BELMONT COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: Part 6 (pub 1880) *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Submitter: Tina Hursh Email: ribbit@clubnet.isl.net Date: 26 March 2003 *********************************************************************** >From the The Ohio Biographies Project http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~usbios/Ohio/mnpg.html a part of The U.S. Biographies Project http://members.tripod.com/~debmurray/usbios/usbiog.html Transcribed by Deb Murray. --------------- "Historic Collections of Ohio" by Henry Howe. TRAVELLING NOTES. Decoration Day. - Bellaire has much to interest me. Saturday, May 29th, dawned in beauty. It was Decoration Day, and the people turned out in force; the veterans of the Grand Army, the children, boys and girls, in white, with music, wound up in long procession Cemetery hill, overlooking the city, hearing flags and flowers. Beautiful is young life, and never may there be wanting everywhere memorial days of some sort to feed the fires of patriotism in youthful hearts. Talk with a Veteran Riverman. - Capt. John Fink in his youthful days arose bright and early. He was smart, and so he got to Bellaire long before the town; indeed, officiated at its birth. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. Mike Fink, the last and most famous of the now long extinct race of Ohio and Mississippi river boatmen, was a relative, and he knew Mike - knew him as a boy knows a man. "When I was a lad," he told me, "about ten years of age, our family lived four miles above Wheeling, on the river. Mike laid up his boat near us, though he generally had two boats. This was his last trip, and he went away to the farther West; the country here was getting too civilized, and he was disgusted. This was about 1815. Mike Fink. - In the management of his business Mike was a rigid disciplinarian; woe to the man who shirked. He always had his woman along with him, and would allow no other man to converse with her. She was sometimes a subject for his wonderful skill in marksmanship with the rifle. He would compel her to hold on the top of her head a tin cup filled with whiskey, when he would put a bullet through it. Another of his feats was to make her hold it between her knees, as in a vice, and then shoot." Captain Fink's Own History - is a subject more pleasant for contemplation. He is a thoroughly manly man, and now,at eighty-one years of age, in the full vigor of intellect. >From ten to twelve years of age he was at work on his uncle's farm, four miles above Wheeling from twelve to fifteen on the Wheeling ferry. Next he was cook on a keel-boat, where he learned to "push." He followed "pushing" for three years, first at thirty-seven and a half cents a day and then fifty cents. In 1824 he married, his entire fortune just seventy-five cents. A few days after he tried to get a calico dress for his wife on credit but failed. The Early Coal-Trade on the River. - About the year 1830, then twenty-five years of age, his credit having improved, Mr. Fink bought on time a piece of land on McMahon's creek, Bellaire and began mining. He built a flat-boat, and took a load of coal to Maysville, which netted him $200. This, he tells me, was the first load of coal ever floated any distance on the Ohio. After a little he began a coal-trade with New Orleans. He carted it to the river bank, put it on board of flat-boats, and floated it down to New Orleans, a distance of 2,100 miles. On a good stage of water they went down in about thirty days; once, on a flood, in nineteen days; half the time did not dare to land. He sold it to the sugar refineries, and it was very useful, for with wood alone they were unable to keep up the regular heat, so necessary for good sugar. They discharged a cargo by carrying it up on their shoulders in barrels. The way was to knock the hoops of a flour-barrel together at the ends to strengthen it, bore two holes through the top, through which a piece of rope was put, and tied as a bale; through this was thrust a pole, when two men canied it on their shoulders up the river bank; sometimes the river was higher than the town, then they descended. Each barrel held two and three-quarter bushels; weight, 220 pounds. The sugar people paid him $1.50 a barrel. During a term of years he sold several hundred thousand bushels. In 1833 he went into the steamboat business as captain and owner, and, amassing a fortune, in 1864, at the age of fifty-nine, he retired from active business. The Heatheringtons. - In his early mining operations here Capt. Fink found excellent help in the Heatheringtons, a family of English miners. They consisted of the father, John, and his four boys, Jacob, John, Jr., Ralph, Edward, and a John More. They worked in a coal-bank, in the hill south of McMahon's creek. They would get to work about daybreak, bring their coal to the mouth of the pit on wheelbarrows, empty their barrels over a board screen, and down it would go sliding to a lower level with a tremendous rattling noise, which travelled over the corn-fields and resounded among the hills around. At that time Bellaire was only a farming spot, and the farmers complained that the noise disturbed their morning sleep. After a while they became reconciled to this "eye-opener," for it brought money and business to the place, and the miners had to be fed - had bouncing appetites. The family were also musical; and evenings, after their days of toil, they brought out their musical instruments - fife, drum, clarionet, triangle, etc.