Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Bert S. Bartlow, W. H. Todhunter, Stephen D. Cone, Joseph J. Pater, Frederick Schneider, and others
Publication date: 1905
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1149

USA > Ohio > Butler County > Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio > Part 4

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It is to be noticed that the bedded rock has been cut out to a greater depth than ex- isting agencies can account for throughout most of the area of the Miami valley. The rocky floor is very seldom laid bare by the river, and is as seldom struck in any exca- vations or borings that are made in the val- ley.

The valley is filled with immense accu- mulations of gravel and bowlders. These gravel beds undoubtedly overlie deposits of bowlder clay in many parts of the valley. Indeed. these deposits are occasionally, though rarely, struck in wells and similar excavations, and sometimes they even ap- proach very near the surface. The gravel is of various sorts and sizes, and indicates

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various degrees of strength in the currents that have transported it. Large quantities of sand are scattered through it. In compo- sition it is principally limestone, thus agree- ing with the pebbles and bowlders that fill the drift clays of the country; but, unlike the true drift pebbles, it has lost the marks of the previous stage in its history, the shap- ing which it received under the glacial sheet. Its pebbles no longer show the polish and striation due to this stage, but, on the other hand, bear unmistakable marks of having been fashioned in running water.

The gravel beds are in all cases covered with considerable deposits of loam and sand. which form the present sources of the val- ley. These deposits are arranged in three natural and well-marked divisions, the first bottoms, the second bottoms, and the gravel terraces, sometimes called the third bottoms. Of this series, contrary to the general order in geology, the lowest member, the first bot- toms, is the newest, and the highest member. the gravel terraces, is the oldest. In other words, the first and second bottoms do not extend beneath the gravel terraces, and con- sequently do not result from the denudation of portions of the valley. The gravel ter- races are at least one hundred feet above low water of the river now. They are generally left in small and isolated fragments on the margins of the valleys, but sometimes they are found to hold considerable areas. In the vicinity of the village of Trenton they can be seen and studied to considerable advant- age, as also in the vicinity of Poast-town. on the Banker and Lucas farms.

To follow their history we must go back to the Champlain epoch of geology-to the period of submergence that followed the glacial period. The level of this portion of

the country was at that time four hundred feet lower than at present. Stratified depos- its, on a large scale, of sand, gravel. and clay are found four hundred feet above the present drainage of the country. At the period of greatest submergence there could have been little or no current throughout the valley, but during the slow advancing movement of depression the valley was filled with immense accumulations of rearranged drift. We may suppose. then, that the gravel terraces are a part of the old floor of the valley, and that they once extended with a degree of uniformity throughout the wide basins in which we find the remnants of them today. As the continent emerged once more and slowly re- gained its present elevation, the river chan- nels would be cut deeper and deeper into these deposits, the former surfaces of which would be left one hundred feet or more above the present river beds.

Little needs to be said in regard to their composition, as the name by which these de- posits are known, the gravel terraces, indi- cates the main element in their making up. Gravel. sand and loam. variously intermin- gled. constitute the whole series. The sort- ing and arranging of materials could only have been accomplished in long extended portions of time. There are no indications of tumultuous deposition in any portion of the series. . The soils formed from the weathering and decomposition of the sur- faces of these beds are kind and productive.

The second bottoms, like the terraces. must be referred to causes and conditions not now existing in the valley. They lie above the reach of the highest floods. being thirty feet or more above low water in the main valley. They consist of loams from

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two to six feet in thickness, overlying gravel. They seem to owe their origin to an arrest of the upward movement of the continent. which continued for a considerable period.

The first bottoms are the most recent of the series. They are, indeed, very closely connected with the present state of things. They occupy the deeper part of the valley, and are covered by all of the higher floods. To these floods they owe their origin in part, being made up of the sediments de- posited from high water. An arenaceous deposit filled with land shells is a common and characteristic member of the formation. The shells must have mainly grown upon the regions where we now find them, and were buried by the deposits of annual floods. The clearing of the valleys and their drain- age basin has introduced many elements of change, and the formation of these bottom lands may almost be said to have been inter- rupted. This sandy bed, to which refer- ence has been made, is akin in composition and character to the loess of European geol- ogists. An excellent example of the forma- tion may be seen on the river banks within the limits of the village of Middletown.

