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 3
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Grassy Hill.
We made our approach to the hill one and one-half miles east of the furnace over an old road, and first passed over the common oak terrace of the cliff limestone. Gradually ascending we came to the huckleberry bushes and the chestnut trees, sure signs of the slate region, and finally, leaving the beaten path, we entered the "tangled thicket," to ascend the sides of the terminal cone of the knob, where we learned practically the origin of the name Brush Creek; for the brush was not merely close set,
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TWIN ROCKS, CEDAR FORK, MEIGS TOWNSHIP
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GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY
but numerous grapevines passing from one young chestnut to another, horizontally, disputed every rod of our pass. On the slope sides was abundance of a broad-leaved, cutting grass (andropogon) and a fern (osmunda) both indicative of a wet soil. We finally arrived at the top, which is a terrace 200 feet wide and 1,000 feet long, nearly destitute of trees but covered with grass and copsewood. The height obtained, barometically, was 735 feet above low water at Cincinnati. The top is within the fine sandstone region, but that rock does not appear in place, or in regular layers. Fragments of it are abundant, some of them bright red, and so much rolled down the slopes that I was unable to determine where the slate commences.
Valley of Scioto Brush Creek.
Ascending from the waters of Crooked Creek at Locust Grove, we reached the summit between it and the waters of Scioto Brush Creek within a half mile. From this point the knobs or slate hills, capped with fine sandstone, are seen eastwardly ranging north and south to an in- definite distance. Our first view of Scioto Brush Creek showed it in a deep channel in the cliff rock surmounted with cedars. So firm and thick is that stone in this place that it sustains itself in overhanging cliffs, pro- jecting over the water in places twenty feet. On the slopes of the hills the stones have the form of stairs, with an occasional rise of twenty inches. At Smalley's, about six miles from Locust Grove, the cliff limestone is covered by a slate hill, and sinking still deeper and deeper as it proceeds on its line of the dip, disappears altogether beneath the surface a short dis- tance to the eastward. Even above or west of Smalley's, on the north side of the creek, the slate shows itself in a bald or perpendicular side or mural escarpment of a knob.
Sulphur and Chalybeate Springs.
It is at the junction of the slate and limestone that the sulphurous and chalybeate springs make their appearance. At Smalley's and just above the level of the contiguous stream, and a few feet below the top of the lime- stone, is a spring discharging about fifty gallons of water per minute, at the temperature of fifty-four degrees, and known in the vicinity as the "Big Spring." About ten feet above the spring commences the slate and rises into a mountain capped with sandstone, fragments of which have rolled to the base. There is about ten feet of clay between the limestone and the slate. Along the base of this hill and at the margin of the fork, the sulphur springs appear for a quarter of a mile. They are highly im- pregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, having the foeted smell, the naus- eous taste, the black mud and the milky precipitate on the waters.
The Slate on South Fork.
It stands often in cliffs 100 feet in height. It is separable into very fine plates and would seem to be fit for roofing but unfortunately on ex- posure it crumbles. It is very bituminous, and when heated will burn
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
with a bright flame. Sometimes the slate banks ignite and burn for sev- eral days, but in general it will not support its own combustion. There is no workable coal in the slate stratum. it contains sulphuret of iron both in brassy and silver nodules, and imperceptibly blended with the slate itself. This decomposing, forms copperas and alum which effloresce in the clefts of the rocks, and by solution, form chalybeate water. The slate also includes septaria ludus helmontii, or large rounded masses of impure blue limestone, often a little flattened and cleft, the interior being filled with sparry crystals of carbonate of lime, or sulphate of baryta.
About one-fourth of a mile below John Williams', the nodules or sep- taria of limestone assume the form of globes either perfect or a little flat- tened, and are singularly marked with parallels and meridians, like the lines of latitude and longitude on an artificial globe. One, three feet in diameter, lies at the water's edge broken into two hemispheres; another, nine feet in circumference, lies in situs half raised above the water in the middle of the stream, with its axis nearly perpendicular. The equatorial part of this globe is raised like the rings of Saturn. Two others are in the vertical bank twenty feet above the water, one of which is not a per- fect globe, but a double conoid.
