USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County : together with historic notes on the Northwest, and the state of Ohio, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and all other authentic sources > Part 86
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After coal, iron is beyond doubt the most valuable mineral pro- duct of a state. As the material of manufacture, it is the most im- portant. What are called the " precious metals" are not to be com- pared with it as an element of industry or of profit. But since no manufactures can be successfully carried on without fuel, coal be- comes the first material element of the arts. Iron is unquestiona- bly the next. Ohio has an iron district extending from the mouth
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
of the Scioto River to some point north of the Mahoning River, in Trumbull County. The whole length is near 200 miles and the breadth 20 miles, making, as nearly as we can ascertain, 4,000 square miles. The iron in this district is of various qualities, and is manufactured largely into bars and castings. In this iron dis- triet are 100 furnaces, 44 rolling-mills, and 15 rail-mills, being the largest number of either in any state of the Union, except only Pennsylvania.
Although only the seventeenth state in its admission, I find that by the census statistics of 1870, it is the third state in the produc- tion of iron and iron manufactures. Already, and within the life of one man, this state begins to show what must in future time be the vast results of coal and iron applied to the arts and manufac- tures." In the year 1874, there were 420,000 tons of pig iron pro- duced in Ohio, which is larger than the product of any state except Pennsylvania. The product and the manufacture of iron in Ohio have increased so rapidly, and the basis for increase is so great, that we may not doubt that Ohio will continue to be the greatest pro- ducer of iron and iron fabrics except only Pennsylvania. At Cin- cinnati the iron manufacture of the Ohio Valley is concentrating, and at Cleveland the ores of Lake Superior are being smelted.
After coal and iron, we may place salt among the necessaries of life. In connection with the coal region, west of the Alleghenies, there lies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio a large space of country underlaid by the salt rock, which already produces im- mense amounts of salt. Of this, Ohio has its full proportion. In a large section of the southeastern portion of the state salt is pro- duced without any known limitation. At Pomeroy and other points the salt rock lies about one thousand feet below the surface, but salt water is easily brought to the surface by the steam engine. There, the salt rock, the coal seam, and the noble sandstone lie in successive strata, while the green corn and the yellow wheat bloom on the surface above. The State of Ohio produced, in 1874, three million five hundred thousand bushels of salt, being one-fifth of all produced in the United States. The salt section of Ohio is exceed- ed alone by that of Syracuse, New York, and of Saginaw, Michi- gan. There is no definite limit to the underlying salt rock of Ohio, and therefore the production will be proportioned only to the ex- tent of the demand.
Having now considered the resources and the products of the
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soil and the mines in Ohio, we may properly ask, How far have the people employed their resources in the increase of art and manu- facture? We have two modes of comparison: the ratio of in- crease within. the state, and the ratio they bear to other states. The aggregate value of the products of manufacture, exclusive of mining, in the last three censuses, were :
In 1850, .
$62,692,000
In 1860,
121,691,000
In 1870,.
269,713,000
The ratio of increase was over one hundred per cent. in each ten years, a ratio far beyond that of the increase of population, and much beyond the ratio of increase in the whole country. In 1850, the manufactures of Ohio were one-sixteenth part of the aggregate in the country; in 1860, one-fifteenth part; in 1870, one-twelfth part. In addition to this, we find from the returns of Cincinnati and Cleveland, that the value of the manufactured products of Ohio in 1875, must have reached $400,000,000, and by reference to the census tables, it will be seen that the ratio of increase exceeded that of the great manufacturing states of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Of all the states admitted into the Union prior to Ohio, Pennsylvania alone has kept pace in the progress of man- ufacture. Some little reference to the manufacture of leading arti- cles may throw some light on the cause of this. In the production of agricultural machinery and implements, Ohio is the first state; in animals and vegetable oils, the second; in pig iron, the second; in cast iron, the third; in tobacco, the third; in salt, the fourth; in machinery, the fourth; and in leather, the fourth. These facts show how largely the resources of coal, iron, and agriculture have entered into the manufactures of the state. This great advance in the manufactures of Ohio, when we consider that this state is, rela- tively to its surface, the first agricultural state in the country, leads to the inevitable inference that its people are remarkably indus- trious. When on forty thousand square miles of surface, three mil- lions of people raise one hundred and fifty million bushels of grain, and produce manufactures to the amount of $269,000,000 (which is fifty bushels of breadstuff to each man, woman, and child, and one hundred and thirty-three dollars of manufacture), it will be difficult to find any community surpassing such results. It is a testimony
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
not merely to the State of Ohio, but to the industry, sagacity, and energy of the American people.
