Ohio History Journal

OHIO, THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

 

 

BY CARRIE B. ZIMMERMAN

 

The story of Ohio, the Gateway of the West, reveals

in its rapid development, its swift evolution from a

primeval wilderness to one of the most highly cultivated

industrial and agricultural centers in the world, what

can be accomplished when given extraordinary geo-

graphic conditions combined with rare qualities of

human character.

With a northern shore-line of more than two hun-

dred miles stretching along Lake Erie and more than

four hundred miles of the Ohio River circling about half

its eastern and all of its southern shore, with a number

of navigable rivers draining lofty hill slopes and fertile

valleys, with a climate neither too hot nor too cold, it

early became the prize for which the nations of two

continents struggled and later for which the states

themselves contended.

When General George Rogers Clark completed his

campaign in the West by a decisive victory in 1780 over

the Shawnee Confederacy at Piqua, having captured

Fort Sackville at Vincennes the year previous, he made

possible our claim to the entire territory northwest of

the Ohio. It was upon this campaign alone and the

victories secured by this intrepid commander that our

Commissioners, Adams, Franklin and Jay, succeeded in

(137)

• 1
 

138       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

forcing from    Great Britain a recognition of our right

to this vast--almost unknown territory.*

The possession of the rich and picturesque land be-

tween Lake Erie and the Ohio was very soon to be dis-

puted among the states, chief of which were Connecticut

and Virginia. Just how Connecticut finally yielded her

claim to what she termed her great "Western Reserve,"

and how Virginia at last gave up the title to her "Mili-

tary Reserve" in the rich territory lying between the

Scioto and the Little Miami, are matters of history, but

to those who look beneath the surface, the real impress

of these two great states is still strong and vital. You

see it in the architecture of the old white frame houses

with broad, deep eaves, green shutters and pleasant

doorways, in the northern part of the State, like trans-

ported bits of New England, the old-time substantial

brick or stone houses, squat and strong, with broad in-

viting portals, in the central and southern portions, sug-

gesting Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. You

hear it even in the slight New England accent found

among the farmers of the Connecticut Reserve, grand-

sons of the original settlers; and in the southern sec-

tions you detect in a multitude of ways the more south-

ern influence of those who floated their flatboats down

 

* This sentence is a little ambiguous. It states, "it was upon this

(the Piqua) campaign alone," and then adds, "and the victories secured

by this intrepid commander." * * * It would have been clearer if the

statement had read, "It was upon the victories achieved by this intrepid

commander at Vincennes (1779), Piqua (1780) and Loramie Station in

1782 that our Commissioners," etc. This statement is probably correct,

although there appears to be no documentary proof that the Commissioners

considered the achievements of Clark in reaching their conclusion that

gave the Northwest Territory to the United States.--EDITOR.

• 2
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      139

the Ohio and pushed up the Muskingum, the Scioto, and

the Miamis.

For a generation the settlers from the older colonies

struggled against every hardship of pioneering during

which time "Mad" Anthony Wayne built a chain of

forts along the western frontier, fought the Battle of

Fallen Timbers and secured the far-reaching, significant

treaty of Greenville.

A little later the United States found herself at war

once more with Great Britain, and Ohio again became

a part of the arena of a Second War for Independence.

General Hull took command of the army of the West

at Dayton and Cincinnati became the headquarters for

supplies while recruits were being mustered in every

frontier village in Ohio. Traces and roads were cut

through the forests and supplies forwarded as fast as

ox-carts could draw them or hogs and cattle could be

driven northward to support the army sent to besiege

Detroit, the British stronghold in the West. There are

those in Ohio who recall with deep personal interest just

what Perry's victory meant to their grandfathers and

great-grandfathers, some of whom were languishing in

British prisons at Quebec or Halifax, and there are

those yet in the "Western Reserve" who relate the story

of the escape of their own grandmothers, fleeing with

little children through the wilderness to the more south-

ern settlements as the fury of Britain or Indian let loose

along the southern shore of Lake Erie, threatening fire

and plunder to the new "Firelands," such as had been

unchained a generation before in old Connecticut.

Then came the treaty and the independence of Ohio

was once more secured. But the War of 1812 did more.

• 3
 

140     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

It had jolted up the entire frontier population and

mingled settlers from the older commonwealths in a

new and common conflict which resulted in a new fra-

ternity with common problems and a common aim.

When the new capital, Columbus, was occupied in 1816

near the center of the State, we find the New Englander

from the Connecticut Reserve tying his horse to the

same hitching rail, thawing frost-bitten fingers before

the same great inn fire, eating venison and wild turkey

at the same table, or sharing a room with the Virginian

from the "Military Reserve" of the south.

To this admixture had been added a very generous

number of Quakers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey,

Delaware, Virginia and the Carolinas. It was from a

group of these who trekked to Ohio a century ago that

President Hoover springs.  Besides Quakers, there

were groups of Dunkards and other "plain sects" from

Pennsylvania who settled on rich farming lands in the

central and northwestern parts of the State. Likewise

came in an early day, a not inconsequential migration

from northern Europe. A company of French emigres

settled Gallipolis on the Ohio River as early as 1790.

Many Germans came into Cincinnati and helped to make

it a great musical center. Enough emigrants came from

Guernsey to give the name of their native island to a

county in the eastern part of the State, and after the

Napoleonic wars had finished their course and helped

further to impoverish the British Isles, a great number

of English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish thronged into the

new state attracted by cheap lands and crying opportu-

nities. Practically all of these people were industrious

and thrifty so that with Puritan leadership from the

• 4
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West     141

north and Cavalier leadership from the south, Ohio

could not fail to produce a versatile, energetic whole.

From the very first, Ohio had shown an almost

feverish activity.  Settlements had sprung up every-

where along the river fronts and penetrated the interior.

So rapid and ubiquitous was this growth that it is with

difficulty that one can find the thread of a single nar-

rative which does not mingle with a maze of others quite

as interesting and important. Fortunately much has

been preserved in files of old newspapers which are still

available; for Ohio had her first newspaper a full decade

before she was a State.

William Maxwell, a picturesque figure threading his

way on horseback, with a small printing-press strapped

on his shoulders, through the narrow trail that led from

Virginia to Fort Washington, established in 1793 the

first newspaper in the Northwest Territory. It was

called The Centinel of the North-Western Territory.

From it and other pioneer papers we catch glimpses of

Ohio in the making.   For instance: we see "those

gentlemen who intend to become adventurers on the

Scioto and Whetstone, meeting at Lyons' Tavern on

Mill Creek" at the call of Judge Symmes. We see them

drawing up articles of regulation, electing a foreman

and deciding among themselves who shall furnish oxen

or horses for the purpose of transporting utensils of

husbandry and provisions for the proposed settlement.

One week later we find them filing in a body to the place

appointed with their wagons, packhorses, cattle, sheep

and hogs. This was the common story of many who

thus settled the new country after Wayne's campaign

had made Clark's victory secure. In fact a very large

• 5
 

142     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

percentage of the first settlers were soldiers who, hav-

ing caught the vision of what might be, while serving

under Clark or Wayne, hastened back to Cincinnati

where at Conn's Tavern they found Judge Symmes

seated amid his throng of land purchasers, writing

deeds or contracts while he sipped his tea. Here they

filed claims or bought the land of their choice. Every

county in western Ohio has a goodly representation of

descendants of these early patriots.

