USA > Ohio > Preble County > History of Preble County Ohio: Her People, Industries and Institutions > Part 7
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thereafter the Indians returned with overtures of peace, which were, that McMahon and Storey be taken to Sandusky, tried by Indian laws, and if found guilty punished by them. This could not be done. McMahon was tried by General St. Clair and the matter was settled. The first missionary on the reserve was the Rev. Joseph Badger.
Tuscarawas county was formed February 15, 1808, from Muskingum It is well cultivated with abundant supplies of coal and iron. The first white settlers were Moravian missionaries, their first visits dating back to 1761. The first permanent settlement was made in 1803. Mary Heckewelder, the daughter of a missionary, was born in this county April 16, 1781. Fort Laurens was built during the Revolution. It was the scene of a fearful car- nage. It was established in the fall of 1778 and placed under the command of General McIntosh. New Philadelphia is the county seat, situated on the Tuscarawas. It was laid out in 1804 by John Knisely. A German colony settled in this county in 1817, driven from their native land by religious persecutions. They called themselves Separatists. They are good people, strictly moral and honest.
Union county was formed from Franklin, Delaware, Logan and Madi- son in 1820. Extensive limestone quarries are also valuable. The Ewing brothers made the first white settlement in 1798. Col. James Curry, a mem- ber of the State Legislature, was the chief instigator in the progress of this section. He located within its limits and remained until his death, which occurred in 1834. Marysville is the county seat.
Van Wert county was formed from the old Indian Territory April 1, 1820. Van Wert, the county seat, was founded by James W. Riley in 1837. An Indian town had formerly occupied its site. Captain Riley was the first white man who settled in the county, arriving in 1821. He founded Will- shire in 1822.
Vinton county was organized in 1850. It is drained by Raccoon and Salt creeks. The surface is undulating or hilly. Bituminous coal and iron ore are found. McArthur is the county seat.
Washington county was formed by proclamation of Governor St. Clair July 27, 1788, and was the first county founded within the limits of Ohio. The surface is broken with extensive tracts of level, fertile land. It was the first county settled in the state under the auspices of the Ohio Company. A detachment of United States troops, under the command of Major John Doughty, built Fort Harmar in 1785 and it was the first military post estab- lished in Ohio by Americans, with the exception of Fort Laurens, which was erected in 1778. It was occupied by United States troops until 1790,
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when they were ordered to Connecticut. A company under Captain Haskell remained. In 1785 the directors of the Ohio Company began practical opera- tions and settlement went forward rapidly. Campus Martius, a stockade fort, was completed in 1791. This formed a sturdy stronghold during the war. During the Indian war there was much suffering in the county. Many settlers were killed and captured. Marietta is the county seat and the oldest town in Ohio. Marietta College was chartered in 1835. Herman Blenner- hassett, whose unfortunate association with Aaron Burr proved fatal to him- self, was a resident of Marietta in 1796.
Warren county was formed May 1, 1803, from Hamilton. The soil is very fertile and considerable water power is furnished by its streams. Mr. Bedell made the first settlement in 1795. Lebanon is the county seat. Henry Taylor settled in this vicinity in 1796. Union Village is a settlement of Shakers. They came here about 1805.
Wayne county was proclaimed by Governor St. Clair, August 15, 1796, and was the sixth county in the Northwest Territory. The settlement of this section has already been briefly delineated. Wooster is the county seat. It was laid out during the fall of 1808, by John Beaver, William Henry and Joseph H. Larwell, owners of the land. Its site is three hundred and thirty- seven feet above Lake Erie. The first mill was built by Joseph Stibbs in 1809, on Apple creek. In 1812 a block-house was erected in Wooster.
Wood county was formed from the old Indian Territory in 1820. The soil is rich and large crops are produced. The county is situated within the Maumee valley. It was the arena of brilliant military exploits during early times. Bowling Green is the county seat.
Williams county was formed April 1, 1820, from the old Indian Terri- tory. Bryan is the county seat. It was laid out in 1840.
