Page 731
VINTON
COUNTY was formed March 23, 1850, from Gallia, Athens, Hocking, Ross,
and
Jackson counties, comprising eleven townships, with a combined
population of
9,353. It is
watered by branches of the
Scioto and Hocking rivers. Its
surface
is mostly hilly, with some broad, fine, fertile, level land on the
streams. The land
is well adapted to
grazing, and it is a good county for sheep, horses, cattle and hogs. While the hills are
generally sloping, in
many places they are cultivated to their summits, and have been
successfully
devoted to grape culture and other fruit.
Its great wealth is in it coal, fire-clay and iron. There are four furnaces in
the county: Eagle,
Hope, Vinton, and Hamden, but not now in operation.
Area, 402 square miles.
In 1887, the acres cultivated were 41,645; in pasture,
69,217; woodland,
48,376; lying waste, 6,794; produced in wheat, 80,134 bushels; rye,
352;
buckwheat, 412; oats, 45,907; corn, 202,241; broom-corn, 50,050 lbs.
brush;
meadow hay, 11,155 tons; clover hay, 38; potatoes, 15,658 bushels;
tobacco, 850
lbs.; butter, 194,689; sorghum, 4,525 gallons; maple sugar, 2,248 lbs.;
honey,
2,104; eggs, 189,694 dozen; grapes, 550 lbs.; sweet potatoes, 386
bushels;
apples, 11,232; peaches, 1,451; pears, 78; wool, 163,853 lbs.; milch cows owned, 2,541.
Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888: Coal, 108,695 tons,
employing 225 miners
and 57 outside employees; iron ore, 11,761 tons.
School census, 1888,
5,931;
teachers, 158. Miles
of railroad
track, 68.
Township And
Census |
1850. |
1880. |
Township And
Census |
1850. |
1880 |
Brown, |
648 |
1,241 |
Knox, |
|
947 |
Clinton, |
886 |
1,608 |
Madison, |
|
2,217 |
Eagle, |
476 |
1,044 |
Richland, |
493 |
1,668 |
Elk,
|
1,221 |
2,000 |
Swan, |
1,154 |
1,095 |
Harrison, |
580 |
1,172 |
Vinton, |
460 |
1,131 |
Jackson, |
835 |
1,288 |
Wilkeville |
1,037 |
1,812 |
Population
of Vinton in 1860, 13,631; 1880, 17,223; of whom 14,839 were born in
Ohio; 594,
Pennsylvania; 500, Virginia; 115, Kentucky; 81, New York; 32, Indiana;
327,
Ireland; 160, German Empire; 94, England and Wales; 13, British
America; 12,
Scotland; and 11, France. Census, 1890, 16,045.
This
county is named in honor of SAMUEL FINLEY VINTON, one of
Ohio’s eminent
statesmen of a past generation. Mr.
VINTON is a direct descendant of John VINTON, of Lynn, Mass., whose
name occurs
in the county records of 1648. The
tradition is that the founder of the family in this country was of
French
origin, by the name of DE VINTONNE, and he was exiled from France on
account of
his being a Huguenot. Mr.
VINTON was
born in the State of Massachusetts, September 25, 1792, graduated at
Williams
College in 1814, and soon after 1816 established himself in the law at
Gallipolis. In 1822
he was, unexpectedly
to himself, nominated and then elected to Congress, an office to which
he
continued to be elected by constantly increasing majorities for
fourteen years,
when he voluntarily withdrew for six years, to be again sent to
Congress for
six years longer, when he declined any further Congressional service,
thus
serving in all twenty years.
Mr.
VINTON originated and carried through the House many measures of very
great
importance to the country. During
the
period of the war with Mexico, he was Chairman of the Committee of Ways
and
Means, and at this particular juncture his financial talent was of very
great
service to the nation. During
his entire
course of public life he had ably opposed various schemes for the sale
of
Page 732
the public lands that he felt, if carried out,
would be squandering the nation’s patrimony.
