The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1947-02-20
The Cranberry Marsh

marsh and selling them to newly
arrived settlers at 20 cents bushel
was the only source of revenue of
the first farmers in Crawford Coun-
ty.
Two thousand acres of Cranberry
marsh were in the county and an
other 1000 acres Tapped. over into
Hardin County. Cranberries were
plentiful and new settlers usually
brought in little money with them.
There was no other market for the
berries and no roads nor transpor-
tation out Of the county for crops.
The first farmers had to consume
their own product.
BY 1924 the cranberries were sell
ing at Is cents a bushel. In 1885
the price had increased to rs cents
bushel, and by 1850 had risen to
50 a bushel. Five years later the
marsh had become so dry that cram
berries no longer grew there in pay
ing quantities.
FIRST MARKET ROAD IN 1884
In 1884, when the 106-mile turn
pike between Columbus and San
dusky was completed, transportation
to market was provided for Craw-
ford County's cranberry crop. Ber-
ries were hauled away by the wagon
load. Much fur, too, was shipped
away, and rs wagons loaded with
wheat were counted passing through
Bucyrus in one day. These returned
loaded with goods and thus did much
to develop the entire region.
Until their discovery that the
cranberries could be sold to newcom-
ers, the first settlers of Crawford
County suffered privations of every
kind and nearly starved to death.
Carefully preserved annals of the
Norton family, Bucyrus, weave a
story that should bring thankfulness
into the heart of every farmer of
today's fertile Ohio acres that he
was born 100 years too late-for
that sort of farming.
Samuel Norton was Crawford
County's first settler. He brought
his family there in 1919 and built
the first log cabin. Up to that time
there was no white family in the
county. Three years later, with his
cabin and that of James Kilbourne,
later arrival, in it, he laid out
Bucyrus.
NEAREST FLOUR MILL AT
CO, WAYNE COUNTY
The nearest flour mills were at
Fredericksburg, near Wooster, Wayne
County, and Lexington, near Mans
field, Richland County. The man
or boy who went to the mills walked
the entire distance over Indian
trails and led a horse loaded with
two or three sacks of wheat. When
the Nortons could not go to mill
they made flour by pounding the
grain in a mortar with a wooden
pestle.
Norton's mortar was made by
burning into a log hole big enough
to hold a half-bushel of wheat. The
meal was sifted through three differ
ent size sieves, thus giving three
different grades of flour. The finest
was baked into bread; the coarsest
was boiled, sometimes for a full day,
to soften it, and was eaten as por-
ridge
When the flour was all gone the
family lived on food made from corn
meal. When the meal gave out the
Nortons often ate meals made with
out flour, meal, vegetables or meat.
They had to use the crater"
HARD WORK
The crater was made by punching
holes close together in one-half of
anold tin bucket,t hen nail the piece
of tin onto one side of a board so
that it bulged little in the middle.
Meal could be made by rubbing ears
of corn along the grater's surface
until there was enough for supper
and breakfast. The children went
to the corn patch and picked the corn,
then the mother rubbed the meal.
1t was hard work.
If the meal was mixed and baked
in a Dutch oven it was called "pone."
If it was baked on a board by or
over the fire, it was called Johnny
cake" When it was made into balls
and baked in the oven, they were
called "corn dodgers" Often the
meal was boiled into mush and eaten
with milk
When the Norton family could Sc
cure neither flour nor meal from the
mill, pestle or crater, they would
borrow from the nearest settlers.
The food situation in the neighbor's
cabin usually was as bad as the
Nortons. Descendants of the family
related their forefathers had hYed
for weeks without bread, subsisting
on wild honey, wild turkeys and a
few potatoes.
AS settlers began to move into the
region the privations and hunger
increased with the newcomers. Not
only was there a shortage of food
and money-there was nothing to be
bought with the money if the pion,