Looking now to the commerce of the state, we have said there are six hundred miles of coast line, which embraces some of the principal internal ports of the Ohio and the lakes, such as Cincin- nati, Cleveland, Toledo, and Portsmouth, but whose commerce is almost wholly inland. Of course, no comparison can be made with the foreign commerce of the ocean ports. On the other hand, it is well known that the inland trade of the country far exceeds that of all its foreign commerce, and that the largest part of this interior trade is carried on its rivers and lakes. The materials for the vast consumption of the interior must be conveyed in its vessels, whether of sail'or steam, adapted to these waters. Let us take, then, the ship building, the navigation, and the exchange trades of Ohio, as elements in determining the position of this state in reference to the commerce of the country. At the ports of Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky, and Cincinnati, there had been built one thousand sail and steam vessels in the last twenty years, making an average of fifty each year. The number of sail, steam, and all kinds of vessels in Ohio, is eleven hundred and ninety, which is equal to the num- ber in all other states in the Ohio Valley and the Upper Mississippi.
When we look to the navigable points to which these vessels are destined, we find them on all this vast coast line, which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Yellowstone, and from Duluth to the St. Lawrence.
Looking again to see the extent of this vast interior trade which is handled by Ohio alone, we find that the imports and exports of the principal articles of Cincinnati amount in value to $500,000,000; and when we look at the great trade of Cleveland and Toledo, we shall find that the annual trade of Ohio exceeds $700,000,000. The lines of railroads which connect with its ports are more than four thousand miles in length, or rather more than one mile in length to each ten square miles surface. This great amount of railroads is engaged not merely in transporting to the Atlantic, and thence to Europe, the immense surplus grain and meat in Ohio, but in car- rying the largest part of that greater surplus which exists in the states west of Ohio, the granary of the West. Ohio holds the gate- way of every railroad north of the Ohio, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and hence it is that the great transit lines of the coun- try pass through Ohio.
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Let us now turn from the progress of the arts to the progress of ideas; from material to intellectual development. It is said that a state consists of men, and history shows that no art or science, wealth or power, will compensate for the want of moral or intel- lectual stability in the mind of a nation. Hence, it is admitted that the strength and perpetuity of our republic must consist in the in- telligence and morality of the people. A republic can last only when the people are enlightened. This was an axiom with the . early legislators of this country. Hence it was that when Virginia, Connecticut, and the original colonies ceded to the general govern- ment that vast and then unknown wilderness which lay west of the Alleghenies, in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, they took care that its future inhabitants should be an educated people. The constitution was not formed when the celebrated ordinance of 1787 was passed. That ordinance provided that "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the hap- piness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be for- ever encouraged ;" and by the ordinance of 1785, for the survey of the public lands in the Northwestern Territory, section 16 in each township, that is, one thirty-sixth part, was reserved for the main- tenance of public schools in said township. As the State of Ohio contained a little more than twenty-five millions of acres, this, to- gether with two special grants of three townships to universities, amounted to the dedication of 740,000 acres of land to the main- tenance of schools and colleges. It was a splendid endowment, but it was many years before it became available. It was sixteen years after the passage of this ordinance (in 1803), when Ohio entered the Union, and legislation upon this grant became possible. The constitution of the state pursued the language of the ordinance, and declared that "schools and the means of education shall for- ever be encouraged by legislative provision." The governors of Ohio, in successive messages, urged attention to this subject upon the people; but the thinness of settlement making it impossible, except in few districts, to collect youth in sufficient numbers, and impossible to sell or lease lands to advantage, caused the delay of any efficient school system for many years. In 1825, however, a general law establishing a school system, and levying a tax for its support, was passed.
This was again enlarged and increased by new legislation in 1836 and 1846. From that time to this, Ohio has had a broad, liberal,
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
and efficient system of public instruction. The taxation for schools, and the number enrolled in them at different periods, will best show what has been done.
