Economic Development, Land Use, and the System of Cities in Northwest Ohio During the Nineteenth Century

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CREATING CONNECTIONS: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, LAND USE, AND THE SYSTEM OF CITIES IN NORTHWEST OHIO DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Matthew D. Bloom

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

May 2009

Committee:

Andrew M. Schocket, Advisor

David Shoemaker Graduate Faculty Representative

Edmund J. Danziger, Jr.

Timothy F. Messer-Kruse

Matthew D. Bloom

ABSTRACT

Andrew M. Schocket, Advisor

Examining how economics, geography, and politics interacted in the expansion and economic changes within the United States, this dissertation investigated the symbiotic relationships and their qualities among the economic transformations of an urban area and its surrounding hinterland throughout the nineteenth century. Specifically, it investigated how the economic and population changes within Toledo, Ohio, molded the development of agricultural hinterlands and how the condition and settlement of the surrounding rural areas shaped the economic changes of Toledo. The quality of transportation connections among Toledo and other nascent towns, market interactions among residents, and the relationships between land quality and usage provided for symbiotic economic development of urban areas and rural hinterlands.

The ability to use certain transportation infrastructures, the condition of land, and the availability of natural resources determined the type, quantity, and strength of market connections among people, which influenced the amount and forms of economic change for the area. Conclusions of this study were drawn from analyzing census records, newspaper advertisements and editorials, agricultural reports, and business records and literature.

This research introduced a new paradigm of regional economic change named the

“subregional model” which included a hub, local economic centers, small villages and farms, and links of various qualities. The subregional model also contained an environmental character explaining economic change. Land conditions not only affected land use practices but also prompted policymakers to enact improvement plans supporting new market interactions among people.

Integration and strength of connections provided generative economic development with cities on a iv

subregional level extracting natural resources from the hinterland to stimulate urban expansion through new businesses and growing manufacturing establishments.

The findings of this dissertation add to the understanding of economic changes through settlement, urban and rural development, and land use in United States history emphasizing connections whose number and quality greatly determined the pace and magnitude of economic change. Because most residents of the United States lived within systems of medium-sized economic centers surrounded by hinterlands, the study and interpretive analyses of places such as Toledo and northwest Ohio are fundamental to the understanding of the history of the United States.

We are all connected.

~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

“The historic material of Northwestern Ohio is too voluminous to be given in detail in a work of this kind. Rather than present a dry chronologic table, we prefer to briefly review

and discuss the causes which have made the country what it is.”

~ Jaeger’s Historical Hand-Atlas, 1881 vi

Laura Stuart Obenauf, Future Broadway Star

and

Anna Ducey, Great Ambassador of T-Town vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people provided assistance throughout this dissertation process. First, I would like to thank my parents, David and Marcia Bloom, and my sister and brother, Ellen and Michael, for the love and support throughout my academic career. I would also like to thank my grandparents for their encouragement earlier in my studies; although only my grandmother Grace Ohm lived to see me finish my dissertation, her enormous pride surely represents everyone else’s delight. I also would like to recognize and remember Grandpa’s practice drills honing my long putts and cross-table pool shots, two skills that I used during the times I should have been dissertating.

Second, I wish to thank my teachers throughout my schooling. My dissertation committee, Drs. Andy Schocket, Ed Danziger, Tim Messer-Kruse, and David Shoemaker, provided insightful comments and posed the tough questions that greatly improved my work.

Apple juice and stuffed breadsticks made the thinking a bit easier. Professors Lawrence Daly and James Forse listened as I explained my project and provided their non-Americanist viewpoints of it. My professors at Heidelberg provided a firm foundation for my graduate studies. Kate Bradie, Marc O’Reilly, Bonnie Fors, David Hogan, Mary Jo Murray, David

Staley, and many others sharpened my skills and presented ideas (not just history-related ones) that have shaped my thinking and research. Thanks also to Heidelberg professors Dave Kimmel and Susan Carty for advising me on how to be a friend, be a leader, and be of service to many groups and individuals. Thank you to Mr. Pitts, Mrs. Croney, and Mr. Drusbacky in Port Clinton for sparking and tending my early interests in history.

Third, I want to thank the many archivists and librarians who assisted me in collecting and sifting through documents and materials for my research. Nan Card, Becky Hill, Gil

Gonzalez, and the rest of the staff at the Hayes Presidential Center helped in gathering viii

information on roads, railroads, and agriculture in the area as well as scanning maps. Steve

Charter and the staff at the BGSU Center for Archival Collections assisted in locating census

information, newspapers, county records, and local manuscript collections. Colleen Parmer,

down on the first floor of Jerome Library, aided me in finding government documents providing

a fair portion of the policy-related analysis of my dissertation. The staff of the Way Public

Library in Perrysburg showed me their local history resources and let me peruse them

uninterrupted after mastering the microfilm viewer.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues over the years for their

intellectual stimulation and good-natured ribbing. Dwayne, Craig, Amanda, and France were

awesome lunch/dinner buddies and great friends. Mike and Katie provided thoughtful

discussions on various topics and were formidable opponents in nine ball and word games. Rob,

Norma, and Stephanie were often around during the later stages of the process to listen to me

think out loud and discuss current events and historical issues over meals. Meredith, Kelly,

Ross, and Josh always asked for updates about the progress on my dissertation. I would like to thank Maria Baldwin for first believing that a study of the economic development of northwestern Ohio was interesting and doable. Thank you to Tina Amos and DeeDee Wentland who make the History Department hum with effectiveness. They made sure I “jumped through the hoops” necessary to get my degree and often took time out of their busy schedules to answer my many questions and listen to my rambling.

To those who read this piece of scholarship, thank you for keeping “cyberspace cobwebs” from forming on it. It is much appreciated especially if you are fifty miles from

Bowling Green. To Professor Michael Bradie (and many others)—after many years, I am now finished. You may now call me “Dr. Matt.” ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY ...... 5

THEMES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY ...... 15

METHODS AND SOURCES ...... 23

STRUCTURE ...... 25

PART ONE. ESTABLISHING THE SYSTEM ...... 29

CHAPTER I. BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER WITH THE MAUMEE-WESTERN

RESERVE ROAD ...... 34

INTRODUCTION ...... 34

POLICIES AND DEBATES LEADING TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE

ROAD ...... 37

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE ROAD ... 51

CONCLUSION ...... 68

CHAPTER II. EARLY TOLEDO AND NEW CONNECTIONS VIA THE WABASH

AND ERIE CANAL ...... 73

INTRODUCTION ...... 73

ESTABLISHMENT OF TOLEDO...... 77

CONSTRUCTION OF THE WABASH AND ERIE CANAL ...... 81

SETTLEMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF TOWNS ALONG THE CANAL ... 86

GROWTH OF PERRYSBURG ...... 91

CONCLUSION ...... 98 x

CHAPTER III. RAILS, DEPOTS, FREIGHT, AND PASSENGERS: CONNECTIONS

RAILROADS CREATED IN NORTHWEST OHIO ...... 102

INTRODUCTION ...... 103

THE EARLY RAILROADS OF TOLEDO ...... 107

RAISING FUNDS FOR THE RAILROADS ...... 115

LOCATION AND RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION ...... 117

RAILROAD CONNECTIONS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN TOLEDO ...... 120

RAILROADS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE OUTSIDE TOLEDO ...... 123

IMMEDIATE HINTERLANDS AND CONNECTIONS TO OTHER

SUBREGIONS ...... 126

CONCLUSION ...... 128

CHAPTER IV. BEYOND MERE CONNECTIONS: DITCH LAWS AND DRAINAGE

TO TRANSFORM THE LAND ...... 132

INTRODUCTION ...... 132

ORIGINS AND MODIFICATIONS OF DRAINAGE PLANS AND POLICIES ... 135

IMPLEMENTATION OF DITCH LAWS AND ORDERLINESS ...... 141

VARIATIONS IN IMPLEMENTATION ...... 144

UNDERDRAINAGE ...... 148

EARLY CONSEQUENCES OF DITCH LAWS ...... 151

CONCLUSION ...... 154

PART TWO. SYBIOSIS STRENGTHENED ...... 159

CHAPTER V. NODES AND NETWORK EXPANSION: TOLEDO AND NORTHWEST

OHIO AFTER THE CIVIL WAR ...... 162 xi

INTRODUCTION ...... 162

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN TOLEDO ...... 165

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE HINTERLAND ...... 168

DEVELOPMENT OF IMPORTANT NODES ...... 171

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURING ...... 178

CONCLUSION ...... 182

CHAPTER VI. NORTHWEST OHIO AT THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY ...... 186

INTRODUCTION ...... 186

THE GAS AND OIL BOOMS ...... 188

DEVELOPMENT OF TOWNS IN TOLEDO’S IMMEDIATE HINTERLAND .... 196

POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS AND TRENDS ...... 201

ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND TRENDS ...... 204

ASSESSMENT OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF NORTHWEST

OHIO...... 207

CONCLUSION ...... 209

CONCLUSION ...... 214

THE SUBREGIONAL MODEL ...... 214

IMPORTANT THEMES ...... 217

THE MODEL, CONNECTIONS, AND UNITED STATES HISTORY ...... 222

FURTHER RESEARCH ...... 229

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 232

APPENDIX ...... 250 xii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

I.1 Von Thünen Ring Model ...... 7

I.2 Subregional Model—Early Stage ...... 13

I.3 Subregional Model—Middle Stage ...... 13

I.4 Subregional Model—Late Stage ...... 13

1.1 Map of Northwest Ohio Showing Extent of Great Black Swamp ...... 35

1.2 Subregional Model—Early Stage ...... 36

1.3 Early Stage of the Subregional Model Showing Key Towns ...... 70

2.1 Subregional Model—Middle Stage ...... 74

2.2 Redrawn Middle Stage Subregional Model Showing Key Cities ...... 100

3.1 Middle Stage of Subregional Model before Railroads ...... 106

3.2 Middle Stage of Subregional Model after Railroads ...... 106

3.3 Map of Railroads Across Northwest Ohio, 1857 ...... 110

4.1 Subregional Model—Late Stage ...... 157

5.1 Subregional Model—Late Stage ...... 164

5.2 Percentage of Population in Key Cities by County, 1870 and 1880 ...... 171

6.1 Percentage of Population in Key Cities by County, 1890 and 1900 ...... 197

6.2 Number of Farms by County, 1880-1900 ...... 205

6.3 Manufacturing Establishments by County, 1880-1900 ...... 207

6.4 Subregional Model—Late Stage ...... 212

xiii

LIST OF MAPS

Map Page

I.1 Northwest Ohio Showing Important Cities and Towns ...... 5

1.1 Northwest Ohio and the Maumee-Western Reserve Road ...... 48

2.1 Canals of Northwest Ohio ...... 82

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the history of the United States, economic developments began in numerous ways proceeding at many different paces. The rates of change were based on factors such as proximity to and utilization of transportation routes, land quality and use patterns, and the dominant beliefs of policymakers at specific times. Thus, the story of economic transformations in United States history includes components of economics, geography, and politics. Scholars focusing on economics emphasize transportation infrastructure significantly shaping the course and speed of developments of an economy while researchers interested in geography stress location and environmental conditions to explain change. Other scholars, stressing the political views of legislators and government officials, analyze the origins, implementation, and consequences of policies to show the importance of state involvement influencing economic change. These three elements—economics, geography, and politics—need to be included in investigations of the economic transformations within the United States throughout its history.

However, to fully gauge the ways in which these ideas interact, a small area should be examined to prevent major generalities from obscuring key connections among events and ideas while an analysis of a long period permits better understandings of the changes happening and their causes and effects.

To adequately study the interactions of economics, geography, and policies on settlement and urban expansion, a case study of one particular area over a long period of time is best.

Toledo and northwest Ohio during the 1800s presents such a worthy investigation for many reasons. Although later town boosters would extol the locational advantages of Toledo as a Lake

Erie port at the mouth of the Maumee River, during the initial periods of the settlement of northwest Ohio, towns such as Lower Sandusky (Fremont) and Perrysburg served at entry points 2 to the Great Black Swamp covering much of the study area. Future city sites such as Toledo and

Defiance had military and Indian trading posts, but these embryonic towns had very small populations and weak connections to Euro-American settlements to the east. Only later after various internal improvement projects, namely the canal systems of Ohio and Indiana, did

Toledo begin to function as the dominant economic center of northwest Ohio based upon the links between economic development and infrastructure policies. Swampy conditions and the lack of navigable waterways besides the Maumee River provide the ability to directly investigate the influence of geography and land improvement policies on economic development. The quality of land and utilization of natural resources greatly impacted market interactions and the changing strength of business connections among towns and populations.

Examining the development of Toledo and northwest Ohio over the course of the entire nineteenth century allows evaluation of how various national and state events, policies, and trends affected economic changes in one area over a long period of time. These trends include establishing town sites, internal improvements and the market revolution, industrialization and urbanization. This dissertation ends around 1900 as new forms of transportation including interurban railways began to transform connections among cities. At this time, urban areas also had expanded to such large sizes prompting policymakers to implement new structures for municipal government to better control economic interactions and related political and social issues.

Because most residents of the United States lived within a system of economic centers surrounded by rural areas, the study and interpretive analysis of places such as Toledo and northwest Ohio is fundamental to the understanding of the history of economic change within the 3

United States.1 In 1840 when 8.5% of the United States population was classified as “urban” by the census bureau, very few “subdivisions” listed in the census were towns or cities implying that most people lived in agricultural hinterlands surrounding small communities.2 By 1900 when the census bureau categorized 33.1% of the nation’s population as “urban,” Toledo was the twenty-sixth largest city in the United States which contained only thirty-seven cities with

100,000 or more residents.3 Hence, Toledo is highly representative not only of a system of urban-rural interactions but also of small settlements boosters established in the early nineteenth century that grew immensely throughout the century.

The three major elements of urban change explored in this case study include the city of

Toledo, the rural areas of northwest Ohio surrounding Toledo, and the interactions between urban areas and their hinterlands. This investigation considers economic transformations manifested in the changing symbiotic relationship between a subregional hub, local economic centers, and the surrounding hinterlands within a specific geographic area while probing transportation infrastructure, land use patterns, and policy creation and implementation as stimulants of change within this system of cities.4 The physical connections among people and

1. Table I.1, found in the Appendix, shows the percent of the of the total United States population categorized as “urban” by the Census Bureau for each census year. Although the Census Bureau defined “urban” places as having 8,000 inhabitants or more in 1900, for this study, I determine whether a place is urban based upon concentration of business and political activities, relationships between core and surrounding areas, and a classification as a civil division smaller than a township in abstracts of census enumerations. 2. Sixth Census of the United States, 1840; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table XXIX—Total and Urban Population at Each Census: 1790 to 1900.” 3. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table XXII—Population of Cities Having 25,000 inhabitants or More in 1900, Arranged According to Population: 1880 to 1900;” Twelfth Census, 1900, Volume 1, “Table XXIX—Total and Urban Population at Each Census: 1790 to 1900.” 4. A region is the collection of economically connected areas characterized by similar economic activities with a unified sense of place. A subregion is a division of a region demarcated by specific sets of spatial interactions among its inhabitants and particular physical and human geographies. The subregional hub is the major urban area acting as the economic, political, social, and cultural center within that part of the region. A local economic center is a town linked to a subregional hub in its immediate hinterland that is important in economic interactions for a small area surrounding it. The hinterland (also sometimes called tributary area) is the district around the urban area providing markets for manufactures and commerce centered in the hub as well as supplying raw materials for goods produced in the hub and sold in the hub to buyers outside the subregion. Boosterism notes the 4 links to the environment through land and resource usage fostered economic changes throughout northwest Ohio. This study examines how the economic interactions roads, canals, and railroads stimulated and land use patterns transformed the local area’s economy while shaping the place of northwest Ohio in national and international webs of interactions. Assessing the quality and quantity of such connections, this dissertation helps explain the patterns and tempos of development of the Toledo area as a subregion.

The primary research question answered in the dissertation is the following: What were the symbiotic relationships and their qualities among the economic transformations of Toledo,

Ohio, and its surrounding hinterland? Specifically, (1) how did the economic and population changes within Toledo mold the development of agricultural hinterlands, and (2) how did the condition and settlement of the surrounding rural areas shape the economic changes of Toledo?

A concise answer to these queries is that the quality of transportation connections among Toledo and other nascent towns, market interactions among residents, and the relationships between land quality and usage provided for symbiotic economic development of urban areas and rural hinterlands. The ability to use certain transportation infrastructures, the condition of land, and the availability of natural resources determined the type, quantity, and strength of market connections among people, which influenced the amount and forms of economic change for the area.

process of establishing and promoting economic ventures such as town sites and businesses in order to increase one’s wealth or advance one’s notions of civilization. People involved in the practices of boosterism are boosters. Systems of cities are based upon the notion of subregional hubs, local economic centers, and hinterlands and describe the connections among different communities within and outside the region. Numerous smaller systems of cities were connected to form a national system of cities. 5

Map I.1: Northwest Ohio Showing Important Cities and Towns

Note: Contemporary county boundaries shown.

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

This project breaks new ground by being a case study of rural-urban interactions through

transportation infrastructure, business relations, and land use patterns throughout the nineteenth

century. Because most residents of the United States lived within systems of medium-sized

economic centers surrounded by hinterlands, the study and interpretive analyses of places such as

Toledo and northwest Ohio is fundamental to the understanding of the history of the United

States.5 All people in the United States had connections, however tenuous, to the large cities

along the Atlantic seaboard, but as settlers moved across the continent, they established

subregional systems of cities whose dominant urban centers were significantly smaller than cities

such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Although the Toledo hub-hinterland

network consisted of incredibly swampy land people toiled to drain and a useful Lake Erie port

5. A “medium-sized economic center” is one that is not a primary city for the United States system of cities but is large enough to have smaller communities throughout its hinterland that have noticeable significance for lands surrounding them. Such medium-sized economic centers have banking, commercial, manufacturing, political, and social institutions and establishments that nearby towns do not have, yet bigger cities throughout the United States have a larger number of such institutions as well as more specialized business and political functions placing them higher in a hierarchy of cities within the national network. 6 that other places did not have, most areas throughout the northern and western regions of the country grew based on agricultural production and market arrangements consisting of a bigger town, smaller communities, and farms.6 Such growth supported the economic expansion of domestic United States markets and the transformation of the North American landscape as

Euro-Americans settled on formerly Native American lands.

Numerous scholarly interpretations exist regarding economic development; one of these explanations is central place theory.7 Developed in Germany in the 1930s by geographer Walter

Christaller and economist August Lösch, central place theory is an analysis of the spatial nature and location of economic activity. Assuming a homogeneous region, classical central place theory involves hexagonal market areas with sets of these zones constituting the economic landscape; thus, economic centers may nest in various areas. As a market-oriented theory explaining the workings of economic regions, the hub-spoke concept of central places focus on transportation costs where the minimizing of transportation costs maximizes economic output creating nodes. The hierarchy of these cities is based upon specialized activities—commerce, manufacturing, blacksmithing, and banking for example—with higher-order places having all of the pursuits while the lowest-order cities having only some. Thus, low capital industries such as

6. Although the southern United States was heavily agricultural, the plantation-slave system prior to the Civil War limited the amount of economic interactions that could breed further development. Elements of the southern economy stifling changes similar to the northern economy included low population density due to large amounts of land set aside for agriculture, slaves not participating in market interactions, and plantations being nearly self- sufficient and not requiring nearby towns to conduct business. Following the Civil War, southerners attempted to transition to more industrial activities, but prior reliance on large-scale agriculture slowed these transformations. For more information on southern economic development vis á vis northern economic development prior to 1861, see John Majewski, A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Marc Engel, Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009). 7. Overall, explanations of urban development outward from the core (especially central place theory) fall within the long-standing Chicago School named after the location of many urban scholars studying growth of cities. More recently, a Los Angeles School of interpretation has developed focusing on hard elements (the built environment) and soft elements (perceptions of the urban dweller) of urbanization. See Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, “Postmodern Urbanism,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, no. 1 (March 1998), 50-72. 7 blacksmithing existed in all small towns and high capital industries such as farm machine factories only existed in bigger cities. Also, higher order goods—specialized manufactures or insurance policies—had a larger range of supply creating a larger hinterland for the urban center.

Closely linked to central place theory is Von Thünen’s ring model seen in Figure I.1. Zones of less economic activity existed further from the central city due to rising transportation costs farther from the urban core thereby also producing lower property values as the distance from the city center increases.8

Figure I.1: Von Thünen Ring Model

Adapted from William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991), 49.

Another interpretation of urban development entails the concept of gateway cities. While

the highest-order city is in the middle of central place theory, a gateway city is to one side of the

region considered thus having a fan-shaped hinterland. The gateway city develops in positions

8. J. A. F. Nicholls, “Transportation Development and Löschian Market Areas: An Historical Perspective,” Land Economics 46, no. 1 (February 1970), 22-31; Brian J. L. Berry and William L. Garrison, “The Functional Bases of the Central Place Hierarchy,” Economic Geography 34, no. 2 (April 1958), 145-154; Michael Pacione, Urban Geography: A Global Perspective, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 125-132; William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991), 48-52. 8 possessing the potential to control flows of goods and people and, thus, is frequently characterized by long distance trade relations. A gateway city’s function often remains based on geographic conditions and time needed for new economic interactions to form among people. A heavily productive region can have cities develop close together near the gateway due to the ability of the area to economically support the urban growth while a less productive region forces large cities to be farther apart because of the lack of market support of the weak hinterland. Over time, a gateway system can transition into a central place network as the frontier line advances and towns develop creating more productive locations, but if the hinterlands do not become productive, then the gateway situation will become static. In regards to transportation, geographer A. F. Burghardt maintained that improvements to infrastructure did not alter the status of a gateway city; rather, new modes of transportation such as railroads would restructure the system moving it more towards a central place system. Further showing the link between gateways and central places theory, geographer Mark Jefferson wrote that gateways made the countryside that created the central places.9

Helping explain urban development through symbiotic relationships in which a change in

one city would affect other locations, economic geographer David Ralph Meyer developed a

dynamic growth model. In this paradigm, central place theory is only important at the lowest level of the system of cities. According to Meyer, dynamic growth entails control and exchange or movement of products with more in the system leading to more business and economic

interactions. Businessmen compete for trade at the location of consumers and growth in market

activities will result in more entrepreneurs at a location creating a subregional metropolis.

9. A. F. Burghardt, “A Hypothesis about Gateway Cities,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61, no. 2 (June 1971), 269-285; Mark Jefferson, “The Distribution of the World’s City Folks: A Study in Comparative Civilization,” Geographical Review 21 (1931), 446-465. 9

Similar to central place ordering, while highly specialized businessmen continue to control exchange among regions, the national metropolis frequently loses influence over less-specialized activities to regional metropolises. Supporting this phenomenon, economic historian Sukkoo

Kim posited that specialization occurred with the concentration of market coordinators in large cities. Consumer travel influenced size and spacing of cities, and the size of the network node depended on the amount of stock a place can accumulate. Exemplifying the dynamic growth model, historian Eugene Moehring argued that to evaluate western United States urbanization, major cities must be viewed within the context of linked towns and villages.10

Key to the dynamic growth model is integration described as the degree of incorporation

of people and products into a system measuring the interaction found in the network.

Interdependence stemming from integration revealing change in one urban area is reflected in

others, and functional relationships among cities are keys to the dynamic growth model and

integration. Thus, the use of transportation infrastructure rather than its mere existence shows

integration and the strength of connections. According to geographer Michael Conzen, interdependence in an urban network reveals horizontal linkages in economic development rather than vertical connections in a hierarchical system. One key example from United States history displaying the effects of integration was the differing conditions of the northern and southern states prior to the Civil War. Fewer urban areas and racial limits to participation in markets stifled integration of economic activities in the agricultural south compared to the industrializing north.11

10. David Ralph Meyer, “A Dynamic Model of the Integration of Frontier Urban Places into the United States System of Cites,” Economic Geography 56, no. 2 (April 1980), 120-140; Sukkoo Kim, “Urban Development in the United States, 1690-1900,” Southern Economic Journal 66, no. 4 (April 2000), 855-880; Eugene Moehring, “The Comstock Urban Network,” The Pacific Historical Review 66, no. 3 (August 1997), 337-362. 11. D. Ulrich Cloher, “Integration and Communications Technology in an Emerging Urban System,” Economic Geography 54, no. 1 (January 1978), 1-16; Michael P. Conzen, “The Maturing Urban System in the United States, 10

Beyond models of urban development, many geographers, economists, and historians have expounded on what drove and continues to stimulate economic change. Economic historian

Roger Riefler described two key explanations: competition for growth in which cities competed for a piece of national development, and generative growth where observed development of the totality was the sum of the expansion of its parts. Geographer James Lemon argued that nature, population, business, government, technology, and social customs determined rates and types of urban growth. Likewise, geographer Jon Stobart claimed diversity of experiences reflected complex growth stimuli that varied from town to town with externalities—such as the expansion of nearby towns or government policies—often influencing economic change. Maintaining that capital flows from surplus regions, economic historian David F. Good argued using the classical economic Smith-Ricardo Model where flows of trade and investment provide the chief mechanism for growth. Lack of development, according to Good, stemmed from the weakness of external linkages. Linking resources and the environment to economic development, historian

William G. Robbins put forth the “plundered province” thesis stating that sole objective of financiers of western development was to transform region’s resources into marketable commodities. Investigating the development of St. Louis, historian Jeffrey S. Adler maintained that growth came from capital and population migrations from outside the region and that the politics of slavery dampened the city’s expansion in the 1850s. Historians Brian Page and

Richard Walker distinguished between internal regional commerce and productivity rather than external trade stimulating the growth of the Midwest in the nineteenth century.12

1840-1910,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67, no. 1 (March 1977), 88-108; Majewski, A House Dividing, 1-11, 168-172; Engel, Clash of Extremes, 7-14. 12. Roger F. Riefler, “Nineteenth-Century Urbanization Patterns in the United States,” The Journal of Economic History 39, no. 4 (December 1979), 961-974; James Lemon, “Liberal Dreams and Nature’s Limits: Great Cities of North America since 1600,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, no. 4 (December 1996), 745- 766; Jon Stobart, “In Search of Causality: A Regional Approach to Urban Growth in Eighteenth-Century 11

This dissertation introduces a new paradigm of regional economic change named the

“subregional model.” This interpretive framework shares many characteristics with earlier explanations of economic changes, but it also differs in some respects. The subregional hub can function as a gateway or central place but local economic centers are strictly central places for adjacent hinterlands with transportation routes providing initial links among rural and urban areas. Thus, following from economic interactions stimulated by transportation infrastructure, market areas of small villages nest within a larger tributary area of a bigger town. Although following Lösch in ordering cities, the subregional model contains an environmental character to explain economic change. Integration and strength of connections provided generative economic development with cities on a subregional level using natural resources from the hinterland to stimulate urban expansion through new businesses and growing manufacturing establishments.

The size of a subregional hub’s primary hinterland is fairly static with weaker connections farther out from the city. Early economic and environmental changes greatly determine the size of a hinterland. The key difference between the subregional model and other urban development interpretations is that the former does not represent a hub and spoke system but rather a network of farms, small villages, local economic centers, and a primary urban area. The centrality of the subregional hub is not necessarily geographic, but the city is the focal point of economic interactions supporting and influenced by the surrounding hinterlands.

England,” Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography 82, no. 3 (2000), 149-163; David F. Good, “Uneven Development in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparison of the Habsburg Empire and the United States,” The Journal of Economic History 46, no. 1 (March 1986), 137-151; William G. Robbins, “The ‘Plundered Province’ Thesis and the Recent Historiography of the American West,” The Pacific Historical Review 55, no. 4 (November 1986), 577-597; Bernard DeVoto, “The West: A Plundered Province,” Harper’s Magazine 169 (August 1934), 355-364; Jeffrey S. Adler, Yankee Merchants and the Making of the Urban West: The Rise and Fall of Antebellum St. Louis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Brian Page and Richard Walker, “From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest,” Economic Geography 67, no. 4 (October 1991), 281-315. 12

Graphically, I have represented the subregional model with circles signifying urban areas, small rectangles designating farms, and lines showing connections among urban and rural areas.

(See Figures I.2, I.3, and I.4 below) Concentric circles signify urban growth over time beyond the original period of settlement whether through commercial, residential, or industrial means; scholars often call this process borderland suburbanization. Farms were linked to small and large towns through selling surplus crops and homemade items and purchasing goods and supplies they could not make on their farms. With darker ones symbolizing stronger connections, lines represent connections among the developing cities and with other subregional systems thereby shaping regional and national networks. Reliable transportation routes provided stronger connections through both access to numerous towns and stimulating enhanced business connections.13

The subregional model has three main stages of development. First, settlers formed

compact settlements and farms with weak connections just behind the frontier line. (See Figure

1.2) Often the small towns were situated on old Indian trading routes or near military outposts.

Farmers developed links to nearby communities selling surplus crops and buying supplies they

could not produce themselves thereby providing an impetus for urban expansion of local

economic centers. Travel and transport along early roads helped facilitate market activities

among farms and small towns. Over time, the gateway and central place functions of the nascent

cities developed.

13. For a description of how the transfer of information shaped connections among larger United States cities, see Alan Pred, Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System Of Cities, 1790-1840 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973) and Alan Pred Urban Growth and City-Systems Development in the United States, 1840-1860 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); For an analysis of borderland suburbanization, see Chapter 3 of Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820- 2000 (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003). 13

Figure I.2: Subregional Model—Early Stage

Figure I.3: Subregional Model—Middle Stage

Figure I.4: Subregional Model—Late Stage

Second, after a period of economic change including urban, agricultural, and transportation route expansion, more towns developed and connections among them strengthened. (See Figure 1.3) With improved commercial connections among other subregions and distant markets, the function of a gateway city formed within one town that became the subregional hub. Local economic centers—with their own agricultural tributary area andconnections to nearby smaller towns— grew throughout the hinterland of the main urban area. Yet, at this stage, some connections among towns remained weak or did not exist. New transportation methods would break this seeming isolation, strengthening connections among towns and spurring new market interactions.

Third, a mature subregional system of cities included connections of various qualities among all towns (nodes) of the network with the hub functioning more like a central place than a gateway city and the local economic centers having their own productive hinterlands with farms and villages. (See Figure 1.4) With land improvements, farms could have stronger connections to nearby communities, and the increase in manufacturing allowed some small towns near to the subregional hub to develop based upon industrial rather than agricultural links. The dynamic growth of the subregion throughout the various stages of the model depended upon the use of transportation routes stimulating increased market interactions and integration among people and the improvement of land and use of natural resources.

For all the interpretive power of the subregional system and broad range of this dissertation, this study is limited in its scope. First, this work is focused almost entirely on discrete markets and microeconomic activity thus leaving out discussion of the fiscal and monetary policies of macroeconomic actions. Federal involvement in the money supply certainly affected people’s economic interactions, but a detailed examination of the influence of 15 such government policies is not included. Second, despite people needing to come together in some way to conduct business interactions, this dissertation does not involve thorough analysis of the influence of social conditions and customs on market relations. The subregional model certainly can be utilized to show societal impacts on economic activities; this is left for future study. Future investigations of social pressures on business dealings may help refine the subregional model. Third, despite a strong environmental component of this work, ecological impacts of agriculture, manufacturing, and urban growth on air, water, soil, and plant and animal life are not examined. Land use—whether for buildings or farmland—is the limit of investigation of the natural world. Fourth, amounts of freight hauled along canals and railroads is accumulated by town rather than by boat or rail line dimming some of the analyses, but such a method still provides evidence for arguments of economic change and urban development.

Finally, although Toledo was a prominent Lake Erie port, there is no separate examination of the role of lake vessels connecting Toledo with other cities. Conclusions about the intraregional links via lake for northwest Ohio are interspersed among discussions of relationships between the Toledo subregional system and other networks.

THEMES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Economic change through newly created and expanding connections involved the role of government, notions of progress and civilization over nature, urbanization, and industrialization.

Apparent throughout United States history, governments supported settlement and continued development through debates involving the formation and implementation of internal improvement policies. Bringing Euro-American civilization to former Indian lands, people acting on their notions of progress stimulated vast economic change through the construction of transportation routes allowing easier travel and the creation of market connections among 16 people. Settlers, town boosters, and businessmen required reliable transportation routes and well-developed land—all refinements of nature—to thrive and expand their farms, cities, and economic ventures—improvements of the human world. From people’s progress-minded actions grew larger urban areas and manufacturing establishments, and urbanization and industrialization themselves were intricately connected economic changes. Early examples of these phenomena included the expansion of trading posts into larger settlements with residences, enlarged market places, the presence of political and government officials, and small workshops for mechanics.

Later examples included expanding towns enticing immigrants to settle and take jobs in the expanding factories thereby allowing the manufacturing establishments to grow drawing more workers and stimulating further urban expansion. Throughout the history of Toledo and northwest Ohio, these developments revealed the economic change and connections created through the relationships among political ideas, geography, and economics.

With respect to the role of government, the political ideas of liberalism and republicanism influenced people’s actions that shaped the course of economic change and the debates over internal improvement projects. Liberals in the early and mid-nineteenth century wanted to pursue their own interests and pushed for policies that would allow them to pursue their interests.

Historians L. Ray Gunn in The Decline of Authority and John L. Larson in Internal Improvement argued that individuals and groups in the 1820s and 1830s acted to boost their economic position through internal improvement schemes pressuring state legislatures, whether in New York, Ohio, or other states, to fund improvement projects in their local areas. Republican ideology in the early republic supported only virtuous men making decisions and creating policy for the good of all people and not just for their own good or interests. During the Jacksonian Era of the 1820s to mid-1840s and the concurrent Market Revolution expanding economic interactions and 17 connections, Americans exuded more liberal tendencies than during the early republic era from

1789 to around 1815. However, throughout these periods, Americans were neither entirely republican nor entirely liberal. The rise of the middle class during the market revolution, as historians Gordon Wood and Charles Sellers argued, occurred as individuals could more easily pursue their own interests. Moreover, these scholars have described the power of governments to influence economic change long before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs of the

1930s.14

Generating policy was one function of government while another was the actual

implementation of various plans and laws. Putting a restraint on unfettered pursuits of individual interests in the , local authorities such as county commissioners exercised infrastructural authority, as historian William J. Novak described, overseeing the creation of a systematic drainage plan. Novak, relying on sociologist Michael Mann’s work, distinguishes this type of power from despotic power—“organizational capacity of state elites to rule unchecked by other centers of power or by civil society”—in asserting that infrastructural power allows for governments to regulate activities, administer policies, and promote commerce. Thus, through infrastructural power, local and state government officials could enact and oversee policy implementation. Moreover, it was this type of administrative and regulatory authority that diminishes the idea of laissez faire government and a weak state in the United States before the mid-twentieth century.15

14. L. Ray Gunn, The Decline of Authority: Public Economic Policy and Political Development in New York, 1800- 1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); John L. Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Press, 1991); Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 15. William Novak, “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (June 2008), 752-772. The definition of “despotic power” is from page 763. 18

People putting or expanding civilization over nature involved creating transportation infrastructure, constructing the built environment, and eliminating adverse natural conditions.

Doing so was one part of progress for nineteenth-century Americans. Historian Roderick Nash in Wilderness and the American Mind contended that settlers considered “uncontrolled nature” as wilderness and desired to “conquer” nature. Nash also claimed that pioneers were agents of civilization. In Nature Incorporated, environmental historian Theodore Steinberg posited that

“[h]uman history is defined by the transformation and control of nature.”16 Steinberg’s analysis of water usage and early textile mills in New England showed how company owners and civil engineers used science and technology to utilize all available amounts of water to power factories. According to environmental historian John Opie, progress for nineteenth-century

Americans involved material improvement and Enlightenment ideas emphasizing the individual liberty and the freedom from bonds of the natural world. James Lemon maintained that the liberal dreams of urban boosters and policymakers led to vast amounts of material progress as people used available natural resources. Moreover, legislators debating issues involving

“internal improvements” showed that they believed the conditions of the land needed to be made better. Results of early initiatives of expanding civilization prompted people to modify nature even more through new transportation infrastructure and an expansion of the built environment.17

Examining the links between civilization and nature as cities changed, historian William

Cronon, in Nature’s Metropolis, developed the idea of “boosterism” as an explanation of the

16. Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 12. 17. Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press Note Bene, 2001), xi-xiii, 12, 27, 40-41; Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, 12-13, 50-76, 79-80, 88-95; John Opie, Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), 137; Lemon, Liberal Dreams, 746, 747-748. 19 settlement and development of the United States frontier in the nineteenth century to counter

Frederick Jackson Turner’s traditional “frontier thesis” regarding settlement. Cronon reversed

Turner’s model to describe activities where boosters attempted to bring “civilization” in the form of cities quickly to unsettled areas. Historian John Mack Farragher also challenged Turner’s frontier thesis arguing that groups of people, not individuals working alone, settled the frontier and expanded American activities and ideas across the continent. Where Cronon’s book looked at the social, commercial, and transportation linkages holding Chicago and the Great West together, this dissertation shows how such connections united individuals within northwest Ohio prompting changes within the system of cities, and it identifies the means in which key geographic characteristics of the area as well as policies affected economic development. In this way, this study reinterprets and expands on research published in the 1950s by historical geographer Martin Kaatz who used the Great Black Swamp as a case study of settlement in the nineteenth century.18

Moreover, boosters and residents employed the notions and rhetoric of progress in the

nineteenth century to expand the implementation their entrepreneurial visions on the landscape

of the expanding United States. Historian Kim M. Gruenwald explained the contours and debates involving boosterism, economic development, and progress along the Ohio River in the early nineteenth century in her book River of Enterprise. Gruenwald examined how pioneers along the Ohio River in the 1790s first established town sites and farms that later functioned as a system of subregional hubs and hinterlands due in large part to residents’ desires to make money and create thriving communities. In her book The Artificial River, historian Carol Sheriff

18. Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Proceedings of the Forty- first Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1894; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis; John Mack Farragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Martin R. Kaatz, “The Black Swamp: A Study in Historical Geography.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 1 (March 1955): 1-35. 20

explained the attitudes of boosters and contested ideas of progress involving the most-celebrated

internal improvement of the early nineteenth century, the Erie Canal in New York State.

Important in Sheriff’s research were her descriptions of both the triumphs and downfalls of

progress as seen in the construction, usage, and later debates of the Erie Canal by New York

state residents and others. Therefore, booster activities and progress were not always monolithic

“good” things; there were pitfalls and failures in attempts to improve the natural world and

spread the ideas of the United States. Andrew R. L. Cayton, in his synthesis of Ohio’s history

since statehood entitled Ohio: The History of a People, delineated the changing definitions of

progress for Ohioans arguing that throughout the nineteenth century, notions of material progress

involving economic change and social progress encompassing societal relations and functions.

This dissertation, however, focuses mainly on material progress.19

The establishment of a fully integrated national market was slow throughout the early

nineteenth century, but the creation of regional economies supported by intraregional trade

formed market opportunities for people living in individual subregional systems. As historians

Joyce Appleby and James Henretta argue in individual journal articles, farmers in the early

nineteenth century and after produced and sold at least a small surplus to have money to purchase products such as nails or metalware they did not make on their farms. These markets

provided the impetus for commercial development and business interactions. Historian Diane

Lindstrom’s Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region is the classic study of how

intraregional markets shaped a region. After Philadelphia merchants lost overseas market

opportunities early in the nineteenth century, transportation difficulties limited extraregional

19. Kim M. Gruenwald, River of Enterprise: The commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790- 1850 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996); Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003). 21 trade for residents around the city leading to specialization. Lindstrom asserted that early in this specialization process, hinterland production pushed the development of the city of Philadelphia while the city pulled the hinterland later as the major urban economic activities shifted from commerce to manufacturing thereby providing goods for sale in the surrounding counties. This model of growth resonates with preliminary interpretations of the growth of northwest Ohio.

Historian Craig Thompson Friend studied the land traversed by the Maysville Road using it as a microcosm for economic development and the consequences of land use in the early republic in

Along the Maysville Road. Friend’s analysis of early republic phenomena such as republicanism, democracy, urban development, market expansion, and nationalism shows more fully their effects by investigating the impacts of these trends on a small area.20

Integral to the settlement of western lands and the connection of these new communities

to established populations to the east was transportation systems. Historian George Rogers

Taylor’s The Transportation Revolution remains the classic interpretation of how new modes of

transportation not only expanded the webs of interactions but also helped transform society,

politics, and economics in the growing United States from 1815 to 1860. Historian Harry N.

Scheiber, in Ohio Canal Era, argued that positive state government policies interacted with the

economy of Ohio during the four decades before the Civil War to move Ohio from lightly settled

to become a leading economic state within the United States. According to Scheiber, Ohio

policymakers of this era believed that transportation was a key weakness within the state greatly

slowing economic development and settlement. In his book Railroads Triumphant, historian

20. Joyce Appleby, “Commercial Farming and the ‘Agrarian Myth’ in the Early Republic,” Journal of American History 68, no. 4 (March 1982), 833-849; James A. Henretta, “The ‘Market’ in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 2 (Summer 1998), 289-304; Diane Lindstrom, Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1815-1840 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Craig Thompson Friend, Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005). 22

Albro Martin maintained that entrepreneurs were quick to realize the advantages of railroads over other contemporary forms of transportation, but governments often passed protective legislation for canals and turnpikes.21

Much of the economic changes throughout northwest Ohio and the United States during

the late nineteenth century appeared through urbanization and industrialization. Urbanization

involved enlarging residential areas and populations, business pursuits, and manufacturing

establishments. Industrialization also prompted an increase in factories while requiring larger

workforces that needed shelter and provisions thus leading to an increase in urbanization.

Explaining the development of cities before the Civil War, urban geographer Allan Pred, in

Urban Growth and City-Systems in the United States, investigated the interdependencies of large

cities as manufacturing activities within began to expand providing the groundwork for later

urbanization and industrialization. Urban historian Raymond Mohl outlined the growth of the

industrial city after 1860 in The New City in which he argued that people placed their hopes for

progress and better economic conditions of the development of cities and the manufacturing

establishments located within them. As the urban areas expanded, Mohl maintained that new

issues of corrupt local governments and new social orders developed. Pred, in The Spatial

Dynamics of Urban-Industrial Growth, advocated for looking at cities as points in space to explain economic change rather than the location of individual factories thereby providing a fuller account of the economic transformation of the United States during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Linking industrialization and agriculture in the Midwest, Brian

Page and Richard Walker argued that industry did not follow the plow but made it contending

21. George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1951); Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969); Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 23 that urban manufacture of farm machinery aided agricultural activities as agents of economic changes.22

The patterns of urbanization and industrialization established during the nineteenth century stimulated further economic change in the twentieth century producing new patterns of development. The greatest changes in urban growth were the creation of suburbs beyond the fringes of cities and the multi-nucleated expansion in southern California prompting a shift in explanations thereby forming the postmodern Los Angeles School. These interpretations focused on the specialness of nodes within a large urban network, perceptions of urbanites, and less material structures such as the Internet and service industries connecting people.

Postmodern urbanism also included the formation of a new meta-geography of world city networks where urban centers accumulate wealth and power because of what flows through them and not what they statistically contain. Geographer Jonathan V. Beaverstock and his colleagues argued that in the future, urban networks will challenge nations as the focus of economic power.23

METHODS AND SOURCES

The intellectual framework for this study comes from William Cronon’s Nature’s

Metropolis in looking at the symbiotic relationship of cities and hinterlands, Allan Pred’s work

on systems of cities in examining webs of interactions, and the revisionist nature of

environmental history in explaining United States history. Cronon utilized business records to

show how crops, cattle, and lumber connected Chicago to its western hinterland. Pred argued for

22.Allan R. Pred, Urban Growth and City-Systems; Raymond A. Mohl, The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860-1920 (Arlington Heights, Ill: Harlan Davidson, 1985); Pred, The Spatial Dynamics of U. S. Urban-Industrial Growth; Page and Walker, “From Settlement to Fordism.” 23. Michael Dear and Steven Flusty, “Postmodern Urbanism,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, no. 1 (March 1998), 50-72; Jonathan V. Beaverstock, Richard G. Smith, Peter J. Taylor, “World-City Network: A New Metageography?” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, no. 1 (March 2000), 123-134. 24 and utilized geographic location theory rather than economic location theory in his works to explain urban growth and spatial interactions. Geographic location theory places cities as points in space as the main subjects of analysis rather than industrial firms as in economic location theory. Thus, for Pred, spatial interactions, irrational decisions, and socially dictated concerns determine the growth of a city within in a system of cities. The revisionist character of environmental history refers to the general pattern of reinterpreting events and ideas from the vantage point of man’s interactions with nature. Many different historians have analyzed the same past events without attention to nature long before environmental historians had.24

Such a framework requires research into demography and economics. To do so, this study utilized investigation of the abstracts of the decennial Census of the United States in order to both describe the context of activities and infer relationships between activities in the hinterland and Toledo. Data gathered from censuses included populations of cities, townships, and counties; number and sizes of farms, improved acreage; number of manufacturing

establishments; and occupations of residents. Drawing information about events from between

the censuses to see what happened, to infer why these events occurred, and to surmise what the

consequences were, this project embraced an analysis of various newspapers including the

(Toledo) Blade, Bryan Democrat, Defiance Democrat, Napoleon Democratic Northwest, Wood

County Sentinel, and numerous others from Perrysburg. Analysis of newspaper ads showed the

quantities and names of businesses while demonstrating what types of products and services

merchants were selling in Toledo and northwest Ohio. Investigation of news articles and

editorials from this period allowed interpretation of the connections among people and economic

24. See especially Pred, The Spatial Dynamics of U. S. Urban-Industrial Growth. William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983) is a prime example of this revisionist character investigating colonial New England history with respect to land use rather than traditional views of Atlantic World politics or Puritan religion. 25 conditions within the region thereby providing an explanation of people’s activities and the symbiotic nature seen throughout the subregional system of cities.

Government documents and reports and papers from various manuscript collections provided evidence of the creation of connections and how these links stimulated change.

