History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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But the most remarkable of this class of the Cincin- nati works which did not long survive the advent of the

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

white man, was the mound at the intersection of Third and Main streets, near the site of the older as well as the later First Presbyterian churches. It was the mound formerly mentioned as terminating the wall from the great ellipsis, and was one hundred and twenty feet long, sixty feet broad and eight feet high, of an oval figure, with its diameters nearly on lines connecting the oppo- site cardinal points of the compass. It was gradually destroyed at an early day by the necessity of grading Main street to reduce the difficulty of ascent from the lower plain to the higher. The strata of which it was composed, proceeding from without, were: First, a layer of loam or soil like that upon the adjacent natural sur- face. The articles found in the tumulus were a little be- low this stratum. Second, a layer of large pebbles, con- vex, like the outer one, and of uniform thickness. Lastly, gravel, considerably heaped up in the centre, and contain- ing no remains. Many interesting articles were found in the process of excavation and removal-pieces of jasper, rock crystal, granite, porphyry, and other rocks, mostly cylindrical at the extremes and increasing in diameter toward the middle, with an annular groove near one end, and all evincing much skill of the Builders in cutting and polishing the hardest rocks. Numerous other arti- cles, made of cannel coal, argillaceous earth, and bone, including the sculptured head of a bird, supposed to be intended to represent that of an eagle; bits of isinglass or mica, lead ore, and sheet copper, all supposed to be used partly for ornament and partly in religious observ- ances; with beads of bone or shell, the teeth of some carniverous animal, probably the bear, and several large marine shells; also a quantity of human bones, appar- ently belonging to twenty or thirty skeletons, were found in this work. The last mentioned remains were generally surrounded by ashes and charcoal, and sometimes were found enclosed in rude stone cists or coffins. The stra- tum above these seemed to be undisturbed, and had evi- dently been laid after the precious deposits were made. One of the old writers also mentions among the discov- eries in this mound certain other articles, "most proba- bly deposited in it after Europeans began to visit here"- as pieces of hard brown earthenware; the small image of a female holding an infant in her arms and supposed to represent the Virgin Mary, finely wrought in ivory but somewhat mutilated; and a small, complex instrument of iron, greatly corroded, and supposed to be used for weighing light articles." The last two statements are de- cidedly apocryphal, though Judge Burnet apparently gives credence to them and repeats them in his Notes.

This ancient work was noticed very early by Colonel Sargent, secretary of the Northwest Territory, in a letter from Cincinnati, dated September 8, 1794, and enclos- ing drawings of relics exhumed from a grove near the mound. His correspondent, Dr. Benjamin S. Barton, of Philadelphia, made them the theme of an elaborate let- ter to Rev. Joseph Priestly, the famous Indian theo- logian, philosopher and scientist; and the correspondence was published, with illustrations, in volumes four and five, of the transactions of one of the learned societies of the Quaker city.

A DENUDED MOUND.

In 1874 Dr. H. H. Hill discovered a cluster of an- cient graves on the extreme point of Brighton Hill, at the west end of the range of hills north of the old city, which Mr. Clarke thinks were once covered by a mound that has been in the course of the ages washed away by the rainfalls to or near the level of the original surface. Many loose stones, in groups or piles, had been long ob- served at this spot, ard had been conjectured to be the remains of an ancient stone work. The human remains were included within a circular spot about forty feet in diameter, and the bones were so greatly decomposed that they soon fell to dust. From some indications in the position of the bones there is reason to believe that Indians were buried here, as well as Mound Builders. Many teeth and tusks of animals, fragments of stag-horn, with various implements made from bone, pieces of mica, stone hammers, gorgets and pipes, spear and arrow-heads, copper and bone awls, and fragments of shells with traces of carving thereon, were also found in the burial- place. It was a very interesting find. The mound sup- posed to have stood over the remains and relics is that designated by Mr. Clarke, in a quotation we shall make hereafter, as the "Brighton Hill mound." It was also, probably, one of the series of signal-mounds in the Mill creek valley.

"DUG-HOLE."

