USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 13
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school-houses and 71 high-school houses. Of the 10,664 township district school-houses the estimated value, for high and primary, was $7,605, 217; and of the 1,024 separate district school-houses the esti- mated value was $11, 214, 316-giving a grand total of estimated valuation of school-houses and the lands on which they stood of $18, 829, 586.
The number of teachers employed for those schools was: In township district primary schools, 8,551 male and 9, 138 female teachers; in township high schools, 12 male and 21 female teachers; in separate district primary schools, 705 male and 2,970 female teachers ; in separate district high-schools, 343 male and 335 female teachers. The average wages for these teachers were: For the township dis- trict schools-males, $39 a month ; females, $26. For the township district high-schools-males, $59; females, $29. For the separate district schools-males, $57 a month; females, $36. For the latter high schools-males, $83 ; females, $59 a month. The average local taxation for township district schools was three and a half mills on the $100 taxable property, and for the separate district schools seven mills on the same. The whole number of school children in the State in 1874 was, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, 985,947 ; and between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, 248,675. Of these there were enrolled in that year, in township district primary schools, 255,917 males, and 223. 386 females ; in high-schools for the same, 457 males, and 470 females; while in the separate dis- trict primary schools there were enrolled 104,087 males, and 100,254 females; in high-schools of the same, 10,743 males, and 12,629 females-making a total enrollment in township district primary and high schools of 480, 230 children of both sexes, and in separate district primary and high schools of 227,713 children of both sexes.
The average daily attendance was as follows: In the township district primary schools, 144,655 males, and 131,532 females; in the high-schools of the same, 287 males, and 320 females; in the sepa- rate district primary schools, 69,805 males, and 67,683 females ; in the high-schools of the same, 6,775 males, and 8,573 females-making a total attendance for the township district schools of 276,794, and for the separate district schools of 152,836, and being a per centum of the enrollments of 79 for the township district schools, and 88 for the separate district schools.
In 1874 the population of the State of school age was: White males, 494,738, and white females, 473.950 ; colored males, 11,768, and colored females, 11,252. Of the whites, the average enrollment was 707,943, while the average attendance was 429,630. The enrollment of colored children in their public schools was 2, 302, and in their private schools 1,789 for the township districts; while for the sep- arate districts there were 3,829 pupils in the public, and 5 442 in the private schools, with an average attendance of 9,658.
Ohio has, in addition to her common schools, 34 universities and colleges, which receive nothing from school funds of the State. Of these, the earliest was established in 1824 (Kenyon College, at Gam- bier, Knox County), and the latest in 1875 (Wilmington College, at Wilmington, Clinton County). In 1874 there were 4,228 male students, and 1,950 female students in these colleges, with 3, 148 listed for the regular course of instruction. During their existence they have graduated 6, 163 students. The total cash value of their property, as then estimated, was $5, 152,975, and their income for that year $386,090, against an expenditure for the same period of $373, 215.
There are also in the State 28 normal schools, academies, seminaries, business colleges, etc., which do not receive any thing from the common school funds of the State. The first specified date of estab- lishment of these is for that at Gallia, in 1311, and the latest that at Fayette, in Fulton County, in 1882. In all of them there were 94 instructors, 4,638 students, and the year's graduates were 650. The total cash value of their property is $439,625, the year's receipts $87, 339, and the year's expenditure $64, 805.
There are also in Ohio 13 female seminaries, colleges, academies, and institutes which receive nothing from the State school funds, and which were all established between 1832 and 1875. They had 119 instructors, and an attendance of 1, 500 students in 1874; property valued at $725,000; received in that year for tuition, etc., $77,206, and expended $52,538.
In 1878 the number of youth of school age had increased to 1,041,963, of which there were enrolled 740, 194, and the average daily attendance for the year, 465,472. The cost of school-houses erected in that year was $843,822, and the total value of school-houses, including grounds, had increased to $21, 329, 864. The number of teachers necessary for the schools in those houses was 16,092, while the
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number of different teachers actually employed was 23,391. There had been collected in that year as the State school-tax (one mill on each dollar of taxable property), $1, 531,081.37, and from local taxes, $5,497,867. 15. Omitting minor sums, the total receipts for that year were $7,841,911.92, while the total expenditure was over all $7,995, 125.45, of which the teachers in primary schools received $4, 509, 733.67, and the teachers in high-schools received $446,780.79. Adding the expense for superintending. and the amount paid teachers and superintendents was $5, 142,364.86. The increase of colored school-children in the four years had been but 154.
