A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth, Part 2

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101

USA > Ohio > Adams County > A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth > Part 2

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The population of the county is largely descendant from two principal sources : the Virginia pioneers, and the Scotch-Irish who came at a later period. There is a small German element whose ancestors came about 1850. In religion each of these elements is Protestant, the first two very largely of the Presbyterian faith. There never has been but one Catholic Church in the county and that is now abandoned for lack of membership.

Population of Adams County.

The following table shows the population of the county at the periods stated :

Years.

1800

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

Population

3,432

9,434

10,406

12,238

13,183

18,883

Years.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Population

20,309

20,750

24,005

26,093

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

Population of Townships and Towns.

ITownships.

1820

1880

1840

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Bratton

Greene.

678

1,807

1,086

1,520

1,529

1,833

1,886

2,023

Liberty

1,148

1,308

1,498

1,504

1,544

1,377

1,355

1,245

Franklin

1,302

1,355

1,963

2,261

2,172

1,541

1,594

Jefferson.

916

1,001

957

1,530

1,845

2,268

3,444

3,947

Meigs

2,001

1,132

1,068

1,438

1,548

1,748

2,124

2,645

Scott.

1,123

1,342

916

1,318

1,327

1,409

1,192

1,132

Monroe

783

807

832

1,193

1,206

1,304

1,400

1,430

Tiffin

1,028

1,141

1,540

1,980

1,787

1,858

2,212

2,600

Oliver ...

1,552

1,579

1,976

2,118

2,519

2,086

2,652

2,625

Wayne

771

1,063

854

1 682

1,191

1,169

1,125

1,181

Winchester

Manchester

1,988

Towns.

Manchester

160

434

834

982

1,493

....

564

720

West Union.

406

429

444

Statistics of the Year 1900.

Horses.

Cattle.

Sheep

Hogs.

Townships.

Value.

No.

Value·

No.

Value.

Bratton

215

$9.960

430

$13,115

4,920

217

650

414

1,246

Churn Creek ..

166

3,760

177

1,792

188

370

Lynx ..

3,260

243

4,130

170

213

602

Wamsleyville.

115

3,195

196

3,285

175

211

425

Liberty

358

13,755

1220

21,160

1755

6,805

1209

4,692

Manchester

116

2,585

1,675

Meigs-

280

585

343

794

182

3,610

260

2,695

108

280

352

704

263

7,925

502

6,170

124

490

372

1,116

Oliver

260

10,310

413

8.440

520

1,595

631

1,945

Scott

315

11,320

898

14,580

770

2,828

1206

2,940

Sprigg-

Bentonville Precinct Bradyville Precinct ...

202

7,830

650

10,160

217

1,500

539

2,015

263

7,462

608

8,647

446

1,640

764

2,038

Tiffin

525

16,850

1286

21,440

615

1,830

1271

2,542

Wayne. ...

373

18,325

774

12,760

765

2,330

2009

4,560

Winchester

410

15,750

913

16,010

844

3,525

705

3,045

468 486

$1,495

703

$3,405

Franklin.

206

6,950

436

9,345

1,250

280

1,120

Greene-

Rome Precinct.

112

5,265

241

4,000

220

520

Sandy Springs Precinct. Jefferson -

2,685

106

1,755

193

525

285

Cedar Mills Precinct.

220

5,050

370

1,060

1,069

1,064

1,051

Sprigg.

Peebles ......

358

Winchester

110

1,121

1,693

1,558

1,475

416 486

626

825

1. -

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206

Jacksonville Precinct ..... Mineral Springs Precin't Monroe

1,053

1,090

......

1,464

1,488

1,988

OUTLINE SKETCH OF ADAMS COUNTY

Lands.

Townships.

Culti- vated.

Pasture.

Wood- land.

Waste.

Total.

Value.

