Tidbits of Ironton’s History

ANCIENT HISTORY OF OUR CITY FROM REGISTER FILES.

Early Masons – Briggs Library – Marriages and Deaths – Proud of the Register.

(Author not named) 

Ironton Register, March 9, 1905.

February 12, 1852. – Among the advertisements of Ironton’s first lawyers appear the names of S. P. Calvin, S. Sprigg, and Simeon Nash, of Gallipolis, Ohio, a partner of Henry S. Neal, who is still living, and who is, except for, Hon. Ralph Leete is the oldest lawyer in the city and county.

• The late Dr. William F. Willson settled in Ironton in 185_, his office and residence being in the Ironton House. In 1852 the taxable property in this state was recorded as being $477,000,000.  In 1902 it was $1,377,253,183, which shows the increase of wealth in the Buckeye state over fifty years.
• P.W.G. sends a poem from Rome, this county, to the Register of Feb. 12, 1852, “The Departed Wife,” and signed McD.”  The initials are those of Mr. Gillette, whose death recently was noticed in the Register, the author of the poem was probably Dr. McDowell.
• Feb. 19, 1852. – Ironton Market (Corrected weekly by Russell & Murdock).  “Flour, $3.60; corn, 33c per bu; potatoes, 65c; onions 75c, butter, 18 ¾ c lb; eggs, 10c doz; lard, 10 c lb; cheese, 10c; rice, 6 c; meal, 40c bu; coffee, 12 ½ lb; nails, 10 to 4, ____ to $5.00 per keg; chickens $1.25 to $1.50 per dozen.”
• Ironton. – In passing, Ironton the energy and enterprise for which that new city has been celebrated to manifested by additional buildings completed and others in the progress of erection.
• We offer the above from correspondence of the Cincinnati Gazette, dated on board steamer Buckeye State, near Pomeroy, Ohio, February 5, and ___expresses the truth ….. The town’s business is largely on the increase ..… and from all appearances, 1852 will be far more auspicious for the town than any previous year.
• We can scarcely realize that this is the same place we first visited two years ago.  We then determined to locate permanently in Ironton and never since has that determination repented us.
• We shall be disappointed if the population of Ironton does not reach 2,500 on January 1, 1853.
• Of 204 convicts sent to the Ohio Penitentiary during 1851, 106 – more than half -were intemperate, and 61 were moderate drinkers.  This leaves 37 temperate men, who may have been occasional drinkers.
• Married. – In Greensburg, Ky., on the 7th inst., by R. Gaberath, Esq., Mr. J. L. Whitney to Miss D. L. Bosquin, both of Haverhill, Ohio.
• Married. – Near Burlington, Ohio, Tuesday evening, February 17, by Rev. Mr. Spencer, Capt. John D. Brubaker, of the steamer Reveille, to Miss Olive A. Shute.
• Died. – In Chillicothe, Ohio, Richard Douglass, Esq., one of the city’s most respected citizens and senior members of the bar.
• On Sunday last in Portsmouth of typhoid fever, Mr. E. C. Selfridge, age about 24, superintendent of the public schools in that city.
• New Drug Store – Moxley & Barber Wholesale and Retail Druggists, No. 3, Union Block, in the room formerly occupied by J. M. & J. P. Merrill.
• February 26, 1852. – Locals. – “I like your paper much and wish to have it continued, but don’t you blow your new town a little more than it will bear?”
• Such is an extract from the letter of a friend who never has seen Ironton, to which we answer, No Sir: – Ironton has never been blown in the Register except as the facts warrant:  the town stands upon realities and is ahead of “wind-work.”
• The season is opening with brilliant prospects. People are commencing building operations, dwelling houses are in great demand …. Everybody is busy; work enough for all; and no loafers here unless among the sixteen or eighteen lawyers, physicians, and clergymen, and we believe that they are generally well-employed.
• We happened into Billy Nixon’s shop a day or two since.  He has a fine stock, and his business is flourishing.  The master of the shop recently took upon himself the “bridle of matrimony and is therefore entitled to increased patronage.
• Messrs. Rodgers and Parkison have procured lots between Front and Second Streets, on which the old brick house of the farm on which part of Ironton now stands, to erect a first-class flouring mill.  The building is to be brick, four stories high on Front street.  Operations are to be commenced immediately.
• The weather has been very pleasant and spring-like the past few days.  On Monday night, we heard the frogs peep -first of the season – and they have kept up their music since with increasing volume of voices.
• Married. – On the 12, inst. By Rev. James Haskell, Mr. David Reese of Washington Co., Ohio, and Miss Tennessee Gillett, of Lawrence County, Ohio.