USA > Ohio > Noble County > History of Noble County, Ohio: With Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 18
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PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF NOBLE COUNTY.
The mark of a higher coal was found in the southwest quarter of section 18 in Brookfield Township, at a distance by the barometer of 215 feet. The blossom indicated at least 2§ feet of coal. This coal was opened many years ago and taken to Cum- berland for making coke, but the thinness of the seam and the distance from the railroad caused it to be abandoned. On sections 9 to 16 a coal mark was found, 160 to 180 feet above the Meigs Creek coal, but no openings could be found. Nowhere in the township was seen any coals below the Meigs Creek formation.
"In Buffalo Township, states the geologist, " nothing could be found of the Meigs Creek coal, as the land is all too low for it. It is possible that there are a very few outliers of the coal in the tops of some of the highest points in the southeast corner of the township, but if there should be, they would be of no practical value."
There is very little of the Meigs Creek coal in Noble Township. There are a few outliers in the east cen- tral part and in the southwest corner. Several openings worked for local supply have been made in the west- ern outliers, but none in the eastern. At Hiramsburg, in section 13, a mine is worked for local use. The coal is here found to be from 4 to 42 feet thick, and 258 feet above the crinoi- dal limestone.
There is a large area of the Meigs Creek coal in Sharon Township. In the eastern part the coal is well up in the hills, but in the western and southern parts it is low. Little of it has been carried away by the creek.
The coal is thickest in the southern part of the township, where it is from 4 to 42 feet. In the northern part it is 3 to 32 feet thick. The roof is usually bad, and mines have to be thoroughly timbered. Marks of a thin coal, 160 to 170 feet above the Meigs Creek were discovered in sections 3 and 10 of this township. A fine-grained sandstone, suitable for building or flagging, lies 30 or 40 feet below the Meigs Creek coal.
In Olive Township the Meigs Creek coal is found in the eastern and western parts, but through the central portion it has been cut out by the broad and deep valley of Duck Creek. The eastern area is made up of a few outliers and narrow strips in the top of the ridge. The west- ern area is found in the watershed between the west fork of Duck Creek and Big Olive Creek. Although high in the ridge, there is a good area of solid coal. In the western part of the township several mines have been worked, but are now abandoned. The coal was found to be thin, except in the extreme southern portion. Near the northwest corner of the township is an old mine. with the coal 2₺ to 3 feet thick, rarely 3} feet. In section 28 the average thickness was found to be about 3 feet, with a "tough streak," 3 to 4 inches near the top of the seam. In section 35 the coal is said to be 3 feet, 9 inches to 4 feet thick, with a tough streak near the center of the seam.
A section of this coal, found on the land of Ezra Davis, in the northeast quarter of section 13, Olive Township,
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HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.
measured as, follows: Clay, shale roof, fair; hard, black, raw slate, 2 inches ; coal, 12 inches ; hard, black slate, { inch ; coal, 21 inches; tough streak, 3 inches; coal, 24 inches; clay. In the southwest quarter of section 12, the coal measures only 3 to 3} feet, with a tough streak at the top.
In Jackson Township is a larger area of the Meigs Creek coal than in any other township of the county. Only the largest creeks cut down through the coal, and they take out only very narrow strips. In the northeastern corner of the township the coal is well up in the hills; but to the south and west it drops rapid- ly, soon coming close to the level of the valleys. In the northeastern quarter of section 12 in this town- ship the Meigs Creek coal gives the following section : Shale ; coal, poor, 18 to 24 inches ; clay, 14 to 18 inches; coal, 4 to 43 feet ; clay. On William Taylor's land, in the southwest quar- ter of section 10, the Meigs Creek coal measured 5} feet, and was re- ported as being over 6 feet in one part of the mine. The coal from this mine makes a gray ash, and leaves no clinkers.
On Keith's land, in the northwest quarter of section 8, Jackson Town- ship, the coal gave the following sec- tion : Clay, shale roof, poor; coal, 3} to 4 feet; clay, 1 to 3 inches; coal, 6 feet for bottom, 4 to 6 inches ; clay. On Reasoner's Run in section 19, a thick sandstone comes down on top of the coal, which is here from 3 feet 8 inches to 4 feet thick. Above the sandstone is a thick, white limestone,
non-fossiliferous. In section 25, on Cat Run, traces of another coal were found 50 to 60 feet above the Meigs Creek ; and in sections 28 and 33 traces of two upper coals were found, one 250 feet and the other 162 feet above the Meigs Creek coal. The highest is 18 inches thick; the thick- ness of the other is unknown.
