History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 107

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559

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Ohio's soil gave birth to, or furnished, a Grant, a Sherman, a Sheridan, a McPherson, a Rosecrans, a Mc- Clellan, a McDowell, a Mitchell, a Gilmore, a Hazen, a Sill, a Stanley, a Steadman, and others -- all but one chil-

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HISTORY OF OHIO.

dren of the country, reared at West Point for such emer- gencies. Ohio's war record shows one general, one lieutenant general, twenty major generals, twenty-seven brevet major generals, thirty brigadier generals, and one hundred and fifty brevet brigadier generals. Her three war governors were William Dennison, David Tod, and John Brough. She furnished, at the same time, one Secretary of War-Edwin M. Stanton, and one Secretary of the Treasury-Salmon P. Chase. Her senators were Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman. At least three out of five of Ohio's able-bodied men stood in the line of battle. On the head-stone of one of these soldiers, who gave his life for the country, and who now lies in a National cemetery, is inscribed these words :

"We charge the living to preserve that Constitution we have died to defend."

The close of the war and return of peace brought a period of fictitious values on the country, occasioned by the immense amount of currency afloat. Property rose to unheard-of values, and everything with it. Ere long, however, the decline came, and with it "hard times." The climax broke over the country in 1873, and for awhile it seemed as if the country was on the verge of ruin. People found again, as preceding generations had found, that real value was the only basis of true pros- perity, and gradually began to work to the fact. The government established the specie basis by gradual means, and on the first day of January, 1879, began to redeem its outstanding obligations in coin. The effect was felt everywhere. Business of all kinds sprang anew into life. A feeling of confidence grew as the times went on, and now, on the threshold of the year 1881, the State has entered on an era of steadfast prosperity; one which has a sure and certain foundation.

Over four years have elapsed since the great Cen- tennial exhibition was held in Philadelphia; an exhibi- tion that brought from every State in the Union the best products of her soil, factories, and all industries. In that exhibit Ohio made an excellent display. Her stone, iron, coal, cereals, woods, and everything pertaining to her welfare, were all represented. Ohio, occupying the middle ground of the Union, was expected to show to foreign nations what the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio could produce. The State nobly stood the test, and ranked foremost among all others. Her centennial building was among the first completed, and among the neatest and best on the grounds. During the summer, the centennial commission extended invitations to the governors of the several States, to appoint an orator and name a day for his delivery of an address on the history, progress and resources of his State. Governor Hayes named the Hon. Edward D. Mansfield for this purpose, and August 9th that gentleman delivered an address so valuable for the matter which it contains, that we here give a synopsis of it.

CHAPTER XIII.

OHIO IN THE CENTENNIAL-ADDRESS OF EDWARD D. MANSFIELD, LL. D., PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST 9, 1876.

ONE hundred years ago the whole territory, from the Alleghany to the Rocky mountains, was a wilderness, in- habited only by wild beasts and Indians. The Jesuit and Moravian missionaries were the only white men who had penetrated the wilderness or beheld its mighty lakes and rivers. While the thirteen old colonies were declaring their independence, the thirteen new States, which now lie in the western interior, had no existence, and gave no sign of the future. The solitude of nature was unbroken by the steps of civilization. The wisest statesman had not contemplated the probability of the coming States, and the boldest patriot did not dream that this interior wilderness should soon contain a greater population than the thirteen old States, with all the ad- ded growth of one hundred years.

Ten years after that, the old States had ceded their western lands to the General Government, and the Con- gress of the United States had passed the ordinance of 1785, for the survey of the public territory, and, in 1787, the celebrated ordinance which organized the Northwestern Territory, and dedicated it to freedom and intelligence, became a law.

