adapted to some of the extremely heavy work that had to be done. By 1840 the number of horses had increased to 6,987, or rather this figure included both horses and mules, separate returns not being made for them. In 1850 the horses and mules had increased to 7,171. The report for 1916 gives II, 192 horses for the county.
"SLEEPY TOM," A KING OF PACERS.
Among the factors that have made Greene county famous must be mentioned "Sleepy Tom," the greatest pacer, when his chances are consid- ered, the world ever saw. He was foaled in the hotel stable at Bellbrook in 1866. He was a stoutly bred horse, being sired by "Tom Rolph" and he by "Pocahontas"; "Tom's" dam was sired by "Sam Hazard." "Tom" was a very unpromising colt, both in gait and appearance, there being nothing about him that would even hint at the greatness which he would achieve on the track. During his early colthood and after he was broken, he led the life of a vagabond and was racked about the streets of Bellbrook as a com- mon "plug." His dam was a natural pacer and "Tom" also showed indi- cations of that gait, which was more obvious as he grew older; hence his owner, Isaac Dingler, began training him, but with only indifferent success. Along with his failure, the seeming end of "Tom's" career was sealed when he became stone blind, probably as a result of the strenuous work he had done during his training. He was then withdrawn from the track as worth- less and was repeatedly sold and traded from hand to hand, at one time changing hands in consideration of thirty dollars and a bottle of very poor whisky. Finally he became an inmate of a livery stable in Xenia.
At that time there lived a man in Xenia by the name of Stephen Phillips, who trained some trotters and pacers in a small way, and he became acquainted with "Blind Tom," as the horse was then designated. As the story goes, in those days of the late seventies, the Cincinnati Sunday papers were brought from Dayton to Xenia by horses, and there was an intense rivalry between
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the men who handled the Enquirer and the Gazette as to which would win the weekly race between the two towns. It was "nip and tuck" for a time until the Enquirer man hired the little blind pacer, "Tom," from the Xenia livery stable and then it became a question as to how soon the Gazette would arrive in town after the Enquirer. This was "Tom's" first victory and it eventually led to his becoming famous.
Phillips, who had known the horse for a long time, of course heard all about "Tom's" weekly exploit of winning the race from Dayton to Xenia, and it was not long before he bought the chestnut horse for one hundred and fifty dollars. Then "Tom's" new owner began giving him regular training, but for a time the results achieved were not up to expectations. Of course Phillips's friends made much fun of him and his pacer, but he said nothing. Phillips had one friend, however, who seemed to understand the possibilities in the little chestnut. This was Frank T. Stark, the train dis- patcher on the Panhandle railroad at Xenia and who later became a promi- nent railroad man at Dayton. Phillips consulted with Stark quite fre- quently about the progress of "Tom" in the training, and finally early one morning the former routed the latter out and imparted to him the welcome intelligence that the pacer was at last going right and he invited Stark out to the track to see "Tom" perform.
The invitation was accepted and Stark saw "Tom" make a mile in a little better than 2:30. Stark readily saw that Philipps had the greatest pacer in the world and he advised him to strike out for places where appro- priate money was to be had for that brand of pacing. Phillips took the advice and soon "Tom," whose name was changed to "Sleepy Tom," made his debut on the turf with the best. At the races held at Chicago on July 24 and 25, 1879, "Sleepy Tom" won the third, fourth and fifth mile heats in 2:161/2, 2:16 and 2:1214, for a purse of fifteen thousand dollars against "Mattie Hunter," "Rowdy Boy" and "Lucy," who were considered the great- est pacers of that year. In the last heat of this race "Tom" made the best time known in the world in any gait, and his name immediately became a household word and his fame spread throughout the world.
But this grand old pacer was doomed to a miserable end. After he had lowered the world's record, he was sold for ten thousand dollars. When he became too old to be of any value as a race horse, he drifted from one owner to another until he finally perished in a burning stable out West.
CATTLE.
Cattle have been found in Greene county since the day the first ox-team pulled a Conestoga into the county. The days of the ox have gone forever, but the day of the Jersey cow was never so bright as it is today. If there is any one thing the farmers of Greene county are proud of it is their ability
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to produce good cattle. While they have taken prizes far and wide on horses, hogs and sheep, it is their cattle which have made them the most famous as live-stock breeders.
The first cattle to merit the name of a distinct breed were the Shorthorns. The first cattle of the county were a nondescript breed, of uncertain ancestry, and were decidedly more useful than ornamental. The first man in the county to introduce pedigreed stock of any kind is not known, and the idea that a cow's ancestry would one day be traced with more care than was bestowed on her owner's ancestry would have struck our grandfathers as absolutely ridiculous. Again, the statement must be made that the times have changed. It would seem from existing records that the sheep came in for more attention at first than the cow or horse; at least, as early as 1830 the county commissioners noted that an act of the Legislature provided that steps be taken to improve the breed of sheep in the state.
