History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 2

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559

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ments of limestone and northern rocks, compactly laid in the dark blue clay which characterizes the formations of this age in every part of the world where they occur. The seams of sand and gravel interpolated in the clay, doubtless result from partial meltings of the glacial sheet in some of the wilder periods of its history. The ice sheet, in its southern advance, must have found the face of the continent covered with a forest growth and other forms of vegetation. It seems certain that some rem- nants of this pre-glacial growth are preserved in the boulder clay. Worn fragments of wood are often found deep in the clay, which it seems impossible to refer to any other source.

This pre-glacial vegetation must not, however, be con- founded with the inter-glacial growths. The latter is, doubtless, of much more frequent occurrence. It is to a widespread stratum of inter glacial vegetation that the buried tree tops, roots, leaves, and ancient soil, so often reported in the digging of wells, and other excavations, must be referred. The forest bed, as this stratum has been designated, is of much less frequent occurrence in Preble than in the counties south and east of it, but there are still many evidences of its presence within this area. In Harrison township a tree top is reported to have been struck at a depth of thirty feet. An ochre seam which sometimes accompanies the forest bed and sometimes replaces it in the regions to the southward, is also occasionally met with in Preble county. It is gen- erally found associated with a gravel seam which it cements into a hardpan, which must be penetrated to reach the water veins. The beds of modified drift, as the sand, gravel, and clay, that overlie the boulder clay in stratified deposits are called, occur abundantly in the county, not being confined to the deeper . valleys, but being found also over most of the uplands. In the northern townships, and especially in the flat lying dis- tricts, they have a general thickness of twenty feet. Un- derneath are found the seams of sand and gravel that cover the boulder clay, and which constitute the water bearer of this region.

PHENOMENAL BOULDER BELT.

In nearly all particulars the drift of Preble county is a part and parcel of the drift field of Ohio, but there is a single feature in which it has the prominence over all contiguous areas. A very remarkable boulder belt trav- erses its central and eastern regions-more remakable than any similar belt in the State. There are various. points in this general region where boulders are thickly strewn over the surface in limited areas, as, for instance, along the uplands that bound the Great Miami valley for twenty-five miles above Dayton, on the west side of the valley, directly opposite Dayton, and also in the coun- try that lies west of the Stillwater, in the vicinity of Union, Montgomery county ; but none of these boulder belts attain the proportion of the Preble county deposit. Its northern boundary is not very distinctly defined, but there is a gradual thickening of the boulders until we find them in the central part of Washington township so numerous as to render tillage of the fields difficult.

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

From this part the belt can be followed in a broad band to the southeastward, as far as the county line, and even beyond. Its length within the county is at least ten miles. Its greatest breadth does not exceed three miles, but the east and west roads cut across it diagon- ally, so as to show sections of four or five miles in width.

The boulders range in size from one thousand cubic feet downwards. Of one hundred and two blocks that were lying on the surface within a small compass, the largest was seven feet in length; another measured five feet; four exceeded four feet; six exceeded three feet ; and thirty-five measured more than two feet, while the balance were under that size. It is probable that in this area were nearly as many more concealed by a shallow covering of soil. On one farm near West Alexandria one thousand two hundred boulders, exceeding two feet in diameter, were counted to the acre. There are points where they occur in greater number than this. The value of the land is diminished where it is so thickly covered. The distribution of the boulders is irrespec- tive of the elevations and irregularities of the surface. They cover the high grounds and the low about equally. They control portions of the belt, and occupy a part of the great northern plain of the county, which has an altitude of about one thousand feet above the sea. A considerable variety of composition is shown by the boulders, although the conglomerates are the most com- mon as well as the most characteristic. They agree quite well with each other, and differ in a marked degree from the conglomerates met with elsewhere in the drift field of southwestern Ohio. It seems probable that they may hereafter give the clue to the exact location from which they were originally derived. Their peculiarity consists in their distinct stratification. Layers of coarse silicious pebbles are separated from each other by from four to eight inches of fine sandy quartzite, which is very often light green in color and which sometimes has a faint amethystine tint. The conglomerate character is sometimes but feebly shown, and then the blocks would be classed as ordinary quartzites.

