History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 2

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854

USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881 > Part 2

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The " divide," or water-shed, referred to, between the waters of Lake Erie and the Ohio River, is less elevated in Ohio than in New York and Penn- sylvania, though the difference is small. To a per- son passing over the State in a balloon, its surface presents an unvarying plain, while, to one sailing down the Ohio River, it appears mountainous. On this river are bluffs ranging from two hundred and fifty to six hundred feet in height. As one ascends the tributaries of the river, these bluffs diminish in height until they become gentle undu- lations, while toward the sources of the streams, in the central part of the State, the banks often become low and marshy.

The principal rivers are the Ohio, Muskingum, Scioto and Miami, on the southern slope, emptying into the Ohio; on the northern, the Maumee, Sandusky, Huron and Cuyahoga, emptying into Lake Erie, and, all but the first named, entirely in Ohio.

The Ohio, the chief river of the State, and from which it derives its name, with its tributaries, drains a country whose arca is over two hundred thousand square miles in extent, and extending from the water-shed to Alabama. The river was first dis- covered by La Salle in 1669, and was by him nav- igated as far as the Falls, at Louisville, Ky. It is formed by the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, in Pennsylvania, whose waters

unite at Pittsburgh. The entire length of the river, from its source to its mouth, is 950 miles, though by a straight line from Pittsburgh to Cairo, it is only 615 miles. Its eurrent is very gentle, hardly three miles per hour, the descent being only five inches per mile. At high stages, the rate of the current inercases, and at low stages deercases. Sometimes it is barely two miles per hour. The average range between high and low water mark is fifty fect, although several times the river has risen more than sixty feet above low water mark. At the lowest stage of the river, it is fordable many places between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. The river abounds in islands, some of which are exceed- ingly fertile, and noted in the history of the West. Others, known as "tow-heads," are simply deposits of sand.

The Scioto is one of the largest inland streams in the State, and is one of the most beautiful riv- ers. It rises in Hardin County, flows southeast- erly to Columbus, where it receives its largest affluent, the Olentangy or Whetstone, after which its direction is southerly until it enters the Ohio at Portsmouth. It flows through one of the rich- est valleys in the State, and has for its compan- ion the Ohio and Erie Canal, for a distance of ninety miles. Its tributaries are, besides the Whet- stone, the Darby, Walnut and Paint Creeks.

The Muskingum River is formed by the june- tion of the Tuscarawas and Waldhoning Rivers, which rise in the northern part of the State and unite at Coshocton. From the junction, the river flows in a southeastern course about one hundred miles, through a rich and populous valley, to the Ohio, at Marietta, the oldest settlement in the State. At its outlet, the Muskingum is over two hundred yards wide. By improvements, it has been made navigable ninety-five miles above Mari- etta, as far as Dresden, where a side cut, three miles long, unites its waters with those of the Ohio Canal. All along this stream exist, in abundant profusion, the remains of an ancient civiliza- tion, whose history is lost in the twilight of antiq- nity. Extensive mounds, earthworks and various fortifications, are everywhere to be found, inclosing a mute history as silent as the race that dwelt here and left these traces of their evistence. The same may be said of all the other valleys in Ohio.

The Miami River-the scenes of many exploits in pioncer days-rises in Hardin County, near the headwaters of the Scioto, and runs southwesterly, to the Ohio, passing Troy, Dayton and Hamilton. It is a beautiful and rapid stream, flowing through

IIISTORY OF OIIIO.

a highly productive and populous valley, in which limestone and hard timber are abundant. Its total length is about one hundred and fifty miles.

The Maumee is the largest river in the northern part of Ohio. It rises in Indiana and flows north- casterly, into Lake Erie. About eighty miles of its course are in Ohio. It is navigable as far as Perrysburg, eighteen miles from its mouth. The other rivers north of the divide are all small, rapid-running streams, affording a large amount of good water-power, much utilized by mills and man- ufactories.

A remarkable feature of the topography of Ohio is its almost total absence of natural lakes or ponds. A few very small ones are found near the water-shed, but all too small to be of any practical value save as watering-places for stock.