He originated and carried through the House, against much
opposition,
the law which created the Department of the Interior.
Hon. Thomas EWING wrote of him: “Though for
ten or fifteen years he had more influence in the House of
Representatives,
much more than any man in it, yet the nation never has fully accorded
to him
his merits. He was
a wise, persevering,
sagacious statesman; almost unerring in his perceptions of the right,
bold in
pursuing and skilful in sustaining it.
He always held a large control over the minds of men with
whom he
acted.”
In
1851 Mr. VINTON was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for Governor of
Ohio. In 1853 he
was for a short time President of
the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad, and then, after 1854, continuously
resided
in Washington City until his death, May 11, 1862.
There he occasionally argued cases before the
Supreme Court, and with remarkable success, from his habits of patient
investigation and clear analysis.
He
exhausted every subject he discussed and presented his thoughts without
rhetorical flourish, but with wonderful lucidity.
His use of the English language was
masterful, and he delighted in wielding words of Saxon strength.
In
accordance with his dying request he was buried in the cemetery at
Gallipolis,
beside the remains of his wife, Romaine Madeleine BUREAU, the daughter
of one
of the most respected French immigrants.
His only surviving child is Madeleine VINTON DAHLGREN,
noticed on page
681 of this work. “Mr.
VINTON was of
slight frame, but of great dignity of presence.
His mild and clear blue eye was very penetrating, and his
thin,
compressed lips evinced determination of character.
His manner was composed and calm, but very
suave and gentle, scarcely indicating the great firmness that
distinguished
him.”
OHIO SOUTHERN BOUNDARY
LINE.
The
question as to what constitutes Ohio’s Southern
boundary line is one that has never been satisfactorily settled, and
the
argument made by the Hon. SAMUEL F. VINTON on this question is one of
great
importance to the people of Ohio, as well as those of West Virginia,
Kentucky,
Indiana and Illinois.
In
1820, when the case of HANDLY’S Lessee vs.
ANTHONY et. Al. was tried in the U. S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice MARSHALL
decided that “When a great
river is the boundary line between two nations or States, if the
original
property is in neither, and there be no convention respecting it, each
holds to
the middle of the stream. But
when, as
in this case, one State is the original proprietor, and grants the
territory on
one side only, it retains the river within its own domains, and the
newly
created State extends to the river only.
The river, however, is its boundary.”
As
between high and low water mark as the boundary line Justice MARSHALL
in this
case set it at the low water mark.
In
1783 the Legislature of Virginia empowered its delegates in Congress
“to
convey, transfer, assign, and make over unto the United States in
Congress
assembled, for the benefit of said States (proposed new States
northwest of the
Ohio), all right, title and claim, as well of soil as of jurisdiction,
which
this Commonwealth hath to the territory or tract of country within the
limits
of the Virginia Charter, situate, lying and being to the northwest of
the river
Ohio.”
In
1845 Richard M. GARNER and others, who were captured by Virginia
officers at
the north bank of the Ohio river,
near Marietta, in
the act of assisting runaway slaves to escape, were tried in the
Virginia
courts. The case
was decided against
them in the lower courts, and on an appeal to the Virginia Supreme
Court was
argued at the December term, 1845, by Hon. S. F. VINTON, for the
defendants,
being assigned to that duty by the Governor of Ohio.
VINTON’S
argument was based on the ground that Virginia never had a valid claim
to the
lands northwest of the Ohio river. He held that Chief Justice
MARSHALL’S
decision was based on an erroneous historical assumption. VINTON says:
“All the parties to that case
(HANDLY’S Lessee vs.
ANTHONY), both the
court and the bar assumed, without any historical investigation in the
court
below, that Virginia was the original proprietor of the country beyond
the Ohio
river, and that the question of boundary was to be decided by the laws
of
Virginia, and by her deed of cession to the United States.” He further states that the
“Virginia
Charter,” upon which Virginia’s claims were base,
was granted in 1609 to “The
Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of
London.” In
1724 this grant was dis-
Page 733
solved by the Court of the
King’s Bench; henceforth,
until the Revolution, Virginia was a crown colony with no claim to the
territory northwest of the Ohio, and that after the Declaration of
Independence
the territory came under the jurisdiction of the United States by right
of
conquest.
