USA > Iowa > Delaware County > History of Delaware County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 6
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The northeastern part of Elk Township and the northern part of Colony are drained by branches of Turkey River. The main drainage channels in the loeations named trend toward the north. Elk Creek flows in a rock-bound valley that is more than two hundred feet in depth, and the valley of Little Turkey River. before crossing the north line of Colony Township, attains a depth of nearly three hundred feet. The valleys of Elk Creek and Little Turkey prop- erly belong to the Driftless Area.
Buffalo Creek receives the drainage from the greater part of Adams Town- ship and from part of Prairie. With the exception of Robinson Creek its af- fluents in Delaware County are without definite channels. Buffalo Creek is a prairie stream flowing in a broad coneave depression in the drift, all the ero- sion it has accomplished being represented by the channel a few feet in depth. The difference between the amount of erosion represented by the valley of
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
Little Turkey River in the northeast corner of the county and the inconsider- able channel of Buffalo Creek in the southwest is well nigh immeasureable.
The greater part of the surface of Prairie Township does not reveal a single well defined water course. Over most of the drift plain, indeed, there has been practically no erosion since the withdrawal of the lowan glaciers, and even in the beds of the larger streams the post-Towan deepening of the channels has been at most only a few feet. The deep valleys of the Richland and Delhi high- lands, as well as the similar valley of the North Maquoketa, resemble canyons of preglacial origin. The highly oxidized, reddish brown Buchanan gravels near Hopkinton and Hartwick demonstrate that, at all events, they are older than the Kansan stage of the Pleistocene.
MAQUOKETA SIIALES
The Magnoketa shales are the oldest of the geological formations naturally exposed in Delaware County. They are best seen in the deep, driftless valleys of Elk Creek and Little Turkey River, as well as in the lateral ravines opening into the valleys mentioned. There is, however, a very interesting occurrence of these shales at the old mill dam at Rockville.
The thin-bedded, shaly limestone, above the level of the river, has a thick- ness of twenty-five feet, and is overlain by heavy ledges of dolomitie limestone that are unquestionably of the age of the Niagara. The shaly limestones, how- ever, probably all belong to the Maqnoketa stage.
The best exposures of Maquoketa shales in Delaware County occur along Little Turkey River and its branches in sections 2 and 3 of Colony Township. A deep lateral gorge, eroded by a small tributary of the Little Turkey in see- tions 2 and 3, cuts through nearly the whole thickness of the formation and affords a number of fairly satisfactory sections. At what is known as the "big spring" in the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 3 the bottom of the gorge coincides with the base of the transition beds and the spring issues on top of the shaly portion.
The spring is 230 feet lower than the level of the platean on which Coles- burg is built. One-fourth of a mile below the spring there is a clay pit from which a large amount of clay to supply the pottery at Colesburg has been taken. The altitude is sixty feet lower than the spring, and between the spring and elay pit there is almost a continnous section of the shales exposed.
The laminated basal edges of Niagara limestone in Elk Creek Valley have an aggregate thickness of about twenty-five feet and are followed by some definitely bedded dolomite, which in some places consists of thin layers with considerable chert. Along Elk Creek this second member is ten feet in thick- ness. This is followed by a bed of quarry stone in very definite layers, which range From three to thirty inches in thickness. The stone is fine-grained, and light yellow to light drab in color. The individual layers are homogeneous, without laminae, and sharply separated one from the other by clavey partings. Exposures of the quarry stone horizon oeeur at a number of points in section 16 of Elk Township, and quarries have been worked on the land of B. A. Baker, George Boehm and Job Odell. A quarry operated by O. Wilcox on land of Mr. Odell showed a section thirty feet in thickness.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
Near Hopkinton. in the southern part of the county, there are many pic- turesque cliffs of Niagara limestone affording opportunity for study of other portions of the complete Niagara seetion. Along the Maquoketa River in sections 24, 25 and 36 of township 87 north, range 4 west of the fifth principal meridian, the cliffs rise vertieally almost from the margin of the stream, to a height of 165 feet above the water. The cliffs consist at the base of massive dolomitic ledges, ranging from six to fifteen feet in thickness, with no lamina- tion, breaking when quarried for any purpose into shapeless blocks containing many vesicular cavities, and very coarse and granular in texture. These coarse massive ledges rise in places to the summit of the cliffs, 165 feet above the water, but at the Loop quarry in the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 25, township 87 north, range 4 west, they are eapped with evenly bedded quarry stone varying from 12 to 20 feet in thiekness.
