USA > New York > Oneida County > History of Oneida County, New York : from 1700 to the present time, Volume I > Part 7
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The Mohawk valley is one of the most picturesque and fertile valleys in the world. Its products are so numerous that it would be much easier to enumerate the few articles it does not produce, than the many which it does. What better could be said of any country than can be said of this-that ex- cept the products of a tropical or semi-tropical climate, there is produced along the Mohawk everything that is necessary to support life or desirable for the health and comfort of humanity. Northward of the valley the land is more rugged, the soil lighter, and the climate more severe than in the valley; the hills rise to an altitude of about 1,800 feet above tide water. In the southern part the country is less broken, the climate somewhat milder than north of the Mohawk valley, although the altitude of some of the hills is about the same as in the northern part of the county.
CHAPTER V
GEOLOGY
The geology of Oneida county is controlled by the position of the county on the southwest corner of the mass of ancient rocks that form the Adirondack plateau. This Adirondack mass is but a small southern extension of the vast shield of Precambric rocks in Canada that has formed the nucleus of the con- tinent of North America. The Adirondack plateau was at times a peninsula and at other times an island in front of this old northern nucleus (so-called protaxis) of the continent, and the sea in the course of the geologic history of the country advanced and receded many times on the flanks of this highland. We find, therefore, still today the great series of rocks that has been deposited in these seas outcropping in concentric bands around the edges of the Adiron- dacks and therefore crossing (or "striking" as the geologist says) through Oneida county in a NW-SE direction.
After the sea had finally withdrawn, a river system was developed on the continent. As the Adirondack plateau continued to form the mountain area of the region, all the courses of the rivers were controlled by its position in the northeast and by the bands of rock around it, and as in the final stage of our geologie history the county was buried under the immense masses of ice ad- vancing from northern Canada, the Adirondacks again formed a diverting corner stone for the ice-streams composing the ice-cap.
The Adirondack area of Precambric rocks extends into the northeast corner of Oneida county. Its boundary runs there from West Canada creek above Hinckley to the Forestport reservoir and thence follows the Black river. The Precambric rocks-so-called because they are older than the oldest fossiliferous system, the Cambric-consist mostly of gneiss, a distinctly banded rock com- posed of the mineral, quartz, feldspar and mica, but also containing graphite and garnet. It is best seen in the county along the Black river below the ham- let Enos, and where the road crosses Little Black creek. The gneiss has for a long time been considered as representing the oldest or fundamental rocks of the earth's crust, but we know now still older rocks and have learned that the gneiss was once common sandstone and shale deposited in the first ocean of the earth, but then became buried under thousands of feet of later sediments and younger rocks, and by the heat and pressure in the depths of the earth it has become metamorphosed into its present condition. One calls the group of rocks to which this gneiss belongs today the Grenville rocks. To the same group belong also the great masses of igneous rocks, that have eaten or melted their way everywhere from below into and through the Grenville gneiss while it was deeply buried under younger sediments. These igneous rocks are best
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
seen in the country about Forestport Station, on the Adirondack railroad at Woodhull and Meekerville. They are known as yenite and composed largely of feldspar, quartz and hornblende. On account of the latter constitutent this rock is much darker than the gneiss, and being igneous, it is also not so dis- tinctly banded. While the fresh rock is deep greenish-gray, it appears mostly light brown through deep weathering.
The whole area of these most ancient rocks of the county, the gneiss and yenite, has the true character of the north woods, partly on account of the lack of soil, the infertility of the soil these rocks furnish, and especially on account of the boulder masses which make farming unprofitable.
The Precambric or Adirondack area has been many times covered, to a greater or less extent, by seas that advanced from the south and southwest, and deep masses of sandstones, limestones and shales were deposited on the gneisses and yenites. All of these have been partly eroded away by the rivers in the millions of years that have elapsed since the final withdrawal of the sea. But not only this, but since the Precambric area was uncovered it has been raised several times to greater heights than it is at present, and again leveled down by the atmospheric agents.