Government documents such as state laws, county commissioner journals, and county engineer reports permitted an analysis of policies for economic development and land improvement through railroad incorporation acts and ditch laws. Reports from the State Board of Agriculture showed the changes in agricultural production over time. A consultation and analysis of the records of the Toledo Board of Trade not only showed the changes within the city’s economy but also illustrated the importance of the harbor of Toledo for economic development. Reports from railroad companies included arguments for funding, speculated routes, and the advantages of rail transportation for farmers and businessmen. Papers of prominent Bowling Green attorney Frank

Baldwin provided direct evidence of the business connections and urban growth of the late nineteenth century stimulated by transportation infrastructure and natural resource usage.

STRUCTURE

This dissertation is divided into two main sections: Part One containing Chapters One through Four and Part Two consisting of Chapters Five and Six. Such a division emphasizes the separate creations of transportation routes and land improvement schemes as economic changes as well as means for increasing development while then investigating how symbiotic developments within the subregional system functioned once infrastructure and drainage policies were in place. Each chapter deals in some way with a part of the interpretive framework of origins, implementation, and consequences of policy. Emphasizing origins and early implementation of internal improvement policies and ditch laws, the first section analyzes the 26 plans to settle northwest Ohio and establish a major city there. In this way, it becomes clearer how a subregional system of cities developed through various transportation routes and land improvement projects and how rural areas pushed the early urban development of Toledo.

Considering the consequences of internal improvement schemes and drainage plans as developing connections between the hinterland and Toledo in the last part of the nineteenth century, Part Two involves arguments of strengthening symbiotic growth where the subregional hub pulled the development of the hinterland while nearby areas continued to exert pressure for change on local economic centers. Moreover, having two major parts, this dissertation can plainly describe the formation and development of the subregional model and probe the economic changes within it over a period of time.

Chapter One argues the origins and construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road represented the desires of state and federal policymakers to bring people to northwest Ohio where they would form compact settlements and farms and create connections instigating economic changes that would extend national and regional markets. Lower Sandusky and

Perrysburg, as major towns along the muddy road, served as gateways initially for northwest

Ohio. Chapter Two looks at similar issues for the Wabash and Erie Canal and the early history of Toledo stressing boosters’ roles in economic development and further arguing that transportation connections spurred market interactions which prompted still more economic interactions establishing symbiotic growth patterns for rural and urban areas. With the completion of the canal, Toledo became the dominant gateway to northwest Ohio leaving other towns to function as local economic centers. Chapter Three, examining the origins and construction of railroads through northwest Ohio, contends that the flexibility of locating railroads stimulated significant economic change spurring urban expansion throughout the area. 27

This chapter also makes a case for the distinction between an immediate hinterland and an extended hinterland as railroads helped to connect subregional systems of cities. Towns with access to railroads—especially those at the junction of lines—then had a greater impetus for development as central places on a local level. Investigating the origins and early implementation of ditch laws, Chapter Four maintains that land quality strongly influenced economic change providing the impetus for policies to develop the landscape turning “bad” land into “good” land. Increased agricultural productivity due to better land quality led to stronger connections among farms and cities within the subregional model.

Chapters Five and Six provide an appraisal of the consequences of internal improvements and land development on economic changes involving continued integration of manufacturing, agriculture, and resource usage as well as strengthening links among residents of different towns and cities. The key event that divides these chapters chronologically is the gas and oil boom in northwest Ohio beginning in the 1880s. These final two chapters reason that after the Civil War,

Toledo’s economic activity pulled the development of the surrounding rural areas while agricultural endeavors continued to exert pressure for development on local economic centers.

Within the network of cities illustrated in the subregional model, the built environment expanded based upon increased market interactions prompting entrepreneurs to construct or expand stores.

The complexity of government and progressive attitudes inspired residents to create new courthouses and city halls further developing the built environment.

The Maumee-Western Reserve Road and the Wabash and Erie Canal were important in the economic development of northwestern Ohio, but they did not completely turn the entire region into thriving commercial zone like those of the eastern seaboard despite what speculators and certain politicians argued. Numerous railroads and the implementation of ditch laws 28 stimulated further economic changes strengthening intensive symbiotic development of urban and rural areas. Growth rates for locations in the Maumee Valley and the Black Swamp were positive although uneven throughout the nineteenth century demonstrating the effect of the quality of market connections among people and the conditions of land. What follows shows the policies and actions officials implemented to link markets and populations, drain swampy land, and the impacts of those policies on the economic changes of Toledo and northwestern Ohio. 29

PART ONE: ESTABLISHING THE SYSTEM

Following the War for Independence, the United States gained authority over land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River north from the Great Lakes to the thirty-first parallel in the south. Yet, this area had not only residual foreign military outposts and trading villages but it also included Indians who had their own cultural and land use practices.

As would be the case throughout the settlement of the United States, pioneers ventured onto natives’ lands to establish farms and small towns most often fighting with the current Indian inhabitants. In what would in 1803 become the state of Ohio, territorial governor Arthur St.

Clair, with the backing of federal officials, authorized military force in 1790 to prevent natives from wreaking havoc on settlers’ efforts to establish farms. Following the defeats, of General

Josiah Harmar in 1790 and Governor St. Clair in 1791, the task of pacifying Indian resistance to

American settlement fell to General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. After spending two years training his forces for fighting natives among forests, Wayne led his troops north from Cincinnati establishing Fort Defiance at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers and defeated the native fighters at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794 near the British Fort Miamis and the future site of the city of Maumee. The subsequent Treaty of Greeneville in 1795 set a boundary between Indian-controlled lands and areas for American settlement while setting aside strategic reserves for United States forts and trading posts within native lands. It was under these territorial conditions that five Indian groups and the United States government concluded the

Treaty of Brownstown authorizing the Maumee-Western Reserve Road in 1808.1

The Great Black Swamp and Maumee River Valley were difficult places for people to settle at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Early pioneers and travelers through the area

1. For more information on the Indian Wars in the Ohio Country and effects on migration, see George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 3rd. ed. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2003), 70-82. 30 recorded their observations allowing later generations, after vast amounts of economic and environmental changes, to have ideas about past conditions. Typical landscapes in northwest

Ohio at the beginning of the nineteenth century included dense forests with swampy bottoms, sand ridges rising above the flatness, and open coarse-grass prairies dotted with woodlots. From early observers, Native Americans had corn fields along the Maumee River and often burned prairie grasses. Native trees characteristic of northwest Ohio included: white elm, sycamore, cottonwood, black ash, white ash, hickory, bur oak, red oak, black walnut, buckeye, pawpaw, willow, sugar maple, soft maple, and bass wood. The prairies, according to a soldier travelling through the area during the War of 1812, were expansive, flat plains broken by groves of oaks and hickories and hazel bushes with a luxuriant growth of grasses and herbs and colorful flowers in summer. Later settlers, farmers, and businessmen utilized the soil, timber, and other natural resources to effect economic change.2

The great example and engine of this development, the subregional system of cities within northwest Ohio and centered around Toledo initially developed through the construction

of roads, canals, and railroads as well as the implementation of ditch laws to improve land

quality. Transportation infrastructure and land quality determined the scope and quality of

economic changes in northwest Ohio in the nineteenth century. Transportation connections—

roads, canals, and railroads—among Toledo and other nascent towns, market interactions among

residents, and the relationships between land quality and usage provided symbiotic development

for urban areas and rural hinterlands. Moreover, federal and state policies officials enacted to

settle northwest Ohio—including construction of transportation routes and formation of ditch

2. Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes, An Encyclopedia of the State, Vol. 1 (Cincinnati: C. J. Krehbiel and Company, 1888), 903-904; Royal Eastman Shanks, “The Original Vegetation of a Part of the Lake Plain of Northwestern Ohio: Wood and Henry Counties” (PhD diss. Ohio State University, 1938), 5-12. 31 laws—and the consequences of those policies showed how the economy developed in an adverse place to live. The settlement of the Black Swamp and Maumee Valley was a unique episode in the transportation and market revolutions of the nineteenth century. The uneven economic development of these regions was not always the grand progressive changes envisioned by the governors, senators, and congressmen who developed the policies for this intended growth. With the Great Black Swamp covering most of the region and with no major navigable rivers besides the Maumee nearby, the geography of northwestern Ohio presented an especially difficult case for expansion.

Transportation routes were fundamental to aiding economic development in northwest

Ohio. During the early republic, local boosters, legislators, governors, and presidents debated improvement projects part of system of roads and canals establishing economic and political connections between markets in the eastern United States and the lands west of the Appalachian

Mountains. Traveling on navigable waterways was the easiest and cheapest method of transporting goods from one location to the next. However, not every community was located near a navigable river. Therefore, workers constructed roads and sometimes canals under the direction of federal or state governments to connect these communities. Policymakers debated who had the responsibility to finance and oversee such internal improvement projects. Many politicians arguing for internal improvements in northwestern Ohio assumed such projects would provide extensive economic growth coupled with avenues for national defense.3 Yet, canals and

roads proved insufficient alone to connect towns and bring people together. The innovation and

construction of railroads beginning in the 1840s added to the transportation network supporting regional and local market interactions while helping to develop the system of cities surrounding

3. Extensive economic growth involved connections between people in distant markets. Intensive economic growth involved connections among people in local areas. 32

Toledo. Town boosters’ activities initiated many local jealousies associated with gaining potential development thereby limiting state financing for railroads while concurrently providing the impetus for the formation of corporations to oversee rail line construction and operation.

Thus, all levels of governments played roles, albeit changing functions, in creating transportation connections leading to possibilities for economic development over time.

Equally important to understanding economic change around Toledo during the nineteenth century were ways people used resources and interacted with the landscape. The predominant land use throughout northwest Ohio at this time was agriculture. However, swampy conditions stifled the expansion of farming activities. Thus, in addition to clearing land for fields, land owners needed to drain surface water and eliminate moisture from the subsoil.

Early private efforts to dig ditches did not adequately eliminate surface water requiring governmental efforts. Following successes with ditches alongside roads and railroads and feeder canals, Ohio legislators enacted laws to provide a systematic drainage plan. Thus, beginning in the 1850s and lasting into the twentieth century, the number of acres of improved land increased throughout northwest Ohio allowing more agricultural activity which in turn spurred more economic development, especially after the Civil War.

In addition to agriculture, people had connections with the land and natural resources through transportation routes, urban expansion, and manufacturing. The construction of roads, canals, and railroads each required various amounts of stone and wood, and each internal improvement relocated soil to make roadbeds or embankments. In the case of canals, workers needed to conduct water from creeks or rivers to the main channel to make the waterway usable.

Through business activities stemming from new transportation routes, urban expansion occurred involving the use of wood, brick, and stone for buildings. Constructing new residences, stores, 33 and warehouses provided a use for land other than agriculture especially on the fringes of growing towns. Manufacturing, likewise, required land for workshops and factories while using natural resources for fuel and raw materials. Fundamental symbiotic relationships between urban and rural areas, manipulations of land and resources allowed towns and farms to expand.

From the earliest Euro-American settlements in northwest Ohio until the Civil War in the

1860s, the symbiotic relationship between Toledo and its hinterland witnessed a greater degree of rural areas pushing the development of the city. Thus, the economic development and settlement of farming areas stimulated the urban expansion of Toledo which provided warehouses and a harbor to collect and distribute agricultural produce and stores to supply the demands of the growing population along transportation routes throughout northwest Ohio. The set of physical connections among towns and their hinterlands produced through internal improvements stimulated links by means of market interactions laying the partial basis for economic development of northwest Ohio. Ties to natural resources and the betterment of land conditions offered people additional connections prompting economic changes and enhancing the symbiosis between urban and rural areas. Residents, speculators, and policymakers anticipated compact settlement and strengthening connections among farms and towns with the creation of internal improvements which would enhance economic interactions prompting the expansion of Toledo as a gateway for goods and a business hub serving its immediate hinterland.

Residents settled near transportation routes in order to more cheaply ship and receive goods and merchandise. The indirect benefits of the growing network of transportation routes proved to be a vast increase in the number and quality of local economic interactions. The imbalance of intensive growth over extensive growth in northwest Ohio, moreover, generated pressure for

Toledo to grow in the decades before the Civil War. 34

CHAPTER ONE BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER WITH THE MAUMEE-WESTERN RESERVE ROAD

In the mid-1830s, there was an average of more than one tavern per mile of road testifying to the wretched condition of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road. Taverns were often merely houses near especially dangerous mudholes that formed at regular intervals because water pooled against the road. Enterprising tavern keepers would maintain a sturdy team of oxen to assist in pulling travelers out of the mud. It was usual for eighty to ninety teams to travel along the road per day according to early pioneers of the area. Some owners would even water nearby mudholes in order to get more customers. An often-related story told of a young man on his way to Michigan who became stuck in a mudhole and subsequently lost all of his money paying to get out of the hole. To earn money to continue his journey to Michigan, the man camped near a mudhole and, like others, charged people to pull them out of the mud. Like the tavern keepers, this young man took advantage of the deplorable conditions of the swamp and road to make money. Such conditions shaped the settlement patterns and possibilities for economic expansion in northwest Ohio throughout the nineteenth century.1

INTRODUCTION

Boosters and policymakers intrigued by the possibilities of creating connections between

future communities debated plans to establish new settlements in northwest Ohio shortly after

Ohio became a state in 1803. However, action regarding such plans came slowly. Federal and

state policies enacted to settle northwestern Ohio and the consequences of those policies showed

how the economy developed in an adverse place to live. The uneven economic development of

1. “Proceedings,” Yearbook of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society (Fremont: Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society,1921), 23-24; Jim Mollenkampf, “The Worst Road in America” in The Great Black Swamp: Historical Tales of the Nineteenth Century Northwestern Ohio (Toledo: Lake of the Cat Publishing, 1999), 41. 35 these regions was not always the grand progressive growth envisioned by the governors, senators, and congressmen who developed the policies for this intended growth. With the Great

Black Swamp covering most of the region and with no major navigable rivers nearby, the geography of northwestern Ohio presented an especially difficult case for expansion. (See Figure

1.1 below) As such, transportation routes such as the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, and later the Wabash and Erie Canal and numerous railroads, not only embodied physical connections among communities but also allow analysis of the quality of connections linking people and growing towns.

Figure 1.1 Map of Northwest Ohio Showing Extent of Black Swamp

Note: The populations of cities shown on the map are from the 1950s when Kaatz published his article. Source: Martin R. Kaatz, “The Black Swamp: A Study in Historical Geography,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 1 (March 1955), 2.

With the construction and improvements to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road and

initial settlement, the period from 1808 to the 1840s reveals the early stage of the subregional

model. (See Figure 1.2 below) Policymakers desired to create compact settlements established

through people traveling and establishing farms along the road, but such communities formed 36 slowly. Lower Sandusky and Perrysburg became entry points or gateway cities to the Black

Swamp because of their location on the muddy road on the fringes of the swamp.2 Farms were small and widely scattered throughout the Maumee-Western Reserve corridor having tenuous commercial links to the towns on the edge of the swamp. Thus, each town had links to many little farms. The low population, dispersal of homes, and the need to clear and improve land dictated the lack of nodes within the system of cities and dearth and weakness of market connections.

Figure 1.2: Subregional Model—Early Stage

The history of the bringing people together with the Maumee-Western Reserve Road

involved two major phases. First, policymakers at the federal and state levels debated the

necessity of constructing the road and the implementation of the final plans. Congressmen not

representing residents of western lands hesitated to provide funding for a project benefiting an

area outside their constituencies prompting a hybrid of state and national effort to finally

construct the thoroughfare. Second, once workers finally completed the muddy road, economic

development started slowly with roadside taverns and increased following improvements to the

road around 1840. Families and their occupations undergirded the economic development of the

2. Lower Sandusky was renamed Fremont in 1849 to do the plethora of places with “Sandusky” in their names. 37 lands along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road. Within these events, the dominant themes of the role of the government and land usage appear. Policymakers deliberated internal improvement plans for Ohio and the nation while settlers cleared land for farms or used other skills to create economic connections among families and developing towns within northwest

Ohio and its emerging system of cities. In regards to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, policymakers wanted to bring people together in northwest Ohio through the construction of the road to form communities. Over time, these settlements would develop into a system of cities through urban and rural interactions having the road as the key physical link between the burgeoning economic centers. Yet, this process proved very slow due to the swampy conditions of the land and witnessed many boosters touting the advantages of their town as, potentially, the primary business center of the area

POLICIES AND DEBATES LEADING TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROAD

Because the Great Black Swamp covered most of the northwestern corner of Ohio and native groups continued to control it, European-Americans settled this section of the state later than the rest of the state. These pioneers even settled the lands in Indiana and Michigan bordering before northwestern Ohio. Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Wyandots, and

Shawnees retained legal control of most of this area into the second decade of the nineteenth century because the swampland was not enticing to Euro-American settlers. A series of treaties, including the Treaty of Detroit and the Treaty of Brownstown, made between the United States government and Indian groups forced the native groups to relinquish small tracts of land on which the United States government would establish garrisons to protect pioneers traveling westward. Workers constructed the road that became the Maumee-Western Reserve Road according to the terms of Treaty of Brownstown signed in 1808. However, administrators did 38 not commence the construction of the road until the 1820s. The War of 1812 and the post-war economic slump delayed the construction of the road. Only after the War of 1812 did Congress appropriate funds that officials would use for the opening of the roads because the war with

Great Britain required the attention and the money of the federal government.3 Once completed,

the Maumee-Western Reserve Road would have profound consequences on the development of

the economy in northwestern Ohio.4

As settlement of the lands of the Northwest Territory increased after the War of 1812, the

reasons put forth to construct a road according to the terms of the Treaty of Brownstown changed. The national government and “certain Indian tribes” concluded this treaty in

November 1808.5 According to the treaty, U. S. Indian agents and native signatories drawing up

the document originally intended the road specified by the treaty to enable the United States

government to make timely payments to compensate native groups for incursions onto land.

Uncertain conditions of Lake Erie, restrictions on travel through Canadian territory, and the

muddy condition delayed prompt payments to the Chippewas, the Ottawas, the Pottawattamie,

the Wyandots, and the Shawnees. Territorial Governor William Hull wrote in the treaty that ratifying the treaty would achieve the objective of connecting native settlements to United States

3. In December 1811, the federal government did allocate $6000 for the construction of the roads proposed in the Treaty of Brownstown, but the Ohio governor used the money for the construction of other roads in northwestern Ohio necessary for troop movements during the War of 1812. In the autumn of 1812, Ohio governor R. J. Meigs ordered a company of frontier militia to prepare a road north through the Black Swamp to Michigan over which the army would travel in order to defend the territory threatened by the British. 4. “Treaty of Detroit,” American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:116; “Treaty of Brownstown,” American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125; George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 3rd ed. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2003), 116. 5. The Treaty of Brownstown was presented to the Senate on February 18, 1809, and the Indian tribes involved in this treaty were the Chippewas, the Ottawas, the Pottawattamie, the Wyandots, and the Shawnees. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125. 39 controlled territory which was “so desirable and evidently beneficial to the Indian nations, as well as to the United States.”6

Because citizens of the United States had no rights to travel on Indian land, this treaty

included provisions to acquire land from the native groups in order to build two roads. The

federal government was to construct the first road on a tract of land “one hundred and twenty

feet in width, from the foot of the Rapids of the river Miami (Maumee), of lake Erie, to the

western line of the Connecticut reserve.”7 Along the strip of land for the road, the United States

acquired control of land one mile on either side of the road “for the purpose of establishing

settlements along the [road].”8 The government would use the money from the sale of these

lands to finance the construction of the road. Compensation for workers building the road

between 1823 and 1828 was sometimes a portion of land from these tracts. For the second road,

the native tribes ceded a strip of land to the federal government that would be one hundred twenty feet in width and run southerly from Lower Sandusky to the line formed according to the

Treaty of Greenville. The Indian signatories granted the national government the “privilege of

taking, at all time, such timber and other materials from the adjacent lands, as may be necessary

for making and keeping in repair the said road, with the bridges that may be required along the

same.” According to the treaty, the President of the United States would have the final

determination as to the advisable route of the proposed roads, and the native groups would retain

hunting and fishing rights in the ceded lands.9

One of the major purposes of these two proposed roads was to permit troop movements

through Indian lands. Because it would connect two larger areas of settlement, the more

6. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125. 7. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125. 8. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125. 9. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125. 40 important road of the Brownstown roads was the one the government would build from the fall line of the Maumee River to western boundary of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Treaty of Detroit concluded in 1807 called for the construction of a military road from Detroit to the

Maumee River. Thus, with the completion of that road and the first road proposed in the Treaty of Brownstown, the United States would control a series of military roads that would lead from

United States controlled territory in north central Ohio to the primary U. S. Army outpost in the

Michigan Territory. However, after the War of 1812 and as more and more land was taken out of native control, legislators and territory officials often cited the defense of Michigan against

British Canada and the settlement of northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan as the major reasons to construct a road through the Black Swamp. Congressman William W. Woodbridge from Michigan argued that because Michigan seemed isolated, “it would be unreasonable to suppose that the people of the Territory of Michigan, though influenced by the most devoted patriotism could alone successfully resist so complicated a pressure as…may be brought to bear upon them” if the United States would go to war against Great Britain again.10

Another important purpose of the roads would be to aid in the continued settlement of

western lands by Euro-Americans. The road across the Black Swamp from the Western Reserve

to the Maumee River would allow pioneers to move more easily from eastern states to the

growing settlements in southeastern Michigan including those near Otter Creek, River Raisin,

Sandy Creek, and Rocky River. According to Indian agent C. Jouett in southeastern Michigan,

small-scale agriculture was the dominant economic activity in these settlements, and the

10. Mr. Woodbridge of Michigan presented his report regarding the roads mentioned in the Treaty of Brownstown to the House of Representatives on May 12, 1820, during the first session of the Sixteenth Congress. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125; American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 41 residents of these communities were mainly settlers from Canada around 1808. Territorial

Governor Lewis Cass wrote that a road across the Black Swamp

would remove the barriers which nature has interposed, and would, in effect approximate this country to the western portion of the Union, and connected with the natural advantages it possesses, would insure it a speedy settlement, and an active and enterprising population.11

Referring to settlement of the lands within the Black Swamp, Congressman Woodbridge

reported that the land through which the road would be built “would soon be reclaimed [from

swampland]; the construction of the road itself would uncover a considerable portion of the

adjacent land, and fit it, with little additional expense, for immediate cultivation.”12 The growth

of a hinterland with small towns around a subregional hub would help insulate United States

territory from military incursions from Canada by strongly linking settlers and their

communities. Moreover, through establishing compact settlements, a proto-system of cities would emerge providing the basis for future economic developments and land uses.13

Once the United States gained legal control of tracts of land, settlers, businessmen, and

politicians motivated the federal government to begin construction of the roads. Congressman

Jeremiah Morrow from Ohio on the Committee on the Public Lands argued that the federal

government should begin the construction of the roads proposed in the Treaty of Brownstown.

Otherwise, he stated, it was “not probable that [constructing the roads] will be accomplished for

many years to come.”14 To support his claim, Morrow cited the inadequate means of the

inhabitants of Michigan to construct the roads and the fact that the proposed roads were not in

the territorial jurisdiction of Michigan. He also identified the limited public resources of the

11. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 12. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 13. American State Papers, 2, Indian Affairs 1:125; American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 14. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:282. 42

State of Ohio and the needs of improvements on roads within existing settlements as reasons the national government should undertake the construction of these roads. The State of Ohio would only be willing to fund projects in previously settled areas because those developments would have more immediate impacts on the residents of the state. Proponents expected the roads described in the Treaty of Brownstown to entice settlers to the region and begin the economic growth of the local area, but opponents to internal improvement plans did not consider expenditures for improvements to unsettled lands appropriate. These men fervently believed that local communities should pay for such projects.15

Often, as more pioneers settled in an area, they put pressure on the state and federal

governments to construct more roads for commerce and communication. Historian Ellen S.

Wilson wrote about such an effect in the Virginia Military District in southern Ohio at the

beginning of the nineteenth century.16 Land speculators such as Nathaniel Massie attempted to

attract people to move to the interior of Ohio away from the major transportation route of the

Ohio River. However, it was impractical to build roads before cities were established.

Nevertheless, Massie and fellow lobbyists believed they needed some type of thoroughfare or

development to expand interior settlement. Wilson claimed, “the greater the number of settlers,

the greater the demand for eastern goods, and the increased pressure [from residents] within the

Tract to push for more and better roads.”17 Therefore, if even a small group of people moved to the interior, they would compel government officials to build more roads. Because very few

Euro-Americans lived in the Black Swamp before the 1810s, policymakers determined that the

15. Mr. Morrow of Ohio presented his report regarding the roads designated by the Treaty of Brownstown and the disposal of lands acquired by that treaty to the House of Representatives on January 7, 1811, during the third session of the Eleventh Congress. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:282. 16. See Ellen Susan Wilson, “Speculators and Land Development in the Virginia Military Tract: The Territorial Period,” (Ph.D. diss., Miami University, 1982). 17. Wilson, “Speculators and Land Development,” 145. 43 federal government needed to act to begin the settlement of the region. Future residents would then push for more government initiatives to aid in further development.

After 1815, legislators and governors referred to the events of the War of 1812 and the lack of settlement by whites in northwestern Ohio to showcase the need for a road connecting the settlements of Michigan to other communities in Ohio and providing for compact settlements in northwestern Ohio. Following the war with Great Britain, legislators only considered the construction of the first road mentioned in the Treaty of Brownstown. Besides the Black Swamp cutting Michigan’s southeastern communities off from other settlements in Ohio, Michigan bordered British-controlled Upper Canada to the north and east, and native populations lived between settlements in Michigan and populations of white pioneers in Indiana and Ohio.

Congressman William W. Woodbridge from Michigan argued that because Michigan seemed isolated, “it would be unreasonable to suppose that the people of the Territory of Michigan, though influenced by the most devoted patriotism could alone successfully resist so complicated a pressure as…may be brought to bear upon them” if the United States would go to war against

Great Britain again. People thought such a war to include possible military action taking place in and around Michigan.18

Territorial governor Lewis Cass wrote that a road across the Black Swamp would

“remove the barriers which nature has interposed [and] would insure it a speedy settlement, and

an active and enterprising population.”19 Referring to settlement of the lands within the Black

Swamp, Congressman Woodbridge reported that the land through which the road would be built

“would soon be reclaimed [from swampland]; the construction of the road itself would uncover a

18. Mr. Woodbridge of Michigan presented his report regarding the roads mentioned in the Treaty of Brownstown to the House of Representatives on May 12, 1820, during the first session of the Sixteenth Congress. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 19. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 44 considerable portion of the adjacent land, and fit it, with little additional expense, for immediate cultivation.”20 Therefore, the construction of a road through the Black Swamp would allow for

increased population and economic growth which in turn would act as protections against British

incursion into Michigan and northwestern Ohio.

Although proponents of a centralized scheme of internal improvements believed local

economies and communities would grow and be strengthened by these projects, local

governments often were neither financially able nor politically motivated to undertake

constructing roads or canals. Congressman Woodbridge stated that “[n]o reliance…can be

placed upon the individual industry of that country [Ohio] to construct a road over such a morass

[as the Black Swamp]. The construction of a road must precede the establishment there of any

considerable population.”(emphasis in original)21 Few residents of Ohio inhabited the Black

Swamp, and, thus, few individuals lived near the route of the proposed road and could pressure

the state government. The State of Ohio also did not have the necessary funds to construct the

road requiring officials to find financing elsewhere. Additionally, the proposed thoroughfare

was not in the territorial jurisdiction of Michigan. Territorial governor Lewis Cass and the

Secretary of Michigan implored officials in Washington to spend the money to construct a road

across the Black Swamp with Cass insisting that “its operation would be favorable.”22 Due to lack of financial resources and local political motivation, the governments of Ohio and Michigan could not finance the construction of a road through the Black Swamp and compelled the federal government to assist in the building of the road.

20. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 21. Mr. Woodbridge of Michigan reported to the House of Representatives on the necessity of the federal government to fund the roads mentioned in the Treaty of Brownstown on May 12, 1820. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 22. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 45

Once legislators determined who would most benefit from a planned development, the men squabbled over the possible ways to generate revenue to finance the projects. Senator

Morrow from the Committee on Roads and Canals reported to the United States Senate in

February 1816 that Congress should create a fund to finance projects and place it under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. The U. S. Congress was to make an annual appropriation to this fund by and the Secretary of the Treasury would report annually on the expenditures from the fund to pay for the construction of roads and canals. The following year,

Congressman Wilson reported that the potential expenditures of $700 a mile for canals and

$1,500 a mile for permanent roads would be merely investments that would rise in value rather than payments that would not grow in value. The monies to be put into this fund would come from the sale of government lands. Five percent of the price of a parcel of land sold by the government would be reserved for the fund used to finance internal improvement projects.23

Henry Clay’s American System was a plan intended to spur the early growth of the

United States. Clay’s scheme involved harmonizing the sectors of the United States economy— agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing—so that the nation could develop its own home market and not depend on foreign imports. According to historian Maurice Baxter, Clay

believed that “[t]he country [had to] industrialize to supply manufactured goods…while

agriculture provided food and raw materials.”24 Historian John Larson wrote that as Speaker of

the House of Representatives, Clay wanted to “use the general government to its fullest

23. Mr. Morrow of Ohio presented his report to the Senate on February 6, 1816. Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania presented his report on funding internal improvement projects to the House of Representatives on February 8, 1817. In his report, despite canals actually costing more to construct than roads, Wilson used the figures of $7 million invested in constructing 10,000 miles of internal navigation and $3 million on 2,000 miles of overland roads. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:398, 427; A bill to set apart and pledge…the Bonus of the National Bank, and the United States’ share of its dividends, HR 42, 15th Congress, 1st sess. 24. Maurice G. Baxter, Henry Clay and the American System (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 199. 46 purposes.” (emphasis in original)25 At the core of Clay’s system was a network of roads

functioning as commercial thoroughfares to move products. The federal government would

create a bureaucracy to fund, construct, and administer these roads. American factories would

manufacture items for sale that people could transport over these roads. Commercial agents

utilized these roads to transport agricultural goods to and from markets. Federal legislators implemented parts of Clay’s scheme although policymakers never fully embarked on undertaking all of its parts concurrently. The scope of Clay’s plan was too large to find vast

support of legislators because local jealousies spoiled many national projects. 26

In the case of the road across the Black Swamp from the fall line of the Maumee River to

the western boundary of the Western Reserve, the lands one mile on either side of the road were

to be sold to aid in financing the construction and upkeep of the road. Following the collapse of

the pan-Indian alliance formed during the War of 1812, the federal government assumed control

of selling former Indian lands in northwest Ohio under the title of Congress Lands. Lands sold

for $1.50 an acre with one-third of the total amount paid upfront and the rest due later. Men

could also purchase land along the road by working on its construction. Therefore, officials

would utilize monies coming from local people and speculators buying parcels of land along the

route of the road to finance the building the Maumee-Western Reserve Road.27

In 1823, the federal government authorized the State of Ohio to begin construction of the

road across the Black Swamp according to the terms of the Treaty of Brownstown. The General

25. John L. Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 119. 26. Baxter, Henry Clay, 16-33; Kimberly C. Shankman, Compromise and the Constitution: The Political Thought of Henry Clay (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999), 49-63; Larson, Internal Improvement, 119-121. 27. A bill for laying out, and making, a road…agreeable to the treaty of Brownstown, HR 112, 17th Congress, 1st sess.; Josiah Atkins to Quintus Atkins, 12 September 1824, Quintus F. Atkins Papers, LH 62 Box 1, HPC, Fremont; Josiah Atkins to Quintus Atkins, 11 July 1824, Quintus F. Atkins Papers, LH 62 Box 1, HPC, Fremont; See Chapter 5 in Knepper, Ohio and Its People, for information regarding the downfall of the pan-Indian alliance. 47

Assembly of Ohio appointed the experienced Quintus Atkins of Ashtabula County to be in charge of the construction. A team of three engineers determined the route of the road, which followed an old Indian trail. Josiah Atkins served as his brother’s agent in Lower Sandusky while Quintus stayed in Ashtabula County. As agent, Josiah reported events involving the construction of the road and events of the town to his brother as well as attended to the sale of road lands and the actual construction of the road. In a September 1824 letter to his brother,

Josiah wrote regarding the clearing and grubbing of the thirty-seventh mile of the road.

Illustrative of the process of making the road, he stated that a worker named Mr. Phelps

had prosecuted or persecuted three or four old logs[;] two or three grubs, and several hundred smaller growth he had so completely, but cutting [and] carving and hewing and hacking, grubbing and digging and scrubbing [and] twigging, cleared his half mile from underwood and three or four larger trees….28

The completed road was situated near the southern edge of the 120 foot tract of land for the road,

had stumps piled on one side of the road as a fence, had mud scooped into the center to form the

road bed, and had a shallow ditch on opposite side of the road to collect water running off the

road. Thus, when completed it in 1828, the Maumee-Western Reserve Road was merely a

muddy path with dense vegetation beyond the tree stump fence and ditch.29

The commencement of construction consisted of a hybrid of national and state action.

Although the federal government retained control of the tract of land on which workers created

the road, Ohio’s government oversaw the building of the road. Land not owned by the central

government surrounded the entire route making construction of the road tenuous under the

watchful gazes of politicians not representing Ohio residents. Outside politicians did not want

28. Josiah Atkins to Quintus Atkins, 12 September 1824, Quintus F. Atkins Papers, LH 62 Box 1, HPC, Fremont. 29. A bill for laying out, and making, a road…agreeable to the treaty of Brownstown, HR 112, 17th Congress, 1st sess.; Ohio General Assembly, “An Act concerning a state road from the foot of the rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie, to the Connecticut Western Reserve,” 21st General Assembly, January 27, 1823. 48 the federal government to favor areas they did not represent. The state government lacked the necessary financial resources to undertake the project alone requiring outside assistance. After fierce debates over internal improvements prior to the 1820s, many federal legislators were unwilling to undertake massive projects leading to the growth of local areas. To assuage fears regarding the construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, Congress authorized the State of Ohio to build the road and appoint superintendents as well funds as essential for its completion. Upon completion, the federal government ceded complete control of the road to the

State of Ohio. The web of individuals endeavoring to make the road stretched from the United

States government to that of Ohio.

Map 1.1: Northwest Ohio and the Maumee-Western Reserve Road

Note: Contemporary county boundaries shown.

One objective in constructing a road across the Black Swamp according to the terms of

the Treaty of Brownstown was extensive economic growth typified by commercial connections

between the settlements in Ohio and Michigan and the established markets of the eastern United

States. Thus, a subregional system of cities would develop in northwest Ohio and be connected

to the national system of cities with a gateway city controlling economic activity between 49 regions. According to policymakers on both sides of the Appalachians, the creation of smaller markets within the swamp or on its periphery as well as commercial connections among the residents of northwestern Ohio would be inherent in constructing a road. Territorial governor

Lewis Cass asserted in late 1817 that land sales would “only be made with a view to settlements, and settlement [would] be aided and encouraged by making roads where the population of the country [would] long be unable to make them.”30 Speaking on behalf of the Committee on

Roads and Canals in 1820, Congressman Woodbridge maintained that implementing the

provisions of the Treaty of Brownstown would encourage settlement in a repugnant area and the

construction of the road would help create suitable farmland. Congressman Woodbridge and

other lawmakers favoring the construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road believed that

once the road was finished, pioneers would immigrate to the lands near the road and become part

of a national and local market. Strong commercial ties to areas of more dense settlement along the eastern seaboard would be beneficial for the growth of the national economy as well as

national security.31

Therefore, the motivations to build a road across the Black Swamp were either military or

economic throughout the years leading up to its construction. Politicians arguing for the construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road believed that stronger economic ties between settlements in Michigan and Ohio would be means of protection against foreign

incursion. Territorial governor Lewis Cass and General Duncan McArthur considered Michigan

an exposed frontier cut off from the rest of the nation’s settlements by the Black Swamp.

Members of the Committee on Roads and Canals as well as Governor Cass cited the events in

30. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 31. Mr. Woodbridge included these analyses in his report on May 12, 1820. American State Papers, 10, Miscellaneous 2:491. 50 the region during the War of 1812 as reasons to quickly build a road through the swamp following the war. Government officials argued, especially after the war with Great Britain, that strong economic ties between western settlements and eastern markets and dense settlement would aid in the defense of the frontier because people would challenge invading armies for control of their lands and investments of time and money into the land.

The funding of the construction of the road was part of a larger debate over what entity should be responsible for financing internal improvement projects. Those congressmen who did not favor a centralized system of internal improvements claimed that local governments should support the projects because the immediate area would gain the most from the improvements.

Some congressmen also viewed projects far from their districts as not worthy to fund. However, politicians arguing for national involvement in a system of developments claimed that the entire nation would benefit from the economic connections and increased number of compact settlements assumed to direct consequences of the completion of the projects. Larson contended that “the positive use of government power for popular constructive purposes, such as public works of internal improvement, never was proscribed by American republicanism but lay well within the presumed legitimacy of…governments.”32 In the end, legislators reached somewhat

of a compromise in that the sale of federal lands near proposed improvement projects would

provide the money to finance internal improvements. Specifically, selling lots in the tracts of

land along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road would fund its construction and eventual upkeep.

In this way, policymakers could accomplish both compact settlement and paying for the road.

These debates were examples of what Larson maintained shaped attitudes toward “energetic

32. Larson, Internal Improvement, 3. 51 government” and formed the basis for a shift to seemingly more laissez faire policies after the

Civil War.33

Some legislators, government officials, and governors argued that internal improvement

projects would generally establish markets for eastern goods because the growing nation had

diverse regions and geography. This collection of boosters in government wanted to expand market connections among communities throughout the United States and create a system of cities through compact settlements in western lands. Congressman Woodbridge claimed that certain local areas such as northwestern Ohio could not finance and undertake large-scale projects due to lack of funds and prior settlement. Thus, since the outcomes would not only be good for the local area but also for the entire nation, the officials of the federal government authorized the State of Ohio to construct the Maumee-Western Reserve Road across the Black

Swamp. Government officials thought the extensive economic growth envisioned because of the construction of the road inherently included the establishment and strengthening of local markets. However, in the two decades after the completion of the Maumee-Western Reserve

Road in 1828, the area along the road would be the site of more local economic growth than extensive economic growth.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE ROAD

With the completion of initial construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road in

1828 came the time to test the idea that a road through the so-called “impervious morass” of the

Great Black Swamp in northwestern Ohio would aid in the region’s settlement.34 The economic

growth of the area along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road entailed the connections among

33. Larson, Internal Improvement, 4-7. 34. House Committee on Roads and Canals, Report Of the Committee on Roads and Canals…with ‘A bill for laying out and making a road from the Lower Rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie to the Connecticut Western Reserve, in the state of Ohio,’ &c, 17th Cong., 2nd sess., 1822. 52 people living in the swamp more so than connections among people within the swamp and those in eastern markets. The expansion of the economy in the region was more intensive than extensive before 1860. Moreover, settlers adapted to the conditions of the swamp as best they could throughout the period from 1828 to 1850. Taverns served the local population and travelers along the road. When travel became easier, the number of taverns declined, and more people attempted to settle along the road. Households were the fundamental societal group along the road. Therefore, besides total population, which displays the greatest potential for economic activity, the statistics of number of households, mean size of households, and median size of households are especially enlightening. 35

By comparing the change over time of total number of households, mean size of

households, and median size of households, economic growth and decay of regions can be

observed. The mean illustrates approximately how much work or trade one family could

accomplish. The intensive economic growth along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road relied

upon interactions among households whose productivity was determined by the number of

people involved in its specific economic activities. These activities included farming, laboring,

being involved in professional activities, and practicing skilled crafts. Generally, more economic

activity existed as more families settled in the area. That is, more economic connections and,

thereby, growth came with additional work and trade happening among more families. Over

time, such groups came together forming small towns that helped to spur more growth around

35. The total population and the number of family units demonstrate the number of individuals and groups that participated in the economy of the region. The mean size and median size of households both measure the central tendency of the number of people making a household. The figure of “Mean size of households” shows the typical size of a family group (sum of all values in a sample or population divided by the total number of values) but outliers in the data influenced this statistic. The figure of “Median size of households” also displays the usual size of a household (the number separating the lower and upper halves of a sample) but outliers do not affect it; thus, it is often a better representation of the size of a family. An outlier is a data value that is unusually large or small in comparison to other data values. 53 them and for larger cities with which they had connections. Also, larger households usually could participate in more economic activities. Farming required many people while blacksmithing and professional work did not necessitate large households. Uncommonly large or small family sizes skewed the mean size of domestic units providing a distorted picture of the economic potential of these households. Thus, the measure of the median size of family units supplied a somewhat better illustration of the economic capabilities of such groups.

However, neighboring households often hired young men to work for them; census officials listed these men as laborers in the records. This group of males would not only be economically active by assisting other households with jobs but also by simply working. With their toils, laborers were key parts of the intensive economic growth within the area along the

Maumee-Western Reserve Road. Depending on what specifically their labor was, their activities could also have been part of the extensive growth. One activity of economic growth was clearing trees from land that farmers could cultivate. Used for shipbuilding and building construction, men transported the wood from these trees often outside of Ohio.

The intended results of the completed road were not quick to come. Legislators established only two townships through which the Maumee-Western Reserve Road passed from

Perrysburg to Lower Sandusky by 1830.36 Perrysburg Township comprised all of current Wood

County, and Sandusky Township encompassed what is now western Sandusky County (See

Table 1.1, Appendix). The figures in Table 1.1 do not precisely show how many people lived

near the Maumee-Western Reserve Road because the townships included land far from the road.

Hardy pioneers living in abandoned Indian villages deeper inside the Black Swamp and at other

36. With the establishment of Lake Township in 1844, the Maumee-Western Reserve Road from Perrysburg to Fremont passed through the townships of Perrysburg, Lake, and Troy in Wood County and the townships of Woodville, Washington, and Sandusky in Sandusky County. 54 high spots in the swamp such as Scotch Ridge just east of the future site of Bowling Green were included in these numbers. Nonetheless, these tables do reflect the sparse population of the area.

Not all people utilizing the road settled on land along it. Traveling along the Maumee-

Western Reserve Road was a difficult journey despite the distance of only about thirty-one miles from Lower Sandusky to Perrysburg. The road was still merely a wide, muddy path through a dense swamp forest. During the dry season and the cold of winter, the road was generally passable, but most of the year it was a series of mudholes that trapped travelers. Documentary producer Joseph Arpad related the following story in his 1980s documentary about the Black

Swamp:

A woman traveler told of seeing a hat floating across one of those mud holes. But when she reached out to pick it up, a person from below shouted out: ‘Hey, stranger, put back my hat!’ Upon which, she then saw a head emerge from the mud, then a body of a man, then a wagon and full team of horses under him, as the unfortunate traveler pulled his way out the other side of the mud hole.37

This story was certainly an exaggeration, but it depicted the massiveness of the mudholes on the

Maumee-Western Reserve Road.

Some of the first examples of economic activity along the road were taverns providing

places for travelers to spend the night. A person wanting to own and operate a tavern needed to

procure a license for a fee from the court of common pleas for the county where the

establishment was located; this license was valid for only one year. One example of an inn

originating as a house was the Rose Tavern owned and operated by James Rose in Washington

Township in Sandusky County. Born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in 1811, he moved his

family of six to Washington Township in 1832. His house measured twenty-six feet by forty feet

and consisted of two rooms. For the next ten years, he cleared a total of twenty-six acres of his

37. Joseph J. Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp: A Television Script (Bowling Green: author’s publication, 1983), 3. 55 land while operating his tavern. Demonstrating difficulties in working the land and thriving,

Rose sold his land and tavern to an English immigrant named William Thraves for $836 in 1844 and moved to another tract of land in Washington Township. In 1854, Rose moved with his household of eleven members to Cardington, Ohio.38

Unlike James Rose, Michael McBride intended his structure to be a tavern instead of a

house just for his family. His two-story inn measured forty feet by twenty-eight feet with the typical set-up of a dining room, sitting room, family parlor, and kitchen on the first floor. The second floor had a huge sitting room running the length of the front of the tavern with guest rooms running the length of the back. Two fireplaces, one at either end of the building, provided heat for both floors. It is possible that his family of eight lived in a two-story addition to the back of the tavern that measured thirty feet by twenty-seven feet. In addition to the land on which he built his original tavern, the thrifty McBride purchased two other farms and amassed a total of 400 acres of land and total holdings valued at $5,000. He also employed local teens to work at his tavern and on his farm.39

Historian John Mack Faragher discussed one of the roles a tavern played in the

community of Sugar Creek in Illinois. Men waiting for their corn to be ground at Pulliam’s mill

would spend the night at his tavern drinking sour mash, and on Saturdays, farmers would take “a few hours off to carouse over rounds.”40 According to historian Carol Sheriff, state officials in

New York argued that farmer’s lands divided by the Erie Canal increased in value as potential

38. Ohio General Assembly, “Laws of the State of Ohio,” 29th General Assembly, 1st Session, March 3, 1831; Nan Card, “Rose Tavern,” unpublished manuscript, Local History Collection, Hayes Presidential Center; “Sandusky County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 425). 39. Nan Card, “Black Swamp Taverns: McBride Tavern,” unpublished manuscript, Local History Collection, Hayes Presidential Center; “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 726). 40. John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 68, 152. 56 locations for taverns. However, New York farmers such as Levinus and Abraham Lansing refused to operate such businesses, and Levinus insisted that “it seems a libel upon the character of the State to say that a tipling shop is such a benefit to an individual or to a community that the

State ought to compel persons to resort to the establishment of such places…to get pay for the land taken from them for the use of the public.”41 Like those along the Maumee-Western

Reserve Road, the taverns discussed by Faragher and Sheriff provided a place for overnight

lodging and were near the major transportation route of an area.

