History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 56

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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The color of the stone differs at the various open- ings on account of the difference in the anount of iron contained in it, and of the different modes in which this is distributed. At Berea some of it is white, but the prevailing color is gray; at Independ- ence and Chagrin Falls light butf or drab, and in places it is filled with dark colored spots from the un- equal distribution of the coloring matter. This is a very general characteristic in the eastern counties of the State.

Plants similar to those of the coal measures and the remains of fishes are sparingly found in this bed. At Chagrin Falls a number of specimens of a ganoid fish-Palaconiscus Brainerdi-have been gathered, also shark's teeth, Lingulae and the Ctenaccanthus.

CUYAHOGA SHALES.

A somewhat sudden transition occurred after the deposition of the materials of the Berea grit, and a finely comminated argillaceous sediment was deposited in quiet waters which swarmed with lingnlae, disca- enal and other molluscous animals. The lingulae and discaenal are so abundant in the shales immediately resting upon the Berea that they have become a reli-

able indication of its presence below when completely covered by the overlying shales.

The accumulation of this sediment continued until it attained a thickness of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred feet, much of it argillaceous and resulting in clay shales, some so siliceous as to produce a fine grained sandstone in thin layers, and occasion- ally containing such an abundance of the remains of molluscons animals as to result in an impure lime- stone.

It discloses in the county no valuable minerals, but should be thoroughly explored for the outerops of a mass of evenly bedded, hard grained sandstone, which splits with difficulty, resists abrasion, and is quarried in Trumbull and Summit connties for a pav- ing stone. For this use it is admirably adapted, and in appearance, and under all tests with the ham- mer, appears fully equal to the stone brought to Cleveland for this use from the State of New York. It is to be found in the upper half of the Cuyahoga shales, and quarries in it would prove of great value to the City of Cleveland. The Cuyahoga shale in the neighboring counties contains a great variety of well preserved fossils, most of which may probably be found in it within this county.

These four beds, which have been described in an ascending order, above the Erie shale and below the conglomerate, constitute the Waverly group of the first Ohio Geological survey, and are colored yellow upon the map. The subdivisions in it, which are so plainly marked in the valley of the Cuyahoga, can not be traced through the State, but the group, as a whole, is well defined, and the term may well be re- tained by all writers upon Ohio Geology.

CARBONIFEROUS CONGLOMERATE.

The material laid down upon the Cuyahoga shales presents very much the appearance of the water- washed and reassorted residuum of a glacial drift. It is a coarse sandstone, containing many well rounded water-washed quartz pebbles, and some large frag- ments of various granitic and metamorphic rocks. Whatever may be the mode by which the material was brought to its present position, it was evidently subjected to the action of shore waves, which carried away all the finer material, and reassorted all the sand and coarse gravel, but was not long enough con- tinned to grind up and destroy all the vegetable re- mains imbedded in it. .

It contains, in places, a profusion of the remains of calumites, the lepidodendron, and other plants of the coal measures, which are so well preserved as to show that they were not carried far from their place of growth. The quartz pebbles and coarse gravel in- cluded in the deposit are most abundant near the base, and in places constitute the great mass of the rock. It projects into the country from the high- lands of the south, on both sides of the river, being the surface rock in a part of Brecksville, Royalton

John Hutchins

GEOLOGY.

917

and Strongsville townships, on the west side; and of| Solon, Orange and Warrensville, on the east. lis surface is from four hundred and fifty to five hundred feet above the lake, and is colored red upon the map. From it could be obtained an unlimited supply of good stone for bridge and foundation uses, but the superior quality and nearer proximity lo Cleveland of the Berea, makes the conglomerate of little im- portance, except for local use.

At the time of the deposit of this, the most recent of the indurated rocks of the county, the continent supported no Rowering plants; the vegetation of the land and water was confined to sea-weeds, mosses and ferns; no mammals, birds or reptiles had appeared anywhere, the most highly organized animals being ganoids, mud-fishes and sharks; the North American continent, extended from the polar regions into but. a small part of what now constitutes the United States; The Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains were not. lifled above the ocean, and during all subsequent, geological times until the glacial epoch is approached, the history of Cuyahoga county must remain unwrit- ten except as its condition may be inferred from re- cords outside of the county.