Over half a mile north of the ellipsis, which serves as a convenient point of departure for distances to the other works, was an excavation or "dug-hole," believed to be artificial, but not apparently connected with any other work. It was nearly fifty feet in diameter at the top, as measured from the top of the circular bank formed by throwing out the earth, and almost twelve feet in depth; and was by some of the early settlers supposed to be an old, half-filled well. It probably belonged, however, to the age of the Mound Builders, and to the class of ancient remains known as "dug-holes," origin- ally intended as reservoirs for water or store houses of provision.

A SCHOLAR'S VIEW.

General W. H. Harrison, in his instructive address be- fore the Historical and Philosophical society of Ohio, in 1837, published in their transactions, and also in pamph- let form, gave the following view of the works, as they appeared in the white man's early day here:

When I first saw the upper plain on which that city stands, it was literally covered with low lines of embankments. I had the honor to attend General Wayne two years afterwards, in an excursion to examine them. We were employed the greater part of a day, in August, 1793, in doing so. The number and variety of figures in which these lines were drawn, was almost endless, and, as I have said, almost covered the plain-many so faint, indeed, as scarcely to be followed, and often for a considerable distance entirely obliterated; but, by careful examination, and following the direction, they could again be found. Now, if these lines were ever of the height of the others made by the same people (and they inust have been to have answered any valuable purpose), or unless their erection was many years anterior to the others, there must have been some other cause than the attrition of rain (for it is a dead level) to bring them down to their then state. That cause I take to have been continued cultivation; and, as the people who erected them would not themselves destroy works which had cost them so much labor, the solution of the question can only be found in the long occupancy

flere that? -13

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

and the cultivation of another people, and the probability is that that people were the conquerors of the original possessors. To the ques- tion of the fate of the former, and the cause of no recent vestige of set- tlements being found on the Ohio, I can offer only a conjecture, but one that appears to me to be far from improbable.

The general thought the occurrence of tremendous floods, like those of 1793 and 1832, might be sufficient to drive off the Builders, "not only from actual suffering, but from the suggestions of superstition ; an occurrence so unusual being construed into a warning from Heaven to seek a residence upon the smaller streams."

THE WORKS IN 1817.

Many were still remaining. Judge Burnet, writing at this time, notes them as "numerous here, and consisting of two circular banks, mounds, tumuli, etc." A house then stood at the corner of Mound and Third streets, upon the site of the tumulus there. Several streets were intersecting the remains, and they did not long thereafter maintain their ground against the march of improvement, which in time obliterated the last vestige of the monu- ments of ancient civilization, so far as the surface of the site of Cincinnati exhibited them.

THE WORKS IN 1819 AND 1825.

The maps prefixed to the first and second directories of the city, published in 1819 and 1825, however, take notice of the existence and position of the enclosures and mounds upon the site of Cincinnati, though not precisely as they have been described above. One work, the large ellipsis, is delineated as surrounding completely the block between Fourth and Fifth, Race and Vine streets, except a very small part of the northwest corner, about half the next block east, and some parts of the adjacent blocks north and south. Adjoining the north- east part of it, on the north half of the block bounded by Third, Fourth, Vine and Race streets, appears a large mound, with a single embankment running almost due south to the lower part of the block, and thence across the next block eastward to the mound at the northeast corner of Main and Third. The enclosure is represented as an irregular circle, of about six hundred feet diameter. The convex parallel walls between Canal and Twelfth are shown as a long enclosure, extending almost diagon- ally from a point a trifle east of Vine street across the block bounded by that place and the streets before named, and about half-way across the block next on the west.

Wayne's sentry-post is plainly marked as a large tumu- lus at the southeast corner of Fifth and Mound, and the others mentioned as being in the west and northwest part of the town are here-the mound upon the upper side of Seventh street, below Smith, near the rope-walk then standing; that on Western Row, nearly at the head of Richmond; one large mound west of Plum, near the old corporation line on Liberty street ; and also one in the eastern part of the city, directly on Fifth street, half a block beyond Broadway. The mound on Fourth street stood nearly where Pike's Opera house now is.

