USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 45
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Nearly fifty years before the great natural gas discoveries in Ohio, people in some localities had been familiar with the bubbling of a subterranean gas from springs, and its appearance when wells were bored for the salt water that was one of the important natural sources of wealth. In faet burning gas was used in at least one place for the evaporation of the salt. Its discovery at East Liverpool in 1860 has been noticed. Probably the most noted appearances of gas were at Findlay, where it collected in wells and cellars and by its explosive- ness was an annoyance and danger. At this place, in 1838, Daniel Foster had capped a well, and conducting the gas into his house by a wooden pipe, burned it for year after year from the orifice of an old gun barrel. Cleveland and Painesville were using gas obtained from the shales, in small quantity, about 1870. A pamphlet of 1865 states that gas had been used before that time at MeConnellsville. Coming from a salt well it was used as fnel to drive the necessary machinery. In October, 1873, a well was bored at East Liverpool in the hope of obtaining enough gas for the needs of a pottery, and with considerable snecess, as sneh a use of the natural fuel soon became common there, though the supply was small. After the discovery of gas wells in Pennsylvania, where gas was piped as early as 1875, and in West Virginia, gas was piped to these potteries, and all other forms of fuel were abandoned.
In 1883-84 there was drilling of wells at various points in Ohio, mainly in the east, it being the accepted theory then that gas and oil could be found only in the sandstone and shale between the coal measures and strata of the Silurian period. One of these experi- mental wells was bored as far west as Bueyrus, however, and Dr. Charles Oesterlin, who had for some years been urging an explora- tion of gas possibilities at Findlay, led in the organization of a com-
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pany that drove the drill down, with gradually failing confidence, to the depth of about eleven hundred feet, and into the Trenton lime- stone. Then, early in November, 1884, a pressure was opened, that blew a column of gas into the air, and when it was lighted, a gigantic candle flame, thirty feet high, was the result. Great excitement resulted, and people came on railroad excursions from distant points to view the phenomenon, and study the conditions in the hope that similar results might be attained at other localities. No geological discovery ever made in the I'nited States, except the original discov- ery of petroleum in western Pennsylvania, says Dr. Orton, has exerted sneh a powerful influence upon the interior states. Other wells were soon bored at Findlay and in that vicinity and at Bowling Green, and the people in every county in western Ohio, within a few vears, made thorough explorations, at considerable expense, in the hope of finding this natural supply of illumination and heat. Ten wells were yielding at Findlay, though not in such abundance as in the Pittsburg region, when, in January, 1886, the great Karg well was opened, with a daily flow of twelve million enbie feet. As was common at that time, the temptation to light the gas and see it burn could not be resisted, and the enormous toreh of this well was seen for forty miles round about. Enough of its prodnet was wasted to suffice for the nses of a manufacturing eity for several years. In the same year two other great wells were opened, both of which surpassed the Karg, one of them yielding a fourth more. About the same time there was a considerable development of gas in the upper Ohio valley, all the way from Bellaire to East Liverpool.
With the gas, in many wells, oil was found, demonstrating the existence of that substance also in the Trenton roek, or below it, but it required some time to prove to practical oil men as well as geolo- gists that the oil conld be found there in paying quantities. The main oil field of the State was then the Maeksburg district, in the region of Marietta. This district, with a number of new wells hored in 1884, was yielding about 600,000 barrels a year, quite eclipsing the product of the Mecca district. In 1885 a paper mill company at Lima drilled a well, hoping for something useful, and struck a fair supply of oil in the Trenton limestone at the depth of 1,250 feet. This, it appears, was not such a decided snecess as to inspire the con- fidenee of oil men, though the demand for oil was just then exceeding the supply. An organization of citizens of Lima bored a second well, that yielded forty barrels a day, and established beyond a doubt that petroleum was abundant at a depth of a thousand feet or more, in northwestern Ohio. The number of wells was soon greatly multi- plied, until the Lima, Findlay and North Baltimore fields were defined, and it was made apparent that this was the most important oil discovery, so far as the possibilities of production are concerned, on the American continent up to the year 1901. The wells at first
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did not yield more than 150 barrels a day, each, but toward the close of 1886 some were opened that produced much larger quantities, one being reported at 1,500 barrels. The price fell off from 40 cents a barrel early in 1886 to 15 cents in 1887. The product of the Lima field in 1886 was over a million barrels. "If second to any field in the world," said Professor Orton in 1888, "it is only to the wonder- ful fountains of Baku, on the shores of the Caspian."