Bratton

6,555

7,538

3,646

1,598

19.537 20,342

$184,860 141,990

Greene-

Rome Precinct

3,141

1,572

4,879

1,692

11,284

224,500

Jefferson-

Cedar Mills Precinct

3,552

2,117

4,660

1,041

11,370 )

Churn Creek Precint

2,567

1,241

4,6º5

1,920

10,423

270,690

Lynx Precinct

2,257

1,451

2,521

1,638

7,867 }

Wamsleyville Prec ...

2,536

1,180

4,963

796

9,475

321,520

Manchester

293

174

469

252,740

Jacksonville.

5,885

3.912

4,601

1,212

15,610

269,710

Monroe

4,699

3,353

3,838

3,186

15,076

183,770

Oliver

6,227

5,162

4,864

887

17,140

147,520

Scott

6,346

7,317

3,494

672

17,829

264,830

Bentonville Precincti Bradyville Precinct ..

4,674

6,875

1,376

241

13,166

369,020

Tiffin

7,461

11,399

7,427

2,329

28,616

323,280

Wayne

5,412

7,408

2,833

393

16,046

264,160

Winchester

6,634

10,771

2,498

325

20,228

328,830

91,817

97,875

72,118

27,947

289,757

3,547,120

Soldiers of the War of the Rebellion.

TOWNSHIPS.

Bratton

Franklin

Greene-

box. Rome Precinct

Sandy Springs

Jefferson-

Cedar Mills Precinct.

Churn Creek Precinct

Lynx ...

Wamsleyville

Liberty .....

Manchester

114

Meigs-

Jacksonville Mineral Springs ..

Monroe

Oliver

Scott.

Sprigg-

Bradyville

Tiffin

Wayne ..

53 Winchester.

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Franklin

6,372

6,551

4,794

2,625

Sandy Springs

1,750

520 1

1,296

5,863

9,429

Liberty ...

6,026

12,911

3,587

22,542

Meigs-

Min. Springs

3,068

1,518

5,090

949

10,625

6,362

4,905

1,054

362

12,683

Sprigg-

Bentonville

CHAPTER Il.

* GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY

There has never been but one geological survey of Adams County, and that was made by Prof. John Locke, Assistant State Geologist. in 1838. There is a more recent report but it does not at all cover the county. Prof. Locke's report is so comprehensive and withal so plain that anyone by reading it may acquire much valuable knowledge of the geological formations of Adams County. It is however necessary to note some changes in classification and nomenclature in accordance with present usage. Reference to the map of the county in this volume will greatly assist the reader in fixing the relative position of places and localities.

The rocks of Adams County are so well defined and so various as to render it a model of stratification. It embraces a varied series, including different strata, extending from the blue limestone [Cincinnati group] to the fine-grained [Waverly] sandstone. The strata are of nearly a uniform thickness, and nearly uniformly inclined east nine and one-half degrees south, at the rate of about 37.4 feet per mile, or a little more than 100 feet in three miles. In the direction of north, nine and one-half de- grees east, a line on the strata or layers of rocks is level just as the sloping roof of a house is level in a line parallel to the ridge or eaves. This is called the line of bearing, while the line at right angles to it is called the line of dip. If the rocks of Adams County were continued onward as they now lie, until they filled up the surface of the county to the height of 500 feet above the level of low water of the Ohio River at Cincinnati, the several layers of rocks running up a slope from the east, and cut off by this level surface, would present at that surface, several belts of various widths, running in the direction of the line of bearing. If the county were sliced down by cutting off level horrizontal layers so as to reduce it in height successively to 400, 300, 200, and 100 feet, it would still present the same belts of surface having the same width, but removed each time a little more that three miles to the east of the place which they formerly occupied. [Place seven pennies one upon another on a level surface ; then push them over to the southeastward until their edges rest upon the plane, with each penny covering about one-half the surface of the one next beneath. Then the position of these pennies will fairly correspond to the position of the seven layers of rocks in the county, beginning with the blue limestone and ending with the fine-grained sandstone .- ED.] The several layers of rocks of Adams County are. beginning at the bottom :

* From Locke's Report. with notes and comments by the Editor.

