History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 9

Author:
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1162

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"I feel like one who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted, Whose friends have fled, whose loves are dead, And all but me departed."

HUMAN RELICS IN THE DRIFT OF WAYNE COUNTY.

The question whether or not man existed in North America during any part of the great ice age has during the past few years attracted an unusual amount of attention and awakened not a little controversy. It is not one that can be easily solved. Evidence comes in slowly, and the cases not abso- lutely conclusive. Indeed, it is this fact that gives ground for the contro- versy. So many elements of uncertainty gather round the problem that to eliminate them all from every investigation is at present impossible, and the conclusion in each case rendered to that degree indeterminate. But despite this difficulty, we must recollect that in many previous cases anthro- pologists have been guided by cumulative evidence and it would be in the highest degree illogical to deny it value in scientific investigation. The ac- cumulation of a number of cases, each in itself falling short of absolute

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

proof, may yet render the acceptance of their common conclusion more ra- tional than its rejection, especially in the absence of any rebutting argument or position. By such methods of reasoning did the glacial theory finally supplant the diluvial, and by like means has the iceberg hypothesis slowly yielded to that of the more widely extended sheet of land ice. Indeed, it is not too much to say that every doctrine in natural science, even the most widely accepted and firmly believed, rests at bottom on this-that it is more rational to admit than to deny.

It is, consequently, of great importance that every fact that even seem- ingly connects man with the ice age in North America should be made known. That the evidence which it furnishes should be strictly and severely examined and the exact value ascertained, since only by the multiplication of such instances can the desired accumulation be obtained. Acting in accord- ance with the above belief and because I know the artifact to be an honest find, I present a stone, called the "moccasin last stone," in connection with a mass of the cemented gravel in which it was found. The accompanying en- graving is an exact representation of the stone, and I put it forward for the honest criticism of anthropologists and archaeologists. It must stand on its own merits, and will probably commend itself with different degrees of credi- bility and force to different readers, according to their mental bias and their perspective view of its different elements.

The facts of the finding are as follows: In the spring of 1894 workmen were engaged in hauling road material from a bank or hill of glacial gravel on the bank of the Killbuck. The bank was near the Killbuck bridge on the Columbus road, one mile southwest of Wooster, Ohio. Running through the bank, as is not seldom the case in similar material, was a layer of conglomer- ate formed by the infiltration of carbonate of lime, or iron oxide, or both, from the upper part of the mass. During the work one of the men, Marion McCoy, struck his pick into this layer and threw down a small mass, which in falling broke up and disclosed to the shoveler, Simon Bender, the stone above mentioned, "a petrified human foot," as the finder called it. The stone now, when placed in an Indian moccasin, fits it as accurately as a shoemaker's last does a boot, hence the name, "moccasin last stone." A further descrip- tion of the finding of the stone will be better illustrated and understood by reading the affidavits of two of the workmen, J. H. Fraim, the director, and S. Bender, the finder (I have similar affidavits from each of the workmen, particularly F. Bierley ), which I here insert. It will be noticed that they say the soil and some "gravel had been removed from the top."

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

"State of Ohio, Wayne County, ss :

"Personally appeared before me the undersigned, Simon Bender, who by me being duly sworn according to law, deposes and says: That about May, 1884, I was loading gravel at the Frederick Bierley gravel bank, just south- east of Wooster, when some digger (I think Marion McCoy) was bringing down gravel for me to shovel. The part of the bank from which we were loading was a wide band where the stones were all stuck together by some stuff that had run between them, and this layer was about fifteen to seventeen feet below the surface of the hill and had to be broken apart with a pick. While the man with the pick (I think McCoy) threw down a small bunch of this it broke apart by falling and revealed the stone now before me and which I afterward sold to Dr. Todd. I picked it up and knocked off the stones that were sticking to it and showed it to the men present, viz .: F. Bierley. Jacob Kester, Josiah Fraim, Marion McCoy and others. I and some others thought it an Indian foot turned to stone, but the toes were not there. I do not know the width of the layer of stone that was stuck together, but I do know that this stone came from about the middle of it, and that the layer was fifteen or sixteen feet from the surface of the hill. I took the stone to one side, but J. Fraim wanted it, and he took it and wrapped it in his coat, laid it in another place, but I kept an eye on him, and saw where he put it, and when work was done I went and got and took it home with me where I tried to further clean it by knocking off all the pebbles that were sticking to it. I also rubbed it with another stone to smooth off the sticky stuff so it would be fit to sell, but I could not get it all off and I then took it to Doctor Todd and sold it to him for twenty-five cents. The stone could not have fallen in from any other place, for it was in the stones that were stuck together, and no one had it to change it before I sold it to Doctor Todd.