The discovery of gas and oil in northwestern Ohio revolutionized that region, long backward on aeeount of those swamps that were a barrier to travel in the early days. The wet condition of the land was yielding to tile drainage and ditching, and to supply the need of tile, Ohio, and particularly the Zanesville region, was becoming the greatest producer of drain tile in America.
The discovery of gas produced rapid increases of population in sev- eral towns, and brought in new and unfamiliar industries, like glass works and potteries, but the gas production has fallen off rapidly in later years. The consumption was five million cubie feet in 1889, and only a million and a half in 1893. Yet, despite the falling off of gas, Ohio was the fourth state in its production in 1899, and in addi- tion to what was obtained at home, gas was piped in from Pennsyl- vania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentneky and Canada.
President Cleveland, at the beginning of his first administration in 1885, did not call any Ohio man to his cabinet. The most impor- tant honors allowed the State were the ministry to Germany, to which George H. Pendleton was appointed, and the ministry to Italy, which was given to John B. Stallo, of Cincinnati, a distinguished jurist and philosopher. S. S. Cox, at that time a resident of New York, was appointed minister to Turkey.
The State election of 1885 resulted in the return to power of the Republican party. Governor Hoadley, a candidate for re-election, was defeated by 18,450 majority by Joseph B. Foraker, who had been the unsuccessful candidate of two years before. At the same time the people adopted a constitutional amendment consolidating the elec- tions of State and county officers and legislators, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, simultaneous with the election of congressmen and presidential electors. Ohio had for many years enjoyed the distinction of being looked to for an indication of the presidential result by her majorities in October, but had wearied of the honor, and feared the danger of corruption of voters by the party managers who bent all their energies to seeure a favorable result for the encouragement of their parties in other states. Governor Hayes had urged such a change in 1876 and Governor Hoadley had renewed the recommendation in 1885, and the State ratified the amendments by a vote of ten to one.
The legislature, elected in 1885, was to choose a successor to John Sherman in the senate, and it appeared that one party had a small
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majority in the senate and the other in the house, but the ultimate result was involved in doubt by a contest in Hamilton county, where the face of the returns showed the election of the entire Democratic ticket, four senators and ten representatives. When the legislature met in January, 1886, the house refused to seat the representatives whose seats were contested, but in the senate, which had a Republican presiding officer, Lieut .- Gov. Robert P. Kennedy, and a Democratic majority if the Cincinnati delegation were seated, the fight was more stubborn. On account of the rulings of the lieutenant-governor nine- teen senators left the State for Kentucky, breaking the quorum. But the remainder proceeded, after waiting several days, to seat the Republican contestants from Cincinnati to make a quorum, and the Supreme court afterward decided that as the journal of the senate did not show the absence of a quorum when that was done, the court could not make further inquiry, and the legality of the organization was sustained.
This affair is an indication of the political strife at the begin- ning of Governor Foraker's administration. He said in retrospect in his last message, that the elections in the chief city of the State were "criminal farees." "By the common consent of all parties the municipal government of Cincinnati had become the worst ever known in this country." In his message to the second session of the legislature elected in 1885 he called on that body to purge itself of the results of "open, notorious and coneeded frand at the polls and in the returns."
The evils of an unrestricted and untaxed traffie in intoxicating liquors annoyed and shamed the State. General hard times prevailed in the United States, marked by a fall in prices of farm land to a fourth or half of what they had been five or six years before. Many industries were suspended, and the strikes of 1885 and. 18-6 were among the most threatening in the history of the country.
