Springfield Township (part 40 of 69)

Factory became Wittenberg because of the college, and Mechanic became Lowry to perpetuate the name of a settler. The industrial sections are fringed around the business center, the mechanics and factories still being component factors, although the early map-makers did not accurately forecast their locations.

In 1839 some one said to P. E. Bancroft, who was the original Springfield furrier : "You can do no good out in the country/' notwithstanding the later trend of business west on Main Street. However, business was checked in its westward trend owing to the class of citizens encountered ; the first murder in Springfield was in a cellar under a saloon in that direction, and the account continues : "The town gradually grew around, until it enclosed the Bancroft business in the heart of the city." As Springfield increased in population and business interests, many substantial improvements were made in the town; as the years passed by, the citizens were ready to expand their facilities to meet the growing demands of society.

While there was a time when the people met regularly on Saturday afternoons to run their horses, and similar orgies - when moral welfare was not so much of a study as it is today; when drunken sprees wound up in fights ; when black eyes and bloody noses were the regular accompaniments of sports; when the Sabbath was spent in hunting, but there was always a moral leaven - among all the viciousness and depravity there were upright men who exerted an influence to stem the tide in the rapid progress of iniquity, and out of it all came the church and the school - such necessary adjuncts to the moral and intellectual development of any community. The same conditions that prevailed in the hamlet exist in the enlarged community, but more counteracting agencies; more welfare movements offset the seeming vices today.

It is said of the pioneer that his manner was agreeable in his relation with his family and his neighbor, but that he was stern and unyielding in discipline - when he said no he meant it. Notwithstanding the Bible injunction : "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds," there are men and women who do not read ; who do not contemplate the busy world programs at all. While men and women are marvelously constructed - fearfully and wonderfully made, they do sometimes get into ruts ; they do not live up to the growing intelligence ; they are influenced from without rather than from their own initiative, and they are a menace; know thyself and thy limitations does not describe them at all.

President Warren G. Harding says: "Ours is a people with vision high but with their feet on the earth, with belief in themselves and faith in God," and the Rev. Hough Houston of Central M. E. Church declares: "A lack of vision is a waste of life. * * * There are not many great men compared with the mass. * * * Men of ability are few; abilities are wasted by lack of vision. Riotous living brings individuals to grief, and causes the waste. * * * Right living enables a community or nation to live in perfect harmony with other communities and other nations." Civilization is based on the proposition that the good of the community is more important than the good of any individual in that community.

they received 5 cents a dozen for eggs ; ; they received a "fip-and-a-bit" for butter in pound prints, and 6% cents for a peck of apples. Not many vegetables sold as there were backyard gardens; tin cups were used in measuring smearcase, and there were no small market measures. The modern way of putting up fruit and vegetables in tin cans, glass jars and paper boxes increases the cost to the consumer, but the advantage is in handling and preservation; the bread sold on the market was baked in Dutch ovens on the hearth, and the cooking was done in pots hanging from cranes. The market was in a shed located east from the Esplanade adjoining the site of the Arcade; it was supported by posts and open on three sides ; to the south was a swamp, and to the east was Mill Run.

Think of that market in contrast with the market of today, when the rental of stalls enters into the question - the price of the commodities. Butchers had stalls in the shed, and an old account says: "It would make the mouth of the modern buyer water to see the nice cuts of pork, beef or mutton which Leuty, Grant and Wragg spread out on their counters at the prices then in vogue," and the same writer says : "Another cause of high prices is an increased daintiness of appetite ; nothing satisfies but the best the world affords. We send to Tar Cathay* for tea; to Java for coffee ; to Ceylon for spices, and to Italy for almonds and sweet oil. The best oranges and grapes come from the isles of the sea," and all he enumerates may be seen on any market day in Springfield.

The market house today abounds with eating places, while the writer quoted continues: "When through selling, the marketers would refresh themselves at Granny Icenbarger's who made and sold ginger cakes and spruce beer in a two-story shack where the Fairbanks Building now stands. This woman is said to have been the first baker in Springfield. She was an industrious woman, and enjoyed a wide acquaintance both in town and in the country. Her cakes and beer were sold wherever the people gathered - camp meeting or military group, and everybody stood ready to befriend Granny Icenbarger. She came into the community in 1812, and in 1839 she died in Springfield.

Granny Icenbarger had a drunken husband content to be known as the husband of such a remarkable woman ; she was diligent, and a woman of unblemished character; her name was familiar to all. She was kind to all, and many a hungry man replenished at her board ; they all stood ready to patronize and befriend Granny Icenbarger. The husband was a small, thin man with crooked legs, and when under the influence of liquor he was very noisy and demonstrative. While he was so bowlegged he could not head a hog in an alley, he hopped around in the wildest manner, and he was the source of a great deal of trouble to this woman. She was used to seeing him drunk, but when he died and friends came in, she exclaimed: "La, me, the old man is dead, what a pity !" and when the candles were lighted, she talked about what it would cost her to bury him. It is said that making one's own living develops character, and this woman had supported herself and husband.

In 1848,' a better market house was completed in Springfield costing $7,800, including the bell and the necessary grading around the building ; a town clock was purchased by the council, and the drift of business continued in that direction. Martin Cary, who was the first child born in Springfield, was the market master; by ringing the bell he opened and closed the market. Springfield citizens came to market to secure sup- plies for breakfast, and there were few idlers in the community. However, Samuel S. Miller, whose reminiscences have been drawn from, relates: "One night, while we slept, one of that kind reached under the cover and took father's stovepipe-Sunday hat away with apples in it, and he had to get another from Hubbel, the Main Street hatter."

While Fountain Square is but a memory, the Esplanade is a reality, and the city building facing it was completed in 1890, at a cost of $250,- 000 to the tax-payers of Springfield. It extends from the Esplanade to Center Street, and is considered one of the finest office buildings in Ohio. It shelters the city market, affords office rooms for the city officials, and there is a commodious auditorium once used for many public meetings. The city manager and all the departments are on the Esplanade side, while the police department is in the Center Street side of the building. While the market has always been open three days in the week - two forenoons and all day Saturday, there has been an effort to increase the revenue by instituting a six-days' market, which it is argued would stop the country people from coming, and make of it a market for hucksters who get their supplies from the commission houses. While the increased rental would give the city more revenue, it would add to the cost of food sold on the market.

Those who produce their own fruit and vegetables are opposed to the six-day market; they need some of the time for production. With the original market in an open shed, and a market house built in 1848, and the present building erected in 1890, it is evident that Springfield always has patronized the public market. The market house built in 1848 had a hall for public meetings, but it was so close to the machine shops on the site of the Arcade, that if an orator attempted a speech his voice was drowned by the sound of hammers in the factory. Sessions held at night were not thus disturbed, and among the speakers were eminent men, Stephen A. Douglas and Fred Douglass, the noted colored orator, both having spoken from that platform.

There was a wood and hay market to the west of the building, and for years more wood than coal was used in Springfield. In war times wood was supplied at $6 and $7 a cord, and afterward $3 was the price of the best beech and sugar four-foot wood in this market. While soldierblue overcoats were still worn, many loads of wood were sold in Springfield. There were hay scales, and lunch and hot coffee were supplied by the weigh-master. The creek - the Mill Run of the past, fed by the springs southeast of town - furnished water in abundance at this market house. There was a wooden bridge across it, and a quagmire prevented any streets being extended south of it. In the '50s there was a walk constructed to the site of the Pennsylvania station, and it was keep on the walk or mire in the swamp. In Civil war times the effigy of Clemency L. Vallandingham was submerged in that swamp, but such a feat could not be accomplished there today.

When the country people would come into that market house, because the market master rang his bell at 4 o'clock in the morning, they had to be in readiness the night before; after fixing their horses, and tightening their wagon covers, they would lie on bedding brought from their homes ; they would not sleep long until they were wakened by the clatter of the butchers placing their quarters of beef, pork and mutton ready for the block when market opened, while visitors might inspect the market, selling did not begin until 4 o'clock when the bell released everything. There were Conestogas in Clark County then, and the farmers would come to market with a bushel of potatoes and a few pounds of butter ; they would bring apples, cherries and currants or gooseberries; they packed their eggs in chaff because the roads were rough, and there were no springs to their wagons. The farmers who attend market today bring their products in automobiles, and there is constant demand for produce fresh from the country.

When an aged man with unimpaired memory dies, it is like removing a book from the library ; many stories of Clark County development have been buried with the settlers because no record was made of them. S. S. Miller had written something of early Springfield market conditions that has been incorporated into the story. In giving a reason for the increased cost of living, he took into consideration the increased number of consumers, saying the population of the city has out-stripped the growth of the rural community; the manufacturing industries deplete the number of soil workers, and lessen the production of foodstuffs ; they think shop work is less slavish than farm labor, and leave the country.

and why should Springfield constitute an exception? The outstanding feature in Springfield development is its tablets; while shrines abound in some localities, the tablets erected about the city are the silent testimonials. The tablet at the entrance to the Warder Library tells the necessary story ; the tablet at the city hospital pays tribute to the founders; there are tablets in the churches, and in Wittenberg College, seemingly an universal method of commemoration in the community.

