the great war there was a rapid development of this business, which continued to be of considerable value for many years.

In 1837 the business of carriage manufacture was begun by D. Thompson, and under different owners, the pioneer establishment was conducted for half a century.

Coal and iron, found abundantly in other parts of the state, do not figure in the resources of Ross county, and mineral wealth has not materially contributed to the prosperity of the community. Alum was once obtained in large quantities from the Alum cliffs on Paint creek, as well as saltpeter, and an attempt was once made to manufacture powder with the latter. Attempts were made to obtain salt wells, but without success, and salt was brought to the settlements from the Scioto salt works in what is now Jackson county. One of the teamsters engaged in this work was Joseph Vance, who lived at Chillicothe for some time before he became a prominent politician and governor of Ohio.

In 1883 the Melone Sewing Machine company was organized at Chillicothe for the manufacture of a machine invented by a citizen, and a three-story factory was built on East Main street. The enterprise was not, however, a permanent success. The Union Shoe Factory company, organized in the spring of 1883, has continued to be a profitable industry. Until 1888 it occupied a building at the west end of Water street, but since that date it has been established in the Melone Sewing Machine company's building on East Main street.

The furniture factory now operated by the Arbenz Furniture company, was established in 1888. It is located at the corner of Washington and Jackson avenues, and is one of the principal industries of the city, with Hon. F. C. Arbenz at the head as manager and one of the próprietors. The Chillicothe Buggy company started in business in 1889, and afterward was merged in the National Wagon works, located in the northwest part of the city. It is a flourishing institution, turning out high class vehicles to order and giving steady employment to a considerable force of skilled workmen.

In 1892 the railroad shops of the Baltimore & Southwestern railroad were removed from Zaleski to Chillicothe, the city donating $85,000 to aid in the removal and re-establishment. These shops give employment to a large number of men whose families assist materially in supporting the business of the town. The shops were finished and occupied in 1893.

The Florentine Pottery company, on Washington avenue, was incorporated in 1901 and began operations about July 1st of that year, but was not fully in action until a year later. It has a capacity of three kilns a week, and makes a specialty of jardinieres and novelties.

The Woodcock Feed Mill company dates from 1895, when it was

founded by J. C. Woodcock, now president of the stock company, which was formed in 1899. They manufacture the celebrated Boss Feed Grinders, which have an extensive market. A. Dump, since 1889, has been engaged in the manufacture of carriages, buggies and bicycles. A. Kramer & Sons, for nearly thirty years have been doing an extensive business in the manufacture of cigars. George J. Herrnstein, after devoting the most of his life to the lumber business, has in recent years had much success in the manufacture of brooms at Chillicothe, for the wholesale trade.

The Valley Manufacturing company, making spokes, rims and handles, has been in operation since 1886, and produces nearly two million handles annually. The Chillicothe Lumber company, on Park street, manufacture and deal in rough and dressed lumber, and have a high standing among the concerns of that character in the State. Since November, 1901, Harry S. Adams has been the proprietor. The Chillicothe Bottling works, established in 1866, and now owned by George L. Emmel, is one of the best equipped in the State. A manufactory of builders' mill work, sash, doors and blinds, was founded in 1894 by Edward Reed, and is now conducted by the firm of Reed & Marshall. On the site of the old lumber yard of W. H. Reed on east Water street, is the Sterling planing mill and lumber company, which began business in July, 1901. August Schneider, manufacturer of fine carriages, has been in that business at Chillicothe since 1867.

According to the United States census figures of 1900, Ross county has 207 manufacturing establishments, with a total capital of $1,385,064. This capital is, land, $195,535; buildings, $279,055; machinery, etc., $391,011; cash and sundries, $519,463. The average number of wage earners employed is 1,400, to whom $522,073 in wages is paid. The total cost of materials is $1,473,368, and the total value of the product of manufacturing establishments in the county is put at $2,517,771.

In these figures the industries of Chillicothe, of course, form a very large part. The same data for Chillicothe separately are as follows: Establishments, 115; capital, $914,447; wage earners, 1,223; wages, $454,644; cost of materials, $914,665; value of products, $1,709,895. Chillicothe ranks fifty-third among the manufacturing cities of the State, and in population its rank is twentysecond.