During this long period sedimentary rocks, includ- ing all those of the coal measures and the Permian of Paleozoic time as well as all these of those Mesozoic and Cenozoic time, and aggregating in thickness not far from twenty-five thousand feet, were deposited; the most important mountain chains of the continent were lifted from the ocean, and by slow accrefions the continent assumed its present form. The fauna and flora also changed with the changed condition of the continent, and evidence is not wanting that Cuyahoga county for a long time enjoyed a tropical or sub-

tropical climate, and that its soil supported a luxuri ant vegetation of tropical plants and trees, Many of these have left. no representatives in this latitude, but. the gigantic Sequoia of California and our own magni- ficent, whitewood or tulip free, Lierodendron tulipifera, are survivors of genera which, in tertiary times, were represented by very many species. The con- tinent was also inhabited by many strange and for- midable animals, wild horses, oven, hugo reptiles, birds with reptile-like leeth, mastodons, elephants, ote., the remains of the two latter showing that they were inhabitants of this county; the presence of the others only to be inferred from the fact that. Cuyahoga. county remained a part of the elevated land of the continent and open to their occupancy,

Of the closing years of this epoch, before the drift, some records remain inseribed upon the rock strata of the county in the form of deep channels of ero- sion carried below the present line of drainage, and showing that the land formerly stood at a much higher elevation than now, and which will be herein- after described.

TOPOGRAPHY.

The topography of the county has been determined by three causes modified by the geological structure: First. Pre-glacial surface erosion when the land was elevated several hundred feet above the present. level. Second. The glacial action which scooped out the basin of Lake Erie filled the pre glacial channels of erosion, removed the upper parts of the exposed strata, and covered the whole surface with drift, the debris of local and northern rocks.

Third. Post-glacial surface erosion, which has es- tablished recent channels of drainage, and in places assorted and redeposited the material of the drift.

PROFILE SECTION ACROSS THE CUYAHOGA VAIJ.RY.

6.3/18 VECHYA"C

1. Conglomerate. 2. Inyahoga Shale.

1. Bedford Shinle.

7. Old Flood Plain. 8. Krie Clay in Old Valley.

3. Berea Grit.

5. Cleveland Shale.

4. Erle Shale

This former greater elevation is evidenced by the channels of erosion or canyons cut. through the rock strata to a depth of some two hundred feet, below the present surface of the lake; the Cuyahoga occupying one of these channels, and now flowing some two hundred feel above the bed of the ancient river. That this greater elevation and subsequent, depression was not local, but is due to some cause affecting the whole northern hemisphere, is evidenced by the deeply buried ancient river channels in all this territory, and by the contour of all the lands in the northern hemisphere,

as contrasted with that of the southern. The denu- dation of the shore by ocean waves spreads out the debris, and gives a substantial level to the floor of the ocean, and the elevations of the adjacent land will leave its perimeter little indented with headlands and bays. Long continued subaerial erosion of elevated lands will cut out, deep channels, and a subsequent subsidence will convert these channels into bays, the elevated parts into headlands and capes, giving such an irregular contour and indented shore line as char- acterizes all the lands of the northern hemispheres.

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GENERAL INSTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

and is one of the many causes of their more rapid advance in civilization, illustrating the fact that geological changes in the remote past have located onr harbors, established modern centres of commerce, and determined the relative civilization of different sections.

As the result of these influences and the action of the shore waves of the lake, which has formerly been at a higher level, the surface of the connty presents a series of terraces rising from the lake until the old lake ridges are past, rising thence southward with a gradual slope, except in places where the harder rock strata have produced benches or bluffs to the summit of the subcarboniferous conglomerate.

