Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I

©1888

 

HARRISON COUNTY

 

Page 887

 

            HARRISON COUNTY was formed January 1, 1814, from Jefferson and Tuscarawas, and named from Gen. Wm. H. Harrison.  It is generally very hilly; these hills are usually beautifully curving and high cultivated.  The soil is clayey, in which coal and limestone abound.  It is one of the greatest wool-growing counties in the Union, having in 1847, 102,971 sheep, and in 1887, 137,891.

 

            Area about 320 square miles.  In 1887 the acres cultivated were 53,153; in pasture, 122,743; woodland, 34,105; lying waste, 489; produced in wheat, 198,991 bushels; rye, 1,465; buckwheat, 346; oats, 196,930; barley, 575; corn, 517,601; broom corn, 1,000 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 62,708 tons; clover hay, 1,050; potatoes, 33,324 bushels; butter, 415,440 lbs.; cheese, 10,000; sorghum, 2,645 gallons; maple syrup, 2,851; honey, 14,559 lbs.; eggs, 414,588 dozen; grapes, 8,900 lbs.; wine, 90 gallons; sweet potatoes, 141 bushels; apples, 18,558; peaches, 8,199; pears, 1,305; wool, 826,386 lbs.; milch cows owned, 4,993.  School census, 1888, 6,529; teachers, 181.  Miles of railroad track, 55.

 

 

 

 

            Population in Harrison in 1820 was 14,345; in 1830, 20,920; 1840, 20,099; 1860, 19,110; 1880, 20,456, of whom 18,272 were born in Ohio; 915 in Pennsylvania; 341 in Virginia; 54 in New York; 46 in Indiana; 17 in Kentucky; 230 in Ireland; 104 in England and Wales; 30 in German Empire; 10 in Scotland; 8 in British America, and 3 in France.

 

            In April, 1799, Alex. HENDERSON and family, from Washington county, Pennsylvania, squatted on the southwest quarter of the section on which Cadiz stands; at this time Daniel PETERSON resided at the forks of Short Creek, with his family, the only one within the present limits of Harrison.  In 1800, emigrants, principally from Western Pennsylvania, began to cross the Ohio river; and in the course of five or six years there had settled within the county the following-named persons, with their families, viz.:

 

            John CRAIG, John TAGGART, John JAMISON, John M’FADDEN, John KERNAHAN, John HUFF, John MAHOLM, John WALLACE, John LYONS, Rev. John REA, Daniel WELCH, William MOORE, Jas. BLACK, Samuel DUNLAP, James ARNOLD, Joseph and Samuel M’FADDEN, Samuel GILMORE, James FINNEY, Thos. and Robt. VINCENT, Robert BRADEN, Jas. WILKLIN, Samuel and George KERNAHAN, Thos. DICKERSON, Joseph HOLMES, James HANNA, Joseph, William and Eleazer HUFF, Baldwin PARSONS, James HAVERFIELD, Robert COCHRAN, Samuel MAHOLM, Hugh TEAS, Jos. CLARK, Morris WEST, Jacob SHEPLAR, Martin SNIDER, Samuel OSBORN, Samuel SMITH, and perhaps others, besides those in Cadiz and on Short Creek; Thomas TAYLOR, John ROSS, Thomas HITCHCOCK, Arthur and Thomas BARRETT, Robert and Thomas MAXWELL, Absalom KENT, John PUGH, Michael WAXLER, Wm. M’CLARY, Joseph, Joel and William JOHNSON, George LAYPORT, William INGLES, Thomas WILSON, and perhaps others on Stillwater; John M’CONNELL, George BROWN, John LOVE, William and Robert M’CULLOUGH, BROKAW and others, on Wheeling creek.

 

 

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hunters, and the three former had been Indian spies, and had many perilous adventures with the Indians.  On one occasion, after peace, an Indian boasted, in the presence of Wm. Huff and others, that he had scalped so many whites.  Towards evening, the Indian left for his wigwam, but never reached it.  Being, shortly after, found killed, some inquiry was made as to the probable cause of his death, when Huff observed, that he had seen him the last time, sitting on a log, smoking his pipe; that he was looking at him and reflecting what he had said about scalping white people, when suddenly his pipe fell from his mouth, and he, Huff, turned away, and had not again seen him until found dead.

 

            Besides frequent trouble with Indians, the first settlers were much annoyed by wild animals.  On one occasion, two sons of George LAYPORT having trapped a wolf, skinned it alive, turned it loose, and a few days after it was found dead.

 

            One mile west of the east boundary line of Harrison, there was founded, in 1805, a Presbyterian church, called “Beach Spring,” of which Rev. John REA was for more than forty years the stated pastor.  Their beginning was small; a log-cabin, of not more than 20 feet square, was sufficient to contain all the members and all that attended with them.  Their log-cabin being burnt down by accident, a large house, sufficient to contain a thousand worshippers, was raised in its room, and from fifty communing members they increased in a short time to nearly 400, and became at one period the largest Presbyterian church in the State.—Old Edition.