Chapter Viii

The data used in the study of geology, and its relation to the history of Clark County, is adapted from a paper written by W. H. Rayner, from the Ohio Experiment Station Bulletin, and from an interview with Dean C. G. Shatzer of Wittenberg College, who has made personal investigation. Dean Shatzer defines geology as an effort to determine the history of the earth and the origin of its present surface features. The out-cropping limestone indicates that this region was once an arm of the sea. It was probably disconnected from the Gulf region. Such changes have occurred in the topography of the country.

The surface of Clark County is a combination of two things - the breaking of bedrock from the action of the weather and the rising streams. This action gives rise to the residual soil. Existing conditions are the result of material carried down by glaciers. Attention is called to the terraces which everywhere mark the streams flowing south from the glaciated area, and that is the general direction of the stream in Clark County. Almost without exception the streams flowing southward from this area show marks of former floods from 50 to 100 feet higher than those of recent occurrence. Gravel deposits from SO to 100 feet higher than the present flood-plain line the valleys of such streams within the glaciated region, and. through much of their course after they have emerged from it.

In the subjoined list of Ohio streams are mentioned the Big and Little Miamis and Mad River, and there are many terraces within Clark County. It is in terraces of this description that so-called palaeolithic implements have been found, which includes the earlier half of the Stone Age, the remains belonging to extinct animals and to human beings. There is no question but this class of terraces was formed by the floods which mark the closing portion of the glacial period; the occurrence of human implements in their undisturbed strata connects the early history of man with the closing scenes of the glacial period. In the light of the above information any well-directed study of the glacial period is important as shedding light upon the condition under which man began his career and upon the time which has elapsed since the beginning of things.

Scientific investigation reveals the fact that once upon a time this whole region was under a crust of ice ; it extended from the cold north across Ohio and Clark County to the Ohio River. When the glaciers melted the molten. mass mixed with local materials and the result was the soil formation. It is an interesting study - molten ice mixed with clay and gravel, and the results are different in different places and under different conditions. Anything is soil that supports vegetation and that quality exists in water. The average tiller of the soil does not understand its chemical composition; he only knows that the alternate freezing and thawing puts it into productive condition.

The relief of Clark County is largely due to moraine deposits; the knobs about Wittenberg campus cropping out again about Catawba in the northeastern part of Clark County are the results of terminal moraines. The market house in Springfield is at an elevation of 979 feet, while the greatest elevation within the county is found in Pleasant Township, where it ranges from 1,240 to 1,280 feet above the sea. The wayfaring man leaving the heights east from New Moorefield and facing the setting sun may overlook the whole of Clark County. As far as eye can see there is nothing to obstruct the view, and it is a glimpse not duplicated often in any part of the country, the whole contour sloping in one direction. While Recitation Hall in Wittenberg is at an altitude of 1,000 feet, and there are higher points on the campus, the aforesaid traveler looks above it all.

While the United States Survey conforms to base and range line established by the government, since the glacial period the erosive action of the water in the streams and of the weather have combined to shape the hills and have given them their present surface conditions. While man may defeat the action of the elements, nature's handiwork is more or less perfect, conservancy finally correcting its errors. The Ohio Experiment Station analysis describes the Clinton and Niagara formations, saying Clark County is covered with glacial drift derived chiefly from limestone. In the broad valleys of its streams this drift has been replaced by alluvium and deposits of gravel, the predominating soils being silty and gravelly clay loams of the Miami and Bellefontaine series with considerable areas of alluvium, including both black and first bottoms of Wabash series. They are both first and second bottoms along Mad River.

The gravelly Bellefontaine soils covering the moraines are generally naturally drained with the underlying gravel, as are also some of the terrace and bottom lands, but the intermediate Miami soils are generally in need of more or less artificial drainage ; the limestone derivation of all Clark County land has assured the soil of permanent fertility when properly handled, although farmers are now studying the chemistry of the soils and applying the necessary elements. The limestone cliffs so much in evidence promise the material when the soil requires such an application. Mr. Rayner writes that the geological formations underlying any locality have an influence not only upon the animal and vegetable life on its surface, but may contribute to the comfort, growth and development of the humanity inhabiting th^t section of the country.

This is specially true where ores, coal or minerals occur in the underlying strata. But these influences will be found to exist in some degree where only ordinary geological conditions are found. In the past people have judged the productiveness of the soil by the preponderance of growth of certain kinds of trees and other vegetation. The soil of a beech ridge is readily distinguishable from that of a sugar grove or a section of swamp ash. Many people designate the quality of the soil by the kind of trees that are found growing out of it. In turn, vegetation influences and makes possible the animal life; the soil and underlying geological formations have an influence upon the pursuits, development and ultimate condition of the human race. It

The fortieth parallel and the eighty-fourth meridian intersect about four miles from the northwest corner of Clark County and the average VoL I - 5 elevation is about 1,000 feet above the sea. While the surface is undulating and there is some swamp land, there is but little that will not ultimately be brought under cultivation. The surface formations are attributable to the drift period, while the underlying formations are classed within the upper and lower silurian periods. Beginning with the unstratified Guelph limestone which crops out with the Niagara at various places, and extending downward through the Niagara shales or Dayton limestone, the Clinton series and Medina shales of the upper silurian period, through the Hudson River series, Utica shales and Trenton limestone of the lower silurian period, all are found at points in southwestern Ohio and seem to be in evidence in Clark County.

The Niagara series which predominates in this locality takes its name from the outcrop at the Niagara River, where it was first carefully studied. It also extends under the Great Lakes and outcrops again in Wisconsin. It forms the principal underlying strata of the North Central States. It is rich in the following fossils: Pentamerus Oblongus, Pentamerous Ovatis, Crinoids, Trilobites and Orthoceras, the * last frequently of enormous size. There are two methods of determining the underlying formation of a given locality. The usual method is to follow the outcrop of the various formations from some remote point where the lowest anticipated formation is exposed, and noting the depth and extent of each division. In this way there is reasonable certainty in determining the underlying geological formations. This method is not difficult as southwestern Ohio is like an open book to the trained geologist. Beginning at Point Pleasant and journeying northward along the Little Miami where the Trenton limestone is the surface rock, any one who is familiar with the fossils and other indications of the various series in the ascending scale will be able not only to determine the series, but to form a good estimate of the thickness of each general formation.

The other method is by analyzing the drillings of the deep gas and oil wells. This method has only become available since the developments in the '80s, but it has served to confirm the conclusions earlier formed by the older method. In 1885 a well was drilled west of Plum Street on the south bank of Buck Creek in Springfield, with record of the following formations: The surface soil and the Guelph rock had been removed in the process of quarrying, and from the floor of the quarry was found blue limestone, IS feet; white clay, 3 feet; Niagara shale, 40 feet; Clinton limestone, 42 feet; Medina red slate, 12 feet; shale rock, 226 feet; gray shale, 37 feet; gray shale, 305 feet; light shale, 130 feet; dark shale, 230 feet; red sandstone, 76 feet, and black shale, 24 feet.

It is difficult to understand the conditions that existed in glacial period. Today the best examples are found in Alaska, Greenland and the Alps, but they pale into insignificance when compared with the great ice cap that forced its way from the north, overspreading this region. The moraines deposited by it, marking the line of its southward approach, may be traced from Long Island to the mountains in Idaho. It was a wall of ice thousands of miles long and hundreds of feet deep, its face melted into fantastic shapes, grottoed and pinnacled, disgorging untold volumes of water, as the rays of the southern sun held back and checked this frost king of the north. It has left in its retreat, not the disintegrated silt of the local rock formation that might or might not be available for plant growth, but the assimilation of the distintegrated granite of the North and the limestone beds of the Great Lakes ii) a reduced and prepared state, containing every essential element for the development of the highest standard of agriculture.

After penetrating the various formations as above indicated, the drill struck Trenton limestone at a depth of 1,140 feet, or about 190 feet above the level of the sea. A year later another well was drilled to a depth of 2,400 feet, passing through the Trenton limestone into the St. Peters sandstone, below which was found a light colored magnesian limestone, but as yet no drill in this locality has reached the igneous rock which underlies the constructive geological series. The accepted theory is that it is a sedimentary deposit laid down on the bed of the ocean at a time when the Gulf of Mexico extended to and included the Great Lakes. It is evident that an uplift came to this locality about the time of the completion of the Niagara series and from that time the region has been barren rock or dry ground. A topographical survey would have represented a level plain, later eroded and scored by the advancing waters of an approaching glacier of the drift period.

