History of the city of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Waggoner, Clark, 1820-1903
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: New York and Toledo : Munsell & Company
Number of Pages: 1408

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Among others from Ohio renowned for suc- cess in their respective spheres of activity, are Thomas A. Edison, the first Electrician of the age; Dr. Hall, the great Arctic Explorer ; Professor O. M. Mitchell, the Astronomer, who died in the military service of his country. Of eminent Divines, may here be named Dr. Lyman Beecher, of the Congregational Church; Bishops Philander Chase and Charles P. Mell- vaine, of the Protestant Episcopal Church ; Bishop Edward Thompson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and President Finney, of Oberlin College.

PART II. LOCALITY.

CHAPTER I.

TOPOGRAPHY .* - GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. - SURFACE GEOLOGY. - SOIL.S. - ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. - WATER SUPPLY. - ANALYSIS OF TOLEDO CLAY. - THE HISTORIC "GREEN SCUM" ON THE MAUMEE.

T HE surface of Lucas County is nearly flat. From the shore of Lake Erie there is an almost imperceptible ascent to the Western boundary, which has an elevation of from 90 to 130 feet. The Lake coast is low, and guarded by a sand beach. The Maumee River, which forms a part of the Southern boundary, and divides the County into two unequal tri- angles, descends 60 feet in a series of rapids, over limestone strata, from Providence to Mau- mee City, the head of slack water and of navi- gation. The same beds of limestone project above the level drift, at a few points further North, but have no notable influence on the topography.

The rocks of the County are: Huron Shale, Ilamilton Group, Corniferous Group, Water- Jime Group, Onondaga Salt Group and Guelph Group (Niagara).

Guelph Group .- There are no rock exposures in the Eastern Townships, but enough outerops have been observed in the neighboring parts of Ottawa County to render it highly probable that the Guelph beds underlie a considerable portion of the Town of Oregon.

The Waterlime and Onondaga Salt Groups have not been separated in this County, and there is some doubt as to the occurrence of the latter. At Genoa, in Ottawa County, charac- teristic Waterlime fossils are found but a few feet above the Guelph limestone.

The Waterlime is exposed at various points. From the West line of Waterville, to slack- water at Maumee City, it forms the bed of the Maumee, presenting a series of variable sectile, argillaceous limestones, with numerous local flexures, but no decided general dip. The same beds are exposed on the plain near Mau- mee City, in the bed of Swan Creek at Mon- clova Village, and at Fish's quarry, in North- ern Monclova. In Sylvania, Ten-mile Creek cuts the Waterlime for some distance, and it is

further exposed in the road West of the Vil- lage, so as to afford the following section :

FEET.

Alternations of hard gray, and soft drab limestones, both thin-bedded. 40

Massive buff limestone, in part brecciated, with many small, lenticular cavities, and some chert nodules .. 30 Gray, shaly limestone-exposed G

Total 70

The Corniferous Group is seen to overlie the Waterlime in Sylvania, at Fisher's quarry, and in the bed of the Maumee, the line of junction crossing Sylvania, Springfield, Monclova, and Waterville, in a Southerly direction. All of its members are exposed in Sylvania, in a rocky ridge, that lies two miles West of the Village. They are :

FEET.

6. Dark, bluish gray, sectile limestone, with crowded fossils 5

5. Thick-bedded, open, buff limestone, with white chert. 25

4. Drab limestone; beds 6 to 10 inches . 50

3. Alternations of hard, arenaceous limestone, with fine- grained, gray limestone 52

. Massive, friable white sandstone (glass-sand) 20

1. Soft, massive, cream and buff limestone, with fossils at top. 12

Total. 161

The full thickness of the upper bed is not shown. At Whitehouse, 15 feet are seen, but the upper limit is nowhere exposed. At Syl- vania, all the beds dip rapidly to the West, and their outerops can be noted in the space of a mile. Southward, the dip diminishes, and the belt of outcrop becomes broader, until, where it leaves the County, in Providence, it is not less than five miles across. Nos. 2 and 3 outerop at Fish's quarry, Nos. 5 and 6 at Whitehouse, and No. 3 two miles further East. In the bed of the Maumee the glass sand (No. 2) is seen a few rods East of the East line of Providence, and the successive strata appear in order as we ascend to the Providence dam, which rests on the buff limestone (No. 5). Fossils oceur in nearly all the beds, but are especially abundant in the highest and the lowest. Few were collected, as good speci- mens are rare, but of those that were preserved Mr. F. B. Meck, the Paleontologist of the

*See Geological Survey of Ohio. Report of J. S. Newberry, Chief Geologist, 1870.

