How We Traveled to the Wood County Fair

by Alan Borer

The two pictures speak for themselves in some ways. Both are postcard views of the “parking” facilities at the Wood County Fair. Postcards are usually undated except for their mailing dates, which in this case were 1912 and 1923 respectively. Although we do not have the exact date of either photograph, it shows a remarkable, and remarkably sudden, change in the visual landscape of northwest Ohio. In slightly more than ten years, rural Ohio abandoned the horse in favor of the gasoline engine.

This was a national trend, with World War 1 marking the tipping point. Before the war, the car was a novelty, a toy for the rich, a noisy machine to be played with on Sunday afternoons. The horse felt no threat. Used for transport since the Neolithic, the horse was the center of a network of blacksmiths, wagon makers, livery stables and hay and feed dealers. In 1912, there were only 94,400 cars on the road in the states.

Then came Henry Ford. For better or worse, Ford pioneered the car as a machine that could be purchased and maintained by all but the poorest. Ford popularized both the car and the method of making cars, using the assembly line to build plentiful, affordable vehicles. And while Ford and his Model “T” were eventually surpassed by other companies, all of his competitors used Ford’s model to make cars.

And the world changed. By 1922, there were 1,227,400 cars on the road. The horse and his attendants were subsumed in a newly built world made for and by the car. Blacksmiths were replaced by auto mechanics; roads were rebuilt with asphalt. Downtown hotels were replaced by “tourist camps” and motels. Living downtown was replaced with suburbs, and the oil that was used for kerosene was suddenly diverted to gasoline. In time, shopping malls would replace downtown shopping, and longer and longer drives to work were becoming the norm. The two postcards illustrate this change graphically.

County fairs were among the chief holidays of a farming population. The first Wood County fair dates back to 1851. The fair moved back and forth between Bowling Green, Portage, Tontogany, and Perrysburg. The fair stayed in Bowling Green starting in 1886, until in 1927, a fire at the fairgrounds coupled with bad weather and a bad farm economy ended the run of the Wood County fair. The fair did not resume until 1950.

For many folks in Wood County, the county fair is a milestone of the year. Farm animals are shown, FFA projects are displayed, and contests are held. The fair is still fun, but the atmosphere is different. The world is noisier now, and the fragrance of manure, while still there, is mostly drowned out by diesel exhaust. Whether or not we will all visit the fair by electric vehicles, flying saucers, or teleportation remains to be seen. That it will change is bound to happen.


[The postcards are in my private collection. Statistics came from the U. S. Census Bureau. Background on the fair comes from https://bgindependentmedia.org/county-fair-history-hoochie-coochie-girls-a-hanging-and-much-more/]

Sightseeing in Ohio, First by Train, Then by Bicycle

Oil tank on fire, circa 1912

Sightseeing in Ohio, First by Train, Then by Bicycle                    by Alan Borer

            As recently as the 1980s, travelers between Toledo and Lima could spot enormous, decrepit wooden tanks of oil. Rickety and prone to burning, they were oil storage containers left over from Northwest Ohio’s oil boom.  Oil was discovered in several locations along what is now I-75, concentrated around Bowling Green, Findlay, and Lima in the late 1860s. The oil fields of southern Wood County sprouted derricks, tanks, and wildcat towns just as surely as did Oklahoma and Texas a generation later.  My hometown of Bowling Green was famous for offering free natural gas to industry.  The “black gold” did not last long, but it was a boon to the Toledo hinterland while it lasted.

            Something of the flavor of the oil rush was captured in a letter written by a young man named Fred Price.  Price journeyed from his home in Richmond, Indiana, to Toledo in September of 1897.  A letter that he wrote to his mother has been preserved and gives some idea of what oil rush Ohio looked like. 

            After some preliminaries, Price wrote:

We had a pleasant trip from Piqua up, although it was dry and warm, and the grass was on fire several places along the road.  We stopped for dinner at Lima and had quite a good lunch.  It was quite a sight when approaching Lima to see the long rows of oil well derricks, and most of them working, and then to see the long rows of oil tanks.  And you could tell when you were approaching them by the odor.  The country looks like good prosperous farming country from Piqua and the corn in some places was as large as I have ever seen.