In Jefferson Township, on land of John E. Williams, in the northeast quarter of section 34, a coal section was measured with the following re- sult : Limestone ; bone coal, 6 inches ; coal, 8 inches ; slate, 1 inch ; coal, 14 inches ; slate parting, } inch ; coal, 12 inches ; clay, 12 to 18 inches ; coal, 16 to 22 inches ; parting, 2 inches ; coal, 24 inches; clay, 2 to 4 feet; lime- stone, exposed, 2 feet. The roof coal, here unusually well developed, is taken down and used with the reg- ular seam. There is a large portion of Jefferson Township containing the Meigs Creek coal, but little of it is as thick as in the section above given. The roof coal seldom exceeds 18 to 20 inches at other places.
There is a large area of coal in Elk Township that could easily be reached by a railroad traversing the east fork of Duck Creek. The Meigs Creek coal is reported to be the same as the Stafford coal of Monroe County. Through the northern part of the township there is a thin coal about 60 feet below the Meigs Creek. A sec- tion of the latter, measured on the farm of Hugh Robinson, in the south- west quarter of section 13, township 6, range 7, resulted as follows : Hard shale; coal, 30 inches; clay, 12 inches ; coal, 14 to 15 inches ; bone coal, 4
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PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF NOBLE COUNTY.
inches; coal, 13 inches ; slate parting, { to § inch ; coal, 18 inches ; clay, 2 to 4 feet ; limestone, 16 feet ; shaly sandstone.
In Enoch Township the coal lies high in the ridges, consequently the area of first-class coal is less than in Jefferson and Elk Townships. The coal is found in two ridges, with their spurs running northwest and southeast through the township, and dividing the waters of the West Fork, Middle Fork and East Fork of Duck Creek. A sample from Wil- liam Lincicome's mine, southeast quarter of section 32, was analyzed as follows : Moisture, 2.18 per cent ; volatile combustible matter, 41.75; fixed carbon, 45.92; ash, 10.15. There was also found 4.02 per cent of sulphur.
In the southwestern part of Enoch and the western part of Jefferson, where the coal touches the line of the Cleveland and Marietta Railroad, it was formerly mined for shipping, but the mines are now abandoned.
The coal in Stock Township is well up in the hills, and a large amount of it has been cut out by the broad valley of the East Fork of Duck Creek. Over the entire township the coal ranges from 33 to 5 feet in thickness, probably averaging a lit- tle over 4 feet. In the southwest quarter of section 25, on land of William Taylor, in this township. The coal revealed the following sec- tion : Clay, or soft clay shale; coal, 13 inches ; slate parting, 1 inch ; coal, 16 inches ; bone coal and slate, 4 inches ; coal, 26 inches; clay.
The Meigs Creek coal is found in
the tops of the high ridges in the eastern part of Center Township. The area of marketable coal, though comparatively small, will probably be sufficient to supply the local de- mand for several years. The coal is reported as averaging about 4 feet. In the eastern part of the township there is a thick sandstone a few feet above the coal, continuous for sev- eral miles.
Marion Township holds considera- ble Meigs Creek coal, although it is quite high in the hills. On the northwest quarter of section 1 of this township, on land of W. II. Craig, a section of coal was measured as follows : Shale, roof coal, 18 to 24 inches; clay shale, 18 inches ; coal, 12 inches ; slate } to 1 inch ; coal, 12 inches ; bone coal or tough streak, 5 inches ; coal, 17 inches; clay, 1 to 3 feet ; limestone. In the B., Z. & C. R. R. cut at Freedom, in the southeast quarter of section 2, Mari- on Township, a section of a coal 113 feet, by barometer, above the Meigs Creek coal, measured as follows: Soil, soft, shaly sandstone, 4 feet ; soft clay shale, blue and yellow, 10 feet ; coal, 12 inches ; clay, 5 inches ; coal, 5 inches ; clay.
About Freedom, and in the west- ern part of Marion Township, a thick ledge of sandstone is found from two to four feet above the Meigs Creek coal, and often forty feet thick. In the ridge which runs north from Summerfield, the coal is often want- ing, and always thin when found.
