HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 475 twenty men. The majority were ore diggers, recent arrivals from the furnace region of Kentucky, but there were perhaps a half dozen representatives of old families, French, Smith, Callaghan, Phillips and one or two others. There was much strife between the Union people and the sympathizers with the South and when soldiers returned home on furloughs Jackson was the scene of a number of riots, but fortunately no murders were committed in the town during the four years of war, and when peace came the soldiers had such a majority in town and county that tranquillity was soon restored and the upbuilding of Jackson began along new lines, and except during political campaigns war issues were soon forgotten. CHAPTER X DECADE AFTER THE WAR DISCOVERY OF COAL AT JACKSON-ORANGE FURNACE BURNS BITUMINOUS COAL-FIRST BANK ( CITIZENS) FOUNDED-KINNEY, BUNDY & CO.-FIRST NATIONAL BANK-THIRD STONE COAL FURNACE-NEW COURTHOUSE ERECTED-BUILDING IN 1867—NEW FURNACE AND MILL INDUSTRIES-GLOBE FURNACE PROJECTED- TRIUMPH AND HURON-LAST FURNACE IN TOWN, TROPIC-OPHIR FURNACE, MARTIN'S RUN-CENTERS OF POPULATION- VILLAGE OF OAK HILL- PORTLAND-NEW COUNTY PROJECTED-TWO OTHER SOCIAL CENTERS-MILTON TOWNSHIP-HARVEY WELLS, FOUNDER OF WELLSTON-NEW RAILROAD ERA -GREAT BUSINESS YEAR, 1873—MILTON RENAMED WELLSTON-NEW FURNACES AND BANK, JACKSON-WELLSTON SURVEYED-FIRST TOWN ELECTION-WELLSTON IN 1874—NEW INDUSTRIES AT JACKSON-THE COUNTY INFIRMARY-OAK HILL'S AWAKENING-OAK HILL AND PORTLAND INCORPORATED-CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES-FIRE OF 1883— Boom by 1897-98—JACKSON IN 1874-EVENTS OF 1873-76—ISAAC ROBERTS-SCHOOLS AND NEW RAILROAD-NEW CHURCHES- TRIUMPH FURNACE DISCONTINUED- JOHN M. JONES-LEWIS DAVIS-FOUR JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP PATRIARCHS- MURDER TRIAL IN 1876—WELL KNOWN CLERGYMEN DIE-JUDGE WILLIAM SALTER-ACCIDENTS FIRST SPIKE OF THE OHIO SOUTHERN-DROUGHTS AND FLOODS-WILD PIGEONS. An effort had been made to operate Salt Lick or Diamond Furnace with stone coal, but the furnace was not enough of a success to encourage others to follow the example of its owners, but a discovery was made in August, 1861, which revolutionized the iron industry in the county. Hitherto the only coal mined in the county had been hill veins which were benched at the outcroppings, and mined by means of drifts or openings running into the, hills at an easy grade, but in August, 1861, the vein under the Town of Jackson was discovered and the sinking of shafts and "pits" suggested itself. DISCOVERY OF COAL AT JACKSON The firm of Crooks & Linn, who had been conducting a steam flour and .carding mill on Water Street, west of Portsmouth Street, bored a hole for water in July, 1861, and found the vein of coal underlying the - 476 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 477 town. A force of men were set to work at once under the direction of James L. Rice to sink a shaft, and the Standard noted on August 18th : "Mr. James L. Rice has sunk a shaft at the steam mill of Messrs. Crooks & Linn at this place and has reached coal at the depth of thirty-five feet. The vein is fifty-two inches in thickness, and the coal is of a very superior quality. This will work a revolution in the coal business in this county, as coal can be raised by steam power at less than one-half the cost of the old Plan of drifting; The inexhaustible coal beds in this vicinity will one day be of immense value." On Thursday, October 24, 1861, James H. Linn, owner of this shaft, began to advertise the new coal for sale thus : " This is a new discovery 4 1/2 feet in thickness entirely free from sulphur and no slate. It burns entirely up. It costs only 3 1/2 cents per bushel (80 lb.) at the yard." .This coal had been discovered by the salt boilers, but they had no machinery for hoisting it. Rev. Joseph Powell found it again in digging a well near the site of the Crescent Theater, but it remained for James H. Linn to develop the vein. Furnace men soon discovered the value and possibilities of the use of this coal, but while the war excitement was at its height no business enterprises were undertaken. The success of Linn's undertaking finally encouraged Peter Pickrel and Lewis Davis to sink a second shaft to the coal, which they undertook in November, 1863. This vein was located near Pearl Street, not far from the corner of Portsmouth, a short distance north of the old Methodist Protestant Church.. The venture proved all that they had expected and later in the winter they organized a furnace company. The first stockholders were Peter Pickrel, Lewis Davis, Alanson Robbins, D. D. Dungan and John Davis. They concluded to locate the furnace at the mine. Heretofore all furnaces in the county had been located on hillsides to do away with the expense of hoisting power, and in some instances as at Gallia, Keystone and. Madison, the furnace stack was actually cut out of the living rock. The work of building the new furnace which, was called Orange occupied a whole year, and the first iron Was run Sunday, May 21, 1865, in the presence of a large crowd of people.. The venture of making iron with this coal was a success, and the second era of the iron age in the history of Jackson County began. The works and machinery were considered up to date in that period, but today they would seem very crude. The following description deserves preservation. ORANGE FURNACE BURNS BITUMINOUS COAL The Orange. Furnace is put up in a most substantial manner. The machinery all works smoothly and the buildings including the stack, hot blast and cars are neat specimens of workmanship. The coal shaft is in the .same building with the furnace. A small engine raises the coal from the pit and it is screened and emptied on the north side of the building. The pea coal; or the fine portion of the coal, is used to run the engine, heat the blast, etc. The other coal together with the ore 478 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION is raised to the top of the stack by water power. The bellows is operated by a large engine, and the blast is heated in a small brick furnace, separated from the other buildings. The blast is introduced into the furnace by three tuyeres. The reader will understand that the tuyere is the tube through which the blast is introduced into the furnace. This was formerly made of clay, as any kind of metal would soon melt with the intense heat. This tuyere had to be renewed quite often. Some thirty years ago John Steele of Center Furnace invented a cast iron tuyere. It is cast hollow, with two holes in the outer and larger end. Pipes are connected with these holes and water introduced into the tuyere through one pipe and it then passes out through the other pipe. Thus a stream of cold water is constantly passing through the tuyere and it is kept from melting. The furnace made six to eight tons of gray iron a day from the start and soon increased the output to ten tons. It was very soft. Two new owners had bought an interest in the company by this time, viz., James and A. A. Watson of Cincinnati. The first blast of the furnace continued about three weeks when it was stopped to make repairs. About the same time a new locomotive was put on the Portsmouth Branch, which used "stone coal" instead of wood like the old engines. FIRST BANK (CITIZENS) FOUNDED Another result of the business awakening that followed the close of the ware was the establishment of a banking institution which has survived a half century and bids fair to endure much longer. "Citizens Bank," the first banking institution founded August 7, 1851, by Walker Bennett, T. R. Stanley, John Steele, James Farrar and J. W. Laird under the firm name of Bennett & Co., survived about three years. In November, 1854, C. Isham and James Dyer opened a banking house under the firm name Isham & Dyer, Bankers, and continued in business until June, 1855. In the meantime, the partners in Bennett & Co. reorganized about the end of February, 1855, with several new partners. The new Bennett & Co. consisted of Walker Bennett, Moses Sternberger, John S. Taylor, George Scurlock, H. C. Hale, Peter Pickrel, J. H. Bunn, A. Walterhouse, H. C. Bunn and J. W. Laird, with the last named as cashier again. The second organization did not withstand the vicissitudes of the- hard times of the later '50s and during the war Jackson had no banking facilities. KINNEY, BUNDY & COMPANY But on June 28, 1865, Kinney, Bundy & Company opened their doors for business as bankers and they printed their first card in the Standard June 29, 1865. It advertised, among other things: "Subscriptions to the. 7-30 Loan received and revenue stamps always on hand and for sale." The name of T. W. Kinney was the most prominent in the firm name and that of Congressman H. S. Bundy. was HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 479 second, but the moving