 

            Cadiz in 1846.—Cadiz, the county-seat, is a remarkably well-built and city-like town, 4 miles southeasterly from the centre of the county, 115 easterly from Columbus, 24 westerly from Steubenville, and 24 northerly from Wheeling.  It contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Associate (Seceder), and 1 Associate Reformed Church.  It also contains 2 printing presses, 12 dry-goods, 7 grocery and 2 drug stores, and had, in 1840, 1,028 inhabitants.

 

            Cadiz was laid out in 1803 or ‘4, by Messrs. BIGGS and BEATTY.  Its site was then, like most of the surrounding country, a forest, and its location was induced by the junction there of the road from Pittsburg, by Steubenville, with the road from Washington, Pa., by Wellsburg, Va., from where the two united, passed by Cambridge to Zanesville; and previous to the construction of the national road through Ohio, was travelled more, perhaps, than any other road northwest of the Ohio river.  In April, 1807, it contained the following named persons, with their families: Jacob ARNOLD, innkeeper; Andrew M’NEELEY, hatter and justice of the peace; Joseph HARRIS, merchant; John JAMISON, tanner; John M’CREA, wheelwright; Robt. WILKIN, brickmaster; Connell ABDILL, shoemaker; Jacob MYERS, carpenter; John PRITCHARD, blacksmith; Nathan ADAMS, tailor; James SIMPSON, reed-maker; Wm. TINGLEY, school-teacher, and old granny YOUNG, midwife and baker, who was subsequently elected (by the citizens of the township, in a fit of hilarity) to the office of justice of the peace; but females not being eligible to office in Ohio, the old lady was obliged to forego the pleasure of serving her constituents.

 

            The first celebration of independence in Cadiz was on the 4^th of July, 1806, when the people generally, of the town and country for miles around, attended and partook of a fine repast of venison, wild turkey, bear meat, and such vegetables as the country afforded; while for a drink, rye whiskey was used.  There was much hilarity and good feeling, for at this time men were supported for office from their fitness, rather than from political sentiments.

 

 

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lation with many people.  It is, however, what geologists term a boulder, and was brought to its present position from, perhaps, a thousand miles north, embedded in a huge mass of ice, in some great convulsion of nature, ages since.—Old Edition.

 

            CADIZ, county-seat of Harrison, 125 miles northeast of Columbus, is on the Cadiz branch of the P. C. & St. L. Railroad.  County Officers in 1888: Auditor, George A. CREW; Clerk, Martin J. McCOY; Commissioners, M. B. FREBAUGH, Robert B. MOORE, Andrew SMITH; Coroner, Charles McKEAN; Infirmary Directors, John B. BEADLE, John BARCLAY, John W. McDIVITT; Probate Judge, Amon LEAMMON; Prosecuting Attorney, Walter G. SHOTWELL; Recorder, Albert B. HINES; Sheriff, Albert B. QUIGLEY; Surveyor, Jacob JARVIS; Treasurer, Samuel A. MOORE.  City Officers in 1888: A. W. SCOTT, Mayor; W. H. LUCAS, Clerk; William McCONNELL, Treasurer; Walter WHITMORE, Marshal; John C. BAYLESS, Chief of Police.

 

            Newspapers: Flambeau, Prohibitionist, C. B. DAVIS, editor and publisher; Republican, Republican, W. B. HEARN, editor and publisher; Sentinel, Democratic, W. H. ARNOLD, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist Episcopal.  Banks: Farmers’ and Mechanics’ National, Melford J. BROWN, president; C. O. F. BROWN, cashier; First National, D. B. WELCH, president; I. C. MOORE, cashier; Harrison National, D. CUNNINGHAM, president; John M. SHARON, cashier; Robert LYONS, Richard LYONS, cashier.  Population, 1880, 1817.  School census, 1888, 592; O. C. WILLIAMS, school superintendent.  Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $20,000.  Value of annual product, $28,000.—Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

 

            Came last evening (June 7) from Steubenville by the P. C. & St. L. R. R., and thence by a short line of railroad eight miles to Cadiz, which I found much as I left it in the last days of February, 1847.  The old county buildings looked as of yore.  They were the last things I had sketched in Ohio on my tour of 1846-1847, and two days later I was in a stage-coach going over the mountains on my way home.  I am told Cadiz has a large proportion of colored people; on the cars were some finely dressed people of color.  The place it is claimed contains more wealth than any other of its size in the State.  The banking capital is especially large.  Here reside families who having accumulated fortunes from prosperous farming, largely wool-growing, and tired of the isolation of farm-life make it their permanent home.  Among its good things is a public library of 4,000 volumes, which speaks well for the character of its population, and especially so for Mrs. Chauncey DEWEY, its founder.