Wyandot county was formed February 3, 1845, from Marion, Hardin, Hancock and Crawford. The surface is level and the soil fertile. The Wyandot Indians frequented this section. It was the scene of Crawford's. defeat in June, 1782, and his fearful death. By the treaty of 1817. Hon. Lewis Cass and Hon. Duncan McArthur, United States commissioners, granted to the Indians a reservation twelve miles square, the central point being Fort Ferree. The Delaware reserve was ceded to the United States in 1829. The Wyandots ceded theirs March 17, 1842. The United States commissioner was Col. John Johnson, who thus made the last Indian treaty in Ohio. Every foot of this state was fairly purchased by treaties. The Wyandots were ex- ceedingly brave and several of their chiefs were men of exalted moral principles.
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Upper Sandusky is the county seat and was laid out in 1843. General Harrison had built Ferree on this spot during the War of 1812. Governor Meigs, in 1813, encamped near the river with several thousand of the Ohio militia. The Indian village of Crane Town was originally called Upper Sandusky. The Indians transferred their town, after the death of Tarhe, to Upper Sandusky.
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CHAPTER II.
GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY.
"In the beginning. God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was waste and void. . * * . And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so." Thus in general terms, does the Bible describe the process of world-making, and science has so far found no contradition to that gen- eral statement.
THE GLACIER PERIOD.
In regard to that particular part of the earth's surface with which we have to deal, the latest geologists substantially state the case to be as follows: That in the process of world-making the great Laurentian, or sometimes called Labradorean, and the Kuwatin ridges of Canada heaved their granite backs above the ocean waves, and as the ages merged into the vast cycle of time, they extended their borders southward, well across the United States, and they became covered with sand and vegetation, and the dying vegetation added its mould and matter, making what we call soil, which furnished life and substance to a profusion of various vegetation, which, as the ages slipped by, became peopled and teemed with animal life varying from the mite to the mammoth; and streams flowed down the slopes of the land to the sea; but there came a time, brought about by the shifting of the earth's poles, or some other great cataclysm of nature, when those two great ridges, the geological backbone of the North American continent, became covered with mountains of ice, variously estimated to have been from three to eight miles thick at the central point of the ice masses, and as ice is known to be fluid when of great depth, it flowed south and southwest down the general slope of the land, and paused not in its onward march until it had crossed the line of the Ohio river, and brought up against the high lands of Kentucky opposite southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana, and rendered the Ohio river a lake, extend- ing perhaps to beyond Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Then the ice sheet receded a part of the way, and again advanced, until it is claimed there were no less than six periods of advancement and reces-
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sion, with long periods of hundreds of years between the recessions and the advancements. So long were some of them that great forests again cov- ered the land, only to be swept down and destroyed by the ruthless icy wave; but, finally, nature adjusted conditions and the great ice sheet retreated to its northern home permanently, melting away before the rays of the sun.
This period of ice is called the glacier period. That vast moving body of ice ground and pulzerized the underlying earth, stone and sand, leveling "hills and piling up other hills, and brought down other material from the north; then the melting of the ice resulted in great floods of water, which washed and distributed the earth material and drifted and piled it up in many places many feet thick, and the material so left is called drift. Preble county lay right across the path of that great ice machine and the erosive process of its melting floods; and, generally stated, the soils of the county, so won- derfully fertile, were then deposited and have so remained, except as changed by deposits of decaying vegetation, or the washing effect of our streams. The many boulders scattered over our county, and especially those of our great boulder belt, the greatest in Ohio, on account of their structure and composi- tion, are mute witnesses that they were a part and parcel of that invading wave of northern ice. The scouring of the great ice sheet, followed by the floods of water that swept down from the face of the melting and retreating ice mass, have eroded the three main valleys of the county, to wit : Big Twin creek, Seven Mile creek and Four Mile creek, which with their tributaries drain the whole county and form part of the Great Miami valley, except the northwestern corner of the county is drained by Whitewater and its tribu- taries, and a part of southern Gratis and southeastern Somers township are drained by Elk creek, which flows into the Great Miami.
THE STONE CROP.
