History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 16

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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" Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario are ex- cavated basins, wrought out of once continuous sheets of sedimentary strata by a mechanical agent, and that ice or water, or both. That they have been filled with ice, and that this ice formed great moving glaciers, we may consider proved. The west end of Lake Erie may be said to be carved out of the corniferous limestone by ice-action, as its bottom and sides and islands-horizontal, vertical, and even over- hanging surfaces-are all furrowed by the glacial grooves, which arc parallel with the major axis of the lake.

" All the great lakes are probably very ancient, as, since the close of the Devonian period, the area they occupy has never been sub- merged beneath the ocean, and their formation may have been begun during the coal epoch."

There have been variations of level in the lake-region, as is proven by the fact that the four upper lakes once drained through the Wabash and Illinois Rivers into the channel of the Mississippi.

THE CHAMPLAIN PERIOD.

It is probable that the Champlain period was the grand distributing epoch of the Quaternary age. The melting of

* Another theory, and one quite generally adopted by scientists, is that during the ice period (or the latest one) the northern portions of the continent were sufficiently elevated to carry them into the region of perpetual snow, which would produce corresponding phenomena. A general subsidence subsequently brought the elevated portions below the frigid line, and the glacier, as a natural consequence, disappeared ; precisely as the approach of warm weather in the spring dissolves and carries away the moisture held in a frozen condition through the winter months.

This theory is substantiated by strong evidence, and none more so perhaps than that furnished by the wonderful channel of the Saguenay River, which forms the outlet of Lake St. John, in the province of Quebec. This channel, it is said, shows an excavation in the Lauren- tian rocks reaching, at the present time, from two thousand to five thousand feet below the level of the sea, which fact would indicate a very great subsidence.

t A deep valley, produced by upheavals upon either hand, leaving the depression between. The upheavals being mostly produced by volcanic agency, we may fairly assume them as the originating cause of this lake, covering a territory larger than the ancient kingdom of Scotland.

the great glacier must have left an immense deposit of bowlders, coarse gravel, sand, and clay, unevenly scattered in vast heaps and moraines over the surface of the penin- sula. The melting of such enormous ice masses set free powerful streams, which swept in all directions towards the surrounding lake-levels, and made a more equal distribution of the debris. In this period the channels of all the prin- cipal streams were begun, and their steadily-diminishing waters have been cutting them deeper and deeper from that day to this.

The Champlain period may be properly divided into two subdivisions,-the Diluvial epoch, or one of depositions from the melting glacier, and the Alluvial epoch,-during which the rushing waters subsided, and the finer and later depositions of sand and clay were made. These later de- posits are more or less plainly stratified.

TERRACES.

These have been gradually forming since the subsidence of the glacier, and mark the stages of the continually-di- minishing waters ; each new formation being narrower and on a smaller scale than the preceding. In the valleys of the Connecticut and other large streams of the older regions of the continent, the terrace formation is more prominent and oftener repeated than in the newer (geological) regions of the more level West.

The Kalamazoo, no doubt, once had for its bed the level of the highest terrace, and the narrower and more recent ones plainly indicate its steady diminution. Its present volume is but a tithe of that which, in the diluvial days succeeding the disappearance of the glacier, swept with great force along its wide-spreading bed. Most of the val- leys have been slowly formed in this manner, and the pro- cess still continues on a diminutive scale, or about in the proportion which the local glaciers of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains bear to the vast continental glaciers of the early Quaternary period.}

CHAPTER XII. PREHISTORIC.

The Stone Age-Mounds-Garden-Beds-Relics.

THERE is abundant evidence of the long-continued occu- pation of the North American continent by a semi-civilized people, who preceded the red Indian race found occupying the country in the beginning of the seventeenth century. By some writers it is supposed that the country was occu- pied by at least three distinct races, and these may have been contemporary or successors of each other during many hundreds and, possibly, thousands of years. They have been subdivided into, first, a race who are supposed to have been the progenitors of the Eskimos (or Esquimeaux) and

# There are a number of very good private collections of fossils in the county, among which that of Mr. Tyler, in Cooper township, de- serves notice for its beauty and variety. Mr. A. H. Stoddard also has a fine collection, and there are several in Kalamazoo village.

