HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY - 168
CHAPTER XVII.
TOPOGRAPHY.
THE CHANNELS CUT BY THE BRANCHES OF LICKING RIVER-THE LICKING VALLEYS-THE TABLE LANDS-THE EXTENT AND ACREAGE OF THE COUNTY-ITS PRIMITIVE SURFACE- PRAIRIES- SWAMPS-PONDS-LAKES-THE RESERVOIR- SPRINGS- RUNNING STREAMS - FLINT RIDGE LICKING NARROWS AND BLACK HAND ROCK.
"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
The language of delight, of scenes most enchanting,
Of the odorous wealth of her charming floral treasures,
Of beauty most ravishing-of grandeur-of magnificence
Of tends musical with the far-away echoes of departing summer breezes.
THE same influences which shaped the topography of Knox and Richland counties, have left their impress upon ,that of Licking, have determined the direction of. the water-courses, and have divided the county into several well-marked topographical areas.
A deep pre-glacial channel from the north enters the county a little west of the Sandusky branch of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, extending southward to Newark, and is 'now occupied by the northern branch of Licking river,. At Newark it divides; one branch turning directly to the east, in the valley of Licking river, and one branch extending northwesterly, through what was evidently, at one period, a broad lake, and in which now flows the south branch of the Licking, with a reversed current to join the main stream at Newark. smaller channel, coming from near Martinsburgh, Knox county, passes through Eden township and the valley occupied by the Rocky fork o the Licking,. to its junction with the main stream This channel is marked by debris of adjacent bluff's, and has had less influence upon the topogra phy of the county than the others named.
The larger channels are now filled with water washed pebbles, resting, ordinarily, upon the old rocky bed, but in places upon the remains of the original drift clay, covered with alluvium, and sandy ridges marked by a succession of terraces and corresponding water-plains.
South and southwest of Newark these water plains expand, covering a large area. Borings for wells indicate that the rock has been here excavated to a depth corresponding to that of the old channels, and that in the latter part of the glacial epoch a lake of considerable size covered the surface. These old flood-plains are exceedingly fertile. The surface above them is divided into four topographical areas..
In the. district north-of the Licking and east of Rocky fork, including the townships of Perry and Fallsbury, are a succession of hills rising to the rocks above the third coal seam, and are separated by the deep and narrow valleys of the streams, which generally have a rock bottom and bluff banks.
The slopes of the hills are usually covered with the debris of the local rocks. North of the Licking, and between the North fork and Rocky fork, are similar hills in Mary Ann township, rising to a height sufficient to catch the lower coal, and, in Newton township, to the horizon of the carboniferous conglomerate, which is here mainly represented by a stratum of silicious iron ore.
166 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
In the southeastern part of the county are hills of like character; the surface diversified in a similar manner by a net-work of deep ravines, the channels of recent streams.
In the northeastern part of the county is a high, undulating table land, the rocks all Waverly, and in the northern and central part deeply covered with unmodified drift clay. The undisturbed, billowy surface of the original deposit still remains, except upon the borders of the streams and upon the southern slope, where the clay of the drift has all been carried away, and the evidences of its presence remain only in the pebbles of the streams and occasional erratics of the slopes of the hills.
In the southwestern part of the county an irregular series of low hills project into the old water plains of the valleys, in part covered with drift, the latter in places extending below the beds of the present streams.
The extreme width of Licking county is twenty-two and a half miles from north to south, and, in length, thirty miles from east to west. It contains six hundred and fifty-eight square miles, and was originally thickly covered with a great variety of huge forest trees, and a dense and almost impenetrable undergrowth of shrubs and bushes. The earth was also thickly clad with a luxuriant growth of indigenous grasses, weeds and trailing vines, with the exception of a very brief period during the winter months.
Of prairies, there were few and none contained more than a very limited number of acres.
Among the principal of these was the Bowling Green prairie, or rather. series of prairies, commencing about four miles below Newark and extending eastward along the Licking bottoms for a mile or more. Here it was that Hughes and Ratliff erected their cabins in 1798, and raised a crop of corn during that and a number of subsequent seasons, and which was the first corn ever raised by white men within the present limits of the county.