Three groups of stone crop out in the county. The Cincinnati group (blue limestone), covering the greater part of Israel, Somers, Gratis and Lanier and Twin townships, and the eastern half of Gasper township, with a long finger of that stone extending up Twin creek to beyond Euphemia. The balance of the county is covered with the Niagara group, with the Clinton limestone showing as cap rock several feet thick. Along the junctions of the two great groups named above, except at West Elkton, there seems to be an island of Clinton extending northeast and southwest some five miles long by about two miles wide.
The surface of the county may be described as level and rolling land,
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there being no elevations of the county that would properly be designated as hills, except along Whitewater in Jefferson township and along Seven Mile in Somers, and along Four Mile in Israel township, and the Morning Star hill in Lanier township at the junction of the Cincinnati and Niagara groups, and is covered with the heaviest cap of Clinton in the county. And even those hills, while they seem big to us in comparison with the balance of our land, are not what geographers designate as hill land, because they are not of great heights, and can generally be cultivated and cropped from base to sum- mit. And it is noticeable that along the juncture of the two great groups of stone numerous springs of most excellent water are found, and they materially affected the early settlement of the county. One known as the Royer spring in Twin township is one of the largest springs in the state, flowing no less than one hundred and seventy-five thousand gallons per day, summer and winter, and in the early settlement of the county. was utilized to run a small mill for over forty years. While this is the largest, there are several others that flow from five thousand to fifty thousand gallons per day.
The tremendous erosive force of the floods that in ages past have swept down our streams can not be adequately described; but let me tell where it may be seen, and then the observer can turn his imagination loose. About half a mile west of Camden, Paint creek cuts across what is known as Devil's Backbone hill, and by going down stream below the hill and looking north may be seen the saddle cut across the hill, that at one time certainly must have been the bed of the creek, but which is now some fifty feet or more above the present bed. By some weakness in the rampart of stone, the waters found a lower outlet and have cut and quarried away the stone, leaving a sheer bluff some sixty to eighty feet high as a monument of its tormer power. A similar demonstration on a smaller scale may be seen where little Four Mile breaks through the hills to join the main stream in Israel township.
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A BELT OF BOULDERS.
The great boulder belt of the county deserves more than a passing no- tice, because it is the largest in Ohio, and one of the most remarkable in the United States. Its central line begins about a mile east of Gettysburg. There the belt swings in a great band one to three miles wide southeast to about two miles north of Eaton, and there curves eastwardly and runs east by south, passing out of the county east of Enterprise, and extending to about or be- yond Farmersville in Montgomery county. There are many boulders scat- tered over the county outside of this belt, but they are separate and not form-
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ing a distinct body. In the boulder belt they range from pebbles to stones weighing many tons, mostly granite, syenite, quartzite, etc. One measured by the writer in 1888, on the farm of Wilson Frank about one and a half miles north of the courthouse, was elliptical in form, over fourteen feet long by eleven feet wide and rose three and a half feet high, and the ground was probed three and a half feet deep without finding the bottom of the stone. The top was oval in form, and the outside lines were regular, the stone of a dark color and a very dense and hard formation. These are the measures, and its weight can be approximately figured.
In the boulder belt where they are undisturbed they are so thick as to render cultivation very tedious, and in some places well nigh impossible. They are all azoic stone; that is, they belong to the stone of that age when no life existed in the world. There are no cliffs or layers of stone like them, showing on the surface to the north, probably nearer than the north shore of Lake Superior, and it is claimed that for some of the boulders there are no localities known to the north with similar surface rock. Some of them plainly show that they have been worn and rubbed and grooved by the glacier action. It is known that when two glaciers in their descent crowd against each other, that the heavier and stronger bends the weaker somewhat, and then they flow side by side to the lower levels and often carry great bands of stone clustered along the junction line, which bands of stone are called moraines. Does this band of stone across our county mark the line of such glacier action during the process of world making? These boulders have been largely gathered from the surface of the land and piled or built into fences, or crushed and spread on the roads, and they form most excellent road material; but while the surface of the land appears clean, the plow and `ditches encounter many boulders beneath the surface. There are yet some large boulders left, but the farmers have been industriously clearing them off, and they are fast disappearing. The method adopted by the early set- tlers, and up to about thirty years ago, was to build a fire around and over a big boulder and get it very hot, then throw a few buckets of cold water on it, and it would crack off slabs of stone, if it did not break into pieces ; and two or three fires generally softened its heart so that it could be hauled away; but when dynamite came into use it made the biggest boulders yield quickly.
