USA > Indiana > Washington County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Harrison County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Crawford County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Clark County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Scott County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Floyd County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Jennings County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
USA > Indiana > Jefferson County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 13
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at one time covering the greater part of the interior of the continent, con- nected with outlying lakes by channels and valleys eroded during the pre- ceding period, driven by the wind, but otherwise currentless rivers or bodies of water.
" From analogy, unqualified develop- ments elsewhere, and abundant facts easily seen, this region, upon its emer- gence above the sea, was a level plain-now traversed by many streams with deep, canon-like beds, but of recent origin, traversing the country from north to south. It is eight to fifteen miles wide, and from two hundred to three hundred feet deep. The eastern bluff is the Knob sand- stone of Floyd county, and the Chester hills in the western part of the county, along Blue river. A fine view, embracing a large part of this valley, can be had at a single glance from the top of Pilot Knob, adjoin- ing Corydon on the sonth. Words can hardly express the gratification experienced on ascending this point, as the veil faded away which had mystified so many other visitors and students, disclosing that long vision in the history of the past. A suc- cession of such sharp, conical 'knobs' or peaks are seen to the northwest and continue to occur beyond the northern boundary of the county, followed by a similar succession to the south-southeast. The great valley, locally known as the 'barrens,' is a nearly level plain. In a wild state, when visited by the Boones and other
108
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
hunter pioneers, it was nearly a typical prairie, exhibiting a few gnarled and scotched shrubs or 'stools,' and covered with a luxuriant growth of tall prairie grass, herbs and vines. These were burned after each autumnal frost, pre- venting the growth of trees and per- manent vegetation. The soil is a silicious clay, the subsoil a confused, irregular, disjointed mass of flints, quartz and geodes, from ten to forty feet in depth-in some places approaching or covering the surface, so as to prove an obstacle to pleasant agriculture, and at a few points, in such extreme devel- opment as to require their removal and use in building fences, houses, etc. This rubbish is not in natural ' place,' and no such beds occur in this local geological formation, or any other. They are not imported by water or ice ; their origin is local. Looking for their source, we see in the cliffy out- lines of adjoining hills that the mate- rial of this debris is scattered in thin layers, one to fourteen inches in thick- ness, throughout the beds of St. Louis limestone, the plan of which is occu- pied by this valley. Judging from the isolated sections visible there, these layers, gathered from two hundred feet of St. Louis rocks, would just about equal the amount of the remains here left. One cannot but conclude that water, charged with carbonic acid, dissolved and totally removed in a state of solution, the whole of this limestone, rejecting the insoluble silieions material found remaining.
This solution is natural, and does
not require the erroneous theory of volcanic heat or upheaval. If the water which caused this removal was simply confined rainfall, and without motion, evaporation would have de- veloped great beds of calcic tufa. Such beds do not exist. Theoreti- cally, we may infer that a body of flowing water assisted. This is made certain by the fact that, on ascending Pilot Knob and similar eminences near the level of the ancient table- land, the extreme summits still exhibit well rounded gravel and more angular coarse sand. These can only result from water in motion, and flowing with considerable rapid- ity-say two to four miles an hour. The north and northwestern sides of the hills and knobs, as a rule, are precipitous, as if roughly beaten by a current, while in every case a pro- nounced talus stretches out to the south - southwestwardly. All these definitely assert the existence of a pre-glacial river of great volume, flowing with some current, probably slow, to the southeast. This valley, followed to the south, at present shows little or no fall in that direc- tion ; but with due allowance for the more rapid subsidence of northern areas, it is at once apparent that in the long past there was a time when this, as well as other rivers of Indi- ana and the northwest, which once flowed to the south, could and would be obstructed and be compelled to find new outlets of discharges.
"Ignoring the bed of the recent
109
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
Ohio river, this valley crosses that stream between Brandenburg and Westport at an elevation of two hun- dred and fifty to three hundred feet above low water, passed by a wide channel, now tilted up near Eliza- bethtown, Ky., into the beautiful Nolin valley, and that of Nolin creek to the Green river, accounting for the unusual bottoms of the latter, thus finally reaching the present Ohio river through Jefferson county. Below this point of junction, as well as above New Albany, the Ohio val- ley is from one to five miles, with well-rounded, gently-sloping bluffs, as naturally occurs by exposure to the elements of a very great length of time. Between these points, along the southern line of Harrison, Craw- ford and Perry counties, the bottoms, exclusive of the river itself, range from nothing to a quarter of a mile in width, while the bluffs, from two hundred to five hundred feet in height, boldly approach the water's edge; as a rule precipitous or very steeply inclined, and formed of lime- stone, which, by action of the atmosphere, is quickly sloped or rounded. They very strongly indi- cate the recent origin of the present Ohio river. On the other hand, the well - rounded and gently - sloping bluffs of the supposed pre-glacial valley, as strongly demonstrate the extreme antiquity of this phenome- non.
