USA > Ohio > Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28
FORMATION OF THE PLAINS AND BOTTOMS.
Professor Volney says that in 1796, the spring freshet in the Great Miami caused that stream to form but one with the St. Marie, and that he passed over in a boat from the one river which runs into the Ohio, to the other which runs into Lake Erie. The Muskingum, which runs into the Ohio, also at that day communicated by means of the
7
Tuscarawas, and of small lakes in the present Summit and Stark Counties, with the Cuyahoga, which flows into Lake Erie, and in Volney's day, in the ordinary stages of water in the Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, and Muskingum, boats passed from the Ohio into Lake Erie with but a very short (if any) portage by land. The recession of waters from the ancient shores of the Muskingum, Tuscarawas, and other streams, forming as we see at this day, first, second, and third stages of flats of land, bear out Mr. Volney in his theory that the Ohio being barred up at one period, burst asunder its barriers little at a time, and in the course of ages the drainage exposed first the plains and then the bottom lands for the use of man. The celebrated Mr. Schoolcraft, in one of his works, while speaking of the tracks two human feet imprinted in a limestone rock, says, " May we not suppose a barrier to have once existed across the lower Mississippi, converting its immense valley into an immense interior sea," and are not the great northern lakes the remains of such an ocean? And did not the demolition of this ancient barrier enable this powerful stream to carry its banks, as it has manifestly done, a hun- dred miles into the gulf of Mexico? "If," as remarks Professor Priest, "the Mississippi, in bursting down its barriers, drove the carthy matter one hundred miles into the sea, it may well be supposed that if all that space, now the gulf, was then a low tract of country, as its shores are so now, that it was overwhelmed while the higher parts of the coast, now the West India Islands, are all that remain of that doomed country," while on the other hand all that vast expanse of land embraced in Ohio, and other States between northern lakes and the gulf, were drained by degrees, as is shown along the ancient shores of our rivers.
8
STORY OF THE HILLS, MOUNTAINS, ETC.
During the great submergences of the different ages the action of the waters through fissures on the fire-heated and igneous rocks beneath caused upheavals, forming hills and mountains, and they in turn as the seas retreated pro- duced our valleys and rivers, in efforts of the waters to follow and mingle with the retiring oceans, back in their more ancient basins of carboniferous, Devonian, Silurian, and Eozoic times. But the God of nature, to preserve his works from destruction by the too rapid and all-powerful action of the waters when in motion, seems to have inter- posed ridges and hills across the valleys and rivers, as ter- races, barriers, and water sheds, to prevent the land surface from wastage in washing, and excavating too quickly the rivers, valleys, and gorges.
Thus pent up for ages, these immense back waters pro- duced in turn cold, and that snow, ice, glaciers, with ice- bergs hanging as pendants at their bottoms, grasping in their freezing embrace bowlders, drift, and rocks, which when a barrier gave way in time in front of the pent .up element, by erosion, the glaciers and bergs moved south, the one levelling the land surface, while the other dropped its bowlders, drift, and rock into chasms, gorges, and rivers, as they melted away, thus preparing the earth for the future habitations of men.
ORIGIN OF THE NAMES "MUSKINGUM" AND "TUS- CARAWAS."
The Tuscarawas and Muskingum rivers, meandering through parts of Summit, across the counties of Stark, Tuscarawas, Coshocton, Muskingum, Morgan, and Wash- ington, form the valleys called by those names. In early times the valleys and the two rivers were known only as the "Muskingum," but when the whites came the name
9
" Tuscarawas" was given to all that portion between the dividing ridges in the present Summit County, and the town of Coshocton, near which the Walhonding River intersects the Tuscarawas, and form the Muskingum, which empties into the Ohio at Marietta. In Indian language it was " Mooskingom " or "Elk's Eye."
The name " Tuscarawas" is said by some writers to have been derived from the Tuscarora tribe of Indians, origi- nally in North Carolina, but who it is claimed came to New York State, and became part of the six nation con- federation, and afterward some of the tribe wandering west to the Ohio valley, gave their name to the locality of their hunting grounds, and the "a" being substituted for "o" in the spelling, Tuscarawas became the historical name the whites gave the river and valley. But as carly historians make no mention of the Tuscarora tribe of North Carolina ever having settled in the valley, it is probable that the definition given by Heckewelder is the correet origin of the word. He says Tuscarawas in Eng- lish means " old town," and that the oldest Indian town in the valley was called "Tuscarawa," being situated near the present Bolivar.
