BELMONT COUNTY was established September 7,
1801, by proclamation of Gov. St.
Clair, being the ninth county formed in the Northwestern Territory.
The name is derived from two French words signifying a fine mountain. It is a very hilly, picturesque tract and contains much excellent land. Area 500 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 112,269; pasture, 136,301; woodland, 81,396; lying waste, 8,684; produced in wheat, 83,141 bushels; corn, 1,905,664; tobacco, 1,425,866 pounds; butter 743,059; sheep, 158,121; coal, 573,770 tons. School census 1886, 18,236; teachers, 275. It has 113 miles of railroad.
Township And Census |
1840 |
1880 |
Township And Census |
1840 |
1880 |
Colerain, |
1,389 |
1,499 |
Smith, |
1,956 |
1,977 |
Flushing, |
1,683 |
1,705 |
Somerset, |
1,932 |
2,241 |
Goshen, |
1,882 |
2,208 |
Union, |
2,127 |
1,686 |
Kirkwood, |
2,280 |
2,028 |
Warren, |
2,410 |
4,531 |
Mead, |
1,496 |
1,970 |
Washington, |
1,388 |
1,633 |
Pease, |
2,449 |
8,819 |
Wayne, |
1,734 |
1,719 |
Pultney, |
1,747 |
10,492 |
Wheeling, |
1,389 |
1,349 |
Richland, |
3,735 |
4,361 |
York, |
129 |
1,420 |
Population
in
1820 was 20,329; in 1840, 30,902; in 1860, 36,398; in 1880, 49,638, of
whom
38,233 were Ohio-born.
Belmont county was one of the
earliest settled within the State of Ohio, and the scene of several
desperate
encounters with the Indians. About 1790,
or perhaps two or three years later, a fort called Dillie’s fort was
erected on
the west side of the Ohio, opposite Grave creek.
About 250 yards below this fort an
old man named Tate was shot down by the
Page 307
Indians
very
early in the morning as he was opening his door. His
daughter-in-law and grandson pulled him
in and barred the door. The Indians,
endeavoring to force it open, were kept out for some time by the
exertions of
the boy and woman. They at length fired
through and wounded the boy. The woman
was shot from the outside as she endeavored to escape up chimney, and
fell into
the fire. The boy, who had hid behind
some barrels, ran and pulled her out, and returned again to his
hiding-place. The Indians now effected
an entrance, killed a girl as they came in, and scalped the three they
had
shot. They then went out behind that
side of the house from the fort. The
boy, who had been wounded in the mouth, embraced the opportunity and
escaped to
the fort. The Indians, twelve or thirteen
in number, went off unmolested, although the men in the fort had
witnessed the
transaction and had sufficient force to engage with them.
Captina creek is a considerable
stream entering the Ohio, near the southeast angle of Belmont. On its banks at an early day a sanguinary
contest took place known as “the battle of Captina.”
Its incidents have often and variously been
given. We here relate them as they fell
from the lips of Martin BAKER, of Monroe, who was at that time a lad of
about
twelve years of age in Baker’s fort:
The Battle of Captina.—One mile below
the mouth of Captina on the Virginia shore, was Baker’s fort, so named
from my
father. One morning in May, 1794, four
men were sent over according to the custom, to the Ohio side to
reconnoitre. They were Adam MILLER, John
DANIELS, Isaac M’COWAN, and John SHOPTAW.
MILLER and DANIELS took up stream, the other two down. The upper scout were soon attacked by
Indians, and MILLER killed; DANIELS ran up Captina about three miles,
but being
weak from the loss of blood issuing from a wound in his arm was taken
prisoner,
carried into captivity, and subsequently released at the treaty of
Greenville. The lower scout having
discovered signs of the enemy, SHOPTAW swam across the Ohio and
escaped, but
M’COWAN going up towards the canoe, was shot by Indians in ambush. Upon this he ran down to the bank and sprang
into the water, pursued by the enemy, who overtook and scalped him. The firing being heard at the fort, they beat
up for volunteers. There were about
fifty men in the fort. There being much
reluctance among them to volunteer, my sister exclaimed, “She
wouldn’t be a coward.” This
aroused the pride of my brother, John BAKER, who before had determined
not to
go. He joined the others, fourteen in
number, including Capt. Abram ENOCHS.
They soon crossed the river, and went up Captina in single file,
a
distance of a mile and a half, following the Indian trail.
The enemy had come back on their trails, and
were in ambush on the hill-side awaiting their approach.
When sufficiently near they fired upon our
people, but being on an elevated position, their balls passed harmless
over
them. The whites then treed.
Some of the Indians came behind, and shot
Capt. ENOCHS and Mr. HOFFMAN. Our people
soon retreated, and the Indians pursued but a short distance. On their retreat my brother was shot in the
hip. Determined to sell his life as
dearly as possible, he drew off one side and secreted himself in a
hollow with
a rock at his back, offering no chance for the enemy to approach but in
front. Shortly after two guns were heard
in quick succession; doubtless one of them was fired by my brother, and
from
the signs afterwards, it was supposed he had killed an Indian. The next day the men turned and visited the
spot. ENOCHS, HOFFMAN, and John BAKER
were found dead and scalped. Enoch’s
bowels were torn out, his eyes and those of HOFFMAN screwed out with a
wiping-stick. The dead were wrapped in
white hickory bark, and brought over to the Virginia shore, and buried
in their
bark coffins. There were about thirty
Indians engaged in this action, and seven skeletons of their slain were
found
long after secreted in the crevices of rocks.
M’Donald,
in his biographical sketch of Governor M’ARTHUR, who was in the action,
says
that after the death of Capt. ENOCHS, M’ARTHUR, although the youngest
man in
the company, was unanimously called upon to direct the retreat. The wounded who were able to walk were placed
in front, while M’ARTHUR with his Spartan band covered the retreat. The moment an Indian showed himself in
pursuit he was fired upon, and generally, it is believed, with effect. The Indians were so severely handled that
they gave up the pursuit. The Indians
were commanded by the Shawnee chief, CHARLEY WILKEY.
He told the author (M’Donald) of this
narrative that the battle of Captina was the most severe conflict he
ever
witnessed; that although he had the advantage of the ground and the
first fire,
he lost the most of his men, half of them having been either killed or
wounded.
The celebrated Indian hunter, Lewis
Wetzel, was often through this region.
Belmont has been the scene of at least two of the daring
adventures of
this far-famed borderer, which we here relate.
The scene of the first was on Dunkard
Page 308
creek,
and that
of the second on the site of the National road, two and one-half miles
east of
St. Clairsville, on the farm of Jno. B. MECHAN, in whose family the
place has
been in the possession of since 1810:
Fight at Dunkard’s Creek.—While
hunting Wetzel fell in with a young hunter who lived on
Dunkard’s creek, and was persuaded to accompany him to his home. On their arrival they found the house in
ruins and all the family murdered, except a young woman who had been
bred with
them, and to whom the young man was ardently attached.
She was taken alive, as was found by
examining the trail of the enemy, who were three Indians and a white
renegado. Burning with
revenge, they
followed the trail until opposite the mouth of Captina, where the enemy
had
crossed. They swam the stream and
discovered the Indians’ camp, around the fires of which lay the enemy
in
careless repose. The young woman was
apparently unhurt, but was making much moaning and lamentation. The young man, hardly able to restrain his
range, was for firing and rushing instantly upon them.
Wetzel, more cautious, told him to wait until
daylight, when there was a better chance of success in killing the
whole
party. At dawn the Indians prepared to
depart. The young man selecting the
white renegado and Wetzel the Indian, they both fired simultaneously
with fatal
effect. The young man rushed forward,
knife in hand, to relieve the mistress of his affections, while Wetzel
reloaded
and pursued the two surviving Indians, who had taken to the woods,
until they
could ascertain the number of their enemies.
Wetzel, as soon as he was discovered, discharged his rifle at
random, in
order to draw them from their covert.
The ruse took effect, and, taking to his heels, he loaded as he
ran, and
suddenly wheeling about, discharged his rifle through the body of his
nearest
and unsuspecting enemy. The remaining
Indian seeing the fate of his companion, and that his enemy’s rifle was
unloaded, rushed forward with all energy, the prospect of prompt
revenge being
fairly before him. Wetzel led him on,
dodging from tree to tree, until his rifle was again ready, when
suddenly
turning he fired, and his remaining enemy fell dead at his feet. After taking their scalps, Wetzel and his
friend, with their rescued captive, returned in safety to the
settlement.
Fight at the Indian Springs.—A short
time after Crawford’s defeat in 1782, Wetzel accompanied Thomas Mills,
a
soldier in that action to obtain his horse, which he had left near the
site of
St. Clairsville. They were met by a
party of about forty Indians at the Indian springs, two miles from St.
Clairsville, on the road to Wheeling.
Both parties discovered each other at the same moment, when
Lewis
instantly fired and killed an Indian, while the Indians wounded his
companion
in the heel, overtook and killed him.
Four Indians pursued Wetzel.
About half a mile beyond, one of the Indians having got in the
pursuit
with a few steps, Wetzel wheeled and shot him, and then continued the
retreat. In less than a mile farther a
second one came so close to him that, as he turned to fire, he caught
the
muzzle of his gun, when, after a severe struggle, Wetzel brought it to
his
chest, and, discharging it, his opponent fell dead.
Wetzel still continued on his course, pursued
by the two Indians. All three were
pretty well fatigued, and often stopped and treed.
After going something more than a mile Wetzel
took advantage of an open ground, over which the Indians were passing,
stopped suddenly
to shoot the foremost, who thereupon sprang behind a small sapling. Wetzel fired and wounded him mortally. The remaining Indian then gave a little yell,
exclaiming, “No catch that man; gun always loaded.”
After the peace of 1795 Wetzel pushed for the
frontier, on the Mississippi, where he could trap the beaver, hunt the
buffalo
and deer, and occasionally shoot an Indian, the object of his mortal
hatred. He finally died, as he had
lived, a free man of the forest.
ST. CLAIRSVILLE IN 1846.—St. Clairsville,
the county-seat, is situated on an elevated and romantic site, in a
rich
agricultural region, on the line of the National road, 11 miles wet of
Wheeling
and 116 east of Columbus. It contains
six places for public worship: 2 Friends, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Episcopal,
1
Methodist, and 1 Union; one female seminary, twelve mercantile stores,
two or
three news-
Page 309
paper-offices,
H. Anderson’s map-engraving and publishing establishment, and, in 1840,
had 829
inhabitants. Cuming’s tour, published in
1810, states that this town “was laid out in the woods by David Newell
in
1801. On the south side of Newell’s plat
is an additional part laid out by William Matthews, which was
incorporated with
Newell’s plat on the 23d of January, 1807, by the name of St.