In
May, 1890, the Supreme Court of the United States reaffirmed the
decision of
Justice MARSHALL in a controversy between Kentucky and Indiana as to
jurisdiction over Green River island,
in the Ohio
river, some six miles above Evansville.
The court held that Kentucky’s boundary extended
to the low water mark
on the north bank at the time Kentucky became a State, and
Commissioners were
appointed to ascertain and run the boundary line as designated, and to
report
to the court.
Shortly
after this decision had been rendered, ex-Governor COX wrote a letter
to
Governor CAMPBELL, drawing his attention to the interests involved, and
suggesting that he request Attorney General WATSON to intervene in the
suit (if
not being actually closed until the Commissioners’ report had
been accepted),
and that Illinois and West Virginia be made parties.
Measures were at once taken by Governor
CAMPBELL and Attorney General WATSON to interplead in Ohio’s
behalf before the
United States Supreme Court.
Ex-Governor
COX denied the validity of Virginia’s claim, and in his
letter stated some of
the complications likely to ensue if the decision of the Supreme Court
was
permitted to stand without question.
“The
reasons for making the median line of a stream the boundary between
private
properties are infinitely stronger when it comes to nations and States. Cincinnati has six or
eight miles of river
front, on which she has built levees and public landings, and our
merchants and
manufacturers have made docks, coal chutes, etc.
If the ancient meandered line of the low
water mark be rigidly renewed, the whole commercial front of this great
city
may possibly be held to be cut off from Ohio by some narrow strip
sufficient to
fence us in.
“If
Kentucky prudently does not urge such a claim, we may still hold our
territory,
rather by sufferance than by title of a better kind.
Railways have been built up and down the
river on the Ohio shore. It
can hardly
be possible, in the nature of constructions of such a sort, that they
have not
trenched upon the water line. Shall
a quo warranto
in Kentucky forfeit their Ohio charters and rights of way? Kentucky companies plant
bridge piers so
close to Ohio that the value of adjacent property is destroyed. Must the Kentucky jury on
the opposite shore
have sole jurisdiction to assess damages?
“Suppose
the war of secession had resulted in the independence of the South, and
the
Ohio had been the boundary, as the South claimed.
The idea of a boundary on the north shore
would have made peace forever impossible.
The river is too important a highway of commerce to permit
any
separation of jurisdiction except in the middle of the stream. It has always been
admitted that such also is
the general rule of law. But
an
exceptional interpretation is claimed exactly where the reasons for the
rule
are most overwhelming. There
could have
been no GOOD reason for Virginia and Kentucky controlling the whole
river, and
it cannot be supposed that the cession of Virginia saved such
jurisdiction for
BAD reasons. I
believe the publicists of
the world would be shocked to see the claim of Virginia recognized as a
rule of
law.”
EARLY HISTORY.
Nearly
half a century elapsed after its first settlement before Vinton county was formed.
The first settlers centred
most strongly
around McArthur and Vinton townships.
A
Mr. MUSSELMAN was one of the earliest.
Of him but little is known, except that he was the
discoverer of the
burr stone. He
worked a few years
quarrying these stones, as did most of the early settlers.
It
was in 1805 that MUSSELMAN came. He
settled in Elk, the pioneer township of the county.
He was a miller; being something of a
geologist he discovered the fine burr stone, and in the spring of 1806
began
his quarrying operations.
The
first permanent settler in Elk was Levi KELSEY, who came about 1802,
and was
probably the very first settler in the county.
