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Guernsey county, if it has no
scenery which realizes the grand or approaches the massively
sublime, certainly presents to the eye a rare combination of
those gentler elements of nature's beauty, which atones for
the absence of the ruggedly picturesque. Nature
everywhere wears an appearance which indicates her favor to
man and adaptability to his good. The landscape is of
that nature which most harmonizingly holds and surrounds the
scenes of harvest and the husbandman's home. The rural
residences, and the tangible evidences of thrift and plenty
which cluster around them, seem appropriately placed in a
picture which a ride through Guernsey county discloses to
the eye. They are the natural outcome, the
crystallizations of the richness of the soil, and, although
reared by the industry of man, they have not been wrought
with such stress of force, such slow and difficult toil, as
in some less favored regions. Not stubbornly or
grudgingly has nature yielded here to man, but gladly and
with glorious generosity of harvests from the largess of her
inches. A benison of beauty seems to rest upon the
land, and to have as its counterpart and complement the
blessing of plenty. With salubrious climate, fertile
soil, capable of bearing as full a variety of crops as any
tract of country in its latitude, bountiful and constant
water supply, and of a somewhat rough surface, which insures
good drainage, Guernsey county lacks no elements which the
farmer needs. It has more than these - an
inexhaustible supply of sandstone and limestone of great
economic value, an available abundance of good timber, such
as beech, poplar, walnut, sycamore, oak, chestnut,
maple, elm, and ash, and an entire underlying strata of coal
for household and manufacturing purposes, together with a
considerable supply of salt from natural wells, or to be
easily obtained by boring. The surface, to use a
familiar phase, is "up-hill and down-hill," for the whole
county might be not inaptly called one hill, with a very
uneven surface. The highest ground is in the northwest
and southwest; and only four miles west of Spencer township
in Richhill township, Muskingum county, stands "High Hill,"
the highest isolated point in the State, though in Logan
county the general lay of the land is higher. Although
it has always been thought impossible to have hills without
valleys, that anomaly is very nearly presented here, for
there are no valleys but are closely shut in by hills.
There is an element of the romantic, too, for the quiet
dells, retiring far between the swelling hills, give gentle
invitation to the traveler to explore their windings.
The slopes afford good pasturage, and in some places are
covered with vineyards. The central southern portion
presents the most attractive appearance to the traveler's
eye, and the principal towns and best mines are located
there. In the southwestern corner is a rich
agricultural district, where the
[Pg. 422]
Foster and Miller farms, long celebrated through out
the State for the excellence of their live stock and farm
products, are located.
This central is traversed from east to west by the
Central Ohio division of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, and
by the National road, also. There is, too, a short
local line called the Eastern Ohio railroad, now in
operation from Cumberland in Spencer township, to
Senecaville in Richland township, a distance of eighteen
miles. The only railroad which passes through the
county from north to south, is the Marietta, Cleveland &
Pittsburgh railroad which runs through the western part of
the county. These afford the only means of
intercommunication, or of access to the outside world, other
than the very ordinary country roads, which are so numerous
as to be called the "Guernsey county cobweb." The
drainage of the county is by a branch of the Muskingum
river, known as Wills creek, and by the tributary streams of
that creek, viz.: its headwaters - Buffalo, Beaver, and
Seneca creeks; Leatherwood and Crooked creeks, and Salt
fork, Bushy fork, and Sugar Tree fork. Leatherwood
creek is the principal tributary, and has its headwaters in
Warren township, Belmont county, at the town of Barnesville.
It flows along the southern border of the county from east
to west, and empties into Wills creek at the Marietta,
Cleveland & Pittsburgh bridge just south of Cambridge.
Wills creek flows from its source in Noble county, through
the entire length of Guernsey county, into the Muskingum
river near the corner of Muskingum and Coshocton counties.
All the other streams in this section of the State flow in a
southerly direction towards the Ohio river, but Wills creek
flows north, away from that river. It is a sluggish
stream, and follows a tortuous course, north and south,
through the western part of the county, and has a fall of
barely one foot per mile. Its bottoms are rich, and at
several locality the valley presents scenes rarely excelled
for quiet beauty. Its tributaries form a net-work over
the entire county.
Guernsey county waters are notoriously sluggish, and
there has never been any inland navigation; indeed, not even
a rowboat could be successfully propelled for any distance
within the county limits. While these slow moving
waters generally have a sickly yellow hue, and are so
shallow that even the bottom and top of Wills creek threaten
to come together in midi-summer, yet an abundance of
palatable water is easily obtained in any part of the
county.
Guernsey county is bounded on then North by Tuscarawas
and Harrison, on the east by Belmont, on the south by Noble,
and on the west by Muskingum and Coshocton counties.
Its soil is derived principally from the underlying
rocks. These are chiefly shales and sandstones, so
that, except on the eastern border, where the limestones at
the base of the Upper Coal group are reached, the soil is
thin and loose. In some localities it affords barely
hold for grasses on the hillsides. Little of the land
remains uncultivated, and even the hillsides are put in
corn. It is probable, however, that eventually
Guernsey county will become important as a dairy district,
for it possesses many springs of cool, soft water, and its
hillsides are best fitted for pasture. This county is
the third largest sheep growing county in the State.
The county is somewhat irregular in shape, has nineteen
townships, and embraces an area of four hundred and sixty
square miles. Its greatest length is twenty-five
miles, and its greatest breadth is also twenty-five miles.
Its average width is fifteen miles. The portion lying
to the north of the Central Ohio railroad has suffered much
from erosion, and its surface shows numerous deeply
excavated valleys and many sharply defined ridges.
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