USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 41
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THE STORY OF LOGAN COUNTY
Bushaw (or Bushong) soon after. Three lads, including the son of E. C. Hathaway, each death the result of accidents, were the first burials made in the Bokes Creek graveyard, which was set apart on the Hathaway farm. The Indians were always friendly with the settlers in this district, and hunted with them. Deer were numerous, as many as forty red deer skins sometimes hanging around a single Indian camp fire. Bear were still occasional victims of the rifle, and it was related by John Hill that he had seen a squaw using a bearskin as a kneading board, and shortening the dough with the bear fat.
The first road to the south from these setllements was "blazed" from the fallen timber to East Liberty, meeting, of course, the previously opened road from East Liberty to the south. A settler named Sumpter is said to have gone ahead as a pathfinder around the swamps and hills, sounding a horn to his followers, who felled the trees and cut away the brush in his wake. It was a mere bridle path at first. With intervening changes of route this road is still the north and south route of the eastern slopes, running from Mount Victory to Champaign county.
Great difficulty was experienced, all the early roads of this dis- trict, on account of the swamps, which often stood so deep in water, that upon one and probably more occasions the trees felled were floated out of the clearing on the water. But if there were no roads, to speak of, and no stage or mail routes, neither were there the usual taverns, with their invariable accompaniment of drunkenness and loaferism.
Alexander Ramsey, in 1830, built the first sawmill in the north- east, on the banks of Rush creek, and in connection with it operated a "corn-cracker." He also tried to maintain a small trading store, but trading was not profitable, and the settlers depended chiefly upon Zanesfield and West Liberty for their merchandise. Andrew Murdock built a sawmill on his farm about 1840, the same year in which the Bellefontaine and Jerusalem road, theretofore a blazed bridle-path, was opened, which became the fine highway of today. The Painter creek road was opened or "blazed" about the same period. The finest roads in all Logan county are now to be noted in the middle eastern section, centering toward West Mansfield and East Liberty.
About 1845 a sawmill stood where the town of West Mansfield was platted in 1848 by Levi Southard, a progressive farmer who died as a soldier in the Civil War. The town was named for Mr. Southard's infant son, Mansfield. Bliss Danforth built the first house, a structure eighteen by twenty feet, of round logs covered with clapboards. Ellis and Henry Baldwin built homes soon after- ward, and John Cousins erected a story-and-a-half tavern, thirty by twenty feet in size. It stood on the site occupied by George Harshfield's house in later years. Samuel Danforth and William Keller opened a grocery and notion store in a log cabin sixteen by eighteen feet in size, and James Wilgus kept the first shoe store, at the corner where his sons are still in business. Mark Austin and John Cousins operated blacksmithies.
The town grew steadily, being incorporated in 1879, with the
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following city officials: William Ballinger, mayor; Dr. Joshua Skidmore clerk; Dr. Sylvester Maris, treasurer; H. McDonald, marshal and a council composed of J. T. Robinson, F. Carson, and J. N. Wilgus. Two good hotels had been built by this time, and in addition to regular retail trade harness and shoemaking, black- smithing and wagon work were prosperous industries. The Bushong & McDonald sawmill and the Loring steam gristmill were built before 1871.
John Wilgus, a native of Delaware, came to Zanesfield, Logan county, in 1840, removing to West Mansfield a few years later. With his sons, H. C., C. A. and P. R. Wilgus, he opened a clothing house in 1868, which has had a continuous existence ever since. Mr. Wilgus, sr., retired from active business in 1898, at which time the firm was reorganized by the Wilgus brothers, and has this year (1918) completed a half century at the same location. Mr. Wilgus, sr., died in 1916.
The largest retail store in the town is the Moore & Knight de- partment store, but all business is in wide-awake condition. An exceptionally attractive drug store and jewelry house is notice- able.
About fifteen years ago a disastrous fire destroyed a large part of the central business district, but the result was better building and today West Mansfield presents a most modern and substantial appearance. Only one fire-in a frame building-has since oc- curred. The two principal streets, Main and Centre, are paved with fine brick as far as the city limits, and the remaining thoroughfares are well macadamized, while the neatest of cement sidewalks line the pavements everywhere. There is no sewage system, but the intention is to locate the sewers, at a future day, along the alleys without disturbing the pavements.
The volunteer fire department is quite adequate, and several fire cisterns are maintained. A hand engine is used. Water for domestic purposes is obtained from driven wells which are neces- sarily very deep, but the water is good, slightly tinged with white sulphur. A municipal electric light plant was built about 1906.
