History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 29

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 29

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As the highlands of the county appear to have onee been considerably higher than now, so the bottoms of the valleys were obviously once much deeper than at present; for below the surface of

the valleys are frequently accumulations of sand, clays and gravels, reaching to the depth of more than 100 and sometimes to nearly 200 feet. The gravel beds of the rivers, made up of pebbles of sienitie, porphyritic basaltie and other more an- cient rocks than are found in Ohio, and the same class of bowlders in the sand hills and terraces bordering the streams, point to the currents of the Drift period as the agents of this denudation ; while the great width of the valleys, which is sometimes four to five miles, bear witness to the long time these currents must have been in ac- tion to have produced such astonishing results. Sometimes, indeed, it appears that a broad valley, once formed, has been blocked up and deserted, while another, as extensive, has been excavated in a new direction, and is followed by the river of the present day.

In Coshocton county such an ancient valley is scen to the south of West Lafayette, extending from the Tusearawas valley, south south-east to the valley of Will's ercek. When far enough from the Tusearawas valley not to be confounded with this, it is seen, in places, to be full three miles wide, vary- ing from this to one mile. It is a valley of dilu- vium, somewhat sandy, with hills of sand from thirty to forty feet high, the beds of which are sometimes seen exposed to this extent in the eut- tings of present streams. Hills of the stratified rocks of the coal measures project into it from its sides, as irregular-shaped peninsulas, or stand in . its midst as islands. A remarkable single hill of this character is seen directly north from West Lafayette, on the edge of the Tuscarawas river, opposite the mouth of White Eyes creek. This ancient valley is known as White Eyes Plains. It is nearly all under cultivation; and from the

#From the State Geological Report of 1878.

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

elevated points that overlook it, especially where it blends with the broad valley of the Tusca- rawas, it affords views singularly beautiful and pic- turesque. Toward the south the White Eyes Plains are lost in the valley of Will's creek. By these two valleys and that of the Tuscarawas, the larger part of the townships of Tuscarawas, La- fayette, Franklin and Linton are encircled and isolated.

Opposite this valley, and north of the Tuscarawas, a similar valley, but of much smaller dimen- sions, extends north-westwardly through the south-west part of Keene township, and toward the Killbuck, in the center of Bethlehem town- ship. Possibly it may be found on further ex- amination, that this was an ancient valley of the Killbuck.

Geological Structure .- Besides the diluvium in the valleys of the streams, no other geological formation is found in Coshocton county, except the carboniferous; and of this the range is lim- ited to the lower half of the coal measure (com- prising a thickness of some 350 feet), and the upper portion of the Waverly group-the lowest subdivision of the carboniferous. The lower carboniferous limestone, which belongs above the Waverly, appears to be wanting; and the conglomerate, which, in places, forms the floor of the coal measures in massive beds, often several hundred feet thick, was seen in place only in one locality, and there in a small layer not more than two or three feet thick. The al- most total absence of any fragments of it, where one would look for them, near the base of the coal measures, indicates that this stratum is, also, generally wanting. The bottom of the coal measures is marked by its lowest great bed of sandstone, commonly about a hundred feet thick; and in places directly under this, the lowest coal bed is seen, sometimes of workable thickness, and sometimes pinched and insignificant, and separated from the well marked Waverly shales by only a few feet of clayey strata.

These beds are all so nearly horizontal, that the dip is imperceptible at any locality. It is detected only by tracing them for several miles in the direction of the dip, which is toward the south- east, or in the opposite direction as they rise. Owing to this general inclination of the strata,

the sub-carboniferous group is only seen in the northern and western townships of the county; and in these, only in the deep valleys, where the Waverly shales form the lowest portion of the marginal hills, and rise in them sometimes to the height of over two hundred feet; as on the east side of the Mohican river, and on the upper part of the Walhonding. The top of the group comes down to the level of the canal, near the junction of the Killbuck and Walhonding, a little over twelve miles, in a straight line, from the Mohican river. The canal, in this distance, has descended, by nine locks, so that the total fall of the strata is over 270 feet, and may, perhaps, be 320 feet in the twelve miles; as, on the south side of the Wal- honding, toward the town of Newcastle, the top of the Waverly is about 250 feet above the level of the canal .*