            In 1897 there was only one long distance mode of transportation, so Fred was taking the train on his trip north.  Many railroads served the north-south traveler at the turn of the century.  Fred likely took the Cincinnati, Hamilton, & Dayton R. R. north from Piqua through Sidney, Anna, Botkins, Cridersville, and to Lima.  At Lima he may have switched to the Lake Erie and Western, which reached Findlay by way of Beaverdam, Bluffton and Rawson.  At Findlay, he could have hopped on the Toledo and Ohio Central, a straight shot from Findlay north to Toledo.[i]  Many of these lines were later consolidated into the B & O.

            Fred does not specify, but there were any number of dining opportunities in Lima.  A look at the oldest surviving Lima City Directory (1901) showed fifteen restaurants in Lima, plus roughly seventy “saloons.”  Many of these doubtless served lunches of varying sorts.  Hotels also were available for dining.  The restaurants were concentrated along Main Street, which ran parallel to the railroad.  Food could doubtless be had at the depot however, and Fred may not have even had to leave trackside.

            When Fred arrived in Toledo, he was greeted by his Aunt Ellen and heard fishing tales from local friends.  Fred was an enthusiastic bicycle rider, and brought his “wheel” along.  After almost losing it in a railroad freight mishap, he eventually set out to explore the city:

I had a nice ride about the city [Toledo] on my wheel this morning and your say [ing] the residence portion is pretty and tasty [tasteful] is no exaggeration, and everything seems to be kept up in such nice condition.  I expect to take another ride this afternoon and see more of it.  I am much pleased with everything I have seen thus far. . . .

            “Tasty” or not, Fred’s ability to see Toledo by bicycle was made possible by a bicycle “craze”  that swept the country in the Gay Nineties.  Advances in bicycle technology and in the making of pneumatic tires relegated the old high wheelers to the basement.  Suddenly, everyone needed and wanted a bicycle.  In a foretaste of the automobile, citizens finally became mobile.  Many things changed.  Women’s skirts became shorter to avoid the spokes.  Riding schools appeared overnight. Cities accelerated the paving of roads.  In Dayton, two brothers named Wright cashed in on the bicycle craze, although the bicycle factory they built came to other uses.  A journalist of the time stated: “The discovery and progressive improvement of the bicycle is of more importance to mankind than all the victories and defeats of Napoleon, with the First and Second Punic Wars … thrown in.”[ii]

            Like most crazes, the bicycle fad did not last.  In 1897, when Fred Price pedaled the streets of Toledo, bicycle mania was past its 1895 peak.  By 1900 it was over, and bicycles became children’s toys.  The railroad also is moribund, and one could not now recreate the rail journey that brought Fred to Toledo.  But the desire to see the world beyond our doors burns brightly.  Only the mode of travel has changed, and will likely keep changing.

---

[i] Kayler, R. S. Railroad map of Ohio published by the state, prepared under the direction of commissioner of railroads and telegraphs. Columbus, 1898. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/98688545/.

[ii] Fred C. Kelly, “The Great Bicycle Craze,” American Heritage, 8 (December 1956) https://www.americanheritage.com/great-bicycle-craze.

 

Pennsylvania Visitor Praises Toledo Amenities

Pennsylvania Visitor Praises Toledo Amenities by Alan Borer

Old postcards are fun, not just because their views are a window to the past, but also because of the messages written on the other side. Many of them are nothing special; family news, idle speculation about travel plans, and the popular, “Please write soon.” Sometimes, however, the short notes give an interesting view of times past.

Take this card. Mailed April 2, 1911, it is a fairly standard view of Madison Avenue, looking east toward the Maumee River. On the left, the Boody House hotel can be seen, and a block beyond that the Nasby Building is visible. The Produce Exchange is in there somewhere. On the right, the building closest the viewer is the United Cigar Store as a street-level tenant. If you have sharp eyes, you can see signs for Coca Cola (bottom left), the “Caswell Club,” and Florsheim Shoes, in the shape of a shoe. Two vehicles, one horse-drawn and one automobile, can be seen. Not many people; was the photograph taken on a Sunday morning? Impossible to say.

