USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 59
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The total of articles of all kinds sent to Lake Division from Sidney Chapter follows : Quilts, comforts and afghans, 37 ; refugees' garments, 1429; layettes, of fifty pieces each, 30; hospital garments, 181, miscellaneous articles, 35 ; men's socks, 1333; children's stock- ings, 55; wristlets, 431; sweaters, 884; helmets, 141; mufflers, 64; scarfs, 60; shawls, two. Surgical dressings, 92,593. Comfort bags, 701. Christmas boxes, for every Shelby county soldier boy, were packed and shipped by the women.
Although Sidney was not in the line for canteen work, the motor corps was organized and under Mrs. Laura Beebe Horr, commandant, rendered fine service during the influenza epidemic, the Belgian relief drives, and similar emergencies. The community nurse became a part of the Red Cross work during the epidemic.
Following the first year of Service league work, Miss Ruth Kilborn, its first leader, whose youthful enthusiasm had given it such a wonderful impetus, relinquished local work to enter training for service in the neuro-psychiatric social service. The preparation covered a period of eight months, two of which were spent at Smith College (her alma mater) and the remaining six months in the practice course in psychiatry at Boston, completing which Miss Kil- born was appointed a reconstruction aide, and was assigned (by her own choosing) to the psychiatric division of the U. S. army General Hospital No. 25, at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. Miss Kilborn took up her duties early in 1919, and finds, in this wonder-
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ful work of restoration, a gracious field for the exercise of her talents.
At the first annual meeting of the Red Cross Chapter, October 1917, the only changes made in the official board were the elections of Mr. Percy R. Taylor, chairman, and Mrs. Robert E. Marshall, secretary. No executive nor chapter meetings were called during the year by the chairman, and the Christmas membership drive was omitted on account of bad roads in the country districts. The only attempt to augment the membership, beyond the reception of voluntary subscription to the charter and payment of dues, was made by Father Kreuzkamp, of Russia, who conducted a local drive at his own initiative, enrolling his entire parish. The war chest provided funds for the Red Cross work subsequently, and Shelby county may be said never to have had a real membership drive such as was held in most cities, even the Christmas Roll-Call of 1918 being omitted, though voluntary dues were accepted. At the elec- tion of October, 1918, Mr. Ben. B. Amann was elected to the chair- manship, to succeed Mr. Taylor who resides now in Toledo, Ohio.
Upon the call from Washington to organize the civilian relief department of the chapter, Dr. Arthur Silver was appointed its chairman by Mr. Taylor, holding the position from February 1918, until September 1918, when he was recalled to military service in the medical department. Miss Edith Silver had been detailed by the chairman as assistant, and to attend to such calls for home serv- ice duty as were received during that time. No appointment was made to fill Dr. Silver's place until after the annual election in October. Miss Virginia Wing, in visiting Sidney after the signing of the armistice, urged the immediate necessity of organizing the home service section, and as soon as the influenza epidemic abated, Judge Barnes accepted the chairmanship of civilian relief, and nom- inated Miss Edith Silver as home service secretary. Miss Silver attended the institute course of six weeks at Cleveland, preparatory to entering upon her duties, Judge Barnes meanwhile performing such duties of the office as presented themselves. The home service office was formally opened by Miss Silver, April 14, 1919, just in time to receive the first rush of returning soldiers and give them the as- sistance for which the home service section stands responsible, through the American Red Cross, to the government. The secre- tary's time is divided between the duties of visitor, which occupies forenoons, and those of secretary, in which from April 14 to July 1, 1919, she had come into official contact with full three hundred soldiers, and with the families of the same, and of others who have not yet returned, upon points including the varied problems of al- lotments and allowments, compensations, insurances, securing of bonuses, employment, emergency loans, tracking up lost papers, letters, discharges or policies, and relatives; interviews with em- ployers, filling out of employment blanks and returning the same to U. S. employment service, etc., etc. Countless difficulties come up for adjustment or investigation ; legal advice must often be secured ; but the soldier is helped to help himself, first of all. If it is thorough- ly understood that civilian relief is the permanent work of the American Red Cross, and that home service is the war phase (or
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perhaps the post war phase), the home service section will receive its due meed of appreciation. The home service board consists of the officials of the Red Cross chapter, and the following members chosen at large from the ranks according to their fitness for the duties : B. B. Amann, chairman ; G. U. Rhees, vice-chairman ; Mrs. R. E. Marshall, secretary ; W. A. Graham, treasurer ; executive com- mittee : Messrs. W. E. Kilborn, J. C. Cummins, and F. D. Christian, and Mesdames W. O. Amann, W. H. Wagner, H. W. Robinson, L. M. Studevant.