The brown and olive-colored shales, and light- colored sandstones of the Waverly, are seen in most of the branches of the Walhonding river, and in all the runs in Tiverton township that discharge into the Mohican river. In the bot- toms of these, the group is exposed within a mile, or a httle more, to the town of Tiverton, toward the sonth. From Warsaw, it is traced up Beaver run into Monroe township; but the valley rising faster than the strata, it is lost to view above Princeton. On the other side of the Walhonding, the group passes under the valley of Simmon's creek, within about a mile of its mouth; and the same is true of Mohawk creek, the next branch above. It stretches up the valley of the Killbuck into Holmes county; and near the mill in the great bend of this stream, in Clark township, it forms cliff's of shales and sandstones forty to fifty feet high, in which the peculiar fossils of the group are found in great profusion. It forms here, altogether, perhaps 100 feet of the lower portion of the hills. Doughty's Fork, a branch of the Killbuck, also runs in the Waverly shales, as they were found with their fossils in the bottom, two miles south-west from Bloomfield. Over the line, in Holmes county, near the north-east cor-

* Later observations show that Coshocton is near the bot- tom of a synelinal trough, the dip, south-east from Tiverton to Coshocton, being about 500 feet ; while at Bridgeville, fif- teen miles farther on the line south-east, the strata have risen 135 feet from the bottom of the hasin.

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IIISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

ner of Tiverton township, the Waverly is exposed in the valley of Wolf run.

This group of the carboniferous formation contains little of economical importance. £ lt affords no coal nor iron ore. Some of its beds of sandstone may prove of valne, especially for flagging stones. The coal measures are very de- ficient in these, and the want of such stones is already felt at Coshocton and the other principal towns situated in this formation. The brown and olive colored shale produce, by their decom- position, soils of great fertility, as is seen every- where through the bottoms where they occur. Probably no more productive corn fields, for their extent, are to be found in the State, than those in the Waverly soils of the western town- ship of Coshocton county.

Small quantities of galena are not unfrequently met with in the Waverly, and they have led to the conviction that this metal might be found in abundance in this and adjoining counties. There are, however, no facts yet known that justify this belief. The lead of the Waverly forms no con- nected veins or beds, but is found replacing fossil shell, or, in isolated crystals, scattered in small numbers through the rock. Hence, while the reports of the existence of lead in Coshocton county, are "founded on fact," there is not the slightest probability that it will be ever discov- ered in sufficient quantity to pay for working.

That portion of the coal measures found in Coshocton county, comprises, altogether, the seven or cight coal beds in the lower half of the series; but only a small number of these oceur of workable dimensions in the same vicinity ; and it is not often that more than one bed has been opened and mined in the same hill or neighborhood. The relative position of these coal beds and of the accompanying strata may be seen from the subjoined general section of the rocks of Coshocton county, which exhibits the . general manner of their arrangement:

Sandstone and shale. Limestone and

mountain ore. Blackband. Coal No. 7. Fire-clay. Shale and Sand- stone . So to 100 feet.

Iron ore, local. Coal No. 6. Iron ore, local. Sandstone and shale. Black limestone, local. Coal, local. Fire-clay, local. 8 to 25 feet.

Gray limestone. Coal. Fire-clay ...... 10 to 50 feet. Sandstone and shale 20 to 30 feet. Limestone. local. Cannel coal, local. Fire-clay, local. Sandstone and shale ... 20 to 30 feet.

Blue limestone. Coal No. 3. Shale,

with nodular iron ore ..

10 to

20 feet.

Shale or sandstone ... 50 to So feet. Coal No. 1. Fire-clay. Conglomerate, local. Waverly .. 200 feet.