About forty-five years ago, Jeremiah Benedict and his son, F. N. Benedict, undertook the conduct of a tile factory at West Mansfield. They operated it about one year, then sold out to Hathaway Brothers, by whom the manufacture was continued until 1898, when the business was bought by the Van Cleve Clay Prod- ucts company, an incorporated company with a capital of $65,000, and the plant has been enlarged and developed for the manufacture of tile and ditching commodities, and, it is expected, of other pottery products. Simpson Van Cleve is the president and general mana- ger, and H. C. Wilgus is secretary. The establishment employs about forty hands and is the largest manufacturing business the town has ever boasted.
A handsome city building was erected in 1892, the main floor of which is occupied by the local theatre, seating two or three hun- dred auditors, while below are the city court and jail. The council chamber is in the upper story. Mr. O. L. Harvey is the present mayor.
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THE STORY OF LOGAN COUNTY
The Odd Fellows' lodge, instituted June 23, 1874, included every honorable name in the community, and as in other com- munities, the order is author of innumerable good deeds, so quietly done that their source is not always recognized.
The first religious organization of this section was the Wesleyan Methodist, which held services in an old schoolhouse on the Southard farm. Its existence was short. The United Brethren organized in 1845 and built a church in West Mansfield in 1852, under the Rev. F. Hendricks. They rebuilt in 1877, and again quite recently, and now have a fine large church. Pastors are only transient at this time. The Baptist and Christian (or Disciple) churches are also without preachers since the resignations of Revs. Dickens and Ely. The Episcopal Methodists organized in 1869, and have lately built a $20,000 church, which is attended by a flourishing congregation and Sunday school, under the pastorate of Rev. O. L. Utter.
West Mansfield's first physician was Dr. Roberts, who lived there only three years, from 1853 to 1856. Dr. William Reames came next, about 1854, a graduate of Starling Medical college, and practiced for over a quarter of a century. Dr. Joshua Skidmore, born near West Mansfield in 1844, graduated from Miami college in 1868, and was in continual practice in West Mansfield until his death, which occurred in 1912. Dr. Sevan, Dr. Sylvester Maris and Dr. Whitaker, also Dr. G. F. Plotner, graduate of Starling Medical college in 1888, gave long terms of service to the sick of the district, Dr. Plotner being still active. Dr. Maris lost his eyesight and was obliged to retire. Dr. N. T. Sullivan and Dr. C. E. Louthan, of Big Springs, were several years practitioners in West Mansfield, Dr. H. A. Skidmore, son of Dr. Joshua Skidmore, graduated from Starling Medical college in 1902, commenced practice in West Mansfield in 1903, and continued in practice until November, 1917, when he removed to Bellefontaine and located permanently.
Two prosperous banks have commodious headquarters at the heart of the town. The Union Banking company, not incorporated, was organized in 1893 (about the time the Toledo & Ohio Central railroad was completed through the village), with a capital stock of $15,000. It has rounded twenty-five years of success with a sur- plus of $8,000, and its deposits approximate $250,000. The officers are: J. T. Drake, president; Ed. S. Moore, vice-president ; A. L. Votaw, cashier; M. H. Bell, assistant cashier. Directors, J. T. Drake, Ed. S. Moore, W. N. Plotner, I. R. Winner, E. W. Elliott, H. E. Southard and William Gilbert.
The Farmers' State bank was first organized as a private bank in 1904, and after running for twelve years was incorporated under the state laws in 1916, with a capital stock of $25,000. Its surplus already amounts to $2,000 and the deposits aggregate close to $225,- 000. The board of directors include George Needham, C. E. Miner, Charles Dally, Charles McGee, J. C. Moore, E. B. Evans and N. P. McColloch ; W. A. Bell, president; G. F. Plotner, vice-president ; J. L. Headington, cashier; C. A. Underwood and Miss Lucile McGee, assistants.
The E. D. Vance sawmill handles hardwood timber from local
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sources, employing, regularly, four hands. The principal shipments during the late war have been government consignments of oak- bridge planking.
Isaac Brown, stock dealer, reports in round figures the stock output from this point, for the year ending October 20, 1918, as two hundred and twelve carloads of livestock, all kinds, hogs pre- ponderating, with cattle, sheep and veal calves in lessening propor- tion. The aggregate value of the same to shippers, for this period, was $400,000.