¿ The theory is advanced by some that the progenitors of the Es- kimo occupied the continent as far south as latitude 35°; that they

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

kindred people, the Mound-Builders, and the earliest In- dians, or Hunter Race.

It is also claimed that there is evidence of the existence of the human race in America prior to the last glacial epoch. Remains of ancient implements, of stone or metal, and stumps of trees, evidently cut down with a sharp in- strument, together with charcoal and other evidences of human life, have been found nearly a hundred feet below the surface, in the drift deposits of the Champlain period. Within a few years (about 1857) human skulls have been found in California, buried, along with the bones of the mastodon and elephant, beneath one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty feet of lava, volcanic tufa, and auriferous gravel. They are assigned by Professor Whit- ney and Dr. Winslow to the Pliocene period, and antedate any similar relics found in any other quarter of the globe.

If the existence of man previous to the last glacial epoch be established, the lapse of time since his earliest appear- ance has been very great. The gorge of the Niagara River from Lewiston to the falls, about seven miles in extent, is generally admitted to have been excavated since that epoch, and the time required to cut this deeply-grooved passage through the limestone and shale of the Silurian formations has been variously estimated at from thirty-one thousand to three hundred and eighty thousand years. The conclu- sions differ enormously, but the shortest period greatly ex- ceeds the generally accepted estimate of man's existence on the earth.

Evidences of the occupation of the lower peninsula of Michigan by a race preceding the Indians are quite abund- ant, principally in the form of mounds, " garden-beds," as they have been well named, stone and copper implements, pottery, etc.

THE STONE AGE.

The human race (or races, if you please) has its periods of childhood, manhood, and old age, the same as its indi- vidual members; and the Stone Age may with great pro- priety be called the child-age of mankind.

It would, of course, be useless to undertake the task of giving a description of either the physical or mental condi- tion of the earliest human beings. It has often been done. Every nation of antiquity-and we may also include the modern American savages-has had its ethnographical chapter, wherein has been minutely given the history of its origin (always ascribed to supernatural agency).

But the critical investigations of modern science have shown the majority of these statements to be almost wholly fabulous. Sufficient has been determined to establish the fact that the human race has come up from inferior con- ditions, and gradually (with many retrogressions) arrived at its present physical and intellectual development.

The birthplace and early habitat of the race has been located in many different regions of the earth. The Bible cosmogony fixes it somewhere in Western Asia; the Hindoo or East Indian mythology ascribes it to some

other region: The traditions of the nations of Southern America place it in Bolivia, about Lake Titicaca, and in Brazil. The Central American peoples tell of a vast continent called " Atlantis," submerged thousands of years ago beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where the earliest human beings appeared, and which became the cradle of the arts and sciences ; and the early traditions of the Greeks and Romans in a great measure confirm these mysterious legends of the vanished continent.

Many in late years accept the theory of a diversity of original nationalities, and believe that human beings came into existence in various portions of the earth, wherever and whenever the conditions were favorable, in the same way that plants and the lower animals made their appearance, though all the processes and gradations of human life can only be conjectured, as the earlier ages of its existence are shrouded by the impenetrable veil of ignorance and super- stition.

Abundant evidence exists upon all the continents and islands of the sea that every portion of the earth has had its Stone Age, some nations even now being no farther advanced in intelligence than the skin-clad savages of the prehistoric period. The history of this universal age of stone cannot be found in written records; it is buried in the surface-formations of the earth, and its curious relics are turned up to the sunlight by the farmer's plow, and thence gathered as curiosities into the private collections and the great museums of the country. These relics, in- cluding spear- and arrow-heads of stone and copper, axes, hatchets, chisels, gouges, ornamental trinkets, household utensils, fragmentary pottery, beads, mica ornaments, etc., are found in all parts of the continent.

These implements and utensils were manufactured from several substances. The spear- and arrow-heads are mostly of flint or chert, sometimes of quartz, and we have seen arrow-heads made from the shaly portions of the Connecti- cut sandstone formation. The axes, hammers, gouges, and plumb-bobs are generally of greenstone, or syenite, though sometimes of other materials. Some articles are wrought from obsidian, others from porphyry and red pipe-stone, and in some instances common granite and gneiss have been utilized. The peculiar forms which greenstone, or trap- rock, assumed in cooling rendered it well fitted for the manufacture of axes, and its compact and solid structure made it exceeding durable. Evidently the ancient people were connoisseurs in the line of selecting material, equal perhaps, in their day, with our present workers in iron when examining the various grades of ore, with a view to the best combinations for the production of marketable goods.

