History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 5

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 5
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 5

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COAL MEASURES.

In the centre of the county a narrow and thin deposit of the coal measures caps the hills along the east bank of the Cuyahoga, extending from the south line of the county to the point where that stream curves around to the north of Burton village. This deposit crosses the Cuyahoga, underlies Burton village, extending to the northern part of the township, with an isolated patch at the northeast corner of Newbury township. In no part of the county is there a promise of any important amount of coal. In Troy township the coal-measure sandstone is separated from the conglomerate by the coal shales, which, in places, are very thin, rarely exceeding a thickness of six feet. In the southern part of the town- ship, coal has been obtained in small quantities from a seam too thin to be profit- ably worked, yet at this point it is probably thicker than in any other part of the county east of the Cuyahoga. At Burton the coal shales and the seam of coal are thicker, the rocks of the coal measure reaching a thickness of one hundred and twenty-five feet. There are indications here of coal in sufficient quantities to be profitably mined for local consumption. Near the northeast corner of New- bury townsbip, coal of very good quality, about two feet thick, has been disclosed in sinking a well on Mr. Frank Stone's farm, and at a depth of about ten feet from the surface.

CONGLOMERATE.

Below the coal formation lies the conglomerate, or pebbly sandstone, varying in thickness from sixty to one hundred and seventy-five feet. In places it is separated from the coal shales by layers of shaly sandstone, which reach a maxi- mum thickness of twenty-five feet, but are often much thinner, and sometimes entirely wanting. In places, also, the coal shales thin out and disappear, as at Troy Centre, where the coal measure sandstone rests directly upon the shaly sandstone of the conglomerate. Both of them contain, at this point, a profusion of calamites, and are in places so ferruginous as to constitute a silicious iron ore.

The conglomerate underlies the whole surface of Auburn, Troy, Newbury, Burton, and Claridon townships, and crops out in all the other townships of the county, the deeper ravines cutting through it and exposing the rocks beneath. It differs greatly in its character in different places, sometimes affording excellent building material, as in Russell township, where it is fine-grained, hard, and of a clear white color. In the northwest of Chester, ledges are exposed from thirty to fifty feet in thickness, which are throughout a mass of white quartz pebbles, with sand filling the interstices. These pebbles might possibly be made valuable for glass-making and for pottery, as they could be obtained in large quantities and at a trifling cost. In Newbury township this rock is, in places, handsomely colored by oxide of iron, but at the outcrop is coarse and soft. Should there be a sufficient demand to warrant thorough explorations, it is probable colored rock suitable for ornamental building might be found there.

In Parkman the conglomerate attains a thickness of one hundred and seventy- five feet, being the maximum thickness of the rock where measurements have been made in northeastern Ohio. Here much of it contains pebbles, but the most of it is so fine as to make a fair building-stone, and the supply is inexhaustible.

In Thompson the well-known ledges furnish a fine exposure of this rock, and give a rugged and romantic character to the place, which attracts many visitors during the summer season.

" Little Mountain," situated partly in Geauga and partly in Lake counties, is an isolated, narrow ridge of the conglomerate, having an altitude of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Erie; covered with a forest of pine, hemlock, oak, and chestnut ; cut into deep ravines, with precipitous bluffs on the north and west.

The altitude of Little Mountain renders the air cool and healthful; its isolated position affords a commanding view of the surrounding country and lakes; its dense forest furnishes pleasant walks and drives ; so that it has naturally become one of the most popular places of resort in the State. Chalybeate water of ex- cellent quality is furnished by the springs at the base of the mountain.

BEREA GRIT.

The denuding agencies have so cut away the rocks about the mountain that the Berea grit may be found on all sides of it, and at no great distance from it. It appears by the side of the road, about one hundred rods from the mountain, on the main approach to it, and is quarried on Chardon road, about half a mile south.

This Berea grit is to be found at an average depth of one hundred and eighty feet below the conglomerate, and is the most valuable building-stone in the county. Its outcrop may be traced through the west part of Russell and Chester townships, through the west, north, and east parts of Kirtland, Lake County, ex- tending up the valley of a branch of Chagrin river into Munson township, through the west and north parts of Chardon, through the west and north parts of Thomp- son, and in the northeast and southeast parts of Parkman township. At nearly all of the points indicated above it may be found massive and of good quality for building purposes. In Munson a quarry has been opened, which, by proper se- lection, affords stone of excellent quality, and from which material was obtained for the new court-house at Chardon. In Chardon, in the " Big Gull," and at the northeast corner of the township, the Berea grit is finely exposed, and in both of these places there is a large part of it which will make grindstones equal to the best made at Berea.