The West Mansfield elevator, owned by Titus and Bell, ca- pacity 40,000 bushels of grain, exported, during the same time not less than 100,000 bushels of grain-wheat, oats, barley, rye, and corn. Wheat was the heaviest this year, but oats generally ex- ceeds, while hay is also a heavy export.
The Wildi milk condensery at Ridgewav collects from $6,000 to $10,000 worth of milk from this point each month in the spring and summer, while many of the dairy farmers along the railroad ship directly to the market from independent depots at the right of way, in the country. The Needham creamery at West Mansfield handles cream from the surroundings and from East Liberty, fre- quently producing as high as seven hundred pounds of butter daily in the summer season.
The whole country to the north, east and south is in a high state of cultivation, and the poultry produced in this part of Logan county reaches stupendous figures. The largest farm of the county, a fourteen hundred acre tract lying on the south side of the Treaty line pike, known as the Hogsett estate, has lately become the prop- erty of Parrett and Stinson, of Washington Court House, Ohio, who are draining the creek bottom lands and reducing the entire place to cultivation, under an extensive system of farming not nitherto practiced in this county. Modern quarters are building, and barns and granaries indicate the plans of the new owners.
"West Liberty is a pretty town and shines where it stands," against the background of its green hill, with the waters of Mad river and the "babbling Mac-o-chee" silvering the plain at its edge. The hill stood there a century ago, just as it had stood for centuries before that, looking down on the green plain and the winding creeks; waiting. And so John Enoch found it in 1815, when, after eighteen years of prospecting in southern Ohio, he settled in the Mad river valley. No fairer prospect could have greeted his eyes in all the eighteen years previous than that which lay before him here. He went no farther, but purchased the land and immediately planned a town and built the first house as a home for his family. And then he built a mill.
The town was regularly surveyed and platted two years later, receiving its name at that time. A town that is planted, not built, must have time to grow. It took West Liberty some time to germinate. Of the aspect of the village in 1820, Dr. Thomas Cow- gill wrote, many years afterward, "I did not recognize the place as a town. * * * A few small houses were built, and the house north of the mill, which was the residence of John Enoch, sr., whose farm was as yet nearly all covered with a dense thicket of hazel.
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wild plum and thorn, and the prairie still overgrown with wild grass." There was not at that time a half mile of roadway or lane from the Cowgill home to the mill. They were late in arriving and found many patrons ahead of them, who had come from as far as twenty miles to "tarry their grinding," among them being Judge Daniel Baldwin, John Shelby, Capt. Alexander Black, Moses Mc- Ilvaine, James Baird and other settlers of the day. John Enoch, jr., a young man of twenty, was the "miller" that morning. Beside the hill and the mill, a still had been set up on Muddy run, not far away, and the product thereof was very much in evidence. H. M. White had a log building boasting a shingle roof, and a porch, where he carried on a small trade in calicoes, pins and needles, and performed some tailoring; but the place was designed chiefly for the entertainment of travelers, and the form of refreshment was the raw whiskey from the pioneer distilleries. In spite of appear- ances, however, the germ of a good community was there and sprouting, and the town had an increasing commercial importance, given to it by the mill, which had speedily become the most pa- tronized in a radius of fifty miles ; and had not the county boundary line been too near, West Liberty might naturally have been chosen as the county seat. As it was, it waxed equally with Bellefontaine for some time. In 1828 Detroit street appears to have been the choice of location for residences, Dr. John Ordway, John Vaughn and William Vaughn, both Baptist preachers, as well as farmer and tailor respectively ; John Williams, a local Methodist preacher and a tanner by trade; Benjamin Ginn, the tailor ; and Robert Crockett. an apprentice of Vaughn the tanner; William Kenton, William Moore, a wheelwright and painter; Orin Hubbard, carpenter and builder (father of William and Thomas) ; Abner Tharp, wagon- maker; Tillman Longfellow, a tanner, and Simon Robinson, a miller, all having their homes upon this thoroughfare. (Hiram White's old tavern, which stood at the corner of Detroit and Baird streets, was destroyed in the great fire of 1880.) Benjamin F. Ginn built a second tavern in 1832, naming it "The Buckeye House." The village was incorporated in 1834. In 1837, in keeping with the general advancement of the town, Ira Reynolds erected the "Giraffe" building, a three story brick which seemed then a mam- moth structure, and is still a substantial business building after eighty years. Its height probably suggested its name, but no building of West Liberty has climbed higher than that, although several similar buildings keep it company on the compactly biult "Main Street" of 1918. The first livery stable, after those which accompanied the taverns of early days, was built in 1853, and sur- vived several decades, but has now been relegated to the past with the arrival of the motor car, and only up-to-date garages are in evidence today unless in the outskirts, where the local horse market is still an important feature of commerce. From time to time in- dustries of genuine importance gained a foothold in West Liberty, and many of Logan county's ablest financiers gained their experi- ence in the lively little market town. Its tanneries, the saddlery, and other industries were ambitious, manufacturing in intent and, for the times, in scope. The mill was a steadfast Gibraltar of trade,
.