The message, from a father to a daughter, is unsigned. Written to Mrs. W. E. Nagle, Jr in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Mrs. Nagle was probably Mary E. Nagle, a 25-year-old newlywed of German-Irish parentage. Her maiden name might have been Murray. Her husband, William E. Nagle, was three years younger and a “tool salesman.” Apparently Mary’s father was also a salesman, but of what? He was in Toledo to sell, as is hinted at toward the end of the note:

I sold 37 Bars yesterday on Commission – it would be about $100.00

Bars of what? Chocolate? No; 37 bars of chocolate would be roughly 37 cents in 1911. Gold? No, one did not sell gold bars on the streets of downtown Toledo in 1911, nor any other time, and the profit would certainly be more than $100. Perhaps some other industrial metal, but there is no way to know, even if it is fun to speculate.

Most of the message is taken up with the writer singing the praises of Toledo:

This is a great town. Everything open on Sunday. Maw could get Milk of Bread any time – in fact, meat or anything. Not alone Bake Shops, but Barber Shops & Booze Shops. The Picture Shows, Vaudeville Houses & Theaters.

Mrs. Nagle’s father does not specify which of these shops and places of entertainment he visited, or whether he participated or window shopped. But his impression of the city was certainly favorable.

Yet there are signs of change between the lines. Vaudeville was eventually driven out of favor by the movies/“picture shows.” Many of the vaudeville theaters changed format to keep up with changing tastes. The Empire Theater on St. Clair changed from vaudeville to movies in 1919. “The Paramount [opened 1929] handled both movies and live stage shows (vaudeville being not quite dead yet).”And the writer’s mention of “booze shops?” Only eight years later, national Prohibition came into effect, and Toledo, at least above ground, would be a ‘dry” town.

The writer of the postcard to Mrs. Nagle probably had no conception that his message would one day serve as a view into early twentieth century Toledo, It was a city on the brink of change, a city of many wonders with many more to come that we take for granted. As always, it is good to know where we have been while moving into the future. Change is the only constant.

A Welsh Christmas in Toledo - Maybe

A Welsh Christmas in Toledo - Maybe by Alan Borer

Of the four kingdoms that make up the “United Kingdom of Great Britain,” the smallest and perhaps least known is Wales. A bump on the west side of the main British island, it is sometimes thought of as poor and backward. That, of course, depends on your perspective; one person’s “backward” is another’s “traditional:”

The Welsh people maintain most of the traditional customs associated with England such as holly, mistletoe, pudding, carols, Christmas stockings, oranges, crackers and lots of snow.

Christmas traditions did not always survive for many generations when they crossed the Atlantic. In one Toledo family, they may have.

The Christmas card shown here was sent on December 23, 1912 from Delta in Fulton County from Mrs. Charles Watkins, whose given first name we do not know. Her husband was a farmer and later a railroad inspector. Mrs. Watkins lived near the Michigan border, but we know nothing of how they became friends.

The card was sent to Mrs. George Groff. In 1912, the Groffs lived at 905 West Woodruff, near the intersection with Lawrence Avenue. The husband, George Groff, was an electrician, who owned his own small electric shop. George’s wife, Mary, was a homemaker. Like the Watkins, the Groffs had no children. Neither of the Groffs were lifelong Toledoans. The couple lived in Toledo from at least 1900 to 1920. By 1930, they had relocated to Delaware County, which was George’s home. Born and raised on a farm, George Groff worked as a young man in dairying, and may have returned to his native place as the Great Depression took hold. In any event, he went back to farming, on land that is now covered by the Columbus suburb of Lewis Center.

Mary Groff was Welsh. Born Mary Christian in Wales in 1873, she moved to Detroit, Michigan, with her family the next year. Her father, John Christian, may have been a coal miner; the majority of Welsh immigrants followed that trade. We do not know if the young Miss Christian lived in a particularly “ethnic” community. “Though never a prominent ethnic group in Michigan, many Welshman settled . . .in Detroit. . . . A Welsh community later developed near Grand River and Chicago avenues, and in 1919 the Welsh United Presbyterian Church organized in Detroit.” Mary Christian married George Groff, an Ohio boy two years younger than she, in Port Huron, Michigan, September 7, 1899. A few months later, on June 1, 1900, the census taker found them living in Toledo on Dorr Street. Mary died in 1947 and is buried at Worthington, Ohio.