 

BURR AND BLENNERHASSETT

The more familiar one becomes with conditions west

of the Alleghanies at the beginning of the nineteenth

century, the less surprising appears the confidence of

success which Aaron Burr had in his effort to establish

an empire in the West.

It should be remembered that most of the settlers

who had pushed beyond the mountains having taken

land as pay for services in establishing the independence

of the nation or having purchased it at a fair price, en-

countered the most adverse conditions of pioneering and

poverty combined. Money was extremely scarce and

could be obtained only by floating their extra produce

down the Ohio on flatboats to New Orleans, where both

produce and boats were sold for precious gold or silver;

then working their toilsome way back through an un-

charted wilderness, they might if they escaped the

scalping knives of savages, bring back enough to satisfy

a government that would accept nothing but specie in

payment of taxes.

Great discontent was manifest among the farmers.

They felt their work was dangerous and difficult, their

• 6
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      143

pay slight, their taxes excessive. Burr, swift to seize

upon their complaints, believed, with some show of

reason, that here was an opportunity. Call to mind that

every farmer was under the same necessity of floating

his goods down the streams, then through the Ohio and

Mississippi to New Orleans with which trade had al-

ready been established by French settlers at Kaskaskia,

Vincennes and other French settlements in the West.

No roads had, as yet, been built suitable for conveying

goods over the mountains. The pioneers of Kentucky

and Ohio were as completely isolated as mountain bar-

riers at that time could make them. Taxes came due

then, as now, with regularity and insistence, and though

a state had been established with governor and other

needed officers, little was done for "the relief of the

farmer."

At this apparently strategic moment Aaron Burr

visited the Blennerhassetts in their "island Eden." Har-

man Blennerhassett, a graduate of Trinity College,

Dublin, had married a daughter of the Governor of the

Isle of Man, a lady of great beauty, high culture and

gentle manners. In the fall of 1797 they came to New

York where their rank, their wealth, their culture at-

tracted much attention. The following winter they

went to Marietta where the first permanent white set-

tlement in Ohio had so lately been established and

where they were received with great distinction. They

selected as their home site an island originally belong-

ing to George Washington twelve miles below Marietta.

Here they built a mansion and laid out gardens, lawns

and orchards. Their hospitality was abundant and

when Mr. Burr visited them in the spring of 1805.he

• 7
 

144      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

was received with every honor befitting a former vice-

president of the Republic. In a very short time Burr

succeeded in arousing the interest of Blennerhassett in

his plan to establish an Empire in the West, to such an

extent that before his departure in October, his gen-

erous host was completely committed to the scheme.

The following year Blennerhassett let contracts for

building fifteen boats capable of transporting five hun-

dred men and arranged for large supplies of provisions.

He spent his money freely in the enterprise and with all

the romantic ardor of his generous Irish nature as-

sumed personal responsibility for debts far beyond his

power to pay. Meanwhile Burr's treasonable plot to

secede fell under federal suspicion and Edward Tiffin,

Ohio's illustrious first governor, called out the militia

to seize the boats. The fleeing of the Blennerhassett

family, the seizure of their island home by Colonel

Phelps with his Virginia troops, the trial of Burr and

the arrested development of his coup d' etat -- with all

their romantic details -- have furnished themes for

many a tale. Little remains but the greensward to re-

call the tragic story of its gracious but unfortunate

owners. All this, however, had its effect in awakening

Congress to the necessity of taking more careful cog-

nizance of her territory in the west and very soon plans

were being discussed for the building of a great Na-

tional road to connect the region beyond the Ohio to the

parent colonies in the east.

Before this was accomplished, however, two events

happened which greatly aided the pioneer farmer. One

was the building and launching of the first steamboat

on the Ohio. This happened in 1811 when Nicholas

• 8
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      145

Roosevelt, great-uncle of the former Colonel of Rough

Riders, who had been associated with Fulton in his ex-

periments with steam crafts, built a boat at Pittsburgh

to be propelled by steam and which he christened "The

New Orleans." They departed from Pittsburgh in

October. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were the only per-

sons on board, besides the crew, no others being willing

to adventure so perilously. At both Cincinnati and

Louisville they were met by leading citizens who were

courteous but skeptical until Mr. Roosevelt demon-

strated the practicability of his craft by turning the

prow and driving successfully against the current.

From that day forward steamboats multiplied rapidly

and within a few decades the Mississippi became the

great picturesque water-way of a mighty nation.

It would be difficult to estimate the single influence

of this invention upon the growth and wealth of Ohio.

Farmers now began to grow wheat and fatten hogs in

earnest. Even the flatboat trade was quickened, for

many could float their goods down to New Orleans, sell

goods and boat, and return by steamer with less danger

to life and possessions than by the old toilsome way

along the sandy, woodsy shore of the river. Towns

and villages multiplied on the Ohio banks and those

older towns such as Marietta, Portsmouth and Cincin-

nati increased in trade and activity to an astonishing

degree. Ship-building began to be carried on at each

of these points. Warehouses sprang up and commis-

sion merchants began operating in increasing numbers.

Cincinnati especially profited. Owing to her advan-

tageous situation on the river at a point conveniently

near the fertile valleys of the Little and Great Miami

Vol. XL-10.

• 9
 

146     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Rivers whose rich bottom-lands had early been seized

upon, she became at once the greatest emporium of

trade on the Ohio shore, -- the Queen City of the West.

Before long we find the newspapers of these Ohio river

towns and Louisville discussing the advantages of try-

ing to open up a more direct water route to Havana.

One writer says: "A direct communication with for-

eign ports will place us beyond the control of the car-

riers of the Atlantic states and the merchants of New

Orleans whose combined efforts are sufficient at this

time to regulate the value of our surplus produce."

While all this discussion was taking place and all

this activity going forward at the south, another inci-

dent of moment took place at the north; namely, the

building of Walk-in-the-Water the first steamboat to ply

Lake Erie. With the combined help of twelve yoke of

oxen, it was successfully launched from the sandy beach

on the twenty-eighth of May, 1818. From that time

forward, ship-building on Lake Erie grew apace--over-

took and surpassed her rivals at the south and con-

tinues today to be an important industry at Cleveland,

Lorain and other Erie ports. The digging and con-

struction of the great Erie Canal began, too, about this

period, followed within a decade by Ohio's construction

of a network of canals across her interior, which were

of incalculable value to the development of the state and

the regions beyond the state, both agriculturally and in-

dustrially. Two great systems connected Lake Erie and

the Ohio River before the railroads put an end to their

successful operation.

But before the advent of the railroad and while all

this activity connected with the waterways was develop-

• 10
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      147

ing, our National Government was busy building a

great National highway across the states. Congress

had not forgotten the Burr-Blennerhassett episode. In

the very year of the latter, 1806, Congress voted an ap-

propriation of thirty thousand dollars toward the con-

struction of this road from Cumberland, Maryland, to

the Ohio River. The vicissitudes of this old highway,

now often referred to as "The Main Street of Amer-

ica," form stories commensurate to those of the Appian

Way. What struggles, first to build, then to maintain

it! A main point of contention in Congress concerning

it clustered around the still unsettled question of states'

rights. How should it be maintained? What should

be done with it in case of internal warfare among the

states? Could it be used for the transfer of militia and

supplies? If so, by whom? At last a compromise was

effected. The Road had been surveyed as far westward

as Vandalia, Illinois, but was completed by the Federal

Government only as far as Springfield, Ohio. From this

point westward its building and maintenance were car-

ried on by the various states or counties through which

it passed. The point at Springfield is marked by a

beautiful statue, the first of a series of twelve, erected by

the National Society of the Daughters of the American

Revolution commemorating the heroism of the pioneer

motherhood of America.