Fifteen years after that, and more than a quarter of a century after the Declaration of Independence, the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union, being the seventeenth which accepted the constitution of the United States. It has since grown up to be great, popu- lous and prosperous under the influence of those ordi- nances. At her admittance, in 1803, the tide of emi- gration had begun to flow over the Alleghanies into the valley of the Mississippi, and, although no steam- boat, no railroad then existed, nor even a stage coach helped the immigrant, yet the wooden "ark" on the Ohio, and the heavy wagon, slowly winding over the mountains, bore these tens of thousands to the wilds of Kentucky and the plains of Ohio. In the spring of 1788-the first year of settlement-four thou- sand five hundred persons passed the mouth of the Muskingum in three months, and the tide continued to pour on for half a century in a widening stream, mingled with all the races of Europe and America, until now, in the hundredth year of America's independence, the five States of the Northwestern Territory, in the wilderness of 1776, contain ten millions of people, enjoying all the blessings which peace and prosperity, freedom and christianity, can confer upon any people. Of these five States, born under the ordinance of 1787, Ohio is the first, oldest, and, in many things, the greatest. In some things it is the greatest State in the Union. Let us, then, attempt, in the briefest terms, to draw an outline portrait of this great and remarkable commonwealth.

Let us observe its physical aspects. Ohio is just one- sixth part of the Northwestern Territory-forty thousand square miles. It lies between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, having two hundred miles of navigable waters, on one side flowing into the Atlantic ocean, and on the

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other into the Gulf of Mexico. Through the lakes, its vessels touch on six thousand miles of interior coast; and, through the Mississippi, on thirty-six thousand miles of river coast; so that a citizen of Ohio may pur- sue his navigation through forty-two thousand miles, all in his own country, and all within navigable reach of his own State. He who has circumnavigated the globe, has gone but little more than half the distance which the citizen of Ohio finds within his natural reach in this vast interior.

Looking upon the surface of this State, we find no mountains, no barren sands, no marshy wastes, no lava- covered plains, but one broad, compact body of arable land, intersected with rivers, and streams, and running waters, while the beautiful Ohio flows tranquilly by its side. More than three times the surface of Belgium, and one third of the whole of Italy, it has more natural resources in proportion than either, and is capable of ultimately supporting a larger population than any equal surface in Europe. Looking from this great arable sur- face, where upon the very hills the grass and the forest trees now grow exuberant and abundant, we find that underneath this surface, and easily accessible, lie ten thousand square miles of coal, and four thousand square miles of iron-coal and iron enough to supply the basis of manufacture for a world! All this vast deposit of metal and fuel does not interrupt or take from that arable surface at all. There you may find in one place the same machine bringing up coal and salt water from below, while the wheat and the corn grow upon the sur- face above. The immense masses of coal, iron, salt and freestone deposited below have not in any way dimin- ished the fertility and production of the soil.

It has been said by some writers that the character of a people is shaped or modified by the character of the country in which they live. If the people of Switzerland have acquired a certain air of liberty and independence from the rugged mountains around which they live; if the people of southern Italy, or beautiful France, have acquired a tone of ease and politeness from their mild and genial clime, so the people of Ohio, placed amidst such a wealth of nature, in the temperate zone, should show the best fruits of peaceful industry and the best culture of Christian civilization. Have they done so? Have their own labor and arts and culture come up to the advantages of their natural situation? Let us exam- ine this growth and their product.

The first settlement of Ohio was made by a colony from New England, at the mouth of the Muskingum. It was literally a remnant of the officers of the Revolu- tion. Of this colony no praise of the historian can be as competent, or as strong, as the language of Washing- ton. He says, in answer to inquiries addressed to him : "No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, prosperity, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community;" and he adds that if he were a young man, he knows no country

in which he would sooner settle than in this western re- gion. This colony, left alone for a time, made its own government and nailed its laws to a tree in the village, an early indication of that law-abiding and peaceful spirit which has since made Ohio a just and well-ordered community. The subsequent settlements on the Miami and Scioto were made by citizens of New Jersey and Virginia, and it is certainly remarkable that among all the early immigration, there were no ignorant people. In the language of Washington, they came with "informa- tion," qualified to promote the welfare of the community.