The ledges below Hopkinton may be regarded as their typical phase. The same massive phase of the Pentamerus limestone is seen near the opposite corner of the county at the Backbone in Richland Township. It occurs also at the mill in Forestville. It is this phase that is exhibited in section 20 of Elk Town- ship near Greeley. It is seen again along the headwaters of Lindsey Creek northeast of York. It is this same phase that occurs in the bed of Honey Creek near Millheim as well as in the low cliffs along Sand Creek where it traverses the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 8, Milo Township.
The beds represented at the Loop quarry were first worked in this neighbor- hood along the ravine known as Whittaker Hollow, in the southeast quarter of section 23, township 87 north, range 4 west. The Merriam quarry, located a short distance southeast of the center of the section. had been operated in- termittently for a great many years. The quality of the stone is the same as at the Loop quarry. A second quarry on the Merriam property was opened a few rods east of the original one. It showed nothing different from those already described. In the bottom of these quarries were ledges two feet in thickness suitable for bridge stone.
The regularly stratified beds belonging to the horizon of the Loop and Mer- riam quarries were found in the Davis quarry, east of the center of seetion 17, in South Fork Township, and at the MeGlade quarry and other quarries in the same neighborhood, though here the layers were thinner than in the quarries west of the river.
In Delhi Township, within the Town of Delhi, were some small quarries worked in these beds, and on the south side of the river at Fleming's Mill, in the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 29. Delhi Township, this upper quarry stone horizon is exposed at an elevation of ninety feet above the level of the water. One of the best quarries worked at this horizon was located near the center of section 24 of Milo Township. It has layers ranging from flagging stone to two or three inches in thickness up to heavy dimension stone with a thickness of two feet.
Exposures showing some departures from the typical phase of the quarry stone horizon are seen in the east part of section 9, Milo Township. The beds have been quarried at a few points.
At the point called Wildeat Den. southeast of Hopkinton, the vertical faces of the cliffs rise fully 100 feet, the summit being 130 feet above the stream,
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
which here flows near the base. The weather beaten, massive, castle-like salient, between the floor of the Loop quarry at the summit and the roadway at the foot of the bluff, rises sheer for seventy feet on its outer wall, and a number of towers and chimneys in the same neighborhood are fully its equal in vertical dimensions. Table Rock, further down stream, in the southwest quarter of the same section, is a flat-topped mass of equal height, belonging to the same horizon, and almost completely isolated by cireumdenudation. In the southeast quarter of section 9, Union Township, the deep valley of Buck Creek is walled in, in places, by vertical cliffs, that are more than eighty feet high from the top of the talus to the summit, and the top of the cliff has an elevation of 120 feet above the level of the stream. In sections 32 and 33, North Fork Township, similar cliffs rise sheer from the water in Plum Creek, and overlook the low lying Jowan drift plain in sections 34 and 35 of the same township. It is this same limestone that forms the impressive cliffs and towers at the Backbone in section 16, Riehland Township. All along the canyon of the Maquoketa, from section 9, Milo Township, to the south line of the county, the same rugged. weathered cliffs appear at short intervals, preserving fragmentary bits of pre- glacial scenery. Even over the prairies remote from streams, particularly in the southeastern part of the county, ledges of this same horizon projeet through the thin drift in numberless places.
BUCHANAN GRAVELS
Extensive beds of gravel were laid down during the melting and retreat of the Kansan iee. The floods that carried and deposited the gravels seem to have swept over valleys and highlands alike, for stratified deposits of the Buchanan stage oceur indifferently at all elevations. In the region invaded by Iowan ire these deposits are invariably overlain by Iowan drift; in the loess-Kansan area, beyond the Iowan margin, they are overlain by loess.