NATURE KIND TO THE SOIL.
The soil of the county is generally warm and fertile and adopted in an eminent degree to nearly all crops raised in this latitude, and our farmers have learned to utilize its generous nature in the raising of those crops which
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it produces best, until they have made the county, if not the wealthiest county of the state per capita, as shown by the tax duplicate of the state, certainly not lower than second place on the list. The drift formation has been modi- fied by other agencies in many parts of the county, and scattered through it, and between the boulder clay and the modified drift, exist seams of sand and gravel sometimes in large deposits, and through these seams water perco- lates, and in sinking wells generally the striking of one of these seams or beds of gravel leads to an abundant supply of excellent water being found; most notable of which are the wells at Eaton, where at a depth of one hun- dred to one hundred and twenty feet is found the supply of water for the Eaton water works; while at West Alexandria, at about one hundred feet, is found a supply of most excellent water that will flow out of pipes several feet above the surface of the ground, and it furnishes the water for the vil- lage water works.
In the central part of the county the boulder clay is at the surface and lies directly on the sheet of limestone beneath, while in the northern part of the county the boulder clay is covered by a modified drift some twenty feet in depth; while at Camden the gravel bed comes nearly to the surface and extends downward to a depth of one hundred and eighty feet before reaching the limestone sheet beneath, as shown in the drilling of two oil wells at that village some twenty-five years ago. The gravel depth at Camden is the greatest of any gravel bed known in this part of the state, and at a depth of a few feet the gravel bed is found to be filled with water, so much so that in a large section of territory wells sunk fifteen to thirty feet furnish a never- failing supply of most excellent water.
The Niagara stone and, to a lesser extent, the Cincinnati group, has been extensively utilized in the past in making lime, of which it makes the highest quality, and for many years there were large and prosperous lime kilns near Lewisburg and New Paris, and their product was in much demand, not only at home, but was shipped to many points in Ohio and neighboring states; but recently it has been discovered that the stone crushed makes one of the most valuable of our road-making materials and for concrete, and large crushers have been erected at those places, and their product finds a ready market in many counties and cities, while the burning of lime, being less remunerative, has been practically abandoned. In these groups of stone are found many fossils of the former ocean bed, bivalves, corniculums, trilobites, etc., notably at Eaton, where many forms are found in greater abundance and perfection than in any other known locality.
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STRIKING OIL.
In the limestones of these groups and the Clinton, many places show and smell of petroleum deposits, and this fact has caused three oil excite- ments in the county, separated by intervals of ten to twenty years, when wells were sunk, three at Eaton to a depth of some sixteen hundred feet or more, and two near West Alexandria were drilled over twelve hundred feet, and two at Camden to a similar depth, but no paying oil found, but pockets of gas were encountered, but of no great amount, except at Camden one well struck and obtained a considerable supply of gas that was utilized to some extent, until the seapage of water shut off the supply, and where the water was pumped out the supply of gas was resumed, and it would be of some use if some means could be found to cut off the inflow of water. During each oil excitement many oil leases of land were made, and are recorded in our deed records, thus, at least, the oil crazes had the effect of benefiting the county recorder.
The Clinton limestone in this locality resembles sandstone and resists fire better than any other formation, and during the early days when fire- places furnished nearly all the heat for the house, it was much sought and used for the backs and sides of the fireplaces and chimneys.
HILLS AND HOLLOWS.
The exact geographical position of the county and the elevation of the various places of the county, and as to highest and lowest points, have been much discussed, and it seems that no more fitting place could be found than in closing this chapter. The figures given are those of the United States Geographic Survey, and show the elevation in feet above the sea level. But first the geographic location :
Intersection of Main street, Eaton, and the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cin- cinnati & St. Louis railroad. Longitude 84 degrees 37 minutes and 47 sec- onds. Latitude 39 degrees 44 minutes and 39 seconds.
