USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of Erie County Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
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March 9, 1871. Commissioners direct William S. Webb and the county auditor, Ebenezer Merry, to visit different county seats and examine county buildings with a view to the selection of a suitable model for that of Erie county, and report the result of their investigations.
May 31, 1871. The board visited Mansfield, O., to examine the court- house at that place.
June 5, 1871. The board adopted the plan offered by Myers & Holmes, of Cleveland, and made contract with them to furnish plans and specifications upon which the work should be done.
July 21. William S. Webb directed to proceed to Cincinnati and ascer- tain and report the best system for heating the new court-house.
August 10. Plans and specifications of Myers & Holmes adopted and ap- proved, after examination by the commissioners, clerk, sheriff and probate judge. Paid Myers & Holmes one thousand dollars in part payment on con- tract. Advertised for proposals from contractors to build court-house.
For the work several bids were received, all of which were examined and discussed from time to time, and finally, October 3, 1871, the board decided to reject all as provided by a clause in the public notice reserving a right so to do.
It seems that there was some technical error in the specifications, and the action of the board was in part on that account. Further than this, about this time the disastrous Chicago fire occurred, and it was suggested that this build-
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ing should be made as near fire-proof as possible. This would occasion ma- terial alterations in the plans, and it became necessary that the matter should have full consideration. However, on the 5th of December, the commission- ers again advertised for proposals to build which were opened on the 6th of February, 1872. They were as follows :
Aggregate bid of Philander Gregg $127,526 00
Carpenter & Matthewson, 129,729 00
66 Carr, Merry & Nason, 125,588 54.
66 Miller, Frayer & Sheets, 123,913 57
James Campbell, 1 38,842 65
66 Beaver & Butts, 125,675 91
Simon Harrold, 127,305 50
Besides these there were other bids for special departments of the work, a detail of which is not important in this connection.
The firm of Miller, Frayer & Sheets, of Mansfield, O., being the lowest bidders for the work, the contract was accordingly let to them by an agree- ment executed on February 24, 1872.
Although the plans and specifications had once been materially changed, no less than five further alterations were subsequently made thereto that en- tailed additional labor and its consequent expense ; so that, when a final set- tlement was had with the contractors, it was found that the total cost of the building amounted to one hundred and forty-two thousand twenty-six and forty-five one-hundredths dollars, including furnishing, added to which was the architect's account, per agreement, $4,361.29.
The building was occupied by county officers on the 4th day of December, 1874.
This new Erie county court-house is a model of beauty and modern archi- tecture, and does honor not only to those engaged in its construction but to the county. Its location, on the west block of the public square, was exceed- ingly well chosen, as from all sides a full view of its grand proportions is ob- tained. The effort at elaborate ornamentation was completely successful, and here does not appear at any point, evidences of needless display.
This imposing structure needs no further description in these pages. It stands a lasting monument to the liberality and public-spiritedness of the peo- ple of the whole county.
The New Jail .- And still there remained to be built after the completion of the court-house, another county building, and although of less proportions is none the less attractive in appearance and substantially built. This is the new stone jail on Adams street.
On the 29th of March, 1882, the commissioners of the county entered into an agreement with Adam Feick & Brother for the erection of a county jail on lot number thirteen, situate on the south side of Adams street. The contract called for a twenty-six cell jail and sheriff's residence, and the consideration
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paid them for its construction was $45,750. It was built within the contract, there being no extra work done that made an additional expense. In addi- tion to the original work heating apparatus was placed in the building, which cost something like one thousand dollars additional.
The County Infirmary .- In the township of Perkins a short distance from the south boundary of Sandusky City is located a farm of goodly proportions and in a finely improved condition and upon which is built a large stone struc- ture. This is the home for aged, indigent persons of Erie county, and is known as the County Infirmary. This building was erected in the year 1886, by George Phillip Feick under a contract made with the commissioners of the county. Mr. Feick was the lowest bidder for this work, his proposal being twenty-four thousand one hundred and sixty-eight dollars. An engine house and smokestack were subsequently erected by John H. Smith, at an expense of fifteen hundred and thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.