The surface drainage is all into Lake Erie, and mainly by the Cuyahoga, Rocky and Chagrin rivers and their tributaries, the Cuyahoga within the limits of this county occupying the channel of an ancient pre-glacial canyon while most of its tributaries have excavated their rock channels since the drift period. The Rocky river has mainly a recent channel, but runs near an ancient river bed, the mouth of which may be observed a little west of the mouth of the present stream. The channels of the Chagrin river and its tributaries are mostly post-glacial. These topographical peculiarities are the results of agencies which have been in operation for a period long enough before the glacial epoch for subaerial erosion to ex- cavate channels in the rock strata to the depth of some seven hundred and tifty feet, (or from the summit of the highlands to the bottom of the ancient bed of the Cuyahoga, ) and long enough since the close of that epoch for the excavation of the recent channels of the Chagrin and Roeky rivers, and for that of Tinker's creek at Bedford. This is but the brief closing chapter of the geological history of the past.

SURFACE DEPOSITS.

The character of the surface deposits has been determined by part of the same causes which shaped the topography of the county-the advance of the great ice sheet from the north which scooped ont the basın of the lake, broke up, crushed and pulverized the surface roeks, mingled with this debris a part of the material scooped out of the lake basin, and that brought from the highlands in Canada, filled up the ancient channels, and covered the rock surface with this mixed material. During some stage of this epoch the finer material which would remain long in suspension in the water eddied backward toward the north either in open or ice covered water, and was deposited in the finely laminated clays which are the base of the surface deposits near the lake, and are found in places along the channels of the rivers some- times resting on the glaciated rock surface, and some- times npon the unmodified drift.

In places along the valleys this drift-material has been ground up and washed by the action of water, the finer material carried away, and the residue left in the form of stratified sand and gravel, containing

occasionally large boulders which have resisted all the pulverizing agencies. Along the former mar- gin of the lake the shore waves have washed out the finer portions of this material, ground up the residue and left it in a series of ridges marking successive cle- vations of the waters of the lake. Four of these ridges can be identified at elevations of about one hun- dred, one hundred and thirty-five, one hundred and seventy-five and two hundred feet respectively above the present surface of the lake, resulting in a band of light sandy soil, eminently fitted for gardening and the raising of peaches and small fruits.

The drift-deposit, where it has not been modified in one of these ways, consists of a bed of clay varying greatly in its thickness, filled with the fragments of the local rocks and of all the rocks outcropping to the north to and including the granitic highlands of Canada. These must have included the corniferons limestone now constituting the surface rock about Sandusky, and as a result this drift clay soil is tem- pered and ameliorated by an important percentage of lime. The upper part of this drift clay is yellow, but. where it is of very great thickness the lower part is blue; the relation of each part being such as to indi- cate that the color of the upper is the result of the slow peroxidization of the blue oxide of iron in the lower clay. This mingled material of the drift re- sults in a tenacious clay soil admirably adapted for grazing, but capable of producing large crops of all our staple grains where carefully and properly culti vated.

Resting upon this drift are many rounded and angu- lar granitic boulders, some of large size, which are ordinarily referred to the " Iceberg drift," these being regarded as dropped from floating icebergs after the mass of the drift was deposited. This may be sup- posed to have occurred through the breaking up of the retreating glaciers when it had become so thin as to float npon the water, and thus have constituted the final chapter in the history of the glacial period, or to have been the result of a subsequent depression of the surface and the floating southward of northern icebergs. It is possible, also, that these surface boulders may be the result of the surface erosion of the original drift uncovering the bonlders buried in it. As tending to the latter conclusion may be noted the abundance of these boulders in many places on the northern side of the lake ridges where the shore waves have removed a large part of the drift deposits.

OIL AND GAS WELLS.

Wells have been sunk in the county for petroleum at Brighton, in the valley of the Cuyahoga and Rocky rivers, and in Mayfield, Warrensville and Euclid. Oil, appearing in the lower layers of the Bedford shales and seeping out near the outerops of the Cleveland shale, has induced these explorations, and some show of oil has been obtained in most of these wells. Deep borings in Cleveland, one by the Gas Company and one by the Standard Oil Company near the month of

219

GEOLOGY.

Kingsbury run, have afforded some gas, while a eopi- ous flow has been obtained from a well bored by Cap- tain Spaulding between Cleveland and Rocky River, and a still more abundant supply from a well in the valley of Rocky river.