From the common pebble the primeval man gradually changed to the use of something which his own hands had partially shaped, and so on, step by step, through all the gradations to the most perfect form of implement which the material employed was capable of producing.

The display of stone implements and relics of the early ages of the human race upon the American continent at the Centennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, showed at a glance the workmanship, no doubt, of many generations ; and the ponderous axe of syenite, weighing twenty pounds, was proof positive that "there were giants in those days."

were driven southward by the glacial accumulations, and in turn, upon the retreat of the glacier towards the north, followed it to their present abode. They may originally have lived in a warm or temperate cli- mate, but thousands of years of frigid temperature have completely changed their physical conditions.

PREHISTORIC.

It was no doubt as true an aphorism in the early ages as now that " necessity is the mother of invention," and the dark-minded and almost brutal Autochthon was per- haps driven by hunger or the presence of some implacable human enemy to work out the spear and bend the bow.

At length-it may have been after the lapse of thousands of years-man had progressed in intelligence to that condi- tion where he stood upon a higher plane of knowledge and mechanical skill, and we find him employing the metallic minerals. Remains of gigantic labors are found among the copper regions of Lake Superior, and the unknown race which worked the mines must have had a knowledge of naval architecture and navigation beyond anything which the subsequent Indian possessed, for we find that the copper deposits of Isle Royale were visited, and this compelled a sea voyage of from fifteen to forty-five miles, according as it was made from the northern or southern shore, the nearest part of Keweenaw Point being nearly fifty miles away. The passage of either channel was one of peril at any season of the year, and it is hardly prob- able that it was attempted in light canoes, except possibly from the Canadian shore.

The native copper was no doubt transported to a more southern region, to be transformed into the various imple- ments which are found in surface deposits and entombed with human remains in the mounds of the vanished race.

There are evidences that in the neighborhood of the present cities of Rock Island and Moline, Ill., there once existed a great prehistoric manufacturing centre. Remains of extensive canals, connecting the Mississippi with Rock and Green Rivers, can be traced, though long since buried beneath the debris and sediment of the great river. Im- mense deposits of flint-chips and broken arrow-heads are found beneath the sand and mould of the river-bottoms; and there, evidently, once stood a great manufacturing city where the flint and pipe-stone and copper were brought from far-off regions to be fashioned into the various implements of war, of the chase, and of household economy.

The canals would indicate that there was an extensive system of navigation employed, or they may be evidence of the use of hydraulic power.

A BRONZE AGE.

Whether a Bronze Age, separate and distinct from the Stone Age, or as its successor, existed in America we have no positive means of knowing. Copper implements are frequently found, and in widely separated localities, but they are everywhere accompanied by stone implements. It is probable that the two classes of implements were in use at the same periods, or, at least, that the stone imple- ments continued to be used after the others had been intro- duced. In the opinions of some writers the great valley of the Mississippi was occupied by different races or nations, contemporaneously, and in this way they account for the variety of utensils, and the various degrees of intelligence which are supposed to have existed during the same periods. This theory may be correct, but from the standpoint of to- day we cannot determine whether different degrees of civil- ization existed together, or whether a higher succeeded a lower in regular gradation.

It is probable that like changes in races and in degrees of intelligence have occurred on the American as on the antipodal continent. Geologically, the American is prob- ably the elder of the continents, and the earliest forms of life probably appeared here; and we know of no good reason why it may not have been first peopled with human beings, as well as with plants and lower animals. The problem is perhaps unsolvable .*

MOUNDS AND EARTHWORKS IN KALAMAZOO COUNTY.

There are said to be sixty thousand mounds of the pre- historic ages in the United States. The largest of these was the great mound of Cahokia, in Illinois, nearly opposite St. Louis, Mo. This was an immense parallelogram, seven hundred by five hundred feet in dimensions at the base, and ninety feet in perpendicular height. It covered a trifle over eight acres of ground. Other extensive ones are in Ohio, West Virginia, and Arkansas. The greatest display of combined mounds and earthworks was at Newark and Marietta, Ohio, where the ruins in each instance covered an area equal to several square miles. One of the best speci- mens of conical mounds in the country is the one at Grave Creek, near Wheeling, W. Va., which is seventy feet in height and three hundred and fifty feet in diameter at its base.

