| Warren County
Local History by Dallas Bogan |
| Contributor: |
Dallas Bogan on 19 September 2004 |
Source: |
The following was taken from Dallas Bogan's book, "The Pioneer Writings of Josiah Morrow." |
| Return to Index to see a list of other articles by Dallas Bogan |
While the several corn canneries of Warren county are in successful operation
it may be of interest to look at the origin and growth of the great industry
of canning foods in our country and more particularly the origin of the business
of canning sweet corn in this county. It is worthy of note that two of the three
men who were members of the firm which established the first factory for canning
sugar corn in this region are still living and citizens of the town of Lebanon.
These two men are John M. Hayner and Peter B. Dunham.
In the volume of selected manufacturing industries issued by the census office
in 1905 is a valuable report by Emmons K. Elsworth on "Canning
and Preserving Fruits and Vegetables, Fish and Oysters," from which much
of the data here given is taken.
The seasons when many fruits and vegetables can be obtained and used for food
in their natural state are short, and it has always been an important inquiry
with civilized men how these products can be preserved and used for food when
out of season and in localities where they are not grown.
The first processes used for this purpose were drying, smoking and pickling,
all of which are still employed. Drying is the oldest and most primitive method
of preserving foods, and altho it answers but imperfectly for many substances,
it has been much practiced. Drying in the sun is the cheapest of all methods
of preventing the decay of foods, and many fruits and vegetables are still preserved
in a satisfactory manner by this method.
Immense quantities of orchard fruits, particularly of apples, were annually
cut and dried both for home consumption and for market long before the canning
of fruit was discovered. The Indians and the early hunters preserved meat by
cutting it into strips and drying it in the sun or by fire. After being dried
it was called jerked meat. James Smith, long a prisoner among
the Indians of Ohio, in describing the foods of the red men, mentions "green
corn dried," but there is no reason to believe that this method of preserving
the greatest delicacy of the Indians' diet, was followed to any considerable
extent either by the native tribes or the early white settlers.
The decay of food, both animal and vegetable, it is now known, is caused by
the growth of micro-organisms. Drying, smoking and pickling are designed to
subject the food to processes which will prevent the growth of the organisms,
The germs which cause decay find their way in- to animal or vegetable matter
from the air. The principle upon which canning is based is this: Heating airy
substance to a high temperature kills all the organisms pre- sent, and hermetically
sealing the substance while still at a high temperature prevents the access
of more organisms from the atmosphere and thus food may be preserved for an
indefinite period. The art of canning was discovered before the reason on which
it is based was known.
The perfect preservation of juicy fruits and green vegetables implies the retention
of their full nutritive power, succulence and digestibility, together with their
natural tastes, colors, and odors. The canning method comes nearer to doing
all this than any other ever discovered.
About one hundred years ago much attention was drawn to this subject in France
by a reward offered by Napoleon of 12,000 francs for the best method of preserving
food for the navy. The process of canning good heated to a high temperature
and sealing it so a to exclude the atmosphere, it is now believed, was invented
by a Frenchman named Nicholas Appert to whom the French government paid the
mentioned reward in 1809. This Frenchman was a benefactor to his race but he
did not live to see himself regarded as the father of a great industry. He continued
his researches until his death and spent all his money upon them and like many
other inventors died in poverty and neglect. He was the author of a book on
the art of canning which the French government published in 1810.
The art of canning was introduced into England from France and brought to
America from England. By 1825 fruits and vegetables were canned in this country,
but the industry was of small importance until the middle of the last century.
In 1849 fruits and vegetables were canned at Newark N.J., for Dr. Kane's
Arctic expedition. After 1850 the development of the industry was rapid and
a great variety of foods began to be thus preserved, such as fruits, vegetables,
oysters, fish and meats. For some reason Maryland became the center of the industry,
but Maine, New York, and New Jersey were also prominent.
The first foods canned in America were lobsters and salmon; next fruits and
vegetables. Isaac Winslow is believed to have been the first
to successfully can sugar corn for market. He made his experiments in 1842,
and applied for a patent which was not granted until 1863.
Tomatoes were first canned for commercial purposes in 1847, at which time Harrison
W. Crosby commenced packing them at Jamesburg, N.J.
It is certainly remarkable that the tomato which up to the middle of the last
century was little used for food and was believed to many to be poisonous soon
became the garden vegetable raised in greatest quantities for the canning factory.
In the United States Census report for 1905 on special industries, the canning
industry is divided into three great branches, viz:
1. The canning of fruits and vegetables (including corn).
2. The canning of fish.
3. The canning of oysters.
Of these branches the first is far more important in every particular than either
of the others. Among the fruits and vegetables canned in the United States in
1904 corn stood first in the number of cases and in the value of the product.
Next in order were tomatoes, peas, beans, peaches, apricots and berries.
The drying of sweet corn both for domestic and commercial purposes preceded
the canning industry. The business of drying sugar corn became an extensive
one in this county. In 1871 William H. Poore and Henry
B. Kelley began drying sweet corn near Fosters Crossing where they
had one of the first dry houses in the west. Poore and Kelley were the discoverers
of a new process of preserving green corn by drying. In 1872 these men in connection
with J.M. Hayner became extensively engaged in this business
on Mr. Hayner's farm near South Lebanon. Other corn drying
houses were established in the county and Mr. Hayner built
one near Lebanon.
