History of Delaware : 1609-1888, Part 3

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards
Number of Pages: 776

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THE TERTIARY .- All that portion of the State lying south of the lower limit of the marl beds, as already pointed out, is underlaid by the Tertiary, of both Miocene and probable Pliocene age.

The northern half of this area, which is bordered on the south by a line running not far from the course of Murderkill Creek, is underlaid by a drab or white clay deposit of from ten to twenty feet in thickness, so far as can be determined from such well-records as have come to the writer's attention. This deposit contains in places abundant fossils sufficient to determine its Miocene age: it also overlies, probably unconformably, the marl. This

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

highly plastic clay can be seen only along the a mile west of Iron Hill.) many years ago. In creeks of Kent County and lower New Castle County.

Along the creeks at Smyrna and at Dover it is frequently exposed, where its qualities can be well studied. In its purer forms it would make an ad- mirable potter's clay, and considering its unlimited supply, underlying as it does the whole of Kent County, its value for that purpose is worthy of the consideration of potters abroad and at home. South of the latitude of Murderkill Creek, repre- senting the whole of Sussex County, we meet with a later deposit of the Tertiary of probably Plio- cene age.

This is represented by an uppermost layer of blue clay, and an under deposit of glass sand.

The blue elay varies in thickness from three to ten feet, and often runs into a black bog mud, while less often it becomes of a light drab hue. In its upper portion it contains nests of the modern oyster in a very friable condition, and which Prof. Heilprin, of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, considers as of a somewhat antique ebar- acter.

Underlying the blue elay is the glass sand, which, so far as the writer's knowledge goes, has been penetrated to a depth of forty tect.

It is a pure white glass sand, and would be of great value in manufacturing were it easily acces- sible. It seldom, if ever, comes to the surtaee, owing to the overlying clay deposit, which rises to just about tide-level. Where the uppermost gray- els and loams of Sussex County are thin, however, it might be found near enough to the surface to be readily worked. At any rate, this point is well worthy of the time necessary for prospecting.

IRON ORE BEDS .-- The ore beds of the State are found only in New Castle and Sussex Counties, and are entirely bog-ores, which are of two kinds " dome" and " layer." The former is found mostly in New Castle County ; the latter in Sussex County.

The outlying spurs of the Archean Rocks, Iron and Chestnut Hills, which rise abruptly above the plain in the vicinity of White Clay Creek in Pen- eader Hundred, New Castle County, were known to contain ore from the earliest settlement of that part of the State, and the former is mentioned in official records and papers in 1661. In 1725, a forge and furnace were built at the place, where ore was mined and smelted for ahout ten years. They were then abandoned, and in 1841, the pits and adjacent property were purchased by David Wood, an iron-master of Philadelphia, by whom they were operated for many years, and were known as " Wood's Ore Pits." In 1872. the property passed to the proprietors of the Principio Furnace, by whom they are still owned and operated.

Ore was found on Chestnut Hill, (a knoll about

1×73, the work of mining and shipping ore was be- gun on quite a large scale, and continued until 1884.

In Sussex County, along the streams that flow westerly into the Chesapeake Bay and largely in Nanticoke Hundred, bog-ore> (layer) have been known to exist from about the middle of the last century, aud from 1763 to 1776, large quantities of ore were raised, smelted and the iron shipped to England. The blockading of the Chesapeake, compelled the abandonment of the furnaces, and the mining of ore and the manufacture of iron, was not again renewed until the beginning of the present century, when forges and furnaces were built and large quantities of ore raised, some of which was smelted in the forges in the vicinity but the larger portion shipped to New Jersey. The lands from which the later forges procured their ores were those worked before the Revolution. Collins forge, which went out of blast about 1850, was the last to abandon the manufacture of iron in Sussex County. Many of the lands, about 1821, passed to iron masters of New Jersey, who raised and shipped the ore to their furnaces in that State long atter the abandonment of all the forges in the lower parts of Delaware. No ore has been raised in Sussex and Kent County for several years, as the visible supply was nearly exhausted; but new deposits are slowly being made, and at some future time the iron industry may again be made a source of profit to the State.

It may be of interest to the people of the region where these ores are found, to know in what other localities similar ores are worked and how they are formed. Professor J. P. Lesley, an eminent authority, in the " Iron Manufacturers Guide." published in 1859, enumerated the different kinds of ore as follows:

" 1. The primary, specular, magnetic red oxide, and

"2, The brown beinatites.

"3. The tosell ore of the U'pper Silurian Kocka.