The rock-walled channel of the Great Miami extends to the western part of Clark County and at St. Paris, which is the highest point between the Great Miami and Mad rivers, this ancient river bed was shown by the drill to have been 530 feet below the present surface and of an extreme width. While the exact width has not been determined, it was wider than the valley now enclosed by the hills on either side of the Ohio. Imagine such a river, with almost perpendicular banks interspersed at intervals with islands which were monuments of limestone so firm as to withstand the eroding effect of the mighty current with its many caverns and whirlpools. It was a river vast in the stillness of creative times upon which the eyes of man have never looked, but which fulfilled its mission and ceased to be. However, one of its islands remains today, the top of which has long been operated as a quarry a few miles south of St. Paris.

The gorge of Niagara represents that type of river and the rocky gorge of Mad River west from Springfield was a feeder for this great river, just as today it flows into the Big Miami. In the fullness of time came the glacial period with its moraines that planed, crushed and ground the limestone, filling the rocky crevices with debris, and as the glacier receded leaving its surface covered with boulders from some foreign locality. They filled its rock-hewn river valleys and opened new water courses for the discharge of the melting floods. Thus over the limestone plains are scattered beds of sand, gravel and disintegrated stone that form the clays, layer upon layer, bed upon bed sometimes with exact regularity, and sometimes in most heterogeneous masses. As proof of these assertions every boulder-strewn field is a witness. The identical ledges from which these boulders were detached may be found in the Canadian quarries today.

In 1893 Mr. Rayner examined the Canadian Geological exhibits at the World's Fair in Chicago, confirming the theory that Clark County boulders are but the detached fragments of quarry stone, "rounded and worn by the torrents of the receding glacier. Every gravel bank shows that each grain of sand was laid in its place by the icy current that deposited it. Many of the boulders and some of the pebbles are ground smooth and polished by their long journey, and some of the surface rock in Clark County is planed and grooved by the ice-clasped granite of the glacier. Some years ago when workmen were uncovering the surface rock preparatory to blasting for a waterworks trench in North Isabella Street, very distinct and definite markings were found, but they could not be preserved, as they were crushed by the blast.

When the glacier receded vegetation fastened itself upon the hith. erto barren land, and it is believed by geologists that this section of the country was inhabited immediately. Evidence has been cited confirming the belief, and that animal life was represented; the bones and teeth of the mastodon are encountered, and one complete skeleton found in Clark County is being exhibited at Ohio State University, Columbus. Others have been located that could not be excavated without destroying them, as related in the chapter on Moundbuilders. The musk-ox was a companion of the mastodon and a skull and horns were once found in the swamp in the Mad River Valley, however, in Champaign County. These skeletons were preserved because the animals mired in the swamps, and the water level remained above them. No doubt many others existed in the post glacial period, but skeletons left on the dry ground soon disintegrated and passed out of existence.

The summer rain and the frost of winter mellowed and disintegrated the virgin soil. The rank growth of grassy vegetation in the lowlands and the hardy pines and cedars in the uplands mingled their fallen trunks with the sands and clays of the moraines, as evidenced by the fragments of these woods that are often found in excavating and in digging wells. They added vegetable mold in ever-increasing proportions, producing a soil of variety and richness seldom excelled in the most favored localities. However, it does not follow that all the soil is good in Clark County. While some of it holds an excess of certain elements they are lacking in other parts, but the knowledge of soil chemistry relieves the difficulty. Frequently the remedy is at hand and an analysis of soil constituents determines its needs. The geological resources are known and it remains for man to utilize this knowledge.

There are farms in Clark County having valley land so rich with vegetable mold that ordinary crops do not fully develop. They fire and die, while on the same farms are clay hills that would afford to this soil just the elements needed to make it productive and in turn the hills need the humus that is excessive in the valleys. The owners will benefit when they exchange part of the soil of each with the other. (In another part of the country an onion specialist had ah understanding with his sons that whenever they hauled a load of clay and distributed it as they would manure on the muck, he would pay them for it.) Great changes have occurred in the soil and the contour of Clark County since the uplift in the latter part of the upper silurian period. Nature is the great assayer and assimilator.

In some measure the northern half of the United States owes the continued and sustained productiveness of its soil to disintegration from freezing. Every particle of sand or soil that is susceptible .to penetration by water is frozen each winter and is thereby disintegrated and rendered suitable for plant food. In the South, where frost is infrequent or non-existent, the change is readily discernible. Chemical action is constantly adding to the productiveness of the soil, but humus is the most active agent in soil nutrition. Not only does decayed vegetation return to the soil those elements received by its growth, but it takes from the air other elements which cannot be secured and combined in the soil by any other method. The roots of the plants penetrate the soil and some of them to great depth. As they decay they leave open avenues through which moisture may penetrate, where it is stored again against the drought. In a measure animal life also contributes to soil fertility.

The crawfish and burrowing animals add their part to the changes and usually to the improved condition of the soil. At the present time the bodies of fish and domestic animals constitute part of the commercial fertilizers. It is said that every particle of lime in the world has at some time or other formed the Done or shell of some living organism. Secondly only to the glacial activity, erosion changes the contour of Clark County more than any other agency, and at the present time the process is more destructive than for a long period in past history. The denuding of the land of the forest growth, the drainage of swamps and lakes, and the cultivation of the soil have aided the washouts on the hillsides and the formation of gulleys until land that was cultivated a generation ago is pasture land again.

This washout agency will continue its devastating work unless controlled by man. In many parts of the South hill lands are being terraced under the direction of engineers. Notwithstanding all the efforts of nature, it is a fair prediction that with sufficient man-and-horsepower - the tractor supplanting the horse, it is possible that the products of Clark County farms may be doubled and still leave the land enriched beyond its present condition, and without bringing a pound of commercial fertilizer into it. While limestone has been used from the time of the earliest settler, the future demands will be greater upon this recognized necessity. Lime has long been a production of Clark County. Stone crushers are busy today putting it into shape for fertilizing the soil of the locality.

The Guelph rock of Clark County is, analyzed as follows: Carbonate of lime, 54.13; carbonate of magnesia, 44.37; allumina and oxide of iron, .56; and silicious matter, .65, showing a 99.71 composition limestone, perfectly adapted to fertilizer requirements. This limestone lacks only one element necessary to the production of cement. The lower beds of limestone are stratified and have been used extensively for building stone. It represents the Niagara series. It is unsuited for street building purposes, being so soft that it soon grinds into dust, and is hauled off the streets in the form of slush and at an additional expense. Springfield has experimented with it, spending thousands of dollars building macadam streets of it. Mr. Rayner one time entered into correspondence with the department of agriculture in Washington relative to the advisability of using this stone in street building and was informed that it would be better to pay freight on suitable stone than to use it.

While there is an increasing demand for limestone as land plaster, it may be used as a flux in smelting. The Mad River Valley offers ideal conditions for an iron furnace. It is midway between the coal fields and the lake ore, and in the center of an iron-consuming territory - the valley west from Springfield. The Clinton limestone found in the southwestern part of Clark County is also lime producing, and better material for macadam roads than the cap rock and upper series tried out in Springfield. It marks the lowest series in the upper Silurian period except the Medina shales, found in the extreme southwestern part of the county. The lime deposits are of hitherto unknown value because they have not been utilized in the past as they will be in the future. The use of lime as a fertilizer is a recent discovery and it offers commercial possibilities.

In the drift deposit Clark County is provided with valuable sand and gravel easily available for use. Sand of many kinds is found in abundance. While it is used in mortar and cement, there are good grades of molding sand in large quantities within a few miles of Springfield. While one of these banks is open, it is practically inoperative as it costs more to load it into wagons and haul it to town than to load the sand at the banks farther north where steam shovels are installed, and ship it to Springfield. Clark County gravel is used in concrete construction and makes excellent sidewalks. It is unexcelled for road building and there is local demand for it.

The Clark County clays are a sedimentary deposit of the glacial period. They constitute a large percentage of the underlying soil and crop out on many of the hills. A species of kaolin or white clay underlies the bogs and small lakes, causing them to retain the water. Doubtless some of these clays are suitable for manufacturing the cheaper grades of porcelain, but it is not known whether or not they exist in commercial quantities. Clay flower pots are manufactured within the county and brick and tile making are an important industry. No doubt terra cotta and clay conduits can be made to advantage.