 

                Eminent Characters.—Cadiz is on a hill, as it should be, for it has been the home of some eminent characters.  Bishop Simpson, whom Abraham Lincoln said was the most eloquent orator he ever heard, was born here.  Secretary STANTON began his law practice in Cadiz, and it has been long the residence of John A. BINGHAM, the silver-tongued orator of national fame.  Prof. David Christie, author of “Pulpit Politics” and “Cotton is King,” was born in this county, edited a paper here, the Standard, and afterwards was a professor at Oxford.  He and Simpson in their younger days were great friends, and vied with each other in the writing of acrostics.  I knew Christie in the anti-bellum days—a somewhat tall, large man.  He had shaved his beard and dyed his hair, and he told me, because, in the eyes of the public, a man had about outlived his usefulness if he showed sings of getting “snowed up.”  Judge John Welch (see p. 275) is also a native of this county.

 

                Mr. BINGHAM has recently returned from Japan, where he has been twelve years our ambassador.  I called upon him at his residence early this morning, a plain, square brick house with a hall running through the centre.  He personally answered my ring, and I made an appointment to meet him again in the afternoon.  But we stood on the porch and talked some time.  He is seventy-one years of age, a rather large gentleman, a blonde, with mild, blue eye and kindly face—an elegant, easy talker, scattering unpremeditated poetical similes through his speech.  To illustrate, I had passed some compliments upon the beauty of the country around, whereupon he replied:

 

 

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            Thinking that this speech of beauty about Cadiz from this eminent man should be preserved for the gratification of its people after he had passed away, I wrote it from memory and presented it for his inspection on my second call, when he went on to thus comment: “The Japanese had called Japan the ‘Land of the Rising Sun,’ but the expression ‘Land of the Morning’ I believe is original with me.  We cannot tell from whence thoughts come.  They drop from the brain like rain from heaven.  I used the expression in a speech I made at Yokohama in the fall of 1873, which was reported by an English gentleman, Mr. DIXON, and printed both in Japanese and English.  Five years later Mr. DIXON published a work upon Japan and entitled it ‘The Land of the Morning.’  The expression pleased the Japanese, and now it stands for all time.”

 

                He thought he could improve his little speech to me, and at my request, after some reflection, thus wrote in my note-book:

 

“Dear Mr. Howe:

                “The hills and primeval forest and green fields which girdle this village make a picture of quiet beauty which, I think, is scarcely surpassed in any part of our country which I have seen, or in Japan, the Land of the Morning.

                                                                                “JNO. A. BINGHAM.

                “CADIZ, OHIO, JUNE 8, 1886.”

 

                I give both for the benefit of the young, to illustrate the respective qualities of amplification and terseness in composition.

 

                Animal Intelligence.—I now return to an incident in my morning call.  As we stood at the door, in the mild rays of the early sun, two house-dogs came up to welcome me, Jack and Jake.  Jack was a smart little black-and-tan, and observing my evident pleasure in their approach, Mr. BINGHAM said: “He has made the half circuit of the globe.  I brought him from Japan, but he is a native of London; his ancestry known way back to the time of Queen Anne.  The other dog, Jake, is a Newfoundland, with a cross of the St. Bernard.  As for him,” and he said it with evident pride at the thought, “he is a native of this great State.”  Then he continued: “It was a mystery to me how he got into the yard when the gate was closed, it swinging outward, and asking my little grandson, he replied, ‘Why, grandpapa, don’t you know there is a knot-hole near the bottom; he puts his nose in that and backs with it.’  ‘Then how does he get out?’  ‘Oh, he pushes!’”  I might have told him, if I could have foreseen the fact, that one day I was to own a dog that would open a door with a latch or one with a knob—the first by striking, the other by placing his paws on each side of the knob and rubbing.  And he is yet living, answering to the name of Black Ear, but we do not consider him as extra intelligent—that is, for a dog.

 

                The intellects and passions of our animals, as far as they go, I believe, are identical with our own; and it is certainly enlarging to us to study their qualities and be pleased with their joys.  And as for the insect world, we are of those who can stoop down and watch with solid satisfaction a procession of ants, bringing up huge stones from out their underground habitations.

 

                Furthermore, if one could not come into this world as a human being but could as an ant, he should be advised to embrace the opportunity, as thereby he could act as a teacher, illustrating, as an ant certainly does, the good effects of systematic industry which, in the case of the ant, seems cheering.  For if not, after having deposited his stone, why should he hurry back, fast as his little legs can carry him, for another?

 

                An Old Contributor.—I called to-day upon Mr. W. H. ARNOLD, editor of the Sentinel, who remembered my former visit; his age at the time six years.  His father, Mr. William ARNOLD, who died in 1874, aged seventy-six, contributed about all the historical material for my article on Harrison county.  He was a native of Fayette county, Pa.; came here at the age of twelve; was justice of the peace thirty-three years, during which time he married 300 couple.  In the war of 1812 all his brothers were in the army, and he, being too young for service, made gunpowder for the soldiers during every winter of the war.  Powder was then very scarce, and as the government seized it wherever they could find it, and he could get a higher price for it in Steubenville, he took it there and sold it.  The hut where he made it was about half a mile north of the town.  He was a remarkably fine rifle-shot; one moonlight night he shot eleven wild turkeys near his powder-mill.