spirit was a young man named Horace Leete Chapman who had come to Jackson from Portsmouth. He was born in Alleghany County, New York, July 10, 1837, but he came West and settled in Portsmouth in 1854, when only seventeen years old. He followed lumbering first, then read law and was admitted to the bar. Instead of taking up the practice of his profession, however, he united with T. W. Kinney in private banking, and continued in business until the spring of 1865, when they moved to Jackson. Chapman was made president of the Jackson bank, H. S. Bundy vice president, and T. Kinney, cashier. The other stockholders were William Kinney, J. D. Clare, L. B. Lodwick, Walter N. Burke, A. A. Austin and P. Lodwick. Some time in 1866 Kinney left Jackson and the firm name was changed to Chapman, Clare & Company. FIRST NATIONAL BANK Four years later, December 7, 1870, the organization became a National Bank and it retains that name to the present. Chapman was its president until 1877, when he resigned, but today, at the end of half a century, he is president again. He has been connected with various other business enterprises, and in 1897 he was the candidate of the democratic party for governor of Ohio. James D. Clare, his associate, was in business for years at Clay and was part owner and operator of Madison Furnace until advanced in years, when he removed to Portsmouth to spend his old age. Walter N. Burke was identified with many enterprises in Jackson for a quarter of a century. H. S. Bundy 's political career attracted so much attention that many were not cognizant of his connection with the iron industry as owner of Keystone and other furnaces. The directors of the First National Bank in 1915 are H. L. Chapman, Moses Morgan, Ezekiel T. Jones, John H. Newvahner, Louis T. Fenning, John C: Jones, California, and Frank Stanton. Newvahner is the cashier. The bank has been located for many years in the Commercial Block, erected in 1854. While a number of other banking institutions have been established in the county, it still retains its primacy. THIRD STONE COAL FURNACE The third Jackson furnace to use stone coal was projected in November, 1865, by Alanson Robbins, David D. Dungan, John M. Jones, James Chesnut and B. Kahn. It was named Star Furnace and was erected near the coal shaft of Jones, Robbins & Co., sunk in 1864, east of the railroad. The building of the furnace was done early in 1866. Benjamin Trago made the brick for it. In January, 1866, Isaac Brown of Vinton County bought an interest in it and he moved to Jackson to live, buying two vacant lots between the schoolhouse and the Fair Ground, where he erected a house. He spent the rest of his life in Jackson, where he died in 1889, and to him is due the success of Star 480 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION Furnace, which has been one of, the principal industrial enterprises of the county for half a century. It went into blast in August, 1866. The company has made a practice of keeping the old employes, foremost among whom was Henry Price. He was born in Dudley, in England, December 8, 1824, and located in Jackson County in 1863, He took charge of the Star Mine in 1868 and remained with the company until his death. Other old employes are John Cochran, George Shaffer and Charles Goshen. The furnace has been remodeled from time to 'time and is now modern in all its equipments and manufactures the famous . Jackson "silvery" iron. NEW COURTHOUSE ERECTED Another effect of the industrial awakening was the building of a new courthouse. The effort made in 1861 was a failure because when the question was submitted to the people at the spring election the vote stood yes, 156; no, 1,643. In 1865 certain Jackson business men hit upon the plan of appealing to the Legislature to pass a bill granting the privilege of issuing bonds. PRESENT COURTHOUSE, JACKSON The matter was entrusted to Hon. James Tripp, the county member of the Ohio House, who was one of the strong men of the Civil war period. He was born at Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, October 17, 1824, came with his parents to Carrollton, Ohio, in 1832 and settled on a farm in Jackson County in 1849. He located in the New England colony in the Bethel neighborhood, where he read law while farming. In 1858 he was elected prosecuting attorney and served four years. He was elected to the Ohio House in 1863 and re-elected in 1865. In 1878 he became Common Pleas judge and held the office two terms, when he retired and was succeeded by his son. In January, 1866, he introduced his courthouse bill, which passed the Senate and became a law March 8, HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 481 1866. This provided for the issuing of bonds in the sum of $40,000. Although there had been great opposition to the movement in 1861, there was little or nothing said in 1865. The contract for the brick for the new building was let to Benjamin Trago, May 12, 1866, at $6.68 a thousand, and he was to finish delivery of the first half by May 1, 1867. The contract for the building was let February 14, 1867, to R. C. Saunders of Portsmouth for $19,760, and the contract for a new jail was let May 2, 1867, for $7,770. The cornerstone of the courthouse was laid with impressive ceremony May 30; 1867, and Dr. I: T. Monahan read a sketch of the county's history. The commissioners that undertook the work were Jacob A. Sell, Washington S. Schellenger and Thomas Lloyd Hughes. The latter retired before the building was completed, after serving two terms, and was succeeded by Adam Lackey. Sell was born in Ross County in 1818 and -came to Jackson County with his parents in 1822, where he remained until his death. He served three terms as commissioner, elected as a republican. He lived on a farm and to show the change in manners in his lifetime he liked to relate that he would walk to Jackson barefooted to sit at the regular meetings of the commissioners, carrying his shoes until he arrived at the Chillicothe bridge across Salt Creek. There he washed his feet and put on his shoes. He was one of the best officials in the history of the county. Washington S. Schellenger was a son of a pioneer salt boiler. He served two terms as commissioner. In after years his son, William Schellenger, served six years as auditor and was succeeded for six years more by his son, Oscar B. Schellenger. Adam Lackey was born in Bloomfield Township in 1814 and lived to be sixty-eight years old. BUILDING IN 1867 The year 1867 saw many improvements made in Jackson, for in addition to the building of the new courthouse and jail the Baptists built a new church west of the schoolhouse, the brick building now occupied by the Commercial Bank was erected at the corner of Main and Broadway, and H. L. Chapman built his residence on the lot east of the schoolhouse, not to speak of many minor buildings. The other incidents of the year were the introduction of baseball to Jackson, and the falling of a meteorite on the land of H. F. Austin, near the Village of Berlin. The grass was burned for a distance of three feet around the hole which it pierced in the ground where it fell. NEW FURNACE AND MILL INDUSTRIES The year 1868 opened with the organization of a fourth furnace company in Jackson. The manufacture of iron with stone coal was now a demonstrated success and when Capt. Lewis Davis retired from Orange Furnace he concluded to organize a new company. He had bought land in the southern half of the town in 1867 where a shaft was Vol I-31 482 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION sunk and coal found. The company at first organized was composed of Swope & Rogers of Pioneer, in Lawrence County, Lewis Davis, Levi Dungan, John D. Jones, J. H. Bunn, H. C. Bunn, G. W. Cavett and Ezekiel Cavett. The Bunns were brothers, sons of Samuel Bunn, the salt boiler. J. H. Bunn was born on the farm in Franklin Township in 1824. In 1854, when only twenty-two years old, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Nelson Cavett. Hence the two Cavetts in the company were his brothers-in-law. The year that he was married, 1854, he associated with Aaron Walterhouse and his brother, H. C. Bunn, built the large flouring mill as Bunn, Walterhouse and Bunn. The plant has been run for half a century as the Franklin Mill and is still operated, although improved and modernized, by Jackson Milling Co. They soon added a woolen mill to their plant which proved a boon to the county, and they conducted a large mercantile establishment in connection with their mills. H. C. Bunn was the third son of Samuel and Elizabeth Nelson Bunn and was born June 1, 1827. In 1870 the Bunns became sole proprietors of Fulton Furnace and sold the property in 1873 to the Globe Iron Company. Fulton Furnace went into blast in 1868, and although its coal proved of an inferior quality and many changes have occurred in its ownership, the