USA > Indiana > Madison County > History of Madison County Indiana (Volume 1) > Part 3
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
In the western part of the city of Alexandria is a macadam plant erected for the purpose of utilizing a deposit of some fifteen acres, the stone having all the essential qualities of good road material. Another quarry is that known as Daniel Abbott's, located in Section 33, Town- ship 21, Range 7, near the southeast corner of Pipe Creek township. Other places where the Niagara limestone is quarried are near Frankton, on Pipe creek, and in the vicinity of Pendleton.
Probably no phenomena have proven more perplexing to students of geology than those which brought about the destruction of vast beds of rock and the distribution of their fragmentary remains over large areas of territory far from their original location. For example, the large bowlders found all over Indiana, commonly called "nigger- heads," are of a granitoid character, belonging to beds that are nowhere represented in the state, and must have come from some place beyond her borders. Various theories have been advanced to account for these conditions, the most prominent of which, and the one most generally accepted by scientists, is the glacial theory. The glacial epoch, or Pleistocene period of geologic time, sometimes called the "Ice Age," comprises the earliest part of the Quaternary . period. During the latter part of the Tertiary period, preceding, there was a gradual lower- ing of temperature throughout the north temperate zone until the entire surface was covered with large bodies of ice, called glaciers. These glaciers were formed by periodical or intermittent snows. During the period of rest between those falls of snow, that which had already fallen became compacted by pressure until the whole mass was converted into one solid body.
The pressure upon the yielding mass of snow imparted motion to the glacier, which carried with it rocks and other mineral matter. This grinding and equalizing work of the glaciers in time effected a material change in the topography and meteorological conditions of the earth. Not only were mountain peaks worn down and the general leveling of the land brought about, but vast quantities of earth and sand were carried forward by the streams of water formed by the melting ice and flowing beneath the glaciers and deposited in the ocean. In this way the shores of the continent were pushed forward during a period of several centuries and the superficial area of the land was materially increased.
In general, the course of the North American glaciers was toward the south. One of them extended over Canada and the northeastern part of the United States, reaching from the Atlantic ocean on the east to the Missouri river on the west, covering the entire basin of the Great Lakes. When the ice melted, the rocks and other debris carried along by the glacier were left to form what is known as the glacial drift, also called till, bowlder clay and older diluvium.
The accumulation of earth and stone carried by the glacier was sometimes heaped up along the margin, where it formed a ridge or deposit called a lateral moraine. When two glaciers came together, the deposit formed at the point of conjunction is called a medial moraine; the more level deposit under the body of the glacier is known as the ground moraine, and that at the edge of the glacier is called a terminal
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
moraine. The valley of the Ohio river was the terminus of the glacier that once covered Madison county and the channel of that stream owes its origin to the melting of the ice and the flow of water which always underlies the bed of a glacier. As the melting process proceeded, the terminal margin withdrew to the north, and wherever there remained undestroyed rock barriers or dams they gave direction to the waters of the terminal moraines. In this way the course of the Wabash river and the two forks of the White river were determined, or modified, centuries before Columbus discovered the New World.
The rate at which the glaciers moved rarely exceeded one foot per day. As it glided along the bowlders at the bottom left marks or scratches on the bed rock, and from these marks or striæ the geologist has been able to determine with reasonable accuracy the course of the glacier, by noting the direction of the stria.
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In some portions of North America the lateral moraines rise to a height of from 500 to 1,000 feet. The terminal moraine in northern Indiana, that marks the southern boundary of the Great Lake basin, contains several mounds that are from 150 to 200 feet in height. In Madison county the drift has been more uniformly deposited, though there are abundant evidences of glacial action. Collett, in the report al- ready alluded to, says:
"The ice age has left distinct foot-prints on the southeastern sec- tion of Madison county. A line drawn from near the northeast corner of Richland township to Anderson and continued in the same direc- tion down the valley of Prairie creek by Pendleton to the southern line of the county, will traverse a region of valleys of erosion between hills of washed gravel deposited by currents from beneath the dissolving glacier, while the finer and lighter materials were carried forward to form the clay surface of the counties south. The most distinct remains of a lateral moraine that I have seen anywhere is in the piles of gravel and bowlders that skirt the southeastern side of the glacial river bed which stretches from White river to Fall creek in what is now known as the Prairie. This valley of erosion has an average width of about a mile and is some thirty feet below the general level of the country, while the gravel along the southeast side is piled up from forty to fifty feet high. The valley crosses Fall creek and continues somewhat nar- rowed to Lick creek near the Hancock county line. At the point of crossing Fall creek bowlders of granite, gneiss and trap rock are pro- fusely distributed over several hundred acres of land."
