OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 240 Today's Topics: #1 Allen County History [Velva M Bruce ] #2 PIKE COUNTY - PART 4 [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] #3 EDWARD N. DIETRICH - PIKE COUNTY [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] ------------------------------ X-Message: #1 Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 21:54:25 -0400 From: Velva M Bruce Subject: Allen County History Hi In the last month of so, you've printed Allen County history, especially when Christopher Stark Wood plotted out the city of Lima, Ohio. Is there anyway I can find or get this information again? Thanks! Sincerely, Velva ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 22:18:54, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: PIKE COUNTY - PART 4 HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898 RECOLLECTIONS OF HON. JAMES EMMITT In 1886 the Chillicothe Leader published a series of valuable and interesting articles on the pioneer history of Pike county and the surrounding region. These articles were largely the recollections of the Hon. James Emmitt, whose father settled in Pike county when all about was a wilderness. James Emmitt, then a small boy, developed with the country, and his career is largely identified with the history of the Scioto Valley. We quote the following from this series of articles. WHY PIONEERS SETTLED IN THE HILLS. -It is often cause for wonderment to people now-a-days why the pioneers of the Scioto Valley, as a rule, settled in the hills, some distances away from the river, instead of in the rich bottoms, which are now our most prized lands, said Mr. Emmitt. But if they had seen this country about here as it was when I first saw it, they would understand why the first settlers took to the high ground. Vegetation in the bottoms, in those days, was absolutely rank. Sycamore, black walnut, and hackberry trees grew abundantly and to splendid proportions, and the vines of the wild grape clambered up in dense and tangled mass to their very tops, interlacing their branches, and often uniting many trees in a common bond, of clinging vines. The growth of weeds and underbrush was wonderfully dense, and when the floods would come and cover the bottoms, several inches of water would remain in those brakes of weeds for months after it had receded from less densely overgrown ground. As a matter of fact, the water would stand almost the year around, in lagoons, over a large portion of the bottoms, converting them into huge marshes, and causing them to closely resemble much of the swamp land now so abundant in the South. POISON BREEDING LAND. -The bottoms, under the conditions that then existed, were nothing more than immense tracts of poison breeding land, marshy in nature, and wholly unfit for the agreeable habitation of man. The atmosphere of the bottoms was fairly reeking with malaria, and it was simply impossible to live in the low lands without suffering constantly with fever and ague. And the ague of those far-off days was of an entirely different type from that with which we now have acquaintance. It took on a form, at times, almost as malignant as yellow fever. When a man was seized with the "shaking ague," as it manifested itself in 1818-20, he imagined that a score of friends were indulging in a fierce warfare over the dismemberment of his poor person. PHYSICAL SUFFERING. -Every member, every nerve, every fibre of his wretched body was on the rack, and the sufferer thought that surely something must give way and permit his being shaken into bits. Oh, what torture it was! After the terrible quaking ceased then came the racking, burning fever, that scorched the blood, parched the flesh, and made one pray for death. Torture more absolute and prostrating could not well be conceived of. And when it is remembered that no one who dared brave the dangers of the bottoms was exempt from ague, in some of its many distressing forms, during the entire spring and summer seasons, and often year in and out, it is not surprising that early settlers shunned what was to them a plague-stricken district. The consequences was, that the hill country bordering the bottoms was first settled up, and the bottom lands were gradually conquered by working into them from their outer boundaries and clearing away timber, vines, underbrush, debris and weeds. When land was cleared of timber, the sun speedily converted it into workable condition. Fever and ague grew less prevalent as the land was cleared up. FLOODS ENRICH THE LAND. -Nothing could be richer than these bottom lands when first turned up by the pioneer's plow. Before the timber was cleared away, as has been said, there was so much underbrush and debris -logs and limbs and all forms of flotsam and jesam -covering the lands adjacent to the river, that a flood could not quickly recede, having so many impediments. As a consequence, at every rise in the river, the water was held on the bottoms until