USA > Pennsylvania > Crawford County > Pioneer sketches : scenes and incidents of former days > Part 23
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Many other nice iron bridges span the Cuyahoga at different points above and below the viaduct and the site of the old lone float bridge. The changes and improvements that one would notice since 1840 up and down the river, its hillsides and valleys, and everywhere for miles around, on the west side to Rocky River, and on the east side out to Lake View Park, are most grand and wonderful to behold, demonstrating that the Clevelander is bound at any rate to have the finest city in the State, populated by the New Englander and the Old Englander, the Jew and the Gentile, the Tenton and the Hibernian, and most all natives of the globe, pegging away, pursuing all the trades and represent- ing nearly all kinds of manufacturing. Therefore, I see nothing to retard the steady growth of Cleveland.
Cleveland and Chicago alike have the consolation of knowing that, when they can get no more nice farms to cut into lots on which to build, they can drive pegs out in the lake and build thereon and have plenty of drinking and bath water, duck and goose ponds.
A drive up Superior Street and out Euclid Avenue to Lake View, tells the visitor and impresses the stranger that there is something there-wealth and grandeur.
We have not the time nor space herein to attempt a description of Cleveland, its carly settlers, its prominent business enterprises, etc. Suffice it to say that Cleveland is full of promises and destined to a great future, with few superiors and few equals on the Continent.
CHAPTER CXXV.
YOUNGSTOWN.
OUNGSTOWN is located in Mahoning County, Ohio, on the Mahoning River, and is beautifully situated on its flats and hillsides, containing a population of 40,000 inhabitants. It is the busiest and loveliest town in Northeastern Ohio, and more men get into line in the bucket brigade than in any other city of its size in the State. Its iron plants are the largest and manufacture more iron than any other city in Ohio. This we may look for when its citizens are among the progressive and wide-awake class, losing no oppor- tunity to foster and advance the business interests of their vigorous and growing city.
We think Youngstown will continue to grow and pros- per, notwithstanding it is claimed that the iron interests of the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys will be materially weakened by the growing iron business of Tennessee and Alabama, there being concentrated all the material for its manufacture.
The great iron and coal fields of Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama having lain dormant through the period of slavery, soon after the War of the Rebellion northern capi- tal and manufacturers began to look southward for invest- ment, and now in the line of iron making Greek meets Greek. But while the iron manufacturer of the south has
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his material concentrated, the northern manufacturer as vet turns out the best quality of iron; while Vanderbilt & Co. have recently purchased several million dollars' worth of iron lands in the Lake Superior region, from which they can mine in a future day, if necessary, to ship on to their immense doekage which they are at present engaged in building at Ashtabula Harbor, thence to be re-shipped over their southern branch of the Lake Shore Railroad to the iron mills of the Mahoning, Shenango and Allegheny Valleys.
The other railway king, Jay Gould, having recently bought the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pittsburg & Fairport Railways, he, too, may water his iron horses in Lake Erie, and we apprehend that he will gobble a few million dollars of iron-ore lands in the northwest as a future feeder for his recent railway purchase, which also runs down the Mahon- ing and Shenango Valley iron mill region. With the immense outlay of capital invested in iron plants in Youngstown and vicinity, its operators may feel sure, while they manufacture a superior grade of iron, that they ean light their fires with good results for at least the coming decade. The growing demands for iron, the increasing facilities for transporting the raw material, augurs well for Youngstown, enabling her to surmount adverse seasons or periods of panie, and continue to grow and thrive for time to come.
CURTIS GODDARD, ASHTABULA, O.
CHAPTER CXXVI.
CURTIS GODDARD.
BIRTH-BOYHOOD-MANUFACTURER-REMOVAL TO ASHTABULA.
C URTIS GODDARD was born in Granby, Con- necticut, July 22, 1823. While in his infancy his parents, Joab and Martha Goddard, removed to the Western Reserve, Ohio, then called the Far West, and settled in Winsor, Ashtabula County." This journey was made with an ox team, which took 26 days, and was said to be the quickest time on record (from Connecticut to Ohio) made by horned horses. The family remained in Winsor about one year and removed to Deerfield, Portage County; lived there five years, then removed to Edden- burg, same county, where he lived his boyhood and youthful days, starting in the woods living a pioneer life.