The rocks that rest upon the so-called Metamorphic or Precambric rocks are called the Sedimentary rocks, because they were all deposited in the water, mostly in the ocean, and still contain the remains of marine animals, the fossils, as proof of their origin. Between their deposition and the formation of the gneisses an immense interval of time elapsed, of which we have record in other parts of the world.
During this long time the Adirondacks were folded up into mountain, and the mountain folds again razed down to a plateau by the rivers and brooks, and upon this plateau advanced the sea. The first band of sediments that sur- round the edge of the North Woods in Oneida county is the Trenton lime- stone. This would, hence, seem to represent the oldest sea that crept up upon the Adirondack plateau. If we follow, however, West Canada creek from the edge of the woods as far down as Cold Brook and Poland, we find there in the easternmost point of the county a still older rock exposed by the river and underlying the Trenton limestone. This is a dolomite (Little Falls dolomite) with an overlying limestone (Tribes Hill limestone), the two forming the "Calciferous sandstone" of the older geologists. This older sea, the "Beek- mantown sea," that has deposited about 400 feet of rock about Little Falls, did in Oneida county either not reach as high up on the Adirondacks as the later Trenton sea, or its deposits have been abraded again in the long interval before the Trenton sea advanced again. The Trenton sea was warm and genial, it spread over the greater part of North America and left a great quantity of shells of many classes of animals in the rocks. These fossils have made famous the Trenton Falls locality, whence the formation derives its name. The Tren- ton sea left about 300 feet of more or less pure limestone in Oneida county, over which the West Canada creek forms its famous falls.
On this limestone rests a shale formation about 700 feet thick, that in geology is known as the Utica shale. This shale is soft, and since rivers usually pick out the bands of rock where they can most easily work out their river beds,
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
it is in this band that the Mohawk river flows through Oneida county. The deep black shale is best seen in the hills about Utica, as along Starch Factory creek, or Nine Mile creek. It was deposited in an arm of the sea that came in from the Lower St. Lawrence region, passed over most of the Adirondacks, and returned to the Atlantic by a northern arm around Labrador. The fos- sils of this shale are peculiar, the most remarkable being graptolites, beautiful small floating coral-like colonies. Many fine fossils of the Utica shale have been collected about Marcy, Floyd, and especially Holland Patent and South Trenton. Like most of the Trenton fossils, these Utica fossils have been de- scribed by Prof. James Hall, and later by C. D. Walcott.
Upon the Utica shale follows another shale about 300 feet thick, the Frank- fort shale, which is also exposed in the hills south of Utica. It is a soft olive- gray shale, with very coarse sandstone beds, but practically without fossils in this region.
The Frankfort sea withdrew westward, and Oneida county remained land for some time, when the sea again advanced. This laid down a bed of con- glomerate, the Oneida conglomerate. This pebbly rock, which is about 25 feet thick, has received its name from Oneida county because of its fine exposures in the neighborhood of Verona. It marks the beginning of a new geologic era, the Upper Siluric, while the underlying sedimentary formations belong to the Lower Siluric. No fossils are found in this coarse rock, which was made by the stormy sea advancing upon the country.
As the sea grew deeper a formation of about 150 feet of red and green shales, limestone bands and sandstones at the top was deposited. This forma- tion again received its name from a locality in Oneida county, its name being the Clinton formation. It contains the two valuable iron ore beds that are mined about Clinton. The Clinton formation is full of many beautiful marine fossils, that can be easily collected on the mine dumps of Clinton. The best section of this formation in the county is probably found along Swift creek, that runs into Sauquoit creek.
The great Niagara formation, which has caused the Niagara Falls, is represented in Oneida county by only about 25 feet of dark concretionary limestone and interbedded shales. These few feet of limestone are, however, the relics of a period in which the sea, as in Trenton time, spread far and wide over the American continent. It then shrunk rapidly in the region of New York and formed a more or less inclosed sea, and, as the country was then a hot desert, this sea evaporated, forming the salt and gypsum beds of the Salina period in western New York.