Traveling on the Maumee-Western Reserve Road was difficult, yet many people

journeyed on it. Often, testifying to the number of travelers using the road and the terrible

conditions of the thoroughfare, taverns such as those owned and operated by Rose and McBride

were crammed with travelers seeking refuge from the muddy highway. John Gross built the

Four Mile House in 1837 as resting place merely four miles from Lower Sandusky. A member

of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society recounted at the 1888 meeting of the

group that “[s]ome nights the Four Mile House was full of people from lower floor to garret.”42

When no room was available indoors, travelers slept alongside the road. Testifying to the rugged nature of the surroundings, another member of the Society recounted that there were no pianos or organs in the homes in the Black Swamp; the washboard, mosquitoes, and fleas provided the music for the travelers of the road and those people living near the road. Even after improvements to the road, ten households, mainly in Woodville Township, were involved in hotel or tavern keeping.43

41. Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 105-106. 42. “Proceedings of the 1888 Meeting,” Yearbook of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society (Fremont: Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society, 1916), 29. 43. “Proceedings of the 1888 meeting,” 29; “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 57

Travelers seeking new lands to settle on were not the only people using the Maumee-

Western Reserve Road in the 1830s. As followed the War of 1812, troop movement concerns in the 1830s required the maintenance of a good road through the Black Swamp. Journeying to

Fort Meigs in Perrysburg with Ohio militiamen to participate in the Toledo War of 1835, Ohio governor Robert Lucas saw firsthand the poor condition of the road that provoked him to push for the improvement of the road.44 Congressman Thomas Corwin from Ohio offered a resolution

from the Ohio General Assembly to the U. S. House of Representatives in February 1837 for

improvements and repairs for the Maumee-Western Reserve road. Congressman Patrick Gaines

Goode from Ohio presented a similar motion one year later in February 1838. Moving troops

north to defend the Toledo Strip displayed the wretchedness of the Maumee-Western Reserve

Road and ignited a series of discussions on improving the muddy road.45

In 1838, the federal government ceded control the Maumee-Western Reserve Road to the

State of Ohio, and the state put it under the control of the Board of Commissioners of Public

Works that would oversee improvements to it. The General Assembly dictated that gatekeepers

should collect tolls on improved sections of the pike to finance the improvements to the

remainder of the road; the road commission borrowed the initial expenditures for improvements

on credit from the State of Ohio. According to historian Maurer Maurer, the committee of public works deemed this road one of the most important in the State because it was the only

44. The so-called Toledo War of 1835 was the culmination of a land dispute between the state of Ohio and the territory of Michigan. The Northwest Ordinance stipulated that the northern boundary of the three southern states formed from the Northwest Territory should be a line extending east and west from the southern tip of Lake Michigan. However, the tip of the lake was further south than originally mapped. Legal control over Toledo and the mouth of the Maumee River was in the interest of both Ohio and Michigan for economic reasons. Future economic development would fill the coffers of whichever state controlled the disputed strip. See Chapter Two for an analysis of the place of the “war” within the history of the development of the city of Toledo. 45. House Journal, 25th Cong., 1st sess., February 13, 1837; House Journal, 25th Cong., 1st sess., February 14, 1838. 58 thoroughfare east and west through Northern Ohio. In the end, the State of Ohio gained full control of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road.46

Improvements made to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, macadamization and a new

system of ditches, marked a turning point in the history of the Black Swamp. British turnpike

superintendent John Loudon McAdam developed the macadamization process in the first quarter

of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, McAdam believed that his method of constructing roads

worked best in swampy conditions. The process consisted of laying broken stone on the

roadway in order to provide a solid surface on which to travel. In the case of the Maumee-

Western Reserve Road, the stone used was limestone. The stones had to be small enough so that

they would not damage the wheels of the carriage or wagon moving along the road yet large

enough to reduce friction and wear on the road. Workers were not to be mix dirt and sand with

the stones as dirt and sand retain moisture and could damage the road by the expansion and

contraction of the water due to the changes in temperature. A macadamized road thirty feet wide would have a rise of three inches from the center to the side. Road crews raked out loosened stones, broke them along side the road, and then replaced them. McAdam reasoned that the jagged edges of the stones would fit together to form a strong and smooth roadway. Instead of channels dug along only one side of the road to draw water away from the roadway, gangs dug ditches on both sides of the road. They constructed culverts under the road at proper intervals with other broad, deep trenches to draw water to the nearby natural waterways. The original

46. Ohio General Assembly, “Laws of the State of Ohio,” 36th General Assembly, 1st Session, March 14, 1838; Maurer Maurer, “Early Highways of Wood County, Ohio,” Northwestern Ohio Quarterly 19, no. 2 (April 1947), 73. 59 system of ditches for the road allowed water to pool alongside the road and contributed to the sizeable mudholes that slowed travelers before the 1840s.47

Improvements to the road were one more step in the progress of improving the natural

and human worlds of northwestern Ohio thereby encouraging the expansion and strengthening of

connections among towns and cities in the area. With the completion of the macadamization of

and other improvements to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road from Perrysburg to Lower

Sandusky in 1842 and the placement of limestone mile markers, progress became more evident

in that part of northwestern Ohio traversed by the road. Travel time from Lower Sandusky to

Perrysburg drastically decreased, and travel became easier overall. The closing of many taverns

along the road came with this increased ease of traveling on the road. More people settled near

the road that now provided better access to Perrysburg and markets to the east by water and

access to Lower Sandusky and markets in the rest of Ohio. According to Arpad, “the knowledge

that the swamp could be drained and settled created an invasion of people intent upon striking it

rich.”48 The new ditches illustrated how engineers could implement large-scale, systematic

drainage patterns to drain the Black Swamp and transform it into productive farmland providing

a model for a series of ditch laws beginning in the 1850s.

Developments during the two decades after 1830 showed how people were transforming the Black Swamp to form the foundation for a subregional system of cities. Few people saw progress along the road in the 1830s; they saw large trees, mosquitoes, and quite a bit of mud especially during the wet season. Those who saw an opportunity to settle along the road before

1840 operated taverns, slowly cleared and drained small tracts of land near the road, or found

47. John Loudon McAdam, Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Public Roads (London: B. McMillan, 1819), 5-12; Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 7. 48. Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 8. 60 some other way to subsist such as in manufacturing. More groups of families entered the area along the road by 1840, but the median size of households remained virtually the same with the mean size declining (See Table 1.2, Appendix). Some families living in Perrysburg Township near the town of Perrysburg found jobs that census takers categorized as commerce, but those families living further away from the economic hub of Perrysburg did not. Agriculture was the dominant occupation listed for people in the 1840 Census in the townships traversed by the

Maumee-Western Reserve Road with over 77 percent of households listed having at least one member employed in agriculture (See Table 1.3, Appendix). These people embodied the beginnings of the economic development of the Black Swamp.

By 1850, the census listed 781 households compared to 624 households in 1840.

However, marshals listed only forty-six in both censuses; thus, the persistency rate was 7.4 percent.49 Thus, at least 578 households moved out of the area while at least 735 moved in;

these figures were likely gross underestimates because families could have moved to the area

after 1840 and moved away before officials completed the census in 1850, thereby, appearing in

neither population count. These numbers testified to the remaining hardships of the region

where most households were still involved exclusively in agriculture and where the swampy

conditions of the land remained. By comparison, the persistence rate for the Sugar Creek region

investigated by Faragher for the decade 1840-1850 was 21.5 percent.50 Faragher’s Sugar Creek

was less swampy than northwestern Ohio and, therefore, more easily farmed once a family

arrived.

49. Faragher defines “persistency” as “the appearance of a head of household in the...area on two sequential federal census enumerations; persistence rates measure the proportion of the population continuing in the community ten years after enumeration.” See Faragher, Sugar Creek, 249. 50. Faragher, Sugar Creek, 249. 61

Large numbers of people living near the Maumee-Western Reserve Road worked as farmers or laborers. Over 84 percent of households near the road had at least one member employed as a farmer (See Table 1.4, Appendix). The soil of the swamp was good for cultivating crops, yet the land was too wet and wooded to support large farms. Historical geographer Martin R. Kaatz quoted an 1838 geological report describing the soil of the Black

Swamp. The geologist stated that “[t]he uppermost layer is described as the ‘dark surface soil,’ beneath this is a ‘yellowish clayey stratum sometimes containing pebbles’ beneath which is a

‘bluish clayey stratum’ [which] rests on limestone.”51 Many families could not survive by only

farming in the Black Swamp and moved elsewhere. Numerous households had members listed

as being laborers (see Table 1.4, Appendix). Laborers did manual, unskilled jobs that supported

the work of other people, worked at improving the road or as farmhands, and were part of

households with people working in skilled professions such as masons and carpenters.

One sweeping change to the land of the Black Swamp was its deforestation by Canadian

lumberjacks. Kaatz wrote that the trees grew straight and tall with little growth of leaves due to

their proximity. The great variety of trees found in the swamp was due to the sensitivity of trees

to drainage patterns; however, there were no conifers growing in the swamp. Lumberjacks used

the Maumee-Western Reserve Road to transport the felled trees to Perrysburg for shipment along

Lake Erie because workers could more easily transport the trees via water. The virgin

woodlands provided a vast resource for Canadian and American shipbuilders needing materials

for masts and hull construction. With the Maumee-Western Reserve Road serving as the major

51. Martin R. Kaatz, “The Black Swamp: A Study in Historical Geography,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 1 (March 1955), 15. 62 transportation route to a navigable waterway, it allowed the region to become part of the national and international markets.52

Working with lumber was one type of economic activity in the region. Marshals listed

only one household as having a lumberjack in the 1850 census for the townships crossed by the

road. Ephraim Cole’s household of six people had members employed as a farmer, a laborer,

and a lumberjack. However, other households had members working with trees and wood in

other jobs such as carpenters, coopers, and sawyers. In 1850, there were twenty-one households

with at least one carpenter, six with at least one cooper, and two with at least one sawyer. These

numbers indicated that people along the road used the wood from trees to aid in the settlement of

the area and to make products that merchants could sell outside of northwestern Ohio.53

Woodville Township had the most carpenters of any community along the road. The

Portage River also ran through the immediate area indicating that bridges over the river were constructed from wood and workers needed to repair them. Coopers created barrels from trees that they could sell to merchants to use for transporting or storing products. Sawyers cut wood into boards essential for the construction of houses and public buildings, boats, or plank roads.

Families attempting to settle in the area needed houses and public buildings. Public buildings such as churches, stores, schools, and meeting houses were the beginnings of town creation along the road. Shipbuilding was an industry in towns along the shores of Lake Erie, and the swamp forests were a source of the wood needed to manufacture boats. Alternatives to stone and dirt roads, plank roads consisted of placing wide boards across log supports that raised the roadway slightly above the ground. Often, turnpikes and stagecoach roads were plank roads.

52. Kaatz, “The Black Swamp,” 18. 53. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 63

One operated by a turnpike company was the Findlay Road that ran from Perrysburg south to

Findlay along the route of Hull’s Trace.54

Carpenters were not the only skilled workers that assisted in the construction of buildings

in the townships along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road. Masons and blacksmiths also

provided their services in the construction of houses and public buildings. Masons laid brick and

worked with stone in construction while blacksmiths fashioned the hardware such as hinges and

handles for buildings and interior furnishings. The many trees in the Black Swamp were a possible source of fuel for blacksmiths. Three of the five households with masons did not have another member employed in another occupation while the other two had at least one person working as a laborer or a farmer. With three households with at least one mason, Troy Township had the greatest number of such households of the townships along the road. Four of the sixteen households with at least one blacksmith had at least one other member listed with another occupation such as farmer or laborer.55

The permanence of settlers in locations depended heavily on the construction of shelters.

Once a number of families settled near enough to one another to start a community, these residents needed to construct public buildings. These communities added to the economic development of northwestern Ohio by serving as part of the hinterland of the economic hubs of

Lower Sandusky and Perrysburg. Eastern markets were accessible to these towns via land routes

or water routes, and the Maumee-Western Reserve connected Perrysburg and Lower Sandusky

with their economic hinterlands. Goods from the eastern United States would arrive in

Perrysburg and retailers would transport them to the families and established communities via

54. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 55. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 64 the road. Residents could haul products from the areas along the road to the markets of either

Perrysburg or Lower Sandusky to sell. Families and communities became part of larger markets by consuming products from the eastern United States and by producing items individuals used in other regions of North America.

Hinges and handles for household furnishings made by blacksmiths were not the only material items used by the families settling the land near the Maumee-Western Reserve Road.

Weavers, tailors, and shoemakers produced clothing, and basket makers wove containers utilized for a variety of purposes. Three households had at least one member recorded as working as a weaver by census takers in 1850; two of these households had at least one laborer in addition to a weaver. Census takers listed “tailor” as the occupation of members in four households, all in

Sandusky County. Half of these households had no other occupation listed for their members while a single unit had at least one farmer or laborer. Three of the seven households who had at least one member working as a shoemaker also had one or more members working as a laborer.

These people most likely made their products for local families to consume because households could already get cloth and shoes from eastern markets.56

A handful of households included members listed as working in occupations specific to

the Maumee-Western Reserve Road and traveling on the pike in the 1850 Census. These jobs

included hotel or tavern keeper, gatekeeper, teamster or wagon driver, stage driver, wagon

maker, and wagon worker. There was one gatekeeper in both Sandusky and Woodville

Township. One teamster was listed the census for Troy Township and one wagon driver in

Washington Township; a stage driver was listed in Woodville Township. The census for

Washington Township lists three wagon makers, and the census for Sandusky Township lists one

56. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 65 wagon worker. The Maumee-Western Reserve Road from Perrysburg to Lower Sandusky was fully turnpiked in 1842 requiring gatekeepers to collect tolls and monitor traffic on the road.

More settlement along the road and more products traveling along it provided opportunities for people to become involved in wagon construction and transporting goods short distances to locations just off the main road. The improvements to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road provided a better thoroughfare to transport goods and people and, therefore, increased opportunities for moving people and materials.57

Besides making material items for use by settlers and others moving along the Maumee-

Western Reserve Road, some men were lawyers, bankers, physicians and clergymen according

to the 1850 census. All of the households with members working in such professions were in

Sandusky County. In Woodville Township, the John P. Johnston household had a lawyer and a

banker, and the L. J. Pettibone household had a lawyer as well as members listed in the census

either as a clerk or in commerce. Samuel Fowler, residing in Sandusky Township, worked as a

lawyer. Two households in Woodville Township had at least one member employed as

physicians while just one household in Washington Township had a physician as a member of it.

Five households included United Brethren clergymen: one in Sandusky Township, three in

Washington Township, and one in Woodville Township. The three households with clergymen

in Washington Township had no other members listed as gainfully employed. However, the

family with a clergyman in Sandusky Township had a member listed as a laborer while the

household with a clergyman in Woodville Township also had a member listed as a farmer.58

57. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 726); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741). 58. “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 66

The presence of lawyers, bankers, physicians, and clergy in only three of the townships along the road shows the development of more structured communities in those townships.

Professionals could venture out from the town of Perrysburg to do their jobs in the settled areas along the road, but the fact that people actually living along the road were employed in such professions indicates that small groups of settlers were coming together to establish the seeds of developing towns thereby forming a nascent subregional system of cities. Although the people living near the road still worked predominately as farmers and laborers laboring to better the natural world in order to grow crops and make the lands more hospitable, professionals such as lawyers and bankers were necessary to have a functioning community as they arbitrated disputes and aided in the improvement of the human world.

Within the system of cities in northwest Ohio, the hinterlands surrounding Perrysburg and Fremont by 1850 were showing the beginnings of settled communities “pushing” the development of these hubs. The locations of the professionals between these towns indicate that emergent towns along the eastern half of the road developed more those than along the western half. These communities would become greater markets for goods coming into the region from

Perrysburg or Fremont. One explanation for the location of these new communities was the ease of initially getting to that land. Fremont was on the eastern edge of the Black Swamp and thus on the edge of more rapid settlement. Traveling overland, settlers would have an easier time of reaching and establishing homesteads on the lands near the road by going through Fremont rather than coming down through Perrysburg. Hence, small communities with professionals in the hinterlands of the economic centers of Perrysburg and Fremont were more common in the townships of Sandusky County. In time, these budding towns would have their own small hinterlands including other smaller villages. 67

Woodville Township provided interesting examples of the progress of the hinterland of two larger economic centers. First, it sat halfway between these two towns and, thus, was the location of many professionals and burgeoning towns. These people and towns connected the residents living beyond the road to Perrysburg and Fremont in the years after 1850. Second, the township was the home of six of the ten households that were involved in hotel or tavern keeping. The only grocers to appear in the 1850 Census for the townships along the road were in

Woodville Township. A lot master was also present in the census for Woodville Township.

Finally, the town of Woodville, situated roughly halfway between Perrysburg and Fremont, grew up along the Portage River that cut the township roughly in half. 59

Of the six townships the road passed through, Woodville had the most households and

the second highest population behind neighboring Washington Township emphasizing the

quality of connections among settlements (See Table 1.5, Appendix). Mean size of households

rose for each township in the study except Troy Township, but median size stayed roughly the

same as in the previous two censuses. Hoteliers, grocers, and lot masters take part in the

connections that link economic activities of economic hubs to their hinterlands. Hotel keepers

provided room and board for travelers moving between towns and thrive on money from outside

their own communities. Grocers were the agents that acted between the merchants in the main

economic centers and the consumers in the hinterland. They purchased their products from

suppliers in bigger towns such as Perrysburg and Fremont and subsequently sold them to

customers in Woodville Township. Price fluctuations and product supply in the economic

centers and product demand would affect the grocers’ sales. Woodville benefited from its

location near the Portage River that had to be crossed. Travelers often stopped near the river to

59. Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 68 rest, and the river attracted settlers. Thus, the community began to grow. A small road used to transport logs north to Oak Harbor for shipment through Port Clinton to other parts of the world connected to the Maumee-Western Reserve Road at Woodville.60

Mean family size in the townships along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road tended to

fall during the 1830s and then rise in the 1840s (See Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.6, Appendix). Rarely

did one-person households appear in the Federal Census for the townships through which the

road passed; households of five to seven members were the norm. Immigration patterns and the

life cycle of households had some impact on the size of the household. Young families just

settling on the land were small but grew as they cleared more land to support more children.

Young people would eventually leave their parents household and begin their own households

whether in the Black Swamp or elsewhere. Family size fluctuations also signified how many

people one household could supported based upon economic output of that domestic unit.

Because agriculture was the dominant economic activity based upon the number of households

with farmers, these fluctuations show how the ability to farm changed (see Table 1.6).

CONCLUSION

The direct outcome of policymakers’ decision to construct a road through the Black

Swamp was the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, and the results of traveling on that muddy

thoroughfare—indirect effects of Congressmen’s decision to build a road—included

opportunities for economic development in the region. This web of events began with tavern keepers providing shelter for mud-caked travelers and charging people stuck in mudholes for

oxen extracting them from the mire by a sturdy team of oxen. Money received from operating a

tavern allowed the tavern keeper to invest in slowly clearing and draining more of his or her

60. Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. 69 property. Because he could use the property for farming, such improved property would aid in more economic growth. The expansion associated with owning and operating a tavern was mainly local and did not directly connect the local area to outside markets. Taverns first displayed the intensive economic development that would characterize the economy of the lands along the Maumee-Western Reserve Road before 1850.

Politicians achieved their goal for the Maumee-Western Reserve Road by 1850. It provided a thoroughfare for travelers to get through the Black Swamp and begin the settlement and the economic development of northwestern Ohio. The completion of the road was an instance of initial economic development rather than a modification of a previously established economy. Creating connections that would ultimately form a system of cities and transform the land in northwest Ohio, people settled in one location and became economically connected to the rest of the nation via connections with larger economic centers although most of the economic connections people had were with their neighbors. The limited efforts to clear and drain the land immediately along the road allowed small scale agriculture to develop, and settlers slowly expanded these tasks to claim more of the swampland for the pioneers. More and more people attempted to establish themselves on this land and required products and material culture from elsewhere. People transported these items by traveling on the road from the economic hubs of

Perrysburg and Lower Sandusky that were acquiring the items from markets in the eastern

United States. The lasting impact the Maumee-Western Reserve Road had on northwestern Ohio was the progress it displayed in terms of providing a means to trade and settle within the region.

Figure 1.3 below shows the early stage subregional model labeled with the three key towns of northwest Ohio as they relate to the expanding network. Perrysburg and Lower Sandusky served as gateways to the area as well as the dominant local economic centers. No true subregional hub 70 formed from the construction and use of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road although people’s economic interactions along the road spurred the establishment of Woodville as a small village.

Continued use of the road and the creation of new transportation routes would expand the model bringing it to its next stage of development.

Figure 1.3: Early Stage of the Subregional Model Showing Key Towns

Elements of progress came slowly to northwestern Ohio. The completion of the

Maumee-Western Reserve Road in 1828 was only the beginning of this slow process of

improving the natural and human worlds. Taking advantage of weary travelers and the immense

mudholes on the road, entrepreneurial men and women opened their homes as taverns.

Eventually, the road was improved and many taverns ceased to operate. Robust pioneers drained

and cleared small tracts of land near the road to establish small farms. As more settlers came to

the region, more land was cleared and drained slowly. These farmers used the road to transport

goods and products to and from the markets of Perrysburg and Lower Sandusky. Small

concentrations of settlers developed which were the seeds of little communities that would

provide more markets in the hinterland of the larger towns on the edge of the swamp. These

communities were also the sites of non-agricultural occupations such as blacksmithing,

carpentry, and clergy. Households became slowly integrated into local markets by producing

and consuming items and utilizing the road. 71

Although economic connections bonded settlers along the Maumee-Western Reserve

Road to eastern markets, the primary economic development of the area was intensive rather than extensive. Intensive growth relates to the development of localized markets whereas extensive growth relates to the enlargement of national networks of commerce. The appearance of potential subregional hubs in the forms of economic centers in northwestern Ohio did not necessarily involve extensive growth as such an emergence of towns did in the Ohio River

Valley. The low persistency of settlers coupled with the toilsome work of merely clearing and draining possible farmland showed residents buying and selling limited amounts of crops and products in large commercial networks. Swampland required more labor to settle than does open prairie land. Local business systems grew as more families attempted to settle in the area near the road. Residents held more and more non-agricultural occupations by 1850 showing that the local economy was expanding beyond solely agriculture or manual labor.

Commercial ties between Perrysburg and people living along the Maumee-Western

Reserve Road allowed Perrysburg to grow. Intensive economic growth along the road provided markets for locally produced items and local services. Residents of Perrysburg joined in this intensive growth by participating in exchange with the residents of the expanding settlements along the road. Merchants’ activities displayed extensive economic growth. They set up businesses to sell goods from eastern markets to people in northwestern Ohio and in turn sold products such as lumber in eastern markets. Thus, the settlement of the lands along the Maumee-

Western Reserve Road was a key factor in the growth of Perrysburg. However, the city of

Toledo on the opposite bank of the Maumee River grew bigger than the village of Perrysburg in the 1840s and 1850s because of the completion of the Erie and Wabash Canal linking the port on

Lake Erie with interior lands as far away as southwestern Indiana. The intensive and extensive 72 economic growth associated with the new canal would facilitate the rise of Toledo as a subregional hub overshadowing Perrysburg’s place as the primary economic center for the area covered by the Black Swamp. 73

CHAPTER TWO EARLY TOLEDO AND NEW CONNECTIONS VIA THE WABASH AND ERIE CANAL

Stimulating the economic expansion and environmental change within Toledo, the

Wabash and Erie Canal altered businesses relationships in Waterville present before the 1840s.

Waterville was a stop on the stage route operating before the coming of the canal. The prominent Columbian House operated as a resting place for travelers on the stagecoach.

However, despite being six hundred feet east of the canal, the Columbian House did not benefit from the canal that moved the business district of Waterville away from the stage trails and the

Columbian House. Merchants established operations in the new business district along the canal.

Opened in 1854, The Canal Store operated by Orrin Gillett and William Dyer became

Waterville’s largest business. The Canal Store not only operated as the main store to buy and sell goods but also served as a gathering spot for local people and travelers on the canal. Thus, new commercial patterns replaced prior business practices once the Wabash and Erie Canal began operation near Waterville.1

INTRODUCTION

The completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal connecting southeastern Indiana with Lake

Erie marked another milestone shaping the economic development of northwestern Ohio. The junction between the Wabash and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal created another thoroughfare to transport goods from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. Moreover, the Wabash and

Erie Canal operated as an integral part of the economic connections between the markets of the eastern United States and its western lands. Despite growth experienced by towns on the north bank of the Maumee River and spurred by canal traffic, Perrysburg remained the primary

1. Diane F. Britton, et. al., “A Stagecoach Visit to the Columbian House in Waterville, Ohio,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 66, no. 2 (Spring 1994), 75. 74 entrepôt for the Black Swamp, but Toledo overshadowed Perrysburg as the chief port for the entire region. Each community expanded at a different rate depending on its location and the size of nearby populations with which its residents conducted market relations.

Economic changes in Toledo and throughout northwest Ohio—namely, the interactions of businessmen and residents stimulated via the Wabash and Erie Canal—encouraged the expansion of the subregional model into its next stage as seen in Figure 2.1 below. Boosters and merchants established new settlements and expanded older ones based upon activity related to traffic on the new waterway. The canal created stronger connections among towns along it and between subregions the waterway traversed due to the ease of travel on the canal. More specifically, towns directly alongside the waterway had the strongest links to Toledo and each other while villages connected solely by roads had comparatively weaker connections. Still, some places remained relatively isolated from one another during this time. A more flexible and reliable transportation route such as a railroad would break this separation later.

Figure 2.1: Subregional Model—Middle Stage

In the early nineteenth century, merchants and travelers considered navigable rivers the

most efficient and effective way to move goods and people because traveling by boat when the 75 waterway was not frozen was quicker than by going over land and because people could transport heavier amounts of freight on water. However, northwest Ohio had few such waterways. Ohio legislators envisioned canals as artificial rivers allowing people to move products between large waterways and from interior settlements not near natural waterways to bigger markets. Economic changes were evident in the market of Toledo at the end of the canal as well as towns along the canal such as Napoleon and Waterville. As with major overland roadways, the Wabash and Erie Canal connected entrepôts with markets in their hinterlands.

Toledo, Waterville, and Napoleon expanded economically because of canal traffic. The expansion of Toledo at the end of the waterway and the development along this canal route could and surpassed Perrysburg and its prior economic growth.2

Construction and use of canals constituted ways governments engaged in economic

development. State governments were responsible for overseeing the construction of canals

because earlier federal initiatives were nearly complete failures financially for investors while

state economies would benefit the most from business generated by the canals. Connecting

burgeoning towns and traversing sparsely settled areas, state and local politicians wanted to

expand their economies to surpass neighboring locations in commercial, and, thus, political

clout. The links among settlements proved to be indirect benefits to state and local as business

opportunities and agricultural production grew thereby expanding populations and market

interactions as well as increasing land values allowing more tax revenue for local governments.

2. Indirect commercial successes of the statewide system of canals included economic development through diminished transportation costs. A 1905 report on the condition and history of the canals from the Ohio State Historical and Archaeological Society maintained that “As the cost of transporting any article to market is diminished, its value at the place from which it is sent increases. This gives a stimulus to greater production, and wealth and prosperity follows.” Thus, transportation infrastructures lowered costs thereby increasing the propensity to produce on the part of farmers or small manufactures. As these individual produced more, their land holdings and wealth increased allowing more economic activity locally and throughout a wider region. See History of the Ohio Canals: Their Construction, Cost, Use and Partial Abandonment (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1905), 119. 76

As populations and settlements expanded, local jealousies proliferated making government assistance for internal improvements more complicated as representatives from different areas of the state argued that their particular localities should not have canals, or even roads, bypass them citing the possibility of economic stagnation. Thus, the debates regarding canals and subsequent growth following their completions would turn the next phase of infrastructure improvements seemingly even more toward private investment and oversight although the state and local governments still played vital roles.3

Canals epitomized progress in different ways for policymakers, businessmen, and

residents. For those making and implementing internal improvement plans, canals, as artificial

rivers, supplied links between distant bodies of water providing new commercial paths that in turn would encourage economic growth in underdeveloped regions, especially northwest Ohio.

Likewise, merchants and speculators welcomed canal construction and the traffic along them as these groups anticipated the rising land values and increased commercial activities that canals afforded. Viewing progress as making money, they would increase their individual wealth while opportunities for more economic interactions further expanded. Residents considered the engineering of the canals, the increased selection of goods transported on canal packets, and the prospect for more commercial interactions as progress. The forms of economic growth during the 1840s and 1850s around Toledo derived in part from the connections the Wabash and Erie

Canal furnished. Moreover, each of these groups would define the progress canals encouraged as perfecting the natural and human worlds through constructing a transportation waterway

3. John L. Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 195-204, 225-227; Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 14-16; George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 3rd ed. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2003), 144-153; Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), 18, 21-22, 49, 50-53. See Chapter Three below regarding state charters and local government bond subscription for railroad companies in Ohio and neighboring states. 77 where there was none before as well as easing and expanding market interactions thereby allowing opportunities for personal improvement economically, socially, and politically.4

The development of Toledo and the surrounding area during the era of canal construction included four broad elements. First, the establishment of small towns near the mouth of the

Maumee River provided much competition among them for business and commercial expansion.

However, these rivalries proved detrimental to the expansion of any of them prompting the consolidation of Port Lawrence and Vistula to form Toledo in 1835. Second, the construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal drew from the successes of the Erie Canal in New York state enticing policymakers and businessmen in Ohio to develop a system of canals linking the Ohio River and

Lake Erie. The canal became the second great internal improvement in northwest Ohio creating connections among developing areas. Third, population and economic growth along the canal helped to form the basis for a system of cities in northwest Ohio. Besides Toledo, towns such as

Napoleon, Waterville, and Maumee each grew with business related to the canal. Fourth, the development of Perrysburg provided evidence of economic growth despite having the Wabash and Erie Canal bypass it. This important small town became an important economic center due to its proximity to Toledo and as an entrepôt for the lands of the Black Swamp south of the

Maumee River.

ESTABLISHMENT OF TOLEDO

Situated at the mouth of the Maumee River and along old native trading routes, the city of Toledo grew slowly before the 1830s. The United States military constructed Fort Industry as a trading post on a bluff overlooking the Maumee River shortly after completing the Treaty of

4. Sheriff, The Artificial River, 17-18, 25, 31-36, 102, 137; Cayton, Ohio, viii-ix. 78

Greenville.5 Speculators became interested in the lands around the future site of Toledo

following the conclusion of the War of 1812 as they hoped to take advantage of the area’s

commercial potential as a crossroads of routes connecting Ohio and Michigan and eastern lands

with western lands. An 1816 Act of Congress set aside a reserve for settlers at the foot of the

rapids of the Maumee River, and in September 1817, lots within this reserve were surveyed and

sold to land companies with two groups from Cincinnati purchasing four hundred acres around

the mouth of Swan Creek on terms of one quarter paid initially followed by three equal annual

payments. The Piatt and Baum groups eventually combined efforts in selling town lots in the

newly-platted Port Lawrence, but the combined organization of speculators defaulted on its first

annual payment and was forced to relinquish ownership of the plots not paid for with the initial

payment.6

As business leaders sold town lots, merchants established commercial enterprises and

new town sites. John Baldwin and Cyrus Fisher opened the first store in Port Lawrence, John

Baldwin & Co., selling dry goods until about 1829, but the first building in the village was

Benjamin Stickney’s warehouse on Lot Two that would play an important role in the economic development of Toledo. Longtime local judge John Doyle described the warehouse as “built of

logs, was two stories high, and was the occasion of an interesting gathering of people to a ‘log

raising’ and with refreshments and music, games, dancing, etc.”7 However, Stickney became

dissatisfied with the low level of ambition and few commercial activities of the Port Lawrence

business leaders and withdrew his interest in the older community to form Vistula on land

5.The site of Fort Industry is near the current Monroe and Summit Streets. See John H. Doyle, A Story of Early Toledo: Historical Facts and Incidents of the Early Days of the City and Environs (Bowling Green: C. S. Van Tassel, 1919), 20. 6. Doyle, A Story of Early Toledo, 20, 22-23; Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, vol.1 (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1997) 370-371; Knepper Ohio and Its People, 112-116. 7. Doyle, A Story of Early Toledo, 35. 79 northeast of Port Lawrence. There he contracted with Edward Bissel of New York state for town improvements and began selling lots in 1833. Speculators laid out paper towns including

Marengo, East Marengo, and Austerlitz, but none of these ventures were close to being as successful as Port Lawrence or Vistula in competing for projects and businesses.8 Eventually, during the so-called Toledo War, leaders of Port Lawrence and Vistula decided to combine business efforts and administration merging to become the village of Toledo.9 Historian Clark

Waggoner asserts that this fusion of towns stemmed from local jealousies, both towns spending

large sums on the same benefits, fortunes being closely related, and competition for improvements and businesses hurting both towns.10

Most importantly, the anticipation of a system of canals—newer transportation routes—

linking interior settlements with shipping possibilities on Lake Erie elevated the importance of

current and future settlements in the Maumee Valley prompting the Toledo War. In 1835, amid

canal fever sweeping Ohio and land speculation along possible routes, the state of Ohio and the

territory of Michigan sent militia units to Toledo to fight over a disputed strip of land that both

governments believed would bring massive revenues to treasuries. This war of words proceeded

from imperfect survey lines for the northern boundary of Ohio and thus the apparent southern

boundary of the future state of Michigan whose admission to the Union depended upon

resolution of the disagreement. Business from the proposed canal would establish Toledo, as

Stickney believed, as a great commercial metropolis to rival New York City and Philadelphia, and it was therefore in each entity’s interest to control the mouth of the Maumee River and the

8. “Paper towns” were speculative ventures where town sites were platted but never became actual communities with residences or commercial establishments. For more information on speculative town sites, see John D. Haeger, “The Abandoned Townsite on the Midwestern Frontier: A Case Study of Rockwell, Illinois,” Journal of the Early Republic 3, no. 2 (Summer 1983), 165-183. 9. The original size of Toledo at its incorporation in 1837 was 5440.0 acres. Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, This Is How Toledo Grew [map] (Toledo: Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, 1968). 10. Doyle, A Story of Early Toledo, 35-38; Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo, 375-377. 80 lands to its west. In order to provide more direct political control over the area, the General

Assembly of Ohio created Lucas County with Toledo as its seat of government. Because Ohio had a voting delegation in Congress, the federal government eventually decided in favor of Ohio and provided Michigan with the Upper Peninsula as compensation. With Toledo and lands to its west firmly under control of Ohio, residents and speculators could return their attention to increasing the commercial position of the area through the long-discussed Wabash and Erie

Canal project and the connections it would create with people in southern Ohio and throughout

Indiana.11

One of the most prominent Toledo boosters beginning in the 1840s as the Wabash and

Erie Canal brought business to the lake port was Jesup Scott. He and his family moved to

northwest Ohio where he purchased property and established himself as a vocal proponent of

settling the “Great West” of the United States. Scott published his quasi-scientific and religious

reasonings for the potential of Toledo to become a great metropolis in various journals and

newspapers including the Ohio and Michigan Register and Emigrant’s Guide, the Miami of the

Lake newspaper, and the Toledo Blade. For Scott, developing the west signified material and

moral progress; he wrote in his Ohio and Michigan Register and Emigrant’s Guide in January

1832 that “no other portion of the world…exhibits such a scene of rapid improvement.”12 In numerous lectures throughout his life in Toledo, he explained that internal improvements would bring a progressive western civilization to the area. Scott believed internal trade was key to

United States economic development although external trade was greater than internal trade in the antebellum years. He used history, geography, and population analyses to argue the

11. For a further discussion of the Toledo War and its origins, see Stephen W. Badenhop, “Federal Failure: The Ohio-Michigan Boundary Dispute” (MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2008). 12. David S. Brown, “Jesup Scott’s Great West: Promotion and Persuasion on the Ohio Frontier,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 71, nos. 3/4 (Summer/Autumn 1999), 84. 81 importance of interior cities and the rise of the Great West. For Toledo specifically, Scott claimed that interior trade and a lake port provided the means for the economic supremacy of the city relative to other nascent western towns.13

CONSTRUCTION OF THE WABASH AND ERIE CANAL

Encouraged by the prospects of the effects of canal building seen in New York State, the

State of Ohio initiated a plan to construct canals to connect the Ohio River and Lake Erie in the

mid-1820s. Settlements in the southern part of the state utilized the Ohio River to reach the main market of New Orleans while towns in the northern part of the state transported goods via Lake

Erie. Canals across the state of Ohio functioned on the national level as connections uniting

markets in the southern and eastern parts of the United States. On state and local levels, Ohio

canals linked interior markets with larger markets on Lake Erie or the Ohio River as well as

stimulated settlement within the state. The state legislature proposed three canal routes: a

western route following the Miami River north across the divide and on to the Maumee River

Valley; a central route following the Scioto and Sandusky Rivers; and an eastern route following

the Muskingum River north and then into the Cuyahoga River Valley. Engineers deemed the portion of the central route near the Sandusky River unfeasible due to lack of water although that route was probably the one that would most likely unite public sentiment throughout all areas of

Ohio according to an 1823 report of the state canal commissioners. Thus, engineers connected the southern half of the central route to the eastern route to make the Ohio and Erie Canal.

Workers constructed the Miami and Erie Canal along the western route and joined it with the

Wabash and Erie Canal at the aptly-named town Junction.14

13. Brown, “Jesup Scott’s Great West,” 84, 88-94. 14. Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens, The Ohio University Press, 1969), 21. 82

Map 2.1: Canals of Northwest Ohio

Note: Contemporary county boundaries shown.

Historian Harry N. Scheiber cited three factors in favor of the canal project in northwest

Ohio despite the small population in the region in the 1830s.15 First, canal commissioners

estimated that the sale of federal land granted to the state could finance almost two-thirds of the

entire cost of the canal. However, by the time the Wabash and Erie Canal was completed, the final cost of constructing the canal was triple the estimated original price. Second, Indiana

legislators approved the construction of the portion of the canal in their state in 1832. To have

one state legislature but not the other commit to build a part of the canal would be shameful. The

legislators in Ohio agreed in 1833 to build the canal using state resources or by establishing a

private company to build it. Third, speculators laid out town sites along the proposed canal route

in order to reap the benefits of the economic growth they promised would occur due to business

and travel brought by the canal. Speculators or lobbyists arguing on their behalf pressured the

Ohio legislature to begin construction of the Ohio portion of the canal. Governor Robert Lucas

15. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 99-100. 83 of Ohio, wanting his Democratic party to have a strong record in internal improvement projects, argued that with the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal, “the State would have control of one of the most important avenues in the Western country.”16 Pressure from speculators and

Indiana’s elected representatives exerted on the Ohio government and the benefits of land sales

persuaded the Ohio legislature to begin construction of its part of the Wabash and Erie Canal.

As with the Maumee and Western Reserve Road, an entity other than local governments

needed to undertake the financing and construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal because the

population in northwestern Ohio was sparse at only 1.4 persons per square mile. Thus, the

national government and the state governments of Indiana and Ohio engaged in the construction

of the canal. To settle the thorny question of states’ rights, Congress declared that each state

would be responsible to construct the portion of the canal in its respective territory. To build the

canal, the federal government granted each state lands in a strip ten miles wide and in alternate

sections. In March 1834, the State of Ohio established a fund to be used for the construction of

the canal that was filled with proceeds from the sale of canal lands. The sale of canal lands not

only aided in financing the building of the canal but also enticed settlement of northwestern

Ohio.17

Because the Wabash and Erie Canal crossed parts of Indiana and Ohio, officials

demanded a way to fund and construct the project amenable to both governments. Indiana legislators felt they had no responsibility to directly finance part of a project that would not

benefit their state. Thus, the State of Indiana invested in the construction of the canal through

that state while the Ohio officials authorized the building of the portion of the canal within its

16. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 100. 17. United States Congress, Senate, “A Bill authorizing the selection of certain Wabash and Erie Canal lands in the State of Ohio,” 23rd Congress, 1st session, March 13, 1834; Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 99. 84 borders. The federal government helped finance this project, and many others, through land grants to the states. As part of the deal between the two states for constructing the canal, Indiana transferred some of its land grants to Ohio in exchange for that states building canal from its border with Indiana to Lake Erie.18 Built in sections, politics slowed the completion of the entire

project as engineers and local politicians haggled over its course. Proprietors and residents from

Perrysburg, Toledo, Manhattan, and Maumee City pressured the Ohio canal board to construct

the end of the Wabash and Erie Canal in their towns near the mouth of the Maumee River.

Under the intense political pressure, the board decided to build identical terminal locks in

Toledo, Manhattan, and Maumee City thereby giving each city the opportunity to be part of the

substantial economic growth that residents anticipated for whatever town was at the end of the

canal.19

Changes in the dimensions of the canal caused the actual cost of the canal at its

completion to be triple the original estimate. According to Scheiber, the original design of the

Wabash and Erie Canal used the same dimensions of the Ohio Canal: a prism design with a

surface width of forty feet, a bottom width of twenty-six feet, and a depth of four feet. Just

before the state awarded contracts to begin construction, the commissioners modified the design

of the canal to be sixty feet wide at the top, at least forty-six feet wide at the bottom and six feet

deep. Thus, the amount of water needed for the canal more than doubled and construction costs

increased because engineers needed more materials and required more work to dig the canal.

Consistent with the original plans, the towpath along the finished canal was ten feet wide with

18. The United States government also gave Ohio grants of 500,000 acres to aid in payment of its canal debt or interest with the condition that canals would remain public highways for federal use. See History of the Ohio Canals, 36. 19. History of the Ohio Canals, 36; Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 122. 85 trees cut back twenty feet from the canal to avoid windfall. The change in dimensions of the canal was not the only alteration that raised the cost of the completed canal.20

The creation of multiple termini near Lake Erie also increased the overall costs of the

project and amplified the opportunity for economic development for those locations situated near

the end of the canal. According to Scheiber, “[t]o equalize fully the conditions of rivalry…the

board agreed to complete all three terminals for traffic simultaneously.”21 Perrysburg was

luckless in regards to the increased economic activity that would accompany a terminus of the

Wabash and Erie Canal. The three towns with ends of the canal were located on the north side of

the Maumee River while Perrysburg was on the opposite side of the river. The rate of economic

development of those towns on the north bank would surpass that of Perrysburg in the 1850s.

Workers completed the Ohio portion of the Wabash and Erie Canal in June 1842. The workforce

built the canal in independent sections and later joined them together. According to

documentary producer Jay Arpad, workers “commanded high wages and up to thirty-two ounces

of whiskey per day—supposedly medicine for the variety of swamp diseases and maladies that

workers came down with.”22 Canal drivers required locks to raise and lower canal boats to

match the surrounding terrain. Defiance had nine locks around it while a lone lock at the town of

Texas was located in the twenty-three miles of canal near Napoleon. Six locks shifted boats

down to Swan Creek in Toledo. Much of the water used in this portion of the canal came from

feeder canals draining the swampy land near the canal route or the Maumee River itself.23

The key environmental effects and transformations of the Wabash and Erie Canal included its completion, the redistribution of water to form an artificial river, floods resulting

20. Frank Wilcox, Ohio Canals (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1969), 12-13; Sheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 123. 21. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 122. 22. Joseph J. Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp: A Television Script (Bowling Green: author’s publication, 1983), 5. 23. Wilcox, Ohio Canals, 67. 86 from burst canal banks, and the construction of various buildings related to canal activities stimulating economic expansion. People changed the landscape through the completion of the canal by digging the channel, creating locks to raise and lower canal boats to overcome elevation changes, and removing trees to form a towpath. People redistributing water from adjacent rivers and creeks and from nearby swampy lands through feeders to fill the main canal and branches made nature more conducive to human activities. As such, in attempting to improve the natural world, people used natural resources and ultimately transformed the environment in unintended, yet desirable, ways. However, floods resulting from burst canals were adverse consequences regarding land usage and dangerous events that potentially ruined not only the canal but also the surrounding farms and property. Moreover, people erected buildings such as warehouses, horse barns, stores, and residences constructed as a result of canal activity near canals and in communities whose growth was stimulated by canal traffic fundamentally altering the landscape by their presence and their associated functions within the nascent economy and society.

SETTLEMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW TOWNS ALONG THE CANAL

Settlement around locks often consisted of a house for the lock tender, barns and sheds, a tavern, an ice house, and stables. These buildings were essential to service the crews and passengers of the canal boats. A lock tender operated the lock for canal boats at any time of the day and thus lived near the lock. Barns and sheds housed supplies for maintenance of the lock and farm equipment for small farms near the canal. Passengers on canal packets used the tavern as a resting place because they could disembark for a brief time as the lock tender lowered or raised canal boat in the lock. Residents living near the lock stored supplies in the ice house. The stables kept a fresh supply of mules to tow boats through the canal. Millwrights erected mills in the area around the canal because moving water in feeder canals turned the millwheel providing 87 a power source for the mill. Settlements around locks were communities in the early stages of development tied to the traffic of the canals. Other communities serving as markets for the hinterland surrounding the canal also grew during this time. In addition to the canal, roads linked these canal communities.24

Napoleon, the county seat of Henry County, benefited from its location along the

Maumee River and Wabash and Erie Canal. The advantages of the Wabash and Erie Canal for

Napoleon and Napoleon Township were evident in their individual population growths (See

Table 2.1, Appendix). The increase in the mean size of households in Napoleon Township

during the 1840s and 1850s meant that agricultural activity could be more easily undertaken

because the household could accomplish more with a larger size. Draining water from the land

to feed the canal increased agricultural activity. A series of smaller ditches drew surface water

from the swampy land into the main canal, thereby, making the lands more suitable for farming

activities. The canal traffic conveyed travelers through the town of Napoleon and afforded

residents of the surrounding area a means for to transport or buy goods. As with other canal

towns, the population of Napoleon thrived due to traffic and commerce connected to the

activities on the canal. More people settled in or around Napoleon and made a living after the

canal was put into use.25

Canal traffic also shaped the economic development of the town of Waterville and

Waterville Township in Lucas County. The total number of households and total population for

Waterville and the immediate area increased more rapidly in the 1840s than in the 1850s (See

Table 2.2, Appendix). Unlike Napoleon Township, Waterville Township saw a greater

24. Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 5; Wilcox, Ohio Canals, 16. 25. “Henry County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 402); “Henry County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 693); “Henry County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 985). 88 population increase in the 1840s than in the 1850s. Therefore, the influence of the canal and its traffic was quick to happen around Waterville, yet this impact diminished the longer the canal was in operation. The town of Waterville also did not contain as great of an increase in number of households nor total population as did the town of Napoleon. Waterville benefited by being farther down the Maumee River, and therefore residents had greater opportunities to participate in trade with Toledo or relocate to the city. Businesses did develop in Waterville due to canal traffic, but the town did not have the substantial growth seen by other canal towns.26

Most noticeable was the economic development of Toledo and its immediate vicinity.

