OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 71 *********************************************************************** 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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 71 Today's Topics: #1 OBIT;SCHLOSSER 1873 HAMIL CO [Bilco1@webtv.net] #2 Geauga County Part 4 [Gina Reasoner Subject: OBIT;SCHLOSSER 1873 HAMIL CO Content-Disposition: Inline Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit CENSUS:SCHLOSSER 1860 HAM CO ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Thu, 03 Jan 1980 19:25:57 -0500 From: Gina Reasoner To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-Id: <4.2.0.58.19800103172413.0095db80@pop.prodigy.net> Subject: Geauga County Part 4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe, LL.D. GEAUGA COUNTY - part 4 CHARDON IN 1846. -Chardon is the county-seat, 170 miles northeast of Columbus, and twenty-eight from Cleveland. It was laid out about the year 1808, for the county-seat, and named from Peter Chardon Brookes, of Boston, then proprietor of the soil. There are but few villages in Ohio that stand upon such an elevated, commanding ridge as this, and it can be seen in some directions for several miles; although but fourteen miles from lake Erie, it is computed to be 600 feet above it. The village is scattered and small. In the centre is a handsome green, of about eleven acres, on which stands the public buildings, two of which, the court-house and Methodist church, are shown in the engraving. The Baptist church and a classical academy, which are on or face the public square, are not shown in this view. Chardon has six stores, a newspaper printing office, and in 1840 had 446 inhabitants. -Old Edition. Chardon, county-seat of Geauga county, is on the P. & Y.R.R. It is beautifully situated on a hill, and together with Bass Lake, three miles, and Little Mountain, seven miles distant, is somewhat of a summer resort. County officers in 1888: Auditor, Sylvester D. Hollenbeck; Clerk, Brainard D. Ames; Coroner, Will J. Layman; Prosecuting Attorney, Leonard P. Barrow; Probate Judge, Henry K. Smith; Recorder, Charles A. Mills; Sheriff, Wm. Martin; Surveyor, Milton L. Maynard; Treasurer, Charles J. Scott; Commissioners, David A. Gages, Lester D. Taylor, Joseph N. Strong. Newspapers: Republican, Republican, J.O. Converse, editor and proprietor; Democratic Record, Denton Bros. & King, editors and proprietors. Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Congregationalist, 1 Baptist, and 1 Disciple. Bank: Geauga Saving & Loan Association, B.B. Woodbury, president, S.S. Smith, cashier. Population in 1880, 1,081. School census in 1886, 321; Chas. W. Carroll, superintendent. The term "Cheesedom," as applied to the Western Reserve, has led strangers to suppose that the dairy was the great source relied upon for the support of the farmers. This is an error, for in no part of the Union is mixed husbandry more prevalent, and when grass fails the farmers fall back upon their cultivated crops and great variety and abundance of fruits. It is true cheese and butter making are the most important industries. The pioneer women were skilled in cheese-making in their Eastern homes, and when the settlers had enclosed and seeded their pastures, cheese-making increased. In the Centennial year 1876, the dairy productions of the county were, butter, 672,641 pounds; cheese, 4,136,231. Only three counties in Ohio made more, but those were much larger in territory. In 1885, in this county was made, butter, 686,207 pounds, and cheese, 1,550,832 pounds. Ashtabula, Lorain, Portage and Trumbull now exceed it in cheese-making though none of them come up to within three-quarters of Geauga's figures for 1876. In 1862 began the great revolution in the manufacture of cheese, dairymen sending their milk to factories to be worked up by the co-operative system. In a few years every township had its one or more cheese factories, until they summed up about sixty in the county -a wonderful relief to the domestic labor of the women. Butter and cheese is now shipped direct from this county to Liverpool. PROCESS OF CHEESE MANUFACTURE. -The milk is brought to the factory at morning and evening of each day. Here it is weighed and strained into large vats surrounded by running spring water. it is cooled to about 60 degrees F. and a sufficient quantity of rennet added to set the curd. The curd is then cut with knives made for the purpose, into small cubes and heated by steam to 90 degrees F. Then the whey is drawn off and the curd salted, two and a half to three pounds of salt to 100 pounds of milk. The curd is then put into hoops and pressed for two hours, then the bandages of cheese cloth are put on and the cheese again goes to press for twenty-four hours, when it is taken out and goes to the curing-house, where it is rubbed and turned every day for thirty to forty days, when it is ready for market. TRAVELLING NOTES. Oct. 5. -I came with a load of passengers early this morning in a public hack from Chardon to Painesville, distance ten miles. Chardon being on high table land, the clouds are apt to gather there, and so we started in mists which the sun dispelled and warmed us up and we went through a rich country of gentle hills and valleys. We passed orchards and had the pleasant sight of men and boys in the trees gathering the many colored apples and stowing them away in bags hanging from the branches. I observed some noble hickories, and was pointed to a tree from which at a single season four and a half bushels had been gathered. The maples were but just beginning to blush. Geauga is the favorite home of the maple and its maple sugar industry the greatest in the Union, and the sugar excelling in quality. TROUT STREAMS. -Geauga has, with Erie, the distinction of being the only one of two counties that I know of in Ohio that has a stream of water so pure and cold as to be the native home of the speckled brook trout. In Erie the source is a cold spring at Castalia gushing forth from a prairie. In Geauga it is in the vicinity of where we are passing to-day, below the conglomerate rock, at the base of which the filtered pure water gushes forth in streams, forming the head-waters of Chagrin river. PAST AND PRESENT ON THE RESERVE. -Travelers by rail see comparatively little. My ride by hack was a refreshing change, an eye feast. In my original journey on horseback through the Reserve I was continually reminded of the Connecticut of that time by the large number of red houses, red barns and little district school-houses by the roadside, also red. Gone are these