Because of its geological formation, Clark County is well supplied with springs of good water. They have aided in the development of agriculture and the stock raising interests. These springs and springfed streams may yet be utilized in supplying water for irrigation, when the vegetable gardens need it. There are many ponds and dry holes ranging in size from 50 to 200 feet in diameter, and from 2 to 20 feet in depth. These depressions were probably formed by the sinking of the surface, due to the melting of large bodies of ice which had been buried in the debris of the drift period. Where the ice was covered with clay the depression formed a lake, and where it was covered with gravel there was drainage and it became a dry cavity.

the land reclaimed for tillage. In 1886, when wells were being drilled for gas, one was sunk to the depth of 1,800 feet by the Champion Machine Company, when a vein of salt water was encountered and cased off, and the drill continued to 2,400 feet, the work prosecuted under difficulties because of the presence of salt water. What about drilling again and utilizing the water rich in salt? It stood at the level of the water in the soil and may be refined for its deposit of salt. No one recognized its commercial possibilities while drilling for natural gas or oil.

There remains one geological product that has been regarded in the light of a detriment rather than an asset. It is the drift boulders so generally distributed, especially in the western part of Clark County. The smaller boulders were used by the pioneers in walling their wells, in building their chimneys and in foundations. In some localities they are utilized in ornamental construction - walls and chimneys and porches. Millwrights sometimes used them, but few such millstones are in existence. One said to have been used by Simon Kenton in his mill at Lagonda has been builded into a dedicatory monument in Snyder Park. The Clark County boulder is a long way from its home, and yet many who have encountered it thought it was a native.

Today the best roads in Clark County are being constructed from the crushed fragments of these granite boulders. The road builders have had transported over land and water and left at their doors the best possible material for building thoroughfares. The boulder also brought with it some of the semi-precious stones that otherwise would be unknown in Clark County. Two stones have been found near Springfield in which there were numbers of garnets. In many of them jasper is found, and in the drift gravel agates, porphyry and petrified wood is encountered frequently. They add to the interest in the study of Clark County's geological resources, and it remains for the generations to come to gather from the rocks, the sand and the soil those elements which nature has bestowed, and which by intelligent use may yet contribute to the comfort and prosperity of man.

A local paragrapher commented: "The year 1921 was one of the warmest on record. It was about three degrees warmer every day than normal, and the New Year started out like it. The first thirteen days were ten degrees warmer than normal, and there was little zero weather. A window card in a Springfield business house reads: The climate is erratic. Do you know that all fur-bearing animals - domestic and wild - have unusually long coats of fur. indicating a hard winter?

An old account says that on May 6, 1806, a disastrous storm took the upper story off of the first frame house built in Springfield. It was the property of Samuel Simonton and when he repaired the wreck he would not risk a second story. A number of log houses were damaged and much fence was destroyed. While the line of the storm was only about thirty yards wide, it singled out the one two-story house.

Springfield people were wrought up over Indian troubles as well as the storm, but after the conference with Tecumseh and others in 1807, the town moved along in the "even tenor of its way" until a freshet in 1809 disturbed conditions again. Buck Creek overflowed its banks and the inhabitants became alarmed, and some thinking it a judgment sent from heaven left the community.

In 1832 Clark County was visited by heavy rains again, and on February 11, that year: "Buck Creek dashed by proud of its haughty condition, and Mad River was full half a mile wide; indeed, all the streams were higher than they had been since 1814," and who knows about that flood? The flood ninetyf-nine years later, 1913, is well remembered in Clark County and the Miami Valley, although the damage wrought at Springfield was as nothing compared with the flood at Dayton.

While there is mention of a meteoric shower November 12, 1799, there is nothing to connect it with the area now covered by Clark County, and it must be an error in print since the meteoric shower of 1833 occurred the same month and day, November 12, when the "stars fell." One account says: "They seemed to drop from all points straight down like rain when there is a perfect quiet." William A. Barnett, who came from Butler County to Springfield, describes this meteoric shower as witnessed there, saying: "We were early risers. Time was set at 4 o'clock, winter or summer. I was up and saw the wonderful shower of meteors or shooting stars. We were getting ready for an early start at corn husking," and since the meteoric display was widespread it was most likely witnessed in Clark County.

Old settlers in Ohio and Indiana discussed the time when the stars fell and all were agreed about it. Mr. Barnett was later a miller in Springfield, originating the famous Golden Fleece brand of flour, and his story may be regarded as authentic. On April 11, 1833, a tornado passed near Springfield sweeping off the roofs of houses and laying waste the forest about the width of a quarter of a mile in its onward march. In March, two years later, there were three weeks of sledding, which is mentioned as unusual weather conditions. Good snows for sledding were frequent. Farmers kept two sleds, one for drags to the woodpile and logs to the saw mill, and the other having thinner runners with higher knees and cross pieces and standards, was used in hauling the limbs for firewood, and by adding a bed of loose boards it was used for general purposes. With straw in the bottom and with heated brick under the covers, people went everywhere in such sleds.

The above is taken from the reminiscences of S. S. Miller and he corroborated its accuracy by an interview with William N. Whitely, who had been caught in the storm riding home from Urbana. As yet there were no banks in Springfield and Mr. Whitely had gone to Urbana to procure the money with which to pay for some cattle. Samuel Lefler was one of a party who went to Logan County to bring a drove of colts to be distributed among Clark County farmers and on the return trip they were caught in the storm. It was a deep snow and they had difficulty bringing the colts to Springfield. The weather turned cold and remained* so, and it was an unusual thing for March. In 1855-6 there was another snow that lay on an unusual length of time. Many weeks of sleighing were enjoyed, but the carpenters and blacksmiths had learned the art of making better sleds and sleighs and there was more pleasure connected with it. People went on long journeys without fear of the snow leaving, and the vast expanse of white that covered field* and forest gave promise of something more useful when spring came again. The water from a well on Limestone between High and Main streets was frozen. into a mountain of ice, reaching the spout of the pump and remaining until warmer weather. When the fire department was called to Wittenberg College the men suffered from frost-bitten hands, feet and noses, but the coldest time was in 1864 - New Year's day - the temperature being twenty-one degrees below zero in the morning, seventeen at noon and nineteen at night, but notwithstanding the severity, spring came early and many of the 100-day volunteer soldiers planted corn before going to Camp Denison in April.

It was the night of June 4 and the morning of June 5, 1859, according to S. S. Miller, that "the most disastrous late frost during the lifetime of the present generation" visited the community. William M. Cartmell submits the diary dated June 21, 1858, as kept by Charles Lofland of Catawba, saying: "We have had bad weather for a long time. It began to snow and rain about the middle of October last, and since then I have scarcely seen the sun, moon or seven stars. People are backward with their crops, and some have just finished planting their corn. The freshets have done a great deal of damage along the water courses by overflowing the bottoms and carrying off fences, but there is the finest prospect of small grain and grass that ever was seen in the country."

Daniel Printz said it was June, 1858, that this country had the disastrous frost that destroyed the corn. He was born that year and his mother told him it was the year the frost ruined the corn, but Mr. Miller is very definite in his recollection, saying: "Our folks had a guest that night. Just as I was making a fire he came down stairs and asked if there was frost. I told him to look out - that everything was white and stiff and there was ice that required an ax to break it. When the sun had thawed out things the disaster was apparent. The corn in the Donnels Creek bottom that was from twelve to eighteen inches high fell flat, and the forest leaves turned black. The full-sized pawpaw leaves dropped off like they do in October.

"Next day was Sunday. Nature wore a pall of grief and the farmers were the mourners. While some used sheepshears to trim off the frozen plants, in other instances nature did its own surgery and therewas no dearth of corn at husking time. Those who furrowed between the rows and planted again had too thick a stand of corn and it did not ear well. The best corn that year was planted late and was not through the ground at the time of the frost. Potatoes sprouted up again, but wheat in the bottoms was ruined, there being a light yield

"The winter of 1881-2 was notable, snow falling on the night of November 15 and remaining throughout the winter. The oldest residents did not remember a winter of such steady low temperature. The snow did not melt at noon in the sunshine, and a Springfield milkman delivered his product from a sleigh for eighty consecutive days. There have been years without summers and years without winters, but there always has been seed time and harvest. While the last winter was the warmest on record, January 12, 1918, is admitted to have been the coldest day known in Clark County. There was snow, snow, snow, and traffic was suspended because of it. There were drifts, drifts, drifts, and the roads were impassable. Livestock walked from field to field unconscious of the wire fences separating them, and fences were opened that travelers might go around the drifts, all of which is within the memory of those who read about it.

Chapter Ix

The Ohio Gazetteer of 1816 says : "No country in the world is better watered with limpid streams and navigable rivers than the United States of America, and no people better deserve these advantages, or are better calculated to make a proper use of them than her industrious and adventurous citizens." The United States Geological Survey shows that forty per cent of the developed water power in the world is in this country.

While Springfield inventors turned their attention to water wheels at the time water was thus utilized for power, the water wheels in the United States have a combined capacity of 9,243,000 horsepower, and the countries of Europe where waterways and water power have been utilized extensively, cannot boast of more extensive development. The turbine water wheel did much to develop the manufacturing interests of Springfield when Mill Run furnished the motive power. The overcast and undercast wheels were known to the settlers, and from the time James Demint built the first mill in 1803, until steam supplanted water power, water wheels were essential to industry.