ORIGINAL NAMES OF THE OHIO.
In 1672, a map-attributed to La Salle-calls the Ohio by the Iroquois name of "Olighin Sipon," or, as called by the Ottowas, "The Beautiful River."
A map of 1687 calls it "Dono," or " Albacha" (Ohio or Wabash). A Dutch map of 1708 calls it "Oubach." A map of 1710 makes the Ohio and Wabash one river, and calls it "Oho." In 1711 it is called "Ochio." In 1719 it is called "Saboqnungo," and after that the French named it "Labelle," or beautiful river, and the name finally set- tled down to the word "Ohio."
10
THE WATER SHED OF OHIO.
Professor Newberry traces the water shed dividing the basin of Lake Erie from the waters of the Ohio. "This water shed," says Newberry, " forms a range of high lands that slope by long and easy descent to the Ohio." "The trough of the Ohio is excavated in a plain, and the some- what striking features which it presents are all the result of the erosion of this plain, which, still unbroken, forms the larger part of our area. North from the Ohio the plateau has been excavated to form the broad valleys of the Miami, the Scioto, and the Muskingum." "Our topo- graphical features may therefore be described as those of a plain slightly raised along a line traversing it from north- east to south-west, and worn in the lapse of time by the draining streams into broad valleys." " On a line drawn from Cincinnati to Marietta we begin in the excavated valley of the Ohio, four hundred and thirty-two feet above the ocean, and one hundred and thirty-three feet below the surface of Lake Erie." Going east the summit is reached of the divide between the Miami and Scioto five hundred and fifty-three feet above Lake Erie. The Scioto valley is bordered on the east by a divide which separates the waters of the Scioto from the Hocking about six hundred feet above Lake Erie. Between Athens and Harmar there is a divide separating the valley of the Hocking from that of the Muskingum, which latter has an altitude at its mouth of one hundred and thirty feet above Cincinnati, or about the level of Lake Erie, and reaches northwest to Massillon, in Stark County, where the Tuscarawas has an altitude of three hundred and thirty feet above Lake Erie, part of which is accounted for by the fact ascertained by borings at Canal Dover and other points that the Tuscarawas has been filled up and now runs nearly two hundred feet above its rocky bed of the carboniferous age-an age which in- volved the extermination of all plant and animal life, and the formation of coal.
11
Beginning with another line of observation, and running from the west margin of Ohio through Darke, Mercer, Logan, Delaware, Knox, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, Carroll, and Jefferson to Steubenville, Newberry premises that the great divide separating the waters of Lake Erie from the waters of the Ohio has an altitude, on the line dividing Darke and Mercer counties, of six hundred feet above Lake Erie, while in the valley of the great Miami it is but two hundred and eighty feet, and in Logan County nine hun- dred and seventy-five feet above Lake Erie, the highest point of land in Ohio above the lake. Proceeding cast through Delaware, the altitude is less than three hundred feet, and in Knox County the divide between the Scioto and Muskingum is in some places eight hundred feet above Lake Erie. From Coshocton the line of observation runs in the valley of the Tuscarawas an east and west course to Uhrichsville, thence to Steubenville, passing the divide separating the waters of the Tuscarawas from those of the Ohio at an altitude of eight hundred feet above Lake Erie at some points, and on reaching Steubenville the altitude is but seventy-six feet above the lake, showing the ancient bed of the Ohio far below the present strean.
A third line from the northwest corner of the State of Ohio, to the Pennsylvania line in Trumbull County, crosses the great divide in the north-east portion of the State, and in the north and west at Elyria, Monroeville, Fremont, Napoleon, &c., it crosses streams flowing toward the lake in valleys which in depth bear no comparison with those of the rivers draining the southern slope of the divide. These differences in the two slopes of the water shed are accounted for thus: After the ice had retired from the southern part of the State, the lake basin was still occu- pied by a glacier which reached far beyond the present lake basin, and when that ice sheet moved from the north- east toward the south-west, it planed down the surface north of the water shed, filling the old channels of the draining streams, producing a level plain, and that after
-
12
the ice had left all Ohio, the water for ages covered all north of the great divide, which became the shore of the great fresh water sea, while the slope south of the divide was exposed to surface erosion, and covered more deeply with earthy sediments.
