History of Whitley County, Indiana, Part 3

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 940

USA > Indiana > Whitley County > History of Whitley County, Indiana > Part 3

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WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

only in the stream valleys. The shales of the basil or eastern third of its unglaciated portion are exceedingly adapted to the mak- ing of vitrified wares, as paving brick, sewer pipe, etc., as well as for the clay ingredient of Portland cement, though as yet their pos- sibilities of service for these products have been largely ignored.

Following the Knobstone epoch came that of the Lower Carboniferous limestones. Four distinct horizons of these limestones are recognized in Indiana, namely : the Har- rodsburgh, Bedford, Mitchell and Huron, in the order named, each representing a dis- tinct period of deposition in the slowly re- treating Central Interior Sea. Their total thickness is nearly 600 feet, and together they form the surface rocks over an area forty miles wide on the Ohio river, but which gradually narrows northward until it disappears beneath the drift in the vicinity of Crawfordsville, Montgomery county.

Of the four horizons, that of the Bed- ford is by far the most noted, since from it is obtained that famous Bedford or Indiana oolitic limestone which is now widely recog- nized as the finest building stone on the continent of America. It is mainly com- posed of the globular shells of microscopic foraminifera or Rhizopods, minute one- celled animal organisms, which must have swarmed in untold myriads in the sea waters of the time. The shells or cell walls of these animals were composed of a very pure car- bonate of lime, and when they died and sank on the old sea bottom these shells were ce- mented together by the same material. Under the lens they resemble a mass of fish eggs soldered together, hence the name oolitic, meaning like an egg. The Bedford

stone is noted among architects for its strength and durability, and for the ease with which it may be sawed or carved into any desirable form. For many years it has ranked as one of the principal natural re- sources of the state.

The Mitchell limestone overlying the oolitic is composed of a series of close- grained limestones, shales and cherts. Its ontcrop, five to thirty miles in width, is a fairly level plateau which is pitted with a great number of sink holes, many of which form the openings into underground caverns and the beds of subterranean streams. The thick beds of Mitchell limestone taken in connection with the underlying Bedford and Harrodsburg limestones, afford a series of rocks which are more or less jointed, and therefore easily eroded by underground waters. As a result, large caves, some of them possessing great vaulted rooms, deep pits, high water falls and streams of water large enough to allow the ready passage of a boat, are found throughout this area. All of these caves are due to the action of water, that greatest of nature's solvents and abraders, its work of a day, a year, a century upon the solid limestone not appreciable to the eye, yet by slow unceasing action through the ages which have elapsed since that limestone was raised above the sea, it has carved every room and passage, con- structed every pillar and stalagmite existing beneath the surface of southern Indiana.

The Huron limestone or Huron group of rocks, represents in Indiana the latest epoch of the Lower Carboniferous Era. It is composed of three beds of limestone with two intervening beds of sandstone, their combined thickness being about 150 feet.

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

The sandstones carry in places concretions of iron ore and thin beds of coal, the latter being the forerunners or harbingers of those vast veins of stored energy which, in south- ern Indiana, represent the Carboniferous and final era of Paleozoic time.

The Carboniferous Era is noted as one of gentle oscillations in the surface of those shallow seas bordering the land, these caus- ing successive more or less wide emergen- cies and submergencies, the former favoring the growth of boundless forests and jungles. the latter burying the vegetable debris and other terrestrial accumulations beneath fresh water or marine deposits. During the era, that cryptogamous land vegetation which had sprung into existence in the Devonian Era, advanced with wonderful strides. The temperature was mild, the atmosphere moist and heavy laden with carbon dioxide. As a result, the vast lowland marshes were over- grown with great trees of Sigillaria, Lepi- dodendron and Calamites; while at their base grew dense thickets of fern underbrush, inhabited only by insects and amphibians. For the first examples of the latter, evolved during this period from some mud-loving, fishı-like creature, no flowering plant had as yet unfolded its petals, no bird had, as yet. winged its way through the buoyant air, no animal was, as yet, a denizen of earth or sea. Those dim watery woodlands were flower- less, fruitless, songless, voiceless, unless the occasional shrill of a cricket or grasshopper could be called a song. Yet in the cells of the semi-aquatic plants and trees of those old forests, there was stored that heat which was destined in after ages to be freed by man and used in doing the work of the world. The rocks laid down during this