Soon after the settlement on the Muskingum and the Miami, the great wave of migration flowed on to the plains and valleys of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky had been settled earlier, but the main body of emigrants in subsequent years went into Ohio, influenced partly by the great ordinance of 1787, securing freedom and schools forever, and partly by the greater security of titles under the survey and guarantee of the United States government. Soon the new State grew up, with a rapidity which, until then, was unknown in the history of civilization. On the Muskingum, where the buffalo had roamed; on the Scioto, where the Shawnees had built their towns; on the Miami, where the great chiefs of the Miamis had reigned; on the plains of Sandusky, yet red with the blood of the white man; on the Mau- mee, where Wayne, by the victory of the "Fallen Tim- bers," had broken the power of the Indian confederacy -the emigrants from the old States and from Europe, came in to cultivate the fields, to build up towns, and to rear the institutions of Christian civilization, until the single State of Ohio is greater in numbers, wealth, and education, than was the whole American Union when the Declaration of Independence was made.

Let us now look at the statistics of this growth as they are exhibited in the census of the United States. Tak- ing intervals of twenty years, Ohio had a population : in 1810, of forty-five thousand three hundred and sixty-five; in 1830, nine hundred and thirty-seven thou- sand nine hundred and three; in 1850, one million nine hundred and eighty thousand three hundred and twenty- nine; in 1870, two million six hundred and sixty-five thousand two hundred and sixty. Add to this the in- crease of population in the last six years, and Ohio now has, in round numbers, three millions of people-half a million more than the thirteen States in 1776; and her cities and towns have to-day six times the population of all the cities of America one hundred years ago. This State is now the third in numbers and wealth, and the first in some of those institutions which mark the progress of mankind. That a small part of the wilder- ness of 1776 should be more populous than the whole Union was then, and that it should have made a social and moral advance greater than that of any nation in the same time, must be regarded as one of the most startling and instructive facts which attend this year of commemoration. If such has been the social growth of Ohio, let us look at its physical development. This is best expressed by the aggregate productions of the labor and arts of a people applied to the earth. In the cen-

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sus statistics of the United States these are expressed in the aggregate results of agriculture, mining, manufact- ures and commerce. Let us simplify these statistics, by comparing the aggregate and ratios as between several States, and between Ohio and some countries of Europe.

The aggregate amount of grain and potatoes-farina- ceous food-produced in Ohio in 1870, was one hundred and thirty-four million nine hundred and thirty-eight thousand four hundred and thirteen bushels, and in 1874 there were one hundred and fifty-seven million three hundred and twenty-three thousand five hundred and ninety-seven bushels, being the largest aggregate amount raised in any State but one, Illinois, and larger per square mile than Illinois or any other State in the country. The promises of nature were thus vindicated by the labor of man; and the industry of Ohio has fulfilled its whole duty to the sustenance of the country and the world. She has raised more grain than ten of the old States to- gether, and more than half raised by Great Britain or by France. I have not the recent statistics of Europe, but McGregor, in his statistics of nations for 1832-a period of profound peace-gives the following ratios for the leading countries of Europe: Great Britain-area one hundred and twenty thousand three hundred and twenty- four miles; amount of grain, two hundred and sixty-two million five hundred thousand bushels; rate per square mile, two thousand one hundred and ninety to one. Austria-area two hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and three miles; amount of grain, three hun- dred and sixty-six million eight hundred thousand bush- els; rate per square mile, one thousand four hundred and twenty-two to one. France-area two hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight miles; amount of grain, two hundred and thirty-three million eight hundred and forty-seven thousand three hundred bushels; rate per square mile, one thousand and eighty to one. The State of Ohio-area per square miles, forty thousand; amount of grain, one hundred and fifty million bushels; rate per square mile, three thousand seven hundred and fifty. Combining the great countries of Great Britain, Austria, and France, we find that they had five hundred and ninety-four thousand seven hun- dred and eighty-five square miles and produced eight hun- dred and sixty-three million one hundred and forty-seven thousand three hundred hushels of grain, which was, at the time these statistics were taken, one thousand four hundred and fifty bushels per square mile, and ten bush- els to each one of the population. Ohio, on the other hand, had three thousand seven hundred fifty bushels per square mile, and fifty bushels to each one of the population; that is, there was five times as much grain raised in Ohio, in proportion to the people, as in these great countries of Europe. As letters make words, and words express ideas, so these dry figures of statistics ex- press facts, and these facts make the whole history of civilization.

