Stark County, Ohio - Chapter 10, 1881 (part 2 of 2)

There are also two box factories here in active operation. The one run by Mr. J. C. Lantz, with a force of twelve workmen. They manu facturc wooden boxes, largely for the Biechele Soap Works, bee-hives and faucets. This establishment is in a flourishing condition. The other establishment, of Mr. Charles E. Wrigley, manufactures paper boxes exclusively, in making which the)' are now consuming about a ton of paper a week. He employs seven haiids. He makes all the packing boxes for the malleable iron works in Canton, and one thousand every week for a druggist firm in Louisville, Ohio. The malleable iron works just referred to is a new concern, but recently located in Canton. These works are under the firm of Efiel, (Jilliom & Co., and do an extensive business. They already emplo\-, though in o[,)eration here only a few months, over one hundred and fifty hands, and are continually increasing their force. When they get into full operation, they will emploj- two hundred and fifty. They are at present paj'ing their hands about $1,500 a week. This establishment manufactures all kinds of saddlery hardware, which they sell immediately to wholesale jobbers.

Among Canton industries, prominent and well established, is the paper mill of Bachert, Silk & Co. This mill has been in existence for about a quarter of a century, and has been under its present management for seventeen years past. The original structure, which was a twostory brick l)uilding. IKtxKIO feet, has been enlarged, until now it covers an ai'ea of 150 feet square, and contains two stories and a basement. They manufacture every kind of manila, wrapping, tea and tissue paper. The capacity of the works is about three tons per day. They employ thirty-five hands, with a monthly pay roll of $1,200 per month. Their paper goes to the Cleveland Paper Company at Cleveland and

There are many other branches of business carried on in Canton, which, tiiough apparently small when viewed in detail, do a great part toward promoting the success of Canton's industries. As a sample we may here remark, that not less than fifty hands are employed in UKiking cigars by tiie different manufacturers in the city. So too, it is in many otiier branches of trade.

From the above exhibit of llie multiplicity and varied character of the manufacturing interests in this city, growing up and strengtliening tiicmselves under many ailversc prospects in the past, there now appears glorious promise for rapid growth and increase in future, inasmuch as Canton, naturally so well situated for building up and fostering manufacturing interests, will soon be in commercial communication with all parts of the country b}- means of the several railroads about centering in this city.

But the business importance of Canton, even at this time, is not to lie seen alone in her varied manufacturing interests. Her wholesale and retail establishments, in every line of trade, are worthy also of consideration. Our space will not permit us to notice them all in detail, and we will, therefore, be comiiflled to notice only a few of tlie older cstaMislimcnts in different branches of business. There are several wholesale houses doing each of them an extensive trade. Prominent among them is the wholesale grocerj- house of B, DauneniilUr iV Sons. There are few houses in any large metropolis which for extent, convenience and fullness of stock are superior to that of this enterprising firm, as the following sketch will set forth : This Inisiness was originally founded by Kimball Brothers ; and, in ISti'.i, the present firm succeeded them, at ;!() Soutli Market street, and subsequently removed to the corner of Market and Tuscarawas streets. Their trade steadily increased in volume, until it was found necessary to secure more commodious quarters. Accordingly, last year the firm erected the present elegant and spacious brick building on Market and Fifth streets, very eligibly located, having a frontage of 30 feet on Market street, 140 feet on Fifth street, and a wing 50 feet deep in the rear. There are four floors in one department and five in the other, fitted up with every convenience for the storage and handling of the immense stock of g«xxls here carried. One of Crane Brothers' (Chicago) improved elevators, with a capacity of S.OOO pounds, 0x7 feet in size, runs from the basement to the top fioor, rendering each department equally accessible. Having windovVs on three sides, ample light is admitte'd to all the rooms, so that not a single gas jet is needed until some time after sunset.