Clairsville.” By the act of
incorporation the following officers were appointed until the first
stated
meeting of the inhabitants should be held for an election, viz., John
PATTERSON, President; Sterling JOHNSON, Recorder; Samuel SULLIVAN,
Marshal;
Groves Wm. BROWN, John BROWN, and Josiah DILLON, Trustees; William
CONGLITON,
Collector; James COLWELL, Treasurer, and Robert GRIFFITH, Town Marshal. The view given was taken from an elevation
west of the town, near the National road and Neiswanger’s old tavern,
shown on
the extreme right. The building in the
distance, on the left, shaded by poplars, is the Friends’
meeting-house; in the
centre is shown the spire of the court-house, and on the right the
tower of the
Presbyterian church.—Old Edition.
ST.
CLAIRSVILLE, the county-seat, is on the St. Clairsville road, a short
line
connecting on the north with the C. L. & W. R. R., and on the south
with
the B. & O. R. R. County officers in
1888: Probate Judge, Isaac H. GASTON Clerk
Drawn by
Henry Howe in 1846.
ST. CLAIRSVILLE.
of
Court,
William B. CASH; Sheriff, Oliver E. FOULKE; Prosecuting Attorney, Jesse
W.
HOLLINGSWORTH; Auditor, Rodney R. BARRETT; Treasurer, George ROBINSON;
Recorder, John M. BECKETT; Surveyor, Chalkley DAWSON; Coroner, Andrew
M. F.
BOYD; Commissioners, William J. BERRY, John C. ISREAL, Morris Cope. Newspapers: Belmont Chronicle,
Republican, W. A. HUNT, editor; St. Clairsville Gazette,
Democratic,
Isaac M. RILEY, editor. Bank: First
National Bank, David BROWN, president, J. R. MITCHELL, cashier. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1
Presbyterian, and 1 United Presbyterian.
Population in 1880, 1,128. School
census 1886, 407; L. H. Watters, superintendent.
The village has increased but little
in the last forty years. Recently a
magnificent court-house has been erected, at an expense of about
$200,000. In the spring of 1887 St.
Clairsville was
visited by the most severe tornado known in Eastern Ohio, which did
much
damage. Although always small in
population, the town has long been regarded, from the eminent
characters who
have dwelt in the place, as an intellectual centre.
St. Clairsville derives its name
from the unfortunate but meritorious Arthur St. Clair.
He was born in Scotland, in 1734, and after
receiving a classical education in one of the most celebrated
universities of
his native country, studied
Page 310
medicine;
but
having a taste for military pursuits, he sought and obtained a
subaltern’s
appointment, and was with Wolfe in the storming of Quebec.
After
the peace of 1763 he was assigned the command of Fort Ligonier, in
Pennsylvania, and received there a grant of 1,000 acres.
Prior to the Revolutionary war he held
several civil offices. His military
skill and experience, intelligence and integrity were such that, when
the
revolutionary war commenced, he was appointed Colonel of Continentals. In August, 1776, he was promoted to the rank
of Brigadier, and bore an active part in the battles of Trenton and
Princeton.
He
was subsequently created a Major-General, and ordered to repair to
Ticonderoga,
where he commanded the garrison and, on the approach of Burgoyne’s
army,
abandoned it. Charges of cowardice,
incapacity and treachery were brought against him in consequence. He was tried by a court-martial, who, with
all the facts before them, acquitted him, accompanying their report
with the
declaration, that “Major-General St. Clair is acquitted, with the
highest
honor, of the charges against him.”
Congress subsequently, with an unanimous voice, confirmed this
sentence. The facts were, that the works
were incomplete and incapable of being defended against the whole
British army,
and although St. Clair might have gained great applause by a brave
attempt at
defence, yet it would have resulted in the death of many of his men and
probably the capture of the remainder; a loss which, it was afterwards
believed
in camp, and perhaps foreseen by St. Clair, would have prevented the
taking of
Burgoyne’s army. In daring to do an
unpopular act, for the public good, St. Clair exhibited a high degree
of moral
courage, and deserves more honor than he who wins a battle.
St.
Clair served, with reputation, until the close of the war.
In 1785, while residing on his farm, at
Ligonier, he was appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress, and
was soon
after chosen president of that august body.
After the passage of the ordinance for the government of the
Northwestern Territory he was made governor, and continued in the
office until
within a few weeks of the termination of the territorial form of
government, in
the winter of 1802-3, when he was removed by President Jefferson.
The remainder of the sketch of Gov.
St. Clair we give in extracts from the Notes of Judge Burnet, who was
personally acquainted with him. Beside
being clearly and beautifully written, it contains important facts in
the
legislative history of Ohio.
During
the continuance of the first grade of that imperfect government, he
enjoyed the
respect and confidence of every class of the people.
He was plain and simple in his dress and
equipage, open and frank in his manners, and accessible to persons of
every
rank. In these respects he exhibited a
striking contrast with the secretary, Col. Sargent; and that contrast,
in some
measure, increased his popularity, which he retained unimpaired till
after the
commencement of the first session of the legislature.
During that session he manifested a strong
desire to enlarge his own powers and restrict those of the assembly;
which was
the more noticed, as he had opposed the usurpations of the legislative
council,
composed of himself, or in his absence, the secretary and the Judges of
the
General Court; and had taken an early opportunity of submitting his
views on
that subject to the general assembly. . . . .
The
effect of the construction he gave, of his own powers, may be seen in
the fact
that of the thirty bills passed by
the two houses during the first session, and sent to him for his
approval, he
refused to assent to eleven; some of
which were supposed to be of much importance, and all of them
calculated, more
or less, to advance the public interest.
Some of them he rejected because they related to the
establishment of
new counties; others, because he thought they were unnecessary or
inexpedient. Thus more than a third of
the fruits of the labor of that entire session was lost, by the
exercise of the
arbitrary discretion of one man.
This,
and some other occurrences of a similar character which were manifest
deviations from his usual course not easily accounted for, multiplied
his
opponents very rapidly, and rendered it more difficult for his friends
to
defend and sustain him. They also
created a state of bad feeling between the legislative and executive
branches,
and eventually terminated in his removal from office, before the
expiration of
the territorial government.
The
governor was unquestionably a man of superior talents, of extensive
information
and of great uprightness of purpose, as well as suavity of manners. His general course, though in the main
correct, was in some respects injurious to his own popularity; but it
was the
result of an honest exercise of his judgment.
He not only believed that the power he claimed belonged
legitimately to
the executive, but was convinced that the manner in which he exercised
it was
imposed on him as a duty by the ordinance, and was calculated to
advance the
best interests of the Territory. . . .
Soon
after the governor was removed from office he returned to the Ligonier
valley,
poor and destitute of the means of subsistence, and unfortunately too
much
disabled by age and infirmity to embark in any kind of active business. During his administration of the territorial
government he was induced to make himself personally liable for the
Page 311
purchase of a number of pack-horses and other
articles
necessary to fit out an expedition against the Indians, to an amount of
some
two or three thousand dollars, which he was afterwards compelled to pay. Having no use for the money at the time, he
did not present his claim to the government.
After he was removed from office, he looked to that fund as his
dependence for future subsistence, and, under a full expectation of
receiving
it, he repaired to Washington City, and presented his account to the
proper
officer of the treasury. To his utter
surprise and disappointment it was rejected, on the mortifying ground
that,
admitting it to have been originally correct, it was barred by the
statute; and
that the time which had elapsed afforded the highest presumption that
it had
been settled, although no voucher or memorandum to that effect could be
found
in the department. To counteract the
alleged presumption of payment, the original vouchers, showing the
purchase,
the purpose to which the property was applied, and the payment of the
money,
were exhibited. It was, however, still
insisted that, as the transaction was an old one, and had taken place
before
the burning of the war office in Philadelphia, the lapse of time
furnished
satisfactory evidence that the claim must have been settled, and the
vouchers
destroyed in that conflagration.
The
pride of the old veteran was deeply wounded by the ground on which his
claim
was refused, and he was induced from that consideration, as well as by
the pressure
of poverty and want, to persevere in his efforts to maintain the
justice and
equity of his demand, still hoping that presumption would give way to
truth. For the purpose of getting rid of
his solicitations Congress passed an act, purporting to be an act for
his
relief, but which merely removed the technical objection, founded on
lapse of
time, by authorizing a settlement of his demands, regardless of the
limitation. This step seemed necessary,
to preserve their own character; but it left the worn out
veteran still at the mercy of the accounting officers
of the department, from whom he had nothing to expect but
disappointment. During the same session a
bill was introduced
into the House of Representatives, granting him an annuity, which was
rejected,
on the third reading, by a vote of 48 to 50.
After
spending the principal part of two sessions in useless efforts,
subsisting
during the time on the bounty of his friends, he abandoned the pursuit
in
despair and returned to the Ligonier valley, where he lived several
years in
the most abject poverty, in the family of a widowed daughter, as
destitute as
himself. At length Pennsylvania, his
adopted State, from considerations of personal respect and gratitude
for past
services, as well as from a laudable feeling of State pride, settled on
him an
annuity of $300, which was soon after raised to $650.
That act of beneficence gave to the gallant
old soldier a comfortable subsistence for the little remnant of his
days which
then remained. The honor resulting to
the State from that step was very much enhanced by the fact that the
individual
on whom their bounty was bestowed was a foreigner, and was known to be
a warm
opponent, in politics, to the great majority of the legislature and
their
constituents.
He
lived, however, but a short time to enjoy the bounty.
On the 31st of August, 1818, that
venerable officer of the Revolution, after a long, brilliant and useful
life,
died of an injury occasioned by the running away of his horse, near
Greensburgh, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.
CHARLES HAMMOND, long an honored
member of the county bar, was born in Maryland, and came to Belmont
county in
1801 and was appointed prosecuting attorney for the Northwest Territory. During the war of 1812 he published the Federalist, at St. Clairsville. In
1824 he removed to Cincinnati and attained
a high position as editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. He was the author of the political essays
signed “Hampden,” published in the National
Intelligencer in 1820, upon the Federal Constitution, which were
highly
complimented by Jefferson. He died in
Cincinnati, in 1840, where he was regarded as the ablest man that had
wielded
the editorial pen known to the history of Ohio.
“I
know of no writer,” writes Mansfield, “who could express an idea so
clearly and
so briefly. He wrote the pure old
English—the vernacular tongue, unmixed with French or Latin phrases or
idioms,
and unperverted with any scholastic logic.