"4. The carbonates, especially of the coal measures.

"5. The bog ores of the present surface."

Professor Lesley continues to speak of the for- mations and deposits :

" We have the cretacentis, tertiary and pust tertiary deposits to the left of the great central left as we go south, covering the southern half of New Jersey, all Delaware atul eastern Maryland, eastern Virginia, North and South Carolina, two thirds of Georgia and Alabama, nearly all of Mississippi, the western part of Tennessee and Kentucky between the Mississippi and lebtunsere Rivers, and west of the Mississippi River all the meanti, south of Mount (except a part of Arkansas) as far as the Rio Grande, and northward all lotwern the 919 of longitude and the Rocky Monutains, far into the British pressions, excepting only the Blok Hill. gent a few other atel still smaller islands of obkr rocks with stood atmove the cretaceous and tertiary oceans, or were pay chel through its depois from below. BE iran air charterizes the great belt in New J. rry, Delaware and Mary bort, and in the west.

" Bog ore is adeprest of every agr up in the actual surface at the time. In the present ago the process assumes the principal forms the dome and the layer. The former is a mechanical, the latter an organic prices. The former takes place at the isuey where water springs from ferri

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THE GEOLOGY OF DELAWARE

forvus rocks ; the lutter at the bottom of jeat logs. Throughout the cual measure areas of the west, where the rocks are out prend for thatsands of square bagues in tently bettrental strata, and they eiges es, med upon the Emtous and terraced sh pes of muitomerabir sal. ys ia alt. ruste bands of state and sandstone, cool, limestone, iron and day, the waters, filtering out between these rocks in rowsof fourda: 3, de- posit the peroxile of iron in these Dienst ; Inces which feins at & mestes most affect, and thus in course of time, dotes of wet, spongy, clastic bog anse, composed of an intimate admixture of three elements - the dead and living ste ms and twigs if weLetath n, fine, sandy clay, and the j. roxide of iron of the spring water. 'These donuts hatten as their Lazes expand and eric times cover a quarter of an acre of the ground, where that is favorable to their reception; for this quipuerh required an even, bread atul very gently sloping tetrace in front . fan esverpeuent of ferruginous sandstone based on clay er coal or on sofre considerable bed of iron ore. When drained and dried these spongy makes the a favorit, fluxing ore for the charcoal Jureaces in their vei_hbochuoi : but owing to the sulphur they con monly contain make oder neutry ores run red-short, and, theretore, should be mixed only with cold short sand ores. By one of these hajq y adaptations which excite onr pleas urable admiration for the laws which govern the material world, these bug deposits fortunately are mert con mitb in restons which exhibit beavy silicious ores of cold short temper."

The ores of this nature mentioned above, as the " dome " and formed by a mechanical process, are found mostly in the northwestern part of Delaware in the vicinity of Iron IHill. Professor James C. Booth in his report of 1841 says:

" This elevation consists of clays. sand and gravel, and derives its name from the abundance of boulders of iron-stoue and ferruginous quartz seat- tered over its flanks, the latter of which was probably at one time of good quality, but through exposure to atmospheric agents, has been rendered valueless. An excavation has been made on the summit for the extraction of iron ore to the depth of 40 to 50 feet, which enables us to estimate the character of this singular hill.

"Nodules of iron ore are abundantly distributed through the whole formation; it is of a chestnut- brown color ( sometimes bluei-h-black from the pres- ence of manganese ), hard and tough ; may be con- sidered a moderately hard ore, being both siliceous and argillaceous; the nodules frequently enclose an ochrey clay, more rarely a black earth contain- ing manganese. Large quantities of the ore have already been exported."

Professor Lesley continues in regard to layer ore :

" But ore of another kind is deposited upon the white elay or white sand floor of peat boys, lakes and swamps of every kind in tertiary, and other low and gravelly parts of the earth's surface. In Eastern Massachusetts the oldest furnaces were built to smelt such ores. In New Jersey and Delaware they have been wrought many years. The southern shore of Lake Erie is lined with fur- naces built on deposits of this order. In true peat bogs a cake or pan of peroxide of iron is found at the bottom, and every tree-trunk is dyed black with it. The waters which feed these boys bring into them from the ferruginous sand hills, by which they are inlocked, enough of iron to supply certain microscopie animals with the material they require

for their ferro-silicous shields, and these, upon the death of the little creatures, fall in a fine powder to the bottein of the bog or are carried into the pores of the timber i' contains." !