It would be difficult to estimate the value of the Na-

tional Road to Ohio and the Nation at large -- provid-

ing as it did an artery across the state transverse to the

earlier movements northward and southward. Thou-

sands now began pouring into and through the state by

wagon from the more thickly populated districts of the

• 11
 

148     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

east. Many settled in the more remote sections of the

state and many more passed through to the fertile

prairies beyond. Nor was the National the only high-

way passing through the State. Turnpikes and roads

began to multiply everywhere; some built by the state;

some by the counties; and others by stock companies

whose receipts were collected at the toll-gates dotting the

country-side. The abundant stone and gravel found in

many parts of the State, particularly in the central and

southwestern, made this task possible, though most of

the early roads were merely dirt roads. Where stone

and gravel were not easily available, corduroy and plank

roads became the rule.

A resident of Chillicothe delights in telling stories

he used to hear his mother tell, among which were

stories of the trains of covered wagons which she re-

called seeing in her childhood, passing westward. Al-

ways the same lumbering wagons crowded with house-

hold goods and children whose yellow heads stuck out

like pansies from the circular opening at the rear. --

"Where you goin' ?" she would cry, and always the same

reply called cheerfully back: "Out to the Indie-anne!"

It was always pronounced the same way with stress on

the last syllable. Out to the Indie-anne they went, and

far beyond, and Ohio must help them on their way,

sheltering, nourishing, caring for those who passed

through her gates. It is a significant fact that every

town and village on the National Road in Ohio, except

Columbus, owes its existence in large measure to the

taverns, blacksmith and wagon shops that sprang up as

nuclei, and which came into being answering a demand

of the traveling public at the time, while even Columbus

• 12
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      149

owes a large share of her early prosperity to this same

migratory movement through the State.

 

TAVERNS

This heavy traffic into and through the State con-

tinuing for more than half a century gave rise to an in-

calculable number of hostelries and created a demand

for inns and taverns the like of which was unsurpassed,

if not unequalled, in any state in the Union. There are

scores of these old buildings yet remaining in village and

country-side which attest the importance of this whilom

occupation.  The oldest is doubtless the "Newcom

Tavern" at Dayton which has stood for more than a

century and a quarter, four-square to all the winds that

blow. It was built of logs in 1796 within a year after

the treaty of Greenville and served for a time as the

seat of justice for Montgomery County. Since then it

has had a long useful career caring for travel-worn

hungry patrons. Today it is kept as a museum, housing

many of the city's most precious relics.

Another venerable house whose history recalls the

early friendship of two great nations, is "Our House"

at Gallipolis, a fine old brick structure which once

welcomed the gallant LaFayette, accompanied by his

son, George Washington LaFayette when they came

up the river from New Orleans on the General's notable

visit to America in 1825. What a home-coming that

must have been to the distinguished Frenchman as he

was received by his former countrymen, now happily

domiciled in the land he loved so well! For Gallipolis

was at that time still a very French town made up --

not as someone has said, of boulangers and perruque

• 13
 

150     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

and manteau makers, -- but of many very distinguished

and notable refuges who, a generation before, fleeing

the mob at the outbreak of the Revolution, found the

savage in the wilds of Ohio less hostile than the prole-

tarian in Paris. LaFayette remained in Gallipolis only

two hours and a half but the account still extant in an

old newspaper published at the time gives us the most

pleasing and intimate picture of him in the midst of his

former compatriots. "The ladies took him by the hand

and conversed with him as to a beloved and endeared

father who had long been absent." Even the little chil-

dren seemed rejoiced to see him -- to whom he spoke in

his native tongue in the most affectionate manner. It

was while in Gallipolis that the question was asked of

LaFayette why he did not spend the remainder of his

days in America. To this he responded that he was en-

gaged in political affairs in France and that if he were

to change his residence to America his friends abroad

would accuse him of desertion of the principles for

which they were contending.

Not all Ohio taverns have had the distinction of

sheltering so honorable and beloved a "Nation's Guest"

as was LaFayette, but all tell in more or less graphic

manner, the story of the Nation's progress.  The

northwestern part of Ohio was the last portion to de-

velop, owing largely to the heavy growth of timber, or

the swampy nature of the soil. Some idea of the diffi-

culty in early traveling over the old road leading from

Fremont to Perrysburg (near Toledo) may be had from

the legend still current, concerning old Auntie Shepley

who used to keep tavern and provide dinner for the

stage-coach patrons at Perrysburg. The story is that

• 14
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      151

she used to go out early in the morning, looking as far

eastward as eye could reach. If she saw in the distance

a lumbering coach floundering through the mire, she

would go back, prepare in advance the vegetables and

meat, then set herself to the family washing and have it

all flapping on the line and dinner all ready before the

guests arrived. The probability of that story is sup-

ported by much evidence. A great morass stretched

over thousands of acres down to the sandy shores of

the Lake. Somewhere up in that northern region there

stood for many years an old building familiarly known

as the "Potleg" schoolhouse, so-called because a large

number of the children who attended the school had to

go over stretches of marshy land to reach it. In wet or

muddy weather they would take off shoes and stockings

which they carried in their hands and wade through the

sticky mess. Appearing at the schoolhouse with feet

and legs covered with the rich black muck, they were

dubbed "pot-legs" by the more fortunate children whose

journey thither was less difficult.

 

EDUCATION

The story of the "Pot-leg School House" recalls the

fact that in Ohio attendance at school has always been

compulsory, if not by law, at least in the minds of par-

ents. Provision for the education of children was made

even before there were any settlements in the North-

west Territory. By the land ordinance of 1785 one

section in each township was reserved for common

schools and "not more than two complete townships"

were to be given perpetually for the purposes of a uni-

versity. Ohio was the first state to carry out this pro-

• 15
 

152     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

vision. It is said that her schools never really profited

as they should by these funds, since their administra-

tion was so often delayed or badly managed. Neverthe-

less the very existence of such a fund available was of

inestimable value, stimulating and encouraging as it

did, the desire for more and better schools in a common-

wealth which even without such aid would have worked

out a good educational system. At Marietta for in-

stance, a school was opened in the very midst of Indian

fighting, in a corner of the old blockhouse on Campus

Martius, the first winter after the Colony was estab-

lished. The Colony at Cincinnati had its "private

schools" from its earliest settlement, while the Western

Reserve has always prided itself upon the working out

of its "common school" traditions. The movement for

consolidating rural schools was inaugurated in Ohio

and has been carried forward there with remarkable

success. One direct result of the school provision of the

Ordinance of 1787 is that Ohio has at present four very

flourishing state universities whose students number

well into thousands. She has also four state normal

schools. In addition to these state institutions there are

over forty other universities or colleges above the rank

of normal school or junior college. Many of these are

under the control of various religious denominations or

are locally maintained and controlled.  Of the five

municipal universities in the United States, three are in

Ohio.

This veritable community of colleges is the out-

growth of powerful spiritual influences. The nineteenth

century was characterized by the rapid growth of many

and diverse protestant sects, almost every one of which

• 16
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      153

planted a college or university in the new state. At

present there are more than ten thousand churches in

Ohio, while Canton is distinguished by having the

largest Sunday-school in the world.

