USA > Indiana > Huntington County > History of Huntington County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 3
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"From Wabash to Delphi the Wabash up-lift (or Wabash Arch) has
WABASH RIVER NEAR WATER WORKS, HUNTINGTON
determined the course of the Wabash river, just as it also determined the form of the drift mass immediately south of it. The river itself is running along the general line of a wide fracture or system of fissures in the Niagara rocks from Wabash to Logansport. At the latter place it has cut through a spur of the Devonian formation, and at Delphi it curves around the base of a curious conical up-lift of the Niagara lime- stone. To my mind it is plain that the river simply follows the example of the ice current which went before it, plowing out the great furrow which we call the Wabash valley. At the present, evidence is wanting to prove any theory as to what particular part of the glacial age was
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
devoted to the work of channeling out a groove for Indiana's greatest river, but it would appear that this must have been the first result of the glacier's contact with the low but compact and stubborn knobs of the Wabash Arch. Subsequently, as the ice field grew in weight and power, it arose and surmounted the barrier, grinding away its conical peaks and tearing out of its hollows in many places the non-conformable Devonian and Carboniferous rocks."
In some portions of North America the lateral moraines rise to a height of 500 or even 1,000 feet. The terminal moraine in Northern Indiana that marks the southern boundary of the Great Lake basin, contains a number of mounds that are from 150 to 200 feet high, and the "existence of a grand moraine lying across central Indiana has been fully demonstrated." Along the line of this great terminal moraine the contour of the drift mass is found to be comparatively regular, the glacial debris having been more uniformly deposited. Great local changes have taken place in the surface of the drift since it was first deposited. Upon the retreat of the ice the whole drift area was left bare and desolate, accompanied by an arctic temperature and without either animal or plant life. The barren surface was leveled and modified by the rain and wind during the period that elapsed before the northward emigration of plant life began to clothe it with a garment of resistance and render it habitable for animals. How long that period may have been geologists can only conjecture. It was by this method that the surface of Huntington County was formed.
In some parts of Central Indiana, near the "grand moraine," the glacial drift ranges from 300 to 500 feet in depth. Concerning the depth and character of the drift in Huntington County, Cox says: "The only well-marked evidence which I saw of terminal moraines in this county lies along both banks of the Little and Wabash rivers. * * The drift covers the entire county and can not be less than 100 to 130 feet thick over a great portion of the tableland. The upper portion is com- posed of irregular beds of sand, clay and gravel. Bowlders and hard plastic clay lie at the base. The larger bowlders, 'Roches moutonnees,' lie along both shores of Little river and Wabash river at an elevation of 40 to 50 feet above the streams. They are particularly abundant above and below Huntington on the right bank of Little river. Their surfaces are scratched and grooved, but I was unable to find glacial scratches on the stratified rocks where they are exposed to view. This may, in part, be due to the fact that no fresh surface of the upper layers was seen, and the readiness with which the Niagara weathers would soon obliterate all traces of such marks. From the manner in which the bowlders lie along the borders of Little river, one is led to the conclusion that the
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
stream has cut its way between two lateral moraines. A very large granite bowlder, weighing many tons, lies in the bed of Little river three and a half miles above Huntington, which, from a fancied resemblance in shape to a saddle, has received the name of 'Saddle Rock.' This bowlder rests immediately on the Niagara, which is here seen in the bed of the river for the last time as you ascend the stream, and is not again found above the surface in an easterly direction before reaching the borders of Ohio. The large beds of sand found in the upper part of the drift are particularly valuable in this part of the state, since they furnish the only source from which this essential ingredient of good mortar can be had. There is a very large deposit of sand in the northwest border of Huntington. It is ten or twelve feet thick and the lines of deposition present the characteristic features of what is termed in rock strata 'false bedding.' The sand from this pit is held in high estimation by masons and plasterers and finds a ready market."
In his report for 1905 State Geologist Blatchley said : "In Hunting- ton county the mantle of drift averages thinner than those adjoining, but yellow clays, suitable for brick or tile making, occur in a number of places. At Huntington, the surface clay used for brick making runs sixteen to thirty inches in thickness, with practically no stripping. Below thirty inches the clay becomes 'too strong,' with some lime pebbles in it."