Thus it appears that the ancient works upon the site of Cincinnati were still so well defined, so late as 1825, as to

deserve, if not demand, a place upon the map of the city.

THE CINCINNATI TABLET.

In November, 1841, the large tumulus near the corner of Fifth and Mound streets was removed, in order to extend Mound street across Fifth and grade an alley. A little above the level of the surrounding surface, near the centre of the mound, were found a large part of a human skull and two bones of about seven inches length, pointed at one end. It was undoubtedly the grave of a Mound Builder, probably a great dignitary of his tribe. Under the fragmentary skull of the buried Builder was a bed of charcoal, ashes and earth, and therein a very re- markable inscribed stone which, after much discussion, including the publication of Mr. Clarke's interesting pamphlet in vindication of its authenticity, has been pro- nounced a genuine relic of the period of the Mound Builders. It is not lettered or inscribed with hieroglyph- ics, but is marked with curious, broad lines, curves and scrolls. Some have thought they could trace in these the outline of a figure, perhaps an idol; but the better con- jecture seems to be that it served for a record of calcula- tions and a scale of measurement. The following de- scription and remarks upon it are extracted from Messrs. Squier and Davis's "Ancient Monuments of the Missis- sippi Valley":

The material is fine grained, compact sandstone of a light brown color. It measures five inches in length, three in breadth at the ends, and two and six-tenths at the middle, and is about half an inch in thick- ness. The sculptured face varies very slightly from a perfect plane. The figures are cut in low relief (the lines being not more than one- twentieth of an inch in depth), and occupy a rectangular space of four inches and two-tenths long by two and one-tenth wide. The sides of the stone, it will be observed, are slightly concave. Right lines are drawn across the face near the ends, at right angles, and exterior to these are notches, twenty-five at one end and twenty-four at the other. The back of the stone has three deep longitudinal grooves and several depressions, evidently caused by rubbing-probably produced by sharp- ening the instrument used in the sculpture. [Mr. Gest, however, the present owner of the stone, does not regard these as tool marks, but thinks they have some special significance. ]

Without discussing the singular resemblance which the relic bears to the Egyptian cartouch, it will be sufficient to direct attention to the re- duplication of the figures, those upon one side corresponding with those upon the other, and the two central ones being also alike. It will be ob- served that there are but three scrolls or figures-four of one description and two of the others. Probably no serious discussion of the question whether or not these figures are hieroglyphical, is needed. They more resemble the stalk and flowers of a plant than anything else in nature. What significance, if any, may attach to the peculiar markings or grad- uations at the end it is not undertaken to say. The sum of the products of the longer and shorter lines (twenty-four by seven and twenty-five by eight) is three hundred and sixty-eight, three more than the number of days in the year ; from which circumstance the suggestion has been ad- vanced that the tablet had an astronomical origin and constituted some sort of a calendar.

We may perhaps find the key to its purposes in a very humble, but not therefore less interesting class of southern remains. Both in Mexico and in the mounds of Mississippi have been found stamps of burnt clay, the faces of which are covered with figures, fanciful or imitative, all in low relief, like the face of a stereotype plate. These were used in im- pressing ornaments upon the clothes or prepared skins of the people possessing them. They exhibit the concavity of the sides to be ob- served in the relie in question -- intended, doubtless, for greater conveni- ence in holding and using it -as also a similar reduplication of the ornamental figures, all betraying a common purpose. This explanation is offered hypothetically as being entirely consistent with the gen- eral character of the mound remains, which, taken together, do not warrant us in looking for anything that might not well pertain to a very simple, not to say rude,, people.

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

AN INTERESTING THEORY.