they had become enriched by a heavy deposit of the soil carried down from the hill-tops. There is a point here worthy of consideration. Our bottoms are now almost entirely cleared of timber, and, as a result, they yearly receive less benefit from the floods that weep over them. They are, in many instances, impoverished, instead of being enriched by the high water, which now flows over them with a strong current, and carries away tons of the finest soil. BLACKSMITH SHOP IN A TREE. -Some idea of the size of the sycamores that were then so abundant in the bottoms may be had when I tell you that the trunk of one of these trees, not far from Waverly, was used as a blacksmith shop. The hollow of the tree was so large that a man could stand in the middle of it, with a ten-foot rail balanced in his hand, and turn completely around, without either end of the rail striking the sides of the trunk. Both the hackberry and walnut trees made splendid rails. They were favorite woods for this purpose, as they split so nice and straight. DANGEROUS PLOWING. -A man took his life in his hands when he went out into the newly cleared field plow, in those days. Stumps and roots and rocks were but trifles compared with what they had to contend with. Mr. Emmitt says that he has followed the plow, when, at an average of twenty feet, a nest of bees, yellow-jackets, with a most terrible sting -would be turned up. Enraged at the destruction of their homes, these bees -and the air was full of them from morning until night -would keep up an incessant warfare on the plowmen and attack them at every exposed point. Their sufferings from the stinging of bees was really frightful. Their danger was even increased when harvest time came. When the reapers, wielding sickles, would enter a wheat field, they would find the ground fairly full of snakes -vipers and copperheads and black snakes -which not only threatened human life, but dealt great destruction among the cattle. SQUIRREL PLAGUE. -The invasion of squirrels was one of the most remarkable events of that period, and spread the widest devastation over the land. There had not been an unusual number of squirrels in the woods the year before, and only an average number were observable the year following. But the year of the "squirrel plague," the bushy-tailed pests came like an irresistible army of invasion, laying waste every foot of territory they invested. They spared nothing. They utterly annihilated the crops of every kind. Nothing comparable to this invasion can be pointed to in our later history, save the grasshopper plague, that a few years ago almost impoverished Kansas and Missouri. SQUIRRELS SET THE FASHIONS. -The squirrel invasion had an important effect upon the fashion of the day. Fur became so plentiful that everybody decorated their clothing with it, and every man in this section of country wore a Davy Crockett outfit. A jaunty coon-skin cap, with squirrel-fur trimming was was just the thing at that time; and if a young man was particularly anxious to do the swell act, he would decorate his fur-trimmed buckskin shirt with brightly polished pewter buttons, made by melting down a piece of pewter plate, or the handle of a water pitcher or tea-pot, and moulding it into the desired form. LOCUSTS AND CROWS. -Then later came the dreaded locusts to eat up the crops and blight the trees and make life unbearable with their hideous and never ceasing singing; and with all the other afflictions, the pioneer had to constantly battle with his smaller foes -the birds, crows, rabbits and squirrels. Mr. Emmitt says that the crows would follow the plow in such numbers, to gather the worms turned up to the surface, that the furrows would be absolutely black with them. After the corn was planted, two or more of the older children, and often men, would be compelled to watch the fields from morning until dark, to keep the cawing, black thieves from scratching up and eating the grain,a and destroying the sprouting corn. PHENOMENAL FOG. -About 1820 the pioneers were overawed by one of the strangest phenomenons of their experience. A great fog or smoke came up, about midsummer, so dense that one could not see a light ten feet away, or a man or a tree even a few feet distant. The sun appeared as a great fiery ball in the heavens, and had a rather fearful aspect. All-enveloping and dense as was this fog, it did not in anyway interfere with one's breathing. ------------------------------ X-Message: #3 Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 22:19:02, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: EDWARD N. DIETRICH - PIKE COUNTY HISTORY OF OHIO, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925 Volume IV, page 242 EDWARD N. DIETRICH. Scholastic an executive ability, professional enthusiasm and loyalty, and progressive policies are marking the administration of Edward Noble Dietrich in the office of superintendent of the public schools of Geneva, Ashtabula County. He assumed