USA > Indiana > Miami County > History of Miami County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 3
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
there have been no special efforts made to develop a quarrying industry along the Mississinewa river. For the manufacture of lime the Niagara limestones furnish excellent material at many points along the Wabash and Mississinewa rivers, and several parties have made profitable use of the advantages afforded."
The Waterlime rocks are exposed along the Wabash river for a distance of about half a mile above the Lake Erie & Western Railroad bridge, and again about a mile west of Peru. Among the quarries opened in these outcrops perhaps the most important were the O'Donnell, Brownell and Kissell quarries, in the order named as one descends the river. The ledges or layers range from three to sixteen inches in thick- ness and may be quarried in any desirable dimensions. The stone is a hydraulic limestone, of fine texture, bluish in color, and is well adapted to foundation work, bridge abutments, etc., the thin layers being exten- sively used for flagging.
The only rocks of the Devonian formation that are exposed in the county are along Pipe creek from the vicinity of Bunker Hill to the county line. North of Bunker Hill, on Big Pipe creek, for a distance of about three-fourths of a mile are almost continuous exposures of Cornif- erous limestone, the larger proportion of which is a bluish gray lime- stone, somewhat crystalline in structure, much of it being well adapted to rough masonry, such as foundations, bridge abutments and similar work. As a rule the Corniferous limestones of Miami county are too cherty and silicious to make good lime, though there are a few localities where fairly good lime has been burned from the gray, fossiliferous limestones that overlie the cherty deposits.
In the northern part of the county bog iron ore is found in con- siderable quantities at several places. Furnaces were operated along the Eel river in early days and an excellent quality of iron was pro- duced. The collection of the ore was attended by rather heavy expense, however, and with the introduction of improved transportation facilities the Eel river furnaces were abandoned, owing to their inability to compete with mines more favorably situated. All over the county there are traces of iron in combination with the soil and also filtered into the limestone rocks. When these rocks become disintegrated and mixed with the glacial drift a soil is formed that is not exceeded in fertility any- where in the state. (See State Geologist's Report for 1888, p. 177.)
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 illustration : The large bowlders found in all parts of Indiana, commonly called
.
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
"'niggerheads," 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 Quarternary period. During the latter part of the Tertiary period, preceding, there was a gradual lowering of temperature throughout what is now termed the north temperate zone, until the entire surface of the earth in that region was covered with large bodies of ice called glaciers. These glaciers were formed by periodical or intermittent snows. During the periods between these falls of snow, that which had already fallen became so compressed by its own weight that the entire mass was in time converted into one solid body.
The pressure upon the yielding mass of snow imparted motion to the glacier, which carried with it rocks, soil and other mineral matter. As it moved forward the grinding and equalizing work of the glacier ultimately wrought great changes in the topography and meteorological conditions of the earth. Not only were the mountain peaks in the path of the glacier worn down and the general leveling of the earth's surface brought about, but also vast quantities of earth and sand were carried forward by the streams of water formed by the melting of the ice and deposited in the ocean. In this way shores of the continent were pushed forward during a period of several centuries and the superficial area of the land was materially increased.
As a general rule, the course of the North American glaciers was toward the south. One of them extended over Canada and the north- eastern part of the United States, reaching from the Atlantic ocean on the east to the slopes of the Rocky mountains on the west, and 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. As the glacier glided slowly along-probably not more than one foot per day-the bowlders and other hard minerals at the bottom, pressed downward by the gigantic mass above, 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. Concerning the course of the glacier in this state, State Geologist Thompson, in his report for 1888, says : "In Indiana the general direction of the glacial movement was a little west of south. There are localities in the state where the striæ or sand
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
marks on the ice-ground rocks run from east to west, and in almost every other horizontal direction; but by careful study these are found to be merely local exceptions to the general rule. The glacial deposits of Indiana by their conformation, by the materials found in their mass and by the striæ underlying them, have come into the state from a direction almost north and south."