One mile below Newark, in the valley of the Licking, was another one, or more, on which Isaac and John Stadden raised corn in the year 1800. There were several prairies of smaller extent down the Licking valley.
There was a prairie in Washington township north of St. Louisville, called the Cranberry prairie, known, also, in early times, as the Warthen prairie. It was large compared with most of Licking county prairies, and in portions of it partook more of the character of a swamp than a prairie.
One of the most celebrated prairies in the county was situated a little over a mile west of Newark, and was generally known as Cherry Valley prairie. It was extensively used as a racecourse by the early settlers a number of years. Ultimately, most of its surface became measurably covered with water, and hence unfitted for tillage or horse-racing. In this condition it remained nearly thirty years, and until drained by ditching, when much of the area composing it became plough land, and most of the remainder good grass land for pasturage.
The "Little Bowling Green" situated between the National road and the Perry county line, in Bowling Green township, on the waters of the Moxahala, was a small prairie. It was first cultivated in 1802, and was well known by the early settlers. It gave name to the township in which it is situated, organized in 1808.
There were several prairies along the southern borders of Union township, one being of considerable magnitude; also one or two, separated by a narrow belt of timber, at the junction of the Bloody run and Brushy fork, in McKean township, called Plum prairie, and sometimes Plum orchard. It was famous for its abundant yield of prairie rattlesnakes.
Besides these there were a number of others in different sections of the county, but they were generally of very small size. The county may, therefore, be considered as belonging to the class known as wilderness, or, heavily timbered; the superficial area of prairie bearing too insignificant a proportion to the timbered land to be taken into account.
Of swamps there were many, but mostly small. Most of the prairies had the characteristics of swamps as much as of prairies, rendering their correct classification somewhat difficult.
Some of the most notable swamps were on the Bowling Green, five miles below Newark, and at several other points in the Licking valley; one a mile north of Newark, on the farm of Captain
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 167
Archibald Wilson, where he settled in 1806; also the Bloody Run swamp, near the Fairfield county line, as well as others in the same township, and those in the vicinity of the reservoir; besides many others of smaller size; one in the southeastern part of Lima, Wolf swamp in Liberty, and several in the southern portion of Hartford township.
Ponds were numerous but not of large size. The Goose pond, two miles northwest of Newark, covering from fifty to sixty acres, was one of the largest. The Deweese ponds in the southern part of Union township; the Log pond a mile northwest of Newark; and the famous pond that ornamented the public square of Newark as late as 1830, were among the principal ones.
Of lakes, there is but one, so small, however, that it should be called a lakelet. It is situated near the mouth of Lake fork, in Washington township, and covers fifty or sixty acres.
It abounded in fish, aquatic plants, some amphibious animals, as well as wild geese and ducks, and was the scene in early times of much sport for anglers and hunters. The water is of very considerable depth in places. It is generally known as "Smoot's lake," a gentleman of that name being owner of most of it.
If the reservoir may be included in the category of lakes, it makes the second, though only a portion of it is in Licking county. It is located in the southern portion of Licking and Union townships, and in the counties of Fairfield and Perry; and now embraces an area of pore than three thousand acres; probably one-third belonging to Licking county. Its limits were somewhat extended. in 1828 by the construction of the Ohio canal, of which it is a feeder, and made navigable to Thornport from the canal. The depth of water is considerable, and in early times it was regarded as a paradise by the sportsman.
Springs are numerous, but there are few of large size. The Big spring upon the farm originally settled by General John Spencer, in Newton township, in 1805, is among the most noteworthy. It is made up of the united waters of several springs, and the volume of water was sufficient to propel the machinery of a grist and saw-mill for many years after the first settlement of the county. It has yielded to the general law, and now discharges a reduced quantity of water, no longer furnishing motive power for machinery, although there is still sufficiency of water for that purpose on a more limited scale.
