USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 10
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deringly ashamed. It must not, however, be thought that I want to make the Indian an angelic or even a civilized character, but, leaving out the Iro- quois and the Sioux, though we must relegate the North American Indian to the barbarian stage of human evolution-the savage being a retrogression- yet as nations or tribes they had many virtues and many noble, honorable, executive chiefs, with a true desire for peace, purity and advancement. The principal chiefs connected with Wayne county history were Killbuck, Beaver Hat, Custaloga, White Eyes, Half King, Mohican John and Captain Pipe. Want of room prevents any detailed history of these chiefs. A few notes must suffice. Captain Pipe (Hobacan in Indian) belonged to the Wolf tribe of the Delawares. He was born on the Susquehanna in 1740, and in 1758 located on the Tuscarawas. After the treaty of 1795 he came with other Delawares to near Mohican John's town, near Jeromeville, Ashland county. I have many times looked over the remains of Pipe's cabin, when fishing in the "Old Town run," and well remember when in 1841 a deputation of Delawares came to see if the graves of their ancestors had been desecrated. I then had seven skulls and many long bones of "dead Injuns" for a play- house in the yard; the bones had been exhumed when digging a mill race. The red men called me to the gate and asked for "man-house." I ran for grandfather, the Rev. Elijah Yocum, whom they asked if they could bury the bones. He made for them a large box, when they gathered all other bones, and I saw them bury them with many curious signs.
Mohican John, with his tribe, was driven from Connecticut and Rhode Island. He came to Ohio in 1755 and first located at Tullihas, on the Big Mohican, where Owl creek enters. He removed to the "Old Town" home in 1795, and left about 1814. The trail from Tallehas followed the Mohican to the mouth of Killbuck, then up this to "Big Spring," the Wayne county home of Chief Killbuck, thence to the mouth of Crawford's run, up this to the Maize Mill. from whence the trail is followed by wagon road to Shreve, then to Odel's lake, and up the Mohican to Mohican John's town, on the "Old Town run"-Chief Beaver Hat had his winter wigwam near the Wooster cemetery, and in summer an "apple orchard" on the Apple creek. Chief Custaloga lived near Big Prairie, and the station on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad depot is named for him.
Captain Pipe, Killbuck (Gelelemand) and White Eyes were delegates to the great conference at Fort Pitt. Chief Killbuck's chief home was at Tullihas, but he had a cabin on the Thomas Douty farm, near the Big Spring, the great fishing place of the Indians and of the early inhabitants. Killbuck had two sons, one of whom was very dissipated and threw opprobrium on his
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father. Captain White Eyes lived in White Eyes township, Coshocton county. He and Killbuck had strong desires that their nation might become a civilized people, but he died young, of smallpox, in 1778. Killbuck died near the mouth of the Killbuck in 1810, at the advanced age of eighty years. Excepting probably Captain Pipe, who was soured in old age, all these men were ambitious to protect their people, and they were all and always honor- able, peaceful men, and virtuous beyond their age. They were above the savage and were superior to all white barbarians. They were "nature's noblemen," with the forest for a home, the groves in the meadows were their temples and council places, and contemplation compels one to repeat :
"Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind. His soul, proud, science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way : Yet simple nature to his hope has given
Beyond the cloud-topped hills an humbler heaven, And thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company."
FORTIFICATIONS AND ENCLOSURES.
The remains of fortifications or enclosures for observation and protec- tion are very numerous in Wayne county, particularly in the vicinity of Wooster, which seems to have been a commercial center for the aborigine as well as in our twentieth century civilization. Each and every one of the sur- rounding hills is crowned with an enclosure commonly called a "fort." The hills outstand as headlands overlooking the valleys of Apple creek and Kill- buck and from any of these points observation and communication could be secured with other like crowned hills near Shreve and Funk, and Jeromes- ville and on to Ashland, Hayesville, Mansfield, Millersburgh. The con- struction of the walls of the enclosures was very similar on all the hills, viz. : a trench and embankment, surrounded with palisades. The largest en- closure, containing between thirty and fifty acres, was situated on Madison hill, the first location of the county seat, now the Experiment Station farm
and Wooster cemetery. This had more the character of a "fort" than many others, for the north wall was partly built of stone, the construction being distinctly recognizable forty years ago, where the Moorland road cut through the wall, and the west boundary can even now be traced from the
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First Mill erected by a White Man in Wayne County. Made from a Huge Boulder, and located on the Muddy Fork, about 1809.