Frances L. Goode, another Sidney young woman to do major service during the war, enrolled for "Overseas Service" September 1918, and was sent to France soon after, remaining until August, 1919. Her first work was as a canteener for the Y. M. C. A., in the "leave area" at La Bourboule, in the central plateau of France. After La Bourboule was closed, Miss Goode was transferred to similar service in the French Alps at Annecy, near Geneva. The last two months were spent at Camp Pontanezin, Brest.
How to get the questionnaires filled out for return to the draft board became a problem very early in the war days. The Shelby county bar is not large, numerically, and the ranks of the legal frater- nity, upon whom the duty fell by precedent, were depleted by the draft itself, until help became imperative. In this emergency, Miss Silver, as president of the City Federation of Women's Clubs, of- fered the willing service of Federation women as clerks at the call of Judge Barnes, who accepted the offer, and from then on a large contingent of club women performed double duty, serving at stated days and hours on questionnaire work, without dropping any of their Red Cross workshop activities. With the exception of occasional legal advice needed, the entire questionnaire routine work was done by Federation women.
The City Federation of Women's Clubs was organized March 12, 1912, by the union of all the literary and philanthropic clubs in Sidney, ten of the same being represented at the meeting, and all concurring, within a brief period. The clubs now number sixteen, and are signed to the constitution as follows :
The Women's Club, Mrs. Poppen.
The Unity Club, Mrs. W. A. Graham.
The Twig Club, Elizabeth Foster.
The Newman Club, Mrs. J. B. Trimpe. The Tourist Club, Mrs. S. L. Wicoff.
Literary Soiree, Carolyn Brandt.
Junior Shakespeare, Mrs. L. M. Studevant.
Cosmos Club, Miss Olive Ailes.
Medley Club. Euterpe Club. New Century Club. Senior Shakespeare Club. Business Girls' Association. W. C. T. U. Teachers' Association.
Cultural Reading Club.
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The Executive Board of the Federation is formed by the presi- dents of all the clubs, when in office, and the officers of the Feder- ation. The first president elected by the Federation was Mrs. Henry E. Beebe, 1912; succeeded by Mrs. J. F. Black, elected May, 1913; third, Mrs. E. W. Laughlin, elected March, 1915; fourth, Miss Edith Silver, elected September, 1917 ; fifth, Mrs. W. O. Amann, president- elect, for coming two-years' term (1919-20).
Committees for department work were created by the Federa- tion, as follows : Co-operative, ways and means, clean-up, and ward, Arbor Day observance, parks and playgrounds, school gardens, canal banks, V. N. A. supply, program, and editorial (or publicity).
The Federation first took up the sale of Red Cross Christmas seals in 1915, and won thereby a temporary visiting nurse (Miss Davidson), sent from Columbus, to demonstrate the usefulness of such an individual in the community. A visiting nurse committee was appointed at once, and steps taken to raise funds for her sup- port. Three hundred dollars was pledged by the Federation and the separate clubs made donations according to their ability, the rest being solicited from the general public; while the Red Cross seal sale was adopted as a regular campaign of each holiday season, $1800 is raised annually, the Federation being officially responsible for $300. In 1918-19 the war chest gave $1500, owing to the request that the Red Cross seal sale be omitted. A car was provided for the hard-worked nurse this year (1919), by popular subscription among the business heads of Sidney, and sufficient gasoline for a year's use was guaranteed by the garages. Miss Gertrude Williams, a Red Cross nurse, has now filled the position of visiting nurse since Octo- ber, 1916, with remarkable efficiency and success. The visiting nurse association is organized as a permanent wing of the Federa- tion.