It is doubtless true that the Cleveland and the Hu- ron shales are the great sources of the supply of the oil and gas obtained from wells in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Cleveland shale furnishes the valuable oil obtained in the Mecca (Olio) oil regions, which is curved upward and saturates the Berca sandstone which there lies near the surface and in places is thoroughly protected by an impervious bed of drift clay. In Cuyahoga county the ravines cutting through this shale have for ages afforded means of escape for all the gas and oil resulting from the slow decomposition of the carbonaceous matter in the shale, and the indications are not favorable for either gas or oil from this source. If either is obtained in the county, it must be that produced from the IIuron shale.

The conditions favorable for copious supplies of gas or oil are a heavy bed of bituminous shale, deeply buried below all lines of drainage, which has been slightly disturbed and broken up so as to afford facil- ities for the production and the escape of the liberated hydro-carbons, a coarse sandstone above to retain the products, and the whole covered with impervious clay or clay shales preventing their escape. The undis- turbed condition of the Huron shales and the want of any important bands of sandstone in the Erie shale above do not point to this county as a favorable site for explorations for oil, but the abundance of gas springs along the lake shore shows that gas is contin- ually escaping and wells bored down to the Huron shale demonstrate that in places an abundant and long-continued flow of gas may be obtained. But no surface indications will enable any one to predict the result of experiments made in any locality, and while some gas or oil will probably be liberated by any well sunk down to the Huron shale, the question of the amount of either obtained can only be determined by experiment. Wherever machinery is used for other purposes and affords a surplus power for drilling, a well could be sunk down at little expense, with a rea- sonable prospect of obtaining gas and the chance of obtaining oil in paying quantities.

POST-GLACIAL HISTORY.

After the drift period the surface was again gradu- ally clothed with vegetation; new forms of animal and vegetable life appeared; new channels of drainage were established, the larger streams generally follow- ing the old pre-glacial channels, as excavations in them were more rapid than on rock surfaces; and man soon appeared as the erowning product of Cre- ative Power. Remains of his works have been found in this country and Europe in the drift, by careful observers, in such positions that they have inferred his presence before the drift. But these remains have

been taken from the modified river drift, and it is be- lieved there is no well authenticated find of this nature which has been taken from the unmodified glacia- debris, and the records of his history must yet be re- garded as bearing date subsequent to the glacial epoch. Ilis presence in Cuyahoga county during a long pe- riod of pre-historie time is evidenced in many ways: but this part of the history of the county belongs to the archæologist, and not to the geologist.

PRE-GLACIAL SCENERY.

Prof. Newberry, in his report upon this county, says: "These bluffs (of the Berea) unquestionably, were once the shore cliffs of the lake, and anterior to that time the stratum of the Berea grit stretched across the valley of the Cuyahoga, probably forming a shelf over which the river flowed in a cascade rival- ing in hight, if not in volume of water. that of Niag- ara.

It is not difficult, from a study of the character of the roek strata, to reproduce the scenery which char- aeterized the Cuyahoga valley during the time of the erosion of this ancient canyon. It is only where there is an alternation of hard and soft rocks in beds approaching the horizontal position, that canyon- making proceeds with any great rapidity, and in such cases the work is carried on by an undermining pro- cess which causes the rock beds, too hard to yield to the erosive action of running water, to break by their own weight and fall in successive fragments into the chasms below them. To reproduce the pre-glacial scenery of the Cuyahoga valley, we must erase Lake Erie from the map, and near the center, or a little north of the center of its present location, substitute a winding canyon, draining toward the east, and of a depth approaching one thousand feet, with number- less other similar canyons of similar depth emptying their waters into it.

The land of the county, certainly more than seven hundred and fifty feet above the bottoms of these canyons, how much more we cannot tell, extended far to the north and was covered with a network of canyons, two of which were nearly coincident in location with the Cuyahoga and Rocky rivers. At some time during the process of the erosion of these channels the conglomerate of the Cuyahoga valley was not cut by the canyon at the south line of the county. At that point it then formed the bed-rock of a river which may have been many times larger than the present Cuyahoga, and which poured over its margin in a precipitous fall of three hundred feet, or to the surface of the Berea. The intervening Cuya- loga shales are largely argillaceous and easily eroded. In most places they would all be cut out and carried away until the conglomerate was undermined, giving a precipitous fall from the top of the conglomerate to the Berea, with the bottom of the canyon strewn with lnge blocks of the conglomerate which had fallen from the bluff, as it was slowly but continu- ously undermined. In places there are very hard

220

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

beds in these Cuyahoga shales which would resist erosion, and at times, in place of a precipitous fall, would be formed a steep decline down which the water would rush in any eddying and foaming torrent, in time removing these harder beds, and when the shale became again more argillaceous, restoring the perpendicular falls.