The following discussion from Mr. Clarke's pamphlet may appropriately end this little treatise on the Cincinnati works :

It may be of interest herc to examine these pre-historic works in the light of Lewis H. Morgan's "pueblo" theory, as set forth in his article in the North American Review for July of this year. The great cen- tral work, an ellipse eight hundred by six hundred and sixty feet, cor- responds with his pueblo or village. Its position gave it a measure of security, being on the upper plain, three hundred and fifty feet from its edge, and could be completely screened from view from the river by a belt or grove of trces. The embankment, three feet high (possibly originally higher), with a base of thirty fect, afforded sufficient founda- tion for their buildings, occupying the circumference of the ellipse, facing inward, presenting a solid timber wall on the outside, with no entrance but by the gateway on the east, which may have been pro- tected by a palisade of round timbers, with proper openings for ingress and egress, and by some structures of-the nature of block-houses on the higher embankments attached externally at each side of the entrance. From the lower of these block-houses, it will be remembered, ran the low embankment, one foot high, with nine feet base, southward nearly to the edge of the declivity, and then east to the mound on the corner of Third and Main streets. This may have been occupied by a high timber palisade, or a covered way leading to the mound, which was so situated as to command a full view of the Licking river, which enters the Ohio on the opposite shore, and was doubtless an important ap- proach, which it was necessary should be watched. If I am right in supposing that the embankment, of the same dimensions as the last, noticed east of Sycamore, running from Sixth street to near Third street, turned there and joined the other embankment at the mound, and was built upon in the same manner, we would thus have the whole front so defended that it would have to be forced or flanked by an enemy coming from the direction of the Licking river.

East of this high hill, Mount Adams, overlooking the Ohio, and giv- ing a clear view up the river for miles, would be a natural outpost on which it would not be necessary to erect a mound structure. I have never heard of any remains having been found on this hill.

To the west, the hill next the river was so distant, and from its posi- tion did not command an extensive enough view of the river to serve as an outlook; so a position was selected near the edge of the plain, about five hundred yards west of the closed end of the village, and a large mound thirty-five feet high was erected, from which could be had an extensive view of the Kentucky shore and of the Ohio river to the bend below the mouth of Mill creek. The Brighton Hill mound would give an extensive view of the whole of Mill creek valley, the whole, as be- fore mentioned, being part of an extensive series of signal stations.

The minor mounds and other works on the upper plain may have been connected with the supervision and care of their agricultural oper- ations on the rich land between the village and the northern hills.

Thus we have a village judiciously located on a fine, fertile plain, and well guarded by the nature of the location and the artificial works erected on a carefully arranged plan.

Mr. Morgan's theory will apply to a large number of the Ohio works. The two larger mounds were so situated that we can hardly avoid the conclusion, though it is only a supposition, that one object of their erection was to serve as outlooks for watching the approaches to their village from the Kentucky side of the river by the Licking, and from the west by the Ohio. From the description of the structure of the mounds and the remains found in them, it is quite certain that they were also grave mounds. They may have been originally placed on these commanding points so as to be seen from a distance (just as we place monuments in prominent positions), and afterward used as out- looks. Dr. Drake, as quoted above, gives sufficient details of the structure and contents of that at the corner of Third and Main streets to warrant this conclusion as to that mound.

ANCIENT VEGETABLE REMAINS.

Although not strictly belonging to the general topic of this chapter, mention may here be fitly made of some interesting "finds" that have been made upon the site of Cincinnati, belonging to a period of ancient vegetation of which many evidences are apparent in Hamilton county, as will be seen upon reference to the second chap- ter of this book, upon its geology and topography. In

1802 a well was dug by an ancient settler in the centre of one of the artificial enclosures above described, and two stumps, of twelve and eighteen inches' diameter, respec- tively, were met with at a depth of ninety-three feet, standing as they grew, with roots sound and in place. From the soil that was thrown out in excavating the well mulberry trces grew in large numbers, although none were known to exist on the plain before. About the same time Mr. Daniel Symmes, while digging another well in the eastern part of the town, came upon a large unde- cayed log twenty-four feet below the surface. It is said that similar discoveries have frequently been made in making deep excavations in different parts of the city, showing that the ancient level of the plain was once far below its present elevation.

CHAPTER III.

THE SITE OF LOSANTIVILLE.