Half the funded debt of the State fell due in this year, but the bonds, bearing interest at six per cent, were taken up with new bonds at three per cent, falling due at annual intervals, the purchasers pay- ing a premium of $21.35 per $1,000 for the new bonds, a gratifying demonstration that the credit of the State was above reproach, although it had been necessary to borrow money to pay expenses of the government, on account of the lack of correspondence between the appropriations of the legislature and the tax levies. The financial outlook of the State was improved by the assessment, in 1ss6, of over $2,000,000 taxes under the Dow law, but Auditor Emil Kiese- wetter said at the end of the year that unless provision were made for larger revenue, or the expenditures greatly reduced. the State would have to suspend payment before the close of the fiscal year. This condition was not peculiar to Ohio, but was apparent in nearly all states and was probably due partly to the tendency of legislatures to
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extravaganee in expenditure while the political elamor for economy made the tax levies too low.
The legislature of 1886, after spending much time in organization of the senate, made a memorable record of legislation, passing laws to establish a state board of health, to ereate a dairy and food com- mission, and fish and game commissioners, to guard against conta- gious diseases of animals and adulteration of food, to reorganize the National guard. The Pugsley election law, applicable to the four principal cities, and a registration law for Cleveland and Cincinnati, promoted, as the governor said, "quiet, decent and honest elections." The Police bill was passed, which put the police of Cincinnati under the control of the mayor and a board of commissioners to be appointed by the governor. This, in a measure, deprived the city of manage- ment of its own affairs, and the governor, in his next message, admit- ted that, "as loeal self government is the very genius of American institutions, complete control of their government should be restored to the people of Cincinnati as soon as it may be found safe to do so." The liquor question was practically settled by passing the Dow law, which taxed retailers $100 to $200 a year and gave municipalities the right of voting prohibition. This was sustained by the supreme court, and is the basis of existing legislation on the subjeet.
In tue fall the Republicans carried the State by a plurality of about 12,000, though the Prohibition vote was 29,000. This elee- tion, at which James S. Robinson was chosen secretary of state, was the first Ohio state election in November.
The strikes of 1885 and 1856 were complicated by politieal organi- zation among the wage-workers, and the effort for the formation of a new party culminated on Washington's birthday, 1887, in a con- vention at Cincinnati, which formed the Union Labor party, combin- ing various wage-labor and agricultural organizations. This party put a state tieket in the field, and polled nearly 25,000 votes. Gov- ernor Foraker was renominated by his party, while the Democrats named Thomas E. Powell, of Delaware county, son of Judge Thomas W. Powell. in his day one of the eminent lawyers of the State. The campaign was a very exciting one, involving the national issues of enrreney and tariff, as well as loeal issues. The spirit of 1861-65 was also revived, notably expressed in the defiant utterance of Gor- ernor Foraker, when President Cleveland proposed to return the old Confederate battleflags at Washington to the Southern states. Though the governor was criticised severely by many for the tone of his remonstranee, he was heartily supported by the Union veterans, and the president was compelled to admit that Congress alone had power to dispose of the captured banners. On the side of Mr. Powell, conciliatory speeches were made in Ohio by Senator John B. Gordon, of Georgia, a Confederate general in 1861-65. The result was the
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re-election of Governor Foraker by a plurality of over 23,000, but the Prohibition and Labor parties each polled about 30,000 votes.
The year 1888 was a period of historical reminiscence in Ohio. One hundred years before, the settlement at Marietta had been made, beginning the marvelous transformation from a vast region of forest, ruled by wild men and wild animals, to a wealthy state, the home of over three million people, ministered to by the powers of steam and electricity and the mysterious forces of the under world. It is not surprising that the children of the pioneers could not confine their enthusiasm to one jubilee. There was a Centennial celebration at Marietta, April 7th, to commemorate the landing of the colony of the Ohio company, and another there in July in honor of the organiza- tion of civil government. At Cincinnati the Centennial Celebration of the Ohio Valley and Central States was opened July 4th, and the Ohio Centennial exposition began at Columbus September 4th.