The boulders evidently belong to the last stage of the Drift period, to the time of northern submergence which followed and closed the great ice age. They were floated by icebergs across the inland sea that stretched from the Canadian highlands to central Ohio, but no ex- planation is proffered of the fact that they occur just where they now lie, rather than elsewhere. The present topography of the country furnishes some suggestions, but no adequate explanation of the phenomena. One of the most remarkable circumstances occurring in the drift is the obstruction of an old valley by the boulder clay. This case is met with in the bed of a small trib- utary of Seven Mile creek, one mile west of the village of Camden. The stream has been compelled to aban- don its old course for a short distance, and to work out a new and circuitous channel through the limestone rock.

CHAPTLR II. THE PRE-HISTORIC RACE.

TIME was when the face of the country did not appear as the pioneer first saw it-covered with an unbroken forest. Centuries before the sparse, scattered, nomadic Indian population dwelt in the land, and followed the chase through its tangled wood, this country was occu- pied by a numerous race, a people who had fixed habita- tions, and the customs of a semi-civilized nation. They lived by agriculture, and the country was, perhaps, de- nuded by them of its forest, if not to as great an extent as now, at least in a considerable degree. Strive as we may, by what little there is of the accumulated light of study and research, we can gain only a meagre amount of knowledge in regard to this people who occupied the continent prior to the age at which its written history be- gins. The race to which we ascribe the name of Mound Builders is one of which no chapter of history can be written; we can only gain an uncertain and unsatisfying glance behind the great black curtain of oblivion. No record has been kept, no musty legends or vague tradi- tions have been handed down to give us an idea of the character and condition of the ancient race. Only the earth monuments, enclosing a few relics of rude art, and the last lingering remains of mortality-crumbling skele- tons, which literally turn to dust as the places of their sepulture are invaded-have endured to silently and solemnly attest, in the nineteenth century, the existence of a vast and vanished race. Concerning the greater questions in regard to this people-their origin, nature, progress, and ultimate destiny, we can gain only a little knowledge from the works they have left behind them, and for the rest indulge in fascinating, fanciful, but futile speculations. The subject is one which is full of mysterious interest. Its immensity is awe-inspiring, and the gloom with which it is veiled, while baffling, lends to the study of this branch of archaeology an element of enchanting romance.

The ancient works, commonly attributed to the Mound Builders, are spread over a large extent of country. They dot the valleys from the Alleghanies to the far northwest, and extend from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. They are to be found upon the Missouri a thousand miles from its confluence with the Mississippi; upon the Kansas and Platte, and on other remote western rivers. They spread over the valley of the Mississippi, and line the shore of the gulf from Texas to Florida, extending in diminished numbers into South Carolina. They occur in great numbers in Ohio, Indi- ana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas, and are less numerously distributed through the western parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and in North and South Carolina, as also in Michigan, Iowa and the Mexican possessions. That the earthworks are distributed evenly over this territory should not be imagined. They are confined, principally to the valleys of the rivers and large streams, and the few discovered elsewhere are small, with few exceptions.

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

Within the State of Ohio there are undoubtedly over ten thousand mounds and other earthworks. They are much more numerous in the southern than in the northern part, and nowhere else in the State appear in greater number or variety than in the Scioto valley, which indeed seems to have been the seat of empire of the pre-historic race or at least the centre of population and theatre of government for a very large region.

The mounds and enclosures scattered through Ohio and the wider territory, we have just outlined, are of several classes. The enclosures may be classified as de- fensive works and religious enclosures. The tumuli or mounds are generally subdivided, by students, into Sepulchral, Sacrificial, Temple (or truncated) mounds, Mounds of Observation and Memorial or Monumental mounds.