Isaac and John PHILLIPS came in 1806 and 1807. Levi JOHNSON came in 1811,
put up the first
distillery, and, being justice of the peace, performed the first
marriage
ceremony. Then
came, and a little later,
Jacob and Paul SHRY, Geo. FRY, James and William MYSICK, Edward SATTS,
Thaddeus
FULLER, David RICHMOND, Rev. Joshua GREEN, Lemuel
and
Allen LANE, Joseph GILL, and Isaac WEST.
We
copy here the personal recollections of early times in Vinton county by one of her pioneer
women, Mrs. Charlotte E.
BOTHWELL, given in 1874 at McArthur, when she was 86 years of age. She, with her husband and
brother, and their
two children, emigrated here in the summer of 1814 from Silveysport,
Md. She was then
twenty-six years of
age, and her husband twenty-nine.
Page 734
They
came down the Monongahela and Ohio rivers
by pirogue,
which he bought, hired a pilot, landed at Gallipolis, and came thence
by wagon,
having been just thirty-two days on the way.
It
was on a Tuesday morning when they left Gallipolis with Mr. PIERSON,
her
sister’s husband, who had come with his wagon to help them on
their way. The next
morning they took breakfast at what
is now Jackson. It
was then nothing but
“a salt works, a number of rough, scattering cabins, and long
rows of kettles
of boiling water.”
The
roads all the way were but mere paths, and the three men compelled to
cut out
roads with axes, and drive along hillsides, when it was all the men
could do to
keep the wagons from upsetting. After
leaving Jackson, it was nine miles to Mr. PAINE’S, the first
house. The
remainder of her narrative we give in her
own words.
About
the middle of the day it began raining very hard, and rained all day;
everything was soaking with water.
My
youngest child lay in my arms wet and cold, and looked more like it was
dead
than alive. Several
times we stopped the
wagon to examine to see if it was dead.
But we had to go on.
There was no
house to stop at till we got to Mr. PAINE’S.
It was more than an hour after dark when we got there,
wet, cold, and
still raining. We
found Mrs. PAINE one
of the best and kindest of women.
An own
mother could not have been more kind.
After breakfast next morning, we started and got to my
brother-in-law’s
the evening of the 5th of August, when four days
afterward our child
died.
My
husband had been here the spring previous, entered 160 acres of land,
being now
(1874) the farm once owned by David RAY, and reared the walls of a
cabin upon
it. When we got
here, it had neither door, floor,
window, chimney, nor roof.
My husband hired two men to make clapboards
to cover it, and puncheons for a floor, we remaining with my
brother-in-law
until this was done. We
then moved into
our new house, to finish it at our leisure.
Isaac PIERSON then “scutched”
down the logs,
my husband chinked it, and I daubed the cracks with clay.
There
was no plant to be had, the nearest saw-milling being
DIXON’S, on Salt creek,
twenty miles away. So
I hung up a
table-cloth to close the hole left for the window, and a bed-quilt for
a
door. The back wall
of a fire-place
occupied nearly one whole side of the house; but the chimney was not
built on
it, and sometimes the smoke in the house would almost drive me out. We lived in this way five
months. I was not
used to backwoods life, and the
howling of the wolves, with nothing but a suspended bed-quilt for a
door,
coupled with other discomforts of border life, made me wish many a time
I was
back at my good old home.
On
the 14th of January, 1815, the chimney was built. My husband had some plank
and sash, and made
the door and window. The
hinges and
latches were of wood. Our
cabin was the
only one in the whole country around that had a glass window. On the same day, while the
men were working
at the house, I finished a suit of wedding clothes for David JOHNSON,
father of
George and Benjamin JOHNSON, who still live here.
I had the suit all done but a black satin
vest when he came here. I
didn’t know it
was a wedding suit, and tried to put him off; but he would not be put
off. The next day
my third child, Catherine, who
is the widow of Joseph FOSTER, and lives near Sharonville, was born.
My
husband was a cabinetmaker and painter, but bedsteads and chairs and
painting
were not in use here in that day, and his business was confined to
making
spinning-wheels and reels. He
did not
get his shop till the first of May, and as he had not worked for a year
our little
accumulated earnings were all spent.
