Fountain County IN Archives History - Books .....Population, Resources, Etc. 1881 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 23, 2006, 11:10 pm Book Title: History Of Fountain County POPULATION, RESOURCES. ETC. The last census gives Fountain county a population of 21,503, distributed as follows: Jackson township. 1,272 Cain " 1,806 Troy " 3,986 Shawnee " 1,105 Van Buren " 2,111 Richland " 2,592 Fulton township, 1,128 Davis " 798 Logan " 2,609 Wabash " 2,266 Mill Creek " 1,830 The census of 1870 gave to Fountain county a population of 15,441. The county has 250,120 acres of land within her boundaries, very little of which is waste. Rich in timber, in coal, in water and productive lands, Fountain county offers a healthy climate, with cheap food, clothing and fuel, and a good market, to the farmer, the mechanic, the merchant and the manufacturer. In 1879 the average wheat yield per acre in the county was 22 1/2 bushels; the average corn yield was 28 1/2 bushels; the average oats yield was 25 1/2 bushels. In wheat yield the county ranked as the sixth in the state. In 1878 the assessor's returns gave the county 6,763 horses, 1,260 mules, 14,670 cattle, 15,364 sheep and 31,208 hogs. The county ranked as the thirty-second in the number of horses owned; as the tenth in the number of mules, the twenty-third in the number of cattle, the fourteenth in the number of sheep and the twenty-ninth in the number of hogs owned. In the same year there was grown in the county 474,114 bushels of wheat from 29,374 acres; 1,424,888 bushels of corn from 46,878 acres, and 141,091 bushels of oats from 6,294 acres. The rank of the county in this year was: wheat acreage, twenty-eighth; in wheat yield, nineteenth; in corn acreage, nineteenth; in corn yield, sixteenth; in oats acreage, forty-fifth; in oats yield, thirty-third. The aggregate yield of potatoes for 1878 was 25,055 bushels; of fruits 21,975 bushels; and there was produced in the county, in the same year, 585,000 pounds of bacon, 227,670 pounds of bulk pork, and 161,869 pounds of lard. There was grown in 1878, by the farmers of Fountain county, 46,410 pounds of wool, 3,237 pounds of tobacco; and there was manufactured 2,595 pounds of maple sugar, 7,061 gallons of cider, 5,866 gallons of vinegar, 758 gallons of wine, 8,270 gallons of sorghum molasses, and 5,166 gallons of maple molasses. In 1879 the county had 20,911 acres of wheat and a yield of 469,163 bushels; 33,979 acres of corn and a yield of 967,770 bushels; 3,648 acres of oats and a yield of 92,841 bushels; 407 acres of rye and a yield of 7,490 bushels; and 735 acres of potatoes yielding 28,766 bushels. In the same year there were in the county 8,623 acres of meadow land, producing 11,979 tons of hay and 168 bushels of seed; 3,500 acres of clover, and 26,229 acres of pasture. The people of the county own 136 pianos, 205 melodeons and organs, and 1,772 sewing machines. There are only fifteen out of ninety counties that own more pianos than Fountain; twenty-two out of eighty-nine that own more organs and melodeons, and eighteen out of ninety that use more sewing machines. The rank of the county in 1879 was: wheat acreage, thirty-third; wheat yield, twenty-first; corn acreage, twenty-third; corn yield, thirty-third; oats acreage, sixty-second; oats yield, fifty-fonrth; rye acreage, thirtieth; rye yield, twenty-fifth; potato acreage, thirty-ninth; potato yield, fiftieth. The county has 3,688 real estate holders, and in this respect ranks very high among the counties of the state. There are 637 miles of wagon roads in the county, upon which there is annually expended $16,956. The county owns fourteen bridges, erected at a cost of $49,000. The estimated cost of the present wagon roads of the county is $254,800. There are fifty-one miles of railroad in the county, the estimated cost of construction of which is $2,780,585. The estimated amount of money invested in roads of all kinds, in school-houses, churches, public buildings, bridges, etc., including permanent school fund, is $3,035,385. In point of population Fountain county ranks as the forty-fifth county in the state; in the number of acres of land within her boundaries she is the forty-sixth; in the value of lands, the twentieth; and in the value of personal property, the fiftieth county in the state. There are seventy-four counties in the state that expend more money annually in payment of jurors and