As has been remarked by the School Commissioner in his report for 1878, "When we examine the lists of those to whom are confided some duties relating to our schools, we find their name to be legion." There were reported by him, for that year, 32, 307 local directors; in sub-districts, 1, 347 township clerks as clerks of township boards of education; as many township treasurers, as treasurers of such boards; 4,080 members of city, village, and special district boards, or claimed so to be; 264 county examiners of teachers ; 500 estimated city and village district examiners ; 6 State examiners, and 88 Probate Judges, whose school duties are to appoint and remove the county examiners, and, upon petition, to constitute a commission as a court of appeal in matters of new districts and district boundary-lines ; as many county Auditors, who are the special guardians of the school funds, and a like number of Prosecuting Attorneys, who are, ex-officio, counsel for the school-boards. Here are more than 40,000 school officers, being esti- mated equal to two and one-half for every teacher necessary to instruct the youth of Ohio !
In the course of an exhaustive argument affirming the constitutionality of certain sections of the present school law of Ohio, and the legality of the action of school boards which were based thereon, and taken before him for his opinion in 1878, Hon. Isaiah Pillars, Attorney-general of Ohio, said: "It has long been a settled maxim in Ohio, founded on the wisest public policy, 'that the property of a State should educate the children of the State.' This does not mean that they should have the advan- tages of a free education in the common branches only, but in whatever, as well, goes to constitute education." Under this rule, education in Ohio, particularly in the separate district schools, has been arranged to confer the advantages upon the students therein of that which may be truly regarded as liberal, and in former times only conferred in high-class institutions of learning.
While the assistance extended by the State to the weaker counties in 1878 amounted to $234, 112, the excess of receipts by the State from the stronger counties, $218, 153, reimbursed this assistance to within $15,959. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that Ohio has not a school debt; on the con- trary, the aggregate net amount of debts of all separate school districts, as reported for 1878 to the Auditor of State, was $1, 158,098, with twenty-seven counties not reported. The county of Hamilton, in which exists the largest separate school district of the State (the city of Cincinnati), reported her debt as amounting to the comparatively small sum of $6,263 ; while Champaign County reported $77, 150, and Stark, $62, 128 ; Tuscarawas, $58, 381 ; Erie and Scioto, $49, 344 and $49,400 respectively, with all the others reporting sums diminishing from these figures to $1,700 for Lawrence County, as, of all, the least.
The State has also provided large and handsome buildings at the seat of her government, fully equipped with every requirement of official and necessary attendants for her helpless children and adults, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the imbecile, and the insane; and at her principal cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Dayton, and at Athens, there are also large and commodious buildings for the large number of deinented persons that naturally form a proportion of her population.
The public funded debt of the State in 1877 was $6,476.805, of which $6,475, 140 was a "foreign debt," all of which except $2,500 bore six per cent interest, and is known in the money market as "Ohio Sixes," payable in New York. The irreducible State debt, consisting of trust funds, at the same time, was $4, 260,983. Except $1,665 of a canal loan, not bearing interest, these two sums constituted, in 1877, the entire debt of the State. The irreducible debt, by the accretions of its interest, etc., increased from $4,023,475 in 1872 to $4,260,983 in 1878.
The irreducible school funds are: I. The Virginia military school fund, being the proceeds of sales of lands selected from Congress lands, lying between the United States military tract and the Connecticut Western Reserve-equivalent to one thirty-sixth part of the Virginia military reservation. 2. The United States military school fund, being the proceeds of sales of lands selected in the United States
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military district, and equal to one thirty-sixth part of the area of that reservation. 3. The Western Reserve school fund, being the proceeds of sales of lands situated in the United States military district, and of lands in Defiance, Williams, Paulding, Putnam, and Van Wert Counties, appropriated for the use of schools in the Western Reserve, and equivalent to one thirty-sixth part of that district. 4. Sections sixteen, being the proceeds of one thirty-sixth part of each township-the sixteenth section-in which the Indian title was not extinguished in 1803. 5. The Moravian school fund, being the proceeds of the sale of one thirty-sixth part of each of three tracts of four thousand acres each, situated in Tuscarawas County. 6. The Ohio University fund, being the proceeds of the sale of a part of the lands granted by Congress to endow that institution. And, finally, 7. The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College fund, the proceeds of a sale of 629,920 acres of land granted by the United States to endow that col- lege, and the moneys arising from the sale of fractions of lands within the Virginia military district, not covered by military warrants, and sold by the State.