The first statistics on cattle in Greene county are found in the records of the common pleas court, dated August 26, 1803, and are the reports of the listers of that year, the first report on the live stock of the newly organized Greene county. It is presumed that the totals include all kinds of cattle, cows, calves, bulls, oxen, etc. The complete report is given by townships as follow : Beavercreek, 430; Caesarscreek, 154; Sugarcreek, 192; Mad River, 492. These cattle were listed for taxation at twelve and a half cents a head.
In 1840 there were reported a total of 14,914 cattle with a value of $149,140, an average value of about ten dollars a head. The number had increased to 17,444 by the next decade. At this time, 1850, a return was made showing that the county had produced the previous year no less than 524,129 pounds of butter and cheese. There has not been an appreciable increase in the number of cattle raised in the county for the past sixty years. In 1916 there were reported 19,884 heads of cattle of all kinds. Xenia township, with a total of 3,097, was the leader, followed by Cedarville, with 2,298. However, there is far more milk, cream and butter being produced now than ever before. The 1916 statistics show the following: Total gal- lons of milk sold for family use, 576,566; gallons of milk not sold for family use, 220,088; gallons of cream sold, 251,095; total pounds of butter made in the home, 507,925.
THE TALE OF THE PIG.
The tale of the pig in Greene county might easily be drawn out to the length of a volume. The pig, of all the domestic animals, seems to be the butt of more jokes and more humor than falls to the lot of any other creature of the barnyard. One of the funniest stories ever written is entitled "Pigs Is Pigs," and it actually seems that the humble pig is the cause of more good-
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natured remarks than all of his barnyyard comrades combined. Let him explain it who will.
There are pigs and pigs and there is as much difference between the pig of a hundred years ago and his descendants of today as there is between the wild plum of the forest and the luscious damson of our garden. The pioneer pig must have been, if half of what has been said about him is true, truly a ludicrous looking creature. He was a thin, cadaverous looking specimen, constructed for speed, and produced a quality of ham and bacon entirely in keeping with his general wiry and tough appearance. With an intestinal tract only about five times his length, this ungainly creature could not fatten himself as can his descendants of today with his intestinal tract of ten times his length. He might eat as much as his descendant, but he could not get as fat, and for this very anatomical reason.
In the days before the railroad, the only way to get hogs to market was to haul them overland or drive them. Most of them were driven, and here is where his wonderful powers of locomotion came into good use. It is certain that the four-hundred-pound porker of today could not have made the long overland trip to Cincinnati with the ease that did his long-legged, long-snouted, long-tailed, long-bristled, razor-back, slab-sided brother of the '20s and '30s. This many-adjectived creature bore the name of "razor- back," "elm-peeler," "rail-splitter" (smaller specimens being called "sapling- splitters"), names which were graphically descriptive of his anatomical structure. It is said that one of these pioneer pigs could outrun the fleetest horse for a considerable distance, and that a sow with a brood was a fiercer animal to meet in the woods than a wolf.
DESCRIPTION OF A HOG DRIVE.
The men who bought hogs in the days before the railroad rendezvoused all of their several droves at some central station. Such a station was Xenia for many years for this whole section of the country. After they had all the hogs they thought they could manage, plans were made for the drive to Cincinnati, or wherever the destination may have been, but usually Cin- cinnati for the hog buyers of Greene county. There was an occasional drive to Columbus, or Dayton, or even to Baltimore-and every foot of the distance was made on foot. It is small wonder that this pig of other days was, as old settlers were wont to say, "built for speed and endurance." The fol- lowing account of one of these famous hog drives was prepared by an old settler who took part in one of them, and gives a fine description of a forgotten feature of pioneer days.