Sidney has one organization so unique and beneficent as to call for a special paragraph. It originated in the heart to heart talk of two young girls of Sidney, following a series of meetings in which the religious people of the city had experienced a decided awakening. What to do for the girls, was the question. Sidney was not large enough to support a Y. W. C. A., nor would it grow sufficiently in many years. The problem was carried to other and older heads. A committee of women was formed, Mrs. W. H. C. Goode, chairman ; and at a luncheon on Friday, October 27, 1911, the "Business Girls' association" was formed, "out of a longing to help girls," in the hearts of other girls. The first officers were Miss Olive Ailes, pres- ident; Miss Hazel Watson, vice-president; Miss Irene Story, secre- tary ; Miss Leal Robertson, treasurer ; Miss Grace Sutton, auditor. Rooms in the Ackerly building, opposite the courthouse, on Ohio avenue, were rented, and made pretty with new paper, paint, rugs, tables, chairs and other furniture and pictures, a kitchen equipped for domestic science classes and rooms for gymnasium class and chorus singing. A New Year reception opened the B. G. A. home to the public of girldom, and the association, three hundred strong, made a warm place for itself in the Sidney heart, which has never cooled. The Friday evening luncheon was made a permanent insti- tution. Mrs. Burdett, the first matron, remained with the associa-
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
tion until September, 1914. Mrs. Ida Epler was engaged as her successor, and is still in charge. The Ackerly building being bought by a fruit firm in 1918, it became necessary to move; and the old Ewing house (built by Jason McVay, and originally situated at the southwest corner of the East Court street and Main avenue intersection, but subsequently moved to Main avenue on the rear of the same lot), was leased, renovated and restored to something of its old simple beauty within, and became the present home of the B. G. A., accommodating a dozen or more young girls with safe and inexpensive rooms, under the gentle chaperonage of "Mother Epler" and the patronage of the association. Miss Kate Amos is now the president of the organization.
Mills and Warehouses
It was not long, in Sidney at least, before the primitive sawpit was superseded by the early sawmills. Sidney was not, like many pioneer villages, a collection of log houses. But earlier than saw- mills, the first harvests of the settlers had necessitated mills of some character at every convenient point, and wherever this primitive machinery was set up, it was an exception to the rule if its motive power did not serve the double purpose of sawing timber and grind- ing wheat. Sometimes the mill served a third purpose also, furnish- ing shelter for a small distillery, or ginmill.
As indicated by the names of certain localities and points on the first roads cut through Shelby county, a few mills had become known long before the separation of this county from Miami. It is by no means the intent of this history to attempt a perfect list of all these, as such attempt could only end in failure, besides adding little or nothing to the interest of the sketch. Those mills which were in operation from ninety years ago to later dates may, for the greater part, be located with some degree of accuracy, sufficient for intel- ligent apprehension of the advance of the milling industry and its centralization at certain advantageous points.
The senior Maxwell, called by his familiars in the days of old, "Grandfather" Maxwell, was the most widely known and one of the earliest mill builders of the county. The Maxwells at an early date obtained the exclusive water rights of Mosquito creek, the Maxwell farm being located at an upper point along the beautiful stream. The first of the mills was built on the farm, where was maintained also a small distillery-or old-fashioned copper still- which produced a moderate amount of whiskey. Tradition has it that stills were an accompaniment of all the Maxwell mills, but this is an exaggeration, and somewhat unjust, for the small private dis- tillery was to be found on so many pioneer estates, that few there were who safely might point accusing fingers at their neighbor, in the days when every man was convinced that immunity from chills and ague, milk-sickness, and similar plagues, was only secured by the aid of a stout dram. Shelby county actually did produce enough whiskey and gin to cause much and grievous havoc, but not all of it came from Maxwell stills. The second mill built by the Max- wells was located about two miles east of Sidney, where a dam was erected, which is still maintained. Here, distilling was done on a
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more extensive scale than on the farm, the mill itself, erected prim- arily for the purpose of flouring, being larger. At the death of Grandfather Maxwell, this mill descended to the possession of his two sons B. W. and Abe Maxwell, who continued the same lines of production for several years, when B. W. Maxwell left it in the hands of his brother and partner, and himself purchased, from Seneca Hale, a mill nearer Sidney, which had been originally built by John W. Carey, and which was operated by waterpower drawn directly from the well-known weir along which lies the famous shaded walk called "Lovers' Lane." In this third mill, only flour milling was ever done, and no more distilleries are definitely mentioned.