There are entrances on both streets into the fine, large otlice and sample room, measuring 28x30 feet, tastefully fitted up, and lighted by six French plate-glass windows. The stock comprises a full line of general groceries, wtVHlen ware, brooms, cigars, tobaccos, teas, coffees, canned goods, sugars, sirups, oils, soajis, fish, candies, crackers, and everything else usnally carried in an establishment of this character.

W. A. McCrea's wholesale house of small wares, the only one of the kind between Pittsburgh and Chicago, does, perhaps, the next Inisiness to Dannemillers, in Canton. This establishment is in the Herbruck and Kaufman block, on East Tuscarawas street. Mr. McCrea's trade lies principally in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and five traveling salesmen are regularly employe<l by him. He carries a stock of about $35,000 and his annual sales aggregate !{;120, 000, with a healthy increase from year to year. Besides these wholesale establishments, there are three wholesale licjuor stores in Canton, all doing a good business, viz. : the stores of L. J. Jliday & Co., in their own hand.some three-story brick building erected last year on North Market street, with ainiual sales amounting to $C5.000 ; of Schalm Brothers, on north side of East Tuscarawas street, with annual sales amounting to $75,000 ; and of Mr. S. Bear, who openeil his store in the Wernet Building, south side of East Tuscarawas street, and is also doing a thriving business. The retail Imsiness in dry goods, groceries, clothing, drugs, furniture, boots and shoes, etc., is also fully represented in the city. Among the many only a few can V)e noticed bricHy here: As far back as the year 1 81 5. Mr. Jacob Ilex started a tailor shop in the present Rex Building, corner of Tuscarawas and Bex streets. Mr. John P. Bex learned the trade with his father, and in 1840 succeeded him in the business, which has liccn continue<l on Ihc old site ever since. The boot and shoe firn) of J. C. Bockius' .Sons is one of the oldest cst'ililished houses of the kind in Ohio, perhaps the very oldest. Mr. J. C. Bockius, the father of the present proprietors, opened a shoe shop on the 5th of May. 1820. in .in old frame building which stood on the site of the court house. This building was removed, with the slioj), in 1822. to tlje site of the Bockius property on South Market street. In 1 836, it was moved one lot north, and in 1845 back again, where the brick building now stands. In 1S8C. the first stock of Eastern machine-made boots and shoes were brought to Canton by Mr. Bockius, and these goods were then quite ano\elty. Previous to that time, men would go to the tanncrj', buy their own leather and then have shoes made for the whole family b^- the shoemaker. Shoemakers were then scarce, and as all the work was done by hand, it was necessarily slow ; sometimes there would so many orders on the books that families would have to wait as long as four or five months for their shoes. To avoid such delay, many persons were accustomed to order a supply some months before they were actually needed. The introduction of shoes from ttie East already made, therefore, wrought quite a revolution in the business. In 1851, Mr. Bockius bought the ground upon which the store is now located, on the east side of the public square and erected the three-story brick building in which it is. In October. 1848. Mr. L. V. Bockius. and in 1870. Mr. Ed. Bockius became members of the firm, and after their father's death only a few years since, they continued the business, Mr. E. Bockius' death, this spring, left the elder brother, L. V. Bockius, as sole surviving p;irtuer. Three persons are given constant employment on custom work, and four are employed as clerks in the store. The stock carried along varies from $8,000 to $10,000, and about .