The building that previously occupied this site was burned during the latter part of November, 1885, and with its destruction five inmates were burned to death.
The early proceedings for the establishing of a county infirmary were had in the year 1855, and on the 29th of June of that year Walter D. Beall, John W. Sprague and John G. Pool were appointed a board of infirmary directors, who, with their successors in office have ever since had control of that arm of the county government.
The present directors are John Holahan, Thomas Mc Veigh and J. W. Lyles. The superintendent is Alexander Motry.
CHAPER XI.
GEOLOGY OF ERIE COUNTY.
T' HE labors of those who during the last two hundred years have devoted themselves to the study of the structure of the globe, and the claim which this department of human knowledge has to the name of science, depends up- on the symmetry which has been found to prevail in the arrangement of the materials composing the crust of the earth.
By the slow process of adding fact to fact and by comparing the observa- tions of the devotees of the science in different lands, it has been found that the rocky strata of the earth hold a definite relation to each other in position, and
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hence in age ; that many of them are distinguished by constant or general min- eral features, and contain characteristic or peculiar remains of plants or ani- mals by which they may be recognized wherever found.
It is now well understood, not only that these fossil remains are safe and con- venient guides in studying the relations and distribution of the rocks contain- ing them, but that their assistance is indispensable, and that no conclusions can be regarded as accurate and trustworthy unless confirmed by their evidence.
The observations of geologists have shown that the materials which com- pose the earth's crust form three distinct classes of rocks : those that are the direct product of fusion, called igneous ; those that have been made up of de- posits of sediment, called sedimentary; and those that have been changed in their structure and texture, called changed or metamorphic rocks.
The igneous rocks are subdivided into two groups, the volcanic and plu- tonic, of which the first includes lava, pumice, obsidian, etc .; the latter, plutonic, comprises those massive, rocky formations which are without distinct bedding, having apparently been completely fused, and yet were probably never brought to the surface by volcanoes. Having consolidated under great pressure, they are dense and compact in structure, never exhibiting the porous and incoher- ent condition which is so characteristic of purely volcanic rocks. The plutonic rocks are granite in some of its varieties, syenite, porphyry and part of basalts, diorites and dolerites (greenstones).
None of these igneous rocks are found in place in the State of Ohio, though they exist in vast quantities in the western mining districts and on the shores of Lake Superior.
It is supposed that these igneous rocks were the first formed and that they constituted the primeval continents. As soon, however, as these rocks were exposed to the action of the elements they began to be worn down and washed away, and the materials derived from them were deposited as sediments in the first existing water basins. That process has been going on through all sub- sequent ages, so that by far the larger part of the rocks which we now encoun- ter in the study of the earth belongs to the class of sedimentary deposits. These are known to us as sandstone, shale, limestone etc., the consolidation of the comminuted materials having been effected by both chemical and physical agen- cies. The differences which we discover in these sedimentary rocks are, for the most part, dependent on very simple causes, such as we now see in opera- tion upon every coast. The showers that fall on land give rise to rivers, and these on their way to the sea excavate the valleys through which they flow, transporting the materials taken into suspension to the point where the motion of their currents is arrested and their power of suspension ceases, in the water basins where they empty. In the gradual arrest of the motion of river currents the coarsest and heaviest materials first sink to the bottom, then in succession the finer and still finer, until all are thrown down.
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
Shore waves are still more potent agents in the distribution of sediments. Whether they break on cliff or beach they are constantly grinding up, and by their undertow carrying away the barriers against which they beat. Nothing can resist their force and ceaseless industry.
On every shore where the wash of the land accumulates, we shall find a de- posit of gravel and sand which forms the beach, a little off shore a belt of finer sand and clay, while in the depths of the ocean are deposited only organic sed- iments.
When consolidated these materials form rocks with which we are all fa- miliar-the gravel, conglomerate ; the sand, sandstone; the clay, shale ; the calcareous sediment, limestone.