In Thompson, north and west of the ledges, it is quarried in several places, the quarries furnishing excellent flagging, and also strong, firm slabs of any desirable size, and from eight to twelve inches in thickness. At the bottom of the layers quarried is a stratum of very soft, friable stone of no value, which on exposure crumbles into sand.

CUYAHOGA SHALES.

Between the Berea grit and the conglomerate lie the Cuyahoga shales, which are exposed in but few places in the county, and as far as observed afford no val- uable minerals. Their position is generally marked by a belt of heavy clay land, nearly level, extending outward from the base of the conglomerate; when cov- ered with forests supporting many gigantic elms, and making excellent meadow and pasture lands when cleared. They are reclaimed with difficulty, as a dense growth of shrubs, brambles, and weeds spring up everywhere as soon as the forests are cut down, and the soil is generally too wet for grain crops until drained. The eastern portions of Huntsburg and Montville afford illustrations of this kind of soil. No part of the county will afford richer pasture lands than these will become when fully reclaimed.

BEDFORD SHALES.

These lie directly beneath the Berea grit, are in this county from forty to fifty feet in thickness, and are exposed only in the ravines formed by the branches of Grand river and the Chagrin. They include layers from one to three feet in thickness of compact, fine-grained sandstone, susceptible of polish, and which would make excellent window caps and sills if properly selected. They contain iron, which will " run" and color the stone unless care be taken to reject imper- fect specimens. Some of these layers would furnish material for fine-grained grindstones and oilstones, those near the northeast corner of Chardon being of the best quality seen in the county.

CLEVELAND SHALES.

Below the Bedford shales these ravines cut through about forty feet of the black or Cleveland shales, and below this the branches of Chagrin river, in Char- don, expose something over one hundred feet of the Erie shales, the lowest rocks to be seen in the county. Neither of these deposits furnishes materials of any economic value, but if the supply of petroleum from wells should fail, the black shale would become valuable for the amount of oil it will yield by distillation.

NATIVE FORESTS.

Birch and maple forests, with thick groves of chestnut, where the broken rock comes near the surface, mark the horizon of the conglomerate, and above this, in the centre of the county, a belt of forests, in which the predominant timber is oak, defines with great accuracy the limit of the coal measures. Descending from this summit to the east, the same forest peculiarities are seen in an inverse order, so that the small patches of the old forests yet remaining indicate to the experienced eye, with much accuracy, the geology of all parts of the county.

Many of the farmers of this region express the opinion that the conglomerate lands afford better pasturage than others in the State, and that the dairy products obtained from them are better and have better keeping qualities than those ob-

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

tained elsewhere. It is certain that when this rock comes near the surface it produces the effect of thorough underdraining. Another fact affecting the pro- ductiveness of this region should not be overlooked, and that is that the annual rainfall is here much in excess of the average of other parts of the State.

The following section illustrates the geological structure of the county, com- mencing with the upper member of the series: No. 1, sandstone; No. 2, coal shales; No. 3, coal No. 1, with a thin bed of shale below it; No. 4, the conglom- erate; No. 5, the Cuyahoga shales; No. 6, the Berea grit; No. 7, the Bedford shales; No. 8, the Cleveland or black shale; No. 9, the Erie shales. The first three comprise the coal-measure rocks of the county, the next five the subcarbon- iferous rocks, and the last the upper Devonian, and the lowest rock found in the county or in the eastern part of the State.

LAKE COUNTY.

Lake County is bounded on the north by the lake, on the south by Geauga in part and in part by Cuyahoga, on the east by Ashtabula, and on the west by Cuyahoga county and the lake. Its capital town is Painesville, which is situated in latitude 41° 40' and in longitude 4° 30' west from Washington.

It embraces the following townships: Madison, Perry, Painesville, Willoughby, Kirtland, Corcord, Le Roy, and Mentor. Its territorial land area contains two hundred and twenty-seven square miles.

Great inequalities characterize the topography of the county. Its general surface is an almost uniformly inclined plane, rising gradually from the lake to an altitude of over six hundred feet at the base of the sandstone wherever it strikes the south line of the county. At " Little Mountain" the conglomerate is about seven hundred and fifty feet above the lake.