$25,000 worth of goods are sold annually. In the dry goods line, John Schilling, identified with the business in Canton since 1846 ; Zollars & Co., of which firm Mr. Zollars has been engaged in this line of trade for some thirty years and more, and A. Herbruck, for twenty years associated with Mr. Schilling, and since 1874 doing business in his own name, deserve honorable mention. ZoUar's store was for many 3-ears before 1846. and afterward on its present site, conducted by Mr. Isaac Harter, deceased, a man of great business capacit}'. administrative ability and the strictest integrity. Mr. Zollars, a young man of limited means, entered his store in 1846 ; in the year 1852, he was taken into the business as a partner ; Mr. Harter sold out his interest to Samuel Bard in 1862, who only remained eighteen months in the new firm, when Mr. Zollars succeeded to the entire business. In 1865, Mr. Peter Barlet was taken in as a partner, and he has been in the firm ever since. Mr. Harter, soon after retiring from the dry goods business, went into the banking business, and was the founder of one of the safest and best conducted hanking institutions in the State of Ohio. Strict in tegrity and honorable dealing made Mr. Barter's name respected and his bank a trusted one far and wide. To his credit be it said, no trust reposed in him was ever betrayed. His sons, since his death, have continued the bankingbusiness upon the same substantial basis, as that upon which their honored father built up an established business and a fair fortune. Zollars & Co's. store employs seven clerks, and they do an immense business, which is yearlj' increasing. Besides dealing in dr}- goods and carpets, in which his sales amount to $30,000 annually, Mr. A. Herbruck also engages in wholesaling timothy and clover seed, of which he handles about $30,000 worth every 3-ear. Mr. Schilling carries a full line of dry goods, is widely and favorably known all over Stark Count}' and is doing a thriving business. He is a safe business man, and from an humble clerk in V. R. Kimball's thirty-five years ago, he has gone gradually onward and upward, until now he ranks among the best and most successful business men of the city. The jewelry establishment of Mr. .Joseph A. Meyer's is one of the oldest business houses now remaining in Canton. Mr. Mej'er himself is of old pioneer stock, and is highly respected by all who know him socially or in business. His establishment was originally started in 1837, b}' Mr. Samuel C. Fry, who sold out to Mr. Meyer in 1858. He carries a full assortment of watches, clocks, solid and plated ware, spectacles and jewelry of all kinds. Mr. M. Ruhman, still doing business in the Harter Block, is the pioneer merchant in ready-made clothing. He commenced his business in Canton, nearly on his present site, in the 3^car 1851, and in his thirty j-ears' residence in Canton has built up a character for honesty and fair dealing among a wide circle of friends and customers. These are brief sketches only of some of the establishments which started business in Canton when it was j-et a village, and before it began to put on the hal)iliments and airs of a city. With the development of the rich resources of the surrounding country, and the growth of the town, business has multiplied an hundred-fold, and Canton's trade in every branch of mercantile business has Ivept pace with the demands of tlie times. Therj is probably- not a cit}- of the same size in the West, whose business is in every respect upon so sound and firm a basis ; and when, in panickj- times, business houses all over the land have been going bj' the lioard by the thousands, scarcely a ripple of the wave of destruction has been felt among the business firms of Canton.

