USA > Pennsylvania > Clarion County > History of Clarion County, Pennsylvania > Part 6
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2.00
Carbonate of lime.
Alumina
2.81
Water
. 12.50
100. 31
Metallic iron
.58.10
Insoluble residue
The following is an analysis of iron ore from the St. Charles Furnace lands, Porter township, made by Dr. Genth, of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1881 :
5 I
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.
" Ferric oxide. . 72.21
Manganic oxide 3.59
Alumina. 0.02
Lime. 0.92
Silicic acid. 0.08
Water
14.15
Magnesia, &c., not determined 1.38
100.00
" This ore contained :
Metallic iron 50.55 per cent.
Metallic manganese. 2.50
Phosphorus . 0.035
" It is a fine quality of limonite, capable of producing excellent iron, and well adapted for making Bessemer steel."
Bog Ore .- Deposits of this ore, which is also known as "limonite," red oxide of iron, exist in Farmington township along the river, a mile below Als- bach's Run, and at several other places in that vicinity. The area of the beds is unknown, as they have never been mined. Bog ore occurs in red lumps of a clay-like consistency. These beds have at present no economic value.
Limestone. - The ferriferous (iron-bearing) limerock is Clarion county's chief reliance as a decomposer, and its lime par excellence. Its average thick- ness is eight feet ; in color it ranges from a light blue, through gray, to almost black. When it is found in any thickness it is often divisible into flags two or three inches thick, with undulating, rough surfaces. It contains fossils, though they are rarely found entire in the bed, owing to breakage in fracturing the stone. Beautiful vegetable fossils are sometimes found on the surfaces when exposed.
Clarion county limestone contains
Carbonate of lime .. 95.532
Carbonate of magnesia. 1.265
Oxide of iron and alumina. 1.529
Phosphorus 0.070
Insoluble residue. 1.780
Clarion Upper Coal .- The upper bench of the Clarion is a fuel of good quality, but its thinness-about fifteen inches-makes it unprofitable. It lies a few feet beneath the ferriferous limestone.
Clarion Lower Coal is slightly thicker, as a rule, than the Upper, and a more valuable coal. It has a varying base ; sometimes the Homewood sand- stone abnormally elevated, often shale, and again the
Clarion Sandstone .- This is a massive rock from fifteen to thirty-five feet thick, and roofs the Brookville coal. It is frequently exposed along the road- sides in Clarion, Millcreek, and Highland townships. It can be distinguished from the Homewood or Tionesta sandrock by its position, its greater softness, friability, and pink color.
The Brookville Coal, the lowest of the series, consists of one stratum. It is
52
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
a poor, sulphurous, and comparatively unused bed. It is found at its best in the eastern and northeastern townships bordering on Jefferson county, in which county it has its best development. It is sometimes entirely displaced by the Homewood sandstone, "which," says Geologist Chance, " elevated by anti- clinal rolls, or irregularities of original deposition, lies higher than the level of the ancient marsh in which the bituminous matter of this coal bed accumulated."
Résumé .- An inspection of the coal formations given above will show every bed roofed by shale, occasionally mixed with sandstone, except the Brookville coal, where the shale is entirely displaced by sandstone. Each vein, too, is underlaid by a vein of pure fire-clay, except the Kittanning Upper coal, where some shale is intermixed, and the Clarion Upper, whose substratum is a slaty shale. As a rule every coal has its limestone and sandstone, varied by shale. The maximum thickness-nine feet-is found in the Freeport Lower coal, in Porter township; the minimum-one foot-in the Clarion Upper coal at Edenburg.
We may readily perceive that, with eight workable coal beds underlying, in due position, almost its entire surface, and without taking natural gas into consideration, Clarion county need never go begging for fuel.
Its agricultural demands are fully supplied by the limestone underlying two-thirds of the county, and its hillsides contain iron ore of good quality - enough to supply a future industry with thrice the demand, on its mineral resources, of the ante-bellum furnaces. The fire-clay, inseparable from the coal, supplies an abundance of plastic material for potteries and brick-kilns.
The virtual inexhaustibility of these products gives them a permanence of value superior to lumber and petroleum. In the case of oil, repeated ventures have failed to discover new territory ; and as for timber, the growth of centu- ries is disappearing, never to be renewed in its pristine luxuriance.
For the future, then, its agriculture and its embosomed mineral wealth must be Clarion county's sources of income. Greater development only and home manufacture are needed to supplement our county's wonderful riches of nature.