Sculptured Indian Head, made of Trans- lucent Flint. Finely specialized by chipping. About twice natural size. Found by Author near Wooster.
Pre- or Inter-Glacial Pestle, the so-called "Moccasin Last", found in Undisturbed Glacial Gravel 17 feet below the Surface. Much reduced-bare shows the gravel.
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east line of Wooster's new cemetery to near the north line of the Catholic cemetery. A mound was on the southeast angle above Experimental build- ings.
The next largest was on the Joe Eicher farm, west of Wooster, where the shale bank of the Clear creek-some twenty-five feet high-formed the north side, and from a point on this creek near the wagon road an embank- ment was carried around the hills in a semi-circle to a point some forty rods up the creek, including five to seven acres. Twenty years ago the embank- ment was still three feet high, although the ground had been farmed for sixty years. This site furnished me many fine relics.
One and a half miles up Killbuck from this on the late Rose Ann Eicher farm, just below the Big Springs, is a beautiful oval enclosure, the bank of which is still complete and four feet high, the point of the egg extending almost to the bank of the Killbuck, which is here twenty feet high with a gully to the south, affording protection from marauders coming up or down the stream, which was then a boating highway from the Muskingum up to the portage beween Burbank and Lodi on the Black river. The hill above the springs rises two hundred feet to a plateau, from which the Kill- buck river could be scanned for many miles. The enclosure is still in the native woods and is undisturbed and the tract, including enclosure, springs, plateau and meadow adjoining the creek, should be preserved for a park, for, in the writer's opinion, it is the finest site for health and recreation in the county of Wayne or even the state of Ohio.
The next distinguished hill top is directly across the Killbuck valley from the above described and is popularly known as Fort Hill. It is sit- uated on a promontory in the angle formed by the junction of Little and Big Killbuck. The bluff is six hundred feet in long diameter and one hun- dred and fifty in the short, top surface. The sides are thirty-five feet high from the roadbed on either side. On the northwest it is nearly cut from the mainland by a ravine, only a narrow neck connecting, which was guarded by a ditch and bank, probably palisaded. On the top is a circle about one hundred by eighty feet and there are also two mounds, each twenty-five to thirty feet in diameter and two to three feet high. There is an available spring on the west side and I am convinced that here was erected (or selected) a refuge and defense "fort." My opinion is strengthened by the fact of its commanding a long and wide view of the Killbuck valley, but primarily by the fact that out from its front at the distance an arrow would fly I have picked up in the last ten years over fifty warrior darts, the small
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triangular ones, so fashioned that if once driven into a body and the arrow shaft pulled out, the dart or point would remain and induce suppuration. Or may not the point have been poisoned ?
The remains of an enclosure are still recognizable on the Bechtel hill near the Spring. This hill overlooks the fair grounds and the valley and across the Christmas run on a similar spur of hill is another well-marked enclosure, just above a fine spring.
There was a large enclosure on the hill southwest of Wooster that included twenty acres. It was situated between the two Killbuck bridges and was peculiar in being double terraced on the stream side of the hill-one trench and embankment low on the hill and in the shale where the implements were of very old type, and about sixty feet above a parallel embankment that was probably palisaded. Here implements were of jasper and finely serrated on both sides. There was a fine spring in the enclosure and a deep ravine on the north side. The traces are now almost obliterated by plowing down hill, but sixty-five years ago when I first saw and played on the terraces it was plainly marked. A part was then in woods. A large enclosure was noticed on Bald hill, above Shreve, where Doctor Pocock opened many single graves. This faced one across the valley, but I can describe no more.
MOUNDS.