era were alternating beds of sandstone, shale, clay and limestone with occasional beds of- compressed vegetation which, during after centuries, has been changed into coal. The basal formation of the carboniferous era in Indiana, as generally elsewhere, is a bed of coarse-grained sandstone, known as the Mansfield sandstone or "Millstone Grit." It has a total thickness of 150 feet and forms the surface rock over a strip two to twenty- two miles in width, extending from the northern part of Warren county in an east of south direction to the Ohio river, a dis- tance of 175 miles. In Martin and Orange counties it occurs with an even, sharp grit, furnishing a most excellent material for whetstones and grindstones.

Above this sandstone are the Productive and Barren Coal Measures, which comprise. 7.500 square miles of the land surface of. the state. At the time of their deposition or formation, the area which they cover, as well as a large part of Illinois, was a great basin or depression, but little above the level of the sea and surrounded on every side ex- cept the southwestern by the higher lands. of the older formations. By successive al- ternations of upheaval and subsidence, car- ried on through thousands of years, this de- pression was at times an area of the south- western sea, again a fresh water lake, and then, for a period, a vast swamp or marsh. When raised high enough to form a marsh, the luxuriant vegetation, above mentioned, sprang up from the ooze and mud at its bot- tom, flourished for centuries, the newer growths springing from between the fallen masses of the older, as in the peat bogs to- day, and so formed a mighty mass of car- bonaceous material. By subsidence, the

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WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

level of the marsh was, in time, lowered until it became a lake into which rivers from the surrounding highlands flowed, bearing with them millions of tons of clayey sediment and disintegrated quartz, the remains of the older decayed rocks. This sediment was spread out over the mass of submerged vege- tation, compressing it into the hard, mineral coal; the clayey sediment itself being in time compressed into vast beds of shale, and the particles of quartz into sandstone. In some places a more prolonged subsidence took place, sinking the floor of the lake below the level of the sea, and allowing the waters of the latter with their accompanying forms of marine life to flow in. In time beds of limestone were then formed over those of the shale or sandstone, but none of these cover an extensive area or are of great thick- ness. After each subsidence with its result- ing beds of coal, shale and sandstone or limestone, had taken place, an upheaval fol- lowed. The floor of sea or lake was again raised so near the surface that the semi- aquatic vegetation for a new coal seam could spring up and, in time, the processes above detailed were again undergone. Such, in brief, was the origin and formation of those five great veins of coal which form to-day the chief mineral wealth of our state, and of those vast beds of overlying shale which, in recent years, have come to be used for so many varied products.

We have now traced the growth of the area comprising Indiana through Paleozoic time. We have seen how that area grad- ually appeared above old Ocean's rim. But it was not yet the Indiana of nature, the finished product of the ages ready for the advent of man. Centuries untold had yet to

come and go before it was complete, centu- ries during which changes of momentous importance were to come and to pass, for as yet, no palm, no angiosperm or flowering plant with seeds, no osseous or common fislı. no reptile, no bird, no mammal had come to be upon the surface of the earth. All these were evolved from pre-existing forms dur- ing the age or era immediately succeeding the carboniferous or final period of Paleozoic- time. This age is known as that of the Mesozoic or Middle Time, represented by the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras. For our purpose there may be combined with these eras the Tertiary of Cenozoic or recent time.