At Tribolet Brothers, five miles southeast of Huntington, Blatchley found a good brick-making clay, with a stripping of eight inches of soil, and at Bippus the stripping was only six inches. At the latter place, and also at Majenica, he found a blue clay suitable for brick and tile making.
The principal elements that go to make up the drift formation in Indiana are silica, alumina, lime and iron. Silica is found in the clays, sands and bowlders ; alumina in the clays and bowlders; lime in the clays, marls, chalk and peat-like bog deposits, and the iron in the swamps, in the form of bog ore, or in the gravel deposits. Coarse garnets, of little or no value, have been found in some places, but, as a rule, the glacial drift is void of gems of any commercial importance.
At widely different places in the glacial drift of the United States have been found the remains of prehistoric animals of the Miocene period, but which became extinct in the Pleistocene, or Ice Age. The most common of these are the bones of the mastodon-so called on account of the shape of the teeth-an animal allied to the elephant of modern times. The summer of 1881 was one of drought. Many wells in Hunt- ington County failed and in some neighborhoods there was barely enough water for domestic purposes, live stock sometimes suffering for a suf- ficient supply. Abraham Oliver, then living upon the northeast quarter of Section 10, about a mile and a half southeast of Plum Tree, selected
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
a swampy place on his farm and employed some men to sink a well, hoping to find water. About five feet below the surface the diggers struck something solid, and upon investigation found the obstruction to be the bones of a mastodon. Two teeth, weighing about eight pounds each, were taken from the well, as well as a rib four feet two inches long, part of a tusk four feet long and weighing eighty pounds (the whole tusk was afterward found and measured eleven feet in length) ; and a bone supposed to be the one running from the knee to the pasture joint was three feet long. The discovery was made on Tuesday, September 13, 1881, and the following Sunday a number of people from the City of Huntington and other towns went out to see the bones, but Mr. Oliver, probably in anticipation of a visit from curiosity seekers, had locked the fragments of the prehistoric animal in an out-building and gone visiting. He afterward procured a tent and exhibited them at county fairs.
A few years later part of a skeleton of a mastodon was unearthed by some workinen engaged in digging a ditch on the farm of Thomas Mc- Crum, located in Section 2, in the Loon Creek Valley, in the northern part of Lancaster Township, and in the collection in the museum in the city free library of Huntington are the fragmentary bones of one of these extinct animals that were found while excavating a cellar in the city. The finding of these remains afford conclusive evidence that all of what is now Huntington County was once in the pathway of the great glacier that covered practically all of Northern and Central Indiana.
Both natural gas and petroleum have been found in paying quan- tities in the southern part of Huntington County. Natural gas has been described as "a member of the paraffin series (hydrocarbons), a combi- nation of carbon and hydrogen, about 60 per cent as heavy as air and highly inflammable." It is composed of marsh gas, or methane, formed by the destructive distillation, carried on through centuries, of animal and vegetable matter of the plants and animals that existed in the Trenton period, the porous limestone of that formation serving as a reservoir for the oil and gas thus created, though both oil and gas have been found in the Corniferous limestone of the Devonian formation and the Huron sandstone of the Sub-Carboniferous period.
The first effort to find gas in Huntington County was made by boring a well just south of the Little River at the City of Huntington. The drill went down 1,034 feet and penetrated the Trenton limestone to a depth of thirty-nine feet, but no gas was found. Well No. 2 was drilled about two and a half miles east of the city, on the north side of the river. Here the drillers went to a depth of 1,012 feet, but with no better re- sults than had been obtained in well No. 1.