Butler county, says Professor Orton, stands scarcely second in productive power to any equal area in the state. No qualifica- tion certainly would be required if the val- ley of the Great Miami and that portion of the county lying east of the river were alone to be taken into account. This region might put in an unquestioned claim to be styled the garden of Ohio. It is made up of the broad and fertile intervales of the streams that now traverse the valleys or of the still more desirable areas that were the valleys of an earlier epoch, but which are now deserted by streams, and which are evenly filled with

the beds of the Jater drift, together with up- lands rising by gentle slopes to an altitude of four to five hundred feet above the river, and whose surfaces are hardly less produc- tive than the areas first named.

The soil of all this district consists, in great measure, of decomposed limestone gravel, and exhibits every excellence of lime- stone land. A single area may be noted here as furnishing a unique line of facts in the native vegetation of the county. . 1 chestnut grove is to be found in the south- east corner of Union township, in section 14. It is well known that the chestnut confines itself generally to the slate and sandstone soils of the county. Indeed. the boundary between the slates and the lime- stones in southwestern Ohio could be de- fined with satisfactory precision by noting the line where the chestnuts begin as one passes eastward. Isolated trees are known in the gravels and sands of limestone dis- tricts. it is true, but they are very rare. Dr. John A. Warder has called attention to one growing near Milford, in the Little Miami valley, and another is known in Greene county, but in the area to which attention is now invited a forest growth in which the chestnut is a large element is found. The trees have attained a diameter of four feet in some instances, and in others stumps, long (lead, are seen with large trees growing from them. The trees fruit well here and repro- duce themselves abundantly. Chestnuts (the fruit) were sold to the amount of forty dollars from a single farm a few years ago.

The soil does not betray any peculiarities upon a superficial view, but the wells in the vicinity all show a great deposit of yellow sand beneath the surface. Many fruitless at- .tempts to secure wells in this neighborhood

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are on record, the sand proving to be a elsewhere. There is certainly no reason to quicksand, and caving in so rapidly as to suppose that the contour of the rocky floor is more irregular in one district than in an- other. What Butler county owes to the drift can be seen by comparing Liberty and Union townships of the southeastern corner with Reily and Morgan townships of the southwest. prevent the sinking of the shaft to water. It has been thought that the sand would prove to be a molding sand, but no trials of it have been made. The bed of sand is anomalous, and it is interesting to note that the native forest growth which covers it is also excep- tional. There are no peculiarities in the re- maining drift soils of the county that re- quire mention.

The poorest of them, like those covering the uplands of the northern and western townships, if handled with skill and subject- ed to a rational system of agriculture, would take high rank when compared with even the strongest lands of the Atlantic border. Measured against the fruitful valleys and slopes just mentioned, and tilled under a sys- tem which even these noble tracts can not much longer endure, they seem somewhat stubborn and sterile.

There are no native soils on the uplands of the county, but the beds of drift grow thinner as we pass to the southward, and occasionally they disappear for limited areas from the slopes of the hills. The soil that is there formed from the waste of the shales and limestones of the Cincinnati series is of unusual excellence. The famous blue grass land of Kentucky, it will be remembered, is derived from this same system.

The fact that the boundary of the drift is being rapidly neared as we approach the southern line of the county explains certain points in the topography of the four south- western townships. They are much rougher and more broken than the remaining areas. This arises from the failure of the drift to cover the irregularities here as it has done

The views furnished by the uplands, es- pecially as we approach the Great Miami valley from either side, are many of them very wide and attractive. Several can be named that are not to be surpassed in quiet pastoral beauty by anything within the lim- its of the state.

From Snively's hill, near Jacksonburg, a wide and beautiful expanse of country is shown of the main valley on the east and south, and of the valley of Seven-Mile creek on the west.

A still more commanding outlook is fur- nished on the farm of Randolph Meeker, near Pisgah. It comprises nearly one-fourth part, and that the richest corner, of Butler county.

Such elements as these are not to be overlooked in making out the catalogue of the attractions that a county possesses for human occupation.