Hence the later theory is that the Ohio and all its tribu- taries-Muskingum, Tuscarawas, Scioto, &c .- have been running in nearly the same valleys they now occupy ever since the carboniferous age.
That the water shed kept back the lake waters of Erie north, while the draining streams of the Tuscarawas, Mus- kingum, &c., in eastern Ohio, and the Scioto, Miami, &c., in the west, collected the overflow of the water shed, and the rain fall below, carrying them to the Ohio, and it in turn emptying them into the Mississippi, which discharged them into the sea; and in Indiana and other States the waters were kept back by like barriers, and drained by their rivers in like manner as the Ohio and Mississippi.
But that both these great streams had barriers barring them up for ages, as Volney and Schoolcraft respectively suggest, there can be no doubt. When they gave way, such was the flow of pent up waters that here, in these valleys, the Tuscarawas and Muskingum cut their channels deep through all the coal veins to rock bottoms, at some points nearly two hundred feet below the present river beds, and in Indiana where Fort Wayne stands, a large river flowing to the lake, and which Newberry says, "never had a name, and no man ever saw," ceased to flow north, and disappeared, as its ancient shores now tell. In the South they have a tradition of a "sunken land," overwhelmed by the elements from the north in ages past-as has happened in our time by fire and sword-and the reader of this story of water may stop and ponder on the coincidence, while further reflecting on the geological fact, that the drainage of the land he lives in cost all that drowned country now lying at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
-
13
LEGEND OF THE KOPHS.
At the time of a deluge in the Psychozoic era, the western continent was subjected to the same submergence as was the eastern continent, except that portions of the elevated regions were not covered by water, a fact which is corrobo- rated by the most learned geologists of the present and past centuries. On these elevated regions existed a race approximating to human beings, in that they had powers of locomotion on two feet like man, and similar powers to move on all fours like animals. Their muscular power was equal to the gorilla of this day, and their intellectual power equal to that of man. Their stature was that of the largest of the human race, when standing erect, and when moving on hands and feet, were the size of the largest of the Koph tribe alluded to in the second book of Kings. It is related that one of the tribe was captured and presented to King Solomon, as one of the curiosities of the land of Ophir, by one of that monarch's captains, on his return therefrom with a vessel having for cargo a full load of gold. 'On one of the monuments of King Thosmes of Thebes, was also found a representation of a Koph in his animal posture, having every appearance of a beardless face, but covered with a coat of long hair from the top of his skull downward to his rump, fitted by na- ture in folds to his body like unto the cowl and gown of a priest of modern times when he stood erect.
Such were the race of ante-deluvians spared on this con- tinent by the deluge, and on the subsidence of the waters they re-appeared on the table lands along the banks of lakes and streams, and procured a precarious living by the net and sling, in part, and by clubs and stones, their weapons of war, until they were exterminated by a more civilized race.
Another legend is, that when the nomadic Indians reached this continent, about seven hundred years after the flood,
14
and before the birth of Christ, about fourteen hundred and forty years, they found access thereto through Asia and Europe to the Mediterranean, thence by the Canary Islands over a large continent, the size of Africa, stretching from those isles across to what is called the West Indies at this day. These were the outermost shores of the American continent, and the sea now known as the Gulf of Mexico did not exist, but instead thereof all that space was a fruit- ful and prolific land.
LEGEND OF THE ISRAELITES PEOPLING THIS CONTINENT.
A tradition exists that the Israelites first peopled America. It is a biblical fact that ten of the tribes of Israel were taken north and west about seven hundred years after the flood, or fourteen hundred years B. C. It is a geological fact that the Canary Islands were once a part of the outer rim of the land connecting the eastern with another continent, and that the West India Islands of this day were once the outer fringe of land connecting the western continent with another, and it is handed down in tradition, that a continent did exist in the intervening space of the size of Africa as known at this day. The tradition is given in Washington Irving's Life of Colum- bus, volume 3, page 401, as follows:
" The island Atalantis is mentioned by Plato in his dia- logue of Timæus Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, is sup- posed to have traveled into Egypt. He is in an ancient city on the Delta, the fertile island formed by the Nile, and is holding converse with certain learned priests on the antiquities of remote ages, when one of them gives him a description of the island of Atalantis, and of its destruc- tion, which he describes as having taken place before the destruction of the world. The island he was told had been situated in the western ocean, opposite to the Straits
%.
