414 surgeons' reports — ohio — seventeenth district. 



all examinations sliouUl be deferred until after the draft. The percentage of exemptions would prob- 

 ably be the same, or nearly so, in all the districts. All the names on the roll must be drawn at the 

 time of the draft by numbering them and examining from No. 1 until the required number is 

 obtained. This would save much time and expense, and make the entire enrolled community 

 workers lor volunteering. 



JAMES D. EOBINSON, 

 Surf/eon Board of Enrollment Fourteenth District of Ohio. 

 WoosTER, Ohio, May 19, 18G5. 



OHIO— SEVENTEENTH DISTEICT.i 



Extracts from report of Dr. L. M. Whiting. 



* * * The number of men examined during this period somewhat exceeds nine thou- 

 sand, a large pi-oportion of whom were claimants for exemption by reason of real or imagined 

 disabilities. 



The Seventeenth District of Ohio, embracing the counties of Carroll, Columbiana, Jefferson, 

 and Stark, with an area of eighteen hundred and sixteen square miles, and a population varying 

 not much from one hundred and forty thousand, being bounded on its almost entire eastern line by 

 the OhioEiver, is largely made up of the rugged country which the projecting spurs of the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains on their extreme western slope would naturally produce. 



The counties of Carroll, Columbiana, and Jefferson are, with the exception of the northern 

 part of the second named, very hilly, yet with a soil yielding large returns to the industry of the 

 active practical farmers, by whom they are almost exclusively peopled. The northern part of 

 Columbiana County is gently undulating, watered by the Mahoning Eiver, and densely populated 

 by a thriving and intelligent class of agriculturists. The western part of the district, composed 

 almost entirely of Stark County, lies mainly beyond the immediate influence of the mountains, and 

 is spread out into the most beautiful rolling landscape, through which flows the Tuscarawas Eiver, 

 and its tributaries, the Sandy and Nimishillen, as also the Ohio Canal, along which are clustered 

 many populous and busy towns. The track of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Eailway 

 traverses the entire district from east to west, as does the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Eailroad from 

 north to south, the two intersecting each other at this i)lace. The district, taken as a whole, 

 is decidedly a limestone region, in which bituminous coal of excellent quality everywhere abounds, 

 and iron-ore of superior yield is found in various localities. Eecently, petroleum has also been 

 brought to light, and bids fair to be developed as a source of great revenue. 



The inhabitants of Columbiana and Jefferson Counties are a remarkable mixture, representing 

 on a pretty large scale England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Germany, with a considerable num- 

 ber of native Quakers, and nearly all of the various nationalities are engaged in agricultural pursuits, 

 although coalmining and the manufacture of wool and cotton are carried on to some extent in the 

 county of Jefferson. The inhabitants of Carroll and Stark Counties are largely of German descent. 

 The township of Nimishillen, Stark County, is largely poi)ulated by native French and their imme- 

 diate descendants, and the latter county especially contains a large number of naturalized emigrants 

 from Europe. Carroll County is entirely agricultural, and Stark County is eminent for the amount 

 and excellence of its cereal products, while it also contains (at Canton and Massillon) some of the 

 largest manufactories of agricultural machinery in the United States, upon which many thousands 

 of individuals are dependent for daily labor and prosi)erity. This county is noted for the extensive 

 mines of coal on Nuomaris Creek, (a mineral so free fiom sulphur as to be used for smelting iron 

 in the large furnaces at Massillon without being coked at all,) and a rich mine of black-band iron- 

 ore in Osnaburgli Township, now being ujost extensively and profitably wrought. Taken as a whole, 

 the population of the district is wealthy, moral, intelligent, industrious, and loyal. To this, 

 exception may be made of a portion of the foreigners, and especially of a class engaged in the 

 mines in the extreuu; western part of the district, several hundred of whom are at this time banded 

 in defiance of law to enforce their own decrees, and to quell whose riotous and dangerous proceed- 

 ' No reports woro received fioni tlie fiftoeiitb ami sixtecutli districts. 