Conglomerate Series .- The Conglomerate series, No. XII in the table, as represented by the Pottsville division in this county, is characterized by alter- nate layers of very variable shale and sandstone, generally of a gritty, and at certain depths, pebbly formation. The total thickness of the group is rarely obtainable by actual exposure, and its determination by oil drillings is vague and precarious. As near as can be ascertained it extends under the Productive measures for 270 feet, the mean of variations. The strata underlying the Homewood sandstone differ widely in thickness, but their combined measure is almost uniform. The following shows the formation of the Conglomerate with mean thicknesses :
Homewood sandstone (Tionesta) hard and coarse 40 feet. Shaly measures, containing an ore and sometimes coal bed. 35
Sandstone, massive, fine grained 40
53
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.
Shale, very variable, source often of bog ore. 25 feet. Sandstone, sometimes with shale. 130
(Mauch Chunk Red Shale. 5 " )
The Homewood or Tionesta sandstone, a coarse but hard rock, is found in precipitous ravines and valleys. It has its best development in Madison town- ship, where, along Pike and Wildcat Runs, it forms crags sometimes forty feet thick. In the slaty measures subjacent to this rock there are thin, impure beds of ore and coal, corresponding in horizon to the Mercer beds. This coal seam has been worked at Catfish Run, in Paint township, and North Pine- grove, in Farmington township, but with indifferent results.
It will be noticed that the massive basal rock of this series forms nearly half of the whole. This is the rock that makes the precipitous sides of the Clarion River so rugged ; sometimes jutting out in bold, almost perpendicular escarpments, but oftener broken up into bowlders. Colossal specimens of rocks detached from this stratum are found near water level at the mouth of Toby Creek, and a little to the east, on the hillside in the " Indian Cave " rock.
We have already sufficiently alluded to the Mauch Chunk Red Shale, and the Pocono Sandstone; they are comparatively unimportant.
Other Minerals .- Although a vague tradition obtains of lead having been discovered within the county's limits by the Indians, the negative results of search have established its falsity. It is safe to say that there exists no lead in Clarion county outside of the isolated particles of galena, which are occasionally found in the coal strata, whither they found their way in some unaccountable manner.
Alum-shale or alumite is found near the surface in considerable quantities at Alum Rock and vicinity. Whether enough exists to make the bed of commercial value remains to be seen.
Petroleum .- The eccentricities of the petroleum deposits of northwestern Pennsylvania have so far baffled research. When science leaves the tangible in the rocks of Mother Earth and would investigate the volatile and oily prod- ucts found in them, it seems to stray into a realm as capricious and slippery as the substances themselves. All that can be done is to detail the conditions and incidents of the finding of oil, and give the most plausible theories as to the lay of the oil-bearing rock.
Petroleum is found in the Clarion district at an average depth of 1, 100 feet, which would place it in the horizon of the Red Catskill formation. When the drill is started on a hill top, unless on the crest of an anticlinal, greater depth is needed; and, in a valley, less. The following table gives the usual order and thickness of the oil sand group of Clarion county, which is geolog- ically known as the " Venango group ":
Sandstone, first sand 16 feet. 24
Slate Shell 2 6
54
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
Red rock
I feet.
Slate.
5
Sandstone. .
21
Dark gray slate.
30
Red rock
3
Dark slate.
40
Shells
4
..
Slate.
32
" Big Red rock
.39 ..
Slate.
3
Sandstone.
9
Slate, sandy
13
Red rock. 2
21
Shells
2
..
Slate.
Sandstone, third sand. 26
The first sand is found at a depth of from 700 to 800 feet and is distin- guished by its gas; the second is a very indefinite article and is scattered between the first and third. Here, too, with a thickness of almost forty feet, is found the " Red Rock," the distinguishing mark of the Venango group. Its position and attributes make its identity with the Pocono red sandstone prob- able. The third and productive sand, which, as all the others, is not a real sand, but a sand rock, is a yellow, porous rock, with little cement, and with its particles as they come from the pump ranging in size from a pinhead to a small pebble. These cells, or pores, contain the precious fluid.
The oil rock in Clarion county has, with the other strata, a noticeable dip a little west of south, but its constancy is affected by local variations and anti- clinals. Its total descent from Shippenville to Parker exceeds 300 feet.