Lake Erie, which forms nearly all the northern boundary of the State, is next to the last or lowest of America's "inland seas." It is 290 miles long, and 57 miles wide at its greatest part. There are no islands, except in the shallow water at the west end, and very few bays. The greatest depth of the lake is off Long Point, where the water is 312 feet deep. The shores are principally drift-clay or hard-pan, upon which the waves are continually encroaching. At Cleveland, from the first sur- vey, in 1796, to 1842, the encroachment was 218 feet along the entire city front. The entire coast is low, seldom rising above fifty fect at the water's edge.

Lake Erie, like the others, has a variable sur- face, rising and falling with the seasons, like great rivers, called the " annual fluctuation," and a gen- eral one, embracing a series of years, due to mete- orological causes, known as the " secular fluctua- tion." Its lowest known level was in February, 1819, rising more or less each year, until June, 1838, in the extreme, to six feet eight inches.

Lake Erie has several excellent harbors in Ohio, among which are Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky, Port Clinton and Ashtabula. Valuable improve- ments have been made in some of these, at the expense of the General Government. In 1818, the first steamboat was launched on the lake. Owing to the Falls of Niagara, it could go no farther cast than the outlet of Niagara River. Since then, however, the opening of the Welland Canal, in Canada, allows vessels drawing not more than ten feet of water to pass from one lake to the other, greatly facilitating navigation.

As carly as 1836, Dr. S. P. Hildreth, Dr. John Locke, Prof. J. H. Riddle and Mr. I. A. Lapham,

were appointed a committee by the Legislature of Ohio to report the "best method of obtaining a complete geological survey of the State, and an estimate of the probable cost of the same." In the preparation of their report, Dr. Hildreth examined the coal-measures in the southeastern part of the State, Prof. Riddle and Mr. Lapham made exam- inations in the western and northern counties, while Dr. Locke devoted his attention to chemical analyses. These investigations resulted in the presentation of much valuable information con- cerning the mineral resources of the State and in a plan for a geological survey. In accordance with the recommendation of this Committee, the Legislature, in 1837, passed a bill appropriating $12,000 for the prosecution of the work during the next year. The Geological Corps appointed consisted of W. W. Mather, State Geologist, with Dr. Hildreth, Dr. Locke, Prof. J. P. Kirtland, J. W. Foster, Charles Whittlesey and Charles Briggs, Jr., Assistants. The results of the first year's work appeared in 1838, in an octavo volume of 134 pages, with contributions from Mather, Hildreth, Briggs, Kirtland and Whittlesey. In 1838, the Legislature ordered the continuance of the work, and, at the close of the year, a second report, of 286 pages, octavo, was issued, containing contribu- tions from all the members of the survey.

Succeeding Legislatures failed to provide for a continuance of the work, and, save that done by private means, nothing was accomplished till 1869, when the Legislature again took up the work. In the interim, individual enterprise had done much. In 1841, Prof. James Hall passed through the State, and, by his indentification of several of the formations with those of New York, for the first time fixed their geological age. 'The next year, he issued the first map of the geology of the State, in common with the geological maps of all the region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Similar maps were published by Sir Charles Lyell, in 1845; Prof. Edward Hitchcock, in 1853, and by J. Mareon, in 1856. The first individual map of the geology of Ohio was a very small one, published by Col. Whittlesey, in 1848, in Howe's History. In 1856, he published a larger map, and, in 1865, another was issued by Prof. Nelson Sayler. In 1867, Dr. J. S. Newberry published a geological map and sketch of Ohio in the Atlas of the State issued by H. S. Stebbins. Up to this time, the geological knowledge was very general in its character, and, consequently, errone- ous in many of its details. Other States had been

HISTORY OF OHIO.

accurately surveyed, yet Ohio remained a kind of terra incognita, of which the geology was less known than any part of the surrounding area.

In 1869, the Legislature appropriated, for a new survey, $13,900 for its support during one year, and appointed Dr. Newberry Chief Geologist ; E. B. Andrews, Edward Orton and J. H. Klippart were appointed Assistants, and T. G. Wormley, Chemist. The result of the first year's work was a volume of 164 pages, octavo, published in 1870.

This report, accompanied by maps and charts, for the first time accurately defined the geological formations as to age and arca. Evidence was given which set at rest questions of nearly thirty years' standing, and established the fact that Ohio in- eludes nearly double the number of formations be- fore supposed to exist. Since that date, the sur- veys have been regularly made. Each county is being surveyed by itself, and its formation ac- curately determined. Elsewhere in these pages, these results are given, and to them the reader is referred for the specific geology of the county. Only general results can be noted here.