As early as 1820 there were thirty-eight institutions

of learning higher than the common school grades.

Fifteen of these were found in the Miami valley. The

University of Cincinnati was the first institution of

learning to work out, on a large scale, the system

whereby a student might alternate his studies with the

practical application of theory, by attending school a

certain number of weeks and working at his trade or

profession an equal number. This method recovers

much that was good in the old apprenticeship method

which modern education had lost, besides making pos-

sible to poor boys and girls the chance for further study.

Antioch College has come into prominence in recent

years through her adoption of the same method.

 

NOTED MEN AND WOMEN

Volumes have been written about Ohio Colleges;

volumes more have been written about the famous men

and women associated with them. On the campus at

Yellow Springs there stands a statue of Horace Mann,

that prince of pedagogues who did more for the educa-

tional life of America than any other one man. Having

spent years of his life working for the betterment of the

school system in Massachusetts, having gone abroad to

study foreign methods, and ideals, he finally came to

Ohio, in the middle of the last century and at the little

frontier watering place, Yellow Springs, then much

celebrated for the curative properties of its water, he

• 17
 

154      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications devoted the last seven years of his ripe scholarship and judgment to the services of Antioch College which he founded. Next to Horace Mann, that educator whose influence

upon childhood and youth during the last century was most pronounced, was William Holmes McGuffey. Dr. McGuffey grew up on a farm five and one-half miles north of Youngstown, to which place his father had cleared a road from the family homestead. Over this

• 18
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      155

rough pioneer trail, now known as "The McGuffey

Road," the lad walked daily in order to study Latin with

a clergyman in Youngstown. Later he became professor

at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Here in the

museum of the college library, the visitor is shown an

old cherry table whose revolving top, octagonal in form,

has a drawer in each face. In these drawers Dr. Mc-

Guffey kept clippings and articles which he himself

wrote, from which he compiled the early editions of his

famous Readers. Realizing the basic value of reading

and the lack of suitable text books, Dr. McGuffey or-

ganized a class among the children of Oxford. Three

little children of his own and some from the homes of

neighbors and friends, composed the class. Thus in a

very practical way he tried out his various selections,

watching the reactions of children of various ages to the

thought-content and observing their pronunciation.

He was a rare teacher and extemporaneous speaker

and served for a time as president of Ohio University

at Athens, where he continued his work on his Readers

and where the McGuffey elms are a fitting memorial to

him. Later he returned to Cincinnati where he had

formerly taught and where his brother Alexander aided

in the completion of his Readers. From here he was

called to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the Uni-

versity of Virginia where, for more than a quarter of

a century, the influence of his extraordinary personality

was all-pervading.

While in Cincinnati one of Dr. McGuffey's most

intimate friends was Calvin E. Stowe, husband of Har-

riet Beecher Stowe, whose father was at that time presi-

dent of Lane Theological Seminary, one of the most

• 19
 

156     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

famous stations of the "Underground Railway." It

was while witnessing a slave sale from the steps of a

courthouse in a neighboring town across the river, that

Mrs. Stowe's soul was stirred to write her world-shak-

ing masterpiece, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

In the light of Ohio's widespread interest in educa-

tion, one should expect much in the way of leadership

among her people; nor does this expectation meet with

disappointment. Several years ago a party of Ameri-

cans, representing nearly every state in the Union, who

were cruising the Mediterranean gave a patriotic pro-

gram on board their vessel on the Fourth of July. Each

state was characterized in a two-minute act by repre-

sentatives from the state. Ohio won the prize. Seven

young girls dressed in white, each carrying a banner

bearing the name of a president of the United States

born in Ohio, filed in procession to a patriotic tune. The

effect was immediate. Ohio's finest contribution to the

world is her people and the service they render.

If it were permitted to add to the seven presidents

born in Ohio, the first one elected from her soil, Ohio

might claim the distinction of having sent eight presi-

dents to the White House, for William Henry Harri-

son, "Hero of Tippecanoe" though born in Virginia,

resided at North Bend, Ohio, at the time of his election.

Sheridan, Sherman, Custer, Admiral Worden, and Fred

Funston of later fame were likewise Ohio men. But it

is not alone in statesmanship or military service that her

leadership is shown. Many in literature, art and science

rank high on the scroll of fame.

Not many years ago an old white-haired man was

seen reading his Bible in the slanting rays of the setting

• 20
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      157

sun. He was tired, for he had been weeding his little

patch of garden all day and now he came seeking com-

fort from the pages of his Book, and rest from his day's

toil in the shelter of his tiny cottage near Mt. Vernon,

Ohio, the town where he was born. The world had for-

gotten him but not his song, for it was "Dixie" --

"Dixie," the Confederate war-song of the Southland

under fire, written a short time before the opening of the

war, by a Yankee from Ohio, a Yankee whose genius

had so caught the spirit of Negro melody that he had

created an entirely new type of song and had invented

what was then an entirely new type of entertainment,

namely Negro minstrelsy. It was "Dan" Emmett, son

of a blacksmith of Puritan blood that had sifted down

through the Western Reserve. And in the little ceme-

tery of a neighboring college town there rest today

the ashes of "Ben" Hanby, author and composer of

"My Darling Nellie Gray," a song which is said to have

been second only to Uncle Tom's Cabin in creating

anti-slavery sentiment.

John Quincy Adams Ward, acclaimed as the great-

est American sculptor, was born at Urbana, Ohio. Truth

compels the assertion that he was of Pennsylvania-Vir-

ginia stock in spite of his New England name. Another

of America's greatest sculptors, Hiram Powers, though

born in Vermont, emigrated to Ohio during youth. It

was while serving as a clock-maker's apprentice in Cin-

cinnati that he learned from a German sculptor how to

model in clay and wax.

But it is perhaps in the works of William Dean

Howells that the characteristic impress of his native

state shows deepest marks. Here again one finds strong

• 21
 

158      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications evidence of ancestry combined with early environment. Originally on the father's side, the family were Welsh Quakers.   The grandfather, impelled by democratic

sympathies, emigrated to America, becoming an ardent Methodist, the father, in turn, becoming Sweden- borgian.  Thus one traces those spiritual influences which refined the author while making him liberal and undogmatic. Work in his father's print-shop enlarged

• 22
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      159

his sympathies and understanding. The father, a pub-

lisher, had moved about from one end of the state to

another, purchasing here a paper and there a paper, so

that the son made many contacts in the formative years

of his life. Of these influences none was more potent

than that of John J. Piatt, who stimulated his poetic

faculty in high degree.

It is, however, in science and invention that Ohio

is pre-eminent. In the little town of Milan near Lake

Erie, there still stands a cozy old brick cottage on a bluff

overlooking the Huron river. Here in 1847 was born

the "World's Greatest Inventor" Thomas A. Edison.

Charles F. Brush, Elisha Gray and Thomas Corwin

Mendenhall were all natives of Ohio, as well as Orville

Wright who was born in Dayton where he and his

brother Wilbur sailed their first kite and experimented

in making toy helicopters which led to the suggestion of

pioneering in the air. America is content to accept

Great Britain's decision concerning their claim to prior-

ity in this invention, and from the time that Lord

Northcliffe made his visit to Dayton in 1918 to present

Orville Wright the medal of the British Society of Arts

and Science, the world has acknowledged it likewise.