On William Craig's land in the northeast quarter of section 13, Ma- rion Township, the coal is mined, and
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HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.
was found to measure as follows: Shale; roof coal, twenty to twenty- four inches; clay, eighteen to twenty- four inches; coal, four to six inches ; clay parting, one-half inch; coal, twenty-four inches; bone coal or slate, two to three inches; coal, twenty to twenty-two inches; clay, two to four feet; limestone in layers, with slate between, ten feet, exposed. This coal was analyzed and found to contain : Moisture, 1.86 per cent ; volatile combustible mat- ter, 39.63; fixed carbon; 45.92; ash, 12.59. It also contains 6.10 per cent of sulphur, and has a specific gravity of 1.376. It was reported by the miners that in parts of this mine the roof coal was replaced by a white non-fossiliferous limestone, the clay between the roof coal and the main seam being found all regular between the white limestone and the regular seam. The coal is opened and worked for winter supply in almost every farm in the township, and is seldom found less than four feet in thickness. As the coal is well up in the hills, it can casily be reached by railroads. The B., Z. & C. railroad crosses the ridge far above the coal.
In Seneca Township there is very little of the Meigs Creek coal, it being found only in the highest ridges. The ridge between Beaver Fork and Seneca Fork of Will's Creek holds quite a large outlier which furnishes coal for the adjoining farmers. The dividing ridge between Seneca Fork and Buffalo Fork of Will's Creek holds the largest area of coal in the town- ship. This is worked near Mount
Ephraim, in the mine of Samuel McConnell in the northwest quarter of section 33 and gives the following section : Hard shale; bone coal, or hard black slate, sixteen inches ; good coal, eight inches; clay shale, eight to eighteen inches; coal, ten inches ; parting, one half to one inch ; coal, fifteen inches; parting, one to two inches; coal, twenty inches; clay. The roof coal is left for roof, the clay shale being taken out of the entries, and in the rooms it is thrown back as it falls down. No higher coal marks were found in the township. A faint mark of the Pittsburgh coal was found at one place only.
Wayne Township has only a few outliers of the Meigs Creek coal in the northeast corner. The coal is in the very top of the hills, and, so far as could be ascertained, rather thin. It has been opened in the southeast quarter of section 21, and in the northwest quarter of section 28; in both places it was reported to be about three feet thick. A faint coal mark was seen fifty to fifty-five feet below the Meigs Creek coal, but no trace was found of the Pittsburgh coal, which ought to be a little lower. A few feet below the Meigs Creek coal is found a thick sandstone which is very nearly continuous in the northeastern part of Wayne and in the northwestern part of Beaver Township.
The northern and southern parts of Beaver Township have considera- ble of the Meigs Creek coal, while in the central part, it has been entirely cut away by Beaver Fork of Will's Creek, running west through the
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PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF NOBLE COUNTY.
Township. On the land of H. C. Reed, in the southeast quarter of : section 17, the coal is mined for the Williamsburg market. A section is as follows: Sandstone; shale, eight- een inches; coal, sixteen inches : clay, sixteen inches ; slate two inches ; coal thirty inches ; clay parting, two inches; coal, twenty-four inches; ciay, two to four feet ; limestone.
It is said that several years ago a coal from three to four feet thick was dug out of the creek bed at ninety- two feet below Reed's coal bank. The lower coal was sought farther to the south and west, but never found. If this be true, we are here upon the western edge of the valuable area of the Pittsburgh coal, extending east- ward to the Ohio River
In section 1, Beaver Township, the Meigs Creek coal is three feet thick. In the northwest quarter of section 8 a strong coal mark was found ninety to 100 feet above the Meigs Creek coal. No openings into the upper seam were found. On Will- iam Lashley's land, in the southwest quarter of section 26, the Meigs Creek coal was found four and a half feet thick, with two thin partings dividing the coal seam into three nearly equal parts. The roof coal was from eighteen to twenty-four inches thick, and six to twelve inches above the main seam, from which it is separated by clay.
The Meigs Creek coal is the same coal that is worked in Belmont Coun- ty, and there known as the Upper Barnesville coal. From the re- searches of the geologist it is quite evident that the coal area of Noble
County is large and important, and though only slightly developed as yet, the time will doubtless come when mining will be one of the most important industries of the county.
SALT.
