Twentieth Century History of Youngstown and Mahoning County Ohio and Representative Citizens, Part 2

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 993

USA > Ohio > Mahoning County > Youngstown > Twentieth Century History of Youngstown and Mahoning County Ohio and Representative Citizens > Part 2

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Kurz Hock, Youngstown 052

Lanterman'. Mill and Falls 23

Library, Retthen McMillen Free Public, Young.

Log Hion-e. Thorne Hill, Coit-vilk Town hip

Lomax, William J .. Store of Lowellville.

Mahoning County Court House, Youngstown

Mahoning County Infirmary, Canficht ...

Mahoning Valley Hospital, Youngstown 111

Now Mahoring Comity Court House

OW Mahoning Court House, Canfield

Original Poland L'union Seminary

Immaculate Conception School. Youngstown .. . un St. Cohenha's School and U'r-uline Convent.

Young stown .. 3Ko

St. Joseph's School. Youngstown . .

PAGE

Pioneer Pavilion 92

PORTRAITS-

Andrews, Chauncey LL

430

Richard Brown Memorial Chapel, Youngstown St. Columba's Church and Parsonage, Youngs.

St. John's Episcopal Church. Youngstown 32R

St. Joseph's Church. Youngstown 32%

Trinity M. E. Church, Youngstown 328

United Presbyterian Church, Boardman Center Westminster Presbyterian Church, Youngs town

358

Gibson. Sanmel

til son. William T.

Gluck. Mr. and Mrs. Louis

Llamory, Gustav V. 808

Harding, George W. 7.38

Harding. Mrs. Lucretia M. 7.38

Ilarmer, Gen, Josiah

Harrison. Gen William 11.

Heller. Adolph

Heller, Lantis 84,6

llnghe -. Wallace K., M. D.

Ilgenfritz, John 1001

Igenfraz, Mr -. Mary M.

100.4

Jack-om. Sidney Del ..

Johnston. Hon. Joseph R.

Joties. Prior T

Jones, Thomas B.

Kennedy. Hon. Jantes 5.32

Kennedy. Patrick M.

Kirk Jolm (. 776

Kirtland. Charles N.

Kirtland. Conk F.

Kime Rev- John

Knani, Thomas L.

Kurz. Rudolph

Latterman, German

053

Lanterman, Mr-, Sadly Ann

I.nlille. Mark 1L 230

Lomax, William J

MiCares, Robert FEF

Metimmi-, Mrs. Mary M.

Metinmis Wiliam Il.

Met'inre. George M.

MeKelvey, George M.

MeVey. I'm E

Mickey. Datei - 72.

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328

Arrel. James L

INDEX

PAGE

Mackey. James 510

Mackey, Robert SUD

Manchester. Hon. Hugh A.

Mansfield, Hon. Ira F.

Millikin. George W. אגא

Millikin, Mire Mary C.

828

Morse, Henry K

5.388

Neilson, James 1,70

Osborne, Calvin 700

Price, James S. 770

Riblet, William W 216

Richard -. Sammuel A

Rohinum, Elmer C.

Sanderum, Gen. T. W.

Frontispiece

Shields, James D.

Shields, James H.

651

Silver. Mr. and Mrs. Allen, daughter, grand- win and great-grandchild

744

Smith, Joseph Arrel .

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur

Stewart, David 676

Stewart, Mrs. Elizabeth H. 6,6

Tod. Henty

521

Tod. William 516

Warhurst, Mr. and Mrs George

818

Wayne. Gen. Anthony

Wells Thomas II.

Wilson, George C.

Wilson. Mrs. George C. 6.45

Wirt. Hon. Benjamin F.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS-

Delason Avenue Public School, Youngstown. 80 Central School, Youngstown (with Post-ofice) 80 Parmelee School. Youngstown 1.38

Public School, Lowellville 36

Public School, Struthers 206

Rayen High School, Youngstown

I'mon School, Poland . ..

RESIDENCE>

Andrews, Mrs. C. H., Youngstown 152 Arms. Myron I. Young-town

Hamilton, 11. G., Youngstown 152

McCartney, Joseph G., Contsville Township

188

Mackey, Mr -. Kate M, Youngstown

Mckinley Home, Poland

Oakland Farm. Residence of Mrs. George C. Wilson, Yomig-town 648

Old Price Homestead. Cuitssalle Township

Stewart Dasid G., Cuitaille Town-hip 677

Taal, George, Youngstown 152

Wirk. Henry K. Yunng-town 142

Sparrow Tavern, Poland 188

Stand Pipe. Young-town 1.08

Terminal Station of the Young-town & Southern Railway, Youngstown

Til House, Youngstown

Tod Lane. Viens of 102

View on the Line nf the Young-town & Southern Railway. Ying-town 2,3K

View on the Line of the Youngstown & Southern Railway, near Youngstown 2,78

Y. M. C. A Building. Youngstown 1,7%

Youngstown City Hospital

Youngstown Post Office ( with Central School).

