Fred G. Leete

F. B. Lawton Writes of Fred G. Leete in Yesteryears

Ironton Evening Tribune, Sunday 30 October 1938

In the removal of friendships in Ironton, which happily has been my lot after years of absence, none has been of greater interest than a series of conversations with the stalwart citizen and civil engineer of this community, whose mementos and memories have inspired this article.

Our acquaintance began in childhood.  Then we were among the carefree youth of Ironton who spasmodically romped and dreamed or, under regulation, studied and performed domestic tasks we could not dodge. Now, these two are nearing the age of four score years.  Throughout the frivolities and the serious concerns of life, they have been friends.

Fred G. Leete was always thoughtful.  Even in youth, his naturally sober countenance easily warmed and lighted by turns of fun and humor as it is now quickly returned in the repose of serious contemplation.

Fred G. Leete’s workshop is at the rear of his home on Park Avenue.  There is a room where carpentry and repair tools are neatly hung over a bench, and in a larger room are the paraphernalia and trappings, the numerous rolls of maps and books of other records to be found in a surveyor’s sanctum.

Contrarily placed is a huge drawing board that commands the observer’s respect.  Its construction is of one-inch strips two inches wide, set on edge and glued and nailed together to form a rigid surface _ 1-3 by 5 feet in size which a man could scarcely lift. 

Important records without number have been spread upon it, and countless maps composed from surveyor’s notes in both public and private deals and enterprises in this community.  This board was made for Mr. Leete by the late Joseph Abele to acknowledge some favor.

Another drawing board with a history of interest – if it could be told – six feet by four feet four in size leans against the wall.  It was brought to Buckhorn furnace in about 1843(8) by James O. Willard.

Over in a corner is a substantial portable secretary with a drop lid which was presented to Mr. Leete’s father, Hon. Ralph Leete, by a United States governor-general who became the first governor of West Virginia.  It was in 1844 that Mr. Leete, the father, came from a farm at the northern side of Pennsylvania some ____ miles beyond Pittsburgh to Mt. Vernon furnace to teach school.  There he studied law before entering a long career as an attorney in Ironton.

A large part of Fred G. Leete’s long _______ as a surveyor has been in ________ with lands of the Hecla Iron & Mining Co. and his association with John Campbell, Ironton’s founder, and his sons Albert and Charles Campbell.  This notation is in one of his books:  “For more than 20 years, I walked from Ironton to Hecla and back while surveying their lands.”  It is noted in another place that he had “worked on 36 furnace properties, extending from north of Jackson, Ohio, to Soldier, Ky., and from Gallipolis to Portsmouth.”

His association with Messrs. Campbell was most pleasant.  For each of them, he speaks in terms of high appreciation.  He declares, for instance, Albert Campbell “was one of the best men I ever knew, and so few know him.”  His tribute to John Campbell, whom he knew well, is very strong.

A large book of photographs also containing valuable information about this region, which was given to him by Albert Campbell, is one of Mr. Leete’s valued possessions.  In this book are numerous photographs of some of the pioneer charcoal furnaces of the Hanging Rock iron region, many photographs being duplicates of these mentioned in an article in The Tribune two weeks ago, but the book also has other old-time photographs and other information of interest.

The first picture is of the old “iron bridge” over Storms Creek on the Iron R. R. at the north edge of Ironton.  This was known as the Mosely Bridge for its builder W. H. Mosely.  The bridge built in 1860 was 97 feet long.  Its reedbed of crossties and rails was supported by heavy iron _____, which spanned the space from shore to shore, above and not below the roadbed surface. 

It was peculiar in having no allowance in its construction for expansion and contraction and so gave the railroad no end of anxious attention in certain seasons and causes for reinforcements of its supports.  Only one other bridge was built like it.  It has been said that Henry Ford, when he owned this line of railroad, dismantled the old bridge to preserve it as one of his curios.

Fred G. Leete says there were in all forty-two of the charcoal furnaces in the Hanging Rock iron region on both sides of the river and that they were patterned after the Etna furnaces in New Jersey, of which there were three in that state.  A picture of the stack of the stock of one of them, erected in 1815, is on the next page of the Campbell book, showing it had fallen into decay, very much as have the former charcoal furnaces about Ironton at this time.