The incorporation of the towns of Port Lawrence and Vistula in 1837 created one larger municipality at the mouth of the Maumee River that began to function more noticeably as a subregional hub. Manhattan was located near the mouth of the river near the growing city of

Toledo. The number of households and total population greatly increased during the 1840s and

1850s in both Toledo and Manhattan (See Table 2.3, Appendix). The population of Toledo grew at a faster rate than the population of Manhattan signifying that the canal had a greater impact on

Toledo. The mean size of households for both Toledo and Manhattan declined showing that the

economic activities of the area could not support larger families. The increasing numbers of

economic endeavors such as barrel making were not as labor intensive as previous pursuits and

did not require as many people to perform an individual job. Certain jobs such as laboring

necessitated fewer people to perform them.27

The amount of goods arriving at Toledo via the canal fluctuated from year to year, but the

quantities increased overall from 1842 to 1851 (See Table 2.4, Appendix). Weather conditions

26. “Lucas County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 410); “Lucas County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 706); “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 1003). 27. “Lucas County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840; “Lucas County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. 89 and demand affected the number of commodities arriving at Toledo via the canal. The weather influenced the number of crops farmers could grow and sell; the demand for products in other markets also determined how much growers produced and sold. Weather conditions also shaped the ability to travel on the canal. For example, a lack of precipitation lowered the water level in the prohibiting bigger boats from operating on the canal and crafts from transporting large amounts of freight. Too much precipitation flooded the surrounding area damaging the canal trench. Cold weather froze water prohibiting all traffic from using the canal. Despite possible difficulties in using the canal, the commercial activities of selling, buying, and transporting goods via the Wabash and Erie Canal aided the economic growth of Toledo and its environs and provided employment opportunities for residents.

Shortly after the completion of the canal at Toledo, editors of the Blade often noted economic developments in and near Toledo to boost the city’s image and importance to the regional and national economies. In May 1843, editor Daniel McBain reported that business was growing in Toledo noting the relatively short Erie Kalamazoo Railroad, the canal and harbor, and the industriousness of residents. He also argued because business had grown in Toledo and agriculture was slowly expanding outside of the city, children needed schools to maintain comforts of life, inspire creativity, and train them for future ambitions in business or the home.

Thus, economic growth not only brought new residents to the city but also necessitated further social and cultural growth to maintain Toledo’s vitality as a commercial center. In June 1843, business prospects of Toledo were again appearing positive according to McBain with canal packets bringing goods and people from Indiana, mechanics finding employment, and people constructing buildings following the national economic downturn of the late 1830s and early

1840s. Later that month, McBain charged a Maumee newspaper publisher with misrepresenting 90 facts regarding Maumee and Toledo business. Jesup Scott, becoming editor of the Blade in

1844, wrote that Toledo and Maumee were equal commercially, but he asserted Toledo had more workers, fewer empty buildings, and more commercial activities than Maumee. Scott also realized that to continue to grow, Toledo needed to expand its manufacturing activities and increase its number of mechanics in the model of Cincinnati while nearby farmers and country merchants had to purchase locally produced goods rather than buy them from dealers in Buffalo or New York. Moreover, Scott emphasized the economic developments that the canal spurred while advocating ways residents could maintain the overall growth of local markets.28

Newspaper ads for Toledo further elucidate new economic ventures in the city and

connections among the city, its hinterland, and eastern markets. Notices for various dry goods

and groceries roughly doubled from the late 1830s to the two years after the completion of the

Wabash and Erie Canal at Toledo. Likewise, the number of ads for clothing, shoes, boots, and

hats also increased twofold between 1838 and 1844. Such items reflected the growing

population of Toledo and their demand for dry goods and clothing as well as the ability of

merchants to supply these goods through transportation via the canal and lake. Dry goods

dealers and grocers such as V. H. Ketchum and A. Ralston focused their business more locally

supplying residents with items from east coast markets and distributing produce from Toledo’s

hinterland. Forwarding merchants such as E. Haskell and Company, Peckham and Company,

and Brownlee Pendelton and Company utilized the canal to move products to other nascent

towns along the canal. These businessmen depended upon reliable transportation routes to move

goods from the harbor of Toledo to merchants in communities along the canal who would in turn

sell them to residents throughout the Maumee Valley thereby establishing and strengthening

28. Toledo Blade, 12 May 1843, 2; 9 June 1843, 2; 16 June 1843, 2; 12 January 1844, 2; 5 April 1844, 2 (microfilm edition, Ohio Historical Society: Mf 071 T649, rolls 1-2). 91 connections among Toledo and its hinterland. Thus, Toledo’s position as the subregional hub of northwest Ohio intensified as its population grew and connections to surrounding economic centers increased and became more robust.29

GROWTH OF PERRYSBURG

The town of Perrysburg expanded after the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal, but

its degree of change was far less than that of Toledo. A transition to more commercial activities

that required less manpower to perform can be inferred by the decline of family size for the

households in Perrysburg (See Table 2.5, Appendix). Commerce provided by the Maumee and

Western Reserve Road as well as other highways coming into Perrysburg and the creation of a

small town economic system supplied growth for the town. The occupations of all gainfully

employed males and men over the age of eighteen supported the slight shift toward a commercial

economy for Perrysburg (See Table 2.6, Appendix). Interestingly, the percentage of the whole

employed as proprietors and retailers remained virtually the same from 1850 to 1860, but the

number of farmers doubled. A shift toward commercial activity would tend to have a greater

percentage of proprietors and retailers than farmers. However, a lack of economic prosperity

during the 1850s could have forced agriculturalists off their land and into the town. The total

number and percentage of professionals and semi-professionals increased while the same figures

for laborers, skilled workers, and semi-skilled workers decreased. Therefore, the percentage and

number of men working with their hands decreased, but the same statistics for men working with

their heads increased. Due to internal improvement projects, Perrysburg grew to be a typical

29. Toledo Blade. Based upon a list of canal tolls published in the Blade on May 5, 1843, items shipped along canal included the following: flour products, butter, alcoholic beverages, soap, rags, hemp, flax, hides and skins, dried fruits and nuts, carpenters’ work ready for building, corn products, pigs, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, gypsum, printed material from outside state, oils, merchandise (dry goods, groceries, hardware, cutlery, crockery, glassware), lumber (by the board foot), shingles, bricks, hewed timber, fuel wood (by cord), stone (for ashers or buildings), and passengers. 92 small town between rural frontier and large urban city based upon population and economic activities.30

The persistency of residents from 1850 to 1860 provides some interesting insights into

the economic composition of Perrysburg in the 1850s (See Table 2.7, Appendix). Although the

percentage of gainfully employed males working as proprietors or retailers remained virtually

static from 1850 to 1860, this group had the highest persistency rate of any group. In addition,

while the group of semi-skilled laborers had the greatest decline in overall numbers, this group

had the second highest persistency rates of those gainfully employed. Therefore, semi-skilled

laborers who left the area during the 1850s were not as likely to be replaced by a similar male

moving into the town. This was in contrast to common laborers who had the lowest persistency

rate of the groups under study but whose overall numbers declined only slightly. The persistency

of residents displayed that common laborers often moved in and out of the town while

professionals and semi-professionals arrived in larger numbers than in which members of their

group would leave. Persistency rates for men who worked with their heads were generally

higher than the rates for men who worked with their hands. During the mid-nineteenth century,

economic “failures” constituted a large proportion of non-persisters. These men often were not

capable of establishing strong economic or residential ties to the community thereby forcing

them to move away from the town in search of more economic opportunities. The composition

of the town shown by persistency rates supported the shift away from heavy labor toward a small

town economy in Perrysburg. 31

30. “Wood County,” Fifth Census of the United States, 1830 (BGSU CAC, M19, roll 142); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741); “Wood County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 1053); C. Thomas Sibert, “A Population Study of Perrysburg, Ohio: 1850-1870” (unpublished paper, BGSU CAC, pOG-404), 20. 31. Sibert, “A Population Study of Perrysburg, Ohio: 1850-1870,” 22; Laurence Glasco, “Migration and Adjustment in the Nineteenth-Century City: Occupation, Property, and Household Structure of Native-born Whites, Buffalo, 93

The number of households and total population of the towns within the economic sphere of Toledo in 1860 illustrated each community’s development as well as each location’s role in the overall economy of northwestern Ohio (See Table 2.8, Appendix). Toledo operated as the subregional hub while the towns of Napoleon, Perrysburg, and Waterville served as local economic centers for their individual hinterlands. The size of the surrounding area from which people purchased and sold goods determined in part the amount of economic activity a number of people could support. Proximity to major commercial thoroughfares also determined economic potential. Napoleon expanded due to its location on the Wabash and Erie Canal, and residents partially drained the agricultural lands around the community to fill the canal. Farm products arrived in the town by merchants shipping them via the canal or farmers hauling them from surrounding farms. Thus, mercantile activity needing less people served as an important aspect of the economy of Napoleon. A similar condition influenced the growth of Waterville, yet this community did not encompass as many households as Napoleon. Proximity to Maumee

City decreased the size of Waterville’s hinterland, thereby, diminishing its economic potential to support more families. More households populated Perrysburg, thus, increasing the amount of its total commercial activity. These pursuits either could support larger families or needed more people to undertake them; thus, the mean household size in Perrysburg was larger than that of

Napoleon and Waterville. Perrysburg acted as a subregional hub for a bigger hinterland that enlarged its potential for growth. Therefore, Perrysburg’s role at one end of roads branching into the Black Swamp aided its economic development.32

New York, 1855,” in Family and Population in Nineteenth-Century America, Tamara K. Hareven and Maris A. Vinovskis, eds. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978), 155. 32. “Henry County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860; “Wood County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860; “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. 94

As in Toledo, newspaper ads documented the economic activity of Perrysburg during the years before and after the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal thereby allowing an assessment of the economic transformations within the area.33 Merchants utilized newspapers to

advertise goods and services available for consumption by the residents of Perrysburg and the

surrounding area. Most of the ads were for local businesses while some were for items and services from outside Perrysburg such as book binderies in Toledo and Maumee City as well as insurance companies in eastern cities including New York, Philadelphia, and Hartford. This array of goods and services displayed the local and national economic connections of the town of

Perrysburg. For analysis, the ads were placed into eight categories: dry goods and groceries; clothing and textiles; building supplies and home goods; personal items; general mercantile ads; drugs and medicines; and farm implements. Miscellaneous ads included those for real estate, transportation services, Daguerrean pictures, and vermin killers. The categories signify different groups of products residents used and various components of the local economy.

The first category includes advertisements for dry goods, groceries, specific food items, and seasonal goods. According the ads, retailers often received goods from outside Ohio demonstrating the wide extent of the market connections in which Perrysburg was involved.

Every issue in the sample contained at least one ad specifically for either dry goods or groceries.

The issues with the greatest number of these ads were in June 1848, June 1860, and October

1860.34 Grocers promoted specific food items including Hawley’s beer and Hamburg cheese in

June 1848, fish in October 1848, and New Orleans sugar and molasses in June and October

33. For this analysis, a sample was taken of local newspapers issues. The issues come from summer and/or fall of the years 1836, 1842, 1844, 1848, 1854, and 1860. Extant copies limited the pool of issues available for the sample. Two times of the year were chosen to gauge any change throughout the year in economic activities. 34. Fort Meigs Reveille (microfilm. Perrysburg: Way Public Library); Perrysburg Journal (microfilm. Perrysburg: Way Public Library). 95

1848.35 Retailers marketed seasonal goods under the titles of spring and summer goods and fall

and winter goods with one exception in 1842 and two exceptions in 1854. In July 1842, J. M.

Hall advertised summer goods, and E. D. Peck promoted summer and fall goods in June and

October 1854.36 Residents purchased groceries and dry goods to supplement whatever they

could grow or make themselves. Often these necessary goods originated outside the region.

The second category consists of textiles, ready-made clothing, hats, shoes and boots, and

shawls. Advertisers plainly stated that these were the newest fashions or patterns from the East.

Owning such items from places like New York made residents of Perrysburg like their counterparts in the eastern United States. No matter how far away people lived from these more stylish markets, merchants marketed clothing items to local residents. Retailers promoted textiles for sale in July 1842, June 1848, and October 1848.37 Only four ads mentioned ready- made clothing in October 1848, and one ad did so in October 1860.38 One announcement generically promoted clothing in June and October 1848 and June and October 1854.39

Advertisements for hats or millinery appeared in every issue in the sample except for October

1836 and June 1854. Retailers advertised shoes and boots most often in the issues from 1848

with three merchants advertising for these items in June 1848 with six publicizing such products

in October 1848.40 J. A. Hall marketed shawls in ads in June 1848 while E. D. Peck did the

same in June and October 1854.41 Like groceries and dry goods, whatever clothing articles

people could not create personally, they purchased from stores receiving provisions from eastern

markets.

35. Fort Meigs Reveille. 36. Perrysburg News (microfilm. Perrysburg: Way Public Library); Perrysburg Journal. 37. Perrysburg News; Fort Meigs Reveille. 38. Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 39. Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 40. Fort Meigs Reveille. 41. Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 96

Building supplies and home furnishings constitute the third category. Some materials came from the local area, but merchants imported products such as wallpaper, hardware, stoves, and looking glasses from outside the region. Businesses announced lumber for sale in October

1836 and October 1848 while two firms advertised ground plaster in June 1854.42 Retailers

promoted wallpaper in June and October 1854 and June and October 1860.43 An ad for iron and

white lead appeared in October 1836 while an ad for hardware was in issues in October 1848.44

Mathews and Olney promoted glass in October 1836, and J. A. Hall did so in June 1848.45

Specific home goods mentioned in ads included brooms, candles, cutlery, lamps, woodenware, tea kettles, and looking glasses. Advertisements also listed stoves for sale. Residents purchased most building supplies and home furnishings from local merchants.

Items for personal or family use included clocks and watches, books and magazines, and sewing machines. Mechanical items such as clocks, watches, and sewing machines arriving from markets outside Perrysburg resulted in new economic connections among residents of northwestern Ohio and people in other areas. Businessmen promoted clocks and watches in ads from October1836 and throughout 1848 and 1860.46 Two jewelers publicized their wares in

June 1848, October 1854, and October 1860 while three jewelers did so in October 1848 and

June 1854.47 Two book binderies located in Toledo advertised in the Perrysburg Journal in June

1854 and one did so in October 1848 in the Fort Meigs Reveille. Businessmen advertised school

books and general books throughout 1854 and 1860. Four establishments publicized sewing

42. Miami of the Lake (microfilm. Perrysburg: Way Public Library); Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 43. Perrysburg Journal. 44. Miami of the Lake; Fort Meigs Reveille. 45. Miami of the Lake; Fort Meigs Reveille. 46. Miami of the Lake; Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 47. Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 97 machines in June 1860 and three did so in October of that year.48 Personal items added to the

home life of residents of Perrysburg and the surrounding area. These items not only enhanced

the social life of the area but also increased the economic growth of the town because retailers

acquired such products from dealers outside the region and sold them to people living near

Perrysburg.

The fifth category of ads comprises farm and carpentry tools produced outside of

northwestern Ohio. Merchants marketed plows in October 1836, July 1844, October 1848, and

June and October 1854.49 Roby and Thompson placed an ad in October 1848 for shovels and

spades.50 A generic ad for farm implements or machines appeared in July 1842, June 1848, and

June and October 1854.51 A single ad for carpentry tools appeared in newspapers in October

1848, June 1854, and October 1854.52 Farmers and carpenters utilized their tools around

Perrysburg, and both the sale and use of these items aided the economic development of the area.

Sales helped merchants stay in business while the items produced by people using the tools could

be sold to other members of the community, thereby, creating and strengthening economic

connections among residents of Perrysburg and the surrounding area.

General mercantile and professional ads and promotions of drugs and medicines make up the last two categories. Announcements of local businessmen and professionals illustrated the extent of economic growth in the immediate area. Retailers often placed ads alerting potential customers to visit their establishments for bargains or to see new arriving merchandise. Other announcements notified residents of a new store opening or a store changing owners. Three

48. Perrysburg Journal. 49. Miami of the Lake; Miami of the Lake Erie (microfilm. Perrysburg: Way Public Library); Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 50. Fort Meigs Reveille. 51. Perrysburg News; Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 52. Fort Meigs Reveille; Perrysburg Journal. 98 forwarding merchants placed ads in October 1836 while only one did in July 1844 and June

1848.53 These men were directly involved in the connections between Perrysburg and other

markets. Men also placed advertisements stating that they needed items such as wheat, wool,

and ashes. Gideon Myers placed ads in June and October 1854 asking for marble.54 Insurance

companies from the eastern United States placed ads in hopes of attracting customers to insure

their property and belongings. Professional men such as lawyers, dentists, and doctors placed

notices touting their services and inviting new clients. Doctors also advertised remedies for

afflictions such as dyspepsia, fever, and ague. Tonics often arrived from suppliers in New York

City or from peddlers traveling through the area. Harcourt, Bradley, and Company even

promoted a medicated fur chest protector in October 1854.55 The establishment of retail

businesses and professional offices signified that Perrysburg was becoming less agricultural and more commercial despite the canal bypassing the town.

CONCLUSION

Despite commissioners depriving Perrysburg of an outlet of the canal, the town did continue to grow and maintain its economic connections with local and national markets. Rather

than serving as the primary entrepôt for the whole region of northwest Ohio, Perrysburg served as the point of entry from the lake for only the Black Swamp area south of the Maumee River.

In addition to the federally financed Maumee and Western Reserve Road, a plank road company constructed a road south from Perrysburg south to Findlay through Bowling Green. Other well- traveled roads leading to Perrysburg were the McCutchenville Road leading to the southeast and the Perrysburg-Defiance Road along the south bank of the Maumee River. These four roads

53. Miami of the Lake; Miami of the Lake Erie; Fort Meigs Reveille. 54. Perrysburg Journal. 55. Perrysburg Journal. 99 enabled settlers from within the Black Swamp to link with markets through Perrysburg in order to buy and sell goods. As the lands along these roads developed, Perrysburg became the center of a more expansive hinterland. Functioning as an economic center located close to a subregional hub, Perrysburg grew into a major nineteenth century small town whose population and economic development was between that of communities on the edge of settlement and large cities on the eastern seaboard. A major small town had residents predominantly engaged in less- specialized economic activities than residents of larger cities as well as having numerous connections to surrounding agricultural lands.56

Figure 2.2, a redrawn version of the middle stage of the subregional model provides a

basic overview of the conditions and connections within northwest Ohio around 1850. Toledo,

with business expansion as a canal terminus and lake port, was then truly functioning as a subregional hub with Maumee, Waterville, and Napoleon as local economic centers drawing farmers’ business—marketing surplus crops and purchasing items not produced on their farms— from their nearby hinterlands to the canal. Although the waterway linked these burgeoning towns, the strongest connections residents had were with Toledo markets rather than businesses in other canal towns. People in Perrysburg maintained strong links with Toledo and Maumee based upon the proximity of each city. Serving as marketplaces and political centers for their surrounding rural areas, Perrysburg and Fremont developed links to growing villages which over time had the potential to also become local economic centers. Thus, new nodes of the system of cities developed.

56. Over the course of the nineteenth century and further infrastructural construction and land improvements in northwest Ohio, the following towns should also be considered as “major small towns” functioning as local economic centers around Toledo: Fremont, Tiffin, and Findlay on the edge of the Black Swamp; Bowling Green located fully in the swamp; and Maumee, Napoleon, Bryan, and Defiance in the Maumee River Valley. 100

Figure 2.2: Redrawn Middle Stage Subregional Model Showing Key Cities

Shown through the subregional model, Perrysburg in the end did not need the Wabash

and Erie Canal to survive and thrive. The town had its own place as the central marketplace for

goods entering and leaving the area of the Black Swamp via transportation routes on Lake Erie.

Retailers and professionals established businesses in Perrysburg throughout the 1840s and 1850s

that created the backbone for economic development. Laborers tended to leave the town while

increasingly more professionals and semi-professionals entered the community. The number of

farmers also swelled as the growing number of migrants could not prosper on the amount of

cultivatable land available. These groups formed an interlocking web of economic connections.

The economy of Perrysburg in the 1850s grew both intensively as local residents conducted

business with one another and extensively as people formulated connections with markets

outside the region. Toledo grew at a much faster rate than the other cities along the Wabash and

Erie Canal and Perrysburg although each community grew. Proximity to Lake Erie and the size

of the hinterland of each community determined the rates of growth for the towns. Cities near

the lake such as Toledo and towns with vast hinterlands such as Perrysburg experienced greater

economic growth than other towns such as Waterville and Napoleon farther up the river serving 101 smaller nearby populations. More growth would come to these towns as future industries and businesses developed after the waning of the importance of the canal.

The city of Toledo expanded greatly from a series of small settlements around 1820 to an important subregional hub through commerce brought by the Wabash and Erie Canal. Rivalry among speculators and even state and territorial governments enhanced the perceived potential of a city located near the mouth of the Maumee River. The use of waterways, whether natural or artificial, for transportation showed connections between humans and the environment that permitted commercial links among to grow. Such expansion of markets and business benefits helped create and enlarge the system of cities within northwest Ohio. More important than interregional connections people forged utilizing the Wabash and Erie Canal, residents living in various settlements in the Black Swamp and Maumee Valley formed linkages among each other that aided the economic expansion of the area. Intensive economic growth produced by interactions along the canal resulted in the growth of the overall hinterland of Toledo and individual hinterlands of smaller towns around Toledo. However, Toledo and the surrounding area developed even more quantitatively and qualitatively after the 1850s through symbiotic relationships built upon railroad connections and links to the land. 102

CHAPTER THREE RAILS, DEPOTS, FREIGHT, AND PASSENGERS: CONNECTIONS EARLY RAILROADS CREATED IN NORTHWEST OHIO

Beginning at the height of the canal frenzy in the 1830s, eastern capitalists and local boosters began debating and surveying the best routes for new railroads to connect regional and national commercial hubs while extending and strengthening connections within hinterlands.

One important route businessmen and officials examined paralleled the southern shore of Lake

Erie in order to provide an overland route between Cleveland and Toledo and to connect with proposed routes west to Chicago. In the late 1840s, the State of Ohio chartered the Toledo,

Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company (TN & C) to construct a railroad along this route, but residents and business owners along the Maumee and Western Reserve Road objected to the plan.1 Believing that horses would pull the rail cars, they questioned how the railroad would be

financially viable with the price of oats and horses and whether the proposed project would force

teamsters out of their jobs. Hotel owners and land owners argued that the railroad would kill

emigration, perhaps even their livelihoods, and that the state would have wasted state money on

improving the road. Without traffic on the road, the state would not collect tolls that helped

finance the upkeep of the turnpike. Despite such opposition, workers proceeded to build the TN

& C and completed it to Fremont in 1852 and to Grafton near Cleveland the next year. This was

an example of competition and conflicting notions of economic well-being slowing the creation

1. After its improvement between 1838 and 1842, turnpiked roads from Bellevue to Cleveland were added to the original Maumee and Western Reserve Road and functioned under that name. Thus, opponents to the railroad living along the Maumee and Western Reserve Road included not only people from Wood and Sandusky Counties but also residents of Huron, Lorain, and Cuyahoga Counties. For details on the expanded road, see Sophia Nutter Kelly, “The Western Reserve-Maumee Stage Road” (MA thesis, Oberlin College, 1942). 103 of new forms of transportation providing new and often better connections among people and businesses while complementing existing routes.2

INTRODUCTION

In their ongoing attempt to extend transportation connections across the continent and

expand and solidify market linkages, policymakers and business advocates continued to blanket

uncontrolled nature with civilization in the process of settling the United States. Company

directors, speculators, ordinary residents, and legislators chartering railroad corporations

attempted in their own ways to imprint Euro-American ideas of progress and improvement

through the construction and utilization of new railroads in an expanding network of

transportation infrastructure across the United States. Members of the Ohio General Assembly

and Michigan State Legislature granted legal recognition, incorporation, and sometimes money

to companies that wanted to defy natural transportation routes through constructing and

operating railroads independent of natural waterways and to link sites of existing and future

small towns. Speculators purchased land and laid out lots they hoped to sell to settlers and

hopeful merchants that would conduct business or utilize natural resources to make a living. In

the short amount of time these groups had been active before the 1860s, they all helped to

expand and strengthen the subregional system of cities centered at Toledo and the broader

network of which it was a part. The notions of progress and civilization such parties melded

together spread over nature through the development of systems of cities.3

2. Homer Everett, History of Sandusky County, Ohio, with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers (Cleveland: H.Z. Williams, 1882 [Evanston, IN: Unigraphic, Inc., 1972]), 168; Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company, Exhibit of the Condition and Prospects of the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Rail Road Company (Cleveland: Sanford and Hayward, 1852), 6-7. 3. John Opie, Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998), 1-8, 154-185; Carol Sherriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 25, 32-35; Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), 46, 48, 55-56. 104

Extending civilization over nature with the construction and operation of railroads, policymakers and settlers anticipated enhancing the economic welfare of individuals pursuing private interests as well as the common good of all people by connecting distant communities.

Through incorporating railroad companies, government officials in Ohio and Michigan attempted to enhance their individual state’s potential for economic development through marketing agricultural produce and manufactured goods. Rail lines would bring crops from productive hinterlands to larger towns for sale or transport to eastern cities thereby enhancing the position of businessmen. Company directors desired to make money through building and operating railroads that had the best position to be competitive geographically and economically.

Poor investment in plans to subordinate nature to man’s desires led to financial ruin and little chance for long-term recognition, but a good outlay of capital often allowed local businessmen and directors the opportunity to invest in further projects. As with earlier road and canal projects, speculators and town boosters firmly believed that a transportation connection was their key to riches and wealth through the sale of town lots or the establishment of new business ventures taking advantage of the new link to other towns and markets. Fully-completed lines between cities were not necessary as farmers and entrepreneurs used finished sections to begin trading. However, the ordinary resident and land owner often could reap the most from railroads extending further across the landscape as rail lines would permit them to be part of larger markets. It was through their actions that they could increase their own economic prospects as well as that of other groups’ interests.4

4. Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969), 269-368; William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991), 207-259; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Rinehart, 1951), 74-103; Carl W. Condit, The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), 3-48; John F. Stover, Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), xi-xii, 114-176; Michael J. Connolly, 105

Railroad construction required large investments of capital. Learning from the economic downturn of the late 1830s and the dreadful financial situation large expenditures in canals put state governments in the 1840s, state policymakers in Ohio rarely gave money directly to build railroads. Rather, legislators used their powers to incorporate individual companies that would oversee the construction and operation of rail lines. Thus, the locus of investment transferred from state governments to private companies. Money that companies raised for construction came from eastern capitalists wanting a part of the presumed economic gains new lines would have, local boosters desiring a link for their towns or businesses, and local governments that could subscribe stock in companies in order to gain from railroads travelling through their jurisdictions. Thus, if railroad plans failed or if overall economic conditions deteriorated, private groups rather than distant local governments and tax-paying property owners with few direct benefits would primarily lose money.5

Early railroads not only provided connections among small towns and Toledo in

northwest Ohio but also linked Toledo to other subregional hubs and surrounding areas in

Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. This did not exactly enlarge Toledo’s hinterland, but it did connect the Toledo subregional system to other networks of cities while enlarging the commercial possibilities for Toledo businessmen and residents through the city’s lake port and status as a transportation hub. All but one of the major early railroads through a part of northwest Ohio entered Toledo reflecting directors’ and boosters’ beliefs that Toledo was to be a great metropolis in the trans-Appalachian West.

Capitalism, Politics and Railroads in Jacksonian New England (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), 1-19, 188-190. 5. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era, 279, 282-287, 293-294, 359; Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 90-102; Stover, Iron Road, 58, 63, 66, 217-218. 106

With the flexibility in locating railroads—they did not have to be near natural waterways—and the lower transportation costs for farmers and businessmen shipping crops and merchandise, people had the opportunity to increase and modify their market interactions with one another utilizing railroads. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 below show the transitions within the subregional model following people’s early use of rail lines. More nodes would form over time, but railroads initially lessened the isolation of small villages and stimulated the expansion of other towns. Note the new local economic center in the model after railroads; this node represents a town at the junction of rail lines that grew based upon more people bringing products to it to ship along railroads or the movement of freight from one line to another.

Railroads also strengthened connections among the subregional hub, local economic centers, and cities outside the subregion.

Figure 3.1: Middle Stage of Subregional Model before Railroads

Figure 3.2: Middle Stage of Subregional Model after Railroads

107

The history of railroads and their impact on economic development contains three broad components emphasizing the process of creating rail connections starting with early ideas for such economic changes, raising money for construction, and finally building the railroads. First, early railroads began linking Toledo and northwest Ohio to other markets at the height of the canal boom around the time of the completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal as boosters and businessmen attempted to extend their commercial influence to lands not serviced by canals or natural waterways. Company directors wanted to link existing and emerging market centers with rail lines and provide infrastructure to farmers to transport crops more cheaply and affectively.

Even before workers completed lines, trains ran on finished tracks beginning the process of economic change. Second, boosters and company directors needed to raise money for proposed railroads. State governments rarely contributed financially leaving local governments, city advocates, and eastern capitalists to provide funds for construction. With its large cities, high populations, and more developed economy, the eastern United States contained the greatest amount of wealth in the nation and a key source of capital. Third, rail lines helped to encourage economic changes within Toledo and its immediate hinterland. Small towns in northwest Ohio grew as nodes within the subregional system of cities while Toledo gained important connections to other networks that in turn elicited further development of that city. Overall, railroads complemented an expanding transportation network encouraging economic growth of cities, small towns, and farms.

THE EARLY RAILROADS OF TOLEDO

Although major long distance railroads did not reach Toledo and northwest Ohio until the early 1850s, the earliest railroad affecting Toledo, and the first railroad west of the Alleghenies, was the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad (E & K) between Toledo and Adrian, Michigan. 108

Completed in 1837, the E & K was of strap-iron construction where the rails consisted of wooden boards fitted with thin strips of iron upon which the wheels of rolling stock would go.

Oxen or horses pulled the mixed trains comprising freight cars and passenger carriages modeled after stage coaches until the E & K began using a locomotive named the Adrian #1 to pull trains in July 1837. According to newspaper reports, Toledo merchants were happy to see animal power abandoned to transport goods as items were filling warehouses to capacity. The businessmen believed machine power—with its ability to pull trains faster—would allow them to ship more products along the railroad thereby reducing the amount of warehoused goods.

However, even traveling at a relatively quick twenty miles per hour, trains took two and a half hours to make the one-way trip from Toledo to Adrian allowing trains to make only two trips from Toledo one day and just one trip the next day. This, unfortunately, did not alleviate the surplus of goods in the city’s warehouses. Brisk travel on this type of rail often endangered riders’ lives as the iron straps would detach from the wooden rails, curl, and break through the floor of the passenger carriage. Despite its issues, promoters declared the E & K had advantages over stage coaches such as relative speed and not having to contend with mud on roads.

Moreover, the E & K opened a thoroughfare to bring goods from southern Michigan to market in

Toledo and the opportunity to collect fares for passengers travelling west towards Chicago. Both of these endeavors helped to expand the changing economy of Toledo and its prominence in western trade.6

Connections rail lines created spurred economic change for Toledo markets, but this would only happen if the railroads entered the city. Toledo’s port and commercial agents would

6. Ferdinand Ellsworth Cary, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway System and Representative Employees (Buffalo and Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1900), 29; Toledo Blade, 16 May 1837, 2, 3 (microfilm edition, Ohio Historical Society, Mf 071 T649, roll1); Toledo Blade, 20 June 1837, 3; Toledo Blade, 4 July 1837, 2; John G. Clark, The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966), 237-250, 264-288. 109 gain with rail lines across southern Michigan and northern Indiana connecting Toledo and

Chicago markets and seizing business of the farmlands along the tracks. Shortly after the E & K began operations, the legislature of the new state of Michigan began financially supporting the construction of two railroads, the Michigan Southern and the Michigan Central, across its lower peninsula connecting various lake ports and Chicago but diverting traffic away from Toledo.

These efforts greatly annoyed Toledo boosters hoping to gather more business for their anticipated rail schemes. However, it took more than a decade to fully complete a Michigan

Southern rail line connecting Toledo and Chicago. During this time the Michigan Southern subsumed the E & K, and another company began construction of the Northern Indiana Railroad to connect markets in Indiana and gather the trade of that area.7

Through consolidation of rail lines, Toledo gained stronger connections with areas

beyond its immediate hinterland. In 1855, the Michigan Southern and the Northern Indiana

railroads merged to form a new company (MS & NI). Once combined, the MS & NI provided

Toledo with rail access to the wheat growing region west of the city and a large passenger

business and increasing freight business. Thus, the hinterland supporting the growth of Toledo

would seem to be beyond the counties of northwest Ohio. However, these interregional rail

connections merely expanded the regional and national system of cities. Railroads linked distant

market towns and provided connections to areas with agricultural or mineral wealth that often

were part of different subregional systems.8

Branch lines expanded regional rail networks and strengthened the existing connections

among and within subregional systems. Extending from the MS & NI, three examples impacting

7. Toledo Blade, 7 February 1838, 2; Hosmer and Harris’ Toledo Directory (Toledo: Riley and Company, 1858), 264-266; Cary, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, 24. 8. Hosmer and Harris’, 264-266; Cary, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, 24, 34, 36-37. 110

Figure 3.3: Map of Railroads Across Northwest Ohio, 1857

Source: Hosmer and Harris’ Toledo Directory (Toledo: Riley and Company, 1858), foldout map “Toledo, Her Geographical Location and Railroad Connections, 1857.” 111 the growth of the hub of northwest Ohio were the Toledo and Chicago Air Line, the Toledo and

Jackson, and the Toledo and Detroit. The Air Line, 231 miles long connecting with the MS &

NI at Goshen, Indiana, was prepared for double track once traffic required it, and passengers and freight travelled more quickly along this thoroughfare compared to other roads between Toledo and Chicago because it was straight with few curves and easy grades. According to engineering reports describing the Air Line, no incline was more than twenty feet per mile overall with none more than ten feet per mile going eastward where trains carried the most freight.9 The Toledo and Jackson was a branch line connecting the trunk of the MS & NI with the Michigan Central thereby providing Toledo with access to coal around Jackson, Michigan. Businessmen contended that the affordable transport rates made manufacturing viable in Toledo. The Toledo and Detroit, completed in 1855, provided Toledo with a rail link to make it a gateway for goods and resources to and from Canada via Canadian railroads coming into Detroit. By making travel quicker and easier, railroad companies could transport more passengers and freight thereby increasing revenue and expanding and strengthening market connections. Links to other railroads also reinforced the bonds within the national and international system of cities thus increasing the business potential for Toledo and northwest Ohio.10

Another trunk line railroad linking Toledo with western lands was the Toledo, Wabash and Western (TW & W) paralleling the Wabash and Erie Canal and connecting northwest Ohio with St. Louis and its expanding hinterland. This line connected Toledo and its lake port with the fertile lands of Wabash Valley and central and southern Illinois, and boosters anticipated that it would become a great artery for transportation in the west. Boosters initially thought the canal

9. See below for an explanation of the importance of grades and curves on railroad travel. 10. Hosmer and Harris’, 266-269; Report to the Corporators of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company, on the Importance of a Railroad Connection Between Louisville, Toledo and Detroit (Toledo: Republican Office, 1854), 10-12, 13-14; “Wayside Gatherings,” Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 2 February 1856, 79; “Railway News Items,” American Railway Times, 27 August 1857, 1. 112 and rail network would work together to form great metropolises despite certain advantages railroads had over canals such as speed, flexibility for travel, and ability to run in all seasons.

Despite what those businessmen and officials believed, in a February 1859 article in The

Merchant’s Magazine and Commercial Review, a writer noted that the TW & W increased its business over the previous year at the expense of the Wabash and Erie Canal while listing products transported on each line. These items included grain, glass and glassware, sugar, coffee, merchandise, iron, and lumber. Shipping many of the same goods and expanding through the same lands, railroads and canals both helped to expand the commercial reach of northwest

Ohio forwarding merchants and provided the means for farmers to transport agricultural goods from the areas along the rail and water routes. However, railroads would quickly overtake canals in the 1850s and 1860s as the major local and interregional transportation links throughout the

United States.11

Toledo and northwest Ohio also had important rail links to the south and east linking

those places to the growing markets of Cincinnati and Cleveland. The earliest such railroad was

the Mad River and Lake Erie (MR & LE) connecting lands in the Miami Valley in southwest

Ohio to Lake Erie at Sandusky—a city lacking access to a canal. In June 1848, workers

completed the 120 mile long line from Sandusky to Urbana, and one year later, the MR & LE reached Springfield to join the Little Miami Railroad connecting to Cincinnati. Although not

approaching Toledo, the MR & LE permitted rail transport for farms and small towns just east of

the Black Swamp such as Tiffin, Green Springs, Clyde, and Castalia. However, the company

reported in 1849 that a branch line to Findlay was finished except for laying the iron rails on eight miles of the route demonstrating efforts to capture and generate more business for the

11. Hosmer and Harris’, 271-276; Report to the Corporators, 12-13, 14; J. W. S. “Canal Commerce of Toledo,” The Merchant’s Magazine and Commercial Review, February 1859, 250. 113 railroad company. Moreover, the primary importance of the MR & LE was its rail connection linking the agriculturally prosperous Miami Valley and growing manufacturing center of

Cincinnati with an outlet on Lake Erie. This line provided the impetus for Sandusky to become an important lake port along with Toledo and Cleveland, yet over time certain geographic conditions and new railroads caused the latter cities to expand dwarfing Sandusky as a transportation hub.12

One such railroad helping bring business from southern Ohio to the port of Toledo was

the Dayton and Michigan Railroad (D &M). The entire length of the road was 140 miles, and

workers built in three sections: Dayton to Sidney, Sidney to Lima, and Lima to the Michigan

line. The Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad Company (CH & D) pledged $50,000

toward completion of the D & M and agreed to operate the railroad for a period of time. Beyond

the amount pledged by the CH & D directors, stock subscriptions by businesses and local

governments through which the line ran financially supported the construction of the D & M. By

1858, the D & M reached Lima and business officials expected the completion of the line to

Toledo by 1859. When completed, the company directors believed the railroad would make

Toledo the closest lake port with Cincinnati and rise in importance for trade between different

areas of the growing nation. The directors also speculated that local travel on the line would be

great based on the thriving towns through which it would pass. According to an 1858 map in

Hosmer and Harris’ Directory, these towns in northwest Ohio included Ottawa, Van Buren,

Telford, Jackson, Milton, Taylorsville, Tontogen (Tontogony), Barbee, and Perrysburg. No

matter how much commercial or manufacturing activity these towns would have over the coming

12. Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Company, Annual Report of the Stockholders of the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Company at Their Annual Meeting, June 19, 1849 (Sandusky: n. p., 1849), 3-4; Hosmer and Harris’, foldout map “Toledo, Her Geographical Location and Railroad Connections, 1857.” 114 decades, they were nonetheless nodes in the subregional system of cities of northwest Ohio based upon rail connections.13

Despite boosters’ bluster about railroads connecting southern Ohio to Lake Erie through northwest Ohio, rail lines east from Toledo were equally important in expanding and strengthening local and interregional connections of Toledo and surrounding communities. The

Northern and Southern Divisions of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad (C & T) were vital railroads in this matter. The C & T formed in September 1853 with the merger of the Junction

Railroad (Northern Division) and the Toledo, Cleveland and Norwalk (Southern Division); the total amount of track within the system after the merger was 221 miles excluding sidings and turnouts. According to a report by the Chief Engineer of the TN & C, the western portion of that railroad from Toledo to Fremont was contracted in January 1851 and was ready for iron in

February 1852 with the rest of line to Grafton projected to be completed by January 1853. The C

& T completed its Northern Division to Sandusky in October 1853 and to Millbury in April

1855, but the financial crash following the Panic of 1857 caused a suspension of operation of that portion of the line. At their 1858 meeting, C & T company directors resolved to abandon the

Northern Division between Sandusky and Clay Junction citing the poor condition and “insecurity of the Road near Port Clinton” as well as high repair costs. Because trains no longer ran on that part of the line, the directors decided to make the terminus at Sandusky, Clyde, or Fremont while

13. Hosmer and Harris’, 269-271, foldout map “Toledo, Her Geographical Location and Railroad Connections, 1857”; Dayton and Michigan Railroad Company, First Exhibit by the Dayton and Michigan Rail-Road Company, of the Condition and Prospects of their Road, From Dayton to the Michigan State Line, in the State of Ohio, Forming, with the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Rail-Road, the Shortest Line from Cincinnati to Lake Erie (New York: Van Norden and Amerman, 1852), 3-4, 6-10. 115 disposing of the property in best interest of company. However, the Northern Division resumed operation in 1872.14

RAISING FUNDS FOR THE RAILROADS

No matter the location, constructing railroads into and across northwest Ohio required

large amounts of capital. One way to raise the necessary funds was allowing local governments

to subscribe stock in rail companies. For example, the D & M Company organized under a

perpetual charter in March 1851 that permitted county commissioners, corporate authorities, and

township trustees to subscribe stock in the company with an affirmative vote by eligible residents

at a regular election. In preparation to construct the D & M beyond Sidney, company directors

sold stock only to residents and officials north to Sidney because the directors believed successes

in counties where the railroad already operated would attract stock subscriptions from people

living north of Sidney. Thus, these businessmen firmly anticipated expanding market

opportunities to entice others to purchase stock to finance the building of a railroad that might

enhance residents’ economic well-being. As another example of local governments subscribing

stock in railroad corporations, the TN & C Railroad Company during 1852 sold $475,000 of

stock to individuals and municipal corporations to help pay the debt incurred in constructing

their line. However, company officials could not raise all of the money needed to build railroads

locally. Turnpike boosters or speculators stricken with canal fever could often turn to national or

state governments for money. Railroad leaders were only in the position to coax eastern

capitalists into investing in western rail plans if local financing was not available. Nevertheless,

14. Cary, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, 24, 46, 49; “Cleveland and Toledo Railroad,” American Railway Times, 10 August 1854, 1. Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company, Exhibit of the Condition, 6-7; Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, Report to the Directors of the Cleveland and Toledo Rail Road Company to the Stockholders (Cleveland: Fairbanks, Benedict and Company, 1858), 5-6. 116 eastern capitalists were often wary to supply money to companies attempting to build railroads in the west fearing failure and loss of their money in the many questionable proposals.15

To overcome this fear, contemporary writers offered advice and editorialized about

various situations. The best railroads for investment according to these critics were ones that had

clear advantages over rivals, lines connecting major western commercial centers or uniting key

points on rivers or lakes as they seemed unlikely to fail, routes through fertile valleys or areas

with vast mineral deposits, and plans not focused mainly on local interests. Arguing that only

local boosters should fund narrowly-focused projects, one author wrote that if such plans are

“good enterprises, we prefer that they who are on the spot, and can appreciate the minor local

advantages, should enjoy the undivided benefit of them.”16 Another plan to ensure wise

investment was to complete projects currently under construction before starting on new

ventures. Likewise, some investors argued that companies should complete lines before starting to use finished portions as was often the situation. Thus, eastern capitalists would ensure a higher return on investments because railroad companies might not build all of the proposed depots or finish laying track. Rail lines, as America’s “roads of empire,” had initially high investments requiring boosters and speculators to agree upon strong plans for laying out routes with the greatest potential for a return on investment.17

Two important conditions directly tying finances to proposed routes were terrain and curves on the line. Steep grades were expensive to run trains over because firemen needed more coal or wood to burn producing the steam needed to power the locomotive up the incline. Also, trains moved up steeper grades more slowly requiring them to take more time travelling from

15. Dayton and Michigan Railroad Company, First Exhibit, 3; Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company, Exhibit of the Condition, 5-6. 16. “Western Railroad Shares,” The Bankers’ Magazine and Statistical Register, August 1854, 122. 17. “Western Railroad Shares,” 121-123. 117 one stop to another. Numerous curves, especially tight ones, required trains to slow down rather than risk an accident where the rolling stock came off the tracks due to their forward momentum.

Rail lines with few curves not only allowed a train to run at full speed more of the time but also require less material, wooden ties and iron, to construct. Thus, company officials of the MS &

NI in constructing the Air Line connecting Toledo with Goshen used these types of arguments in their engineering plans. Directors of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad (T & L) also employed these reasons to support their chose of route through western Ohio and disadvantages of a rail connection between Louisville and Cincinnati.18

LOCATION AND RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION

While soliciting stock subscriptions and local support for future construction, railroad

companies and city boosters did not relent on justifying the locational advantages of proposed

routes for extracting business from hinterlands or connecting important commercial centers

allowing significant interregional trade. Beginning in the late 1830s, after the E &K

strengthened its operations into southeastern Michigan, Toledo businessmen argued that

government officials and town boosters in the new state to the north attempted to ruin livelihoods

of merchants in the Maumee Valley by proposing the Michigan Southern Line. However,

Michigan businessmen believed that the E & K diverted traffic from southern Michigan. This

prompted Wolverine State boosters to gain the support of the Michigan legislature for the

construction of a series of railroads across the state to draw traffic to Detroit or increase shipment

out of that city. Groups in Ohio and Michigan realized that farmers in southern Michigan and

northern Indiana needed some sort of transportation infrastructure to help them conduct business

and market their goods, and, thus, boosters in both states pushed for rail linkages near interior

18. Hosmer and Harris’, 266-267; Report to the Corporators of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company, 4, 11- 12. 118 farms. Despite a plea from Blade writers to the General Assembly, companies constructed the

Michigan Southern Railroad as well as the Northern Indiana Railroad. However, with the completion of the Air Line and improvements to the E & K line, Toledo maintained linkages with farmers and small towns throughout southern Michigan, northern Indiana, and Ohio counties to its west.19

As the C & T connected many small towns between Toledo and Cleveland, it provided an

all-year transportation route along the southern shore of Lake Erie creating the potential for more

commercial activity. Strong connections between Toledo and eastern cities such as Cleveland

and Buffalo developed earlier with lake vessels, but these clippers and, later, steamers could only

run part of the year due to the lake freezing. Shipping was cheaper and more expedient than railroads in transporting heavier freight, but railroads could run virtually the entire year. The directors of the railroad expected profitable way business between towns a short distance apart thus not affecting lake traffic which provided more long-distance shipping. According to the superintendent of the C & T in 1854, through traffic on that line was pure profit as local business covered expenses. Anticipating a great increase in lumbering and agricultural production as the railroad expanded and more people settled near its route, C & T boosters maintained that Lake

Erie served more as a bulwark than a rival to the rail line presuming mainly seasonal usage and commercial agents transporting lighter goods along the railroad. However, passenger and light freight business of the C & T diverted a large quantity of business from the lake in all seasons.

