History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 7

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

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Others who have carefully studied the subject believe the mounds have stood at least twice ten centuries. General W. H. Harrison suggested that the mixed forests which grew upon them might have been the results of several generations of trees. He believed their builders were of a race identical with the Aztecs. Many of their works, says Atwater, " had gateways and parallel walls leading down to creeks which once washed the foot of hills from whenee the streams have now receded, forming extensive and newer alluvions, and worn down their channels, in some instanees, ten and even fifteen feet."48 That the race of the mounds lived here a long time appears evident, thinks Mr. Atwater, because of the "very numerous cemeteries, and the vast numbers of persons of all ages who were here buried. It is highly probable that more persons were buried in these mounds than now [1833] live in this state. They lived in towns, many of which were populous, especially along the Scioto from Columbus southward. . .. Some have supposed that they were driven away by powerful foes, but appearances by no means justify this sup- position. That they contended against some people to the northeast of them is evident, but that they leisurely moved down the streams is also evident from their increased numbers and their improvement in the knowledge of the arts."43

Who were the moundbuilders, whenee came they, and whither did they go? These questions will perhaps never be settled conclusively. The Indian traditions which seem to touch the ancient raee are very few and meager. The most tangible and interesting is that of the Delawares, who claimed to be the oldest of the Al- gonquin tribes and were known as grandfathers. Originally they were called Lenni Lenape, signifying men. According to a tradition transmitted by their ancestors from generation to generation they dwelt many centuries ago in the Far West, and for some reason not explained emigrated in a body toward the East.

After long journeying they arrived on the Namaesi-sipu (Mississippi) where

' THE PREHISTORIC RACES,

they fell in with the Mengwe (Iroquois) who were also proceeding castward. Be- fore the Lenape reached the Mississippi their couriers, sent forward to reeon- noitre the country, discovered that the regions east of the Mississippi were in- habited by a very powerful nation which had many large towns built beside the great rivers. These people, calling themselves Tallegwi, or Tallegewi, are said to have been wonderfully tall and strong, some of them being giants. They built in- trenchments from which they sallied forth and encountered their enemies. The Lenape were denied permission to settle near them, but were given leave to pass through their country to the regions farther east. Accordingly, the Lenape began to cross the Mississippi, but while so doing were attacked by the Tallegwi who had become jealous and fearful of the emigrants. The Lenape then formed an alliance with the Mengwe, and fought numerous battles with the Tallegwi, who, after a war of many years, abandoned the country and fled down the Mississippi, never to return.

Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Delawares as narrated by the Rev. John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary to the Indians. Mr. Horatio Hale, who is an authority on the subject of Indian migrations, arrives at the conclusion that the country from which the Lenape emigrated was not the Far West, but the forest region north of Lake Superior; that the people who joined them in their war on the Tallegwi were not the Iroquois but the Hurons; and that the river they crossed was the Detroit, and not the Mississippi. The adaptation of the line of defensive works in Northern Ohio for resistance to an enemy approaching from the northwest seems to support this theory. But as to the identity of the race which fought behind those works we are still left mainly to conjecture. No hieroglyphics or serap of written record remains to tell their story. That they were of a raee now extinct, and had reached a degree of civilization far above that of their Indian successors, is a hypothesis strongly confirmed by evidence and stoutly maintained by many thoughtful and learned students of American anti- quities. Others equally careful in their investigations insist that the builders of the mounds were Indians of the same race with tribes now living. As the subject belongs to the department of ethnology rather than to that of history, its discus- sion will not here be attempted.

NOTES.

1. The Glacial Period and Archeology in Ohio ; Professor G. F. Wright in the Archa- ological and Historical Quarterly, September, 1887.

2. Ibid. Discussing the same subject from a European standpoint, Sir Archibald Geikie says : "From the height at which its transported debris has been observed on the Harz, it [the ice] is believed to have been at least 1470 feet thick there, and to have gradually risen in elevation as one vast plateau, like that which at the present time covers the interior of Greenland. Among the Alps it attained almost incredible dimensions. The present snow- fields and glaciers of these mountains, large though they are, form no more than the mere shrunken remnants of the great mantle of snow and ice which then overspread Switzerland. In the Bernese Oberland, for example, the valleys were filled to the brim with ice, which, moving northwards, crossed the great plain and actually overrode a part of the Jura mountains."

3. Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio, Volume V., page 755. 1884.

4. Ibid, page 757.

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

5. Professor J. S. Newberry's theory of the climatic cause of this is thus stated: "At a period probably synchronous with the glacial epoch of Europe - at least corresponding to it in the sequence of events -- the northern half of the continent of North America had an arctic climate ; so cold, indeed, that wherever there was a copious precipitation of moisture from oceanic evaporation, that moisture fell as snow ; and this, when consolidated, formed glaciers which flowed by various routes toward the sea." One solution of this phenomenal con- dition of things has been found, says Professor Newberry, in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. The suggestion of this explanation was first made by Sir John Herschel, but it has been subsequently advocated by Professor James Croll, of Glasgow, with so much zeal that he may almost be considered its author. By careful determinations of eccentricity, through a period of several millions of years, Professor Croll ascertained that the earth re- ceded, at one time, eight millions of miles farther from the sun than it is now, and that this must have caused the winter in the northern hemisphere to last thirtysix days longer than the summer, the heat received during the winter being one-fifth less than now. " Hence, though the summer was one-fifth hotter, it was not sufficiently long to melt the snow and ice of winter ; and thus the effects of the cold winter might be cumulative in each hemisphere through what may be called the winter half of the great year (of 21,000 years) produced by the precession of the equinoxes."-Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio, Volume II.

6. Geological Survey Report, Volume II.

7. The Ohio throughout its entire course runs in a valley which has been cut nowhere less than 150 feet below the present level of the river. . The Beaver at the junction of the Mahoning and Chenango, is flowing 150 feet above the bottom of its old trough, as is demonstrated by a large number of oil wells bored in the vicinity. . Borings at Toledo show that the old bed of the Maumee is at least 140 feet below its present surface level .- Professor Newberry.

8. No other agent than glacial ice, as it seems to me, is capable of excavating broad, deep, boat-shaped basins like those which hold our lakes .- Ibid.

9. The forests and flowers south of this margin [of glaciated territory] were then very different from those now covering the area. From the discoveries of Professor Orton and others, we infer that red cedar abounded over all the southern part of Ohio. Some years ago a pail factory was started in the neighborhood of Granville, Licking County, using as the material logs of red cedar which were probably of preglacial growth. There is a record of similar preglacial wood, in Highland, Clermont and Butler Counties, specimens of which can be seen in the cabinet of the State University. In a few secluded glens opening into the Ohio River above Madison, Indiana, where the conditions are favorable, arctic or northern plants. which, upon the advance of the glacial sheet had been driven southward, still remain to bear witness of the general prevalence .- Professor G. F. Wright in the Archaeological and Historical Quar- terly, September, 1887.

IO. Professor J. S. Newberry in Geological Survey Report, Volume II.

11. Sir Archibald Geikie, Director General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.

12. Archeological and Historical Quarterly, September, 1887.

13. Ibid, December, 1887.

14. Ibid.

15. Sir Archibald Geikie.

16. Daniel Wilson, LL. D., Professor of History, University of Toronto.

17. Atwater's History of Ohio.

18. Squier and Davis, in Smithsonian Institution Contributions to Knowledge, Volume

1, 1847.

19. To What Race Did the Mound Builders Belong ? A paper read before the Congres International des Américanistes, by General Manning F. Force, of Cincinnati.

20. Ibid.

21. History of Franklin and Pickaway Counties ; published by Williams & Company, 1880.

22. Article "America," by Charles Maclaren, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edin- burg, Enc. Britannica, Volume I.

THE PREHISTORIC RACES.

23. Squier and Davis.

24. Ibid.

25. Force.

26. Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, Ohio.

27. Squier and Davis.

28. Whittlesey.

29. Squier and Davis.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. History of the Conquest of Mexico ; William H. Prescott.