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HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY.

Survey, distinguished 34 species of inverte- brates. The fishes, that so abound in the equivalent beds at Sandusky and other points East of the great anticlinal axis, are but mea- gerly represented. A few teeth of onychodus have been found in limestones 1 and 5, and the gray limestone (No. 6) yielded at Sylvania a single cranial bone not referable to any de- scribed genus.

The Hamilton Group is not exposed, but is believed to be represented by a bed of soft gray shale, outeropping in a narrow band along the edge of the IIuron shale. At Delta, Fulton County, where it was traversed in boring for oil, it has a depth of 20 feet.

The Huron Shale, a hard bituminous black shale, is entirely concealed under the drift, but has been struck by the auger at many points in Richfield. It must underlie the whole of that Town, together with Spencer and Swan- ton, and the Northwest portion of Providence. Its dip is to the West.

Glacial Stric are found in Lucas County, wherever the Eric clay is freshly removed from the roek surface, Even the friable sand- stone of the Corniferous, which crumbles away at the first frost, has preserved them. Their bearings were noted at seven different locali- ties, and range from S. 80° W. to S. W., the general direction being S. 55° W. The effect produced, when the ice encountered some flint nodules in the waterlime at Monclova Village, is very interesting. Each hard nodule pro- jects boldly from the ice-planed surface, and retains a long train or ridge of the limestone on one side. The semi-plastic ice did not at once fill the groove curved in it by the un- yielding flint, and so failed to remove the limestone immediately behind it. These trains all point in one direction (S. 60° W.), and prove that the motion of the ice was toward, and not from, that direction. By the kindness of Messrs. Coder and Wilson, of Monclova, a slab of this worn limestone has been placed in the State collection. The superficial deposits consist of two members : the Erie clay and the Lacustrine clay and sand. The former was deposited immediately after the retreat of the glacier, and is formed of glacial detritus, trans- ported in part by icebergs. The latter are due to the sorting and redeposition of the former, by Lake action. At Toledo, the Erie clay is blue, and the Lacustrine yellow, but the dis-

tinction is not general. Bowlders afford a better mark, for they are rarely absent, in this vicinity, from the Erie clay, and never present in the Laeustrine. A majority of the Eric clay bowlders attest their glacial origin by exhib- iting one or more ground faces. A large and beautiful specimen of Trenton limestone, in the possession of Dr. J. B. Trembley, of Toledo, is plainly a fragment torn from the bed of the glacier, and not subsequently worn, but de- posited with its fractured edges still angular. The leveling action of the Lacustrine forces has proceeded further in Lucas than in the more Westerly Counties, as it was longer sub- merged. The original surface of the Erie clay doubtless conformed, in great measure, to that of the subjacent rock, but has been remodeled without regard to it. While there is no drift on the limestone ridge, at Sylvania, its depth is over 145 feet at Metamora, eight miles West, and nearly 100 feet at Toledo, 10 miles East. The sand tract of the County records a shore action similar to that now transpiring at the head of Lake Michigan. The sand accumu- lated by the currents, was thrown up by the waves in beaches, and by the wind in dunes. It is so fine (and hence light and mobile) that it owes its present form chiefly to the wind, and no persistent beach ridges remain. In its vertical range, it extends from 60 feet above the present Lake to 110 feet, and will not im- probably be found, when its connections shall have been traced, to represent more than one stage of water, if, indeed, it was not accumu- lated during a gradual subsidence. The belt erosses the country in a Northeast and South- west direction, covering Swanton, with a con- siderable portion of Providence, Spencer, Mon- clova, Springfield and Sylvania, and small areas in Waterville and Washington. An ex- tension Southeastward from Sylvania covers nearly the entire Town of Adams.

It is reported by Dr. J. B. Trembley that.a tooth of mastodon was obtained from a marsh in the Town of Springfield. I was unable to ascertain the precise locality and other partie- ulars, but, as all the marshes of that Town lie in depressions, that originated with the dunes, the tooth cannot be more ancient than they ; and the mastodon is shown to have survived at least, to the epoch of the lowest raised beach of Lake Erie.

