USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 39
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DeGraff was incorporated in 1864, and A. J. Lippincott was elected first mayor, with Mathias Wolf, who then owned the Boggs Mill, as recorder, and a council of five citizens. In 1865 the streets were graded, and in 1873, following the cyclone, a fire department was established, which has been modernized to keep pace with the times, its pride being the engine which was named the "William Boggs." In 1877 the city hall was built, housing the city offices, court and lockup, as well as the fire department. The town has had its full share of fires, but the "William Boggs" was always equal to the emergency until the disastrous conflagration of July, 1914, when a fire, which started in the rear of the Figley livery barn, leveled everything on Main street, from the Rhodes hotel south to the railroad, leaped the street, and consumed everything on the op- posite side from the city building to the elevator, which was saved. Bellefontaine, Quincy and Sidney all rushed to the rescue or little of DeGraff would have been left. It is characteristic of DeGraff spirit that today only one of the destroyed buildings still awaits replacement, and the devastated portion presents an unusually fine appearance for a town of DeGraff's size. Scarcely forty per cent of the loss was covered by insurance. It was a brave rally. Dr. Galer and H. C. Thatcher, two venerable citizens, lent cheer and encouragement to the stricken business men, but did not live to see the restored street rise from its ashes. The DeGraff Journal, whose plant was utterly ruined, never missed an issue of the paper, which was printed at the Fort Wayne branch of the Newspaper Union until the pretty new building of art brick, with its Campbell press and type-casting machine, was ready to resume work at the old stand. The editor, S. P. Pond, was, at the time of the fire, the chief of the fire department, which fought so valiantly at such un- equal odds. The Journal files of those weeks following the con- flagration contain some of the most valuable items of local history
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ever published, as well as a great deal of inspiriting matter which kept courage at the necessary pitch. The Journal is just twenty- five years old (1918) having been founded in 1893 by Mr. Pond, who with the assistance of his three daughters, operates the entire establishment, Mrs. Pond (who was Miss Jennie Reynolds, daugh- ter of an early settler) contributing occasional articles, though she has retired from daily service in the editorial office. Mr. Pond was previously for eleven years connected with Daniel S. Spellman, on the DeGraff Buckeye, the pioneer newspaper of the town.
Like many another town DeGraff resolved to reform its water system at once, and avoid further disasters, but there are many things in the way of complete reform. A water works system is too expensive for a small town, and it involves a sewage system, which doubles the expense, and thus far the only move is a waiting one-DeGraff will not pave her streets until the water mains and sewers are laid. The streets are well sidewalked, and fairly well piked. This enterprising little city had the first electric light plant in Logan county, establishing it in 1893. It was municipally owned until February, 1918, when it was sold to avoid a bond issue-an act of doubtful wisdom.
Of the two elevators at DeGraff, that of the Buckland Milling company, which operates a flour mill in connection with the plant, has a local manager, William Ward, while the Andrew Mohr ware- house is owned by DeGraff capital. The combined shipments of these firms aggregate in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand bushels annually, of all grains.
DeGraff is the home of the oldest bank in Logan county outside of Bellefontaine, the "Citizens' Bank of DeGraff" having been or- ganized in 1885. It was then a private concern, and its first presi- dent was I. S. Williams, and the cashier, B. F. Loofbourrow. Later the firm became Williams, Harris, Galer & Koogler, and in 1908 it was reorganized and incorporated under the state banking laws, with a capital of $30,000. The officers are W. E. Harris, president ; F. M. Galer, vice-president ; Harry W. Koogler, cashier ; S. B. Ham- sher, assistant cashier. Dr. C. G. Weller and Dr. J. A. Shawan are second and third vice-presidents, and there are thirty stockholders. The surplus and undivided profits total about $27,000. The bank's headquarters were remodeled in 1914, and are not surpassed in in- terior elegance and commodiousness in the county. There is a safe deposit department in the vault, which is the largest burglar proof vault in the county, being fire proof as well.
DeGraff is a fair open town, pretty and well built. It has un- usually wide-awake retail business houses, and it is growing. Across the Buckongehalas, which circles the major part of the town before emptying into the Miami west of the bend, is an extension of the village set against a fine hill which overlooks DeGraff proper, the "suburb" being known as "Thatcherville," from the numerous mem- bers of the prominent family who have built their homes over there. It is not a separate village, but a natural extension of DeGraff, and a very pretty one.