* *
.
"Commencing with the highest
and most recent rocky deposit in the western side of the county, are beds of bituminous or pyritous shales marking the place of coal A, the lowest coal seam in this State, capped by a few feet of conglomerate sand- rock named 'millstone grit' by the English geologists." It is so near the rim of the basin that, as is always the case, it is here barren-without coal. This horizon is remarkable for the abundance of well-preserved stems and fruits characteristic of the coal measures. No other point in this State offers a more interesting study than Keller's hill southwest of Corydon, and thence westerly to the Blue river. It is, perhaps, unneces- sary to say that no workable seams of coal exist in this county, and search in that direction will prove fruitless. * On the farm of Rev. Jacob Keller is an outcrop of the lower coal measures and Ches - ter beds, of great interest. The fol- lowing section includes the space by barometric measurement to the level of the creek at Corydon, four and a half miles east :
Loess soil, - . 2 feet. Conglomerate sand rock, - 10 "
. Dark carbonaceous shale, place of coal A, - 20 “
Heavy grit stone, 15
Soft sandstone, 7 4
Blue Kaskaskia limestone, with Chester fossils, - 25 " Argillaceous limestone, with chert, 15
White limestone, - 6
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HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
Slope to sink, 20 feet. Space by barometer to creek
at Corydon,
240 4
360 4
"Mr. Ezra Keller has gathered at this locality, which is wondrously rich, a remarkable collection of coal measure fossils, including great trunks of Lepidodendron, forked strangely strangulated, from two to two and a half feet in diameter, but short and stumpy, as if of such weak or her- baceous growth as to forbid tall erect stature; Stigmaria, of different species; Knorria, with ferns and fruit-like seeds of coal-measure plants, a stony herbarium of the age of coal. The coal- measure strata continue west, increasing with the dip in thickness in a great trough to Blue river. The following section is at Rothrock's cliff, Blue river :
Soil and fluviatile drift 60 feet.
Laminated soapstone - 14 "
Massive quarry sandstone, con- glomerate 8
1
Soft ferruginous sandstone - 11 4
Place of Coal A
Shale and fire-clay
Chester limestone and silicious . shales 120 4
St. Louis limestone, covered
to Blue river - 180 -
400 "
"The massive sand rock is easily quarried, breaking in great cubes, as if eut by hand, from 2 to 8 feet square and larger, and from evidence
of exposure, is of unlimited endur- ance. As a grit stone it is first-rate, and should command the attention of manufacturers desiring very large grindstones. Beds of excellent pav- ing stones are exposed in the litho- graphic member of the Chester group."
Building Stone .- The mineral re. sources of Harrison county are equal, if not superior, to any county in southern Indiana. One of its great staples, and which must continue to increase in value, is building stone. It exists in the county in every variety, comprising the ornamental as well as those of sterling useful quali- ties. The "buff calcareo-magnesian beds," at New Salisbury, have been worked at intervals for many years, and were mentioned prominently by Dr. David Dale Owen, in the first geological report of the State. The color is a subdued, neutral tint. Directly from the quarry it is soft, and may be hewn with a broad-ax or cut with a common saw, but on exposure to the air becomes hard. Samples seen in the old Capitol at Corydon, and in use as door-sills and steps to residences, show the satis- factory hardness and endurance of this stone after sixty years' exposure and use. The well defined, creamy buff tint will, by harmony as well as contrast, be found desirable for orna- mental work in artistic edifices.
The light-gray limestone at King's Cave quarry, and many other points in the county, is practically, as well as
111
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
geologically, equivalent to the famous quarries at Salem, Bedford, Blooming- ton, etc. It is an elastic, compact, homogeneous limestone, capable of sustaining heavy burdens, and from the boldly escarped bluffs and expo- sure, known to absolutely resist for ages the action of the elements. When unlimited facilities for transportation exist, this stone, equal to the best heretofore offered in the market, will meet a good demand.