The water supply of Butler county can not be said to be good. The geological for- mation from which the county is built is universally and necessarily poor in this re- spect. The rain-fall can not penetrate the fine grained clays of the Cincinnati series, and is consequently turned outwards in sur- face drainage. Wherever the rock is heavily covered with drift beds the supply is im- proved, both in quality and quantity; but in the thinly covered uplands reliance can not

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be safely placed on wells. There is no ex- cuse, however, for a defective supply for either man or beast in a district which has so generous a rain-fall as southern Ohio en- joys. It is only necessary to save the roof water in properly constructed and properly guarded cisterns.

The highest land in the county is not more than six hundred and fifty or six hun- dred and seventy feet above the Ohio river at Cincinnati. The highest land measured is in the western portion of Madison town- ship, the ground now owned by Hampton H. Long. Another very high spot is two miles west of Jacksonburg, Wayne township, on the farm of Colonel Phares. Its eleva- tion by barometer is six hundred and forty- two feet above the base above named. Locke gives the elevation of a point of cliff lime- stone that barely enters the county on the north line of Milford township as six hun- dred and one feet. Two miles due west of Oxford, on the Fairfield turnpike, an eleva- tion, determined by the level, occurs of six hundred and ten feet above the Ohio river at Cincinnati. The elevations of a few of the prominent points in the county are ap- pended :

Miami Canal at Hamilton above low water at Cincinnati 169

Low water of the Miami at Hamilton 131 Middletown, canal level. 211 Oxford, grade of railroad at depot. 480 Oxford, highest, ground within corporation. 532 Somerville 334 Jacksonburg 543

Phares's farm, two miles west of Jackson- burg 642 Snively's hill, one mile south of Jacksonburg. 563 Turnpike, two miles west of Oxford. 610

Northeast corner of Oxford township, on Darr- town pike (formerly Riley's tavern). 601 Miami river at Venice .. 50

THE MOUND BUILDERS. BY STEPHEN D. CONE.

While we will endeavor to give the exact facts, as they can be gleaned from authentic records, it will be sought to divest this ar- ticle of sameness by weaving in the tradi- tions which form so large a part of unwrit- ten history, in its romantic beauty not ex- celled in the stories of Homer or Virgil, tell- ing of the valor and skill of Tamenund.

He was an Indian chief, ages before Co- lumbus or Cabot made their ventures, or the Pilgrims their stormy landing on Plymouth Rock. His home was in New York state, near its central point. At first the ruler of but few tribes, his influence gradually ex- tended, and other tribes put themselves un- der his leadership, their chiefs willingly tak- ing subordinate positions. Brave in war," wise in peace, sagacious in counsel, a gener- ous foe and a trustworthy friend, it was not long until he was the acknowledged head of an Indian confederation which embraced all the tribes from the Penobscot to the Alle- gheny. A feud, of long standing, existed between the Indians east of the Alleghanies and those to the westward of the mountains. Tamenund's increasing power was viewed with apprehension by the chiefs of the Ohio, Miami and other western valleys, and a con- sultation was held which resulted in a coali- tion of all the tribes between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. The object of this com- bination was not so much defensive as offen- sive, the purpose being to so defeat Tamen- und in war as to destroy his influence with the tribes which had yielded to him alle- giance, or that possibly in the fortune of battle he might fall. For a time success fa- vored the scheme of the allies, and the over-

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throw of the great chieftain appeared inevit- able. He was driven to desperate extremi- ties, which taxed both his valor and his pru- dence. Seeing at last that he could not hope to overcome his powerful adversaries in the field of open warfare, he conceived a daring strategical plan. Leaving enough warriors in intrenched positions to defend his fron- tiers against incursions, he made his way with a large force to the region which now forms the watershed whence the Delaware and the Susquehanna flow toward the North Atlantic, and the Allegheny and Mononga- hela take their course to form the Ohio, and so to the southern gulf. These rivers had then no existence, and Tamenund's scheme was to dig immense channels in diverse di- rections. into which the waters of the northern lakes could be readily turned. While his enemies were in wonderment at his actions. his own followers were not less in the dark as to his ultimate purpose. When the work was completed, and the beds of the vast system of western rivers had been dug as we now have them, Tamenund with his army of patient toilers retraced their steps to the highlands where gather the floods which in our day roll unresisting to the seas. His adherents having been placed in posi- tions of safety, the barriers which penned the waters were broken. the wave surged down the Ohio in relentless might. a vast army gathered in the neighborhood of Cin- cinnati was overwhelmed. and Tamenund's foes were annihilated.