The Fine-Grained Sandstone at Rockville.
This is a fine building stone. It is procured from Waverly, Rockville, and several localities. As a building stone it is not surpassed in the world. The grain is so exceedingly fine that it appears when smoothed almost compact. Its color is a drab and very uniform, varied occasionally by iron stains Its fracture is dull and earthy, but so fine and soft as to have a peculiarly velvety appearance. It works freely and generally endures atmospheric agencies with little change, except it blackens somewhat from a decomposition of sulphuret of iron intimately blended with it. It en- dures the fire and answers well for the hearthstones of furnaces. Its sub- stance is chiefly an aluminous and silicious deposit almost wholly destitute of any calcareous matter. It lies in layers or strata nearly horizontal and varying in thickness from a few inches to three or four feet, separated mostly by simple joints or seams, having a little clay in them ; sometimes by a stratum of clay, and in two places traversed by a shiale or soft slate fifteen feet thick.
Heights Above Low Water at Cincinnati.
Top of the slate. 261 feet.
White ledge 344 feet.
City ledge. 410 feet.
Beautiful quarry 465 feet.
Iron stratum
517 feet.
Top of the hill
542 feet.
Vicinity of Locust Grove.
Locust Grove occupies the cliff limestone at a lower level than its top. The region to the north and east of it seems to have sunk from 200 to 400 feet, thus making the slate and sandstone occupy the level of the marl and
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GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY
cliff limestone in the outlying region. The channel of Crooked Creek in the vicinity of *Massie's Spring is not in the great marl stratum. Its place seems to be occupied by thin layers of limestone. Near the spring the level of the cliff limestone is occupied by sandstone in large upturned and broken masses, from which it is evident that a region of no small extent had sunk down several hundred feet, producing faults, dislocations, and upturnings of the layers of rocks. The spring is an excellent sulphuretted water; on the west side of it is a gray limestone, the cliff rising about fifteen feet, while on the opposite side of it is slate dipping thirty degrees to the east.
Sunken Mountain.
To the east of Massie's Spring lies a sandstone hill beyond and at the foot of which is Mershon's sulphur spring. Here the slate again is exposed but dips in a direction opposite to that at Massie's Spring. As the top of the slate is found here more than 300 feet lower than in the strata in situs in the surrounding knobs, and as these strata are broken and upturned, it is evident that this mountain, at some remote period of time, sank down from its original place. At Mershon's Spring are found the ludus hel- montii or septaria of the slate.
Pine Hill.
lies to the east of Locust Grove about two miles. Its top is capped with sandstone, and its height above low water mark at Cincinnati is 679 feet.
Rocks and Earths.
Blue limestone; clay marl; flinty limestone; sandy limestone; cal- careous spar or clear, glass-like crystals of limestone ; hydraulic limestone, being a compound lime, clay, fine sand and iron ; quartz crystals which will scratch glass ; chert or flinty nodules, often broken into sharp fragments; sulphate of lime, gypsum; sulphate of baryta; slate or shale; clay; sand- stone; red ochre ; bright yellow ochre.
Ores.
Iron ore, limited.
Iron pyrites (fool's gold), abundant.
Soluble Salts.
Epsom salts. Alum. Copperas. Common salt, very sparing.
Combustibles.
Petroleum, or rock oil. Bitumen, in the rocks. Sulphur in the sulphur springs. Sulphuretted hydrogen.
* This spring was formerly the property of General Massie and he errected a bath house and other buildings there in order to make it a convenient "watering place." It was known as the "Red Sulphur Spring."
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CHAPTER III.
THE MOUND BUILDERS
The Great Serpent Mound-Old Stone Fort-Explorations of the Valley of Brush Creek. :
.
Scattered over the vast extent of territory stretching from the Alle- ghanies on the east to the Rockies on the west, and extending from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, are landmarks of an ancient people once inhabitants of this region, and whom, we, for the want of a more specific term, call the Mound Builders Whence they came is enveloped in impenetrable mystery. Some have supposed them to be the lost tribes of Israel, which hardly deserves passing notice. Others, and there is much to sustain the theory, suppose them to be of Mexican origin, having pushed gradually to the northward, where, in time, they were assailed by invaders from the northwest, who perhaps came from Asia when that continent was united in the region of Alaska to America, and who by reason of superior numbers or more warlike natures swept these people in turn back to the southward.