The really unique industry of DeGraff is the plant of the De- Graff Canning company, a stock company organized by local capi-
WILLOW DRIVE, WEST LIBERTY, OHIO
WEST SIDE, SO. MAIN ST., DE GRAFF, O.
PERRY TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL, EAST LIBERTY,O.
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talists in 1907, for the purpose of canning Logan county products. It has five main buildings, including the packing and shipping house. Four varieties of product are prepared for market, sweet corn, peas, succotash and pumpkin. Sweet corn and succotash are put up under private label, bearing the brands respectively, of "White Dove Sugar Corn" and "Miami Leader" succotash. The other products are canned and labeled for wholesale houses. The entire product of the cannery finds immediate market, and in the season just closed seventy-five thousand cases of twenty-four cans each were shipped, an equivalent of sixty carloads. The maximum of help employed in the season is about 125, largely women and girls, or boys, and the pay roll amounted to about $20,000. It is, admittedly, a small plant, but DeGraff is a small town, and may well take pride in having placed itself in the list of manufacturing towns on a purely domestic basis. A visit to the cannery is most interesting, and the machinery by which the corn is received from the trucks which bring it fresh from the fields, husks it, and after it leaves the sorting table (the only place where fingers touch it) seems almost endowed with in- telligence. There is no waste, all refuse of every sort being at once converted into feed which is either used for hogs while yet fresh, or, as in the case of sweet corn husks and cobs, treated as ensilage, which is sold to farmers, who cart it away in great loads. The first of December sees the plant closed each year, the winter months furnishing the necessary period for renovation and repairs.
The towns of the Scioto slope, in the eastern part of Logan county, represent both the earliest and latest settlement periods. Beginning with Middleburg, where Job Sharp and his neighbors slowly crystallized into an organized community, and following the chain-Rushsylvania, East Liberty and West Mansfield-the rec- ords and the names preserved in the population of today give evi- dence of the natural scattering from the original settlements in old Zane township to the northern border, with accessions from the other avenues which began to open into the county after it was set apart from Champaign.
In many respects the eastern slopes exhibit a very different character, as to soil and water supply, from the Mad river or Miami sections, which was shown in the original forest growth as clearly as otherwise. Especially in the southeastern part the maple forests were distinctive, making this one of the greatest sugar producing sections of Ohio, the effect of the sun on the eastern slopes bringing on the "sugar season" about two weeks earlier than it came to the western valley. Sugar making thus naturally developed into one of the first industries of the new community, the art being learned from the Indians and afterward greatly improved upon. The Euanses, Garwoods, Inskeeps, Outlands and Ballingers were all a part of the fine element which settled this territory, also the Cow- gills, Warners and Curls, and Dr. John Elbert, sr., who, coming in 1809, was the first physician of regular standing in the county. Previous to this, Mrs. Job Sharp, a benevolent and resourceful woman well schooled and skilled in the treatment of ordinary illness, ministered to her neighbors, and was esteemed a physician in the settlement. Dr. Elbert passed a busy and useful life, full of self-
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sacrifice, meeting his own death while on the way to the bedside of a patient, in 1838.
"Johnny Appleseed" planted his first Logan county nursery here in 1810, on the farm of Joshua Inskeep. The first death in the settlement, that of "Grandfather" Jones, occurred in the same year, his burial being the first in the little Quaker burying ground. The first marriage performed in the settlement was that of William Euans and Rachel Stokes, in 1811.
Wyandot Indians lingered in this neighborhood for a good many years, and were generally friendly, though not always trusted. Job Sharp's fine house of hewn logs, double built (in 1807), and the similar one of William Seger were often used as blockhouses in times of Indian or outlaw disturbances.
John Garwood went farther north and built a mill at the site of East Liberty, but the first gristmill in the original settlement, after the little Sharp mill, was built by Caleb Ballinger in 1824, and sold, in 1831, to David and Daniel Eicher, who remodeled it. In 1856 it was entirely rebuilt on a larger scale, and for many years was one of the county's important industries. Up to 1815 all building ma- terial was prepared by hand, and marvels were achieved with ax and whip saw, not only in house-building but furniture making.