During the myriads of years ascribed to these eras, while vast changes were taking place in other parts of the American conti- nent, the surface of Indiana probably all remained above sea level. On it there grew- the plants and over it there doubtless roamed, in their turn, the animals of each successive era, but as its surface was above the sea, they left no fossil bone or foot-print to tell us of their presence. All this time, however, the silent processes of nature were unceasing in their labor, and wrought great changes in the surface of the future state. Decay and erosion were in action then as they are to-day. Sunshine and rain, wind and frost, trickling rills and strong streams were ever at work, softening and sculpturing and wear- ing down the exposed rocks, forming clays and sand and gravel and bearing them away to lowel levels. At the close of the Tertiary Era, the entire surface of what is now In- diana resembled that of to-day in the drift- less area of its southern part, being cut up by erosion into a complex net work of

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

valleys, ridges and isolated hills. In certain portions of the northern half great streams, of which there are now no surface indica- tion. had worn their channels a half mile in width, two hundred feet or more down into the solid Niagara limestone. The Ohio river valley, a trench from one to six miles wide and four hundred feet deep, was mainly eroded during this period, as was also the greater portion of the Wabash valley, from Columbia City to the mouth of the Wabash. Everywhere over the surface was a thin soil, formed from decaying rocks and vegetation, poorer, perhaps, than much of that which at present covers the surface of the drift- less area, where the underlying limestones and shales have been the parent rock. In this soil grew the cedar and the sassafras, the willow and the maple. the oak and the beech, while over its surface spread many of the coarser grasses, sedges and mosses of the present day.

During these long periods of erosion and decay, mild climate conditions had prevailed. But near the close of the Tertiary a change in these conditions came gradually to pass, a change which was most sweeping and far- reaching in its final results. For some, as yet unknown reason, the mean annual tem- perature of the northern hemisphere became much lower. The climate of the regions to the east and south of Hudson Bay be- came similar to that of Greenland of to-day. or even colder. The snow. ever falling. never melting, accumulated during hundreds of centuries in one vast field of enormous thickness. Near the bottom of this mass a plastic, porous sort of ice was gradually formed from the snow by the pressure from above. This ice mass or glacier took upon

itself a slow, almost imperceptible motion to the south or south-westward, until it cov- ered three-fourths or more of what is now Indiana. As it moved slowly southward, great masses of partly decayed rock and clay from hillsides and jutting cliffs rolled down upon it and were carried on and on until, by the melting of their icy steed, they were dropped hundreds of miles from the parent ledge. Large irregular masses of rock from the region in which the glacier was formed were either frozen into its nether portion or rolled along beneath it, and as the ice sheet moved they served as great stone drags, grinding down and smoothing off the hills and ridges and filling up the valleys, until the irregular, uneven surface of the old preglacial rocks was planed and polished.

From the strata formed by these im- prisoned boulders and from other evidence which it is difficult to otherwise explain, it is now believed that there were several distinct epochs in the glacial period. The great ice sheet, which was at first formed, several times advanced and as often, by an increase of the temperature of the region which it entered, melted and receded; its retreat or recession being each time as grad- ual as its advance had been. Like a great army which has attempted the invasion of a country and has been compelled to withdraw, it would again assemble its forces and start in a slightly different direction. But, per- chance, before it had reached the limit of its former invasion, a force of circumstances would render a retreat necessary. Its ad- vancing margin was thus not in a straight line, but in lobes, or long, gradual curves.

When the first ice sheet reached its great-

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

est advance into the region now comprising Indiana, the ice was at least 500 or 600 feet deep over the present site of Terre Haute and nearly as deep over that of Indianapolis. and it thickened gradually northward, reach- ing a depth of perhaps 700 feet over present Whitley county. If an observer could have stood on one of the hills in Brown county at that time, he would have seen to the east of him the great wall of the ice front extend- ing south toward Kentucky, while toward the west it would have been seen in the dis- tance stretching away toward the south- west. For hundreds of miles to the east and west, and for 2,000 miles or more to the north. the glaring, white desert of snow- covered ice, like that seen in the interior of Greenland by Nansen and Peary, would have appeared, stretching away out of sight. with not a thing under the sun to relieve its cold monotony.

By the incursions of the various ice sheets, all the so-called "drift soils" of north- ern and central Indiana were accumulated where they lie. Derived. as they were, in part, from the various primary and igneous rocks in the far north, ground fine and thor- oughly mixed as they were by the onward moving force of a mighty glacier. they are unusually rich in all the necessary constitu- ents of plant food. Principally to them does Indiana owe her present high rank as an agricultural state. All the level and more fertile counties lie within this drift covered area, and its southern limit marks, practical- ly, the boundary of the great corn and wheat producing portion of the state. But few of the present inhabitants of Indiana realize how much they owe to this glacial invasion of our domain in the misty past. It not only determined the character of the soil, the

contour of the country and the minor lines of drainage, but in manifold other ways had to do with the pleasure, the health and the general prosperity of the present popula- tion.

