USA > Ohio > Darke County > A pictorial outline history of Darke County, Ohio with portraits and biography of prominent citizens of the county, county and ex-county officials, attorneys at law, city officials, bankers, capitalists, business men, teachers, ministers, agriculturalists and notable citizens of the county > Part 4
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Twin creek is separated in a like manner from contiguous streams. Thus in Darke county we have the beginning of several important rivers, with their broad and fertile valleys separated by the water- sheds, also quite fertile, while the many peat bogs, the result of vast aquatic deposits have been reclaimed by artificial drainage, and are of great utility in their bountiful productions, and, we are told that that portion under which a subterranean lake is known to exist, has been reclaimed,- and is mostly under a good state of cultivation, Surely in studying the topography of a country, or in teaching pupils the idea of river systems and water-sheds, this county presents as fertile a field as the teacher can easily find.
The principal geological feature of Darke county is that of the drift period, known as the Quatenary formation: we notice this characteristic in the vast gravel-beds deposited in almost every locality in the county. These are generally composed of sand and gravel intermingled with sand and clay, the pebbles being invariably smooth, thus proving the agency of water in collecting these vast deposits; while the same being stratified or deposited in layers, give conclusive proof of the change in the swiftness of the current. These pebbles are generally of uniform size; in some banks there is a total absence of bowlders, showing a shallow sea, and the formation of what we now call a sand-bar, while in others we find large bowlders with stiriated marks indicating the iceberg as the agent at work, dropping its load of earth, gravel and rock.
The bowldeis distributed not only all over our county, but over the United States as far south as the thirty-fifth parallel, indicate, to us, the prevalence of oceanic currents, and some of these currents and moraines in this county can be distinctly traced at the present day. The composition of this rock is different from any of the formations characteristic of this locality. Their origin is located far north of here, where rock of the same composition is found in abundance, and where the destructive effects of the glacier is still plainly visible. That oceanic currents extended from these localities toward the south is proved by the direction of stiriated marks upon rocks imbedded in the cliff and mountain
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side, as well as the direction of the valley at the present time. One of these moraines extends for several miles along Greenville creek in the eastern part of the county, while another extends in a south-western direction through Adams, Van Buren and Twin townships into Preble county. This moraine is perhaps one- fourth of a mile in width, the area being literally covered with bowlders varying in size from a foot to twelve feet in diameter, are rounded, stiriated, and show plainly the grinding effect of the iceberg. For a long time this area was considered entirely useless for agricultural purposes, but the country being low, and the soil in many places exceedingly fertile, these bowlders have been used for fences, building purposes, or have been piled in heaps, so far as possible, thus rendering the area formerly occupied by them of practical benefit, while the bowlder clay gives every indication of having been formed under the great glacial . sheet which has been demonstrated to have covered the northern portion of the continent in the period preceding the present; and this plainly indicates : first, the glacial epoch, which was immediately followed by the period of icebergs.
Our county is filled with scratched and polished fragments of limestone and northern rocks, compactly laid in the dark blue . clay which characterizes the formation of this age in every part of the world where they occur. . The seams of sand and gravel interpolated in the clay doubtless result from the partial meltings of the glacial sheet in some of the milder periods of its history. The ice sheet in its southern advance must have found the face of the continent covered with a forest and other forms of vegetation. It seems certain that some remnants of the pre-glacial growth are preserved in the bowlder clay. Worn fragments of wood, at least. are often found deep in the clay, which it scems impossible to trace to any other source. To the chief facts relative to this interesting feature of the Drift formations of our county we may add that the bowlders evidently belong to the last stage of the Drift period : to the time of northern submergence which followed the close of the great ice age, as we have mentioned. They were floated by icebergs across an inland sea which covered our entire country,
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and which stretched from the high lands in the North to Southern Chio, and that they lie just where they do is accounted for in the fact that this inland sea was shallow; had its oceanic or sea currents in which the icebergs drifted toward the south, and melted and disappeared as the warm climate was reached.
We not only find the remains of vegetable life existing at this period, but animal life had reached its greatest size and strength. Many of the largest sized Pachyderms roamed over these fertile valleys, finding plenty of food in the luxuriant vegetation growing before the Glacial period; and we find their remains to-day in a high state of preservation, imbedded in these drift formations at a depth of from a few feet to twenty feet below the surface. The Glacial period must have put an end to their existence for their remains are with us, and we wonder to what class of animals they belonged and when they lived. One writer, claiming to know, says these animals lived in America seventy five years ago! Yet historic time in America runs back nearly four hundred years and neither the white settlers nor the Indians, during all these centuries, have any knowledge of its existence. Many of its remains have been found in the Miocene and up to the Pleistocene periods, which will date back, we may safely say, a half million
of years. And in this sense we can trace back the history of our county to that period when it was covered with a growth of luxuriant vegetation; when animal life had reached its largest development, and there might have been seen an animal, similar in form to the modern elephant, sixteen feet in height and twenty- six feet in length, with tusks nine feet in length, roaming about wherever its instincts led it; that this period was followed by one extremely cold, called the Glacial period, in which the entire surface of the northern part of the globe was a frozen mass, all air- breathing animals perishing from the effects of the severity of the weather; that these huge animals were frozen, and their remains were covered by the drift that followed: and we are able from these , remains to reproduce the animal in size, form and general habits of life.