We have no idea whether Mary Groff kept up any Welsh traditions in the Delaware County countryside. And while Christmas in Wales mostly followed the English pattern, some traditions were decidedly unusual:

In some rural areas a villager is chosen to be the Mari llwyd. This person travels around the town draped in white and carrying a horse's skull on a long pole. Anyone given the "bite" by the horse's jaws must pay a fine.

There is little evidence that this custom was carried to America. Germans brought Santa Claus and the Christmas tree; the English gave us Christmas cards and holy and ivy. Each culture has its own Christmas traditions, but whether Mrs. Groff celebrated any Welsh ways in the new world, we cannot say. I am sure she appreciated the Christmas card from her friend in Delta.

Early Letter from Bowling Green, Ohio, 1838

Early Letter from Bowling Green, Ohio, 1838 by Alan Borer

Bowling Green in Wood County, Ohio, was named by the mailman. Joseph Gordon, a native of Kentucky, suggested the name of a town in his home state. Bowling Green Ohio in its very early days was made possible only because a few sand dunes stuck out high enough to provide some habitable land from the surrounding Great Black Swamp. The earliest settlers arrived in 1832. A post office was established in 1834 and that was the office that Gordon named. The village was not incorporated until 1855, when the draining of the swamp made more of the land usable.

I knew when I saw a letter from Bowling Green dated 1838 that the town was still a swampy, frontier settlement, famous only for mosquitoes and malaria at that time. The writer, one William Jennings, did not give the hamlet a good review:

I wish you would rite and inform me about what times you have in the woods. . . . because I cannot stand to live in this Country ere long for times is gitting hard . . . I done wrote in hurry the mail is ready to start. . . .

Jennings wrote his letter, filled with spelling errors, in a hurry. Joseph Gordon, the aforementioned mail carrier, was due to depart Bowling Green in a very short time for either Perrysburg or Bellefontaine, and Jennings wanted to finish his letter in time to send it with Gordon. Gordon was still on the job in 1838. Although Jennings did not leave enough information to further identify himself, the mailman carrying his letter had a minor claim to fame.

Also locally famous was Michael Myers, the recipient of the letter. Unlike William Jennings, Myers was content to stay in Wood County once he settled there. Born in Pennsylvania about 1801, Myers relocated to Columbiana County in northeast Ohio. He pushed westward again

. . . . in 1834, and purchased lands from the State, on the N.E. corner of Sec. 29 [Freedom Township, Wood County]. His wife, son, and four daughters accompanied him into the wilderness, and aided him in building a hewed log house, on the east side of the McCutchenville road, on the north or right bank of the Portage. . . . [p. 257] It was a larger cabin than was usually found in the wilderness, and this fact, taken together with the genial character of Myers, made it at once the mecca of immigrants. Within a decade, he thought it expedient to build a larger concern to entertain his guests, and in 1844 began the construction of the two-story frame building known to this day as “Myers Hotel” . . . . [p. 259]

In doing so, Michael Myers became the first resident settler of New Rochester. New Rochester, while unincorporated today, is still a locally remembered landmark for residents and by the neighboring, and once rival, village of Pemberville. His 1844 home, the “Myers Hotel,” stood many more years, passing into the hands of the Zepernick family. Innkeeper Myers offered rooms for transients as well as visitors staying awhile. It was located at the north end of the bridge across Portage River in New Rochester. The Myers Hotel was rumored to be a stop on the Underground Railroad as well.

Michel Myers wore many hats. In addition to his work as a farmer and a hotel keeper, he was postmaster of New Rochester for thirty years. Active in the Methodist church, Myers donated land for a Methodist church. He also welcomed itinerant preachers, and his home saw the first sermon preached in New Rochester in 1838. But while encouraging and welcoming the forces of settlement, Myers was also a true frontiersman. In the 1830s, the government paid a bounty to hunters who turned in wolf scalps, proving that the hunter had eliminated a supposedly rapacious wolf. Most of the hunters who collected wolf scalp bounties in 1835 were remnants of the Native American tribes of the area: Ke Korngosh, Missaukee, Aausk, Waseon, Pakee, Johnson Quson, and Osauge received $4.25 a scalp. Another, familiar, name was on the wolf scalp bounty list, that of Michael Myers.