Young stown City Hall and Jail

Yor SGSTAN VIEWS-

Linking East from Colonial Hotel

Public Square .

Scene in Mill Creek Park

West Federal Street, Looking West.

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PAGE

history of mahoning County

CHAPTER I

GEOLOGY

Geological Structure of the State-The Geological Foundations of Ohio of Marine Origin -Prehistoric Conditions-First Land Plants: Origin of Coal Fields-First Permanent Dry Land-Age of Reptiles: First Mam wals-The Glacial Period-Effect of Glacial Action on the Landscape-Surface Features of Mahoning County-Geological Struc- ture of Mahoning County-Conglomerate-Fossil Nuts and Fruits of the Carbonif- crous Age Found in Mahoning County ..

Geology is the science that investigates the ation have been transformed by heat. The successive changes that have taken place in the i only qualification which this statement needs organic and inorganic Kingdoms of Nature. In order to render intelligible the statements that are to follow, a brief account will here be given of the geological series of the State, and its geological structure. The geological structure of Ohio is as simple as that of almost any other 40,000 square miles of the earth's surface. Su far as its expised rock series is concerned, Ohio is built throughout its whole extent of stratified deposits: or, in other words, of beds of sand, clay and limestone, in all their various gradations, that were deposited or that grew in water. There are in the Ohio series no igneous nor metamorphic rocks whatever : that is, there are no rocks that have assumed their present form and condition from a multen state, or that subsequent to their original form-

pertains to the beds of drift by which a large part of the State is covered. These drift heds contain bowllers in large amount that were derived from the igneous and metamorphic rocks that are fonud aroand the shores uf Lakes Superior and Huron. But these bowl- ders are recognized by all, even by the least oh- servant, as foreign to the Ohio scale. They are familiarly known as "lost rocks" or "erratics." If we should descend deep enough below the surface. we Jtekt reach the limit of these stratified deposits and come to the great foundations of the continent which are the sur- face rocks in parts of Canada, New England and the West. The granite of Plymouth Rock underlies the continent. But the drill has never yet hewed its way down to these massive

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HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

bed within our boundaries, and thus expose them to view.

TIIE GEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OHIO OF MARINE ORIGIN.

The rocks that constitute the present sur- face of Ohio were formed in water and none of them have been modified or masked by the action of high temperatures. They remain in substantially the same condition in which they were formed. With the exceptions of the coal seams and a few beds associated with them, and of the drift deposits, all the formations of Ohio grew in the sea. There are no lake or river deposits among them; but by countless and infallible signs they testify to a marine origin. The remnants of life which they con- tain, often in the greatest abundance, are deci- sive as to this point. The sea in which or around which they grew was the former exten- sion of the Gulf of Mexico. When the rocks of Ohio were in process of formation, the waters and genial climate of the Gulf extended without interruption to the borders of the Great Lakes. All of these rocks had their ori- gin under such conditions. The rocks of Ohio constitute an orderly series. They occur in wide-spread sheets, the lowermost of which are co-extensive with the limits of the State. As we ascend in the scale, the strata constantly occupy smaller areas, but the last deposits, viz : those of the Carboniferous period are still found to cover at least one-fourth of the en- tire area of the State. Some of these forma- tions can be followed into and across adjacent States in apparent unbroken continuity. The edges of the successive deposits in the Ohio series are exposed in innumerable natural sec- tions, so that their true order can generally be determined with certainty and ease. For the accumulation and growth of this great series of deposits, vast periods of time are required. Many millions of years must be used in any rational explanation of their origin and history. All of the stages of this history have practically unlimited amounts of past time upon which to draw. They have all gone forward on so large a scale, so far as

time is concerned, that the few thousand years of human history would not make an appre- ciable factor in any of them. In other words, five thousand years, or ten thousand years, were too small a period to be counted in the formation of coal, for example, or in the accu- mulation of petroleum, or the shaping of the surface of the State by the agency of erosion. The time that has passed since man has been in the world has been computed by some geolo- gists as less than half of one per cent. of the entire time occupied by geological history. It is true of geological history as it is of human history, that it begins far this side of the be- ginning of things. Geology shows us that the existing system of things had a beginning with a time very long ago as measured in years when this section was in the bottom of a great sea of wide area but not of very great depth,- a time when the waters of the Gulf of Mexico covered all the basin of the Mississippi and the place now occupied by the lower of the great lakes, and sent one broad arm through north- eastern Canada to join the Arctic and another across Mexico to join the Pacific.

