History of Delaware County and Ohio, Part 30

Author: O. L. Baskin & Co; Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 818

USA > Ohio > Delaware County > History of Delaware County and Ohio > Part 30

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Below the Delhi limestone, is a fossiliferous belt of limestone, often of a bluish color and bituminous character, ten to fifteen feet thick, characterized by corals in great abundance. In the central part of the county of Delaware, this belt is chiefly fossilif- erous in the lower three or four feet, the remainder being rather, but of a blue color. The south- ern part of the county, however, seems to be with-

out this bluish and highly coralline member, the Delhi beds coming immediately down on the second division of the lower corniferous. The corals found here are favosites, conastroma, stroma- topora, and cyathophylloids. This belt is met with in Crawford County, and seems to prevail toward the north as far as Erie County. The second division of the lower corniferous is a light- colored, even-bedded, nearly non-fossiliferous ves- icular or compact magnesian limestone, which makes a good building stone, being easily cut with common hammer and chisel, and has a thickness of about thirty feet. It is apt to appear somewhat bituminous and of a dirty or brown color when constantly wet, but under the weather, it becomes a light buff. The upper half of this stone is in beds of two to four inches, the lower in beds of one to three feet. Near the bottom it becomes arena- ceous, and even conglomeratic, passing into the Oriskany sandstone, which has a sudden transition to the waterlime of the Lower Helderberg. It seems to have many of the lithological features and the persistency of the Onondaga limestone of New York, and may be provisionally parallelized with that formation. The fossils are generally absorbed into the rock, casts or cavities only remaining ; yet a cyathophylloid and a coarse favositoid coral have been seen.

* * *

In Delaware County, the Oriskany is much re- duced in thickness from what it is in the northern part of the State, but its composition is much. coarser, reaching that of a real conglomerate. It is not over two feet at any point where it has been seen. The pebbles embraced in it are entirely of the waterlime, and uniformly rounded, as by water action. Some are four inches in diameter, but in thin' pieces. The last section given (that on Mill Creek) shows its position on the strata. It is there plainly exposed, and there fades out, without change of bedding, into the lowest part of the lower corniferous, which sometimes, as in the county of Sandusky, has been seen to be some- what arenaceous, several feet above the strong aren- aceous composition of the Oriskany. The exposure on Mill Creek, and that in the left bank of the Scioto, near the lime-kiln of Mrs. Evans, are the only points in the county at which this conglom- erate has been seen.

As already mentioned, the waterlime appears in the left bank of the Scioto, near Mrs. Evans' lime- kiln, a quarter of a mile below Millville, and has been somewhat used for quicklime. It rises here,

177

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

fifteen feet above the water of the river, at sum- mer stage. It is probable that the bed of the river is on the waterlime for a mile below this point, and even to Sulphur Spring Station. The quarry of John Weaver, about half a mile below Cone's Mills; is in the waterlime. The exposure here is in a ravine tributary to the Scioto from the West. The situation is favorable for profitable quarrying and lime-burning. The stone is drab, and much shattered. It turns a light buff after weathering, some of it becoming as white as ehalk. Half a mile above Millville, the waterlime rises in the right bank of the Scioto about fifteen feet, the road passing over it. It is visible in the bed of the Scioto, at the crossing known as the Broad Ford. , At Cone's Mills is a fine surface exposure of the waterlime. It has been somewhat wrought at this place. The beds are quite thin and slaty, and of a blue color. The texture is close, and the grain very fine. In the bed of the Scioto a stone spotted with drab and blue is quarried, a short dis- tance below Middletown. It is in even beds of four to eight or ten inches, and is very valuable for all uses. It is a part of the waterlime. Some of the same kind is found in Boggs' Creek, two miles from the Scioto, on land of John Irwin. In Thompson Township the waterlime is seen on the farm of Jonathan Fryman, a mile and a quarter west of the Scioto, at the road-crossing of Fulton Creek. It is in thin, blue beds, the same as at Cone's Mill, and has been used somewhat in cheap foundations.