this position in the year 1922, and has done splendid service in coordinating the work and advancing the standard of the schools under his jurisdiction. This thriving little city has two well equipped school buildings, retains a corps of twenty-five teachers, and the enrollment of pupils totals 850. Mr. Dietrich was born at Piketon, Pike County, Ohio, June 4, 1887, and there his parents, Henry C. and Mary Janet (Craig) Dietrich, still maintain their home, the former having been born in Pike County, June 21, 1852, and the latter having been born on the 24th of November of the same year, at Bear Creek, Scioto County, this state. The subject of this review is a scion of the fourth generation of the Dietrich family in Ohio. His paternal grandfather, George Washington Dietrich, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1830, a son of Henry Dietrich, who likewise was a native of the old Keystone State, whence he brought his family to Ohio and became a pioneer farmer in Pike County, where he developed a large farm property and where he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives, as did also their son George W., whose death occurred on his farm in Camp Creek Township in the year 1893, his wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Reed, having likewise died in that county. The original American representatives of the Dietrich family came from Alsace, France, to this country prior to the War of the Revolution, and were numbered among the early Colonial settlers in Pennsylvania. Henry C. Dietrich was born on the old homestead farm in Camp Creek Township, and supplemented the discipline of the common schools by attending college at Lebanon. He continued his association with farm industry in Pike County until 1883, when he established his residence at Piketon, where he continued as a leading merchant for a period of thirty-five years, and where he is now living retired, in the enjoyment of the rewards of former years of earnest and worthy endeavor, and secure in the high esteem of all who know him. He has been an active worker in the ranks of the democratic party, has served as village clerk and treasurer of Piketon, and was for twenty years a member of the Board of Education. He and his wife are devout members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he has been for the past forty-years a member of its Official board. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Henry C. Dietrich the eldest is George C., who is (1923) superintendent of the public schools of the City of Piqua, Ohio; H. Clause is superintendent of the public schools in the City of Bexley; Rev. William Wallace Dietrich is pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in the City of Alliance, Stark County, and Edward N., of this review, is the youngest of the number. In the high school at Piketon, Edward N. Dietrich was graduated as a member of the class of 1905, and thereafter he taught two years in the schools of his native county. In 1911 he was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1916 he was graduated from the University of Ohio, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Science. Before this publication is issued from the press he will have completed a post-graduate course in this University, with the degree of Master of Arts to be conferred upon him in June, 1924. He is affiliated with the Delta Tau Delta college fraternity. After his graduation from Ohio Wesleyan University Mr. Dietrich gave two years of service as an instructor in science in the high school at Chillicothe. During one year thereafter he was principal of the public schools at New Holland, and the following year was marked by his service as principal of the schools at Lockland. He was next advanced to the position of county superintendent of schools in Pike County, an office which he retained three years. Thereafter he was instructor in history in the East High School in the capital city of Columbus until 1922, when he assumed his present position, that of superintendent of the public schools of Geneva. He holds membership in the Ohio Sate Teachers' Association and the National Educational Association, is affiliated with Orient Lodge No. 323, Free and Accepted Masons, at Waverly, Pike County, and he and his wife are zealous members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Geneva, in which he is serving as steward. He has a pleasant residence and home at 82 West Main Street, this property being owned by him. November 1, 1913, recorded the marriage of Mr. Dietrich and Miss Mabel Argabright, daughter of James P. and Mary Ann (Litter) Argabright, who reside at Chillicothe, this state, where Mr. Argabright is foreman in the Meade Paper Mills, Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich have two children, Donald James, born November 8, 1914, and John Gordon, born December 10, 1919. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #240 *******************************************