PREHISTORIC CONDITIONS.

There were then no Appalachian mount- ains, but to the cast of their present position, and to the north of the Great Lakes, there lay a large continent on whose shores played the waves of this great sea, and over whose surface rivers were flowing, bearing their sed- iments into its waters. In the depths of this sea, at about north latitude 41 degrees and west longitude 81 degrees, were being depos- ited layer upon layer, the massive rock found- ations of that structure which, when it shall rise 4.000 or 5,000 feet high, shall bear upon its top, as a modern skyscraper bears a roof garden, the little area familiar to us as Mahon- ing county. The nearest land was several hun- dred miles to the northeast, and but little clay and sand can drift so far from shore. The climate was of a tropical warmth. Winter had not yet come to cast his mantle of snow and ice each half-year over nature. Life was swarm- ing, but how different from the life of today.

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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

There were no fishes in that ancient sea but the waters were rich in lime which they . had dissolved from the rocks, and those forms of life which needed this material to build themselves shells for protection or structures to support their soft tissues, were in their element. Corals grew all over the sca bottom and stone lillies sank their roots into the soft sea-bed and sent their stems upward with their bud-like bodies at the summit. Mollnses, ani- mals similar to cuttle fishes, each ensconced in the end of a long tapering chambered shell. preyed upon whatever was unlucky enough to come within reach of their long sncker-tipped arms : microscopic forms of life were there in abundance, and their tiny shells of lime con- tributed no small part to the massive founda- tion layers : swimming animals called trilobites, each looking much like a huge sowbug. two feet long. and covered with a horny shell whose segments were so jointed as to permit the animal to roll itself into a ball like the armadillo, were present in immense numbers. Nor was vegetable life entirely wanting. for there were traces of seaweeds in those early rocks.

For long ages the cast-off shells of all these forms of life accumulated on the bed. crumbled to pieces and hardened into limestone hun- dreds of feet in thickness. It was then that the famous Trenton limestone was formed. which in the western part of our State yields such a copious flow of gas and oil when pene- trated by the drill. It has never been reached here, for it probably lies nearly 4,000 feet below the surface. It is extremely doubtful, however, whether it would yield returns if we were to reach it.

But by this time the continent of North America was steadily but slowly rising, the sea which covered its interior was getting shal- lower, and the shores of the continent to the east and north-east were getting nearer and nearer to the aren we are now considering. Occasionally, when the waves and current were strongest. some clay or sand from the shore would drift over it. Thus some beds of shale and sandstone were sandwiched in among the heavier layers of limestone. Some

dry land had now appeared to the southwest near the Entire site of Cincinnati, and the sed- iment cante from that direction also. At length the amount of sediment drifting in from the surrounding land areas became so great as to fairly exceed the deposits resulting from the accumulation of the remains of corals and shellfish, and there succeeded a long period in which, while there were still some limestones, clay and sand were swept in so abundantly that shales and sandstones became the prevailing rocks.

There appeared at this time the first of the backboned animals in the form of fishes, but very unlike the fishes of today. There were shark: whose months were literally full of teeth, set like cobble-stones in a pavement. There were fish with the long conical teeth of reptiles, and with bodies covered all over with great plates, like those of the alligator, except that they were heavier and more bony ; they were the ironclads of those seas, and were giants of their kind. for some of them are thought to have been more than thirty feet in length. The long leathery stems of sea-weed grew luxuriantly, intertwining to form verit- able Sargasso seas on the surface of the water.

Steadily during all this time the continent was emerging from the sea; steadily the land arca to the northeast had been extended toward us. From the area of dry land which had appeared abont Cincinnati, a long low arch extending northward through the west- em part of the State had risen above the water.

.At length when another two thousand feet of the ample foundation upon which Mahon- ing county rests had been laid down, consist- ing of great beds of shale. some black with the abundant organic matter buried in then from which oil and gas may be generated to serve man in some far-distant future, others red with iron, others blue and clay-like. all in- terspersed with an occasional bed of limestone or sandstone, this long age came to an end. . \ new era was dawning. The sea had now be- come so shallow that occasionally the waves disturbed it to its bottom, and thus coarse ma- terial was transported a long way from shore. A binish-grey sandstone 50 to too feet in

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HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

thickness was spread above the shales. This -one of the upper stories of our sky- scraper-is the Berea sandstone so extensively quarried for building purposes in northern Ohio. It lies near the present surface in the northeastern part of the county, but is several hundred feet below it in the southern part.