A good illustration of Buchanan gravels is seen at a gravel pit on the land, in the northern part of the southeast quarter of section 26, Oneida Township, near Earlville. The gravel bed has been worked extensively for road material, and has contributed in large degree to the improvement of the streets of Earl- ville. A vertical face of fifteen feet is now exposed, but test pits show that the deposit continues twenty feet below the level now worked. The deposit is a mixture of coarse sand and gravel, with oceasional small bowlders ranging up to a foot in diameter. The coarse and fine materials are not arranged in definite bands, but lenses and irregular masses of coarse gravel are frequently imbedded in gravel or sand of comparative fineness. There is a large amount of Niagara chert in the coarser beds, but in general the pebbles and boulderets are of foreign origin. Some of the beds are very ferruginous and firmly cemented, and all are more or less conspicuously iron-stained. All of the present exposure shows the effects of prolonged weathering. Oxidation is complete. A large propor- tion of the granite pebbles and bowlders are so perfectly decayed that they crumble to fragments on the application of the slightest foree. Test pits made at various points show the entire hill, which rises gradually to the north of workings, to be underlain by gravel at a short distance beneath the surface. The rnsty, weathered and oxidized deposits of the Buchanan stage are covered with a thin layer of Iowan drift containing some unweathered bowlders.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
An immense bed of Buchanan gravel extends over some hundreds of acres in a low plain in sections 25 and 36 of Bremen Township. The plain is covered with two or three feet of Iowan drift, and large Iowan bowlders were liberally sprinkled over its surface. The gravels lie beneath the Iowan drift. The upper zone, three or four feet in thickness, is deeply weather-stained and oxidized. The bedding is more regular than is usually seen when the gravel beds oceur on higher ground. as near Earlville. The materials are also finer, ordinary quartz sand making up a larger proportion of the deposit, and the bowlders a few inches to a foot in diameter, common in the beds at greater elevations, are practically absent. Furthermore, the oxidation and weather staining, prob- ably owing to the finer and more compact character of the deposit, do not affeet the beds to so great a depth as at Earlville. Heavy beds of the same gravels, exhibiting the commoner, upland phase, occur under thin beds of loess at a number of points in Colony Township, the best exposures being seen forty rods north of the center of section 9. near the northwest corner of the southwest quarter of section 4, and near the center of section 6. All of these points are from six to eight miles east of the extreme eastern margin of the lowan drift.
Near the southeast corner of the county Buchanan gravel makes up a eon- spicuous ridge that begins in the southwest quarter of section 13, township 87 north. range 3 west (South Fork Township), and extends into the northwest quarter of section 24. The gravels here are very ferruginous, are of the coarse upland type, contain the usual decaved granites, together with striated pebbles and bowlders of Kansan age, and show a fair degree of cementation. The ridge in which they occur rises considerably above low lying drift plains to the south and southwest.
In the northwest corner of the county these gravels cover considerable areas in Riehland Township, the lowland phase appearing conspicuously beneath the Iowan drift along the valley of a branch of the Maquoketa, in section 19, and the upland phase occupying a ridge in the southwest quarter of section 32. In a sort of terraee at the bottom of the valley on the west side of the Backbone in section 16, weather-stained beds of the Buchanan stage oceur under beds of sand and gravel of more recent origin, the contrast between the older and the newer portions of the terrace being very striking. The valley here is older than the Buchanan stage-older than the Kansan.
At Hartwick, in Delhi Township, as already noted, reddish brown deposits of this age are seen at the bottom of the gorge underneath terrace material which is probably not older than the Iowan stage, and reference has also been made to the occurence of these gravels in the river valley near Hopkinton.
Honey Creek Township is generously supplied with gravels of the Buchanan stage, particularly along the valley of Lindsey Creek and Honey Creek. In fact these gravels occur in almost every township of the county, affording at numerous points the very best of material for the improvement of miry roads.
ALLUVIUM
Narrow belts of alluvium occur along the principal drainage courses in all the areas that were not invaded by Iowan drift. The Little Turkey River has
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
in places a beautiful, flat-bottomed valley, which is covered with heavy beds of rich alluvinm. Alluvial plains, but of no great width, border Elk Creek and its branches; and Buek Creek, Plum Creek and the Maquoketa River have their flood plains covered with alluvium within the limits of the Delhi plateau. Alluvium covers the flat bottom of the valley through which the Maquoketa flows at the Backbone in Richland Township, and a small amount of the same deposit is found along the North Maquoketa, in sections 1 and 12 of South Fork Township. Streams, such as Buffalo Creek, that flow through the area of Towan drift, have no flood plains. or alluvial plains, in any true sense ; for the gently undulating surface of the region through which they flow, covered with drift and sprinkled with bowlders, continues without interruption to the water's edge.