furnace remodeled and modernized is still operated and manufactures the famous silvery iron. With the change in ownership Thomas T. Jones finally came to own a large share of its stock and the family have remained in control to the present. Jones was the financial agent of Jefferson from its inception and his grandson, John -E. Jones, is the moving spirit in the new furnace management of today. Others connected with it have been L. T. Murbin and Elias Crandall. Murbin was manager of the furnace for many years. He was the son of James Murbin, one of the pioneer furnace men of Scioto County. Melder Murbin was born in Adams County in 1810 and located in Scioto in 1832, where he became connected with Scioto Furnace and remained an iron manufacturer until his sudden death in 1862, when, as a member of Murbin & Co., he was operating Empire Furnace. L. T. Murbin, his second son, was born at Junior Furnace October 24, 1837. His. first work as furnace manager was at Empire in 1864, then at Kenton, in Kentucky, in 1870 ; Eagle, in Vinton, in 1872, and Globe, in Jackson, in 1876. Elias Crandall and Murbin were brothers-in-law, having married Misses Nan F. and Kate Forsythe. He was born in Alleghany County, New York, in 1828 and settled in Scioto County in 1852 as storekeeper at Empire Furnace. He came to Jackson in 1872. When Fulton and Globe companies were combined and reorganized in 1873 Murbin and Crandall bought an interest and Crandall remained with the company until he was stricken with. paralysis. During this long period he was an active republican and served two terms in the Ohio Senate. GLOBE FURNACE PROJECTED Globe Furnace was projected in 1872 by J. M. Watts, Peter Hoop, Jr.; Charles S. Dickason and T. P. Sutherland and the furnace went HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 483 into blast the same' year. It burned down in 1876 and the two companies will be remembered from the retention of the name of Globe in the firm and the name of Fulton for' the plant. The coal of Globe Slope on the north side of the town was used by Fulton when the mine was worked out. Charles S. Dickason survived until 1914. His parents, Reuben and Catherine Miller Dickason, came to Jackson County in 1819 and he was their youngest son, born June 12, 1830. He located in Jackson in 1866 and was associated with various enterprises until he retired to his farm west of town. His brother, Thomas B. Dickason, was treasurer of Jackson County in 1863, when the Morgan raid occurred and saved the funds in his charge by hiding them in a briar patch on one of the hills near town. He moved West in after years and located in. Kansas where he was probate judge of Brown County. TRIUMPH AND HURON Two furnaces projected in Jackson in 1873 were Triumph and Huron. The first named was abandoned but Huron was built in time. The Huron Iron Company, the owner, was composed of a large number of stockholders, some of whom were day laborers who took one share each, hoping that the profits would pay the debt incurred in subscribing for the stock. Lot Davis was the first president. He was one of the original stockholders of. Jefferson, built in 1854. He was born in Wales, March 15, 1830, and came to Ohio with his father in 1851. He was foundryman at Jefferson and Cambria and then for many years he was manager of Buckeye Furnace in Bloomfield. In after years he was treasurer of the county four years and representative in the Ohio House for four years, serving with Elias Crandall, who was senator. Moses D. Jones was the first secretary of Huron Furnace, a son-in-law of Thomas Lloyd Hughes of Jefferson. Later William Vaughn was made manager and John L. Davis, son of Lot Davis, secretary. The furnace did not go into Blast until April, 1875, and was not successful. It went into blast again in 1879 and was operated until February, 1883. The company failed and the property was sold. In the latter '80s the plant was operated by the Globe Iron Company and then the plant was torn down. For many years afterward there remained in Jackson only the two furnaces, Star and Fulton, all the others disappearing one by one from various causes. Iron making in its early stages was like gold mining, largely a game of chance. LAST FURNACE IN TOWN, THE TROPIC The last furnace erected within the limits of Jackson was Tropic, located between Salt Creek and the Portsmouth Branch. It was built in 1874. The officers of the Tropic Furnace Company were Ezekiel T. Jones, president, and D. D. Dungan, secretary. Jones was a son of Thomas Jones, North, and was born in Meigs County, Ohio, in 1837. The family moved to Jackson County the next year, 1838, where he was 484 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION educated in the public schools and a short period at the Ohio University. He began life as a stone cutter and was engaged in the erection work on many .furnaces, including Oak Ridge, in Lawrence ; Zaleski, in Vinton ; Orange, in Jackson ; Planet, in Brazil, and Tropic, in Jackson. He located permanently in Jackson in 1873. He was connected with Tropic until elected sheriff as a democrat in 1878, serving one term. Later he engaged in the commercial mining industry, was receiver of Huron Furnace and .is now connected as director with the First National Bank. He was one of the thirteen children of Thomas and Sarah Miles Jones, both natives of North Wales. There were many Welshmen of the name in the Jackson and Gallia settlement where he located in 1838 but he was the only one from North Wales and he was always distinguished as Thomas Jones, North. He was a farmer and stone cutter and several of his sons learned the latter trade. Thomas M. Jones, his oldest son, superintended the building of Jefferson, Letrobe and Young America furnaces and was a stockholder in Jefferson and Star, the best paying furnaces of his day. He built the first opera house in Jackson in 1882-3 and operated the first coal mine at Coalton. Another brother, John M. Jones, was an active business man and he was elected sheriff of the county in vicar time as a democrat, although the county was republican. He owed this election to the Welsh vote. A fourth son, Miles Jones, has been 'connected with Huron and Tropic furnaces and in the coal business. One of the daughters married John Jones, California, and their son, John E. Jones, is yet connected with the First National Bank as a stockholder. Thomas Jones, North, the founder of the family, was naturalized at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was the first Welshman to vote in Jefferson Township. It was at his home in Jefferson Township that the first Welsh Baptist Church of Oak Hill was founded in 1845 and all the services were held at his home for four years. Members of his family have been leading members of the First Baptist Church of Jackson down to the present. Thus the families of the two Thomas Jones of Jefferson have been most active in the affairs of the county for more than half a century in business, politics and religion. After E. T. Jones ,went into 'politics he retired from the management of Tropic Furnace. After lying idle some years it went into blast in 1879, and was operated for many years with. H. L. Chapman and J. C. Jones as principal officers. The latter was not related to any of. the Joneses already named. He was a son of E. C. Jones and was born near Oak Hill in 1838. He went into business at Oak Hill in 1863 and became secretary of Tropic. Furnace Company in 1879. He was also a member of Jones & Morgan, one of the most successful coal firms of the county. His brother, E. C. Jones, was surveyor of Jackson County for several terms and another brother, David C. Jones, who survives, has been associated with him in business. The youngest brother, Daniel C., was one of three men killed in a sawmill explosion near Oak Hill November 29, 1876. HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 485 OPHIR FURNACE, MARTIN'S RUN A company of Jackson Men projected another furnace in. 1874, but they located it on Martin's Run, north of the old homestead of W. W. Mather. The company name was The Ophir Furnace Company and the stockholders were H. S. Washam John Mitchell, W. T. AVasham, Charles C. James, Mark Sternberger, Robert and George Hoop and William' S. Baker. Robert Hoop was elected president and W. S. Baker secretary. Hoop was an Adams County man where he was born at Steam Furnace January 30, 1832, and he had been employed at many blast furnaces. W. S. Baker was the son of Samuel Baker who was .born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, November 5, 1791, on a farm adjoining that of Buchanan, and he and James Buchanan were boyhood friends. Baker served in the War of 1812 and witnessed the death of Tecumseh. He was in the Government service at Washington under Jackson's administration and enjoyed the President's confidence, for in 1832 he appointed him consul to