As the manufacturing and mercantile int(U'- ests have become so varied and so extensive, exchange and banking facilities were naturally demanded bj' tiie business interests of the growing town. Notice has already been taken of the first bank in primitive times. This was resuscitated in after 3"ear3, and served the public necessity for a long period. Incidentally also the starting of the First National Bank and of Mr. Isaac Harter's Savings Deposit Bank has been mentioned. For man}' years the Stark County Bank of Mr. James A. Saxton did a good work in meeting the needs of the public, with these other Ijanks. In later years, Mr. George D. Barter started his bank, on Tuscarawas street, east of tlie public square, which from the first received the confidence of the people. The Farmers' Bank was started a few j'cars ago, and is also upon a substantial foundation, and doing a good business, A year or two since, the Cit}- Bank of Canton, which had done business a little while, and then dissolved Ijy the mutual agreement of the stockholders, was again started up under a new management, as the Cit3" National Bank, with Dr. P. H. Barr, the popular druggist in the old and well-estal)- lished drug store of Dr. C. J. (leiger, deceased, as President, and Henry C. KUison, a former Auditor of Stark Count\\ as Cashier. Thus Canton is supplied with five banks at this time, all in good condition, and doing an extensive business.

From 1852 until within the past two or three years, the only shipping facilities enjoyed Ijy the merchants and manufacturers of this city were furnished by the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, which were for the most part not as liberal to her interests, nor, as one would think, to the interests of the company itself, as the good of a growing city, with wellestaljlished and successfully conducted business, and in the midst of resources which gave promise of much grander development and increased importance, seemed to demand. Competition is said to be the life of trade, and probabl}- railroads, as well as other branches of business, are all the better for a little healtliy competition. But the dawn of a better day in this regard also, is breaking upon the business interests of ('anton. She alreatly enjoys the advantages of cheap eoal and cheap living, and the chief remaining factor to secure increased success to her industries, in the way of cheap transportation, is rapidly lieiug provided. Already the effect of tlu; opening of the Valley Railroad to Akron and Cleveland, in the beginning of the year 1880, is favorably felt. This road had been projected several years before, and was pushed chiefiy l)y capitalists of Cleveland ; but the citizens of Akron and Canton did not fail to appreciate the benefits which would accrue to themselves in its construction, and they, in company with the people of other smaller towns along the line of the road, gave a helping hand, until at last it was, after the usual delays, trials and tril)ulations, an accomplished fact. Since Its operation, it has lieen doing good business, much better, indeed, than most new roads at so early a period in their history. What it needs now to insure its greater benefit to both stockholders and the people on the line of the road is an extension southward from Canton to bring it into connection with the coal and iron of the southern portion of the State. This undoubtedly will soon also be accomplished. So far as Canton is concerned, the ^'alley road has already brought the l)nsiness transportation of the city away from the monopoly of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company, and this last-named corporation now gives better terms to shippers than ever before. The Valley Railroad has located the main pas.senger and freight depots near the crossing of the Fort Wayne road, in the southwestern part of the city, but recently, for the convenience of passengers, a neat and commodious passenger depot lias been fitted up on West Tuscarawas street, which makes it more convenient for passengers from the hotels and the greater part of town than the main depot. The Connolton Valley Rail- way Company continued Its road last year to Canton, and it lias been completed this year already to Kent, and before the end of the season will probably be in full running order to Cleveland, But the railroad history is more fully given in another chapter of this work.

A late writer says of the people's social life : The citizens of Canton are not given to display. They are a quiet, order-loving people. None of them have a boastful spirit. It might be well for the town if some of its people were given to " blowing their own horn." But thej' do not seem to be so inclined. Hence we feel assured that the subjoined statistics of industrial enterprise here for the j-ear 1879 are within proper limits :

We may add that upon personal inquiry we i find the above figures far below the actual facts, ! at this present time, in many of these establishments, as they are probably in nearly all of them. In the above table, for instance, the | Peerless Reaper Company, which appears as C. Russell & Co., in 1879, employed only seventy I hands, and put out $275,000" worth of work. ' Last year, they had eighty hands, and built over fifteen hundred of their popular machines, and were unable to supply the demand. This year, their working force has been increased to 125 hands ; they intend making, the present season, 2,500 machines, and the value of their production will not fall short of $375,000, an increase in two years of nearly 50 per cent.

A very large increase of working force and of inanufectured material has also been made the present year, by the Aultman Co., by the Diebold Lock & Safe Co., by the Buclier & Gibbs Plow shops, and doubtless in nearly all the other establishments. In few or none, on the other hand, has there been any decrease, showing a constantly increasing demand for Canton manufactures.

A very satisfactoiy test of the business importance of a place to those who are interested in statistics and figures is furnished by the post office transactions. For the following facts in this line we are indebted to Mr. Charles S. Cock. Deputy Postmaster of Canton. The money order department of this office amount ed to over $50,000, and the postal receipts to more than $20,000, leaving a net revenue to the Postal Department of the country of $15,000. This shows an increase over the previous year of nearly 25 per cent. Thirty thousand, or thereabouts, three-cent stamps and stamped envelopes are sold now per month, 1 2,000 or 15,000 postal cards and 20,000 one-cent envelopes are also sold each month, mainly to the business and manufacturing firms of the city ; the demand is constantl}- increasing. It is estimated that the receipts in the post office business of the city proper will be this year .several thousand dollars in advance of last year. This is certainly a good showing, and will secure for the city a free deliver}- within a ver^' short period of time.