However, we were now comfortably fixed.
I had some pipe-clay and white-washed the inside of the
cabin, and some
of our neighbors regarded us as very rich and very
aristocratic—thought for
this country we put on too much style!
I
had learned the tailoring business and found plenty of work at it. There
Page 735
Top:
SAMULE F. VINTON
Bottom
Drawn
by Henry Howe, 1846
VINTON
COUNTRY COURT HOUSE, McARTHUR.
Page 736
was not much money in the settlement, and I was
more often paid in work than in cash; but we wanted our farm cleared up
and
therefore needed work. It
cost us about
$10 per acre to clear the land, beside
the
fencing. Lands all
belonged to the
government and could be entered in quarter sections or 160 acres, at $2
per
acre, to be paid in four annual payments of $80 each.
When
we first came here there were perhaps fifty families in and around this
settlement, most of them quarrying and making millstones. There was no person making
a business of farming. All
had their little patches of garden, but
making millstones was the principal business.
Isaac PIERSON, father of Sarah PIERSON, of Chillicothe,
had the
principal quarry. Afterward
Aaron LANTZ
and Richard McDOUGAL
had large quarries. A
man named MUSSELMAN first discovered the
stone in 1805 and in 1806 employed Isaac PIERSON to work for him. This was on section seven. There were no white people
here at that time
and the two camped out. MUSSELMAN
quit,
but the next year PIERSON, finding the business to be very profitable,
moved
out, built the first cabin and made the first permanent settlement.
He
employed hands to help him, and soon the settlement began to grow. The business was very
profitable, and all
engaged in it would have become independently rich but for one
thing—whiskey!
Most of them drank; and nearly every pair of millstones
that was sold
must bring back a barrel of whiskey, whether it brought flour or not. If the flour was out they
could grind corn on
their hand-mills, but they made it a point never to get out of whiskey.
Trading
was done principally at Chillicothe.
There was no store closer than Chillicothe or Athens. Everything we bought that
was not produced in
the country was very dear. The
commonest
calico, such as now sells at 6 to 10 cents, was 50 cents a yard;
coffee, 40
cents; tea, $1.25; we made our own sugar.
We made it a point, however, to spend as little as
possible. Our salt
we got at Jackson; gave $2 for fifty
pounds of such mean, wet, dirty salt as could not find a market now at
any
price.
All
kinds of stock ran loose in the woods.
Each person had his stock marked.
My husband’s mark was to point one ear and cut a
V-shaped piece out of
the other. I marked
my geese by
splitting the left web of the left foot.
These marks were generally respected.
There was good wild pasturage for the cattle, and hogs
grew fat upon the
mast. When one was
wanted for use it was
shot with the rifle.
A
wilder country than this in the early days it would be hard to imagine,
with
its great systems of rocks and intermingled forests.
Indians, wolves, wild game and snakes were
more numerous than interesting. I
remember distinctly one time, my son Thompson was a baby, I put him to
sleep
one afternoon in his cradle and went out to help my husband in the
field. He had an
Irishman working in the shop. In
a little while after he went into the
house to get some tobacco. He
came soon
running out to us, hallooing in the field, “Oh, mon!
come quick; the devil
he is in the house!” We
hastened to the
door, and found a large rattlesnake which had been lying by the cradle. Our presence disturbed it,
and it ran under
the bed, and my husband got a club and dragged it out and killed it.
MCARTHUR,
county-seat of Vinton, about sixty miles southeast of Columbus, about
105 miles
east of Cincinnati, is on the Ohio River Division of the C. H. V.
& T., and
three miles north of the C. W. & B. R. R.
It is in the midst of a rich iron and coal region. The surrounding country is
largely devoted to
raising fine wool sheep, cattle and swine.