Let us now look at the statistics of domestic animals. These are always indicative of the state of society in re- gard to the physical comforts. The horse must furnish domestic conveyances; the cattle must furnish the prod-

ucts of the dairy, as well as meat, and the sheep must furnish wool.

Let us see how Ohio compares with other States and with Europe: In 1870, Ohio had eight million eight hundred and eighteen thousand domestic animals; Illi- nois, six million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand; New York, five million two hundred and eighty-three thousand; Pennsylvania, four million four hundred and ninety-three thousand; and other States less. The pro- portion to population in these States was, in Ohio, to each person, 3.3 ; Illinois, 2.7; New York, 1.2; Pennsyl- vania, 1.2.

Let us now see the proportion of domestic animals in Europe. The results given by McGregor's statistics are: In Great Britain, to each person, 2.44; Russia, 2.00; France, 1.50; Prussia, 1.02; Austria, 1.00. It will be seen that the proportion in Great Britain is only two- thirds that of Ohio; in France, only one-half; and in Austria and Prussia only one-third. It may be said that, in the course of civilization, the number of animals di- minishes as the density of population increases ; and, therefore, this result might have been expected in the old countries of Europe. But this does not apply to Russia or Germany, still less to other States in this coun- try.

Russia in Europe has not more than half the density of population now in Ohio. Austria and Prus- sia have less than one hundred and fifty to the square mile. The whole of the north of Europe has not so dense a population as the State of Ohio, still less have the States of Illinois and Missouri, west of Ohio. Then, therefore, Ohio showing a larger proportion of domestic animals than the north of Europe, or States west of her, with a population not so dense, we see at once there must be other causes to produce such a phenomenon.

Looking to some of the incidental results of this vast agricultural production, we see that the United States exports to Europe immense amounts of grain and pro- visions ; and that there is manufactured in this country an immense amount of woolen goods. Then, taking these statistics of the raw material, we find that Ohio produces one-fifth of all the wool; one-seventh of all the cheese; one-eighth of all the corn, and one-tenth of all the wheat; and yet Ohio has but a fourteenth part of the population, and one-eightieth part of the surface of this country.

Let us take another-a commercial view of this matter. We have seen that Ohio raises five times as much grain per square mile as is raised per square mile in the em- pires of Great Britain, France and Austria, taken to- gether. After making allowance for the differences of living, in the working classes of this country, at least two-thirds of the food and grain of Ohio are a surplus beyond the necessities of life, and, therefore, so much in the commercial balance of exports. This corresponds with the fact, that, in the shape of grain, meat, liquors and dairy products, this vast surplus is constantly moved to the Atlantic States and to Europe. The money value of this exported product is equal to one hundred mil- lion dollars per annum, and to a solid capital of one billion five hundred million dollars, after all the sus-

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HISTORY OF OHIO.

tenance of the people has been taken out of the annual

· crop.

We are speaking of agriculture alone. We are speak- ing of a State which began its career more than a quarter of a century after the Declaration of Independence was made. And now, it may be asked, what is the real cause of this extraordinary result, which, without saying anything invidious of other States, we may safely say has never been surpassed in any country? We have already stated two of the advantages possessed by Ohio. The first is that it is a compact, unbroken body of arable land, surrounded and intersected by water-courses, equal to all the demands of commerce and navigation. Next, that it was secured forever to freedom and intelligence by the ordinance of 1787. The intelligence of its future people was secured by immense grants of public lands for the purpose of education; but neither the blessings of nature, nor the wisdom of laws, could obtain such results with- out the continuous labor of an intelligent people. Such it had, and we have only to take the testimony of Wash- ington, already quoted, and the statistical results I have given, to prove that no people has exhibited more steady industry, nor has any people directed their labor with more intelligence.