We have also everywhere evidence that what we know as terra firma, is a type of instability ; that all lands are constantly undergoing changes of level, and that over all our continent the sea has rolled, not once, but many times.
The grinding effect of shore waves can be witnessed on every coast. In the submergence of a continent, all portions of its surface must in succession come under the influence of this agency. By its action the solid and superfi- cial materials lying above the sea level, the rocks, sand, gravel, and soil, would be ground up and washed away, the greater part forming mechanical sedi- ments and distributed according to the law of gravitation, the soluble portions taken into solution and carried out to impregnate the ocean waters, and to supply material to the myriads of organisms that have the power to draw from this solution their solid parts. In the advance inland of the shore line, the first deposit from the sea would be what may be termed an unbroken sheet of sea beach, which would cover the rocky substructure of all portions of the con- tinent brought beneath the ocean. Over this coarser material would be depos- ited a sheet of finer mechanical sediments, principally clay, laid down just in the rear of the advancing beach ; and finally over all, a sheet of greater or lesser thickness of calcareous material, destined to form limestone when consol- idated, the legitimate and only deposit made from the waters of the open ocean.
Upon the retreat of the sea, the surface of the land would again be covered with vegetation, acted upon by atmospheric erosion, washed into hills and val- leys, and locally covered with sand or clay, the products of this local washing.
Another invasion of the sea would leave similar records of a similar history, with this difference only, that the tribes of animals and plants inhabiting the land and water would, in the lapse of ages, have experienced marked changes. Perhaps in the interval, the old types of animals and plants would have entirely disappeared and others have succeeded them. So that the new sediments would include only relics of the new races.
Such is the order of the events that have given rise to the most of the phenomena of geology, and will serve to explain how it happens that we so frequently find sandstones and conglomerates followed by shales or soft clay
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GEOLOGY OF ERIE COUNTY.
rocks, and these again overlaid by limestones ; and, that in the different strata we have different groups of fossils. In the sandstones and conglomerates which are the direct debris of the land, we naturally find almost nothing but the remains of terrestrial plants. In the limestones we find mainly the remains of marine organisms, corals, shells, crustacea, and fishes.
All the rocks of Ohio belong to this class of sedimentary strata, and in- clude abundant examples of each subdivision of the two great groups, the mechanical and organic sediments.
To the list of sedimentary rocks belongs another kind of deposits, to wit, the chemicals, and are such as have been plainly precipitated from chemical solution, and include rock salt, gypsum, materials which form mineral veins, and those deposited by mineral springs, beds of ochre, and iron ore. Some of these owe their accumulation to the action of organic matter, but not having distinctly formed any animal or plant tissue they cannot be classed as organic sediments.
In all parts of the world rocky masses are met with which would not at first sight be referred to either of the classes above named. These are usually found in sheets of greater or lesser thickness, resting in regular sequence one upon another, as though they had once been sediments, but now upheaved and contorted, sometimes standing nearly vertical, and greatly changed both in their structure and texture. They have been called metamorphic or changed rocks. They compose most mountains and have been hardened and made crystalline by the forces that have acted upon them in their upheaval ; they usually bear evidence of having been highly heated, and in some cases even fused in the process, so that some of them can hardly be distinguished from members of the class of igneous rocks.
They form all of the mountain chains of our country, and underlie most of New England and much of Canada. We have no representatives of them in Ohio, except such as have been brought by the Drift agencies.
These are the materials with which we have to do in the study of the gen- eralities of geology. The sedimentary rocks underlying the earth's surface form what is known as the geological column, that is, they are arranged in a regular sequence which holds good over all the earth's surface. It is true, however, that in no one place, so far as has been observed, is every member of this series present; for the reason that while any one formation was accumu- lating in a sea basin, which occupied only a limited portion of the earth's sur- face, dry land existed at the same time in great areas, and there no sediments could be deposited. All sedimentary rocks have been formed in oceanic basins.