Below this fall and to the north of it, the Berea would resist erosion until after the Bedford shales be- low were carried away and the Berea undermined, when the stream would pour over it in a fall of one hundred and thirty-five feet to the bed of the tough impervious Cleveland shale. The latter, resisting erosion, would be undermined by the erosion of the soft and friable Erie shale, and a third waterfall would result of a hight of over four hundred feet.

At places, the Cleveland shale is thinner and more easily eroded, and in such places the lowest fall would gradually approach the second one, be ultimately joined with it, and the water would have clear descent of over five hundred and ninety-five feet. This can- yon was intersected with other similar canyons, with

similar waterfalls, one of which joined it in the cor- ner of Bedford township, passing through Northfield, Hudson and Stow in Summit county, where its buried channel is washed by a chain of swamps and lakelets. Rivulets of various sizes emptied into it from both sides, the water falls in a precipitous descent, or in a succession of cascades. In places the decomposition of the argillaceous shales would widen out the canyon, undermine the compact, hard strata above, forming a succession of bold bluffs, from which huge masses would occasionally fall into the whirling torrents below, dense forests crowning the bluffs would add to the picturesque beauty of the scenery, the whole forming an interesting illustration of the resulting beauty from the orderly workings of the forces of na- ture, where no appreciative eye can see it, but which the student of nature, many thousands of years after- wards, can with a good degree of accuracy repro- duce. *

"The thickness and the subdivisions of the rock strata as given in this sketch are taken from Prof. Newberry's report for the State survey, to which I am also indebted for many other facts. M. C. R.

HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

PART SECOND: THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.

GENL. MOSES CLEAVELAND.

DIED AT CANTERBURY, CONN. 1806. AGED 7D YEARS.

THE CITY OF CLEVELAND,

CHAPTER XLIV. THE FIRST FOUR YEARS.

The Beginning First Streets-First Map-The Name-The Stiles Fam- ily First Buildings-Boundaries Description Streets-The Original Lots-Civil Coadition-Topography. Soil, etc .- Mouth of the ('uya- hoga-Sale of Lots-The Residents the First Winter-Gifts to Settlers

First Funeral and Graveyard-Lorenzo C'arter and Ezekiel Hawley The Oldest Survivor Pioneer House-building First Wedding Pro- gress of Survey-Sickness-James Kingsbury -Primitive Grist-Mill Nathaniel Doaa-Elijah Gua-Fever and Ague-Dogwood instead of Quinine -Failure to obtain Flour-First Grist-Mill-The First Raising -Indian Quarrel- Game A Thrilling Adventure.

The story of the various Indian tribes which lived and fought in the vicinity of Cleveland, and of the military expeditions which passed along the southern shore of Lake Erie, on land and water. has already been told in the general history of the county. There, too, will be found a sketch of the title of the Western Reserve, and of the survey of that tract in the years 1796 and 1792.

The separate history of Cleveland may fairly be said to begin on the sixteenth day of September. 1796. when Augustus Porter, the principal surveyor of the Connecticut Land Company, commenced laying out a few streets on the right hand side of the Cuyahoga river, at its junction with Lake Erie, for the purpose of establishing a village at that point, which it was hoped would one day become a city. Mr. Porter ran out the street lines, while his assistants. Messrs. Seth Pease, Amos Spafford and Richard Stoddard surveyed the "city" lots, or at least a part of them.

By the first of October the work was completed (unless some of the lots were not marked off till the next year), and a rude map of the proposed city was made by Mr. Spafford, which is published in Col. Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland. The work. of course, was under the general superintendence of Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the agent of the Connecticut Land Company, as well as one of its principal stock- holders, who had charge of the operations in the field during that year.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 56

Author: Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716