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 nearly level deposit under the body of the glacier is known as the ground moraine and the ridge formed at the farthest point reached by the glacier is the terminal moraine. The valley of the Ohio river was the terminus of the glacier that once covered Miami 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 went on, the terminal margin withdrew to the north- ward, and wherever there remained undestroyed rock barriers or dams they gave direction to the waters of the terminal moraine. In this way the course of the Wabash river was determined, or modified, centuries before Columbus discovered the New World. To quote again from Thompson :
"From Wabash to Delphi the Wabash up-lift (called the Wabash Arch) has 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 limestone. 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 present evidence is wanting to prove any theory as to what particular part of the glacial age was 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 this 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 five hundred or even one thousand feet. The terminal moraine
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
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, and "the existence of a grand moraine lying across central Indiana has been fully demonstrated." Along the line of this great moraine the contour of the drift mass is found to be comparatively regular, the glacial matter having been more uniformly deposited. In this territory lies Miami county, where there is abundant evidence of glacial action, though great local changes have taken place in the surface of the drift mass 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. Rain and wind were active forces in leveling or modifying the surface during the period that elapsed before the northward migration of plant life began to clothe it with a garment of resistance and render it habitable. How long that period may have been geologists can only conjecture. It was by this method that the surface of Miami county was formed.
Concerning the depth of the drift in Miami county, Thompson says : "South of the Wabash river the drift varies in depth from nothing to one hundred feet or more, though it is only along the streams where it has been carried away by the water that it is wholly wanting. At Bunker Hill, gas well No. 1, it is 58 feet thick; at Xenia (Converse) it is 50 feet thick, while at Amboy, midway between the two points, it is 35 feet thick. The alluvial matter in the Wabash river bottom varies from 5 to 50 feet in thickness. In gas well No. 2, at Peru, it is 10 feet thick ; in well No. 1; Northside, it is 36 feet thick, while at the Bearss gas well, No. 4, bored on the high lands two miles north of Peru, the drift is 324 feet thick. It is quite likely that the maximum thickness of the drift north of the Wabash river in Miami county will approximate four hundred feet, even if it does not exceed that depth."
At widely distant 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 remains are the bones of the mastodon-so-called from the shape of its teeth-an animal closely allied to the elephant of modern times. Several times in making excavations in Miami county, a few bones of this great monster of a past era have been found, but it was not until the fall of 1904 that a complete skeleton was unearthed. Some men engaged in digging a ditch about twelve miles north of Peru, found a few bones, which were given to Fred Fite, a taxidermist of Denver. Mr. Fite employed some helpers and continued digging in the locality until the entire skeleton, with the exception of a few minor bones, was found. He then spent some time in cleaning and articulating
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
the parts of the skeleton, supplying the place of the missing bones with wooden substitutes, and in the spring of 1905 his mounted skeleton was finished. It stood nine feet high and measured eighteen feet in length, the tusks being nine feet long. In hauling the bones from the place where they were found to his laboratory two wagons were used, the entire collection weighing over a ton. It was not long after he had the skeleton mounted until Mr. Fite received several offers for it. He finally sold it to a museum in Detroit, Michigan, for $500.
The principal elements that go to make up the drift formation in Indiana are silica, alumina, lime and iron. Silica is found principally in the clays, sands and bowlders; alumina in the clays and bowlders; lime in the clays, marls, chalk and the peat-like bog deposits, and the iron is abundant in the swamps in the form of bog ore, or in the gravel deposits. In Miami county some of the drift deposits are of economic or commercial importance. Some years ago John E. Milliron, of Denver, began a systematic study of the county's mineral resources, especially the clay deposits. At several points near Denver he found clay suitable for a good article of pottery, and clays adapted to the manufacture of tile or brick may be found in nearly all parts of the county. Mr. Milliron also found an ochreous kind of clay, of fine texture and strongly impregnated with iron, that makes a good quality of mineral paint when ground and mixed with oil. Paint made from this clay has been used at Denver and has been found to possess durability, and it is believed that a profitable industry might be built up in its manufacture. Four miles northwest of Denver, on Weesau creek, there is an extensive deposit of clay that burns to a light cream color, stands fire well, does not warp to any great extent during the burning process, and could no doubt be utilized to advantage in the manufacture of brick, tile and pottery. (See State Geologist's Report for 1888, p. 176.)
