GUERNSEY COUNTY OFFICERS, 1928
Probate judge, J. A. Bonne11.
Clerk of courts, Thomas H. Shider.
Sheriff, E. W. Wilson.
Auditor, Benjamin F. Deselm.
County Commissioners, J. M. Tedrick, G. W. Arnt, T. C. Knox. Treasurer, John J. Seward.
Recorder, Harry F. Graves.
Surveyor, Charles S. Marsh. Prosecuting attorney, Isaac E. Stubbs. Coroner, J. E. Robins.
MONROE COUNTY
CHAPTER CXXXIII
MONROE COUNTY TOO HILLY FOR PREHISTORIC MAN
BUT FIVE MOUND BUILDERS' EARTHWORKS RECORDED-COUNTY WAS FOUNDED
JANUARY 29, 1813-FIRST SETTLER SAID TO HAVE ARRIVED 1791-TEN
GERMAN-SWISS FAMILIES CAME IN 1819-FATHER TISHER A MAN OF HEROIC
MOULD-INTERESTING INDIAN TALE-WOODSFIELD HAD EIGHTEEN CABINS IN
1820-LIQUOR SWAPPED FOR LABOR AT THE COUNTY SEAT.
MONROE COUNTY'S ABORIGINES
Monroe County has but five prehistoric sites of record. These consist of two mounds in Salem
Township, two burials in Ohio Township and one mound in Lee Township.
The topography of the county is rough and indications of prehistoric habitation are confined
mostly to the vicinity of the Ohio River.
TOWNSHIPS IN WHICH WORKS ARE
Salem, mounds two; Ohio, burials two; Lee, mounds 1; totals, mounds 3, burials 2.
MONROE COUNTY FORMED IN 1813
Bearing the name of James Monroe, President of the United States, this county entered the Ohio
galaxy January 29, 1813, getting its territory from Belmont, Washington and Guernsey counties
to the extent of 470 square miles. Seven years after Monroe's creation the county's population
was 4,645. Some idea of where these pioneers and their successors came from is furnished by the
census tables of 1880, when the inhabitants numbered 26,496, of whom 22,461 were born in
Ohio, 804 in Pennsylvania, 318 in Virginia, 49 in New York, 33 in Indiana, 9 in Kentucky, 1,224
in the German Empire, 80 in Ireland, 48 in France, 38 in England and Wales, 8 in Scotland and 6
in British America.
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SOME VERY EARLY SETTLERS
Henry Howe, the historian, is authority for the statement that the first permanent settlement in
territory known as Monroe County was made in 1791 when Philip Witten located in what is now
Jackson Township, having come with his family from Wheeling. Robert Eldowney, Jacob
Velturn and others settled in the Buckhill Bottom three years later. In 1798 or 1799 the
Vanderwenters, Henthornes, Atkinsons and others settled at the mouth of Sunfish Creek.
CONGRESSMAN MORRIS, HISTORIAN
To the site of Calais came in 1798 Aaron Dillie, from Dillie's Bottom, Belmont County, and to
Clear Fork Creek, Michael Crow and others. In 1805 the Cline settlement was started on the
Little Muskingum and another at and around the site of Beallsville. In 1812 the Dye settlement
was launched in what is now Perry Township. Hon. James R. Morris, who represented the
Monroe district in Congress from January, 1861 to 1865, wrote for an illustrated atlas of the
Upper Ohio Valley, which was published in 1877, the following interesting account of Monroe
County's first German and Swiss settlements :
"Under the leadership of Father Jacob Tisher, in April, 1819, ten German-Swiss families
embarked on a flatboat on the River Aar, at the City of Berne. They descended the Aar to the
Rhine and thence down the Rhine to the City of Antwerp. There they took passage on the
Eugenius, a French vessel, for New York. After a passage of forty-eight days they landed at
Amboy, New Jersey, where they purchased teams for six families and started overland for
Wheeling. The little colony now consisted of Father Tisher, Jacob Tschappat, Daniel
Frankhauser, Nicholas Frankhauser, Jacob Martie and their families and Jacob Nispeli, single.
After a tedious journey they reached Wheeling and again embarked on a flatboat, their
destination being the Great Kanawha River.
"Landing at the mouth of Captina, there they found two Pennsylvania Germans--George Goetz
and Henry Sweppe—who informed them there was plenty of government land in Monroe
County, near by and a part of them were induced to remain, houseroom not being obtainable for
all. On the 15th of September
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Father Tisher and a part of his little band continued down the river and landed sixteen miles
below, at Bare's Landing. Jacob Bare, a Marylander, who could speak German, persuaded them
to settle there."
