USA > Missouri > Lafayette County > History of Lafayette county, Mo. , carefully written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, cities, towns, and villages > Part 26
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
For nearly thirty years past he has been a working and leading member of the agricultural and horticultural societies of the state, their very exist- ence having grown out of his urgent and eloquent advocacy of such organizations as early as 1852. He has also been an active member of the "American association for the advancement of science," and has taken an honored and leading part in many of its profoundest discussions. He has always been a staunch opponent of " Darwinism," or the materialistic phase of the doctrine of evolution. His most persistent and useful work is, perhaps, his study and classification of Missouri soils as shown by his numerous publications on their chemical and physical properties, and the best modes of culture for the staple crops of the Mississippi valley. [See page 70 and following pages.]
ROCKS, COAL, FOSSILS, ETC.
In Prof. Swallow's geological map of Missouri, Lafayette county is all included in what he marks as the " coal measures," or upper carboniferous formation, except some strips of alluvial bottom lands along the Missouri river; these bottom lands he marks as "quarternary "-but other authori- ties would further subdivide and class them as "recent " formations, (see geological chart on page 67) because they are the same sort of formations as are now being made every year by the Missouri and other rivers. By referring to the chart the order of superposition of the different geolog- ical formations will be readily seen. Lafayette county bluffs show the coal-measures subdivision of the carboniferous age; then there is an absence of several succeeding formations, to-wit: Peruvian, Triassic,
Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary; but the first division of the quarter- nary is found-a layer of sand and gravel, with occasional granite boul- ders from the azoic rocks of Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado. These are the drift materials of the glacial epoch; and upon them is deposited the " bluff formation," as Prof. Swallow calls it, but which is called loess by most other writers. The manner of production of this " bluff formation " will be found explained on page 80, and this is the body soil or clay at the top of the geological formations all over Lafayette county, except the recent bottom lands or flood plains of the rivers and creeks, and the out- crop of other formations in the river bluffs and on the banks of streams.
The writer of this history learned from some former pupils of the Eliz- abeth Aull Seminary that Miss Emma G. Wilber, a long time favorite teacher there, used to take her pupils out on geological excursions; and also have them bring in any specimens which they might find, and which she would explain to them individually or in class. And Miss Wilber hav- ing removed to Englewood, Illinois, we wrote to her, requesting a sketch of some of her geological excursions with her classes, and notes of any rare specimens found. 'Accordingly, the lady wrote us in reply, under date of June 23, 1881:
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229
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
"My pupils overrate me if they take enthusiasm and interest, and a lit- tle imperfect book-learning, as comprehensive and accurate knowledge. In teaching, I have but attempted to give them a glimpse into the beauties and wonders of the boundless regions of Natural Science, and to awaken in them a desire to go in and by patient study to view for themselves.
"Bluffs, stone ledges, water and ripple marks, and the small shells that are so thickly imbedded in the shales in the ravines, mean much to girls who are taking first lessons in observation, but mean nothing to men of mature study, except that to the latter even little things are of value in making estimations. I found, not far from the stone bridge a large gran- ite boulder with striae upon it, and an injected vein of coarse granite. I do regard that as a specimen of value in a geological cabinet, and I had it taken to the Elizabeth Aull Seminary, where it remains. . Beyond, and on the hill, I found a concretion resembling a petrified turtle, which is also now at the Seminary; and many small shells, besides two or three uni- valves, large and well preserved."
The granite boulder above referred to, with "striae" or glacial scratches upon it, is indeed a very interesting relic. The original bed or ledge from which it was broken must have been far to the north-west; and the scratches upon it would show that it was once embedded in the bottom of a glacier, or possibly a iceberg, and had ground along upon bed rocks as hard or harder than itself, thus leaving scratches or grooves upon it to tell the story of how it came to Lafayette county during the glacial epoch of the geological calendar. The "concretion resembling a petrified turtle," which she refers to is a fine and valuable specimen, but it is of mineral origin (sometimes called "septaria"), and not a fossil or petrification. In closing her modest and ladylike coummunication, Miss Wilber says: "Mr. George Wilson, to whom I have referred many ques- tions, and Dr. Alexander, are so able in expression and so well informed with regard to geology and kindred subjects, that even were I a very great deal wiser, I could add nothing to what they can say."
GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS.