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and as time went on, other and more modern ventures made good headway. The "Nonesuch" overalls, jackets and shirts were man- ufactured there, employing many hands and adding to the prosperity of the community.
The first religious organization in this vicinity was the Bethel or Muddy Run church, organized in 1814 by Rev. Richard Clark. A large log meeting house was built, about a half mile west of the site of the village, and the church book held nearly a hundred names, including that of Thomas Baird, who owned the distillery, which shows that his calling was not regarded as a public crime in "the light of other days." In this old chapel preached several of the most noted pioneer pulpit orators, including the "White Pil- grim," Joseph Thomas, who died in 1835. In 1844 this congrega- tion divided, after the destruction, by fire, of the old meeting house, and the urban contingent built the West Liberty Christian church the same year. The first religious society to organize in the town was the Methodist, who built their first chapel in 1830, the con- tributors to the building fund being Dr. John Ordway, Riddle and Rutan (tanners, saddlers and general business men), John Wil- liams, John Strange, Amos and Stephen Jackson, John Poisdell, J. B. Conklin, Isaac Hatcher and Truman Wolfe. Some of the pledges were paid in cash, some in building material, some in work, and some in trade or labor.
From 1829 forward, the Presbyterians began to struggle to- wards organization, Rev. Joseph Stevenson, of Bellefontaine, giv- ing a part of his time to the adherents of Calvinism at West Lib- erty, and until 1845 missionary efforts were used to keep the small society from discouragement, Rev. Robert H. Holliday and Rev. Milton Hackett assisting them. The building of the church was an impetus, and fitful progress was made, under the ministration of Revs. James H. Gill, William Perkins and L. I. Drake, to whom at last in 1855 a unanimous call was given, and the congregation then entered upon its long period of uninterrupted progress. In 1849 the Methodists built them a more stately mansion, and their first little chapel was converted into a dwelling house, which is still in use. An English Lutheran church was permanently organized in 1857, following ten years of patient missionary work. Rev. N. B. Little was the first pastor, and the services were held in various places-the Christian church, Mrs. Roberts' hall on Main street, in an upper room on Baird street, and the homes of the members. At length, in the summer of 1858, the corner stone of their chapel was laid, and though operations were delayed by a building panic, the edifice was ready for dedication in March, 1860. Five years later (1865) this church was wrecked by a cyclonic storm, and it was ten years before the restored building was ready (in 1875) for rededication. These three churches are still flourishing in West Liberty, each maintaining a pretty chapel which points the specta- tor heavenward. In addition two more denominations have built there, one, the Latter Day Saints, or Church of God, and the De- fenseless Mennonite, which is of much later date, and first or- ganized in the country outside the town, where two congrega- tions flourished. These were distinguished as the "top buggy"
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THE STORY OF LOGAN COUNTY
church, and the "no top" church. The present church of the Mennonites in the village has no such designation, as all of the members ride in automobiles. In 1830, Benjamin Piatt, who then lived on a beautiful farm about a mile and a half east of the town, on the Mac-a-chack creek, gave five acres for the building of a chapel for the observance of Roman Catholic services. The land was situated a half mile east of the village. Mrs. Piatt, who was an ardent Catholic, appropriated for the building of the chapel the logs which her husband had designed for a workshop, and the first Catholic church of Logan county greeted his eye upon his return from a trip. Hasty as had been its construction the little log build- ing stood until a comparatively short time ago, though empty for years. It has at last gone the way of all the log cabins. It had never a resident priest, but the congregation was ministered to by priests from other parishes. A small chapel built at the farm was sometimes used. Mrs. Donn Piatt at one time contemplated build- ing a stone chapel to replace the first, but it has never materialized. The Catholics of the vicinity attend services at Bellefontaine.