Murat Halstead once said: "The French were truthful as well as tasteful when they named the Ohio the Beautiful River," and while in the wilderness days game crossed the stream at the fords in the absence of floods, all that deals with the Ohio of the long ago ; even the buffaloes knew the width of the stream that divided and united the valley when the water was high or low, and the same conditions existed along the smaller streams. Since the Big Miami as fed by the Little Miami and other Clark County streams contributes to the Ohio, Clark County is within the Miami Valley. Beside the Miamis, its principal streams are: Mad River, Buck or Lagonda Creek, and Beaver Creek which, with their tributaries, "furnish water power for about twenty-five grist mills, upwards of thirty saw mills, two paper mills, two oil mills, and seven or eight carding and fulling mills, all of which are in operation within the county."

Still another account says: "Mad River is unequalled for fine mill sites. Its current is rapid, and the water is never so low in the driest season as to interfere in the slightest degree with the mills that are now upon it. * * * Within a range of three miles of Springfield are upwards of twenty good mill seats, occupied and unoccupied. The value of this immense water power is enhanced by the fact that on the east and southeast is a tract of country forty miles wide which is entirely dependent upon this stream and mills," but the student of economic conditions would hardly accept that version today.

In the palmy days of New Boston which is now marked by an abandoned cemetery adjoining Fort Tecumseh, west from Springfield, it was said to be at the head of navigation on Mad River. "In those days Mad River spread all over creation," but the removal of the timber and drainage have changed the situation ; while the water used to be carried away, now it percolates into the porous soil, and yet Mad River carries more water into the Big Miami than any other tributary. In his study of the streams of Clark County, Dean C. G. Shatzer has discovered 105 sites once occupied by mills, and while the ruins of some remain others are known to have existed. There were saw mills, grist mills, wagon shops, blacksmith shops and distilleries at frequent intervals along Mad River.

The Shawnees were governed in naming Mad River by the character of its water - turbulent stream, Mad River, and it flowed with such velocity that it afforded unexcelled water power; the fall in the stream as it crosses Clark County is from 8 to 10 feet every mile, and the power to turn the machinery was available at many points, the term mill site now almost obsolete in the study of economic problems. The Shawnees built their wigwams along Mad River, because they liked its turbulent flow; it suggested to them the anger of the Great Spirit, and being a warrior tribe its malevolent attitude suited them. The settlers had the same idea ; they spoke of the Mad River countryside as a synonym of the heart's desire, and Mad River and Bethel townships which are separated by it are the earliest settled portions of Clark County.

While Mad River is an interpretation of the Shawnee word Athe-nesepe, the soft Indian language may have its distinct mission; while one interpretation is "flat or smooth stone," the velocity of the stream would have that effect. In one of the Clark County books, an Ode to Mad River reads:

"The rivers how they run Through woods, and meads and shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave they go, A various journey to the deep, Like human life in endless sleep."

Buck or Lagonda Creek joins Mad River west from Springfield, having absorbed Beaver Creek on the other side of the city; it is said the Shawnees used the word Lagonda, and while the meaning may not be different is more euphonious, and has been combined with ether names, as Lagonda Chapter D. A. R., Lagonda Club, Lagonda Bank and Lagonda Hotel. At least twenty mill sites have been located on this stream. It is a swift running stream, and when strangers are shown Buck Creek they inquire about Lagonda.

There was beautiful scenery along Lagonda in its wild state, and the unbroken limestone cliffs on either side were covered with cedars, ferns, mosses, flowers and trailing vines. The grape vine hung from the stately trees on the margin of the stream, and dipped its tendrils in its placid waters; the sycamore bent its protecting boughs over its banks, while the sugar maple and hackberry towered above the dogwood, red bud, pawpaw, spicewood and other small growth lining the stream. "Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight," and make Lagonda beautiful again.

While Mad River and the Little Miami drain different sections of Clark County, the general trend of the water courses is to the south and southwest, the lowest point in the county being found in Mad River Township, where it is only 325 feet above the low water mark on the Ohio at Cincinnati. It is said there is fishing in the Little Miami whenever the water is not frozen, and while it leaves the county and comes back again at Clifton, through a gorge there the current is so swift that promoters have considered utilizing it in the manufacture of power; it would be accessible to different cities, but the volume of water is the question. The scenery is beautiful, and power created there would be and advantage to Clifton.

While the waters of Honey Creek leave Clark County on the west, tributary to Mad River are: Muddy Run, Mud Creek, Donnels Creek, Jackson Creek, Miller Creek, Mill Creek, and Buck Creek which through its principal tributary Beaver Creek receives the water from Sinking Creek and smaller streams, and nothing is said about a water shed in Clark County. There is a Rocky Run, Dry Run and Chapman's Creek, and drainage is not the perplexing problem - rfall may be had, and parts of the county do not require artificial drainage at all.

Until the late '30s there were few bridges across the streams in Clark County, those of primitive style not remaining long, but in 1837 there was a bridge over Mad River west of Springfield, and in 1838 there was a bridge at Donnelsville. Some of the early type of covered bridges are s^ill seen both east and west from Springfield, and the Golden Arch seems to be a permanent thing over Rocky Run. When there were no bridges, people forded the streams or crossed in ferries, and drownings were reported frequently.

The settlers knew all about the grappling hooks that were left in houses along the streams, and narrow escapes from drowning were the startling stories told by the pioneers. Swollen streams did not deter travelers, and adventure was part of the plan in developing the country.

An old account says: "Directly through Springfield runs another stream, small, but swift and unfailing," and while Mill Run is now only a sewer, someone said: "The beautiful little rivulet, Mill Run, glided smoothly through the town, dividing it into two sections, the east from the west ; there was a small valley through which the stream flowed, and on the west side were two brick, seven frame and many log houses. The west bank of the run for several rods back was an exceedingly muddy and miry place. In crossing Mill Run into the east part of Springfield, it was necessary to wade mud and mire, cross the stream on a foot log and climb the steep bank on the east side. There were more houses on the east side, but as on the west they were principally built of logs."

The pedestrian on Main Street would have difficulty locating Mill Run, although it was once an uncontrolled stream and a terror to the community. In 1819 two Irishmen named Andrew and Frederick Johnson took the contract from the owners of the swampy land abutting Mill Run to ditch and drain it. They rendered this portion of the town passable for man and beast. It was no uncommon occurrence for the stream to overflow and flood Market Square, and small boats would ply the street in the vicinity of the Esplanade. Sometimes people were driven from their homes by Mill Run floods, and they were often water bound in them.

Because it was a constant menace to property and human safety, in 1877, the Springfield City Council arched Mill Run from the site of the Arcade, then the Whitely, Fassler and Kelly plant, through the business center, and the stranger who notes the flow into Buck Creek by an abbatoir between Fountain and Wittenberg avenues must be told of Mill Run to know of its existence. This arch is eighteen feet wide and nine feet high, and was constructed at a cost of $19,669.90, the city paying $582.44, and the property owners benefited by it paying the remainder. It

While its light is now "under a bushel," Mill Run once furnished the power for machine shops and factories; it had the necessary fall, and as many as a dozen industries had their motive power from its swift flowing current. Mill Run reached Buck Creek through projecting rocks covered with hanging vines, reaching down and forming a curtain to the chasm. It was taller than a man's head, and under one side of the cascade was a stream flowing from an aperture. It was a strong current of remarkably cold water with the flavor of the water at Yellow Springs, and it deposited a similar sediment, but the progressive age destroyed the surrounding beauty. From blasting of the rocks the spring water disappeared, and while Cliff Park is an attraction, the wild beauty of that locality is gone forever.

The fact remains unquestioned that the civilization of any country does not advance more rapidly than does its agriculture. The pioneers found that the chemical analysis of Clark County soil required a mixture of elbow grease and industry - a startling fact, yet nevertheless true, if they were to dig their living from it. The woodman with his ax, and the Irishman with his spade, entered into the wilderness question of economics.

In discussing the early citizens, one writer says: "They left their homes in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky and settled in the wilderness of the Northwest Territory, where they built their humble cabin homes and cleared the forests, under conditions that required heroic courage and great physical endurance." Another writer adds : "Scarcely had the State of Ohio been formed and received into the Union, when a crowd of adventurers flocked into its bounds, and located themselves in places that seemed attractive to them ;" while another writes : "It is the poor and hard-working element that seeks a home in a new country. We find the pioneer generally poor but robust, with an energy which labor increases, and with an endurance that seems to baffle all opposing forces."