HEROIC FATHER TISHER
One of these parties from abroad settled in what became Switzerland Township and the other in
Ohio Township. They must have been welcome for it is said that at the time referred to "there
was scarce a settler back from the river, it being almost unbroken forest." Other German and
Swiss pioneers followed Father Tisher's colonists. That clergyman became a Methodist
missionary and it is a tribute to his zeal and sturdiness to record that on foot he traveled a
200-mile circuit through Monroe and neighborhood counties once every four weeks. "He was
very successful in organizing societies," his biographer states, "and laid the foundation of a work
now embraced in many circuits and stations. He died at the advanced age of eighty-six years."
SQUATTERS CAME EARLY
Judge Morris declares that most of the early settlers were squatters and says of them : "A family
would move into the county and settle on congress land and when the head of the family found
himself able he would enter the land upon which he had squatted. It was considered a very mean
trick in those days for a person to 'enter out' a person who was doing his best to raise the means
to pay for the home he was making for himself and family and scarcely anyone would do it
without the consent of the squatter, who was frequently paid for his improvements, when he
found himself unable to enter the land."
INTERESTING INDIAN TALE
Judge Morris included some interesting Indian lore in his contributions to Monroe County
history, quoting among other bits of history a letter written by Dr. N. E. Henthorne concerning
his experience in 1831 while spending the night at Jackson's Tavern in Reading. He was told by
the landlord that his father and an old Indian would like to talk with him. The physician thus
reports what happened :
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"I went to their room and Mr. Jackson, Sr., told me that he knew my grandfather at the old
blockhouse at Wheeling : said that at the time Boggs was killed at Boggs Island the Indians were
pursued by the whites; that he, Jackson, wounded this Indian and when about to kill him with his
tomahawk the Indian told him he was the medicine man of his tribe and if he would spare his life
he would cure a cancer on his, Jackson's, nose, which he did; that the Indian lived with him ever
since and was with him in the War of 1812, under General Harrison."
This old Indian told Judge Morris that the Indian name for Sunfish Creek was Buckchitawa; that
Opossum Creek was in the Indian tongue Eagle Creek and that there were thin veins of lead on
Captina, Eagle and Buckchitawa creeks.
HENRY HOWE'S 1846 VISIT
Henry Howe has felicitously told about his first visit to Monroe County in March, 1846, when in
search of materials for his history of Ohio. Landing from a steamboat at a point on the Ohio
sixteen miles from Woodsfield, with a knapsack on his back containing a load of fourteen
pounds, he trudged on toward Woodsfield, "meeting scarcely a soul or seeing else than hills and
trees." We quote him further :
"Woodsfield was then much out of the world. Indeed the entire county was quite primitive; its
people largely dwelt in cabins. This seemed to me a good thing, saving many the worry of having
so much to look after. 'Great possessions, great cares.' Monroe County was away from all travel,
except on the river fringe. This is twenty-nine miles long and the river hurries by, falling that
distance twenty feet six inches and mostly ripples."
HOWE LIKED MONROE
We are reminded by this facile writer that the county was as early as 1846 called "Dark Monroe"
by the whigs because of its "stunning democratic majorities." Howe expressed the opinion that he
could travel over it "in safety without a lantern" and he found its people responsive to his
overtures by yielding an unusually large patronage. And it was a likable and well behaved
community. The jailor's office was of "little account" and he would have starved "had he
depended on fees and board money
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for a living." No capital crime had ever been committed in the county and the Woodsfield
newspaper "suffered for want of interesting home news to chronicle, excepting after election
when the democratic rooster showed his outstretched plumage."
SWAPPED LIQUOR FOR LABOR
When the county commissioners selected the site of Woodsfield for the county seat it was an
unbroken forest. According to tradition, Archibald Woods, whose family name, plus the word
field, the town bears, in order to turn strips of the wilderness into some semblance of streets,
opened a keg of brandy and invited the men and boys living within a radius of five miles to come
in on a Saturday named and swap labor for liquor. They came, enough of them at least to clear
the length and width of Main Street.
By 1820 other streets were open and eighteen houses faced upon them, all cabins, it is true, but
six which could boast of hewed logs. A list of the town's householders of 1818 has been
preserved : Patrick Adams, James Carrothers (whose son Charles was the first child born in
Woodsfield), Joseph and Ezra Driggs, John Snyder, Anson Brewster, James Phillips, Michael
Davis, John Cole, Henry H. Mott, Stephen Lindley.