Grand View cemetery is located upon land once owned by Thomas Miller, one of West Liberty's most successful and respected merchants. It is well named, for the hill rising to a height of one hundred feet above the level of the plain commands a wonderful view of the whole Mad river valley in Logan county, a scene of surpassing beauty, and worth traveling from far to see. Bald Knob is clearly visible from this height, and the spot is ideal for the purpose to which it is dedicated. The cemetery was endowed by Mary Brown, an eccentric but benevolent woman of West Lib- erty who passed nearly the whole of her ninety-six years there. By her will the cemetery board received the gift of a section of fine farmland for a perpetual support of the cemetery, her only condi- tion being the specific but modest request for the preservation of her own family burial plot. A memorial tablet of bronze is set in one of the sandstone pillars of each entrance to the cemetery, in her honor.
To the right of the highway leading down into the town from Grand View, extends the heights where J. Milton Glover, son-in- law and heir to the estate of Thomas Miller, built a palatial home- stead-an example which was followed by other citizens of that date, so that the avenue sweeping the inner curve of the hill is dotted with attractive dwellings of superior size. One of these was built by Ira Reynolds who called his place "Sycamore Heights." This was afterwards the property in succession, of the Runkles, and the Taylors, but it has now become a tenement occupied by two or three families. It was, however, an imposing homestead, and is still capable of complete restoration. The Glover residence, after the financial collapse of its builder, went into other hands and is now the property of the Mennonites, who have added another building of equal size at the left, both constituting a commodious orphanage, where over seventy orphaned children of the Mennonite faith are brought up in the way their parents wished them to go.
Entering the town from the highway between Cemetery hill and the ridge, the village wears an aspect of placid well-being, like
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that of the household that has reached the early afternoon lull- dinner being over, and supper all ready in the ice-box, and the children, neat in fresh pinafores, basking in the shadow-flecked sunshine of the front yard. One does not go far, however, without recognizing that the quiet is only that of a busy hive, in which every inmate is too much occupied to talk. In all the borders of this trim compact little town one may see not a vacant building, save one or two instances of ancient carpentry, flung up in some long past period of rapid growth, and now sagging into decay. "Ancient?" Yes, but with all the hoary images conjured up by the words "a hundred years" there is in West Liberty the vitality of an oak tree, which is young at the end of a century. It is as young, indeed, and as sturdy, as the veriest urchin in it, that wrestles with his comrades on the greensward after school. A few minutes' walk brings one to the end of Main street, and there, looming skyward, the old Enoch mill rears its lofty gable, as erect as when first tested by the plummet, its rooftree still as level as a lake. The two-inch ash planks of its floor (somewhat worn, it is true, where the office chairs of a century of millers have dug into the straight grain, or where the brogans of a century of patrons have ground shallow hollows in the main aisles) are the same that John Enoch laid in 1815. The different stories, as well as the great frame of the building, are supported by massive timbers of the straightest and strongest oak and walnut axe-hewn "to the line" with a nicety that belonged to another day of industry, and though darkened now, by time, the same invisible force has made them hard as steel, and im- pervious to any element save fire, from which let it be spared for- ever. The mill race, which conducts the water from a mile above the mill to the great overshot wheel that turns the machinery, has flowed so long between its pretty green banks that it has forgotten that it is not a real brook; and the wheel itself and the machinery it turns, renewed and renovated from time to time, still grinds away, making ("Liberty Queen") flour at the rate of eighteen bar- rels a day. After the retirement of the Enochs, Thomas Miller was once owner of the mill, and John M. Glover, his son-in-law, handled it for awhile, followed by Armstrong, Ansley and others. It has now for some time been the property of D. K. Hartzler, a miller of the sturdy old-fashioned school. One stands in the little doorway over the mill-wheel, and dreams begin to weave a spell-but there isn't time for dreaming in stirring little West Liberty. A "right- about-face" turn discloses, not more than a long stone's throw away, one of the most modern of twentieth century establishments, the West Liberty Milk Condensery company's up-to-date plant, built less than two years ago and opened April, 1917, with a ca- pacity for reducing 50,000 pounds of milk daily. The stock in the concern is fully half owned in West Liberty, and the management is entirely local, E. W. Neidig being the head. All of the labor employed is also local. The milk is collected by a motor truck serv- ice within a radius of eight miles, which distance will be extended gradually. At present only 15,000 pounds of milk is reduced daily. The equipment is of the most modern type, and the laboratory is a model of efficient and sanitary execution. The product is not, as
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