The oldest rocks of which geologists have any knowledge are those com- posing the Canadian Highlands, and those exposed on the northern shores of Lake Huron. These are metamorphic rocks, and underlie a broad belt in Canada extending from Labrador to the Lake of the Woods, and thence to the
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
Arctic Sea. From the circumstance of this area bordering the St. Lawrence River, the name Laurentian has been given to the first named group. These rocks also form the Adirondacks, a part of the Allegheny belt, the Ozark Mountains, reappear in Texas, the Black Hills of Nebraska, and in some of the mountains of Arizona.
Bordering and partially overlaying these rocks, are a series of sandstones, limestones, etc., accumulated in the sea surrounding this ancient Laurentian continent, and made up of materials derived from that continent. These strata form what is called the Silurian system, from their exposure in a part of Great Britain once inhabited by the ancient Silures.
The lowest member of this system is the Potsdam sandstone, appearing in a belt around the southern margin of the Laurentian area in Canada, the Adirondacks, and the region about Lake Superior, concealed at the Mississippi and reappearing further west. It has been reached in deep borings at Colum- bus, O., at St. Louis, and other places, showing that it underlies in an un- broken sheet the valley of the Mississippi. The fossils of this rock are not numerous, and from the fact that no land plants have left their traces here, it is supposed that terrestrial vegetation was then exceedingly scanty if not wholly wanting.
Resting on this sandstone, and forming by its outcrop a parallel belt of exposure, is a rock consisting of a mixture of lime and sand called calciferous sandrock, and from evidence underlies the surface of an area nearly equal to the Potsdam. This rock holds the lead of Missouri. The most characteristic fossils are graptolites.
On this sandrock are found a series of limestones called Chazy, Birdseye, Black River, and Trenton. They contain the remains of shells, corals, trilo- bites, and crinoids, and undoubtedly are the result of the accumulation of organic matter at the bottom of the great Silurian Sea, when its waves rolled over the old continent. This group is exposed in New York, Canada, about Lake Superior and on the Upper Mississippi, where one of its members holds the lead of the Galena district.
On this limestone are found rocks composed of mixed lime and clayey sed- iments, containing graptolites as the most characteristic fossils. These are slates, and are called the Hudson group. The outcrop of this group forms a belt parallel with and more southerly than those of the older Silurian rocks. In the Cincinnati rocks are found so large a number of Trenton fossils that, though the rocks there are usually regarded as equivalents of the Hudson, they are considered, in parts at least, the representatives of the Trenton.
In the successive strata so far we have an illustration of the sequence of deposits made in every submergence of the land-first, mechanical (sandstone), then mixed (lime and sand), and then organic sediments (Trenton). The earthy limestones of the Hudson group indicate a shallowing and retreating
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GEOLOGY OF ERIE COUNTY.
sea, an approach to land conditions, and the completion of one circle of depo- sition. These strata are called the Lower Silurian series, and of these the two latter are of interest in Ohio, because they are the oldest rocks exposed in the State. They are brought to the surface about Cincinnati by an axis of up- heaval reaching from Nashville to Lake Erie, in the region of the islands, par- allel to the Alleghenies, but of more ancient date. They contain a large amount of bituminous matter, and are the source of oil and gas. In boring for natural gas at Sandusky the Trenton rock was reached at a depth of 2,3 1 5 feet.
The rocks next above the Lower Silurian series are called the Upper Silu- rian series. They have been most carefully studied in New York, where they have received their names. The first is the Oneida conglomerate, a rock con- posed of coarse materials, conglomerate and sandstone, and marks a period of land subsidence, or water elevation, which apparently involved only a portion of the continent, and during which a long line of shore was thickly overspread with coarse materials torn from the coast by shore waves.
On this conglomerate lies the Medina sandstone, composed of sandstone and shales, having a little wedge-shaped brachiopod and a sea-weed as its most characteristic fossils. In New York it is 300 to 400 feet thick. It thins and becomes finer toward the west. Its prevailing color is red. It has been found in Northern Ohio in boring for oil.