Some more optimistic writer says : "There is a fascination in recalling the times, scenes and actors in life's drama of the pioneer period. The greater part of the goods transported from the eastern settlements were brought over the Allegheny Mountains on pack horses. The first year's subsistence had to be carried that way, and salt was packed hundreds of miles to meet the wants of the settlers. It was sold to them from $6 to $10 a bushel. Some of them brought their horses, cows and hogs, and seeds for planting. Sometimes they carried vegetables and shrubbery, and they soon created the atmosphere of home about them. No roads were laid out west of Pittsburgh, and but few wagons could find their way over the mountains, and through the unbroken wilderness. However, the very early settlers in Clark County came from Kentucky. With only a few exceptions the Mad River Colony were all Kentuckians."

An early writer says: "Roads were soon made, and rough log bridges spanned the smaller streams; the rivers had their ferries, and country or general stores began to put in an appearance. They kept a little of everything, but it was always articles of necessity, as hats, caps, boots, shoes, chains, wedges, pots and kettles, and all that is duplicated in Clark County history. While the Ordinance of 1787 made local history a possibility, and it has been described by one writer as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and impressed upon the soil while it bore nothing but the American forest, space does not allow of further study outside the bounds of Springfield and Clark County. In the public and in many private libraries are copies of Howe's "History of Ohio" in two volumes ; Whitelaw Reid in two volumes, and Randall and Ryan in five volumes, and some of the older single volume histories, and the general history of Ohio is found in them.

From 1801 to 1809 the settlers represent Clark County as a beautiful country. In the area north of Springfield for fourteen miles upon land that was later covered with thick timber, there were not enough poles to have made hoops for a meat cart. In 1810, Griffith Foos at his hostelry in Springfield, entertained James Smith who had been in the vicinity may years earlier with the Indians, and he described the country to the north and east as prairies, saying he had started up buffalo and elk there. There is mention of Smith as a visitor among the settlers on Mad River. Mr. Foos described the same land as almost destitute of timber - an undulating plain covered with grass and a variety of wild flowers ; there was a species of wild peas with fragrant blossoms.

In this tract pasture was abundant, and the cattle fed on it. The time came when this same area consisted of a forest of large trees with no undergrowth, and it was a well sodded country. Beyond Mad River was an unbroken forest with trees in great variety, and where not choked with undergrowth, it was a well sodded country. Prof. Edward Orton describes the hard wood forests, listing oak, maple, white hickory and burr oak, saying there were once 200,000 acres of timber in Clark County. Query : What became of it ? An old account says Springfield was a poor timber market, and the settlers "wagoned" to Dayton with it. At the time Mad River was lined with milling and distilling establishments, and Springfield had not yet asserted itself as a city.

There were very large poplar trees west from Mad River, and pump makers liked poplar for well stocks; it did not discolor or embitter the water. S. S. Miller tells of a mammoth poplar that fell across the road, saying that a twelve-foot section had to be sawed off to allow of travel, and by eye-measure it was six feet in diameter. In the old days of down timber, how to get rid of it was the settler's problem. Since there was no market for it, there were log rollings and thousands of trees were burned in order that the ground might be cleared and turned to some profit. When Springfield began to expand and utilize such material, it was only a memory along Mad River. Oak, walnut, ash and poplar were utilized in building, and there is much valuable walnut in the inside finish of the older houses today.

The great forests were a standing menace to progress in agriculture; they must be destroyed and give place to the cultivated fields, and in some instances the land was worn otjt before the stumps had all disappeared from it. The settler did not use dynamite in removing stumps but plowed around them. The farm boy knew what it meant to be struck on the shins with a root cut off by the plow. It required skill to manipulate a plow and team, and usually the father had to break the new ground himself. There was an era of leasing and clearing and making farms, and log rollings and the whisky jug were part of the transformation. The dinner was cooked before the fire on the hearth, and prior to 1850 there were few cookstoves in the rural homes; the grandmothers prepared delicacies unknown today.

While the settler cut off the forest as cumbering the ground, the careful husbandman of today resorts to tree surgery and reforestation, processes unknown to the generation that went into the forest with the ax. Tree surgery is recognized as the lasting way to preserve rare trees, and the trees demolished by storm are restored. A man-made menace is an improperly trimmed tree, and that is an art unknown to those who came into the primitive forest. It is worse than the nature-made danger in the shape of a tall forest which catches all of the winds; the trees untrimmed have more resistance.

With reference to the advance of civilization in Clark County some .one writes : "Unfold the canvas and look upon the changing panoramic scene. One sees a wild of fine timber and a swift flowing stream. The Indian settles; the nobler game flees away, and yet deer and wolf abound; then the settler comes and raises his log cabin, the fields are cleared and tilled. Look again and you note the growth of a beautiful and thriving city, and such is Springfield. When nature and human skill combine they produce the mid-day glories of the later civilization."

While native timber was once used in building, with the passing of the years changes are noted. When the primitive supply was exhausted, there was demand for white pine and hemlock and the forests of Michigan furnished the supply, but dealers must range farther and wider for lumber today ; yellow and white pine from California are now being used by local builders. While walnut was once used so extensively, it has vanished with the passing years. Beside timber from the western coast, the Springfield market handles lumber from Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. What once went up in smoke on the Clark County clearings would amount to a snug fortune today.

In the reminiscences of S. S. Miller is the story of how a charcoal pit was filled and burned, and otherwise it is a forgotten industry. He says the logs were placed on dry brush, and covered with green limbs to prevent the earth from falling between them ; a hole was left at one end for firing and dry wood was used there. The settler had a shed near the coal pit with straw for his bed, and one would sleep while another watched the fire which had to be kept at uniform heat in order to properly char the logs. Sometimes spits of fire would come through the dirt covering the pit, and it was necessary to smother it with more dirt; there was busy work at times for the man who burned a pit of charcoal. There came a time when there was not such prodigal waste of timber in burning charcoal, and four-foot wood was stood on end with tapering courses above the bottom round, and the pile was covered with dirt, smoldering the blaze in order to char it. The coal pit described by Mr. Miller was burned in 1837 on land later owned by the Keifers and once the home of Gen. J. Warren Keif er on Mad River. It was then a virgin forest except one-half acre that was occupied by a cabin.

This cabin had been occupied by a shoemaker named Fair, and a leather latch string hung out of his door. When civilization was approaching too near him, and he became tired of such cramped quarters - a coal pit so near him, he went west - that word then meaning to Indiana. He had several grownup sons and wanted to better conditions for himself and family. When his household goods were packed into the wagon drawn by tw6 small horses, the dog tied underneath the wagon and the cow to the hind axle, Mr. Fair was unable to fasten an arm chair to the end of the load with a bed cord, so that it would ride over the feed trough, and when a drizzling rain began a neighbor offered him a Spanish dollar

When the Fairs left this cabin by the coal pit the Widow Icenbarger, who sold homemade ginger bread and beer in Springfield, sent some of her children there - six of whom were boys, and they secured work among the farmers. They chopped off much of the timber, and in corn planting, husking and harvest they were useful in the community. In time the cabin was too small for them, and they went to Stillwater in Miami County. As civilization advanced, there has ever been those who, like Simon Kenton, went into the new country again. While clearing was part of the process, deadening was an earlier stage. A deadening was a woeful scene. By girdling the trees with an ax in the fall, the leaves would not come again, and much of it was done to lessen the labor of clearing the land. It was urged by some that deadening the timber conserved soil fertility.

There were saw mills along Mad River, and some of the smaller streams, and poplar was cut into weather-boarding, ash into flooring, and walnut was used for inside finish and making cupboards. There were three-cornered walnut cupboards in many pioneer homes. Walnut was also used by carpenters in making coffins. Then, as now, all ages and conditions were represented in the passing throng to that bourne from which there are no returned travelers. Walnut was used for the inside finish of the Clark County Court House, and it was much admired. For many years its high price as well as scarcity has been prohibitive of its use by carpenters. Sugar maple was used by cabinetmakers for the posts and rails of bedsteads, beech was used for sheathing on buildings. While the large elms remained the longest^ they were the best for charcoal. The hickories and walnuts afforded nuts, and there was some reward for roaming in the forest. When the leaves were on the sky was hidden, and the varieties of the trees is one of the mysteries.

In an ordinary season the settlers began tapping sugar trees in February. It required cold nights, followed by sunshiny days to bring the sap into the trees. Elder stalks were procured from the fence corners and cleared spots and brought into the house where they were sawed into the length for sugar spiles - usually about ten inches. One side was whittled away and the pith removed from the elders. About two inches at one end was left circular, and the pith was pushed out of it. A threequarter inch auger was used in boring holes into the trees, and the end of the elder was whittled so as to fit into this hole, and through it the sap flowed into a receptacle for it.