 

                Bishop Simpson’s Early Days.—On inquiry, I learn that the house in which Bishop SIMPSON was born (June 20, 1811) stood on the site of the National Bank.  He derived his name, Matthew, from his bachelor uncle, Matthew SIMPSON.  He was a State Senator for many years, and by profession a school-teacher and a man of superior acquirements; a walking encyclopædia; unprepossessing in appearance; small head and body.  He lived to a great age, dying somewhere in the nineties.  To eke out a living he manufactured reeds for the old hand-loom for home-made linen and jeans, and sold them to the country people, who wore homespun.  The BISHOP’S father died when he was two years of age, and his uncle became his foster-father and took great interest in the lad.  To his care the Bishop got his intellectual bent.

 

                An old citizen, Mr. H. S. McFADDEN, says to me: “The Bishop was an awkward, gawky, barefooted boy, and, when about seventeen, so shy that he was afraid of society, and so miserable in health that it was supposed he would soon perish of consumption; tall of his age and round-shouldered.  He wrote acrostics for the Harrison Telegraph, and was fond of visiting the printing office.  The people here were astonished at his success in life.”

 

 

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border of the village I was pointed out a long, low, old cottage, in which Bishop Simpson passed many of his boyhood days.  It was then the home of William TINGLEY, his mother’s brother, a man of note in his day.  He was for forty years clerk of court, was prosperous, had excellent sense, and some sheep-raising man—it must have been—told me he was in his day the “bellwether” of the Methodist church here.

 

                The sight of an old time weather-beaten structure like this, brown as a rat too, is always picturesque.  This was particularly so, from its associations; attached to it and facing the street was another cottage of a single room in front, overgrown with vines.  This the good man built solely for the accommodation of travelling Methodist ministers, a nest for itinerants.  As I entered it, I felt, from its peculiar moral associations, I was more blessed than to have entered a palace.  Here many a brother in Israel, in the olden time, after ambling for many a weary mile through the wilderness on his little nag, often eating parched corn for his sustenance, and preaching the same old sermon a thousand times, has looked forward to this little nest provided for him by Brother TINGLEY as one of the choice havens, where he could rest under the protecting wings of a brother’s love, and smoke his pipe in peace.

 

                Comic Anecdotes.—This advent of the itinerants to the cabins of the pioneers, in the lonely wilderness condition of the country, was always a great blessing aside from their especial mission as spiritual messengers.  They were eminently a social body of men, and were welcomed with a hospitality that knew no bounds.  Of course they had bouncing appetites.  Their outdoor lives insured that, especially with their occasional fasts, when lost or belated in the wilderness.  To feed them well was the pride of the log-cabin dwellers; whenever they tarried forays were invariably made upon the poultry.  So certain was this that the term “chicken-eaters” was often applied to the circuit riders.  Many comical anecdotes were told in this regard, and none enjoyed them better than the circuit riders themselves.

 

                One of them, whom one may call Brother BRANNEN, as the story goes, who used to amble on his nag through Eastern Ohio, early in the century, was especially favored with gastronomic powers.  His voice and person were huge as his appetite, and he seemed proud of his eating capacity.  He used to say that “a turkey was an unhandy bird—rather too much for one person and not quite enough for two.”  On one occasion he stopped at the cabin of a widow, who was of course all aglee to give him the best she had.  After a little the good brother, going out to attend to his nag, was attracted by the sound of a child crying, and tracing his way by it found the widow’s son, and he perhaps her only son, seated behind a corn-crib with a chicken under his arm.  “What’s the matter, sonny?” said he, in tender tones.  “I am crying,” he replied, “because mother sent me out for this chicken, and what between the hawks and the circuit riders it is the last chicken left on the place.”

 

A WALK AND A SHEEP TALK.

 

            Last evening, June 9, near sunset, I took a walk with Mr. Stewart B. SHOTWELL, and ascended Boyle’s Hill, half a mile west of the town.  As we neared the summit a flock of sheep in their timidity descended the other side.  We could see over a large part of Harrison county.  Cadiz loomed up pleasantly on a companion hill.  Under our eyes was the great dividing ridge, on one side of which the flowing waters descended and made their way into the Tuscarawas, on the other into the Ohio.  The view was a succession of rolling grass-carpeted hills interspersed with forests.  A warm rain had clothed them in the richest green, on which flocks of sheep were grazing.  Down in a little modest valley a train of cars was approaching Cadiz on the short junction railroad.  Dwindled by distance and our height, it seemed as a little toy affair, a child’s plaything, playing bo-peep as it dodged in and out from behind the hillocks that at times hid it from view.  The sky was somewhat overcast and the setting sun was reddening a mass of striated clouds over a scene of pastoral beauty.