Next is the Clinton group, consisting of shales and limestones, mixed mechanical and organic sediments and containing a peculiar bed of iron ore called fossil ore, which forms a stratum two to ten feet thick, traceable from Wisconsin to New York, thence southward to Alabama. In Ohio it is repre- sented by a limestone in the region about Cincinnati. Where most calcareous it contains many fossils, the most interesting of which are two graptolites, the last of the group found in ascending the geological column.
We now come to a rock composed of nearly equal masses of limestone and shale, and forms the ledge over which the Niagara River pours, and is hence called the Niagara group. It is not exposed in this county. In the southwestern part of the State the lowest stratum of the Niagara is known as the Dayton stone, one of the best building stones in the State. It underlies Chicago, and from it is derived " Athens marble."
In Northern Ohio the rock overlying the Niagara is that which contains gypsum. It is called the Salina from the fact that it is the source of the salt obtained at Syracuse. The New York geologists call it the Onondaga salt group. It is composed of many alternations of colored marls and shales and some impure limestones containing gypsum. It is not exposed in this county. North of Sandusky Bay, in Ottawa county, a bed of gypsum is worked by Mr. E. H. Marsh, of Sandusky. The gypsum lies covered by a few feet of drift. In boring for gas at Sandusky gypsum was found at a depth of about three
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
1
hundred feet. There is gypsum on the lake bottom south of Put-in-Bay Island.
Next over the Salina is a group of rocks that form a considerable portion of the Helderberg Mountains in New York, and are called the Helderberg group. It is there made up of several distinct strata, mostly earthy limestones. Its lower subdivision is the water-lime. It may be identified by its ever pres- ent and characteristic fossil, leperditia alta. The water-lime is exposed on the peninsula in Ottawa county, and forms Put-in-Bay and other islands in that vicinity.
At Castalia a large volume of water flows up from orifices in the limestone rock, called Castalia Springs. It maintains an equable temperature and vol- ume throughout all seasons, except that a protracted drought affects its vol- ume. The water is highly charged with lime, and incrusts any object covered by it, and has deposited a sheet of travertine, over a large area in the vicinity. The subterranean channels of the stream are in the water lime, the uppermost member of the Silurian system.
This group forms the summit of the Upper Silurian system and completes a circle of sediments which corresponds with that of the Lower Silurian. The history recorded in each case is the same : a submergence of such portions of the continental surface as now carry the sedimentary strata enumerated ; in the progress of each submergence, the spread of shore materials over all the surface covered by the advance of the sea; this sheet being followed first by mixed mechanical and organic sediments, then by those almost purely calca- reous deposits from the open ocean, and finally earthy limestones, indicating a retreating, shallowing sea, and a return to land conditions, during which no de- positions would be made on the surface, but which was the necessary starting point for a new circle of deposits. One difference in the sediments of these Silurian oceans is, that the limestones of the Trenton group are nearly pure carbonate of lime, while those of the Niagara series (the Clinton, Niagara, and water-lime) are highly magnesian. The animal life of the two seas was entirely different, except two or three mollusks; and this probably is the reason for the distinctive chemical characters exhibited by the organic sediments of these seas. In the Silurian rocks we find a great number and variety of the lower order of animals and abundant traces of marine plants, but in America no ver- tebrates and no land plants have been discovered in them, while in Europe remains of both land plants and fishes occur in the rocks of the Upper Silurian.
In this country remains of fishes are first met with in the Devonian system of rocks, which are those next above the Silurian. This system is called the age of fishes, as the Silurian is the age of mollusks. The name Devonian comes from Devonshire, England, where these rocks are prevalent. They form an important part of the geology of our country and of the world, occu- pying a large area of the surface, include one of our most valuable mineral
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GEOLOGY OF ERIE COUNTY.
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staples (petroleum) as a characteristic ingredient, and contain many strange forms of ancient life.
The lowest formation of the Devonian system is the Oriskany sandstone (so named from a New York locality), and is a coarse mechanical sediment. A thin belt of sandstone seen near Castalia and on the peninsula in Ottawa county is the equivalent of the Oriskany.
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