33. Squier and Davis.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Archaeology of Ohio ; M. C. Read.

38. Ibid.

39. Squier and Davis.

40. Smithsonian Contributions.

41. Ibid.

42. In 1886.

43. Squier and Davis.

44. Professor F. W. Putnam in the Century Magazine for April, 1890.

45. Smithsonian Contributions.

46. Century Magazine.

47. Force. 48. Western Antiquities, 1833.

49. Ibid.

CHAPTER III.

ANCIENT EARTHWORKS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY.

BY JAMES LINN RODGERS.

[James Linn Rodgers was born on Sullivant's Hill, near Columbus, September 10, 1861. He received his education in the schools of Columbus and at the Ohio State University. His chosen profession is that of journalism, in which he has been engaged during the last five years. He is now, and for some time past has been, Associate Editor of the Columbus Evening Dispatch.]

The science of geology has demonstrated that the southern half of that terri- tory which is now Ohio offered to agriculture for centuries before positive history began a soil abounding in fertilizing elements. The researches of ethnologists have led to the conclusion that the mound builders were inclined to pastoral pur- suits rather than to war. Archaeologists have obtained convincing evidence that these people were also in many ways artistically inclined. Science and investiga- tion have therefore given us a basis of fact upon which to build the general struc- ture of knowledge of the early conditions which surrounded the ancient people who dwelt in the region about us. It will not be diverging from the line of history to say that the fertile valleys of the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Miami were undoubt- edly densely inhabited by the people of that early day. Between these valleys were lands of promise, but along the water courses, the Ohio archeologist has dis- covered the most general evidence of a practically coextensive population. Of the traces of habitation which make the Muskingum and Miami valleys rich fields for archæological exploration, it is not necessary to write because antecedent and con- temporary literature has had much to say concerning them. Of those of the Upper Scioto and the small tributary valleys something may be written that can claim to be new.

The alluvial deposits left by the floods which for centuries unnumbered swept through the central groove of the southern half of Ohio made a broad and continuous valley, from the site of Columbus, or a little north of it, to the Ohio River. When the softening influence of time had altered the aspect of the landscape, this valley could well have had great attractions for an agricultural people. That its advan- tages were appreciated can be seen even at this late day, for no extensive area of the Scioto Valley exists that has not some faint or pronounced trace of the works of ancient human beings. The hills which overlook what was once the broad Scioto bear evidence of the labor of ancient man; the level lands and river terraces show remnants of earthworks and mounds, and the soil itself is the repository of count- less relics which contribute their testimony to the solution of the question of the

[44]

ANCIENT EARTHWORKS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY.

identity and customs of their original owners. Therefore we know that the Scioto country was the chosen home of a numerous people. It is of the traces lett by these aborigines in this immediate vicinity that this chapter will treat.

Anyone who has studied the topography of Franklin County need not be told that the Scioto River, which is the main channel of the local watershed, bas a com- paratively broad valley until it passes Columbus, going northward. The tribu- taries of the river spread out like the veins of a leat as soon as Franklin County is reached in the journey up the valley, and this, while furnishing apparent proof of the causes for the greater width of the valley to the sonthward, shows that the identity of the principal basin is lost in this vicinity. The point known to the pioneers as The Forks, forming the junction of the Scioto and the Whetstone, now called Olentangy, may be deemed as a general terminus of the bottom land of the basin. That this fact had its influence with the ancients is proven by the further fact that the territory round about us contains the last of the distinct and numer- ous traces of the race which inhabited the Scioto Valley, justifying the conclusion that the ancient people stopped their northward Scioto River migration in Frank- lin County, or that they selected this region as the starting point of their habita- tions on their southward retreat. Consequently an inference, justified by all facts and theories, would be that while other branches of the same race penetrated farther north in other valleys and spread over a wider territory, the people of the Scioto Valley limited their domicile to the Franklin County portion of the Scioto basin.