A “good authority” estimated that around 1854 only one tenth of passengers arriving in Toledo

19. Toledo Blade, 25 July 1837, 2; Toledo Blade, 3 January 1838, 2; Toledo Blade, 7 February 1838, 2, 3; Toledo Blade, 12 December 1838, 2; Hosmer and Harris’, 264-267; “Western Railroad Shares,” 125. 119 from the Michigan Southern continued east by water. Geographic considerations played a vital role in determining the vast potential for the business of the C & T and the towns along it.20

Connections among farmers and businessmen along the Ohio River and eastern markets depended upon natural features as well. Access to lake ports as well as routes through agriculturally productive lands in southern Ohio and southern Indiana were key aspects railroad company officials used to entice investment in new transportation plans. In 1854, the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company (T & L) contemplated two routes to connect the city at the

Falls of the Ohio with Lake Erie at Toledo which they hoped would open large markets in port towns for southern grown fruits and produce. The authors of a report to stakeholders in this railroad noted that the distance from Louisville to Toledo was about the same as the length of the

Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad (CC & C) and that the land between Louisville and Toledo was flat and free of obstructions making it almost the same distance by time as travelling from Cincinnati to Cleveland. The committee of writers also remarked that Toledo was roughly the same distance from Cleveland as Louisville was to Cincinnati but that the lakeshore was more level and suitable for a railroad than along Ohio River. Thus, passenger service and freight service from Louisville to Cleveland would be cheaper and quicker going through Toledo rather than proceeding through Cincinnati. In reference to exploiting business opportunities along the proposed routes, T & L boosters wrote that a route to Toledo, as opposed to Sandusky or Cleveland directly, would keep the line farther from the orbit of Cincinnati trade because connections with the MR & LE would likely encourage trade patterns with the Queen

20. Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company. Exhibit of the Condition, 7, 9; “Western Railroad Shares,” 123-124; Report to the Corporators of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company, 11; Cary, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, 45. 120

City rather than a lake port. The committee also explained that a route to Toledo also would take advantage of Michigan and Canadian trade unlike a line to Sandusky.21

Toledo’s location on Lake Erie and near Michigan and Canada as well as its harbor

conditions made it a desirable rail terminus. With connections to Detroit, railroad companies

could build lines from Toledo and expect the ability to transport goods into and across lower

Ontario to the Niagara Falls area and thence to New York City virtually all by rail. However,

during the warm season, through transportation to eastern markets was sometimes cheaper and

quicker via lake shipping. Thus, Toledo’s location on Lake Erie prompted officials of the major

north-south railroads to include it on their routes. Officials of the T & L posited that the

condition of Toledo’s harbor made that city more appealing as a western Lake Erie commercial

center and laid the foundation for future developments. Traveling from the west along the MS &

NI or the TW &W, Toledo was the first point to begin lake transportation. Directors of the D &

M recognized that although costs of transport from Buffalo to Cleveland, Sandusky, or Toledo

were the same, Toledo’s port was easier to get to in high winds. Such geographical

considerations certainly induced local boosters near the mouth of the Maumee River to anticipate

great business potential, and railroad companies took advantage of the situation to give reason

for the boosters to believe their visions were coming true.22

RAILROAD CONNECTIONS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN TOLEDO

Moreover, local and interregional railroad connections aided the economic changes

within Toledo in the 1850s. Initial business activity formed the motivation to construct larger

rail facilities. As early as 1837 and the regular running of trains on the E & K, merchants

21. Report to the Corporators of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company, 3-4, 8. 22. Report to the Corporators of the Toledo and Louisville Railroad Company, 5; Dayton and Michigan Railroad Company, First Exhibit by the Dayton and Michigan, 9; Hosmer and Harris’, 268-269. 121 clamored for a short extension of the line from near the mouth of Swan Creek to the foot of

LaGrange to allow warehouses to have the same opportunities to conduct business with rail cars passing each place. Newspaper ads in 1840 for three Toledo forwarding merchants—Peckham and Company, Poag and Titus, and A. Palmer and Company—noted they were all next to the railroad in order to entice patronage of their businesses. Two annexations to Toledo in 1853— one adjacent to east Toledo across the Maumee River and one adding land along the western bank of the river—totaled 2,624 acres.23

In 1852, the MS & NI purchased plots of swampland along the shore of the Maumee

River and filled it in to prevent possible flooding; this land became known as the Middle

Grounds due to its location near the center of the Toledo harbor and as a hub of rail and water

transport. The Toledo Freight and Passenger Depot sat on this property, and offices for the MS

& NI as well as a large steamboat dock sat at the lower end of the point of land. The company

built the Island House hotel just above dock, and the hotel had a passenger depot attached behind

it measuring 150 feet wide and 400 feet long. The passenger area was divided to separate eastern

and western trains with all passengers entering and leaving the rail station through the Island

House thereby providing many possible customers for the establishment. The freight depot of

the MS & NI was along the passenger depot with an 800 foot long dock facing the river to load

and unload goods onto ships or trains. In addition to these buildings, the Middle Grounds had

elevators, warehouses of the Toledo and Illinois Railroad, and offices for other rail companies.

23. Toledo Blade, 4 July 1837, 2; Toledo Blade, 1 January 1840, 1; Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, This Is How Toledo Grew [map] (Toledo: Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, 1968). 122

Throughout the 1850s, this area became a vital part of economic endeavors and development in

Toledo.24

Railroads spurred growth of businesses and commercial opportunities in Toledo during

the 1850s although the Wabash and Erie canal was still a vital transportation route during this decade. Thus, especially with the TW &W railroad paralleling the canal, many products and businesses advertised in the Blade were associated with both infrastructures as well as lake shipping. Nonetheless, railroads added much to this commercial interplay. Beginning around

1840 and lasting until sometime in 1854, the Blade published a “Business Directory” on its front page taking up nearly one and a half columns out of six. During this time, the publishers divided listings for professionals and partnerships into seven basic categories: Forwarding and

Commercial Agents; Dry Goods and Hardware; Groceries, Paints, and Drugs; Physicians and

Surgeons; Attorneys and Land Agents; Hotels; and Mechanics. (See Table 3.1, Appendix)

Certainly, not all Toledo businesses appeared in this directory, but it does provide a useful sample for analysis. The relatively larger number of Forwarding and Commercial Agents showed how businessmen took advantage of the market opportunities new and old transportation infrastructure provided. Likewise, dry goods dealers, grocers, and druggists benefitted from the ability to receive goods from outside northwest Ohio. Throughout this time, various business partnerships formed and dissolved creating a large number of groups or individuals appearing in the Business Directory.25

24. Hosmer and Harris’, 276-278; Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad Company. Exhibit of the Condition, 4- 5; Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, Report, 9-10. 25. The overall analysis of newspapers included the first issue in January from 1840 to 1850 and from the first issue in each of the months of January, May, and September from 1852 through 1859. Issues from 1851 were not available. In 1858, Hosmer and Harris, publishers of the Blade, began issuing a more complete listing of business entities in an annual directory. 123

By the end of the 1850s, the interplay among the canal, railroads, and lake shipping became more complex and integrated. The Business Directory in the Blade began to list more entries under the heading of Forwarding and Commercial Agents beginning around 1856, and by

1858 numerous ads for transportation companies and other forwarding merchants appeared on the front page of the paper. Many of these advertisements included the types of goods the companies handled as well as their contacts in Buffalo and New York City thereby implying a connection via lake shipping or perhaps railroad. However, nearly all the ads included one or a combination of drawings of a small canal boat, locomotive, or steamboat that illustrated what mode or modes of transportation the company utilized. A steamboat was present in virtually all of these commercial notices, but a canal packet or locomotive rarely appeared together. Thus, merchants still valued canals as transportation routes to the interior, but many began to take advantage of rail connections. Toledo’s position on Lake Erie provided it with the opportunity to grow as an entry point into the interior of the country as well as a market for goods from Ohio and the surrounding states thereby making many businessmen wealthy. With railroads as an alternative to canals, forwarding merchants could take advantage of both to increase their profits through expanding business activities linking lake transportation and routes to the growing hinterlands of interior local market centers.26

RAILROADS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE OUTSIDE TOLEDO

Toledo was not the only emerging urban area within northwest Ohio spurred by railroads.

Another consequence of rail connections was the founding and continued development of

smaller towns throughout northwest Ohio thereby creating more nodes within the system of

cities and strengthening associated connections. Towns such as Clyde or Clay Junction at the

26. Toledo Blade (microfilm edition, Ohio Historical Society, Mf 071 T649, rolls 2-3). 124 intersection of railroad lines had enormous potential for economic growth due to the ability for businessmen to engage in transshipment where goods or products from a train on one rail line would be shifted onto rolling stock on another line. Often, this was more evident when a north- south railroad crossed an east-west route as commercial agents attempted to direct business in the most efficient and profitable manner for themselves. Yet, towns also grew as way stations with freight and passenger depots providing farmers and residents the ability to transport goods or travel to other towns and cities more quickly and cheaply than before.

Key to continued economic change, railroads provided connections between smaller towns stimulating stronger ties with their surrounding agricultural areas. Construction of county and township roads connecting farms with nearby towns helped to link each individual town’s agricultural hinterland to it. This in turn solidified the ties the subregional hub of the system,

Toledo in this case, had with its surrounding communities and farmland as more produce was supplied to and sold in the bigger city and residents in and around the small towns purchased goods from the hub of the system. Thus, commercial opportunities expanded breeding more economic expansion and capital accumulation prompting yet more investment within the growing towns and financing of more roads and perhaps more railroad connections. As trains stopped at more stations along their lines, more markets developed within the hinterland of the subregional hub of Toledo and more nodes appeared within the expanding system of cities.

Tiffin in Seneca County exemplified the “way station” phenomenon with its location on the MR & LE. This line provided nearby farmers a link to Sandusky, or Toledo through a connection on the C & T at Clyde, for lake transport to send crops to eastern markets. Collecting and shipping farm produce via railroads in Tiffin provided a larger potential for different jobs and more economic activities. Railroads also increased possibilities for attracting new business 125 and cultural activities to towns. For example, in 1850, a group of pastors from the Ohio Synod of the Reformed Church served as a committee to locate a college to train ministers for service in the lands of the old Northwest Territory. The committee chose Tiffin as the location of its new college naming it Heidelberg after an important catechism in their heritage. One member of the committee apparently joked that if the college failed, officials could load the school’s supplies on a train and move it elsewhere. Therefore, the railroad through Seneca County and Tiffin not only helped residents market their agricultural produce but also attracted a non-agricultural population through Heidelberg College diversifying the community and its activities.27

In Ottawa County, the western part of the county seemed to be more linked to the railroad

than the eastern portion with better access to Lake Erie. The anticipation of a rail line through

Ottawa County prompted speculators to lay out paper towns in the 1840s. For example, in Salem

Township in central Ottawa County, documentation points to Port Oleron on the north bank of the Portage River and Moscow on the south bank opposite Port Oleron. However, the Southern

Division of the C & T had stations in the small towns of Elmore, Stony Ridge, and Clay Junction in the western part of the county in 1858 while the Northern Division of the C & T through

Mixer Point, Plasterbed, Port Clinton, and Oak Harbor (then called Hartford) was in disrepair having no trains run through them. However, the mere existence of Mixer Point and

Plasterbed—two towns no longer in existence—show that local businessmen took advantage of the railroad to transport stone from nearby quarries to sell to companies constructing buildings or as roadbed and ballast materials for rail lines. Hence, some potential nodes in the growing

27. Other possible locations in northern Ohio for what became Heidelberg College experienced tragic cholera outbreaks in the late 1840s, but the clergymen deemed Tiffin’s environment healthy enough to invest in building a new school there. A. J., Baughman, History of Seneca County Ohio, A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1911), 387; E. I. F. Williams, Heidelberg: Democratic Christian College (Menasha, WI: G. Banta Publishing Company, 1952), 22- 43. 126 system of cities failed to materialize, grew through expanding connections, or became stunted if railroads slowed or ceased operations through them.28

Railroads stimulated the growth of other towns important to the growth of northwest

Ohio. Beginning as the location of the land office responsible for land sales in the Firelands

Reserve, Norwalk expanded due to its location on the Southern Division of the C & T. Such

expansion spurred manufacturing activity producing, among other things, mail cars for use on

the C & T line. Speculators often laid out towns anticipating business activity brought by

railroad connections. One example was Wauseon, in Fulton County, which boosters platted in

1854 just before the Air Line from Toledo was completed to it. In neighboring Williams County,

many projects were contemplated to cross the MS & NI near Bryan adding the potential for

much growth for that town. Demonstrating that potential does not always bring about actuality,

the Cincinnati and Mackinaw Railroad Company had its road graded and ties delivered when the

Panic of 1857 slowed the national economy. The ties rotted and the whole project remained idle

until the 1880s. As in Ottawa County and other places, limits based on project completion

impacted growth and the realization of speculator’s dreams.29

IMMEDIATE HINTERLANDS AND CONNECTIONS TO OTHER SUBREGIONS

The economic changes anticipated by and stimulated by railroads exposed not only the

push to expand commercial connections of larger towns and cities but also the nature of links

within immediate hinterlands versus connections among subregional systems of cities. Toledo’s

28. Historical Hand-Atlas Illustrated, Containing Large Scale Copper Plate Maps of each State and Territory of the United States and the Provinces of Canada ... Outline Map and History of Ottawa County, Ohio (Chicago and Toledo: Godfrey Jaeger and Company, 1881), 190; Hosmer and Harris’, foldout map “Toledo, Her Geographical Location and Railroad Connections, 1857.” 29. “Railway News Items,” American Railway Times, 29 January 1857, 1; Lewis Cass Aldrich, History of Henry and Fulton Counties, Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Syracuse, NY: D. Mason and Company, 1888), 420-421; County of Williams, Ohio, Historical and Biographical with An Outline Sketch of the Northwest Territory, of the State, and Miscellaneous Matters (Chicago: F. A. Battey and Company, 1882), 219-220. 127 immediate hinterland consisted of the farmland and small towns of northwest Ohio while Lake

Erie, canals, and railroads connected the growing city to other subregional hubs and their hinterlands. Thus, these latter connections, especially railroads with their greater linking potential, allowed Toledo merchants to conduct business with people located outside northwest

Ohio and market goods produced in other states bringing more people and places into a hinterland centered in Toledo. However, such conditions and activities did not expand the area that Toledo served as a subregional hub. Rather, marketing agricultural produce from Indiana and southern Michigan or bringing in raw supplies for manufactured goods allowed Toledo businessmen and workers to exploit linkages with other regional urban-rural arrangements that together formed larger national and international system of cities.30

Farmers living and working in southern Michigan and northern Indiana, although part of different subregional systems, provided agricultural products and markets for Toledo that were larger and more developed than in northwest Ohio during the 1850s. In 1850, except for

Lagrange and Steuben Counties in the northeast corner of Indiana, each county in Michigan and

Indiana that the MS & NI would traverse had a higher population than the counties it crossed in

Ohio thus showing greater potential for business outside of Toledo’s immediate hinterland for merchants of that city. (See Chart 3.1, Appendix) Also, the numbers of farms in each county in

Michigan and Indiana, except for Steuben, were greater than in the Ohio counties the MS & NI crossed. (See Chart 3.2, Appendix) These lands tended to be better initially for farming than those in the swampy Maumee Valley allowing for quicker settlement and agricultural activities.

30. Examining twentieth-century Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, Carl Abbott argues for the concept of primary and secondary hinterlands to delineate the differing effects of people’s market interactions with near and distant economic centers. Related to the current study of Toledo and northwest Ohio, Abbott’s primary hinterland closely corresponds to the immediate hinterland while his secondary hinterland strongly relates to an extended hinterland. See Carl Abbott, “Regional City and Network City: Portland and Seattle in the Twentieth Century,” The Western Historical Quarterly 23, no. 3 (August 1992), 293-322. 128

Therefore, land quality was an important component to the economic growth potential of an area and the expansion of a system of cities. By 1860, population growth and expansion in number of farms in northwest Ohio gave that area more potential overall for business activities, but the general pattern of relative differences among counties remained from 1850.31

CONCLUSION

The economic changes within northwest Ohio showed how railroad directors, boosters,

and residents attempted to put civilization over nature while emphasizing some of Toledo’s

geographical attributes. Businessmen and speculators touted Toledo’s location at the mouth of

the Maumee River and on Lake Erie as the prime entry point into northwest Ohio, southern

Michigan, and Indiana. Yet, roads and canals seemed insufficient for commercial desires of boosters; they still saw opportunities to extend their notions of progress and civilization over additional lesser-developed areas. Railroad directors also saw the potential of a thriving rail network across the Old Northwest linking productive farmland and small towns to the great

marketplace on Lake Erie at Toledo. With the activities of residents and settlers as they took

advantage of the possibilities afforded to them by railroads, the dreams of town boosters

throughout northwest Ohio and railroad directors became reality.

Constructing rail lines and associated buildings transformed the landscape exposing some

of the environmental consequences of railroads. The utilization of timber for ties reduced many

forests in size which may have helped farmers looking to start more fields, but this restricted

future use of lumber resources from the area. Workers also needed stone to build up roadbeds,

but unlike cutting trees for ties, farmers could not easily turn quarries into productive farmland.

31. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1850 and 1860. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 5 September 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 129

Extracting stone served as a vital industry in many areas as residents exploited and commodified seemingly abundant natural resources. Moreover, without land and rights of way across properties, no corporation could build its railroad because companies needed land to lay the lines and build depots and stations. These new buildings also required lumber and stone for their construction using even more natural resources. Perhaps the greatest example of environmental change brought by railroads was with the construction of the Middle Grounds in Toledo. These results of railroad construction show the use of natural resources as workers and businessmen attempted to extend civilization using materials many believed to have abundant supplies for their use.

Railroads helped Toledo to grow mainly through the pushing—impulses for more economic activities—from both its immediate hinterland and the other subregional systems rail lines linked to Toledo. Local boosters from northwest Ohio, like their counterparts throughout the United States, firmly believed that railroads connecting their towns to other areas and traversing productive farmlands would enhance their city’s economic condition which would ultimately lead to social, political, and cultural importance for a much wider area. Toledo boosters rightly proclaimed the advantages of a lake port for the city’s growth. They anticipated that farmers would utilize the Wabash and Erie Canal in addition to the faster and more reliable railroads to transport agricultural products from locations to the north and west including

Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois thereby becoming the primary commercial hub for products shipped to eastern markets rather than to New Orleans. However, geographical considerations limited the growth of Toledo.

Due to slow initial growth and settlers bypassing the Great Black Swamp for seemingly better lands in Indiana and Illinois, Toledo was not in the best situation to become the metropolis 130 of the Great Lakes region. Other subregional hubs such as Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, and

Indianapolis in Indiana had chances to strengthen connections to their own hinterlands rather than becoming nodes such as Perrysburg within the Toledo system of cities. Thus, Chicago became the metropolis of the Great Lakes region and the Great West beyond the Mississippi

River in the mid-nineteenth century as its economic changes were barely impeded by emerging subregional networks like Toledo was. Chicago built stronger connections to land further from it than Toledo could to lands in Indiana. Boosters and settlers in Indiana established links within their state that did stimulate the development of Toledo, but those connections prohibited Toledo from realizing more market expansion.

One aspect that many railroad directors and advocates stressed was that their lines would go through many fertile river valleys thereby capturing business of farmers living in those areas.

These residents would potentially sell crops and buy merchandise transported on railroads.

Moreover, businessmen, boosters, and residents tied the expanding transportation infrastructure to land quality, at least rhetorically, to explain possibilities for material gain. These groups saw that the best railroad projects connected established markets or should traverse fertile lands where new markets would likely develop. Farmers working productive farmland would have their livelihoods stifled if they could not profitably get their crops to market. To achieve the greatest amount of settlement and economic growth, the key to expanding the national system of cities, boosters and policymakers linked rich farmland to transportation infrastructure. However, much of the land in northwest Ohio was too swampy to become agriculturally productive when many settlers initially attempted to establish homesteads. Thus, with a small stimulation from markets in Toledo and desires to enhance their economic interests, farmers throughout northwest

Ohio began to improve their land individually through open ditches but soon realized a 131 systematic drainage plan would be beneficial. Ditch laws not only transformed the land but they also assisted in economic growth in tandem with transportation systems. 132

CHAPTER FOUR BEYOND MERE CONNECTIONS: DITCH LAWS AND DRAINAGE TO TRANSFORM THE LAND

Residents of the Black Swamp and Maumee River Valley contended with environmental conditions while they established farms and livelihoods. Historians credit Scottish immigrant

John Johnston with bringing the methods of underdrains with him to his farm in Geneva, New

York, in the 1820s. His neighbors ridiculed him for burying horseshoe-shaped clay tiles in his fields, but the increased harvests on the Johnston farm made the nearby residents believers in undertile drainage. In 1835, on his 112 acre farm where he practiced deep plowing and heavy manuring, Johnston created his own horseshoe tiles by hand at a cost of $24 per thousand and then buried the tiles. Johnston’s system consisted of one main drain and a series of lateral drains in which he laid tile first to prevent the larger primary trench from filling with sediment.

Specific results Johnston reported included swampy land where nothing grew before yielding eighty bushels after drainage while another piece of twenty acres that produced no more than ten bushels an acre before supplied over eighty-three bushels an acre after drainage. As emigrants from New York settled in Ohio and Johnston’s system became part of agricultural manuals, residents of northwest Ohio began to execute new drainage schemes involving both open ditches and underground clay drainage tiles.1

INTRODUCTION

Attitudes linking civilization and nature motivated policymakers to implement a series of

ditch and drainage laws in Ohio beginning in the 1850s and farmers’ use of clay drainage tiles.

Americans treated nature as a commodity to own and use for meeting their economic interests

through transforming features of the land and buying and selling natural resources. A prime

1. John H. Klippart, The Principles and Practice of Land Drainage (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Company, 1861), 27-38. 133 example of changing the land to benefit human endeavors was draining swampland. The manifestations and consequences of these considerations of civilization and nature appeared in the origin, implementation, and initial consequences of ditch laws in northwest Ohio. Moreover, the transformative power of human activities on the environment through statewide policies and local actions was evident in drainage efforts and internal improvements in the mid-nineteenth century Ohio.2

In helping to advance civilization, government officials exercised infrastructural

power—ability of governments to regulate activities, administer policies, and promote

commerce—demonstrating the strength of the state in the United States during the nineteenth

century. At various time during the implementation of systematic drainage schemes supported

through legislation, policymakers at the state and local levels stretched their powerful

involvement into the daily activities of ordinary residents leading to economic development and

environmental transformation. Unlike textile mill owners in New England, farmers in northwest

Ohio wanted to rid themselves of large amounts of water. While legal fights erupted over water

use and diversion in places such as the Merrimack Valley in New Hampshire and the Charles

River in Massachusetts, legislation in Ohio attempted to remove water from potential farmland.

The role of government specified in the legal codes provided for the common good of all

residents, but in practice, the policies led to economic changes favoring individuals’ interests while transforming the environment through enhanced land use practices. Governments also extended the orderliness of civilization over the nature of the swampland. Weaving through

2. Carol Sherriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 17-18, 25, 31-36, 102, 137; John Opie, Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998), 1-7. 134 many activities related to drainage projects, governments were anything but passive in the nineteenth century.3

The federal and state governments funded and oversaw internal improvement projects in

the first part of the nineteenth century, but while transportation was an important— indeed

necessary—economic change prompting further development, physical connections among

people were not entirely sufficient for growth. The creation and consequences of internal

improvements were noteworthy and important for the overall expansion and settlement of the

United States, but what people and companies transported on roads, canals, or railroads also

influenced land use, the expansion of cities, and the size of agricultural hinterlands. Thus, the

condition of lands helped to determine not only what people transported along specific routes but

also the demand for such routes. If land was of poor quality for farming, few people would

engage in farming thereby diminishing the potential for increasing markets for local crops and

limiting the need for transportation. However, as with Chicago, if hinterlands were conducive to

activities such as the raising of cattle, the harvesting of lumber, or the cultivation of grains,

existing transportation networks would expand leading to more internal improvements and the flourishing of subregional hubs within the system of cities. Therefore, to further expand and strengthen the system of cities in northwest Ohio, policymakers enacted a series of ditch laws to transform the environment enhancing the condition of the soil and codifying land use practices.

Transportation networks and improved land quality combined to fundamentally boost the growth

of a system of cities and thereby transform the land. Within the late stage of the subregional

3. William Novak, “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (June 2008), 752-772; Richard R. John, “Ruling Passions: Political Economy in Nineteenth-Century America,” The Journal of Policy History 18, no. 1 (Winter 2006), 1-20; Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 56-69, 77-90, 99-165. 135 model, stronger connections developed between farms with much improved land and nearby towns while weaker links remained between less-improved agricultural tracts and villages.4

The history of ditches and drainage and their impact on land use contains four broad components. First, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation establishing and revising a methodical process to implement a systematic plan to remove surface water through open ditches. Such strategies had their origins in existing drainage schemes associated with roads and canals. Second, policymakers implementing ditch laws imposed orderliness on nature and land use practices—an integral part of extending civilization over nature. Examples of applying drainage laws from northwest Ohio counties expose trends in economic and environmental transformations that formed symbiotic relationships among larger cities, smaller towns, and farms. Third, open ditches positively affected land quality, but continued drainage efforts through the utilization of buried tiles enhanced the condition of soils for agriculture. Fourth, initial consequences of drainage projects included more farms and more improved acres of land as well as increased populations and improved agricultural production as more people became involved in regional economic activities. Moreover, the consequences of drainage efforts combined with transportation networks to help residents of northwest Ohio develop the area economically and transform the land enhancing the system of cities there.

ORIGINS AND MODIFICATIONS OF DRAINAGE PLANS AND POLICIES

Within northwest Ohio, construction of early roads with ditches and culverts designed to divert water to natural waterways and feeder canals used to bring water to main canals prompted government officials and farmers to see how a system of ditches could drain surface water off the land in order for farmers to create and expand farms thereby expanding the area economy.

4. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991) 207-259; Sheriff, The Artificial River, 17-18, 25, 31-36, 102, 137. 136

Agricultural expert John Klippart maintained around 1860 that open ditches tended to be most economical to drain off large amounts of surface water. Along the Maumee-Western Reserve

Road, improvements such as ditches on both sides of the road and culverts under the road at important locations provided better drainage not only for the roadway but also for the nearby lands. The Wabash and Erie Canal through the Maumee Valley not only brought more business opportunities and products to Toledo but also directed water from surrounding lands through feeder canals into the main canal channel thereby providing drainage. Both the ditches along the road and the feeder streams of the canal revealed the advantages of a systematic drainage pattern for improving the land. Such plans were early attempts at coherent land use policies demonstrating the intersections of entrepreneurial prowess, economic livelihoods, and environmental attitudes.5

Following local urges from angry northwest Ohio residents channeling water onto

neighbors’ land, policymakers in Columbus passed legislation to establish a system of ditches.

Although the state drainage laws could affect all parts of Ohio, the legislation influenced

primarily the northwest corner. Settlers desiring to establish farms in the Black Swamp or

Maumee Valley first needed to clear trees off a part of the property and then drain water from the

planned field. Locals often girdled the trees and then burned the dead trees; this process often

took many years to create a sizable farm. To eliminate surface water, a landowner would dig a

small ditch to channel the water off the property, and many times the water stagnated on a

neighbor’s land. This adjacent landowner would repeat the process of digging a small ditch to

remove water from his property and direct it back to its previous location displeasing the first

neighbor. With most residents doing this, legal problems arose regarding property damage.

5. Klippart, Land Drainage, 176. 137

Thus, private efforts could not completely solve the greater problem of removing swampy conditions from large areas thereby requiring action from local and state governments. The problem was widespread, at least throughout the counties in northwest Ohio, prompting the

General Assembly of Ohio to enact a series of ditch laws.6

Throughout the 1850s, the groups sanctioned to locate and construct ditches included

township trustees resolving disputes among property owners and county commissioners

responding to petitions from landholders. An early form of drainage legislation in 1854

authorized township trustees to locate and survey routes and to assess taxes for completion of a

ditch if the interested parties could not agree on a course or expenses each should bear in the

construction. This law also included a provision empowering two or more groups of township

trustees to oversee a project involving land in multiple townships. An act passed in 1857

amended the 1854 law to allow trustees full power to locate and construct ditches. In 1859, the

General Assembly empowered county commissioners to oversee the location and construction of

ditches within their jurisdictions and rescinded the power of township trustees to supervise the

process. Historians often cite the 1859 act as the first instance of an organized attempt at

constructing a system of ditches, but many of the procedures commissioners had to follow were

part of the previous legislation concerning trustees.7

6. See Florien Giaque, The Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches…In the State of Ohio (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1886); Joseph J. Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp: A Television Script (Bowling Green: author’s publication, 1983), 50-51; Jim Mollenkopf, The Great Black Swamp II: More Historical Tales of Nineteenth Century Northwest Ohio (Toledo: Lake of the Cat Publishing, 2000), 59-62; Martin Kaatz, “The Black Swamp: A Study in Historical Geography” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 1 (March 1955), 1-35. 7. State Board of Agriculture, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio for the Year 1859 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1860), xiv-xv; Acts of a General Nature Passed by the Fifty-First General Assembly of the State of Ohio, vol. 52 (Columbus: Osgood, Blake, and Knapp, 1854), 92-96; Acts of a General Nature and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Fifty-Second General Assembly of the State of Ohio, vol. 54 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1857), 112-113; Acts of a General Nature and Local Laws and Joint 138

The provisions of the 1859 act manifested an orderliness commissioners needed to follow emphasizing community well-being yet recognizing individual benefits and damages related to completed ditches. Such methodical action exemplified the infrastructural power historian

William Novak asserted was the embodiment of the “strong” American state.8 Expressing their

dislike of new procedures, members of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture noted in their annual

report in 1860 that the new law required more time, expense, and trouble to make an

improvement. First, one or more landowners having land adjacent to the proposed ditch needed to submit a petition outlining the starting point, route, and terminus of the improvement while also securing a bond to cover the costs of construction in case the commissioners did not find in favor of the petitioners. County engineers determined and maintained the routes of the major ditches while county auditors compiled the final specifications about dimensions and costs of the ditch to be recorded. Second, commissioners had to give notice of a hearing regarding the petition to all property owners whose land would be affected by the ditch; this either could be done in person or through a widely circulated newspaper if a landowner was not a resident of the area. If a person did not raise a complaint in writing by the third day of the session the commissioners discussed the petition, that individual would waive the right to any compensation for damages. Third, builders had to bid on work on a proposed ditch in sections, no fewer than the number of landowners with adjacent properties, and complete each division in a timely manner. The county auditor supervised the bidding process and kept an accurate account and record of the construction of ditches. Finally, commissioners assessed each property benefited by the ditch in order to pay for its completion. Commissioners would pay for damages to a

Resolutions Passed by the Fifty-Third General Assembly of the State of Ohio, vol. 56 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1859), 58-61. Hereinafter, Acts 1859. 8. Novak, “The Myth of a ‘Weak’ American State,” 763. 139 property resulting from a ditch out of a fund generated by special assessments on owners gaining from the offending project.9

Modifications and additions to the corpus of ditch laws added to the infrastructural power of local governments as they oversaw the implementation of legislation despite criticism at

times. In 1862, the General Assembly once again authorized township trustees to oversee the

location and construction of ditches in their respective jurisdictions. In the following years,

trustees accumulated many of the same responsibilities as county commissioners with respect to

drainage projects. Such infrastructural power for trustees enhanced the strength of policymakers

overseeing a small geographic area that they, in theory, should be in the best position to govern.

However, opposition and criticism arose regarding trustees overseeing the process of

locating and constructing drainage schemes. In 1870, Wood County Agricultural Society

President Francis Hollenbeck wrote to State Agricultural Board President James W. Ross

explaining his views of the implementation of ditch laws. Hollenbeck argued that the set of laws

in 1870 slowed the settlement of northwest Ohio as poorer people could not afford to improve

their lands and thus moved further west to seemingly better lands. Claiming “rascality was the

rule” in bidding thereby increasing the costs of construction, Hollenbeck asserted that

“indiscriminate location” often made prices for completing ditches too high.10 He also

questioned the qualifications of trustees to discharge appointed duties. Hollenbeck, along with

some of his contemporaries, believed that the power to oversee ditch location and construction

9. In 1862, the General Assembly once again granted township trustees the ability to oversee drainage projects. Acts 1859, 58-61; Acts of a General Nature and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Fifty-Fourth General Assembly of the State of Ohio, vol. 58 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1861), 49-54; Acts of a General Nature and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the Fifty-Fifth General Assembly of the State of Ohio, vol. 59 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1862), 93-97. 10. State Board of Agriculture, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio for the Year 1870 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1871), 298, 299. 140 should be vested in the common pleas court which had knowledge of the law or in a new ditch board appointed by the court. The hope of these critics was to make the ditch construction process easier and cheaper for residents thereby advancing the improvement of the land and the development of the economy.11

Legislators’ actions after 1859 clarified and enhanced the roles of county engineers and

county auditors in overseeing drainage schemes. Engineers, perhaps with the assistance of

surveyors, determined the necessity of the ditch and reported to the commissioners or trustees;

laid out the course according to petition or altered it as needed drawing a plat map of the project;

and made a schedule of lots and lands benefited. County auditors maintained records regarding

the costs of and payments for each ditch project; assessing taxes on properties benefiting from a

new channel; and maintain records of all proceedings related to drainage projects. As new ditch

projects proliferated and the process became more complex, the authority and roles of township

trustees and county engineers and auditors expanded and greatly influenced the lives and

livelihoods of many residents as well as land usage.12

Policymakers’ revisions to ditch laws also revealed various existing land uses and the

necessary measures policymakers required to implement new drainage schemes. In addition to

attempts to create better farmland, land uses with which local authorities contended involved

transportation companies owning land along turnpikes and railroads. Corporations whose road

or railroad would benefit from drainage ditches had to pay part of the cost, based on the amount of benefit, of the construction of such channels, and these transportation routes then would

appear on the plat maps of proposed ditches. When locating a new ditch, commissioners had to

11. Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 594-621; State Board of Agriculture, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report, 298-309. 12. Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 530, 532-535, 573, 577. 141 ensure the new channel was a sufficient distance from the highway to drain the road properly thereby preventing the formation of menacing mudholes. Also, in creating a pathway for travel along a ditch, workers could not place dirt taken from the ditch closer than two feet from the channel to avoid a ditch collapsing and perhaps flooding nearby land. A systematic drainage plan not only aided residents in creating farms but it also assisted corporations in draining transportation routes making them more conducive for travel. The idea of convenience involved making travel easier on existing highways and undergirded the potential for new transportation improvements through drained lands.13

IMPLEMENTATION OF DITCH LAWS AND ORDERLINESS

Overall, officials implementing basic procedures outlined in the ditch laws revealed their

attempts to provide order to land use practices related to drainage and improving the quality of

the land. Petitions for ditches in northwest Ohio counties in 1859 and 1860 provided various

identifications for the origins, routes, and termini of drainage projects exposing people’s various

land uses and their goals to channel water into existing creeks and rivers. Some descriptors

included beginning along county roads or turnpikes or starting at a certain plot of land delineated

by section and range numbers. Most routes were straight with few turns while other paths were

convoluted containing numerous directional shifts. Projects ended either at county lines or in an

existing channel such as a creek, river, or another ditch. If a drainage channel crossed one or

more county boundaries, a majority of county commissioners whose counties were affected

needed to support the project for it to be undertaken.14

13. Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 527-528, 535, 564-565. 14. Wood County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 76); Lucas County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 140); Henry County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 4); Defiance County Board of Commissioners, County Ditch Records (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival 142

Commissioners’ systematic procedures for implementing the laws figured into their meetings. At each session, county commissioners would review previous petitions. Officials delayed these requests for further review, gave permission to proceed pursuant to law, or postponed deliberations to serve notices to correct petitions or modify courses slightly based upon engineer review. However, to avoid conflicts of interest, commissioners with direct interests in a project could not be involved in debates regarding that particular project. Some ditches took longer to establish and construct than others due to problems with paperwork, engineering issues, or conducting hearings. Through systematic review and careful use of funds, officials implemented a set of policies aimed at improving the land throughout a given area.

Consequences of these land use policies would help create and support a viable agricultural region with small towns throughout.15

Auditors’ tax assessments on drainage projects present some interesting issues. Although

ditches were to be for the good of everyone in the area, only those residents directly helped by a

project had tax assessments on their lands to finance it. The key determinant for whether county

commissioners would begin the process of locating and constructing ditches was if the proposed

project was “conducive to the public health, convenience, or welfare” of the surrounding areas.16

Such a provision makes it reasonable to expect commissioners would order the auditor to collect

Collections, Roll 77); Ottawa County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, roll 2); Sandusky County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 1); Paulding County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 43); Putnam County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals (Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections, Roll 1). 15. Wood County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Lucas County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Henry County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Ottawa County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Sandusky County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Paulding County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals; Putnam County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. 16. The phrase “conducive to the public health, convenience, or welfare” appeared near the beginning of virtually every Ohio law affecting ditches. 143 taxes on all property owners in the area to pay for the surveying of the route and actual construction of the ditch. Many people would enjoy benefits from the project that reduced surface water which bred mosquitoes and disease and that allowed people to travel on better roads. In line with residents paying for advances in which all should share, Ohio laws of the time permitted local schools to collect property taxes to fund their operations. However, in the case of drainage projects, only those owners directly gaining from the development would have their lands taxed exposing a unique feature of the law where policymakers recognized private gain with improved land. Like contemporary turnpikes where only travelers using the road had to pay for receiving the advantages of transporting goods along an improved thoroughfare, only property owners who directly profited were to pay for the project modifying the land and its uses. Direct gain trumped indirect benefits in the financial part of this land use policy.17

Laws regarding the construction of ditches combine the notions of infrastructural power

of local governments and the transformative nature of land usage. In the years after 1859, the

procedures for bidding and completing work on ditches became more specific. Commissioners

or trustees contracted the construction of the channels in sections measuring between one

hundred and twenty-five hundred feet, but the local authorities could not entertain bids exceeding

the estimated cost of construction. Amended laws had contractors receiving certificates showing

the proportional amount they would get as each section of the project was completed. If workers

did not complete a job as scheduled, the engineer or surveyor could re-estimate the costs for

completion and re-bid the unfinished work or finish the work himself and charge the costs to the

17. Acts 1859, 58-61; Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 534, 538-539, 544, 566, 575; Knepper, 177- 184; Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), 57-66. 144 initial contractor or bondsman. Another possibility would be for the commissioners or trustees to provide an extension of no more than 120 days to the contractor for good cause.18

Laws pertaining to maintenance of ditches also join the ideas of infrastructural power and

the transformative nature of land usage. In regards to procedures after 1859, property owners

benefiting from a specific ditch were responsible for keeping it free from obstructions such as

fallen trees and mud depositing from runoff. It the landowner failed to do so, commissioners and

trustees had the authority to hire men to clean out the ditch, and the officials would collect the

costs for that activity through taxes on the property. Alternatively, any owner of land affected by

the ditch could petition the county commissioners to clean out the ditch on their behalf with the

costs estimated by a disinterested freeholder and collected through assessments on properties as

done in the construction process. Recognizing the benefits of drainage channels through

transformed land, county commissioners and township trustees used their authority to oversee

the maintenance of ditches for the public good.19

VARIATIONS IN IMPLEMENTATION

Officials’ implementation of ditch laws varied slightly among counties in northwest Ohio

based upon a review of extant records.20 Nevertheless, various trends throughout the 1860s and

specific examples from different counties depended upon the utility of systematic drainage plans for the improvement of lands and the probable enhancement of economic connections among residents. In Wood County, over 150 ditches were either completed or contemplated by 1864 based upon the names listed in the commissioners’ journals. Key to supporting market interactions, farmers’ needs for drained lands necessitated ditch projects throughout the county.

18. Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 551, 556-558. 19. Giaque, Laws Relating to Roads and Ditches, 566-569. 20. Extant copies of records from Williams, Fulton, and Seneca Counties were not available for the time period under investigation, and information for Putnam and Paulding Counties was not sufficient to make any comments beyond generalities culled information from other counties. 145

Nevertheless, commissioners and engineers located many projects on lands adjacent to county roads and turnpikes such as the Maumee-Western Reserve Road, the Hull Prairie Free Turnpike, and the Milton and Montgomery Free Turnpike. As was customary to assure proper drainage, many of the ditches Wood County commissioners authorized ended in natural waterways such as the Portage River, Beaver Creek, or Crane Creek. The commissioners maintained strict institutional oversight of projects to ensure fulfillment of the goals of drainage plans for the public health, welfare, and convenience. At each meeting, previous petitions were often reviewed with ditch plans either postponed for further review, permitted to proceed pursuant to law, postponed to serve notices to correct petition, or modified slightly based upon engineer review.21

In Lucas County during the 1860s, commissioners acted on many ditch petitions. With

the city of Toledo located at the mouth of the Maumee River, commissioners enacted most of the

ditch projects west of the city in the townships of Waynesfield, Springfield, Waterville, Carey

(later renamed Adams), Spencer, Providence, and Swanton where land for larger farms was

available. The county authorities constructed fewer ditches nearer the city in Washington and

Sylvania Townships and east of the Maumee River in Oregon Township. Residents could create

smaller farms near the limits of growing cities, but larger farms existed farther from the outskirts

of towns in order to produce enough crops to cover transportation costs into urban marketplaces.

Higher property costs near cities also limited the amount of land farmers could purchase with a

certain amount of money. With many railroads near the commercial core of northwest Ohio,

petitioners described many of the drainage projects in Lucas County in relation to railroads such

as the Toledo and Illinois Railroad and the Northern Indiana Railroad. However, overall, Lucas

21. Wood County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. 146

County commissioners dealt with a greater number of road petitions relative to ditch petitions than their counterparts in Wood County reflecting the less swampy conditions north of the

Maumee River and more commercial activities in the hinterland west of the city of Toledo.22

In Henry County, commissioners’ actions seemed typical as they debated a number of ditch petitions and oversaw the completion of projects throughout the county. At their

September 1859 meeting, the Henry County commissioners entertained petitions for five new projects and postponed deliberations on two others because officials did not properly notify interested parties for one and the engineer and auditor had not completed a ditch report for the other. New drainage projects in Henry County ran along existing roadways such as Ditch No. 6 adjacent to the Napoleon and Kalida Free Turnpike, connected to other drainage channels as with

Ditch No. 3 and Ditch No. 4 emptying into Turkey Foot Creek, or were located with respect to section and range numbers. The existence of ditch projects throughout Henry County showed the widespread desire of resident farmers to improve their lands in order to take advantage of the market possibilities in the county seat of Napoleon and other small towns near the canal route thereby stimulating the development of agricultural hinterlands and spurring the expansion of other tiny markets. Moreover, the farms and towns in Henry County represented the connections among transportation routes and improved quality of lands in supporting the development of the subregional system of cities in northwest Ohio.23

Further up the Maumee River in Defiance County, commissions oversaw the completion of five ditches between 1859 and 1866. Of these five projects, two were in Highland Township, two were in Adams Township, and one was in Richland Township. The first four ditches,

22. Lucas County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. On farm size, property costs, and location relative to central cities, see Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 48-51. 23. Henry County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. 147 constructed between 1859 and 1861, consisted of three to nine sections with sections from 7.40 rods to 201 rods (40.7 yards to 1105.5 yards) based upon the survey of the routes. As proscribed by law, contractors bid to complete each section. The fifth ditch, completed in 1866, consisted of five sections measuring from 9.0 chains to 28.02 chains (198 yards to 616.44 yards). The seeming lack of drainage projects in Defiance County may be attributed to the method of record keeping seen in extant documents where only completed ditches appear thereby not showing objectionable schemes. Another possible explanation was that sufficient natural drainage existed near the confluence of the Maumee River and Auglaize Rivers or through existing feeder canals to the Wabash and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.24

Encompassing the eastern edge of the Black Swamp and an expanse of the shore of Lake

Erie, Ottawa County commissioners oversaw ditch construction mainly in the western part of the

county covered by parts of the swamp. Petitioners proposed ditches in Erie, Salem, and Clay

Townships as well as in Benton Township with outlets into Sand Creek and Toussaint Creek.