Sand in abundance is found along all the creeks and rivers of the county, and in lenticular beds at various places in the drift. A large portion of the Miami county sand is valuable for building purposes and there are deposits that are well adapted for the grinding of glass or for molders' use, but these deposits have not been developed along those lines. Most of the sand used in the Indiana glass factories comes from distant points, much of it from outside of the state, and there is no question that the development of some of these beds would prove of great convenience to the glass manufacturer, as well as a source of profit to the owner of the sand-pits.
In his report for the year 1905, State Geologist Blatchley devoted considerable attention to the road-building materials of the various counties of the state. He found good gravel abundant near Macy and
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
at some other points in the glacial till plain in the northwestern part of the county, though most of the gravel in other portions north of the Wabash river was found only along the streams. The south half of the county, also a till plain, has a sandy clay as the surface soil, with a coarse quicksand in places that is used for road-building and makes a fairly good highway. The Wabash river bluffs, ranging from twenty- five to forty feet in height, contain very little gravel, being generally composed of clay, but there are good gravel deposits along some of the other streams in the southern part of the county, notably at Bunker Hill and Amboy. At the latter place the upper deposit of clay has been removed along Big Pipe creek and there are half a dozen or more good gravel pits. Blatchley also found small gravel deposits at several places in the moraine south of the Wabash. From the information at his com- mand he expressed the opinion that it would not be necessary to haul gravel more than three miles-probably not that far-anywhere in the county for the construction of roads.
Notwithstanding the statements of the state geologist, in the report above referred to, it is a well known fact that practically all of the Wabash river valley-that is, the river bottom and the bluffs which bound it on either side-is underlaid with gravel. These deposits are the most extensive, the most important, the most easily accessible and the most valuable in the county. In all other portions of the county, the deposits are scattered, less valuable, more expensive to develop and more difficult to render available for use. In the southern part of the county much of the gravel used on the roads is pumped from the bed of Pipe creek, or from other beds below the water level. It is of very inferior quality as compared with the Wabash valley gravel.
No account of the geology of the county would be complete without some mention of natural gas and oil, 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 sixty per cent. as heavy as air and highly inflammable." It is composed 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 decaying vegetation. The decom- position, or chemical change, that generated the gas is believed to have taken place at a comparatively low temperature within the porous rocks of the Lower Silurian formation, the Trenton limestone especially serving as a reservoir for the accummulated gas.
It is quite probable that natural gas was first used in connection with the Delphic oracles, about 1,000 B. C., and it has been used for centuries by the Chinese in the evaporation of salt water. It was first
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
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 Fredonia, New York, and the gas was used for lighting the streets of the town. In 1838 the presence of gas was observed at Findlay, Ohio, and about 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.
Prior to 1884 little was known of the Trenton limestone, except from the outcrops in Canada and a few places in the United States. In that year gas was struck at Findlay, Ohio, in the Trenton limestone, which marked the beginning of an era of great prosperity for that city and led to prospecting in Indiana. On March 14, 1886, the first gas well in Indiana "blew in" at Portland, Jay county, where the gas was also found in the Trenton formation.
The people of Miami county were among the first in the state to undertake an active search for natural gas. Soon after the discovery of gas at Portland, the idea became prevalent that gas could be found almost anywhere in paying quantities by drilling down to the Trenton limestone, and prospecting became general throughout the central part of the state. The Peru Natural Gas and Fuel Company was incorporated on October 25, 1886, "for the purpose of prospecting for natural gas, coal, coal oil, or any other valuable mineral." The first gas well was drilled in the northern part of the city of Peru, at an altitude of 657 feet above the sea level. The following is the record of the strata passed through in drilling :
Alluvium-river drift, 36 feet; Niagara limestone, 385 feet; Hudson river and Utica shales, 454 feet; Trenton limestone, 30 feet; total depth, 905 feet.
In this well a small quantity of petroleum was found at a depth of 880 feet, or five feet after the drill first entered the Trenton rock. At 900 feet a strong vein of salt water was struck, but no gas was found. A second well was drilled just south of the city of Peru, but with no better results. The third well was on the Yonce farm, about seven miles southeast of Peru, and well No. 4 was on the Bearss farm, about three miles north of the city. Here the drill went to a depth of 1,041 feet, penetrating the Trenton limestone for thirty-one feet, but without find- ing gas.