Franklin County was once rich in the works of the mound builders, and while the specimens could hardly rival the great products of the race which have made the lands around Chillicothe perhaps the richest of all fields of Ohio archaeological exploration, they were important enough to warrant early attention and careful preservation in history, if not in material shape. Fifty years ago accurate descrip- tions of these works could have been had ; to-day much time must be spent in re- search and investigation to make possible even a fragmentary account of their existence. The pioneers were too busy in establishing their homes to give much attention to the vestiges of an unknown race; and their later successors, although possessed of more leisure, regarded such piles of earth as fit objects for the subdu- ing influence of the plow. Engineers of public roads and canals respected no such impediments reared by ancients, and cut through or leveled them for the gravel they contained. Later realists and men of practice, not theory, have nearly com- pleted the work of destruction, and so it has come to pass that in a county which once had nearly a hundred of the distinct and well-defined productions of ancient labor, there remain but few which have been spared in their original form. This fact has rendered a complete catalogue of these works an impossibility, and has so seriously interfered with the task of collecting historical und descriptive data that this chapter must be given with a frank acknowledgment of its deficiencies. It may also be said that the partial destruction of the earthworks and tumuli has resulted in such a chaos of reports and theories that a perfect classification of the works is now hopeless. The mounds that have been explored by inexperienced persons received none of the careful scrutiny now accorded to similar works by competent field archaeologists, and therefore accurate accounts of the discoveries made, and scientific identification of the relics, are lacking and will never appear.

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

For this reason, principally, the statements made here must be restricted to bare detail in the majority of instances.

THE EARTHWORKS.

In all discussions of these remains, precedence is given to the enclosures which seem to have combined the mysterious functions of fortifications and places of worship. In deference to the established rule, which is doubtless correct in theory, the peculiar work near Worthington will first receive attention.

In Squier and Davis's Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, published as volume one of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, is found a descrip- tion of this Worthington work as it appeared over fifty years ago, when it was

WORTHINGTON WORKS

CIRCLE

ujo feet

550 feet

ROAD

AREA 8 ACRES

OLENTANGY

CREEX

CIRCLE

SCALE

Soo Feet & The INCA

surveyed and delineated by Colonel Charles Whittlesey. Time has changed it much since then, but the following extract from Colonel Whittlesey's account is worthy of repetition :

This work occurs on the banks of Olentangy Creek, a tributary of the Scioto River, about one mile west of the town of Worthington, Franklin County, Ohio The plateau upon the edge of which it is situated, is elevated about fifty feet above the bottoms of the Olentangy, and consists of a clayey soil resting upon the black shale formation of Ohio. The work is rectangular in form ; its sides correspond very nearly with the cardinal points (varying but five degrees) and measure six hundred and thirty and five hundred and fifty feet respectively. The walls are accompanied by a ditch, and are very slight, though distinctly traceable. In the line of the southern wall is a large truncated mound, twenty feet in height and measur- ing one hundred and ninety-two feet in diameter at the base, and seventy-six feet in diameter

ANCIENT EARTHWORKS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY.

at the summit. It is covered with large trees. The wall that leads from this mound to the left, is placed a little further outwards than that leading to the right. The mound in the centre of the enclosure is small and low. Near the southwestern corner of the work is a small circle with an interior ditch and single entrance ; it is one hundred and twenty feet in diameter. Some distance to the northwest of the enclosure, and on the opposite side of a deep ravine, is another small circle, one hundred and forty feet in diameter, with three entrances.

A plan of this work, reproduced from the drawing of Colonel Whittlesey as it appears in Squier and Davis's report, is herewith presented.

A short distance south of Worthington, on the Cook farm, are some remnants of an embankment and accompanying mounds. These are on an elovated spur at the junction of two small rivulets, or more properly speaking, dry ravines as they now are. The embankment, which in part follows the brow of one ravine, is nearly circular with an interior ditch, and the walls are but a few feet high. Two mounds, now very small, but originally conical in shape and about ten feet high, are in the enclosure. One mile southeast of this work, on the farm of Amazon Webster, and near the tracks of the C. C. C. & St. L. Railway, is an earth circle about thirty feet in diameter with slight walls. Another embankment of an irregu- lar course is located about twenty rods west of the circle.