The dearth of drainage petitions in Ottawa County in the 1860s combined with numerous bridge

and road petitions suggests that natural waterways such as the Portage River and smaller creeks

or roadside ditches sufficiently drained lands in that county for residents’ activities during those

years. However, roads and bridges over natural waterways, such as a bridge over the Portage

River at Port Clinton, were necessary improvements to connect towns and people enhancing

economic interactions.25

Also with much of its western part covered by the Black Swamp, Sandusky County

included many areas that drainage plans enhanced. Unlike other county commissions, records of

ditch proceedings in Sandusky County did not list the township or any other location feature of

24. Defiance County Board of Commissioners, County Ditch Records. 25. Ottawa County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. 148 the proposed channel. Rather, officials merely used the names of the primary petitioners to designate projects. Further research revealed that residents in the western townships petitioned for most of the new ditches in the county. For example, at their June 1860 session the Sandusky

County Commissioners authorized the projects of George Snyder of Madison Township, Samuel

Skinner and Jonah Hendricks of Washington Township, and Jacob Burke of Washington

Township. Workers had to finish all three of these projects before the end of 1860, according to the directions of the commissioners. One year later, county commissioners approved the petitions of Jacob Switzgable of Sandusky Township, Samuel Moore of Woodville Township, and Samuel King of Jackson Township. Once again, workers had to complete the project by the end of that year. Such activity in the western townships of Sandusky County developed due to the swampy conditions of the land and the desire of farmers to expand production stimulated by the markets in the towns of Fremont and Woodville. New and growing farms also increased the development of smaller communities such as Gibsonburg, but the farms still needed enhanced drainage schemes to realize further growth.26

UNDERDRAINAGE

Despite successes in removing excess surface water from lands using open ditches,

residents also implemented underdrainage plans using tiles made initially from wood and later

from clay to eliminate moisture in soils to improve their lands for cultivation. According to

Klippart, the construction of open ditches was necessary for later underground tile drainage as

these underdrains required exposed outlets in order to function properly. Laying underground tile removed excess water from subsoil thereby creating a healthier environment for crops by lowering the water table from the ground surface to the level of underdrains. This process also

26. Sandusky County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners’ Journals. 149 loosened the soil allowing it to hold more oxygen and be warmer thus lengthening the growing season. Open ditches were not required on underdrained grounds except as main drains leading to a natural waterway such as a creek or river. Also, deep furrows to drain water from plants were not necessary thereby providing more land for crops and more yield. Most importantly, tile drainage was to be a permanent and ongoing improvement to farmland.27

Over time, the tiling process became more elaborate with residents utilizing new

materials. At first, northwest Ohio farmers used wooden tiles and, later, clay tiles placed in

trenches dug by hand or with the assistance of horse-drawn plows. Early drains in the Black

Swamp and Maumee Valley were made of timber, especially oak, mainly due to the prohibitive

expense of transporting clay tiles from early factories in and around Franklin County in central

Ohio. Wooden tiles consisted of two boards nailed together in a V-shape, and farmers placed

them in trenches and buried them with the open-end down often with a board underneath to slow

the sinking of the tile. Wilhelm asserted that the “timber industry was a necessary predecessor to

the agriculturally related clay tile industry” as wood provided material to construct kilns and fuel to operate local kilns established in the 1880s.28 Klippart asserted that clay was the desired

material for making drainage tiles because clay tiles were more durable and cheaper relative to

other materials such as wood. Besides removing trees and constructing buildings, the

manufacture of clay tiles altered the land through the utilization of local clays suitable for such

use.29

Many factors determined the shape, size, and usage of clay drainage tiles. Horseshoe-

shaped tiles, with an open end facing down, often sank in wet soil thus limiting their

27. Klippart, Land Drainage, 41, 182, 217; Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 50-51. 28. Peter Wilhelm, “Draining the Great Black Swamp: Henry and Wood Counties, Ohio, A Case Study in Agricultural Development” (MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1983), 25. 29. Wilhelm, “Draining the Great Black Swamp, 23-28; Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 52-53; Klippart, Land Drainage, 220. 150 effectiveness over time and prompting farmers to close the open end with a thin board or manufacturing a closed horseshoe-shaped tile. Klippart believed that an egg-shaped tile laid with the smaller end down would move the water away the best as low water flow conducted best through narrower channels while a greater volume of water required a wider conduit. The size of a clay drainage tile depended on the amount of fall of the land, the length of the drain, the distance between drains, and the depth of drains. The deeper a farmer placed a drain, the farther apart he could space the tiles. Through much experimentation and excruciating work, farmers buried many thousands of tiles to better drain the lands of northwest Ohio. 30

Mechanical equipment farmers used in their tiling procedures also became more sophisticated over the years. To place the tiles, whether wooden or clay, in fields, workers used

horse-drawn plows to create trenches, graded the trench by hand to provide adequate drainage,

and then laid tile tightly together and tested it for strength. Farmers dug trenches by hand

initially, but they deemed this too labor intensive for their massive needs. Through repeated

trials, farmers found that tiles laid shallow (2.5 feet or less) required closer placing (not less than

50 feet) but deeper laid tiles could be spaced farther apart to effect proper drainage. By 1900,

mechanical ditching wheels and the complex Buckeye Ditcher machine replaced horse-drawn

plows and hand-grading for laying tile.31 Underdrainage depended upon yet enhanced open

ditches in transforming the lands of northwest Ohio into productive farmland and a thriving

hinterland of Toledo.32

30. Klippart, Land Drainage, 220-221, 272, 301. 31. The Buckeye Ditcher was steam-driven having neither axels nor spokes to impede its movement and make use of its entire diameter of its ditching wheel. At the machine’s rear, the large wheel dug the trench with a mechanism to adjust the depth of the wheel to properly grade the channel ensuring proper drainage after laying tile. See Wilhelm, “Draining,” 18-19, 63. 32. Wilhelm, “Draining,” 13, 23-28; Arpad, The Story of the Great Black Swamp, 52-53. 151

EARLY CONSEQUENCES OF DITCH LAWS

The initial consequences of the 1859 ditch laws are somewhat difficult to determine accurately. First, many early ditch projects tended to merely clear or deepen existing small drainage channels thereby improving only certain plots of land already being drained, albeit inadequately, by natural channels. However, enlarging and cleaning small creeks was necessary in order to accept runoff collected by newly-constructed ditches as the key part of drainage plans was to ensure new channels had sufficient outlets and would not overflow thus reducing their effectiveness. Second, the Civil War both increased demand for grain production in order to feed Union armies and decreased the resident agricultural workforce within northwest Ohio in order to staff the fighting forces. Thus, farms needed to be more productive yet had fewer workers to enlarge cultivated fields. Longer-term consequences of these environmental transformations such as number of improved acres in farms, total number of farms, and increased production prove easier to ascertain.33

Overall environmental results of drainage efforts beginning in the 1850s included new

farms and more improved farmland. Of the twelve counties in northwest Ohio under

investigation, the three with the greatest number of farms in 1850 (Hancock, Sandusky, and

Seneca) were on the eastern edge of the Black Swamp signifying the relative ease not only of

initial settlement but also of residents’ continued establishment of farms in drier lands. (See

Chart 4-1, Appendix) By 1870, the number of farms increased in each county with Wood and

Williams Counties joining Hancock, Sandusky, and Seneca Counties as the top five counties in

33. A thorough discussion of the consequences of these transformations is found in Part Two of this dissertation. For information on issues related to early ditch projects see Daniel A. Dwarko, “The Settler in the Maumee Valley: Henry, Lucas and Wood Counties, Ohio, 1830-1860” (Ph.D. diss, Bowling Green State University, 1981); and Wilhelm, “Draining the Great Black Swamp. For a discussion of farmers fighting in the Civil War, see Richard L. Manion, “The Effects of the American Civil War on a Local Community: Sandusky County, Ohio, 1861-1865” (MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1990). Although his work is focused on Sandusky County, his conclusions can be applied throughout the rest of northwest Ohio. 152 number of farms. Likewise, the total amount of improved land in farms in each northwest Ohio county increased between 1850 and 1870 (See Chart 4-2, Appendix). However, the amount of improved land per farm increased only in Sandusky and Seneca Counties between 1850 and

1870 signifying the disparity in condition of farmland available in counties to the west and the need for enhanced drainage efforts through underground tiling (See Chart 4-3, Appendix). That is, in most northwest Ohio counties, more farms existed in 1870 than in 1850 but these farms included a smaller proportion of improved land to unimproved land (See Chart 4-4, Appendix).

Between 1860 and 1870, the percentage of farmland improved increased in each county studied except for Ottawa County thus demonstrating the results of open ditches draining lands. 34

Environmental results of drainage projects also altered what plants could grow on the drained land and eliminated many characteristics of the Black Swamp as workers transformed timber and clay into drainage tiles. Through altering the water table, residents changed what plants could grow leading to less swamp forest vegetation over time. John Klippart observed such a transformation around 1860 as he travelled through the Black Swamp on the Dayton and

Michigan Railroad. He noted that workers formed ditches along the railroad to create roadbed and that timber which flourished in moist soil was dead or dying on each side of the tracks as a consequence of drainage. Klippart also wrote that because the ditches drained land several rods on either side of the railroad, many moist plants were also dying. To augment these results in later years, farmers utilized timber and clay, two abundant resources in the region, to manufacture underdrain tiles thereby using items from the swamp to attempt to eliminate it. The environmental results of drainage, overall, arose from residents’ and merchants’ desires for

34. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1850, 1860, and 1870. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center: (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 153 settlement and profitable development while also supporting further economic changes within northwest Ohio.35

Economic results of drainage efforts included increased population and settlement. The

population of each of the dozen counties of northwest Ohio increased with the greatest absolute

growth in Lucas County due mainly to the growth of the city of Toledo whose expansion

depended a great deal on agricultural production, enhanced by drainage, of the surrounding

counties. Hancock, Sandusky, and Seneca Counties on the edges of the swamp had the smallest

relative growths in the region while Henry, Lucas, and Ottawa Counties had the highest relative

population increases (See Chart 4-5, Appendix). With this growth, government officials shifted

boundaries of townships and people established new towns that census takers enumerated. For

example, in Lucas County, Port Lawrence Township merged into the city of Toledo and Adams

Township in the 1850s, and a portion of Waynesfield Township became part of Adams

Township in the 1860s.36 New towns and growing communities throughout northwest Ohio

served as local marketplaces and centers of information for small parts of Toledo’s large

hinterland, increasing the number of connections among groups of people as well as

strengthening these linkages as residents continued drainage efforts to transform the land.

Another economic result of removing water from the land included agricultural output

increasing as farmers cultivated more land. The production of corn and oats generally increased

throughout the counties of northwest Ohio between 1860 and 1870 with wheat production

decreasing in seven of the twelve counties and showing almost no increase in two others. (See

Charts 4-6, 4-9, and 4-12, Appendix) The differences in the production amounts among each

35. Klippart, Land Drainage, 182-183. 36. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Volume 1: Population, State of Ohio, “Table 3: Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties,” 234. 154 crop could be associated with changing market demands and local needs for feeding livestock.

The number of acres devoted to these three crops also increased as more land was turned into farmland and slowly improved as residents could allocate sufficient funds to drain fields. (See

Charts 4-7, 4-10, 4-13, and 4-15, Appendix) The only exceptions to this trend are for the amounts of wheat sown in Hancock and Seneca Counties—two counties on the edge of the Black

Swamp. As residents created new farmsteads or enlarged and improved existing farms, they planted more crops thereby expanding the potential for buying and selling agricultural materials in the area markets. Farmers practiced crop rotation which also affected the amount of land devoted to a particular crop. However, not all lands bore increasing production rates for each grain. (See Charts 4-8, 4-11, and 4-14, Appendix) Yields of wheat declined between 1860 and

1870 in each northwest Ohio county except for Ottawa and Sandusky while corn yields increased in each county but Seneca and oat yields expanded in seven of the five counties. As Chart 4-3 shows, the amount of improved land per farm decreased or remained fairly steady in the counties with the swampiest land thereby limiting the potential yield of grains in those locations. Despite industrious efforts on the parts of residents, the environmental conditions throughout northwest

Ohio continued to constrain economic endeavors, but markets did develop and thrive with the crops produced.

CONCLUSION

Environmental and economic results of drainage projects in the Great Black Swamp and the Maumee Valley aided the development of Toledo’s hinterland and, as a result, encouraged the growth of that city and smaller towns in northwest Ohio. Early settlers found the swamplands very difficult to settle and establish farms in prompting many to merely bypass the region and settle elsewhere. Those residents who attempted to hack out fields from the swamp 155 forests or open prairies still needed to drain off surface water and remove excess moisture from the soil. Early efforts using private ditches proved inadequate to solve these issues prompting many landowners to pressure state policymakers for action. From this came a series of ditch laws in the 1850s that included local officials overseeing systematic plans for open ditches following the examples of roadside ditches and feeder canals. Legislation the General Assembly passed in 1859 encompassing many older procedures provided the foundation for new large- scale drainage schemes implemented throughout northwest Ohio. Later use of underground drainage tiles depended upon earlier open ditch drainage channels as outlets while enhancing the capabilities of the soil for agricultural production.

The ditch laws and drainage schemes reflected the attitudes of northwest Ohio residents regarding land use in the nineteenth century. Farming and commercial activities were the dominant pursuits of groups of individuals in the trans-Appalachian west during the early and mid-nineteenth century as migrants carried notions of economic, social, and political progress with them to new home sites and communities. Draining swampy lands not only lessened the occurrence of cholera and malaria in the area but it also eliminated obstacles to the creation of productive farms and homesteads. People often viewed the earth as a resource for them to use to support themselves physically and economically through growing food to eat and products— crops or small manufactured items—to sell in markets. Very often, early settlers to the Black

Swamp and Maumee Valley could not persevere in the harsh conditions long enough to establish sufficient farms thus moving farther west to seemingly better lands in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, or Iowa. There were limits to what people could do or were willing to do regarding improving land. As in the case of privately-constructed ditches, what settlers did to their lands sometimes 156 negatively affected nearby property prompting legal action and the creation of new policies such as the ditch laws.

Moreover, the implementation of ditch laws to form a systematic drainage scheme in northwest Ohio supports the view of putting civilization over nature. Eliminating swampy conditions, combined with internal improvement plans and creation of compact communities, broadly reveal people’s attitudes toward land and natural resources as commodities. Such general characteristics of growth of northwest Ohio with Toledo surrounded by a rural hinterland with smaller towns provide ample evidence to expose the importance of land conditions for the creation of settlements and man’s actions for transforming seemingly “bad” land into “good” land. Prosperous “good” land could support thriving communities that would constitute an economically strong regional system of cities and become integrated into a national economic network.

Although many people wanted to escape crowded cities or other situations where they lacked opportunities, a dominant approach to settlement was to plat towns and create farms near the sites of possible future cities thereby imposing a Euro-American sense of civilization on less- developed land. Therefore, humans believed it was their duty to use natural resources for their benefit, and they had an obligation to enhance poor land conditions, often utilizing natural resources such as wood and clay to manufacture drainage tiles. 37 Land use policies provided

institutional guidance displaying existing environmental attitudes while augmenting the creation

of physical connections among people through improving land to further develop big cities,

small towns, and farms through symbiotic growth between urban and rural areas. Improved

farmland through increasing possible crop yields strengthened connections between farmers and

37. Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press Note Bene, 2001), xi-xii; Opie, Nature’s Nation, 151. 157 towns—as seen in the late stage of the subregional mode shown in Figure 4.1 below— as rural residents could sell greater surpluses thereby being able to purchase new merchandise, enlarge barns, and build bigger houses.

Figure 4.1: Subregional Model—Late Stage

Throughout this entire process of draining land, governments were not weak or passive as

officials and policymakers often exercised infrastructural power. The role of government in the drainage efforts throughout northwest Ohio involved mediating disputes between residents, providing for the common good, and enacting policies leading to economic development and environmental transformation. Land owners wanted to transform their properties to benefit themselves economically, but private ditch construction often damaged neighboring property leading to court cases. Also, local officials mediated quarrels surrounding ditch construction such as funding and location. Providing for the common good seemed evident in the language of the ditch laws as each new project was to be conducive to the public health, convenience and welfare. This truly was the case for drainage efforts, but policymakers recognized individual 158 farmers and landowners would realize private gain from improved lands through drainage. Local officials acted upon this awareness of personal gain by assessing taxes on the individual properties most directly benefiting from a specific project. While all residents would theoretically gain from draining swampy lands, those individuals most directly profiting would financially support ditch projects transforming both economic conditions and the environment.

Furthermore, through exercising infrastructural power, policymakers in government helped to expand civilization—improved land and expanding markets—over nature.

By the 1870s, the land conditions slowing settlement and economic changes within northwest Ohio had improved enough through drainage efforts that trends such as industrialization and urbanization affected all parts of Ohio relatively equally beginning at that time. Through construction of a system of ditches and later manufacture of drainage tiles made of local clay, people eliminated many characteristics of the Great Black Swamp using resources that made the swamp menacing for early settlers. Coupled with results from advances in transportation and communication systems, consequences of improved land conditions enhanced the symbiosis of the subregional hub of Toledo and its surrounding rural hinterland of small towns and farms. These outcomes allowed this subregional system of cities to grow economically and mature politically and socially as well as become more strongly integrated in national and international systems of cities by 1900. 159

PART TWO: SYMBIOSIS STRENGTHENED

The consequences of transportation infrastructures and land improvement policies of the early and mid-nineteenth century constituted the economic change within northwest Ohio and the development of a subregional system of cities. Such consequences included more activity at

Toledo’s harbor, new business ventures and stores in the growing towns around Toledo, increased agricultural production from drained lands, and further growth of manufacturing endeavors. Each of these outcomes represented strengthening connections and additional linkages among businessmen, farmers, and workers engaged in manufacturing which led to further economic development. Goods individuals transported along roads, canals, and railroads provided links between merchants and residents with the purchase and use of local manufactures such as farm implements, clothing items, and home furnishings provided additional connections.

Transportation routes permitted people to move goods over long or short distances allowing market interactions leading to urban expansion and economic development, and land improvements provided an income for farmers and products for sale and use in growing towns.

Much of the economic change in northwest Ohio in the late nineteenth century appeared through urbanization and industrialization. These interconnected processes also had foundations in transportation and land improvement policies prior to 1860. Urbanization involved enlarging residential areas and populations, business pursuits, and manufacturing establishments.

Industrialization also prompted the increase in factories while requiring larger workforces that needed shelter and provisions thus leading to an increase in urbanization. People came together via roads, canals, and railroads while establishing businesses that depended upon cheap and reliable transportation to move goods and products. Land improvement and resource extraction provided both the impulse and materials for new buildings and manufactures. As agricultural 160 and factory activities increased, towns expand spatially and by population thereby stimulating yet more farming and industrialization.

The economic growth people derived from transportation routes and land improvement reoriented the impetus for development beginning in the 1860s. Because of grain shipments through the harbor of Toledo—transported mainly along the Wabash and Erie Canal from

Indiana—businesses and infrastructure in the city expanded. As Toledo businessmen continued to solidify the city’s position as the gateway for products entering and exiting northwest Ohio, the growing urban area began to pull the development of its immediate hinterland of northwest

Ohio. Forwarding merchants and manufacturing establishments each increased the demand for goods produced outside Toledo. Businessmen desired farmers to produce more crops to sell in the city or to market in eastern United States cities. Factory owners also needed raw materials from outside Toledo for their workers to craft products that could be sold throughout northwest

Ohio or shipped to other markets thereby creating connections within and outside the Toledo subregional system of cities. Toledo’s urban conditions expanded through new businesses, professional activities, residential construction, and manufacturing establishments which in turn expanded the demand for increased hinterland production.

A major event providing another set of important connections among northwest Ohio towns and Toledo was the gas and oil boom beginning in the 1880s. The surge in economic changes directly affected the development of Toledo, the maturation of the surrounding area, and the strengthening links between these areas. The rapid extraction of these natural resources led to quick economic development for the communities near the gas and oil fields—especially

Findlay and Bowling Green—while literally providing the fuel for economic development through new and expanded factories in Toledo. People in towns in the vicinity of reserves 161 established businesses to extract and sell the resources as well as started small factories using gas as the primary fuel thereby developing the economy within Toledo’s hinterland. Similar to demands for agricultural products from Toledo merchants, factory owners desired fuel for their factories thereby enlarging the oil and gas boom prompting more economic development for the hinterlands and the city once local suppliers provided the resources. Moreover, the natural resource booms enhanced the symbiotic growth of Toledo and its surrounding area positioning northwest Ohio for continued economic development in the early twentieth century.

As part of the development of the hinterland around Toledo, towns within it expanded leading to larger and more numerous nodes in the growing subregional system of cities. New businesses and products stimulated fresh connections among people. Land improvement and the demand for agricultural products in Toledo spurred economic development around rural towns.

Thus, while Toledo pulled the development of its hinterland overall, growing links among residents of smaller towns and nearby agricultural lands pushed the development of those areas throughout northwest Ohio. Increased agricultural productivity and locals’ demands for merchandise and small manufactures as well as professional services of attorneys and doctors prompted the growth of local economic centers such as Bowling Green, Bryan, Defiance, and

Napoleon. Nearby demand and new settlement also had great effects on the establishment and spatial growth of even smaller farming communities. As businesses, manufacturing, and agricultural activities increased, rural and urban residents strengthened links facilitating even more possibilities for economic change as the twentieth century approached. Moreover, the interrelated processes of urbanization and industrialization helped to simultaneously push and pull development—stemming from transportation infrastructure and land improvement— throughout the towns and farming areas of northwest Ohio in the late nineteenth century. 162

CHAPTER FIVE NODES AND NETWORK EXPANSION: TOLEDO AND NORTHWEST OHIO AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

With the continuing population growth in northwest Ohio in the 1860s, residents’ economic interactions increased thereby encouraging development of towns in the hinterland of

Toledo. Within Wood County, farmers improved more land in the southern townships, roughly a two-day journey by wagon from the county seat of government at Perrysburg. To shorten the time required to travel to pay taxes, attend court, or conduct business with county officials, many residents argued for the county government to be moved to Bowling Green near the geographic center of the county. Proponents of the relocation started publishing a newspaper in Bowling

Green named the Advocate that contained editorials citing the advantages of constructing new government buildings in the middle of the county. Publishers of the Perrysburg Weekly Journal responded to these articles noting among other things that Bowling Green had no natural advantages such as a river and no railroad connection. Despite male residents voting in October

1866 to move the seat of government to Bowling Green, legal challenges and legislative actions continued for the next decade encompassing the so-called “Ten Years War of Wood County.”

This episode reveals not only booster mentalities at work but also the continued population growth within the hinterland of Toledo, farming areas stimulating the expansion of small communities as nodes within the subregional system of cities centered at Toledo, and the development of Toledo enticing more farmers to settle throughout northwest Ohio.1

INTRODUCTION

In the two decades after the Civil War, Toledo and northwest Ohio experienced new

patterns of development through the integrated phenomena of urbanization and industrialization.

1. Charles A. Fair, “The Beginning of the Ten Years War of Wood County, Ohio” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 43, no. 3 (Summer 1971), 43-65. 163

In regards to urbanization, as agricultural and small scale manufacturing activities increased in number and intensity, the hub and nodes of the subregional system of cities centered at Toledo expanded creating more opportunities for commerce and developing more complex communities. Intricately tied to developing cities, industrialization drew raw materials from outside the cities and allowed businessmen to sell more manufactures primarily made in towns to other village residents or the rural populace. Attempting to take advantage of raising crops or producing small manufactures for local consumption, many people lived just outside of growing communities strengthening connections between rural nodes and their immediate hinterlands.

Moreover, people’s actions within the processes of urbanization and industrialization encouraged the symbiotic development of Toledo and its hinterland through creating new and stronger connections.

The consequences of transportation infrastructure and improved land quality—nodes and network expansion—appear in the late stage of the subregional model shown in Figure 5.1 below. Although Toledo retained characteristics of a gateway city due to its position as a Lake

Erie port, the city became more of a central place as residents of towns within its hinterland developed more and stronger economic connections with it. Also, railroad routes provided reliable overland links in all directions from the city—especially to the east and west— expanding Toledo’s role as a transportation hub for all of the rural and industrializing areas around it further enhancing Toledo’s central place characteristics. Utilizing roads and railroads and taking advantage of drained lands, town residents and nearby farmers increased their market interactions during this time darkening and increasing the number of links among the urban nodes of the increasingly integrated network. Thus, people’s actions elevated towns to the status of local economic centers or expanded the roles of existing centers. 164

Figure 5.1: Subregional Model—Late Stage

Economic changes in Toledo and northwest Ohio during the 1860s and 1870s were

similar to developments in other areas. Like Philadelphia in the 1830s and 1840s where urban

specialization in manufacturing permitted the urban core to greatly expand enhancing the

development of its eastern Pennsylvania hinterland, Toledoans began to increase industrial

activities spurring the growth of connections throughout the hinterland of northwest Ohio.

During the Civil War, commercial activities in Toledo expanded as more grain passed through its

port because hostilities closed southern grain markets prompting a redirection of crop sales to

northern cities such as Toledo. Businessmen paid for new elevators and warehouses to store

grain until shippers could transport it via lake craft or train, and more people established stores

catering to new workers coming to the port city. Toledo also grew as an agricultural market for

its surrounding rural areas after the Civil War similar to Chicago with its grain, cattle, and

lumber businesses during the same period. Through urban-rural connections, specialized

activities in Philadelphia and Chicago helped to increase the development of their hinterlands by 165 manufacturing products for sale and annihilating space and time in market interactions thereby strengthening connections within the national system of cities. However, other Ohio towns such as Camden did not become as thoroughly integrated into the national network as many places in northwest Ohio did. Within Chicago’s hinterland of the Great West, small cities developed many of the same businesses over time as Chicago did thereby limiting the commercial activities in the Windy City by the early twentieth century. However, lacking enormous population growth and expansion of its local hinterland, Bowling Green did not become a Great Lakes

Omaha.2

The patterns of growth of Toledo and northwest Ohio in the two decades after the Civil

War include three general elements. First, Toledo expanded due to increasing business

associated with its harbor and railroad connections as well as developing manufacturing enterprises. Second, the rural areas around Toledo continued to gain population leading to more

economic activities and interactions as well as growth of small towns such as Bowling Green,

Bryan, Defiance, and Napoleon functioning as nodes within the subregional system of cities.

Around these locations grew other smaller villages and farmsteads. Third, agriculture and

manufacturing, functioning based on transportation infrastructure and land quality, provided

paths for the symbiotic growth of urban and rural areas in northwest Ohio.

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN TOLEDO

Economic activity of Toledo’s port expanded greatly during the Civil War due in large

part to shipments of grain. The Civil War helped to expand economic interests and increase

business for lake towns and interior Old Northwest communities. During the early stages of the

2. Diane Lindstrom, Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1810-1850 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 93-151, 153-185; William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991),97-309; Richard O. Davies, , Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small Town America (Ohio State University Press, 1998), 9-42. 166 conflict, the Blade reported that the amount of grain shipments through the port of Toledo increased because the war activities closed the usual southern commercial channels forcing more trade through Great Lakes ports to the eastern United States. Records of grain shipments from the Toledo Board of Trade reflect this condition although wheat shipments fell off during the final years of the war and corn shipments declined until 1864. (See Chart 5.1, Appendix)

Because demand existed for more storage space for grain at this time, officials intended a grain elevator connected to the Dayton and Michigan railroad for completion by the opening of navigation in 1862. At the end of the war, a surplus of crops filled warehouses and elevators on the Middle Grounds in Toledo’s port. At an August 1865 meeting, H. H. Porter, superintendent of the Michigan Southern railroad, reported to the Board of Trade that his company’s elevators were becoming crowded with grain. He requested the Board to take action to enable the railroad company to unload grain by either shipment or arrangement with Toledo and Wabash elevators for storing wheat then coming forward until shipments relieved warehouses. The Civil War served as a tipping point in the relationship of the symbiotic relationship between Toledo and its hinterland. Within this network, the rural areas tended to push the development of Toledo and smaller economic centers more before 1860 while the economic activities of Toledo began to pull the overall development of its system of cities during and after the war.3

Toledoans’ economic activity continued to expand after 1865 with increasing agricultural and manufacturing pursuits. In the two decades after the war, shipments of wheat and corn

increased overall with occasional dips before 1880 and massive declines and rebounds in the

3. Toledo Blade’s Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce of Toledo for the Year 1861 (Toledo: Blade Steam Printing, 1862), 3, 9; A. E. Shultz, "Grain Shipments at Toledo for the Past 100 Years" (BGSU CAC, MS 247, Box 25, Folder 1); Toledo Board of Trade, “Minutes” (BGSU CAC MS 247 Box 1 Folder 3); Robert Leslie Jones, History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880 (Kent State University Press, 1983), 71-73. 167 next five years.4 As the port grew in size and importance, the expansion of Toledo due to

increased grain shipments began to pull the development of its immediate hinterland through

increased agricultural endeavors. Also accelerated by the Civil War, manufacturing activities

increased in Lucas County and Toledo in the 1860s through the 1880s. The number of

manufacturing establishments in Lucas County increased from 172 to 209 between 1860 and

1870 while that figure rose to 510 by 1880. The number of people employed in manufacturing in

Lucas County in 1860 was 1,258, increasing to 2,204 in 1870 and to 7,079 over the next decade.

The total value of all manufactured products approximately doubled between each census from

1860 to 1880. Such increases broadened the economic base of Toledo as well as positioning it as

an important city in the United States.5

Despite its numerous economic changes, Toledo did not become the stupendous city

many individuals dreamed it would develop into by the 1880s. Boosters such as newspaper

editor Jesup Scott firmly believed that transportation links based upon advantageous geography

and manufacturing activities would ultimately make Toledo the great commercial city of the

West. In advocating for internal improvements, Scott did not immediately see the importance of

railroads connecting rural areas to Toledo’s port. His idea of interior trade connected to lake

access thereby creating economic supremacy was proven wrong through the expansion of rail

networks rather than water routes and the growth of resource extraction in conjunction with

agricultural produce. The frontier of the United States moved west faster than many believed

4. At this time, lands in the Great Plains became the “breadbasket” of the nation producing much more grain crops than the Great Lakes region. However, farmers in the trans-Mississippi West utilized Chicago and St. Louis as their major collection and shipping points thus limiting the potential business for Toledo as a region commercial center rather than merely a subregional economic hub. For a further explanation of wheat production and economic change in the Great Plains, see Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 97-147, 295-309. 5. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html); Jones, History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880, 73-76, 313-323. 168 permitting more towns to develop and become important subregional hubs. Nonetheless, the characteristics Scott and his fellow boosters deemed important firmly situated the city as an important regional city growing symbiotically with its hinterland. Evidence of this expansion,

Toledo officials annexed 8,384 acres of land in 1872 in three tracts along its western, southern, and northeastern boundaries.6

ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE HINTERLAND

With Toledo as its hub, the subregional system of cities of northwest Ohio continued to

develop in the two decades after the Civil War. The populations of all of the counties of

northwest Ohio increased during that time with Lucas County having the greatest absolute

growth and Ottawa and Paulding Counties having the largest relative growth. (See Chart 5.2,

Appendix) The expansion of the city of Toledo supported the increase in Lucas County’s

population while slow initial settlement due to poor land quality explained the high relative

growth rates of Ottawa and Paulding Counties. Wood County had the second highest absolute

and the fifth largest relative population growth within northwest Ohio due to the combined

effects of urban and rural population growth. Wood County included Perrysburg as an entrepôt

for the Great Black Swamp area thereby experiencing development similar to Toledo. However,

potentially good farmland throughout the rest of the county with the northeastern corner and

southern half remaining less developed slowed the expansion of Perrysburg. Many people took

advantage of the commercial opportunities in Perrysburg while others established farms in

central and southern Wood County as the lands became improved in the late 1860s and after.

6. Jesup Scott, A Presentation of Causes Tending to Fix the Position of the Future Great City of the World… (Toledo: Blade Steam Plant, 1876); David S. Brown, “Jesup Scott’s Great West: Promotion and Persuasion on the Ohio Frontier” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 71, nos. 3/4 (Summer/Autumn 1999), 81-102; Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, This Is How Toledo Grew [map] (Toledo: Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, 1968). 169

With a mix of rural possibilities and nascent urban communities surrounding Toledo, populations of the counties of northwest Ohio increased.7

However, within these counties, the populations of individual townships grew at very different rates with some even decreasing. Most of the townships decreasing in population were in Seneca County showing that longer settled areas had the potential to lose residents as land became available to work in states west of the Mississippi River or as opportunities for work in small cities expanded. Despite the decline of population in some townships in Seneca County in the 1860s and 1870s, Tiffin’s population had a relative increase of around forty percent during the same period. Pulaski Township in southern Williams County and Napoleon Township in western Henry County had noticeably large relative population increases due in large part to the growing towns of Bryan and Napoleon, respectively, located within them. Taking advantage of underdeveloped farmlands, townships with much swampy unimproved land such as Milton,

Jackson, and Lake in Wood County and Benton and Salem in Ottawa County, had some of the greatest amounts of relative population growth rates among those in northwest Ohio.

Contemporary development patterns such as rural to city migration, urban borderland expansion, and establishing farms on unimproved lands determined the various growth rates of townships.8

Concurrent with the population growth of townships was the establishment of new communities functioning as nodes within the subregional system of cities with immediate hinterlands of their own. Civil divisions first appearing in the Ninth Census of the United States

7. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 8. Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Volume 1: Population, State of Ohio, “Table 3: Population of Cities, Towns, &c.”; Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Volume 1: Population, “Table III: Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties”; Tenth Census of the United States,1880, Volume 1: Population, “Table III: Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties” and “Table II: Aggregate Population By Counties, 1790-1880;” Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 (New York: Vintage, 2003), 3- 5, 23-44. 170 in 1870 include Brunnersburg and Evansport in Defiance County, Van Buren and McComb in

Hancock County, Gilboa and Pendleton in Putnam County, and Pioneer in Williams County.

Most of these villages were outgrowths of older settlements, often with a mill or store, whose populations census takers included in previous enumerations of townships. Many of these locations persisted as small farm communities into the twentieth century while others failed to appear in censuses after 1880 representing unsuccessful booster enthusiasm. These towns included Brunnersburg, Evansport, and Pendleton. The percentage of each county’s population living outside its major town or towns was a reflection of urbanization within the hinterland of

Toledo. (See Figure 5.2 below) Sandusky and Seneca Counties were on the edge of the Black

Swamp permitting earlier settlement and towns to grow more quickly than those within the swamp did. An increase of a city’s percent of county population between 1870 and 1880 shows that the town’s population increased at a greater rate than the entire county’s figure; a rise in the percent of population living outside the major towns demonstrates a greater growth of farms and rural populations. These relative population numbers reinforce the notion of developing nodes within the system of cities in northwest Ohio.9

9. Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Volume 1: Population, State of Ohio, “Table 3—Population of Cities, Towns, &c.”; Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Volume 1: Population, “Table III—Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties”; Tenth Census of the United States,1880, Volume 1: Population, “Table III— Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties”; Eleventh Census of the United States,1890, Volume 1: Population, “Table V— Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions”; Twelfth Census of the United States,1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table V— Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions.” 171

Figure 5.2: Percentage of Population in Key Cities by County, 1870 and 1880

Source: Data compiled from Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Volume 1: Population, “Table III— Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties”; Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Volume 1: Population, “Table III—Population of Civil Divisions Less than Counties” and “Table II—Aggregate Population by Counties, 1790-1880.”

DEVELOPMENT OF IMPORTANT NODES

Bowling Green served as one of the important small towns in the immediate hinterland of

Toledo. Ironically, as opponents of relocating the county government to Bowling Green noted,

that town had neither natural advantages such as a river nor direct access to a canal or railroad

line. However, its economic activities expanded and its population increased following the Civil

War due to connections with other cities and surrounding farms. Emphasizing the dominant

local farming activities, the Wood County Sentinel, published in Bowling Green, listed

commodity prices in markets including New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee,

Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, and Buffalo. To earn money selling surplus crops, farmers desired to

know what prices their produce would get when sold. In 1875, the Wood County Sentinel

included the timetable for the Dayton and Michigan Railroad with stops in the nearby Wood

County towns of Custar, Milton, Weston, Tontogony, Haskins, and Hull’s Prairie as well as 172

Perrysburg and Toledo. With rail connections, Bowling Green residents garnered the potential to take advantage of shipping crops to market in Toledo as well as receiving agricultural implements and machines, home furnishings, and musical instruments from outside of Wood

County. Businessmen such as Joe Sheets who owned a teaming business and W. J. Edwards who operated the Bowling Green and Findlay hack line took advantage of town-to-town connections to establish companies.10

Links to larger cities including Toledo and beyond helped the town to develop

economically. Bowling Green merchants depended on connections to larger markets to import

goods such as clothing, stoves, and hardware from outside of northwest Ohio. Likewise, agents

sold insurance from companies in Hartford and New York to protect the lives and property of

residents. Thus, these links that the Bowling Green community had with places such as New

York and Chicago exemplified how products and services tied different areas of the nation

together as well as providing goods revealing the internal growth of the town.11

The papers of Bowling Green attorney Frank Baldwin provide a specific glimpse of economic connections residents could have within local economic centers and to a subregional

hub. Born 1854 in Geneva, New York, Baldwin went to schools in Weston and Toledo before

studying law in Tiffin and Perrysburg. Admitted to the bar in 1877, Baldwin practiced law

individually and as part of the firm Baldwin and Harrington whose offices were above the

Exchange Bank in Bowling Green. He purchased goods from Secor, Berdan and Company

frequently; bought cards and envelopes from Montgomery and Vrooman Printers and Binders in

Toledo; transported items on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad often receiving them

10. Perrysburg Weekly Journal; Wood County Sentinel (BGSU CAC, roll 3a); Bowling Green Democrat (BGSU CAC, roll 1). 11. Wood County Sentinel; Bowling Green Democrat ; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 263-309. 173 at the Tontogony station; purchased groceries and building materials from local businesses; subscribed to the Central Law Journal from St. Louis, Missouri; and ran advertisements in the

Wood County Reporter offering his legal services. Baldwin also received payments for court decisions from clients throughout Ohio and the Midwest. Although a prominent lawyer,

Baldwin’s activities buying merchandise and working in Wood County were typical of many residents’ market interactions.12

Newspaper ads for various items signified the economic changes of Bowling Green.

Beyond the typical notices for dry goods and groceries from local merchants such as G. W.

Gaghan and Company and R. W. McMahan, ads for home pianos and organs from

Massachusetts and Vermont appeared regularly in the Wood County Sentinel and Bowling Green

Democrat in the 1870s and 1880s. To be able to purchase musical instruments for homes, residents needed both the money to purchase them as well as a well-appointed parlor in which to place them. Thus, such ads and sales signify the growth of a middling class in Bowling Green and increased economic well-being for at least some residents. Purchasing home furnishings such as curtains and furniture and clothing items such as bonnets and footwear also allowed resident to move beyond self-sufficiency to a greater number of market interactions through buying such products. Allowing women to have more time to pursue other endeavors, sewing machines and sifters eased work formerly done by hand.13

Also delineating economic changes within the town, ads for professional services

appeared in local newspapers. In regards to men practicing law or medicine, Bowling Green and surrounding communities such as Pemberville and North Baltimore had a growing list of

12. Receipts and vouchers, Chidester-Baldwin Papers (BGSU CAC, MS 1031 Box 1, Folders 1, 2, 5, 7); “Biographical Sketch,” Chidester-Baldwin Papers. Retrieved 13 November 2008 from the BGSU Center for Archival Collections: (http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/cac/ms/page46144.html). 13. Wood County Sentinel; Bowling Green Democrat. 174 attorneys and physicians serving residents. Many of these professionals would not only practice in Bowling Green but also throughout Wood County and adjoining counties. In response to immigrants arriving from German-speaking areas, lawyer T. N. Bierly of Pemberville publicized that he could conduct business in both German and English. Newspaper advertisements for non- essential products and professional services represented residents’ connections within small towns and the economic development and maturation of these same communities. The controversy concerning the relocation of the county government to Bowling Green from

Perrysburg combined both issues of wider connections among farmers and town residents and links prompting the internal growth of Bowling Green.14

Prospering due to connections with its own hinterland and bigger cities, Bryan in

Williams County served as another important small town within the hinterland of Toledo.

Unlike Bowling Green, Bryan was situated on and thrived upon business from the Lake Shore

and Michigan Southern Railroad.15 Such connections provided merchants with products to sell

to residents and farmers a way to get surplus crops to larger markets to sell. Besides the typical

assortment of dry goods and groceries not produced locally, items manufactured outside of

northwest Ohio and advertised in the Bryan Democrat for sale around 1870 included the

American Company shuttle sewing machine, wines and liquors, clothes and hats, agricultural machines, and stoves and metal ware. In the mid-1870s, the Bryan Democrat published market reports from Toledo, Buffalo, New York, and Chicago providing a sense of where the strongest connections for selling surplus agricultural products were. Demonstrating local links with the surrounding agricultural hinterland, the town had the Bryan Livery and Sale Stables, Bryan

14. Wood County Sentinel; Bowling Green Democrat. 15. The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad was formed through the merger of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad and the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad. See Chapter Three for more information on the origins and early operation of these railroads. 175

Foundry and Machine Shop, and David C. Plank’s blacksmithing business among others assisting farmers with repairing farm equipment and furnishing teams of horses. Also, Gleason and Baxter operated a grain elevator and carriage shop that was tightly linked to business with the hinterland. Many of Bryan’s businesses established and strengthened connections among that town and farmers and other cities.

While Bryan residents extended their outward connections, various people working in or buying from establishments in the town prompted local economic changes in the two decades after the Civil War. First, the Bryan Normal and Commercial College provided instruction for teachers and future merchants that would potentially teach local children or go into business in

Williams County adding to its economic development. Ads for the college appeared in the local newspaper until the early 1870s. Second, the Bryan Bank and Savings and Loan Institution provided loans and financial services to the residents of Bryan and Williams County. Such activities included providing capital to farmers to invest in more land, new implements, seeds, or machines. Businessmen and manufacturers could also use the banks services to procure money to invest in new products or expansion of their operations. The bank likely was involved in activities associated with Clark’s Addition, land annexed to Bryan in May 1878. Third, hotels in

Bryan such as the Bryan House and the Crosby House provided lodging and meals for people passing through the town or those coming to the area to conduct business. Fourth, the Fountain

City Brewery owned and operated by Jacob Halm supplied saloons and private families with locally-produced lager at short notice. These local establishments contributed to the overall development of that community and the surrounding area.16

16. Bryan Democrat (BGSU CAC, rolls 2-5). 176

In Henry County, Napoleon, situated on the Wabash and Erie Canal and various railroads, served as another important node within the system of cities in northwest Ohio. As with Bowling Green and Bryan, people’s connections to the town’s immediate hinterland and beyond as well as from local business expansion stimulated further economic changes. Showing the distant locations to which Napoleon was connected, the Napoleon Democratic Northwest contained train timetables for the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific; the local line of the Toledo,

Delphos and Burlington; the Columbus and Toledo; the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; the

Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago; and the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Division. Shop owners often advertised that their goods came from markets such as New York or Chicago to entice residents to browse, at minimum, new stocks of products not produced locally such as clothing, pianos and organs, and farm machinery. As with Bowling Green, dealers selling large musical instruments to use in the home signaled money available for big non-essential items as well as more spacious houses with parlors in which to place the new instruments. Merchants also advertised The Gem flour and sauce sifter and the Remington sewing machine for use in the home to ease household chores. Local businesses that created and strengthened connections among nearby residents and with farmers included the First National Bank of Napoleon, the

Napoleon Carriage and Wagon Works, the Napoleon Foundry and Machine Shop specializing in repair work, and Otto Honeck’s Napoleon Steam Brick and Tile Works. Exemplifying the connections with its immediate hinterland and developing community, Napoleon functioned as the hub of activity in Henry County and, thus, as a node within the Toledo subregional system of cities.17

17. Napoleon Democratic Northwest (BGSU CAC, rolls 5-8). 177

Having both connections with distant areas as well as strengthening linkages between the town and immediate hinterland, the town of Defiance in the Maumee River Valley also functioned as an important node within the system of cities in northwest Ohio. In 1875, the

Defiance Democrat printed train schedules for two railroads: the Toledo, Wabash and Western and the B & O Chicago Division. Two years later, the newspaper added timetables for the

Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad; the Detroit, Eel River and Illinois railroad; and the

Dayton and Michigan railroad while in 1880 it added schedules for the Cleveland and Toledo railroad and the Toledo division of the Mansfield, Coldwater and Lake Michigan railroad. Land sale business continued around Defiance and in states west of Ohio; advertisements for real estate agents Randall and Helmick listed properties in Defiance Township as well as Iowa and

Illinois for sale while noting Randall was also an attorney lending reliability to potential sales.

Home furnishing businesses such as L. E. Herring’s dealing in wallpapers and the Defiance Sash,

Door, and Blind Works showed establishments focusing on construction of new homes in and around the town. Farmers and town merchants conducted business together buying and selling

McCormick Harvesters and Buffalo Pitts threshing machines as well as binders and seed drills manufactured outside of northwest Ohio. Workers at the Defiance Machine Works made plows and other agricultural implements for sale in the area and beyond. Having connections to bigger cities from which businessmen brought goods and products and to its immediate hinterland,

Defiance functioned as an important town showing expansion through market interactions and agricultural and manufacturing.18

18. Defiance Democrat (BGSU CAC, rolls 8-9) 178

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURING

Continuing drainage efforts and forest clearing continued through the 1870s and 1880s throughout northwest Ohio permitted farmers to either expand their operations adding the potential for increased market interactions. Every county in northwest Ohio except Paulding

County gained more improved farmland from 1870 to 1880 with Paulding, Henry, and Ottawa

Counties having the greatest relative increase. (See Chart 5.3, Appendix) Each of these three counties had large areas within the Black Swamp and thus had the greatest potential to increase the amount of improved land overall. However, the amount of improved land per farm decreased slightly in Paulding and Fulton Counties and remained nearly unchanged in Hancock

County while this figure increased in the other northwest Ohio counties. (See Chart 5.4,

Appendix) The likely cause of these figures involved a faster increase in the number of farms relative to the amount of improved land in the counties of Paulding and Fulton. With the completion of the Jackson Cutoff ditch project in Wood County, the total amount of improved farmland increased between 1870 and 1880 by over 64,000 acres—about 54%— while the number of farms in that county grew by about 1,400 thereby only increasing the overall amount of improved land per farm by less than an acre during that decade. Thus, with more residents establishing farms and improving the land, connections grew among farmers, small town merchants, and urban businessmen.19

A key linkage between city dwellers and nearby farmers was the production and sale of

market garden produce that residents on the outskirts of a town would grow specifically for sale

in the city. Another term for this type of operation was truck farm. Within the Defiance area,

19. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 179

Bell and Smith grocers advertised that they would pay cash for country produce. Not surprisingly, Lucas County, with the expanding city of Toledo, had the largest total value of market garden products in northwest Ohio following the Civil War. (See Chart 5.5, Appendix)

However, the enormous difference between Lucas and the other counties illuminated the great importance agricultural production had on the borderlands of bigger cities where urban residents did not grow their own food thus depending on crops and produce grown nearby. A graph omitting Lucas County’s figures allows for clearer analysis of market garden production within the hinterland of Toledo. (See Chart 5.6, Appendix) Seneca, Sandusky, Wood, and Henry

Counties each had at least one relatively large and growing town around which truck farms developed. Such a disparity among counties further exposed the factor of growing towns and hinterland production where larger towns would often stimulate economic changes within their surrounding rural areas more than smaller villages. No matter the size of the city or town, some scale of agriculture was vital to the personal and economic well-being of residents.20

Linking agriculture and industrialization, the great overall importance of agriculture and

its toilsome work prompted the design and sale of labor reducing machines for farming.