TERRACES
Well defined terraces, composed of stratified sands and gravels, ocenr along the streams of Delaware County, particularly in the areas inside the Jowan margin, but which are free from lowan drift. The height to which the ter- races rise above the water in the adjacent stream varies considerably in dif- ferent localities. Near Hopkinton the upper surface of the terrace on the east side of the river is fifty feet above the water level. Near Millheim, in Dela- ware Township, a terrace composed of fine stratified sand has an elevation of thirty feet above the water in Honey Creek. At other points in the county the height of the terraces above the water in the nearest stream varies within limits ranging from ten to fifty feet.
At Hopkinton the terrace material is piled against the side of an ancient valley, that was bounded by rocky cliffs seventy-five to a hundred feet in height. The town is built on a platform that overlooks a rather wide bottom land, or flood plain. the platform corresponding in height to the upper surface of the terrace. The descent from the top of the terrace to the bottom land is abrupt. In the center of the town the Niagara limestone is encountered a few feet below the surface, but near the margin of the platform wells seventy-five feet in depth are made without striking rock. The same sandy terrace extends for more than a mile northwest from Hopkinton on the left side of the river. A gravel ter- race begins on the west side of the stream, near the center of section 11, Union Township, and continues beyond the north line of section 2. In section 2 it is set off by an abrupt descent of fifteen feet from the narrow flood plain. Exca- vations show that the main body of this terrace is made up of very old, weath- ered ferruginous material of the age of the Buchanan gravels. The deposit presents all the characteristics of the valley phase of this formation. The materials are finer than on the highlands. The coarser material is at the top of the deposit, with sandy beds below. The weathered zone at the top has the usual reddish brown color.
Manchester is built on a sandy and gravelly terrace, the material showing perfeet stratification when seen in fresh sections. The terrace deposit extends up Honey Creek for several miles, and is also well displayed at intervals above the mouth of Honey Creek, along the Maquoketa River. At the Backbone, in Richland Township, a sand terrace on the left side of the stream rises thirty feet above the water.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
SOILS
Delaware County affords quite a variety of soils. The typical soil of the lowan drift region, covering two-thirds of the surface of the county, is a deep black loam, rich in organic matter and containing an abundance of the soluble mineral constituents from which the crops of the farmer draw so large a supply of plant food. The largest continnous area of lowan drift embraces the townships lying southwest of the Maquoketa River, and it is here that the rich, black, loamy soils of the type described are best developed. Between the Maquoketa River and the Towan margin there are large areas, more or less interrupted, however, by the island-like paha and other patches free from Iowan drift, over which soils of the same superior quality are distributed. Every township in the county, except Colony, has some areas covered with soils derived from Towan drift. In some parts of Onedia, Bremen, North Fork. South Fork and the other townships inelnded between the Maquoketa River and the Lowan drift margin, the soils are thin. Roek ledges and residual clays and cherts come near the surface or even become superficial by projecting through the scant materials belonging to the drift. Over an area of several miles in extent around Delaware the thin soil, in many places, is insufficient to conceal the rocks and residual cherts which form numerons stony knobs and flint hills unfit for cultivation. Angular fragments of chert mixed with ferriginous residual elay, constitute a natural macadam of excellent quality in many of the roadways. Near the margin of the lowan iee the amount of fine clayey material transported and deposited was very small, and hence it is that thin soils characterize so much of the surface in a zone, six or eight miles in width, immediately adjacent to the margin of the Iowan drift plain. The townships of Hazel Green, Adams, Prairie and Coffin's Grove, together with the southwest half of Milo, are in general covered with a heavy bed of drift upon which a soil unexcelled in the Mississippi Valley has been developed since the retreat of the lowan ice.