Pierson's mountain, near the east line of Kirtland, is the most northern exten- sion of the conglomerate in that township. It is a small circuitous knob, having essentially the same elevation as Little Mountain, broken on the surface, and cov- ered with a dense growth of young chestnuts. Elsewhere in the township the denuding agencies have cut away and removed the upper portions of the con- glomerate, so that it is comparatively inconspicuous. The Cuyahoga shales are fully exposed nowhere in the county, but the topography indicates that their thickness is about one hundred and eighty feet. They constitute the surface rock between the conglomerate and the Berea grit, and if uncovered might afford in places material for fair flagging-stone.

BEREA GRIT.

This coarse sandstone, exhibiting a sharp transition from the shales above and below it, has its usual thickness and characteristics in Le Roy, Concord, and Kirt- land, though covering only a part of these townships. Its northern limit is generally marked by a conspicuous belt of sandy soil. Its outcrop enters the county in the southeast part of Kirtland, extends northward about two miles, thence turns eastward through the centre and near the east line of the township, and bending southward along the bluffs of the east branch of the Chagrin river, passes into Chester and Munson townships of Geauga County. It again enters the county near the southwest corner of Concord, and can be traced entirely around Little Mountain, its upper surface being about one hundred and eighty feet below the base of the conglomerate bluffs. It again enters Concord east of the Painesville and Youngstown railroad, and caps the high land south of Con- cord Centre, on which Collender's quarry is opened. It also covers the high lands about Hill House post-office, in Le Roy township, and is fully exposed a little to the east, at the plank-road mills on Paine's creek.

In Kirtland, from eight to ten feet of the upper part of the Berea are exposed in quarries. The surface layers are thin and very much ripple-marked, while the lower ones are more massive, though much broken, the layers varying in thickness from ten inches to three feet. The rock is firm and strong, but irregularly colored.

The best exposures of the Bedford shale are in the deep gorge west of the centre of Kirtland, but their position as underlying the Berea can be easily traced throughout the southern parts of the county. They are near forty feet thick, composed mostly of hard compact rock, in thin layers, from one to thirteen inches in thickness. Eastwardly in the county they become softer and more aluminous, and for the most part are covered with drift and soil.

CLEVELAND SHALE.

The upper thirty feet as exposed in the gorges in Kirtland are a typical bitu- minous shale, which passes by a gradual transition through thirty-five feet into the Erie shales below. This constitutes the lowest member of the lower carbon- iferous rocks. The plants imbedded in it sometimes have a thin coating of true coal, and the whole mass contains a large proportion of lower carboniferous rocks. Were the inclined plane which extends from the base of the conglomerate to the lake not cut up with ravines, as the effect of erosion, the line of division between

the lower carboniferous rocks and the Devonian below would be a very regular curve from near the south line of Madison township to a point about two miles north of the south line of Willoughby township, and everywhere about three hundred and fifty feet above the lake. As it is, the Erie shales are disclosed in all the deep gorges made by the streams to points two, three, and, in places, four miles south of this line.

HURON SHALE.

Below the Erie shales, which are from seven hundred to twelve hundred feet in thickness, are the Huron shales, the source of the gas which has been obtained by borings at various points along the lake-shore. From some of these wells an abundant supply of gas has been obtained as soon as these shales were pierced. This gas has the same origin as petroleum, and the search for it is subject to the same conditions and hazards. One drill-hole may pass through compact, unbroken layers of the shale, piercing no cavities or fissures, and then no gas is obtained. Another, near it, striking such fissures, may yield an abundant supply of it.

SOIL, DRIFT, AND LAKE RIDGES.

The whole surface of the county covered by the Erie shale is greatly modified by the drift, and by the shore deposits of the lake. In Willoughby township, north of the old Chardon and Cleveland road, the soil is dry, surface level, with forests of beech, maple, oak, hickory, etc., with many large elms. The lower carboniferous shales come near to the surface, and their debris forms the greater part of the surface material north of this road until the old lake beaches are reached. The soil is stiff clay, and the surface is much eroded, deep ravines cutting down into this Erie shale, giving good surface drainage, and producing conditions admirably adapted to fruit-growing. Granite bowlders are sparingly scattered over the surface. The southern lake ridge here, and in a large part of the county, is mostly composed of unstratified clays, but is irregular, and not well defined. In places it is largely composed of gravel, and much of this is strati- fied. The rapid rise from the lake renders it probable that high bluffs marked the south shore when the water stood at the elevation of the outer or southern ridge, and that after it receded erosion so modified the surface as to cover the old shore-line with the debris of the bluffs then forming the ridge, and so masking its position. The blue and yellow clays cover the shales to the present lake level. In nearly all the northern part of Willoughby and Mentor the surface is covered with a fine clay loam, containing little sand, and in places covered with a dense forest of elms and black ash, indicating areas long occupied by shore-swamps.