Examples advertised in local newspapers included, among others, McCormick Reapers

manufactured in Chicago, Buffalo Pits Threshers, Buckeye Mower/Table Rakes, and the

Improved Dorsey Reaper and Mower. Often, drawings of these machines appeared in the ads to

entice farmers to purchase them by depicting the new ease of work with them compared to hand

tools such as scythes or rakes. Reapers allowed farmers to more quickly cut wheat for harvest

while mechanical threshers helped separate grains of wheat without the use of wind through an

20. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html); Defiance Democrat; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 46-52. 180 open barn door. An ad for the Nichols, Shepard and Company “Vibrator” Thresher made in

Battle Creek, Michigan, touted that the thresher was “highly advantageous to run a machine that has no ‘Beaters,’ ‘Pickers,’ or ‘Apron.’”21 Table rakes lessened the work of collecting grasses

cut with hand scythes, and later, mowers. Not only did these new agricultural machines make

farming more efficient forcing former hired hands to find new work but the equipment also

signified important connections between farmers and manufacturing establishments in other

cities such as Chicago.22

Equally important in explaining the symbiotic development of urban and rural areas was

manufacturing using raw materials from either outside or within the subregion as well as selling

products to local residents or to people living in distant markets. For northwest Ohio, much of its economic development associated with manufacturing from 1865 until the oil and gas boom of the late 1880s was intensive, or locally focused. The number of manufacturing establishments increased in each northwest Ohio county between 1860 and 1870, yet the census does not capture a likely spike in number of firms during the Civil War which produced items for Union armies or items farmers needed for increased harvests to feed residents and soldiers of the Northern states.

(See Chart 5.7, Appendix) Despite its location as an important shipping center and potential center of manufacturing, Toledo and Lucas County did not have the most manufacturing establishments in the counties of northwest Ohio in 1860 or 1870. Seneca County had more in those two years while Sandusky County also had more than Lucas in 1870. However, during the

1870s, as Toledo began to spur the development of its hinterland more strongly, Lucas County gained many more manufacturing establishments than any other county in northwest Ohio.

21. Wood County Sentinel, 8 July 1875 (BGSU CAC roll 3a). 22. Bryan Democrat; Defiance Democrat; Napoleon Democratic Northwest; Wood County Sentinel; Bowling Green Democrat. 181

The size of these firms also affected what sorts of activities and growth potentials each county had following the Civil War. Although Lucas County did not have the greatest number of manufacturing establishments among counties in northwest Ohio in 1860 or 1870, it did have the most people employed in manufacturing of any county in the area. (See Chart 5.8, Appendix)

Counties with fewer firms had vastly smaller numbers of people employed in manufacturing. In

1870 and 1880, Lucas County had roughly twice as many workers per company than the county with the next greatest amount and, therefore, had larger manufacturing establishments on average. These establishments could produce larger quantities of smaller items or had the capability to produce larger products. (See Chart 5.9, Appendix) Having larger establishments able to produce various items easily led to Lucas County having a greater total value of manufactured products in the two decades after the Civil War compared to other northwest Ohio counties. (See Chart 5.10, Appendix) Having more factories and manufacturing establishments producing a greater variety of items than those in smaller towns reflected the specialization within Toledo placing it higher in a central place hierarchy of cities.23

Moreover, the varied situations within and connections among towns and farms a part of

Toledo’s hinterland created the disparities among county sums of total people employed in

manufacturing, average number of employees per establishment, and value of manufactured

products. Jesup Scott and Toledo businessmen believed that the greatness of their city would appear even more clearly with the expansion of manufacturing activities. Although Toledo did not become the great transportation and manufacturing center those boosters anticipated, it did produce many manufactured goods and provided jobs for those moving to the city either from

23. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 182

Europe or another state or people migrating from rural areas in northwest Ohio who were no longer needed as farm workers. Other counties around Lucas County had less manufacturing activity with local residents primarily using the products. Yet, even in those counties, differences linked to agriculture and land quality appeared. For example, Ottawa and Paulding

Counties had fewer acres of improved farmland than other northwest Ohio counties, but these locations had relatively larger numbers of people employed per manufacturing establishment thereby signifying small scale manufacturing being an important alternative to farming.

However, the relative difference of the number of people employed per manufacturing establishment in Defiance County in 1880 formed a different situation. The importance of small- scale industry to agriculture as that county had more improved land per farm than most other northwest Ohio counties created a market for farm implements. Thus, agriculture, manufacturing, and land condition were intricately linked.24

CONCLUSION

The integration of agriculture, manufacturing, and urban growth in northwest Ohio from

the 1860s to the mid-1880s delineated the symbiotic growth of Toledo and its rural hinterland as

well as exposed the connection between urbanization and industrialization in the post-Civil War

United States. Agricultural products farmers grew in the immediate and extended hinterlands of

Toledo and sold in or shipped through the city helped Toledo’s markets to expand which in turn

increased the potential for more commercial activities and small scale manufacturing. This

industrial growth supported increased agricultural production and provided items that merchants

sold to residents of the growing towns around Toledo. Thus, the growth of an urban core of

24. Brian Page and Richard Walker, “From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest,” Economic Geography 67, no. 4 (October 1991), 281-315; Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 183 businesses encouraged more agricultural production in the hinterland and small scale manufacturing both in the hub as well as the nodes of the system of cities which produced more urban growth overall. This concurrent urbanization and industrialization enhanced the symbiotic growth of Toledo and the rural areas around it where, after the Civil War, Toledo pulled the development of its hinterland which consisted of farming areas pushing the expansion of local economic centers such as Bowling Green, Bryan, Defiance, and Napoleon. The pull on agricultural areas seemed to push smaller urban areas.

The economic and population growth of northwest Ohio depended upon agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Farmers sold their surplus crops to earn money to purchase more land and items they could not make themselves such as improved agricultural implements, hardware, dry goods, and groceries. Local workers manufactured some of the goods farmers and urban residents desired while merchants acted as intermediaries in these interactions as well as selling various goods made in other regions. Manufacturing products on a more local basis made those items less expensive for those buying them through reducing transportation costs.

Immigrants to northwest Ohio provided a workforce for farms and factories as well as a group of buyers to purchase the new products. However, new equipment, whether manufactured in local establishments or in other states, made farming less labor intensive forcing many farm laborers out of a job. Many of these workers migrated to towns and cities often finding work in the increasing number of manufacturing establishments. However, the rates of use of these new machines were uneven across northwest Ohio showing an irregular development of new factories and small towns and the strength of connections among Toledo and its rural areas.

Moreover, with past activities creating a foundation of transportation networks and improved land quality, Toledo and smaller towns throughout northwest Ohio grew in population 184 and number of economic interactions as well as strengthened connections among one another and with their immediate hinterlands. With this expansion, the subregional model entered its late stage of development with more nodes, additional lines showing increasing connections, and darker lines representing stronger links among people. Agriculture was more productive with improved land quality and farmers could more easily sell surplus crops if they were near railroads or maintained roads because transportation costs would be less. Likewise, an extensive transportation network allowed manufacturers to get raw materials and move finished products for sale. The intensive economic growth of northwest Ohio flourished not only because farms and small towns had transportation connections to Toledo but also due to small towns having roads linking them to surrounding agricultural areas whose land residents improved with open ditches and underground drainage tiles. Local farmers produced more food for urban residents allowing those people in Toledo and small towns to pursue other commercial, manufacturing, and professional ventures that in turn spurred more economic growth and road construction and land improvement. However, land quality and proximity to transportation networks continued to influence the varied rates and types of growth within the subregional system of cities of Toledo.

Beginning in the mid-1880s, the oil and gas boom altered symbiotic relationships between urban and rural areas in northwest Ohio.

The mid-1880s served as a beginning of a new era of symbiotic economic development for Toledo and its hinterland. Farmers in southern Wood County and Hancock County discovered oil and natural gas under their fields. This not only produced new economic activities in those counties focused on the extraction of the natural resources but also created new connections among businessmen and workers in Toledo and the residents near the oil and gas fields. Men such as Edward Libbey and Samuel M. Jones established manufacturing companies 185 in Toledo and its suburbs related to the newly discovered resources. In Bowling Green and

Findlay, businessmen amassed great fortunes and county officials in those towns authorized the construction of new courthouses financed by proceeds from the oil and gas boom. Closer to the resource fields, new towns grew to support workers’ needs. Moreover, the economic boom derived from the connections between Toledo and its hinterland beginning in the mid-1880s seemed to position northwest Ohio as an increasingly important area of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century. 186

CHAPTER SIX NORTHWEST OHIO AT THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

An 1888 editorial by William H. Maher in the Toledo Blade portrayed the debates involving piping gas supplies for Toledo factories. In the Waterville gas field near Toledo, drillers had drilled many wells in recent months producing a total of three million cubic feet of gas per day. Many businessmen desired a pipe line from the Waterville fields based upon perceived abundance of gas, but the editor believed gas for Toledo industries should come from

Wood or Hancock Counties because they had existing policies for shipment. Maher continued asserting that the need to secure good gas land should precede the contemplation of expending money for a pipeline. Although the cry had been that Toledo did not have sufficient access to cheap gas for factories, city boosters could not see going into the fuel business which they likened to furnishing flour. Local officials did not want to tax the whole city to construct a pipeline from the Waterville area increasing property values and allowing real estate investors to unload properties at a substantial profit. Maher believed that if the speculators were willing to invest their own money then the pipeline project would have been finished. These events and debates encapsulate the new economic development created through the discovery and utilization of gas and oil supplies in Toledo’s immediate hinterland. Cheap fuel supported industrial growth throughout northwest Ohio in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.1

INTRODUCTION

The links between urbanization and industrialization continued to expand throughout

northwest Ohio during the last decades of the nineteenth century due to the symbiotic growth of

Toledo and its immediate hinterland consisting of smaller economic centers and their environs.

New discoveries of large reserves of petroleum and natural gas prompted much speculation in

1. Toledo Blade, 17 August 1888. 187 land and well digging. Such entrepreneurial activities spurred population growth as people moved to towns near the gas fields and new factories located in growing cities and fueled by the newly discovered resources. Major industries such as glass making developed in Toledo due in large part to the availability of cheap natural gas from fields south of the city. Moreover, as more people migrated to major industrializing cities such as Toledo from within the United

States or from Europe, more residential, commercial, and governmental buildings were constructed and factories could expand operations with the larger potential workforce. Likewise, agricultural activities remained a viable part of subregional economic development in order to feed the increasing local populations and sell products in the national market. In northwest Ohio with newly found fuel resources and industrial and agricultural endeavors, towns and cities continued to expand spatially, and residents continued to strengthen connections among each other and with people living in towns’ immediate hinterlands as the twentieth century approached.

Different economic activities required certain amounts of land for use. People’s ideas at that time and the major economic activities within specific areas determined land usage.

Agriculture was the dominant economic activity throughout Ohio during the nineteenth century, but industrialization transformed many growing urban areas such as Toledo in Lucas County.

Urbanization and industrialization were strongly tied because factories drew more people to a smaller area and these people established business practices and residential patterns that contributed to urbanization. Thus, the major land uses and therefore economic bases in northwest Ohio around 1900 remained farming and manufacturing.

The history of Toledo and northwest Ohio in the final decades of the nineteenth century consists of three broad components. First, beginning in the mid-1880s, speculation in and new 188 connections formed from discoveries of large reserves of oil and natural gas provided new possibilities for economic development. In the smaller cities of Findlay and Bowling Green near the oil and gas fields, land speculators, wildcat drillers, and businessmen each played vital roles in the processes of urbanization and industrialization as people flocked to Hancock and Wood

Counties hoping to become rich in the gas and oil booms and new businesses and industries formed related to the newly discovered resource deposits. Moreover, cheap fuels linked Toledo to its immediate hinterland more tightly as men like Samuel Jones and Edward Libbey established modern factories on the edge of the city. Second, in addition to growth stimulated with the oil and gas boom, new towns formed while many older ones grew through expanding connections among each other. The epitome of urban development in county seats was a majestic courthouse rivaling those of neighboring counties. Third, population and economic trends of northwest Ohio as the twentieth century approached revealed strengths and weaknesses of the urban system of the area.

THE GAS AND OIL BOOMS

By the mid-1800s, many people became engrossed in locating fields of gas and petroleum in Ohio, and, subsequently, the General Assembly commissioned a study reporting on these natural resources. State geologist Edward Orton collected information on rock formations, drilling procedures, and presumed supplies of natural gas and oil throughout Ohio and published his preliminary findings in 1886. With respect to prospecting for wells and booming economic ventures, major discoveries of gas and petroleum throughout western Ohio made those individual locations analogous to Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania according to Orton. Through research comparing the geology of the areas around the important gas and oil discoveries, Orton asserted that locations of oil and gas had three elements: a porous rock layer serving as a reservoir 189 covered by a close, fine-grained impervious rock layer and a source of oil with gas over it. He also found that a coarser grain and thicker stratum of sandstone between ground level and the fuel deposits meant a larger amount of production possible for wells. Often, the rock covering the collection of fuels was Trenton limestone, but in northwest Ohio, magnesian limestone encased the deposits of natural gas and petroleum. Although Orton believed one needed more than a deep hole to get gas and petroleum profitably, many people tried to emulate those in the older Pennsylvania oil fields and near newly discovered sources by sinking new wells hoping to get rich quickly.2

However, Orton not only observed that many new wells were dry but also that productive

wells often impaired the ability to extract all of the oil and gas from the underground reservoirs.

Orton wrote that people in every county in a twenty-seven county area with Trenton limestone had sunk wells looking for gas and oil; however, Hancock, Wood, and Allen were the only ones with reliable supplies. Also, he surmised that supplies were likely limited geographically—four major production areas existed throughout northern Ohio—and residents were unlikely to find any new places distant from current areas of extraction. When he published his findings, Orton noted that productive territory appeared in spots that were difficult to draw lines around limiting meaningful conclusions. For example, in northwest Ohio, the North Baltimore field was unproductive as were three wells in Toledo and some in Arlington and Kenton. Describing the boom around Findlay and the subsequent speculative drilling nearby, Orton proposed that public policy should limit the number of wells and protect supply of oil and gas realizing that quantities of the resources were finite and once gone they could not be replaced.3

2. Edward Orton, Preliminary Report upon Petroleum and Inflamable Gas (Columbus: Westbote Company, 1886), 5, 10-11. 3. Orton, Preliminary Report, 47, 50. 190

The gas and oil boom in northwest Ohio began with the discovery of large amounts of natural gas near Findlay in November 1884. Although evidence of gas near the surface existed in Hancock County since the earliest Euro-American settlement, residents did not find large pockets of the resource until a flame shot up at a pioneer well of Dr. Charles Osterlin showing that gas was available.4 He discovered the pocket of gas as he dug cisterns and wells on his property, and as a result, Osterlin and Charles J. Eckels established the Findlay Natural Gas

Company to drill for the fuel. W. M. Martin created a second well for Findlay Gas Light and

Coke Company in 1885, and at about the same time, W. K. Martin completed another well to run

his machine shop and the Findlay Gas Light Company dug a well for the Adams Machine Shop

near the Lake Erie and Western railroad station. This fourth well began producing oil thus

limiting the supply of gas workers could extract. These early wells became so profitable that

much speculation occurred with residents erecting derricks on their properties within the city

limits hoping to strike a reserve and become rich selling what they did not personally use or

waste.5

The number of productive wells and the amount of gas supplied from these sources prompted many residents and scholars to believe that the Findlay gas fields contained enough reserves to satisfy their needs for many years. Residents with active wells often used the gas produced to light and heat their homes while often letting the lights burn throughout the daytime; however, if a supply was more abundant than what the household could use, the owner would often leave the well unstopped wasting the fuel believing there was plenty to use. City

4. Fuel reserves normally contained petroleum with a layer of natural gas above it and often had an underground source of water nearby. Thus, as pioneers dug wells to extract water, they sometimes hit a small amount of gas. Once drillers extracted nearly all of the gas in a reserve, oil would then rise up in the well. With the appearance of water, drillers determined virtually no more fuel was available for extraction. 5. Orton, Preliminary Report, 5, 31-39; Jacob A. Spaythe, History of Hancock County, Ohio: Geographical and Statistical (Toledo: B. F. Wade Company, 1903), 94-95. 191 administrators also utilized the natural gas to illuminate the town’s streetlights at all hours of the day assuming the gas supplies would not run out in a short time if at all. Manufacturing establishments utilizing gas in Findlay included glass factories, rolling mills, brick and tile factories, potteries, lantern works, tube works, and wire nail factories. Nevertheless, one scholar argued that some local officials underestimated the amount of gas reserves under Findlay. Under the headline “Findlay in Peril,” the Toledo Blade reported that Dr. Ernst Weissenbauer, professor of geology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, believed the town could easily suffer a catastrophic explosion when an underground fire would melt rock layers and ignite the vast caverns of gas underlying Findlay, which Weissenbauer considered bigger than other people estimated. Luckily, the city never exploded.6

To the north in Wood County, the areas south of Bowling Green and just outside the

town contained the majority of the gas production for the county. According to Orton, the gas

field near Bowling Green had rock features similar to Findlay, but the main city of central Wood

County was closer to sea level than Findlay meaning the fuel reserves rested closer to the surface

and people could drill shallower wells to retrieve the resources. Orton asserted in his report that

Bowling Green residents were fortunate not to find wells within city limits as people would have

constructed derricks on virtually every lot leading to waste and a depleted supply as was

occurring around that time in Findlay. Orton realized that with a quicker reduction in pressure would result in a premature exhaustion of supply. With the main wells outside of the growing town, suppliers reaped near monopolies in furnishing gas to residents in the city limits of

Bowling Green. Such business practices provided gas at one-third the price of coal and wood for doing the same amount of work for heating and cooking while also being less troublesome to use

6. Toledo Blade, 1 August 1888. 192 than other fuels. During the boom year of 1887, an estimated 25 million cubic feet of gas flowed from the Bowling Green gas field helping real estate prices to skyrocket. Moreover, the gas reserves provided an impetus for new businesses and construction projects in and around

Bowling Green.7

Supplying fuel, pipes, and household fixtures, the Bowling Green Natural Gas Company,

incorporated in 1884, developed its prominent place in the local community and economy during

the late 1880s. The terms and conditions under which the company supplied gas to its customers

provide interesting overview of the company’s policies and procedures related to billing. First,

charges for the gas began at the time of connection continuing without refund until ending of

service while customers discontinuing use needed to provide written notification to the company

and pay for all gas up to the time of notification. These policies ensured that the company would

receive compensation for its entire supply of gas to customers. Second, bills were due by a specified day each month paying for gas in advance with service disconnected for delinquent customers. A receipt for local attorney Frank A. Baldwin listed the price for gas for cooking at

$1.50 with similar payments for lighting and heating his residence and office. Paying in advance also made certain the company received payment for fuel provided because customers could easily use gas and never pay for it if the company collected fees after supplying gas to customers.

Likewise, ceasing service for delinquency guaranteed the company would be paid for fuel people used. Third, the company prohibited customers from altering a connection without written consent thereby making certain no fuel was wasted and the customers paid the proper amount for the amounts of gas they used. Besides potential safety issues involved, modified connections allowed a customer to utilize fuel for more fixtures than the company believed it was billing that

7. Orton, Preliminary Report, 39-41; Charles Sumner Van Tassel, The First One Hundred Years of Bowling Green, Ohio (Bowling Green: n.p., 1933), 57. 193 particular person. Baldwin also paid the company for pipe and accessories in 1886. Gas was a resource with which many businessmen could reap large profits, and these individuals wanted to protect their ability to make money.8

Supplies of gas prompted many factories and stores to locate in Bowling Green during the years of the gas boom. To entice manufacturers to construct shops in or near the expanding

town, business boosters created the slogan “free gas for factories” and advertised it in various

publications. Between 1887 and 1889, at the height of the gas boom, people built three hundred

new businesses and homes and renovated or expanded many others. Real estate brokers met in

the business rooms of many hotels to conduct dealings. Businessmen and professionals used the

money they made during these years to construct large homes west of the downtown area.

Throughout the 1890s, gas discoveries stimulated expansion of the business district with new and

renovated buildings. Some of the new establishments included the Disciple Church, Hotel

Brown and the Milliken Hotel, a number of banks, an opera house, and numerous stores

throughout the stone- and brick-faced mercantile blocks. Just beyond the business district were

the Bowling Green City Hall—to the west—and the Wood County Courthouse completed in

1896—to the east. Bowling Green residents involved in oil or gas production such as Frank E.

Wood and Third Ward Councilman Israel Hankey used business profits to build homes west of

the downtown area. People in Bowling Green viewed new factories and the building boom,

founded on gas discoveries, as progress for their maturing city at the approach of a new century.9

Having gas reserves within city limits, like Findlay, or just outside the town, as with

Bowling Green, indeed allowed those communities to prosper. Smaller supplies on farmland

8. Bowling Green Natural Gas receipts, 1886, Chidester-Baldwin Papers (BGSU CAC, MS 1031 Box 1, Folder 9). 9. City Directory, Bowling Green, Ohio (Bowling Green: E. M. Hubbard, 1897), 78, 188; Van Tassel, The First One Hundred Years, 57-58, 62-68. 194 farther from towns mostly benefited the person on whose land gas or oil appeared. Often, these individuals would wastefully use the gas or merely let it flow up from the ground not having the necessary equipment to collect fuel for later use. Therefore, to provide adequate quantities to growing towns not near oil or gas fields, Orton maintained that companies should construct pipelines to transport the fuels from the fields. The Bloomdale gas well, drilled in 1886 near

Fostoria, was an example of such procedures in piping gas to a growing town. Although Orton believed the Bloomdale field would have a longer life merely producing fuel for use primarily in

Fostoria residences and factories, he feared locals near Bloomdale would sink unnecessary wells, as in Findlay, decreasing long term viability of the field. Many companies devised plans to move gas and oil from fields throughout northwest Ohio to Toledo. Moreover, it was the piping of gas and oil supplies from the immediate hinterland of Toledo to that city offering the groundwork and impetus for the growth of the manufacturing industries that provided the economic base for Toledo at the beginning of the twentieth century.10

One of the key individuals whose activities linked oil and gas resources in the hinterland to Toledo’s growing urban industrial area was Samuel M. Jones. Born in Wales in 1846 and migrating to and working in the Pennsylvania oil fields as a young man, Jones moved to Lima around 1886 and struck oil at the Tunget well three miles east of town helping to form the Ohio

Oil Company in 1887. Subsequently, in 1889, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company purchased the Ohio Oil Company providing Jones a sum of money that he used to develop the new Geyser Oil Company. Jones experimented with oil drilling equipment at the Geyser

Company taking his fresh ideas to Toledo while looking for more opportunities to experiment and implement new procedures. After marrying Helen Beach, a woman from a prominent

10. Orton, Preliminary Report, 46-47, 53. 195

Toledo family in 1892, he continued to spend time in the Lima fields improving his drilling process, working to improve efficiency, and eventually creating his sucker rod among other inventions. A patent for his all-metal sucker rod came in 1894. Jones established a factory in south Toledo on Segur Avenue to manufacture his new rods, and the nationwide industrial depression triggered Jones to modify his beliefs about workers. His beneficence earned him the sobriquet “Golden Rule Jones” and helped him to become Toledo’s mayor in 1897.11

Another influential businessman who played a vital role in new oil and gas supported

industries in Toledo was Edward Libbey. In 1888, he brought his New England Glass Company to northwest Ohio from East Cambridge, Massachusetts to take advantage of cheap fuel and new

markets available around Toledo. At his Ash Street plant, Libbey employed Michael J. Owens

as a supervisor, and Libbey changed the firm’s name to the Libbey Glass Company in 1892 to

create a better identification for his work. The following year, Libbey invested in the

construction of a working glass factory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago where he

attracted national attention increasing sales of his decorative glass products. The Libbey Glass

Company licensed Owens’ semi-automatic glass container blowing process in 1895 still increasing its business and market connections outside northwest Ohio. Further, in 1900, Owens created a fully automatic process for making bottles and formed the Owens Bottle Machine

Company. Finally, in 1898, Edward Ford established a factory to manufacture plate glass in

Rossford across the Maumee River from Toledo. Over the next four decades, these glass companies would merge creating new corporations headquartered in northwest Ohio, but these business dealings and innovations began with Edward Libbey transplanting his company taking

11. Marnie Jones, Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of “Golden Rule” Jones (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 61-64; George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its People, 3rd ed. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2003), 316-317; Andrew R. L. Cayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), 220-224. 196 advantage of inexpensive fuel sources south of Toledo. His products linked the city to other towns and homes in northwest Ohio and the world providing Toledo with the title of “Glass

City.”12

DEVELOPMENT OF TOWNS WITHIN TOLEDO’S IMMEDIATE HINTERLAND

During the 1880s and 1890s, new towns formed throughout northwest Ohio. Located in

southern Wood County as residents constructed new gas wells, some of the places first appearing

in the 1890 census included Cygnet, Bairdstown, and Bloomdale. By the next census,

Bairdstown lost population while Bloomdale and Cygnet grew by about forty-two percent and

thirty-four percent, respectively. Agricultural activity continued to stimulate the growth of rural

villages throughout northwest Ohio. In relatively thinly populated Paulding County, the new villages of Scott, Melrose, Oakwood, Cecil, Payne, and Latty also first appeared in the Eleventh

Census of the United States. Of these six villages, only Payne gained population by 1900. The fluid nature of populations linked to the difficult settlement conditions within the area generated these decreases.13

However, many established towns continued to gain residents either through annexation

of land or migration although rates of population growth of communities throughout northwest

Ohio slackened. Many townships lost population during the 1880s and 1890s as residents

moved into towns or as these communities annexed land from the townships as was the case with

Bowling Green. Moreover, population growth, modern factories and schools, and household

innovations signified progress in the new and maturing towns. Businessmen touted new

economic ventures in expanding commercial districts, speculators attempted to make a profit

12. Barbara Floyd, Richard Oram, and Nola Skousen, “The City Built of Glass,” Labor’s Heritage 2, no. 4 (October 1990), 71-72. 13. Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, Volume 1: Population, “Table 5—Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions”; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table 5—Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions.” 197 selling land, and local officials built new schools and government buildings. The percentage of each county’s population living outside its major town or towns continued to reflect urbanization within the hinterland of Toledo. (See Figure 6.1) The populations of Toledo and Maumee in

Lucas County grew the most due to expanding industrialization and employment opportunities.

Not surprisingly, Sandusky and Seneca Counties on the edge of the Black Swamp had smaller percentages of rural populations than other northwest Ohio counties, but Defiance County had a relatively high percentage of urban population.14

Figure 6.1: Percentage of Population in Key Cities by County, 1890 and 1900

Source: Data compiled from Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, Volume 1: Population, “Table 5— Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions”; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table 5—Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions” and “Table 2—Aggregate Population by Counties, 1790-1900.”

County courthouses, presenting another use of land beyond residential, agricultural, and

commercial uses, became the focal point and source of pride of counties in the late nineteenth

century. The growth and overall economic strength of counties prompted officials to design and

construct such buildings. During the late nineteenth century, commissioners throughout Ohio

14. Eleventh Census, 1890, Volume 1, “Table 5”; Twelfth Census, 1900, Volume 1, “Table 5.” 198 and neighboring states authorized expenditures to build an impressive structure to house county government offices in which to conduct county business such as maintaining building and tax records and adjudicating legal disputes. The expansion of governmental activities and commerce during the late nineteenth century and the use of resources and land embodying residents’ senses of progress enhanced the prominence of courthouses in the county seats of government.15

In Hancock County, the increase in business and industry the discovery of gas and oil supplies spurred demanded a larger and grander building because county administrators such as auditors and recorders had more transactions to oversee and many officials believed the courthouse needed to reflect the progress shown through new factories. In 1885, the General

Assembly authorized Hancock County to issue $100,000 of bonds to finance the construction of a new building to accommodate government offices. Amid great fanfare and festivities, workers laid the cornerstone for the new building on August 11, 1886, and the commissioners dedicated the courthouse for use two years later on October 27. However, elaborate furnishings and decorative elements put the project well over budget for a total cost of nearly $300,000. Workers used no wood in the construction except in window frames, doors, and some floors to make the structure virtually fireproof.16 Builders used locally quarried stone and fired brick to form the

walls and accent the exteriors of windows. Also signs of an advancing community, the clock

face on the courthouse tower could be illuminated using gas or electric lights while a statute of

the county’s namesake, John Hancock, stood atop the building’s dome. The grand size of the

new courthouse satisfied both the need for more office space and larger courtrooms and public

15. L. Diane Barnes, “Booster Ethos: Community, Image, and Profit in Early Clarksburg,” West Virginia History 56 (1997), 33-34. See Lawrence J. Marzulli, The Development of Ohio’s Counties and Their Historic Courthouses (Columbus: County Commissioners Association of Ohio, 1982) for a further discussion of the symbolic nature of county courthouses in Ohio and the late nineteenth century “competition” among counties to build the grandest buildings. 16. The courthouses of Henry County and Putnam County were often severely damaged in conflagrations during the 1800s. 199 desires for an opulent building befitting notions of progress reflected by new industries and businesses. Use of stone over wood contributed to the permanence of the new structure.17

Revealing the determination of county administrators to a build larger and more ornate

government edifices than those in neighboring counties, Wood County administrators

implemented plans in the 1890s to replace the first Bowling Green courthouse, a two-story red

brick building at the corner of Court and Summit Streets east of the business district. Residents

circulated petitions in January 1893 requesting legislation for a new courthouse, and the General

Assembly passed an enabling act the following month to permit the Wood County

commissioners to erect the new building and issue bonds not to exceed $200,000 covering

construction costs. To assist the three commissioners in the building project, the act for

construction appointed a building committee consisting of farmers John Ault and Edward B.

Beaverstock as well as attorney Frank A. Baldwin and bank president Earl W. Merry. However,

the commissioners failed to consult the committee and contracted in May 1893 with the

Columbus architectural firm of Yost and Packard to design the new courthouse.18 Workers

broke ground for the new structure on November 28, 1893, but inability to get Lake Erie sand

delayed construction that winter. An estimated 15,000 people crowded Bowling Green for the

laying of cornerstone on July 4, 1894. With the final cost totaling $255,746.84, commissioners

accepted the finished building on August 31, 1896, and county offices moved in during the

following two days although, at an October meeting, commissioners ordered extra electrical

17. Ohio General Assembly, “Laws of the State of Ohio,” 66th General Assembly, 1st Session, April 17, 1885; Spaythe, History of Hancock County, 100-102. 18. The court took up legal proceedings in response to commissioners not consulting the appointed building committee. In all, three county commissioners, a former commissioner, the architectural firm, and general contractor were indicted in connection with the courthouse construction. Three commissioners were found guilty of misconduct for employing the architect without consultation of Building Committee, but the prosecuting attorney cancelled all indictments in December 1895 and the Ohio Supreme Court overturned the convictions in March 1896. See Paul Willis Jones, Wood County Courthouse: Historical Highlights, 1894-2005 (Bowling Green: Sentinel Tribune, 2005), 4. 200 wiring in courtroom and auditor’s office and more lights in the main corridor. Upon completion, local newspapers described the new building as the “county’s new palatial temple of justice,”

“grand beyond any anticipation,” and “as magnificent a piece of architecture as [one] will ever deserve to see.”19

The new Wood County Courthouse also had connections to contractors throughout Ohio

and the United States and links to resource usage. The Richardsonian Romanesque style structure had massive stone walls resting on solid rock; sandstone from Amherst, Ohio; Vermont

granite; and limestone used for steps, platforms, and doorsills. To assist in transporting building

materials to the site, the Bowling Green City Council authorized building railroad tracks along

Pike Street with 750 carloads delivering materials over the course of construction. Other contracts included carving stone from W. D. Whyte of Dayton, furniture from M. Ohmer’s Sons in Dayton, and electrical wiring and fixtures from two suppliers in Toledo. Other decorative elements consisted of art glass from Flanigan and Biedenweg in Chicago, frescoing from O. J.

Koover and Son of Fort Wayne, mosaic tiles from a company in Zanesville, and the clock for the tower from E. Howard Watch and Clock Company in Chicago. Exterior stone carvings showed

representations of agriculture and commerce alongside a lady justice as well as reliefs of wheat

sheaves. Commissioners utilized materials and products from outside Wood County in their

efforts to create the grandest structure they could while still referencing the county’s heritage and

progress. Such links showed the strengthening connections within the state and national systems

of cities.20

In Lucas County, government activities quickly outgrew the structure originally built in

1852, necessitating many annexes added to the existing building. County commissioners

19. Wood County Commissioners Journals (roll 81); Jones, Wood County Courthouse, 3-4. 20. Jones, Wood County Courthouse, 7-8, 12. 201 deemed a new courthouse necessary. Built near the old courthouse on the bed of the former

Wabash and Erie Canal, the new Lucas County Courthouse was an example of the Beaux-Arts style. A design contest was held with David L. Stine submitting the winning design modeled after the courthouse in Buffalo, New York. A 1905 article from Western Architect Magazine stated that Stine’s design was “typical of the general inclination towards abolishing the conventional dome which [had] been deemed an essential in public buildings of this character and [was] fast becoming obsolete.”21 The low dome of the Lucas County Courthouse was

similar to the low dome seen in the Arts Building of the Columbian Exposition of 1893. The

structure and details of the newer courthouse built in Toledo mimicked those of other

government buildings around the United States. The construction of the current courthouse took

slightly longer than two years with the cornerstone laid on September 3, 1894, and the building

opening for public tours on January 1, 1897. The firm of Dun, Perley and Company constructed

the building using mainly Berea sandstone with the total cost of the structure estimated to be

about $500,000. The amount of money available from taxes that Lucas County officials had

available to spend based on the economic vitality of the area allowed such expenditures.22

POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS AND TRENDS

The populations of northwest Ohio counties continued to grow during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, but it was at a slower pace than previous decades. (See Chart

6.1, Appendix) The population figures for Lucas County from 1880 to 1910 show that although it grew rapidly during this time, the rate of population increase slackened considerably during the first decade of the twentieth century. The total population of Lucas County increased by about

21. William D. Speck, Toledo: A History in Architecture, 1890-1914 (San Francisco: Arcadia, 2002), 35. 22. Toledo Blade, 2 January 1897; Marzulli, The Development of Ohio’s Counties, 194; Speck, Toledo: A History in Architecture, 35. 202 fifty percent in both the 1880s and 1890s while such growth was only twenty-five percent between 1900 and 1910. Total population growth for all of Ohio was much slower than in Lucas

County with the rate of total population growth for each decade from 1880 until 1910 holding steady between thirteen and fifteen percent. This indicates that many more people were moving to Lucas County than to some other parts of the state during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Urbanization trends of this period would indicate that counties such as Lucas,

Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Franklin, and Montgomery would be the fastest growing areas of the state because of the major cities located within them. Therefore, areas with less industrialization attracted fewer new residents than counties with major industrializing cities as new and expanding factories provided more employment opportunities for unskilled workers emigrating from Europe or moving from elsewhere in North America.23

Throughout the rest of northwest Ohio, population growth rates were significantly lower

than in Lucas County during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Through drainage

efforts, Paulding County’s population nearly doubled in the 1880s, but the number of people

only increased about six percent in the 1890s likely due to less land available for farms after

rapid population growth the previous decade. Workers and speculators moving to Hancock

County in the 1880s to make money in the oil and gas fields helped the county’s population to

grow by over fifty-three percent during that decade. However, the population of Hancock

County declined just over one percent in the 1890s as workers and speculators moved to other

resource fields in Kansas and Oklahoma. Wood County’s population continued to increase in

the 1880s and 1890s with its gas boom spurring more manufacturing and ongoing drainage

23. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 203 efforts increasing the amount of farmland. Despite continued growth overall, the populations of all counties in northwest Ohio increased at notably lower rates in the 1890s. Compared with the populations of other rural counties throughout Ohio, those of northwest Ohio counties grew at greater rates in the 1870s and 1880s but lower rates in the 1890s. The combination of available land west of the Mississippi River, increasing employment opportunities in industrial cities such as Chicago, and declining immigration rates helped to engender this decline in growth rates.24

In America, urbanizing areas as well as rural areas attracted many people from foreign

countries. During the late nineteenth century, large numbers of immigrants came to the United

States to settle and take advantage of many of the characteristics of the country they believed to

be better than those in their homelands. Such immigration patterns added to the population and

potential workforce of industrializing areas. The population of foreign-born whites in Lucas

County increased by about nineteen percent in the 1890s, while this ratio declined throughout the rest of northwest Ohio, falling by anywhere from thirteen percent to thirty-four percent. The same ratio for the entire state of Ohio also declined slightly. The additional residents in Lucas

County provided a further increase in the potential workforce in newer factories. However, the overall decline of foreign-born whites in Ohio shows that some immigrants living in Ohio in

1890 moved out of the state by the end of the decade to find other work or perhaps to live near other family members in another part of the country. Immigration tended to decline after 1900 leading to fewer new potential workers settling in industrializing areas from other countries although internal migrations would continue.25

24. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 25. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, 1900, and 1910. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 204

ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND TRENDS

Population characteristics were connected to the economic conditions and vitality of an area. The number of people helped determine the potential for market interactions through commerce as well as the amount of workers for factories and farms. At this time, agricultural work required fewer people due to increased mechanization while new manufacturing establishments provided more opportunities for employment prompting migrations from rural areas to urban areas. Such population shifts supported the interconnected processes of urbanization and industrialization. Moreover, agriculture and manufacturing continued to connect people in cities, small towns, and farms throughout northwest Ohio and supported continued economic development.

Besides new economic development and subregional connections spurred during the oil

and gas booms, agriculture continued to be a major activity within northwest Ohio during the last

decades of the nineteenth century. All counties in northwest Ohio except Hancock and Williams

had more farms in 1900 than in 1880. (See Figure 6.2 below) The counties of Paulding, Putnam,

Henry, Ottawa, and Wood had the greatest relative increase in number of farms and amount of

improved land within the area. (See Chart 6.2, Appendix) These counties also witnessed

noticeable relative population increases compared to other counties in northwest Ohio which

easily provided an impetus for increased agricultural land usage. Each county had more total

acres of improved land in 1900 than in 1880 with relatively large increases in Paulding, Putnam,

and Wood Counties. Additionally, every other northwest Ohio county except Seneca had

continually increasing acreages of improved land per farm. (See Chart 6.3, Appendix) The value

of agricultural goods showed an overall increase between 1880 and 1900 for both northwest

Ohio and the entire state, but there was a widespread pattern of a decrease in value of agricultural 205 products in the 1880s and a noticeable increase in the 1890s. Although the figures are not adjusted for inflation, the value of agricultural products was certainly influenced by the number of farms and the amount of improved acres in farms. Therefore, the results of drainage using open ditches and undertiles continued to increase potential agricultural production and land usage that in turn enabled economic development.26

Figure 6.2: Number of Farms by County, 1880-1900

Source: Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html).

Although fluctuating during the period, agricultural activities were still a vital part of

Lucas County’s economy during the late nineteenth century. Toledo remained a key port

shipping Midwestern grain to the eastern United States. (See Chart 6.4, Appendix) The total

number of farms in Lucas County decreased during the 1880s and 1900s, but greatly increased

during the 1890s. The same figure for the entire state shows a similar pattern although the total

number of farms increased slightly in the 1880s. Between 1880 and 1900, more than 32,000

more acres of improved lands were in part of farms, yet the amount of improved acres in farms

declined slightly during the 1880s. However, one does not see this trend throughout Ohio in

26. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 206 general; the number of acres of improved land in farms increases over each decade from 1880 to

1900. (See Chart 6.2, Appendix) In Ohio overall, the rate of increase of acres of improved land in farms grew at a slower rate in the 1890s than in Lucas County with only about an increase of five percent throughout Ohio while the increase in Lucas County was over thirty-four percent.27

Manufacturing activities also remained a vital part of the economic growth of northwest

Ohio expanding a great deal with the utilization of gas and oil to power factories. (See Figure 6.3 below) Adding to the national trend of late nineteenth century industrialization, both Lucas

County and Ohio showed marked increases in manufacturing establishments between 1880 and

1900. However, the growth rate of manufacturing establishments in Lucas County was noticeably larger than the rate for the entire state. Increases in Lucas County for both the 1880s and 1890s were around fifty percent while the rate of increase was less than thirty-nine percent in

Ohio for the 1880s and about thirteen percent for the 1890s. This implies that industrialization was occurring more frequently in counties with larger cities than in the state as a whole.

However, the number of manufacturing establishments in Lucas County grew at a slower rate in the 1890s than in the 1880s showing that industrial activities were beginning to reach a maximum level of efficiency by 1900. Hancock and Wood Counties saw significant increases in number of people employed in manufacturing and the number of establishments during the

1890s as people utilized local reserves of oil and gas. Interestingly, five counties—Williams,

Defiance, Fulton, Henry and Wood—all had declines in number of manufacturing establishments between 1880 and 1890, but each of these counties gained such businesses during the following decade. New factory growth occurred where there was abundant fuel directly nearby as near

27. A. E. Shultz, "Grain Shipments at Toledo for the Past 100 Years" (BGSU CAC, MS 247, Box 25, Folder 1). Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 207

Findlay, and connections to other industrializing areas allowed residents to purchase goods from those locations rather than getting them locally. Thus, links to places outside northwest Ohio grew stronger for many people while local connections remained steady.28

Figure 6.3: Manufacturing Establishments by County, 1880-1900

ASSESSMENT OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF NORTHWEST OHIO

Although the counties within northwest Ohio rapidly grew in the late nineteenth century,

the county seemed to reach a high point in development around 1900 showing limits to its

continued economic vitality. The analysis of demographic and economic variables for northwest

Ohio shows that this urban area had some strengths and some potential for new development, but

such economic growth was unlikely to continue at the same rate due to issues related to

population and industrial structure. Therefore, the economic vitality of Lucas County and the

rest of northwest Ohio was likely to suffer until new industries were developed.

The strength of the Toledo system of cities in the late nineteenth century and into the

twentieth century was its increasing population. Interestingly, the population growth of the

28. Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1880, 1890, and 1900. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ collections/stats/histcensus/index.html). 208 counties did not seem to depend a great deal on large increases in the foreign-born population through immigration. Residents outside of Toledo, the industrial and economic hub of northwest

Ohio, were economically linked to the large city in ways such as purchasing goods and some services. More people residing throughout northwest Ohio presented opportunities for more economic interaction among businesses and within industries. An increasing population also provided a workforce for new and expanding factories as well as for long-standing agricultural practices providing food and other products for markets. Therefore, with a rising population, more people could participate in market activities and work in industries thereby expanding and strengthening the economic vitality of the counties. However, although still relatively high, the rate of population increase within northwest Ohio began to lessen in the 1890s and continued into the 1900s showing that the economic growth of the subregional system was unlikely to continue at its late nineteenth century pace.

Other strengths of the northwest Ohio counties was its increasing number of manufacturing establishments and number of improved acres in farms. Factories not only provided jobs and incomes for people living in Lucas County but also they provided linkages between places within the county and outside the county. Such linkages strengthened the economy of northwest Ohio and increased the possibilities for more economic growth and factory output. Agricultural activities used more land than manufacturing activities, but farming provided incomes for farm owners and farm workers as well as products for consumption by residents. Transportation routes, such as railroads and lake vessels, aided in the delivery of manufactured and agricultural products to markets outside of Lucas County. Thus, extensive economic growth complemented intensive economic growth through expansion of intraregional 209 connections. Linkages established through all counties’ economic activities helped to strengthen the economic vitality of Toledo and its immediate hinterland.

The major weaknesses of northwest Ohio were the beginning of the declines in growth rates among population and industry. Lucas County, and most of the surrounding counties, grew considerably during the late nineteenth century in both population and economic activities, but the growth rates began to decline at the beginning of the twentieth century signifying that industries were reaching an efficient size to produce products consumed during the period.

Therefore, fewer people were needed to fill jobs in factories and on farms. New industries were necessary to increase the rate of growth of new jobs in the early twentieth century in northwest

Ohio. Existing industries were still able to employ people, but fewer new places of employment were appearing after 1900. Therefore, if the rates continued to decrease, the economic vitality of urban and rural areas surrounding Toledo and the city itself would suffer requiring the creation of new industries. Despite bank failures and factory closures during the Great Depression, the automobile industry, small-scale manufacturing, and wartime production provided Toledo with economic development during the mid and late twentieth century.29

CONCLUSION

In the span of eighty years, northwest Ohio progressed from a swampy morass to a

vibrant economic area with agriculture and manufacturing. Toledo went from “Frogtown” in the

1830s to establishing a reputation as the “Glass City” at the beginning of the twentieth century

while many smaller cities and towns developed connections to Toledo and among one another.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the discovery and utilization of natural gas

and petroleum reserves aided the further expansion of urbanization and industrialization

29. Morgan Barclay and Charles N. Glaab, Toledo: Gateway to the Great Lakes (Tulsa: Continental Heritage Press, 1982), 134-138, 154-158, 169-172, 196, 201, 203,206-207, 210, 212, 218. 210 throughout northwest Ohio creating a new connection between Toledo and its immediate hinterland and strong impetuses for local growth for towns in northwest Ohio. Local economic centers continued to grow in the 1880s and 1890s as populations increased and agricultural and manufacturing activities continued to connect residents within and outside the counties surrounding Toledo. Agriculture provided goods for market interactions which brought manufactured products to growing rural communities while fuel resources from the hinterlands powered many new factories in Toledo. In addition, strengthening connections to other subregional systems and cities provided materials for construction and furnishings for those new buildings. The intersecting processes of urbanization and industrialization during the last years of the nineteenth century included economic development and people’s market connections within northwest Ohio.