In 1855 the total taxation for school purposes was, . . $2,672,827 The proportion of youth of schoolable age enrolled was 67 per cent. In 1874 the amount raised by taxation was. . $7,425,135 The number enrolled of schoolable age was 70 per cent., or 707,943
As the schoolable age extends to twenty-one years, and as there are very few youth in school after fifteen years of age, it follows that the seventy per cent. of schoolable youths enrolled in the pub- lic schools must comprehend nearly the whole number between four and fifteen years. It is important to observe this fact, because it has been inferred that the whole number of youth between five and twenty-one are not enrolled, that, therefore, they are not cdu- cated. This is a mistake; nearly all over fifteen years of age have been in the public schools, and all the native youth of the state, and all foreign born, young enough, have had the benefit of the public schools. But in consequence of the large number who have come from other states and from foreign countries, there are still a few who are classed by the census statistics among the "illiterate;" the proportion of this class, however, is less in proportion than in twenty-eight other states, and less in proportion than is Connecticut and Massachusetts, two of the oldest states, most noted for popular education. In fact, every youth in Ohio, under twenty-one years of age, may have the benefit of a public education ; and since the sys- tem of graded, and of high schools has been adopted, may obtain a common knowledge from the alphabet to the classics. The enu- merated branches of study in the public schools of Ohio are thirty- four, including mathematics and astronomy, French, German, and the classics. Thus the state which was in the heart of the wilder- ness of 1776, and was not a state until the nineteenth century had begun, now presents to the world not merely an unrivaled develop- ment of material prosperity, but an unsurpassed system of popular education.
In what is called the higher education, in the, colleges and uni- versities, embracing the classics and sciences taught in regular classes, it is the popular idea, and one which few dare to question, that we must look to the eastern states for superiority and excel-
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lence; but that also is becoming an assumption without proof; a proposition difficult to sustain. The facts in regard to the educa- tion of universities and colleges, their faculties, students, and courses of instruction, are all set forth in the complete statistics of the Bureau of Education for 1874. They show that the State of Ohio had the largest number of such institutions; the largest num- ber of instructors in their faculties, except one state, New York; and the largest number of students in regular college classes, in proportion to their population, except the two states of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Perhaps if we look at the statistics of classical students in the colleges, disregarding preparatory and irregular courses, we shall get a more accurate idea of the progress of the higher education in those states which claim the best :
In Ohio,
Colleges. 36
Teachers.
Students.
Proportion.
258
2,139
1 in 124
In Pennsylvania,
27
239
2,359
1 in 150
In New York,
·
26
343
2,764
1 in 176
Six New England states, 17
252
3,341
1 in 105
In Illinois, .
24
219
1,701
1 in 140
This shows there are more collegiate institutions in Ohio than in all New England; a greater number of college teachers, and only a little smaller ratio of students to the population ; a greater num- ber of such students than either in New York or Pennsylvania, and as a broad, general fact, has made more progress in education than either of the old states which formed the American Union. Such a fact is a higher testimony to the strength and the beneficent in- fluence of the American government than any which the statistician or the historian can advance.
Let us now turn to the moral aspects of the people of Ohio. No human society is found without its poor and dependent classes, whether made so by defects of nature, by acts of Providence, or by the accidents of fortune. Since no society is exempt from these classes, it must be judged not so much by the fact of their exist- ence, as by the manner in which it treats them. In the civilized nations of antiquity, such as Greece and Rome, hospitals, infirma- ries, orphan homes, and asylums for the infirm were unknown. These are the creations of Christianity, and that must be esteemed practically the most Christian state which most practices this Chris- tian beneficence. In Ohio, as in all the states of this country, and
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
of all Christian countries, there is a large number of the infirm and dependent classes; but although Ohio is the third state in popula- tion, she is only the fourteenth in the proportion of the dependent classes. The more important point, however, was, how does she treat them? Was there wanting any of all the varied institutions of benevolence ? How does she compare with other states and countries in this respect? It is believed that no state or country can present a larger proportion of all these institutions, which the benevolence of the wise and good have suggested for the allevia- tion of suffering and misfortune, than the State of Ohio. With three thousand five hundred of the insane within her borders, she has five great lunatic asylums, capable of accommodating them all. She has asylums for the deaf and dumb, the idiotic, and the blind. She has the best hospitals in the country. . She has schools of re- form and houses of refuge. She has "homes" for the boys and girls, to the number of eight hundred, who are the children of sol- diers. She has penitentiaries and jails, orphan asylums and in- firmaries. In every county there is an infirmary, and in every pub- lie institution, except the penitentiary, there is a school. So that the state has used every human means to relieve the suffering, to instruct the ignorant, and to reform the criminal. There are in the state eighty thousand who come under all the various forms of the infirm, the poor, the sick, and the criminal, who, in a greater or less degree, make the dependent class. For these the state has made every provision which humanity or justice or intelligence can require. A young state developed in the wilderness, she challenges, without any invidious comparison, both Europe and America to show her superior in the development of humanity manifested in the benefaction of public institutions.
