By: Melinda Krick
Paulding County Bicentennial Committee; Part of a series
PAULDING – An old story goes that a traveler in the Black Swamp stopped to walk with an early Paulding County pioneer. After the traveler made some disparaging remarks about the landscape, the settler retorted that here, in the midst of the forest, the people managed what others could not – two successful crops each year. The traveler, seeing no farm fields, expressed dismay. What possible crops could settlers harvest?
“One of ice, and the other of frogs,” answered the settler.
While the settlers dreamed of having vast fields of grain, they faced a daunting obstacle – over 200,000 acres of dense forests that first would have to be cleared.
Felling those unbroken stands of timber gave rise to the region’s prime “crop” for several decades. Timbering and manufacturing wood products fueled settlement as workers flocked here for employment. Boomtowns sprang up everywhere, especially along the growing railroad system, as sawmill and factories opened. As they used up the seemingly inexhaustible supply of trees, the towns, railroads and population began to decline and farms and fields of grain took over the landscape.
In the early days of exploration and settlement, furs and pelts were main exports. The timber era began as the hardy pioneers began to arrive. They each wanted to clear a plot of land, build a cabin and shelter for their animals, and begin growing crops. Imagine the task before them.
The Black Swamp lands were densely populated by more than two dozen varieties of trees, including At one time it was boasted that no several types of ash, elm, oak and walnut, hickory, bass, beech and poplar, towering up to 150 feet tall, almost blocking out the sun.
The trees were considered a nuisance. At first, they were felled, rolled into big piles and burned to get rid of them. There was no market for fine timber or logs, and no way to transport them if a market had existed.
Among the early products were railroad ties and hand-made oak barrel staves – the narrow pieces of wood used to form the sides of barrels. Another lucrative export was hoop poles. These were long, straight saplings used to make barrel hoops, which held the staves together to form a barrel. Hoop poles were even used to make women’s fashionable hoop skirts.
Farmers and woodsmen harvested the slender white oak, ash or hickory from the woods and removed the bark and any shoots. The work typically was done by individuals or families during the winter. A county newspaper in November 1881 noted, “The hoop pole campaign has commenced.”
A few water-powered sawmills also began appearing. The sawmills produced squared and board lumber sold nearby for houses, barns and other buildings.
The opening of the Wabash & Erie and Miami & Erie canals through the county in the 1840s changed everything. With the canals providing a vital link to outside markets, the first timber-related industries began. These enterprises were typically located next to the canal.
This second era of timber industry in the county came to be known as the “Ship Timber Period.”
At one time it was boasted that no county produced more or better timber than Paulding County. Shipbuilders on the East Coast and England wanted this prime timber to build clipper ships and whaling vessels for commerce around the globe.
Canadian and Canadian-backed companies carried out most of the work here. They sent skilled workmen to scout out and fell majestic, ancient burr oak and white oak trees, which were hewed square and hauled to the nearest canal or river, then lashed into rafts and sent to Toledo and Quebec and finally to Eastern markets, Liverpool or London.
According to lore, local timber was used to construct the Union ironclad “Monitor” during the Civil War.
The largest “stick” of timber reportedly exported from Paulding County measured 3 feet square and 75 feet long and was taken from near Melrose about 1866.
An 1890s report detailing estimated payments from timber companies since the 1870s suggested the companies had paid about $1.5 million for ship timber in the county in those decades – that translates to over $28 million in today’s currency.
Many canal towns, such as Melrose, Canalport and Timberville, were banking places where logs and wood products were stockpiled for shipment.
Also during this time period, two iron smelting furnaces and three charcoal kilns were built here, as was detailed in previous articles on railroad history. Charcoal making consumed tens of thousands of acres of forest; one of the operations was responsible for clearing 1,000 acres annually.
The third and final timber era slightly overlapped the second. In the “Hoop and Stave Era,” factories sprang up all over the county, employing countless men to manufacture wood products. The hoop and stave mills now had steam-powered machinery instead of work being done by hand. In addition, there were hub and buggy spoke factories, pail factory, barrel head factories, sawmills and planing mills.