Every farm in the county, that lies above the Waverly strata, contains one or more of these coal beds beneath its surface; and those lo- calities that contain the uppermost beds, also contain all the lower ones. But while each coal bed can almost always be found and recognized in its proper place in the column, it does not fol- low that it should always maintain the same character, even approximately. On the contrary, it is not unusual for it to change in the course of a few miles-sometimes even in the same hill - from a workable bed of several feet, to a worth- less seam of a few inches in thickness. Hence, there is no safety in figuring up an aggregate of so many feet of workable beds in any locality, until these beds have there been actually opened and proved. The indications afforded by bor- ings, are generally of a very uncertain character, as respects the thickness of the coal beds and the quality of the coal. It is, without doubt, often the case that the beds of black shale passed through are called coal, and when one occurs as the roof of a coal bed, it serves to add so much to the thickness of the latter. By remarking, in the description of the townships, how rare it is for two workable beds to be found in the same locality, and how seblom any bed at all is worked below the sixth bed of the series, it can hardly be safe to estimate the total average distribution of the workable coal in the county at much more than the thickness of this one bed; and this, taking into consideration the probability that some of the lower beds will yet he worked below the level of the valleys, where their range is un- broken. It is to be hoped, that the lowest bed of all, about which very little is now known, may be found as productive and valuable as it is in the counties to the north, in which event the estimate given above woukl prove too low. The sixth bed is a very remarkable one for the regu-

168 .

HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

larity it maintains, not only through this county, but over several others-even to the Pennsylva- nia line, and into that State. It here varies but little from four feet in thickness, and is every- where depended upon as the most valuable bed of the lower coal measures. Throughout its great extent, even into Holmes county, and to the Ohio river, at Steubenville, it may be recog- nized by the peculiar purplish ash. The heaps of it seen by the farm houses show to the passer-by, almost always without fail, whether it is this coal or some other bed that supplies the neighbor- hood.

Of all the strata, the limestones are the most persistent, and serve as the best guides for identi- fying the coal beds that accompany them.

There are two bands of these, in particular, that are most useful in this respect. Both are fossiliferous, often abounding in crinoids and shells. The upper one, called the gray limestone, is found varying in thickness from one foot, or less, up to six feet ten inches. It lies immedi- ately on the coal bed known as No. 4. The lower one, called the blue limestone, has about the same range of thickness as the gray, and is some- times only twenty feet below this.

In some localities in the county, two other beds of limestone make their appearance: one, dark gray, or black, above the "gray limestone " and coal No. 6; the other a local bed, between the " blue " or " Zoar " and "gray " or " Putnam Hill " limestone. In one place -Alexander Han- lon's farm, Mill Creek township-these lower limestone beds seem to run together, forming a nearly continuous mass, twenty feet in thickness. Usually, the persistent limestone strata-the " blue " and the "gray"-are fifty to eighty feet apart. A coal seam (No. 3) generally lies imme- diately under this limestone, also, but is rarely of any value; and the same may be said of the bed above it (No. 3 a), and also of the next below it (No. 2), both of which seem to be wanting in this county. The limestones in the western and central parts of the county are frequently accom- panied by large quantities of the hard, flinty rock, known as chert. There is often a great display of it, in loose pieces, in the roads above and below the outcrops of these calcareous strata; but natural exposure of it in place are very rare. limestone.

In several instances, the limestone beds are seen intermixed with chert, and it is also noticed that chert sometimes takes the place entirely of the limestone.

A few other limestone beds have occasionally been noticed at a higher position than the gray limestone, and are also between that and the blue, but they are of rare occurrence, and have only a local interest, except in their relation to. limestone beds in similar part of the series in other counties.

The sandstone beds are sometimes developed to the thickness of 70 to 100 feet of massive lay- ers. They are very apt, however, to pass into thin bedded sheets, and again into shales. Rarely do they become even slightly calcareous, and no. instance was observed of their passing into lime- stone. The most persistent of the sandstone beds, so far as it could be traced before it disap- pears under the overlying strata, is the great bed at the base of the coal measures. The bed over coal No. 6 is also very uniform.

No iron ore, in any encouraging quantity, has been met with in the county. It is seen scattered in kidney-shaped pieces among the shales, but never concentrated sufficiently to justify drifting for it. There may be one exception to this on the farms of James Boyd and W. Hanlon, in Keene township, near Lewisville, where an explo- ration has developed, just below coal bed No. 6 (or it may be the one above it) ferruginous lay- ers resembling the black-band ore, mixed with kidney ore, from three to six feet thick. Kidney ore of good quality is also found between Lin- ton and Jacobsport, in the southeast part of Lin- ton township.

The gravel beds of the rivers may be men- tioned as among the useful mineral products. At Coshocton they furnish an excellent material for covering the streets of the town, or the clean peb- bles might serve well for concrete work.