The corn drying business was conducted with profit for some years but at length
became unprofitable and was succeeded by canning, some houses, it seems, conducting
the business of drying and canning corn at the same place. It is claimed that
the first corn canning firm west of the Alleghenies was the South Lebanon Packing
Co., which fitted up the dry house on the Hayner farm for canning. I have seen
a letter head of this company which gives the names of J.M. Hayner,
Dunham-P.B.P.B. Dunham, and H.B. Kelley as the members and
states their business as "Manufacturers of and dealers in Royal canned
and dried sweet corn." Mr. Dunham gives the year in which corn was first
canned at this pioneer factory as 1879.
About 1880 Messrs. Dunham and Kelley bought out Mr. Hayner's
interest and continued the industry. In a business directory of Warren county
for 1881 I find the following: "South Lebanon Packing Co. (P.B.
Dunham and H.B. Kelley,) manufacturers and Packers of Royal Brand Green
Corn."
None of the members of the original firm understood the canning business and
they sent to Baltimore where they procured their machinery for an expert to
start up their factory. It is related that the firm at first had on hand a large
amount of dried corn for which there was little demand, and in order to get
rid of it they purchased a large quantity of beans which was cooked with the
corn, canned and sold as succotash.
At first many processes not performed by automatic machinery were laboriously
done by hand. The corn was cut from the cob and the cans filled by hand. Notwithstanding
the slow processes and the large amount of spoiled corn the business was profitable
from the start. In the eighties the growth of the industry was marvelous and
new canneries grew up in all parts of the country.
Peter B. Dunham became the sole proprietor of the South Lebanon
establishment and removed it to Morrow where with a partner he conducted it
under the name of the Morrow Packing Co. Since 1884 J.M. Hayner
has been extensively engaged in the business by himself. These gentlemen have
probably had more experience in corn canning than any other two men in Ohio.
Henry B. Kelley is said to have made the first suggestion to
can green corn in Warren county. He was an ingenious man, a native of New York
and came to Fosters in this county in 1871. He was a son-in-law of Orson
B. Murray. Mr. Kelley removed west and was extensively engaged in canning
at the time of his death. Only last week the Kelley Canning factory at Waverly,
Iowa, run by his sons, was destroyed by fire originating in the explosion of
a gasoline tank with a loss of $100,000,
The two corn canneries of Lebanon were both started in 1904. There were then
eight of these factories in Warren county which is the number now in operation.
The Frenchman who invented the canning process proposed to use only glass
for his cans, glass being, he said, the material most impenetrable by air, and
he did not experiment with any other material. In England as early as 1810 we
hear of a patent covering vessels for canning made of glass, pottery, tin, or
other fit materials. On account of the expensiveness, bulkiness and perishableness
of some of these materials, tin has generally been employed. At first the tin
cans were cut out with shears and soldered by hand and were crude and expensive.
With such cans, canning could not be practiced on a commercial scale.
The automatic can making machine has made the canning industry what it is today.
Two men and two or three boys can with machinery make 40,000 or 50,000 tin cans
a day. But the old time tinsmith should not conclude from this that machinery
has displaced labor. The car loads of tin cans now sent to canning factories
would not have been made at all, if they had to be made in the old way. It would
be impossible to carry on the canning art on any considerable scale if cans
were as costly as when made by hand. So far from the labor-saving inventions
displacing labor, they have rather given employment to men in new industries
which could not be carried on without them.
In 1906 it was said that tomato canning factories alone in the United States
used annually 240,000,000 cans and that $30,000,000 was invested in the tomato
canning industry. So vast an industry gives employment to many laborers, and
is evident that it could not be conducted on so great a scale without automatic
machinery both for making cans and for the canning processes, this machinery
cheapening the cost of production and thus increasing the output. Here as in
other industries labor saving machinery has increased the demand for laborers.
While considering the importance of the discovery by which the grains of green
corn can be preserved as food for ourselves we should not overlook the not less
important discovery by which the whole stalk and ear of corn can be preserved
in a succulent state as food for milk cows. The silo may be regarded as an immense
can for preserving a green crop for future use by excluding it from the action
of air and water. The use of both the tin can and the wooden silo for preserving
green corn became common in this country in the latter part of the last century.
The canning of the grains of green sweet corn is only one of more than a hundred
purposes to which parts of the maize plant are now applied. Indian corn which
was given us by the North American Indians is the most important food plant
of the world. It furnishes food for man and beast. In the abundance of its yield,
the number of forms in which it may be used and the variety of climates in which
may be grown, it excels any of the cereals we received from the old world. While
its chief use is in animal husbandry, it is in connection with grass the great
producing material of pork, beef, milk and butter, and thus indirectly an all
important food for man.
While it is grown in other lands, our country remains the land of the maize.
Four-fifths of the corn crop of the world is grown in the United States, and
the seven states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska
raise three times as much as all the rest of our country, that is, seven states
of the Mississippi valley raise about three-fifths of this greatest crop of
the world.
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This page created 19 September 2004 and last updated
28 September, 2008
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