Joshua Inskeep built the first sawmill in 1815, on "Mill branch." A freshet carried his mill down stream to destruction. The second attempt was anchored to a tree stump, which helped it to resist the elements. The Stratton mill on the same creek was a third, and Jose Garwood built a fourth, in 1831, which outlived the other three to a late period.
The first steam sawmill in central Ohio was built by Brattany and Sellars during the winter of 1833-4, in the new village of Middle- burg, which had been platted in 1832, on land belonging to Levi and William Grubbs. Urbana and Columbus streets, named for the already existing highways, crossed at right angles in the middle of the plat, the land on the east of Urbana street belonging to William and that on the left to Levi. Elias D. Gabriel opened the first of several stores, and the town grew with considerable rapidity, promis- ing for a time, a great future. Arthur Criffield, a Disciple minister, a good man and a very progressive one, started a newspaper there, in 1836, called "The People's Palladium and Advertiser"-for four counties. This paper, in July of the same year, promoted Martin Van Buren for president. Various kinds of farm produce were taken in payment of subscriptions. Later, Mr. Criffield changed the paper to a religious journal, called "The Heretic Detector," and under this title removed the publication to Cincinnati, where it continued for some years.
Located on the route from the southeast counties toward the land office at Lima, Middleburg took on importance as a stopping place for travelers. Taverns sprang up, well-famed for their accom- modations but bringing the usual train of rough and lawless loafers into the settlement, and giving to the town a reputation which its real founders and citizens did not deserve. Help was sought, and obtained, from the state inspector, who found the liquors vended there to be adulterated, and ordered them emptied into the road.
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The Sons of Temperance organized in June, 1848, and a lodge of Good Templars was formed in 1855 to drive the demon Alcohol out of the village. The fight ended successfully in 1861. John Hellings, who started a distillery near Middleburg in 1835, manufactured peach and apple brandy, and also whiskey. He was assisted by his son, W. M. Hellings, who afterward forsook the trade and became one of the stoutest supporters of temperance in Middleburg.
On his farm, southeast of Middleburg, Daniel Garwood opened the first tannery, in 1808. He also built the first brick house of the settlement, in 1818, when sand for brick making (a commodity so plentiful in Logan county, had they only known it) was so scarce that ashes had to be mixed with the lime to eke out the mortar. In 1818 clocks were first brought to the settlement by "yankee ped- dlars." The first frame house, built in 1820, was a curiosity worth a pilgrimage to see. Mrs. Lydia Marquis once cut the blocks for a quilt with a knife, because there was not a pair of scissors in the wilderness. Wheat was not successfully raised here until 1812, and then had to be hauled a hundred miles to find a market. Salt must needs be brought from Chillicothe or Sandusky, and cost thirteen dollars a barrel. Cows were lost or mired in the swamps, or ate the poisonous weed that caused the mysterious "milk-sickness." Hogs, which were allowed to roam wild for their food, had to be hunted, like wild game, in the fall. The first cookstove was brought by Dr. Elbert in 1839, and cost nearly a ton and a half of these hogs. The first left-hand plow, made in Urbana, was used in 1841. Kettles for the sugar making had to be brought from the Mary Ann furnace in Licking county.
After the rapid progress of the decade following the thirties, these early difficulties were half forgotten in the tide of prosperity. The Brattany and Sellars steam sawmill became, in the sixties, a factory where wooden buckets were manufactured by Chesher & Son. One of the successful merchants of earlier days in Middleburg was Edward Allen, who built up a fine business in general merchan- dise and hardware, meat packing and shipping. He met a tragic death in 1851, whether by his own hand or not was never determined. Among the famous taverns of old times may be mentioned those of Allen and Marquis, the Joel Haines, and the Hellings houses. In 1851 a large tile and pottery factory was established, which flour- ished for many years, the manufacture of sugar crocks and jars for local maple sugar packing being an important branch.
Gangs of counterfeiters were known to operate in this wild country, so full of hiding places, but their lairs were never found, nor any of the law-breakers convicted, though the spurious currency was met with troublesome frequency.