Local Geology .- In describing the localities vis- ited, it will be convenient to take them up in the order of the townships, beginning at the north- west, and attention will be directed chiefly to the coal beds as of principal importance.

Tiverton .- The highest range of the coal meas- ures in this township is but little above the gray Its outcrop is seen on the high

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

platean in the neighborhood of the town of Tiv- erton, and that of the blue limestone about forty feet lower down. The " blossom " of a coal bed is occasionally seen in the road to the north of the town ; in one instance, about a mile north from Tiverton, five feet below a bed of " black marble," a black, compact limestone, which has been found in the same relative position at a few other local- ities in the county. This rock appears as if it would take a good polish, and be serviecable for ornamental purposes. There are coal beds in the northern part of the township, but they are small and unimportant, and the coal is of little demand. It is probable none of the beds above No. 1 are worth working, or there would have been more development made. No. 1 might be looked for to advantage at the base of the great sandstone bed, and between that and the Waverly shales, for about 200 feet above the Mohican river. This coal bed is opened, and appears well, so far as it could be examined at McFarland's, in Monroc township. It is very variable in thickness, often being cut out by the sandstone that always over- lies it. In Mahoning county it is known as the Brier Hill coal, and is regarded as the most valu- able bed in the State for blast furnaces. It should be looked for in the deep runs below Tiverton Center, and on the slope of the steep hill down to the Mohican.

Monroe .- The coal seams of this township have been developed but little more than those of Tiv- erton. There is here the same range of the coal measures, with the addition of one higher coal bed, the outerop of which may be recognized close to the town of Spring Mountain, which is on as high land as any in the township. The gray limestone is seen about sixty fect lower down, half a mile to the south. The only coal mines opened in the township, of which we have any knowledge, are Cooper's two mines, north- west from Spring Mountain, and McFarland's, on the south line of the township. Our examina- tions of these, as of most of the other coal beds of the county, were made under very unfavorable circumstances. As they are worked only in the winter season, the localities are commonly found with difficulty, and when found the drifts are thood- ed with water, so that they can not be entered, and no one is about to give any information.

Cooper's bed was found in this condition. The coal seam appears to be four feet thick. It is overlaid by a confused mixture of fire-clay, shale and limestone, the last close to the roof, and sup- posed to be the gray limestone. Over these strata, which are sometimes more than ten feet thick, are massive sandstone rocks, much tum- bled, the bed of which is not less than twenty feet thick. MeFarland's coal mine, as already mentioned, is in the lowest bed of the series No. 1. It appears to be three feet thick, and is over- laid by slaty sandstone, of which eight feet are visible. The coal seems to be partly cannel. In the run, about fifteen feet below the opening, are the Waverly shales, recognizable by their fossils.

Clark .- The principal coal mines of this town- ship are in the southeast part, near the line of Bethlehem, on the farms of Thomas Elliott, John Moore and J. Shannon, all in coal No. 6. Jas. C. Endsley's coal bank in Bethlehem belongs to the same group, and is the most important one, hav- ing been worked eighteen years, and supplying a large part of the two townships with coal. It is forty feet above the gray limestone, under which is said to be a coal bed two feet thick ; and it is about ninety feet below another coal seam eigh- teen inches thick, struck near Mr. Endsley's house, over which the hill still rises some sev- enty or eighty feet. The bed worked is three feet nine inches thick, less a seam it contains of six inches of pyritous fire-clay. The roof is black shale, of which five feet are exposed. The coal is in good repute for domestic uses, but does not answer for blacksmiths.

Thomas Elliott's coal bed, just over the line in Clark township, is probably a continuation of Endsley's. It is two feet ten inches thick, under a black shale roof, the shales abounding in fossil shells, but too fragile for preservation. The coal appears to be too pyritous to be of much value. The other beds we did not succeed in finding. On the highlands northeast from the mill at the great bend of the Killbuck, a coal bed is worked which, from its elevation, we suppose to be No. 6. These northern townships seem to be the most hilly and uncultivated in the county. They lie along the heads of many of the branches of the Tusearawas, and the general course of the streams is not far from the dip of the strata.

