Coshocton County, Ohio - Y It, 1909

Our Soil, Clay, Timber And Crops As Viewed By And Game

In the U. S. Geological Survey of clay deposits in Ohio, 1903, the government expert reports that the best clays in the State are found in the coal measures, and the counties which these underlie include Coshocton. The report adds that the clay deposit known as the Putnam Hill limestone, horizon covers a coal seam called the Brookville coal, and a valuable clay deposit is found in the central coal measure counties at this level. This' which is largely worked in Muskingum County, continues in good volume and of good character through Coshocton County, where it forms the basis of the important buildingbrick industry. By the advanced method employed here there is a superior product manufactured, impervious to moisture and of a variety of attractive buff, cream-colored and darker terra-cotta tints.

Just before the Civil War there was oil extracted from the cannel coal in the hills of Bedford Township where the C., A. & C. now runs to Warsaw. Colonel Metham and William Stanton acquired coal lands, and on these there burned the fires of many retorts built by companies from elsewhere. The upright boiler-shaped retorts of cast iron were filled with coal and heated outside. The vapors were conveyed through the worm, and about forty gallons of crude oil were distilled from a ton of coal.

In after years oil prospecting in this county engaged considerable capital. There was drilling in various sections, but few wells were located, and these were limited producers. Many Coshocton dollars went into a hole in the ground.

Nine years ago when the Scio oil boom was at its height John N. Kissner prospected in Coshocton County, drilling in the townships of Tuscarawas, Lafayette, Franklin and White Eyes. On the Burt, Rogers and Miller lands along the Panhandle a flow- of natural gas is still supplying part of West Lafayette. There is a limited production of oil on John Hall's land near Coshocton.

The most recent oil prospecting in the county includes the drilling on the Wolfe farm half a mile south of Isleta, the wells sunk at Helmick and Buckalew Run, and the developing in Linton Township near Birds Run where four gas wells are flowing and good oil prospects are reported.

The topography of Coshocton County is described in the U. S. Government survey as belonging partly to the great plateau of eastern Ohio. The surface is sharply rolling and in places rough and hilly, the hills maintaining a general summit level of eleven hundred to twelve hundred feet above the sea, and no point of land rising to any mountainous height above the surrounding upland country. Our hills, says the government observer, have a domelike slope, characteristic of the weathering of the sandy shales of the region, and there are no ridges of any considerable extent.

The whole county is drained by the Muskingum River, which is formed near the county center by the confluence of the Walhonding and the Tuscarawas. From this point three beautiful and fertile valleys radiate to the county borders - the Muskingum to the south, the Tuscarawas to the east, and the Walhonding to the west.

In addition to the alluvial lands of these valleys there are areas along Killbuck Creek, a tributary of the Walhonding, where a broad valley extends northward' and along Wills Creek, skirting the southern border of the county, while a strip of such land connects the valley of Wills Creek and the Tuscarawas valley - probably a former channel of the Tuscarawas. It is west of the town of West Lafayette, paralleling the present valley of the Tuscarawas, from which it is separated by a broken range of hills. It extends southward, merging into the valley of Wills Creek near Plainfield. The slopes of this valley are several miles in width, and the alluvial land ranges in width from one-fourth mile to a mile.

The bottoms along the rivers average almost a mile in width. The sedimentary materials of which they have been built are arranged in terraces, five of which may be counted in some places, but usually only three are well marked. The lower bottoms are so little elevated above the streams that they are subject to overflow in periods of high water. The surface of the land may be washed away or added to by the floods. Such variations may amount to three or four inches in a single flood. The average deposit is a silty loam, but quite near the river beds of sand or gravel may be thrown down. The higher terraces, standing forty to sixty feet above the level of the river, have a gently rolling surface composed of gravelly loam.

The hills, with their covering of residual material, rise abruptly above the valleys. In some places, as in the upper valley of the Walhonding, the rocks rear aloft in palisades above the stream.

Over the greater part of the county the prevailing rock is a sandstone, a specimen of which is exhibited in the Museum of Natural History, New York.

While coal may be seen in nearly every hill, the thickness is variable and the extent of the bed uncertain. In some places the bed attains a thickness of more than three feet; in others it pinches out entirely. The easily mined deposits on nearly every farm have given the farmers an abundant supply of fuel for home use, and many of them derive an income by mining coal for the market when the farm work is not pressing.

The DeKalb silt loam occupies the whole of Coshocton County, with the exception of the stream valleys. The original rocks that made up the DeKalb silt loam areas contained some iron, and this is manifested in the soil by occasional iron concretions.

Where the land is still in forests of hardwood in the northern part of the county lumbermen are getting out ties and posts, while considerable Coshocton County timber has gone into ships on the Great Lakes.

The Miami loam occurs as strips along the Muskingum, the Tuscarawas, Walhonding and other streams which have developed flood plains. This loam is pronounced the best corn land of the area, and

The Miami gravelly loam occupies the higher terraces along the larger streams. The type is extensively developed near West Lafayette on White Eyes Plain, the ancient bed of a vanished river. The other extensive development is around Coshocton, where the broad, level terrace of this material forms a beautiful location for the town.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture reports that "A most pleasing feature of the economic conditions which prevail in Coshocton County is the comparatively equal distribution of wealth among the farmers. As a general rule they own the land they cultivate. The barns and other farm buildings are well constructed and suitable for the needs of the present system of agriculture. The dwellings are usually comfortable two-storied frame buildings, and occasionally structures of brick. Slate is invariably used for roofing.' In recent years houses in Coshocton and West Lafayette have been constructed of cement blocks.

The most important crops of Coshocton County's area are corn, hay, and wheat, in the order named. The average annual production of corn exceeds a million bushels' mostly grown on the river lands. The county's average yield is thirty-two bushels to the acre.

Cattle are raised chiefly for home consumption of beef, milk and butter. It is remarkable that, in a country so admirably adapted to grazing, the dairy products should be barely sufficient to supply the needs of the local markets, and sometimes inadequate even for this purpose. In the last winter Coshocton paid thirty-two cents a pound for butter. Eggs were forty cents a dozen. In northeastern townships for years much milk has been hauled to factories making Ohio Swiss cheese.

A State improvement to develop the water power of the canals and maintain the water supply between Roscoe and Dresden has recently been completed. The Walhonding canal has been widened to forty feet, with a depth of six and a half feet.

In the Six-Mile dam, where the water of the Walhonding is diverted into the canal the chute for fish to flop their way up the center of the dam has been built according to direction of the State Fish Commission.

-Our rivers are the home of the pike, that tyrant of fresh waters, as our salmon is the king. Large and small mouthed bass, speckled bass and catfish are caught here. That game member of the pike family, the muskellonge, attains considerable size here. M. G. Hack, who is associated with C. E. Ransom in the extensive dry goods house of Coshocton, is a local expert with rod and reel who won the Blue Hole Fishing Club prize with a 24-pound muskellonge caught in the Tuscarawas above the bridge near West Lafayette. There is much fishing in the Walhonding between Coshocton and Warsaw, and also in the Muskingum. A 41-pound muskellonge is among the record catches in the county.

Quail, duck, rabbit and coon are favorite game here for hunters, and the man with the gun has been known to come miles from cities to shoot Coshocton game. Fox hunters of this county are represented in the Central Ohio Sportsmen's Association. The Game Protective Association to prevent poaching and to uphold the game laws has been organized here. The county is noted for fine bird dogs which have won prizes in leading kennel shows of the country.