It is not difficult to trace in this roman- tic legend, so hastily sketched, vestiges of history. Whether the Indians are descend- ants of the ten lost tribes of Israel or not. in the above tradition there is something marvelously suggestive of the destruction

which buried the hosts of Pharaoh beneath the waters of the Red sea. The narrative preserved to us in the sacred writings ap- pears to have been no less imperishably em- balmed in the imaginative story handed down through unnumbered generations of the aborigines. A triumphal song is also spoken of as having been composed by the victorious chieftain, in which there is rude similarity to the exultant dignity with which Moses chanted-

"The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.'

"And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together. * Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea cov- ered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters."

In all this there is too much in common with the Indian legend to be merely acci- dental. Authentic history has preserved the story of a great event in one place, and tra- dition has just as certainly handed down the same story with romance added and date and scene of action changed. The fortifica- tions which exist to the present day through- out our western valleys tell a tale of fierce resistance against a powerful foe. We have evidences of this almost within the corpo- rate limits of Hamilton itself, in what is known as the "Devil's Back Bone," above the old river bridge on Campbell's Island : and while it was never built as a dam against Tamenund's loosened waters, it was doubt- less erected to break the attack of an aggres- sive northern enemy.

No territory of equal extent in the West has more frequent examples of the work done by the mound builders-than the Miami valley, and in Butler county they are espe- cially numerous. At least twenty distinct ev-

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idences of their labor are clearly traceable in this county, though possibly their exist- ence has been overlooked by even the present possessors of the land whereon they stand.

' Time and the elements have obliterated those features which centuries ago would have made these works prominent marks for the eye. It is but a few years since some very interesting ancient rock inscriptions were discovered upon the farm of J. J. Rice, in Lorain county. He had been the owner of the land twenty-five years before his at- tention was attracted by the strange hiero- glyphics, although he is spoken of as a very intelligent gentleman. The rock exposures in this instance written upon "are in the form of low flat domes, on which at the center there is no soil, the bare places em- bracing one or two square rods of surface each." It would scarcely appear possible that such palpable traces of pre-historic work could have remained so long in plain sight and yet have passed unremarked. In an- other instance near Independence, in the northern part of this state, a rock covered with drawings was disclosed while work- men were stripping the earth from a quarry. The overlying soil was from five to eight inches thick, and was composed of decayed vegetation. Directly over the markings stood a tree more than one foot in diameter. while within a few feet from the spot was an oak tree over four feet in diameter. This last instance tells a story of vast antiquity. and the two cases show clearly how the ven- erable pages of history may lie beneath our eyes either unread or unopened.

Perhaps these illustrations have little to do with the Miami valley. They are cited only to enforce the remark made above, that here in Butler county possibly the existence of relics, equally as valuable and interesting

as the Lorain and Independence ones, has been overlooked by the present possessors of the land. As stated, there are twenty clearly defined instances of mound builders' work in Butler, of which the following is a list :

I-Ross township, section 27, town 3, range 2.

2-Fairfield township, section 8, town I, range 2.

3 -- Pleasant run, section 10, town I, range 2.

4-Ross township, sections 12 and 3, town 3, range 2.

5 -- St. Clair township, sections 4 and 5, town 3, range 2.

6-Fairfield township, left bank of Mi- ami.

7-Fairfield township, section 15, town I, range 2.

8-Near Hamilton.

9-Two miles north of Hamilton.

10 -- One mile north of south line of county on the river.

11-One mile east of the above.

12-One mile north of Great Miami, and two miles above Pleasant run.

13-Fort three miles south of Hamilton. -

14-Fort six miles southwest of Hamil- ton.

15-Five miles north of Hamilton, on Seven-Mile creek.

16-Fort near Oxford.

17-Fort, west bank of Miami, four miles southwest of Hamilton.