The condition changed again. and material was deposited which hardened into shales and shaley sandstones and flagstones. Once more the transporting power of the water was in- creased and au immense sheet of coarse said and gravel. 150 feet in thickness, was gradu- ally spread over this region. This is known as the conglomerate, because it is full of pebbles; it forins the foundation upon which the pro- ductive coal measures rest ; above it enal nmy lie. below it never.

FIRST LAND PLANTS : ORIGIN OF COAL FIELDS.

Ere long, here and there in the shallowing sea. some low and swampy arcas began to show themselves above the surface. The roof of our structure is beginning to appear. Over these swampy arens slowly erept the vegeta- tion, which had previously grown upon the nearest land, and for the first time land plants took mot within the limits of our Mahoning county. The swamp areas extended and the plants, stimulated by a climate of tropical warmth and abundant moisture. spread and grew ranker until the entire surface of the enunty was one continuons marsh covered with a dense and tangled vegetation of most luxuri- ant growth. This is the opening of the Car- Iwoniferous perickl-that period in the history of the earth which witnessed the laying down of the great coal fields of Ohio and Pennsyl- vania.

What a strange scene would have been pre- senter to view eould we have been permitted to gaze upon the vegetation of our county then. Ferns were everywhere-feras which sent their straight and leaf scarred trunks twenty and thirty feet into the air, while upon their summits were majestic and graceful crowns of spreading fronds that would make the possessor of the finest botanical garden of

today green with envy. Strange and mighty trees grew on these marshes, whose trunks and few branches were shaggy with the long strap- shaped leaves that covered them. The trunks of some were fluted like Corinthian col- tuts, and all were beautifully marked with leaf scars. There are now no trees at all like tltem. The straight tapering stems of rushes, slightly resembling the scouring rushes of today, but almost tree-like in size, were clus- tered over the marshes in impenetrable thickets. We wontkl look the earth cver now in vain to find such wealth of plant life as then struggled for existence in the marshes that covered Ma- honing county. But among all this wealth of tropical vegetation there was not one plant on whose branches a single flower unfolded its petals in the sunlight. No butterflies or honey loving insects could live in that flowerless world. No bird sang to his mate among those trees or winged his flight above them. The highest animal to be found in our county then were reptile-like creatures which, like frogs, passed through a tadpole stage in their devel- opment. The atmosphere was too heavy laten with moisture and stifling gases for the higher land animals.

For ages the leaves, trunks and branches fell upon the marshes, and accumulated peat. But along with the general uprising of the continent as a whole, there seems to have been in this coal field a gradual sinking, though at a varying rate. When the sinking was slow, the peat accumulated so as to bnill the surface up as rapidly as it sank, thus preserving the marsh: but at intervals the sinking became ton rapid, the marsh plants were drownedl. the sea again prevailed, and sediment was deposited over the peat. Smothered decay, under great pressure, transformed the peat into coal. and the sediments above it hardened into shales and sandstones.

FIRST PERMANENT DRY LAND.

How many times coal-march and sea alternated over this period it is impossible to say. In some parts of our county there are the remains of seven of these old peat marshes in

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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

the form of coal beds, one over the other, with intervening beds of shale and sandstone. Yet some time before the close of the coal period the uprising of the continent as a whole brought this county well above the level of the sea, and made it permanently dry land. Then streams began to flow over its surface and to excavate their valleys.

Upland vegetation took the place of that which had covered the marshes. This new growth consisted largely of cone-bearing trees, but very unlike the pines, spruces and hem- locks of today. None of them had the needle- shaped leaves common in the cone-bearers familiar to us, but instead their leaves were flat and more or less strap-shaped. Instead of bearing their seeds in cones, they bore nut-like fruits.

We now reach a period when the geolog- ical history of our county is interrupted, at least so far as we can learn from any deposits at or beneath its surface. Geological history is written in the seas and along the shores and only in very exceptional cases on dry land. Certain changes that have taken place in our county since it became permanently dry land are apparent. From a position at the sea level it has been raised until now its highest point is 1.343 feet above it, or about 565 feet above Lake Erie. When the last seam of coal was formed over its surface it was level, like the marsh in which was formed the peat that pre- ceded the coal: now the coal seams descend ahont 200 feet in passing from the north to the sonth line of the county. It is evident, too. that great quantities of material must have been removed from its surface. Every rain drop that falls on bare ground moves some tiny particles of earth from a higher to a lower level: every rill that trickles down the hillside bears with it some material it has gathered: every stream in flood-time is loaded with sedi- ment : and so it has been ever since rain began to fall and streams to flow over our surface.