On the general geological map of the State, arc two sections of the State, taken at each northern and southern extremity. These show, with the map, the general outline of the geological features of Ohio, and are all that can be given here. Both scetions show the general arrangements of the formation, and prove that they lie in sheets resting one upon another, but not horizontally, as a great arch traverses the State. from Cincinnati to the lake shore, between Toledo and Sandusky. Along this line, which extends southward to Nashville, Tenn., all the rocks are raised in a ridge or fold, once a low mountain chain. In the lapse of ages, it has, however, been extensively worn away, and now, along a large part of its course, the strata which once arched over it are re- moved from its summit, and are found resting in regular order on either side, dipping away from its axis. Where the ridge was highest, the erosion has been greatest, that being the reason why the oldest rocks are exposed in the region about Cin- cinnati. By following the line of this great arch from Cincinnati northward, it will be seen that the Helderberg limestone (No. 4), midway of the State, is still unbroken, and stretches from side to side ; while the Oriskany, the Corniferous, the Hamilton and the Huron formations, though generally re- moved from the crown of the arch, still remain over a limited area near Bellefontaine, where they

form an island, which proves the former continuity of the strata which compose it.

On the east side of the great anticlinal axis, the rocks dip down into a basin, which, for several hundred miles north and south, occupies the inter- val between the Nashville and Cincinnati ridge and the first fuld of the Alleghany Mountains. In this basin, all the strata form trough-like layers, their edges outcropping eastward on the flanks of the Alleghanies, and westward along the anti- clinal axis. As they dip from this margin cast- ward toward the center of the trongh, near its middle, on the eastern border of the State, the older rocks are deeply buried, and the surface is here underlaid by the highest and most recent of our rock formations, the coal measures. In the northwestern corner of the State, the strata dip northwest from the antielinal and pass under the Michigan coal basin, precisely as the same forma- tions cast of the anticlinal dip beneath the Alle- ghany coal-field, of which Ohio's coal arca forms a part.

The rocks underlying the State all belong to three of the great groups which geologists have termed " systems," namely, the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous. Each of these are again sub- divided, for convenience, and numbered. Thus the Silurian system includes the Cincinnati group, the Medina and Clinton groups, the Niagara group, and the Salina and Water-Line groups. The Devonian system includes the Oriskany sand- stone, the Carboniferous limestone, the Hamilton group, the Huron shale and the Erie shales. The Carboniferous system includes the Waverly group, the Carboniferous Conglomerate, the Coal Meas- ures and the Drift. This last includes the surface, and has been divided into six parts, numbering from the lowest, viz .: A glacialed surface, the Gla- cial Drift, the Erie Clays, the Forest Bed, the Ice- berg Drift and the Terraces or Beaches, which mark intervals of stability in the gradual recession of the water surface to its present level.

" The history we may learn from these forma- tions," says the geologist, "is something as fol- lows:

"First, Subsequent to the Tertiary was a period of continual elevation, during which the topog- raphy of the country was much the same as now, the draining streams following the lines they now do, but cutting down their beds until they flowed sometimes two hundred fect lower than they do at present. In the latter part of this period of ele- . vation, glaciers, descending from the Canadian

HISTORY OF OHIO.

islands, excavated and occupied the valleys of the great lakes, and covered the lowlands down nearly to the Ohio.

"Second. By a depression of the land and ele- vation of temperature, the glaciers retreated north- ward, leaving, in the interior of the continent, a great basin of fresh water, in which the Erie clays were deposited.

"Third. This water was drained away until a broad land surface was exposed within the drift arca. Upon this surface grew forests, largely of red and white cedar, inhabited by the elephant, mastodon, giant beaver and other large, now ex- tinct, animals.

"Fourth. The submergence of this ancient land and the spreading over it, by iceberg agency, of gravel, sand and bowlders, distributed just as ice- bergs now spread their loads broadcast over the sca bottom on the banks of Newfoundland.

"Fifth. The gradual draining-off of the waters, leaving the land now as we find it, smoothly eov- cred with all the layers of the drift, and well pre- pared for human occupation."