In Oneida county the Salina period is represented by a great mass of red shales about 150 feet thick, followed by dark dirty colored shales, and finally by waterlime, all together more than 300 feet. One sees this belt of rocks best in the Sauquoit valley between Clayville and Sauquoit, in the Oriskany valley below Oriskany Falls, and about Vernon, where the red shales color the fields. This red shale has been called the "Vernon shale" from the latter locality. The waterlimes which form the top of the formation alone contain fossils. These, however, are of the most remarkable kind. They belong to a class of extinct water-spiders, so-called Eurypterids, many of which were of gigantic
TRENTON GORGE NEAR THE FOOT OF PERKIN'S STAIRWAY
3.9M
TRENTON FALLS
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
proportions. These strange fossils are found in Oneida county about Paris Hill. Oneida county has also furnished from this formation the only Siluric scorpion ever found in North America. It was obtained 30 years ago by Mr. Osborn of Waterville, and caused a sensation among paleontologists.
After the deposition of these waterlimes normal marine conditions returned in the sea opening the Devonian era with a series of fossiliferous limestones about 40 feet thick, which form the terrace or so-called Helderberg escarpment in the southern part of the county on Paris Hill and Prospect Hill. After the deposition of this limestone the country hereabouts emerged again for a con- siderable time from the sea, and then again became submerged, hence the next rock is again a coarse sediment or pebbly rock, the Oriskany sandstone, so well seen at Oriskany Falls.
Again a warm, congenial sea extended far and wide over the land, with coral reefs and abundant life of every form, even early fishes. This sea formed the Onondaga limestone, the thickest bed of limestone in the county aside from the Trenton limestone. This bed (about 60 feet thick) forms a distinct plat- form that crosses the county from east to west, and upon it rest the immense masses of dark shales known as Hamilton shales. These a thousand or more feet thick, extend clear across the state to the Hudson; they belong to a middle Devonic sea, that crossed the continent to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. They are very fossiliferous, and extend far beyond the southern boundary of the county. It is very probable that also the sea of the next following period, the Chemung, still extended northward over Oneida county, but its deposits have long since been eroded away.
After that time the county was never again submerged under the sea, and it was terra firma throughout the immense time intervals in which the coals were deposited in Pennsylvania, during the Mesozoic or mediaeval age of the earth, when the dragon-like reptiles roamed over the continent, and again through the tertiary period, when the great mammals lived on this land.
Of all this time we have no record in this region. We only know that the Adirondacks were then repeatedly elevated and again planed down, a river system developed, of which we still recognize some features, and the greater part of the rocks which once reached up on the Adirondack plateau were again carried away to the sea.
But finally, just before our present period, enormous masses of ice moved south from Canada. One ice current came down the west side of the Adiron- dacks, another up the Mohawk valley, and finally, at the height of glaciation, the ice passed clear over the Adirondacks and reached as far south as Penn- sylvania. This ice-cap ploughed up the softer rocks, such as the Utica shales, plucked up the harder rocks of the Adirondacks and Canada and spread them as boulders over the county, while it formed under the ice along water-courses and in its front, as it again receded across the county, enormous piles of un- stratified clay with boulders, so-called morainic till, or of sand and boulders, thus forming the hilly landscapes one sees, for instance, in the Oneida valley.
Finally the ice withdrew again, leaving a mantle of glacial drift all over the country. A new river system established itself, which is still very young, since the old courses are filled and hidden by the glacial debris. To this cir-
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
cumstance we owe the beautiful cascades and waterfalls, Trenton Falls and Oriskany Falls.
Before the glacial period the drainage of Oneida county ran northwest- ward towards Lake Erie, hence the deep drift buried valley under the present Mohawk river that has been recognized by well-borings.
For a considerable time, while the ice-barrier still lingered at the north side of Lake Erie, that lake or its predecessor, called "Lake Iroquois" by the geologists, was dammed up so that it reached beyond Oneida lake as far as Rome, and the waters of the St. Lawrence river were forced to come down the present Mohawk valley. It was this mighty ice-cold stream that opened the way at Little Falls, and so forth, for the present Mohawk river.