The extent of these lands may be better estimated when we say that the Virginia military district includes the whole of Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Highland, Madison, and Union Counties, one-half of Hardin, Franklin, and Logan Counties, one-fourth of Champaign County, one-sixth of Clarke, three-fourths of Greene, two-fifths of Warren and Scioto, three-fifths of Pike, two-thirds of Ross and Pickaway, one-fifth of Delaware and Marion Counties, Anderson Township in Hamilton County, and part of Goshen Township in Auglaize County. The United States military district includes all of Coshocton County, the greater part of Licking, Knox, Delaware, Tuscarawas, and Guernsey, about one- half of Morrow and Muskingum, two-thirds of Holmes, one-third of Franklin, parts of two townships in Marion, and one-quarter township in Noble Counties. The Western Reserve includes all of Ashta- bula, Trumbull, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Cuyahoga, Medina, Lorain, Huron, and Erie Counties, all of Summit, except two townships, one-half of Mahoning, three townships of Ashland, and Danbury Township in Ottawa County.
The debts of counties, cities, incorporated villages, townships, and separate school districts had increased from $17,590, 547 in 1872 to $44, 114, 100.75 in 1881. Of this large amount of indebtedness, $37,909, 348.80 was the aggregate debt of cities of the first and second class, and about three-fifths of it was the debt of Cincinnati, incurred principally for her Southern Railroad.
The value of all the real estate and personal property in Ohio, according to the Consolidated Tax Duplicate in 1881, was divided as follows: Real estate in cities, towns, and villages, $402,091,704; real estate not in cities, towns, and villages, $699, 365, 679 ; chattel property in both departments, $485, 750, 196. As compared with 1880, their valuations show a net increase of $28, 991, 674. This increase shows a substantial growth in the prosperity of the State.
The taxes of the State for 1882, levied on the gross amount of the valuation, $1, 587, 207, 579, were divided for State purposes into three funds, viz. : I. For general revenue, one and four-tenths of a mill on the dollar, amounting to $2, 219, 120.82. 2. For sinking fund, half of a mill, amounting to $792, 543.08. 3. For common school fund, one mill, amounting to $1,586, 393.69-being a total for State purposes of two and nine-tenth mills, and amounting to $4, 598,057.59. For county purposes, the same valuation was taxed, for county expenses, omitting fractions, $2,509, 395 ; for the poor, $716,989; for bridges, $1,411, 139; for buildings, $722,784; for roads, $940, 319; for payment of debts, $473,672-being a total for county purposes of four and two-tenth mills, and amounting to $6,774,799. For local purposes the same valuation was taxed for township expenses, $865,835 ; for schools and school-houses, $6, 247,759; for city, town, and village purposes, $6,451,967 ; for other special purposes, $1, 240,641-being a total for local purposes of ten mills, or one cent on the dollar of valuation, and amounting to $14, 806, 203. Thus the total county and local taxes levied in 1881 were $21, 581,003 ; to which add the amount levied for State purposes, and we have for all purposes, $26, 179,060. To this add the delinquencies and for- feitures of previous years, and the per capita tax on dogs, and the total taxation for 1881, including such delinquencies, etc., amounts to $27, 840,790. The cost of collecting these taxes was estimated at one and three-fourths per centum. The internal revenue tax collected in Ohio by the United States during the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1881, was as follows: From banks and bankers, $190, 662. 58; for fermented liquors, $1, 243, 557. 81 ; for spirits, $14, 358, 105. 21 ; for tobacco, $3,475,655.79 ; for pen- alties, etc., $15,816.61 ; from other sources, $1, 216. 21-making a total of $19. 285,014.21.
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There were in Ohio, at the beginning of the year 1882, 173 national banks, with an aggregate cap- ital of $27, 123, 436; 8 banks for deposit, incorporated under the State banking law of 1845, with an aggregate capital of $725, 300 ;- 17 savings banks, incorporated under the State act of 1873, with an ag- gregate capital of $1,025,000; 191 private banks, with an aggregate capital of $4, 366,686-being a total of 389 banking institutions, with an aggregate capital of $33, 240,422. But one of those 389 banks has capital stock exceeding one million of dollars, and that is the First National Bank of Cincinnati, though several others possess a capital of one million each. The smallest amount of capital employed in any of them is $50,000.