Presently young Goddard began to develop his New England Yankee inventive proclivities, not in wooden clocks nor nutmegs, but in bed rail knobs, clothes pins and such, when at length he got out an improved corn sheller, of which he manufactured and sold many thousands at Alliance, Ohio, and it proved a lucrative venture. About a year ago he revolved into the Revolving Book and Show Case business and revolved around to Ashtabula, where he has fitted up the spacious bolt and shaft works, he hav- ing purchased this valuable property, also the Ellis property on West Street, preparatory to manufacturing revolving book and show cases.
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About these show cases, need not take you long to solve, For you'll see they are useful beauties as they revolve; And will readily sell most everywhere,
Being more useful and nicer than the revolving chair.
So send along your order, which will be promptly filled, Made from best material, by workmen skilled; Or call into my office, No. 7, Ann Street,
And examine goods and prices, hard to beat.
CHAPTER CXXVII.
THE PRIVATIONS OF EARLY SETTLERS.
HE PRIVATIONS of the carly settlers were on every hand. As late as 1825-30 grist mills were 43 scarce, and none but water mills. In Crawford County the Powers mill at Powerstown and one at Venango, ten miles above Mead- ville on French Creek, were the only mills within a distance of eighteen miles. There came a drouth, and no grists could be ground at the Powers mill. At the okl block house on the hill, in Spring township, in which resided the family of Capt. Phineas Sargent, it was discovered that a fresh sup- ply of bread timber was required. The grist mill at Ve- nango or the one at Conneaut, Ohio, must be visited.
The road to the former was not as good as was the road to the latter place, therefore the grist of corn and wheat was loaded on to an ox team wagon, and with the boy Alfred Sargent as teamster, steersman and conductor, set out early one morning for Conneaut, Ohio, to get that grist ground, expecting to make the trip in two days. A part of the way the roadway was of corduroy to hold up the ox from sinking out of sight in a blue clay pit or a quieksand maelstrom. With good luck on the way out, he arrived at Conneaut before night, and found to his dismay that there were so many grists ahead of his that no grind-
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ing could be done for him that week. He, therefore, turned about and reached Lexington about midnight, when one of the oxen got his foot fast in the corduroy. The ox's foot had slipped down over the hoof between the two poles, and with the aid of the teamster could not be extricated. He slipped off the ox-bow from the animal and moved the other to the roadside. He cried out for help, when Medad Pomeroy came to his assistance; the corduroy was torn up and the ox released, in a very lame condition. The oxen were turned into a field of good grass, where for the re- mainder of the night they fared as sumptuously as did Nebuchadnezzar. The young teamster was invited indoors to partake of the hospitalities of the generous pioneer.
The next day he arrived home with a lame ox which had to go to grass for three weeks. The neighbors chipped in and secured a team of horses, and with a wagon loaded he started for Venango, where in a couple of days he got the grist ground.
It was a rule in those days with the people on all occasions to aid each other and to confide in each other. That was what made them happy and strong. That gave us our American Independence. True, the pioneer woman could not don her morning dress and at 10 A. M. rehabili- tate, and again in the evening; and Mrs. Smith could not make her daily rounds in calling on Mrs. Jones, Brown and Robinson and chat with that broad affectation and superflu- ous emphasis as she does to-day-
But simply spoke the honest accents of the will; And I am of the same opinion still, That this unnatural conversational strain Is calculated to give you a pain. Let's away from unnatural affectations stoutly steer And cherish the axioms of the woman pioneer.
CHAPTER CXXVIII.
THE RAILROAD RRAKEMAN.
N ALL business pursuits every department must have its operators. Upon the sea there is the captain, mates, steward, engineers, wheelmen, the watchman, common sailor and the roustabout. Upon the rail is the engineer, conductor, fireman and the brakeman. But we notice through all the different branches of industry there is no occupation so hazardous as the railroad freight brake- man, to which the casualities, the maiming for life of many of our stalwart young men too often attest.
As he glides o'er hill and valley through the land,
He takes his precious life in hand;
At his brakes through sunshine and storm,
Through blackened night, to the coming morn.
Through blasting winds, rain in torrents pour,
As he hustles over the cars of coal and iron ore;
His train comes thundering down Plymouth or Munson Hill,
The engineer whistles loud and shrill.