* * * * * *

Several interesting features pertaining to the Drift, proving the glacier origin of this deposit and all its features, were first noticed in Delaware County. Allusion has already been made, under the head of Surface Features, to the valley of the Scioto, and the contrast its upper part presents to its lower. Throughout the county generally the beds of all streams are deeply eroded in the under- lying rock, although their banks are constantly rocky. This faet is more and more evident to the observer in traveling from the northwestern part of the county to the southeastern. The north- western corner of the county, including the town- ships of Thompson, Radnor, and the northern part of Scioto, has the features of the flat tract in Northwestern Ohio known as the Black Swamp. The banks of the Scioto are low (ten or fifteen), and consist of Drift, the rock rarely being known in its bed. The Drift appears fresher and the sur- face is smoother than in the rest of the county. A

short distance above Millville the banks begin to be rocky, the excavation beginning in the water- lime, over which it has been running since it left the western part of Hardin County, but without making the slightest excavations, rarely revealing it in its bed by rapids. Within a mile from Mill- ville the amount of erosion in the underlying rock increases to a remarkable extent, and at Sulphur Spring Station, about two miles below Millville, the erosion in the rock amounts to sixty or seventy feet. From there south the rest of the Scioto valley is between high rock banks. This exemp- tion from erosion in the upper waters of the Scioto cannot be due to the harder nature of the rock there, because the waterlime is much more rapidly worn out under such agencies . than the lower corniferous, on which it enters at Sulphur Springs Station. The composition of the Drift about the head-waters of the Scioto is the same as about the lower portions of its course. It is in both cases a hard-pan deposit, made up of a mixture of gravel- stones, bowlders, and clay, rarely showing stratifi- cation or assortment- such a deposit as is, with- out much difference of opinion, attributed to the direct agency of glacier ice. The conclusion is in- evitable that the lower portion of the Scioto has been at work digging its channel in the rock much longer than the upper portion. The slope is in both cases toward the south, at least that portion of it in Delaware County ; and that agency, what- ever it was, which served to make this change in the valley of the Scioto from no excavation to deep rock erosion, could not have been quiet, standing waters over one portion of the valley and not over the other, since such waters would have retired last from the lower part of the valley, and we should there expect less instead of more erosion. The only possible way to explain this phenomenon, in the light of plausible theories, is to refer it to the operation of the last glacial epoch, or to the operation of a glacial epoch which projected the ice-field only so far south as to cover the upper part of the Scioto Valley, leaving the lower portion of the valley, which probably pre-existed, to serve as a drainage channel from the ice itself. Subse- quently, when the ice withdrew, the upper tribu- taries were located in such places as the contour of the surface allowed or demanded.

There are other evidences that the township of Radnor, Thompson, and the northern part of Sci- oto were for a time under glacial ice, while the rest of the county was uncovered, and suffered all the vicissitudes of surface erosion. The average

178

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

thickness of the Drift in Radnor Township, judg- ing by the phenomena of wells and the height of river banks, as well as from the rocky exposures, is about twenty feet. Toward the river, bowlders are common on the surface. In Thompson Town- ship, the thickness seems also to be eighteen or twenty feet. In descending the Scioto along the right bank, after passing Fulton Creek, there is a noticeable thickness of the Drift, and two Drift ter- races follow the river for 'a couple of miles with considerable distinctness. They are each about fif- teen feet in height, the upper one sometimes reaching twenty feet, and are separated in many places by a flat belt of land, the surface level of the lower terrace. Below these is the river flood -plain. This second, or upper river terrace, comes in apparently from the west, and appears just at the point where the rock begins to be excavated by the river. It makes the thickness of the Drift about thirty or forty feet. After pass- ing Millville and Sulphur Spring Station, the upper terrace disappears in a general slope to the river, and it cannot be identified at any point further south. This thickening of the Drift is in the form of a moraine ridge, which, passing west of Ostrander about a mile, is intersected by the Marysville Pike a little west of the county line. From its summit toward the west the descent is seventy-five or one hundred fect, when a flat is reached like that in the northwestern part of Dela- ware County. This moraine has not been traced through Union County.