(10)

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GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY

First. Blue limestone of indefinite thickness.

Second. Blue marl. 25 feet.

Third. Flinty limestone. 51 feet.

Fourth. Blue marl. 100 feet.

Fifth. Cliff limestone 89 feet.

Sixth. Slate . .251 feet.

Seventh. Fine-grained sandstone. ·343 feet.

[ The more recent classification is, beginning at the bottom : Cincinnati or Trenton, Clinton, Niagara, Water Lime, Corniferous, Erie Shale, and Waverly .- ED.] These sections lie over each other like shingles on the roof of a house. We will now proceed to describe the belts or "out- cropping" edges of the several strata, supposing the surface of the county to be a plane 500 feet higher than low water of the Ohio.

First. The blue limestone would extend from the west into the southwest corner of the county, only about one mile; into the northwest corner about four and a half miles, where it would disappear under the marl and continue onward to the eastward, sloping deeper and deeper, no one knows how far.

Second. The blue limestone would be succeeded eastwardly by a belt of an outcropping of marl two-thirds of a mile wide.

Third. The belt of flinty limestone, one ane one-third miles wide.

Fourth. The belt of the great marl layers three miles wide.

Fifth. The belt of the cliff limestone two and one-half miles wide.

Sixth. The belt of slate six and two-thirds miles wide.

Seventh. The belt of sandstone occupying rest of county and about ten miles wide.

Now as the surface of the county is not level, it does not actually exhibit such belts but only such an approximation to them as the surface is to a level. The western part of the county consists of blue limestone about 500 feet high, as at Fairview. West Union and some hills to the west of it shows the cliff limestone rising to 600 and 700 feet. The bed of Ohio Brush Creek again is in the blue limestone, because it is excavated to near the level of the base line, being only twenty or thirty feet above it. Cherry Fork and nearly all of the branches about Winchester in the north- west part of the county are also in the blue limestone, and seem to descend on the regular slope of the stratification. Above the Marble Furnace, the bed of East Fork is in the flinty limestone [Clinton] and finally in Highland County rises in the cliff [ Niagara] limestone. It will be seen that most of the tributaries of Ohio Brush Creek are on the west side of it; those from the east being short and few in number. This results from the dip of the strata and the natural surface conforming to it. The slopes to the east, on the inclined surface of the stratification, are broad and gradual, but those to the west are abrupt and narrow, being over the escarpments or upturned ends of the several layers. The cliff limestone, the marl and the flint limestone at West Union, are what are called "out- liers," a kind of geological island, as they are cut off on every side from the main body of the same laver and stand out above. They are cut off on the west by outcropping ; on the north by Cherry Fork ; on the east by Ohio Brush Creek, and on the south by the Ohio River, all of which have their beds in the blue limestone.

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

West Union is over 600 feet above low water at Cincinnati, overlook- ing the whole surrounding country except some outliers, Bald .Hill and Cave Hill, to the northwest, and the very elevated knobs of slate and sand- stone east of Ohio Brush Creek. As the great marl stratum underlies the cliff limestone, the descents from West Union over the cliff and marl are very abrupt. The marl being soft, and, during wet weather, treading into a bottomless mortar, requires the roads over it to be stoned.

From West Union to Treber's on Lick Fork, the following section with thickness of strata is observed :

Cliff limestone. 89 feet.

Marl .

106 feet.

Flinty limestone. 51 feet.

Marl

25 feet.

Blue limestone.

25 feet.