One, two, for down brakes,
Which the brakeman quickly undertakes
To check the motion of the flying train,
As it goes rattling down the plane;
Something is wrong, it is too late,
The train is running at a fearful rate.
A link or drawhead broke, his train is in twain,
But the brakeman at his post remains;
The danger of the wreck he bravely doth defy,
To jump from the train is but to die.
On the P. Y. & A. or the Franklin Branch,
You would say "might as well chase a western avalanche;"
A hazardous business, you can only make it,
Whatever way you please to take it.
The train is derailed, the cars careen, A more heroic act ne'er was seen;
He jumps from his train as a last resort To save his life, at whatever eost.
Reader if you think that a railroad brakeman has a soft snap just try it once.
CHAPTER CXXIX.
THE ASHTABULA STRIKE.
N THE 8th day of May, 1891, about 800 dock laborers at Ashtabula Harbor went out on a strike, and accordingly formed in line of march to demonstrate their strength and their grievance.
A dozen Italians were at the head of the procession as they marched up Thayer hill, bearing the American flag, followed by Amer- icans, Hibernians, Italians, Swedes, Finlanders, Hollanders, Portuguese, Slavonians, Bohemians and Norwegians, they marched, with various instruments of music, representing a formidable body of men.
It appears that some of the Finns were loth to go out, and some of them, after the strike was declared, commenced to load some ears with ore, but were promptly stopped by the strikers.
The ore traffic had not opened as early that Spring as usual, consequently there were but two boats in port to be unloaded and be caught in the strike, and as soon as the vessel men found that they could not discharge their cargoes, sailed for other ports.
It appears that the demands of the strikers were not without just claims for grievance. The year previous dock proprietors received from vessel owners 18 cents per ton for unloading ore from the vessels-and they paid the dock laborers 10 cents per ton for doing the work of unloading.
The engineers, or hoisters, were cut from $60 to $55 per month, and $3.50 per Sunday or a night.
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The dock laborers got 18 cents per hour Sunday or night work, but they were cut to 15 cents per hour for extra work and 9 cents per ton for unloading versels.
Years ago the dock owners had 16 cents a ton from the vessel men, and paid the laborers 10 cents, and when they got 18 cents per ton they were not willing to advance or share it with the laborers or dock men.
They also paid the wall builders and day men $1.75 per day; they cut them to $1.50 and required 12 hours for a day's work. Hence the strike.
In view of the facts and circumstances precipitating the strike, it is not meet to say that the strikers were reckless and foolish and in the blame, as it would be unAmerican not to contend for right and justice.
These dock laborers were engaged in the hardest kind of manual labor, and thereby earning every cent they got. When they cut them it struck deep, and they had no other weapon to use but to strike in retaliation, with the hope thereby to receive a fair adjustment of their grievance.
The humane American individual is filled with un- pleasant forebodings in witnessing a spectacle of this kind. In dark England, where, by the hand of iron rule, millions of paupers are created. they are eking out a miserable existence to-day. Is this sort of epidemic coming across the waters to pollute the soil of America? God forbid !
In our boasted free land of America, with her broad fertile domain, we hope not to see her wheels of commerce blocked in every curve and grade, along our great commer- cial avenues.
Strikes are generally productive of no good, but are pernicious and disastrous generally to the capitalist and the laborer.
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Bygone seenes effected through "strikes" should afford a lesson and a warning to the employer and the employe for all time to come "to dodge the strike as you would a mad dog."
The strike having continued over a month and no terms of settlement having been accomplished, the agents of the ore companies appointed a meeting, which took place at the Town Hall, Ashtabula, June 9, 1891. The Lake Shore Company made up a train of 11 cars, which were paeked full of brawny hard-handed men. As they marched in pro- cession from the Lake Shore Depot it was estimated that 1,000 men were in the ranks.
Mr. Mather, of the firm of Pickands & Mather, one of the largest ore handling firms, took the platform. He expressed his surprise at the action of the men after hearing the circumstances, and explained that owing to the low price of ore, the cost of handling had to be reduced. The vessel-owners had forced the companies to handle the ore for two cents per ton less than the year previous. It was then 18 cents, and now all they would give was 16. They shared the reduction with the men.
