The Lewis property earned a reputation of being a scary place, especially around Halloween. That was because everyone knew of the dead or dying animals down in the pasture and in the barns. You couldn’t really hear the animals, but people would say, “Don’t go near the Lewis house at night. You might hear something spooky.”
In the early 1920s a Bluffton business on Spring Street served as a depository for dead and dying livestock. Providing an important service for farmers, it was a shipping point to a Kalida glue factory.
Even though the Bluffton business wasn’t a glue factory, people referred to it that way, since it was the collection point for the factory. Some animal parts contain collagen, historically used in making glue, from hooves and bones of horses, mules and cattle. The need for collagen to produce glue created a demand for dead livestock.
The following story, is part of an interview Fred Steiner conducted in 2004 with his mother, Margaret Hahn Steiner, who grew up on Elm Street, around the corner from this business.
The Lewis property included a brick house where Vine Street touches Spring. Several buildings stood behind the house. None exist today, as this location is Bluffton University’s Riley Court.
The glue factory story
When I was little, growing up in Bluffton around 1920, we called the Spring Street site the glue factory. When I was in the summer of my second grade my neighbor playmates and I would watch the animals graze in the pasture. The factory was behind the George Lewis house. My friends and I would watch the lower pasture grounds from the top of the hill behind the Elmer and Bessie Diller house on Spring Street. George and Elizabeth Lewis owned the pasture.
When a farmer had a dead horse, pony, mule or cow, often during harvest season, it took too much time to bury the animal. Instead, farmers would bring the animal, dead or nearly dead, to Mr. Lewis. He would buy the animal and then hire someone to take them to the real glue factory in Kalida. The Lewis’s were a very friendly couple. Their land had several buildings, all gone now. There were barns, chicken coops and other buildings. Today this pasture is where the Sauder Visual Arts Center and Riley Court buildings stand at Bluffton University. The buildings that I remember were constructed so that a wagon could be driven into them. The dead animals were stored in these barns.
The Lewis pasture bordered Riley Creek. On the other side of the creek was another pasture. My parents owned a cow that grazed on that side of the creek. We called our cow “Addie.” I used to take care of it.
When we’d watch the animals in the Lewis pasture, the usual group of neighbor kids included Manley Thompson, Dorothy Basinger, Treva Lewis, Ruth Berry, Dwight Diller and myself. Dwight’s mother usually watched us from her house to make certain we were safe. I remember that it was fun to watch these animals, although it was sad, too. Some of the animals limped pretty badly.
We’d watch them walk and sometimes they’d fall. We became upset when that happened. For fun, we’d give the animals names. If they’d fall, we’d pray that they would get back up on their feet. There were horses, mules, driving horses, ponies and sometimes a cow or two. The animals usually were gone after three days. That meant that they died and were taken to Kalida. We were too young to realize that. I believe that in addition to glue, the Kalida factory also manufactured fertilizer from the dead livestock.
My older brother sometimes helped transport the animals from Bluffton to Kalida. He was in high school at the time. He work for Mr. Lisk, who did the transporting. The Lisk family lived on the corner of Spring and Elm. If a cow died, the Lisk family would tan the hide. Farmers would use the hide for coats. These were really heavy coats. Mr. Lisk owned a team of horses and a team of mules.
My brother told me they would go to Kalida, sometimes with dead animals in the wagon and sometimes with sickly horses following, hitched behind the wagon. Mr. Lisk would alternate his team from horses to mules, more than once along the way to Kalida. This was because the trip took such a long time. One team couldn’t haul the load the entire trip. My brother told me there was a feed box and water bucket hanging from the wagon.
There was one very interesting thing about these trips. The trips were made a night. The wagons had night safety traveling lanterns swinging from the bed of the wagons. You see, daytime trips were impossible. People opposed daytime trips. It looked to cruel to the animals.
The Lewis property earned a reputation of being a scary place, especially around Halloween. That was because everyone knew of the dead or dying animals down in the pasture and in the barns. You couldn’t really hear the animals, but people would say, “Don’t go near the Lewis house at night. You might hear something spooky.”
One very hot summer
The summer between my second and third grade was a very hot one. The heat was so bad that often work horses would get sick because of the heat. That summer I remember that the wagons with dead livestock were backed up all the way from the Lewis house, around the corner to my parents’ house on Elm Street across from the Catholic Church. Some of the animals were dead. Some were alive. Some were so ill that they couldn’t get on their feet. I recall at least one dead horse lying with its feet straight up I the air. Some of the dead animals were covered with blankets.
Following the farm wagons and dead animals were farm dogs and flies – lots and lots of flies. There were flies all over and most were on the screens of my parent’s house. Meanwhile, in our house, my mother was canning corn. To make things worse, one of the farm dogs bit our dog. My mother became really mad, as you might expect. She went out and told the farmers that they were going to have to move – despite the fact that they apologized for the inconvenience.
Dog on a horse
Perhaps the oddest site we kids ever saw while watching the animals in the pasture was this: Once we saw a dog sitting on the back of one of the horses. We called to Mrs. Diller and told her about the dog and horse. She told us that the dog was probably a friend of the horse on the farm. It probably missed the horse, sought it and found it. I don’t know if that’s true, but it made us feel better.
A scary place
In Bluffton, as you might imagine, the Lewis property earned a reputation of being a scary place, especially around Halloween. That was because everyone knew of the dead or dying animals down in the pasture and in the barns. You couldn’t really hear the animals, but people would say, “Don’t go near the Lewis house at night. You might hear something spooky.” I can’t remember when the factory closed. All I know is that the summer I recall it was very hot and there were a lot of dead animals. I think the factory closed the next year. Whatever became of the glue rectory, it was an interesting place, especially for little kids growing up in a small town.
More information
Prior to operating the glue factory the Lewis family had a brick manufacturing operation on Spring Street. The Lewis home was constructed from those bricks as were many other houses in Bluffton, including the English Lutheran Church. Mr. Lewis was Bluffton postmaster from 1907 to 1916. During his tenure, the post office was located on Vine Street.
A photo in the Nov. 2, 1961, Bluffton News shows the George Lewis gravel pit on Spring Street. The story stated that the gravel pit, long since filled in, occupied the site now filled by the homes on Spring Street from Riley Court to the parking lot at Sauder. In that photo was a steam boiler, which was the type used in the oil fields, where Mr. Lewis was once an operator. The photo referred to in the Bluffton News is part of this story.
The following is from the “History of Allen County 1885”: George H. Lewis was born Sept. 24, 1851, in Bluffton. He married in 1875 to Elizabeth Conrad. They had three children, Gertrude A., Bertha May and Hallie Edith. George entered the manufacture of brick making in Bluffton with his father, William Lewis. William’s grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary struggle (sic) and his father was a soldier in the War of 1812. During the late was of the Rebellion (sic) William served in the 61st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was injured in the second battle of Bull Run and was discharged.
The Lewis brick yard and gravel pit on Spring Street - location of "the glue factory"