BELMONT COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: Part 7: Barnesville & Vicinity (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. The distinguishing feature of Barnesville lies in the quantity and quality of it’s strawberry production. Twenty-five years ago very few strawberries were grown in this community. In the spring of 1860 the late William Smith introduced, and with C. G. Smith, John Scoles, and a few others, cultivated in limited quailtities for the home market the Wilson Albany Seedling. The demand was small at first, but steadily increased, until shipments are now 1,000 bushels per day, of which 800 go to Chicago, the balance divided among a number of points East and West; and the fame of the Barnesville strawberry has extended not only over the entire country but into foreign countries, even "so far as Russia." The shipping trade opened about 1870; first to Columbus and Wheeling, and later to other near points. In 1880 James Edgerton tried the experiment of shipping to Chicago, but not until two years later did that trade assume large proportions. There are about 275 acres devoted to strawberry culture, the average yield about ninety-four bushels per acre. The Sharpless, the favorite variety, is a large, sightly fruit, well colored, fine flavored, and will stand transportation to distant cities. Other popular berries are the Cumberland, Charles Downing, Wilson, Crescent, and Jaconda; but the Barnesville growers say, "The Sharpless is our pride." The care, commendable rivalry, and pride of the Barnesville growers, which, with a soil and climate specially adapted to the growth of a large, hardy berry, has developed this great industry. The first settlement of Warren, the township in which Barnesville is situated, was made in 1800, the last year of the last century. The first settlers were George Shannon (the father of Gov. Shannon), John Grier, and John Dougherty; soon others followed. The great body of the pioneers were nearly all Quakers from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In 1804 they built a log meetinghouse, and a woman, Ruth Boswell, preached there the first sermon ever delivered in the township. This spot where the Stillwater church now stands has been occupied by the Friends from that day to this, and over 7,000 meetings for worship have been held there; and the entire 7,000, we venture to say, breathed nothing but "Peace on earth and good-will to man." WILLIAM WINDOM, who was Secretary of the Treasury under Garfield, and has twice represented Minnesota in the United States Senate, is a native of this county, where he was born May 10, 1827. Antiquities. - In the vicinity of Barnesville are some extraordinary natural and artificial curiosities. About two miles south of the town, on the summit of a hill on the old Riggs farm, is a stone called "Goblet Rock" from its general resemblance to a goblet. Its average height is nine feet, circumference at base fifteen feet nine inches, mid circumference eighteen feet, and top circumference thirty-one feet four inches. The whole stone can be shaken into a sensible tremble by one standing on the top. A few miles west of Barnesville are two ancient works, on the lands of Jesse Jarvis and James Nuzzum. On that of the latter is one of the largest of mounds, it being about 1,800 feet in circumference and 90 feet in height. Among the most interesting relics of the mound-building race are the "Barnesville track rocks" on the sand rock of the coal measure located on the lands of Robert G. Price. They were discovered in 1856 by a son of Mr. Price. The tracks are those of birds', animals' and human feet, and other figures, as shellfish, serpents, earthworm's, circles, stars, etc.; these indentations vary from two to over twenty inches in length. The depths of the impressions are from three-fourths of an inch to a scale hardly perceptible. These are evidently the work of a mound race sculptor. The track rocks are described and pictorially shown in the U.S. Centennial Commission Report for Ohio. MARTIN'S FERRY is on the west bank of the Ohio river opposite Wheeling, W. Va. The site of the city is a broad river bottom over two miles in length and extending westward to the foot-hills a distance of a mile and a half at the widest point. The adjacent hills rise gradually and afford many beautiful building sites overlooking the river, giving a view not excelled at any point on the Ohio. The city is underlaid with an inexhaustible supply of coal. A bountiful supply of building stone and limestone is found within the corporation limits, and natural gas has been struck in ample quantities for the town's needs. The first settlement was made and called Norristown in 1785, but, upon complaint of the Indians that the whites were encroaching on their hunting-grounds, the settlers were dispossessed and driven to the other side of the river by Col. Harmer, acting under the orders of the United States government. In 1788 the ground upon which the town is built was granted by patent to Absalom Martin, and in 1795 he laid out a town and called it Jefferson. But, having failed in his efforts to have it made the county-seat, Mr. Martin purchased such town lots as had been already sold and vacated the town, supposing a town could never exist so near Wheeling. In 1835 Ebenezer Martin laid out and platted the town of Martinsville, but afterwards changed the name to Martin's Ferry, there being another town in the State named Martinsville. As no point on the Ohio presented better facilities for manufacturing, it grew and prospered and in 1865 was incorporated as a town. Martin's Ferry is on the line of the P. C. & St. L. R. R. Newspapers: Ohio Valley News, Independent, James H. Drennen, editor and publisher; Church Herald, religious, Rev. Earl D. Holtz, editor and publisher. Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 United Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Lutheran, I Catholic, 2 Methodist Episcopal, 1 African Methodist, 1 Episcopal. Banks: Commercial, J. A. Gray, president, Geo. H. Smith, cashier; Exchange, John Armstrong, president, W. R. Ratcliff, cashier. Manufactures and Employees. - Novelty Glass Mould Works, 9 hands; Elson Glass Works, tableware, etc., 330; F. McCord & Bro., brick, 25; Laughlin Nail Co., 375; Martin's Ferry Stove Works, 27; Spruce, Baggs & Co., stoves, 26; Dithridge Flint Glass Works, tumblers, etc., 194; L. Spence, steam engines, etc., 25; Martin's Ferry Keg and Barrel Co., 65; Buckeye Glass Works, 200; Branch of Benwood Mills, pig iron, 55; J. Kerr & Sons and B. Exley & Co., doors, sash, etc.; Wm. Mann, machinery, 24. - State Report 1887. Population in 1880, 3,819. School census in 1886,1,813; Chas. R. Shreve, superintendent. The cultivation of grapes is an important and growing industry of Martin's Ferry, the warm valley and sunny eastern slopes west of the town being especially adapted to their perfection; not less than 350 acres are devoted to their cultivation. The grapes are made into wine by the Ohio Wine Co., which has recently erected a large building for this purpose. The dwellings at Martin's Ferry are mostly on a second plateau about 600 feet from the Ohio and 100 feet above it. The river hills on both sides rise to an altitude of about 600 feet, making the site of the town one of grandeur. On the West Virginia side the hills are very precipitous, leaving between them and the river bank but little more than sufficient space for a road and the line of the P. C. & St. L. Railroad. The upper plateau at Bellaire is a gravel and sand bed. The gravel is about eighty feet deep in places, cemented so strongly that the excavation for buildings is very expensive, being impervious to the pick and often from the porous nature of the soil blasting fails; the cost of excavating for the cellar of a building often exceeds the price of the lot. The west part of the upper plateau is depressed, and it is supposed was once the bed of the Ohio. The country back is very fertile and rich in coal, iron and limestone. Annexed is a view of the cottage at Martin's Ferry in which, March 1, 1837, was born WM. DEAN HOWELLS, who is considered "America's Leading Writer of Fiction." The structure was of brick and was destroyed to make way for the track of the Cleveland and Pittsburg railway. It was drawn at our desire from memory by the venerated father of the author, who built it and is now living in a pleasant old age at Jefferson, Ashtabula county. The Howells away back were of literary tastes, of Welsh stock and Quakers. When the boy was theee years of age the family removed to Butler county, where his father published the Hamilton Intelligencer, and William while a mere child learned to set type. >From thence they removed to Dayton, where the elder Howells purchased the Dayton Transcipt and changed it into a daily. His sons aided him in the type-setting, William often working until near midnight and then rising at four o'clock to distribute the paper. The enterprise illustrated industry agaist ill fate. After a two-years' strggle Mr. Howells one day announced to his sons the enterprise was a failure, whereupon they all went down to the Big Miami and took a good swim to freshen up for another tug with fate. In 1851, when fourteen years of age, he got a position as compositor on the Ohio State Journal at Columbus. His pay was four dollars per week, which was the first money he earned and received as his own. This he turned into the uses of the family to help fight the wolf from the door. While there, conjointly with a brother compositor, John J. Piatt, he put forth a volume of poetry. Later he contributed poems to the Atlantic Monthly, was a newspaper correspondent, wrote a campaign life of Lincoln: from 1861 to 1864 was consul at Venice; from 1866 to 1872 was assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and then until 1881 editor-in-chief. Mr. Howells works in a field which is pre-eminently his own - that of social life. He has a happy home, wife and children in Beacon St., Boston, where he devotes his mornings to writing, usually completing at a sitting a trifle more than what would make one-and-a-half pages as this in which our printer sets these lines - say 1500 words a day. Flushing and Morristown are villages, containing each from sixty to eighty dwellings, in this county.