Southeast of this eroded valley are gravel hills and the soil in that section is usually of a sandy loam. North and west of it the gravel beds are rare and near the northern boundary of the county entirely disappear, though gravel is sometimes found where there is nothing on the surface to indicate its presence. In his report for 1905 the state geologist devotes considerable space to the road building materials of the state and on a map of Madison county shows the deposits of gravel . that have been developed. Two of these are in the western part of Duck Creek township; one in the northwestern part of Boone; one near Alexandria, and one two miles farther west, in Monroe township; three in the southeastern part of Pipe Creek: two in the northeastern and
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
two in the southwestern part of Richland; one near White river, in Jackson township, and another on Pipe creek, four miles farther north; five in Union .township; four in Anderson, not far from the city and three farther south; three in Green; five in Fall Creek and five in Adams. The map also shows the location of several gravel beds that at that time had not been opened.
No account of the geology of the county would be complete without some mention of oil and natural gas, both of which have been found within the county limits. Natural gas is described as "a member of the paraffin series (hydrocarbons), a combination of carbon and hydro- gen, about 60 per cent as heavy as air and highly inflammable." It is composed chiefly of marsh gas, or methane, the gas fields in Ohio and Indiana having been formed by the decomposition of animal matter, while the Pennsylvania field is composed of decayed vegetation. The decomposition, or chemical change, that generated the gas is believed to have taken place at comparatively low temperatures within the por- ous rocks of the Lower Silurian formation, the rocks serving as reser- voirs for the gas.
Natural gas was probably first used in connection with the Delphic oracles, about 1000 B. C., and it has been used for centuries by the Chinese in the evaporation of salt water. It was first used in the United States in 1821, when a well one and a half inches in diameter and twenty-seven feet deep was drilled near a "gas spring" at Fre- donia, New York, and the gas used for lighting the streets. In 1838 its presence was noticed at Findlay, Ohio, and three years later it was found in a well at Charleston, West Virginia. While developing the oil fields of Pennsylvania, in 1860, the gas was used under the boilers instead of coal, but the first systematic use of it as a fuel was at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1868. On March 14, 1886, the first gas well in Indiana "blew in" at Portland, where it was struck in the Trenton limestone. The second well was opened at Eaton, Delaware county, in September, 1886, and the third was sunk at Kokomo, gas being struck in October of that year.
Little was known of the Trenton limestone prior to 1884, except from the outcrops in Canada and some parts of the United States. In that year gas was struck at Findlay, Ohio, which marked the beginning of an era of prosperity for that city and led to the investigations in Indiana, with the results above mentioned.
In Madison county, the first gas well was sunk on the farm of Samuel Cassell, at Alexandria, early in 1887. On the evening of Janu- ary 25, 1887, a meeting was held at the courthouse in Anderson for the purpose of organizing a natural gas company. Some work had been done about a week before that time and the names of forty of the rep- resentative citizens had been signed to articles of association for a stock company with a capital of $20,000, the organization of which was completed at the meeting of the 25th. Drilling was soon after- ward commenced on a piece of land donated by John Hickey, imme- diately south of the Midland railroad station and not far from Meridian street, where gas was struck in the Trenton limestone at a depth of 847 feet on the morning of March 31, 1887. This was the second
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
well in the county and the first at or near the city of Anderson. A further account of the development of the natural gas field of the county will be found in the chapter on Finance and Industries.
The original rock pressure throughout the Indiana gas field was from 300 to 325 pounds to the square inch and the supply appeared to be inexhaustible. This belief was so prevalent that the gas was used in the most wasteful and extravagant manner. In 1893 the Indiana legislature passed an act prohibiting the waste of gas and oil, but it was a case of locking the door after the horse had been stolen. So much had already been wasted that it was evident a few years more would witness the failure of the accumulated supply and that centuries would probably have to elapse before another could be formed in the porous rock, if indeed a new supply could ever be generated by natural processes.
Petroleum, kerosene, or coal oil, is a natural rock oil, composed of hydrocarbons and classed with asphalt and natural gas as a bitumen. It was known to the ancients and during the days of the Roman empire was obtained from Sicily and burned in lamps. `The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was organized in 1854, but it was not until five years later that oil was struck in paying quantities in the western part of the state. Then fortunes were made in a comparatively short time and the excitement became widespread. Prospecting for oil was car- ried on in various parts of the country, but most of them ended in fail- ure and the few wells yielding oil were poor payers and were soon abandoned. In 1885 the Lima, Ohio, field was developed and in that year the production in the United States was about twenty-two million barrels.