When the final ice sheet gradually re- ceded from the area now comprising In- diana, the surface of the glaciated portion was left covered with a sheet of drift or till composed mainly of clay. gravel and bould- ers, and varying in thickness from 100 to 400 feet or more. Over the greater portion of this area the surface of the drift was comparatively level, but in the northern fourth of the state it was in numerous places heaped up in extensive ridges and hills, due to irregular dumping along the margins and between the lobes of the melting ice sheets. In the hollows or low places between those ridges and hills, the waters of the melting ice accumulated and formed those hundreds of fresh water lakes which are to-day the most beautiful and expressive features of the landscape in the region wherein they abound. At first, all of those yet in exist- ence were much larger than now, while for everyone remaining a score have become extinct.

A new vegetation soon sprang up over the land left desolate and barren by the retreating ice. The climate gradually be- came much warmer than it is to-day. The. great expanse of water in lakes and rivers, aided by the increase in temperature, gave rise to excessive moisture. Fostered by the rich soil and the mild, moist atmosphere, a vast forest of deciduous trees spread over the larger portion of the state. Through this forest and about the margins of the lakes and marshes, there wandered for cen- turies the mammoth and mastodon. the giant

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

bison and the elk, the tapir and the peccary, the mighty sloth and that king of rodents. Castoroides ohioensis. Preying upon these and smaller mammals, were the great Amer- ican lion. and tigers and wolves of mam- moth size. The bones and teeth of all these species of extinct animals have been found buried beneath the surface of former bogs and marshes, in various portions of the state. It is not improbable that with them was also that higher mammal, man, in all the nakedness of his primitive existence. But over this phase in the evolution of the future Indiana, there came again a change, for nature knows no such thing as rest. The great rivers which had borne south and

south-westwardly the floods and debris of the melting glaciers, gradually diminished in size and filled but a small portion of their former valleys. Extensive shallow lakes in the north-western part of our present area gave way to marshes and these, in time, to- wet prairies, possessing a rich black soil derived largely from the decay of aquatic vegetation. The climate gradually grew less moist, more cool. The mammoth, mas- todon and contemporaneous mammals dis- appeared, and in their stead came countless thousands of buffaloes and deer. With them, came too, that son of nature, that descendant of the naked barbarians of centuries before, the noble red man.

LOCATION, SIZE, GEOLOGY.

Whitley county originally comprised townships 30. 31, and 32 in each of the ranges 8, 9 and 10 east of the second prin- cipal meridian in Indiana, government sur- vey, or a territory eighteen miles square, containing nine congressional townships, each six miles square, a total area of 324 square miles. To this was later added the south third of congressional township 33. range 8 (Washington civil township, No- ble county), making its present area 336 square miles. This territory is entirely oc- cupied by the great Saginaw Erie interlobate moraine, two members of which are dis- tinguishable within its limits, the outer or third and fourth Erie moraines. The crest of this morainic system forming the water shed between the Tippecanoe and Eel rivers, passes through Troy and Thorncreek town- ships, thus leaving the greater part of the

county upon the Erie side. Topographers locate the western line of the Maumee River Basin along Eel river, placing all of the county east of that stream within that great valley. This is not technically correct but is used for want of an accurate line laid down by engineers. The only recorded bor- ings of considerable depth into the earth are at Larwill and Columbia City, made about the year 1886; a later boring about the year 1904, at Larwill, confirms the former. These borings pass through about 220 feet of drift, and its thickness can not be much less in any part of the county ex- cept in the south-east corner of the county where it touches the Wabash-Erie channel. Perhaps nowhere else in the whole north- west, within equal limits, does the surface of the drift present aspects so strongly marked and contrasted in character ; yet no-

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

where else in the state is it more difficult to differentiate and correlate the various mem- bers of the morainic system. There are at least five distinct topographical types which agree only in strong features, limited area and confused arrangement. These will be described and afterward an attempt will be made to arrange them in accordance with the general plan of the morainic system of north-eastern Indiana.