The lower peninsula of Michigan was undoubtedly occu- pied by the " mound-builders," and remains and relics of the race are quite abundant in Kalamazoo County. There are no remains which indicate the presence of any kind of dwellings, but this is easily accounted for from the fact that they were probably constructed of wood or other perishable materials.

KALAMAZOO MOUND.

The mounds of the early people are not found in abun- dance, but still there are enough to prove the occupation of the country and to serve as samples of the work of the strange people. The best-known mound in the county is probably the one in Bronson Park, in Kalamazoo village. It stood, when the country was first settled, in the midst of a plain, which was covered with a scattering growth of burr-oak, known in the parlance of the Northwest as " oak- openings." According to Mr. Henry Little, its dimensions are as follows : diameter at base, fifty-eight feet; height, four feet nine inches .; It is a perfect circle. Its solid contents Mr. Little ascertained to be equal to three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four cubic feet, or one hundred and forty-seven and twenty-five-twenty-sevenths cubic yards.

There have been many reports in circulation concerning relics found in this mound, but we cannot find much cor- roborative testimony on the point. The following letter from Hon. E. Lakin Brown is certainly reliable evidence :

"SCHOOLCRAFT, Nov. 23, 1873.

" HENRY LITTLE, EsQ.

"DEAR SIR,-In reply to your note of the 21st, I have to say that, in the summer of 1832, Cyrus Lovell and I made some examination of the mound at Kalamazoo,-that is, we began an excavation near the top of the mound and sunk it to near, or quite, the level of the sur-

# For most valuable information upon the ancient people we would refer the reader to Prof. Foster's Prehistoric Races of the United States.

t Its original height was somewhat greater.

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

rounding plain,-perhaps not quite. We discovered nothing what- ever,-no bones, no pottery, no implements or relics of any kind. A little charcoal was all. The earth removed was a dark soil, apparently the surface soil of the adjacent plain. I don't think we derived any impressions or formed any conclusions on the subject, except that, possibly, had we dug deeper we might have found some relics; but we were tired of the work and quit it."

Various examinations have been made, and statements have gone abroad that human bones, arrow-heads, and beads have been found in the mound; but the statements cannot be satisfactorily verified. It was opened on the 4th of July, 1850, by Mr. A. J. Sheldon, with no other result than as stated by Mr. Brown; and it remains an open question to-day, What does the mound contain ? The Pot- tawattomies, who had a principal village on the site of Kalamazoo, could give no information concerning it; but there is no doubt of its being the work of a vanished race. The material would appear to have been taken from the vegetable mould of the surrounding plain, and so evenly from a large area as to leave no depressions or other evi- dences of having been taken from any particular locality .*

WORKS ON CLIMAX PRAIRIE.

Mr. Little states that when the country was settled there was a mound situated on Climax Prairie, less than a mile east of the Corners, of about two-thirds the dimensions of the Kalamazoo mound. A dwelling was subsequently erected on its site, and it was largely cut away, but no relics were found. Situated to the south of this mound, in the edge of the timber, and on the top of an eminence, there was a circular work inclosing about one and a half acres of land. The circle included a parapet and ditch, the latter being about sixteen to twenty feet in width at the bottom, and some two or three feet deep. It has been conjectured that this work was a military fortification. When discovered by white men it was overgrown by large forest-trees.t

MOUNDS ON GULL PRAIRIE.

A number of small mounds formerly existed on Gull Prairie, but the cultivation of the soil has nearly obliterated them. There were two situated near the northeast corner of section 15. They were about twenty feet in diameter at the base, and apparently perfect counterparts of each other. When first seen by the whites they were surrounded by the forest. No relics were at any time found in them.

On the northwest corner of section 14, and near those last described, were four mounds, three of which were about forty feet in diameter, and the fourth less than twenty feet. A part of these were overgrown and surrounded with scat- tering timber ; the others were on the edge of the prairie.

