Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-07-04

poplar, all was piled in one indiscrin
mate mass, millions upon millions {
feet OF the finest lumber were thu
!, destroyed; no, let's not say destroyed
but gotten out Of the way. In tn
!. place of this dense shade of the fores
! came the virgin soil bearing on 1t
bosom the sunshine of life and hop,
the golden corn, the waving whea
and all the fruitful increase of cult
waited nature, to gladden. the winte
hearth and home and enable the stur
, dy pioneer and his children to hav
more OF the comforts of life and t,
purchase what he could not produce
himself
We have lost the forest, but game,
the civilization. Lost the game, bu
gained the comfortable house, tn,
newspaper and the railroad and so on
we can spare the hard conditions also
the wilderness, Notwithstanding they
had their charms.
Then in 1903, Ohio was erected out
OF the old Northwest Territory to be
a State, the first of the five great sister
commonwealths to take on State hood
but later came Indiana, Illinois, Mich
lgan and Wisconsin out of the
same territory. Before Ohio be-
came a state, our county of Washing
ton was hummer, in size at least.
The government, courts and all OF the
territorial officers were here, and for
many years during the dawn of the
last century when the world was
young, Washington county was in
reality State. No rival, no tramp
running over the border and getting
into her poor house when he belonged
In another county, Tor she had no poor
house and there was not Il tramp in
the universe at that time. They knew
better than to tramp in those days,
for the redskins with the handy scalp
ing knives were too numerous to make
the diversion of tramping very attrac-
tive.
Well, after Ohio was admitted, the
United States government decided over
to the new State all the lands held in
trust for school and religious pur-
poses. These were the sections num-
bered sixteen reserved for the support
Of schools and section 20 reserved for
the support of religion. After
the state had become the
almoner of these trusts laws
were enacted for the regulation and
government of same. A board of
ministerial trustees was provided for
and after they got to work, order be-
gan to arise out of the chaos that had
before that, in certain measure, pre-
vailed. All the public square that had
been laid out within the Ministerial
section were released from rents and |
allowed to remain as public grounds, |
except st. Cecilia Square, which was
retained and is now covered with SO |
year leases, same as the balance Of the |
section. st. Cecilia is the square be-
tween Fourth, Fifth, Green and Hart
streets. The annual rental fixed for
full city lot is $3.50, and the way to
secure an absolute title to one of these
lots, free of rents, Is to deposit with
the State Treasurer, sum sufficiently
large to yield interest at six per cent
equal to the rental. This sum, there
after becomes part of the irreducible
debt OF the State and goes on bearing
interest forever. This interest togeth-
er with the rentals is paid over every
year to the various churches in Mari
eta township.
QUAINT AND CURIOUS.
No doubt, many things that were of
prime Importance in the early days
would seem strange to us now. For
Instance, there used to be a grist mill
anchored out in the Ohio river in
'front.' of town. which was run by the
of the river striking a big
water wheel. This, of course. was
merely a corn cracker That was all
hey had in early days. Then later on
here was a ferry, which coming after
he steamboat idea of propulsion by
means Of side wheels had been adopt
ID, had side wheels, and in the mid
lie of the boat was big turn table
with rachets on the underside which
lifted into cogs on the wheel shafts,
Ind when this turn table went around
he rachets and cogs did their work
Ind the ferry went merrily on. Now,
What do you suppoge was the motive
power which turned the table and
nae the wheels go round? Two horses,
,ne on either side. One horse was
headed toward the bow and the other
oward the stern of the boat. You
.ould hear the ferryman mile, call
ng. whistling and urging these poor
,rutes to their work. 1t is said that
hese were generally blind horses not
1t for any other work More's the
,ity.
GROWTH OF 100 YEARS.
Slack water on the Muskingum,
which came in 1887. was hailed as
1