The Towns of Oregon and Manhattan, and

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.

the Eastern part of Washington, are part of the tract of country to which the name of the " Black Swamp" has been applied. The soil is a fine clay, black with decayed vegetation, and varied by streaks having an admixture of sand. Lying nearly level (the average descent Lakeward is four feet per mile), it has retained water on its surface many months in each year, and, by its aid, converted into mold the leaves and trunks that have fallen upon it. Most valuable assistance in this work has been rendered by the fresh-water lobsters that abound throughout the district. When the land dries they dig little wells that they may retain the supply of water essential to their existence. As the season advances, they bur- row deeper and deeper, always bringing the excavated clay to the surface, where it is mingled with the mold. In this way the mold has become incorporated with the clay to a considerable depth, constituting a soil of great endurance. The soil of Richfield and North- western Sylvania is somewhat similar in char- acter, but has a fine gravel, evenly mingled with the clay.

Along the margins of the sand district are belts of shallow sand, with clay subsoil, and supporting, like the clay soils, a heavy forest growth.

The district of deep sand is covered by " oak openings." It comprises many treeless, sandy swamps, some of which are of considerable ex- tent. There can be no doubt that thorough drainage will convert them from inhospitable, miasmatie wastes into superior farming lands.

Building Stone .- The Upper Buff limestone (No. 5, in the table of Corniferous rocks) is the most important building stone in the County. It is readily quarried in large blocks, and very easily wrought while wet. While it is an impure limestone, it contains no sand, and it owes its open texture, not to loose ag- gregation, but to the loss of some component by dissolution. It has been extensively used, with the best results, for abutments and like heavy work, and it is now proposed to saw it into slabs for lintels, sills, etc. The principal quarries are at Whitehouse and Providence, while it is also worked in Sylvania, on the farms of Mr. Lee, Mr. Shay, and Mr. Kenyon Cooper.

The Arenaceous limestone (No. 3) is likewise a valuable building stone. It is most exten-

sively worked by Mr. George Loeb, at a point two miles East of Whitehouse, and by Mr. Wm. Fish, in Northern Monclova. Near the former quarry, Mr. A. Shear, near the latter, Mr. W. S. Holt, and in Sylvania, Mr. J. Rampus, have openings in the same bed.

The stoneless Lacustrine clay is well adapted and extensively used for the manufacture of bricks. On the border of the sand district it contains a measure of incorporated sand, in virtue of which it is the more readily worked. Bricks burned from it have a pale red color, which is commonly heightened by an admix- ture of the convenient ferruginous sand.

Lime is manufactured for local consumption from beds of the Waterlime group, at Maumee City, at the Villages of Waterville and Mon- clova, and at Fish's quarry; from the Drab limestone of the Corniferous (No. 4), at Syl- vania (by Mr. Cooper), and at Providence ; and from the Gray limestone (No. 6), at White- house. All of these form efficient and durable cements, but differ in color and facility of use. Those from the Corniferous beds slake and set more quickly than the others, and evolve in slaking a great amount of heat. A series of experimental tests of these and other limes, available for the Toledo market, was under- taken, but no satisfactory result was reached, and they will be continued in the coming season.

It is hoped that in the Waterlime group will be found beds suitable for hydraulic cement. Several samples that were selected for exami- nation have been shown, by Dr. Wormley's analyses, to resemble the best cement rocks very closely in chemical composition ; but the more practical and decisive tests are yet to be applied.

The friable sandstone (No. 2) affords a nearly pure white sand, adapted to the manufacture of glass. In 1863 it was opened in Sylvania, on the farm now owned by Mr. John Rampus, by Messrs. Card and Hubbard, and a consider- able quantity quarried, ground and shipped to Pittsburgh, Pa., where it was used in making flint glass. Seven or eight hundred tons had been shipped, when the business terminated, in consequence of the death of the managing partner, Mr. Card. The price received for the sand, delivered in Pittsburgh, was 816 to 817 per ton .*

* The development of the Water Supply, Building Stone and Glass Sand is noted elsewhere.

HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCIS COUNTY.

Water Supply .- The first discovery of the Artesian water, now obtained in so many parts ofthe Maumee Valley, was made in Bryan, in 1842. The water does not differ materially in character from that ordinarily received from the Drift, and owes its Artesian head to some peculiarities of the distribution of the sand heds of the Erie clay, by which they are ena- bled to carry the water which permeates them from higher to lower levels, while they are pre- vented from discharging it through springs by a continuous covering of impervious clay. The flowing wells of Williams County are part of a series that occur in a narrow belt of country, lying just West of the upper beach. The evenly spread Lacustrine clays form, in this case, the impervions cover, and the reservoir, by which the flow is rendered perennial, is afforded by the broad, and often deep, sand beds, from which the supply is directly obtained. More remotely it is doubtless derived from the oxi- dized upper portion of the unmodified drift, lying East of, and higher than the beaches. This is generally permeable, and receiving the water from rains, yields it slowly to the sandy beds wherever they are connected.