 

 

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contempt at our conversation upon wool.  By this time the shadows of evening were settling upon Cadiz, but I could discover nothing Spanish in the air.

 

            Sheep Statistics.—Harrison, by the statistics of 1880, to the square mile leads all other counties in Ohio in the number of sheep and production of wool; the number of sheep was 209,856 and pounds of wool 1,090,393.  Licking county, Ohio, which has nearly double its area, exceeded it about one-quarter in sheep, having been 251,989.  Venango county, Pa., had 461,120 sheep and produced 2,416,866 pounds of wool.  This we believe is the largest sheep-producing county in the Union, while Harrison ranks the third.  Ohio is the greatest sheep-producing State.  Its number in 1880 was 4,902,486, sheep clip 25,003,756 pounds; next was California, 4,152,349 sheep, clip 16,798,019 pounds; Texas 2,411,633 sheep, clip 6,928,019 pounds; Michigan 2,189,389 sheep, clif 11,858,497 pounds; New Mexico 2,088,831 sheep; clip 4,019,188 pounds.  Missouri and Wisconsin next lead each with less than a million and one-half of sheep.  The entire number of sheep in the United States exclusive of spring lambs was, in 1880, 42,192,074, or a little less than one sheep to one person.

 

                “Wool,” said Mr. BINGHAM, “is the prime clothing for man.  As sheep increase civilization advances.”  Beside carrying a blessing in the way of warmth and clothing, there is a good moral thought in the fact that wool is the natural outgrowth of an animal divinely chosen as the type of innocence and amiability.  “Feed my lambs.”  And then the care of sheep seems to have a reflex action upon the owners in the character of their visitors and the things they see, as is illustrated by the old hymn:

 

     “While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground,

     The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.”

 

                Job, I take it, is an especially interesting character to this people, he owned so many sheep: in the early part of his life 7,000, and in the latter part 14,000, and they tell me he ought to have lived in Harrison county, for the climate is so healthy that he would have escaped at least one of his evils—boils.

 

                Great as were Job’s possessions, there are to-day in Australia sheep ranges, the property of single owners, whereupon are raised over 150,000 sheep; 20,000 is but a moderate sized range.  Three acres there is generally allowed for a single animal, sometimes ten acres.  Sheep are not seen there in flocks, owing to the scant herbage; there sheep consequently are scattered over vast areas, a range for a flock of 200 requiring as much land as an Ohio township.  What may seem strange, one may travel over a station whereupon are tens of thousand of sheep, and not have over three or four of the animals in one view in any place.

 

                The great drawback to Australia has been the terrible drouths by which in entire districts the sheep all perish.  Of late years this evil has been lessened by the sinking of artesian wells and extensive tree planting, by which the annual rainfall has been increased.  The lives of the wool-growers there are desolate from the vast size of their ranges, their nearest neighbor often being fifteen or twenty miles away.  In 1888 Australia had about eighty millions of sheep, and the United States about fifty millions, so the former is now the greatest wool-producing country on the globe, we ranking second, South America third and Russia the fourth.

 

                Profits of Sheep-raising.—As our talk upon the sheep industry in Harrison county began on Boyle’s Hill, it was finished in Mr. SHOTWELL’S office in the evening, of which I took notes, and here repeat verbatim.  “I do not know,” said he, “a single farmer who has followed for life the growing of sheep, without diversion to other crops, but what has become wealthy.  Land pastured by sheep improves year by year from their droppings.  The tendency of sheep in summer is to seek the highest point of a hill to get the cool breezes.  In winter they also get near the summit, but on the leeward side if there be any wind; the coldest air, being the heaviest, always sinks into the valleys.  The result is that the rain distributes their manure from the top to all the lower parts of the field.

 

                “Some years ago the late Judge BRINKERHOFF, of Mansfield, was riding with me in this region, and inquired, ‘Why is it that your hills are all so fertile?  Our hill-tops are generally poor soil; our best lands are the valleys.’  ‘Because,’ I replied, ‘we raise sheep.’  The products of the hill soil—hay, grass, corn, oats, etc.—are of a more nutritive nature than those of the rich bottom lands of the Tuscarawas and Ohio valleys, although the growth is not so rapid.  Our experienced farmers therefore pay five cents more a bushel for our hill corn than for that raised elsewhere.  This hill land will produce from twenty to forty bushels more to the acre than the alluvial soil.  I own valley lands on the Tuscarawas and Stillwater, and I get nearly twice the quantity per acre of corn, grass, etc., from the hills, and the richest of butter and cheese is made from hill grass.

 

 

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double at the end of the year, which, at $2 each, is $650.  This added to the product of the wool, gives $1,308 as the annual production of the farm.  There is still another item of profit.  With a view to avoid over-stocking, the farmers select in the fall their largest, strongest sheep of the older class, and fatten them over winter, and in the spring, after clipping, they are sold East for mutton purposes.  About 200, generally wethers, are annually sold on such a farm, at $5 each, thus enhancing the total profits to $2,308.