Range of Development .- The Clarion county oil fields were developed on lines ranging from thirty to fifty degrees east of north. The former marks the first developed, Parker-St. Petersburgh belt, and is a continuation of the Mill- erstown belt in Butler county. Then a bend occurs, and from St. Petersburgh to Shippenville the general trend is on forty-five degree lines. In the Cogley district, too, the latter line obtained.
Theory of Deposit .- The excessive variability of the oil rock largely ac- counts for the uncertain and capricious nature of development. With a porous rock the chances for oil are excellent, but this quality is by no means constant. Sometimes, unexpectedly in the midst of good territory, the sand changes to a hard, close cemented formation and a grayish color, shutting out the oil entirely, and puzzling the producer. Where the rock is coarsely cellular, and oil is found in most paying quantities, the fluid is of a dirty greenish color, almost opaque, and contains considerable bitumen. Where, however, as in the Armstrong Run territory, the rock is of a firmer consistency and a clean white color, the petroleum permeates it with difficulty and in small quantities ; the filtration it
Slate
55
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.
suffers produces a clear yellow fluid called " amber oil." So much for inci- dentals. When, however, we would lay down a rule of deposit, and limit dis- covery to certain continuous lines, the constant variations, the streaks, " wet " and " dry," the pools, the abrupt limits of production, meet and baffle us at every turn. Among the latest and most plausible conjectures is the belt-line theory, and it seems especially well adapted to the facts of the Clarion produc- tion. This is that the oil lies in the rock in a belt, or ribbon, stretching across the country in a northeast-southwest direction. Its comparative narrowness is indicated by its name, as also the parallelity of its sides or slight divergence therefrom. Towards Shippenville, however, which marks the extremity of con- tinuous development, the belt seems to gradually narrow down by a tapering in the rock, till a little beyond that village, a point is reached where the line of production is but a quarter of a mile in width and then disappears altogether, to reappear in a narrow, hardly-paying streak at Hahn's Mill. Along the borders of a belt the open, prolific sand is invaded by patches of barren, causing production there to be very dubious. Beside the main belt, but with no connecting branch, generally lie secondary side belts comparatively small in scope. The Cogley field illustrates this. Such fields, however, form an argu- ment for the advocates of the pool theory, which comprehends only the exist- ence of oil in arbitrary deposits of irregular outline, and completely isolated from each other.
A lower belt traversing the county from East Brady to Cooksburg and sup- plementing the theory of a continuous oil area from Washington county to Kane, exists only on paper. Repeated failures have discouraged drilling along this line, the only venture that proved productive being the old Blyson well, which yielded an oil heavy enough for lubricating purposes. The underlying " Fourth," or "Bradford," sand is yet an almost unexplored region. Perhaps it is destined to duplicate the rich territory which Clarion county once pos- sessed.
It suffices here merely to mention the connection which some theorists main- tain to exist between oil belts and anticlinals; but this is merely a tentative conjecture, lacking any confirmation. So much for the extension of petroleum deposits ; their origin is as yet a matter for mere scientific conjectures. Whether petroleum is an excretion from organic matter embedded ages ago in the rocks ; whether it sprang immediately from carboniferous beds, was condensed from natural gas, or had its origin from some unimagined alembic ; these are all yet unanswered queries, and the likelihood is that they will remain so; that the Providence that placed the oil where it is, has here set his bounds to the acquisi- tions of the secular mind in this mysterious department of physical research.
Natural Gas. - The best-grounded and most popular deposit theory of this new and remarkable fuel is the anticlinal, viz., that the rocks, finding their high- est elevation in the anticlinal ridges, the gas, whose gravity is less than water
56
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
and oil, will seek the highest possible level and accumulate in greatest quanti- ties in the anticlinals. This to a certain extent is very reasonable, but there are several conditions which make it invalid as a rule. We must bear in mind that while the surface of the country is (geologically speaking) intersected by synclinal valleys running in a northeast and southwest direction, there is, inde- pendent of these, a monoclinal or progressive dip of the strata to the south- west. Hence gas, in seeking the highest available level, should accumulate in the northeast, at the expense of the southwestern extremity or bottom of the dip. The same cause places a larger deposit of gas where the rock resumes the horizontal, after the anticlinals have disappeared in the north, than in well- marked anticlinals which lie to the south and on a lower plane. This rock of course must be an oil rock, whether productive or not. Again, a whole belt of oil or gas rock may lie in a broad synclinal basin and be almost unaffected by the tilt at either side. That the Lawsonham synclinal is of this nature, is a plausible explanation of the fact that the Mechanicsville gas deposits are not found on an anticlinal. The New Bethlehem well is low down on the slope of the Anthony's Bend anticlinal.