The first official geological work ever done in Missouri was by David Dale Owen, who was from 1847 to 1852, the United States geologist. In 1852, Lippincott, Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia, published Dr. Owen's elaborate report of his geological surveys in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minne- sota, and a part of Nebraska. Missouri is not mentioned in the title page, but the text and accompanying maps show that he surveyed the Missouri river from Sioux City to its mouth. His map of the Missouri river notes geological sections taken from the bluffs on the north side opposite Napo- leon and Wellington in this county, and on the south side at Lexington and again fourteen miles below. These are undoubtedly the first geolog- ical sections ever made in Lafayette county, but they are merely general- ized and not given in detail, their only purpose being to show the relative position of the coal and any other valuable minerals or any good rock for'
1
230
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
industrial uses. The Lexington section gives, from top downward, Chae- tetes limestone, [chaetetes is a fossil coral], then shale, then coal 20 inches, then indurated slaty clay, then limestone, the river bedrock. Thickness of beds is not given except for coal. On this map he notes that there are "heavy beds of cannel coal back in the bluffs, some 200 to 300 feet above the Missouri, on both sides of the river." In the introduction to his great work, Prof. Owen says: "The thickest vein of coal detected in Iowa does not exceed from four to five feet; while in Missouri some reach the thick- ness of twenty feet and upwards." These quotations were written in 1851, just thirty years ago, and were based purely on geological observa- tions and theories, for no such mines had then been worked. Coal beds of such thickness do not appear to have been yet found in Lafayette county; but the "History of Saline County," published this year (1881), by the Missouri Historical Company, says:
Township 49 and range 19, lying within the township of Arrow Rock, contains, perhaps, the richest deposit of coal in the county. The stratum of bituminous coal in this section varies from two to twenty feet in thick- ness, of the very finest quality of coal, and is interspersed in numerous places with huge pockets of cannel coal of a quality equalling the famous cannel coal of Kentucky. These pockets often present a face of from thirty to forty feet of coal. In this region is the famous cannel coal mine on the farm of the late Gov. C. F. Jackson, besides numerous others, nearly all of them of great thickness, from ten to thirty feet-of limited extent, and most of them reposing on the lower carboniferous rocks. South of Blackwater there is much the same coal deposit as that in the region just described. Cannel pockets are also here, as is proved by those found on the farm of the late C. G. Clark, now worked by Mr. Laner. Coal has also been found along the northern edge of the county near Miami, in township 52, ranges 19 and 21.
From Prof. Owen's work, page 137, we again quote: " The first work- able bed of coal which I encountered in my descent of the Missouri river, was at Wellington. It is from twelve to fourteen inches thick, and lies a few feet above the bed of the river. * *. The bed of gray limestone which covers the principal coal-seam at Wellington, containing chotetes capellaries [a species of fossil coal called chotetes milleporaceous by later writers], occupies the same relative position over the coal at Lexington, but here it lies at a greater elevation above the river-fifty feet. One to two miles below Lexington, the coal and chætetes limestone are seen on the right bank of the river, forty-five feet above the water level. * *. At the bold promontory on the right shore, fourteen miles below Lexington, heavy beds of sandstone from fifteen to twenty feet in thickness, extend down to the river."
The above are a few of the main points of public interest, as relates to Lafayette county, which were developed by that first geological survey, thirty years ago. The first state geologist was Professor G. C. Swallow,
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
who was appointed April 12, 1853. He published annual reports of progress in 1854, 1857, 1859 and 1861. In 1870, Albert D. Hazer was appointed state geologist; in 1871, Raphael Pumpelly took the position, and his report was published in 1873 by Julius Bien of New York. The most useful service that any of the geological surveys has rendered to Lafayette county will be found in Prof. Pumpelly's work, pages 40 to 59; also, pages 136, 193, 421, and several other places of incidental mention. Those specially interested in mining coal or quarrying stone in this county should study that work. We can only give here a few gleanings of popular interest.
In going from the east line of Lafayette county to Lexington, we pass in succession from the lower to the middle coal measures. At Henry Franke's mine, one and a half miles east of Concordia, or about two miles from the eastern and three miles from the southern county line, the follow- ing geological section was noted, belonging to the lower coal measures:
KIND OF FORMATION.
FT. IN.
Earthly slope, bluff or loess.
24 0
Sandstone.
2
0)
Pyritiferous limestone .. .