28-VOL. 2
CHAPTER CXXXIV
MONROE COUNTY'S WONDERFUL WEALTH IN PETROLEUM
FIRST DISCOVERY MADE IN 1891 OPPOSITE SISTERSVILLE-TRAIL RUN OR IRON
BRIDGE FIELD OPENED IN 1895-OVER ONE THOUSAND BARRELS OF OIL WASTED
IN ONE WELL-SALT WATER MADE CREEKS BRACKISH-ONE POOL PRODUCED
55,000 BARRELS OF OIL A MONTH-GAS NOT ALWAYS PRESENT IN OIL WELLS.
The oil and gas development in this county has been so import-ant and extensive that in the Ohio
Geological Survey, Series Four, twenty pages and a county map are devoted to a detailed account
and showing of its progress during the first dozen or more years of the field's existence. In that
bulletin J. W. Bownocker, now state geologist, thus wrote of one of the first discoveries :
"In 1890 a `wild-cat' well was drilled a few miles back from Sistersville at a locality known as
'Pole-Cat'. A vast reservoir of salt water was found in the Big Injun sand and the well, which was
considered valueless, was left standing idle for about 18 months. In April, 1891, a well was
begun on the Ohio side of the river on the Stewart farm, opposite Sistersville, by Hatfield and
Younger of Pittsburg, for the Miller's Run Oil Co. This was the first producer in the field and
marked the opening of one of the largest pools yet discovered in this county. When put to
pumping it produced ordinarily from 10 to 15 barrels per day but this was with a large amount of
salt water. Sometimes when the latter was temporarily overcome the oil increased to 60 or 70
barrels per day . . . Later, in 1891, a well was drilled on the Russell heirs' farm, adjoining the
Stewart and it duplicated the rec-ord of the well just described. Other wells were drilled the
following fall and winter on neighboring farms ; oil was secured but with it came a flow of
brine."
Additional success on the West Virginia side of the river brought the Sistersville field into
widespread prominence and oil
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430 - SOUTHEASTERN OHIO
men poured in from many quarters. Drilling was prosecuted with ever quickening energy and
many wells came in very strong, the greatest one on the Ohio side of the Sistersville pool
producing 1,200 to 1,500 barrels of oil daily.
GUSHER WASTES 1,000 BARRELS OF OIL
The drillers moved their tools northward and good producers were developed on Trail Run in the
northwest corner of Benton Township. The Trail Run or Iron Bridge field was opened up in 1895
on the Mathias Dye farm. Late in the spring of that year a well was sunk on the Freedman farm
which came in with over 300 barrels a day and a gusher was struck in August on the J. R. Diest
farm whose force threw oil over the top of the derrick and from which 1,000 barrels of oil went
to waste before stoppage could be effected.
DIEST NO. 4 CAME IN WITH 100 BARRELS AN HOUR
This sensational development brought many prospectors into the field and in 1896 drilling went
on with a rush. "On the Diest farm of 125 acres," says Bownocker, "five or six strings of tools
were at work at the same time. A number of fine wells were secured, the largest being J. R. Diest
No. 4, which was estimated by the Buckeye Pipe Line Co. to have produced 2,400 barrels in the
first 24 hours."
This gusher averaged 700 to 800 barrels of oil a day for a month. The Big Injun was here chiefly
the oil sand and a feature was a great deal less brine than had been found along the Ohio River.
Northwestwardly to Mechanicsburg the drillers kept moving, where the Keener sand became the
producer. The wells were smaller, the largest starting with 100 barrels and the greater number
flowing at the rate of 10 to 40 barrels a day. Salt water did not interfere. Bownocker wrote
interestingly of the salt water of the Sistersville field :
LITTLE STREAMS BECAME SALT CREEKS
"The most striking characteristic of the field is the salt-water. It is estimated that the Pole-Cat
well alone pumped 3,500 barrels per day for weeks. The brine from the hundreds of wells made
the creeks salt-water streams while those emptying into the Ohio
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made the river brackish in low water. The quantity of brine diminishes to the northwest and as
has already been stated is not a serious handicap around Iron Bridge and Mechanicsburg. The
mingling of oil, gas and salt-water in the Sistersville field is ascribed by Professor White to the
flatness of the anticline, the relief not being sufficient to permit the separation of the substances."