He promised them that as soon as times got better and they could get the old price, they would share it with the men. He asked them to accept this promise and go to work ; if not, he was authorized to say, in behalf of all the doek interests, that they would submit the matter to arbi- tration, the companies choosing a man, the men another, and those two a third, all agreeing to abide by the result, the men to go to work pending the arbitration. If the men refused to accept this offer, the companies would be com- pelled, against their wishes, to bring in new men, and fight it out on that line.
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Mark Hanna was the next speaker. He said he coukl answer for all the ore interests on the Pittsburg, Youngs- town & Ashtabula side. He endorsed all that Mr. Mather said. He thought there would be no trouble to find arbi- trators that would be acceptable to both sides. He urged the men to accept the proposition and said the companies wanted to be fair, and above all didn't want to see men that worked for them crowded out ; but if they were forced to put in new men, they would stay and be protected. He urged them to carefully consider before answering, and said if the men were not ready to answer then they could answer to the agents of the company at the dock offices the next morning.
M. H. Taylor, Vice President of the Youghiogheny Coal and Ore Company, in substance said the same, after which Mr. Hanna said the companies had made all the propositions they wanted to and would retire, leaving the meeting in the hands of the men.
There was some confusion as the ten or twelve repre- sentatives of the dock companies filed from the hall, a good many of the men hissing. One individual repeatedly interrupted the speaker, and once Mr. Hanna lost patience and said, "I'm not talking to you, sir."
After the withdrawal of the representatives of the companies an engineer stood up and asked the men what their answer was. "It is 10 cents or nothing," with a yell that shook the windows, the men unanimously shouted. "Ten cents or nothing," and so the war was continued.
For five weeks the business at Ashtabula Harbor was paralyzed, and it is estimated that during this time over $4,000 of a daily eireulating medium was blocked.
Finally on Saturday, June 13, the men notified the companies that they would go to work at 93 cents, with a promise of a raise when the price of ore advanced, which the companies accepted and ordered the men to go to work Monday morning, JJune 15.
Again the wheels of commerce were set in motion at the Harbor, the ore and coal traffic became red-hot, and thus closed one of the largest, most determined, persistent strikes ever experienced on the chain of lakes.
CHAPTER CXXX.
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
HE RECENT strikes at Ashtabula Harbor and Cleveland demonstrate that labor, as well as cap- ital, has a market value. While the one cannot exist without the other, we are constrained to believe that the one is a factor of as much importance as the other, and demand an impartial recognition at the hands of the law abiding intelligent citizens, and from our legislative bodies as well. The laboring man in European countries had a long struggle to ascend to a plane higher than a slave or an ox; their price was fixed; they were yoked in or harnessed up, and they had to go along. Time, and a greater degree of intelligence among the working classes finally wrought a change and a labor organization was formed, which the reader has long been familiar with its ebb and flow, in Europe and later in America.
Labor has had, for years past and now, a heavy dead weight with which to contend: a constant influx of foreign emigration; many thousands of foreign laborers yearly, bums, thugs, thieves and paupers, are dumped onto our American shores. Except of the sober. working element, what good are they ? The records of our almshouses, lockups and prisons tell the story. There should be some wise legislation, some change of law on this exodus matter, or else in a few coming decades America can count her paupers, like England, by the millions.
A higher standard of civility and education must be the safeguard of the working man of America. Know
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thyself; let us cultivate the brain as well as the muscle, that We may be able to cope, confer and win respect from our employers or superiors.
Capital must have labor for the advance guard and skirmisher, to clear away the thorns and thistles, to plant his batteries; then he must have labor to man the guns. Then let us be cool, temperate and wise, and make our position count. Make no unreasonable demands on capital; let your cause for grievance be calmly, firmly and wisely presented; when of no avail, resist in like good manner.
The same canopy floats over our head,
The same waters roll to bathe our weary feet.
For a time, if we leave off about where we begun, And have not played the card that won, Fellow worker don't be discouraged with your lot,
For there is always plenty of room at the top.
Keep your eye on the American gun, Look at England and see what she has done;
Five millions of paupers created in her land; Americans, resist the like on every hand.
CHAPTER CXXXI.
DO YOU EVER THINK ?
O YOU ever think as the hearse drives by, That it won't be long till you and I Will both ride out in the big plumed hack, And we'll never, never, never, ride back ? Do you ever think as you strive for gold, That a dead man's hand can't a dollar hold;
We may tug and toil and pinch and save, And we'll lose it all when we reach the grave ? Do you ever think, as you closely clasp Your bag of gold with a firmer grasp, If the hungry hearts of the world were fed, It might bring peace to your dying bed ?