At Painesville, the south ridge is in places largely composed of coarse, stratified gravel, but it has been modified by subsequent action. In Madison township the slope from the lake rises more gradually than farther west, and the lake-ridges are more regular and better defined.

Three and a half miles west of Fairport is a deep, broad channel of an old river, evidently much larger than the present Grand river, with abrupt banks on each side, which, at the base, are over one mile apart. The intervening marsh is quite level, and contains stretches of open water from eighteen to twenty feet deep. At the lake shore is a sand-bar, stretching from one bluff to the other, through which the included waters occasionally cut channels and flow out into a rapid torrent. This old river-bed turns to the east, and is continued, with bluff banks, nearly to the present channel of Grand river, where it is so filled up as not to be easily recognized. The depth of this channel below the present surface of the lakes has not been determined. It has doubtless been the outlet of a river since the lake occupied its present level, and how far into the past its history is to be carried can be determined only by further explorations.

CHAPTER V.

THE INDIANS .*

FOR the reason that the same tribes of Indians inhabiting Ashtabula county prior to the coming of the white man inhabited in like manner the counties of Geauga and Lake, we use the account substantially as given in the Ashtabula history as applicable to this history.

The inhabitants of Geauga and Lake Counties, before the advent of the white man, were red Indians of the Algonquin race. Their history is an important one. Succeeding that mythical and mysterious people called the Mound-Builders, they form a connecting link between the earliest and latest period, and help us to extend the history of the region into a remote past.

The people which are first known to have inhabited this region were a tribe of

. The first part of this chapter is from the pen of S. D. Peet.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

aborigines, who have left their name upon the waters near which they resided. The Eries were a tribe which occupied all the territory lying south of the lake which bears their name, and are thus described by the earliest maps of the country. The French, who were the first explorers and discoverers of the great west, called them the Felians, or Cat Nation. How they came by the name is unknown, but possibly it was given them from the wild animal that prowled so stealthily among these forests. It was, however, a name which at the earliest date was assigned by the natives themselves both to the tribe and to the lake, and never changed.

The history of this people is unknown. All that is known of them is that, about one hundred and fifty years after the time of the discovery of the conti- nent, they came in contact with the powerful, all-conquering people to the east of them,-the fierce and cruel Iroquois,-and were subdued by them. No people on the continent ever served to carry so much fear into the hearts of the savage tribes as did that confederated and warlike race. For a time the Eries were shielded from their attacks by the tribes which were called the Neutral nation, and who occupied the country east and north of Lake Erie. This people were able to make their land the neutral ground, where all the tribes of the west might meet on friendly terms, and be safe from the attacks of the confederates. Even after the Hurons had been attacked on their lands, and were nearly exter- minated, this tribe was able to continue its neutrality. The destruction of the neutral people did not occur until at least one hundred years after the discovery of the continent. The Jesuits had long occupied their missions at the north, and had even explored the distant west, before this barrier was removed and the ter- rible Iroquois began their incursions into the interior. Then, however, the de- struction was sudden and complete. The western tribes faded away before this relentless foe far quicker than they did before the milder incursions of the civil- ized race. The destruction, indeed, was made before the white man entered these unexplored regions, and the natives of these forests lost their possessions through the incursions of those who were of their own race and blood. The Iroquois were not the possessors of the soil which they sold, but they conquered it from other tribes, and after the advent of the white race, by treaty after treaty, disposed of it to this advancing people.

The first nation which fell before the conquering savages was the Eries, who occupied the territory nearest them. The 'story runs that, about the year 1650, the Eries and the Iroquois met in bloody conflict in the neighborhood of Buffalo, and that the former were completely vanquished. Whatever became of the na- tion is now unknown, for no fragment of them has been recognized among all the wandering tribes of the west. Were they incorporated into the same con- federacy, and, becoming mingled with their conquerors, lost their separate exist- ence ? Or did they escape in scattered and fugitive bands, and become absorbed with the other tribes of the great west ? It is singular that such perfect oblivion could pass over a people who lived so recently on this soil, and that no one should know what was their fate. They are, however, a lost tribe,-lost to history, and lost to the land on which they dwelt. Not a record of them remains. The name they bore rests upon the beautiful lake near which they lived, but it rests iu silence, its peaceful waves not even whispering the story of their fate.