It was not uncommon to see a drove of hogs driven into the public square to be weighed, preparatory to starting them on their long journey. As each porker was caught
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it was thrust into a kind of leather receptacle, commonly called the harness breeching, which was suspended to steelyards. As soon as the hog was fairly in the breeching the whole was lifted from the ground, and thus one by one the drove was weighed and a minute made of each, and with a pair of shears a patch of bristles was cut from the hindquarters as evidence of the fact that the pig had been weighed. Two or three days drive made the hogs quiet enough to be driven along the highway without trouble, moving along at an average gait of eight to ten miles a day. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping together in herds the hogs bought in distant and sparsely settled neighborhoods, where they were but little handled and rarely fed. The highways, even when well opened, led through hazel brush and fallen timber, and even down to a late day were rarely fenced on both sides. Every strange sight and sound gave an alarm, and the hogs scattered in every direction, to be gathered together again at their former haunts. This difficulty was obviated, we are informed, by John Earson, an old settler who engaged in collecting hogs from distant settlements into one drove, by enticing them into a pen and then running a "stitch" through the eye lids and securing the same by a knot. Thus blinded the hogs seemed instinctively to keep the road, and once started could easily be driven by a person on horseback. Two or three days drive made them comparatively quiet and tractable, and reaching their destination a clip of the scissors or knife made all things right again. Another pioneer adds to this statement that in order to catch the hogs shelled corn was trailed from the brush into a strong rail pen having a "slip-gap." As soon as the hogs were in the pen the gap was closed, and by means of a long pole with a hook on the end, which was made to catch behind the foreshoulder of the leg, the hog was drawn to a convenient place ; a strap with a slipnoose, which was placed just behind the tushes of the upper jaw, drew the animal to the desired spot, when the stitches were made without further trouble and the brute then released.
HOG STATISTICS.
It is fair to presume that there were a few hogs in the county in 1803 when the first listers traveled over the county and placed the horses and cattle on the tax duplicate, but since the pig was not to be taxed he was not counted. Hogs were hard to handle in a new country, and they were not very numerous in this county until after the War of 1812. The number of hogs in the county during the past hundred years shows a great variation from year to year. The cholera has been the greatest enemy of the hog, and thousands of hogs have been lost to the farmers of Greene county through this disease. When hogs were selling for from three to five cents a pound there were more of them in the county than there are today when the price is from fifteen to eighteen cents a pound. On April 1, 1917, there were 57,198 hogs reported in the county, and, as far as statistics show, if their reliability may be depended upon, this was a lighter production than the county has had for several years. In 1840 there were 26,770 hogs in the county, with a total value of $100,000, or less than four dollars to the porker. In 1850 the number had increased to 36,994, while in the same year the federal census reported the value of slaughtered animals in the county at $121,362. It is fair to presume that practically all of the packing done by the meat-packing plants in the county was confined to pork. Local news- papers of the decade before the Civil War speak of fifty thousand head of hogs being slaughtered in Greene county in one year, and while there were
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some hogs shipped in from outside, it is more than likely that the bulk were raised in the county. The decrease in the number raised began to show up after the cholera scourge appeared in the latter '8os and fore part of the 'gos. Then the dread disease came into the county, like a thief in the night, and spread death and destruction on every hand. Thousands of hogs were lost and many farmers became so discouraged that they quit rai's- ing them altogether for the market. The disease persists to the present time; in 1916 there were 7,299 hogs, valued at $64,960, lost to the farmers from the disease.
The prevailing breeds of hogs grown in Greene county are Poland- China and Berkshire, although there are many farmers who have Chester Whites, Duroc Jerseys, Hampshires and Mulefoots. The latter breed is supposed to be immune from cholera, but it has other characteristics which keep it from being widely raised. Ed. S. Foust's great boar, "Orion Cherry King, Jr., 58113," weight 1,030 pounds, raised in this county, was crowned the world's champion Duroc boar at the national swine show at Omaha in October, 1916, and is conceded to be the greatest Duroc living.
SHEEP.
There is no domestic animal raised in Greene county that has a more variable history than the sheep. The pioneer family had to raise at least two things-a patch of flax and a flock of sheep; from the former came the linen, from the latter the wool, while from the combination came the linsey- woolsey. There were few families in the county that did not have a spinning- wheel, and there was probably not a woman in the county who could not take the raw wool and make it into cloth. It is equally true that there is probably not one in the county who can do the same thing today.
One of the first industries in the county was the woolen-mill. Some of the mills only carded and fulled, others gave most of their attention to weav- ing and spinning. The so-called Xenia factory performed all four opera- tions, that is, it carded, fulled, spun and wove. It is a difficult matter to trace the various woolen-mills in the county, since most of them disappeared before the Civil War. More than ninety years ago-in 1826-a summary of woolen factories in the county shows nine in operation, namely: The Xenia factory, near the county seat, previously mentioned; Oldtown, carding and fulling; McFarland's factory on Massies creek, carding, fulling and spinning; Bradford's factory; Smith's factory on Beaver creek; Sayer & Wells, on Little Miami river ; Laughead's factory on Yellow Springs branch; Bonner's factory near Xenia; Pelham's factory in Xenia. The last factory in operation was the Barrett factory near Spring Valley, which closed down forever in 1910.
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