County
Officers, 1888: Auditor, John MCNAMARA; Clerk, David H. MOORE;
Commissioners,
William J. COX, Lyman WELLS, Henry C. ROBBINS; Coroner, Jacob D.
CHRIST;
Infirmary Directors, Nathan B. WESTCOOK, John BRAY, E. McCORMACK;
Probate Judge, John N. McLAUGHLIN;
Prosecuting
Attorney, William S. HUDSON; Recorder, Cyrus C. MOORE; Sheriff, Enos T. WINTERS; Surveyor, Simon
R. WALKER; Treasurer, Eli
REYNOLDS. City
Officers, 1888: H.
Page 737
W. HORTON, Mayor; John S. MORRISON, Clerk; V.
R. SPRAGUE, Treasurer; John LOWRY, Marshal.
Newspapers: Democrat-Enquirer,
Democratic, Alexander PEARCE, editor; Plaindealer, Democratic, J.
W. BOWEN, editor; Vinton Record,
Republican, A. BARLEON,
editor. Churches: 1
Christian, 1 Methodist
Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian and 1 Episcopal.
Banks: Vinton Co. National, Daniel WILL, president, J. W.
DELAY,
cashier. Population,
1880, 900. School
census, 1888, 343; Joseph REA, school superintendent. Census,
1890, 888.
McArthur was named from
Gov. Duncan McARTHUR, a
sketch of whom will be found under the head of
Ross County. It is
sometimes called the
“Mineral City,” and is on a pleasant elevation of
table land, between two
branches of Elk fork of Raccoon creek.
It is environed by low hills, with coal banks from every
direction
facing the town. Previous
to the year
1815, this spot was mostly a forest, where two brothers, William and
Jerry
PIERSON, built cabins, and possibly some others.
Burrstone quarries were then being worked in
the north part of the county by the first settlers, and two of the
roads coming
together here made it of some importance as a stopping-place.
McArthur
was laid out in 1815 under the name of McArthurstown,
after Gov. McARTHUR.
The name was changed, Feb. 7, 1851, by act of the
legislature, and the
place incorporated. By
the census of
1850 it had 424 inhabitants.
Robert
SAGE, Esq., gave us some interesting items, which we noted as he talked
to us
on our visit to McArthur, Tuesday, 5 P.M., March 30, 1886. He said:
“McArthur was laid out in 1815 by
Moses DAWSON, Levi JOHNSON, Isaac PEARSON, George WILL, J. BEACH, and
Samuel
LUTZ the surveyor, who is now living at Circleville.
His age is 98, is in good health, and within
a year has surveyed land. [He
died in
1889, aged over 101 years.] The
acknowledgement of the laying out was taken before Joseph WALLACE, on
Saturday,
the day before the battle of Waterloo, which was fought Sunday, June
18,
1815. My father,
Joel Sage, built the
first house that was built after the laying out, and in the ensuing
fall began
to keep therein what is believed to have been the first tavern opened
in the
limits of the county. I
have been a
justice of the peace twenty-one years, and was the first boy who had a
home
here.
“PHILLIPS
& WINZER, about the year 1817, opened a store on the lot now
owned by Dr.
A. WOLF. At that
period James STANCLIFF,
the first justice of the peace, started the first school. The population of the
county is, I think,
more largely than usual of the old American stock, and we claim for
them
extraordinary health and vigor. Living
is very cheap. Retail
prices for sirloin
steak 10 cents a pound; best pork steak at 8 to 10 cents; chickens, 15
to 25
cents each; turkeys, 6 cents per pound; eggs, 8 to 10 cents per dozen,
and coal
delivered at 5 cents per bushel.”
From
the “History of the Hocking Valley” we learn that
the 18th Ohio, which was formed from this and
the adjoining
counties, had a somewhat unusual experience while stationed, May 1,
1862, just
outside of Athens, Georgia. Being
attacked by a superior force, they were ordered to retire towards
Huntsville. Their
route took them
through Athens, whereupon the citizens, seeing them fall back, insulted
them,
the men throwing up their hats and the women waving their handkerchiefs
and all
jeering and hooting at them, while some shots were fired from the
houses. The men
were so abused that the officers
could with difficulty restrain them.