1
2
Slate, enclosing pyritiferous concretions.
5
6
Hard, dull, splintery, semi-bituminous, slaty cannel coal .
0
3
Bituminous coal
1
8
Slate and coal
0
2
Fire clay
2 6
Clay and sandstones
0 0
A coarse, generally thick bedded, brown or buff sandstone, filled with small particles of mica, is found occupying the top of the lower coal series. It is seen near Aullville, on Gen. J. O. Shelby's land. The next place where it was observed, was on the McCausland farm,* two miles north of Higginsville. On this farm occur outcrops of bituminous sand- stone, and borings were made to a depth of 800 feet for oil, but without success. Prof. Swallow made a geological section on this farm thus:
Buff and brown marls and clay 5 to 50 feet.
Blue and brown sandy shales. 10 to 50
Bluish gray and brown sandstone, the oil stone 20 to 50 "
Blue and brown sandy shales.
3 to 50
This oil stone on the McCausland farm is usually so saturated that it shows plainly on fresh fracture, and will burn well in the fire. The petro- leum is found as solid asphaltum, breaking with a shiny fracture, as a dark, viscid fluid like tar, and as thin as amber-colored oil. Prof. Broad- head says of this oil rock that he regards it as of the same age as the . Berlin sandstone, and that above the mouth of the Tabo, which would go
* The McCausland farm included parts of sections 25 and 36, township 50, range 26, and sections 30 and 31, range 25.
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232
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
to prove that there is a northerly dip of about fifty feet in nine miles. In its northern extension this lower coal-measure sandstone crops out at vari- ous points, low in the bluffs on the Missouri river, from the east line of Lafayette county to the mouth of Tabo creek. The Berlin sandstone, and that of the McCausland farm, and that at Warrensburg, may all be considered of the same geological age; but only on the McCausland farm was it observed to contain petroleum.
In Prof. Pumpelly's volume there are printed at least twenty-seven geo- logical sections from different places in Lafayette county. We only aim to give such information as may be of interest to the general reader. The geological section at Franke's coal mines, as given above, was taken in 1872, and represents the lower coal measures. The following section was obtained in June, 1881, specially for this History of Lafayette County, at the air-shaft of the Lexington and Kansas City Coal Company's works, about a mile west of Lexington City; workmen were then engaged in sinking the air shaft, and their measurements were mainly relied upon. This section represents the upper coal measures, and its coal vein is by geologists called " the Lexington coal" wherever the same vein is met with:
KIND OF FORMATION.
FT. IN.
Slope, loess or bluff formation, from mouth of air-shaft to first level
of bluff, estimated vertical. 50 00
Surface soil cut through
2. 00
Loess 15 00
Gravel .
8
Coarse brown sand.
2
6
Shale (what the miners call soapstone). 13
00
Dark-blue shell rock. 1
6
Light-colored, flinty limestone, with occasional small shells, and minglings of calc spar .. 6
Shell marl, with nodules of chert
1
4
Fire clay and soapstone (shale)
2
00
Coarse, arenaceous limestone (roof of mine) 6
00
Slate.
1
6
Coal
1
8
Gray clay, varying from 6 inches to 3 feet in thickness.
6
Fire clay.
Dark-blue limestone, with shells and calc spar intermingled. 2 00 3
In 1872 Prof. G. C. Broadhead was assistant state geologist under Prof. Pumpelly, and examined nineteen different coal mines then being worked in Lafayette county. He found the coal two feet thick at Henry Franke's mine, half a mile north of Concordia, and at R. G. Tucker's mine at Lex- ington; 23 inches thick in mine east of the stone bridge at Lexington, and 22 inches in Gen. Graham's mine a little way above the stone bridge up Graham's branch. It was 21 inches thick at the Mulky mines, two and a
233
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
half miles east of Aullville, and the same in a mine west of the Lexington ferry landing. It was 17 inches on the Little Sniabar, six miles south of Lexington, and 16 inches, four miles below Berlin. Other mines are reported at 5 inches of coal (two miles east of Judge Wood's place), 6 inches, 7 inches, 8 inches, 9 inches, and so on, but none higher than 24 inches. The writer hereof measured a vein of coal 23 inches thick, with a clear outcrop in the bed of Rupe's branch about two miles back from the Missouri river, and only 30 or 40 feet from the Lexington and Gulf railroad bed which is said to now belong to the Burlington & Southwestern railroad company; this vein will furnish the railroad a good and easily-worked mine at the lowest possible cost. There are now coal shafts, or mines of some sort, in every township of Lafayette county.
