Youngstown, Ohio

“ Toledo did some business in the slacker raids, having examined some 2,000 men in one drive.
Youngstown, Ohio, reflects a very sensitive social condition which existed during the war in every community which owned a considerable foreign born population. The Chief comments on this quite frankly:
A feature of our work was the demand, made by people in all stations, that the Federal Government, of which we were supposed to be a direct agency, should look after the enforcement of laws concerning health, morals and even family relations. ”

“ OHIO, Mahoning County, Youngstown, McKelvey—Higbee Co. Buildings (Downtown Youngstown MRA) , 210—226 Federal Plaza, W. and 18—26 N. Hazel St. (07/23/86)
OHIO, Mahoning County, Youngstown, Ohio One—Ohio Edison (Downtown Youngstown MRA) , 25 E. Boardman & 102—112 S. Champion (07/23/86)
OHIO, Mahoning County, Youngstown, Peggy Ann Building (Downtown Youngstown MRA) ,101 Federal Plaza, W. and 2—10 S. Phelps (07/23/86)
OHIO, Mahoning County, Youngstown, Republic Iron & Steel Office Building (Downtown Youngstown MRA) , 415 S. Market St. ”

“ WILLIAM LOUGHRIDGE was born in Youngstown, Ohio, July 11, 1827. He received a common school education, studied law and began practice in Mansfield, Ohio. Coming to Iowa in 1852 he located at Oskaloosa where he practiced law. ”

“ Youngstown (45) , a town in Ohio, U.S., with large iron factories; is in the heart of a district rich in iron and coal.
Ypres (16) , an old Belgian town in West Flanders, 30 m. SW. of Bruges; was at one time a great weaving centre, and famous for its diaper linen; has much fallen off, though it retains a town-hall and a cathedral, both of Gothic architecture in evidence of what it once was; it was strongly fortified once, and has been subjected to many sieges; the manufacture of thread and lace is now the most important industry. ”

“ Among these rivers is the Ohio, and at its confluence with the Beaver, near the western border of Pennsylvania, was, in the early days, the Revolutionary outpost of Fort McIntosh, a defensive work against the Indians. All about is a region of coal and gas, extending across the boundary into the Mahoning district of Ohio, the Mahoning River being an affluent of the Beaver. Numerous railroads serve its many towns of furnaces and forges. To the southward is Steubenville on the Ohio, and to the northward Youngstown on the Mahoning, both busy manufacturing centres. ”

“ At Negley the coal after being put in shape for sale is loaded upon the cars of the Pittsburgh, Lisbon & Western Railroad Company, referred to in the record as Lisbon, for transportation to consignees at Youngstown or elsewhere. Lisbon is a common carrier by rail, which connects at Signal, Ohio, with the tracks of the Youngstown & Suburban Railroad Company, referred to in the record as the Y. & S. The route of that line, about 22.2 miles, is between Signal and Youngstown, where there are interchange facilities with the Pennsylvania and the Erie. ”

“ Uniontown is the first principal place west. The Monongahela is crossed at Brownsville, some forty miles above Pittsburgh, whence the road, which is everywhere well made and secured with fine stone bridges, culverts and viaducts, winds around a succession of most enchanting hills, till it enters a valley, winds up a few more hills, and brings the travellers out, on the banks of the Ohio, at this town. ”

“ I know how the Hudson joins the ocean at New York, the Missouri the Mississippi at St. Louis, the Moselle the Rhine, at Coblenz, the New and Big Kanawha in the picturesque mountains of West Virginia, and the Alleghany the Monongahela to make the Ohio in Pittsburg—but this sweep of the Ohio, coming up from the South and turning immediately south again in a mighty elbow which pushes at the low hill on which the city stands, is tremendous. You know this is a mighty river, bearing the muddy waters of half a continent, by merely looking at it. It speaks for itself. ”