Before the Civil War, letters sent to a postmaster were free of charge. Myers noted that his letter from William Jennings was “#1,” suggesting that Jennings wrote other letters, welcome or not. It is fortunate that even one letter survives, for it brings back a long-vanished Wood County of Indians, wolves, log cabins, and swampy roads. Complaints aside, William Jennings opened a window to a long gone time – even if he found life there uncomfortable.

[Quotes are from Commemorative Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio (Chicago, 1897), pp. 256, 259.]

Muskrats and Rapeseed

Muskrats and Rapeseed by Alan Borer

When I first read the letter from “Grandpaw” to his grandson Milan Long, I was surprised that Grandpaw described catching “rats.” Rats are a nuisance. They carry disease, they destroy grain in storage, and are hard to catch, with or without a cat. Later in the letter, Grandpaw mentions that he also hunted minks. Suddenly, it made sense. His mention of rats did not refer to a “real” rat, but to a muskrat. “Rat” was a common, country slang term for muskrat in the old days; hunters among us still use the term.

The letter reveals that Grandpaw lived in Kansas, Ohio. Kansas is a tiny hamlet on SR 635 just south of the Seneca/Sandusky county line. Another way to locate it is to find Bettsville and look about three miles west. That may or may not help if you have never heard of Bettsville, or Kansas for that matter, but in this time of GPS and satellite data, finding even the smallest place is easy. Grandpaw did not sign his last name so we cannot be sure exactly where he lived, beyond the fact that he had a Kansas mailing address. He wrote to his grandson Milan who lived in Bloomdale in Wood County, about twelve miles west, beyond Fostoria. The date was May 7, 1912. Grandpaw wrote phonetically, so his message retains a bit of his rural accent. I will correct his spelling:

I didn’t get time to catch any rats this spring. I caught 14 the forepart of the winter. There was not a mink on the prairie this winter. . . . . . how is your paw getting along with his work? Did he sow any rape? I sowed the patch below the barn. It looks nice. . . . .

Grandpaw was a dedicated hunter of muskrats, given how many he caught earlier in the winter. Muskrats are fairly common even today, although they prefer wetlands, marshes, and creeks. Two creeks flow near Kansas, Muskellunge Creek to the north and Wolf Creek to the south, both flowing northeast toward Lake Erie. The area around Kansas was heavily wooded when settlers arrived, but even in the days of the Black Swamp, there were open spaces in the forest, ideal for animals that preferred a part marshy, part open area – ideal for muskrats and the occasional mink.

The other farm news in the letter concerned “rape,” or rapeseed. Milan’s family was planting rapeseed at a historically early time. Rapeseed was planted in India ten thousand years ago, and was prized for its oily seed by farmers stretching from West Europe to China. Rape was planted in America in the nineteenth century, although there was a lull in planting rape at the time Grandpaw wrote because many new artificial oils were coming on the market. After World War 2, farm scientists in Canada hybridized the crop, the end result of which was canola oil. Rapeseed now provides canola oil for a billion dollar food industry. And the letter was correct – rape, especially when it blooms a vibrant yellow, does look nice.

As for the Long family, we only know bits and pieces. Milan Long was born in 1886, son of Frank Long and Zelora C. Inman. Frank Long started as a farmer, but eventually became a salesman. When World War 1 came to America in 1917, Milan was working for A. W. Long (a cousin?) as a farmhand. Sadly, he never made it home from the war. On September 30, 1918, “Milan Long drowned when the ship Ticonderoga was torpedoed by a German U-boat. His body was recovered and at first buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, England before being removed to Weston Cemetery.” More exactly, he is buried in the New Weston Cemetery in Wood County.

It is one of the ironies of history that small people get swept into events greater than their upbringing suggests. Such was the story of Milan Long and his grandfather. The postcard message with which I started pointed to a pastoral life in the countryside before the warlike twentieth century, but ended in tragedy thousands of miles away. As a writer I was challenged to find the story of Milan Long. A century later, I can salute Mr. Long, and recall his sacrifice to readers.

Maumee River Farmer: J. W. King

(If you go to https://media.gettyimages.com/illustrations/ohio-flat-rock-township-maumee-river-florida-canal-henry-county-illustration-id120569587 and look at the original, you will see the King farm in the upper left hand corner.)