Dr. J. B. Alexander called our attention to a fact of local geological interest. The coal and other formations west of Rupe's branch lie about twenty-five feet higher than the corresponding formations on the east side, which shows that there was once a cortaclysm or great fracture of the earth's rocky ribs at this point, and one side of the gulfy chasm finally settled lower than the other. [See also under head of " River Surveys and Soundings."]
Two petrified stumps were found in Tabo creek where the road from Lexington to Dover crosses it, and Mr. Geo. W. Garr has them at his house, which is the first one east of the bridge. He brought a large frag- ment of one stump to the Lexington Intelligencer office, where we examined it. This fragment was 13 inches long and 17 inches in diame- ter; its top fracture showed the open, heavy-pored, succulent structure that characterized the watery and gigantic weeds (they were not trees at all, in the present sense of the word) which formed the vegetation of the early carboniferous period. The wood is agatized, and some of the great pore cavities, nearly an inch square, are beautifully bordered with bead- ings of chalcedony. Mr. Garr said the other specimens were similar to this, except very much larger, and some of the root parts still remaining. Rev. F. R. Gray, three or four miles southwest of Higginsville, section 10, township 49, range 26, also has a petrified stump, about four feet around at its base, and 18 inches high, which was found in a small stream near his house in 1861. Some other fragments were found in the vicinity.
These interesting geological specimens were originally imbedded in the bluff formation, and had been washed out and fallen to the bed of the · creek as its banks kept washing down. They originally grew in some region far to the northwest, or probably in Colorado, where whole forests of similar petrifications have been found; and these fragments, after petri- faction, were transported by masses of floating ice and dropped in Lafay- ette county while the great Missouri lake was being filled up with the sediment which now forms our priceless "bluff" formation. [See page
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
80 of this history.] Their angles are not rounded or worn, like boulders and gravel, and this fact shows that they were not brought here during the glacial epoch, but were transported gently on or in floating ice, and " let down easy " as the bergs of ice stranded and gradually melted away.
The following article was prepared by Prof. G. C. Swallow, the first and most eminent state geologist of Missouri, specially for this work; but was not received until the foregoing geological matter had already been prepared, ready for the printers.
PROF. SWALLOW'S SKETCH.
The geological formations of Lafayette county are among the most interesting and useful to man. It is to these formations that Lafayette owes its fair fame as a most beautiful, fertile and prosperous country.
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS IN LAFAYETTE,
In order from the surface down, are as follows:
I. QUATERNARY SYSTEM.
PERIODS.
1. Recent Alluvium. 2. Bottom Prairie. 3. Bluff or Loess. ! 4. Drift.
VII. CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM.
PERIODS. Middle Coal Measures. \ Lower Coal Measures.
1. The recent alluvium of Lafayette county includes the soils and all the recent deposits of clays, sands, gravels and river drift of pebbles found in the river bottoms or beds of lakes. These deposits abound in the beds of the stream as the sand-bars of the" Missouri and the mud, gravel and pebble beds of the smaller streams, and in the stratified sands and clays beneath the bottom lands of the principal streams of the county.
2. The bottom prairie so extensive in the Missouri bottom in Chariton, Carroll and Clay, covers but small areas in Lafayette. It is known by the many thin beds of sand, clay and loam interstratified in the formations under the old bottom prairies. These beds were deposited in the Mis- souri river bottom, when that stream spread its sluggish waters from bluff to bluff, filling the whole valley with the sediments of its lake-like waters. After the level was changed so as to give a rapid current to the waters, the river cut its channel through these deposits thus made, and has been wearing them away ever since and forming the newer river or alluvial bottoms, whose surface is more uneven and whose deposits of sand are more irregular.
BLUFF OK LOESS.
3. It is a singular fact, that while the bluff is older than the alluvial
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235
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
bottoms and bottom prairie, it lies higher on the bluffs and highlands adja- cent to the river valleys.