Valparaiso, in Chili, where he served fifteen months. He settled in Jackson County in 1854 and held the office of auditor. Charles C. James, of the Ophir Company, was a, grandson of Maj. John James and in after years he served four years as warden of the Ohio Penitentiary under Governor William McKinley. W. T. Washam was a leading democratic politician and was chosen four times as member of the Decennial Appraisement Board of the State. All the members of the Ophir Company were successful business men, but the furnace was badly located. There were various disappointments and after operating it about two years it was dismantled and much of the machinery Vas Used in building Eliza Furnace in Milton Township in 1878. Three other furnaces have been built in the county, Milton and Wellston in 1873, which formed the nucleus of the new Town of Wellston; and Jisco, near Jackson, in 1905, but their histories belong properly in other periods. CENTERS OF POPULATION To gather up a few loose ends it is necessary to review the social history of Jackson County. When first organized in 1816, three communities, fairly well defined, were brought together. The largest, of course, was that of Ross County, with the Salt Lick settlement as its center. The second, and in some respects most influential, notwithstanding its inferiority in population, was the Gallia community in Bloomfield Township. The third was the settlement in Athens County in the rich country of Milton Township, where the Paines had been pioneers. When the Welsh began to come in a fourth social center gradually formed at Oak Hill. The history of the settlement at the Salt Licks, once known as Poplar Row and named Jackson in 1817, has already been given, but no special attention has been called to the great reduction in its early population. It has been estimated that there were more than 500 people at the Licks in 1810, but as the salt making industry declined the 486 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION salt boilers either left the county or located on farms. By 1830 the population had fallen to 136, and during the entire decade from 1830 to 1840 the increase was only 61. The influence of a small town of 136 could not have been great in a county with a population of 5,941, and it must have been less in 1840, when the town had 297 people and the county 9,447. By 1850 the town grew to 480, but the county had 12,719 inhabitants. Notwithstanding this population, nearly 13,000 people, no other social center made headway against Jackson. The great mass of the people lived in small clearings and only rarely could one house be seen from another. The first grouping of houses began near the small water mills on the various streams, then another class of hamlets began to form at important crossroads. The great majority of the farmsteads were grouped along the headwaters of Salt Creek in Jackson, Liberty, Lick and Franklin. Those of Symmes in Jefferson, Madison and lower Bloomfield, and those of Little Raccoon in Milton. They were segregated in a measure from each other by ridges and swamps, all of which prevented any one neighborhood from securing the primacy in the county. This condition was very different from those prevailing in the majority of counties where one river town like Chillicothe, Portsmouth, Gallipolis, or Ironton gradually became the metropolis as well as the county seat. VILLAGE OF OAK HILL It remained for a newcomer named Julius A. Bingham to conceive the idea `of laying out a new town in the county to compete with the county seat. He was a native of the State of New York and came from Portsmouth to this county. He bought eighty acres of land in Western Madison and started a small country store early in 1832 near the crossroads, where a township road running toward Gallipolis crossed the old road laid out on the Indian trait from the Scioto Lick to the mouth of the Guyandotte. In order to attract population and increase his own trade he laid out a village site on the, hill above his store with thirty-six lots, a sixty foot street and a public square. The plat was surveyed by John Keenan July 19, 1832, and Bingham named this village Oak Hill. James Reed, who was his neighbor on the west, imitated his example by laying out some lots on the land adjoining, July 20, 1832, John Keenan doing the surveying. He named his village Lewisburg, but in a note in the recorded plat, he stated that Lewisburg was to be considered a part of Oak Hill. Bingham had modern ideas, and among other things he organized a Sunday school in the summer of 1832 which was held out under the oaks east of the village site. The school attracted attention far and wide and he soon had an attendance of more than 300 children, while many of the .backwoodsmen came with their children to hear the Yankee sing. Bingham procured a basketful of books which he lent to, the pupils. This was the first effort at establishing a circulating library in the county. Davis Macklay, who attended his Sunday school, preserved this stanza which Bingham taught the Sunday school to sing for an opening hymn : HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 487 "This is the day that Jesus rose So early from the dead, Why should I keep my eyelids closed And waste my hours in bed." Bingham had some knowledge of medicine and kept a stock of drugs in his store. Thus he was a good advertiser and his village grew into a small hamlet. He moved away a few years later and Thomas Lloyd Hughes, a Welshman, became the leading merchant of the village. Unfortunately, when the railroad came in 1853, it passed half a mile to the west. PORTLAND This gave an opportunity to two other land owners, John Thomas and John T. Jones, to lay out a new village. It was surveyed March 2, 1853, and named Portland. The building of Jefferson, Monroe and Cambria furnaces, in the heart of the country, prevented Portland from making any material growth for a long time. As it happened a postoffice had been established at Oak Hill in 1833, with Levi Massey as postmaster. NEW COUNTY PROJECTED Soon after Portland was laid out a man named A. H. Sampson came to Portland and in 1855 he secured the postmastership at Oak Hill. While postmaster he conceived the idea of making Portland the county seat of a new county to be formed out of the southern townships of. Jackson County, Bloom Township out of Scioto, Washington out of Lawrence and Greenfield and Raccoon Out of Gallia. The new county would have contained a large population, for the territory was dotted with furnaces, five in Jackson County alone. But Sampson's scheme was .set at naught by the Welsh' voters. He was a democrat and they were then flocking into the republican party and would have none of his leadership. Sampson went to Washington to attend Buchanan's inauguration and never came back. The Government established a military camp at Oak Hill early in the Civil war and Gen. G. W. Morgan's army retreated thither from Cumberland Gap. The growth of these two villages was slow during the war decade and its awakening as one under the name of Oak Hill did not come until in the '70s after the great value of its fire clay deposits was discovered. TWO OTHER SOCIAL CENTERS Two social centers appeared in Bloomfield in the period before the war, Winchester and Viga. Winchester was laid out on the land of John V. Norton March 26, 1845, and Viga was laid out by Joseph Hanna August 28, 1846. But Keystone, established in 1848, detracted from the 488 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION influence of Winchester and Madison Furnace, built in 1854, overshadowed Viga, with the result that neither of the hamlets made any material progress. A postoffice was established in the heart of Bloomfield July 5, 1839, by J. H. C. Miller, but he moved to Jackson in 1846 and the office was then moved to Winchester, but it has retained its name to this day. Miller was born in Massachusetts and was taken by his parents, Samuel Miller and wife, to New York, where the latter died. Young Miller went South to teach school; traveled in South America, where he served as a surgeon under General Bolivar, and was in Texas when its revolution against Mexico occurred. Returning to New York, he arranged to immigrate to Ohio and settled in Bloomfield Township in 1838.. He lived in Jackson from 1846 to the '60s when he moved once more, to Nebraska. Later he returned to Jackson, where he died in 1881. Of his children, James A. Miller has held high positions in Colorado and Hillborn C. Miller has been a foremost citizen of Jackson for forty years. MILTON TOWNSHIP Milton Township, located upon the headwaters of Little Raccoon, is separated by high ridges from the people of Salt Creek, and from the earliest days there has been little affiliation between its people and those of the county seat. The first social centers were at the water mills on Little Raccoon and a certain