Among the most valuable of the industrial interests of Ohio are its railroads. They furnish the means of rapid locomotion to all sections of the State, and all the important places are reached by them. There is but one county (Morgan) out of the eighty eight counties which has no railroad. The valuation of the railroads in these eighty-seven counties for taxation is $63, 764, 316. The railway mileage of each year from 1841, when the first miles of railroad were operated, gradually increased, after 1847, from 129 miles in that year, to 5,835 miles in 1882 .. If we add sidings and all tracks laid with iron or steel in the State, the number of miles will be increased to 7,215. The entire capital stock of these roads paid in is $347,709,785, and the funded and other debts for which these roads are security, $404, 527,998-making the total of stock paid in and debt $752, 237,784. The gross earnings for the year ending June 30th, 1881, were $96, 213,851, or over twelve per centum of all invested in them; but the net earnings amounted to only $34,900,808. The proportion of the stock belonging to Ohio is about one-half of the entire amount here given, and the net earnings of the roads lying wholly within the State were $16, 521,284. The number of passengers carried over the entire line of the roads was 22,830,441, and the number of miles traveled, equivalent to the number of passengers carried one mile, was 920, 108, 252. The tons of freight carried the entire line were 55,279,339. Reduced to ton-miles, or amount moved one mile, it shows the enormous bulk of 7,607, 215,616 tons.
There were in Ohio, at the last report, 1, 346 miles of incorporated turnpike roads, that in the ag- gregate cost $2,427, 817 ; 20 miles of incorporated plank-roads that cost $22,672; and 5,431 miles of free turnpike and plank roads that cost $9,818,818-these roads, aggregating nearly 7,000 miles, have cost $12, 269, 297.
In 1881 there were reported as raised in Ohio, the preceding year, 48, 540, 307 bushels of wheat from 2,827,720 acres of ground, or an average varying from eight and a half bushels to the acre, the lowest (Brown County), to twenty-five bushels, the highest (Stark County). Of buckwheat, 169, 787 bushels were raised from 12,492 acres . rye, 200, 303 bushels, from 18, 209 acres ; and of barley, 1, 642, 308 bushels, from 71,268 acres. In oats, 812, 368 acres were planted, and 21,091,606 bushels reaped ; in corn, 2,709, 738 acres were planted, and 105,414, 594 bushels gathered. The wheat-crop that year is the largest ever known in the history of the State, the average production per acre being 17.51 bushels. The corn-crop has only twice exceeded that of 1880, while the average yield per acre was nearly 39 bushels. The grass-crop of that year was 1,657,808 tons of timothy, and 304, 615 tons of clover. The latter being regarded as a restorer of the soil, from the fact that it is largely nitrogenous in its substance, and derives the greater part of its nourishment from the air, makes it a valuable material for composting ; and, accordingly, 59,607 acres of it were turned under by the plow for manure. From the clover hay were beaten out 235,884 bushels of seed. In this crop, 408, 123 acres were in clover, and 1, 613, 819 in other grasses.
The flax-crop of Ohio in the year last reported amounted to 368, 501 bushels of seed, and 5, 642,025 pounds of fiber, raised upon 48, 540 acres. Of this amount, the smallest quantity was grown in Co- shocton County, which furnished only a single bushel of seed from one rood of land, and the largest quantity from Preble County, which produced 35,648 bushels from 4,710 acres. Of root-crops, there were obtained 8,802, 516 bushels of potatoes from 117,658 acres, and 1, 782, 226 bushels of sweet potatoes from 2,448 acres. The other root-crops-turnips, mangolds, beets, parsnips, etc .- are not reported, as these are generally raised only for the daily markets in the larger cities and towns, and are consumed as dug from the fields and gardens. Tobacco is raised in considerable quantities in Ohio, and, with one exception, the crop last reported is the largest ever secured in the State, being 38, 166,058 pounds, from 40,050 acres.