A POOL PRODUCING 55,000 BARRELS A MONTH
Development of the Jackson Ridge (Griffith) field began in the spring of 1896, the largest well
starting with 100 barrels of oil a day and Bownocker called the pool (1902) "one of the most
valuable in this part of the state." He added : "According. to the report of the gauges of the
Buckeye Pipe Line Co. the 300 wells in the field were making 55,000 barrels per month during
the summer of 1901." The oil had a gravity of 47 deg. B. and was "of excellent quality."
GRAYSVILLE POOL, WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP
Wells drilled between 1896 and 1900 were regarded as failures but in June of the last named year
one was sunk by the Devonian Oil Co. near Graysville which flowed to the extent of nearly one
hundred barrels of oil a day from the Keener sand. By July, 1901, the field's 220 producing wells
were averaging ten barrels each per day.
EXCITEMENT OVER THE BENWOOD POOL
This and the Newcastle pool are located in Green Township. Newcastle's first well was sunk on
the Stevens farm. Oil was found but the lack of shipping facilities caused the operators to
abandon the wells. In 1894 drilling began in earnest, the Berea being the producing sand. The oil
proved to be black and had a gravity of 41 deg. B.
BEGAN WELL BUT CEASED TO FLOW
The Benwood pool was found one and a half miles east of the Newcastle and paralleled it. Its
first well was drilled in the fall of 1894 on the Holtsclaw farm, producing little oil but consider-
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able gas. Better results followed the next summer from a well on the Price farm adjoining the
Holtsclaw, which came in the first day with 150 barrels of oil which somewhat excited the oil
men. The largest well in this field, Neff No. 2, began to flow at the rate of 1,500 barrels. Other
good wells came in, with Big Injun sand as the source, but in July, 1901, says Bownocker, the
greater number of wells had been abandoned.
THE ADAMS TOWNSHIP POOL
The first well was drilled in 1887 or 1888, near Cameron on the Suppers farm. Oil came from the
Big Injun sand and also salt water, so much of the latter that the drill was sent down into the
Berea (about 2,000 feet) which proved dry. The well was disregarded during four or five years,
pumped awhile and abandoned. In 1896 several good wells were drilled; one on the Mobley farm
came in with 160 barrels a day and was still producing in 1902 ; another, Greathouse No. 2,
began with 130 barrels but did not last.
GOOD RESULTS REACHED IN SUMMIT TOWNSHIP
East of Lewisville the first well, on the Wise farm, was sunk in 1899. It came in with ten barrels
a day but did so much worse later that it was abandoned in the summer of 1900. It was not until a
year later that good results came, when a well on the Wise farm started with 75 to 100 barrels per
day from Big Lime sand. At nearly the same time Galey Bros. & Mooney drilled in on the same
farm and secured a 100-barrel flow.
FLOW OF 60,000 BARRELS THE FIRST YEAR
A contemporary well on the Sperry farm proved sensational, coming in July 3, 1901, with a daily
flow of 300 barrels and rose to 9,000 barrels the first month and 60,000 barrels the first year.
This remarkable well was reported to be yielding 60 barrels a day in August, 1902. The irony of
oil-well calculations is well shown in the fact that just before this great gusher was completed
Galey Bros. & Mooney sold a half interest for $1,600, about the cost of the well. The state
geologists were of the opinion that the Keener sand was the source of the oil.
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SMALL POOL TAPPED NEAR JERUSALEM
The first well was sunk two miles west of this village on the Harper farm and it was reported as
having begun producing at the rate of 300 barrels of oil a day. A few gas wells and nearly a
dozen oil wells were drilled up to August, 1902. The oil sand was the Keener.
A large number of dry wells were drilled within the period thus far dealt with in this account, the
greater portion of them outside the producing fields and pools. About twenty of these failures
were located in Benton Township ; about fifteen or more in Center; seven or eight each in
Franklin and Adams; about ten each in Malaga and Sunbury ; four in Ohio and a dozen or more
in Perry. The list is by no means complete.
Within the period referred to the Monroe field was an oil rather than a gas producer. In some
fields not enough gas came to furnish the fuel needed ; in others there were ample supplies for
that purpose ; in still others the wells yielded enough to entitle them to the name of gas wells.