amount of slack water navigation unified the people of the valley from the county line in Bloomfield to the Paine neighborhood in the western part of the township. Dawkins Mills gradually secured a certain leadership and on October 21, 1837, a town named Middleton was laid out by Newell Braley and Robert B. Robison. This village was on the old Indian trail leading east from the Scioto Licks to the Ohio River and was midway between Jackson and Wilkesville, hence the name. A social center in the northwestern part of the township owes its origin, to the organization of a Methodist class at the home of Jacob Dempsey, which stood on the site of the present Town of Wellston. This class dates from 1819. The old home passed away long ago, but the class survived through the years. Rev. Jacob Delay was a local preacher and Hon. H. S. Bundy was licensed to preach. Meetings were held in the Dempsey home until about 1843, when the Powell schoolhouse was built, and furnished a' large room for the services. The class languished in the late '40s but it was reorganized in 1856 and there has been regular preaching ever since. The Town of Berlin was laid out by Charles Kinnison April 7, 1845, and it grew until it had about 200 inhabitants. General Morgan's raiders burnt its biggest establishment, the Hunsinger Mill, entailing a loss of $5,000. The proximity of several furnaces arrested its further development for a time and then Wellston appeared.. HARVEY WELLS, FOUNDER OF WELLSTON And now there must be presented a brief sketch of a great personality, a man of iron will and great energy, a creative genius, whose HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 489 career changed the history of a county, and whose misdirected aims retarded the progress of Jackson for a century and almost sounded its doom. Harvey Wells was the son of Agrippa Wells and was born at a small hamlet in Vinton County named Wilkesville, May 29, 1846. He was a precocious youth and at eleven years he began to learn the carpenter's trade, and might have become a master builder in some great city had he not been drawn into the maelstrom of the Civil war in 1862. When only sixteen years old he enlisted as a messenger, but was soon placed in the harness department where his skill and ingenuity made him foreman. Then he hungered for more active service in the, ranks, where he served until discharged in October, 1865. He was then only nineteen year's of age and inclined to seek more schooling. But school life was too monotonous and he went into business as manager of Latrobe Furnace store under H. S. Bundy. But there was wanderlust in his blood and next he is found attending college at the Ohio University and later in college at Delaware, Ohio. He gave his bent for mathematics full swing and soon demonstrated that the books could teach him nothing. In 1867, when only twenty-one, he perfected his system of Rapid Calculation and wrote a treatise upon it, which he published. It found a ready sale and in selling it he traveled in many states and disposed of about 60,000 copies. Finally he drifted to Jackson and began to stir the dry bones, but he found all the ground occupied. While, residing in Jackson, friends in his native County of Vinton made him their candidate for member of the Constitutional Convention and he was elected by a majority of 472 votes, much to the surprise of all, including himself. His complete break with the business men of Jackson occurred about that time. They regarded his schemes as chimerical and refused to render him any assistance in his plans which would have made Jackson the iron center of Southern Ohio with a population of 25,000 in less than two decades. Then he decided to strike out for himself, and he created a new town in the heart of the country which, notwithstanding the competition of the county 'seat and smaller villages, grew until it had a population of more than 10,000 people. His career was only too brief, but the Town of Wellston will perpetuate his memory for a century or more. Wells was the first man in Ohio to discover the wastefulness of the old method of furnace building. Every builder had recognized long ago that houses had to be provided in order that the laborers required might live near their work, but it was not until the Globe Furnace was built in Jackson that business men realized it was not necessary to build company houses. The great majority of the furnaces had been built in the country, and each one had gathered a village about itself like the baron's castle of old. Huts for the laborer, shops for the smiths and the carpenters, stables for the mules and the oxen, stores for supplies, schools for the children, but there progress stopped. All the land belonged to the company and no outsider was admitted as mechanic or trader to share in the profits of the business, upon an independent footing. Then when the furnace failed all the hamlet property as well as the furnace building became a 490 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION dead loss. Thus there was a heavier expense in the beginning, on account of the 'duplication of so many buildings, and the complete loss in the end, as at Limestone, Cambria, Ophir, etc. Wells conceived the idea of making the furnaces mere adjuncts of a town, instruments in his hands to establish a town, but that the town itself should be independent of the furnace, and self-sustaining without it. When he wanted to build additions to Jackson, and make it the county metropolis, which would draw all the furnaces and other enterprises within its limits, the business men of Jackson who had never given any thought to real estate values refused him, all financial aid. But he had traveled extensively and he concluded to use his talents in creating value by town building and this determination gave birth to Wellston. Davis Mackley visited the Bundy home the first week in September, 1869, and learned that "some parties bored for coal near Allen Austin's. and at a depth of about 83 feet they found a vein of coal 40 inches in thickness. They are now sinking a shaft in the Austin farm and if this coal is the celebrated vein a furnace will be erected at once." The shaft was a success and fine coal was found running nearly four feet thick. By December, 1869, several hundred bushels of the coal had been raised and tested and found suitable for furnace use. After that it was only a question of time until the development of the Wellston coal field began. NEW RAILROAD ERA The boys who served in the Civil war had arrived at full maturity by 1870 and their varied experiences had given them wisdom and initiative beyond their years. The generation which had built the first furnaces and brought the railroad to the county were still leaders, but . the younger "lightning calculators" were not satisfied with conditions as they were and a speculation fever set in which introduced the new era of coal in 1873. One condition that caused dissatisfaction was the lack of railroad facilities. The Portsmouth Branch had such a small terminus at the Ohio River that there was no great demand for Jackson County coal and the development of the field for commercial purposes was retarded. Then began the demand for a new railroad, to connect Jackson with the manufacturing towns of central and western Ohio. Twenty years before there had been projected the Cincinnati, Hillsborough and Parkersburg Railroad, located upon a route passing through Piketon and Jackson to connect with a railroad running to the Atlantic Seaboard. On September 6, 1853, this company, through its officers, consolidated with the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, Company. A part of the agreement was as follows: "The line of the Cincinnati and Hillsborough Railroad Company now partly finished is to be constructed from Hillsborough to Jackson and from Jackson to Charleston or Hamden, the point of junction with the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad & Co." Several miles of grading were completed in Jackson County before and after this agreement, but the projected route was finally abandoned. HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 491 Other lines were projected, one from Jackson down Symmes Valley to. the Ohio River, and later a road from Jackson down Pigeon Creek to Byer. Shortly after the war the value of Jackson County's coal deposits began to attract attention in the cities and several railroad surveys were made in the county. Railroad meetings were held and a ferment set in which turned men's minds to business and industry in a way unknown before the war. Overtures having been made to Jackson County business men by citizens of Dayton, it was proposed to vote to authorize the commissioners to issue $100,000 worth of bonds to assist in building a railroad : "Commencing at the county line between Pike and 'Jackson counties at or near where