The first successful attempt to develop an oil field in high pressure gas territory was near Alexandria, Madison county, in the spring of 1897. About the beginning of that year the Northern Ohio Oil Com- pany secured a lease upon the farm of Nimrod Carver, about two miles northeast of the city of Alexandria, and on April 20, 1897, the first oil well in the county came in with a flow of eight hundred barrels daily. Oil operators flocked to the new field and high prices were paid for leases upon lands in the vicinity of the Carver farm. Between that time and March 4, 1898, seventy-five wells were drilled in the Alexandria field. Of these, forty yielded both oil and gas, thirty-three proved to be gas wells only, and two were dry. In 1900 the output from this field was about sixty thousand barrels. During the next year a number of new wells were drilled, but most of them were light producers-about thirty barrels each per day. Of ninety-four wells drilled in Monroe township, thirty-nine were dry; one on section 3 produced forty bar- rels daily at the start, and one on section 7 had an initial flow of one hundred barrels. Two wells on the J. M. Hughes farm in section 10 showed ninety and one hundred and fifty barrels respectively at the be- ginning, but this yield soon fell off. Of the ten wells drilled in Richland township only four were producers. One started at seventy-five barrels and one on the Fuller farm in section 6 yielded one hundred barrels. At the close of the year the wells on the Hughes and Fuller farms were the only ones in operation. From this time on interest in the Alex-
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
andria waned and in 1908 operations were practically at a standstill. Only two wells were sunk in that year, both on section 22, in Monroe township, and they yielded but five and ten barrels respectively. The total shipment of oil from the field in 1908 was only one hundred and eight barrels.
When the first white men came to what is now Madison county they found a large part of the surface covered with a heavy growth of tim- ber. The principal varieties of forest trees were yellow and white . poplar; white, burr, red and black oak; black and white walnut; wild cherry; white, red and slippery elm; white, blue and black ash; shell- bark and pignut hickory; sycamore; several varieties of maple; honey locust; beech, sassafras and basswood. Some cottonwood grew along the courses of the streams and there were a few minor species, such as hackberry, mulberry, ironwood, buckeye, etc. At that time the soil was of more value for cultivation than the timber, and 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 entered the minds of the pioneers. Far away to the westward stretched the boundless forest and to the frontiersman it seemed, if he gave it a thought, that there would be timber for the use of the people for generations to come. Now, though less than a century has passed, the conservation of American forests is an engrossing subject. Possibly much of the timber might have been saved, but would the people of the present day act differently under the same conditions? Perhaps not.
While making his investigations in Madison county in 1878, State Geologist Cox noticed several "bold, running springs of chalybeate water" at the base of the bluff near what is now Mounds Park, about three miles above Anderson, on the White river. In his report for that year he gives the following analysis of the water from this spring:
"Bold running spring; cold and clear; strong inky taste; bubbles up through sand; no appearance of escaping gases; decidedly alkaline reaction.
Grains in an imperial gallon.
"Insoluble silicates
1.6580
Oxide of iron
.7287
Lime
8.1610
Alumina trace
Magnesia 2.7500
trace
Sulphuric acid
Carbonic acid, combined
7.1070
Iodine
trace
Alkalies
trace
Loss and undetermined.
3.5953
Total in one gallon. 24.0000
"The above constituents are probably combines as follows :
Bicarbonate of lime. 10.898
Carbonate of protoxide of iron 1.177
Sulphate of lime.
6.672
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Insoluble silicates
1.658
Magnesia
trace
Alumina trace
Alkalies trace
Iodine
trace
Loss and undetermined.
3.595
Total
24.000"
The analysis further disclosed the fact that the amount of gas in an imperial gallon was 13.580 per cent. and the amount of free carbonic acid was 6.473 per cent. Concerning the results of the analysis, Mr. Cox says: "This is a very. pure calcic chalybeate water, a fine tonic and alterative, and is admirable for persons laboring under general debility and dyspepsia. The location is all that could be desired for a watering-place and resort."
From the foregoing it may be seen that while Madison county has no peculiar or startling geological formations, it is well supplied with mineral resources in the way of stone and road building materials; that during the era of natural gas and oil it was one of the largest pro- ducing counties in the state; that the glacial drift has given to the county a fertile soil; that it has one of the finest mineral springs in central Indiana, and that its streams and ditches afford ample drain- age to render the county one of the most productive and healthful in the state.
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CHAPTER II ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
THE MOUND BUILDERS-THEORIES CONCERNING THEM-DISTRICTS IN THE UNITED STATES-THEIR DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS-MOUNDS'IN MADISON COUNTY-DISTRIBUTION OF INDIAN TRIBES WHEN AMERICA FIRST DISCOVERED-INDIANA TRIBES-THE DELAWARES-THEIR HIS- TORY AND TRADITION-A DELAWARE PROPHET INSPIRES PONTIAC- NOTED DELAWARE CHIEFTAINS-A LEGEND.