Unless broken while inserting or removing them from the trees, these spiles were used one year after another, and it saved the trouble of making them so often. Sugar troughs were made from butternut trees, or poplar cut into three-foot lengths, and split and dug out with an ax. These troughs were smoothed with a foot adz, and were sometimes used as cradles. Some of the most prominent families used sugar troughs in which to cradle their children ; being half round they did not require the addition of rockers. In different camps there were different methods of handling the sugar water. The iron kettles used in heating the water for scalding hogs on butchering day, for heating the milk in which ren- net was used for coagulation in making cheese, in which lye was boiled in making soap, or in which water was heated on wash day - those iron kettles served the purpose again in the sugar camp. Settlers were accommodating, and sometimes the soap-making kettle was loaned to others in sugar-making time. Who has not heard the riddle :

A furnace was built in the sugar camp with a shelter over it, and usually it was necessary to overhaul it at sugar-making time. It was daubed with clay, and more mud must be mixed and added to it. Dry wood was sometimes stored under this shelter to be in readiness for boiling the sap another season. A series of kettles was placed on the furnace, and as the sugar water thickened from boiling it was dipped from one kettle to another, and fresh sap started in the end kettle. Usually the kettles graded smaller as the sap neared the consistency of molasses; it must be boiled longer before it is sugar.^ Those who date back to sugar-making days in Clark County also remember the wax-pulling parties in connection with it. Unless care was used, sugar water boiled over easily, and not only wasted the water and the labor, but put out the fire used in the process. Sometimes the careful housewife went to the sugar camp herself, thus averting such misfortune.

Men and boys knew long hours of service in sugar-making. A sled was used in drawing the sap from the trees to the furnace, and unless a spigot had been put into the barrel, there was heavy lifting in emptying the sugar water. It required a well-trained horse in drawing the sled, or there was waste in transit, the sap splashing from the barrels. A circular lid inside the barrel did much to save the water. Unless there was a spigot, buckets were used in emptying the barrels at the furnace, and fresh kettles were started frequently. Sometimes a barrel or immense hogshead was used for storage when the water was collected faster than it could be boiled in the kettles. Sap would run for a few hours, and then there would be no more sap until after a hard frost. There were no sugar camps east of Mad River in Clark County.

Sometimes the sugar-making process was finished in the camp, and sometimes the thickened sap was taken to the house and the boiling continued there, the kettle suspended from a crane in the fireplace. The housewife tested the finished product when molasses was desired by the way a spoonful poured into a cup of water would crackle, and when it was wanted for sugar it was cooked a little longer to insure granulation; the pioneer depended upon homemade sugar. According to the S. S. Miller reminiscence, it was necessary to conceal the location of the sugar. In his own home the sugar was stored in a barrel in the attic. In those days the use of tea and coffee was limited to Sunday or when there were visitors, and then sugar was placed on the table. Although it was dark, homemade sugar sweetened the dip made from milk or cream, and poured over the apple dumplings so common among the settlers.

gallon. One Springfield grocer laid in a supply of the syrup, being told that it would keep till harvest; the syrup fermented and the dealer "soured," the investment being a loss to him. Sometimes a maple tree standing alone where it was exposed to the sun, afforded the first flow of sap and the family had homemade molasses in advance of opening the sugar camp; the time came when supplies for operating the camp could be had in the stores, and then came the time when there were few sugar camps in Clark County. When dug-outs were used in which to catch the sap conveyed through elder spiles, it was necessary to balance the troughs to save the water; later metal spiles were on the market, and sugar buckets were stored from one year to another, and there were tricks in flavoring the homemade syrup. Maple molasses has been made with hickory bark flavor, and the epicure was unable to detect it.

It is said the sugar-making process was known to the Indians; they used the stone hatchet to make the opening into the trees, and conducted the sap through bark spouts to the bark troughs, where they dropped the heated stones in boiling the sap. While the crude methods of the Indians were improved upon by the settlers, the process was unchanged, and only a few years ago Ohio produced a million dollars worth annually of maple molasses and maple sugar ; the 1910 report showed that $5,000,- 000 worth of maple products were produced in the United States. In modern sugar camps the sap is boiled in evaporating pans and passes automatically along - sap running in at one end and the finished molasses running out at the other, but the flavor and fragrant odor have not been improved since sugar camps were the order of the day west of Mad River in Clark County. The expert Clark County sugar maker stirred the syrup until it granulated - sampling it frequently, and finally it found its way into barrels, only small quantities removed at a time, in the Delftware bowls of other years - but the swiftly passing years have changed the whole economic process and few today remember the sugar camps and the old fashioned wax pulling parties. Backward, turn backward, oh time in your flight.

As the country expanded a change came over the sugar-making industry, the cane juice of warmer climates being substituted for the maple sap, and John Foos and others cast their fortunes with the Louisiana cane growing industry ; they had the capital and the machinery to crush and refine it, making a light brown sugar shipped out in barrels to dealers, but because it dried out rapidly grocers had difficulty with the weighing and lost money handling it. When the Louisiana sugar was shipped to Springfield, the barrels were left standing on the sidewalks, and the bees were attracted to it.

Sorghum was once extensively raised by the farmers in German Township, and the molasses was on the Springfield market at 75 cents a gallon. The seeds of the cane made good chicken feed, and the blades were used as foddef; in the middle '60s there was a Leflfel sorghum mill, and one year when sorghum molasses retailed at $1 a gallon in Springfield, Joseph Leffel realized $200 from two acres of cane; he used horse power for crushing, and it is said there would be more cane grown if there were more mills for grinding it, and furnaces for boiling the juice; while sorghum has been used for sweetening, it is not a sub- stitute for sugar. The Leffel sorghum mill was south from Springfield near a spring, and since then John L. Zimmerman acquired the land and erected an ornamental summer house at the spring. Contemporary with the Leffel cane mill, the Rev. Abraham Myers who married into the Leffel family, operated a sorghum mill near Donnelsville, utilizing the water in Mad River for power ; he was a graduate of Wittenberg College. Later the Leffels became interested in turbine water wheels, and turned their attention to bigger things than the sorghum making industry.

While some of the early day sugar camps west of Mad River had as many as 500 trees, and the camps were opened every year, there is little sugar making in Clark County today. It is said that when timber of one variety has been removed, and the ground is left idle, it will become covered with other varieties ; the birds transport seeds, and in one way or another nature always clothes its nakedness. While sugar trees were numerous west from Mad River, east from the stream were the different kinds of oak and hickory - varieties suitable for buggy spokes, and other articles requiring tough wood, but aye, the woodman and his ax have rendered those ancient - conditions as a story that is told in the annals of Clark County today.

Just as in the spring the young man's fancy turns to love, the pioneer woman made the soap to be used in her household for the succeeding twelvemonth, and it was demonstrated again that "beauty draws smoke." While ash-hoppers were of various patterns, one was made from barrel staves or clapboards slanted from a dug-out or sugar trough used to catch the lye as it was leached through wood ashes; this hopper was square at the top, the staves being three or four feet in length, and at the end of the trough an iron kettle was usually partly sunk into the ground to catch the lye as it treacled through the ashes; in order to secure their full strength, the ashes were dampened several days before enough water was poured into the hopper to produce the flow of lye. The pioneer home soap-maker tested the strength of the lye by dropping a fresh egg into the kettle; if it floated, the lye was of the proper strength to cut the grease, and soap-making began in earnest.

The same iron kettle used on butchering day was again utilized, the soap being made at the same place near the wood pile where the housewife could find chips to add to the blaze, when she wanted the soap to boil a little stronger; the wind was always changing and blowing the smoke in her face - thus the saying, beauty draws smoke. The refuse from butchering, and the meat rinds saved from the kitchen, constituted the soap grease, and when the lye was strong it did not require long cooking to make soap ; a little salt added to the soap caused it to harden, and then it was fancy to be used on Sunday; usually it was soft soap, made for the home laundry. If the Indians knew the art of soap making, history is silent about it. They did not wear much clothing, and their ablutions were in the streams.

S. S. Miller writes: "Springfield once had a soap factory located below the rocks on the south side of Buck Creek, a few rods west of where Mill Run, the town's storm water stream poured over the rocks ; it was operated by Mark Smith. As wood ashes were easily procured, and grease from the nearby slaughter houses, he did a thriving business ; he made two kinds of soap, and the common soap was packed in boxes containing 100 bars which was wholesaled to grocers, and retailed at 5 cents a bar." Smith also made a scented soap used for the hands and face, and while he made a success, Springfield has no soap factory today. While soap is mentioned in the Bible, it is only in the Old Testament. When wood ashes were no longer possible, soap making became a lost art in Clark County. However, careful housewives have methods of using up soap grease, although out-of-door soap making and ash-hoppers went the way of the world along with the grandmothers who understood such things.