THE CLIFF LIMESTONE (86 feet thick) at West Union consists of three layers partially blended into each other. The first or upper part is a rough, porous, soft limestone, filled with cavities which have been oc- cupied by fossil animals, and which have decayed out. These cavities are lined with a dark colored bitumen. It produces good lime. The second or middle portion of this cliff limestone, is aluminous and arenaceous, of a slaty structure, dark gray color, and comparatively hard. The third and bottom portion is more sandy. It is massive, light colored, rather free to work and is quarried as a building stone. It has been opened in Darlinton's Quarry at the head of Beasly's Fork in a stratum twenty feet thick. Both this and the second or slaty layers effervesce but slightly with acids, and on solution in acid, leave a fine sediment or mud consisting of clay and fine sand and there rises on the surface of the solution a film of bitumen. They contain about 60 per cent. of carbonate of lime, but do not slake perfectly after burning. If pulverized after calcination, and mixed with sand, they harden under water, and might be used for hydraulic cement.

THE GREAT MARL STRATUM (106 feet thick) forms the immediate sharp descent of the various hills around West Union. When lying un- disturbed it has the blue color common to clay, and is evidently stratified. When decomposed by the frost and weather, it becomes lighter in color and, dried, becomes almost white. It is earthy, highly effervescent, con- tains a few fossils, and has thin layers of slaty limestone two or three inches thick, traversing it at remote distances. The great marl deposit forms, according to circumstances, three different sorts of soil.

First. When it forms a slope under the cliffs, as it does at West Union and numerous other places, the water from above flows over it, and it produces the sugar tree and becomes covered with a rich mold suitable for wheat or corn. If it lies in a steep declivity, it is liable, after the trees are removed, to slip in large avalanches, blasting entirely the hopes of the husbandman.

Second. When the natural level surface coincides with the great marl stratum, as it does for some distance north of West Union, the soil is rather inferior, and produces a forest of white oak. Such plains are called white oak flats.

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THE ROCK SPRING, WEST UNION

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GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY

Third. When it is left in conical mound-like "outliers," the marl is otten barren of trees, and produces some peculiar prairie-like plants, as the prarie docks, wild sunflowers, etc. These places are called "bald hills" and "buffalo beats." Several occur within a mile of West Union in a northerly direction, and would be quite a paradise for the botanist.

THE FLINTY LIMESTONE (51 feet thick), like the blue limestone, lies in thin layers interstratified with marl, but it differs from the blue lime- stone in color, in fossils, and especially in having certain layers which abound in silicious matter, or are flinty. In the layers of stone the flinty matter is intimately combined in a crystalline rock, and not in any degree sedimentary or sand-like, as it is in the lower layers of the cliff stratum.

The upper layer of the flinty limestone is peculiarly marked. It is about one foot thick, and contains so much silex that it has the sharp con- choidal or flinty fracture, and gives fire with steel. In some places it is "crackeled," or broken into small triangular and diamond-shaped blocks, by vertical fractures or seams. In other places it occurs in large slabs and would be useful as a building stone. It is hard, but breaks or "spalls" easily. Nothing could be better for macadamizing than this rock. It is harder than the blue limestone and contains lime enough to form a final cement after packing. It is feebly effervescent, contains iron, is of a reddish or brown color outside, but has a pale or opal-like blue when freely fractured. No rock in our part of the country is more duable. In the cliffs where it has been exposed for ages it is not in the least weathered, but retains perfectly its sharp edges and angles. I have met with it at every point where the channels have been deep enough to reach it. [On the right bank of Lick Fork at the "old deer lick" nearly the whole of this stratum is exposed. The salt at "the lick" is not table salt but an epsom salt, sulphate of magnesia .- ED.]

GREEN BURRH STONE is a "calcareo-silicious rock," occurring in de- tached semi-nodular masses, immediately on top of the flinty stratum, not general, but only locally presented. It is compact and flinty, of an agree- able apple-green color, rough and cellular, often containing liquid bitu- men, white crystals of carbonate of lime and some fossils. It is to be seen in the greatest perfection on the descent into Soldier's Run, just above the site of Groom's old mill. It is said to equal the Raccoon burrh stone.

INFERIOR MARL STRATUM (25 feet thick) is the common blue clay marl, and has nothing peculiar, except at "the lick" it includes a thin slaty layer of bluish limestone, similar to that in the great marl deposit, except the stem-like bodies are on the under side of it, and two or three inches in diameter.