court bailiffs than Fountain county. The foregoing statistics are taken from the excellent report of Hon. John Collett, chief of the bureau of statistics for Indiana. The figures are mostly taken from assessors' returns and are consequently imperfect. When our people come to know the immense value of correct statistical information they will cooperate with the assessors and other officers in having correct and full reports given. The following statement shows the amount of county revenue collected for the periods indicated: The revenues of the county collected for county purposes in each rear of the first ten vears after its organization are given in the following table: For the period ending March 1827 $79 34 3/4 " " " 1827 [sic] 632 78 " " January 1829 1,069 34 " " " 1830 1,169 66 " " " 1831 1,270 24 " " " 1832 1,775 71 " " " 1833 2,321 63 " " " 1834 1,686 61 " " " 1835 1,817 06 " " " 1836 1,854 87 And the following table gives the aggregate revenue collected for county purposes in each period of ten years since 1837: 1837 to 1846 inclusive $34,929 51 1847 to 1856 " 66,099 65 1857 to 1866 " 259,046 39 1867 to 1876 " 526,973 04 For the remaining live years—1877 to 1880 inclusive—the total revenue collected for county purposes was $272,797.21. The greatest amount of collections for any one year was in 1876, when the sum was $106,341.34. In 1874 the collections were $45,207.27, and from this they rose in 1875 to $99,481.28. In the second period of ten years the collections began with $4,487.36 in 1847 and ended with $11,536.34 in 1856; in the third period the collections began with $12,855.28 in 1857 and ended with $28,598.37 in 1866; while the fourth period began with $27,654.01 in 1867 and ended with $106,341.34 in 1876. The last period of five years begins with $95,044.66 in 1877 and ends with $39,068.63 in 1880. Accurate information as to the coal product of the county has not been obtained, but it is estimated that 300,000 tons of coal are annually mined in the neighborhood of Snoddy's mills, and that the pay-roll of the several companies will reach very nearly an average of $20,000 per month. This product will be greatly increased in the course of two or three years by the opening of new mines and the building of new lines of road for the transportation of the coal. For a great many years Fountain county people were almost wholly dependent upon the Wabash and Erie canal for transportation, but with the building of railroads the canal began to go down and finally was entirely abandoned as a line for transportation, and at this time a line of railway is being constructed upon its tow-path from Attica southward. The completion of the canal was followed by what was known as the Attica war, in which the citizens of Covington and Attica engaged, over the question of opening the lock at Attica and letting the water into the level below, which reached to Covington. This event was important enough, and the consequences following it serious enough, to justify an extended account; and this would be given but for the fact that it has been undertaken by the gentleman who is writing the history of Logan township. With its present railroad facilities, and those which it will have when the Chicago and Block Coal railway and the Attica, Covington and Southern railway, each reaching from the northern to the southern extremity of the county, are completed, and the proposed extension of the Lake Erie and Western railway to St. Louis is made, and the Frankfort and State Line narrow-gauge railway is built, Fountain county will be as favorably situated as any county in the state, and will have as many inducements to offer to enterprise and capital as can be found anywhere. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF FOUNTAIN COUNTY, TOGETHER WITH HISTORIC NOTES ON THE WABASH VALLEY, GLEANED FROM EARLY AUTHORS, OLD MAPS AND MANUSCRIPTS PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE, AND OTHER AUTHENTIC, THOUGH, FOR THE MOST PART, OUT-OF-THE-WAY SOURCES. BY H. W. BECKWITH, OF THE DANVILLE BAR; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES OF WISCONSIN AND CHICAGO. WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS. CHICAGO: H. H. HILL AND N. IDDINGS, PUBLISHERS. 1881. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/fountain/history/1881/historyo/populati61nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/infiles/ File size: 9.8 Kb