Among the large springs are several north of Centerville street, in Granville township; and another, or rather two that form one, on the Welsh hills, being the head or source of the Goose Pond run. The two rise within two feet of each other, and flowing together, make one spring. The one is what is called hard water, and the other soft water, thus presenting the anomalous feature of being hard water on one side and soft water on the other. It is on the farm of William Cramer in Granville township. It had a copious flow of water in early times, and was reckoned among the largest springs of the county.
One or two of the largest springs are situated about a mile north of Newark, near the North fork, on the farm first settled by Mr. Jacob Wilson. Of chalybeate or mineral springs, there are none of any note.
Of running streams the county is abundantly furnished. Nearly all the waters of Licking county flow into the Muskingum river, by way of the Pataskala or Licking river, and the Wakatomika. The exceptions are that the rains falling upon the southern portions of Hopewell, Bowling Green, Franklin, and Licking townships, run into the Moxahala or Jonathan's creek, which, after passing through a portion of Perry county, empties into the Muskingum three miles below Zanesville; and the rains falling upon the western portions of the townships of Hartford, Monroe, Jersey, Lima, and Etna flow, by way of the Black Lick and Big Walnut creeks into the Scioto river.
The South fork of Licking rises in the northwest corner of Jersey and runs through Lima, Harrison, Union, Licking and Newark townships, passing, in its meanderings, a short distance into Fairfield county, and unites with the North fork at Newark, the two forming the Licking river.
Hog run and Ramp creek are tributaries of the South fork, both entering that stream at nearly the same point in Licking township.
The former rises in Franklin township and runs westwardly; and the latter in Harrison township, running easterly through Union township.
168 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
The Raccoon or Middle fork, another tributary of the South fork, has its sources in the townships of Hartford and Monroe, and after passing through the townships of St. Albans, Granville and Newark, empties into the South fork half a mile above the junction of the latter with the north fork at Newark.
The Otter fork rises in Knox county, passing through Hartford and Bennington into Burlington township, where it, with other small streams .,from Knox county, flows into the North fork of Licking.
Lake fork rises in Bennington and Liberty townships, and after passing through Burlington township, discharges itself into the North fork two I miles south of Utica, in Washington township.
Clear fork and Brushy fork rise in Liberty township, and both find their way into the North fork, the former at Vanattasburgh, and the latter one mile further south, both in Newton township.
North fork rises in Knox county, and after flowing through the townships of Bennington, Burlington, Washington, Newton and Newark, unites at the city of Newark, with the South fork, the two forming the Licking or Pataskala river, the main stream of the county, which, after passing through Madison and Hanover townships, empties into the Muskingum river at Zanesville.
Brushy fork and the Clay Lick are both tributaries of Licking river. The former has its source in Muskingum, and after winding around through the valleys and rocky, mountainous regions of Flint ridge, passes through Hopewell and Ha nover townships, and empties, in the last named township, into the Licking. Clay Lick rises in Hopewell, and after passing through Franklin empties into the Licking at the township line between Madison and Hanover.
Rocky fork heads in Washington township, and after meandering through the deep gorges, precipitous banks, abrubt slopes and steep bluffs of Eden, Mary Ann and Hanover townships, empties into the Licking at the head of the " Licking narrows" in Hanover township.
Wakatomika rises in Knox county, and after flowing through Fallsbury and Perry townships empties into the Muskingum river at Dresden.
In addition to these streams there are many small tributaries, not necessary to mention.
The "Flint ridge" is a section of country of a mountainous character, situated principally in Hopewell township, extending entirely across it from east to west. It slopes. off into Muskingum county on the east, and on the west into Franklin township, Licking county: making its extreme length from six to eight miles, and its average breadth less than two miles from north to south, not counting the length of the spurs that diverge from both sides of it, into the more level land.
It is extensively covered with flints and buhrstone, the latter being largely. used by mill-owners, in pioneer times, as a substitute of .the French buhr, for making flour.
The Licking narrows, when the pioneers first settled here, was probably one of the most picturesque places in Ohio. It was a romantic, gloomy gorge, about two miles in length through which flowed Licking river.