"SIMON A. BENDER."

"Sworn to and subscribed before me this Ioth day of December, A. D. 1897.

CHARLES C. JONES, "Deputy Clerk Probate Court, Wayne County, Ohio."

"State of Ohio, Wayne County, ss :

"Personally appeared before me the undersigned. Josiah H. Fraim, who being by me first duly sworn according to law, deposes and says, that I was present at Frederick Bierley's gravel bank when the stone now before me and belonging to Doctor J. H. Todd, known as the 'moccasin last stone,' was found. We were hauling gravel from the bank to the road in the spring of 1894. The bank is about twenty-three or more feet from where the wagon stood to the top. We were working from the face at the bottom. There is

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

a thick layer running through the bank where all the stones are cemented firmly together, that is called 'conglomerate' by Doctor Todd. This layer is about eighteen feet from the surface of the hill. While one of the workmen was throwing down this layer with a pick, he detached a small mass of ce- mented stones which broke apart when it fell and showed the stone above mentioned. Some one picked it up and knocked the other stones from it; we then all looked at it, and Mr. McCoy handed it to me and I wrapped it in my coat and laid it away to put in my collection, but when I went for it some one had taken it. I afterwards learned it was Simon Bender. I know the stone came from the conglomerate layer and could not have fallen from the surface, for there were still many small pieces of gravel and much cement sticking to it. As to the depth from the surface at which the stone was found, I did not measure it, but thought it was eighteen feet, and I have since looked at the bank and am now confirmed in the opinion. Another point is that soil and some gravel had been taken from the surface at some previous time, so now no grass grows on it. The amount of this, if known, would add to the depth of the stone.

JOSIAH H. FRAIM.

"Sworn to and subscribed before me this the 27th day of November,

A. D. 1897.

CHARLES C. JONES,

"Deputy Clerk of the Probate Court, Wayne County, Ohio."

I personally know this to be true, for over sixty years ago I lived with my father one-quarter mile from the hill and saw them hauling gravel from the top, and I know this was continued at intervals to complete the road across the bottom, this being the only coarse gravel available. How much was taken from the top is only conjecture, but I measured from the present surface to the point where the stone was found, and it proved to be seventeen feet.

GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT.

The Killbuck flows in one of the preglacial valleys of Wayne county, which here is three-fourths of a mile wide and is filled to the depth of one hundred and eighty-four feet by wash from the north. Its general direction is nearly along the meridian. Near Wooster the Apple creek comes in from the northeast, and has pushed the Killbuck over to the western side of the valley, where it is cutting into the shale that forms the walls of its channel in a few places, though for the most part its banks show only the rounded un- dulating topography of the glacial hills. Through this gravel overlying the shale many years ago a wagon road was cut from east to west, crossing the Killbuck, and since that time gravel has been taken from it, first from the top. then from the side, for road making, so that a considerable excavation

Tooth of Mammoth, Weight 41/2 Pounds, found in Muck Swamp near Fredericks- burgh, Wayne County.

Pre- or Inter-Glacial Implement .found in Railroad Cut West of Wooster. About one-half natural size.

Pre- or Inter-Glacial Tomahawk found in Glacial Deposit South of Wooster. About one-half natural size.

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

now exists. The top of the bank was originally over forty feet above the water of the Killbuck, and the gravel excavated shows from twenty-three to twenty-five feet of nearly perpendicular face. The bed consists of unstratified material of various sizes, from stones weighing about two pounds down to sand, and the bed of conglomerate above referred to is about four to six feet in thickness and traverses the hill horizontally, and is composed of similar materials. Beyond all question, the hill is one of the morainic mounds depos- ited by the Killbuck lobe of the glacier during its retreat. And there is not the slightest ground for supposing that it has been disturbed or in any way moved since its deposition. The Killbuck has never since the ice age been at a level measurably higher than it is today. All the above geological facts were confirmed by the late Professor Claypole, a geologist and archaeologist of wide reputation, then of Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, who ten years ago examined the locality and the stone, pronouncing the stone a genuine prehis- toric relic, confirmed the above geology and advised the publication of the finding.