Wilbur and Orville Wright encountered many dis-

couragements in their difficult task. For four years

they studied every problem of flying, in their little shop

in Dayton, Ohio. Wishing to find the most advanta-

geous place for experiment, and having previously con-

sulted the Weather Bureau at Washington, they finally

selected a barren wind-swept plain, covered with sand

and marsh-grass, near a convenient hill at Kitty Hawk

not far from Cape Hatteras on the Carolina coast. Here

• 23
 

160      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications they could study air-pressure and air currents. Here in the fall of 1900 their camp was fitted up and here on the seventeenth of December, 1903, their first success- ful experiment in air was actually made. Having thus worked out certain fundamental prob-

lems of air currents and air-pressure, the Wright brothers returned to Dayton where they were proffered a field for experiment, eight miles east of the city, known as Huffman's Prairie. Thus far they had at- tracted comparatively little attention. A New York daily having heard of the experiments of these modern

• 24
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      161 Dariuses and their flying-machine, sent a special writer out to Dayton to secure a story for the funny page. The reporter came, saw, and from his perch on a fence near the shed, was conquered. Instead of the humorous sketch, that New York daily published an article so con-

vincing that Dayton herself woke up to felicitate her prophets without honor. GROWTH OF FACTORIES From the composition of a simple melody that has set the world on fire to the construction of the greatest of modern aircrafts, Ohio has been in the forefront of Vol. XL--11.

• 25
 

162     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

world leadership, a leadership assignable to three funda-

mental causes, -- her natural resources, the versatility

of her people, and her well-developed schools.

Among the lofty hills that stretch through the east-

ern and southern parts of the state, are found rich de-

posits of coal, gas and oil, while in the northwestern

section near Lima is found one of the richest oil-fields in

the country. The discovery of these great natural re-

sources enabled many infant industries to continue

which had begun with hard wood or charcoal as a fuel

supply. The smelting of native ore was begun as early

as 1806 on Yellow Creek near Youngstown. Later both

iron-ore and coal were found in the southern part of

the State near Ironton which had the added advantage

of transportation by river and thus for a time the Ohio

River Valley became the chief metal working region of

the State. In the Western Spy published at Cincin-

nati, April 3, 1819, we find the names of the following

distinguished gentlemen -- William Henry Harrison,

Jacob Burnet, James Findlay and John H. Piatt --

entering into co-partnership with William  Green to

form the Cincinnati Bell, Brass and Iron Foundry for

the purpose of manufacturing "steam-machinery, fire

engines, bells, sugar-rollers, boilers, potash and salt-

kettles, distilling vessels of iron, fire-stoves and and-

irons, screws of every description, and all kinds of

metallic machinery for mills and manufactories." For

many decades Cincinnati was the great manufacturing

and distributing center of the State. Then came the

discovery of rich deposits of iron-ore in the Lake Su-

perior region which could be easily and cheaply trans-

ported down the Great Lakes to the southern shores of

• 26
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      163

Lake Erie which was sufficiently near the beds of coal

in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky

to make smelting profitable, and the center of this in-

dustry shifted to the north.  Ashtabula, Conneaut,

Cleveland, Lorain, Toledo and Youngstown all have

been enriched by the making of iron and steel. A ride

on the train at night through the valleys in north-east-

ern Ohio with their furnaces belching forth fire and

light suggests a veritable American Creusot.

More than three-fourths of the ore from Lake Su-

perior mines is transported to Lake Erie ports in Ohio,

furnishing nearly all of the iron ore used in Ohio as well

as in the Pittsburgh region. To unload these gigantic

cargoes of iron-ore, special machinery was developed.

Vast cranes lower huge buckets into the hold of the

freighter and with a single swing of the arm bring up

loads weighing ten tons, which are discharged into the

chutes that lead to cars on the tracks below. Twenty-

five hundred tons per hour can thus be handled, holding

the world's record for rapid unloading. It has already

made Cleveland more important from a standpoint of

tonnage, than Liverpool, England.

Today there is scarcely an industry where iron and

steel are not needed in a variety of ways from the for-

mation of tools for manufacturing clay or woolen prod-

ucts to the construction of fire-proof buildings, automo-

biles or air-ships. So fundamental is this industry to

every other one in modern life that it is today the su-

preme industry in a state which is outstanding in indus-

trial enterprise. It is Ohio's foremost industry, employ-

ing more workers than any other enterprise and sur-

passing all others in the value of its production.

• 27
 

164      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Four-score blast furnaces in operation through vari-

ous parts of the State furnish the pig-iron necessary,

while nearly as many rolling mills in other places con-

vert this crude iron into steel. The Mahoning Valley

furnishes one-half of the steel made in Ohio, a state

which produces more Bessemer steel than any other, and

is second only to Pennsylvania in the production of all

other kinds.

A stranger motoring through the State cannot fail

to be impressed by its hum of industry; thriving cities

linked by miles of broad paved highways, prosperous

towns and villages at almost every bend in the road, with

factories, mills and foundries turning out vast and sun-

dry supplies.

In the manufacture of machine tools, rubber tires

and tubes, and all kinds of clay-products, including pot-

tery, Ohio ranks first among the states. In the manu-

facture of motor-vehicles and their parts, steel-works

and rolling mills, blast furnaces, coke and soap fac-

tories, she ranks second; in the manufacture of paints

and varnishes, third; in glass and electrical machinery,

fourth; while in publications, printing and allied indus-

tries, she ranks fifth.

 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY

Although the iron and steel business is Ohio's most

important enterprise, it is not the industry in which she

excels all other states. This, however, can be said of

certain other important enterprises in which she is en-

gaged, chief of which is the rubber business. Akron is

known as the rubber center of the world. More than a

score of separate companies are now making rubber in

• 28
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      165

that city and supplying the world with every type of

rubber-product, from the tiniest washer or toy balloon,

through the whole gamut of tires and tubes to giant

Zeppelins of the air.

It all began when Dr. B. F. Goodrich, an ex-surgeon

in the Civil War came to Akron four years after the

close of that war, looking for a factory site where he

could find cheap water-power. His search ended on the

Canal south of Exchange Street where he set up the first

rubber factory west of the Alleghanies. Here he began

the manufacture of fire-hose, having determined to

make a hose that would stand the test of water pressure,

because he had seen the home of a friend destroyed by

fire on account of a burst hose.

From this single article made over a half a century

ago, the Company has widened its scope to take in the

manufacture of more than thirty thousand varieties of

rubber products.

The second rubber company in Akron had its in-

ception in 1892 when a retail drug firm, seeing the de-

mand for rubber goods, began the manufacture of rub-

ber gloves. Today that company which started with a

capital of two hundred and fifty dollars, is taxed for

more than sixty millions.

One marvels at Akron's growth in this line, yet it

must be remembered that in the 'nineties, manufacturers

of bicycles and rubber-tired carriages were pressing rub-

ber companies for tires, beyond their ability to produce.

The two pioneer companies already equipped for sup-

plies were working overtime, so a third company was

launched in 1894. By 1912 it was sold for forty-five

millions and merged with another great factory. Akron

• 29
 

166     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

was doing its utmost to keep up with the demand for

rubber goods, but despite the armies of men and women

working day and night, the world still cried for rubber

and yet more rubber. A fourth great company named

in honor of Charles Goodyear who had discovered the

process of vulcanization had been created near the close

of the last century. It was the first of the Akron rubber

companies to branch out and seek to control its source

of supplies, having secured in 1916 rubber plantations

in the Island of Sumatra, and started vast plantations on

the sand-dunes of Salt River Valley in Arizona where

thousands of acres are now producing the long-fibred

cotton necessary in tire production.