The snow-white oolitic limestone has been opened at the Stockslager quarry, near Mauckport, although it occurs in thinner ledges in other parts of the county. A chemical precipitate from an aqueous solution, it is of almost perfect purity. In color it is more brightly white than marble. It is susceptible of a high polish, and the egg-like concretions add a signal beauty and variety to the peculiar structure. In color, beauty and uniformity it is unique, and is believed to be unsur- passed, if not unrivaled. Tested scientifically, it was found to weigh nearly 150 pounds per cubic foot, and to have a crushing strength per square inch of 10,250 pounds, or more than eighteen times as strong as good bricks. When burned, it yields pure white lime, a superior article for plastering, whitewashing, etc. It works cool under the trowel, giving ample time for ornamental finish. On account of its purity, it is in good demand for defecating sugar and other chemical purposes on the lower Mississippi river. At ordinary stone quarries,
spawls and broken debris are a serious and costly encumbrance; here, every rejected fragment is in demand for calcination and adds to the value of the quarry, and almost insures profit- able results to operators.
A dark-gray limestone is seen just below the mouth of Mosquito creek, near the extreme southern promontory of the county. It is homogeneous, massive, and shows in solid stratum of limestone, so much resembling granite in external appearance; from indica- tions on the outerop, it is almost equal to granite in strength and endurance. This stone deserves the careful atten- tion of engineers having in charge the construction of piers, walls and foun- dations exposed to ice, floods and surging ocean waves." When burned, it makes a strong white lime.
The sandstones of the Chester group cap the hills in the western and south- western parts of the county. The massive beds which crop out on the bluffs of the Blue river and the Ohio river in Washington and Scott town- ships, where undermined, sometimes break off and dash down the steep bluffs, especially in the spring when the thawing frost renders underlying rocks weak and yielding.
Many of the fallen masses still re- tain their sharp, well-cut angles, although the surroundings indicate an exposure to storm and ice for centu- ries. It is a choice stone for exposed foundations, frost and water-proof. A good grit stone, large sized grind-
* Prof. E. T. Cox.
112
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
,
stones, four to five feet in diameter were obtained from Rhodes' quarry, on Blue river, and used in manufac- tories in Louisville, Ky., and were found to be first-class.
Lime .- Of course where so much limestone exists, the manufacture of lime follows as a natural consequence. Lime has been burned in Harrison county, in almost every part of it, from its earliest settlement, by log heap and other primitive methods, as well as by the more modern kilns. Years ago, when Hatboats carried the commerce of the West to New Orleans, kilns for the calcining of the white politie stone lined the banks of the Ohio and Blue rivers, wherever that stone was obtainable along those streams; from which the burned lime was shipped as "Blue River Lime," on flatboats to the Southern planters and merchants. The trade, stopped by the late civil war, has never been revived. The lime is good; none other in the valley of the West sur- passes it, and only capital and enter- prise is needed to put it on the mar- ket, and make it a vast source of wealth to the county.
The immense beds of highly bitum- inous shaly limestone, exposed in the bluffs reaching across the great bend of the Ohio river from Brown's Land- ing to Cedar Grove, are inexhaustible. This stratum is here thirty to forty feet thick, and at localities on the river bank, so sitnated that cartage and elevators are unnecessary ; all the
costly and heavy work may be chiefly done by downcasts.
Glass Sand .- Glaze's Landing, some fifteen miles southeast of Corydon is noted as the place from which most of the white sand is shipped for the New Albany Plate Glass Works .* Glass sand occurs here as else- where in the county, as well as north in Floyd county, and south across the State of Kentucky in separate deposits or basins along the east or west bank of the depression, provisionally named the pre-glacial river bed. This depres- sion trends, in this county, by a gentle curvature, and the sand banks are at the most easterly or eddy point of the curve, and just in the eastern edge of the "Flat Woods" flood plain of the supposed river. Just what connection their existence had with that river, is not clearly seen, but their peculiar location in reference to it, and the fact that in the lower beds of sand and kaolin clays beneath it are fossils which had their origin to the north, it seems at least probable, if not reason- ably certain, that the current of water, which deposited them, flowed from the north of Washington and Floyd counties, with no great current, but in great volume. The deposits, com- mencing two miles south of Bridge- port, are in regular series, though var- iable in extent, down to near the extreme southern extremity of the county, near the mouth of Mosquito creek, or twelve miles long by a half to one mile wide and 400 to 450 feet above the Ohio river. In this vicinity
113
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
it lies upon Keokuk rocks, further north on a St. Louis bed, and at one point in Kentucky it caps the Chester hills ; in the beds and under them are found pieces of chert and silicified fossils from each one of the groups.