DESCRIPTION OF THE STONE. 1

First look at the picture and know that the material is a moderately fine sandstone, greenish yellow in color, such as is abundant in the drift of the region, and calls for no particular notice or comment. The "foot" measures eight and one-half inches in length by three inches and two and one-half inches in other directions, and so fairly resembles a last that the finder's name for it may well be allowed to pass. But the noteworthy fact, and the one which justifies the full detail here attempted, is that the stone bears evident traces of human handiwork and use. At the flat end it shows signs of having served the purpose of a pestle or muller for grinding or pounding, and over most of its surface, especially at and about the thinner end, it is covered with the pits or pick marks usually seen on worked stones of this nature, such as greenstone axes, celts, etc. Had it been found in usual circumstances, any collector would unhesitatingly have put it into his cabinet as a common In- dian or prehistoric pestle, but the depth at which it was found, seventeen feet from present surface and probably twenty to twenty-four below original sur- face, and the peculiar details of its discovery, invest it with a new and special interest in the eyes of the archaeologist.

CONCLUSION.

The following inferences seem to be legitimate from the data already given and upon others to be mentioned below :

(6)

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

First, the stone is a relic of human workmanship. Its flat end bears all usual signs of having been used as a muller or pestle such as are common among the prehistoric remains of the county. Its opposite end is covered with the pick marks used in stones that have been wrought by human hands. These pick marks, though most abundant at the rounded end, are visible over most of the surface except on the flat end, which is smoothed, as is usual in these pestles.

Second. Being found in the glacial gravel and at the depth mentioned above, seventeen feet, it is not rational to urge its subsequent introduction by accident or design. The depth is too great for tree roots or burrowing animals or cracks ; no trees are growing on the spot, nor is the gravelly soil of such a nature as to allow deep cracks, while the cement holds the stones together. A large block, twelve by eighteen inches, that fell with the stone has lain in my yard since 1894, exposed to the weather, and but few pebbles have fallen from it.

Third. In further proof of the above inference is the fact that it came from the bed of conglomerate in the drift, and was so firmly cemented to other pebbles lying with it that the workmen who found it had trouble in breaking them from it, and Bender could not scour off the cement with an- other stone. The position and depth of the conglomerate in the bank being ascertained, all doubts regarding the position of the stone are necessarily removed.

Fourth. Further, in consideration of the above facts, it is impossible to doubt that the stone is of the same age as the other materials of the con- glomerate ; that it was buried at the same time ; that it has been subject to the same influences. In fact, that it is an integral part of the conglomerate as much as the other stones composing the same.

Fifth. One more possible objection must be noticed, as it can be met by a fact. It may be said that the marks on the stone are recent and have been made since it was found. Setting aside the distinct and positive testimony of the finders, as given in their affidavits, already quoted, we may add that close examination discloses the fact that the stalagmitic encrustation still remaining fills many of the pick marks in the stone, proving that it is of later date. Very fortunately, the well-meant, but ill-judged, efforts of the finder to "clean" the specimen was only partly successful, and the concretionary cement still thickly covers a great part of the surface. It would be much more satisfactory, no doubt. if the whole mass had remained as it was found, but we may be glad that the evidence was not entirely destroyed, as has been done with not a few archaeological relics of very great scientific value when they

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

were found, but ruined by too much zeal and too little knowledge in their finder. On the whole, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have here another indication of human existence in northern Ohio while yet the ice of the glacial era was present in the state.

Reviewing the evidence herein presented, it seems logical to conclude that this stone was an implement of domestic use, lost by its owner, and buried by a glacial stream in the gravel of the Killbuck valley; where it lay undisturbed until exhumed as above related. At all events, the evidence, as we have been able to obtain it, is here presented in detail, and it must remain for archaeologists to weigh it and come to their own conclusions regarding its final value. If the inferences above given are valid they will before long be strengthened by others of the same kind. The problem will then reach its ultimate and complete solution.

OTHER EVIDENCES.