Inexhaustibility .- Reason and experience both warn us of the transitory nature of this fuel. There is no known inexhaustible reservoir of natural gas. As Geologist Carll says: "Inexhaustible wells must draw from inexhaustible sources. Gas in Pennsylvania is only found in sand-beds of medium thick- ness and restricted geographical limits. Such beds in themselves cannot be inexhaustible. Their productive duration depends entirely upon the drafts made upon them-a simple problem : if one well can exhaust one of the beds in 100 years, how long will it take 100 wells to do it? To make such pools permanent they must be constantly replenished from an unlimited source. This source it is claimed is some deep-seated laboratory of nature, capable of re- sponding to all the demands that can be made upon it." But the existence of this deep-seated laboratory is yet to be demonstrated.
Fuel Value .- The fuel value of 1,000 feet of natural gas is equal to that of about 65 pounds of Clarion county coal. Therefore, when coal is worth $1.25 net per ton, the value of gas is within a fraction of 4 cents per thousand feet.
57
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO 1784.
CHAPTER V.
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PURCHASE OF 1784.
Aborigines, Senecas, and Delawares - Indian Remains - Petroleum - Christian Frederick Post - Tobeco and Toby- Redbank Creek - Brodhead's Expedition - Captain Samuel Brady.
THE INDIANS.
T HE aboriginal tribe who dwelt on the shores of the Allegheny were the Allegwi, a people of gigantic stature who inhabited fortified towns. The Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, in navigating from the West sought a residence with them, but this was refused ; the Allegwi only granting them leave to cross the river and proceed eastward. While they were doing this the Allegwi, alarmed at their numbers and strength, fell on those who had reached the east- ern bank and destroyed many of them. Eager for revenge the Lenni Lenape entered into an alliance with the Mengwe, or Iroquois, a nation lying south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and engaged in a war with the Allegwi, which, after a desperate struggle of many years, ended in the defeat of the latter, who retired down the Ohio and Mississippi, never to return. The Lenni Lenape then, together with the Iroquois, took possession of the valley of the Allegheny and upper Ohio. In the lapse of years, however, they became enemies, and the different tribes of the Mengwe - the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayu- gas, and Senecas - wisely increased their strength by a closer union styled the Five, and, after the accession of the Tuscaroras, the Six Nations. They were thus enabled to acquire an ascendency over the Delawares, which, though it was weakened by the energy of their chief in 1756, was asserted at intervals. The Delawares, Wyandots, and Shawanese occupied the upper Ohio, the lower Al- legheny, and the West Branch of the Susquehanna indiscriminately. The em- pire of the Senecas covered Southwestern New York and the northern half of Western Pennsylvania. The language of the Delawares was Algonquin, of the Senecas, Iroquois. Clarion county 1 was on the dividing neutral belt between the Senecas on the north, and the Delawares on the south. The Senecas claimed it, but it was too far distant from their nearest " long cabin," or village at Venango, to be held in more than nominal possession by them. They hunted the deer and the elk over its wilds, and occasionally encamped for a while on a warlike or predatory mission. In their absence the Delaware or Shawanese hunters would take their place. The Munsey, Loup or Wolf tribe, a disaffected branch of the Delawares, whose home was on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, had
1 Hereafter whenever I mention "Clarion county," or speak of " the county," before its organiza- tion, I mean, of course, the territory embraced therein, calling it " Clarion county " for the sake of brevity.
58
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
encroached on the territory of the Senecas as far as the Allegheny. They dwelt among them by sufferance, along that river north of the Clarion. Celeron found some villages of them on the right bank of the Allegheny near the mouth of Big Sandy Creek, and Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, established him- self among them on the Allegheny, in what is now Forest county, in 1767.