Another item of interest denoting progress is furnished by the census reports, and these will show a most remarkable increase in the citj' of Canton within the limits of the present generation. Before railroading, and with Massillon, by means of her canal facilities, in the ascendant, the total population of Canton Citj' in 1850 was 2,603 ; this was also previous to the removal of the mower and reaper works from (rreentown to Canton. The population ten years later, in 1860, was 4.041, an increase of 55 per cent. In 1870, the population had gone up to 8,660, an increase in ten years of 114 per cent. By the census of 1880, just ; completed, the population is 12,258, an increase in the past ten years of 41^ per cent, vviiich, if Canton authorities had done as many other towns in the State, similarh- situated, had done, would have been much greater than the data show to be the fact. There are iu all directions outlying additions sufficient to increase the figures on population at least 1,000 more, which for all business purposes are part and parcel of the city, and ought in justice to be brought within the municipal corporation. The population of Canton Township, exclusive of thecit}-. for the same periods, stands as follows : in 1850, 1.719; in 1860, 1,704; in 1870, 1,952; and in 1880, 2,015. We have not the figures at hand to give the population of the cit}- and township anterior to 1850.

Previous to the year 1869, some action had been taken by the City Council to utilize the water of Mc^-er's Lake, as a permanent water supply for Canton, both for domestic and manufacturing use, and for protection against fire. The committee of tlie former City Council had decided, on examination, to adopt the Holly system, and J. L. Pillsbury, an experienced civil engineer, had made surveys and estimates which clearly indicated the practicability of the work. In the organization of the City Council in 1869. Messrs Louis Schaefer, Jacob Hawk and T)aniel Worley became the Water- Works Committee, and, at a later da3-, were, under the law, elected the first Board of Trustees of Water- Works. Under their management, aided by the wise and experienced counsel of Mr. Pillsburj'. the work was pressed forward rapidly : the citizens of Canton, by vote, authorized measures for raising the necessary funds: and b}' February. 1870, the works were in successful operation. On the first public trial of the new water- works Pel). 22. 1870, the District Court was in .session, and the Judges were specially invited to witness their working. Upon the recommendation of the civil engineer, a niajorit}' of the committee on water-works had adopted the cement pipe for mains through the city. These had hardly' dried long enough for anj' test. The day was cold and windy.

Everj'thing, however, went off well, until engineer and trustees l)ecame infatuated and consented to an undue increase of the pressure, which blew out a waste at the West Creek. There was a hurrying and a flurrying among Trustees and engineer until the exact loealit}- of the trouble had been discovered. This was on a Saturday, and by the following Sunday evening, everything had been put again into good running order. The cement pipes in this soil did not prove a success, and they have been gradually- replaced b}- iron pipe, which with tlie extensions made from year to year, gives Canton to-da}' one of the best sj'stems of protection against fire to be found anywhere. The larger manufacturing establishments have not onl}- introduced the water for ordinary use, but have also connections for emergencies from fire by which thej- can almost entirely save themselves from the ravages of this king of terrors. With regard to the next great want of Canton, a system of complete sewerage, not so much can be said favorabl^y. The following remarks of another in this connection are very much to the point, and in the hope that the early future history of the citj' may record the suggestions therein contained as an accomplished fact, they are introduced at this place.

While Canton is well located there is no doubt as to the susceptibility of its improvements in a sanitar}' .sense. Its vital statistics go to prove that malaria infects its atmosphere. What it needs is a thorough system of drainage. The project is quite feasible, by reason of the favorable lopogi-aphy of the city. A. fall of four inches to the hundred feet is ample, and Canton, because of her magnificent location, is capable of this advantage. An incline of three inches is better than many places enjoy.