Governor Foraker, in his inaugural address at the beginning of the centennial year of settlement, asked, after alluding to the past : "What now of the century upon which we are entering ? Only God knows. It does not seem possible that there can be wrapt up in the next hundred years so much of development as has been made in the last, and yet there may be more." Of the work in the future he said : "We must not fail ; and we shall not, if we but adopt for our guid- ance the lessons of the past. They teach us that we have succeeded because we have been governed by the great ideas of morality, educa- tion, equality and a determination to take care of our own country. The flag of our nation must mean absolute protection in the enjoyment of all his rights to every man who looks with alle- gianee upon its folds. It minst mean more. It must continue to represent to all, wherever it may be carried, a people who have sense enough and patriotism enough to take care of their own country in a business way. In so far as God has blessed us with nat- ural resources and ability to use them we must deeline to depend upon others."
These words are quoted here to present the general argument on one side of the political question which was now foremost, though by no means a new question. The administration of President Cleve- land had been devoted, aside from reform of the civil service by put- ting minor officials beyond the power of partisan removal, to the teaching of the doctrine that a tariff upon imports, so arranged as to discriminate against foreign manufactures, was not only unauthor- ized by law but actually an injury to the country. This position was taken, under the guidance of Mr. Cleveland, by the leaders of the Democratie party, while, on the other hand, the Republican party defended the protective tariff as essential to the prosperity of the United States. A new tariff schedule proposed, called the "Mills bill," was the special object of denunciation by the Republicans. It
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was pointed out that the number of sheep in Ohio, five million in 1×83, had fallen off nearly a million in 1886-57, and the value of the wool clip decreased $5,000,000 on account of the fall in the price of wool, and this shrinkage was ascribed to the movement for "tariff reform," which was called a menace to industry. A new tariff, based upon the changes in conditions of industry, was promised by the Republican party, which should revive industry from stagnation.
In this war of tariffs, William MeKinley, of Ohio, through his many years of study and preparation, was able to take a position of leadership in his party. He presented the Republican platform of 1858, unusually outspoken for a protective tariff, to the Chicago national convention, with such effeet that he was honored, over his protest, with a few votes for nomination as president. Senator Sherman had been making a vigorous campaign for the nomination for several months, had seenred a large number of delegate votes, notably from the South, and was the leading candidate when the bal- loting began, with a total of 229. But he did not materially gain in strength, and after a few ballots in which varions states supported their "favorite sons," Wisconsin, New York and Iowa went to the support of Indiana and nominated Benjamin Harrison, a native of Hamilton county, Ohio, and grandson of Gen. William Henry Harri- son, Ohio's candidate for president in 1×36 and 1540.
At the other great national convention, held at St. Louis, Mr. Cleveland was renominated, and Ohio's famous son, Allen G. Thur- man. was nominated for vice-president by the Democratic party, on a platform strongly opposing a protective tariff, which, it was alleged, created an immense and unnecessary surplus in the treasury, that had "debanehed" the opposition party in its administration of the finances. Senator Thurman greatly strengthened his ticket with those of his party not much pleased with Cleveland's un-Jaeksonian ideas of tenure of office. Certain quaint survivals of the ancient time, such as his bandana handkerchief, that the Ohio statesman clung to, became famous in the campaign. His ability was real; indeed, he was quite worthy of the first place on the ticket. In the campaign he was the most prominent figure on the side of his party, as Blaine was on the other. The battle was close, but resulted in the defeat of Senator Thurman and his associate, Ohio giving Harrison a majority of 20,000.
President Harrison did not call a resident of Ohio to his cabinet, but there were more men of Ohio birth and rearing in it than in any other in history. Ohio was represented again in the treasury depart- ment by William Windom ; in the department of the interior by John W. Noble, of St. Louis, a native of Lancaster and graduate of Miami college ; and in the department of agriculture by Jeremiah M. Rusk, of Wisconsin, a native of Morgan county. Another of Harrison's appointments was that of Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, a native of
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Jefferson county, who had been for some time an eminent teacher of physics in Ohio, Indiana and Japan, as superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.