Prof. Dana, who is regarded as one of our most conservative authorities, thinks it prob- ahle that at least 12.000,000 years have elapsed since the close of the coal period. and if

our county became dry land before its close, it must have been exposed to the action of the elements inuch longer. If we assume the time to have been only 10.000,000 years, and the average rate at which the surface has been worn away to have been the same as that at which the basin of the Mississippi is now wearing away, namely one foot in 5,000 years, we reach the conclusion that a layer 2.000 feet thick has been carried away from the present surface of Mahoning county. This may seem startling to one who has given the subject but little thought, but it is probably under rather than above the truth. Many lxds of workable coal, with their intervening layers of shale and sandstone, probably once lay above the present surface, but the destroying tooth of time has been gnawing away at them until we have but a mere remnant left. Nature has her economies, but, from a human standpoint, she has her wastes as well.

AGE OF REPTILES : FIRST MAMMALS.

The coal age was followed by the age of reptiles, some of which were probably the largest land animals that ever lived; while the forests of broad-leaved evergreens were gradully replaced by those of needle-shaped leaves bearing true cones. Timidly among the strange reptiles appeared the first land mam- mals. small in size and low in structure. Gradu- ally the reptiles declined while the mammals grew larger and more numerous, until they became the rulers of the forest and the plain. Is it possible I am speaking of Mahoning county when I say that the elephant and the still larger mastodon there in all probability cropped the tender herbage and blew their shrill trumpets in the forests; that the howl of the hyena was heard in the hills; that the saber- toothed tiger made his lair in the thickets and the rhinoceros forced his way through the dense underbrush; that troops of wild horses galloped across it and occasionally the emmel and the tapir were found within its borders; that in the wewels and by the streams were parrots and trogons and flamingoes, and other

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HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

birds found not only far to the south? Yet such in all probability was the life of our county in that age.

THE GLACIAL. PERIOD.

Toward the close of this age the seasons became more marked. Something much like winter came with each round of the sun, and for the first time snowflakes whitened the sur- face of our county. As the result of causes not yet well understood, the temperature con- tinued to fall and the winters grew longer and longer. Soon on the highlands of Canada more snow fell each winter than the summer's sun could melt away, and the edge of the snow mass crept southward. The ice age was com- ing on.

The tropical plants of our forests gradu- ally disappeared to be replaced by the decid- uous trees, and these in time gave way to the hardened pine, spruce and hemlock, which waged a gallant but losing fight with the on- coming cold. Our birds and animals sought a more congenial clime to the southward. At length there came a summer in which the snow that had fallen over the desolate surface of our county the previous winter did not all melt away; the close of the next summer saw it deeper still. The ice age had come. For centuries the snow deepened. How high it piled above the surface here we cannot tell. but in New England it covered the White Mountains, 6,000 feet high, and here it may have been 2,000 feet thick or even more.

Along with this accumulation of snow, and probably one cause of the cold at that time, the highlands of Canada were uplifted several hundred feet above their present level. The snow compacted in its lower parts into ice by the weight of the mass above, and forced southward both by the slope and the pressure of the deeper accumulations to the north, was transformed into a mighty glacier which be- gan its slow but resistless march southward.

The surface of our county then was much more rugged than it is now, for it had been dry land for millions of years, and the streams had cut very deep valleys across it. The

moving glacier acted upon this broken surface like an immense rasp, of which fragments of hard rock frozen into its under surface formed the teeth. Moving from the northeast it cut away all portions of the surface, but, as it bore hardest on the hills, the general effect was to destroy inequalities, though soft strata were cut away more rapidly than were hard ones. Our rocks, wherever exposed, show the planed and grooved characteristics of gla- cial action. How much soil and rock this immense ice-plow shaved off from the surface, or how long our county was subject to its action. we cannot say. Finally. however, the rigors of the long winter began to soften. Once more the melting exceeded the snow- fall, and the ice-sheet was doomed. Slowly grew thinner and slowly its southern edge re- ceded northward. It was long after this change began before even the southern border of Mahoning county peered out from under its cover of ice, and much longer still, for the change was slow, before the ice had retreated beyond the northern boundary. As the glacier melted away, the immense amount of material which it had torn up from the rocks beneath, much of which had been pulverized as though ground between the upper and nether mill- stones, was left unevenly distributed over the rock surface, and it is this material, known as the "drift," that constitutes our present soil.

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Twentieth Century History of Youngstown and Mahoning County Ohio and Representative Citizens, Part 2

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 993

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 993