 

                “The more you feed and care for a sheep in the winter, the heavier and better in the staple will be his fleece.  Just after the war wool brought as high as $1.10 per pound.  The very old ewes are sold in the fall at fair prices—say $2 each—are shipped eastward to the neighborhood of the cities, and then sold to a class of farmers who manage to have them drop their lambs early in February, feed the ewes on milk-producing slops, which rapidly fattens and increases the weight of the lambs.  These lambs are tender and delicious, and often bring $5 each.  The ewes are then clipped and slaughtered, the carcass thrown to the hogs, and the pelts turned over to the leather men.  The large bank deposits in our town are mostly from the wool-growers of Harrison county.

 

                “The sheep, as his coat shows, belongs to a cold climate; hence he flourishes in the mountain countries of Europe north of the 40º latitude, or in Australia south of the 40º latitude, where it is alike cold.”

 

                Sheep-raising in Texas is comparatively a failure.  To find there the proper climate, elevation is required, and then grass is scant.  On the warm lowlands his wool is not required, and nature allows him to grow hair.

 

                The most certain productive crop in our county is the corn, which averages seventy-five bushels to the acre—have known 120 bushels.  The average wheat is twenty-five bushels—have known forty.  Oats average from sixty to 100 bushels; hay, one and a half to two tons—often have the heaviest hay on the summit of the hills.

 

            We append to the sheep statistics from Mr. SHOTWELL, some items from an article, “The American Wool Industry,” by E. H. Ammidown, in the North American Review, August, 1888.

 

            The American wool-clip amounts to about 300,000 pounds per annum, and varying in value from $75,000,000 to $95,000,000.  It stands sixth in value as an American agricultural product, being surpassed only by corn, hay, wheat, cotton and oats.  Our 50,000,000 of sheep are worth over $2 each, say in all $100,000,000.  If the annual product of mutton for food, and the increase of the flocks, were added to this, it would totalize $125,000,000.  Sheep husbandry is the only great farm industry in which every section of our country shares.  The annual gain from the fertilization of the soil by the droppings of the sheep is estimated to be fully $50,000,000.

 

                If this industry was abandoned, the decline in value of the sheep-farm lands, comprising 112,000,000 of acres—much of which would be then unused and all deteriorate in fertility—at $2.50 an acre, would be $280,000,000.  So the advantages of continuing the industry seem imperative to the well-being of the country.  We now supply one-sixth part of the wool produced in the world, so far as is statistically known.

 

REMINISCENCES OF EDWIN M. STANTON.

 

            Edwin M. STANTON, the great war Secretary, had his beginning in Cadiz as a lawyer.  The great example of his life was intensity of purpose.  Not another member of Mr. LINCCOLN’s Cabinet, not even Mr. LINCOLN himself, could perhaps here compare with him.  He was a giant in will, with mighty passions to enforce it.  To crush out the rebellion at all hazards absorbed his full powers.  Governor MORTON, in acknowledging on a certain occasion receipt of money from Mr. STANTON, wherein authority was assumed to meet a great patriotic end, wrote him: “If the cause fails, you and I will be covered with prosecutions, and probably imprisoned or driven from the country.”  To this STANTON replied: “If the cause fails, I do not wish to live.”  Whatever he undertook he went in to the death.  If death was to come, it would be for him no more than for others; he could die but once.  His care was in what he engaged, and, as a lawyer, never undertook what he thought was a bad case.  The cause succeeded, but his intense labors, under the might of an intense patriotism, killed him as effectually as ever soldier was killed by bullet.

 

 

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            STANTON I knew intimately.  He first studied law in Steubenville with Daniel L. COLLIER.  He came to Cadiz in 1836, and went into partnership with Chauncey DEWEY, and remained here until 1840, the partnership existed until 1842.  DEWEY was an old lawyer of the Whig persuasion, and shortly after his coming, STANTON was elected prosecuting attorney on the Democratic ticket—an office he held three years.

 

                DEWEY was a man of very decided ability, had been educated at Schenectady, a pupil of the celebrated Dr. NOTT, was a thoroughly read lawyer, and had especial ability with a jury.  STANTON was then but twenty-two years of age, with broad shoulders, but light in person, weighing about 125 pounds, and height five feet eight inches.  He was very near-sighted.  The people here at first called him “Little STANTON.”

 

                He appreciated the ability and skill of his senior partner, at once placed himself under his tutelage, and owed much of his early success to him.  He would often say to us, “Well, we are all DEWEY’S boys.”  Often, in coming into the office in the morning, DEWEY would say, “STANTON, what do you think about this case?”  After STANTON had expressed his ideas, DEWEY would take pen and put the points as he thought they should be presented, and hand the paper to STANTON, and STANTON invariably followed his guidance: he was his mentor.  Mr. DEWEY was then forty years of age; he died in 1880, aged eighty-four.