The mounds of Wayne county are many, but small, ranging from fifteen to fifty feet in diameter by two to six feet in height. A few fine gorgets, ceremonial stones and totems have been found in them, with arrow and spear heads. Most of them were opened years ago and no record kept, as the open- ers were simply relic hunters. The finest, to my personal knowledge. was opened on the bank of the Muddy fork near New Pittsburgh. There was found but one skeleton, on the breast of which was a large slate pendant, and around the thorax were laid thirty-five well worked leaf-shaped imple- ments, four and one-half inches long by one and one-half wide at center, and one fine stemmed spear head six inches long, while at the hands lay two elegant. deep-grooved axes, with pointed poles, one of quartz and the other a light blue stone, the texture not determined. Both are perfect; I have all in cabinet.
There is a large mound on the Bob Snyder farm, a half mile up the hill from Kanke Station that is unique in construction and history. The hill top on which it is located commands the most extensive and, the writer thinks.
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the finest pastoral view in Wayne county. The mound is fifty feet in diam- eter and was about nine feet high. It is in an unbroken woodland and covered with nature's forest trees, the roots of which greatly embarrassed digging and disturbed the strata. The bottom is formed like a low rimmed saucer, made of hard puddled clay, covered with three inches of sand, and scattered over this is a layer of charcoal, burned or charred bones and pieces of splintered flint; over this is another layer of puddled clay, covered with sand, and on this is more charcoal, incinerated bones and implements, broken up as by fire.
Here the original mound, or place for cremation purposes, seems to have been completed or abandoned, for above this-about three feet high-comes a two-foot covering of yellow clay, in which I found-in the trench, two feet wide, which I drove from periphery to center-two bundles of "long bones" and some loose bones, but no skulls. The long bones seemed to have been tied together, or thrown in piles as in communal burials and were so infil- trated with and cemented together by the tough clay, that I took them out entire and still have them as well as the charcoal, sand and contents from the bottom of the mound. In places the long bones had entirely decomposed in the clay, leaving only a hole-or cast-with a dark line to tell of the matrix. But this is not all of the mound, for over all of this had been heaped four or five feet of earth from the immediate surroundings, which completed a conical mound from the truncated ones of past ages. The late Dr. D. Pocock, of Shreve, opened this from the top in 1870, and secured two skeletons, two gorgets and a number of other relics. Of course the top layer represented late or intrusive burials, but the mound taken as a whole would indicate three different ages, with three distinct modes of interment.
IMPLEMENTS AND ARTIFACTS OF THE ABORIGINES.
With the word "savage" we instinctively couple the idea that the "flints" we find in the field are "arrow and spear heads," and all made to be used in the killing of something, man or bird or beast. But this is farthest from the truth, for not one chipped flint or pecked stone in twenty was specialized for war or the chase.
The great mass of stone relics found are implements of husbandry or for domestic use. The first lesson the aborigine had to learn was how to live, not how to fight, for that was a luxury to be added later. To live, he must have food for his stomach and clothes for his body and a bed to lie on. His first need was a knife, and this was supplied in the flake of a flint, the first artifact of man's ingenuity to supply a domestic want ; with it the aborigine
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skinned his captured deer, fashioned its hide into clothing and bed quilts, cut up its carcass, shaped his defense club, and did so many other things with it. that I am prompted to ask you "What do you do with a knife?" In de- termining the use of the implements of primitive man, we must be as familiar with the management of thought as a painter is in the manipulation of colors : we can take cognizance of an object only in so far as we can come into rela- tion with it, and in the contemplation of Indian implements we cannot place ourselves in such complete association, for environment and the needs of the user, together with the mental status of the maker, must be supplied. This can only be done by considering what is positively known of uses by existing barbarians. or those yet in the stone age, or by tradition, or finally by the imagination.
So all positive knowledge is in a chaotic state, save that which has been or is gained by field work and collecting which associates the implement with its location. Its geologic horizon determining its age; its connection with a mound showing it to be mortuary; its association with a fortification proves defensive war; while if rescued from an enclosure we reckon it the local fauna of a village site.
So in studying the character and mode of manufacture of primitive man's relics you must try to put yourself in his place, as you should with Moses and his tablets of stone.