Xenia (now Converse) was the first point in Miami county to secure gas. The Xenia Gas and Oil Company was incorporated on January 4, 1887, and the first successful gas well in the county was drilled the
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
following summer. The record below illustrates the character of the strata through which the drill passed :
Soil, 4 feet; gravel, 46 feet; waterlime, 31 feet; Niagara limestone, 238 feet; Hudson river and Utica shales, 587 feet; Trenton limestone, 31 feet ; total depth, 937 feet.
The altitude at the surface of the well was 815 feet and the Trenton rock was first struck at ninety-one feet below the sea level. A strong vein of water was struck in the Niagara limestone, but it was cased off and the drilling proceeded. Soon after piercing the Trenton rock water was reached, and this had the effect of weakening the flow of gas, so that the well was never a heavy producer. The second well at Xenia was a strong one, yielding a sufficient quantity of gas to supply the entire town. Several strong wells were also found at Amboy and in the immediate vicinity. At Bunker Hill the drill went down to a depth of 1,004 feet, or 12 feet into the Trenton limestone, where salt water was struck. This water raised in the bore of the well to within twenty feet of the surface and caused the drillers to suspend operations.
The People's Oil and Gas Company, of Peru, was organized by approximately one hundred citizens in the spring of 1897, but was not incorporated at the time. The first well was bored on the B. E. Wallace farm, just east of the Mississinewa river. It proved to be a "dry hole," but the members of the company did not lose hope and a second well was drilled in the northwestern part of Peru, on a three-cornered tract of land belonging to A. N. Dukes. Trenton rock was struck at a depth of 855 feet and on July 19, 1897, the well was yielding about twelve barrels of oil daily. The company was then incorporated, the well was tubed and pumped and the output was thus increased to 120 barrels daily. Two other wells in the same locality yielded 150 and 175 barrels, respectively. By the close of the year over two hundred wells had been drilled. A more complete account of the development of the oil and gas fields of the county will be found in the chapter on "Finance and Industries. "
When the first white men came to what is now Miami county they found the surface covered with a heavy growth of timber. The great forests contained many beautiful specimens of walnut, poplar, various varieties of oak, ash, maple, hickory and other valuable trees, and there were likewise a number of less important species, including sycamore, beech, locust, mulberry, wild cherry, elm and willow. At that time the soil was of more value for cultivation than the timber. Consequently 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 the pioneers.
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HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY
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 enough to supply the wants of the people for generations to come. The ax, the fire-brand and the saw-mill have done their deadly work so well that now, though less than a century has passed, the con- servation 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? Probably not.
CHAPTER II
ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
THE MOUND BUILDERS-THEORIES R REGARDING THEIR ANTIQUITY- THOMAS' DIVISION OF THE UNITED STATES INTO DISTRICTS-CHAR- ACTERISTICS OF EACH DISTRICT-FEW RELICS IN MIAMI COUNTY- THE INDIANS-HOW DISTRIBUTED IN 1492-THE "SIX NATIONS"- THE MIAMI TRIBE-HABITS AND CUSTOMS-THEIR DOMAIN-VIL- LAGES IN THE WABASH VALLEY-THE POTTAWATOMI-CHARACTER AND TRADITIONS-VILLAGES-POLICIES IN DEALING WITH THE INDIANS.
Before the white man, the Indian ; before the Indian, who? The ques- tion is more easily asked than answered. When the first Europeans came 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 stu- dents of archaeology came to the conclusion that this race had its prede- cessors. Who were they ? The archaeologist has given them the name of "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. During the last century a great deal of dis- cussion concerning the character and fate of the Mound Builders has been indulged in by antiquarians and archaeologists, but the question seems to be no nearer a positive settlement than when it first came up for consideration. In 1812 the American Antiquarian Society was or- ganized and during the years immediately following made some inves- tigations of the prehistoric relics left by the primitive inhabitants. But the first work of consequence on American archaeology-" Ancient Mon- uments of the Mississippi Valley"-compiled by E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis, did not make its appearance until in 1847. The authors, who had made an exhaustive study of the mounds and earthworks in the section indicated, advanced the theory that the Mound Builders were a very ancient race and that they were in no way related to the Indians found here when the continent was discovered by Columbus. Allen Lapham, who in 1855 wrote a treatise on the "Antiquities of Wisconsin," also held to the great age and separate race theory.
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