His language was like himself—plain, sensible and unaffected. His force, however, lay not so much in this
as in his truth, honesty and courage, those moral qualities which made
him
distinguished at that day and would distinguish him now.
His opposition to slavery and its influence on
the government was firm, consistent and powerful. Probably
no public writer did more than he to
form a just and reasonable anti-slavery sentiment.
In fine, as a writer of great ability, and a
man of large acquirements and singular integrity, HAMMOND was scarcely
equalled
by any man of his time.
St. Clairsville is identified with
the history of BENJAMIN LUNDY, who
has been called the “Father of Abolitionism,” for he first set in
motion those
moral forces
Page 312
which
eventually resulted in the overthrow of American slavery.
He was of Quaker parents, and was born on a
farm in Hardwick, Sussex county, N. J., January 4, 1789.
When nineteen years old, working as an
apprentice to a saddler in Wheeling, his attention was first directed
to the
horrors of slavery by the constant sight of gangs of slaves driven in
chains
through the streets on their way to the South, for Wheeling was the
great
thoroughfare from Virginia for transporting slaves to the cotton
plantations. He entered at this time in
his diary: “I heard the wail of the captive; I felt his pang of
distress, and
the iron entered my soul.”
LUNDY
married, settled in St. Clairsville, working at his trade, and soon
began his
lifework, the abolition of slavery, finally learning in later years the
printer’s trade to better effect his purpose.
He
formed an
anti-slavery society here in 1815 when twenty-six years old, called
“the Union
Humane Society,” which grew from six to near five hundred members, and
wrote an
appeal to philanthropists throughout the Union to organize similar
co-operating
societies. He had written numerous
articles for The Philanthropist, a
small paper edited at Mt. Pleasant, in Jefferson county, by Charles
Osborne, a
Friend, and then sold his saddlery stock and business at a ruinous
sacrifice to
join Osborne and increase the efficiency of his paper.
In 1819 he removed to St. Louis where the
Missouri
question—the admission of Missouri into the Union with or without
slavery—was
attracting universal attention, and devoted himself to an exposition of
the
evils of slavery in the newspapers of that State and Illinois. In 1822 he walked back all the way to Ohio to
find that Osborne had sold out his paper, when he started another, a
monthly,
with six subscribers, which he had printed at Steubenville and called
the Genius of Universal Emancipation.
This was soon removed to Jonesboro, East
Tennessee, and in 1824 to Baltimore, to which place he walked and held
on his
way, in the States of South and North Carolina and Virginia,
anti-slavery
meetings among Quakers and formed abolition societies among them.
In
1828 he visited Boston and by his lectures enlisted Wm. Lloyd Garrison
in the
abolition cause and engaged him to become his associate editor. By this time LUNDY had formed by lecturing
and correspondence more than one hundred societies for the “gradual
though
total abolition of slavery.” In the
winter of 1828-29 he was assaulted and nearly killed in Baltimore by
Austin
Woolfolk, a slave-dealer. He was driven
out of Baltimore and finally established his paper in Philadelphia,
where his
property was burnt in 1838 by the pro-slavery mob that fired
Pennsylvania
Hall. The following winter he died in
LaSalle, Illinois, where he was about to re-establish his paper.
In
his personal appearance LUNDY gave no indication of the wonderful force
of
character he possessed. He was about
five feet five inches in stature, very slenderly built, light eyes and
light
curly hair and hard of hearing. He was
gentle and mild and persuasive with pity, not only for the slave, but
he ever
treated the slave-holders with the kindliest consideration.
Wm.
Lloyd Garrison, his co-laborer, wrote of him:
“Instead of being able to withstand the tide of public opinion
it would
at first seem doubtful whether he could sustain a temporary conflict
with the
winds of heaven. And yet he has explored
nineteen of the twenty-four States—from the Green mountains of Vermont
to the
banks of the Mississippi—multiplied anti-slavery societies in every
quarter,
put every petition in motion relative to the extinction of slavery in
the
District of Columbia, everywhere awakened the slumbering sympathies of
the
people, and begun a work, the completion of which will be the salvation
of his
country. His heart is gigantic
size. Every inch of him is alive with
power. He combines the meekness of
Howard with the boldness of Luther.
“Within
a few months he has travelled about 2,400 miles, of which upwards of
1,600 were
performed on foot, during which time he has held nearly fifty public
meetings. Rivers and mountains vanish in
his path; midnight finds him wending his solitary way over an
unfrequented
road; the sun is anticipated in his rising.
Never was moral sublimity of character better illustrated.”
Page 313
This
county has the honor of being the first to supply the State with an
Ohio-born
governor; this was Wilson SHANNON, who was born February 24, 1802, in a
cabin
at Mount Olivet and the first child born in the township.
He was of Irish descent.
The
next January his father, George SHANNON, went out hunting one morning. Late in the day, while making his way home
through the woods, a heavy snow-storm set in; he became bewildered and
lost his
way; after wandering about in a circle some time that constantly grew
less he
made unsuccessful efforts to start a fire, and being overpowered by
exhaustion
he seated himself close to a large sugar tree in the centre of his
beaten
circle, where he was found in the morning frozen to death.
Wilson
was educated at Athens and Transylvania University, and then studied
law with
Chas. HAMMOND and David Jennings at St. Clairsville, and soon became
eminent at
the bar. In 1838 he was elected governor
on the Democratic ticket by 5,738 votes over Jos. Vance, the Whig
candidate;
defeated in 1840 by Mr. Corwin, and in 1843 elected governor the second
time. In 1844 was appointed minister to
Mexico. In 1852 was sent to Congress,
where he was one of the four Ohio Democrats who voted for the Kansas
and
Nebraska bill. President Pierce later
appointed him governor of Kansas, which position he resigned in 1857
and
resumed the practice of law. In 1875, in
connection with the Hon. Jeremiah Black, of Pa., he argued the
celebrated Osage
land case before the Supreme Court and won the case for the settlers.
As
a lawyer he was bold, diligent, courteous and ever ready to assist the
weak and
struggling. Possessing a noble presence,
in his old age he was described as a picture of hardy, hale old
gentleman of
the olden time. He died in 1877 and was
buried at Lawrence, Kansas, where the last twenty years of his life had
been
passed.
James
M. THOBURN, D. D., elected in 1888 by the Methodists as missionary
bishop for
India and Malaysia, was born in St. Clairsville, O., March 7, 1836. He was graduated at Alleghany College at
Meadville, Pa., and began preaching in Ohio at the age of twenty-one. He went to India in 1859 as a missionary, and
in conjunction with Bishop TAYLOR did much to build up the church among
the
native tribes. He built the largest
church in India at Calcutta, and preached for five years at Simyla, the
summer
capital. He was editor for a time of the
Indian Witness, published at
Calcutta, and is the author of “My Missionary Apprenticeship;” “A
History of
Twenty-five Years’ Experience in India,” and of a volume of “Missionary
Sermons.”
BRIDGEPORT lies upon the Ohio river 135 miles
easterly from Columbus, on the
old National road and exactly opposite Wheeling, W. Va., with which it
is
connected by a bridge, and on the C. L. & W. and C. & P.
Railroads. It joins the town of Martin’s
Ferry; forming with it to the eye but a single city.
Back of it rise very bold hills and the site
is highly picturesque.
Bridgeport has 1 Presbyterian, 2
Methodist Episcopal and 1 Colored Baptist church. First
National Bank, W. W. HOLLOWAY,
president; J. J. HOLLOWAY, cashier.
Manufactures
and Employees.—Standard Iron Co., corrugated iron, 205 hands;
Bridgeport
Glass Co., fruit jars, 80; Ætna Iron and Steel Co., 610; La Belle Glass
Works,
cut glass, etc., 335; L. C. Leech, barrels, etc.; Diamond Mills, flour,
etc.;
R. J. Baggs & Son, doors, sash, etc., 35; Bridgeport Machine Shop.—State Report 1887.
Population in 1840, 329; in 1880,
2,390. School census 1886, 1,130; T. E.
Orr, superintendent. Bridgeport was laid
out in 1806 under the name of Canton by Ebenezer ZANE.
The locality had long been named
Kirkwood from Capt. Joseph KIRKWOOD, who in 1789 built a cabin on the
south side
of Indian Wheeling creek.
Indian
Attack on Kirkwood’s Cabin.—In
the spring of 1791 the cabin of Captain KIRKWOOD, at this place, was
attacked
at night by a party of Indians, who, after a severe action, were
repulsed. This Captain KIRKWOOD “was the
gallant and
unrewarded Captain KIRKWOOD, of the Delaware line, in the war of the
revolution, to whom such frequent and honorable allusion is made in
Lee’s
memoir of the Southern campaigns. The
State of Delaware had but one continental regiment, which, at the
defeat at
Camden, was reduced to a single company.
It was therefore impossible, under the rules, for KIRKWOOD to be
promoted; and he was under the mortification of beholding inferior
officers in
the regiments of other States, pro-
Page 314
moted
over him,
while he, with all his merit, was compelled to remain a captain, solely
in
consequence of the small force. Delaware
was enabled to maintain in the service.
He fought with distinguished gallantry through the war, and was
in the
bloody battles of Camden, Holkirks, Eutaw and Ninety-six.”
Captain
KIRKWOOD moved here in 1789, and built his cabin on a knoll. There was then an unfinished block-house on
the highest part of the knoll, near by.
On the night of the attack, fourteen soldiers, under Captain
Joseph
BIGGS, with Captain KIRKWOOD and family, were in the cabin. About two hours before daybreak the captain’s
little son Joseph had occasion to leave the cabin for a few moments,
and
requested Captain BIGGS to accompany him.
They were out but a few minutes, and although unknown to them,
were
surrounded by Indians. They had
returned, and again retired to sleep in the upper loft, when they soon
discovered the roof in a blaze, which was the first intimation they had
of the
presence of an enemy. Captain KIRKWOOD
was instantly awakened, when he and his men commenced pushing off the
roof, the
Indians at the same time firing upon them, from under cover of the
block-house. Captain BIGGS, on the first
alarm, ran down the ladder into the room below to get his rifle, when a
ball
entered a window and wounded him in the wrist.
Soon the Indians had surrounded the house, and attempted to
break in the
door with their tomahawks. Those within
braced it with puncheons from the floor.
In the panic of the moment several of the men wished to escape
from the
cabin, but Captain KIRKWOOD silenced them with the threat of taking the
life of
the first man who made the attempt, asserting that the Indians would
tomahawk
them as fast as they left.