red things, and gone mostly are the people, and gone the country taverns with their barroom shelves filled with liquor bottles. The boys and girls of that time now living are largely grand-parents. Now the farmhouses are white or a neutral tint, many of them ornate, the creations of skilled architects; all of those hereabouts have porches either upon the main building or upon the addition. Labor-saving machines and implements and conveniences, both on the farm and in the dwelling, have saved much untold back-aching drudgery and given leisure for the more delicate things. Farmers' wives can any time pick up Harpers Weekly or Monthly and read an article on entomology, maybe an instructive one on the habits of the bumble-bee, and not feel as though they were committing a sin -encroaching on valuable time that ought to be given to melting snow in a huge kettle hanging over backlogs, whereby to get water and worry through the week's washing. THE DREADFUL ISOLATION and loneliness of farm-life is a thing of the past. Good roads have over come this and brought town and country together shaking hands. Most families have representatives in some neighboring city or on farms farther west, and they often visit the old homestead, bringing their children, and renew old ties. The cricket still sings somewhere around the premises, the doves still coo from the caves; the clover, fragrant as ever, finds them out and steals into their noses. Books, magazines are in every dwelling and education general; and social intercourse has changed and broadened their lives. Noah Webster lies alongside the Family Bible with the photographic album, wherein are absent friends and the latest arrival by the "limited express" -limited by the capacities of maternity. "Was there ever such a pretty baby?" The genus gawkey is no more and no longer one hears uncouth speech and expressions, such as; "I want ter know!" "Dew tell," "I kinder reckon," "Stun wall!" "Pale the keow!" etc. STAGE COACH TALK. -Nearing Painesville, our way over the height of land was through winding ravines with their running streams, and one spot was pointed out to me by a gentleman by my side, where was nestled in a nook a homestead that seemed as a sort of paradise. "I had rather live there," he said, "as those people live in these surroundings than on Euclid avenue." He was of the law, a large man from Chardon; reminded me of Tom Corwin, whom I knew, and like him had a dark complexion and run to adipose; and, as Corwin would have done, beguiled the way with amusing stories, and his budget was running over. As we started out of the village, he said; "Some of us have been making a sort of social census of Chardon; the result is; three bachelors, four old maids (that is, counting girls over 35 as such), five widowers and seventy widows." Thought I, if that is a quiz, I admire your ingenuity. If a fact, it is astounding as an earthquake. My courtesy led me to apparently take the shock, and so I put in "Why does Chardon so run to widows? Was the town gotten up for them? "No," said he, "not exactly that; they all have children and come from the country around to educate them, the schools and morals of the people are so excellent, and it is such a healthy pretty spot, with such abundance of everything and living so cheap." Dropping the widows, we launched on to other subjects; one was the false idea that young and inexperienced people have of men of high station and reputation. "I was," he said, "bred on a farm and knew nothing of the world. When a young man I journeyed to Columbus and called upon the Governor in his audience chamber in the State House. Ushered into his presence, I trembled as an aspen. He invited me to a seat, and I was in the act of sitting down in a chair, when a leg slipped out of its socket. "Hold on," said he, "let me fix that." Then he stooped to his knees and slipped the chair leg in its place. In a twinkling my awe vanished. I saw the Governor of Ohio, kneeling before me, was as other men; so when he arose I was as calm as a May morning. The governor was R.B. Hayes." The timid sensitive boy is of all others to be admired, for he has the first requisition of genius and heroism -impressibility. The old Athenians, that lovable people, had it to a superlative degree; and how heroic and intellectual were they and how exquisite their art, their architecture and statuary. Those creations of their genius seen under the tender blue skies of that soft, delicious climate, amid the moving figures of the beautiful Athenians arrayed in their simple loose garments of white that swayed in graceful folds around their persons, must have completed a landscape, that touched the rude Scythian brought into their presence with a sense akin to the celestial. The greatest, no matter how high their station, at times may be timid. Nothing is so dreadful to man as man. It is the world of intellect that at times awes the strongest. Intellect is of God, and its possession makes man godlike. One who had been a cabinet minister, a governor of a great State,and a soldier of national reputation, recently to a question of mine replied: "Yes, to this day I at times suffer from sensitiveness, even just before I begin such a simple duty as questioning a witness in court." As he thus spake, my regard for him which was high before, increased. If the young nervous boy, who shrinks on hearing his name called in school, could realize the grand truth, that when a sense of duty impels, that with action timidity vanishes, and that he of all others will prove the most capable of heroic things, a great point would be gained for the world into which he has arrived for the express purpose of developing himself and helping to make it better. "Why do you tremble so?" said an old officer to a young lieutenant of Wellington's army just at the opening of a battle. "Do you feel bad?" "Yes, sir, I do, he rejoined; "and if you felt as bad as I do you would run away. MIDDLEFIELD is about 30 miles east of Cleveland and about 5 miles south of Lake Erie, on the P. & Y. R.R. Newspaper: Messenger, Independent, C.B. Murdock, editor. Churches: 1 Methodist and 1 Wesleyan Methodist. Industries: 1 grist, 2 saw and woodworking mills, brick and tile, cheese factories, etc. Population in 1880, 325. The vicinity abounds in mineral springs. Geauga has several other small villages, as Parkman, 16 miles S.E. of Chardon; Huntsburg, 6 miles east, and Chester Cross Roads, in the northwestern corner of the county. -conclusion -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V00 Issue #71 ******************************************