170

HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

The greater elevation of the plateau in this re- gion accounts for the occurrence of the higher coal beds in the summits. Though unusually hilly and rough, the surface exhibits few out- crops of the coals and limestones for long dis- tances. From the bend of the Killbuck, north- cast toward Bloomfield, the road ascends 350 feet to the first mile. The first coal outcrop observed is about two miles southwest from Bloomfield, just after crossing the small branch of the Killbuck, running on the Waverly shales. This must be the outerop of coal No. 1. De- scending toward Bloomfield, on the other side of the summit, the gray limestone is met with at 170 feet higher elevation by barometer, with large coal outerop immediately under it. Forty feet below this is another outerop of coal, and about seventy-five feet below this a third, and a sandstone bed beneath this, with no appearance of the Waverly to the bottom of the valley in which Bloomfield is situated. This group, how- ever, must be very near the surface at this place. None of the outcrops noticed above appear to have been followed up to ascertain the character and thickness of the coals. This neighborhood is supplied with coal from beds in the adjacent township of Mill Creek.

Recent explorations disclose the fact that in Bethlehem and Clark townships, near the line separating them, coal No. 7 is in places four feet thick, and of good quality. At Mr. Durr's bank, it has this thick vein, is an open, burning, white ash coal, containing little visible sulphur, and giving better promise of being a good iron-mak- ing coal than any other examined in the county. A coal was disclosed in a well near Mr. Glover's residence, without cover, showing eighteen inches of the bottom bench, which may be No. 7 or perhaps No. 7 a. On the cast half of the south- east quarter of section 23, Clark township, an out crop of coal No. 6 is thirty seven inches in thick- ness, with a heavy body of shale above it. Other onterops in the neighborhood are reported to show three feet nine inches of coal. At the open- ing examined, the coal increased in thickness as the ctrift was carried into the hill. The coal is hard and black, with a brilliant, resinous luster, containing a large percentage of fixed carbon, and is evidently of excellent quality. At the

Imley bank, on section 25, Bethlehem township, the coal at an outcrop measures forty-three inches, and is reported to reach a thickness of four and one-half feet in some of the rooms worked. It is, by the barometer, twenty-five feet below the coal on section 23, Clark township, and about one-half a mile distant. This coal in Beth- lehem township I am inclined to regard as below No. 6 and, as that which is disclosed a little farther north, capped with the black limestone. The coal is of superior quality, and there is quite a large territory underlain by it.

At the place of these openings, all the rocks of the coal measures are in their positions, and the horizons of seven coals and two limestones can be determined. About one mile north, on Mr. Glover's land in Clark township, the following section was obtained :

Coal No 6, 100 feet from top of hill.

Shaly sandstone 30 feet.

Black limestone 3 feet.

Coal 2 feet 6 inches.

Sandy shale with coal streak at base 20 feet.

Unevenly bedded, massive, coarse sandstone, with steak of coal near base .. .280 feet.

Conglomerate.

This section shows that after the deposit of the lower coals there was an upheaval of 280 feet, and a channel plowed by the water to the base of the coal measures. The thin conglomerate in this neighborhood is cherty, and from one of these fragments of cherts I have obtained a fair sized crystal of galena, the best specimen of lead ore I have ever seen obtained from Ohio rocks.

Mill Creek .- Low's coal bank, in the northwest corner of this township, one mile east from Bloomfield, lies directly under the gray lime- stone, a seam of fire-clay, seven inches thick, sep- arating the limestone from the upper layer of coal. This upper layer is bright coal, five inches thick, under it cannel coal seven inches thick, and under this two feet five inches of good, bright coal. In the next hill west is Evan's coal bank, at thirty feet higher elevation. This has been opened, but not worked much, and was in no condition to enter. The bed is said to be three feet thick, the coal to be of good quality.

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

It has a good covering of sandstone, making the summit of the hill.

Through the western part of Mill Creek, by the " grade road," exposures of strata that can be recognized are very rare; and no openings of coal are met with, Near the south line of the township the blue limestone is seen at several places along the road, sometimes with the " blos- som " of coal beneath it. Chert in considerable quantity is often associated with it. At one place the blue limestone appears to be seven or eight feet thick. Immediately over it is a large bed of chert, and about forty fect higher up the blossom of coal, but no appearance of the gray limestone.

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History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 29

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