The
people of Wheeling—one mile distant—hearing the noise of the attack,
fired a
swivel to encourage the defenders, although fearful of coming to the
rescue. This enraged the Indians the
more; they sent forth terrific yells, and brought brush, piled it
around the
cabin and set it on fire. Those within
in a measure smothered the flames, first with the water and milk in the
house,
and then the damp earth from the floor of the cabin.
The fight was kept up about two hours, until
dawn, when the Indians retreated. Had
they attacked earlier, success would have resulted.
The loss of the Indians, or their number, was
unknown—only one was seen. He was in the
act of climbing up the corner of the cabin, when he was discovered, let
go his
hold and fell. Seven of those within
were wounded, and one, a Mr. WALKER, mortally.
He was a brave man. As he lay,
disabled and helpless, on his back, on the earth, he called out to the
Indians
in a taunting manner. He died in a few
hours, and was buried the next day, at Wheeling, with military honors. A party of men, under Gen. Benjamin BIGGS, of
West Liberty, went in an unsuccessful pursuit of the Indians. A niece of Captain KIRKWOOD, during the
attack, was on a visit about twenty miles distant, on Buffalo creek. In the night she dreamed that the cabin was
attacked and heard the guns. So strong
an impression did it make, that she arose and rode down with all her
speed to
Wheeling, where she arrived two hours after sunrise.
After
this affair Captain KIRKWOOD moved with his family to Newark, Delaware. On his route he met with some of St. Clair’s
troops, then on their way to Cincinnati.
Exasperated at the Indians for their attack upon his house, he
accepted
the command of a company of Delaware troops, was with them at the
defeat of St.
Clair in the November following, "where he fell in a brave attempt to
repel the enemy with the bayonet, and thus closed a career as honorable
as it
was unrewarded."
Elizabeth ZANE, who acted with so
much heroism at the siege of Wheeling, in 1782, lived many years since
about
two miles above Bridgeport, on the Ohio side of the river, near
Martinsville. She was twice married,
first to Mr. M’LAUGHLIN, and secondly to Mr. CLARK.
This anecdote of her heroism has been
published a thousand times.
Heroism of Elizabeth
Zane.—When Lynn, the ranger,
gave the alarm that an Indian
army was approaching, the fort having been for some time unoccupied by
a
garrison, and Colonel ZANE’S house having been used for a magazine,
those who
retired into the fortress had to take with them a supply of ammunition
for its
defence. The supply of powder, deemed
ample at the time, was now almost exhausted, by reason of the long
continuance
of the siege, and the repeated endeavors of the savages to take the
fort by
storm; a few rounds only remained. In
this emergency it became necessary to renew their stock from an
abundant store
which was deposited in Colonel ZANE’S house.
Accordingly, it was proposed that one of the fleetest men should
endeavor to reach the house, obtain a supply of powder, and return with
it to
the fort. It was an enterprise full of
danger, but many of the heroic spirits shut up in the fort were willing
to
encounter the hazard. Among those who
volunteered to go on this enterprise was Elizabeth, the sister of
Colonel E.
ZANE. She was young, active and
athletic, with courage to dare the danger, and fortitude to sustain her
through
it. Disdaining to weigh the hazard of
her own life against
Page 315
that of the others, when told that a man
would
encounter less danger by reason of his greater fleetness, she replied
“and
should he fall, his loss will be more severely felt; you have not one
man to
spare; a woman will not be missed in the defence of the fort.” Her services were then accepted.
Divesting herself of some of her garments, as
tending to impede her progress, she stood prepared for the hazardous
adventure;
and when the gate was thrown open, bounded forth with the buoyance of
hope, and
in the confidence of success. Wrapt in
amazement, the Indians beheld her springing forward, and only
exclaiming, “a
squaw,” “a squaw,” no attempt was made to interrupt her progress;
arrived at
the door, she proclaimed her errand.
Colonel Silas ZANE fastened a tablecloth around her waist, and
emptying
into it a keg of power, again she ventured forth. The
Indians were no longer passive. Ball after
ball whizzed by, several of which
passed through her clothes; she reached the gate, and entered the fort
in
safety; and thus was the garrison again saved by female intrepidity. This heroine had but recently returned from
Philadelphia, where she had received her education, and was wholly
unused to
such scenes as were daily passing on the frontiers.
The distance she had to run was about forty
yards.
Among the best sketches of backwoods
life is that written by Mr. John S. WILLIAMS, editor of the American
Pioneer, and published in
October, 1843. In the spring of 1800 his
father’s family removed from Carolina and settled with others on
Glenn’s run,
about six miles northeast of St. Clairsville.
He was then a lad, as he relates, of seventy-five pounds weight. From his sketch, “Our Cabin; or Life in the
Woods,” we make some extracts.
OUR CABIN; OR LIFE IN THE WOODS.
Our Cabin Described.—Emigrants poured in
from different parts, cabins were put up in every direction, and women,
children and goods tumbled into them.
The tide of emigration flowed like water through a breach in a
mill-dam. Everything was bustle and
confusion, and all at work that could work.
In the midst of all this the mumps, and perhaps one or two other
diseases, prevailed and gave us a seasoning.
Our cabin had been raised, covered, part of the cracks chinked,
and part
of the floor laid when we moved in, on Christmas day!
There had not been a stick cut except in
building the cabin. We had intended an
inside chimney, for we thought the chimney ought to be in the house. We had a log put across the whole width of
the cabin for a mantel, but when the floor was in we found it so low as
not to
answer, and removed it. Here was a great
change for my mother and sister, as well as the rest, but particularly
my
mother. She was raised in the most
delicate manner in and near London, and lived most of her time in
affluence,
and always comfortable. She was now in
the wilderness, surrounded by wild beasts, in a cabin with about half a
floor,
no door, no ceiling overhead, not even a tolerable sign for a
fireplace, the
light of day and the chilling winds of night passing between every two
logs in
the building, the cabin so high from the ground that a bear, wolf,
panther, or
any other animal less in size than a cow, could enter without even a
squeeze. Such was our situation on
Thursday and Thursday night, December 25, 1800, and which was bettered
but by
very slow degrees. We got the rest of
the floor laid in a very few days, the chinking of the cracks went on
slowly,
but the duabing could not proceed till weather more suitable, which
happened in
a few days; door-ways were sawed out and steps made of the logs, and
the back
of the chimney was raised up to the mantel, but the funnel of sticks
and clay
was delayed until spring.
Our
family consisted of my mother, a sister, of twenty-two, my brother,
near
twenty-one and very weakly, and myself, in my eleventh year. Two years afterwards, Black Jenny followed us
in company with my half-brother, Richard, and his family.
She lived two years with us in Ohio, and died
in the winter of 1803-4.
In building our cabin it was set to
front the north and south, my brother using my father’s pocket compass
on the
occasion. We had no idea of living in a
house that did not stand square with the earth itself.
This argued our ignorance of the comforts and
conveniences of a pioneer life. The
position of the house, end to the hill, necessarily elevated the lower
end, and
the determination of having both a north and south door added much to
the
airiness of the domicil, particulary after the green ash puncheons had
shrunk
so as to have cracks in the floor and doors from one to two inches wide. At both the doors we had high, unsteady, and
sometimes icy steps, made by piling up the logs cut out of the wall. We had as the reader will see, a window, if
it could be called a window, when,
perhaps, it was the largest spot in the top, bottom, or sides of the
cabin at
which the wind could not enter. It
was made by sawing out a log, placing
sticks across, and then, by pasting an old newspaper over the hole, and
applying some hog’s lard, we had a kind of glazing which shed a most
beautiful
and mellow light across the cabin when the sun shone on it. All other light entered at the doors, cracks
and chimney.
Our
cabin was twenty-four by eighteen. The
west end was occupied by two beds, the centre of each side by a door,
and here
our symmetry had to stop, for on the opposite side of the window, made
of
clapboards, sup-
Page 316
ported on pins driven into the logs, were our
shelves. Upon these shelves my sister
displayed, in ample order, a host of pewter plates, basins, and dishes,
and
spoons, scoured and bright. It was none
of your new-fangled pewter made of lead, but the best London pewter,
which our
father himself bought of Townsend, the manufacturer.
These were the plates upon which you could
hold your meat so as to cut it without slipping and without dulling
your
knife. But, alas! The days of pewter
plates and sharp dinner knives have passed away never to return. To return to our internal arrangements. A ladder of five rounds occupied the corner
near the window. By this, when we got a
floor above, we could ascend. Our
chimney occupied most of the east end; pots and kettles opposite the
window
under the shelves, a gun on hooks over the north door, four
split-bottom
chairs, three three-legged stools, and a small eight by ten
looking-glass
sloped from the wall over a large towel and comb-case.
These, with a clumsy shovel and a pair of
tongs, made in Frederick, with one shank straight, as the best
manufacture of
pinches and blood-blisters, completed our furniture, except a
spinning-wheel
and such things as were necessary to work with.
It was absolutely necessary to have three-legged
stools, as four legs of anything could not all touch the floor at
the same
time.
The
completion of our cabin went on slowly.
The season was inclement, we were weak-handed and weak-pocketed;
in
fact, laborers were not to be had. We
got our chimney up breast-high as soon as we could, and got our cabin
daubed as
high as the joists outside. It never was
daubed on the inside, for my sister, who was very nice, could not
consent to
“live right next to the mud.” My
impression now is, that the window was not constructed till spring, for
until
the sticks and clay was put on the chimney we could possibly have no
need of a
window; for the
OUR CABIN; OR LIFE IN
THE WOODS.
flood of light which always poured into the
cabin from
the fireplace would have extinguished our paper window, and rendered it
as
useless as the moon at noonday. We got a
floor laid overhead as soon as possible, perhaps in a month; but when
it was laid, the reader will readily
conceive of its imperviousness to wind or weather, when we mention that
it was
laid of loose clapboards split from a red oak, the stump of which may
be seen
beyond the cabin. That tree grew in the
night, and so twisting that each board laid on two diagonally opposite
corners,
and a cat might have shook every board on our ceiling.
It
may be well to inform the unlearned reader that clapboards are such
lumber as
pioneers split with a frow, and resemble barrel staves before they are
shaved,
but are split longer, wider and thinner; of such our roof and ceiling
were
composed. Puncheons were planks made by
splitting logs to about two and a half or three inches in thickness,
and hewing
them on one or both sides with the broad-axe.