At what period of time these people flourished, or when they ceased to be, is problematical. The Indians had no tradition concerning them, In fact, it is very generally believed by those who have investigated the matter, that there was at least one intervening race of inhabitants in the Mississippi Valley prior to the advent of the Indians and following the dis- appearance of the Mound Builders. We refer to "The Villagers" who formed the "garden beds" found in northern Indiana, southern Michigan and lower Missouri. These "beds" are laid out with great order and sym- metry and do not belong to any recognized system of horticulture. They are in the richest soils and occupy from ten acres to three hundred acres each. That they are the work of a race succeeding the Mound Builders, is evidenced by the fact, that some of these "garden beds" extend over mounds which certainly would not have been permitted by their builders. Again the formation of these "beds" cannot be ascribed to the Indians for no such system of cultivating grain or plant foods was practiced by them.
And again, when the white man's attention was first called to the num- erous mounds and enclosures in the Ohio Valley as being the work of an extinct race, it was observed that forest growths over these works were of the same species as those in the outlying regions, which would prove the great antiquity of these structures. It is well known to persons skilled in woodcraft that several generations of trees must come and go before bar- ren soils will produce the variety and kinds of the virgin forest. As an il- lustration, the writer observed that the "old coalings" in the vicinity of Marble Furnace in Adams County, are covered with a dense growth of red
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THE MOUND BUILDERS
oak saplings while the virgin forest consisted of ash, white oak, chestnut oak, hickory and black maple. On some of these mounds, as for instance, one at Marietta, Ohio, stood trees showing eight hundred annual growths. When Squier and Davis made their surveys of the mounds of Ohio, in 1846, it is noted that a chestnut tree measuring twenty-one feet in circum- ference, and an oak twenty-three feet in circumference grew on the walls of "Fort Hill" in Highland County, in the vicinity of Sinking Springs. From calculations based on periodical deposits of sediment at the mouth of the Mississippi, and the supposition that the mounds now existing along its lower course were originally built near the mouth of the river, it is as- certained that these works were erected from ten to thirty centuries ago. But whatever time may have elapsed since the Mound Builders inhabited this region, it is nevertheless an undisputed fact that such a people once had their abodes here, and that they were a race distinct from the aborig- ines of whom we know something definite. They have left no written history to tell the story of their existence, but instead imperishable me- mentos in the form of mounds, enclosures, effigies, stone implements, and so forth.
In all the vast region inhabited by the Mound Builders, to the arch- aeologist, the territory comprised within the state of Ohio is one of the most interesting sections. Within the limits of the state there are not fewer than ten thousand mound and one thousand five hundred circum- vallations or enclosures. These works are found in three great groups: the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the Miami Valleys respectively. Along each of these are groups of mounds marking prominent settlements of this prehistoric race. And it is a singular fact, and one of the strongest to prove that these people were an agricultural race, that all the principal cities and towns of this state are upon the very grounds marked out as the villages and towns of the Mound Builders. The same advantages as to location from an agricultural and commercial point of view noted by the present Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, were observed by the Mound Builders centuries ago. Marietta, Portsmouth, Chillicothe, Circleville, Newark, Springfield, Hamilton, and Cincinnati are marked examples of this.
All the monuments of this people in this state, may be classed under two general heads, mounds and enclosures, with three marked exceptions, viz .: the Whittlesey Effigy Mound, the Alligator Mound and the Great Serpent Mound. It is to the last mentioned effigy that the writer desires to call special attention.
The Great Serpent Mound.