This primary staple was developed at an early day in the history of this part of the State. Being one of the indispensable requisites at the time of the first settlement of the State, it was brought from the east on pack- horses at the cost of 20 cents per pound. Dr. Hildreth says that the "great scarcity of it was a source of annoyance to the people. The ani- mals suffered from its want, and when ranging the woods visited the clay banks which contained saline particles. And here necessity proved the mother of invention and pointed out the superficial source of the vast reservoir of that article so necessary for the healthful existence of animal life, of which the Indians from the earliest times had been cognizant, but had kept as an inviolable secret. In fact, all the saline sources first. utilized were indicated by the swamps or springs of brackish water frequented by the deer and buffalo. It is said that the first salt produced in this part of Ohio was made by a party from Marietta in 1794, on a branch of the Scioto, a short distance from Chillicothe, the locality having been pointed out by a person who had been a prisoner with the Indians. In 1795 a locality was discovered in a similar way on Salt Creek, in Muskingum County, and "in the summer of 1796 a com-
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HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.
pany was formed at Marietta of fifty shareholders at $1.50 each, making a capital of $75. Twenty-four kettles were bought in Pittsburgh and trans- ported by water to Duncan's Falls, and thence by pack-horses about seven miles to the salt licks. A well was dug near the edge of the creek, fifteen feet deep, down to the rock which formed the bed of the stream, through the crevices in which the salt water came to the surface. The trunk of a hollow sycamore tree three feet in diameter was settled into the well and bedded in the rock below, so as to exclude the fresh water. A furnace was built of two ranges, containing twelve kettles in each, a shed erected over the furnace, and a small cabin for the workmen. The water from the well was raised by a sweep and pole. * * *
By the aid of one man to chop and haul wood with a yoke of oxen they could make about one hundred pounds of salt in twenty-four hours, requiring 3,600 gallons of water. * * * Thus was made the first salt in the Muskingum Valley." The company was kept up for three or four years. The works afterward became the property of the State, and were leased at a fixed rent until no person would pay the rent, and they were abandoned. Although some salt was afterward made on the Muskingum, it was not until 1820 and later that the industry became important on that river. Up to that time the inhab- itants of southeastern Ohio had been supplied with salt principally from the Kanawha Salt Works in West Virginia.
Salt-making was one of the early industries of the Duck Creek Valley. Silas Thorla from Massachusetts, entered the land on which the village of Olive now is, and began salt-mak- ing there in 1814. He had previously been to the Kanawha salt-works, where he had worked long enough to learn the process and earn a little money with which to make a begin- ning. At that time salt was worth $2 a bushel and the supply hitherto had been brought by the settlers on pack-horses from great distances. By means of a spring-pole and rude apparatus operated entirely by hand, a well was dug about 200 feet deep. Its location was near the railroad at the north end of Olive, close by the stream known as Salt Run, on the lot now owned by James Mc- Cune. A deer-lick, much frequented in early years, led to the discovery of salt water here. The well was cased with wooden tubing, a pump put in, with a blind horse as its mo- tive power, and the water was received in a number of troughs, fashioned from the trunks of large trees. For boiling the water all the kettles in the settlement that could be spared by their owners were bor- rowed and put in use. The salt-well was also a gas-well and oil-well, and at times these products of the earth seriously interfered with the process of salt manufacturing .*
Robert McKee, who at first work- ed for Thorla, afterwards married Thorla's sister and took an interest in the business. Thenceforth the
(*See article on "Gas and Petroleum" in this chapter.")
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PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF NOBLE COUNTY.
establishment was known as McKee's Salt-works. Silas Thorla died early, but the business was carried on by McKee until the competition of the various salt-works on the Muskingum River had reduced the price of salt to 50 cents a bushel, when the works were abandoned. Altogether they were in operation nearly twenty years, and to supply fuel for boiling, nearly all the wood had been cut off from the neighboring hills. Some of the salt was marketed in Barnesville, but most of it was bought by cus- tomers who came to the works for it.
A half-mile from the deer-lick at Olive, or a mile, following the windings of the run, was a similar lick. A well defined path, worn deep into the earth by the hoofs of elk, deer and buffalo, led from one lick to the other. About a year after Thorla started his salt-works, Robert Caldwell, John Caldwell and Isaac Hill, the latter an Englishman, dug a well at the upper lick, and, with an outfit somewhat similar to Thorla's began boiling salt. The business was continued for some years, all the salt being used to sup- ply the local demand.
The McKee and Caldwell Salt- wells were the earliest, and for many years the only wells of the kind in the valley. In 1861 William Young and others formed a company and bored for salt at South Olive and erected a furnace which was man- aged successfully and profitably. During war-times salt was exceed- ingly scarce and the product of the works readily sold at $5 per barrel.