In Williams's History of Franklin and Pickaway Counties is a description of some remains of earthworks which occur near Dublin in this county. As these works exist in a much damaged state, the observations made a good many years ago are valuable and are here quoted :

"On the banks of the Scioto River, in Perry Township," the Williams History says, "are remains of ancient works which have the appearance of fortification and were undoubtedly used as such by some earlier inhabitants of this county, of whom all trace, further than these forts and mounds, is lost. On the farm of Joseph Ferris, a mile north of Dublin Bridge, are to be seen in a good state of preser- vation, the outlines and embankments of three forts. One of these is within a few feet of his house and is perhaps eighty feet in diameter inside, with an entrance at the east side. The ditch and embankment are well defined A short distance northeast of this spot, and within arrow shot of it, is a large fort in a square form, and enclosing nearly, or quite, half an aere of ground. Although the tramping of cattle for many years has worn down the embankments, they are several feet high and the ditch, which is inside the works, is now some six feet deep. When the country was first settled this ditch was filled with water, and was a bed of mire, a pole thrust into the ground to a depth of ten feet finding no solid ground beneath. This would tend to show that originally this was a strong place and that the diteh was quite deep. Time has filled it with dead leaves, and refuse matter has assisted in obliterating this work. It is situated on a hill that commands a wide view of the country for a considerable distance in either direction. At a little lower point, and nearer the river, is a small mound. There was also a small mound in the centre of the larger fort, which was opened many years since, and was found to contain the bones of a large man. These crumbled in pieces soon after being exposed to the air. It is possible that by uncovering the ditch of this fort some relics of the extinct raee that built these works might be obtained. Search of this kind has generally been turned to the mound, instead of the inner ditches of the

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

fort, where probably was the habitation of the builders. A short distance from this larger fort is a smaller one than that first described. There have been several old works of this kind along the banks of the river between these works and Columbus, but they are mostly obliterated by the cultivation of the land on which they stood."

In this rather extended description, which has been quoted verbatim, there is much to interest the general reader besides the theories with which many have studied these ancient works will not agree. The Dublin works can be seen to be somewhat similar to those opposite Worthington. In each is displayed the appre- ciation of the builders for a strong natural position. In reference to the statement that other works were located farther south along the Scioto, it can be said that it is more than probable that there were remains of this character, but if such was the fact a diligent search has failed to disclose their sites. It should be remembered, however, that ten years of cultivation of the land will do more to destroy such earthworks than hundreds of years of natural decay, and inasmuch as that portion of the Scioto plateau has been plowed and harrowed for nearly seventy years, it is not strange that the traces of circles or fortifications have not survived.

Another extract from Colonel Whittlesey's paper reads: "Along Big Darby Creek, in the western part of Brown Township, there existed many evidences of that mysterious people of whom so much has been written and so little known. On the farm of Henry Francis there is yet remaining an extensive mound, and towards the creek were numerous others which have now disappeared. These were evidently tumuli, or burial places, as many human bones were found during the excavation of these works. There was also an enclosure, or fort, on the farm of H. C. Adler, Esq., with two circles, enclosing perhaps one-half an acre of ground. Its location was upon the high bank of the creek, toward which was the usnal opening found in works of this kind. It was comprised of gravel which has been removed for building and other purposes. Human bones were also found here. It is highly probable that this was a favorite camping ground for the Indians, as stone hatchets, arrow points, skinning knives, etc., were found here in great numbers by the settlers." These remains are the only ones yet discovered in the northwestern part of the county.

In the valuable contribution of Colonel Whittlesey to the publications of the Smithsonian Institution, contained in Volume III., there is a description of ancient works on the Harrisburg Road, about three miles southwest of Columbus. "These structures," wrote Colonel Whittlesey, "are simply circles or figures approaching to circles with occasional irregularities. There is a difference of fifty feet in the diameters of the larger ones and the outline bends each way from the curve of a true circle a few feet, making short straight portions not capable of representation on our scale. The ditches are at present very slight and not uniform in depth or breadth. From the top of the bank to the bottom of the ditch, the difference in no place exceeds two and a half feet. On all sides, for miles, is a low, clayey plain in- clined to be wet, with very slight undulation. This is the only remarkable fact connected with this work. Its ditch being external and its openings narrow indi- cates a work of defense, and if it were known that the ancient inhabitants of the Scioto Valley used palisades, we might safely conclude this to be a place of defense, relying solely upon artificial strength. There is no running water in the vicinity."

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 7

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202