Of such our floor, doors, tables and stools were manufactured. The eavebearers are those end logs which
project over to receive the butting poles, against which the lower tier
of
clapboards rest in forming the roof. The
trapping is the roof timbers, composing the gable end and the ribs, the
ends of
which appear in the drawing, being those logs upon which the clapboards
lie. The trap logs are those of unequal
length, above the eave bearers, which form the gable ends, and upon
which the
ribs rest. The weight poles are those
small logs laid on the roof, which weigh down the course of clapboards
on which
they lie, and against which the next course above is placed. The knees are pieces of heart timber placed
above the butting poles, successively, to prevent the weight poles from
rolling
off. . . . .
The evening of the first winter did
not pass off as pleasantly as
evenings afterwards. We had raised no
tobacco to stem and twist, no corn to shell, no turnips to scrape; we
had
Page 317
no tow to spin into rope-yarn, nor straw to
plait for
hats, and we had come so late we could get but few walnuts to crack. We had, however, the Bible, George Fox’s
Journal, Barkley’s Apology, and a number of books, all better than much
of the
fashionable reading of the present day—from which, after reading, the
reader
finds he has gained nothing, while his understanding has been made the
dupe of
the writer’s fancy—that while reading he has given himself up to be led
in
mazes of fictitious imagination, and losing his taste for solid
reading, as
frothy luxuries destroy the appetite for wholesome food.
To our stock of books were soon after added a
borrowed copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress, which we read twice through
without
stopping. The first winter our living
was truly scanty and hard; but even this winter had its felicities. We had part of a barrel of flour which we had
brought from Fredericktown. Besides
this, we had part of a jar of hog's lard brought from old Carolina; not
the
tasteless stuff which now goes by that name, but pure leaf lard, taken
from
hogs raised on pine roots and fattened on sweet potatoes, and into
which, while
rendering, were immersed the boughs of the fragrant bay tree, that
imparted to
the lard a rich flavor. Of that flour,
shortened with this lard, my sister every Sunday morning, and at no other time, made short biscuit for
breakfast—not these greasy gum-elastic biscuit we mostly meet with now,
rolled
out with a pin, or cut out with a cutter; or those that are, perhaps,
speckled
by or puffed up with refined lye called salæratus, but made out, one by
one, in
her fair hands, placed in neat juxtaposition in a skillet or spider,
pricked
with a fork to prevent blistering, and baked before an open fire—not
half-baked
and half-stewed in a cooking-stove. . . . .
The Woods about us.—In the
ordering of a good Providence the winter was open, but
windy. While the wind was of great use
in driving the smoke and ashes out of our cabin, it shook terribly the
timber
standing almost over us. We were sometimes
much and needlessly alarmed. We had
never seen a dangerous looking tree near a dwelling, but here we were
surrounded by the tall giants of the forest, waving their boughs and
uniting
their brows over us, as if in defiance of our disturbing their repose,
and
usurping their long and uncontested pre-emption rights.
The beech on the left often shook his bushy
head over us as if in absolute disapprobation of our settling there,
threatening to crush us if we did not pack up and start.
The walnut over the spring branch stood high
and straight; no one could tell which way it inclined, but all
concluded that
if it had a preference it was in favor of quartering on our cabin. We got assistance to cut it down.
The axeman doubted his ability to control its
direction, by reason that he must necessarily cut it almost off before
it would
fall. He thought by felling the tree in
the direction of the reader, along near the chimney, and thus favor the
little
lean it seemed to have, would be the means of saving the cabin. He was successful. Part
of the stump still stands. These, and all
other dangerous trees, were
got down without other damage than many frights and frequent desertions
of the
premises by the family while the trees were being cut.
The ash beyond the house crossed the scarf
and fell on the cabin, but without damage. . . . . .
Howling Wolves.—The monotony of the time
for several of the first years was broken and enlivened by the howl of
wild
beasts. The wolves howling around us
seemed to mean their inability to drive us from their long and
undisputed
domain. The bears, panthers and deer
seemingly got miffed at our approach or the partiality of the hunters,
and but
seldom troubled us. One bag of meal
would make a whole family rejoicingly happy and thankful then, when a
loaded
East Indiaman will fail to do it now, and is passed off as a common
business
transaction without ever once thinking of the giver, so independent
have we
become in the short space of forty years!
Having got out of the wilderness in less time than the children
of
Israel we seem to be even more forgetful and unthankful than they. When spring was fully come and our little
patch of corn, three acres, put in among the beech roots, which at
every step
contended with the shovel-plough for the right of soil, and held it
too, we
enlarged our stock of conveniences. As
soon as bark would run (peel off) we could make ropes and bark boxes. These we stood in great need of, as such
things as bureaus, stands, wardrobes, or even barrels, were not to be
had. The manner of making ropes of linn
bark was
to cut the bark in strips of convenient length, and water-rot it in the
same
manner as rotting flax or hemp. When
this was done the inside bark would peel off and split up so fine as to
make a
pretty considerably rough and good-for-but-little kind of a rope. Of this, however, we were very glad, and let
no shipowner with his grass ropes laugh at us.
We made two kinds of boxes for furniture. One
kind was of hickory bark with the outside
shaved off. This we would take off all
around the tree, the size of which would determine the calibre of our
box. Into one end we would place a flat
piece of
bark or puncheon cut round to fit in the bark, which stood on end the
same as
when on the tree. There was little need
of hooping, as the strength of the bark would keep that all right
enough. Its shrinkage would make the top
unsightly in
a parlor now-a-days, but then they were considered quite an addition to
the
furniture. A much finer article was made
of slippery-elm bark, shaved smooth and with the inside out, bent round
and
sewed together where the ends of the hoop or main bark lapped over. The length of the bark was around the box,
and inside out. A bottom was made of a
piece of the same bark dried flat, and a lid, like that of a common
band-box,
made in the same way. This was the
finest furniture in a lady’s dressing-room, and then, as now, with the
finest
furniture, the lapped or sewed side was turned to the wall and the
Page 318
prettiest part to the spectator.
They were usually made oval, and while the
bark was green were easily ornamented with drawings of birds, trees,
etc.,
agreeably to the taste and skill of the fair manufacturer.
As we belonged to the Society of Friends, it
may be faily presumed that our band-boxes were not thus ornamented. . .
. . .
Pioneer Food.—We settled on beech land,
which took much labor to clear. We could
do no better than clear out the smaller stuff and burn the brush, etc.,
around
the beeches which in spite of the girdling and burning we could do to
them,
would leaf out the first year, and often a little the second. The land, however, was very rich, and would
bring better corn than might be expected.
We had to tend it principally with the hoe, that is, to chop
down the
nettles, the water-weed and the touch-me-not.
Grass, careless, lambs-quarter and Spanish needles were reserved
to
pester the better prepared farmer. We
cleared a small turnip patch, which we got in about the 10th
of
August. We sowed in timothy seed, which
took well, and next year we had a little hay besides.
The tops and blades of the corn were also
carefully saved for our horse, cow and the two sheep.
The turnips were sweet and good, and in the
fall we took care to gather walnuts and hickory nuts, which were very
abundant. These, with the turnips which
we scraped, supplied the place of fruit.
I have always been partial to scraped turnips, and could not
beat any
three dandies at scraping them.
Johnny-cake, also, when we had meal to make it of, helped to
make up our
evening's repast. The Sunday morning
biscuit had all evaporated, but the loss was partially supplied by the
nuts and
turnips. Our regular supper was mush and
milk, and by the time we had shelled our corn, stemmed tobacco, and
plaited
straw to make hats, etc., etc., the mush and milk had seemingly
decamped from
the neighborhood of our ribs. To relieve
this difficulty my brother and I would bake a thin Johnny-cake, part of
which
we would eat, and leave the rest till the morning.
At daylight we would eat the balance as we
walked from the house to work.
The
methods of eating mush and milk were various.
Some would sit around the pot, and every one take therefrom for
himself. Some would set a table and each
have his tincup of milk, and with a pewter spoon take just as much mush
from
the dish or the pot, if it was on the table, as he thought would fill
his mouth
or throat, then lowering it into the milk would take some to wash it
down. This method kept the milk cool, and
by frequent
repetitions the pioneers would contract a faculty of correctly
estimating the
proper amount of each. Others would mix
mush and milk together. . . . . .
To get Grinding done was often a great
difficulty, by reason of the scarcity of mills, the freezes in winter
and
droughts in summer. We had often to
manufacture meal (when we had corn)
in anyway we could get the corn to pieces.
We soaked and pounded it, we shaved it, we planed it, and at the
proper
season, grated it. When one of our
neighbors got a hand-mill it was thought quite an acquisition to the
neighborhood. In after years, when in
time of freezing or drought, we could get grinding by waiting for our
turn no
more than one day and a night at a horse-mill we thought ourselves
happy. To save meal we often made pumpkin
bread, in
which when meal was scarce the pumpkin would so predominate as to
render it
next to impossible to tell our bread from that article, either by
taste, looks,
or the amount of nutriment it contained.
Salt was five dollars a bushel, and we used none in our corn
bread,
which we soon liked as well without it.
Often has sweat ran into my mouth, which tasted as fresh and
flat as
distilled water. What meat we had at
first was fresh, and but little of that, for had we been hunters we had
no time
to practice it.
We had no Candles, and cared but little
about them except for summer use. In
Carolina we had the real fat light-wood, not merely pine knots, but the
fat
straight pine. This, from the brilliancy
of our parlor, or winter evenings, might be supposed to put not only
candles,
lamps, camphine, Greenough’s chemical oil, but even gas itself, to the
blush. In the West we had not this but
my business was to ramble the woods every evening for seasoned sticks,
or the
bark of the shelly hickory, for light.
"“Tis true that our light was not as good as even candles, but
we
got along without fretting, for we depended more upon the goodness of
our eyes
than we did upon the brilliancy of the light."
TRAVELLING
NOTES.
The Poor Man’s Railroad.—The
initial letters of the name of the railway
terminating at Bellaire are “B Z. & C.”
Ask people on that line “What B. Z. & C. stand for?” With a quizzical smile they will often answer
“badly zigzag and crooked;” having just come over it I can say that
exactly
describes it. Its name, however, is
Bellaire, Zanesville & Cincinnati.
Its projector and builder of that part within this county was
Col. John
H. Sullivan, Bellaire; a calm, dignified gentleman, clear and careful
in his
statements, whom it did me good to meet.
