County Will Get Butter, Pork

The Marietta Daily Times, December 7, 1933:

D. Ray Metzger of Columbus, field agent of the Ohio State Relief Commission, spent Thursday in Marietta and made the announcement that a car load each of federal pork and butter will arrive in Marietta next Monday for relief distribution. The commodities will be consigned to the C. L. Bailey Grocery Company and distribution to various parts of Marietta and Washington County will be made at once following the arrival of the train.

Frank Buckley will be in charge of distribution for Washington County. There are 12 distributing points in Marietta and about 30 places in Washington County

Foodstuffs have been apportioned on the basis of 10 pounds of salt pork per family on relief while butter will average four pounds per family for each week. Of this amount, Washington County will require 7,480 pounds of pork and 2,903 pounds of butter.

Noble County families on relief will receive 370 pounds of pork and 146 pounds of butter, according to allotments assigned to Ohio counties. The allotment four Morgan County is 1,940 pounds of pork and 778 pounds of butter.

The Marietta Daily Times, December 8, 1933:

Food Allotment Plan Announced

Frank Buckley, federal food distributor in Marietta and Washington County, announces that a program of food allotment has been worked out for distribution of pork and butter. The federal relief will go to families where the head of the family is not employed on either public or private projects. Indications are that the federal relief will be extended during the winter months.

About 300 families in Marietta and 630 in Washington County will be aided through federal food relief, and this number will total about 4,500 people to be helped in the county and city. Allotments of pork and butter will be received in Marietta monthly for weekly distribution, according to present plans, as announced by Mr. Buckley.

According to the schedule, a family of from one to four persons will receive two and a half pounds of pork per week; a family of from five to seven persons will receive four pounds of pork; a family of from eight to 10 persons will receive six pounds of pork; and families with 11 or more members will be allotted eight pounds of pork. Apportionment of butter will be made in proportion to the size of the families. The federal relief commodities will arrive in Marietta early next week.

Old Flat Iron Building is Being Torn Down

The Register-Leader, March 19, 1923

The building on the flat iron corner on lower Front Street is being dismantled preparatory to the building of a new structure. The old building had been one of Marietta's landmarks, having been built more than a hundred years ago, being one of Marietta's first business blocks.

A number of our readers will remember the time when that corner was the busiest place in Marietta, with Ohio Street and Greene Street as the business center. While much of the business has scattered, it is still a busy thoroughfare, more especially so since the building of the Ohio River bridge and the Norwood development.

Cross Burned at Macksburg

The Register-Leader, March 13, 1923

Ku Klux Klan activities have spread to Macksburg village according to advices reaching Marietta Tuesday morning. The fiery cross, symbolic of the hooded order, was burned from a hill overlooking Macksburg Monday night, about eleven o'clock.

The fiery spectacle of the cross was preceded by three loud explosions. This is the second time that the cross has been burned in Macksburg.

Over One Hundred Years Old

The Marietta Register, January 4, 1872

Felix McGee [Felix Magee], over one hundred years of age, who lives in Salem Township, came down to Marietta on the Duck Creek Railroad on Monday. He was born in Ireland; came to this country in 1820, the year that George the Third of England died; and settled in the Duck Creek Valley over fifty years ago. He has full possession of all his faculties, good eyes, good hearing, good legs, and looks as if he was good for twenty years to come.

Our Oil Wells

 The Marietta Intelligencer, February 13, 1861

We are now on the verge of a very interesting period in the progress of these wells. A great number of them are just at this time arriving at a depth at which oil is anxiously looked for and sanguinely expected. In fact, for the last two weeks, it has been no new thing to hear that someone had struck, as he thought, a paying vein; or at least, an additional one of more or less consequence. A few weeks, or a few months, at farthest, will determine whether the valley is rich with this latent treasure, or whether there is only occasionally an isolated spot of wealth. Many of the inhabitants flatter themselves that we have already passed the point of indecision in that matter. 

It is rather amusing to strangers passing along the valley to have almost constantly in view, shelters of boards about the wells, popularly called "shanties." In some places there is quite a village of them. There are, also, derricks over nearly all of the wells. These are usually made of four poles, twenty-five or thirty feet long, raised in such a manner as to very much resemble the corners of a pyramid. At the top of these poles, a pulley is attached, over which a rope is drawn and fastened to a windlass down in the shanty, by which means the drilling apparatus is hoisted from the well. These derricks present rather a novel and somewhat imposing appearance.

There are constantly persons about negotiating for sites. One would have thought that nearly all the bottoms had been let long ago. Not so, however; many of them are yet in the hands of the owners, though every nook and corner will be looked into, as the prospect becomes more favorable. 

The well usually known as "Dutton's Well," situated in Aurelius Township, one mile below Macksburg, is thought to be seriously jeopardized by the rather close proximity of two or three other institutions of the kind. The former partners, however, made a good thing of it, and some of the present ones have made in it a rich investment. A good looking engine has just been set at pumping, and a very commodious building has just been erected over the whole affair; the aggregate cost of both being, perhaps, not far from $1,500. The well has been called a "hundred barrel well." That it has produced one hundred barrels in twenty-four hours, I do not doubt, but it has fallen very far short of averaging that amount. I think that a careful calculation would show an average of about twenty-five barrels per day, from the commencement. But this at the present price of oil would have brought the snug little sum of say $35,000 and that too, in a period of about 90 or 100 days.

A few weeks ago a vein was struck some fifteen feet from the "Dutton's Well," which was thought to be a fine thing. There has, however, as yet, been no great quantity of oil taken from it. They are setting up steam works to pump it and have bored it deeper. It is owned by Dudley McKee & Caldwell of Noble County.

On the opposite side of the "Dutton Well," and but a few yards from it, are two wells owned by a company in Erie County, Pennsylvania, the affairs of which are conducted mainly by Mr. J. B. Smith of the Company. It was thought that he would make a rich "haul" from one of his wells. It poured forth for a time an exceedingly rich stream of oil. Mr. Smith, I understand, expects to procure in a short time, steam works for his wells.

So there will then be three engines almost as near each other as they can be constructed. It is not unlikely that one company will ultimately own all these wells. The net profits of them would then be much greater than when worked by so much machinery. Such, however, will not probably be the case until their aggregate proceeds shall not much exceed the proceeds of a single well if run alone.

Ruralist