Although the Serpent Mound is well known to archaeologists of both the old and the new world, yet until very recently there were many intel- ligent persons in the county wherein it is located who scarcely knew of its existence. When the writer first visited the Serpent Mound in 1883, he was astonished to learn from a gentleman of fair intelligence who had lived in the vicinity from childhood, that he had not seen the mound for over twenty years. This was the more surprising from the fact that scientific gentlemen from Europe had but a short time previous, spent several weeks in platting, photographing, and investigating this wonderful effigy; and that Prof. F. W. Putnam, in behalf of the Peabody Museum, of Cam-
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
bridge, Massachusetts, was then, in company with other prominent arch- aeologists, on the grounds studying the design and features of the mound. But this only confirms what is too often true, that familiarity destroys re- spect and reverence for what is sacred or venerable.
The Great Serpent Mound is located on the east fork of Ohio Brush Creek, in Bratton Township, in the extreme northern portion of Adams County, within sight of the little hamlet of Loudon (Lovett P. O.) and about seven miles from the town of Peebles on the line of the Cincinnati, Portsmouth and Virginia Railroad It lies along the crest of a narrow spur-like ridge rising in its highest part to an altitude of one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the waters of Brush Creek which washes its western base. On the east, this ridge is cut by a narrow ravine which deepens and widens as it nears the creek to the north of the serpent's head. The ridge projects from the high table lands on the east of Brush Creek, and slopes gently down to a narrow, projecting bluff, something more than eighty feet high, overlooking the fertile bottom lands of the creek, both up and down the valley, and giving a commanding view of a broad expanse of country for miles in front and to the northward. The spur-like ridge along the crest of which the Serpent lies, is crescent-shaped, its con- cave side bordering on the creek. Along this western side of the ridge, its entire length, as also to the front and right of the serpent's head, the walls are almost vertical. About midway from where the ridge joins the table lands at the south of the triple coil of the serpent's tail as shown in the engraving, and the bluff at the north of its head, there is a considerable depression extending across the ridge from east to west.
Beginning in a triple coil of the tail on the highest portion of this ridge, the Great Serpent lies extended in beautiful folds down along the crest ; curving gracefully over the depression in the ridge, it winds in nat- ural folds up and along the narrow ledge, with head and neck stretched out, serpent-like, on the high and precipitous bluff, overlooking the creek and country beyond. Just to the north of the serpent's head, and partly within its extended jaws, is an oval or egg-shaped figure, eighty-six feet long and about thirty feet wide at its middle, surrounded by an embank- ment from two to three feet high and about twenty feet wide. A little to the north of the center of the egg-shaped figure is a pile of stones showing plainly marks of fire ; and some have supposed here once to have been an altar about which a benighted people performed the mystic rites of their religion.
Prof. McLean, author of several popular works on archaeology, dis- covered that there are two other crescent-shaped elevations between the precipice and the north extremity of the egg-shaped figure, extending nearly parallel with the curves forming the north extremity of the oval, which he thinks are intended to represent the hind legs of a frog leaping from the precipice to the creek below. It is his theory that the frog, the oval, and the serpent are symbolical of the three forces in Nature: the creative, the productive, and the destructive; the frog representative of the first ; the oval, an egg emitted by it as it leaps from the precipice to the creek below, the second; and the serpent in the act of swallowing the egg. the third.
The Great Serpent is the only effigy mound of its kind in North Amer- ica. It differs in its structure, also, from the various effigies in Wisconsin,
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THE MOUND BUILDERS
its base being formed of stones, and the body of the work of clay and sur- face soil. The entire length of the serpent, following its convolutions, is thirteen hundred and thirty-five feet. Its width at the largest portion of the body is twenty feet. At the tail the width is no more than four or five feet. Here the height is from three to four feet which increases towards the center of the body to a height of from five to six feet. The total length of the entire work from the north end of the oval to the end of the tail of the serpent following its convolutions, is fourteen hundred and fifteen feet, and the average height is about four feet. A recent writer says:
"Persistent explorations of the mound and its immediate vicinity have resulted in many important discoveries, which have opened the field to conclusions of widespread interest. The mound is a voiceless evidence of the fact that certain forms of worship in all parts of the world were identical in prehistoric times, and from this some have come to the conclu- sion that the human race was everywhere alike in its earlier forms of de- velopment. Other scientists have reasoned, however, not that the race was one great family, undivided into tribes in that distant age, but that the different tribes touched elbows in some things. The form of the mound and the discoveries made under the soil of modern formation have led to the conclusion that the race known as the Mound Builders were addicted to the terrible worship of the serpent, of which little is positively known, and much is guessed. That human sacrifice formed a part of the rites of this worship seems certain from the evidence gained by a study of the mound.