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Within a few years a new branch of industry has sprung up, the manufacture of glucose or grape sugar from corn. The demand for sweets as food has increased, and the products of the Southern cane have not been sufficient to supply the demand. The price has also had something to do in controlling the trade, and cheaper articles for consumption became a necessity. Years ago the Northern sugar-cane, or sorghum, was introduced into the State; but for a long time it seemed impossible to manufacture sugar from it. This result has, however, been attained; but the process is not sufficiently easy; and hence, during the year 1880, the last reported, only 7, 386 pounds were made, while of the syrup 869,975 gal- lons were manufactured. The number of acres planted was 11,632. Of the maple, 4,459, 115 pounds of sugar and 736, 286 gallons of syrup were manufactured. The sugar forests are now mostly destroyed, and every year the destruction keeps going on. Unless the State shall protect by law these trees of native growth, the article of luxury which we derive from them will in a few years become almost un- known, except as we obtain it from other portions of the American continent.
Of the products of the dairy, the apiary, and the poultry-yard, the report is favorable to our do- mestic prosperity. The number of pounds of butter manufactured during the year was 56, 161, 306, and of cheese 27, 533,475. The eggs reported were 28,036,887 dozen. Of the honey obtained, there were 1,056, 102 pounds, from 108,959 hives. This is exclusive of large quantities taken for domestic use, and not reported for the public statistics.
In 1881 there were 423, 306 acres of orchard land in Ohio, and the fruit grown and marketed from them were 30,089,950 bushels of apples, 1,600,996 bushels of peaches 119,617 bushels of pears. The grapes grown in Ohio that year aggregated 18, 526, 219 pounds, from 10, 313 acres of vineyards, and of this crop there were enough pressed to produce 1,296,295 gallons of wine. There are but few counties in the State which do not grow grapes; but the lake counties especially Erie and Ottawa, which embrace the islands, necessarily lead in this product-Ottawa County, with her 1, 862 acres of vineyards, excelling all the others, and proving that, given an equable temperature regulated, and the atmosphere supplied by an abundance of moisture, the highest product may be regarded certain; while, these conditions absent, a large acreage does not insure a correspondingly large product. Cuyahoga County also pro- duces large quantities of this fruit. In addition to the fruits here named, there were gathered, of cher- ries, 124, 375 bushels, and of plums 59,989 bushels. The smaller fruits, being more perishable, and sold chiefly in the markets by the producers, have not been reckoned in any of the statistical tables published by authority of the State.
There are twenty-nine counties in Ohio underlying which coal exists, and from which deposits there were mined in the year ending May, 1878, 98,328,061 bushels. Ten of those counties, also, mined 7,513,090 tons of iron ore ; six of them manufactured the aggregate of 1, 374, 160 bushels of salt, while four of them produced 1, 422,423 gallons of crude petroleum.
In May, 1881, thirteen of the iron-producing counties of the State had reported for the year previ- ous the manufacture of 506, 300 tons of charcoal smelted iron, and 284,032 tons of iron smelted with stone-coal; ten counties reported the manufacture of 96,443 tons of bar and nail-rod iron; and in addi- dition there were reported 27, 276 tons of nails, 28, 195 tons of hoop-iron, 26,713 tons of sheet-iron, 67,973 tons of boiler-iron, 150 tons of railroad chairs and spikes, 18,995 tons of iron and steel rails, and all other forms of steel manufactures at 6,670 tons.
For the purpose of expressing the capabilities of different localities of the State with reference to agriculture, etc., the late Hon. John H. Klippart, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, divided the State, with imaginary lines running generally north and south, into districts, and designating them and defining their limits as follows: 1. The MIAMI VALLEY, consisting of Butler, Brown, Champaign, Clarke, Clermont, Clinton, Darke, Greene, Hamilton, Logan, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, and Shelby Counties. 2. MAUMEE VALLEY, consisting of Allen, Auglaize, Crawford, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lucas, Mercer, Ottawa, Paulding, Putnam, Sandusky, Seneca, Van Wert, Williams, Wood, and Wyandot Counties. 3. SCIOTO VALLEY, consisting of Adams, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hardin, Highland, Jackson, Madison, Marion, Morrow, Pickaway, Pike, Ross, Scioto, and Union Counties. 4. MUSKINGUM VALLEY, consisting of Ashland, Carroll, Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Holmes, Knox, Licking, Muskingum, Morgan, Noble, Richland, Stark, Tuscarawas, Washington, and Wayne Counties. 5. WESTERN RESERVE, consisting of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Huron, Lake, Lorain, Maho-
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