the old Hillsborough grade in Scioto township Jackson 'county passes into Pike county, thence to the town of Jackson, thence by the most practicable route to an eligible point on the line between the counties of Jackson and Gallia, at or near the place where the survey of the Southern Ohio Railroad crosses from Madison township Jackson county into said Gallia county." A petition to this effect was signed by A. F. McCarley and more than 750 other voters asking that such an election be held, and the commissioners decided on December 20, 1872, to hold such an election on January 30, 1873. The commissioners were Samuel Gilliland, George W. Brown and Van Buren Johnson. Gilliland was a citizen of Jefferson Township. He was the son of Samuel Gilliland who settled in Jackson County November 2; 1815, and died at the old homestead January 25, 1852, aged sixty-four years. The farm is now owned by his great-grandson, S. S. Gilliland, and there is a meadow on it which has produced a hay crop each season for seventy-four years. George W. Brown was born in Jackson County February 10, 1822, a son of William Brown, who was a native of Greenbrier County, Virginia, where he was born in 1796. He was a merchant for several years and settled on the farm in 1865. He served six years as commissioner. Van Buren Johnson was the son of Samuel R. and Susan Ward Johnson and was born in Jackson County January 23, 1833. He was a soldier and like Gilliland and Brown served two terms as commissioner. The list of petitioners included a great majority of the leading citizens of the county and there was not a minute's doubt about the result of the election. But no effort was spared by the progressives. Meetings were held in every village and practically every schoolhouse in the county. Long articles were printed in the newspapers and in pamphlet form. The campaign was conducted by a _central committee consisting of Levi Dungan, John J. C. Evans, H. L. Chapman, A. W. Long, Davis Mackley, W. T. Washam, John H. Stephenson, William Jackson, Porter DuHadway, Charles C. James, Dr. A. B. Monahan, Peter Pickrel, J. R. Booth, Dr. I. T. Monahan, James Tripp, C. F. Bertsch, J. W. Laird, Moses Sternberger, Isaac Brown, J. H. Bunn, Alanson Robbins, John Davis, John. L. Jones, Irvine Dungan, T. L. Hughes, Jr. Their most effective argument was that the duplicate of the county increased $2,128,515 in the four years between 1852 and 1856, after the first railroad was built. The election resulted in an overwhelming victory for the progressives, the votes 492 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION standing, yes, 2,395; no, 706; blank, 3. Only one township, Hamilton, voted no, its votes standing, yes, 20; no, 88. The people of the township felt that the projected railroad could not benefit them. GREAT BUSINESS YEAR, 1873 The hoped for railroad did not materialize at once but the agitation served to awaken the people to act in their own behalf in so ma. ny ways that the year 1873 has become memorable in the history of the county on account of the great number of business ventures inaugurated. The first was the Tropic Furnace Co., with Thomas Jones, John M. Jones, Jonah Jones, Daniel D. Morgan and David P. Davis as incorporators organized in February. The Triumph Iron and Coal Co. was incorporated in March by Thomas T. Jones, T. L. Hughes, John D. Davis, Lot Davis, Eben Jones and Jacob A. Long. On May 1, 1873, the Standard noted : "A coal shaft has been sunk in Milton township near the farm of Mr. Bundy. It is located between the Brickschool house and the railroad. On last Thursday, (April 24) coal was reached at the depth of 71 feet. We saw specimens of the coal. It is the best quality of shaft coal. There will be a furnace commenced at once we think. If ever commenced it will be pushed with energy with such men as Alanson Robbins and L. W. French engaged in it." This coal was of the purest quality and was full of seams composed of almost pure carbon as thick as a knife blade. These seams are composed of the softest kind of charcoal to all appearance. Several carloads of this coal was brought to Jackson to be tested at Orange Furnace in July, 1873, and it proved so satisfactory that the Milton Iron & Coal Company was organized Monday, July 28, 1873, with the following incorporators: Alanson Robbins, A. A. Austin, H. G. Lasley, H. S. Willard, J. E. Ferree, J. W. Morely and L. W. French. Robbins was elected president, Ferree secretary, Willard manager, and French storekeeper. The capital stock was $100,000. The location chosen for the furnace was on the land of Isaac Dempsey. H. S. Willard, the manager, was a young man, son of Henry S. and Lavinia Willard, and was born at Cincinnati August 31, 1849. He was educated in Boston, was in business in Kansas three years and came to Wellston in 1873. J. E. Ferree was employed at the railroad station in Jackson at the time and he resigned to go to Wellston as secretary. MILTON RENAMED WELLSTON In November, 1873, a .postoffice was established at Milton Station and named Milton for the township. The first mail came January 6, 1874. The name was changed on July 17, 1874, to Wellston in honor of Harvey Wells. Joshua C. Ferree was the first postmaster. In the meantime, A. A. Austin had sold his shaft and adjoining lands to a party of capitalists mostly from Washington Court House, Ohio, including Allen Hegler, S. N. Yeoman, Franklin L. Rittenhouse, Richard HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 493 Pitzer, Henry Kirk and H. F. Austin for $31,000. The deed was signed January 18, 1873. Early in September, 1873, H. S. Bundy proposed to Harvey Wells to sell him his home farm. Wells also secured options on other valuable lands and made it known that if capitalists could be interested four furnaces would be erected and a manufacturing city laid out. Davis Mackley noted in the Standard for November 13, 1873: "Mr. Wells informs us that he has closed his contract with Mr. Bundy for his home farm. Mr. Bundy reserves his home and 50 acres around it and a right of way to the railroad.. Mr. Wells gets the balance one thousand acres for which he pays $100 per acre or one hundred thousand dollars for the entire tract. It is the intention to erect several furnaces and lay out a large town in the spring." NEW FURNACES AND BANK, JACKSON While these enterprises were projected in Milton Township, matters were moving rapidly at the county seat. The new Globe Iron Company organized December 9, with the following stockholders : J. W. Watts, Thomas T. Jones, A. Bentley, Linn Bentley, Peter Hoop, Jr., C. P. Lloyd, Eben Jones, L. T. Murfin, Elias Crandall, John B. Folsom, H. A. Towne, A. B. Monahan, Robert Hoop, W. C. Draper, T. T. Jones, Thomas Williams, William Lewis, John J. Thomas, John Williams, Morgan Williams and Elias Morgan. This new company took over Fulton Furnace later and operated it for a time with the coal from the old Globe Furnace slope on the north side of town. A second banking institution, the Iron Bank, opened its doors in Jackson Monday, December 18, 1873, in its own building on Main Street, facing the courthouse. The first directors were Isaac Brown, W. T. Sappington, James Tripp, James Chesnut and Thomas P. Sutherland, with. W. T. Sappington as cashier. James Chesnut came from Ross County, Ohio, where he was born in 1834, and started a bakery in Jackson in 1854 and has resided in the city down to the present. Starting in life in Jackson with only $60.00, he has become one of its wealthy citizens, interested in many enterprises, and he has served for many years as vice president of the Iron Bank. Sappington did not remain long with the bank and T. P. Sutherland became its most active official until his death. He was succeeded by Capt. J. C. Hurd, assisted by 0.. 