For these, and many other reasons, I have coupled Wayne county ( where most of my thirty thousand specimens were collected-over three thousand with my own hand) with types of implements, for comparison and unison,-from the streams of adjacent counties representing the seven heads of the Muskingum river, viz. : the four forks of the Mohican, Killbuck, Chip- pewa creek and Sugar creek. In all of these the writer has personally noted the horizon of village sites, mounds and enclosures, and finds that both banks of the Killbuck present almost continuous village sites. At every spring that is surmounted by a knoll is found the chips or flakes and "wasters" that pro- claim a work shop, and along many of the smaller streams the same evidences were found.
There are three principle types of relics. The first is the chipped or flaked implement of flint. Flint breaks when struck or firm pressed with a conchoidal-like a watch crystal-fracture, producing a sharp edge to core or implement as well as to the flake and this flake can be used as a knife, or if a larger spall, even as an ax. The second is the pecked and polished imple- ment-polished at least at the cutting edge, such as the grooved axes, celts. tomahawks made of granite. greenstone, diabase, quartzite and argelite.
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These must be first pecked into shape with a harder stone and then polished. The third comprises the class of beautiful souvenirs done in slate: the gor- gets, done in all imaginable artistic forms, to be worn on the breast as marks of distinction, or carried in any manner fancy, fashion, or cast would dictate, have been found in the county in great numbers.
The "bird stones," over which the marriageable maiden coiled and dressed her hair, are less numerous, but in the writer's cabinet there are half a dozen ; but they do not all represent birds nor "saddles," for one has the head of a mountain lion and another the head and tail of a beaver, so I reckon they were totems as well as decorations.
The totems, of which several are represented, are usually in banded state and finely specialized and are evidently the insignia of a tribe. The tubes may be either pipes or "cupping tubes" used in legitimate medication or the necromancer's winch by which he catches the evil spirits infesting the ptient and sucks them through the skin, usually depositing a mass of foul tobacco on the reddened place, which he exhibits as the disintegrated spirit.
The butterfly stones are beautiful, as may be seen in the illustration. In addition to these, there are amulets, pendants, beads, ear rings (some of stone, averaging two and three ounces), hair pins and perforated pieces without number that were certainly made for a purpose and either used at religious ceremonials, or in the dance, or to ward off evil spirits or be worn as dec- orations. But you must give wild wings to your imagination and let fancy carry you to the wild man's home in the woods if you would learn all their uses and meanings.
VILLAGE SITES.
The most remarkable village site in Wayne county is on the old Mc- Clelland farm in the angle formed by the union of Crawford's creek with the Killbuck near the coal chute. Here the writer has found three village sites superimposed one above the other. In the oldest you find implements of the rudest construction, made from the crudest material, as pebbles from the brook and cherty limestone from the Moorland hill and most of the chipped relics deeply patined. The next class are better specialized and the flint mostly from the quarries near Coshocton. The top artifacts show great art in the pattern and dexterity in the artisan, while finer flint is used, much being the beautiful chalcedony from Flint Ridge and another, black or blue grey that works elegantly ; but the quarry has not yet been located. I have over one thousand specimens from this site and among them is a cache of fifty beautiful leaf shaped artifacts, made from clear white flint, with a jasper
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lustre. On the headland above this terrace is the remains of an enclosure and on the apex a small mound, from the base of which I took the emblem of Sun Worship, representing the rising sun and the four points of the compass. This mound had been opened by John Rahm and many relics taken from the top, showing an intrusive burial.
An unique village site was found on the Meier farm, section 2, Franklin township, on the gravel kames surrounding an old silted-up lake. Here many of the implements were made in effigy, both flora and fauna repre- sented, as buffalo skulls, head and ears of the wolf, fish, tadpoles, birds in flight, leaves of the trees, etc., brooches and beads in jasper together with digging implements of elegant pattern and utility.
But along with these were many crude knives and darts, some of which had been rechipped and showed deep patterning, evidently the remains of an old and vanished race whose relics were rejuvenated and utilized.