Another old mill on the east bank of the Miami river, in Ding- mansburg, just south of the Big Four tracks, was built by Cummins & Mathers, and for a part of its existence was devoted to woolen milling (it was commonly called "the carding mill"),* but introduced grain milling, and later was converted entirely to the latter purpose. It was purchased from Cummins & Mathers by W. P. Stowell, who after a term of years sold it to B. W. Maxwell. The water for this mill also was derived from the Tawawa weir, and a pond constructed near it was afterward utilized as "Timeus' ice-pond." Of all these mills there is scarcely a trace left, as each perished in successive fires-a common fate of wooden mills in isolated situations-the last described burning within easy memory of two-thirds of Sid- ney's citizens. The dam and spillway two miles up the creek, and the picturesque race, are surviving features, however, and at the point where the railroad embankment forms an incidental dam, the back water of the race has created a lakelet popularly called "Ta- wawa," beside which a little summer club house is maintained.
South of Sidney, on the bank of the Miami opposite the newly acquired portion of Graceland Cemetery, are the crumbling founda- tions of two old mills, the oldest of which was a gristmill erected by Hardesty Walker, original owner of the land in the vicinity, part of which is now included in the cemetery. The current of the river is swift at this point, and the now ruined dam below the bridge was constructed by Walker to turn this power into the race which led past the foot of the mill bank. The second (saw) mill was built just north of the flour mill, by William Edgar, as early as 1840, and was intended only for sawing timber. It was abandoned in 1849, when Mr. Edgar left Shelby county for California. The Walker mill changed ownership more than once, and was last owned and oper- ated by a man named Gerdes. When the first city sewer of Sidney was voided into the river above the old dam, Gerdes, who was al- ready involved in debt, brought suit against the city for contam- ination of the water supply for the mill. The case was settled out of court, the city purchasing the entire river bank south of the bridge to a point below the old mill and water course, and it is to become "Wildwood park" at some future day.
Inside the old village of Sidney were built mills both for saw and grist milling ; and as Sidney became the market for the county, grain warehouses began to rise with the approach of the first rail-
* Built by a Mr. Reddish.
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
road. Starrett's Run, which used to cross the basin from west to east, its channel following the "dip" about half a block south of Water street, toward the Miami, furnished power and water for some of these, among them a sawmill erected by William Fielding. When the canal cut off the career of the lively little stream, it made changes not only in the topography of Sidney, but in its industrial chart. Starrett's Run, thwarted, ran wild about the west side for some time, but was gradually hedged in by embankments and stone walls, and now flows, very inoffensively, though quite unrecogniz- ably, in its straight jacket, along Water street, turning at the corner, and hiding its ignominy in the canal which ruined it. Not even a Tennyson or a Kingsley could find a poetic thought about the little brook today.
The oldest milling business extant in Sidney is that once known as the "old stone bridge warehouse," and now bearing the title The Farmers' Grain and Milling company. The site, on the west bank of the feeder canal, on the north side of Poplar street, was first selected for a warehouse by Frazier & Frankeburger, in the '30s. The Nutt Brothers came into possession about 1847 or 1849, the arrival of the railroad, by which they communicated with a side track, giving them double transportation facility and assurance of prosperity. It remained a possession of the Nutt family for forty years, and was then sold to E. J. and Warren Griffis, who operated it as partners until about 1895, when Warren Griffis died. E. J. Griffis, after the death of his brother, formed a partnership with his father, and the old warehouse having been almost wholly de- stroyed by fire, built the present plant, to which they added, in 1898, a milling establishment where the "Triumph" brand of wheat flour is produced. The firm, known as E. J. Griffis & Co., was dissolved in 1904 by the death of Griffis père, and the warehouse was sold to Capt. E. E. Nutt. Capt. Nutt's death in the winter of 1911-12 occasioned the sale of the establishment by the adminis- trators of his estate to The Farmers' Grain and Milling company, February, 1912, the personnel of the new company being J. M. Blake, Fred J. Russell and Mrs. Daisy Sayre. The latter retired from the company in September, 1917, but the caption remains un- changed. The plant has never been idle since its earliest days, except when undergoing repairs or rebuilding after partial or total destruction by fire. There is in the present buildings no traces of the original structures. The capacity of the elevator is ample, 50,000 bushels or thereabout, while the average annual shipments amount to upwards of 150,000 bushels. Coal, lime, salt, cement, seeds and feeds are handled by the warehouse, and the Sidney Milling Com- pany, characterized as a "side plant," can turn out thirty barrels of flour daily, but does not always work up to capacity.