In the oil excitement the farm on which the salt-well was situated came into the possession of the Syracuse Oil and Salt Company, and thence into the hands of W. B. Ostrander, of Syracuse, N. Y. In 1871 an association known as the South Olive Salt Company, consist- ing of A. Haines, J. W. Campbell, P. M. Jordan, W. D. Guilbert and others, purchased the works. After- ward David Gouchenour and W. D. Guilbert bought the interests of the other shareholders and carried on the business until 1875. When they took hold of the works salt was worth $2.25, but its subsequent decline to 90 cents made the indus- try unprofitable. Mr. Guilbert esti- mates that the cost of manufacture was not less than $1.50 per barrel. The brine from the well was not so strong asin the Muskingum River salt- wells, and the proprietors were con- seqently unable to compete with the Muskingum saltmakers. Salt contin- ued to be made at intervals at South Olive until 1877, when the works were entirely abandoned. The well was 200 feet deep, and the furnace when run at its full capacity made about 80 barrels of salt per week. In 1876 Messrs. Gouchenour & Gil- bert bored another salt-well. In 1877 the old salt-well suddenly took a strange freak and became an oil- well. In the space of 30 days about seven carloads or 350 barrels of oil were pumped from it. The well has produced no oil since.
After Young started the works at South Olive, another well was bored by Rodney Severance, from Morgan
11
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HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.
County, about a half mile further down the valley. Salt was also made here for a few years, and the works then abandoned. Salt is no longer reckoned among the products of Noble County.
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GAS AND PETROLEUM.
In regard to petroleum, Noble County makes a claim that cannot be refuted, of possessing the oldest oil wells in Ohio, and among the oldest in the country. Not that petroleum is a modern discovery, it was known very early in the history of the United States. Petroleum was found in springs along Oil Creek in Penn- sylvania by the early French explor- ers. It was used by the Seneca In- dians in their ceremonies as early as 1750, and even at that time was quite extensively known to the white peo- ple of Pennsylvania and New York, who called it Seneca oil, and believed it to be a sovereign remedy for aches and pains of almost every sort. Along Oil Creek between Titusville and Oil City, and elsewhere in Western Pennsylvania, have been found wall pits, curbed with timber, which are supposed to have been excavated by the Indians for the purpose of ob- taining oil. The early settlers gath- ered the petroleum from the surface of springs and creeks by spreading blankets so as to absorb it and then wringing them over a tub or some other receptacle. "Seneca oil" was long a staple medicine among the western pioneers. The main source of its supply was the region that afterwards became the great oil fields of Pennsylvania.
On Oil Creek, near Titusville, in Venango County, Pennsylvania, was one of the most prolific natural oil springs, and there the first sys- tematic effort toward oil production was made. In this locality, on the 28th of August, 1859, Col. E. L. Drake, a Connecticut yankee, in the employ of other parties, struck oil at a depth of seventy-one feet below the surface. This was the starting-point of one of the greatest of modern in- dustries. The history of the subse- quent oil excitement is familiar to all.
Some of the Pennsylvania pioneers discovered oil while boaring for salt. Such a discovery was made near But- ler, Pa., in 1811. Though Noble County can scarcely substantiate the claim which she has advanced of hav- ing the oldest oil well in the world, her title to the first in Ohio is indis- putable; for, in a similar manner to the Pennsylvania discovery, the Olive saltmakers struck oil while boaring a salt well in 1814. Nor was Noble County far behind Pennsylvania in sinking wells and putting them in working order, as will be indicated farther on in this chapter. In boar- ing for salt at Olive in 1814, Silas Thorla and Robert McKee struck both oil and gas, both of which the well continued to produce as long as it was pumped for salt water. The gas pressure was very powerful, but much stronger at some times than at others. At intervals of a week or ten days, the gas was forced so rapidly from the well that water was thrown forty feet or more into the air. After the "blowing" had ceased there was not sufficient pres-
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PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF NOBLE COUNTY.
sure to force the water to the surface. While the gas was issuing from the well, it was noticed that at a point near by in the creek bubbles of gas were being forced up through the water. The current of gas was suffi- ciently strong to burn steadily and brilliantly, and on being ignited would blaze up five or six feet, pre- senting the novel sight of a fire on top of a stream of running water. The flow of oil was also found to be in- termittent, and at times the oil was pumped from the well and thrown away. Many barrels of it were thus thrown into the creek and wasted, because it interfered with the salt- making. Some of the settlers made use of the oil in its crude state, burn- ing it in their lamps. But the amount of smoke and the offensive odor arising from it precluded the possibility of its becoming popular as an illuminating agent.
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