In 1805 the Shumarhoff Mammoth was found at the mouth
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of the Lena river in a perfect state of preservation, having been frozen in an ice formation, being found forty fect below the top. of the bluff, and covered to that depth with alternate layers of ice and earth and gravel. One writer says that it had lain there five hundred thousand years; another, that it had undoubtedly lain there one million years. This we know: that within our own history no apparent change has taken place in the surface of our county, yet where there have been no disturbances of the surface . we find these remains imbedded in a solid layer of clay and . gravel, at a depth of five and six feet below the surface and this fact alone must convince us of the vast age of these remains. In . connection with these reniains we have the Cyathophyloid coral, the Rhynchonella Spirifer, Crinoidal stem or stone plant, that geologists class with the periods mentioned, all found in the rock formation of the Niagara group which forms our rockbed and which lies at a depth of ninety feet below the surface in this county. With this formation is found the Clinton group and the limestone rock, consisting of the common calcareous, and the magnesian limestone, which crops out at various places in the county, and which produces a lime of the very best quality. white as the snowflake, and in good demand by builders residing many miles from the county. This product, as well as the inexhaustible gravel karnes, and the deposits of the same found in the low grounds and in the beds of water courses, make it very convenient for the building of residences or the construction of macadamized roads in all parts of the county, rendering travel, and the hauling of grain to market quite easy and convenient. We will add that there is a marked peculiarity between these gravel-beds and the soil surrounding them. They are frequently met with in the midst of black bottom-land entirely distinct and dissimilar. Their compo- sition is sand, gravel and a small quantity of intermixed yellow clay. The mass, generally yellow, is at varying intervals streaked with blue, and the presence of iron and sulphur is often perceiv- able from the red-brown hue of the deposit. In many of the banks there is an absence of boulders, as has already been remarked, and the pebbles and sand are found interlocked in
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wedge-shaped layers. Among the varieties of pebbles are fint, granite, shale and luiestone Wherever fossils have been discovered they are seen to be much worn, and can scarcely be recognized. In dismissing this subject we wish to say that during the period of greatest submergence the summit of the water-shed was under water and was swept by breakers and shore waves thus forming those gravel-banks of greatest magnitude, while in other localities icebergs were stranded, and, melting, deposited their load of sand and gravel: thus forming those isolated, cone-like gravel-beds entirely separated from other formations of a similar kind.
But in examining these formations, the result of natural agencies, as is taught in the language of the rocks and webhies we are brought in contact with the various implements scattered all over the county, and which were used by a people of whose origin and history we are as ignorant as we are of the exact time when the monster elephants roamed among the primeval forests of Darke county; and because the implements found are of stone, we say they were used by the people of the "Stone Age;" because these people built tall and large earthen structures, we call them "Mound Builders." These implements, which seem to be particularly numerous in certain localities in our county, carry us in imagination back to the time when our country must have been densely populated with a race entirely ignorant of the metallic arts or the use of implements of iron and steel, with no domestic animals of burden or travel whatever, but who possessed a mechanical skill in the manufacture of these inplements and in the construction and building of their mounds, temples and earth- works. No remains of domestic animals have been found, and hence the inference is that they had none. No marks of wheeled vehicles used in the transportation of the earth and material for these mounds have been traced in any locality, and no traces even of the locality in which the dirt for these earth-works was procured, show conclusively that it must have been procured at some distance from the structure and carried to these mounds m baskets; that the immense size of these structures prove that the
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country must have been quite populous, and that the inhabitants. generally were engaged in the transportation of this material in the construction of these monuments of their industry, and that they were a peaceable and prosperous people. Whence came these "Mound Builders," and whither did they go, are questions that cannot be satisfactorily answered. They seem to have made advances far beyond the Red men inhabiting the country at the time .of its discovery by Europeans. In the northern part of North America these structures are generally truncated; but in going farther south they often assume the figure of four-sided pyramids in successive stages, with flattened tops. and often containing human remains -- the smaller structures having been used perhaps for tombs. and the larger for temples for the inhabitants. Enclosures made by them are exact circles or squares, sometimes a union of both; oscasionally they form parallelograms or follow the windings of a hill, while sometimes they assume fanciful shapes, as of men, quadrupeds, birds or serpents, delineated with some ingenuity on the surface of undulating plains or wide savannahs, and some of these inclosures cover an area of six hundred acres. The question immediately suggests itself: to what people must we ascribe these vast works? The origin of the population of America is a problem which has not yet been satisfactorily solved. It is known that in Europe man was in existence at a very remote period, and these are facts which lend some support to the view that man has also been a denizen of America for ages. We are aware that it is claimed that there have been found portions of the human skeleton and fragments of human handiwork associated with the bones of mammals (which now have no existence), under circumstances which imply great antiquity; but it certainly has not been conclusively proved that these remains are cotemporary with the remains of the animal named. That these facts, taken in connec- tion with what we learn from tradition and the history of numerous nations, as also the character of the present nations, and it is rendered highly probable that man existed in America long before the arrival of the civilized community of the Fifteenth Century ; but that by co-incidence in the degrees of civilization and the
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character of these structures in existence in both North and South America, the "Mound Builders" of Darke. county can, with consistency, be referred back to the Biblical account of the creation of the human family. Mummies found in these mounds are almost identical with the mummies of Egypt; forms of worship of some of the South American tribes are similar to that of the Hindoos; the language spoken by some of these tribes is similar to the Chinese; and while the proof is not conclusive to every mind, it certainly recognizes the declaration that God made of one blood all the nations of the Earth, and this applies equally well to the primitive inhabitants of Darke county.