“ Greed of the great round dollar has been the commanding passion, and nowhere has it burned more fiercely. All the crimes, treacheries, deceptions, and frauds practiced under the sun have been repeated on the Ohio between Pittsburg and Cairo. Some, perhaps unknown elsewhere, have here been committed. But here, too, that old-time clear love of living for life’s sake only, the thing which makes sailors sing the world over, was deeply felt. In its lower extremities the river reaches practically southern climes while its northern arms reach out into New York and Pennsylvania. ”

“ A traveler in our state, just after it had become a state, believed that we were destined to be more like the people of the North and East than the people of the South, whom he then found, in Kentucky at least, much livelier in mind and manner than the Pennsylvanians, fond of public life and society, very hospitable and courteous, but dissipated, restless, and reckless. Our public spirit did not come from our Southern ancestry, but from our New England ancestry. The South gave Ohio perhaps her foremost place in war and politics, but her enlightenment in other things was from the North. ”

“ The "Seven Ranges," lying directly south of the Reserve, 100 drew emigrants from Pennsylvania, with some from farther south. The Scioto valley attracted chiefly Virginians, who early made Chillicothe their principal center. In the west, and north of the Symmes tract, Kentuckians poured in by the thousands.
Thus in a decade Ohio became a frontier melting-pot. Puritan, Cavalier, Irishman, Scotch-Irishman, German—all were poured into the crucible. Ideals clashed, and differing customs grated harshly. But the product of a hundred years of cross-breeding was a splendid type of citizenship. ”

“ This was the life of the early settler in every county in Ohio, as each in its turn was organized and opened to settlement. A life so hard, was yet so attractive that many pioneers, when a few neighbors gathered around them, preferred to sell their clearings and push further into the wilderness. In the meantime the older settlements attracted newcomers. Mechanics and tradesmen came along them. Then towns sprang up, and incipient cities, with corner lots and hopeful speculators, tempted eastern capitalists to invest their money in Ohio. ”

“ It combines in itself all the elements that tend to make its inhabitants the happiest people on the face of the earth. Nature has done every thing in favour of this country. In point of fertility, it excels every one of the thirteen old states; and, owing to its political institutions, and the abolition of slavery, it has taken the lead among those newly created.
Ohio is bounded on the north by lake Erie, on the west by the state of Indiana, on the south by the river Ohio, and on the east by Pennsylvania, comprising an area of 4,000 square miles ”

“ The land north of Springfield is much richer than that which lies south of it. Here the growth varies from oak to beach, ash, sugar-maple, black and white walnut, and cherry. Urbana is the seat of justice for the county of Champaign. It contains about sixty houses and is rapidly increasing in inhabitants. From this town to the Indian boundary line is about sixty miles; the land mostly level, the growth large, inclining to beach, the water good, and will admit of many excellent mill seats.
Returning back to the Ohio, the first town below Columbia is Cincinnati, five miles distant. ”

“ As already indicated, country life at the West and Southwest has not varied widely in different communities. The same social conditions and peculiarities of speech have been observable in many regions deriving population from common sources; but the type found in the Ohio Valley was best defined in Indiana, and it has gained its greatest fame through the interpretations of Edward Eggleston and James Whitcomb Riley. ”

“ Jack took the belt eagerly. To go to the lodge of Tecumseh to bring back a kinswoman to whom had descended great estates and against whom foes—he at once decided that they were foes—were plotting—What boy of twenty-one would not jump at the chance.
And to go to Ohio—the very name was a challenge. The Ohio of 1812 was not the Ohio of today, not the smiling, level country, set with towns, crisscrossed with railways, plastered with rich farms where the harvest leaps to the tickling of the hoe. It was far away, black with the vast shadow of perpetual forests, beneath which quaked great morasses. ”

“ Our canals are no longer the great avenues of commerce, because the modern needs and means are different from those of former days, but our schools are still the royal roads, the people’s roads, to and from the world of letters and arts. Ohio is now second to no other state in her public school system: and well-nigh three-quarters of a century ago, when General Lafayette visited Cincinnati in his tour of the Republic which he had helped to found, nothing surprised and charmed him more than the greeting which the children of her public schools gave him. ”

