Chapter IV

Some Days are Good, Some Not

Probably every person at one time of life or another expresses a wish to have been born in another time. What a thrilling and wonderful experience would have been enjoyed by one living in Saint Marys, Ohio, in this period of expansion! Imagine 1,700 German and Irish immigrants working along side native farmers, building the great earthen dams that formed Lake Saint Marys. Picture in your mind the additional hundreds of men working on the canal system proper. See too, the local farmers, tradesmen and merchants supplying the needs of these crews. Henry Noble, one of the earliest settlers of Noble Township, had gone down below Piqua for information about bidding on a canal contract in his area. He found instead that there was a tremendous demand for potatoes among the Irish diggers. He brought home several hundred pounds of seed potatoes which he planted the following spring. His neighbors wondered what Henry was going to do with such a huge crop, but when he sold them at a very good price, they all wanted in on a "good thing." The next year, Noble planted only what he needed for himself, but made a second killing selling seed potatoes to all of his neighbors!

Clearing of the forest lands for farming produced huge quantities of timber. Much of this was used to build houses, barns and split rail fences. More was used to burn out stumps in the newly plowed fields. There was plenty left over to establish a fast growing need for wood products. An early sawing mill had been established about 1825 on the river southeast of town, and this was followed by several others also using river power. The opening of the canal provided a year round dependable source of water power not affected by flood or drouth, and the forests provided the new nations highest quality of hardwoods, oak, ash, hickory, maple and walnut. In later years, this lead to the establishment of such firms as the Schmehl Sawmills, Mackenbach Lumber Co., The Oar Factory, The Whipstock Mill, Bimel Carriage Works, Koch Buggy Factory, The Makley Carriages. Saint Marys Wheel and Spoke Co. and Crane-McMahan Furniture.

There was plenty of activity for the youngsters of that day. School was a "sometimes" thing even after the public school system was established in 1853. Whenever one was caught up with his "chores," there was time for fishing in either the canal, the river or the lake. Bass under two pounds were thrown back to grow up, while sturgeon as large as fifty pounds apiece could be clubbed at the riffle of the river during spawning season. Fish and game in excess of family needs could be readily sold to local taverns or to the packing houses for shipment to Cincinnati. If one were to be on hand near the locks when a passenger packet was going through, there was always the chance of making a few coins by fetching a cold bucket of beer from a nearby saloon-ah ! Shades of the past !

There was always some money to be made by filling sacks with shavings from the barrel stave shops and selling in town for quick kindling, and if you were big enough to handle an axe, wood chopping was always available summer or winter. There were the days of easy, leisurely living. Nobody had so much as to cause envy and yet everyone had enough to prosper. It was a time of growing opportunity and the old girl knocked many times!

As the canal opened vast acreage to farming, so too the produce of these fawns expanded Saint Marys. Soon there were flour mills, woolen mills, linseed oil and flaxen mills, a distillery, a foundry, a tannery, tile and brick yards, boot and shoe makers, meat packers, salting houses for fish, game and pork together with warehouses and merchants for every kind of goods.

A few years later, Philip VonHerzing as a member of the Board of Public Works, reported that Saint Marys alone shipped on the canal in one season as follows: lumber - 1,650,000 board feet; grain and flour - 19,063,000 pounds; pork and lard - 330,000 pounds; whipstocks - 30,000 dozen; linseed oil - 155,000 gallons; oil cake - 1,060,000 pounds; other merchandise - 25,000,000 pounds.

Saint Marys did not depend entirely on the Miami and Erie Canal for its transportation and development. One of the first actions of the Mercer County Commissioners in 1824 was to survey and improve a road to Sidney. The crooks and turns of present day Route 29 shows how the surveyors sought to place their line to avoid low swampy ground and to cross streams at the best places. Even though the canal by 1845 connected to Fort Wayne, land travel was also much in demand. So much so that a private company was formed to build a "plank road" to Mercer, Rockford, Decatur, Indiana and Fort Wayne. This road was a toll road and was opened in 1852. A huge celebration was held at the edge of Saint Marys (Bunker Hill) that rivalled the opening of the canal a few years before. Present day U. S. 33 follows the old plank road almost exactly for 60 miles. Within a few years, the towns of Celina and Waupaukonnetta (as it was then spelled) became of sufficient importance to build plank roads to these two towns as well. During the 1860's the stage coaches or hacks were compelled to