The freight wagons that were driven over the pikes of early days, and to a considerable extent, the canal boats that gave the county transportation facilities to Lake Erie and the East and the Ohio river and the South, have become obsolete, their places being taken by the railroads. Of these, the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern has 38 miles of main track and 36 miles of sidetrack in the county; the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton system 39 miles of main and 6

miles sidetrack; the Norfolk & Western system 24 miles of main and 6 miles sidetrack, and the Ohio Southern 29 miles of main and 5 miles of side track. The total for the county is 130 miles of main track and 54 of sidings. These roads pay over $20,000 taxes annually upon their property in the county.

CHAPTER X.

T

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

HE first schools in Ross county were all supported by subscription or by assessment upon the patrons according to the number of children they sent to school. There was no law requiring the establishment of public schools, after the modern fashion, until 1825, and it was a good while after that before anything closely resembling the common school system of today had been evolved. It should not be hastily concluded from this that education was neglected. Parents who could afford it gave their children the advantage of good schools, as good as could be maintained, and among those who were very poor there was much self-sacrifice that the children might be educated and prepared for better success than their fathers and mothers in the struggle of life. Some very poor boys in Ohio, in that period when there were no common schools, supplemented the little schooling they could obtain by firelight reading, and so beginning, became in later years the great men of the State, and a few of them the greatest men of the nation. The difference, comparing the present with the early part of the nineteenth century in Ross county, is that now the schools are open without cost to boys and girls, without regard to their family importance or family wealth, and it is no disgrace to attend a free school. Then it was, and free schools were sometimes called "pauper" schools. So, it may be observed, we are more truly democratic today than the fathers who considered themselves the special champions of human equality.

The first schoolhouse in Chillicothe, says Williams' history, was a small log cabin, built some time before 1800, on the northeast corner of Fourth and Paint streets, on the spot afterward occupied by the residence of Joseph Sill. There was no such building there in 1810, and the location given may be wrong. But at whatever spot the school was kept, it appears that the first, or one of the first, to teach, was Nathaniel Johnston, of Irish extraction, and uncle of Mrs. James

McLandburgh. After teaching many years in Chillicothe, he made his home upon a farm in Springfield township, where he died in 1837. Says the Centennial Gazette: "The first school house in this place [Chillicothe] was made of logs and stood near the old gravevard which used to be on the bank of the river immediately west of the present Bridge street bridge. It was built by private subscription about 1799, and was used as a school until February, 1802, when it was sold by trustee Thomas Dick." On April 1, 1802, John Hutt, a brother of the first supervisor at Chillicothe, opened a girl's school to take the place of the one that had been kept in a log house near the upper end of what is now Bridge street, on Water.

As settlements were made in other parts of the county, schools were established in a similar manner, often being held in such log cabins as happened to be empty. In Green township a log schoolhouse was built near the home of Taylor Moore, as early as 1810, another near the old Mt. Pleasant church about 1815. Long schoolhouse, of hewed logs, was built with Harmon DeHaven as the architect, about 1812, and others followed as the needs of the people increased. Among the early teachers were Jonathan Griffith, Jacob Evans, Hugh Sherry, Moses Brown, Henry Halverstot, Henry Emstow, Alexander Gordon.

In Colerain James S. Webster taught the first school at Adelphi, using a loghouse which also served as church. The first schoolhouse proper was built between the two little streams east of Hallsville, on the south side of the pike in 1827. In 1844 or 1845 the township boasted a brick schoolhouse, of one room, in which Thomas Armstrong was the first teacher, and in 1870 a handsome and expensive house, of two rooms, was built at Adelphi.

Union township had a schoolhouse at South Union about the year 1800, of puncheon floor, roof of clapboards, greased paper windows, and seats of split slabs supported by wooden pins, after the fashion. of all the early schoolhouses.

In Harrison township the first schoolhouse was in the valley of the Little Walnut, where Samuel Yaple, father of Judge Alfred Yaple, was one of the early teachers.

In Liberty township schools were taught in the early part of the last century by William Slaughter and John A. Dalley, in section Fifteen. In Huntington the first school was taught by Thomas Gilfillen, not far from Ralston's run, and other early teachers were Benning Wentworth, Zebulon Dow, and Theophilus Wood. Concord township had among its pioneer teachers John McNally, Massie Mickie, Wall, Sperry, Ashton, Langdon and Charles Foster. In 1847 a building was erected at Frankfort for an academy, in which the township at a later day established a graded school, with several teachers, that has done good work for the cause of education.