The ores of this State are not, however, those formed in peat swamps but are better described by Professor James C Booth in his report in I>41. Under the head of " Upper ands," he writes :

"The pres of iron tound in various parts of Sussex County in considerable quantity, and par- ticularly on the divbing ridge, claim attention as having yielded and still introducing some revenue into the State. The most remarkable are those situated a few miles northwest of Georgetown, near the sources of several streams flowing westerly, which, being on elevated and level land, spread themselves in broad and shallow basins covered with a stratum of black argillaceous mould. The ore found below this black soil is of various kinds, hard or solid. gravelly and loam ore. The hard variety, which exists in great abundance, forms a soild substratum to the mould from six to eight inches or more in thickness; it is hard, moderately tough, of a rich brown color and resinous lustre, with an uneven, conchoidal fracture; sometimes compact ; often cellular in structure; composed essentially of peroxide of iron and water. An analysis of this variety of ore from the Clowes bed (in the western part of Broadkiln Hundred), per- formed by E. Mayer, yielded peroxide of iron, 80 per cent. ; water, 15 per cent. ; silica, 5 per cent., and of alumina a trace, which may be viewed as the average composition of the same kind found in other localities. The amount of metallie iron in the above is 553 per cent., but when subjected to roasting the remaining ore will yield nearly 66 per cent. The gravelly ore con-ists of irregular masses of a similar ore of the size of a nut and smaller, disseminated in a yellow ferruginous loam, but containing rather more argillaceous matter, is softer and more readily worked.

"The loam ore, which is still sotter than the pre- ceding, is a yellow ochre or clay highly charged with hydrated peroxide of iron. For working in the furnace the several kinds are mingled together, which not only facilitates the reduction by fluxing. but results in the production of a better quality ot iron. Various names have been given to the ores of sussex, more dependent on differences in their external form and other characters of the ore. which first renders itself perceptible in the metal; it is that matter which forms a cold. short metal, and. in all probability, is a compound of phosphorus or arsenic, but analysis has not hitherto detected

I" Ehrenberg has detected in the ochreous matters that form bug iron ure thanetie numbers of orgie bodies which looked make up the astate of the ochre They court of slemier articulated plates of threads partly siltesous and partly tertuaimons, of what he consulered an animalacute, but what heare now comments recorded by naturaliets as belonging to the vegetatie kingdom."-Appleton's Cyclopedia.

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

their presence in the ore. The hard or solid variety loam, this deposit forming the rich peach land of Kent County.

is very apt to produce such a metal, but by mixing with the softer kinds, the result is a goo I malleable iron when worked in a forge.

"Collins' ore bed, the lowest on the Green Meadow branch of Deep Creek (in Nanticoke Hundred), consists chiefly of a solid loam ore which is principally wrought at Collins' forge-a hard, compaet ore, very rich in iron. but said to yield a cold, short metal, and of a small quantity of sandy ore. There are many other deposits of ore in various parts of Sussex, such as that on Green branch, about ten miles west of Mill-borough, the best of which is in balls or nodules and yields good metal; that on Burton's branch, one mile west of the same town, making a cold, short iron ; that on Little Creek, near Laurel, and others in which the characters are referable to those given above.

"The raising of ore in quantity was commenced about 1814, since which time nearly 200,000 tons Down this Quaternary river icebergs floated, have been raised, about 190,000 of which were ex- carrying burdens of boulders, which they dropped ported, introducing not less than 8600,000 into the at points over the entire State. State."

At the time Mr. Booth made his report little was known concerning the manufacture of iron before the Revolution and mining of the bog ores. A full account of the mining of ore and manufacture of iron will be found in histories of the hun- dreds in which the furnaces and forges were located.

THE QUATERNARY .- Overlying all of the for- mations of the State, and forming its soil, is a broad sheet of gravelly deposits, whose average thickness is about twenty-five feet. In New Ca-tle County these gravels have received the name of Delaware gravels, from their identity with like deposits along the Delaware River valley. Here we distinguish two layers -- an upper brick clay, called the Phila- delphia brick clay, and an under red sand and gravel. The brick clay layer has a thickness vary- ing from two to six feet, but with an average of about three feet. It varies from a stiff brick elay to a loam of remarkable richness, which forms the soil of New Castle County. It often becomes quite gravelly, containing frequently quartzose boulders and cobble-stones of huge size. The red sand has an average thickness of about twenty feet, and is characterized by its color. The sand is often quite fine, again coarse and running into gravel ; it shows frequent eross bedding, and indicates the ageney of swift, shifting currents in its depo-ition. The Dela- ware gravels extend up the slopes of the Archean hills to an average elevation of two hundred feet, which represents the height of the waters of Qua- ternary time.