Around Roekville there are extensive areas covered with aeolian sands and presenting a type of soil far from desirable. Sands that bear evidence of hav- ing been carried and deposited by winds occur at nummerons points in the belt of thin soils inside the Iowan margin. Such sands ocenr abundantly near Earlville, Delaware and generally throughout North Fork, Bremen and Oneida townships. They are lodged usually on the gentle slopes of the low hills, the broad swales or low lands being generally free from sand and covered with a heavy black loam. In a low ridge near the northwest corner of sec- tion 7, Oneida Township, there are four to six feet of aeolian sand resting on an old soil bed. Sand derived from terrace material along the stream valley, characterizes the soils on both sides of the Maquoketa for some distance above and below Manchester.
In the portion of the county not covered with lowan drift the soils are either loess clays, sauds or residual prodnets. Northeast of the Towan boun- dary line loess is the prevailing material. The surface is hilly and uneven. Yellow loess clay, quite free from organic matter, but rich in lime carbonates and other forms of mineral plant food, gives color and character to the fields and presents a strong contrast to the deep, black, mellow loam which prevails
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IHISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
over the region of Iowan drift. On steep hill slopes loess soils are not very productive. They wash badly and the surface often presents a series of impass- able ditches and gullies. In the central and southern part of Colony Town- ship there is an area more than usually level for a region covered with loess and Kansan drift. The storm waters are carried off slowly. The surface is not gashed or gullied, and the loess type of soil is here seen at its best. Such a soil is very fertile, is adapted to a great range of erops, and ranks with the best known anywhere in the great fertile Northwest.
Loess covers the paha in the marginal zone of Iowan drift, and where the surface is not too steep the soil possesses many admirable qualities. Loess covers the highlands in the central and northern part of Richland Township. The surface is rather hilly north and northeast of the Backbone, so that the country is better adapted to orchard culture or timber culture than to ordinary farming. The Delhi plateau is largerly covered with loess, but the broken and hilly character of the surface in general indicates that the prodnetion of ordinary farm crops is not the purpose to which the region is best adapted. It should be reserved as forest land, but where this is not praetieable it should be devoted to orchards, vineyards or the cultivation of small fruits. Some portions of this plateau are covered with sand, the region about Delhi being typical in this respect. The sand beds are at least ten to fourteen feet in thickness, and, near the northern margin of the plateau, seem to take the place of the loess. The sandy soils about Hopkinton seem to be derived from sand ter- races that are probably as old as the close of the Kansan glacial stage. Taking the county as a whole the average grade of its soils is high.
LIME
With an abundance of stone of first-class grade for lime burning it is a little surprising to find that only a small amount of lime is produced in Dela- ware County. There are no kilns that are operated continuously or that attempt to do more than supply some temporary local demand. There are scores of localities where the Pentamerns and coral bearing beds, lying between the two quarry stone horizons, are massive, crystalline and free from chert. In such ease, if properly managed, they will produce a superior quality of lime. Remains of abandoned limekilns are found in almost every neighborhood where the Niagara limestone onterops, but no kilns were seen in operation. There are half a dozen or more of these old kilns in the neighborhood of Hopkinton. No better lime was ever made anywhere than that which these kilns produced when they were operated. The raw material is abundant and easily obtained. What is lacking is capital. organization and efficient management. Dubuque lime and other limes not one whit better than the home product, but made on a large seale by improved methods, are able to supplant the home product when made by the primitive applianees adopted by the pioneer settlers of the county.
ROAD MATERIALS
Throughout the whole northeastern half of Delaware County material for the improvement of roads is abundant. Loess clay answers an excellent pur-
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
pose on sandy roads, and such clay is usually plentiful within easy hauling distance of almost every point along the Maquoketa River or in the area lying northeast of that stream. Better and more permanent improvement is made by the use of chert and broken limestone. The streets of Hopkinton, which are naturally sandy at times have been covered with residual elay, chert and fragmentary limestone from a pit in the western edge of the town, and the results were very satisfactory. A stretch of road in sections 11 and 12, town- ship 87 north, range 4 west, formerly almost impassable by reason of deep sand, was put in excellent condition by the use of the same kind of material taken from the river bluff in the northeast quarter of section 11. A quarry in the northwest quarter of section 2, Milo Township, furnished a large amount of very desirable road material in the form of chert and limestone. Material of the same kind is generally distributed exeept in the prairie townships south- west of the Maquoketa.
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