The wells of Lucas County are of two classes, the shallow and the deep. The shallow pierce only the Lacustrine deposits, and receive either the water that accumulates in the deep sands of the oak openings, or that which percolates through what sandy beds are interstratified with the Lacustrine clay; the deep penetrate nearly or quite to the rock. I am not aware that any wells draw water from the body of the Erie clay. Though it contains frequent permeable beds, they are not so connected as to permit a free circulation.

At the base of the Erie clay, and resting on the rock in situ, there are commonly-not al- ways-a few feet, or a few inches, of gravel and sand, from which water rises freely, sup- plying the Artesian and other deep wells. Whether the water is confined to this horizon, or circulates also through the underlying rock, is a question of little importance If we say that it passes under the clay, along the lime- stone ridge, in the West part of the County, and follows the rock surface until it finds escape upwards, we shall have proposed a theory by no means demonstrable, but quite

adequate to account for the Artesian head in Toledo and Oregon. The Artesian water of Richfield rises higher than this supposed source and must receive its supply from some point further West. The water in the Toledo wells formerly stood 14 feet above the Lake level ; but with increasing use, bas gradually fallen to seven feet, and the only wells now flowing discharge below that height.

In July, 1859, an analysis of Blue Clay nn- derlying Toledo was made. It was taken from a cut then made in Adams Street, West of Michigan Street. Fifteen parts of the Clay yielded the following result :

PARTS.

Protoxide of Iron (FeO) 1.25

Silica (SiO3).

2.79

Carbonate of Calcium (CaO, CO2). 0.14

Water (HIO) 1.68

Alumina (AlO). 7.90

Trace of Sulphur and loss

1.21

15.00

Four parts of Alumina yielded 1.25 parts of metallic Aluminum. This analysis at the time attracted some attention, and more especially by the showing made of Alumina. But it has never been considered best to pursue the matter further.

In August, 1859, Mr. Aug. A. Fahnestock, Horticulturist, of Toledo, made careful exami- nation of the green matter, which previously, more than at that time, had appeared on the surface of the River at that season of the year, the result of which was thus stated by that gentleman :

First, that it is the pollen or fecundating of an aquatic plant, the Zucania Aquatier, or Indian Rice. This plant is always found in low, swampy lands and along the borders of Rivers and streams. It attains an altitude of from three to nine feet, and begins shedding its pollen about the 1st of August and con- tinnes until late in September. The pollen when thrown from the glumes, is of an oval shape, and in color light yellow. When submerged it loses its color, and commences to vegetate ; and if it does not happen to be thrown into shallow water, soon decomposes. From the immense quantities of this pollen, many would think it impossible to be of vegetable origin ; but we have only to examine that borne by the Thistle, Poppy and many other common plants, to find a parallel. What effect this decaying vegetation may have on the health of the City, I am unable to say. It is a question for Chemists and Physicians.

Since the date above named, the pollen has almost wholly disappeared from the surface of the River.

CHAPTER II.

THE PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.

THE beginning of the history of the mouth and valley of the Maumee River, is in- volved in unusual obscurity. The first settle- ments of the Dutch, and afterward of the English, were up the Hudson, and slowly towards the interior of the State of New York. Between these settlements and Ohio was the Iroquois Confederacy (Five Nations), the most powerful of Indian Tribes. They were not in the main unfriendly to these settlements; but there was in the earliest times little tempta- tion to penetrate beyond, and in later days the Iroquois claimed to control Ohio as their hunting-ground.

In 1609, about a quarter of a century before Lake Erie was known, Champlain, at the re- quest of the Ottawas, met in battle the Iroquois. This was the first introduction of the latter to civilization. The lines of the allies opened, and the Indians were struck, as seemed to them, by " lightning from the gods," with the usual " thunder." But the confederated Iro- quois in the end conquered the other Indian nations, and this brilliant exploit of Champlain, for nearly a century and a half, prevented the settlement of the Ohio. The Iroquois were not friendly, though not always at war.