Gen. TURCHIN came to their support with the 19th
Illinois and
some artillery, when they faced about and drove the enemy out of town
and
vicinity. This was
the occasion when
TURCHIN’S brigade “went through Athens.”
Some
of the Illinois companies were composed of Chicago ‘roughs;
with such men for
leaders, the soldiers, feeling outraged by their treatment from the
citizens,
who had been well treated by them, retaliated.
This was in accord with Col. TURCHIN’S European
ideas of war customs, so
in the result there was scarcely a store or warehouse that they did not
pillage.
Col.
TURCHIN laid in the Court-house yard while the devastation was going on. An aid-de-camp approached,
when the colonel
remarked.
“Vell,
lieudtenant, I think it
is
dime dis dam billaging vas shtop.”
“Oh,
no, colonel,” replied he, “the boys are not half
done jerking.”
“Ish dat
so? Den
I schleep for
half an hour longer,” said the colonel, as he rolled his fat,
dumpty body over on the
grass again.
Page 738
The
boys of the 19th Illinois used the word
“jerk” in the sense of steal
or pillage. This
gave the 18th
Ohio and 19th Illinois the appellation of
“TURCHIN’S Thieves.”
For this act TURCHIN was court-martialled
and dismissed from the service by orders of
BUELL; but LINCOLN, recognizing his soldierly qualities, restored him
with the
rank of brigadier-general. This
retaliation secured better treatment from the citizens.
A
gentleman of many years and experience, who has long known Vinton county, Mr. S. W. ELY,
agricultural editor of the Cincinnati
Gazette, who made it a visit in the
summer of 1886, has put in print these valuable facts:
“Since
our last issue we have enjoyed the opportunity of visiting the county
of
Vinton, Ohio, which is situate on the C. B. & W. Railway,
within 150 miles
east of this city, and contrasting conditions and appearances at
present with
those existing thirty years ago. At
that
time the county had recently been formed from Ross, Athens, Hocking and
Jackson, and a scattering country village, almost unapproachable from
the outer
world, located as its ‘court-house,’ with a
patronymic derived from one of
Ohio’s early governors.
“McArthur
was situate on the long
and difficult hilly and muddy
road which extended sixty miles from Chillicothe to Athens, nearly
equidistant
between those pioneer boroughs. A
few of
its early settlers were known to the Scioto valley stock feeders as
reliable
breeders of ‘sassafras’ bovines and mountain sheep,
and occasionally a caravan
of ‘Salt Creekers,’ with their few hundred feet of
‘plank,’ their feathers,
eggs, ‘parilla,
and maple molasses came into the
‘Ancient Metropolis’ for marketing purposes.
“It
was understood before that time, however, that Vinton county territory
abounded
in both sylvan and mineral riches.
The
first geological survey of the State under Prof. MATHER, assisted by
the
veterans, BRIGGS, WHITTLESEY, etc., had been finished and particular
mention
made of the millstone, coals, iron ores, and other mineral riches of
the new
county and its neighboring shires.
But
not until the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad was completed to the
Ohio river did the newly
opened territory begin earnestly to
improve.
“Trade
in the ‘black diamonds’ with the communities
towards the west opened and
rapidly increased. The
finest timber and
best tanbark—the prey most
greedily coveted on our new
railway lines—were soon wheeled off and utilized. An English colony
introduced its ‘best
methods’ at Zaleski,
and ‘astonished the natives’ by
erecting a gas-house and indulging in expensive gradation of streets
before
their hamlet was fairly started, following up with a large blast
furnace, in
which they vainly strove to make good pigs with a raw sulphurous
coal—a task they had to abandon, so that their stack soon
crumbled down to the
foundation, and a slowly-growing village, kept alive by a portion of
the
railway machine shops, ensued their bright expectations.