THE original site of Cincinnati, platted and surveyed under the name of Losantiville, was contracted for before the surveys of the Symmes Purchase were made, and the conveyance to Mathias Denman simply specified that his tract should be located as nearly as possible opposite the mouth of the Licking river. When the surveys were completed, it was found that he owned the entire section eighteen, and the fractional section in seventeen lying be- tween that and the river, in township four and the first fractional range, as surveyed under the orders of the pros- pective patentee, Judge Symmes. The tract covered eight hundred acres, and including the outlots as well as in-lots laid out upon it, comprised the original site of Cin- cinnati. It extended, on a north and south line, from the present Liberty street to the river. The eastern boundary line ran from the intersection of the old Leb- anon road with Liberty street to the Ohio, at a point one hundred feet below Broadway; and the western line ran from the intersection of Liberty street with the Western row (Central avenue) to the river, which is reached just below Smith street landing. This tract, a little less than one and one-fourth square miles, was not quite one twen- ty-second part of the present vast area of Cincinnati.

The founders of Losantiville found this site nearly or quite in a state of nature, save the earthworks which in- dicated its occupancy by a people long before departed. Mr. E. D. Mansfield says it was the site of an old Indian . town, and other authorities say that two block-houses had been erected here by the soldiers of an expedition against the Indians, only eight years previous ; but the records of Losantiville are silent concerning the vestiges of the Indian village and the white men's fortifications, if any existed at this time. A dense wood covered the appar- ently virgin tract. The lower belt of ground was occu- pied mainly by beech, buckeye, and sugar trees, loaded with grapevines, and interspersed with a heavy under- growth of spicewood and pawpaws. The same timber

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

prevailed upon the second terrace, with poplars and other trees, some of which were very large. Many of the beeches were also large, and a cluster of these, near "Stonemetz's ford," on Mill creek, was still standing sixty years after the settlement, and bore the name of "Loring's woods" -- the only relics of the primeval forest here, except some scattered trees. A group of these trees was also called the "Beechen grove" in an early day.

At the foot of Sycamore street was an inlet of consid- erable size, which took the name of "Yeatman's cove," from its neighborhood to the tavern and store of Griffin Yeatman, but also called the "Stone landing," because used for the disembarking of the boatloads of stone brought for the building of Fort Washington, at a spot near what is now the corner of Sycamore and Front streets. At the corner of Ludlow street was another inlet, called "Dorsey's cove," and another still higher up, just below the mouth of Deer creek. These little harbors were ex- ceedingly convenient as landing-places for immigrants, and were doubtless used also by the crews of boats con- veying the earlier expeditions against the Indians. In the shore end of Yeatman's cove the first, little, rude mar- ket-house of the village was constructed, to the pillars of which boats were usually tied in seasons of high water.

The north shore of the Ohio, and the ground for some way back, as first observed by the whites at this point, are described as somewhat resembling in appearance the site of Philadelphia. Dr. Daniel Drake, writing twenty years after the beginnings, when the physical features of the place had not greatly changed, except by the partial clearing of the woods, in his "Notices concerning Cincin- nati," says:

Its site is not equally elevated. A strip of land called the BOTTOM (most of which is inundated by extraordinary freshes, though the whole is elevated several feet above the ordinary high-water mark), commences at .Deer creek, the eastern boundary of the town, and stretches down to the river, gradually becoming wider and lower. It slopes northwardly to the average distance of eight hundred feet, where it is terminated by a bank or glacis, denominated the HILL, which is generally of steep ascent, and from thirty to fifty feet in height. In addition to this there is a gentle acclivity for six or seven hundred feet further back, which is succeeded by a slight inclination of surface · northwardly, for something more than half a mile, when the hills or real uplands commence.

These benches of land extend northwestwardly (the upper one con- stantly widening) nearly two miles, and are lost in the intervale ground of Mill creek. The whole form an area of between two and three square miles-which, however, comprehends but little more than a moiety of the expansion which the valley of the Ohio has at this point. For on the southern side, both above and below the mouth of the Lick- ing river, are extended, elevated bottoms.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666