LIFE'S SEVEN STAGES.
Only a Baby, Kissed and caressed, Gently held to a mother's breast. Only a Child, Toddling alone, Brightening now its happy home. Only a Boy, Trudging to school, Governed now by a sterner rule.
Only a Youth, Living in dreams, Full of promise life now seems. Only a Man, Battling with life, Shared in now by a loving wife. Only a Father, Burdened with care, Silver threads in dark brown hair.
Only a Graybeard, Toddling again, Growing old and full of pain. Only a Mound, Oe'r grown with grass, Dreams unrealized --- Rest at last.
Underwriter.
CHAPTER CXXXII.
EARLY SPORTS AND PASTIMES-THE GRAPE VINE SWING.
ET WAS on a pleasant Sunday after- noon, away back in October, 1522, the young people of both sexes com- prising the Sargents, Sturtevants, Powells, Wells and Woodards, sallied forth through the wood two or three miles away to the Anderson lot, an old clearing of a few aeres, which was surrounded by a dense forest, where they found an abundance of wild grape vines three to five inches in diameter towering to the top of of the highest forest trees, which all along up its branches were loaded with grapes. It was soon after a few sharp frost and these wild grapes were delicious.
After a sumptuous feast of the grapes, the flavor of which far surpasses that of the tame grape, they selected two of the largest vines, cut off the lower ends, bored an anger hole through them about three feet from the ground and securely connected them with a good seat, making as grand a swing for a fellow and his girl as ever swung, the top of which firmly secured 75 to 100 fect heavenward, in the tree tops, interwoven by a thousand chords of viny network, safely suspending the long flying trapese in its semi-circular movements of 50 to 75 feet, so that it was quite necessary for the swingers to embrace the grape vine with one arm and their partners with the other.
First into the towering tree tops the boys did climb With ease and agility, all in their prime, To pluck the wild and luscious grape
Which the boys and girls freely did partake.
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3
Then into the grape vine swing through space did whirl, Beside him sat his rosy-cheek girl; To and fro, grandly swinging, Happily and merrily singing.
With one arm around the grape vine he clung, The other around his darling as they swung. A heaven on earth they experienced there, Majestically swinging through mid-air.
Since the morning of creation Never has been invented by any nation A swing so grand, so safely entwined, As the stately wild grape vine.
CHAPTER CXXXIII.
THE BLIND MAN EVERETT.
HE SUBJECT of this sketch was born in Vermont in 1802. Some years later he removed to Ripley, Chautauqua County, N. Y., where he built a grist mill and ran the same for some years. Afterwards he removed to Summer Hill, Crawford County, Pa., and engaged in the manufacture of capstan bars. Later he removed to Wells' Mills, Spring Township, and there engaged to run a grist mill and saw mill. which he attended to most wonderfully, as he had been blind ever since he was six years old. Mr. Everett raised a family of eight children, and died at the age of 70 years.
Mr. Everett was a good cabinetmaker, cooper, mill- wright, wood turner and sawyer. On one occasion Alfred Sargent, father of the writer, took a nice piece of second- growth white ash timber to him to have a neck yoke made. Mr Everett examined the timber and pronounced it all right, from which he said he would make a good neck yoke, and he did ; he turned out a dandy one.
About this time the Erie & Pittsburg Railroad was built and ran by Mr Everett's place of business, which was at Wells' Grist and Saw Mills, Spring, Crawford County, Pa., and as the cars stopped at Wells' one dark night a couple of ladies peered out of the car windows into the darkness. Within 40 feet of them they heard the music of
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an upright saw dancing through the knots of a big hemlock "saw-log," and all was as dark as Egypt. The saw is through the log ; they hear the elinker of the crowbar; already the saw is set for another inch board; the water gate hoisted, the saw again dances forward 16 feet and another board drops, darkness still brooding o'er the scene. The ladies exclaimed, "What in the world is that?" "A saw mill running away alone in the dark," said the second. A gentleman sitting near by said, "No, ladies ; there is a sawyer there, the old man Everett, blind as a bat, and he saws as good lumber in the dark as if he had a dozen lan- terns lighted ; it's all the same to him." The mystery was explained.
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