18-Fort Somerville, sections 3 and 10, town 5, range 2.

19-Fort nine miles north of Hamilton, on Nine-Mile creek.

20 -- Southwest corner of county, section

14. town 3, range 2.

The foregoing schedule is taken from

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the report of the Ohio centennial commis- sioners, and is given in the hope that it may stimulate investigation on the part of those who now own the soil where these ancient works are located. A very few years hence, in all probability, the process of destruction will have been so far accomplished that the mute narrative will be entirely lost. Every minute fact should be now searched out and preserved ere it be too late. For many years the Egyptian inscriptions were regarded as undecipherable, whereas now the skillful archaeologist can read their,meaning and re- cord the events which they were intended to perpetuate to remote generations. So, too, with regard to the flinty writings left by this ancient people. Some one gifted with the keen sight and the instinct necessary to the task will surely be born, who will piece together the scattered fragments of a won- derfully mysterious history, and present in intelligible form that which is to us mean- ingless.

It is interesting to note in this connec- tion how, in all ages and under all condi- tions, whether civilized or uncivilized, there has ever existed in man a strong desire to be remembered by those who shall come when he is gone. He does not wish to be forgot- ten, and seeks to leave some lasting evidence that he has had an existence, even though his name should perish. With those na- tions so far advanced in art as to have writ- ten characters in which deeds may be told to posterity, this desire takes form in pyra- mids, obelisks and monuments, commemor- ating great events or reciting the virtues of those who in their time were eminent among their fellows. With the Aztec and Peruvian race, this desire took shape in massive tem- ples, blazing with a golden refulgence

scarcely less dazzling than the sun, in whose honor they were erected. The early dwell- ers in the Ohio region, devoid of a knowl- edge of letters, ignorant of mechanical pow- ers, unskilled in the secrets of the craftsman and the working of the metals, sought to hand down in burial and religious mounds the evidences that they had lived.

While the waters have worn the stones of Thebes, and the silent air has crumbled the marbles of Troy and Babylon, the rude work of the mound builders, wrought from the yielding earth which even the dew dissolves, remains to tell of their life mayhap thou- sands of years since the last of their race lay down to his last rest in these peaceful valleys. Strange that such perishable labor should so outlast that which would appear most enduring.

That this singular race had undisputed possession of the territory included in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wiscon- sin, there can be little doubt. They were probably most numerous in Ohio, however, as is indicated by a larger number of earth- works than can elsewhere be found. A marked difference is observable in the mate- rial of the relics discovered in the lake re- gions and those unearthed in Ohio. On the lake border the mound builders had vast stores of copper, easily accessible, and often to be found in solid nuggets, which a little skill combined with patience could fashion into tolerable hammers and axes. They were ignorant of smelting processes, and could not therefore use the copper ore except when it came to hand in sizes suitable to their use. It is also certain that they had no knowledge of the secret by which copper may be tempered to a hardness equal to steel -a secret known to the Peruvians, and now

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among the "Lost Arts." Had they under- stood this, they would have turned quarry- men, and left masonry instead of earth- works. Owing to the greater abundance of copper in the Lake region, a larger number of metallic relics have there been found than in Ohio. The specimens of copper utensils discovered and preserved in this state to the present time does not exceed one hundred. This remark refers to implements of a larger class, such as axes, adzes, chisels, knives and plates. Of these and like articles only seven or eight have been found in all the works of the mound builders in Butler county, and the spots where they were discovered is un- certain. Beads and small ornaments have been found in much greater abundance, and still the entire list of separate copper relics so far known in the state is less than eight hundred. If their knowledge of the work- ing of copper was imperfect, their ignorance of the working of iron was absolute, for in the Hocking valley and other iron regions of the state nodules are not infrequently found as large as the fist, which could have been put to some domestic or warlike use had not the metal been too refractory for their manipulation.

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Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Bert S. Bartlow, W. H. Todhunter, Stephen D. Cone, Joseph J. Pater, Frederick Schneider, and others Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1149

Author: Bert S. Bartlow, W. H. Todhunter, Stephen D. Cone, Joseph J. Pater, Frederick Schneider, and others
Publication date: 1905
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1149