" In 1837, Col. Isaac Barnes, then the owner of the land, caused one of these mounds to be entirely removed, to give place to the erection of a dwelling. While the man was engaged with his spade and wheelbarrow in its removal, I, with intense interest, carefully watched the operations from day to day. No relics were found, nor discoveries made, beyond the fact that the component parts of the superstruc-

ture were all of the surface soil,-neither sand, gravel, nor stones. The ground it rested upon was precisely like that which surrounded it."}

There were one or two other small mounds near the southern limit of the prairie.

MOUND IN COOPER.

There is a small mound on section 30, in this township. It is about twenty feet in diameter, and situated on tim- bered land upon the farm of Mr. A. R. Allen. A few years since this mound was opened, with quite remarkable results. Human bones (or at least supposed to be such), apparently thrown promiscuously together, were found, and it is claimed they were of more than ordinary size.

On section 16, according to Mr. Stoddard, the remains of three earthworks or fortifications were found, from which large quantities of human bones were taken by the early settlers. The residence of A. D. Chappel occupies one of these works. Another mound was on the "Governor Throop farm," east of the river. Flint spear- and arrow- heads were found in the vicinity of these works.

MOUNDS IN COMSTOCK.

Mr. A. D. P. Van Buren describes a large mound situ- ated on the island in the Kalamazoo River, principally on section 22, in Comstock township. It was diamond shaped and twenty feet high, and covered, by computation, an acre or more. A maple-tree, thirty inches in diameter, stood upon it in 1831. Another which he mentions was on sec- tion 13, and was first seen by Mr. Ralph Tuttle, upon whose land it stood, in 1830. It was circular in form, and had an altitude of two and a half feet above the general sur- face. It formed the frustrum of a cone, and was about twenty-five feet in diameter at the apex.

MOUNDS IN PAVILION.

Mr. Henry T. Smith, present county register, informs us that there was formerly a small mound on the east half of the northwest quarter of section 30, in the town of Pavilion, and on the southeastern margin of Long Lake. It was about four feet in height and from twelve to twenty feet in diameter. Mr. Smith opened this mound in 1876, and found two human skeletons lying crosswise of each other and about eighteen inches apart, the lower one being a little below the original surface. Their heads were to the north and northeast. Beneath the lower one was found charcoal and ashes, upon a bed of coarse gravel, the latter apparently taken from the lake margin. The mound appeared to have been built over and around the bodies, and bore evidence of having once had a ditch surrounding it. An oak-tree, eighteen inches in diameter, and a smaller hickory-tree were growing upon it when first known to the settlers. The skeletons were much decayed, and mostly crumbled upon exposure. The skulls were very thick. No other relics were discovered.

GARDEN-BEDS.

These curious evidences of prehistoric occupation do not appear to have been plentifully found outside of Michigan. They are mentioned in notices of antiquities of Wisconsin,

* It appears that for some time previous to 1841 an excavation in this mound was used as a cellar or root-house. About 1850 the mound was repaired and put in its original shape as nearly as possible. t See history of Climax.

#,Henry Little.

ANCIENT GARDEN BEDS.

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, SCALE, 16 FEET PER INCH.

.N.

BEDS ON PRAIRIE RONDE

BED AT KALAMAZOO, SCALE 30 FEET PER INCH.

BEDS NEAR GALESBURG.

PREHISTORIC.

and, we believe, have been found sparingly in Indiana. They abounded in the valleys of the Grand, St. Joseph, and Kalamazoo Rivers, and covered sometimes hundreds of acres. They have been quite appropriately named " garden- beds," from a real or fancied resemblance to the garden-beds of the present day. They are of various forms,-rectangular, triangular, circular, elliptical, and complex,-and evince, in many instances, a remarkable degree of mechanical skill, as well as cultivated taste. A large number of those observed in Kalamazoo County are laid out in regular parallelograms, precisely as a gardener of modern days arranges his beds for onions and beets. The questions naturally arise, Were they actually garden-beds for the cultivation of vegetables ? Could they have been extensive plats where flowers were raised for the supply of some great city on Lake Michigan or in the Ohio Valley ? Were they botanical gardens ? The accompanying diagrams illustrate some of the varieties which were found in various parts of Kalamazoo County. They have all, or nearly all, disappeared under the white man's cultivation.

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 16

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761