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
Petroleum in commercial quantities was first produced in Indiana in 1889, in a well drilled near the Village of Keystone, in the southern part of Wells County. As this is not far from the Huntington County line, it was not long until prospectors began looking for oil in the valley of the Salamonie River, where a number of wells producing both oil and gas were subsequently drilled. In his report for 1903 State Geologist Blatchley says :
"The area of Huntington County producing oil in commercial quan- tities is practically limited to the southern halves of Salamonie, Jefferson and Wayne townships, along the southern border of the county. Some of the sections in this area rank high as producers, the average initial production and length of life of the wells equalling any similar area in the petroleum field of the state. It is not probable that the area of pro- ductive territory in the county will ever be found to extend any distance north of the townships mentioned, though it may, in time, cover the greater portion of their northern halves."
At the time that report was issued the Huntington Light and Fuel Company were still operating the northern half of Jefferson Township for natural gas and the greater part of Wayne Township was producing gas in paying quantities. Eight square miles in the southeast corner of the township showed a number of producing oil wells. Probably the deepest well ever drilled in the county was that on the southwest quarter of Section 16, in Wayne Township. According to the state geologist, "it came in as a dry hole, with the following record :
Drive pipe.
108 feet
Casing
525 feet
Top of Trenton limestone.
991 feet
Light gas pay
1,006 feet
Salt water
1,041 feet
Total depth .. 1,101 feet"
In 1900 a field was opened up just west of the Town of Warren, but the wells proved to be light producers and short-lived. A more detailed account of the development of the oil and gas fields of the county will be found in the chapter on Finance and Industries.
Referring again to the Niagara limestone, it is worthy of remark that a study of the fossils found in this formation give geologists some idea of its age. When Professor Cox made his survey of the County of Hunt- ington in 1875 he found at the Drover quarry "masses of the Favosites Niagarensis so large as to lead at once to the belief that the entire bed of stone was derived from an ancient coral reef."
In the museum of the Huntington Library is a collection of fossils donated to the institution by Dr. Noble W. Scott, of Huntington, and
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
Abner R. Large, of Mount Etna, most of the specimens having been found in the Niagara limestone beds of the county. It is to be re- gretted that in the description of fossils geologists have not found some common English term to express their ideas, but they have not done so, and the only way left to the historian is to describe them according to the elassification made by scientists.
The principal groups of fossils found in the country are as follows : 1. The Brachiopoda, the distinguishing feature of which is the brachial valve; 2. The Gasteropoda, the fossil remains of a small animal that lived in a spiral shell, something like that of a snail; 3. The Cephalopoda, the shell of which is deseribed as a longieone with corrugated rings, or, in some varieties, smooth and gradually tapering to a point; 4. The Trilobita, the shells of which are of eonical form with three well-defined lobes.
Of the first group a very fine speeimen of what is called the Dinobolus Conradi was found at Huntington, and a pieture of this fossil has been reproduced in the state geologist's report for 1903, on page 489. It is somewhat rare. A more common fossil of this group is the Conchidium trilobatum, which is found in rather plentiful quantities about Hunt- ington, but not elsewhere in the Niagara beds along the Wabash River. The shell is a bivalve, something in appearance like that of an oyster, each valve or shell being three-lobed, from which the fossil derives the last part of its name.
In the second group several fine specimens of the fossil Pleurotomaria have been found in the vicinity of Huntington. This is a eonieal spiral shell, one speeies of which, the Pleurotomaria pauper, appears in the form of easts or moulds in the Huntington quarries. Another species, the Pleurotomaria axion, in which the shell is somewhat longer and sub- eonical, is quite rare, but one very fine specimen was found a few years ago at Huntington. In the same group are the Murchisonia, with an elongated shell. Fragments of the Murchisonia sp. undet are quite com- mon, but perfeet fossil of this species is rarely found. A very long spiral shell of the Murchisonia bivittata, found at Huntington, is now in the collection of the state museum at Indianapolis. One peculiar fossil of the group takes its name from the locality where it was found and is called the Oristoma Huntingensis.
The fossils of the third group are abundant about Huntington and in the quarries of the county, with the exception of few species, such as the Orthoceras annulatum, the Trochoceras desplainense, and the Tri- meroceras Gilberti, though a few specimens of these rare varieties have been found in the county.