Over Kent County the gravels maintain an equal thickness; the brick-clay layer, however, be- comos more sandy, and more generally a -andy

In Southern Kent County the two members of the Quaternary gravels merge into a single de- posit of a highly gravelly or loamy character, this feature continuing over the whole of Sussex County.

To explain the mode of deposition of these grav- els, we must understand that during the Glacial epoch, what is now the Delaware River had its source near Belvidere, at the lower limit of the ice sheet ; that it stood one hundred and fifty feet higher than at present, and had a width of some- thing like ten miles.

At the same time, what is now the Delaware and Maryland Peninsula, became submerged, forming an e-tuary, like the Chesapeake; into this the swollen Delaware River emptied, carrying with it its loads of detritus, which it spread out over the Peninsula.

Besides this universal sheet of gravel covering all three counties, we find over the high Archean hills iselated patches of gravel, which are much older. This is called the Potomac formation by W. T. McGee, from its fine exposures along the Potomae River. McGee has shown that these iso- lated patches of gravel are contemporaneous with the plastic clays of the Lower Cretaceous, when the clays extended farther north, so as to reach over the high hills of Delaware.

The materials of the Potomae gravels are quite like those of the Delaware gravels, but the two can easily be distinguished, from the faet that the Po- tomac gravel patches reach an elevation of from three hundred to four hundred feet, while the Del- aware gravels never reach that elevation, but have a maximum elevation of two hundred and twenty feet above tide.

CHAPTER IIL.

THE ABORIGINES.

A VAST, mysterious, barbarian raee, the aborig- ines of the Western Continent, emerged gradually from blank obscurity into the clear light of knowl- edge, and began to figure upon the pages of bi- tory with the other peoples of the earth, when the pioneer navigators of the Old World touched the shores of the New.

At the dawn of the historie era, which so far as

THE ABORIGINES.

the region that we here treat of is concerned, had the conception thes. savages first formed of the its first gleaming in the advent of Henry Hud-on upon the Delaware and the North River, the In- dians occupying the country watered by these great streams were chiefly of the Algonquins. Lenni-Lenape or, as they have been more com- monly called, Delaware-, and the Andastes, Iro- quois or Five or Six Nations.2

The former extended from the lower Hudson to the Potomac, but they appear to have been cen- tralized upon the Delaware River and Bay, par- ticularly the former, while their kinsmen the Nan- ticokes had their home upon the waters of the lat- ter and occupied at that carly period much of the territory now included in the southern parts of Delaware and Maryland and the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, in the latter region being inter- spersed with the Mangures or Mingoes; often these were called the Susquehannas. The Lenni Lenape may thus be said, in a general way, to have hell dominion over the forest-covered hills and plains in what is now southeastern New York, nearly the whole of New Jersey, all of Pennsylvania east of the Susquehanna and much of the region included in the State which is the especial province of this work. It was not, however, an undisputed domin- ion. Their great northern neighbors, the Iroquois, were their implacable enemies, and often waged war against them, repeatedly reducing and hu- miliating them, so that by a century and a half after the first authentie knowledge of the Lenape was obtained, they had sunk into comparative insignificance. The Iroquois occupied the region of the Upper Hud-on upon its west shore. and their villages sparsely dotted the wilderness north- ward, to and beyond the St. Lawrence, and west- ward to the great lakes, their principal popula- tion being within what is now the State of New York.

When Henry Hudson, in September, 1609, after entering and examining the Delaware Bay, skirt- ed the Atlantic Coast, sailed up the royal river that bears his name and rode at anchor in the majestic tide, he touched the northern and eastern extremity of the land of the Lenape. The Indians whom he met there and upon the island where it came about that New York was built, were of that nation, and with them were some of their friends the Mohicans or Mohegans.

Full of simple sublimity and lofty poetry was

1 " The name ' Delawares," which we give to these people," says Hockeweller, "is known in their own language ; * * they thought the whites had given it to them in derision but they were reconciled to It, nh lang told that it was the name of a great white chief, Lord de la Warte, which had been given to the in atil tin ar river As tiwy are fond of being named after distinguished mien, they were rather pleased, con- "ering it as a compliment "

They called thenarives benni Lenape, which means in their language " the eightal people '

The batch called them Mes Kun dera : the French, the makin.