As a warehouse building, that which stands on the northwest angle of the intersection of Court street and West avenue, right- fully claims the honor of being the oldest, its original gable (since augmented), having been erected in 1851 by William H. H. Gerard for Lamb & Zinn, for a grain warehouse and elevator. It has never been touched by fire or other disaster. A few years after it was built, it was converted into a steam flouring mill for Mathers &
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McGrew, who operated it until 1862, after which it was again de- voted to warehouse purposes under the management of J. B. Wilk- inson, who removed the milling machinery. In 1868 the building became the property of John Hart, passing from him to H. M. Reed, and in 1875 from Reed to W. R. Moore. Mr. Moore renamed it "The Sidney Steam Elevator" and added an extension two stories in height and twenty-four by fifty-five feet in dimensions, to the main building. T. J. Orbison became a partner for a brief period in 1876, but the sole ownership soon returned to Moore until 1879, when O. S. Marshall became a partner. Other changes have taken place since then, but the warehouse has never been idle. J. E. Wells & Co. had been the owners for some time when, in 1907, the business was purchased by The Miami Valley Grain company, an incor- porated firm with E. T. Custenborder, president; and W. H. Per- singer, J. W. Allinger and George Allinger composing the company. Since the death of J. W. Allinger, the company is reorganized as fol- lows: George Allinger, W. L. Alton, Isaac Lochard, Mrs. J. W. Allinger (Allinger estate), and George Kayser. The Allingers are a family well known in the annals of the county as prominent in the grain and milling line, at Port Jefferson, as well as at Quincy, Ohio, where Ben Allinger of the Quincy mill is a brother. The warehouse ships about one hundred thousand bushels of grain annually, the export being chiefly corn and oats, though wheat has increased since 1917. Mill products of all kinds are handled at the plant, but the only milling done here since 1862 consists of feeds.
Three men from Troy, Ohio, located in Sidney in 1859. They came on a venture, like the three wise men of Gotham, and like that famous trio, their story is short, but not because the bowl lacked strength. Their names were Dye, Abbott and Cromer, and they came to build a distillery. The building was set on a high point, on the north side of the Bellefontaine & Indiana (Big Four) tracks, east of East avenue, though that was "no thoroughfare" then. How far the inundation of the city and county proceeded before the dis- tillers were engulfed in failure is a subject upon which local tradition is silent. It was closed out with few regrets.
In 1866, John Carey, as contractor, employed W. H. Gerard to remodel the building for grain milling, and the property passed into the keeping of B. W. Maxwell, who also secured the property lying west as far as Miami avenue, and bounded on the north by the feeder canal. On this low spot, using East avenue as a dike, the "Maxwell mill-pond" was created, which held the ground for many years and served many interests beside the Maxwell mill, which became widely known and an important part of Sidney's indus- trial life.
When the distillery was established, the little old chapel which had served the Presbyterians for twenty-five years as church and school building, was sold and removed to the vicinity of the stills, and there used as a cooper shop where casks were made for whiskey. Perhaps the barrels for Maxwell's flour were made there, too, and the vicissitudes by which the career of the little church was finally brought to a close, would occupy too long a chapter. But tradition has it that the third of the great steel scraper firms, originated in it,
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and it was at one time a dry storage house for the Anderson Frazier Wheel company-but that was later. It perished in the conflagra- tion of the buildings west of Miami avenue, where the Sidney Power Press company now occupy. The Maxwell mill ceased to operate as a mill in the early 90s. (Subsequent history of the building, and the various industries which have clustered around in it, will be taken up in another section.)
The Sidney Grain company is a modern firm. The builder and first proprietor of the warehouse, however, was a veteran in Sidney warehouse history, Mr. E. C. Nutt, who erected the plant in the winter of 1895-6. Mr. Nutt sold out, after a few years, to Messrs. Jones & Sheets, this firm being again changed within two or three years by the retirement of Mr. Sheets, who was replaced by John Wagoner and Mr. Jackson. The new firm incorporated as The Jones Grain company, and continued under that title until the death of Mr. Jones, after which Mr. Sheets re-entered the business, and the name became The Sidney Grain company. There is no milling done at this plant, which handles, stated in the order of their volume, oats, corn, wheat and rye, to the extent of from 150,000 to 200,000 bushels annually, with a storage capacity of about forty thousand bushels. Side lines are seeds, feeds, and salt, for agricultural pur- poses.
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