- and the old man, John, and his four boys, Jake, John, Jr., Ralph, Ed., and John More gave the valley folks the best they had; so if the eye-openers had been a little hard on them, the night-caps made full compensation. Jacob Heatherington. - When I entered the lower end of Bellaire, in the cars along the river valley, I was struck by the grand appearance of a mansion under the hill, with a row of poplar trees before it. This, with the huge glass-houses with their big cupolas, and other industrial establishments of the place, the noble bridge across the Ohio, and the grandeur of the hill and river scenery, made an enduring impression. The owner of this palatial residence is Jacob, or, as he is commonly called, Jake Heatherington, one of the sons of the John of whom I have spoken. He is now an old and highly respected man of seventy-three years of age and with a large estate, but he cannot read nor write. The Miner and his Mule Partner. - He was born in England in 1814; at seven years of age was put to work down 2,400 feet deep in a coal-mine, and worked sixteen and eighteen hours a day; never went to school a day in his life. In 1837, when he was twenty-three years of age he rented a coal-bank from Capt. Fink, and bought eight acres of land on credit. This was his foundation, and it was solid, was indeed "the everlasting hills." At first he wheeled out his coal on a wheelbarrow; his business grew, and he took in a partner. The firm became known as Jake Heatherington and his mule Jack. For years he mined his own coal, and drove his faithful, silent, yet active partner, a little fellow, only about three feet and a half high. A strong affection grew up between them - a mule and a man - and so great was it that Jack rebelled when any one else attempted to drive him. From a few bushels per day the business increased to thousands, and Jake's coal fed the furnaces of scores of steamers. His possessions enlarged in various ways; his eight acres increased to over 800, he owned some thirty dwellings, shares in glass-works, and possessed steam boats. He could never read the names of his own boats as he saw them pass along the beautiful river sixty rods from his door ; but he didn't care, for he knew them by sight, and no more required their names on their sides for his use than he wanted painted on the side of his beloved mule, in staring letters, the word JACK! The House that Jack Built. - In 1870 he built his imposing residence, at a cost, it is said, of $35,000, and dedicated it to the memory of Jack. He always says it is "The House that Jack Built." His good fortune he ascribes to Jack but for his faithful services he never could have raised it. Over the doorway is a noble arch, the keystone of which is the projecting head of a mule, a likeness of Jack. When the house was built Jack was twenty-eight years old, retired from active business, sleek and fat; he did nothing but now and then cut off a few coupons. Jake Shows Jack his New House. - Then came the eventful day of his life. Jake brought him out from his retirement to show him the grand mansion he owed to him. In the presence of the assembled neighbors Jake led Jack up the steps under the splendid arch-way, and he followed him through the house, while he talked to him in the most loving and grateful way and showed him everything; all of which Jack fully understood as a mule understands a man. Jack lived many years after this in "otium cum dignitate." To be born is to eventually die; it is a mere question of time; with mules there is no exception. Then came Jack's last sickness; the most tender nursing was of no avail. The grief of Jake at Jack's demise was indescribable. To this day he goes with visitors, and points out his grave under an apple tree near his house, and talks of the virtues of the departed. His age was forty years and ten days; his appearance venerable, for time had whitened his entire body like unto snow. My Visit to Jake. - It was in the twilight of a Sunday evening that I called upon Jake Heatherington. I passed under the poplars and across the lawn to the mansion. The venerable man and his wife were seated, good Christian people as they are, on the doorstep, enjoying the close of the holy day as it rested in silence over the lovely hill-crowned valley. When I handed him my card, I happened to look up and saw the mule looking down, as if watching me. In a moment the old gentleman handed it back, saying: "You will please read it; I am not much of a scholar.'' ''No matter,'' I replied; ''talking was done before printing; I will talk." I passed an hour there, during which he gave me some of the incidents of his early life, as related. He is rather a small man, but fresh-looking and compactly built; just after the war he fell in a coal-boat and broke his hip, from which he still suffers. Although an unlettered man, he is of the quality that poets are made. While one’s risibilities are affected by the singular original demonstration of his regard for a brute, the tenderness of the sentiment touches the finer chords. The highest, the celestial truths are felt through the poetic sense; and true worship is that which demonstrates a yearning desire for the happiness; of even the humblest of God's creatures. "Love me, love my dog," was a thought in Paradise before it was a proverb on earth. BARNESVILLE, ninety-seven miles east of Columbus, and twenty miles west of the Ohio river, is on the O. C. R. R., and famous for its culture of strawberries and raspberries. Newspapers: Enterprise, Independent, George McCelland, publisher; Republican, Republican, Hanlon Bros. & Co., publishers. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Christian, 1 African Methodist Episcopal, and 1 Friends. Banks: First Natioual, Asa Garretson, president, G.E. Bradfield, cashier; People's National, J. S. Ely, president, A. E. Dent, cashier. Large Manufactures. - Barnesville Glass Company, 131 hands; Watt Mining Car-Wheel Company, 42; George Atkinson, woollen-mill, 13; Heed Bros., cigars, 90; George E. Hunt, tailor, 18; Hanlon Bros., printing, 17. - State Report 1887; Population in 1880, 2,435. School census in 1886, 823; Henry L. Peck, superintendent.