Elsewhere will be found photographs of two stones found in the drift and now in my possession. The larger one is from a glacial drift hill twenty-five feet high on its cut face. The hill is similar in every particular to the one above noted, save that the cemented conglomerate is not so completely strati- fied. The hill is on the opposite side of the Killbuck, one and one-half miles higher up the creek, where the Baltimore and Ohio railroad cut through it when grading the road, and I feel certain that the gravel was never disturbed before this cut was made. Several years ago, when workmen were taking out gravel for ballast from the lower face of the hill, this stone was dislodged and picked up by myself from the torn-down gravels, so I can not exactly locate its position, but the workmen were taking gravel from a space from sixteen to twenty feet below the surface of the hill. In form it is a charac- teristic "turtle back" and is well chipped. Examine it and consider its value.

The second and smaller stone, resembling a rude tomahawk, was found in a washout in the drift on a hill almost directly opposite the first hill de- scribed. The top of this hill has for nearly a century been plowed "down hill" and so its surface greatly lowered. The hill is composed of imper- fectly stratified gravel and yellow clay. During a spring thaw and flood a gully some six feet deep was formed in the side of the hill, and from the yellow clay near the bottom of this gully I picked the stone, the clay firmly adhering to it, and I am satisfied that it was taken from undisturbed glacial clay. That it shows distinct marks of human workmanship, no one seeing

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

it can dispute, and I present it, in connection with the above, as one more evidence of man's association with the glacier's retreat in Wayne county, Ohio.

ANIMAL REMAINS FOUND IN THE MUCK SWAMPS.

The first is a mammoth's tooth, the last molar of the under jaw of the left side; it weighs four and one-half pounds, although part of the fang is lost by decay. It is known to be a mammoth's tooth by the cross lines of hard enamel with softer dentine between. It represents an extinct species of ele- phant, the "Elephas primigenius," the ancestor of the Indian elephant, and was covered with a shaggy coat of bristles, long hair and wool. It was con- temporary with man during and after the glacial period in Europe. The tooth was found in the filled-up glacial lake on the Brownfield farm, northeast of Fredericksburgh, Ohio. The lake is in an old preglacial channel and in its center is an old morainic island, on which was a late Indian village, furnishing many relics. In a spring freshet the north branch of Salt creek washed into this swamp, tearing down the muck and with it the tooth which the engrav- ing represents. It was found when the water subsided by Mr. John Living- ston, who brought it to me. The tooth was found only seven miles from the swamp (of similar character) in which was found the immense skeleton of the giant sloth-megalonyx Jeffersonii-by my old friend, Mr. Abraham Dru- shell, and which is now placed in Orton Hall of the Ohio State University, the only such skeleton mounted in the world.

The next specimen was found when driving a sewer through a glacial kame in front of my house in Wooster, Ohio. The specimen was found fif- teen feet down from the original surface of the soil, lying between layers of blue boulders, clay and yellow Cleveland clay. It is five and one-half inches long and one and one-quarter inches in its greatest diameter, with a peculiar articulation at its distal end, such as is found in the cat tribe, where the claw rolls on the bone, and can be sheathed. I regard it as the last phalynx of the central toe of the extinct saber-toothed lion. It can not be represented on paper, but I note it here because the lion was contemporary with the mam- moth and man in Europe, and may have been in America in glacial time, and I make this point for Wayne county; Ohio-that when such animals could live, man could live.

The next find is the shark's teeth, represented in the engraving. The teeth are from the man-eating shark (genus Carcharinus), which lived in a warm sea and grew to fifteen to twenty-five feet in length. The large tooth, associated with one on the card from South Carolina, was found in the muck

Miscellaneous Artefacts found in Wayne County. One-sixth natural size.

Types of Ungrooved Axes, or Celts, found in Wayne County . One-sixth natural size.

"Ti

Hier SurMA ..

Sharks' Teeth, found in the Muck Swamps of Wayne County. About two-thirds natural size.

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

of Killbuck bottoms, below the fair grounds. The others were found when draining a muck swamp in a preglacial gorge down the head of the Cincin- nati incline on section 32, Milton township. They were not the only teeth recovered, for the family kept some, and I had two stolen from me. In addition, I have a number of shark's teeth, but of another species, recov- ered from the Newman's creek swamp near Orrville. How sharks got here is only surmise, but imagination whispers to me that they were stranded in the fissures of the hills, from the warm sea that surrounded the head of the island when the land rose and the sea gave place to a carboniferous forest. Since writing the above, I had a row of types of the small teeth found in Newman's creek swamp added to the plate.