“Within
a few years the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad has been thrust
southwardly, across Vinton county,
from Logan, through
McArthur to Pomeroy, reinforcing the old Portsmouth branch of the C. B.
&
W. in connecting this interesting region with steamboat navigation. And this brings us to the
point of our
paragraph. In no
respect has this county
more positively improved since our earliest acquaintance with it than
in that
of its agriculture. On
every hand,
within sight of the railroad, the lands have been largely cleared, and
the
fields are clothed with rich coats of cultivated grasses, including
blue grass,
orchard grass, red-top, timothy, etc., while great attention is paid to
the
clover crop.
“A
gentleman who kindly drove us over a considerable scope of country
remarked:
‘Our farmers formerly paid more attention to the cereals, but
after three or
four crops of corn on the same ground they found that their warranty
deeds were
not strong enough to hold their lands,
so they have resorted to grass, hay, pasturage, and cattle and sheep
breeding
and fattening, so that the old gullies washed in our hillsides are
filled up,
smoothed over, and ‘all dressed in living green.’ Meantime agricultural
methods have greatly
improved in most other
Page 739
respects. The
fields we cultivate are well plowed, harrowed, and the clods broken,
before the
seed is sown or planted. Our
crops are
larger and more sure
than before; the values of lands
have increased correspondingly, and our farmers pay their taxes, and
become
rich and independent.’
“We
observe that great attention is paid to orchard and fruit raising.
Our friend, on sixty-six acres, has 1,100
apple trees, a moiety of which are
the Hughes Virginia
Crab, from each of which he will make this year a barrel of cider,
worth ten
dollars in market. This,
he thinks, will
pay better than grain or grapes. His
place adjoins the town of McArthur, and is remarkably fertile, underlaid also by good, workable
coal. It is in a
lovely region. It
is probable, we think, that no part of our
great State can boast of a greater degree of agricultural improvement,
effected
in the same period, than Vinton county. The construction of
railroads through her
territory has led in this desirable direction.
In picturesque beauty she can now challenge the most
favored regions,
while in all other respects we have reason to believe her people have
advanced. Good
agriculture is at once
the basis and proof of civic improvement.
The population of this part of the State is very rapidly
increasing, and
the inducements for the exercise of industry and energy are
excellent.”
ZALESKI
is on the C. W. & B. R. R., forty-two miles east of Chillicothe
and about
six northeast from
McArthur. It is
named from Peter ZALESKI, a banker in
Paris, a native of Poland, and financial agent for Polish exiles of
wealth in
France. He was a
leading member of the Zaleski
Mining Company, which bought large quantities of
mineral land hereabout and laid out the town on their land in 1856. For many years it was
simply a mining town,
the company building houses for rent to their employees. The ores proving unremunerative,
the houses have fallen into the ownership of the individuals, and it
has lost
its identity as a mining town. The
greatest industry here is the repairing shops of the railroad, which
employs
many workmen. It
has 1 Episcopal
Methodist, 1 Catholic and 1 Mission Baptist Church.
City
Officers, 1888: Sylvester SHRY, Mayor; Peter HOFFMAN, Clerk; Jacob
DORST,
Treasurer; John McCOY,
Marshal and Street Commissioner.
Population, 1880, 1,175.
School census, 1888, 374;
J. W. DELAY, school
superintendent.
HAMDEN
P. O., Hamden Junction, is seven miles southwest of McArthur, on the C.
W.
& B. R. R. It
has 1 Presbyterian and
1 Disciples church. City
Officers, 1888:
S. F. CRAMER, Mayor; H. D. WORTMAN, Clerk; R. R. BROWN, Treasurer; J.
B. WATTS,
Marshal; William OGIER, Commissioner.
Newspaper: Hamden Enterprise,
Independent; K. J. CAMERON, editor and publisher.
Population, 1880, 520. School
census, 1888, 250;
D. B. DYE, school superintendent.