 

                STANTON was very methodical, kept his papers and office in perfect order, and his industry was marvellous.  He would read law sixteen hours a day and keep it up ever.  I never saw a man with such capacity for work.  I have known him to work all day in court and until nine o’clock at night, trying cases and then filing them.  Then he would get into his buggy, ride to Steubenville for some paper or authority bearing on the case, be back at court-time next morning, after riding a distance of fifty miles, and work all day fresh as ever.  He was physically compact; put up exactly for the labor a lawyer has to endure.

 

                Ordinarily he cared nothing for society of women, but he was exceedingly attached to his first wife.  When she died he shut himself in his room and spent days in grief.  Then seeing it was breaking him down, he rallied and plunged into business.

 

                He seemingly was of a cold nature; never any gush.  He was thoroughly upright; and if he had an important case he would make full preparation to win, even eating in reference to it, so as to have full possession of his powers.  He was temperate; but sometimes, if he had a tight place to go through, would take a little stimulus.  He spoke with ease, voice on a high key, and monotonous in manner, but strong and combative, hanging on with a bull-dog like tenacity, brow-beating and ridiculing witnesses.  He did not care if the whole public was against him.  He would face them all, and feel he was their master.

 

                I once heard this anecdote, which illustrates how everything had to bend to his main purpose.  He had travelled into the then wilderness of Illinois, in pursuit of evidence in an important case, when, in a cabin where he had put up for the night, he found the family were originally from Steubenville and neighbors, living within a square of him.  They had known him in his child days; he had been playmate with their son, but he had outgrown their recollections.  Any other man, in the glow of feeling consequent upon such a discovery, would have made himself known, but he refrained, from the thought that it might in some way militate against his success in the main object of his journey, if it should be known he was in the country, and so left as he came—an entire stranger.

 

                Ordinarily men would wilt under his denunciations; sometimes feel like retorting with physical violence.  He knew this, and sometimes, when the court adjourned, asked the sheriff to take his arm and accompany him to his office, as I believed for protection.  This was not from cowardice, but because he felt it was wise to avoid a physical combat.  He stood in awe of no human being.  Every man was alike so far as that was concerned.  His moral courage was immense.  His likes and dislikes were very strong, and with his especial friends he was exceeding social and courteous.  He was profound in legal principles, a safe lawyer in a good case; but if he thought a case was desperate, would not go into court.  The stories of his rough language to the people who came to the war-office are true.  Simon CAMERON, his predecessor, when he sent for Gen. McCLELLAN, would wait for hours; when STANTON summoned him there was no delay.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

 

VISIT TO THE BIRTHPLACE OF A HERO.

 

 

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It was the Pittsburg and St. Louis express coming at forty or fifty miles an hour, and close on to us.  In a twinkling I saw an object coming for me, end over end.  I gave a spring and as it came threw my entire weight on my right leg, and as it passed it struck the other a stinging but glancing blow on the inner side.  Then I saw it was the Scio mail-bag.

 

            I limped up to the village tavern, dined and then found a farmer who was going within two miles of New RUMLEY, and would take me in his wagon there for a consideration.  I got in, we turned round a little hill, left Scio behind, and went up the valley of Alder creek, Thursday, 1 P.M., June 11, 1886.  My companion was a little man with black hair and little black beads of eyes set back far in his head, his face thin and shrivelled, and, what is rare for a farmer, he wore glasses.  He said his age was forty-three years, his name G. M. TOUSSAINT and that he and Gen. Pierre Gustavus TOUSSAINT Beauregard, of the Confederate army, were second cousins, their grandfathers having been brothers.  It enhanced my interest in him to thus learn he was of French Huguenot stock, for I have a sprinkling of the same blood in my veins.

 

                A Ride with a Farmer.—The wagon we were in was on springs, drawn by two mares, each having a little colt trotting lithe and pretty by its side, so we counted in all six, two of a kind, two men, two mares and two colts.  He was anxious to know my business; thought I had something to sell.  Upon telling him, he said his wife went to school with CUSTER.  He was quite a dressy young man, and when he came home on furlough from West Point, brought home among other things full twenty pair of cadet’s white pantaloons for his folks to wash.  My companion was a horse-fancier, and bragged about his horses; they were of an honored ancestry, and he went on to give their pedigree.  On naming over their ancestors, he was astonished that I had never heard of them; he doubtless would have been more astonished if I had told him what was a fact, that in my entire life I had never put a horse in a carriage, nor had buckled on a curry-comb.  The colts as I looked down upon their petite, graceful-rounded forms, each trotting by the side of its mother, looked very sweetly.  I asked him about how much each would weight.  He replied two hundred pounds.  I could scarcely believe this until he told me he had failed only a few days before in an effort to carry one of them into his barn.