THE INDIANS OF WAYNE COUNTY.

The legends and traditions handed down from the remote ancestors of the Leni Lenape or Delawares tells us that many centuries ago the country from the "Nama-esi Sipu"-the Mississippi river-to the Alligewi Sipu-the Allegheny river-which then included the Ohio, was occupied by a people called Allegewi, and to these people we are indebted for the names Alleghany mountains and Allegheny river. The Allegewi were a tall and strong race. the Leni Lenape describing many of them as giants; but they were peaceful and inclined to agriculture. Still, they had many fortified towns, with ditch and embankment, surmounted with palisades. But their quiet was broken and the Allegewi migrated to the far south, giving place to the Cat nation, who held and occupied the country from the Scioto river to Lake Erie, to which they gave name. The Leni Lenape had passed on to the Susquehanna and the Delaware river, and here received the name Delaware, after Lord De la Ware, "a brave and good man." The Eries were a peaceful people. and ever a neutral nation in the wars, but this neutrality furnished an excuse to the intriguing and fiercely bloodthirsty Iroquois (Five Nations) for a war of extermination, and being supplied with guns and knives and tomahawks of steel by the Dutch of New York, they began the war of annihilation. The Eries, against such superior weapons, could do nothing-the nation was destroyed. That the Dutch were the devils in peace clothing that incited the Iroquois to deeds of violence and rapine and murder so that they (the Dutch) could secure the fertile lands of the vanquished is simply a matter of history ( see Heckewilder, Zersberger and Loskeil).

The destruction of the nation was complete-most of the unfortunates murdered by the bullets and bayonets and steel tomahawks supplied by the

WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.

smiling Dutch, many of the prisoners were tortured until the Great Spirit anesthetized to fainting, when they were burned. A few were adopted by the more humane of the Iroquois and a few more escaped across the lake to Detroit from their last stand at their stronghold on Put-in-Bay Island in Lake Erie, the lake of their naming and loving. Another part, probably from this county and the Mohican valley, fled down the Muskingum and Scioto to the Ohio, and thence to St. Louis, and from there by degrees up the Missouri, establishing many towns and finally settling as Mandans on a beautiful and romantic spot on the north Missouri near Bismarck, North Dakota. Here they lived unmolested and happy for a time, but finally the smallpox within their fortified town of two thousand souls and the Sioux watching without, so they could not even bury their dead, brought their entire destruction.

So you see that the Indians the whites found here when they invaded the country were not native to the soil. The tribes then inhabiting Wayne county were the Delawares, the Mohicans and a few Mingoes, all of whom came here from the far east as the white man encroached upon them from the sea. When they came into Ohio they knew nothing, scarcely by tradition, of the mounds and relics in stone left here by their ancestors, and this is why we separate the Indian from the "Mound Builder." But as children they had been taught in a new school, of new things, by new teachers. They had learned to fight with new weapons and had been taught the practical meaning of treachery and vengeance; in place of tomahawks of granite and arrowheads of flint, they had guns and knives and tomahawks of steel for defense and offense. Their whole nature and manhood, from environment and association with the white man, had been warped from the original; they had been harassed by the Iroquois, cheated by the Dutch, filled with whisky by the English, and scourged from their hunting grounds by the psalm-singing Puritans, and driven with disgrace under the sobriquet of women into the Ohio country. What wonder they were called "savages," and what greater won- der that after such massacres, as unprovoked as was done with the one hun- dred defenseless Christian Indians at Gnadenhutten, and the thirteen toma- hawked in their sleep on the site of the Catholic church in our own city, that they did not retaliate more than by burning Colonel Crawford. Colonel Crawford would never have been burned by Captain Pipe, save for the Gnadenhutten infamy, nor the Great Spirit-respecting, white-man-loving, hos- pitable gentleman Logan been transformed into a revengeful and merciless "savage" had not Captain Cresap been a fiend. Such acts, with many others recorded in history, would blur the fair face of nature and make hell shud-

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History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1162

Author:
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1162