Such has been the strange history of the land in which we dwell. Successive races have found their abode here, but they have perished by the hand of savages like themselves, and no one knows their destiny. The silent vestiges found on these hill-sides-their weapons of warfare and their buried bodies-speak to us of their existence. The corn-fields in many a fertile valley, the burial-grounds beside the beautiful rivers, the occasional pit where they entrapped their game, and the many signs of their encampments, still convince us that they were a numerous and powerful people. Whatever may have been the race who erected the mounds and earthworks, it seems probable the burying-places were those of this lost people, and that the skeletons which are now looked upon are the ex- humed members of the race which has given its name to the lake where was their residence. The blue waters may moan their departure, the forests sigh out their requiem, but their joys and sorrows are buried in the soil made sacred by their bodies. No tale of slaughter and no deed of cruelty can ever fix to their name. It is well that these residents of this county had departed before the advent of the white man, for then there had doubtless been a tale of treachery and cruelty and dark deeds which would have cast a cloud over their memory. As it is, how- ever, the record of this people who sleep on this soil where now we dwell is un- stained by any tale of warfare. The same air of peace which gathers over the waters which bear their name also gathers over their memory; and their name may ever continue to stir associations of the beautiful, the peaceful, and the true.

The tribe which conquered the original possessors of this soil soon became themselves its occupants, and before many years the name of the Eries disappeared from the land. For many years the whole of this wild territory embraced in the State of Ohio was known as the hunting-ground of the powerful Iroquois ; and the Senecas, which were the westernmost of the confederate tribes, were known to be its

occupants. It has been stated, however, that the Ashtabula river itself was the dividing line between this tribe and others who were allowed to dwell beyond them. The maps which were published about the year 1750 designate the region indeed as the hunting-lands of the Iroquois; but it is related that the Wyandots were by permission allowed to occupy the western part of the territory. A path is marked across this whole territory, from the region east of Lake Erie to a dis- tant point on the Mississippi river, which is definitely stated to be the path which the Iroquois took in their attacks upon the Illinois and the western tribes. The deep forests became again neutral territory. This time a subjugated people, the remnant of the great Huron nation which had been so recently exterminated, was placed as a barrier against their enemies at the west. Thus did the Iroquois occupy the land in comparative security for many years. At last the incursions of the whites became too great even for this powerful people. By degrees the chiefs sold the lands to the conquerors, and their treaties designated the boun- daries of the new territory. The treaty by which the land was ceded where this county lies, and of which it forms a part, was made by the Iroquois, in the year 1726, at a council held at Albany. By virtue of this treaty, the whole territory west of Lake Erie, and a strip of land, sixty miles in width, along Lakes Ontario and Erie to the Cuyahoga river, was surrendered. The treaty of 1726 is the first in which this region is mentioned. The recognition of the river and lake at so early a date helps us to carry the history of this county, then the hunting-field of the red man, at least fifty years farther back than the date at which it is next mentioned. Up to 1684 no map had been published which described the continent correctly, or even contained a mention of many of the rivers in it. Indeed, it was as late as 1676 before the southern shore of Lake Erie had been visited or the Ohio river had been explored. Such had been the fear of the warlike Iroquois, even among the French explorers and missionaries, that they had avoided this side of the lake, and had confined themselves to the Ottawa river and the northern lakes. The great west had been explored by these hardy and heroic men; the great river, the Father of Waters, had been navigated from the falls of St. Anthony to its mouth ; the Wisconsin and the Illinois had been explored and described, and forts and missions erected on them, long before this region had been visited. Now, however, the ceding of the territory became the means of its occupation. The French at once became jealous of the aggres- sions of the English, and by right of discovery, and by virtue of treaties which they themselves had made with the western tribes, they also laid claim to all this territory lying west of the Allegheny river. The French government at once sent out officers who should lay claim to the land, and plates inscribed with the French coat of arms were buried in various localities to prove their claim. Forts were also erected at various advantageous points, as at Presque Isle, now Erie ; at Venango, near Franklin ; at the mouth of French creek ; and at Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 5

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443