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LAX'
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MURDER OF THE WILSON CHILDREN.
HE early settlers of Greenville suffered many hardships and were exposed to many dangers from 1808 to 1816. Indians were numerous; and while they were generally considered friendly, the settlers lived in constant alarm, and a ceaseless dread of treachery. and violence hung like a threatening cloud over them. There were many Indian tribes at that time friendly to the whites, and while scouts were constantly on the move and vigilant in their efforts to give the first alarm of danger, these friendly Indians were supplied with white flags, properly marked, which permitted them to pass the outposts of the whites in safety. This feeling of dread was not produced by the. acts of the Indians alone, but the whites did much to increase the anxiety and danger. At one time a party of whites discharged a volley into a body of Indians carrying one of these Hags and approaching with the utmost confidence. Two Indians were instantly killed, a third was wounded, and the rest were taken prisoners and robbed. One of the settlers, Andrew Rush, was killed by the Indians, and it was reported that a trader at Fort Recovery had been killed by his partner, but the Indians were accused of committing the crime.
Greenville was then a stockade, and in the summer of 1812 many of the men were away rendering military service to the government, and but few men remained at the fort. it is said about this time a number of white men came upon a party of Indians with their women and children. The whites treated the Indian children with cruelty, taking them by the feet and swinging
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them around their heads; and when the Indians remonstrated and asked them to desist, one man dashed out the brains of one of the children. An attempt would have been made to punish the murderer immediately, but the whites were too strong and the Indians awaited a future time in which to obtain their revenge. This time soon came. In July, 1812, Patsy and Anna Wilson, daughters of "Old Billy Wilson," and aged respectively fourteen and eight years, accompanied by their brother older than they, left the stockade in the afternoon to gather berries. The brother took a gun with him for safety as it is said that some time previous he had been chased by the Indians, and being hard pressed he took shelter behind a tree, then placed his hat on the muzzle of his gun exposed the same to the fire of the Indians, and while they stopped to load their guns he made his escane The three crossed Greenville creek near A. Kuntz's saw-mill and were picking berries under the trees when they were attacked by three Indians. The brother had left his gun near by and the three were some distance apart at the time of the surprise. Not being able to secure his gun, the brother escaped by swimming the streami. His cries and the screams of the girls attracted the attention of Abraham Scribner and William Devor, who immediately ran to the spot, but the Indians had fled, after killing the girls by blows on the head with the poll or back of their tomahawks, and scalping one of them, they not having time to scalp the other. When the help came the girl that had been scalped was already dead, the other gasped a few times after they reached ber. The dead bodies were carried into the fort and the alarm given, but the Indians escaped. Two innocent lives were; thus sacrificed in retalliation for the death of the Indian child.
The sisters were buried under the tree near where they were murdered and this was the last tragedy of those perilous times. It was not safe for Indians to show themselves in this vicinity after this atrocious butchery, and the war being carried to the north-west, followed by the treaty of 1814, left the inhabitants of Greenville in comparative safety. About the first of July, 18;).
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the remains of these two sisters were taken up and on the fourth of the same month, the "Nation's birthday," they were deposited in the Greenville cemetery with appropriate ceremonies. A large assembly of the people being in attendance to show their respect for the dead. On . the same day a large granite bowlder weighing perhaps four tons, swung under a wagon drawn by six horses, was driven into the cemetery and placed over their grave.