Of the Trilobata, or trilobites, of which there are numerous varieties,
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
only one species has been found in this eounty. It is known as the Encrinurus Indianensis, and the three lobes of the shell are covered with small knobs or diversified by small ridges.
Near the old Leedy stone quarry, on Section 22, a short distance west of Andrews, Cox found a strong chalybeate spring in 1875, which he thus describes : "It rises up above the surface of the ground and flows over the side of the gum eurbing in a bold stream; it is strongly charged with iron, and is cool and pleasant to the taste. The water possesses valuable medicinal properties, is close to the thriving village of Antioch, on the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railroad, and might be made a place of resort for invalids who require a mild tonie."
On Section 14, about a mile northeast of the above spring, is another mineral spring in which salt (chloride of sodium) and sulphur are the predominating ingredients. Cox also found an artesian well, which had been bored for coal oil, on the bank of Silver Creek, concerning which he says :
"No record could be found of this bore, but it is supposed that the water comes from a depth of about six hundred feet, and flows out at the top of a wooden pump stoek, four or five feet above the surface. Judging by the taste, it is strongly impregnated with chloride of sodium and other mineral salts, and emits a strong odor of sulphuretted hydro- gen mixed with marsh gas, carbureted hydrogen. The existence of the latter gas, in the boggy places along the creek, led to the selection of this locality as one most likely to furnish oil, from the well-known fact that carbureted hydrogen usually accompanies the oil in the famous wells on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania. In this case, however, no oil was obtained. Anywhere in the marsh near the well, if a stick is run down into the mud and vegetable matter, earbureted hydrogen will escape, and if touched with a lighted match takes fire and burns. This well is pe- euliarly interesting, sinee it lies almost midway between Fort Wayne, where a well was bored to the depth of 3,000 feet, and Wabash, where a well went to a depth of 2,270 feet, neither of which found water that would rise to the surface."
When the first white men came into Huntington County to establish their homes and develop the country they found the surface covered with a heavy growth of timber. The great, primitive forests eontained many fine specimens of black walnut, poplar, white oak, ash, maple, burr and red oak, hickory and other valuable varieties. But at that time the soil was more valuable for eultivation than the timber. The result was that very many trees were cut down and burned that, if they were standing today, would be worth more than the land upon which they grew. Then no thought of a timber famine ever entered the minds of
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the pioneers. Far away to the west and northwest stretched the bound- less forest, and to the frontiersman it seemed, if he ever gave the subject a thought, that there would be timber enough to supply the wants of the people for centuries to come. The ax, the fire-brand and the sawmill have done their work so thoroughly that now, though less than one cen- tury has passed, the timbered area of the county has been much reduced. Now the question of conservation of the American forests is a subject. that is much discussed. Had the work of conservation been commenced at the time Huntington County was settled, much of the timber might have been saved, but would the people of the present generation act differently than did the pioneers, under the same conditions? Prob- ably not.
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CHAPTER II
ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
THE MOUND BUILDERS-WHO WERE THEY ?- THOMAS' DIVISION OF THE; UNITED STATES INTO DISTRICTS-SPECIAL FEATURES OF EACH DIS- TRICT-MOUNDS IN HUNTINGTON COUNTY-THE INDIANS-DISTRI- BUTION OF TRIBES WHEN AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED-THE "SIX NATIONS"-THE MIAMI-THEIR HABITS AND CUSTOMS-RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS-THEIR DOMAIN-MIAMI VILLAGES IN THE. WABASH VALLEY-REMOVAL WEST-THE POTTAWATOMI-TRADITIONS. AND CHARACTER-TREATIES-META'S VILLAGE-POLICIES IN DEALING- WITH THE INDIANS.
Huntington County, in common with all the interior of the United. States, was once inhabited by a race of people, of whom the Indians found here by the first white men had not the faintest tradition. And it was not for a quarter of a century or more after the organization of the county that evidences of this ancient race were found within its borders. Then two mounds (mentioned further on in this chapter) were discovered near the Salamonie River, in the southeastern part of the county. Although not so large as some of the mounds found in other. sections of the state, they bore unmistakable signs of having been con- structed by human hands-how many years ago? These slight relics are enough, however, to show that, long before the New World was. known to Europeans, Huntington County was at least a temporary abode. of some primitive tribe.