At Capt. Lawson's mine, owned by W. C. DePauw, Esq., proprietor of the New Albany Glass Works, the sand is coarse, in massive strata of rough sandstone, with somewhat reg- ular layers, but generally striated by false bedding; from the bottom of the pits fine specimens of white and yellow kaolin (Indianaite) were obtained. * *
After disturbance by quarrying, a slight exposure causes the stone to disintegrate. It is then washed, or rather wetted, and thrown on a plat- form to drain, which removes all the iron coloring matter, and the snow- white product is ready for market. Capt. Knight, who has worked these mines for eight years, says that at two of them he found streaks of black magnetic sand carrying fine gold dust in the bottom layers. * Glass sand has been opened and a few boat-loads shipped from the land of Lydia Peters and R. Krow, in the south-east part of the county. Beneath the sand, kaolin was here found as white as snow. In the flat prairie area to the east, is a large extent of red, yellow and green kaolin in persistent beds two to three feet thick, which would be of immense value if free from coloring matter, and eminently adapted to the manufacture
of ordinary pottery, ornamental terra cotta and tile products. % *
In the northwest corner of the county, glass sand is found. It is an excellent quality of white sand and is extensively used in the works at New Albany. Similar beds of sand are found along the whole of the eastern edge of the black mucky region, locally known as the "Flat Woods." The beds are not continuous, but in pockets, and are not restricted to the Indiana side of the Ohio river, but, where reported or ob- served, extended along the equivalent ancient depression across the State of Kentucky in the direction of Nolin Valley and Nolin Fork of the Green river. In many places it is a massive rock, with much stratification and false bedding; ordinarily by exposure, it has passed from this condition to that of loose sand.
Natural Gas .- Harrison county lies in the natural gas area, of which the north side of Mead county, Ky., seems to be the center. The existence of natural gas here was known long before the present excitement arose. Prof. Cox speaks of it thus: "The gas flow, a mile below Eversol's, and .half a mile above Rosewood post office, on Capt. Strong's land, is pecu- liar and of importance. All along the Ohio river, for a space of half a mile or more, whenever the water is not more than two to ten feet deep, bubbles may be seen hurrying upward. Near the edge of the river, it pushes its way through the muddy deposit with a restless motion ; in deeper
114
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
water the discharge is greater ; a con- tinuous flow of large or small bubbles, and at places, in time of low water, in sufficient volume and force to give a rocking motion to a skiff, and in some instances threatening to overturn it. On the shore line, small springs, with gas, break out. Confined in a tube or clay chimney, the gas is often gathered and ignited ; these jets burn night and day until extinguished by wind, storm or overflow, . like the Gheber's holy light in the sun wor- shipper's land of fire, exciting the fear of boatmen, who could only wonder at a 'hole on fire.' It is a very pure carburetted hydrogen, burning with a white flame of high illuminating power and evolving great heat. The flow of gas is not confined to the river bed alone. In time of high water the ebullition of gas is noticed in the back water over the low lands, and is traced by the gas well near Buena Vista in a southwesterly direction across the country by Boone's land- ing, to a similar phenomenon in the bed of the river, and at the gas-salt works at Brandenburg, Ky.
"An imaginary line has been drawn across the country, connecting the points enclosing the probable area over which gas may be found by boring from 500 to 800 feet, and accompanying the gas will be a flow of salt water, but it must not be expected that a good supply of either will be found in every bore that may be made in the area. This supply of gas, of inestimable value as a fuel for
evaporating salt brine, generating steam and other economic purposes, sufficient to propel the machinery of and illuminate the streets and dwell- ings of a city, is now suffered to go to waste. Returning to Boone's Landing on the Ohio river, the line of 'gas springs', the ebullition of which has been mentioned in the bed of the river, a short distance above Rosewood post office, and which was found in the oil well near Buena Vista, is again noticed, entering the river a short distance below Tobacco Landing, and trending obliquely to the southwest, until, at Morvin, the phenomena of the bubbling gas was seen from the Indiana shore to the Brandenburg wharf.