Nothing is more absolutely sure in regard to the Mound Builders than that the irregular enclosures were primarily and principally intended as works of defence. They may have subserved other purposes, but they were constructed to answer as strongholds against an enemy. They are always found on high ground and in naturally strong positions. They usually occupy the summits of hills or plateaus, and often occur at the confluence of streams. The walls wind around the borders of the high land they occupy, and it is often to be noticed that they are thickest and highest at these points, which are naturally most easily accessible. In some instances miles of wall are found enclosing perhaps more than a hundred acres of land. The people who built these de- fences had certainly no mean order of military skill. They chose almost exactly the same situations upon which modern military engineers would locate forts, should the country be the scene of war-positions which could be given the maximum of resisting power with the mini- mum of outlay in labor. Fine examples of defensive works occur in Butler, Highland, Ross, Licking and Greene counties, and perhaps the most notable is the celebrated Fort Ancient in Warren county. The work in Preble county, at the confluence of Banta's fork and Twin creek, is of this order, though much smaller and simpler than many to be seen in other parts of the State. The walls of most of the enclosures are of earth, a few of stone, and in rare instances, of stone and earth combined. The immense amount of work necessary to the construction of these fortifications precludes the no- tion that they were hastily thrown up to repel a single invasion. They were for defence against a known and powerful enemy, and were probably the protecting wall against a fierce war-loving nation for many years. It is safe to suppose that as they were constructed through the exercise of a wonderful industry and steadfastness of purpose, the race of people who reared them had the courage to defend them and their country persistently against any odds.

The so called sacred enclosures are distinguished from the military works by their more frequent occurrence and by the regularity of their construction in geometrical figures-circles, squares, hexagons, octagons, ellipses, and parallelograms. Not unfrequently several of these

forms appear in conjunction. Great skill is exhibited in the construction of this class of works. The plans show a perfection which could not have been attained without the exercise of some science similar to modern survey- ing. The evidence that works of this class were in- tended for religious uses is apochryphal. That they were not intended as military works appears altogether probable, from the fact that the fosse, or ditch, usually occurs inside the embankment. The enclosures may have been occupied by the houses of the rulers of the race, by those of the priesthood, and they may also have contained the temples which an idolatrous people raised, as the shrines of their gods. It is not improbable that such were the purposes for which these works were de- signed, and they may have been the theatres where great councils were held and games indulged in, as well as the places where were observed, on a colossal scale, the rites of a superstitious religion. There is evidence that they were intended for the assemblage of a vast concourse of people. The great circles of England, India, Peru, and Mexico, are similar to these sacred works, and within them have been found the shrines of the gods of the ancient worship. They may also have contained conse- crated groves. We know that it has been a practice common to almost every people, in every time, to en- close their shrines, their places of worship, that they might be guarded from the profanation of man and the desecration of beasts. Frequently there is situated in the center of this class of works a mound or elevation, supposed to have served the purposes of an altar, on which animal, or, possibly, human sacrifices were offered. The writer has in several localities found stones in the center of these works which indicated subjection to in- tense and long-continued heat. Parallel ways, often termed covered ways, because they are supposed origin- ally to have been constructed as the latter name implies, often connect two or more of the geometrical enclosures, or lead from them toward the streams, or to their ancient banks. Their supposed use was to afford pro- tection to those passing to and fro within them. As the rounded embankments of the enclosures would not afford an absolutely impassable wall, it has been conjec- tured that they were originally surmounted by palisades or palings.

TUMULI.