CHAPTER CXXXV
MONROE HAS 267,944 ACRES UNDER CULTIVATION
HER HILLY FARMS ARE FERTILE-HAVE MADE STRONG TOBACCO AND WOOL
RECORDS-NATURAL GAS AND PIPE LINE COMPANIES VALUED AT NEARLY A
MILLION AND A HALF-COUNTY SPENDS ALMOST FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND
DOLLARS ON HER PUBLIC SCHOOLS-WOODS-FIELD A BUSY, WELL-BUILT AND
WEALTHY COUNTY SEAT-COURT-HOUSE AND CHURCHES ARE HANDSOME
STRUCTURES.
Although Monroe County is very hilly its farms are fertile and productive. The county's total area
represents 461 square miles and its acres under cultivation when the 1920 census was taken
totaled 267,944, the average size of the farms being 62.2 acres. In spite of its steep grades the
county has recently made progress in road building, the mileage in 1927 being:
Hard-surfaced state highways - 20 miles
Traffic-bound state highways - 70 miles
Hard-surfaced county roads - 4 miles
Graveled or traffic-bound county roads - 18 miles
GREAT MINERAL RICHES
There is much wealth in Monroe County, drawn in part from the value of farm products and very
largely from the oil which its rocks have produced. An instructive story of the early devel-opment
of the county's mineral wealth is told in the preceding chapter. The following figures taken from
the state tax commission's report for 1926 and covering the valuation placed on oil and gas
companies' property in Monroe County give the reader an idea of what these minerals have meant
and do now mean to the county :
Eleven natural gas companies, total valuation $780,160.
Three pipe line companies, total valuation $512,880.
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SCHOOL ENROLLMENT, 4,700
The county is making progress in education. For instance, whereas in 1914 her one-room schools
totaled 147 there were but 131 in 1924. In the last named year the pupils transported daily to
centralized schools numbered 2,439. The county's total school enrollment for the year ending
June 30, 1926, was: Boys, 2,345; girls, 2,343. The men teachers numbered 119; women teachers,
99. The annual receipts, including balance, amounted to $420,667.83, and the expenditures
$397,266.45.
St. Joseph's Parochial School, at Burkhart, had at the time referred to sixty-seven pupils and two
teachers and St. Sylvester's, at Woodsfield, seventy-two pupils and two teachers.
BIT OF TELEPHONE HISTORY
The telephone interests of Monroe County are very considerable. The following data presents not
only the number of existing subscribers but a brief history of the many exchanges :
The Central District Company operates an exchange at Woodsfield and on June 22, 1917, the
Central District Telephone Company purchased the Woodsfield Telephone Company, with
exchanges as follows : Woodsfield—the exchanges of the Bell Company and the Woodsfield
Company were merged September 30, 1918. A few years ago the building burned so it was
necessary to install a new exchange at another location in Woodsfield. Woodsfield now has 542
subscribers.
Antioch was sold to the Plainview Telephone Company and the Farmers Mutual Telephone
Company, so it is now operated under the name of the Plainview Mutual Telephone Company. It
has approximately 163 subscribers.
Lewisville was sold to the Lewisville Farmers Telephone Com-pany. It has approximately 225
subscribers.
Miltonsburg was sold to the Miltonsburg Telephone Company. It has approximately sixty
subscribers.
Stafford was sold to the Stafford Telephone Company. It has about seventy subscribers.
In addition to the above exchanges there are the following exchanges in Monroe County :
Calais exchange of the Seneca Valley Telephone Company, with about twenty subscribers.
SOUTHEASTERN OHIO - 439
Citizens Telephone Company at Beallsville with approximately one hundred and fifty
subscribers.
Citizens Telephone Company at Clarington with approxi-mately fifty-seven subscribers.
Hannibal and Round Bottom at Hannibal, approximately one hundred and sixteen subscribers.
Benwood at Sardis with approximately one hundred and eleven subscribers.
Trail Run Telephone Company at Trail Run.
FARMS AND FACTORIES
The returns for 1925 credited Monroe's 2,813 farms with a value, including buildings, of
$8,149,557 and the value of these farms' products was given as $1,441,106, in 1924. Monroe is
not thought of as an industrial county but in the last reports of the census bureau it is credited
with fifty-two factories, whose operatives receive annual wages amounting to $89,899, and
whose annual products had a total of $833,985. Tobacco and wool have been among the county's
most remunerative crops.
CHANGES IN POPULATION
In 1820 Monroe's population numbered 4,645; in 1830, 8,770; in 1840, 18,544; in 1860, 25,741 ;
in 1880, 26,496; in 1890, 25,175; in 1900, 27,031; in 1910, 24,244; in 1920, 20,660. The
censuses by townships and villages are shown in this table :