Until the early 1900s, almost everything was shipped or stored in barrels. Barrel staves, barrel heads and hoops were the county’s chief exports. An estimated 100 million staves and headings were manufactured here annually.
The Antwerp Stave Co. was among the first, established in 1860. It was followed by Antwerp Hub & Spoke Co., founded in 1873 to make hubs, spokes and wagon material. Five years later, they added staves, lumber and moldings to their line.
Major A.B. Holcombe is credited with inaugurating elm hoop manufacturing here in 1880 by building a large factory that could make 30,000 hoops per day. These were shipped to New York and on to Europe. A newspaper article in 1884 noted, “The number of elm logs being used by Major Holcombe at his hoop factory in this place, is absolutely surprising. On Tuesday we noticed 16 teams engaged in Paulding, and each team is expected to haul 1,000 feet per day. Besides this many logs are brought in on cars.”
In 1886, he built an even larger factory on the northwest edge of Paulding in 1886 to produce staves and lumber. A factory town called Holcombeville grew up around the site, located on the Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw Railroad (later area in 1887 told of several Cincinnati Northern).
“The 9th day of June last, where the Holcombe factory now stands … was a dense forest. Aside from the factory there has been built a row of neat dwelling houses, a large and commodious barn and an office,” according to the Paulding County Gazette on November 3, 1887. “2,200 acres of timber lies almost at the back door of his manufactory which is the property of and under the sole management of Mr. Holcombe.”
West of Paulding, another factory town grew up called Section 8 at a stave mill in Section 8 of Paulding Township. Paul Weidmann built a tramway from his mill into Paulding. The small railway operated for about five years during the 1890s.
About 1888, about 16 stave factories were running in the county, all on railroads. Stave mills could be found at Latty, Cecil, Hedges, Broughton, Payne, Briceton, Melrose, Grover Hill, Dague, Scott, Batson, McGill, Antwerp, Paulding (two) and Tate’s Landing.
Hoop mills were established in Antwerp, Scott and Hedges. Smiley had a shingle and basket bottom factory.
Sawmills continued to operate throughout the county, with an average of two per township at one time. Gilbert’s Mills in Latty Township had a sawmill and post office. Logtown in Benton Township was another community centered around a sawmill. It had a school and a handful of homes.
The amount of logs and lumber produced is staggering. A news item from 1882 said, “Mr. Holcombe’s cutting crew has turned out 328,000 feet of elm logs in the past two months.” Reports from the Melrose developments: “Messrs. Boyd & Freede have scaled and paid for nearly two million feet of logs so far this winter. … Alex. Grant has banked about 260,000 feet during the good roads. … Jno. Hoffleman & Co. have about 3,000 logs in their yards and on the banks. Now, counting the stave bolts and ties, of which not a few have been marketed here, who can say our elm woods are not a source of great wealth?”
The timber industry’s toll on the dense forests slowly became evident. Of Paulding County’s nearly 220,000 acres, only 21,443 acres were under cultivation by 1870. A decade later, the number of acres under cultivation more than doubled to 47,199. By 1890, that total had increased to nearly 100,000 acres, leaving about 120,000 acres of timber resources for factories.
Statistics show the county had 189,000 improved acres by 1900, and virtually all had been improved by 1910.
As late as summer 1909, Junction reported “a raft of ship timber passed through here from Delphos en route to Toledo.”
As the “inexhaustible” supply of timber started to dwindle, Paulding County reached a turning point. The factories and mills turning out wood products began to close down. The portable sawmills used at some businesses were sold and moved to other communities and states. The factories had been a major employer in many towns. The population, which had doubled from 13,485 in 1880 to a high of 27,528 in 1900, began to decline. Some towns began to shrink and some disappeared completely. They are remembered as “ghosttowns”today.
The timber industry began as a profitable byproduct of clearing the woods. Thousands of people came here during these boom years for work and opportunity. They cut down the forests, built or rented homes, bought or traded at businesses, sent their children to school and participated in social activities. Then, as the county developed “From the Black Swamp to a Land Bright and Fair,” they moved on and left behind a rich legacy.
More information on the bicentennial can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ PauldingCounty200.