Intimately connected with public morals, and with charitable in- stitutions is the religion of a people. The people of the United States are a Christian people. The people of Ohio have manifest- ed their zeal by the erection of churches, of Sunday-schools, and of religious institutions. So far as these are outwardly manifested, they are made known by the social statistics of the census.
The number of church organizations in the leading states were:
In the state of Ohio 6,488
In the state of New York 5,627
In the state of Pennsylvania . 5,984
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In the state of Illinois
4,298
It thus appears that Ohio had a larger number of churches than any state of the Union. The number of sittings, however, were not quite as large as those in New York and Pennsylvania. The denominations are of all the sects known in this country, about thirty in number, the majority of the whole number being Meth- odists, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Long before the American Independence, the Moravians had settled on the Mahoning and Tuscarawas Rivers, but only to be destroyed; and when the peace with Great Britain was made, not a vestige of Christianity remain- ed on the soil of Ohio; yet we see that within ninety years from that time the state of Ohio was, in the number of its churches, the first of this great Union.
In the beginning of this address, I said that Ohio was the oldest and first of these great states carved out of the northwest territory, and that it was in some things the greatest state of the American Union. I have now traced the physical, commercial, intellectual, and moral features of the state during the seventy-five years of its constitutional history. The result is to establish fully the proposi- tions with which I began. These facts have brought out:
1. That Ohio is, in reference to the square miles of its surface, the first state in agriculture of the American Union ; this, too, not- withstanding it has 800,000 in cities and towns, and a large devel- opment of capital and products in manufactures.
2. That Ohio has raised more grain per square mile than either France, Austria, or Great Britain. They raised 1,450 bushels per square mile, and ten bushels to each person. Ohio raised 3,750 bushels per square mile, and fifty bushels to each one of the pop- ulation; or, in other words, five times the proportion of grain raised in Europe.
3. Ohio was the first state of the Union in the production of domestic animals, being far in advance of either New York, Penn- sylvania, or Illinois. The proportion of domestic animals to each person in Ohio was three and one-third, and in New York and Pennsylvania less than half that. The largest proportion of dom- estic animals produced in Europe, was in Great Britain and Russia, neither of which come near that of Ohio.
4. The coal field of Ohio is vastly greater than that of Great Britain, and we need make no comparison with other states in re-
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
gard to coal or iron; for the 10,000 square miles of coal, and 4,000 square miles of iron in Ohio, is enough to supply the whole American continent for ages to come.
5. Neither need we compare the results of commerce and navi- gation, since from the ports of Cleveland and Cincinnati, the vessels of Ohio touch on 42,000 miles of coast, and her 5,000 miles of railroad carry her products to every part of the American con- tinent.
6. Notwithstanding the immense proportion and products of agriculture in Ohio, yet she has more than kept pace with New York and New England in the progress of manufactures during the last twenty years. Her coal and iron are producing their legiti- mate results in making her a great manufacturing state.
7. Ohio is the first state in the Union as to the proportion of youth attending school; and the states west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio, have more youth in school proportionably than New England and New York. The facts on this subject are so ex- traordinary, that I may be excused for giving them a little in detail :
The proportion in Ohio, to the population is 1 in 4.2
Illinois 66 1 in 4.3
66 Pennsylvania . 1 in 4.8
66 New York 1 in 5.2
66
Connecticut and Massachusetts . 1 in 8.7
These proportions show that it is in the west, and not in the east, that education is now advancing; and it is here where we see the stimulus given by the ordinance of 1785 is working out its great and beneficent results. The land grant for education was a great one, but at last its chief effort was in stimulating popular educa- tion ; for the State of Ohio has taxed itself tens of millions of dollars beyond the utmost value of the land grant to found and maintain a system of public education which the world has not surpassed.