Maumee River Farmer: J. W. King                  by Alan Borer

Old maps show the farm straddling the Henry/Defiance county line.  The farm belonged to John Wesley King until he died in 1892. It was a lovely piece of ground. Mr. King owned land right along the Maumee River itself. His farm yielded the usual crops of corn, wheat, clover, and hay. King also had an extensive apple orchard, and in the spring he gathered maple sap for boiling into sugar. Living on the county line, he could choose between selling his crops in Napoleon or Defiance. Mr. King kept a diary for the year 1879, and using it we can recreate his world with some accuracy.

J. W. King was born in Ohio in 1830. We don’t know much about his origins; his father, Jessie A. King was born in 1797. He married Rachel Kepler in 1858 in Defiance, and the couple had one son, George, in 1860. The east half of his farm was in Flat Rock Township in Henry County, and the nearest post office was Florida, Ohio. J. W. King was only 61 when he died; his widow Rachel lived on until 1909.

King spent much time in late winter boiling maple sap which produced maple sugar. He began the work on March 5:

fixed for sugar making 

Two days later, the real work began:

hauled buckets around in camp tapped some

and

gathered & boiled sugar water

A month later, on April 8, they finished

boiled water finished hauled everything in

Country people in the nineteenth century, at least those who owned or rented land with maple trees, made their own sugar. Small pipes, or spiles, were hammered into trees in late winter. As the sap (King called it ‘water’) poured through the spile into a bucket, the buckets were in turn taken to ‘camp,’ where a wood fire kept the sap boiling day and night. Often a shelter and shed enclosed the boiling pots. When all the liquid boiled away, the residue was sugar – maple sugar. Long before sugar beets or cane sugar was available, families like the Kings relied on maple sugar for sweetener.

In addition to the usual corn, oats, and wheat grown on the farm, King had a large apple orchard. On January 16, King sold part of the previous year’s crop:

went to Napoleon Sold 28 chickens…3 turkeys….71 lbs apples

On April 15 and 16, he recorded:

trimmed apple trees & plowed in orchard and plowed & dragged orchard finished trimming

J. W. gathered other small fruits, including grapes, raspberries and cherries, but nothing as versatile as the apple. In October, he processed the apple crop:

put away apples & a load of potatoes picked up a load of apples to make cider

and

made 110 gallons of Cider

and

Made apple butter 13 gallons

The apple, whether stored, eaten, or used as a beverage, could not be bettered.

Possibly because J. W. only had one son, he was constantly on the lookout for hired help. In 1880, King had a 21-year old “laborer” named Samuel Richards. The year before, J. W. noted in his diary on March 3:

went to hunt a girl

And on May 5,

went to hunt a cow & look for a girl

Not until June 15 did he report success:

went & got a girl Ana Ostman [Ortman?]

By December, King hired another girl named Gusta Spangler, but whether that was to replace the June hire or was in addition, he does not say. The last few decades of the nineteenth century were just before the age of mechanized farming, and hired help was still a crucial need for Ohio farmers.

The work was unending. Fences needed mending, hickory nuts were gathered, cabbage picked and stored, harness to grease. Trips were taken to market for both buying and selling. Occasionally there was a bit of leisure; dinner with neighbors, sledding, grange meetings, trips to Napoleon, Defiance, and one time, to Toledo. But for every free afternoon, there was extra work: a lost horse, a barn raising, even jury duty! There was some free time, but not much.

On October 14, King wrote:

worked at cave in forenoon

I puzzled over this entry for awhile. Did King have a cave on his property? In such a flat area, it seemed unlikely. What Mr. King called a “cave” may actually have been a quarry. Geologists, described a quarry in 1874:

A short distance above Florida is the quarry of Wesley King and brother, in the left bank of the Maumee, it consists of the following succession of parts. . . . 

and in 1991

Old quarry along west bank of Maumee River a short distance SW of Florida, Flatrock Township. . . . What is interesting about this occurrence is that the depth of this "quarry" is extremely shallow. There is no evidence of this "quarry" on topographic maps. Therefore the new name of this locality should be: Wesley King Quarry, Florida, Henry Co., Ohio, USA.

J. W. King would probably not recognize his farm today. The countryside has fewer houses; farms are bigger. But if you want to see the area today, take a drive along Route 424 near Florida. If nothing else, you will see his countryside, and to a farmer, that is seeing a lot.