It
was impracticable to build an ordinary railroad through the rough wild
country
of the Ohio river hills of Belmont and Monroe counties, so the colonel
planned
a narrow gauge with steep grades and sharp curves, and he called it
“The Poor
Man’s Railroad.” From Woodsfield,
county-seat of Monroe, to Bellaire, a distance of forty-two miles, on
which
passenger trains go about sixteen miles an hour, it cost but $11,500
per mile,
a miracle of cheapness. This includes
land, grading, bridges, tracks, everything exclusive of rolling stock. It was finished to Woodsfield in 1877, and
all by private subscription. It is of
incalculable benefit to the farmers of the Ohio river hills, for the
cost of
good wagon roads among them is enormous and a
Page 319
serious drawback to the development of the
country.
A
large part of the road is a succession of curves, trestle work and
steep
grades. In places the road rises over
130 feet to the mile, and some of the curves have a radius of but 400
feet; at
one spot there is a reverse curve on a trestle.
Where curves are so sharp the outer rail is placed three inches
the
highest to hold the cars on the track; but the friction occasions a
horrid
screeching of the wheels. The Colorado
Central, like this, is a narrow gauge.
It leads from the Union Pacific to the mining regions of
Colorado. Its extreme grade is more than
twice that of
this, 275 feet to the mile. Some
gentlemen riding over it on a platform car to see the country said such
was the
irregularity of the motion that they were obliged to cling “for dear
life” to
the sides of the car to prevent being jerked off. From
my experience I think the “Badly Zigzag
and Crooked” but a trifle less shaky. I
extract from my note book:
Bellaire, Friday evening, May 28.—Left
Woodsfield early this morning and got on the train for Bellaire; only a
single
passenger car with a few men aboard, but no women!
I felt sorry; I always like to see’em
about. Their presence “sort o’”
sanctifies things. Away we went on this
little baby railroad, the “Badly Zigzag and Crooked.”
The town I had left behind, placed high up in
the hills, was quite primitive; it had scarcely changed since my first
visit,
in 1846. In a few minutes we were
zigzagging, twisting down a little run in a winding chasm among the
hills
wooded to their summits, the scenery very wild, every moment the cars
changing
their direction and shaking us about with their constant jar and grind,
and
wabbling now to one side and then to the other.
In twenty minutes I was peeping through charming vistas into a
wild
valley. In a few more minutes and we
were in it; crossed a little bridge some six rods wide and paused at
the
farther side, but a little cottage in its aspect domestic and
un-railroad-like,
notwithstanding its sign “Sunfish Station.”
The Pretty Sunfish.—Yes, this little,
romantic stream was the Sunfish. I
looked down the valley, a deep chasm, narrow, tortuous, with its
wood-clad
hills, the lights and shades on the scene all glorious in the early
morning
light. What a pretty name—“Sunfish!”
instinctively the mind takes in the little creature that dwells in the
freedom
of the waters and darts around clad in its beauty spots of crimson and
gold,
down there where everything is so clean and pure.
How
I longed to get out of the cars and follow this winding little stream
until it
was lost in the Ohio, some twenty miles away; to feast my eyes with its
hidden
beauties, all unknown to the great outside world—beauties of sparkling
cascades
and laughing waters, and smooth, silent, dark reaches, where frowning
cliffs
and dense foliage and summer clouds seem as sleeping down below.
They
tell me that the Ohio State Fish Commission in 1885 put into the
Sunfish half a
million of California trout and salmon; the stream naturally abounds in
yellow
perch. At Sunfish Station a woman,
humbly clad, with children and bundles, came aboard, when out of
respect to the
sex out spake the conductor; when out went through the window a vile
Wheeling
stogie—the poor man’s cigar. It is said
that city turns out annually tens of millions, and all this part of the
country
smoke them—the millions.
Then
up out of the chasm our train went, again twisting, wabbling,
squeaking,
screeching with the same deafening, infernal grind, the engine one
moment
poking its nose this way and then that, like Bruno or Snow Flake
searching for
a bone. We were going up to the
birthplace of a mountain rill that was on its way rejoicing to help
along the
pretty sunfish.
A Future Jay Gould.—After a little my
attention was caught by a living object.
On a cleared space of a quarter of an acre, ten rods away in a
cleft in
the hillside it was, stood a miserable log-hut without a door or a
window in
sight. By it was a single living object;
a boy in a single garment, about six years old, gazing upon us. It would have been worth a plum to have known
the mental status of that child as he looked out upon our train.
To
be interested in motion is a grand human instinct.
A great divine said to me once, “From my
study window I get just a glimpse of the top of the smoke-stack of the
locomotive on the railroad thirty rods away; but no matter how
absorbing my
study, I invariably look up at every passing train.”
This was the late Leonard Bacon, the
identical person to whose pungent writing Abraham Lincoln ascribed his
first
insight of the wrong of slavery.
As
I looked upon this child I felt an inward respect for his
possibilities; felt
like taking off my hat to him; a human being, anyway, is a big thing. He may be the Jay Gould of 1930.
Certainly to be born poor and among the
hills, seems to be no barrier to an eventual grasp of the money bags
or, what
is better than a grasp simply of externals, the highest, purest,
noblest
development of one’s self.
Beautiful Belmont.—A little later we
went in the open, elevated country of beautiful Belmont county. It seemed as though we were on the roof of
the world. No forests in sight, but
huge, round, grassy hills, on which sheep were grazing, and a vast,
boundless
prospect stretching like a billowy ocean of green all around, with here
and
there warm, red-hued patches—ploughed fields.
We could see white farm-houses glistening in the morning sun,
miles on
miles away. Henry Stanberry, once riding
in a stage-coach on the National road through this region, said: “I
should have
liked to have been born in Belmont county.”
“Why?” inquired a companion.
“Because people born in a country of marked features have marked
features themselves.”
The Valley of the Captina was reached
from
Page 320
the table-lands by a rapid descent, when we
stopped a
few moments at a mining point—Captina Station Bridge.
It was just long enough for me to sketch from
the car windows a row of miners’ cottages, and from
which the
inmates go forth every morning to their
work, descending a perpendicular hole in the ground seventy-three feet. To strike the same vein, “The Pittsburg
vein,” at Steubenville, in the county north, they descend from 225 to
261 feet,
being about the deepest shafts in the State.
A mining
experience was mine on the 13th
day of July, 1843. On that day I got
into a basket suspended over the Midlothian coal mine near Richmond,
Va., and
descended perpendicularly, by steam, 625 feet.
Then, being put in charge of the overseer, I went down ladders
and
slopes so that I attained a depth of about 1,000 feet from the surface. The overseer took me everywhere, exploring,
as he said, about four miles. It was
noon when I entered the pit, and when I came out above ground and got
out of
the basket what was my astonishment to find the twilight of a summer
evening
pervading the landscape. I found the
owner had never ventured into his own mine, and I learn it is often the
same
with owners in Ohio. I am glad I
ventured, yet it was not an experience that I care to repeat; but the
music of
the sweet singers that evening, at the mansion of the gentleman, the
owner,
whose guest I was, rested me after my toil, and lingers in memory.
From
Captina we soon descended into a narrow valley, passing by some small,
neat
white cottages with long porches, and poultry trotting around in side
yards,
and then suddenly burst into view the broad valley of the Ohio and,
following
the river banks, were soon in that hive of industry and glass—Bellaire.
BELLAIRE, 120 miles east of Columbus
and 5 miles below Wheeling, on the Ohio river, is on the B. & O.,
B. Z.
& C., and C. & P. Railroads. It
is an important manufacturing town; its manufactories are supplied with
natural
gas, and it has ten coal mines, water works, paved streets and street
railway.
Newspapers: Herald,
Democratic, E. M. LOCKWOOD, editor; Independent,
Republican, J. F. ANDERSON, editor; Tribune,
Republican, C. L. POORMAN & Co., editors.
Churches: 2 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Colored Methodist Episcopal,
2
Presbyterian, 1 United Presbyterian, 1 Disciples, 1 Episcopal, 1 German
Reformed, 1 Church of God and 1 Catholic.
Bank: First National, J. T. MERCER, president, A. P. TALLMAN,
cashier.
Manufactures
and Employees.—Lantern Globe Co., 95 hands; Crystal Window Glass
Co., 61;
Bellaire Steel and Nail Works, 650; Union Window Glass Works, 63;
DuBois &
McCoy, doors, sash, etc., 27; Bellaire Bottle Co., 130; Belmont Glass
Works,
240; Bellarie Barrel Works, 16; James Fitton, gas fitting, 13; Ohio
Lantern
Co., 83; Bellaire Stamping Co., metal specialties, 210; Bellaire Goblet
Co.,
285; Enterprise Window Glass Co., 59; Bellaire Window Glass Works, 106;
Ohio
Valley Foundry Co., stoves, etc., 45; Rodefer Bros., lamp globes, 125;
Ætna
Foundry & Machine Shop, repair shop, etc., 13; Ætna Glass
Manufacturing
Co., 245.—State Report 1887. Population
in 1880, 8,205; school census in
1886, 3,381; Benj. T. Jones, superintendent.
The river plateau at Bellaire is
about a third of a mile wide; upon it are the industries and most of
the
residences. The streets are broad and
airy. The ascent of the river hills is
easy, with the homes of the working people pleasantly perched thereon. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad follows the
valley of McMahon’s creek, a stream about six rods wide and entering
the Ohio
in the southern part of the town. The
road crosses the Ohio by an iron bridge and across the town by a stone
arcade
of forty-three arches, rising and passing over several of the main
streets at a
height of thirty-five feet; it is a very picturesque feature of the
city. The two, bridge and arcade unitedly,
it is
said, are about a mile long and cost over a million and a half dollars.
Page 321
The valley of the Ohio, taking both
sides for seven miles, is a great manufacturing region and owes its
prosperity
primarily to the inexhaustible beds of coal in the valley hills, with
limestone, building stone and fire-clay.
On the West Virginia side is the city of Wheeling, with its
35,000
people, and suburb of Benwood directly opposite Bellaire.
On the Ohio side is a line of towns for seven
miles, beginning with Bellaire and continuing with Bridgeport and
Martin’s
Ferry, bringing up the total population to 60,000 souls.
So near are they that one may in a certain
sense call it a single city with the Ohio dividing it.
In the hills at Bellaire ten large
coal mines are worked. On the Ohio side
the dip of the coal is towards the mouth of the mines, thus giving the
advantage of a natural drainage. At
Bellaire the vein, “The Pittsburg,” is 125 feet above the river at low
stage
and is worked from the surface. The
inclination of the vein is twenty-two feet to the mile.
The coal is discharged over screens into
railroad cars drawn by mules. The
dumping places are termed “tipples.” The
mines have two tipples each, one at the mouth of the mine and the other
at the
river bank; so called because the coal cars are there tipped and
emptied.