The last village site I will note is on the terraced bank of the Apple creek, southeast section, Wooster township. Here was the beautiful sum- mer home of Beaver Hat, his Apple Chauquecake (Apple Orchard). Here a thousand fine relics were found of flint and slate and stone, unsurpassed if equaled in the state. Among them the rare and beautiful Indian head, illu- strated imperfectly herein. The sculpture is done by chipping so fine that a glass has to be used to see it. The effigy shows the stately pose of the Indian, high cheek bones, partly shaven head and the two long locks of black hair parted and carried over the bared breast. So perfect is it that an eminent archaeologist said on seeing it, "had the maker been possessed of tools he would have been a Michael Angelo." The form is enlarged, which mars its fineness.
GENERAL RELIQUIA.
The reliquia of Wayne county I think was equal in amount to that of any county in the state, and for quality of material, elegance of workmanship, va- riety of expression and artistic design, was superior to most (excepting of course the effigy pipes and copper ornaments of the mound builders of south- ern Ohio), but many of the early surface finds when only the finest were picked and preserved by the pioneers were destroyed mostly by fire. Doctor Pocock's collection at Shreve, consisting of many thousand relics, and the collection gathered by President Taylor for Wooster University, all went to flinders when the buildings went up in smoke, while the large collection of Mr. Reed, of Dalton, was removed from the county. But with all this, I still have thirty thousand perfect specimens, including over fifty different patterns
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of grooved axes and hatchets (celts), and every known form of pestle known to Ohio; pipes of slate, sandstone and baked clay with others known as moni- tor and effigy; bird bunts, to stun, not penetrate; arrow points for larger game, finely specialized and long buffalo darts; warrior darts, to poison or fester the flesh; flints, with polished bases; spear heads of every pattern, knives, scrapers, hide dressers, bark peelers, beads, ear rings and brooches, fish hooks in flint, crochet hooks for net making and net sinkers ; piercers and needles with polished slate pieces without number, including totems and re- ligious ceremonials.
But to describe them here without illustration is impossible. I can only refer you to Squire and Davis, who opened the mounds of Ohio at an early date, and ask you to read and study the illustrations in Gerard Fowke's re- markable book, the "Archeological History of Ohio."
POTTERY.
The creation of utensils for domestic use by moulding clay and then burning it was one of the first expressions of man's inventive power. The early forms were crude : A straw basket was woven and the moist clay, mixed with pounded shells, was pressed into the meshes from the inside, and the semblance of a pot placed in the sun to bake.
In the world's development, life had been given to man, but the struggle to keep it was hard and required all his energies. Life had been given to the troglodyte, but life had also been given to the saber-toothed tiger, the serpent. and the mammoth and they too loved and fought for life. The man must overcome them or perish. Intellectual comparison was yet in abeyance, the troglodyte's brain was yet boggy, and the time of waiting was long before God said, "Let life and thought together meet and mingle and man be a red- soning, as well as a living soul." But it came at last, and marked the first great crisis in the troglodyte's evolution-the age, or stage of inventive rea- soning. Now he could lay traps, create implements of aggression, secure food, protect his family, and rest secure in his cave at night.
Art necessitates leisure and leisure only comes after the body is well clothed and the stomach filled to satiety ; so the troglodyte was no artist, all his implements were of the crudest. and the rudest : but when reason was added to instinct and the tongues of the glacier had receded and left flower gardens in their wake, as they now do in Alaska, and the fiercer animals gave way to the reindeer, the bear and the buffalo, then his hours were more peaceful and not all occupied in securing food and shelter. He had leisure to contemplate and decorate.
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After this brain storm that cleared his perception and added purpose to his conception, primitive man's first thought was to better and beautify his game-killing implements, and, second, to create more useful and artistic furnishings for his household. Hides must be tanned to preserve and render them supple, and the rude and fragile drinking and cooking utensils must be made more durable and attractive, and in this inspiration is to be found the nucleus of pottery making and of pottery decoration.
The remains of primitive pottery in Wayne county are very meager in comparison with those of southern Ohio and are mostly confined to separate fragments or pot sherds, and these seem to be largely mortuary, as but few fragments are found on the surface or in the kitchen refuse.
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