A singular line of gravel knolls and short ridges pertaining to the Glacier Drift crosses Radnor Township, coming into the county from the north at Middletown (which is on the Scioto, in Marion County), and passing about a mile to the west of Delhi. It is traceable nearly to Millville. It is intersected by the gravel road about a mile north of Delhi. The road then follows it to Middletown, where it becomes lost from further observation. This interesting series of ridges is not arranged in a single, continuous line, but the separate ridges overlap each other, rising and falling at irregular intervals. Sometimes the line appears double ; low places on one side are in some places made up by full deposits on the other. On either side the country is flat, the soil is of close clay, and the roads very muddy in rainy weather. The Delhi beds of the lower corniferous are exposed at a number of places in close proximity to these gravel knolls, proving the strike of the formation to be exactly coincident with this strip of gravelly land.

Toward the east is the enduring corniferous ; toward the west, the easily disrupted waterlime. There is a general but very gentle slope to the west. The material in these ridges is stratified sand and gravel, which has been considerably used in constructing the gravel roads that intersect that part of the county.

* *

Beginning with the lowest in the geological series of the county, we find a close grained, drab limestone. The beds, so far as seen in Delaware County, are usually less than six inches in thick- ness, yet at one place, near the north line of the county, it is taken from below the waters of the Scioto in beds of six to ten inches. Although this stone is rather hard and close-grained, it is also apt to be brittle, and in its undisturbed bed- ding, to be checked into small, angular pieces. It occupies low, sheltered places, owing to a tendency to be destroyed by the elements. It is easily dis- rupted, even by the use of the crow-bar or pick, and seldom needs blasting. These qualities ren- der it a poor quality for construction, and it is sel- dom used except for quicklime. When it has not been bleached and weakened by long exposure to the elements, it makes a lime nearly as strong as any that can be burned in Delaware County, and much whiter than that made from the Hamilton or the corniferous. Near Mrs. Evans' kiln, where it has been used in conjunction with the cornifer- ous, it is distinguished as the " White Stone," by the workmen, from the whiteness of the quick- lime it affords.

The Oriskany, which succeeds to the water- lime, has no economical value whatever. In some parts of the State it is very pure, silicious sand- stone, in heavy beds, but in Delaware County is conglomeratic with waterlime pebbles, and it grad- uates upward into the lower members of the lower corniferous, the supposed equivalent of the Onon- daga limestone of New York State. The remain- der of the Devonian limestones constitutes a group which are noted for their various economical uses. The heavy buff limestone overlying the Oriskany is rather coarse-grained and rough to the touch, but lies in heavy layers of uniform thickness and text- ure. Its color is pleasant and cheerful, especially when dressed under the hammer and laid in the wall. It is sometimes vesicular or cherty, when its value as a building material is considerably less ; yet in all cases it answers well for any heavy stone work, as bridge piers and abutments, aqueducts, and all foundations. In some parts of the State

179

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

this member of the corniferous is extensively wrought, and sawn into handsome blocks for stone fronts. Ample facilities are offered along the Scioto River, at a great many places, for the working of this stone. Its value for building, and the accessibity of its layers, render it a little surprising that no opening worthy the name of a quarry has been made in it within the limits of Delaware County. As a cut-stone, it ranks next to the Berea grit in its best estate, which is found in the eastern part of the county, and when once introduced int the market of the county, particu- larly in the western portions, it would draw cus- tom from a wide range of country west and north, where no good cut-stone can be found. Some of the most favorable points for quarries in this lime- stone are near the south county line, in the banks of the Scioto, or in some of its tributaries. The banks of Mill Creek, at Bellepoint, and also for a couple of miles above, are almost equally favor- able.

The next member of the lower corniferous is that described as thin-bedded, cherty, buff lime- stone, and differs but little from the last. Owing to the thinness of the bedding it is only useful for quicklime, of which it makes a quality very simi- lar to the heavier beds below. The bluish lime- stone next overlyingis not constantin its characters; indeed, in some sections, covering the same horizon, it was found wanting. In its place may sometimes be seen a few feet of very fossiliferous, bituminous limestone. The blue color is believed to be due to the more even dissemination of bituminous mat- ter through the entire rock, instead of its preser- vation in fossil forms. When the bitumen is present in considerable quantity, the black films and their irregular scales, that disfigure and destroy the rock for building purposes, do not materially injure it for making quicklime. They readily volatilize in the kiln, but the fresh lime is of a little darker color. When the member is not highly coralline and bitumiuous, it makes a very firm and useful stone for all uses in walls and foundations. The quarry of Mrs. Evans, about a fourth of a mile below Millville, is in this stone.