THE BLUE LIMESTONE, of indefinite thickness, with its characteristic fossils, commences in the bed of Lick Fork, within a mile below "the lick." Two peculiar subjects which occur in it below Treber's, and about fifty feet below the top of its stratification, claim our attention. These are a peculiar waved stratum, and a large species of trilobite. The waved strata occur in the cliff, the flinty and in the blue limestone; the under side is flat and smooth; the upper is fluted in long troughs two to three feet wide, called "ripple marks." The trilobite found was the isotelus maximus and measured twenty-one inches in length.

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

Bald Hill and Cave Hill.

These are "outliers" of the cliff limestone similar to that of West Union, and lie to the north and west of it. In altitude, as they are in "a direction from West Union directly opposite to the "dip," they are higher than West Union; Bald Hill about fifty feet and Cave Hill one hundred feet. Bald Hill is quite an insulated elevation and would be an excellent observatory in a trigonometrical survey of the country. [Cave Hill was the location of one of the stations in the late geodetic survey by the general government .- ED. ]

Split Rock Hill.

This elevation is on Ohio Brush Greek near "Old Forge Dam," The ascent was made in company with Mr. John Fisher, and the section was found to be almost identical with that at West Union except that the little marl deposit seemed to be encroached upon by stone, and slate caps the top of the hill as an outlier.

'The following are the heights of the several points indicated by the barometer :

Mr. Fisher's house [in bottom at the old forge] above low water mark at Cincinnati. 82 feet.

Top of the blue limestone. . 100 feet.

Top of the flinty limestone. 189 feet.

Bottom of the cliff limestone. 327 feet.

Top of cliff. 465 feet.

Top of the hill. 524 feet.

The great marl deposit here which seems to be thickened to 136 feet, presents a broad slope of "coveland" on the hillside covered with a fine growth of sugar trees. A narrow spur of the cliff about three-fourths of a mile southeast of the forge forms an insulated and almost inaccessible rock, which is quite a curiosity. It is fifty-three feet high, presenting a level terrace on the top ninety-two feet by thirty-six feet. The upper part of it is a tolerably pure limestone, the lower part is a loose arenaceous limestone filled with large corallines, and disintegrating by atmospheric agency, has been reduced ten to twenty feet in width, leaving the upper portion standing like a head on a small neck. Three sides of this are overhanging and inaccessible. At the fourth side it has been split from the contiguous hill, and the cliff has opened about two feet, from which circumstance I gave it the name "Split Rock." It is remarkable that though thus insulated and scarcely covered with soil, the flat top bears a great number of herbs and small trees. I made a catalogue of what I saw there: Red oak, black oak, chestnut oak, cedar, pine, ash, sycamore, water maple, box-elder, red-bud, butternut, hazel, hornbean, hydrangea, sumac, three-leaved sumac, Juneberry, mullein, balm, sandwort, yellow flax, sassafras, grass-four species, soxifrage, white plantain, columbine, eupatonium, ferns-four species, hounds- tounge, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, huckleberry, cinquefoil, thistle, garlic. It is evident that Split Rock is concave and contains a reservoir of water to which the roots of the plants descend. Immediately above

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GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY

Split Rock and beyond the cliff, commences a gradual swell of soil formed by the disintegration of slate, and produces cedar, pine, and chestnut oak, which last tree, in this vicinity, furnishes the tanner's bark.

Furnace Hill Near Brush Creek Furnace.