Just at the opening of the present century Harvey

S. Firestone began making solid tires in an old foundry

in South Akron. Then one day an event occurred. A

gentleman by the name of Ford came to call on Mr.

Firestone, and before his departure a contract had been

made which placed Mr. Firestone among the makers of

pneumatic tires. Mr. Firestone soon became an out-

standing figure in the industry, aiding greatly in or-

ganizing the Rubber Association of America. To him

is primarily due the credit of having freed America

from dependence upon Great Britain for supplies of

raw rubber, for it was he who started the campaign re-

sulting in an appropriation of half a million dollars by

Congress for the furtherance of American rubber-grow-

ing in foreign countries. Today every one of America's

large rubber industries either has subsidiary factories

or has opened marts of trade in practically every civi-

lized country in the world.

It is interesting to observe how in this one thing the

• 30
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      167

ingenuity and industry of a few capable men, inspiring

others, has transformed the world. Today vast jungles

in Central and South America, Sumatra and Malay, and

"malaria-breeding quagmires" of Africa and Asia have

been re-created and made into vast rubber plantations,

while limitless stretches of desert in Arizona and Cal-

ifornia bearing only cacti and sage-brush have been

transformed into rich fields, yielding long-fibred cotton.

 

CLAY PRODUCTS

A paved highway leads southward from the center

of the world's rubber industry into the heart of "the

Staffordshire" of America. Making pottery and tile

for roofing and drainage is one of the earliest of Ohio

industries. Clumsy Conestoga wagons were unsatis-

factory vehicles for transporting brittle products, and

as there was abundance of excellent clay, the settlers

began modeling their own earthenware; pots and crocks

for kitchen use, and tile to roof their houses or drain

their swamps.

Some attempt at pottery-making in Cincinnati began

even while she was a tiny village living under the

shadow of Fort Washington's protecting walls; and by

1806 we find one Robert Caldwell advertising in

Liberty Hall for an apprentice to the potter's busi-

ness. He wanted "a smart, active, steady boy of a good

disposition, about fifteen or sixteen years old, who can

come well recommended." Thus early do we find Cin-

cinnati entering a field in which she was to reach such

signal success in her exquisitely distinctive Rookwood

productions.

It was left, however, to the eastern section of the

• 31
 

168     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

State to develop this work on a large scale. More than

a century ago a farmhand near Akron discovered a bed

of clay suitable for stoneware. He purchased four acres

and by the aid of a rude kick-wheel, he began shaping

household and dairy crocks then so much in demand.

Similar things were happening in other Ohio towns.

As one approaches East Liverpool, Steubenville,

Sebring, Cambridge, Marietta, Zanesville, Roseville,

Crooksville, Rocky River or any one of a dozen other

cities or small towns in eastern Ohio his eye is likely to

meet whole families of brick chimney-pots raising their

inverted funnels skyward. Here, if he loves pottery --

and who doesn't?--he must hold a tight grip on his

purse-strings. If the beholder is a woman, she is likely

to go bankrupt. Such attractive useful kitchenware,

from mixing bowls to ornamental cookie jars! Such

lovely flower holders -- vases, tall and slender with

graceful handles; or bowls, round, smooth and squat for

holding armfuls of summer posies! Such alluring gar-

den accessories! Great garden vases, oil-jars, bird-

baths, jardinieres and bases for holding them, pedestals

for gazing-globes and sun-dials -- everything imagi-

nable for enriching and beautifying the garden! Shapes

and colors so rich, so varied, so distinctive that one

thinks of those from France and Italy as only different

-- not more beautiful.

If one's interest lies in tableware, he will doubtless

direct his way toward Steubenville, Wellsville or East

Liverpool. Here the industry took definite shape when

James Bennett, an English potter, found clay suitable

for making Rockingham and yellow ware in the lofty

hills nearby. His first kiln was built in 1839. Today

• 32
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West        169

East Liverpool has over three hundred kilns turning out

dishes for hotel and home use, of rare beauty in design

and finish.

The potteries of Ohio lead all other states in the

variety and value of their output, nearly doubling that

of New Jersey, her nearest competitor.

Closely allied to the manufacture of pottery is that

of porcelain for insulating material, sanitary purposes,

and floor and wall tile. Besides these products, Ohio

produces enormous quantities of brick, terra-cotta, hol-

low building-tile, tile for roofing, land drainage and

sewer purposes, as well as vitrified paving brick. In

different parts of the state, old houses with tile roofs

still well-preserved and known to be considerably over

a century old, attest the durability of this material.

 

GLASS

It would be difficult to determine which is the older

industry in Ohio, pottery or glassware, excluding, of

course, native Indian wares. Glass-blowers from older

Pittsburgh factories, from New England and Virginia,

very early began pushing down the Ohio, along whose

sandy shore they found material for their purposes,

with an abundance of hardwood for fuel, where, like-

wise, the pioneer settlements were clamoring for

window-glass and bottles of various kinds.

At Martin's Ferry, Marietta, Cincinnati, Zanesville,

Steubenville, Chillicothe, Cleveland and doubtless other

places in eastern Ohio one finds very early records of

small factories. In 1815 a company invested the then

magnificent sum of fifty thousand dollars in a glass-

works at Zanesville. This factory continued to operate

• 33
 

170      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

under various managements for many years. One year

later, Hough, Rees and Co. advertise in the Cincinnati

Liberty Hall that their glass-works are in complete

operation and that their "window-glass, porter-bottles,

common bottles, flasks and tumblers may be had at

Pittsburgh prices." A little later "The Cincinnati Cut-

glass Factory" is endeavoring to cater to a more exact-

ing taste.

In January, 1823 the Franklin Glass Factory in

Portage County insert this interesting announcement by

way of advertising, in the Cleveland Herald: "From

the extensiveness of this establishment and the super-

abundance of the essential materials of which glass is

composed, lying in its immediate vicinity, the pro-

prietors flatter themselves that it will not be inferior to

any establishment of the kind west of the mountains."

From these beginnings have developed the present

profitable and interesting industries. Toledo factories

specialize in the making of window-glass, particularly

for automobiles. It was a Toledo glass manufacturer

who invented the uncanny bottle machine which has

been described as "an appalling creature of 9,576 sepa-

rate parts. It feeds itself with fiery fluid of molten

glass; sucks it up; methodically clutches it with iron

hands; blows its breath into it; releases its grasp, non-

chalantly drops a finished bottle and moves on to take

another gulp." With such a machine one can readily

understand how millions of bottles, absolutely accurate

can be turned out in an incredibly short time for use in

medicine, soft drinks, catsup, mayonnaise or any similar

demand.

Other cities specialize in tableware. The display

• 34
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      171

rooms of the factories at Tiffin, Newark, Cambridge,

Bellaire and other glass towns are as interesting as so

many museums. Such artistic shapes! Such exquisite

coloring! There one finds much of the hand-blown,

hand-decorated ware, each piece a choice work of art

whose quality and distinction vie with the products of

Bohemia and Venice.