Stately marble palaces and temples have fallen into shapeless masses of ruin, while the simple mounds erected by a more rude and primitive people, have with- stood the elements and retained almost perfectly their original forms and proportions. Therefore, we find scattered throughout a wide country the mound monu- ments raised by an ancient race. These tumuli were among nearly all races in their infancy, the first objects of which ambition and adoration prompted the erection, the primitive memorials of all peoples. They are the principal storehouse of ancient art; they enclose the sacred altar, reared in the name of a lost religion; they hold in sepulture the bones of the distinguished dead. As disclosed by the pick and the spade, these mounds and their contents serve to give the investigating archæ-

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

ologist the most extensive knowledge he can obtain in regard to the customs of their builders, and the condi- tion of the arts and sciences among them.

Most of the mounds are of the kind denominated- sepulchral. They are generally of conical form, and vary in size from six to eighty or ninety feet in height. They usually stand outside of the walls of enclosures, but often occur in localities remote from any other works. There are cases in which they occur in groups, exhibiting a dependence that probably has some mean- ing. The mounds of this class invariably cover a skele- ton, and in some instances more than one. The skele- tons most commonly bear evidences of having been enveloped at the time of their interment in bark, coarse matting, or cloth, of which traces and casts nearly always remain. It sometimes happens that the cloth itself still exists, in a highly carbonized condition. Oc- casionally a rude chamber of stone surrounds the re- mains. Burial by fire seems to have prevailed among the Mound Builders of the north, and urn burial was more commonly practiced in the south. With the skele- tons are found various remains of art, rude utensils of different kinds, ornaments and weapons. The fact that such articles always appear in proximity to the remains indicates that the Mound Builders, like the North American Indians, entertained the superstitious and de- lusive notion that the implements and weapons would be useful to the deceased in another state. It is vulgarly believed that the ancient race reared mounds over all of their dead, an idea which is quickly dispelled by reflec- tion upon the immensity of their population and the comparatively small number of the mounds. The con- clusion to which all archaeologists have come, in regard to this matter, is that only the illustrious chieftains, the rulers or the priests of the race, were honored by the rearing of mounds over their places of sepulture, and that the greater number-the common people-were bur- ied by the process of simple interment. Day after day, and year after year, since the present race pushed west- ward into the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, the ploughshare has uncovered remains which have well nigh "returned to the dust whence they came." So common has been the occurrence of unearthing remains in some parts of the country, that the discovery scarcely elicits remark. The wasting banks of the rivers occasionally display vast cemeteries, and names have been given to various localities from such exposures. It is not to be wondered at that where the bones in the mounds have so nearly crumbled into shapeless fragments, those bur- ied in the common plain, and which are necessarily less protected from moisture, should in many cases have passed into that condition nearly or quite indistinguish- able from the mould that surrounds them. It is impos- sible that any but the smallest proportion of these re- mains should be those of the Indian race. They are of a different and more ancient people. There are, doubt- less, grand depositories of the dead who thronged and raised the silent monuments which we see all around us. We know not when we tread the village street or the green turf of the fields, but that we walk over the

remains of thousands of forms, which an age ago were pregnant with the same life and spirit of which we are possessed.

Sacrificial or altar mounds have several distinctive characteristics. They usually exhibit stratification con- sisting of alternate layers of sand, clay and gravel, or pebbles. The strata are not horizontal, but conform to the convexity of the mound. These mounds contain altars of stone or fire-hardened clay, built upon the original level of the earth. Upon them are found ashes, charcoal and calcined bones, indicating sacrifice. Vari- ous implements also occur, as well as beads and other ornaments, and pottery. The remains found in the sacrificial mounds are, in numerous cases, in a condition to indicate that the altars were covered over with earth before their fires had ceased burning. Why they were so covered, or why covered at all, are questions which no man can answer. Perhaps it was to conceal them from the profane gaze of the people of another faith.

Temple mounds are not numerous in Ohio, and it is believed do not occur except at Marietta, Newark, Ports- mouth and in the vicinity of. Chillicothe. They are usually in the form of truncated cones, though some- times so broad and flat as to make this term hardly applicable to them. It is supposed that they were once surmounted with structures of wood, all traces of which have long ago disappeared.