In company with Mr. John Fisher and Mr. James K. Stewart, pro- prietors of the furnace, we ascended to the southeast, and presently came to the slate or shale formations. The rock does not crop out but exfoliated masses of slate appear in the soil in scales one to two inches in diameter, and perhaps an eighth of an inch in thickness. Undershrubs became abundant. I was forcibly reminded of the origin of the name of the con- tiguous stream [Brush Creek]. The huckleberry bushes with ripe fruit abounded in the open places. Among other trees, the chestnut begins to show itself, which is, I believe, scarcely seen to grow in the limestone regions. After ascending several sharp acclivities, one of thirty degrees and another of thirty-five, we came to the fine-grained [Waverly] sand- stone, where it had been quarried for furnace hearthstones, in a stratum three feet thick. This point is 707 feet above low water at Cincinnati. Ascending still further, we came to the top of the hill, where the barometer stood 28.596 inches and the thermometer registered 61 degrees F., a cool place for 10 A. M., July 12. This would give a height of 797 feet. The top of this hill is a level terrace of several acres having a deep rich soil, and producing a heavy growth of timber. It divides the water between Cedar Run and Scioto Brush Creek. On descending we saw abundance of game, squirrels, rabbits, and wild turkeys, and I was told that deer were not uncommon.

Observations, Northwestern Part of the County.

From Sample's Tavern at the "crossing" of Brush Creek, nine miles from West Union, the ascent to Jacksonville presents a section almost identical with that at West Union :

From the water to the bottom of the flint limestone is ... 58 feet.

Flint limestone, 51 feet thick. 109 feet.

Top of marl, 96 feet thick. . 205 feet. Jacksonville 281 feet.

The bed of Brush Creek is then twenty-five to thirty feet in the blue limestone, and Jacksonville near the top of the cliff limestone. The surface of the country from Brush Creek Furnace to the Steam Furnace, and from Jacksonville to Locust Grove, lies on the cliff limestone, is nearly level, with a thin soil, often ash-colored or almost white, producing naturally white oaks. With good management it produces wheat, but some of it needs more nursing than it is likely to receive. The cliff stone in these places is more porous and arenaceous than elsewhere, and at Locust Grove it has disintegrated into a kind of sand and gravel through which a plow may sometimes be driven. From Jacksonville to Locust Grove, the stone, in its out-croppings, exhibits numerous nodules of sparry

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

crystals which treasure hunters have christened "silver blossom," and have wasted valuable time in useless and absurd explorations. These sparry nodules sometimes graduate or blend into a black substance, which gives opacity, and the spar adds luster till there is an appearance quite like Galena or lead ore. This has served still further to excite the imagination of dreamers.

Examination at the Steam Furnace.

The stream on which the furnace stands is small, but yet has cut a deep channel in the rocks; and falling rapidly below the furnace, presents within one-fourth of a mile vertical cliffs, seventy feet to one hundred feet high. At the point where it has cut quite through the cliff and makes its bed in the great marl stratum, the channel opens on the left into a slope of thirty degrees, while the cliff is vertical or even overhanging on the opposite side. The slope on the left is formed by the surface of the marl, which having no other solid materials than the thin slaty limestone which traverses it remotely, will not lie steeper than thirty degrees or five feet of an elevation in ten. The continued rains of a wet season had so softened the soil on the slope, which does not permit the water to sink away, that with all its load of trees, rocks and springs, it had slidden into the stream below, leaving the grooved blue clay marl bald for 100 feet in length up and down the slope and 200 or 300 feet wide.

The Turk's Head.

As this marl stratum extends over the whole of the eastern and middle parts of the county, it presents in the valleys of the streams peculiar slopes commencing immediately under the cliffs, where they abound with copious cool springs.' Having a large portion of lime in its composition, it communicates great fertility to the soil. It has already been noticed that such lands are called "coves lands." If this marl were dug out and applied to the poor soil on the terrace of the cliff rocks, it would undoubtedly fertilize it. The bluff opposite to this avalanche, is a picturesque object, and its outline near the top resembles the profile of a Turk, and is called the "Turk's Head."

The rocks through this ravine are all feebly effervescent. The lower portion, about twenty feet thick, is a tolerably quarry stone, and works like a sandstone. The middle portion, fifteen or twenty feet thick, is slaty in structure, but still contains lime. The remainder, sixty or seventy feet, is a ragged nodular rock, including the ore beds.

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A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth, Part 2

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan Publication date: 1900 Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers Number of Pages: 1101

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101