Cliffs of enormous rocks lined the banks and presented a steep front on the south side, of very irregular height, covered with laurel and evergreen trees, and shrubbery or undergrowth peculiar to mountain regions. The north, or left bank of this dark ravine was formed by a line of nearly solid, sandy rocks, generally from fifty to sixty feet high, and varying in position but slightly from perpendicular, rising out of the water, which washed their base in many places, and no where left more than a narrow strip of land, of a few feet between this bank and the river. This stream had an average breadth of a hundred feet or more, and the branches of the trees which stood on its banks almost ran together: indeed in places they interlocked, carrying the grape-vines, growing on one side, into the branches of the trees which stood on the other, thus giving the Narrows, during the season of full foliage, a dark, gloomy, cavernous appearance. In places on the left bank, this bed of gray sand-rock stood in a position not perpendicular, but overhanging the water in a sort of semi-circular form. On the face or front of one of these overhanging rocks had been rudely drawn, probably by Indians, the outlines of various animals, and also the form of a large human hand; hence the name of "Black Hand Narrows," by which the place was known by the early time hunters and pioneer settlers. They found on the front
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 169
surface of this projecting rock, some ten or fifteen feet above its base, at the water's edge, the impression of a large hand and wrist, the thumb and fingers distended, and being in dimensions about double that of the hand of a common-sized man. It had been chiseled or scratched out, probably with .a sharp-pointed, or thin-edged flint wedge or chisel, and the hollowed grooves thus made had become blackened from the action of the atmosphere; or perhaps the growth of a coat of black moss had given it its color.
This curious black hand pointed east, and was destroyed by the blowing away of the rock on which it was inscribed; this touch-to-be-regretted act becoming a necessity in the construction of the Ohio canal; the river the whole length of the Narrows being made slack-water, by means of a dam at the lower end. The Black Hand rock was removed to make room for the towpath. This slack-water canal arrangement was effected by means of a lock at the upper end and a dam, as already stated, at the lower. The interest of the Narrows was also increased somewhat by a beautiful miniature cascade on the left bank of the river, formed by a small gurgling rill which fell over this perpendicular bank of rock, sixty feet in height, into the stream below.
The Licking Narrows was a spot abounding in interest to the pioneers, and was the scene of many an ancient legend-of wild hunting stories and thrilling, romantic adventures. The scenery in its primitive state, before man laid his heavy destructive hand upon it, was surpassingly grand, gloomy, picturesque and magnificent. Nature here presented such a splendid exhibition of her works as to command the admiration of all votaries, under whose observation they came. Here, indeed, is one of Nature's master-pieces-a deeply interesting manifestation of her power.
The pines bowed over, the stream bent under
The cabin cover 'd with thatches of palm,
Down in a canon so deep, the wonder
Was what it could know in its clime but calm.
Down in a canon so cleft asunder
By sabre-stroke in the young world's prime,
It look'd as broken by bolts of thunder,
And burst asunder and rent and riven
By earthquakes, driven the turbulent time
A red cross lifted red hands to heaven."
The presence of marine shells and other diluvial deposits, together with many other geological indications, seem to favor the opinion that these Narrows were formed by the waters of the valley to the west, which were believed to have been a lake or sea at some period of remote antiquity, the surface of which was on or above the level of the tops of the banks forming the Narrows, and discharged its surplus waters over them, gradually washing out and deepening the channel as time rolled on, thus ultimately draining the sea or lake, leaving only the stream that now flows through the gorge, as the outlet for the waters that accumulate in the valley above-a valley extending almost to the western limits of the county, and northward, beyond its limits, embracing an area of hundreds of square miles of most fertile and beautiful lands.
This may account for the sandy condition of the soil of the larger part of Licking county-it was once the bed of a lake. At what period of time this lake existed is unknown; probably many centuries have intervened.
Another deeply interesting locality in the topography of the county is the region of the Rocky fork, and especially, of Rain rock in Eden township. These localities will receive attention in the township in which they are located.
170 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY
CHAPTER XVIII.
GEOLOGY.