There are then groups of photographs of the following furnaces and the following information about them, written by Mr. Leete in his  (see if I can transcribe the next three paragraphs from microfilm)

• Olive furnace, _____, tons daily _______, built in 1846 by John Campbell and John Peters.
• ____________, 1833, 15 tons, James ___ Finley?  builders.  (Kate and _____ Fi_____, attractive school _____ and nieces of a pioneer resident, S. W. Dempsey? are remembered by the writer.)
• _______ Furnace, ___ tons, build in ____ by John Campbell and D. T. Woodrow.  (Presbyterians and others among Ironton’s older residents will remember Miss Maria Woodrow with esteem and affection.)
• Madison furnace, 14 tons, 1854 by John Campbell, J. P. Terry, and others.
• Keystone furnace in Jackson County, 15 tons, was built in 1849 by John Campbell, S. McConnell, and others.
• Monroe furnace, Jackson Co., 1856, John Campbell, Wm. Bolles and others.  This was the largest of the charcoal furnaces in the Hanging Rock region, having a daily capacity of 20 tons.
• Mt. Vernon furnace, 16 tons, was built by R. B. Hamilton, John Campbell, and W. Ellison.  For years after the erection of this furnace, its iron was molded into stoves and cooking utensils on the spot and hauled to Hanging Rock by ox teams for shipment in Ohio.
• Lawrence furnace was built in 1834 by J. Riggs & Co., 15 tons.  First known as Crane’s Nest, after the branch of Pine Creek on which it was built.  Lawrence was of the open-top hot blast type, which means it had no bell-a bell-shaped casting to close the top of the furnace.  The theory was that the open top produced a better grade of iron.
• Hecla furnace, 10 tons, was built by R. B. Hamilton and McCoy in 1833.  Later the owners were Campbell, Griswold & Co., then Campbell, McCullough & Co., and still later, Hecla Iron & Mining Co.  There is this in the book referring to Hecla:  “This furnace from 1883 to 1913 was probably the most widely known charcoal furnace in the United States.” At this point, Mr. Leete’s written comment is, “Hecla and Vesuvius had the best ore, and I believe 75 percent of that ore remains in these hills.  The cost of digging prohibits its use.”
• Center furnace, 16 tons capacity, built by Wm. Carpenter (first surveyor of Lawrence County) and others in 1836.
• Washington furnace built in 1853 by John Campbell, John, Isaac Peters, and others, 17 tons capacity.

In addition to the foregoing furnace record accompanying photographs which include only a portion of the charcoal furnaces of the Hanging Rock iron region, two other photographs of interest to old timers are in this comparatively small book. 

They are pictures of the ruins of the Means, Olhaber & Co., foundry which, with the Belfont Keg factory destroyed, covered the block between Front and Second streets below Etna.  These were burned in 1876.  The written comment is, “This was one of the greatest losses by fire Ironton ever experienced, both by losses of skilled workmen and by the value of building and materials.”

The other is a picture of Merchant’s Block at Second and Center, then three stories, showing these stores:  D. Nixon, furniture, Boston Dry Goods Co., M. Weil, clothing, A. T. Dempsey books, Bartram & Peters drugs.

Fred G. Leete has a small but very interesting collection of choppings from trees cut off with a surveyor’s axe when searching for old markings described in earlier surveyor’s notes and which the subsequent growth of the trees had covered.  In each specimen, the old mark, in one case made 30 years earlier, is distinctly revealed on the inner surface of the section removed.  His private “field books” contain accurate records number 130.

And as I close this article, I have just had a glimpse into a far more interesting book of facts preserved by Charles Campbell than any yet mentioned.  It is a large and heavy scrapbook, probably six inches thick, containing a world of information about this community, some of whose highlights I hope to preserve through a future article in The Tribune.  Here are two quotations found at random, written in Mr. Campbell’s hand:

• “The first hot blast erected in America for the smelting of iron ores was that at Vesuvius in 1837.”
• “The first furnace in America to place their boilers and hot blast at the top of the stack and heat them by waste gas was the Mt. Vernon furnace in 1847. John Campbell, manager at that time, did the experiment.”