A considerable number of Indian relics have been found in this county, indicating that it was once the habitat of some aboriginal tribe. Indian graves were discovered near Mr. Isaac Neely's, in Richland township ; in Clarion town- ship, a little east of Strattanville, and in considerable numbers in Limestone township. They consisted of piles of stones loosely heaped together, and con- cealing tomahawks, arrow-heads, and knives, which had been buried with the departed brave. Vestiges of savage encampments were found in abundance near Clugh's Riffle, which appears to have been a regular camping-place for wandering bands. Occasionally farmers have plowed up flint heads. On Mr. John Crick's farm, on the west branch of Cherry Run, a large number of these relics were unearthed. They were confined to a particular spot, and must have been the débris of some fierce conflict between the Senecas and Delawares. How the aborigines without the use of iron or hard instruments could fashion flint hatchets and arrow-heads so well, and in such large numbers, is a mystery that can only be explained by the presumption that they were acquainted with, and ingeniously took advantage of, the tendency of flint or quartz stone to split into layers.
The Senecas were the most numerous and powerful of the Six Nations. In war they were fierce and treacherous, in common with their brethren. In times of peace they displayed good nature and amity when treated with justice by the Caucasian ; there are several instances when they forebore revenge for inju- ries, when there was a chance of redress by legal means. The petroleum that welled up along the upper Allegheny and its branches furnished them unique adornments and rites. They had a peculiar regard for it as " great medicine," and mixed it in their war-paint with a glistening, fantastic effect. Contrecœur, the commandant at Fort Du Quesne, wrote to Montcalm, governor of Canada : " I would desire to assure your excellency that this is a most delightful land. Some of the most astonishing natural wonders have been discovered by our people. While descending the Allegheny, fifteen leagues below the mouth of
the Conewango, and three above Fort Venango, we were invited by the chief of the Senecas to attend a religious ceremony of his tribe. We landed and drew up our canoes at a point where a small stream entered the river. The tribe appeared unusually solemn. We marched up the stream about half a league where the company -a large band, it appeared - had arrived some days before us. Gigantic hills begirt us on every side. The scene was really sub- lime. The great chief then recited the conquests and heroism of their ances- tors. The surface of the stream was covered with a thick scum, which burst
59
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO 1784.
into a complete conflagration. The oil had been gathered and lighted with a torch. At the sight of the flames the Indians gave forth a triumphant shout that made the hills and valleys re-echo again."
The French claimed this territory - " inasmuch as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed it by their arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix la Chappelle," 1 and in 1753 they erected a fort where the Seneca village of Venango stood, and Franklin now stands, naming it Fort Machault. No post was erected in Clarion county, there being no necessity for it, owing to the proximity of Venango.
The first white man, of whom we have any record, who set foot within the limits of Clarion county, was Christian Frederick Post; the time, 128 years ago. Post was a sturdy, artless Moravian, a sort of lay missionary, who under- took in 1758 to bear a message from the Proprietary Council to the tribes on the Allegheny and to endeavor to win them over to the English. It was an arduous and perilous errand ; the long journey lay through an almost unex- plored wilderness ; the French and Indian War was at a crisis; the savage allies of the French had been fierce and resolute ; the Shawanese and those favorable to the English, weak and wavering.
Post reached Fort Augusta (Sunbury) from Bethlehem on July 25, 1758; here he heard the news of the defeat at Ticonderoga, " which " he says in his journal, " discouraged one of my companions, Lappopetung's son, so much that he would proceed no further." From here he set out on the 27th, accompanied by a couple of Indian guides and a chief, Pisquetumen. At Big Island he crossed the Susquehanna and took the trail up the Bald Eagle valley, leading to Ve- nango, and after a journey of three days reached "Shinglemuhee " (Chinkla- camoose), a deserted Indian town on the site of Clearfield. From here the main trail led on to Redbank, crossing that stream at Port Barnett; but the Moravian and his companions struck off on a northern branch, which crossed the upper part of Jefferson county. On the next day, the 3d of August, he writes : " We came to a part"- that is, a branch-" of a river called Tobeco over a very bad road." This " road " of course was only a trail through the forest. Post had not mastered the nomenclature of the West, and some of his expressions savor of a foreign simplicity. This " part of a river called Tobeco" was the present Little Toby, in Jefferson county.
On the 5th-" We set out early this day, and made a good long stretch, crossing the big river Tobeco, and lodged between two mountains (i. e., in the valley) ; I had the misfortune to lose my pocket-book, with three pounds five shillings and sundry other things. What writings it contained were illegible to any but myself." The "big river Tobeco " is the Clarion, and Post must have crossed it in the vicinity of Cooksburg and thence traversed the northern part of the county towards Franklin. After crossing "all the mountains
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