Oneida county is a crucial area in the geology of New York. This is shown by the great number of formations named after localities in the county, by the important sections it has furnished, as that at Trenton Falls, and not least by the active interest of some of its citizens in the geology of the state, as evidenced by the names of Bagg, Rust, Hurlburt, Whitfield, Dana, Williams and Walcott.
The use of stone for building purposes and for the construction of high- ways vastly increased between 1907 and 1911. No large industries in the line of producing stone prior to 1910 existed in the county, but the construction of a railroad was begun in 1910 to connect the very large stone quarries at Prospect, in the town of Trenton, with the Mohawk & Malone railroad near that village; the road was completed in 1911, and machinery has been installed for the production of about 500 tons of stone per day. This Trenton limestone has been proved to be as good, if not better than any other stone, for the pur- pose of surfacing the state roads which are now being constructed throughout the entire state, and, where it is feasible to procure the stone, it is used ex- tensively for that purpose. It is also much used for other building purposes, and, although the quarries have been substantially idle for many years, the construction of the railroad has enabled the owners to transport the stone at so much less cost, that it can be placed in any part of central New York as cheaply as any other stone of the same grade. The quarries are very extensive. The West Canada creek flows through a ravine from fifty to one hundred feet perpendicular for miles, and the stone extends for a long distance on both sides of this ravine to a great depth, making the supply substantially inex- haustible.
CHAPTER VI
MINERALOGY
In 1908 Honorable Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Agriculture, made a report to the legislature upon the subject of iron in the state of New York. In this report he said: "This is the report of the state geologist covering a painstaking investigation of the extent of deposits of iron ore in the state, and having particular reference to the territory, something like one hundred miles in length, extending through the central part of the state from Oneida and Otsego counties on the east to Wayne county on the west, for which a special appropriation was provided in the annual supply bill of 1907. Having very earnestly recommended the appropriation, I find much satisfaction in the as- surance of the geologist that a conservative estimate, based upon this investi- gation, of the quantity of iron ore deposited in this region, places the amount at 600,000,000 tons. If this estimate is warranted, New York might yet eas- ily become the leading iron state of the union."
Accompanying the report is a map showing, in red, the lay of the iron ore referred to. This map shows that Oneida county may become the very center of this tremendous iron industry. It is claimed by practical men engaged in the iron industry that the ore can be mined cheaper through Oneida county than elsewhere in the state. The mining industries about Clinton, in the town of Kirkland, started in 1797. The Norton mine, at the foot of College Hill west of Clinton, is the site of some of the earliest operations, and supplied ore to the forges in the vicinity.
The report of the geologist further says that charcoal furnaces soon super- seded the forges, and were operated until the erection of the larger furnaces using anthracite coal. The charcoal plants were located as far away as Taberg and Constantia, and they were also at Lenox, Walesville and Frankfort, in Herkimer county. Ore was also shipped by Chenango canal to Pennsylvania furnaces. In 1845 to 1850 the Scranton Iron Company engaged in this business on an extensive scale, and shipped ore from New Hartford and Clinton by boats to Binghamton, and then to Scranton.
In 1852 the Franklin Iron Works erected a plant on the site of the present furnaces of the Franklin Iron Manufacturing Company, and began operations, with an output of 150 tons of pig iron a week. An additional furnace was built in 1869-70, and the product then was 300 tons per week.
The Clinton Iron Company was organized in 1872 to manufacture iron at Kirkland. The furnace was operated in 1872, the ore being brought from Westmoreland. This furnace has not been operated for about twenty years, while the Franklin furnace has been operated from time to time, depending upon the condition of the iron market.
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
Besides the ore that was used in the county it has been shipped to other localities, and at the present time a considerable business is done by Mr. C. A. Borst. Mr. Borst has not only operated the furnace at times and mined and shipped away ore, but has purchased a large amount of the iron territory about Clinton, believing that a great future is promised to the iron industry in that locality. This ore is of a low grade, and is used largely at the present time to assist in the melting of harder ores.
It is claimed that peat at times has been mined and used in the county of Oneida, but I find no authentic data upon that subject.