Wealth within many communities expanded thereby prompting the construction or remodeling of factories, residences, commercial blocks, and government buildings. In Hancock

County and Wood County, specifically, profits from the gas and oil business enabled much commercial development and lured many speculators to the area as well as workers to labor in new factories fueled by cheap energy sources. Expanded commercial districts in larger towns both grew out of increased market interactions and supported these expanded activities.

Businessmen and professionals, often making money through new market activities and assisting the growing number of residents, commissioned larger homes often on the edge of their growing towns or expanded existing residences not only to demonstrate their status in the community but also to reveal how their business interests were improving. Perhaps the greatest examples of opulence and grandeur were new county courthouses linking the progress of agriculture, industry, and commerce and the expansion of legal activities in growing towns. Throughout all 211 of this new construction or remodeling, builders utilized natural resources such as sandstone and marble, and businessmen and county officials paid these contractors through profits or taxes gained from the exploitation of oil and gas reserves.

However, the population growth rates for most established communities did decline in the 1890s while some towns disappeared from census enumerations thereby creating changes in the overall economy. Declining growth rates did not necessarily mean economic development ceased in northwest Ohio. Rather, changes commenced in the structure of the subregional economy and its relationship within broader markets. Possible reasons for this shift included the industrial depression of 1893 slowing manufacturing activities, the accessibility of new farmland decreasing as less land was available to purchase or to initially improve, and overuse of gas and oil supplies shortened the potential life of the reserves. Perhaps the most important reason for waning growth rates was that other areas of the country produced greater abundances of crops or manufactured more products than did northwest Ohio. As connections strengthened among towns around Toledo and distant cities, there existed less of a need for locally produced items in northwest Ohio.

The strength and quality of connections within northwest Ohio and among that subregion and others explained both the economic development of and declining growth rates in northwest

Ohio during the late nineteenth century. Within the late stage of the subregional model presented in Figure 6.4 below, Toledo at the center of the web had the strongest connections to other cities and subregions such as Chicago, Cleveland, and the eastern seaboard through rail and lake linkages thereby allowing it to import and export goods. In this role, Toledo also served as a distribution and collection center for the major economic centers of its hinterland. Over time, these smaller cities, their hinterlands, and Toledo grew symbiotically with products shipped over 212 transportation route connections—roads, canals, and railroads—to and from the main city in the subregional system. Stronger connections—better roads and more trains as well as more crops and products moved—aided the overall economic development and higher growth rates within the area. Weak connections among towns and less productive farmland signified slower paces of expansion. The slowing development rates within northwest Ohio exemplified the growing quality of connections residents of that area had with other industrializing regions limiting the potential for further development. Thus, through more thorough integration of cities throughout the United States, rates of growth in various subregional systems of cities declined while others rose. This situation was continuous throughout the country’s history; in the mid-nineteenth century with implementation of drainage projects, northwest Ohio developed more quickly while other areas stagnated.

Figure 6.4: Subregional Model—Late Stage

Through innovation in transportation routes and land use and cultivation of connections,

Toledo and northwest Ohio developed economically throughout the nineteenth century with

rapid industrialization and urbanization in the final decades before the twentieth century. Yet as

the new century began, population, industrial, and agricultural growth rates failed to maintain 213 earlier levels. Factories thriving on cheap gas expanded during the oil and gas booms, but fuel supplies quickly diminished limiting further development. However, the glass industry, supported in its first years in Toledo by inexpensive fuel, remained viable through continued innovation in the early twentieth century, but this market could not fully support the area’s economic growth. Businessmen and workers needed yet another set of industries to continue to thrive in the new century. The experiences of the nineteenth century were vital for the development of markets and connections within northwest Ohio; new products and new infrastructure would continue the growth into the twentieth century. 214

CONCLUSION

Economic change in northwest Ohio throughout the nineteenth century included three components. Whereas earlier scholarly explanations of settlement throughout the United States included merely economic or geographic foci, the interpretation of economic development of

Toledo and the surrounding area involves aspects of those as well as the policies debated and enacted throughout the 1800s. Having reliable and integrated transportation infrastructures—an economic emphasis—did not solely spur economic change in northwest Ohio. Roads, canals, and railroads helped residents and merchants transport goods and allowed people to travel to and throughout the area, but these internal improvements did not prompt all of the connections that influenced economic development. Likewise, contrary to the claims of many newspaper editors and businessmen, having locational advantages and superb farmland did not predicate quick, large-scale economic change. However, the construction and use of an expanding transportation network combined with geographic and land characteristics as well as political ideas exemplified through various policies served to provide both the impetus and course of economic change in northwest Ohio during the nineteenth century.

THE SUBREGIONAL MODEL

As described and investigated through this case study of the Toledo area, the model of a subregional system of cities is a network of urban and rural areas connected through transportation routes, business interactions, and land and resource usage. The major components are the subregional hub, local economic centers functioning as nodes, and the connections linking the hub to the nodes and to other subregional systems and the links between individual nodes. The formation and the geographic expansion of this type of system were two examples of 215 economic development while strengthening connections within the network also induced economic change.

Within the system, the subregional hub of Toledo was surrounded by rural areas that included small towns surrounded by their own hinterlands. Each collection of lands was connected in some way to a small town and thus to the larger city of Toledo forming the network. The change in the quantity and quality of these connections revealed the economic development of northwest Ohio. Such physical links included the Maumee-Western Reserve

Road, county roads, the Wabash and Erie Canal, and various railroads. The muddy condition of the Maumee- Western Reserve Road limited the usefulness of the road for many people to travel across until its improvement in the early 1840s. County roads connected farms with local towns serving as economic centers for small areas of Toledo’s immediate hinterland. As the number of roads increased, farmers could more easily transport crops to markets as well as receive merchandise and provisions from store owners in the growing towns. The Wabash and Erie

Canal provided a lucrative connection for local economic change because it allowed farmers across Indiana and in northwest Ohio to transport crops to Toledo for sale while also permitting merchants to ship goods to distant towns for sale to local populations. However, during the winter months the canal froze ceasing travel on it while summer droughts lowered the water level in the channel limiting the canal’s use and spring floods washed out embankments also making transport impossible. Thus, canals had many disadvantages. Railroads, through their speed and ability to connect towns not near waterways, provided a more reliable method of transportation over long and short distances. Each of these routes, by means of connecting people and places, spurred the development of new economic interactions. 216

Land and resource usage also stimulated new business exchanges which in turn elicited the expansion of towns, the nodes within the system of cities, throughout Toledo’s immediate hinterland. Although the Great Black Swamp covered most of the area, agriculture was the dominant land use throughout northwest Ohio during the nineteenth century. Examples of connections to the land and its improvement, ditch laws provided a plan for systematic drainage of surface water to better the land while property owners’ use of clay tiles eliminated underground water. After using planks nailed together to channel subsurface water to open ditches, the manufacture of drainage tiles utilized local supplies of wood for fuel and clay for the actual tile. People also used other natural resources such as natural gas and oil to power factories in the burgeoning towns.

Moreover, the local hinterlands prompted the development of nearby towns serving as economic centers spread throughout northwest Ohio. These nodes within the Toledo subregional system of cities had physical and economic connections with each other. Often, the towns grew as their connections to other communities grew stronger while, in other instances, the links became stronger as a result of urban expansion. Stronger connections included better transportation routes and a growing number of market interactions through the buying and selling of goods and crops. As some towns expanded, such as Findlay and Bowling Green during the gas and oil boom, their connections to Toledo and smaller communities strengthened.

As urban areas expanded, the pushes on and pulls of cities and towns generated the symbiotic development of urban and rural areas. Before the Civil War, market interactions within Toledo’s hinterland tended to stimulate the creation of more businesses, construction of local infrastructure, harbor improvements, and the expansion of small-scale manufacturing in the city. Beginning during the war as grain exports through city’s port increased, Toledo and its 217 economic development began to prompt more agricultural production, resource usage, town growth, and small manufacturing throughout its hinterland. However, the pull of Toledo on the surrounding area resulted in local hinterlands further encouraging the expansion of towns through an increase in market interactions among farmers, urban residents, and urban manufacturers. In some cases and in some locations, towns spurred the growth of farming areas while, at other times and places, agriculture and home manufacturing boosted the development of urban areas. Land quality, proximity to and conditions of transportation routes, and the types of market interactions resulting from these pathways all determined the degree from which the impulse for change originated. Thus, the symbiotic development of urban and rural areas involved simultaneous stimulations of economic change within the system of cities by and on growing towns and cities. Difficulties in discerning the location of the root impulse for change manifest the complex nature of economic development in the nineteenth century.

IMPORTANT THEMES

The political ideas of liberalism and republicanism shaped policies influencing the course of economic change and the debates over internal improvement projects in northwest Ohio during the nineteenth century. Liberal policymakers promoted economic change making it easier for individuals to pursue their own interests through buying and selling products, marketing agricultural surpluses, and establishing businesses. Republican-minded officials desired disinterested men making decisions and creating policy for the good of all people and implemented, in part, early internal improvements such as the Maumee-Western Reserve Road and the Wabash and Erie Canal as well as ditch laws beginning in the 1850s. Although never entirely liberal or republican in view, policymakers tended to adhere to the former ideology more after 1815 than before that time. However, as republican policymakers advocated plans they 218 believed would help the public overall, the strategies implemented sometimes made it easier for individual pursuits to dominate economic change. Likewise, liberal policies supporting personal interests frequently led to improvements in public culture and the welfare of all people. Avenues for economic change existed in both liberal and republican development plans, and often policymakers achieved similar goals for development implementing proposals based on the divergent philosophies.

Debates regarding internal improvements involved both sets of political ideas. Some congressmen believed the construction of the Maumee-Western Reserve Road across the Black

Swamp would allow settlers to establish their own farmsteads, businesses, and towns in order to pursue their interests. Other federal policymakers believed having the road would benefit all residents of the Great Lakes region as it allowed quick troop movements to Michigan to protect the border with Canada as well as provide the impetus for compact settlements. Such places, the legislators averred, would not only provide protection against Canadian incursions but also offer new markets for products and services from the cities of the eastern United States. Likewise, debates over the construction of the Wabash and Erie Canal saw state policymakers argue that the waterway would further allow businessmen and residents to increase their individual wealth through the new economic interactions future canal traffic would support. Other policymakers maintained that the expansion of existing towns and farms and future settlement that the canal undoubtedly would spur would benefit the entire region and country through the increase of markets and interactions among people. Construction of railroads also involved similar rhetoric, but those debates occurred when liberalism was more prevalent. The Ohio General Assembly chartered railroad corporations to build and run new rail lines thereby permitting businessmen 219 and residents to pursue their own interests establishing new stores and factories or enlarging farms to market increased production utilizing the new rail connections.

Policymakers with both liberal and republican ideas also shaped the creation and implementation of ditch laws in Ohio beginning in the 1850s. Mainly addressing the swampy conditions in northwest Ohio, these policies formed systematic drainage schemes that were beneficial to the public health, ease of travel, or well-being of the surrounding areas while also improving the land of individual farmers who could then put more land into cultivation and perhaps make more money selling surpluses. While local areas would benefit from healthier conditions through better dispersal of waste water and less breeding area for mosquitoes carrying diseases, individual land owners petitioned for construction of ditches to improve the quality of their lands increasing property values and the potential to make money selling crops. Drainage channels alongside roads lessened the amount of mud slowing travelers, and drawing from these successes, additional ditches drained surface water making future road construction easier. Thus, as an example of the common good leading to private gain, the convenience of travel for all residents increased and permitted the easier pursuit of individual interests.

Uniquely tied to perceptions of the common good and private benefits, notions of progress and bringing civilization over nature motivated people to stimulate economic changes throughout northwest Ohio during the nineteenth century. To advance civilization throughout the Blacks Swamp and Maumee River Valley, people constructed roads, canals, railroads, homes, warehouses, stores, and government buildings using wood, stone, and brick to institute civilization and make the area more conducive to business and political endeavors. Businessmen and farmers altering the landscape through construction and drainage effected economic developments by providing transportation infrastructure to increase market interactions among 220 residents, supplying new buildings to conduct business and government activities, and improving land quality to take advantage of superior soils for agriculture. People using resources not only led to new manufacturing activity but resource usage also aided in the elimination of many of the characteristics of the Black Swamp that slowed development before the 1860s. With the use of lumber harvested from the expansive forests and clay from the muddy soils, workers made underground drainage tiles to eliminate moisture from beneath farm fields. Moreover, in expanding elements of civilization, the people establishing towns and infrastructural connections among them helped to improve upon natural conditions. Concurrently, the residents of the new cities and people utilizing internal improvements for travel and to move products established or strengthened economic interactions.

Urbanization and industrialization also created economic changes in northwest Ohio throughout the nineteenth century. Examples of urbanization include the transformation of old trading posts and military encampments such as Perrysburg and Defiance into towns, speculation in town site development, construction of new residences and businesses, and the rise in urban populations. Industrialization appeared as workers labored in new and growing manufacturing establishments such as the Acme Sucker Rod Company, farmers used new machines and tools such as reapers and threshers in agriculture, factory employees created new household products, and owners used natural gas to fuel factories. Two key links between urbanization and industrialization were factories and their workforces. As people moved to Toledo and other smaller economic centers to take jobs in industrial occupations, cities expanded with new residences on the fringes of the towns and new stores catering to the needs of the residents.

Likewise, as demand for manufactured items rose from new residents, factories expanded requiring more workers and more raw materials. Therefore, in northwest Ohio and throughout 221 the United States, cities expanded as the number of factories increased, and, consequently, the amount of manufacturing establishments grew as urban areas developed.

Such growth was another example of change breeding change. Other examples of development also prompted further market expansion. Roads, canals, and railroads created new patterns of economic interaction and links among people both in northwest Ohio and beyond prompting more infrastructure improvements. Changes in land use following drainage efforts made it possible for farmers to increase agricultural production which in turn spurred more economic activity. Stronger connections—frequent market interactions, decent roads, trains stopping often nearby—stimulated the greatest amount of change. Alternatively, weak connections—irregular economic interactions, impassable or no roads nearby, no link to other towns or farms by canal or railroad—limited the amount of development that could occur. Local boosters and legislators representing specific areas attempted to promote policies and developments to encourage the best qualities of growth for their respective locations either directly or indirectly through the common good. Thus, certain areas experienced more economic changes based upon the number and attributes of transportation routes, the amount of market interactions spurred through internal improvements and land usage, geographic location, and land characteristics.

The greatest environmental consequences of building railroads, urbanization, and industrialization did not happen in the nineteenth century. The results of construction and running trains in the 1850s and after, growing cities, and expanding factories formed the basis for greater environmental transformation and damage in the twentieth century. The common theme in environmental history of a myth of superabundance encompassed these actions.

Railroad directors wrongly believed that the materials needed to build rail lines would always be 222 available, and they continued to construct trunk and branch lines to connect more small towns with one another to take advantage of anticipated business growth. This led to shortages and a conservation movement within intellectual groups. Stemming from business growth, cities such as Toledo, Cleveland, and Detroit added more population and manufacturing establishments.

Larger populations living on the same areas of land presented problems of waste disposal, attaining potable water supplies, and having sufficient living space which urban reformers began addressing in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Factories used coal for power and channeled smoke out chimneys that spread the pollution throughout the air. When residents complained of illnesses officials and doctors blamed on the poor air quality, factory owners merely built taller smokestacks to distribute the smoke over larger areas. Likewise, trains pulled by steam locomotives let off smoke that extended throughout the countryside’s air. Also, firemen needed supplies of coal and water to power the engines pulling the trains. Extraction and transport of these seemingly endless resources worsened environmental issues becoming apparent at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, such environmental connections among subregional systems of cities did not necessarily require transportation infrastructure to develop as smoke from factory stacks drifted through the atmosphere to other cities, states, and even countries.1

THE MODEL, CONNECTIONS, AND UNITED STATES HISTORY

The subregional model can help explain economic changes and the importance of small

cities throughout the nineteenth century beyond northwest Ohio. All burgeoning urban areas had

symbiotic relationships between resource usage, transportation infrastructure, agriculture, and

1. For a more detailed explanation of the nineteenth century foundations of environmental issues of the twentieth century, see J. R. MacNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World (New York: Norton, 2000). 223 manufacturing. However, not all locations involved the same amount of change in these characteristics or resulting from growth stimuli. Although Toledo was the twenty-sixth largest city in the United States in 1900, towns with smaller populations functioned as subregional hubs throughout the country. Possible causes for disparities in population between Toledo and other subregional metropolises were the later beginning of forces breeding economic change for the other cities or the quality of the means of producing development. Likewise, cities with populations near to that of Toledo in 1900 may still have been growing thereby leading scholars to mistake the similarities between Toledo and another city.2

Denver, Colorado, is a key example of a city having a similar population to Toledo in

1900, but its relationship with other Rocky Mountain towns was significantly different than

Toledo’s connections with northwest Ohio communities. Denver, with 133,859 residents in

1900, served as a regional metropolis for the mining areas of the mountain west providing not

only a railroad gateway to resources in the area but also key commercial and professional

services for the small towns boosters established to extract resources. Within the mountain west,

agriculture was difficult due to the topography of the region, but mining activities took

advantage of mineral deposits in the mountains to extract wealth. Important economic centers

developed from mining towns although once workers exhausted nearby deposits, many of these

communities disappeared. Local boosters often attempted to persuade company officials to

construct railroads—providing links to Denver—near their towns to stimulate more economic

development. Like Toledo, Denver residents utilized the city’s connections throughout its

2. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table XXII—Population of Cities Having 25,000 inhabitants or More in 1900, Arranged According to Population: 1880 to 1900.” 224 hinterland to develop the urban area, but the key difference between Toledo and Denver was the western city’s larger tributary area stimulating more changes in the early twentieth century.3

Wichita, Kansas, having 24,671 residents in 1900, was a subregional hub among agricultural and ranching areas. Functioning very much like a central place market, Wichita provided services such as shipment of cattle by rail and local bank credit that surrounding towns did not. Railroads easily crossed the relatively flat landscapes, but the lack of sufficient water supplies west of the hundredth meridian stifled agricultural activities and prompted many settlers to bypass the most arid areas or engage in ranching pursuits. Due to aridity of the region, farms around Wichita encompassed more land than those east of the Mississippi River in order for farmers to produce enough food to survive and have surpluses to sell. Railroads provided a key link to Omaha and Chicago meat packing industries while overland trails afforded ranchers a way to drive cattle to Wichita for transshipment. Moreover, the lack of abundant water made larger farms necessary and prompting many residents to turn to ranching as their primary economic activity thus showing how resource usage impacted a subregional system of cities.4

In central Iowa, Cedar Rapids functioned as an important economic center within the grain producing areas west of the Mississippi. Linked by railroad to the Great Lakes regional metropolis of Chicago, farmers around Cedar Rapids, with a population of 25,656 in 1900, could transport their surplus crops to Chicago in order to accumulate money to purchase farm implements and machinery, household goods, and expand and improve farms. Although agriculture was the dominant economic activity around Cedar Rapids, the city did have manufacturing establishments producing items for local consumption. Moreover, few large

3. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table 5—Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions.”; Henry Gannett, Statistical Atlas (Washington: United States Census Office, 1903), plates 132, 185. 4. Twelfth Census, 1900, Volume 1, “Table 5”; Gannett, Statistical Atlas, plates 129, 134, 147. 225 cities formed in Iowa because of the vastness of the hinterland of Chicago of which Cedar

Rapids was an integral part. Directly west of the Windy City, Iowa was situated in the

“breadbasket” of the central United States where large amounts of agricultural production supported numerous local economic centers which in turn sustained subregional hubs. However, transportation connections from and specialization in Chicago drew much of the agricultural production from Iowa lessening the ability for cities to greatly expand in the Hawkeye State.5

With 38,415 residents in 1900, Birmingham, served as a subregional hub within the state of Alabama. With a similar ratio of manufactured product value to square mile as the Toledo area, the area around Birmingham had strong local connections based upon industrialization and rail links to other southern manufacturing centers. A smaller proportion of land was improved in central Alabama compared to Iowa and northwest Ohio further implying expanding manufacturing activities and natural resource utilization were key economic components of market interactions around Birmingham. Moreover, despite bigger populations having more people to interact with one another creating market linkages, having a certain number of people did not suffice in determining the realization of a city being a subregional hub. Rather, as seen with Birmingham, Cedar Rapids, and Wichita, the connections with varying sized hinterlands determined the status of a subregional hub and not just the number of people to interact in the economy.6

With the economic changes of the twentieth century and beyond, subregional systems of

cities changed both in structure and the ways of explaining economic development. The

introduction of the automobile added not only a new method of transportation shaping the system

of cities but also new manufacturing activities molding new connections among urban areas.

5. Twelfth Census, 1900, Volume 1, “Table 5”; Gannett, Statistical Atlas, plates 132, 134, 153, 185. 6. Twelfth Census, 1900, Volume 1, “Table 5”; Gannett, Statistical Atlas, plates 132, 134, 185. 226

People built new roads and improved old roads to accommodate cars allowing further flexibility for travel and stronger links among cities. The ease of travel autos brought to residents of small towns permitted further concentration of commercial activities in larger towns stimulating urban expansion of bigger cities and stagnation and decline in economic changes for smaller communities. Like canals and railroads in the nineteenth century, cars spurred new market interactions, but the flexibility of travel using autos—especially after World War II— strengthened the connections among subregional hubs and small towns transforming urban networks. The manufacture of cars affected subregional systems of cities in providing new industrial activities and forming business linkages among towns. With specialization emphasizing central place explanations of urban networks, some cities had factories producing parts for cars or manufacturing vehicles—such as Toledo’s Jeep factory—while other communities just made automobile components. Detroit had numerous car manufacturers in the twentieth century that received parts from Toledo factories thereby limiting Toledo’s ability to become a regional center base upon auto manufacturing.

Another impact of cars and the mobility of the population on subregional systems of cities and the subregional model was the creation of subdivisions and tract housing beyond the fringe of cities after World War II. Whereas urban expansion in the nineteenth century involved borderland suburbanization where people constructed residences and small factories on former farmland and streetcar buildouts that separated workplaces from home life, the creation of suburbs far beyond urban fringes in the mid-twentieth century involved greater spatial expansion stimulated by the ease of commuting long distances between home and work using a car.

Suburbs functioned as separate cities with their own governments and police forces, but they remained firmly linked, at first, to a local economic center or the subregional hub. Later, 227 manufacturing and service industries relocated from the urban cores to the suburbs taking advantage of improved roads and cheaper property values making factory enlargement less expensive. Eventually, businessmen built malls and shopping centers in these edge node suburbs taking market activity from the urban cores. Suburbanization added more nodes to the subregional model, but these places seemed to lessen continued economic development in older cities rather than enhancing it as was the case in the nineteenth century thereby decreasing the position of mature urban areas as central places. Cars and improved roads allowed strong links to develop among residents and growing suburbs and business connections to stagnate among people and older cities leading to urban decay. Such erosion of city centers prompted policymakers to implement urban renewal plans in the late twentieth century.7

The interstate highway system and air travel also impacted the subregional model in the

twentieth century. Constructed beginning in the 1950s, these mega-highways connected major urban centers—national, regional, and subregional metropolises—in order to facilitate trade.

Thus, links among subregional systems became stronger and cities at the junctions of interstates grew based upon business interactions of travelers.8 Moreover, these highways transformed the

subregional model in placing nodes within a sector representing the road and local economic

centers with strong interregional connections at the intersection of the routes. Air travel also

provided new connections among subregional networks, but very few transportation links within

the system. Airlines spurred economic change within cities based upon increased commerce and

employment at airports and in support services. Air travel also added forms of specialization

enhancing notions of central place hierarchy; many cities had at least a small airfield while few

7. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 (New York: Vintage, 2003), 128-197; Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) 231-245. 8. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 246-271; Hayden, Building Suburbia, 154-180. 228 had large airports offering national and international flights. Certain cities such as Chicago and

Atlanta became hubs for air travel based upon the volume of service at their airports.

In addition to transportation, another key transformation affecting subregional networks of cities was the transition from a manufacturing-based economy in the nineteenth century to a service-based one in the twentieth century. In the former system, urban areas had factories producing products that people transported along roads and railroads while the latter economy provided services such as retail sales, restaurants, and recreation. These activities indeed were part of nineteenth century market interactions and manufacturing remained important in the late twentieth century, but the relative significance for economic change shifted between them after

World War II. Thus, instead of resulting from development of manufacturing in cities, service industries began to prompt economic change. The key distinction between the two economic bases was that people did not have to be at the factory to utilize a manufactured product, but individuals often need to be at the site of the service to partake of activity enhancing the aspect of geographic mobility within an urban network. That is, to do banking in the twentieth century, a person needed to go to a financial institution.

However, beginning in the 1990s and greatly expanding in the early twenty-first century, connections among people via the Internet transformed economic development patterns and the service-based economy. No longer did market interactions require face to face contact increasing the importance of communication infrastructure to economic change. With expanded online capabilities, people no longer had to visit a bank to conduct financial transactions.

Software development to enhance social and commercial links proliferated indicating another shift to a service-based economy built upon thinking rather than manufacturing. The range of computer programs was vast and the Internet permitted other products to have a wider 229 distribution more easily. Moreover, online communication stimulating the creation of new types of connections among people may bring the notion of a system of cities into question. Ironically, as more people become linked via the Internet, they may become more socially isolated as economic participants shifting the focus from individual towns to vast urban conglomerations of individual households connected to businesses, each other, and municipal governments.

FURTHER RESEARCH

Although the subregional model presented here provides a useful analytical tool to investigate the history of economic change in the United States, continued research is needed to further refine the model. Until Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck mailed catalogues listing all of their products to farmers, these rural residents made infrequent purchases limiting economic interactions with urban businesses. Investigation is needed to examine exactly how mail order catalogs impacted subregional networks while reliable transportation for delivery was still incumbent on full market participation. Likewise, the United States Postal System served to connect all people and places from the earliest days of the country. Explorations of the impact of the postal service on subregional systems of cities and the influence of economic changes in these urban networks on the post office would certainly add to the scholarly literature. Historian

Richard R. John has analyzed the postal system from the time of Benjamin Franklin to the

Jacksonian Era, and a study building on his findings and including the idea of subregional systems would be useful in further elucidating development themes in United States history.

Large North American gateway cities such as St. Louis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Winnipeg each controlled access to vast hinterlands, and investigations of how the subregional model 230 helped define changes within these cities’ tributary areas would link various methods and courses of settlement and explain more how these gateway cities functioned.9

More research is also required to explain how social and cultural changes influenced the

economic interactions within the subregional system of cities. Scholars should also attempt to

examine these other developments using the paradigm. Combining social and cultural

historiographies, researchers should examine how the actions and beliefs of immigrant groups

shaped urban development and economic expansion through subregional systems of cities. The

establishment of schools and clubs reveal ways people came together to learn and debate

important contemporary issues which often involved economic change and its results. Research

into how these organizations influenced development of business interactions would further

delineate the ways market connections became stronger or stagnated. Many scholars of the

Gilded Age argue that government corruption and social conditions—including poor sanitation,

crowded living conditions, and vice—within cities were tightly linked to vast and quick

economic change. Future inquiries about these connections should use the subregional model to

evoke the impact of market interactions on social situations and how the circumstances of urban

dwellers impacted their economic activities. A study of the mayorship and social views of

Samuel M. Jones in Toledo emphasizing economic connections is an example of this line of

investigation.

Research into the connections between economic and social changes in the twentieth

century and beyond is also an important area for future inquiry using the subregional model. An

important social aspect of the service-based economy in the mid-twentieth century and after was

9. Richard R. John, “The Politics of Innovation” Daedalus 127, no. 4 (Fall 1998), 187-214. See also Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 231 leisure time activity taking place at theme parks, movie theaters, and water parks. For these endeavors, transportation and mobility of the population was vital, once again, emphasizing the need for strong connections among towns and between people and business. Important questions linking economic and social activity for leisure pursuits include how the location and proximity of amusement parks impacted local economies; how municipal governments reacted to and facilitated the transition to a service economy thus shaping urban change; and what types of local market connections formed from new economic bases. Following possible modifications to the subregional model, further research should be undertaken linking online connections and economic development.

As the continent wide national system of cities emerged linking subregional networks, economic and geographic characteristics and political ideas shaped the changes within the economies of Toledo and northwest Ohio from “Mad” Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers to

Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones at the beginning of the twentieth century. General Wayne’s efforts to eliminate native resistance to white settlement throughout Ohio helped to provide the groundwork for the creation of connections that would stimulate economic changes as settlers moved onto the land. Farmers cleared and drained land, boosters laid out town sites, teamsters hauled freight, forwarding merchants brought merchandise to small towns, mechanics crafted their wares, store owners sold groceries and dry goods, workers toiled in new factories, speculators tried to make a fortune, and professionals practiced their occupations. All of these people and all of their actions created a network of towns and market interactions. Changes within the economic, political, and social structures of expanding urban areas presented new issues for men like Mayor Jones to address as the twentieth century dawned. Past greatness of people’s actions promised to enlighten future generations. 232

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241

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242

B. Books

Abbott, Carl. Boosters and Businessmen: Popular Economic Thought and Urban Growth in the Antebellum Middle West. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1981.

Adler, Jeffrey S. Yankee Merchants and the Making of the Urban West: The Rise and Fall of Antebellum St. Louis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Aldrich, Lewis Cass. History of Henry and Fulton Counties, Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. Syracuse, NY: D. Mason and Company, 1888.

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A. J. Baughman. History of Seneca County Ohio, A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1911.

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County of Williams, Ohio, Historical and Biographical with An Outline Sketch of the Northwest Territory, of the State, and Miscellaneous Matters. Chicago: F. A. Battey and Company, 1882. 243

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.

——— Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.

Daniels, Rudolph. Trains Across the Continent: North American Railroad History, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

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Everett, Homer. History of Sandusky County, Ohio, With Portraits and Biographies of Prominent Citizens and Pioneers. Cleveland: H. Z. Williams and Bro., 1882.

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Friend, Craig Thompson. Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans- Appalachian West. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.

Gates, Paul W. The Farmer’s Age: Agriculture, 1815-1860. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960.

Gordon, Robert B. The Natural Vegetation of Ohio in Pioneer Days. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1969.

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Gruenwald, Kim M. River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

244

Hamer, David. New Towns in the New World: Images and Perceptions of the Nineteenth-Century Urban Frontier. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

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Heilbroner, Robert L. The Economic Transformation of America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Henthorne Hatcher, Harlan. The Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949.

Hill, Forest G. Roads, Rails and Waterways: The Army Engineers and Early Transportation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.

Historical Hand-Atlas Illustrated, Containing Large Scale Copper Plate Maps of each State and Territory of the United States and the Provinces of Canada ... Outline Map and History of Ottawa County, Ohio. Chicago and Toledo: Godfrey Jaeger and Company, 1881.

History and Atlas of Lucas County. Toledo: Uhl Brothers, 1901.

History of the Ohio Canals: Their Construction, Cost, Use and Partial Abandonment. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1905.

Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes, An Encyclopedia of the State, 2 vols. Cincinnati: C. J. Krehbiel and Company, 1888.

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Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

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Jones, Paul Willis. Wood County Courthouse: Historical Highlights, 1894-2005. Bowling Green: Sentinel Tribune, 2005.

245

Jones, Robert L. Ohio Agriculture During the Civil War. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1962.

Klein, Maury. Unfinished Business: The Railroad in American Life. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994.

Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People, 3nd ed. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2003.

Larson, John Lauritz. Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Lindstrom, Diane. Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1810-1850. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

MacNeill, J. R. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World. New York: Norton, 2000.

Majewski, John. A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Martin, Albro. Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Merchant, Carolyn, ed. Major Problems in American Environmental History: Documents and Essays, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2005.

Mohl, Raymond A. The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860-1920. Arlington Heights, Ill: Harlan Davidson, 1985.

Mollenkopf, Jim. The Great Black Swamp: Historical Tales of Nineteenth Century Northwest Ohio. Toledo: Lake of the Cat Publishing, 1999.

——— The Great Black Swamp II: More Historical Tales of Northwestern Ohio. Toledo: Lake of the Cat Publishing, 2000.

Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press Note Bene, 2001.

Onuf, Peter S. Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Opie, John. Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998.

246

Pred, Allan R. The Spatial Dynamics of U. S. Urban-Industrial Growth, 1800-1914: Interpretive and Theoretical Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966.

——— Urban Growth and City-Systems Development in the United States, 1840-1860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980

——— Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information; The United States System Of Cities, 1790-1840. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.

Rohrbough, Malcolm. The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Schapiro, Morton Owen. Filling Up America: An Economic-Demographic Model of Population Growth and Distribution in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Greenwich: JAI Press, 1986.

Scheiber, Harry N. Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861. Athens, The Ohio University Press, 1969.

Sellers, Charles. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Shankman, Kimberly C. Compromise and the Constitution: The Political Thought of Henry Clay. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999.

Shaw, Ronald E. Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790-1860. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990.

——— Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792-1854. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966.

Sheriff, Carol. The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996.

Spaythe, Jacob A. History of Hancock County, Ohio: Geographical and Statistical. Toledo: B. F. Wade Company, 1903.

Speck, William D. Toledo: A History in Architecture, 1835-1890. San Francisco: Arcadia, 2004.

——— Toledo: A History in Architecture, 1890-1914. San Francisco: Arcadia, 2002.

Steinberg, Theodore. Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Stover, John F. Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850s. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. 247

Strom, Claire. Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.

Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860. New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1951.

Taylor, George Rogers, and Irene D. Neu. The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Usselman, Steven W. Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology, and Politics in America, 1840-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Van Tassel, Charles Sumner. The First One Hundred Years of Bowling Green, Ohio. Bowling Green: n.p., 1933.

Vance, James E. Capturing the Horizon: The Historical Geography of Transportation Since the Transportation Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Waggoner, Clark. History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, 4 vols. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1997.

Ward, James A. Railroads and the Character of America, 1820-1887. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Wilcox, Frank. Ohio Canals. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1969.

Williams, E. I. F. Heidelberg: Democratic Christian College. Menasha, WI: G. Banta Publishing Company, 1952.

Wood County, Ohio, Atlases, 1875-1912. Bowling Green: Wood County Historical Society, 1982.

Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Yearbook of the Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society. Fremont: Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society,1921.

Yoder, Paton. Taverns and Travelers: Inns of the Early Midwest. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969.

248

C. Dissertations and Theses

Badenhop, Stephen W. “Federal Failure: The Ohio-Michigan Boundary Dispute.” MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2008.

Dwarko, Daniel A. “The Settler in the Maumee Valley: Henry, Lucas and Wood Counties, Ohio, 1830-1860.” Ph.D. diss, Bowling Green State University, 1981.

FitzRandolph, Peter W. “The Rural Furnishing Merchant in the Postbellum United States: A Study in Spatial Economics.” PhD diss., Tufts University, 1979.

Kelly, Sophia Nutter. “The Western Reserve-Maumee Stage Road.” MA thesis, Oberlin College, 1942.

Kerlin, Hannah Lucille. “The History of the Railroads that Entered Toledo Before the Civil War.” MA thesis, Ohio State University, 1938.

Madrzykowski, Gary. “Urban Pioneers to Urban Survivors: The Toledo Warehouse District, 1817-1990.” PhD diss., University of Toledo, 1992.

Manion, Richard L. “The Effects of the American Civil War on a Local Community: Sandusky County, Ohio, 1861-1865.” MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1990.

Shanks, Royal Eastman. The Original Vegetation of a Part of the Lake Plain of Northwestern Ohio, Wood and Henry Counties. PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1938.

Wilhelm, Peter. “Draining the Great Black Swamp: Henry and Wood Counties, Ohio, A Case Study in Agricultural Development.” MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1983.

Wilson, Ellen S. “Speculators and Land Development in the Virginia Military Tract: The Territorial Period.” PhD diss., Miami University, 1982.

D. Miscellaneous

Card, Nan. “Black Swamp Taverns: McBride Tavern.” Unpublished manuscript, Local History Collection, Hayes Presidential Center.

——— “Rose Tavern,” unpublished manuscript, Local History Collection, Hayes Presidential Center.

Shultz, A. E. "Grain Shipments at Toledo for the Past 100 Years." BGSU CAC, MS 247, Box 25, Folder 1.

Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions. This Is How Toledo Grew. Toledo: Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions, 1968. 249

E. Technical and Theoretical Textbooks

Floud, Roderick. An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians. London: Methuen, 1979.

McConnell, Campbell R. and Stanley L. Brue. Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies, 15th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Pacione, Michael. Urban Geography: A Global Perspective, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Ramanathan, Ramu. Introductory Econometrics with Applications, 5th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2002. 250

APPENDIX

Table I.1: Percent of Population Classified as Urban, 1790-1900 Urban Number of Percent of Total Year Population Urban Places Population as Urban 1790 131,472 6 3.4 1800 210,873 6 4.0 1810 356,920 11 4.9 1820 475,135 13 4.9 1830 864,509 26 6.7 1840 1,453,994 44 8.5 1850 2,879,586 85 12.5 1860 5,072,256 141 16.1 1870 8,071,875 226 20.9 1880 11,318,547 286 22.6 1890 18,272,503 447 29.2 1900 24,992,199 545 33.1 Note: “Urban Places” had 8,000 or more inhabitants according to the Census Bureau. Source: Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1: Population, “Table XXIX—Total and Urban Population at Each Census: 1790 to 1900.”

Table 1.1: Household Size, 1830 Number of Mean size Median size Township households Population of households of households Perrysburg 54 351 6.50 6 Sandusky 41 247 6.02 5 TOTAL 95 598 6.29 6 Source: “Sandusky County,” Fifth Census of the United States, 1830 (BGSU CAC, M19, roll 140); “Wood County,” Fifth Census of the United States, 1830 (BGSU CAC, M19, roll 142).

Table 1.2: Household size, 1840 Number of Mean size Median size Township households Population of households of households Perrysburg 183 973 5.32 5 Troy 63 378 6.00 6 Woodville 90 431 4.79 5 Washington 189 1,060 5.61 6 Sandusky 98 574 5.86 6 TOTAL 623 3416 5.48 6 Source: “Sandusky County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 425); “Wood County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 434).

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Table 1.3: Occupations, 1840 Agriculture Agriculture plus Township Households only other Commerce Perrysburg 183 79 9 25 Troy 63 55 1 0 Woodville 90 65 11 0 Washington 189 172 7 0 Sandusky 98 77 9 0 TOTAL 623 448 37 25 Source: “Sandusky County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840; “Wood County,” Sixth Census of the United States,1840.

Table 1.4: Occupations, 1850 Number of Agriculture Agriculture Laboring plus Township households only Laboring plus other farming Perrysburg 99 94 12 31 29 Lake 23 13 1 7 6 Troy 96 57 1 25 21 Woodville 222 118 23 39 34 Washington 220 123 16 49 44 Sandusky 121 83 3 18 11 TOTAL 781 488 56 657 145 Source: “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 726); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741).

Table 1.5: Household size, 1850 Number of Mean size Median size Township households Population of households of households Perrysburg 99 580 5.86 5 Lake 23 152 6.61 6 Troy 96 558 5.81 6 Woodville 222 1,272 5.73 6 Washington 220 1428 6.49 6 Sandusky 121 760 6.28 6 TOTAL 781 4,750 6.08 6 Source: “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 726); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741). 252

Table 1.6: Mean size of households employed only in agriculture, 1840 and 1850 1840 1840 1850 1850 Township Number Mean Number Mean Perrysburg 79 5.20 44 5.91 Lake - - 13 5.34 Troy 55 6.13 57 5.44 Woodville 65 4.45 118 5.74 Washington 172 5.57 123 6.11 Sandusky 77 5.99 83 6.30 TOTAL 448 5.48 438 5.92 Source: “Sandusky County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 425); “Wood County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 434); “Sandusky County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 726); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741).

Table 2.1: Population of Napoleon and Napoleon Township Number of Mean size of Area (year) households Population households Napoleon (1840) 46 180 3.91 Napoleon (1850) - - - Napoleon (1860) 208 918 4.41 Napoleon Township (1840) 287 505 1.76 Napoleon Township (1850) 113 566 5.01 Napoleon Township (1860) 197 1140 5.79 Source: “Henry County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 402); “Henry County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 693); “Henry County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 985).

Table 2.2: Population of Waterville and Waterville Township Number of Mean size of Area (year) households Population households Waterville (1840) 35 190 5.43 Waterville (1850) - - - Waterville (1860) 70 332 4.47 Waterville Township (1840) 78 565 7.24 Waterville Township (1850) 175 958 5.47 Waterville Township (1860) 179 987 5.51 Source: “Lucas County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 (BGSU CAC, M704, roll 410); “Lucas County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 706); “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 1003).

253

Table 2.3: Population of Toledo and Manhattan, 1840-1860 Mean size of City (year) Number of households Population households Toledo (1840) 214 1222 5.71 Toledo (1850) 698 3829 5.49 Toledo (1860) 2656 13768 5.18 Manhattan (1840) 48 282 5.88 Manhattan (1850) 104 541 5.20 Manhattan (1860) 162 788 4.86 Source: “Lucas County,” Sixth Census of the United States, 1840; “Lucas County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860.

Table 2.4: Principal commodities in canal trade at Toledo, 1842-1851 Flour, Wheat, Oats, Corn, Pork, Year barrels bushels bushels bushels barrels 1842 1678 12,976 774 - - 1843 21,709 98,220 23,388 116,143 1,873 1844 26,122 211,698 4,649 32,659 17,415 1845 86,382 565,711 9,741 30,037 7,859 1846 126,715 664,314 105,402 1,105,909 18,219 1847 116,730 962,170 17,018 1,275,410 18,861 1848 171,872 1,121,491 96,762 1,309,911 33,209 1849 142,452 714,703 15,985 2,052,071 37,593 1850 106,901 935,936 3,409 1,581,130 40,600 1851 196,839 1,250,355 40,176 2,562,961 32,410 Source: Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens, The Ohio University Press, 1969), “Table 8.5,” 204.

Table 2.5: Population growth of Perrysburg, 1830-1860 Mean size of households Year Number of households Total population 1830 30 182 6.07 1840 - - - 1850 210 1199 5.71 1860 300 1494 4.98 Source: “Wood County,” Fifth Census of the United States, 1830 (BGSU CAC, M19, roll 142); “Wood County,” Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 (BGSU CAC, M432, roll 741); “Wood County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 (BGSU CAC, M653, roll 1053). 254

Table 2.6: Occupations of gainfully employed males and those over age eighteen, 1850 and 1860 1850 1860 Group 1850 Percentage of 1860 Percentage of Number total Number total Common laborers 88 25.7 82 21.9 Semi-skilled laborers 40 11. 7 19 5.1 Skilled workers 115 33.5 98 26.2 Proprietors and retailers 22 6.4 24 6.4 Semi-professionals 17 5.0 26 7.0 Professionals 9 2.6 16 4.3 Farmers 22 6.4 44 11.8 Not listed 30 8.7 61 16.3 Gentlemen 0 0.0 4 1.1 TOTAL 343 100.0 374 100.1* Source: Adapted from C. Thomas Sibert, “A Population Study of Perrysburg, Ohio: 1850-1870” (unpublished paper, BGSU CAC, pOG-404), 20. * Totals of percentages do not equal 100 due to rounding.

Table 2.7: Persistency by occupation, 1850 to 1860 Group Total in 1850 Number persisting Percentage persisting Common laborers 88 18 20 Semi-skilled laborers 40 12 30 Skilled workers 115 26 23 Proprietors and retailers 22 8 36 Semi-professionals 17 4 24 Professionals 9 2 22 Farmers 22 6 27 Not listed 30 10 33 TOTAL 343 86 25 Source: Adapted from C. Thomas Sibert, “A Population Study of Perrysburg, Ohio: 1850-1870,” 22.

Table 2.8: Population 1860 Number of Mean size of Town households Population households Napoleon 208 918 4.41 Perrysburg 300 1494 4.98 Waterville 70 332 4.47 Source: “Henry County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860; “Wood County, “Eighth Census of the United States, 1860; “Lucas County,” Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. 255

Table 3.1: Number of Establishments Listed in Business Directory Listings, 1849 to 1853 Number of Business Categories 1 Jan 7 Jan 2 Jan 1 May 1 Sept 3 Jan 2 May 1 Sept Unique 1849 1850 1852 1852 1852 1853 1853 1853 Businesses Forwarding and Commercial Agents 8 9 12 15 17 14 13 11 26 Dry Goods and Hardware 6 5 5 6 6 6 5 6 13 Groceries, Paints and Drugs 4 3 6 4 5 6 5 3 10 Physicians and Surgeons 4 4 3 4 5 6 5 0 10 Attorneys and Land Agents 9 8 9 9 8 8 10 11 22

Hotels 2 3 2 1 1 1 1 2 5

Mechanics 6 6 2 2 2 2 2 2 8 Source: Toledo Blade, 1849-1853 (microfilm edition, Ohio Historical Society, Mf 071 T649, rolls 2-3).

Chart 3.1: Total Population, Counties MS & NI Railroad Passed Through (in thousands)

Note: Counties are listed west to east. Source: Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1850 and 1860. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 5 September 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html.

256

Chart 3.2: Total Number of Farms, Counties MS & NI Railroad Passed Through (in thousands)

Chart 4-1: Total Number of Farms by County

Note: Counties are listed in order of descending number of farms in 1870. Source: Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1850, 1860, and 1870. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html.

257

Chart 4-2: Amount of Improved Land in Farms by County (in thousands of acres)

Chart 4-3: Amount of Improved Land per Farm by County (in acres)

Chart 4-4: Percentage of Farmland Improved by County

Chart 4-5: Population by County (in thousands)

Note: Counties are listed in order of descending populations in 1870. Source: Data compiled from the decennial censuses of 1850, 1860, and 1870. Historical Census Browser. Retrieved 30 April 2008 from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html. 259

Chart 4-6: Amount of Wheat Produced by County (in bushels)

Note: Counties are listed in order of descending number of farms in 1870. Source: Data compiled from Annual Reports of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. State Board of Agriculture, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio for the Year 1860 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1861), microfilm edition, MN-1306.03 S101A2MICROFILM; State Board of Agriculture, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the County Agricultural Societies to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio for the Year 1870 (Columbus: Richard Nevins, 1871), microfilm edition, MN-1306.06 S101A2MICROFILM.

Chart 4-7: Amount of Wheat Sown by County (in acres)