8. We have seen that above and beyond all this material and intellectual development, Ohio has provided a vast benefaction of asylums, hospitals, and infirmaries, and special schools for the sup- port and instruction of the dependent classes. There is not within all her borders a single one of the deaf, dumb, and blind, of the
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poor, sick, and insane, not an orphan or a vagrant, who is not pro- vided for by the broad and generous liberality of the state and her people-a charity which the classic ages knew nothing of, a bene- ficence which the splendid hierarchies and aristocracies of Europe can not equal-has been exhibited in the young state whose name was unknown one hundred years ago, whose people, from Europe to the Atlantic, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, were, like Adam and Eve, cast out-" the world before them where to choose."
Lastly, we see that, although the third in population, and the seventeenth in admission to the Union, Ohio had, in 1870, 6,400 churches, the largest number in any one state, and numbering among them every form of Christian worship. The people, whose fields were rich with grain, whose mines were boundless with wealth, and whose commerce extended through thousands of miles of lakes and rivers, came here, as they came to New England's rock-bound coast-
" With freedom to worship God."
The church and the school house rose beside the green fields, and the morning bells rang forth to cheerful children going to school, and to a Christian people going to the church of God.
Let us now look at the possibilities of Ohio in the future devel- opment of the American republican republic. The two most pop- ulous parts of Europe, because the most food-producing, are the Netherlands and Italy, or, more precisely, Belgium and ancient Lombardy ; to the present time their population is, in round num- bers, three hundred to the square mile. The density of population in England proper, is nearly the same. We may assume, there- fore, that three hundred to the square mile is, in round numbers, the limit of comfortable subsistence under modern civilization. It is true that modern improvements in agricultural machinery and fertilization have greatly increased the capacity of production on a given amount of land with a given amount of labor. It is true, also, that the old countries of Europe do not possess an equal amount of arable land with Ohio in proportion to the same surface. It would seem, therefore, that the density of population in Ohio might exceed that of any part of Europe. On the other hand, it may be said with truth that the American people will not become so dense as in Europe while they have new lands in the West to occupy. This is true; but lands such as those in the valley of the
·
d e
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
Ohio are now becoming scarce in the West, and we think that with her great capacity for the production of grain on one hand, and of illimitable quantities of coal and iron to manufacture with on the other, that Ohio will at no remote period reach nearly the density of Belgium, which will give her nearly ten million of peo- ple. This seems extravagant, but the tide of migration which flowed so fast to the West is beginning to ebb, while the manu- factures of the interior offer greater inducements. With popula- tion comes wealth, the material for education, the development of the arts, advance in all the material elements of civilization, and the still grander advancements in the strength and elevation of the human mind, conquering to itself new realms of material and in- tellectual power, acquiring in the future what we have seen in the past, a wealth of resources unknown and undreampt of when, an hundred years ago, the fathers of the country declared their inde- pendence. I know how easy it is to treat this statement with easy incredulity, but statistics is a certain science; the elements of civil- ization are now measured, and we know the progress of the human race as we know that of a cultivated plant. We know the re- sources of the country, its food producing capacity, its art pro- cesses, its power of education, and the undefined and illimitable power of the human mind for new inventions and unimagined progress. With this knowledge it is not difficult nor unsafe to say that the future will produce more, and in a far greater ratio, than the past. The pictured scenes of the prophets have already been more than fulfilled, and the visions of beauty and glory which their imagination failed fully to describe will be more than realized in the bloom of that garden which republican America will present to the eyes of astonished mankind. Long before another century shall have passed by, the single state of Ohio will present four-fold the population with which the thirteen states began their indepen- dence, more wealth than the entire union now has, greater univer- sities than any now in the country, and a development of arts and manufactures which the world now knows nothing of. You have seen more than that since the constitution was adopted, and what right have you to say the future shall not equal the past ?
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