" The " Fare Nations" because the " Six Nations" almut 1712, by the incorporation with their body of the refugee southern tube, the Tuscan- moras.

strange pale-faced men, in dress, bearing and speech different from their own, who came in the " winged canoes" to their shores. In their aston- ishment they called out to one another, " Behohl! the Gods are come to visit ns!" They at first considered these hitherto unknown beings as me -- sengers of peace sent to them from the abode of the Great Spirit, and welcomed and honored them with sacrificial feasts and with gifts. Hudson re- corded that above the Highlands " they found a very loving people and very old men, and were well used."4

The gallant Dutch navigator and discoverer was not to be outdone in civility and generosity. Hle gave the wondering savages presents and put to their innocent lips bottles of spirits-very prob- ably Holland schnapp- gin,-thus introducing at the very inception of his acquaintance with them one of the destructive and important character- isties of civilization,-the art of becoming drunk. The savages reciprocated by extending the tobacco- pipe, and thus the Old World and the New each gave the other a much-prized new vice.

As has been heretofore intimated, actual knowl- edge of these people-their history -- begins with the coming of Henry Hudson, and such informa- tion as we have concerning them in after-years is afforded by the other early adventurers and set- tlers along the Atlantic seaboard. Of the origin or derivation of the race-of its early movements -there is absolutely no data, only an illimitable field for will conjecture; and concerning the affairs of the several nations, even during the period closely preceding the discovery and occu- paney of the country, the Indians were able to give only vague and fanciful traditions, some of them corroborated as to essentials by evidence from other sources. Of this class is the Delawares' traditionary account of the migration of their people and the Mengwe or Iroquois from the far west to the east, which there is external evidence for believing in the main true. We present this with some other Delaware legends before drawing npon the accounts of the Dutch, Swedes and Eng- lish for a description of the Indian character and manner of life.

The Lenape claimed great antiquity and super- iority over other aboriginal nations. Indeed, the name Lenni Lenape (sometime- Renni Renappi, signifies " the original people" or " men of men -- a race of human beings who are the same that they were in the beginning, unchanged and un- mixed. They asserted that they had existed from the beginning of time, and many Indian nations, the Miamis, Wyandots, Shawanese and more than

& The Erani Lompe handed down the tradition of their reception of the Dutch, and always maintained that none of the enemy-the Iro- quois, or Five Nations-were present, though they sent for the Mohic- aus, to participate in the joyous occasion.

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

twenty other tribes or nations, admitted their an- and in the wild region watered by its tributarie -. tiquity and called them " Grandfather -. " Their the Lenape found the land they had journeyed in tradition of the advent of the nations upon the quest of from the setting sun.

Delaware and the eastern sea-coast is poetical and interesting. They say that a great many hundred years ago their ancestors had dwelt in a far-away country beyond the Father of Waters-the Monursi Sipu, or Mississippi -- and near the wide sea, in which the sun sank every night. They bad, very long before the white men came to their country traveled eastward, seeking a fairer land, of which their prophets had told them, and as they neared the western shore of the great Mississippi they met another mighty nation of men, of where very ex- istence they had been in ignorance. These people they say were the Mengire or Iroquois, and this was the first meeting of these two nations, destined to remain in the east for centuries as neighbors and enemies. They journeyed on together, neither in warfare nor friendship, but pre-ently they found that they must unite their forces against a com- mon enemy. East of the Father of Waters they discovered a race called the Allegwi, occupying a vast domain, and not only stronger in number than themselves, but equally brave and more skilled in war. They had, indeed, fortified towns and numerous strongholds The Allegwi permit- ted a part of the emigrating nations to pass the border of their country, and having thus caused a division of their antagonists, fell upon them with great fury to annihilate them. But the main body of the allied Mengwe and Lenape rallying from the first shock, made resistance with such desperate energy that they defeated the Allegwi, and sweeping them forward as the wind does the dry leaves of the forest, they invaded the country, and during a long and bloody war won victory after victory, until they had not only entirely vanquished, but well-nigh exterminated them. Their country, in which their earth fortifications remained the only reminder of the dispersed nation, was occupied by the victors. After this both the Mengwe and the Lenape ranged eastward, the former keeping to the northward, and the latter to the southward, until they reached respectively the Hudson and the Delaware, which they called the Lange Withit- tuek, or River of the Lenape.' Upon it- banks,

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History of Delaware : 1609-1888, Part 3

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards Number of Pages: 776

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. J. Richards
Number of Pages: 776