“ It is still a mystery to me how it was ever mounted to where it is to-day.
Now all of this was very long ago, before you knew anything about Oldmeadow and my river beside it. When we first knew the village, you will remember, all that was left of the college was the building, the bell, and the wonderful view of the most beautiful stream in the world, from its windows, or its top. Standing beside the relic of the General Litell, you may see the great Ohio wandering idly, vagabondishly, through the valley, until it looks like a silver thread losing itself in the misty distance. ”

“ For more than four hundred miles, the beautiful river which waters its south and south-east limits is navigable for large vessels. Its northern frontiers are for seventy-five miles washed by the waters of Lake Erie, and a canal running across the whole state joins these two points, so that Ohio stands upon the great line of internal navigation which connects New York with New Orleans, passing beyond the Alleghany mountains.
To all these natural sources of prosperity, Ohio unites another advantage, which she owes to the happy construction of her constitution ”

“ Yet not alone in industrial lines has Iowa set the pace for the states. In politics she has crowded New England off the stage, and bold Ohio sits quietly at her feet. In literature and in arts she stands unashamed. Comfort and culture walk hand in hand, and happiness is a perennial contagion. ”

“ Our friends and fellow-citizens from old England's shore, from Ireland and Scotland and Germany, form their societies of the city of New York; and why should not the State of Ohio, more important than any of these countries by this represented?
"Now, gentlemen, there is one characteristic of Ohio people which has marked them from the beginning of their history, and marks them now. We are a migratory race. We are the Innocents Abroad. No Arab in his tent, restless and uneasy, feels more uncertain and movable than a man from Ohio, who can better his condition anywhere else. ”

“ The sameness of view along the banks of the river, as far down as Pointe Coupee, a distance of nine hundred miles, is scarcely interrupted, excepting by a few settlements, and some high bluffs, on the eastern side. The land appears to be one continued level, clothed with large timber, and an under growth of cane brakes, and small shrubs.
Opposite the mouth of the Ohio is a small settlement consisting principally of men whose employment is hunting. Five miles below, on the east side, is fort Jefferson, which is evacuated. On the west side, sixty-five miles further down, is New Madrid. ”

“ It is an error to say that the Ohio is a river with lofty banks. Those continuous hills, around which this river winds and curls and bends and loops, are simply the hills of the country through which the river had to find its way. We were astonished, in getting to the top of Cincinnati, after a panting walk up a zigzag road, to discover that we had only mounted to the summit of one billow in an ocean of hills.
There is always a reason why a city is just where it is. Nothing is more controlled by law than the planting, the growth, and the decline of cities. ”

“ Southwest of the territory of the Iroquois lay the region of the upper Ohio and its tributaries, particularly the valleys of the Tennessee, the Muskingum, the Allegheny, the Monongahela and its mountain-descending tributary, the Youghioghany, of which the upper waters interlace with branches of the Potomac. In this rich country, heavily wooded and abounding in game, there were only a few Indians and no white inhabitants. In 1749 France began to send expeditions through the Ohio valley to raise the French flag and to bury leaden plates bearing the royal arms. ”

“ There were other paths which the Ohio people had to open before they could reach a yet wider world than any that lay to the east of them, or the south of them. Their course to civilization lay not only through the woods and down the rivers and over the mountains, but it ran also through the great realm of books, and every log schoolhouse was a station or a junction on it ”

“ The State of New York located her 251disbanded soldiers on the land-bounties which she had promised them, upon such western lands as she retained after resigning her larger claims to the Union; Pennsylvania followed this example. Occupation was thus given to the unemployed, and a source of vast wealth opened to the impoverished. In July of this same busy year, the Ohio Company was formed, for the settlement of portions of this great territory, with the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, Winthrop Sargeant, and other citizens of New England, at its head. ”