Mounds of observation are generally situated upon eminences, and it has been demonstrated by actual sur- vey in some parts of the country that they are so situ- ated in reference to each other that signals could easily be communicated along a line or chain of them. It is the supposition that they answered the same purpose as cairns of the ancient Celts-that is, they were signals or alarm posts as well as coignes of vantage and lookout stations. Along the Miami river, says Judge Force, "are dotted small mounds on projecting highlands, which seem to have been built to carry intelligence by signals along the valleys." They are numerous through- out the State.

Memorial or monumental mounds belong to the class of tumuli that were obviously built to perpetuate the memory of some important event. They are the equiv- alents of the stone heaps raised by the Hebrews and other nations. This class of mounds seldom contain any human remains or other deposits. When they do contain skeletons, as in a few cases, they are those of Indians interred in shallow graves.

Effigies, animal mounds, or, as they are sometimes called, emblematical or symbolical mounds, occur in greatest number in Wisconsin. Only a few are known in Ohio, the most notable being the eagle and the alliga- tor in Licking county, and the serpent and egg in Adams county. The last named is upwards of a thousand fect in length and is a very perfect representation.

DEDUCTIONS AND SPECULATIONS.

Taking into consideration the facts here very briefly presented, the reader can form some idea of the probable nature of the ancient people, and of their number. Caleb

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HISTORY OF PREBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

Atwater, in a contribution to the Archeologia Americana, published in 1819, says: "The State of Ohio was prob- ably once much more thickly settled than it now is, when it contains a population of about seven hundred thousand inhabitants." And we may add that the conclusion has been assented to and affirmed by nearly every student of western antiquities. That the Mound Builders were under a single and strong government seems very proba- ble, because under any other the performance of such an immense amount of labor could not well have been secured. It is suggested by Mr. Isaac Smucker that some sort of servitude or vassalage prevailed.

It follows of necessity that if the Mound Builders were a numerous race they were also an agricultural peo- ple. The population was much too large to be sustained by the chase, by the spontaneous yieldings of the earth, the products of the streams, or all combined. They were not savages or barbarians, but attained that condi- tion of life which is best described as semi-civilized. The general features of their works and their art re- mains prove this. They had some knowledge of mathe- matics and engineering, understood spinning and weaving, and the manufacture of pottery. They were undoubt- edly essentially homogeneous in government, religion and general customs. Strongly swayed by a superstitious re- ligion, as they doubtless were, it is not improbable that the government of the Mound Builders was one which sustained and made obligatory the observance of elabo- rate rites. Their priests were undoubtedly their civil leaders. The great number and vast size of those works which were incontestably constructed for religious ob- servances, proved the great regard that the ancient peo- ple had for their religion. The sacrificial character of their worship is beyond a doubt.

When and from whence came the Mound Builders, and when and whither did they go? These are ques- tions to which there comes no answering voice. Only the smallest evidence and that of the apochryphal kind has been received, tending to show that the ancient race had a written language. The two or three engraved tablets that have been discovered, even if genuine, there is reason to believe, will throw but little light upon the origin or subsequent history of the people, should scholars succeed in deciphering them. And it is im- probable that any discoveries will ever be made, which will settle these most mooted questions.

Those who do not argue that the Mound Builders were an aboriginal race generally agree that they had their origin in the Orient, or at least in some trans-Pacific region, and that they came to this con- tinent by Behring's straits, and then passing slowly southward and eastward, increasing as they went, they reached the middle region of the northern United States, and from thence, by slow process of exten- sion or migration, made their way southward through the Mississippi valley, and ultimately into Mexico. The resemblances between the tumuli of the United States and the teocalli of Mexico suggest some connection be- tween the Mound Builders and the semi-civilized races that formerly dwelt in the latter country, in Central

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History of Preble County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, Part 2

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 559

Author: H. Z. Williams & Brothers
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 559