" In six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and rested the seventh day," records the Scriptures, and, when all was done, He looked upon the work of His own hands and pronounced it " good." Surely none but a divine, omnipotent hand could have done all this, and none can study the "work of His hands" and not marvel at its completeness.

The ancient dwellers of the Mississippi Valley will always be a subject of great interest to the antiquarian. Who they were, and whence they came, are still unanswered questions, and may remain so for ages. All over this valley, and, in fact, in all parts of the New World, evidences of an ancient civilization exist, whose remains are now a wonder to all. The aboriginal races could throw no light on these questions. They had always seen the remains, and knew not whenee they came. Explorations aid but little in the solu- tion of the problem, and only conjecture can be entertained. The remains found in Ohio cqual any in the Valley. Indeed, some of them are vast in extent, and consist of forts, fortifications, moats, ditches, elevations and mounds, embracing many acres in extent.

"It is not yet determined," says Col. Charles Whittlesey, "whether we have discovered the first or the original people who occupied the soil of Ohio. Modern investigations are bringing to light evidences of carlier races. Since the presence of

man has been established in Europe as a cotempor- ary of the fossil elephant, mastodon, rhinoceros and the horse, of the later drift or glacial period, we may reasonably anticipate the presence of man in America in that era. Such proofs are already known, but they are not of that conclusive charac- ter which amounts to a demonstration. It is, how- ever, known that an ancient people inhabited Ohio in advance of the red men who were found here, three centuries since, by the Spanish and French · explorers.

" Five and six hundred years before the arrival of Columbus," says Col. Charles Whittlesey, "the Northmen sailed from Norway, Iceland and Green- land along the Atlantic coast as far as Long Island. They found Indian tribes, in what is now New En- gland, closely resembling those who lived upon the coast and the St. Lawrence when the French and English came to possess these regions.

" These red Indians had no traditions of a prior people ; but over a large part of the lake country and the valley of the Mississippi, carth-works, mounds, pyramids, ditches and forts were discov- ered-the work of a more ancient raec, and a pco- ple far in advance of the Indian. If they were not civilized, they were not barbarians. They were not mere hunters, but had fixed habitations, cultivated the soil and were possessed of consider- able mechanical skill. We know them as the Mound- Builders, because they erected over the mortal remains of their principal men and women memorial mounds of carth or unhewn stone-of which hundreds remain to our own day, so large and high that they give rise to an impression of the numbers and energy of their builders, such as we receive from the pyramids of Egypt."

Might they not have been of the same race and the same civilization ? Many competent authori- ties conjecture they are the work of the lost tribes of Israel ; but the best they or any one can do is only conjecture.

" In the burial-mounds," continues Col. Whit- tlesey, " there are always portions of one or more human skeletons, generally partly consumed by fire, with ornaments of stone, bone, shells, mica and copper. The largest mound in Ohio is near Miamisburg, Montgomery County. It is the second largest in the West, being nearly seventy feet high, originally, and about eight hundred feet in circumference. This would give a superficial area of nearly four acres. In 1864, the citizens of Miamisburg sunk a shaft from the summit to the natural surface, without finding the bones

HISTORY OF OHIO.

or ashes of the great man for whom it was intended. The exploration has considerably lowered the mound, it being now abont sixty feet in height.

" Fort Ancient, on the Little Miami, is a good specimen of the military defenses of the Mound- Builders. It is well located on a long, high, nar- row, precipitous ridge. The parapets are now from ten to eighteen feet high, and its perimeter is sufficient to hold twenty thousand fighting men. Another prominent example of their works exists near Newark, Licking County. This collection presents a great variety of figures, circles, rectan- gles, octagons and parallel banks, or highways, covering more than a thousand acres. The county fair-ground is permanently located within an ancient circle, a quarter of a mile in diameter, with an embankment and interior ditch. Its high- est place was over twenty feet from the top of the moat to the bottom of the ditch."

One of the most curious-shaped works in this county is known as the " Alligator," from its sup- posed resemblance to that creature. When meas- ured, several years ago, while in a good state of preservation, its dimensions were two hundred and ten feet in length, average width over sixty fcet, and height, at the highest point, seven feet. It appears to be mainly composed of clay, and is overgrown with grass.