 

                A Bit of Natural History.—The valley we were passing up was perhaps a third of a mile wide, with bounding hills of some two hundred feet high.  We passed some sheep grazing.  At one place they stood still and in silence in a ring, perhaps fifty of them, their heads down to the ground and noses together; their bodies ranged like the spokes of a wheel from a centre.  I inquired, “What is that for?”  There had been a slight shower, and the sun had come out warm.  “The flies bother them, stinging their noses,” he said.  In the fence-corners were other sheep and their noses were also to the ground.  I subsequently learned it was an instinct of nature.  There is a peculiar fly, the Oestrus ovis, which crawls into the nostrils of a sheep and deposits an egg.  This hatches a worm which makes it way into the brain, and invariably kills the sheep.  From this doubtless originated the expression as applied to a human being, “He has got a maggot in his head.”

 

                Everything that has life, man, animal or vegetable, appears to receive injury from some other life.  The innocent sheep are not the only victims to the winged enemies.  Late in the summer there is a large fly, the Oestrus bovis, large as a bumble-bee, which annoys cattle, punctures the skin, and deposits an egg along the spine.  Under the spring sun that egg develops into a grub with an ugly black head, and makes his way out of the hole to the infinite annoyance of the animal.  The grub is thus occupied for weeks, while the itching at times is so intolerable that the animal runs around the field with tail out, perfectly frantic.  Then the common expression among the farmers is that it has “the warbles.”  Often twenty or thirty grubs will at once make their way out.  When an animal has largely been infected with the pests, it injures the hide for the purpose of leather.

 

                Having come out, the grub goes into the ground and after a little he puts on wings—they are not angel wings—and some day he starts on his aerial flight, becomes the great ugly fly we have described, to follow the same egg-hatching, egg-depositing business of his illustrious ancestors.  The fly from which the horse gets into his greatest trouble is the Oestrus equi.  He often alights on the front of the horse, where stinging him the animal nips at, catches and swallows the fly.  That is just what the fly was after—to be swallowed.  Housed in the stomach of the horse, he then proceeds about his business, to lay eggs.  These hatch grubs sometimes to the number of a hundred or more, which attach themselves to the coats of his stomach and feed thereon and often to the death of  the horse.  This affliction is called “the bots.”

 

 

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“I told him,” said he, “he ought not to be thinking about driving sharp trades—that he ought to go and get religion, for in a few weeks probably, he would have to meet his God.  For ought he knew, it might be no more than two weeks.”  Then he dwelt upon the influence of religion here on earth, illustrating it by the story of a travelling man he once read of, who stopped at a strange house in a wild, lonely spot, and he didn’t like the looks of the people, was on a sort of tremble; was afraid he might be robbed and murdered in his sleep.  But when bed-time came, his ferocious-looking host opened a little cupboard, took out a book and said, “Let us pray,” whereupon a load was lifted from the heart of the travelling man, and he slept that night “like a top.”  Thus my friend with interesting talk upon horses, sheep, CUSTER and religion, beguiled the way.

 

                New RUMLEY appears.—A mile or more before reaching New RUMLEY I saw in the far distance, on the top of a very high hill, a cluster of trees, roof tops, and a church spire, and that my companion pointed out as New RUMLEY.  I looked at it with intense interest, the birthplace of a hero; ached to be there.  When we had ascended nearly to the top of the hill, the horses rested for a few moments, while the colts kneeled down each beside its respective mother, and rested also, while I made notes.  Another short pull up hill, then a sudden turn to the right, and we were in New RUMLEY.  The first objects at its entrance I found to be two churches, just alike, facing each other as sentinels, on opposite sides of the road.  They were freshly painted, and white as snow.  It was pleasant thus to have the gospel greet one at the very threshold of the place.  I couldn’t help thinking so, but the huge white forms, spread out to the right and left of me so broodingly, somehow made me think of angels’ wings, ready to bear people up to heaven.  On one side of the street it was done after the manner of the Methodist brethren, and on the other of what they speak of abridgingly as the “You Bees,”—and spell out “United Brethren.”

 

                New RUMLEY is little more than a name—a hamlet set on a hill—a single street with a single store, that of T. H. Cunningham, and a few scattered dwellings, of which only three or four can be seen at one view.  The highest part is where they put the angels’ wings, and the birthplace of him whom Sitting Bull called the “Yellow Hair.”  From thence the street descended; there was a sort of hollow spot in the wavy ground and then it ascended in a lesser wave, and where its farther course was hidden by trees.  Where it went then I know not, only I was told the followers of Martin Luther had a sanctuary somewhere there.  I went into the store, a little room, and made the acquaintance of Mr. CUNNINGHAM, an elderly person.  Some barefooted boys seeing me, a stranger, go in, entered and stood in silence listening.  Where they came from I don’t know, but men and women lived together around in little, half-concealed cottages, and where that happens, boys and girls will spring up fresh and healthy as daisies in an old cow-pasture.  I inquired if there was a General CUSTER growing up among them; got no reply.  The boys seemed to think with the poet.

 

“Das Schweigen ist ihr bester Herold.”

 

That is—“Silence is golden.”