Why is Ohio called the Buckeye State? William M. Farrar says: "The usual and most commonly accepted solution is that it originates from the buckeye tree," but it is found in Kenutcky, Indiana and in West Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere; its natural locality appears to be in Ohio, and its native soil in the rich valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto and Miami rivers; in the early settlement of the state it was found in abundance, and because of the luxuriance of its foliage, the richly colored dyes of its fruit, and its ready adaptation to the wants and the conveniences of the pioneers, it was highly prized by them for many useful purposes. It was also well known to and much prized by the Indians, from whose rude language comes its name, Hetuck, meaning the eye of the buck because of the striking resemblance in color and shape between the brown nut and the eye of that animal, the peculiar spot upon the one corresponding to the iris in the other." Mr. Farrar adds: "In its application, however, we have reversed the term and called the person or thing to which it is applied a buckeye."

It seems that the all-inclusive word Buckeye means all things to everybody, and in his "Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of .Ohio," published in 1884, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, says: "Colonel Ebenezer Sproat who had been appointed sheriff, opened the first court ever held in Ohio, September 2, 1788, marching with his drawn sword and wand of office at the head of the judges, governors and secretary, made an imposing and august spectacle. Mr. Sproat was a large and dignified looking gentleman, and he was at once christened by the large crowd of Indian spectators as 'Hetuck/ or 'Big Buckeye.' From this, no doubt, originated the name of 'Buckeye/ now applied to the natives of Ohio, as the phrase was familiar to all the early settlers of Marietta." While the buckeye tree is not limited to Ohio soil, residents of other states have their own local designations, and Clark County residents, may so designate themselves with equal propriety as the inhabitants of any other Ohio county. Webster says: "A cant name for a native of Ohio."

Chapter Xi

While all industries are essential to civilization, in the countries where the methods of agriculture are crude there is not much progress along any line of development ; the stranger who rides along the well improved highways of Clark County today in the modern touring car, is hardly cognizant of the fact that only yesterday very diffefent conditions existed in this country.

In writing about some waste land several centuries ago, the "Shepherd of the Hills" rather accurately describes the territory ceded by the American Indians to the United States Government, through the direct instrumentality of Gen. Anthony Wayne; in a dissertation on wilderness conditions, barrenness and standing water, the Psalmist David caught the vision of the Old Northwest, when he penned the words: *'He turneth the wilderness into standing water. * * * And there He maketh the hungry to dwell that they may prepare a city for habitation; and sow the fields and plant vineyards which may yield fruit. * * * He blessed them also that they are multiplied greatly."

If there was a time when the Northwest Territory was submerged, as scientists assert, and huge blocks of ice traveled slowly down from the north, nature later shaking off the chill and allowing the heart of the earth to grow warm when the loosened ice ridges broke away, and the smitten waters flashed - well, Mad River seems to be the explanation.

While the theory of crop rotation is being studied today, the old idea of agriculture was to raise more corn and hogs in order to buy more land on which to raise more corn and hogs; it was an endless chain theory that caused some men to become land poor before methods of intensive farming had claimed attention. Progress and improvement are more rapid now than at any time in the history of the world, and it is undeniable that agriculture is keeping pace with other industries. It is the fundamental occupation and all others are dependent upon it. An old account says: "One of the peculiarities of the earlier times was the varied development, and the marked individuality among men; every little community had its distinguished men/' and that still holds good in Clark County agriculture.

Of the settlers along Mad River it seems that David Lowry who came into the community as a member of a surveying party, and secured a choice bit of land there, lingered longest; the Lowry farm is known to posterity. When Lowry came in 1796, the area now covered by Springfield was a plum tree and hazel brush thicket ; while there was a thick undergrowth, the woods were full of bears, deer, wild turkeys and other wild game valued by the Indians as well as the settlers, who were hunters from necessity. In one year Mr. Lowry and Jonathan Donnel, who were associated in wilderness history, killed seventeen bears and 1,000 deer, and their venture in shipping venison hams is elsewhere related. It is said that Mr. Lowry once shot a bear and two cubs in the space of three minutes. The above story is given to posterity by R. C. Woodward, who admits that many similar stories were told to him by Lowry and others.

Had Mr. Woodward, who published "Springfield Sketches" in 1852, written down more of those adventures - hunting excursions and swimming swollen streams, he would have done in a particular way for Clark County what Henry Howe did in a general way for the whole State of Ohio. While Mr. Lowry was not a squatter ahead of the survey, he secured what he wanted, and was among the first to leave his mark in the wilderness. The brawny settler had activities before him, and when he had forty acres of cleared land he had made great progress. In the '20s and '30s, now a full century ago, there were many improvements and still Clark County farmers "wagoned" to Cincinnati; they had a little home market, and there was a city of 15,000 inhabitants who must be fed. When the families lived two, three and four miles apart, there was little social intercourse - borrowed fire in extremities, and gradually they "grew up with the country." *

In explaining boundaries and farms, it is said the settlers secured what they wanted and in the shape they wanted it, and later the surveyors allowed them to maintain their possessions, surveying around them and officials find the original surveys confusing. Isaac Newton Seever who since 1876 has been a surveyor in Clark County, relates that the compass used by Symmes and later by Ludlow was finally owned by Thomas Kizer. The 1881 History says : "Col. Thomas Kizer, the veteran surveyor, has in his possession a compass made by Dean of Philadelphia; this instrument was owned and used by his father, David Kizer, who obtained it from Col. John Daugherty about 1813. Daugherty got it from Jonathan Donnel ; this relic is marked : I. Ludlow, 1791 ; Henry Donnel, 1794; J. Donnel, 1796, and John Daugherty, 1799. These marks are rudely scratched upon the cover of the instrument, and bear every evidence of being genuine. There is no doubt but this old compass was used in making the first surveys in this county, or that it is the identical instrument used by John Daugherty in laying off Demint's plat of Springfield, and by Jonathan Donnel on the survey of New Boston."

Cornerstone and witness trees are part of early history, and Mr. Seever is familiar with them through doing private as well as public surveying through many years. When asked about Devils Lanes, he only remembered one, and it was in Mad River Township; it did not exist many years. Two men did not agree, and each constructed his own line fence between them; they would not join each other in building it. At existing prices of fence building materials, most men would settle their differences rather than build separate fences. This lane was in the locality known as Kill-digging, although Mr. Seever did not know the origin of the term ; it was well timbered country and the timber in Kill-digging once almost skirted Springfield.

The bulk of the Snyder farm property which has benefited Springfield and Clark County in so many ways, was acquired in 1827 when land was rated at $1.25 an acre; the heirs to the property held it until Springfield advanced, and land values advanced with it, and those who

"came early and got plenty," became the wealthy citizens. "While they endured the privations with which they were encompassed with heroic fortitudes, and a patience which exalted them, those old time heroes and heroines could get the necessaries of life at a good deal less cost than their favored children and grandchildren, and there was any quantity of land available at government price, $1.25 an acre, and excellent swamp land all but the swamp at 25 cents an acre with twelve months' time and county warrants at par," but time has worked changes - not much swamp land in Clark County.

While a recent Springfield advertisement reads: A country home plus cows, pigs, poultry, fruits and vegetables equals solid contentment and an assured good living, regardless of employment conditions in the city, there are Clark County farmers who feel differently about it. The ad says: Many former Springfield residents are now living in the country and enjoying the use of fresh milk, cream, eggs, poultry, pork, lard, vegetables, fruits, etc. Some of them work in the city when employment is to be had, while others devote their time to producing a surplus to sell; reports from all over America signify a 1'back to the farm" movement. Why not join the crowd, and be in the country when the joyous spring invites the flowers and the buds for your entertainment?

but farm folk know there is more connected with rural activities than just awaiting the developing processes of nature. Statistics show that of the 2,487 farms in Clark County, 1,534 of them are operated by families who own and live on them, leaving a balance of 953 farms to be operated by tenants, although an increase in the percentage of rented farms in Ohio within the twentieth century is noted by the census reports. In 1900, tenants occupied 27.4 per cent of the farm lands in the state, while in 1920 it was 29.5, showing an increase of 2.1 per cent of tenant farmers in twenty years, but the percentage would be greater in Clark County; when the man operating the farm owns it, he is interested in its development, as well as in the roads and schools surrounding it.

Some of the wealthiest farmers in Clark County began on rented land, when they were unable to buy it ; some who bought land since the era of inflated values are not so fortunate as those who invested before the World war, and had the advance in the value of farm products in paying for it. As their flocks increased and their herds multiplied, they met their payments, while those who paid the higher prices have had to meet their land payments with declining markets. Corn, beef and pork were ^profitable products, and Clark County farmers had their part in feeding the world. Diversified farming is recognized as a necessity, and there is income from different sources and at different times. It is said that on some farms the mistake has been made of too much expenditure in elegant homes, and when the farm goes to a tenant he seldom requires so much shelter.