THE POSITION OF THE COUNTY GEOLOGICALLY-EVIDENCES OF FORMER EXISTENCE OF LAKES-BLUE CLAY-PEAT BOGS-COAL-HYDRAULIC LIME-FLIT RIDGE-GEOLOGY OF THE EASTERN PORTION OF THE CO
Search the mysterious recesses of
The great walled earth, and find the handiwork
Of God. Pile is heaped on pile, and shaped through
A million years. Rare on race of men, beasts
and vegetation, sink down, perish and
Are built upon; and countless ages hence, a
Race of pigmies, called men, will then, as now,
Drag up from hidden depths these other forms, and,
Chattering like monkeys, warm themselves by
The fire built of the debris of lost and
Forgotten ages. And they, too, shall perish,
Miserably, to fructify the world.
THE geologic record of this county is, for interest, second to few regions, if any, in the United States. The disturbed stratification of the Atlantic States, Missouri and Arkansas abound in interesting facts, but they are disconnected chapters in the history of creation, while the strata of Licking county furnish an almost unbroken narrative from the Silurian up to the Tertiary; and, to complete the panorama of the great past, the archaeological remains wonderfully continue the story down to the historic period.
The apparently missing chapter between the coal period and the great drift area is supplied to. the careful student by the basins in which the drift is deposited. These basins are as serviceable in teaching the student the features of the primeval world as are fossils. From fossils may be learned where plants grew, and animals lived; but those lakes which dotted the face of this country, and were the homes of life in various forms, when the world warmed by internal heat up to more than tropical temperature, are perpetual witnesses of the great and terrific revolutions which have changed the face of nature, and made this modern world so capable of supporting and developing man, the crowning work of the Creator.
The evidence of the former existence of these lakes is found throughout - the county- in the townships of Monroe, Hartford, Jersey, McKean, Etna, Union, Licking, Franklin, Newark, Madison, Hanover and Perry. In some places the proof is clear that the bottom of those lakes teas seventy feet below the present surface of the soil.
Blue clay is everywhere in this county the lowest drift deposit. It underlies all other drift. Consequently, wherever it is found, whatever lies above it is drift or earthy material brought froth a distance. It is believed that the blue clay has its origin in the black shales found in the western part of Licking county, and cropping out on Walnut creek, where it is crossed by the railroad. The decomposing and grinding up of those shales have formed the blue clays.
The peat bogs are an interesting feature, and worthy of careful study. The large ones were formerly cedar swamps, and it is probable that some would well repay the experiment of mining for cedar logs. The great peat bog along the North Fork feeder, in the out-lots of Newark, was a cedar swamp, and the logs lie beneath and upon its surface. It is a rare thing to find a peat bog in any country south of latitude forty degrees, and this circumstance makes the geology of this county still more interesting. East and west, moreover, the county is the limit of peat formation, and north and south of the drift. How long these cedar trees have lain buried in the bog may never be known, but each one is a record of the season while it was alive and growing.
Within two miles of Newark coal is found, not extensive, but limited in area. The western edge of the great coal fields of Ohio passes through the eastern part of the county. The coal formation extends only into the eastern tier of townships, and
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 171
in these it is only found to a limited extent. The field includes a large part of Fallsbury, a small proportion of Perry and Mary Ann; the larger part of Hanover and all of Franklin, Hopewell and Bowling' Green townships. It also extends into the southern portion of Madison.
In what is called Metcalf's hill there are two or three strata of coal, with intervening strata, abounding in the prints of coal flora; then of marine naida ; then of coal again, with other forms of flora, and finally capped by a lime rock, which seems to be a mere aggregation of sea-shells.
Farther east, passing other coal beds, is found a superior article of hydraulic lime, deposited at a different period, from a similar and less valuable material of Flint ridge. The ridge itself is an anomaly in Ohio geology, and its silicious masses were probably deposited by hot or warm water. In mining the cannel coal in its western spur, many proofs of disturbance are found in the level of that formation. The force which elevated it, probably heated the water, saturated with silica in solution, which was precipitated by cooling, and from which came those beautiful quartz crystals so much sought after. In the whole west and northwest there are but two formations to study,-the Silurian and Drift. In the eastern part of the State is the valuable coal formation alone, with neither the Silurian nor the Drift; but Licking county comprises them all.