The French way to the West, for trade and settlement, was North of Lake Erie. In 1671, Lake Superior was quite well represented on the maps. As late as 1744, the French official Geographer, in the map furnished for that learned work, Charlevoix's " New France," has along the South shore of Lake Erie the legend, " Toute cette cote n'est presque point comme " (All this shore is nearly unknown). The other more Southern English Colonies were separated from the West by the Alleghanies-often on the maps not inaptly called " The Endless Mountains." Gradually from the East and the West, adventurers, traders and settlements ap- proached what is now Ohio; and when Wash- ington was a young man, the French and English first met in the West. The country of the Ohio was the border-land on which they met. It had for many years lain between them. It continued thereafter to be the border-

land, all through the Revolution, and even in the war between the United States and Great Britain, known as the War of 1812. Even in that war we can tell pretty well what was done by the people of New York and of Pennsyl- vania, and the sons of Kentucky are reasonably prominent in written history. The West in British hands was well reported ; but we know little of the part of Ohio in that war, except as we gather its history from the narratives of citizens of other States. As was the case of the English and Scottish border, and as is the case of border-lands generally, the history of Ohio is rich in romance and dramatic interest, but precise information is wanting.

The earliest known man in Europe was the Glacial Man-living when most of Europe was covered with glaciers, and following up closely the retreating ice. A large share of the United States was similarly covered. The Southern limit is easily traced and with close accuracy. Even the very farms which that limit crossed, can be and have been pointed out. This Southern line-the terminal Moraine, as it is called-formed a continuons line from the At- lantie Ocean to at least the Mississippi River. The line entered Ohio on the center line of Columbiana County, not far from a line with the center of the State, and pursued a zigzag course to the Southwest, crossing the present valley of the Ohio in Brown County, some dis- tance East of Cincinnati ; re-crossing into In- diana below Cincinnati, and zigzagging to the Mississippi. The accumulations of the ice are found 500 to 600 feet on each side of the Ohio River, at Cincinnati. At that point was a great glacial dam. The Ohio must have been a Lake, with its water several hundred feet higher than at present, with irregular shores-up the pres- ent Valleys of the Rivers flowing into the Ohio. Abundant evidences are found in the Upper Ohio Valley of the existence of this Lake. Toledo, of course, was far behind the front of the belt of ice.

In New Jersey-in the striated beds of gravel which were deposited by the large streams running from the ice-are found thousands of

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HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY.

relies of the Glacial Man, substantially identi- cal with those of Europe. As these are found in undisturbed strata 20 feet and more from the surface, they must have been deposited at the time the gravel was. In short, man lived in New Jersey while the ice covered the North- ern part of the State. He may have lived along and South of the ice-belt, in the West; and may as well have fished in the Ohio Lake and in the streams leading to it, as in the Sea and the River which deposited the Trenton gravel.

There have been found in the West a few relies similar to those of Glacial Man, and snp- posed to have been his. The line has only re- cently been traced in the West, so that more precise information is wanting. The Glacial Man is not long known to have been American as well, but surely living on this Continent may have been the earliest inhabitant of Ohio; and, following the retreating ice, have been the first denizen of the Maumee Valley.

The earliest man, however, who left perma- nent imprint upon the face of the country, was the mysterious Mound Builder-so-called, be- cause we have no other name for him. No- where are his works more numerous or more extensive than in Ohio. The Southern Valleys of the State were his thickly populated home. These works are far less in number in the Northern part of the State, and still less in the lower Maumee Valley. That may well then have been to him, for some reason, a " borderland."

The earliest dweller in Ohio may not un- likely-if he passed over the site of Toledo at

all-have passed over a Lake. Before the Glacial period, Lake Erie was a River. The glacial streams from the South emptied their waters some 200 feet lower than at present. As that is about the depth of Lake Erie, there could then have been no such Lake. The Niagara River (to call it by that name', did not then flow over the present Falls, but had a channel to the North, and at a level not far from that below the Falls. That channel has been partly identified, but the ice which dammed the Ohio, dammed the Niagara, as well, and high enough so that in the retreat, Lake Erie was higher than at present. The well known ridges were Lake beaches, and the Lake has not yet, by far, found its ancient level.

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History of the city of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Waggoner, Clark, 1820-1903 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: New York and Toledo : Munsell & Company Number of Pages: 1408

Author: Waggoner, Clark, 1820-1903
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: New York and Toledo : Munsell & Company
Number of Pages: 1408