It is to the " Delhi stone," however, that the county is indebted for the greatest quantity of quicklime. These beds lie immediately over the " bluish stone " last mentioned. The layers are gen- erally not over three or four inches in thickness, and rather hard and crystalline. They are often crinoidal and very fossiliferous. The color is rather light, and the line made is heavy and strong.

It contains very little sediment that cannot slack, and brings the best price in the markets ; yet it is not so white as that made from the waterlime, nor is the stone so easily burned as the upper part of the Niagara limestone. 'In the absence of a better quality of stone for walls and common foundations, this limestone is very commonly employed, but the irregularity of its bedding, and the thinness of its layers, will effectually prevent its use in heavy stone work. In deep quarrying, the bedding would become thicker and the variations of color and texture due to its fossils and crystalline tendency might make it take rank as a handsome marble.

Overlying the Delhi beds is the well-known " blue limestone " of Delaware County, extensively quarried and used for buildings at Delaware. This is a hard and crystalline stone, variously inter- spersed with bituminous and argillaceous matter. Where these impurities are wanting, the bedding is usually about six inches in thickness, but may reach ten or twelve. When they are abundant, the bedding becomes slaty, and the stone is much injured for purposes of building. These argilla- ceous layers, which part the bedding, soon succumb to the weather, and cause the calcareous layers to chip out or break by superincumbent pressure of the wall. Numerous instances of such defective masonry could be pointed out in the city of Dela- ware, showing the treacherous character of much of this blue stone. Stone-cutters will be at no pains to remove such shaly matter from the stone, but rather prefer to leave it, even to the damage of important buildings, since it gives them less labor to cut. The effect of the elements is much greater on this stone when it is placed on edge in the wall, instead of being laid as it was deposited by nature in the quarry. The beds of sedimenta- tion ought always to be laid horizontally, instead of perpendicularly. Although this stone is very firm and crystalline in its best estate, it is yet sus- ceptible of being cut into all useful forms, for sills, caps, keystones and water-tables, and is largely used both at Sandusky and Delaware for these purposes. Its dark color makes it especially adapted to foundations where a light-colored super- structure is intended, and to all Gothic architecture. For lime it is very little used, owing to the diffi- culty of calcination, compared to other accessible limestones, and the heavy sediment of argillaceous matter that will not slack ; yet the lime it makes, although rather dark-colored, is said to be very strong and hot.

Missing Page

181

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

can only be partially gleaned from the internal evidences which they themselves afford. They consist of the remains of what were apparently villages, altars, temples, idols, cemeteries, monu- ments, camps, fortifications, pleasure grounds, etc. The farthest relic of this kind, discovered in a northeastern direction, was near Black River, on the south side of Lake Ontario. Thence they extend in a southwestern direction by way of the Obio, the Mississippi, Mexican Gulf, Texas, New Mexico and Yucatan, into South America.

* * *

"In Ohio, where the mounds have been carefully examined, are found some of the most extensive and interesting that occur in the United States. At the mouth of the Muskingum, among a num- ber of curious works, was a rectangular fort contain- ing forty acres, encircled by a wall of earth ten feet high, and perforated with openings resem- bling gateways. In the mound near the fort were found the remains of a sword, which appeared to have been buried with its owner. A fort of similar construction and dimensions was found on Licking River, near Newark. Eight gateways pierced the walls, and were guarded by mounds directly opposite each, on the inside of the work. At Circleville, on the Scioto, there were two forts in juxtaposition ; the one an exact circle, sixty rods in diameter, and the other a perfect square, fifty-five rods on each side. The circular fortifi- cation was surrounded by two walls, with an inter- vening ditch twenty feet in depth. On Paint Creek, fifteen miles west of Chillicothe, besides other extensive works, was discovered the remains of a walled town. It was built on the summit of a hill about 300 feet in altitude, and encompassed by a wall ten feet in height, made of stone in their natural state. The area thus inclosed contained 130 acres. On the south side of it there were found the remains of what appeared originally to have been a row of furnaces or smith-shops, about which cinders were found several feet in depth."