The oldest church was that of the Friends', built in 1805, which was used both as school and church until 1825. The sexton, young Carlisle Haines, used to receive twenty-five cents for his janitor service each winter. The Methodists used this little chapel by courtesy of its builders until 1812, when they built one for themselves at Innskeep dam, a small log structure about eighteen feet square. In 1829 the Episcopal Methodists rallied and built Mount Moriah church, all labor being voluntarily contributed. The first members,
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most of whom sleep in the little church yard there, included the Elberts, Innskeeps, Ballingers and Euanses, and Allen and David Sharp, the latter being in all probability the first preacher. In 1854 this log meeting house was replaced by a brick chapel, which was destroyed by fire in 1874, rebuilt, and once more wrecked, in 1880, by a storm. However, it was repaired, and still serves. A Methodist Episcopal church was built at Middleburg in 1834, which was aban- doned and converted into a dwelling house about 1840, because of a defection of its members toward the Protestant Methodist body, which in the meantime had organized and built a church. This lat- ter church, which was built anew in 1873, is wideawake and well attended. The Christian church which organized at Middleburg under Rev. Criffield, in 1835, has also held its way steadily through all the changes of fortune which have visited the town. Rev. Charles A. Freer of East Liberty devotes a part of his time to the Middle- burg congregation. About 1836, the Methodist church at Innskeep's dam having fallen into disrepair, the congregation projected a large church at Middleburg which should eclipse all others. Mr. Innskeep supported the movement liberally, but the edifice failed of com- pletion, having simply overreached the times, and after standing unfinished for some years, it was converted to use as a carriage fac- tory by Eurem Carpenter.
The "grange" movement started in this district with much en- thusiasm, which took deep root. The Jericho and Maple Grove granges became quite prominent organizations.
The Township hall, built in 1879, at Middleburg, is still a staunch structure, the lower floor occupied by Ora Innskeep's store ; while the Oddfellows' building, a large and substantial frame, erec- ted in 1897, accommodates the Maurice Sharp store. Koch's restaur- ant dispenses bakery products, and provides refreshment for the chance traveler, but the taverns of old are only memories. The old Allen and Marquis sign may still be desciphered, but the place is empty and going to decay. Even the Joel Haines and Hellings hotels are things of the past, as is the Hellings store of forty years ago. Two or three of the larger dwellings of the village are pointed out as former "hotels." The Middleburg of today is quite lapsed from its old-time activity, and its industries are no longer evident, but it is a church and social centre for a populous and beautiful farm- ing country. It stands on a nearly solid limestone ridge, and ex- tensive quarrying has been done near by, but at present the Middle- burg quarries are idle. The question of water supply was always a drawback to the village, as deep boring through the limestone to secure wells was necessarily expensive. However, water has been successfully pumped, by hydraulic process, from the famous old springs on the Job Sharp farm-the same which furnished water power for the tiny mill a hundred years ago. It is the lack of rail- road transportation, however, which chiefly militates against the future growth of Middleburg.
The modern centralized school building, at the eastern ex- tremity of Columbus street, brings new life there when school is in session, but seems anomalous beside the last century appearance of the neat little street, on which are many reminders of the past. Mrs.
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THE STORY OF LOGAN COUNTY
Samuel Marquis' pleasant home is one of the old "hotels," and across the street is another, both quiet and subdued, in white paint and drawn blinds. Mrs. Jenny Milledge Antrim, widow of Joshua An- trim's son, Lamar Antrim, lives near the Shrap store, while across the street is Mrs. Elloria McWade, aged eighty years, daughter of Job Haines Sharp, granddaughter of Joshua Sharp, and great-grand- daughter of Job Sharp, first pioneer. Mrs. McWade's twin sister, Victoria Sharp, died in early womanhood. "She was the beauty of the village," says Mrs. McWade, adding, with a sudden twinkle of the old blue eyes, "They couldn't tell us apart." And behind the mask of eighty toil-worn years, one catches a fleeting glimpse of a girl with a face like a wild rose.
John Garwood, sr., William Skidmore and three of the Inskeep brothers were the first of the Zane township settlers to move north- ward. The Hatchers, Bairds, Freers and Randalls followed soon after, and Anthony Bank, a colored man of considerable ability, from Virginia, settled near. Bank, who had bought his wife, treated her quite as his slave, although he became very wealthy and could have lightened her existence with ease. For himself, he indulged in sump- tuous living, while his wife, whom he outlived, died rejoicing that at last she was going to be a free woman. The children, who inherited a really fine fortune, wasted it in improvident living.