Speaking of the writing of these people, Col. Whittlesey says : "There is no evidence that they had alphabetical characters, picture-writing or hieroglyphies, though they must have had some mode of recording events. Neither is there any proof that they used domestic animals for tilling the soil, or for the purpose of erecting the imposing carth- works they have left. A very coarse cloth of hemp, flax or nettles has been found on their burial-hearths and around skeletons not consumed by fire.

" The most extensive earthworks occupy many of the sites of modern towns, and are always in the vicinity of excellent land. Those about the lakes are generally irregular carth forts, while those about the rivers in the southern part of the State are generally altars, pyramids, cireles, cones and rectangles of earth, among which fortresses or strongholds are exceptions.

" Those on the north may not have been cotem- porary or have been built by the same people. They are far less prominent or extensive, which indicates a people less in numbers as well as indus- try, and whose principal occupation was war among

themselves or against their neighbors. This style of works extends eastward along the south shore of Lake Ontario, through New York. In Ohio, there is a space along the water-shed, between the lake and the Ohio, where there are few, if any, ancient earthworks. It appears to have been a vacant or neutral ground between different nations.

" The Indians of the North, dressed in skins, cultivated the soil very sparingly, and manufactured no woven cloth. On Lake Superior, there are ancient copper mines wrought by the Mound- Builders over fifteen hundred years ago." Copper tools are occasionally found tempered sufficiently hard to cut the hardest rocks. No knowledge of such tempering exists now. The Indians can give no more knowledge of the ancient mines than they can of the mounds on the river bottoms.

" The Indians did not occupy the ancient earth- werks, nor did they construct such. They were found as they are now-a hunter race, wholly averse to labor. Their abodes were in rock shel- ters, in caves, or in temporary sheds of bark and boughs, or skins, easily moved from place to place. Like most savage races, their habits are unchange- able; at least, the example of white men, and their efforts during three centuries, have made little, if any, impression."

When white inen came to the territory now em- braced in the State of Ohio, they found dwelling here the Iroquois, Delawares, Shawanees, Miamis, Wyandots and Ottawas. Each nation was com- posed of several tribes or clans, and each was often at war with the others. The first mentioned of these occupied that part of the State whose northern boundary was Lake Erie, as far west as the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, where the city ef Cleveland now is; thence the boundary turned southward in an irregular line, until it touched the Ohio River, up which stream it continued to the Pennsylvania State line, and thence northward to the lake. This nation were the implacable foes of the French, owing to the fact that Champlain, in 1609, made war against them. They occupied a large part of New York and Pennsylvania, and were the most insatiate conquerors among the aborigines. When the French first came to the lakes, these monsters of the wilderness were engaged in a war against their neighbors, a war that ended in their conquering them, possessing their terri- tory, and absorbing the remnants of the tribes into their own nation. At the date of Champlain's visit, the southern shore of Lake Erie was occupied by the Erics, or, as the orthography of the word is

HISTORY OF OHIO.

sometimes given, Erigos, or Errienous .* About forty years afterward, the Iroquois (Five Nations) fell upon them with such fury and in such force that the nation was annihilated. Those who escaped the slaughter were absorbed among their conquerors, but allowed to live on their own lands, paying a sort of tribute to the Iroquois. This was the policy of that nation in all its conquests. A few years after the conquest of the Eries, the Iroquois again took to the war-path, and swept through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, even attacking the Mississippi tribes. But for the intervention and aid of the French, these tribes would have shared the fate of the Hurons and Eries. Until the year 1700, the Iroquois held the south shore of Lake Erie so firmly that the French dared not trade or travel along that side of the lake. Their missionaries and traders penetrated this part of Ohio as early as 1650, but generally suffered death for their zeal.

Having completed the conquest of the Hurons or Wyandots, about Lake Huron, and murdered the Jesuit missionaries by modes of torture which only they could devise, they permitted the residue of the Hurons to settle around the west end of Lake Erie. Here, with the Ottawas, they resided when the whites eame to the State. Their country was bounded on the south by a line running through the central part of Wayne, Ashland, Richland, Crawford and Wyandot Counties. At the western boundary of this county, the line di- verged northwesterly, leaving the State near the northwest corner of Fulton County. Their north- ern boundary was the lake; the eastern, the Iro- quois.

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History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 2

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co. Number of Pages: 854

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854