"How many centuries ago it was built will never be known until the great day when all earth's secrets are opened. The explorations have shown, however, that there are three strata of soil. First comes the super- imposed layer of black soil composed of vegetable mold, which has been deposited since the erection of the mound. Second is the yellow clay of which the mound was built, and which was apparently carried from three pits in the near vicinity. Third is the grayish clay of the foundation. Evidently the soil, whatever there may have been at that time, had been cleared away until this clay was reached. Upon it huge stones had been carried with infinite labor from the bed of Brush Creek, far below, to form a foundation. This preserved it against the wash of rains, and upon this foundation the mound was built, of yellow clay, mixed in some places with ashes. The egg-shaped mound within the jaws of the serpent, is an oval, of which the walls are four feet high and eighteen feet wide. The oval itself is 120 by 60 feet. In the pit, in the center of the egg, the ancient altar was placed.
'Some of its fire-blackened stones are still there. Within the memory of men still living it was quite an imposing structure. The myth that treasure was buried in this ancient cairn had firm hold on the pioneers, however, and years ago the altar was torn down, in a vain search for gold and precious stones. So far as possible it has been restored.
"The mound itself is built as all other serpent mounds are, no matter in what country. The head of the serpent, containing the altar, is on a high bluff overlooking Brush Creek. The first rays of the Sun God fell first upon this altar, and from it, far below, the priests of the ancient faith could see the *three forks of the river. This trinity, whether it be three
* Baker's, Middle and West. See Bratton Township.
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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY
rivers or three mountains, is always to be seen from an altar of the ser- pent worshipers, and is always unmistakable. The altar is invariably placed in the one spot from which the trinity may be seen. It is always placed where the first rays of the rising sun may fall upon it. From the eighboring lands the awe-struck worshipers of old might see the priests perform their fearsome rites and watch the victim of the stone knives gasp out his last breath as the first tongue of flame licked at his still quiver- ing flesh. Just what these rites were will never be known, in all prob- ability. But that fire and knife played a part in them can hardly be doubted from the mute witnesses found by modern searchers.
"That the spot was revered as a shrine is certain from the character of the remains found near it. Hardly a square yard of the surrounding territory is there that did not at one time hold a grave. The interments were evidently made with ceremonies of some nature. Ashes are fre- quently found in the graves though this is not often an indication of cre- mation. The human bones found are not calcined by fire. The ashes are rather to be considered as the scrapings from the hearth desolated by the death of its protector. In them are found stone and bone weapons and ornaments and occasionally plates of native copper, rudely hammered out, or crystals of lead ore fashioned into rude ornaments. Smelting was not known then, and stone hammers took the place of the rolling mills of today.
"From the position of these copper ornaments, they were evidently head and breast plate, probably burnished. They are in very rare in- stances of sufficient size to be considered as an early attempt at body armor. Flint knives of considerable elegance and of presumable utility are to be found in abundance, together with weapons in the process of making, and the stone shapers and grinders by which the weapons were made. In one or two instances these stone knives have been found in such position as to inevitably lead to the conclusion that they were lodged in the body at the time of interment. Whether they were placed there before or after death is mere conjecture. In the ashes of the graves remains of rude pottery are also to be found.
"From a careful inspection of the Serpent Mound, and an exploration of the graves and mound itself, scientists have formed several interesting conclusions. First, that the mound, corresponding as it does exactly in type with similar serpent mounds found in Asia, Africa and Europe, Central America, Peru and Mexico, points to the dissemination of serpent worship at one time over the then habitable world. Whether these mounds are of approximately the same date, or belong to different epochs, is yet debatable. That they belong to the same form of worship is indisputable. Human sacrifice is pointed at by the fire-blackened altars. The worship of the snake still exists among the Zunis and Moquis of our own country, though the more bloodthirsty portion of the rites is now omitted. All evidence points to such sacrifice at no distant date among them, however.
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