August 5, 1888, was the date of the death of Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, who was born at Somerset, Ohio, March 6, 1831. He first became famous in the civil war by gallant conduct as a cavalry com- mander in Mississippi when he was little over thirty-one years of age, and by the time he was thirty-four no man's name aroused more enthu- siasm in the United States than his. He was the Northern ideal of a dashing cavalry general, but he was more, for he owed his oppor- tunity for great fame to gallant conduet in command of infantry under the eye of General Grant at Chattanooga. After the war, the three Ohioans, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, held successively the high rank of lieutenant-general, revived especially in their honor, and that of general, previously the exclusive honor of George Washington. Sheridan was made lieutenant-general in 1869 and general June 1, 1888.
In the fall of this year (1888) the Republicans had a plurality of 22,000, electing, as secretary of state, Daniel J. Ryan, a native of ('ineinnati, prominent in polities and author of a book on strike arbi- tration and an admirable short history of Ohio.
In 1888 the legislature began an investigation of the property rights of the State in lands adjoining the canals, and Governor Fora- ker appointed a commission, composed of Gen. W. IL. Gibson, Col. Charles F. Baldwin and Judge A. L. Latty, to begin the work. The board since then has made extensive surveys, and established hun- dreds of monuments, and the long neglected titles to about a million and a quarter acres of land, owned at one time or another by the State, have been put on record.
Governor Foraker was a candidate for governor for the fourth time in 1889, and against him the Democratic party nominated James Edwin Campbell, a member of one of the prominent families of the Miami valley. He was born at Middletown in 1843, had served in the Union navy in the civil war, afterward gained prominence as a lawyer and was three times elected to Congress before his nomination for governor. The campaign was exciting and personally bitter. Near its close the Cineinnati Commercial printed a document that appeared to implicate Mr. Campbell in a scheme for personal profit in congressional legislation, but the paper turned out to be a forgery and the effect of the publication was favorable to the gentleman it was intended to injure. Campbell was elected, while the rest of the Republican state tieket was successful, except perhaps, for the office of lieutenant-governor. For this, E. L. Lampson, Republican, had an apparent majority of 22 votes, but the senate, being Democratic,
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awarded the election to the candidate of that party, William V. Marquis.
In the latter part of 1889 and early part of 1590 occurred the deaths of three famous Ohioans, "Sunset" Cox, Pendleton and Sehenek. Cox had removed to New York and was elected to Con- gress from that city. He had a national reputation as a brilliant publie speaker. It was said of him by John Sherman: "I doubt if there was a single measure placed on the statute books during his time which appealed to sympathy, charity, justice and kindness for the poor, the distressed or the unfortunate, which did not receive his hearty support." Pendleton, whose popular title of "Gentlemen George," hardly did justice to his intellectual ability, died as min- ister to Germany. General Schenck had been minister to England, and, at his death, was a lawyer at Washington.
A quite notable figure in the public mind in this period was George Kennan, born at Norwalk in 1845, who had gone into Siberia with the surveying party of a telegraph line in 1865-6, and afterward published a book and lectured regarding his experiences. In 1855- 86 he made a tour of Russia and Siberia, and his magazine articles and leetures on the subject of the Siberian exiles were widely dis- cussed and probably had an international influence.
Governor Foraker, in his farewell message of January, 1890, con- gratulated the State upon the advancement made, in the four years of his administration, in regard to the reform of eleetion laws and methods ; in the government of Cincinnati, which he said had been made "one of the best governed cities of America :" and in the revival of industry. The people of the State generally, he said, were never more prosperous or better satisfied.
The Congress, elected in 1888, passed in 1890 a new protective tariff law, which became known as the MeKinley bill, from the lead- ing part taken by William MeKinley in its preparation and passage. U'pon it his political future was staked, and it seemed for a year or two that his career was elosed. The passage of the law was soon fol- lowed by advances in prices of various manufactured goods, and the common explanation of every sort of inereased price over the United States was "on account of the Me Kinley bill," recalling the time, ten years earlier, when bankrupteies were aseribed to the financial policy of another Ohioan, John Sherman. While the period is not yet so far remote that these subjeets can be referred to without exeiting par- tisan feeling, it may be noted that the two laws that were the main features of national direction and party diseussion, in the last third of the Nineteenth century, owed their enactment to two Ohio men, John Sherman and William MeKinley.
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