In the townships of Washington, Jeffer- son and the southern third of Union, the sur- face is best described by the word flat. It forms a part of the great level plain of east central Indiana, except that in the south- east corner of Jefferson township, near the old Wabash-Erie canal the surface is much broken, equal to the most rugged parts in the north and western part of the county, while generally in this flat part of the county the slopes are sufficient for drainage, they are usually imperceptible to the eye, and can be determined only by the general course of the streams. The surface resembles that of a sheet of paper which has been wet and dried, the depressions and elevations having very slight relief and no definite boundaries. The concavities are perceptible only because the water stands in them like puddles on a flat tin roof. The only relief from un- broken monotony is afforded by the chan- nels of the streams, which have been eroded to a considerable depth and which grow deeper as the stream descends towards its mouth. The marshes, now almost eradi- cated by drainage, are like a platter having only an insignificant depth and no definite margins. The soil contains very few bould- ers and requires understanding to realize its full fertility. It is a part of that enor-

mous mass of fine mud, which, as the ice melted, settled quietly to the bottom of the glaciers and is known as ground moraine. From this region, several streams flow east and south and south-west, all toward the Wabash-Erie channel. Indian creek and Big Indian creek flow in parallel courses eastward to join the Aboite, just above its mouth in Allen county. Where they enter the Aboite valley, they are bordered by bluffs forty to fifty feet high. Along the southern boundary are the headwaters of Calf creek and Clear creek, which flow south through Huntington county to the Little Wabash, commonly known as Little river. Out of the marshes of northern Washington and north-west J'efferson townships, Sugar creek and Stony creek wind sluggishly westwardly to join Eel river. Both these streams have been opened up of late years by county ditches, adding untold wealth to the agri- culture of that region. The drainage of Sugar creek, with its numerous branches, caused a great deal of litigation, and the work was not systematically done, but was of untold value and increased the value of the real estate very much. The perfecting of this drainage is now being agitated, which will make it of more value than any other system of drainage in the county, not even considering the dredging of old Eel river.

This whole region seems characterized chiefly by its want of character. A slight but perceptible ridge along the east tier of sections in Washington forms the water shed between the Indian and Calf creeks on the east and Clear creek and the Eel river tributaries on the west. In summing up the results of the survey, this ridge is found to possess more importance than its appearance

WHITLEY COUNTY, INDIANA.

seems to warrant. Passing west into the southern part of Cleveland township, a marked change is discernible. Here the sur- face is no longer flat, but corrugated with gently sloping ridges which are elevated above the general level and extend north- east and south-west. These ridges grow successively higher to a summit two to four miles east of the west county line, whence they fall away more rapidly to the Eel river valley in Wabash county. Hurricane creek and other small streams cut across them almost at right angles and flow westward through deep channels. These ridges are also pitted with frequent kettle holes.

At the west line of the county, the sandy and gently undulating valley of Eel river is encountered, here about one mile wide, the slopes on either side being gradual and without bluffs. In the four or five miles of its course, east of South Whitley, the river flows at the bottom of a much deeper and narrower valley. The hills upon either side rise to a greater height and have more abrupt slopes. In section 1, township 30. range 8, two very curious depressions ex- tend back from the river into the hills. One is narrow and over a half mile long, the other smaller, but separated from the first by a narrow ridge like a canal tow-path. They are now occupied by swamps, but were originally lakes exactly similar to some of those in the northern part of the county. They are the southernmost specimens of morainic or kettle-hole lakes to be found upon the Erie side of the Saginaw-Erie sys- tem. The ridges of Cleveland township form a part of the Mississinewa or fourth Erie moraine, through which Eel river, fol- lowing the example of so many other

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History of Whitley County, Indiana, Part 3

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth Publication date: 1907 Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 940

Author: Kaler, Samuel P. 1n; Maring, R. H. (Richard H.), 1859-, jt. auth
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: [Indianapolis, Ind.] : B. F. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 940