Here let them rest in peace, and may their monument be a constant reminder to us of the trials and dangers through which the early settlers of our peaceful city passed, and may it admonish us of the importance of properly appreciating the privileges and blessings we enjoy.
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GREENVILLE
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GREENVILLE, DARKE CO.
S has been seen, two plats were proposed as the location of the county seat, but at first no definite selection seemed to suit all the settlers One wished to locate near the present junction of the Gettysburg and Milton pikes; another suggested that it "would require at
least forty constables to keep the frogs quiet while the judge was
delivering his charge to the grand jury. Mrs. Armstrong, owning the land included in the last plat, proposed donating thirty-two of these lots to the town, provided the com- missioners would locate the county seat upon this plat. Her proposition was accepted and a deed was made to the com- missioners of Miami county (Darke had not yet a separate organization). The selection of, the above lots, it seems, was a matter finally settled by decree of the Court of Common Pleas of Miami county to which Darke was then attached, under proccedings. in partition instituted by John Devor. As a result of these pro -. ceedings the title to these lots was quieted, and on the 16th of June, 1816, the sheriff of Miami county, at a public sale in , Greenville, sold more than fifty lots then laid out to purchasers on the usual terms: one-third cash, and one-third in one and two years. Purchasers of lots generally made immediate improvements on the same, and the town thus seemed to improve permanently. The second treaty with the Indians took place at Greenville, in August. 1814. It is said that more than four thousand whites and Indians were at this treaty, the government being represented by Gens. Harrison and Cass; the Indians by their principal chiefs.
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This was the largest gathering at this town until the year 1340, when Gen. Harrison the Whig candidate for President of the United States, came to Greenville. His presence attracted people from Michigan, Kentucky and Indiana, and the entire county seemed wild with enthusiasm. His speech was characterized as an able, eloquent and statesmanlike effort in support of Republican institutions. Harrison remained several days in Greenville devoting much of his time in conversation with his visitors to personal reminiscences,. and his sociability won the esteem and confidence of all.
The contract for building the first court-house in Greenville ---- an humble frame structure-was awarded to John Craig, and the building accented by the commissioners of the county June 4th, 1824. It stood on Third street, not far from the opera-house, was twenty-two by twenty-eight feet in size and two-stories high. The second court-house was built of brick and was located on the Public square. It was built by John Craig, who built the first, and his brother James. The first one cost three hundred dollars. The first jail, a log structure, was erected on the north part of Public square by Matthias Dean, at a cost of two hundred dollars, and was paid for in county orders, that at that time would only bring sixty per cent. of their face. On Sunday morning, May 2, 1827, this jail was burned by an incendiary, and in that and the following year a new jail, built of brick, was erected on the lot not far from A. F. Koops' hardware store. Contrast the cost of the first jall with the present one: the contract for which was let in 1859 for $39,750.00; and also the first court-house with the present one which cost $170,000.00, and we may have some idea of the improvements of the county, and the accumulated wealth of its citizens. We may say in this connection that the history of Greenville commences on the 13th day of October, 1793. the date of General Wayne's arrival upon the ground; for he immedi- ately commenced building the fort, and though Fort Jefferson has a date two years prior to this, it has always been conceded that Greenville was the oldest important town and settlement in the
county, and universally admitted at that early day to be the capital of the "New County." Its centennial year is in the "Near Future;" and a monument by that time should be erected here to commemorate the historical events that have transpired within its limits. And while contemplating the vast improvements that have taken place in this county within the past century the questions may be asked: Will the next century witness the same onward progress? Will intellectual development make the same rapid strides? And will morality and all the Christian graces keep pace with the unfolding of the intellect? If so, then the future inhabitants of the county will be noted for their intelligence and Christian virtues. We hope the idea may not be visionary.
The benevolent societies are well represented in Greenville, and are doing good work. The financial condition is represented by two Building companies that have been in existence for a number of years, in addition to the established banks, and capitalists who assist in supplying the demand for money, together with the religious influence represented by the various churches, all in a flourishing condition. Of the county seat of Darke county we wish , to say, in conclusion, that Greenville is situated on the Pan Handle Railroad, about half way between Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Ind., -ninety-five miles from each, -at the crossing of the Dayton and Union Railroad, and Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad. It is situated on a bluff with Mud creek to the west, Greenville creek to the north and east, and good water is reached at a depth of twenty or thirty feet. The city covers an area of about seven hundred acres of land, and it contains a population of about 6,200 inhabitants. It contains three banks, eleven churches, three large school-buildings with seating room for 2, Soo pupils, two opera-houses, artificial gas-works, wagon-works, foundry and machine shop, tile-works, etc. The city owns a natural gas plant, of five wells, located on lands belonging to the city, and with an area of over eight hundred acres of gas lands under its control. These wells yield over 8,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day. of excellent quality, both for fuel and illuminating. Gas for fuel is
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