But, to come down to the local history of these people, we give place to the following article, pre- pared at our special request, by Reuben Hills, Esq., of Delaware. Mr. Hills has given the subject much study, and our readers will find the result of his researches of considerable interest. He says :

In the examination of the early history of Del- aware County, we find the first inhabitants who have left any traces of their existence were the Mound- Builders. The question may properly be asked,

" Who were the Mound-Builders?" And it is a question which has puzzled archaeologists ever since the discovery of the strange works of this race. The name itself, though conveying an impression of their habits, is rather suggestive of our igno- rance as to who they were, since, except from the mounds of earth or stone, which cover the central part of this continent, we know almost nothing of this people, who, in the ages long ago, came we know not whence, and vanished we can not tell whither.

The red Indians who occupied this country at the time of its discovery by Europeans had no knowledge nor even any traditions of their prede- cessors, so that what the white man learns of them he must learn directly from the remains of their own works. Their antiquity is as yet an entire mystery. That some of the mounds were com- pleted and deserted as long as eight hundred years ago is certain, but how much longer is not known. Their civilization was of a different order from that of the red Indian, and their manner of living was apparently more allied to that of the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans. Many questions remain to be solved in regard to them. Whether they had anything like a written language, of which we have, as yet, no proof; whether the remains, of different character in various parts of the continent, are the work of the same people at different stages of their civilization, or the work of different races at very remote periods ; and about what time they occupied this country - these are all questions of conjecture. So also is the question of the relation of the modern Indian to the Mound-Builder ; whether he is the conqueror or the descendant. Nearly all late writers, however, agree in believing the Indian is not a descendant of the Mound- Builder. All these questions are to be answered by the diligent study and research of the antiqua- rian, and will be satisfactorily settled only when the answers are founded on fact and not on theory.

But the design of this article is not a discussion of the Mound-Builders in general, but of the posi- tion in political geography held by Delaware County during the period of the Mound-Builders' occupation of the country. The evidences of the ancient occupation of this county consist of flint arrow-heads and spear-heads, fleshers, celts, stone hammers, hatchets, pestles, pipes, relics classified as " drilled ceremonial weapons," mounds of vari- ous descriptions, and fortifications. Such imple- ments as arrow-heads, hatchets, etc., are found in all parts of the county, the largest numbers

182

HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.

occurring in the neighborhoods of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. Dr. H. Besse, of Delaware, has in his collection a fine assortment of the above- mentioned drilled ceremonial weapons, also several perforated tablets, all of which were found on the surface, in Porter Township. Mr. John J. Davis has in his possession a stone pipe, of plain design but exquisite finish, which was unearthed in dig- ging for the foundation of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Delaware. In the museum of the Ohio Wesleyan University may be seen a large number of relics, gathered from all parts of the county.

The mounds are mostly sepulchral. One of the most remarkable ever opened in the county, was the one on the farm of Solomon Hill, a short distance west of the Girls' Industrial Home. We take the following notice of this mound from the Delaware Herald of September 25, 1879 : " Satur- day we were shown some interesting relics consisting of a queen conch-shell, some isinglass [mica ] and sev- eral peculiarly shaped pieces of slate, which were found in a mound on the farm of Solomon Hill, Concord Township, Delaware Co., Ohio. The mound is situated on the banks of a rocky stream. The nearest place where the queen conch-shell is found is the coast of Florida; the isinglass in New York State, and the slate in Vermont and Penn- sylvania. Two human skeletons were also found in the mound, one about seven feet long, the other a child. The shell was found at the left cheek of the large skeleton. A piece of slate about one by six inches was under the chin. The slate was pro- vided with two smooth holes, apparently for the pur- pose of tying it to its position. Another peculiarly shaped piece, with one hole, was on the chest, and another with some isinglass was on the left hand.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Delaware County and Ohio, Part 30

Author: O. L. Baskin & Co; Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 818

Author: O. L. Baskin & Co; Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 818