15
of Gibraltar. There was an easy passage from it to other islands, which lay adjacent to a large continent, exceeding in size all Europe and Asia. Neptune settled on this island, from whose son, Atlas, its name was derived, and he divided it among his ten sons. His descendants reigned here in regular successions for many ages. They made irruptions into Europe and Africa, subduing all Lybia as far as Egypt, and Europe to Asia Minor. They were resisted, however, by the Athenians, and driven back to their Atlantic territories. Shortly after this there was a tremendous earthquake, and an overflowing of the sea, which continued for a day and a night. In the course of this the vast island of Atlantis, and all its splendid cities and warlike, nations were swallowed up and sunk to the bottom of the sea, which, spreading its waters over the chasm, formed the Atlantic ocean. For a long time, how- ever, the sea was not navigable on account of rocks and shelves, of mud and slime, and of the ruins of the drowned country."
CHAPTER II.
ANCIENT HISTORY IN STARK, TUSCARAWAS, COSHOCTON, MUSKINGUM, MORGAN, AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES.
The early history of the valleys of the Tuscarawas and Muskingum belong to the six river counties of Wash- ington, Morgan, Muskingum, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Stark, equally, as it was up and down these valleys they principally ranged, from the Cuyahoga to the Ohio. The eastern counties and the counties west can also justly claim that they, too, are indirectly interested in whatever took place between the red and white men in the six valley counties named. But as the enumeration of incidents of the other counties would necessitate details dispropor- tionate to the size in which this volume is gotten up, it is determined to speak of the tribes who made their homes, and performed their principal evolutions in what is now the six counties named, with an occasional digression into other territory.
As part of the earliest aboriginal, and mound, and cave history of Stark County, the reader will find interesting details touching the supposed cave dwellers in the northern portion, and of Post's efforts to establish a mission in the southern portion, while he was in the service of the Penn- sylvania Colony, 1761-2.
As part of the history of what is Tuscarawas County will be found in Gist's journey in 1750, Schoenbrunn and other settlements in 1772-3, and the massacre in 1782.
As part of the history of Coshocton County will be found the events of Boquet's expedition in 1764; the Delaware
17
capital in 1774-5; the settlement at Lichtenau, &c., and General Brodhead's campaign of 1780.
As part of the history of Muskingum County will be found Dunmore's war in 1774; the Waketomeka campaign, and incidental Indian fighting.
As part of the history of Morgan County will be found the Indian slaughter at Big Bottom, and other incidents of Indian warfare.
As part of the history of Washington County will be found St. Clair's campaign, erection of Fort Harmar, Har- mar's campaign, fights with the Indians about Marietta, &c.
As regards the residue of Indian historical events they apply to other counties also, or, in other words, form State history.
STORY OF THE CAVE DWELLERS IN STARK.
Circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion that cave dwellers were the first inhabitants of Ohio, and that they appeared at the head of the valleys under consideration in this volume.
Colonel Charles Whittlesy, president of the Northern Ohio Historical Society, in his publication of an explora- tion along the Cuyahoga from its source to its mouth, discloses the fact that he found artificial habitations made in the rocks forming the sides of the river, which, though narrow, has cut a channel down the northern side of the dividing ridge between that river and the Tusearawas. In places the chasm made is deeper than the stream is wide at its head, and on the sides were caves containing bones of animals,.and of men, showing that they were once in- habited by human beings.
General Bierce, in his history of Summit County, cor- roborates from personal examination the statements of Colonel Whittlesy as to the caves, and he further relates that in Green township, formerly of Stark County, now of 2
18
Summit, on the east side of the Tuscarawas, great numbers of stones were found by the white settlers of Stark County on an elevated plateau. They varied from four to six feet in circumference, and were elevated slightly above the land surface, with a comparatively even surface on the top, on which it is supposed sacrifices of human beings or of animals were made to appease the wrath or propitiate the favors of some ancient god or gods. Near by is the old Indian trail, used by the Indians in passing from the San- dusky country to the Ohio, along the ridge, but no evi- dence was found about these stone altars, either in calcined bones of burnt prisoners, or of charred wood, or Indian implements, to indicate that the altars had been made use of for any purpose by the modern race of Indians, and in the absence of other evidence the conclusion is that the altars were erected by the ancient race who domiciled in the caves, and were probably the first of mankind in Ohio.