Intersection main cross streets, West Alexandria. Latitude 39 degrees 44 minutes and 41 seconds. Longitude 84 degrees 31 minutes and 54 sec- onds.
State line on west road. Latitude 39 degrees 44 minutes and 38 sec- onds. Longitude 84 degrees 48 minutes and 51 seconds.
State line on National road. Longitude 84 degrees 48 minutes and 48 seconds.
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East county line on National road. Longitude 84 degrees 29 minutes and 2 seconds.
Southwest corner of county. Latitude 39 degrees 34 minutes and 4 sec- onds. Longitude 84 degrees 48 minutes and 54 seconds.
North county line at northwest corner, section 1, Jefferson township. Latitude 39 degrees 55 minutes and I second.
The elevations above sea level are given in feet for the towns as those of the general level, as that of West Alexandria is in road at west corpora- tion line, northwest corner section 3, township 5, range 3 east.
Water Seven Mile creek at south line of county, 750, lowest in county ; Camden, 841 ; top of hill east of Camden on West Elkton road at the cross- roads, 1,003; Devil's Backbone hill, 1,000; Morning Sun, 1,000; West Elk- ton, 1,040; Elk creek at south line county in section 36, Gratis township, 800; hill one mile north of West Elkton, 1,093; Gratis, 876; Twin creek at east county line, 776; Enterprise, about 900; Ingomar, 929; Dadsville, 945; Sugar Valley, 1,094; Muttonville, 950; Wheatville, 967; Greenbush, 926; top of hill about a mile northeast of Sugar alley, about 1, 140; West Alexandria, 900; east county line on Dayton pike, 941 ; Eaton, 1,050; top Harris hill, five miles west of Eaton, 1,200; Dayton pike, top of hill, one mile east of Eaton, 1,038, highest point between Eaton and Dayton; New Lexington, 899; New Hope, 1,154; New Westville, 1, 185; top watershed west of Orangeburg road on Eaton and Richmond pike, 1,211 ; state line on pike west of Westville, 1,085; New Hope Station, 1, 170; Pleasant Hill, 1,105; county line north of Pleasant hill, 1,068; Lewisburg and Euphemia, 989; Verona, 1,027; George- town, 1,028; road center northeast quarter section 18, Jefferson township, 1,195; Sonora, 1,050; West Manchester, 1,090; Eldorado, 1,140; Gettysburg, 1,177; Orangeburg, 1,193; top hill one and a half miles west of Orangeburg on National road, 1,230; Brennersville, 1,009; Oklahoma, 1,070; Brinley, 1,130; county line north of Brinley, 1,207; New Paris, 1,036; top of hill one and a half miles from New Paris on Eaton road, 1,225; top Morning Star hill, about 975; top water in Royer spring, 1,014; Four Mile creek at south county line, about 800.
To this I add a few in Ohio that are often inquired for: Greenville, 1,050; Dayton, 740; Hamilton, 602; Columbus, at state house, 780; Lake Erie, 572; Cincinnati, low water, 432.
The maps for the west three and one-half miles of the county are not yet available. As information to those who wish to pursue this matter fur- ther, I will add that the United States Geographic Survey publishes maps showing the territory fifteen miles square, showing the elevations of the
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country for each variation of twenty feet. The maps are named for some town in that square. Two maps, Miamisburg and Brookville, show the east mile of this county, and two maps, Oxford and West Manchester, show the central part, and two maps, Liberty and Richmond quadrangles, show the west three and one-half miles of this county, and the interior department at Washington mails them to any one for ten cents per map.
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CHAPTER III.
MOUND BUILDERS .AND INDIANS.
These two races of men, if they are two races, are treated together be- cause the Indian race seems like the sequel of the Mound Builder, if it be not the same.
There are about one hundred of the Mound Builders' mounds in Preble county, and one fortification attributed to them. The mounds are chiefly found along Twin creek, Seven Mile creek and Four Mile creek, the largest being in Harrison and Israel townships, and being what are. known as ob- servation mounds and burial mounds, or tumuli.
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