Lombardy
poplars are a feature in the river towns of the upper Ohio, for
which the
soil and climate appear to be well adapted.
Mingled with the rounding forms
T. S.
Tappin,
Photo, Bellaire, 1887
BELLAIRE.
The view is looking up
the Ohio, showing in from “the
coal tipple” on the river bank; on the left
some glass-houses, and
in the distance the bridge of
the B. & O. Railroad.
of the
other
trees and projected against the soft curves of distant hills, or
standing on
their slopes and summits, they dignify and greatly enhance the charms
of a
landscape. Their towering forms affect
one with the same sombre emotion as the spires and pinnacles of Gothic
architecture. The tree grows with great
rapidity; its entire life only about forty years. The
poplar trees shown in the picture of “The
House that Jack Built,” twenty-one in number, were slender saplings
about
fifteen feet long when set out in 1873, by the veteran miner; now are
all of
sixty or seventy feet. The worms at
certain seasons commit depredations upon them, when they look as
scraggy as poultry
divested of feathers. The selfish reason
given for not planting trees, that one may not live to see them grow,
does not
apply to this tree. Such is the demand
hereabouts for poplars that at Moundsville, on the opposite side of the
river,
the nursery of Mr. Harris makes a specialty of them.
TRAVELLING
NOTES.
Decoration Day.—Bellaire
has much to interest me. Saturday, May 29th,
dawned in
beauty. It was Decoration Day, and the
people turned out in force; the veterans of the Grand Army, the
children, boys
and girls, in white, with music, wound up in long procession Cemetery
hill,
overlooking the city, bearing flags and flowers. Beautiful
is young life, and never may there
be wanting everywhere memorial days of some sort to feed the fires of
patriotism
in youthful hearts.
A Talk with a Veteran Riverman.—Capt.
Page 322
John FINK in his youthful days arose bright
and
early. He was smart, and so he got to
Bellaire long before the town; indeed, officiated at its birth. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. Mike FINK, the last and most famous of the
now long extinct race of Ohio and Mississippi river boatmen, was a
relative,
and he knew Mike—knew him as a boy knows a man.
“When I was a lad,” he told me, “about ten years of age, our
family
lived four miles above Wheeling, on the river.
Mike laid up his boat near us, though he generally had two boats. This was his last trip, and he went away to
the farther West; the country here was getting too civilized, and he
was
disgusted. This was about 1815.
Mike Fink.—In the management of his
business Mike was a rigid disciplinarian; woe to the man who shirked. He always had his woman along with him, and
would allow no other man to converse with her.
She was sometimes a subject for his wonderful skill in
marksmanship with
the rifle. He would compel her to hold
on the top of her head a tin cup filled with whiskey, when he would put
a
bullet through it. Another of his feats
was to make her hold it between her knees, as in a vice, and then
shoot.”
Captain Fink’s Own History is a subject more
pleasant for contemplation. He is a
thoroughly manly man, and now, at eighty-one years of age, in the full
vigor of
intellect. From ten to twelve years of
age he was at work on his uncle’s farm, four miles above Wheeling; from
twelve
to fifteen on the Wheeling ferry. Next
he was cook on a keel-boat, where he learned to “push.”
He followed “pushing” for three years, first
at thirty-seven and a half cents a day and then fifty cents. In 1824 he married, his entire fortune just
seventy-five cents. A few days after he
tried to get a calico dress for his wife on credit but failed.
The Early Coal-Trade on the River.—About
the year 1830, then twenty-five years of age, his credit having
improved, Mr.
FINK bought on time a piece of land on McMahon’s creek, Bellaire, and
began
mining. He built a flat-boat, and took a
load of coal to Maysville, which netted him $200. This,
he tells me, was the first load of coal
ever floated any distance on the Ohio.
After a little he began a coal-trade with New Orleans. He carted it to the river bank, put it on
board of flat-boats, and floated it down to New Orleans, a distance of
2,100
miles. On a good stage of water they
went down in about thirty days; once, on a flood, in nineteen days;
half the
time did not dare to land. He sold it to
the sugar refineries, and it was very useful, for with wood alone they
were
unable to keep up the regular heat, so necessary for good sugar.
They
discharged a cargo by carrying it up on their shoulders in barrels. The way was to knock the hoops of a
flour-barrel together at the ends to strengthen it, bore two holes
through the
top, through which a piece of rope was put, and tied as a bale; through
this
was thrust a pole, when two men carried it on their shoulders up the
river
bank; sometimes the river was higher than the town, then they descended.
Each
barrel held two and three-quarter bushels; weight, 220 pounds. The sugar people paid him $1.50 a
barrel. During a term of years he sold
several hundred thousand bushels. In
1833 he went into the steamboat business as captain and owner, and,
amassing a
fortune, in 1864, at the age of fifty-nine, he retired from active
business.
The Heatheringtons.—In his early mining
operations here Capt. FINK found excellent help in the HEATHERINGTONS,
a family
of English miners. They consisted of the
father, John, and his four boys, Jacob, John Jr., Ralph, Edward, and a
John
More. They worked in a coal-bank, in the
hill south of McMahon’s creek. They
would get to work about daybreak, bring their coal to the mouth of the
pit on
wheelbarrows, empty their barrels over a board screen, and down it
would go
sliding to a lower level with a tremendous rattling noise, which
travelled over
the cornfields and resounded among the hills around.
At that time Bellaire was only a farming
spot, and the farmers complained that the noise disturbed their morning
sleep. After a while they became
reconciled to this “eye-opener,” for it brought money and business to
the
place, and the miners had to be fed—had bouncing appetites. The family were also musical; and evenings,
after their days of toil, they brought out their musical
instruments—fife,
drum, clarionet, triangle, etc.—and the old man, John, and his four
boys, Jake,
John, Jr., Ralph, Ed., and John More gave the valley folks the best
they had;
so if the eye-openers had been a little hard on them, the night-caps
made full
compensation.
Jacob Heatherington.—When I entered the
lower end of Bellaire, in the cars along the river valley, I was struck
by the
grand appearance of a mansion under the hill, with a row of poplar
trees before
it. This, with the huge glass-houses
with their big cupolas, and other industrial establishments of the
place, the
noble bridge across the Ohio, and the grandeur of the hill and river
scenery,
made an enduring impression. The owner
of this palatial residence is Jacob, or, as he is commonly called, Jake
HEATHERINGTON, one of the sons of the John of whom I have spoken. He is now an old and highly respected man of
seventy-three years of age, and with a large estate, but he cannot read
nor
write.
The Miner and his Mule Partner.—He was
born in England in 1814; at seven years of age was put to work down
2,400 feet
deep in a coal-mine, and worked sixteen and eighteen hours a day; never
went to
school a day in his life. In 1837, when
he was twenty-three years of age, he rented a coal-bank from Capt.
FINK, and
bought eight acres of land on credit.
This was his foundation, and it was solid, was indeed “the
everlasting
hills.” At first he wheeled out his coal
on a wheelbarrow; his business grew, and he took in a partner. The firm became known as
Page 323
Jake HEATHERINGTON and his mule Jack. For years he mined his own coal, and drove
his faithful, silent, yet active partner, a little fellow, only about
three
feet and a half high.
T. S.
Tappan,
Photo., Bellaire, 1887
JACOB HEATHERINGTON.
A
strong affection grew up between them—a mule and a
man—and so great was it that Jack rebelled when any one else attempted
to drive
him. From a few bushels per day the
business increased to thousands, and Jake’s coal fed the furnaces of
scores of
steamers. His possessions enlarged in
various ways; his eight acres increased to over 800, he owned some
thirty
dwellings, shares in glass-works, and possessed steamboats.
He
could never read the names of his own boats as he saw them pass along
the
beautiful river sixty rods from his door; but he didn’t care, for he
knew them
by sight, and no more required their names on their sides for his use
than he
wanted painted on the side of his beloved mule, in staring letters, the
word JACK!
The House that Jack Built.—In 1870 he
built his imposing residence, at a cost, it is said of $35,000, and
dedicated
it to the memory of Jack. He always says
it is “The House that Jack Built.” His
good fortune he ascribes to Jack; but for his faithful services he
never could
have raised it. Over the doorway is a
noble arch, the keystone of which is the projecting head of a mule, a
T. S.
Tappin,
Photo, Bellaire, 1887
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.
additional photos
likeness of Jack.
When the house was built Jack was twenty-eight years old,
retired from
active business, sleek and fat; he did nothing but now and then cut off
a few
coupons.
Jake Shows Jack his New House.—Then came
the eventful day of his life. Jake
brought him out from his retirement to show him the grand mansion he
owed to
him. In the presence of the assembled
neighbors, Jake led Jack
up the steps
under the splendid archway, and he followed him through the house,
while he
talked to him in the most loving and grateful way and showed him
everything;
all of which Jack fully understood as a mule understands a man. Jack lived many years after this in “otium cum dignitate.” To be
Page 324
born is to eventually die; it is a mere
question of
time; with mules there is no exception.
Then came Jack’s last sickness; the most tender nursing was of
no
avail. The grief of Jake at Jack’s
demise was indescribable. To this day he
goes with visitors, and points out his grave under an apple tree near
his
house, and talks of the virtues of the departed. His
age was forty years and ten days; his
appearance venerable, for time had whitened his entire body like unto
snow.
My Visit to Jake.—It was in the twilight
of a Sunday evening that I called upon Jake HEATHERINGTON.
I passed under the poplars and across the
lawn to the mansion. The venerable man
and his wife were seated, good Christian people as they are, on the
doorstep,
enjoying the close of the holy day as it rested in silence over the
lovely
hill-crowned valley.
When
I handed him my card, I happened to look up and saw the mule looking
down, as
if watching me. In a moment the old
gentleman handed it back, saying; “You will please read it; I am not
much of a
scholar.” “No matter,” I replied;
“talking was done before printing; I will talk.” I
passed an hour there, during which he gave
me some of the incidents of his early life, as related.
He is rather a small man, but fresh-looking
and compactly built; just after the war he fell in a coal-boat and
broke his
hip, from which he still suffers.
Although
an unlettered man, he is of the quality that poets are made. While one’s risibilities are affected by the
singular original demonstration of his regard for a brute, the
tenderness of
the sentiment touches the finer chords.
The highest, the celestial truths are felt through the poetic
sense; and
true worship is that which demonstrates a yearning desire for the
happiness of
even the humblest of God’s creatures.
“Love me, love my dog,” was a thought in Paradise before it was
a
proverb on earth.
