234 



CONDITIONS BY COUNTIES. 



best timber was destroyed in this way it cannot be regarded as 

 a useless waste. In order to fit tlie land for cultivation the 

 farmers were compelled to clear it of the forest growth which 

 then had no apparent value to them save for domestic use. 



The first timber marketed from the county was yellow 

 poplar, oak and pine, rafted down the Ohio river and used for 

 ship building at Cincinnati, St. Louis and other southern 

 points. 



The tan bark industry was one of the first that affected 

 the timber of the interior. Thousands of cords of bark were 

 peeled from the chestnut oaks, which grew on dry ridges 

 throughout the hilly part of the county, and hauled on wagons 

 to St. Marys. Here it was sold to merchants for cash or traded 

 to them for goods. The merchants loaded the bark into barges 

 and marketed most of it in St. Louis and Cincinnati. Two 

 small tanneries at St. Marys, one built at an early date and 

 another in 1871 were the only users of tan bark at home. 

 Since the building of the Ohio Kiver Division of the Baltimore 

 and Ohio railroad in 1884 this method of handling tan bark 

 has fallen into disuse and Pittsburg has become the chief mark- 

 et. It may be said that great waste accompanied this industry 

 as no use was made of any part of the tree except its bark. 



During the same period and as late as 1890 hickory and 

 white oak hoop-poles were cut in great numbers. Some of these 

 were used locally by the coopers at St. j\Iarys and others were 

 bought and shipped by merchants. Poles for slack hoops 

 brought $4.50 and those for tight hoops about $7.50 per 

 thousand. 



The stave and lumber industry came next. The first staves 

 to be taken were split staves. The choicest white oaks were 

 felled and sa^^'ed into sections of the right length. These were 

 then split into pieces of the proper thickness for 2 staves, 

 kno^Ti as "double stuff," and hauled in wagons and sold to 

 merchants and coopers in St. J\Iarys. During the period of an 

 early oil development on Horseneck creek, in about 1860, most 

 of the staves obtainable were manufactured into barrels by lo- 

 cal coopers and used for shipping crude oil. Later, when the 

 oil refineries began the manufacture of barrels, the supply of 

 staves went for this purpose to Parkersburg, Marietta and 