 

STONE AND CEMENT PRODUCTS

Besides clay and sand-products, much valuable build-

ing material is found in many parts of the State. A

sandstone quarried at Berea, known as Berea grit is

used in making grindstones, whetstones, and pulp-

grinders. Four-fifths of the grindstones used in the

United States are Berean. Much of this stone supplies

material for sidewalks, garden paths, paving and curbs.

In western and central Ohio are large deposits of lime-

stone used for building purposes, in the manufacture of

Portland cement, hydraulic lime, and plaster of Paris.

 

COAL, GAS AND PETROLEUM

When the first glass factories were established along

the Ohio river and elsewhere, an abundance of hard-

wood supplied the kilns with charcoal, but before the

disappearance of this fuel, coal had been found to take

its place, while to the discovery of natural gas may be

traced the rapid growth of the potteries, which up to

that time had been slowly developing. It was the dis-

covery of these natural resources together with petro-

leum which has made possible Ohio's growth in fac-

tories.

• 35
 

172      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

 

FARMING, FRUIT GROWING AND FLOWER CULTURE

Due to her strategic position midway between the

great coal fields to the southeast and the great ore-pro-

ducing area to the northwest, Ohio advanced from the

ninth to the fourth place industrially among the states

during the period from 1909 to 1925. Her rank in-

dustrially has since advanced to third, with an annual

volume of manufactured products of five and one-third

billion dollars.

Nevertheless, Ohio still continues to think of her-

self as an agricultural country like France, rather than

an industrial country like Belgium, and the dream of

nearly every successful manufacturer is to get back to

the soil, to the great, beautiful out-of-doors, to the farm

that gave him birth, to the glorious sunrise and sunset,

the rugged hills and fertile plains. For Ohio's first

wealth was in the farm and though her total area is

small compared to other states, her rank being only

thirty-fifth, she still ranks seventh in agriculture.

Ninety-six per cent of her land is under cultivation, and

owing to the varied character of her soil, her crops show

great diversity.

Ohio is roughly divided into two distinct areas ac-

cording to geological formation.  A   huge moraine

stretches across the state from northeast to southwest,

marking the farthest advance of a mighty glacier which

covered the country during the Ice Age. The glaciated

area to the north and west is covered by rich level or

rolling agricultural lands, while in the unglaciated area,

natural hills abound, many of them still covered with

virgin forests. Here one sees deep valleys, broad rivers

• 36
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      173

and winding roads. Here one may enjoy without stint

that scenic beauty which gave the State her name.

The draining of the great black swamp in the north-

western section has left a very fertile area of lake silts

and muck on which corn, sugar-beets, celery, onions and

cabbage are grown with great success. The limestone

loess soils of the glaciated region and the sandstone and

shale soils of the eastern half, produce excellent wheat

and other grains, while in the southern counties more

tobacco is grown than in any other state north of the

Mason and Dixon line.

Corn, however, is Ohio's oldest agricultural product

and continues to be her most valuable crop. Three-

fourths of it is grown in the western half as provender

for stock, particularly hogs. The Miami Valley de-

veloped the Poland-China hog, and from the time when

her grunting bestials crowded in droves through the

streets of Cincinnati on their way to packing-houses,

giving it the sobriquet of "Porkopolis," until the

present, they have been an important item on the farm-

er's ledger. Ohio's hogs are valued today at fifty mil-

lions. In the Scioto Valley much sweet corn is grown

for canning purposes. A hot night in the middle of

August spent at Lebanon, Chillicothe or Circleville is

apt to be rendered yet more sleepless by the slow inces-

sant grinding over hard city streets, of many trucks

laden with white, succulent grain ready for the mill.

They file in procession through the streets and crowd

the open space about the factories day and night, wait-

ing in turn to be relieved by hands that work incessantly

through the short busy season.

Wheat, oats and barley are likewise produced, while

• 37
 

174      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

hay, clover, alfalfa and wild grasses give a pleasant

variety to the landscape and furnish a balanced diet for

live stock.

Dairying, including cheese- and butter-making, was

once a very important industry in the Western Reserve.

Huge cargoes of cheese were regularly shipped down

the rivers on flatboats to be distributed through the

eastern markets by way of New Orleans. At present,

Cleveland and other great centers of that region con-

sume such quantities of milk that cheese-making exists

largely in the memory of Ohio's Yankee farmers,

though some factories still do a profitable business in

Tuscarawas and Holmes counties. So much attention

has been given to dairying throughout the State that at

present Ohio has more Jersey cattle than any other

state, and this in spite of the fact that many Ohio farm-

ers keep Holsteins for which they have a preference.

Much of the leather obtained from the animals is con-

sumed in the great shoe factories of Cincinnati, Colum-

bus and Portsmouth.

In the hilly countries of the eastern part of the State

thousands of fleecy lambs greet the dawn with their

plaintive bleating or enliven the steep hill-slopes with

their sportive frisking amid the apple orchards fresh

with bloom. So many are there that it is estimated that

there are more Merinos among the hills of Ohio than in

any other six states. The woolen mills of the State re-

ceive no finer fleeces than those of domestic growth.

Once Ohio vied with Virginia and Kentucky in rais-

ing fine horses; today, though the automobile and trac-

tor have done their utmost to annihilate them, there are

• 38
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      175

still more than a million of these intelligent animals on

Ohio farms.

Some idea of the value of her poultry may be ob-

tained from the fact that her hens produce annually

over one hundred million dozen eggs. Perhaps one does

not ordinarily associate apples with Ohio, yet it is esti-

mated that there is even now more than one apple-tree

to each man, woman and child in the State, in spite of the

fact that the farmer too often neglects his orchard.

Ohio's climate and soil are naturally adapted to growing

this fruit and from the day when "Johnny Appleseed"

crossed the river with his leather bags filled with apple

seeds from the cider-presses of Western Pennsylvania

to the present, the State has been interested in orchards

and gardens.

"Johnny" swam his horse across the river while Ohio

was yet a part of the Northwest Territory and having

cleared several acres of ground along the fertile shores

of the Muskingum, he planted his seeds, enclosed his in-

fant nursery, then returned to Pennsylvania for more.

These he planted on land which he cleared along other

streams. Thus many orchards were planted throughout

the state by this "Apple Missionary." General Rufus

Putnam, the founder of Marietta, was another lover of

apples, who made the planting of orchards a part of his

constructive work. No one, however, gave greater im-

petus to pioneer nurseries in the State than did Nicholas

Longworth of Cincinnati, great-grandfather of the pres-

ent Speaker of the House. Early in the last century Mr.

Longworth specialized in pears, plums, cherries, peaches,

English gooseberries, Dutch currants and grapes, and

imported a number of French growers who assisted in

• 39
 

176     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

developing new varieties. He also had flowering shrubs

and greenhouse plants and advertised that "persons

curious in fruit can be furnished with a selection equal

to any in Europe or America."

Today the nursery business has not waned. Scores

of companies in the northern part of the State near

Cleveland, in the southern part of the State around Cin-

cinnati, and in or near Springfield, do a flourishing

wholesale business in raising young plants and trees. Be-

sides fruit-trees, flowers and ornamental shrubs, ever-

greens and deciduous plants form a large part of their

business. In May and June thousands of beauty-loving

visitors annually take a half-day off to enjoy the gor-

geous spectacle of acres of peonies between Springfield

and Dayton where more than a hundred varieties are

resplendent in color and sweet with perfume.