The bluff which underlies the soil in all the highlands of the county con- sists of a sandy marl more or less stratified and varying in thickness from a few inches to more than one hundred feet. This vast deposit was evi- dently formed in one of those lakes which were formed as the ice of the glacial period melted away. This lake extended over northern Missouri, eastern Kansas, and southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa. * The Missouri, Sioux, Platte and Kansas rivers flowed in this lake from the north and west, bringing into it the rich marls ground out of the rocks to the north and west by the great glaciers of the drift period. These bluff marls constitute the rich subsoils of all the uplands of Central Missouri. The marls of the bluff are a little coarser and more sandy on the bluffs adjacent to the rivers, as the finer materials were washed out by the sub- siding waters of the streams where the land was changed and the lake drained off and the rivers became more and more rapid, until they found their present condition.
The bluff is by far the most valuable formation in the Mississippi val- ley. It is a vast storehouse of plant food, agricultural wealth.
Organic Remains. The fossils of the bluff are very numerous and interesting.
I have collected from it, of the Mammalia, two teeth of the Elephas primigenius, mastodon, the jaw bone of the Castor fiber Americana, the molar of a Ruminant, and the incisor of a Rodent ; of the Mollusca, seventeen species of the genus Helix, eight Limnea, eight Physa, three Pupa, four Planorbis, six Succinnca, and one each of the genera Valvata, Amnicola, Helicina, and Cyclas, besides some others not determined.
These lacusstrine, flluviatile, amphibious and land species indicate a deposit formed in a fresh-water lake, surrounded by land and fed by rivers. These facts carry back the mind to a time when a large portion of this great valley was covered by a vast lake, into which, from the surround- ing land, flowed various rivers and smaller streams. We see the waters peopled with numerous mollusks, the industrious beaver building his hab- itation, the nimble squirrel, the fleet deer, the sedate elephant and huge mastodon, lords of the soil. There must have been land to sustain the elephant and mastodon and helices, fresh water and land for the beaver, and fresh water for the cyclas and limnea.
Some geologists have supposed the marls back from the river which have a more jointed structure, are boulder clay and belong to the drift. This opinion, they think, is confirmed by the small pebbles sometimes found in these marls; but these pebbles would be very easily carried out
* See page 80 for further explanation of this matter. Also, page 70 for Prof. Swallow's scale of the Missouri rocks .- HISTORIAN .
236
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
into the lake by ice floating from the shores or from the many rivers flow- ing into it.
The evidence that the surface marls of the interior belong to the same formation as the marls on the river bluffs, is shown by the facts, they are continuous with the river bluff marls, they contain the same fossils, and have the same chemical composition, and about the same lithological characters. When both have been exposed to the weather, no one can distinguish them by the lithological characters.
THE DRIFT.
The drift which is so abundant in North Missouri, is very sparingly developed on the south side of the Missouri river. Where seen in Lafay- ette it rests immediately on the consolidated rocks of the coal measures, beneath the marls of the bluff just described. These limited deposits con- sist of sands and pebbles, containing some small boulders, called Lost Rocks.
But these deposits are so limited as to be of little economical impor- tance.
COAL MEASURES.
The lower and middle coal measures are found to underlie the whole of the highlands of Lafayette county. These rocks are limestones, sand- stones, clays, marls, shales, iron and coal variously interstratified.
The following section taken at Lexington will show the character of the middle coal measures of this county:
No. 1 .- Bluff marls.
No. 2 .- Five feet calcareous gray sandstone, in thin ripple marked strata.
No. 3 .- Thirty feet silico-argillaceous shale. This is also exposed at Owen's landing.
No. 4 .- One foot bitumuous shale.
No. 5 .- Eight feet purple, blue and green shale.
No. 6 .- One-half foot, bitumuous coal.
No. 7 .- Six feet, blue clay and marlite full of fossils.
No. 8 .- Ten feet, indurated brownish sandstone in thick beds.
No. 9 .- Six feet, purple, blue and green shales.
No. 10 .- Four feet, buff and gray limestone.
No. 11 .- Five feet, bluish green shales.
No. 12 .- Eight feet blue and gray,argillo-calcarous sandstone.
No. 13 .- Twelve feet, blue, green and yellow shales and clays.
No. 14 .- Two feet, buff slaty limestone.
No. 15 .- Five feet, hard gray limestone.
No. 16 .- Eight feet, blue and black shale and marlite.
No. 17 .- One and one-half feet, bitumuous shale.
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
No. 18 .- Four feet, hard blue limestone.
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