Who were the first human beings to inhabit the continent of North America ? The question is more easily asked than answered. When the first white men came they found here a peculiar race of copper colored people, to whom they gave the name of Indians, but after a time it became evident to the student of archaeology that the Indian had his predecessors. These predecessors have been named Mound Builders, on account of the great number of mounds or earthworks they erected, and which constitute the only data from which to write their history. For fully a century the character and fate of the Mound Builders have been discussed by antiquarians and archaeologists, but the problem appears to be no nearer a positive solution than when it first came up for consideration. The American Antiquarian Society was organized in 1812 and some investigations were made during the years immediately following, but the first work of note on American archaeology, entitled "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," compiled by E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis, did not make its appear- ance until 1847. In that work the authors presented the theory that the Mound Builders belonged to a very old race and that they were dis- tinct from and in no way related to the Indians found here when the continent was discovered by Columbus. Allen Lapham, who wrote on the "Antiquities of Wisconsin," in 1855, also held to the separate race and great age theory.
In fact, such was the hypothesis of most of the early writers on the subject, and some have arranged the period of man in the Mississippi valley into four epochs, viz .: 1. The Mound Builders; 2. The Villagers; 3. The Fishermen; 4. The Indians. This theory, which is somewhat fanciful, presupposes four distinct races or peoples and is not sus- tained by any existing or known facts. Baldwin, in his valuable work on "Ancient America" (p. 71), says: "They were unquestionably American aborigines and not immigrants from another continent. That appears to me the most reasonable suggestion which assumes that the Mound Builders came originally from Mexico and Central America.
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
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 gradually up the river to the Ohio valley. It seems evident that they came by this route, and their remains show that 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 another 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 dis- covery and scientific investigation, 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 wan- dered into Mexico, where we begin to learn something more definite concerning them.'
Two more diverse theories than those advanced by Baldwin and McLean can hardly be imagined. Of course, it might be that the emi- gration from Ohio occurred at a very early period of time and that the descendants of the emigrants at a later date found their way back into the United States, as suggested by Baldwin, but such a theory is scarcely tenable. There is not, then, and never has been, a unity of opinion regarding the Mound Builders. While the early writers classed them as a hypothetical people, supposed to have antedated the Indian tribes as inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, the Mound Builders of these valleys are now regarded "as the ancestors and repre- sentatives of the tribes found in the same region by the Spanish, French and English pioneers." Says Brinton :
"The period when the Mound Builders flourished has been differ- ently estimated; but there is a growing tendency to reject the assumption of a very great antiquity. There is no good reason for assigning any of the remains in the Ohio valley an age antecedent to the Christian era, and the final destruction of their towns may well have been but a few generations before the discovery of the continent by Columbus. Faint traditions of this event were still retained by the tribes who occu- pied the region at the advent of the whites. Indeed, some plausible attempts have been made to identify their descendants with certain existing tribes."
The culture of the Mound Builders was distinctly Indian in char- acter. De Soto and the early French explorers in the southern part of what is now the United States found certain tribes who were mound builders in the early part of the sixteenth century, and the relics found
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
in many of the mounds differ but slightly from those of known Indian origin. As these facts have been developed the theory that the Mound Builders were the ancestors of the Indians has in recent years come to be generally accepted by archaeologists.
Cyrus Thomas, of the United States Bureau 'of Ethnology, has divided the mounds of the United States into eight districts.
1. The Wisconsin district, which embraces the southern half of Wisconsin, the northern part of Illinois and the northeastern portion of Iowa. In this district the effigy mounds abound-that is, mounds bearing a resemblance in form to some beast or bird. They are sup- posed to have been copied from the bird or animal that served as a totem for the tribe that erected them, though they may have been objects of veneration or worship. Effigy mounds are also found in some of the other districts, one of the most noted of this class being the "Great Serpent," of Adams county, Ohio. This mound, which is in the form of a serpent, if straightened out, would be 1,348 feet in length. It is located on a narrow ridge, almost surrounded by three streams of water. The opened jaws measure seventy-five feet across and immediately in front of the mouth is a circular or elliptical inclosure with a heap of stones in the center. The body of the serpent is from thirty to fifty feet wide and about eight feet in height in the highest part.
2. The Upper Mississippi or Illinois district, which includes north- ern and central Illinois, southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri. The mounds of this district are mostly conical tumuli, located on the ridges, uplands, etc.
3. The Ohio district, which embraces Ohio, eastern Indiana and the western portion of West Virginia. The distinguishing feature of this district is the large number of fortifications and altar mounds, though the conical tumuli are also plentiful. One of the largest known mounds of this class is the one at Grave creek, West Virginia, which is 900 feet in circumference and seventy feet high. In the State of Ohio alone about 13,000 mounds have been noted.
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