BARNESVILLE, ninety-seven miles
east of Columbus, and
twenty miles west of the Ohio river, is on the O. C. R. R., and famous
for its
culture of strawberries and raspberries.
Newspapers: Enterprise,
Independent, George McCLELLAND, publisher; Republican,
Republican, Hanlon Bros. & Co., publishers.
Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Christian, 1
African
Methodist Episcopal and 1 Friends. Banks:
First National, Asa GARRETSON, president, G. E. BRADFIELD, cashier;
People’s
National, J. S. ELY, president, A. E. DENT, cashier.
Large
Manufactures.—Barnesville Glass Company, 131 hands; Watt Mining
Car-Wheel
Company, 42; George Atkinson, woollen-mill, 13; Heed Bros., cigars, 90;
George
E. Hunt, tailor, 18; Hanlon Bros., printing, 17.—State
Report 1887.
Population in 1880, 2,435. School
census in 1886, 823; Henry L. Peck, superintendent.
The distinguishing feature of
Barnesville lies in the quantity and quality of its strawberry
production. Twenty-five years ago very few
strawberries
were grown in this community. In the
spring of 1860 the late William SMITH introduced, and with C. G. SMITH,
John
SCOLES, and a few others, cultivated in limited quantities for the home
market
the Wilson Albany Seedling. The demand
was small at first, but steadily increased, until shipments are now
1,000
bushels per day, of which 800 go to Chicago, the balance divided among
a number
of points East and West; and the fame of the Barnesville strawberry has
extended not only over the entire country but into foreign countries,
even “so
far as Russia.” The shipping trade
opened about 1870; first to Columbus and Wheeling, and later to other
near
points. In 1880 James EDGERTON tried the
experiment of shipping to Chicago, but not until two years later did
that trade
assume large proportions. There are
about 275 acres devoted to strawberry culture, the average yield about
ninety-four bushels per acre. The
Sharpless, the favorite variety, is a large, sightly fruit well
colored, fine
flavored, and will stand transportation to distant cities.
Other popular berries are the Cumberland,
Charles Downing, Wilson, Crescent, and Jaconda; but the Barnesville
growers
say, “The Sharpless is our pride.” The
care, commendable rivalry, and pride of the Barnesville growers, which,
with a
soil and climate specially adapted to the growth of a large, hardy
berry, ahs
developed this great industry.
The first settlement of Warren, the
township in which Barnesville is situated, was made in 1800, the last
year of
the last century. The first settlers
were George SHANNON (the father of Gov. SHANNON), John GRIER, and John
DOUGHTERY; soon others followed. The
great body of the pioneers were nearly all Quakers from North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In 1804 they
built a log meeting-house, and a woman, Ruth BOSWELL, preached there
the first
sermon ever delivered
Page 325
in the
township. This spot where the Stillwater
church now stands has been occupied by the Friends from that day to
this, and
over 7,000 meetings for worship have been held there; and the entire
7,000, we
venture to say, breathed nothing but “Peace on earth and good-will to
man.”
WILLIAM WINDOM, who was the Secretary
of the Treasury under Garfield, and has twice represented Minnesota in
the
United States Senate, is a native of this county, where he was born May
10,
1827.
Meyer & Outland,
Photo, Barnesville, 1886.
FRIENDS’ YEARLY
MEETING-HOUSE, BARNESVILLE.
Antiquities.—In
the vicinity of Barnesville are some extraordinary natural and
artificial
curiosities. About two miles south of
the town, on the summit of a hill on the old RIGGS farm, is a stone
called
“Goblet Rock” from its general resemblance to a goblet.
Its average height is nine feet,
circumference at base fifteen feet nine inches, mid circumference
eighteen
feet, and top circumference thirty-one feet four inches.
The whole stone can be shaken into a sensible
tremble by one standing on the top.
A
few miles west of Barnesville are two ancient works, on the lands of
Jesse
JARVIS and James NUZZUM. On that of the
latter is one of the largest mounds, it being about 1,800 feet in
circumference
and 90 feet in height.
Among
the most interesting relics of the mound-building race are the
“Barnesville
track rocks” on the sand rock of the coal measure located on the lands
of
Robert G. PRICE. They were discovered in
1856 by a son of Mr. PRICE. The tracks
are those of birds’, animals’ and human feet, and other figures, as
shellfish.
serpents, earthworms, circles, stars, etc.; these indentations vary
from two to
over twenty inches in length. The depths
of the impressions are from three-fourths of an inch to a scale hardly
perceptible. These are evidently the
work of a mound race sculptor. The track
rocks are described and pictorially shown in the U. S. Centennial
Commission
Report for Ohio.
MARTIN’S FERRY is on the west bank
of the Ohio river opposite Wheeling, W. Va.
The site of the city is a broad river bottom over two miles in
length
and extending westward to the foot-hills a distance of a mile and a
half at the
widest point. The adjacent hills rise
gradually and afford many beautiful building sites overlooking the
river,
giving a view not excelled at any point on the Ohio.
The city is underlaid with an inexhaustible
supply of coal. A bountiful supply of
building stone and limestone is found within the corporation limits,
and
natural gas has been struck in ample quantities for the town’s needs.
The first settlement was made and
called Norristown in 1785, but, upon complaint of the Indians that the
whites
were encroaching on their hunting-grounds, the settlers were
dispossessed and
driven to the other side of the river by Col. Harmer, acting under the
orders
of the United States government. In 1788
the ground upon which the town is built was granted by patent to
Absalom
Martin, and in 1795 he laid out a town and called it Jefferson. But, having failed in his efforts to have it
made the county-seat, Mr. Martin purchased such town lots as had been
already
sold and vacated the town, supposing a town could never exist so near
Wheeling.
Page 326
In 1835 Ebenezer Martin laid out and
platted the town of Martinsville, but afterwards changed the name to
Martin’s
Ferry, there being another town in the State named Martinsvile. As no point on the Ohio presented better
facilities for manufacturing, it grew and prospered and in 1865 was
incorporated as a town.
Martin’s Ferry is on the line of the
P. C. & St. L. R. R. Newspapers: Ohio Valley News, Independent, James H.
Drennen, editor and publisher; Church
Herald, religious, Rev. Earl D. Holtz, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 United
Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Lutheran, 1 Catholic, 2 Methodist Episcopal,
1
African Methodist, 1 Episcopal. Banks:
Commercial, J. A. Gray, president, Geo. H. Smith, cashier; Exchange,
John
Armstrong, president, W. R. Ratcliff, cashier.
Manufactures
and Employees.—Novelty Glass Mould Works, 9 hands; Elson Glass
Works,
tableware, etc., 330; F. McCord & Bro., brick, 25; Laughlin Nail
Co., 375;
Martin’s Ferry Stove Works, 27; Spruce, Baggs & Co., stoves, 26;
Dithridge
Flint Glass Works, tumblers, etc., 194; L. Spence, steam engines, etc.,
25; Martin’s
Ferry Keg and Barrel Co., 65; Buckeye Glass Works, 200; Branch of
Benwood
Mills, pig iron, 55; J. Kerr & Sons and B. Exley & Co., doors,
sash,
etc.; Wm. Mann, machinery, 24.—State
Report 1887.
A. C.
Enochs,
Photo Martin’s Ferry, 1887
MARTIN’S FERRY.
Population in 1880,
3,819. School census in 1886, 1,813;
Chas. R. Shreve superintendent.
The cultivation of grapes is an
important and growing industry of Martin’s Ferry, the warm valley and
sunny
eastern slopes west of the town being especially adapted to their
perfection;
not less than 350 acres are devoted to their cultivation.
The grapes are made into wine by the Ohio
Wine Co., which has recently erected a large building for this purpose.
The dwellings at Martin’s Ferry are
mostly on a second plateau about 600 feet from the Ohio and 100 feet
above
it. The river hills on both sides rise
to an altitude of about 600 feet, making the site of the town one of
grandeur. On the West Virginia side the
hills are very precipitous, leaving between them and the river bank but
little
more than sufficient space for a road and the line of the P. C. &
St. L.
Railroad. The upper plateau at Bellaire
is a gravel and sand bed. The gravel is
about eighty feet deep in places, cemented so strongly that the
excavation for
buildings is very expensive, being impervious to the pick and often
from the
porous nature of the soil blasting fails; the cost of excavating for
the cellar
of a building often exceeds the price of the lot. The
west part of the upper plateau is depressed,
and it is supposed was once the bed of the Ohio. The
country back is very fertile and rich in
coal, iron and limestone.
Page 327
Annexed
is a view of the cottage at Martin’s Ferry in which, March 1, 1837, was
born
WM. DEAN HOWELLS, who is considered “America’s Leading Writer of
Fiction.” The structure was of brick and
was destroyed
to make way for the track of the Cleveland and Pittsburg railway. It was drawn at our de-
BIRTHPLACE OF WM. DEAN
HOWELLS.
sire from memory by the venerated father of
the
author, who built it and is now living in a pleasant old age at
Jefferson,
Ashtabula county.
The
Howells away back were of literary tastes, of Welsh stock and Quakers. When the boy was three years of age the
family removed to Butler county, where his father published a
newspaper, the Hamilton Intelligencer, and William
while a mere child learned to set type.
From thence they removed to Dayton, where the elder Howells
purchased
the Dayton Transcript and changed it
into a daily. His sons aided him in the
type-setting, William often working until near midnight and then rising
at four
o’clock to distribute the paper. The
enterprise illustrated industry against ill fate. After
a two-years’ struggle Mr. Howells one
day announced to his sons the enterprise was a failure, whereupon they
all went
down to the Big Miami and took a good swim to freshen up for another
tug with
fate.
In
1851, when fourteen years of age, he got a position as compositor on
the Ohio State Journal at Columbus.
His pay was four dollars per week, which was
the first money he earned and received as his own.
This he turned into the uses of the family to
help fight the wolf from the door. While
there, conjointly with a brother compositor, John J. Piatt, he put
forth a
volume of poetry. Later he contributed
poems to the Atlantic
WM. DEAN HOWELLS.
Monthly, was a newspaper correspondent, wrote a
campaign life
of Lincoln; from 1861 to 1864 was consul at Venice; from 1866 to 1872
was
assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly,
and then until 1881 editor-in-chief. Mr.
Howells works in a field which is pre-eminently his own—that of social
life. He has a happy home, wife and
children in Beacon St., Boston, where he devotes his mornings to
writing,
usually completing at a sitting a trifle more than what would make
one-and-a-half pages as this in which our printer sets these lines—say
1500
words a day.
Flushing and Morristown are
villages, containing each from sixty to eighty dweillings, in this
county.