Archæologists, ethnologists and antiquarians have indulged in a. great deal of speculation and research regarding the primitive man in America. Often the question is asked: "Who were the first people to inhabit North America?" But the question is more easily asked than answered. When the first white men came from Europe to this country they found here a peculiar race of copper-colored people, to whom they gave the name of "Indians," but after a time some students of arch- æology came to the conclusion that the Indians had their predecessors. Who were they? The archaeologist has conferred upon this primitive. people the name of "Mound Builders," on account of the great number- of mounds or other earthworks they erected, and which constitute the.
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
only data from which to write their history. Much discussion concern- ing their character and fate has been carried on during the last century through scientific magazines and elsewhere, but a positive solution of the matter seems to be as far away as it was before the discussion com- menced.
In 1812 the American Antiquarian Society was organized and during the ycars immediately following it made some investigations of the pre- historic relics left by these ancient inhabitants. But the first work of consequence on the subject of American archæology-"Ancient Monu- ments of the Mississippi Valley"-did not make its appearane until in 1847. It was compiled by E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis, who had made an exhaustive study of many of the mounds and earthworks in the region indicated by the title of their work. They advanced the theory that the Mound Builders were a very ancient race of people and that they were in no way related to the Indians found here when the continent was discovered by Columbus. Eight years later, in 1855, Allen Lapham wrote a treatise on the "Antiquities of Wisconsin," in which he also held to the great age and separate race theory. In fact, most of the early writers on the subject have supported this hypothesis, and some have gone so far as to arrange the period of human occupancy of the Missis- sippi Valley into four distinct epochs, to wit: 1. The Mound Builders; 2. The Villagers; 3. The Fishermen; 4. The Indians. This somewhat fanciful theory presupposes four separate and distinct peoples as having inhabited the great valley of the Mississippi, but, unfortunately for the theorist, it is not supported by any positive evidence. Other writers have contended that the early American aborigines were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel and efforts have been made to substantiate this theory. With regard to the Mound Builders, Baldwin, in his "Ancient America," says :
"They are unquestionably American aborigines and not immigrants from another continent. That appears to me the most reasonable sug- gestion which assumes that the Mound Builders came originally from Mexico and Central America. It explains many facts connected with their remains. In the Great Valley their most populous settlements were at the south. Coming from Mexico and Central America, they would begin their settlements on the Gulf coast, and afterward advance gradu- ally up the river to the Ohio Valley. It seems evident that they came by this route, and their remains show their only connection with the coast was at the south. Their settlements did not reach the coast at any other point."
On the other hand, McLean says: "From time immemorial, there has been immigration into Mexico from the North. One type after an-
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HISTORY OF HUNTINGTON COUNTY
other has followed. In some cases different branches of the same family have successively followed one another. Before the Christian era the Nahoa immigration from the North made its appearance. They were the founders of the stone works in Northern Mexico. Certain eminent scientists have held that the Nahoas belonged to the race that made the mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Following this people came the Toltecs, and with them the light begins to dawn upon ancient Mexican migration. They were cultivated and constituted a branch of the Nahoa
family. * * In the light of modern discovery and scientific inves- tigation, we are able to follow the Mound Builders. We first found them in Ohio, engaged in tilling the soil and developing a civilization peculiar to themselves. Driven from their homes, they sought an asylum in the South, and from there they wandered into Mexico, where we begin to learn something definite concerning them."
Two more widely diverse theories than those advanced by these two writers can hardly be imagined. They present a fine illustration of "When doctors disagree," yet they serve to show the vast amount of speculation on the subject and the uncertainty in which this ancient race is shrouded. There is not and never has been a unanimity of opinion regarding the Mound Builders. While carly writers classed them as a hypothetical people, supposed to have antedated the Indian tribes by several centuries as inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, the Mound Builders are now regarded as having been "the ancestors and representatives of the tribes found in the same region by the Spanish, French and English pioneers." Says Brinton :
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