After the agricultural capacity and production of a country, its most important physical feature is its mineral products; its capacity for coal and iron, the two great elements of material civilization. If we were to take away from Great Britain her capacity to produce coal in such vast quantities, we should reduce her to a third- rate position, no longer numbered among the great na- tions of the earth. Coal has smelted her iron, run her steam engines, and is the basis of her manufactures. But when we compare the coal fields of Great Britain with those of this country, they are insignificant. The coal fields of all Europe are small compared with those of the central United States. The coal district of Dur- ham and Northumberland, in England, is only eight hundred and eighty square miles. There are other dis- tricts of smaller extent, making in the whole probably one-half the extent of that in Ohio. The English coal beds are represented as more important, in reference to extent, on account of their thickness. There is a small coal district in Lancashire, where the workable coal beds are in all one hundred and fifty feet in thickness. But this involves, as is well known, the necessity of going to immense depths and incurring immense expense. On the other hand, the workable coal beds of Ohio are near the surface, and some of them require no excavating, except that of the horizontal lead from the mine to the river or the railroad. In one county of Ohio there are three beds of twelve, six and four feet each, within fifty feet of the surface. At some of the mines having the best coal, the lead from the mines is nearly horizontal, and just high enough to dump the coal into the railroad cars. These coals are of all qualities, from that adapted to the domestic fire to the very best quality for smelting or manufacturing iron. Recollecting these facts, let us try to get an idea of the coal district of Ohio. The bituminous coal region descending the western slopes

of the Alleghanies, occupies large portions of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Ten- nessee. I suppose that this coal field is not less than fifty thousand square miles, exculsive of western Mary- land and the southern terminations of that field in Georgia and Alabama. Of this vast field of coal, ex- ceeding anything found in Europe, about one-fifth part lies in Ohio. Professor Mather, in his report on the geology of the State (first geological report of the State), says :

"The coal measures within Ohio occupy a space of about one hun- dred and eighty miles in length by eighty in breadth at the widest part, with an area of about ten thousand square miles, extending along the Ohio from Trumbull county in the north to near the mouth of the Scioto in the south. The regularity in the dip, and the moderate in- clination of the strata, afford facilities to the mines not known to those of most other countries, especially Great Britain, where the strata in which the coal is imbedded have been broken and thrown out of place since its deposit, occasioning many slips and faults, and causing much labor and expense in again recovering the bed. In Ohio there is very little difficulty of this kind, the faults being small and seldom found."

Now, taking into consideration these geological facts, let us look at the extent of the Ohio coal field. It occu- pies, wholly, or in part, thirty-six counties, including, geographically, fourteen thousand square miles; but leaving out fractions, and reducing the Ohio coal field within its narrowest limits, it is ten thousand square miles in extent, lies near the surface, and has on an average twenty feet thickness of workable coal beds. Let us compare this with the coal mines of Durham and Northumberland (England), the largest and best coal mines there. That coal district is estimated at eight hundred and fifty square miles, twelve feet thick, and is calculated to contain nine billion tons of coal. The coal field of Ohio is twelve times larger and one-third thicker. Estimated by that standard, the coal field of Ohio contains one hundred and eighty billion tons of coal. Marketed at only two dollars per ton, this coal is worth three hundred and sixty billion dollars, or, in other words, ten times as much as the whole valuation of the United States at the present time. But we need not undertake to estimate either its quantity or value. It is enough to say that it is a quantity which we can scarcely imagine, which is ten-fold that of England, and which is enough to supply the entire continent for ages to come.

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History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 107

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 559

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559