Though fruit is grown throughout the State on many

farms, not much is raised for export except along the

shores of Lake Erie where a more even climate insures

a better crop. Tons of peaches and grapes are shipped

annually from these orchards and vineyards.

Thus from the extent and variety of its industrial

and agricultural products, it is manifest that the state

motto Imperium in Imperio, An Empire within an Em-

pire, is most appropriate.

 

STATE PARKS

Of the four per cent of Ohio's land not under culti-

vation, a part is given over to State Parks of various

kinds whose raison d'etre is largely archaeological, his-

torical or scientific.

Serpent Mound in Adams County, and Fort Ancient

• 40
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      177

in Warren County, are outstanding archaeological re-

mains, unique in formation, colossal in size, and myste-

rious in origin. They have been built at great expense

of time and labor by some pre-historic race, who, ac-

cording to archaeologists, performed here mysterious

religious rites. They are among the most noted of all

the mound-builders' remains and are annually visited by

thousands of tourists.

The Logan Elm is associated with Lord Dunmore's

War. Tradition has it that under the vast branches of

this ancient elm the great Chief Logan, whose family

had unfortunately been killed by whites, uttered his

famous speech.

The site of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Campus

Martius at Marietta, and Spiegel Grove at Fremont are

all places of national historic interest. At Spiegel Grove

is preserved the spacious home of ex-President Hayes,

near which has been built a splendid memorial filled with

an increasingly valuable collection of relics connected

with the life of this great man and his lovely wife, Lucy

Webb Hayes. None will be more interesting to future

generations than the Hayes family carriage or barouche,

a superb affair with high box for the driver and low-

swung seats, comfortable and deep, capable of housing

the whole family in its capacious hold and expressing the

height of elegance in fin-de-siecle carriage-building.

Numerous other historic sites have been acquired

by the State and many thousands of dollars were voted

at the last legislative assembly for the purchase and

preservation of others, for Ohio is awakening to the

wealth of historic ground within her realm.

The old reservoirs connected with the former canal

Vol. XL-12.

• 41
 

178     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

system have also been taken over and converted into

lakes for summer resorts. St. Mary's, one of the largest

artificial bodies of water in the world, is ten miles long,

five miles wide, kept constantly stocked with fish and af-

fords a delightful quiet retreat for those disciples of

Izaak Walton, who, gathering up their families, drive

off to a little cottage in the woods and there along the

pleasant shores of the tranquil lake, ply the gentle art

from sunup to sundown.

Another type of public park is the Theodore Roose-

velt Game Preserve near Portsmouth comprising many

thousands of acres on which are found deer, wild tur-

keys and pheasants, besides mallard ducks, 'possums,

skunks, squirrels, rabbits and coons, while one lonesome

black bear still haunts the wilds.

Recently a very valuable arboretum has been pre-

sented to the State by Mr. and Mrs. Beman G. Dawes.

It is known as "Daweswood" and comprises over three

hundred acres of native forest trees to which new trees

are constantly being added, most of them by persons of

national repute. Former Vice-President Charles G.

Dawes, present Ambassador to the Court of St. James,

and brother of the donor of the woods, planted a white

oak there on June 15, 1927. This arboretum is destined

to become one of the most famous in the country, as its

location insures the propagation of an enormous variety

of trees, situated as it is at the northern limit of many

varieties belonging to the southern climate, and the

southern limit of many that will grow only in a cold

climate.

• 42
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West      179

 

 

TRANSPORTATION

To reach any of these points of interest whether

archaeological, historical, agricultural or industrial, the

visitor has a choice of a variety of means of transporta-

tion, for Ohio's progress has been indicated largely by

her alertness, her sensitiveness to this demand. First a

network of early roads, ferry-boats and bridges; then a

splendid system of canals; later, railroads, then electric

lines; and now, air routes into and through the State are

developing so rapidly that one finds it difficult to keep

pace with them. At present three great trunk lines pass

through her borders, east and west. This added to the

traffic of the Great Lakes and the Ohio River makes her

advantageous position yet more apparent.

Besides these, a superior system of Electric Lines

was very early developed. These are still operating with

success, particularly for freight traffic; and today her

bus service is unexcelled, whether it be local, inter-state

or coast-to-coast.

Four great transcontinental highways cross the State

-east and west. The Lincoln highway crossing the

northern half, parallels the National Road in the south-

ern half; while at right angles with the "Dixie" and

two other great highways traversing the State, join

North and South.

Ohio, though small in size, ranks third in the number

of automobiles owned by residents, being exceeded in

this respect only by New York and California. A very

powerful and efficient group of the American Automo-

bile Association works continuously for the building and

improvement of roads, the best routing of detours and

• 43
 

180     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the establishment of interchange assistance of various

local clubs.

Ohio's latest development in transportation has

naturally been in the realm of the air. Having been the

home of the Wright Brothers, Dayton exhibited an

early interest in flying. As a fitting memorial to these

two distinguished sons, the citizens of Dayton purchased

a 4600-acre tract of land east of the city and presented

it to the United States War Department as a site upon

which to establish headquarters for the Materiel Divi-

sion of the Engineering Department of the Air Service.

This is not to be confused with the U. S. Government

Army Department known as the "Wilbur Wright Field"

which is at Fairfield a few miles beyond, where Army

supplies are kept and where repair work on army planes

is done.

At the Wright Air Field only experimental work of

the highest scientific nature is carried on. Here every-

thing that goes into the making of an airplane whether

fabric, metal or wood, is subjected to the most rigid test.

In heavier-than-air craft, two objectives are con-

stantly sought,--a minimum of weight and a maximum

of strength. To this end experts,--chemists, metallur-

gists, textile and rubber experts--are constantly en-

deavoring to find new materials, or combinations of old

material that will stand the various tests of tension, com-

pression, bending, vibration, abrasion, impact, fatigue,

or whatever other test a plane may have to undergo,

keeping constantly in mind the strength-weight ratio.

All engines, propellers, equipment for lighting, radio, or

parachutes are likewise subjected to the most exacting

demands.

• 44
 

Ohio The Gateway of the West       181

It will be seen from this that the U. S. Experimental

Station at Wright Air Field, "the best equipped plant in

the world for engineering and research of this kind" is

in a position to give the "last word" concerning the

building of heavier-than-air craft.

At Akron is being carried on the most advanced

work in lighter-than-air craft.  Here, governmental

work also is being developed. Here, in the largest sin-

gle-span building in the world, will be constructed pres-

ently two huge dirigibles for the U. S. Navy, each to be

twice as large as the Graf Zeppelin.

Mid-way between these two points, near the capital

of the State, is an ideal airport. Enthusiasts have de-

clared "Port Columbus" to be the nation's greatest air

harbor. Whether this be true or not, it is undoubtedly

one of the greatest natural airports in the United States.

Situated on a broad plain, below the belt-line of the

snow, fog, and sleet region of the Great Lakes, west

of the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, north of the hilly

Ohio River Valley, with minor meteorological disturb-

ances, it presents a superior natural harbor for pilots of

all kinds of winged transport. This, combined with the

fact that it is located also in the industrial center of the

country, and that its air-transport lines are being op-

erated in conjunction with the great transcontinental

railroad lines, and that air passengers can easily make

connections there with so many other lines of transport,

insures a radiant future, and convinces even the most

casual observer that Ohio has a geographic position

which is so strategic from every standpoint of transpor-

tation, whether by water, land or air, that she must con-

tinue as she has begun, to be "The Gateway of the

West."

• 45