CHAPTER VII
BOTANY
Oneida county, with the exception of the northern part, is included in Dr. John Torrey's third botanical district of New York. The northern part belongs to his fourth district, which comprises all the northern part of the state. The third district comprises the whole western part of the state, and the central part extending east along the Mohawk valley to Little Falls. The county is divided by the Mohawk valley into two parts, the northern and southern. The differ- ences in altitude, and, far more, the differences in the geological and soil char- acter give foundation for a varied flora and a great number of species of plants. In Paine's Catalog of the Plants of Oneida County and Vicinity about a thou- sand species are recorded for the county. That was published more than 40 years ago. At the present time the number of known species is, unquestionably, considerably larger. The number of species found in a given locality affords a basis for estimating the capacity of the soil for producing a variety of useful plants. If the natural product is varied, the cultivated may be. Plants that would thrive in the fertile alluvial and sheltered valleys would not be likely to be as productive in the less fertile more exposed and rugged hilly districts.
Among the early botanists of the county are some whose names stand high on the roll of honor. Dr. P. D. Knieskern, Dr. George Vasey and Professor Asa Gray are specially notable examples. They have been succeeded by such worthy and energetic followers as John A. Paine, Jr., B. D. Gilbert, Homer D. House and Dr. J. V. Haberer.
Dr. P. D. Knieskern, for a time a resident of Oriskany, is the author of a Catalog of Plants of Oneida County, native and naturalized. This was pub- lished in the fifty-fifth annual report of the regents of the university for 1842, and records 748 species and varieties of plants, of which 711 are flowering plants, 37 are ferns and their allies.
John A. Paine, Jr., at that time a resident of Utica, is the author of a Catalog of Plants of Oneida County and Vicinity. It was published in the eighteenth annual report of the regents of the university on the condition of the state cabinet of natural history. It is dated 1865, and records 1,008 species and varieties of plants belonging to Oneida county. Of these 958 are flowering plants and 50 are ferns and their allies.
Mr. B. D. Gilbert, a late resident of Clayville and a specialist in the study of ferns, published in Fern Bulletin, October, 1903, a list of the ferns and fern allies of New York. He also specified a small swampy station near Clayville as one specially prolific in rare and interesting mosses.
Mr. Homer D. House has published in Torreya, April, 1903, Notes on the
Vol. 1-4
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HISTORY OF ONEIDA COUNTY
Orchids of Central New York, in which he records the occurrence of several rare and interesting species in Oneida county. Also in the November issue of the same, Notes on the Flora of Oneida Lake and Vicinity, in which some rare and interesting species of Oneida county plants are mentioned.
Dr. J. V. Haberer, formerly of Utica, is among the most recent and most active of the investigators of the flora of the county. He has added much to our previous knowledge of the flora, and increased materially the number of species now known to belong to the county. He has taken an active interest in the study of the Crataegus flora of the county, and Crataegus habereri Sarg., very appropriately commemorates his discovery of it and his activity in this line of botanical investigation. Dr. Haberer has greatly enriched the state herbarium by his generous contributions of most excellent specimens of several species of Antennaria, of sedges and other plants and especially of grape ferns, and the numerous and rare varieties of Botrychium obliquum Muhl., one of which bears the name oneidense, its native county, and another habereri, its discoverer. All these were collected in the vicinity of or not many miles from Utica. All botanists are specially indebted to him for his notes on Plants of Oneida County in May and June numbers of Rhodora, 1905. In these he adds 35 species to those contained in Paine's catalog, and shows very clearly the close relation existing between the plants of the northeastern part of Oneida county and the Adirondack region farther north.
While the great majority of the species of plants of the county are common to it and adjoining counties, and occur in all parts of it, certain parts of the county are worthy of special mention because of the special prominence and abundance of certain species, or, on the other hand, because of the very rare occurrence or local character of some species found in them. The alluvial banks of the Mohawk river, the pine plains west of Rome, the sandy borders of the eastern end of Oneida lake and the adjoining marshes, the high cliffs and ravines along Fish creek above Taberg, and the marshes and ponds in the northeastern part of the county are all places full of interest to the botanist. The small remnant of original forest at Trenton Falls is also an interesting though lim- ited locality, especially for the mycologist.
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