Passing down the Cuyahoga, Colonel Whittlesy found earth-works and evidences of a later race than the cave dwellers above, and further on toward the lake he found what approaches to regular fortifications, evincing a still higher civilization than the earth-workers above, but he leaves his readers to form their own conclusions, he simply giving the facts he uncovers.
What are the conclusions therefrom forced on the mind ? Why, that first there was a race, who not knowing the use of tools, and who lived in caves among rocks, and piled up loose stones to worship or use in worship. Second, a race who could move earth with implements, and erect earth defences, or piled up earth into great mounds for burial, sacrificial or military purposes. Third, a race who worked stone and earth with other improved implements into regular fortifications, and places of abode or worship. Fourth, the race of red men who came after, and kicked down the stone altars, and earth-works, struck fire from a flint, burned all they could of the ancient fortifica- tions, using only for themselves the bow and arrow, stone
1
19
hatchets and stone arrows, with bark canoes, and thongs of animal hides for fishing and hunting purposes, while the mounds of the ancients were left unharmed as places of lookout, or of burial for their chiefs and warriors. As to who the supposed " cave dwellers" were, and from whence they came, will never be satisfactorily settled.
But three important geological facts when put together renders it an easy task to conjecture their origin. First, it is beyond contradiction that certain portions of this con- tinent are the oldest portions of the earth's surface, and contain its Eozoic crust, without evidence of marine beds, or other proofs of submergence by any floods since that day. Certain areas in northern New York, Canada, Labra- dor, and west of the Mississippi, in Missouri, Arkansas, Dakota, Nebraska, &c., remain as in Eozoic time .- See Dana's Geology, page 135, 136, 137, and 138. Second, from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean no sea has entirely overflown this land since the close of the carbo- niferous age-the age that produced the plants and forests, out of which coal was formed. Third, at the time the carboniferous sea disappeared, the water shed holding back the mass of waters of the lake existed, and on which dry land first appeared in Ohio. This water shed traversed the State from south-west to north-east, in the direction of the Canadian and New York highlands ..
Mr. Atwater, the antiquarian, in his work on the an- tiquities of America, holds to the opinion that the people who put up stone altars, earth-works, and fortifications, commenced their work at the head of the northern lakes, thence along their borders into what is now western New York, thence in a south-western direction, following rivers to and down the Ohio and Mississippi, thence to the city of Mexico, as now known, where they had their central seat of power, and from which locality radiated colonies into what is now known as South America, and other countries.
20
MOUND BUILDERS IN STARK AND TUSCARAWAS.
Following down the valley, the history of a later race is written, as shown by their mounds and earth-works, found near Massillon, Navarre, and Bethlehem, in Stark County, and near Bolivar, New Philadelphia, and New Comers- town, in Tuscarawas Counties.
Zeisberger, when he stopped in 1771 at the Big Spring, two, and one half miles south-east of New Philadelphia, the spring since called Schoenbrunn (or fine spring), found on the plain above it the clearest evidences of an amphi- theater, or circular earth-work, rimmed at the edge with the thrown up earth, and close by on the bank he found three mounds or tumuli of the ordinary height of scrip- tural mounds, satisfying him that the race who constructed them were more warlike and better acquainted with mak- ing defensive positions than the Indians of his day.
Across the river, on the west bank, and nearly opposite the eastern part of the present New Philadelphia, and not a a mile from its court house, are the remains-now obliter- ated from view, but twenty years ago plainly discernible- of an earth-work or moat, extending in a semi-circular form around the river front of an old cornfield, as the Indians called it, and which had been used prior to the advent of the Christian Indians (in 1772). They were unable to give any account of it, other than that of an old Indian, who came to the mission, and who claimed to be descended from a nation who inhabited this territory many hundreds of years, and were driven away to the south-west by a more ferocious race of men from the north. He had a tradition that his ancestors knew some of the arts, as known to the missionaries-that they were a peaceful people, and devoted much of their time to the worship of deities-that wherever a sufficient number sojourned for a time they constructed works of defence, and for worship, and sacrifice. A short
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.