0. Evans. WELLSTON SURVEYED The survey of the Town of Wellston was made by Richard Craig 'January 22 to 31 and February 2 to 21, 1874, for the Wellston Coal and Iron Company, of which Samuel N. Yeoman was president The plat covered 271 acres. In less than two years the population of the town had increased to 650 and on December 8, 1875, a petition was sent to the commissioners of the county asking for the incorporation of the 494 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION Town of Wellston. The petition was amended February 8, 1876, and passed on favorably. The incorporation followed on May 9, 1876. The sixty-five voters who signed the petition were L. B. Bingham, S. S. Curry, William Aleshire, George L. Monahan, James Gooding, H. H. Morely, E. Aleshire, A. C. Elliott, John S. Jones, W. D. Phillips, W. W. Girton, James B. Palmer, A. Falconer, W. H. Williams, .W.11. Wool-weaver, J. H. Sears, George A. Leach, W. H. Crawford, Dan Burns, Dan Sweeney, Hugh Waddell, Jas. Winkleman, A. M. Child, Geo. Rees, Thomas McKeever, Quillan Scott, A. Scott, John H. Bowman, Sam W. Radabaugh, Chas. Hamilton, Z. P. Patterson, W. A. Falconer, Jos. Dirault, Thos. W. Lewis, D. Edward Morgan, Jas. M. McKelvey, Thos. E. Davis, Jacob Andres, George W. Andres, H. M. Winkleman, John Winkleman, William Rust, J. F. Toumine, James .Brown, George W. Winkleman, Wm. Carr, James, Charles, and Thomas Cunningham, Dan 0. Davis, Cyrus Reynolds; Jonah Jones, D. Boyle,• D. E. Van Vorhis, Chas. Burns, C. B. Tidd, Wm. Vose, Henry Millhuff, Nathan Yarrington, M. Burns, Harvey Wells, F. M. Whitelatch, Jos. Masters, U. J. Gifford, S. E. Brookins. L. B. Bingham, the first signer, was born August 26, 1844, in Morgan County, Ohio, and now lives in Toledo. He served in the war in the Seventh Ohio Cavalry and after the war he taught school for a number of years, until he was admitted to the bar, April 22, 1873. He established himself at the new Town of Wellston soon thereafter and on April 2, 1883, he was elected mayor of Wellston. He was married September 16, 1869, to one of his pupils at Camba, Miss Susan Evans, daughter of David D. Evans. George L. Monahan, who was a doctor, was born July 22, 1849, in Belmont County. He located at Wellston in 1873 and served one term as mayor of the town. W. H. Williams was a native of Meigs. County, born July 1, 1836. He served in Company I of the. Fifty-third Regiment Ohio Volunteers in the war. He served in Wellston's council and board of education. Adam Scott, son of B. F. and Martha Scott, was born in Jackson County, November 4, 1841. He married Dora, daughter of Robert Hoop, and he laid out the Town of Eureka, whose name was afterward changed to Coalton. FIRST TOWN ELECTION The first town election in Wellston resulted as follows : Mayor, George M. Stewart ; marshal, Y. Lynch; clerk, G. L. Monahan ; treasurer, R. W. Goddard ; council, .Harvey Wells, G. A. Leach, Joseph Gooding, George White, William O'Rourke and W. M. Ogle, and the government was inaugurated May 10, 1876. Joseph Gooding, who became one of Wellston's principal builders, as proprietor of the Wellston Planing Mills, was born in Morgan County, Ohio, June 28, 1845, the son of William and Susannah Gooding. He was married to Elizabeth Burns, daughter of David Burns, one of the other signets, October 26, 1875. He was a partner of Joseph H. Wilson in the laying out of the Village of Coalton, January 29,. 1879. Many additions to Welston were laid HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 495 out in rapid succession, Austin's in July, 1874, H. G. Lasley 's in September, 1874, and Scott's in 1875, and others later, until it included parts of three townships, Milton; Washington and Coal. This led, to much .confusion at elections and in order to avoid that and be rid of township taxation, the town was erected as an independent area, without any township officers whatever, except justices of the peace. This change did reduce taxation and Wellston's example in this and other tax reductions would reduce the cost of government very materially, if adopted by all other municipalities of the smaller kind which still retain the township yoke. WELLSTON IN- 1874 A fine picture of Wellston as it was when the survey was made has been left to future generations by Davis Mackley, who wrote thus : "I went to Wellston last Thursday, Feb. 12, 1874. I got off the train at Milton Furnace. The day was mild but the mud was deep and disagreeable. I found the furnace stack up and the in wall nearly completed. The boilers were hung to the timbers supporting them but they were not enclosed with brick. The engine, blowing cylinder, hot blast, and all the heavy castings were on the ground. The frame building for the hoisting apparatus is up and covered. I went up the stairs inside of it, until I got level with the top of the furnace stack which stood a short distance from the building I was in. The furnace is fifty feet high. From that elevation I had a fine vision of Wellston. Milton Furnace is just south of the east and west county road where it crosses the railroad and on the east side of the railroad. The plate of Wellston commences immediately north of the crossroad and there is only a wide street between Milton Furnace and Wellston. John F. Hall, superintendent of the coal shaft, asked me if I would like to go down into the mine. He gave me an oilcloth overcoat, took my plug hat and gave me a soft low 'crowned hat. He stepped upon a platform directly over the shaft. At a depth of seventy-six feet the platform touched the boilers of the shaft. I had to walk stooped as the roof was only about four and a half to five feet high. The roof was slightly arched and was a very solid slate, the entry was about eight feet wide and the great celebrated Milton vein was on the right and on the left. About ten men were at work. No coal is being stocked yet for the furnace, but all that is taken out is sold. I went home with H. F. (Frank) Austin to dinner. Mr. and Mrs. James Phillips board with them. Mr. Phillips is perhaps one of the oldest residents of Milton township, having resided there since the year 1819, now fifty-five years. Mr. Austin resides half a mile south of the furnace. After dinner .Mr. Austin and I went back to the furnace, called at the store, saw Leander W. French, who has the store in fine trim. Mr. H. A. Willard, the manager, was superintending the work about the engine and hot blast and informed me that the furnace will probably go into blast in May. I will only say now that there is some excitement there. H. G. Lasley had a contract with Mr. Wells about to be closed for the 496 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION sale of some six hundred acres of land, being a part of the old Shearer farm, at $100 an acre: John S. McGhee owns the old William Phillips farm, below Frank Austin's. I believe it contains about four hundred acres. It is under option at $100 an acre. A few years ago Phillips sold it to Mr. Selfridge for some $7,000 and he, soon sold it to McGhee for ten thousand dollars, and now McGhee charges forty thousand dollars for it. A large portion of the one thousand acres now owned by the Wellston Company was bought by Mr. Bundy only a few years ago for thirty to thirty-five dollars an acre. He sold it to Harvey Wells for one hundred dollars an acre and in a very few months Wells sold it for one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, clearing fifty thousand dollars in the transaction. Wells is known as the lightning calculator. He can glance through a great mass of figures and give a solution in a moment. Mr. Bundy is a shrewd, successful business man. No doubt he thought that to buy a thousand acres of land for thirty-five thousand dollars was a fine business transaction, but I have no doubt that that one thousand acres is to-day worth one million dollars." Mackley revisited Wellston Dec. 4, 1874, and penned this picture : "Next I visited Wellston Furnace, and Jonah Jones and Martin Grove each showed me .around and gave me much information. These furnaces are among the very best constructed in the county and will be ready for blast in about six weeks. They are fifty-two feet high and eleven feet inside. The engine is a double one made in Chillicothe and has six boilers sixty feet in length each and forty inches in diameter. There are four cylinders each eighteen inches and four feet. Four blowing cylinders four by four feet. They have about twelve thousand tons of ore on the bank, most of it now being roasted. It is mostly from the surrounding hills but part of it has been brought on the railroad from other points. The Wellston company are shipping a good deal of coal. They have a splendid prospect and a most valuable property, and I think it is in good hands as Mr. Grove appears to be a very capable business man and popular among the people. I made a careful count of all the residents in Wellston, together with Austin's addition and also Milton Furnace, and the following is the result : Wellston west of railroad 26, east of railroad 36, total 62. Milton Furnace : west of railroad 19, east of railroad 13, total 32. Nine or ten houses in Austin's addition and some three or four old houses, and the furnace store rooms, shops, etc., making one hundred and three houses in all. Of the twenty-six houses in Wellston west of the railroad twenty-three are the cheap furnace houses with planks put up upright; of the thirty-two at Milton furnace all but three on the east and one on the west, of the railroad are of the same kind. The progress of Wellston has been wonderful, but more buildings have gone up in Jackson this year and I can select six houses in Jackson put up during the present year that are worth more money than all the houses that have gone up in Wellston in the same time." Mackley's comparison may have been accurate, but the Wellston HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 497 houses were built for working men, the creators of wealth, and in a few years the good