Garwood's mill, first built in 1810, drew its power from Otter creek. The mill, however, was not well placed, and later was moved to a more advantageous situation by Thomas James, enlarged, and rebuilt more than once, until at last it was all new, although it never ceased to be called the "Old Garwood mill." In its palmy days, the machinery was capable of grinding one hundred and fifty bushels of grain in twenty-four hours, but it has now been in disuse as a mill for a good many years, and stands silent in its old place, while the village of East Liberty, which grew up around it, has turned its attention to other industries.
Another gristmill, built by William B. Moore, was washed down the creek in a freshet. Thomas James and William Smith built and operated a distillery near Garwood's mill in 1832-33, and sold out to one Brooks, who continued it after a few years.
The first road built to the north from this settlement continued the Urbana route toward Big Springs, where it crossed the San- dusky road. Lot Inskeep opened a store on this road in 1826, it being the first mercantile venture in this section. C. H. Austin bought him out and later removed the store to East Liberty, when that village had been platted, which was in March, 1834. The land chosen for the building of the town originally belonged to John Garwood, who sold it to John Bowyer, by whom the plat was made. The first residence built was that of Josiah Austin, and the second that of John McCalley, while the stores of King and Hitchins, and White and Allen, were opened in October of 1834. In 1833 John McCalley had opened a tannery, which afterward was sold to Job Haines Sharp about 1843. James Seaman was the first blacksmith, John Ewing the first shoemaker and Samuel Cook the first.saddler, of East Liberty. S. B. Taylor kept its first tavern, followed in after years by another at which Joseph Seaman was the landlord.
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In 1880 the "Liberty House" was kept by E. S. Stover. At present (1918), there is not the exact equivalent of a hotel in the town, al- though the visitor can find very good entertainment for a temporary stay.
Of religious organizations the early history is scant in detail, but the Quakers were doubtless the first to hold services, and John Garwood, sr., was himself a "preacher" of this persuasion. There was no Friends' church until 1850, when a chapel was built, which was destroyed a few years later by fire. About 1860 or after, a more modern frame building was erected, a mile or more west of North Greenfield, where Mary Elliott was the preacher for many years. A cemetery was laid out near by. Herbert Baird, an early settler, was the first Methodist preacher, becoming a regular "cir- cuit rider." Samuel Bradford and David Dudley were the earliest preachers of the Baptist faith. North Greenfield was laid out on the site of a well-known Methodist camp-meeting ground of the pioneer days, and the first Methodist church of the settlement was built on this ground, it being now in the town. The Methodists also built the first church in the town of East Liberty, a log cabin, which long ago gave way to a modern structure. The United Brethren also established a church north of the town about 1850, which was not of long career. At the Skidmore neighborhood about 1858, or later, the Union Baptist church was built and became a permanent organization. There are now two local churches in East Liberty, the Methodist, under the present pastoral care of Rev. Kuppert, and the Christian, of which Rev. Charles A. Freer has been pastor for the last six years. Rev. Freer is a native son of East Liberty, but after finishing his college courses he spent twenty-three years in labors far afield. He is the local correspondent for the Bellefontaine Examiner, and a citizen of wide and beneficial activity. Both the churches are handsome modern edifices, their congregations imbued with vigorous spirit, maintaining wide-awake Sunday schools, and co-operating in every movement for the good of town and country- side. The East Liberty Echo, edited for twelve years or more by Howard Harvey, was a meritorious sheet and is much missed by the community since its discontinuance. The fine new Consolidated high school at this center was the second in the county to open, six vans being needed to transport the students between home and school. A branch of this school is established at North Greenfield, where the children of the first four grades, who are too remote to attend the central building, are accommodated. In 1883, the Central Ohio college was established at East Liberty. An excellent build- ing was erected and a still more excellent faculty engaged, and for fifteen or more years the institution had a useful and, from that standpoint, successful career. Not being endowed, however, the income was not sufficient to maintain it at the high standard set, and rather than lower that standard it was reluctantly abandoned. The college had been, nevertheless. long enough a part of the com- munity to imbue it with its high ideals, and East Liberty is still the better for its one time higher institution of learning. Rev. Charles Freer was one of the first graduates, in the class of 1887. The building, a substantial structure, has now for some time past
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