. The immense amount of this gas, and the possibility of its economical use for illuminating, heating, cooking, and steam purposes, induced a visit to Brandenburg, on the Kentucky side of the river. Immediately ad- joining the town, and thence east to Doe Run, eight wells are reported as having been bored to depths ranging from 478 to 800 feet, and from seven of them, gas and salt water were dis- charged; in more than half of them the gas was in considerable quantity, and in at least two of them the brine was strong and in reasonable quantity."
Since the foregoing was written by Prof. Cox, the gas area has been great- ly developed, both in Harrison county, Indiana, and in Meade county, Ken- tucky. There is now nearly 30,000,- 000 cubic feet of gas flowing daily,
115
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
and which, so far, has gone to waste. There is, however, a company formed to pipe it to Louisville, and doubtless, March 1st, 1889, will witness Louis- ville and New Albany supplied with natural gas, both for illuminating and heating purposes. The absence of coal in this county should make natu- ral gas more valuable as fuel, and its close proximity to the county seat, it seems, should render it cheaper fuel than any other to be had in the town.
Agricultural Features .- Harrison county, notwithstanding its irregular and somewhat broken surface, is one of the finest agricultural counties in southern Indiana. In a state of nature it offered features that fairly invited the early pioneer. To the brave hunter it was a land of wild plenty. Large game was abundant. The flesh and skins fed and clothed, and, as currency, supplied every want. The fertile bottoms, "tickled with a hoe, smiled a harvest." The barrens, almost prairies in contour and free- dom from trees, clothed in a luxuriant coat of grass, gave abundant pasture and forage without labor, except the gathering. Wild fruits, as the plums, grapes, haws and persimmons, wal- nuts, hickory nuts and chestuuts, were everywhere abundant. No wonder it was deemed a second paradise by the fathers of the State. Three-quarters of a century's cultivation, however, has robbed the soil of its virgin fer- tility, and it now needs artificial means to make it produce bountifully. The river and creek bottoms, consist-
ing of deep alluvial loam, annually recruited by spring overflows, still produce excellent crops, but the up- lands require considerable fertilizing to pay the husbandman for cultivation. An estimate by a well informed agri- culturalist places the annual return per acre from the better land as fol- lows :
Corn, forty bushels, at forty cents per bushel, - $ 16.00
Wheat, twenty-two bushels, at one dollar per bushel, 22.00
Hay, two tons, at fifteen dollars per ton, 30.00
Potatoes, one hundred aud fifty bushels, at seventy-five cents per bushel, 112.50
Cabbages, fifteen hundred heads, at five cents a head, 75.00
On the uplands the yield is less satisfactory, and by the same author- ity is estimated as follows :
Corn, twenty bushels, at forty cents per bushel, $8.00 Wheat, eight bushels, at one dollar per bushel, - 8.00
Potatoes, 100 bushels, at sev- enty-five cents per bushel, 75.00
Hay, one ton, at fifteen dollars per ton, 15.00
The agricultural report of 1880, gave the county 2,760 cultivated farms; 169,552 acres of improved lands, valued at $4,346,411. It also shows the following productions for that year: Corn, 553,098 bushels ; oats, 84,641 bushels; wheat, 350,671 bushels ; orchard products, 46,739 bar- rels ; Irish potatoes, 76,600 bushels.
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HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
Value of live stock, 8492,976; esti- mated value of farm products, 8785,- 709. "A few experiments with bone dust showed that to be a sure source of relief, on the exhausted uplands. After a continued use for several years, this fertilizer is found to nearly double the crop of corn, wheat or grass, and leave in the ground the elements, in part, of other crops. Several bone mills are established in the county, and large quantities of bone dust are brought into the county from the mills at New Albany and Louisville. Bone dust is applied at the rate of one hundred and twenty- five to two hundred and fifty pounds per acre. A careful estimate of its benefits by a thoughtful farmer gives the following showing: In the fall of 1877 there was bought and applied to the wheat erop an aggregate of 3,330 tons, costing $30 per ton, or nearly $100,000. This was applied to 33,300 acres of wheat; with the low estimate of an increase of four bushels of wheat per acre we find the farmers who applied the bone dust have an aggregate net profit of over 833,000. With such results, it is apparent that the use of such fertili- zers will pay and should be encour- aged. It may not be improper to suggest that the use of commercial manures, when farm products bring no higher prices than they do in this county, should be only a tempo- rary expedient. A farm should be self-sustaining. As soon as the fer- tility of the soil is partly restored,
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