houses in Wellston became numerous. NEW INDUSTRIES AT JACKSON Among the many improvements in Jackson were Fulton Furnace, turning out fifteen tons of iron every twenty-four, hours ; the new foundry of Benoni Gray on the high ground south of Fulton. Furnace ; the additions to the Jamestown Foundry enabling them to cast furnace tops weighing 3,800 pounds each ; the new planing mill of the Jackson Mill & Lumber Co., near Tropic Furnace ; the Mark Sternberger store room; the residences of H. C. Miller on Broadway, Volney Benton and William Vaughn on Posy Hill, W. T. Sappington on South Street near Church, and thirty or forty smaller residences ; while A. J. Duer, Charles Walden and' others built many cottages for rent. THE COUNTY INFIRMARY A county infirmary located a few miles up Salt Creek Valley from Jackson was completed at a cost of about $16,000, and John Hildenbrand was appointed the first superintendent at the beginning of 1874. The land had been the Radcliff Farm,. and 160 acres were bought for the use of the county. The vote for establishing the infirmary taken in 1872 stood as follows : Yes, 2,167 ; no, 674. Twenty-seven persons had been admitted up to October, 1874. The first on the register was Banister Brown. He had been a well known politician in his day, was deputy sheriff under Daniel Perry and Sabin Griffis, and was elected sheriff in 1856, but he served only one term. When sixty-seven years old, penniless and friendless, he was sent to the new infirmary. The oldest men admitted in 1874 were James' Beatty of Scioto, aged seventy-four years ; ,John Bradley of Jefferson, aged seventy-six ; R. S. Harris, aged seventy: five, and Nancy Thornsburg of Franklin was the . oldest woman, aged seventy-two years. Hildenbrand died a few . years later, and he was succeeded by G. W. Harbarger. He is native of Clarion County, Pennsylvania, where he was born. June 30, 1845, a son of John Harbarger. His family moved to Hamden, Ohio, in 1859. Young Harbarger began life as a teacher, but in 1879 he was appointed superintendent of the county infirmary to succeed Hildenbrand. lEI held .that position for more than a quarter of a century and became widely known all over the state as a Member and officer of the State Association of Infirmary Officials. He also served many years as teachers' 'examiner and as secretary of the Fair Association. In 1913, when the county fair was revived the third time, he became 'secretary once more. He was succeeded as superintendent of the infirmary by. John E.. Jones, John, E. Evans and William Gettles, the present incumbent, appointed in 1913. OAK HILL'S AWAKENING The industrial awakening which did so much for Jackson and Wellston also gave new life to Oak Hill. The value of the fire clay deposits Vol. I-32 498 - HANGING ROCK IRON REGION in the hills around the village was recognized in 1872 and two companies were organized in 1873 to manufacture fire brick. The Aetna Fire Brick Company was composed of John J. Jones, Moses Morgan, John D. Davis, Davis Edwards, Ellen Edwards, Elias Morgan, Dr. William S. Tyrrell, J. Davis Jones, Dr. T. E. Griffith and others, and the company was organized in February, 1873. They began to sell their brick within about eight months. A serious reverse overtook the company on May 7, 1874, when the whole plant was destroyed by fire, but the company rebuilt at once and its plant has been operated successfully to this day. David Edwards, upon whose land Aetna was built, was born in Cardiganshire, Wales, in 1814. His mother and family emigrated after the death of his father, Thomas Edwards, and they located at Oak Hill in 1837. He engaged in carpentering, while' a brother, named Thomas, was a stone cutter. In a few years they bought a horse' mill south of old Oak Hill and there established a saw and grist mill about 1846 which they operated until they became incorporated with others of the Jefferson Furnace Company, of which Edwards was made trustee for convenience in transferring realty. The two brothers held much of their property in common. Thomas, born in Wales in 1818, was married June 10, 1860, to Ellen, daughter of David Jones, who emigrated from Wales in 1847. Of their four children only one survives, Mrs. A. F. Hopkins, of Washington Court House, Ohio. Another brother, named Eben Edwards, located in Jackson and was honored by being" elected commissioner. The foreman of the plant for many years was John Davis Jones, born in Jackson County October 24, 1841. He served in the war and was a teamster for five years before taking employment with Aetna. His wife, Mary Morgan, was a sister of Moses and Elias Morgan, who were members of the Aetna company. Jones distinguished himself as a chorister of his church and as a choir leader in the Eisteddfods of the Welsh. John J. Jones, the leader in the Aetna company, was born in Wales in 1826 and came to Gallia County in 1878. he had been in business at Oak Hill since. 1853, when he and John T. Jones laid out the Town of Portland. He was the first merchant of the new town and was connected with nearly all of its various enterprises. Elisa Morgan, another member of the company, married Elizabeth, his only daughter. Dr. William S. Tyrrell left the county a few years later and settled in Kansas. Dr. T. E. Griffith, who was for years a leading druggist at Oak Hill, moved later to Ross County and when retired from the practice there he returned to his native county and located at Jackson. He was a man of great ability and in addition to practicing medicine he preached in the Baptist Church, when the pulpit was not supplied. Of the Oak Hill Fire Brick men, John D. Jones was a farmer in Jefferson Township where his father, William Jones Cofadail, had settled in 1837. The son was one of the company that built Jefferson Furnace. In his later years he sold his farm and located in Jackson, where he died, ripe in years. His wife, Ellen Jones, daughter of George Morgan, survived until 1914. HANGING ROCK IRON REGION - 499 The first meeting for the organization of the Oak Hill Fire Brick Co. was held in the carpenter shop of John C. Jenkins, once the old steam mill of Oak Hill and then an undertaker shop, February 10, 1873. D. L. Evans, J. J. Thomas, David T. Davis, Isaac Evans and Lewis C. Morgan were appointed to draw up articles of incorporation. They reported February 17, 1873, and the following were named as incorporators: John H. Jones, John T. Jones, John J. Thomas, Morgan Williams, John D. Jones, John D. Williams and John W. Evans. The company was duly incorporated May 17, 1873, with a capital stock of $30,000. The plant was built on land formerly owned by John T. Jones and has been a success from its inception. John. H. Jones was a wealthy farmer living south of Oak Hill and his sons, Eben J. Jones, J. J. Jones, Ed L. Jones and Dr. E. J. Jones, and their sister, Miss Kate Jones, became stockholders in the company. The four men are to this day leading citizens of the village and connected with many of its institutions. Walter. J, Jones, son of John T. Jones, has served two terms as county commissioner. John W. Evans was the minister of that name and a brother of David L. Evans, who was active in organizing the company. Morgan Williams was a brother-in-law of J. W. Evans and John H. Jones. OAK HILL AND PORTLAND INCORPORATED The natural result of this industrial awakening was the incorporation of the two villages, Oak Hill and Portland, the first getting the name but the latter carrying away the business center because it was built on the railroad. The incorporation occurred March 12, 1875, as a hamlet. An election was held December 27, 1879, to test the sentiment in favor of becoming a village and the proposition carried by a vote of 63 to 4. A census was then taken and the population was found to be 598. Accordingly in the early days of January, 1880, Oak Hill vitas declared a village. OAK HILL CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES Another important movement was the building of a new church by the Calvinistic Methodists. This denomination had become so numerous in the two townships of Madison and Jefferson that no meeting could beheld indoors in any of the old churches because they could not accommodate the crowds that came. In order to accommodate the settlement in the matter of providing a convenient meeting place for Cymanfas and other meetings, the class at Oak Hill planned a large building, which was completed in 1874, and contained the largest seating capacity of any building then in existence in the county. The Oak Hill society had been organized in 1850 and the first log church cost $50.00. This new church built in 1874 cost $11,000. Hon. T. Lloyd Hughes and David Edwards were the leaders financially. Both were members of the little class of 1850 at old Oak Hill. Hughes was the last survivor. tie died at his home in the village March 11, 1896, aged ninety years.