In short, there are in the county all the various geological out croppings of the strata belonging to the States, with the exception of the cliff and blue limestone. These two make their appearance west of the Scioto river, and extend to the State of Indiana.
In the northwestern townships of the county is found the black shale; through the middle of the county north and south, the fine grained or Waverly sandstone; and east of Newark, at the mouth of the Rocky fork, the conglomerate rock appears in great abundance.
This rock lies immediately under the coal field. In the coal field there is the carbonaceous shale, the iron ore, the small veins of coal, each alternately with shale and sandstone.
Then comes the limestone where it appears on the top of what is called the McFarland hill, two miles southeast of Newark. Next and above this, and a mile south, is a coarse grained sandstone, with the beautiful fossil plants of the coal period. To the east of this there is the buhr of silicate of lime; and on Flint ridge is the crystallized quartz. Regarding the geology of Flint ridge, Hon. Isaac Smucker thus writes:
"The geology and geological manifestations of Flint ridge present some features which afford a high degree of interest to the student of nature. As has already appeared, its surface, when first settled, was largely covered with a compact silicious material known as quartz, or in common language, flint rock or buhr-stone. The late Dr. Hildreth, an eminent geologist of Marietta, and member of the first corps of geologists of our State, in his first annual report on the geology of Ohio, made in x838, observed that the quartz or buhr-stone was found on the surface of the elevation known as the Flint ridge, covering miles of its territory, and that, too, frequently in extensive masses, and that it had been an object of peculiar interest to the aboriginal inhabitants and pioneer settlers, as well as to the then occupants of the ridge, and of the surrounding country, who appreciated and utilized it on account of its commercial value.
"The geologist and mineralogist have found Flint ridge to be a rich field for investigation-rich in geological strata and in mineral deposits. I have already mentioned the buhr-stone of the surface-it is also found in liberal quantities beneath the surface. Professor E. B. Andrews, on page 105, of the "Preliminary Geological Report of 1869," represents it to be a deposit of variable thickness, attaining in places a maximum depth of eight feet. Dr. Hildreth said that sulphate of baryta, crystallized carbonate of lime, and crystals of quartz are all the mineral substances that have been associated with the buhrstone of the Flint ridge; the first being rare, the second not abundant, but that the last named was found in brilliant druses, with regular faces, in some portions of those deposits. Some of them he characterized as very beautiful, furnishing fine specimens for the cabinet, being occasionally tinged red or brown by some metallic oxyd. The striking similarity, he continues, between these crystals and those about the lead mines of Missouri; had led to some expensive, but fruitless, searches for lead and copper ores. Professor E. B. Andrews remarks, in his report of 1869, that it was found difficult to determine the exact stratigraphical position of the Flint ridge buhr, as it lies upon the top of the ridge, more like a blanket than like a rigid stratum, conforming more or less to the undulating surface of the general top of the ridge, and, therefore, many feet higher at some points than at others. He found the buhr of Flint ridge to be porous and often cracked, and that water had probably passed through it, carrying away the soft shale underlying it, and consequently lowering its stratum along its border.
"The late Colonel J. W. Foster, of the geological corps of Ohio, of 1837-39, makes the buhr deposit of the Flint ridge to range in thickness from two to six feet. He subjoins the following section to show the relation between the buhr and the associated rocks, at a point on the eastern half of the ridge; and I submit it to give the geological manifestations of the locality
172 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
1. Buhr ................................ .4 ft
2. Shale................................10 "
3. Hornstone ......................... 1 " 4 in.
4. Grey cherty limestone .......5 "
5. Shale--dark...................... 30 "
6. Shale-light blue .............. 10 "
7. Coal................................. 8 in.
8. Shale-light blue ............. 10 "
9. Slaty sandstone ............... 8 "
10. Yellow shale................... 15 "
11. Iron ore ore ...................... 8 in.
12. Shale-dark........................10 "
13. Iron ore............................. 1 " 4 in.
14. Limestone-brown.............. 5 "
15. Limestone-light blue ......... 6 "
16. Compact sandstone ..........40 "
157
"According to Mr. Leo Lesquereaux, there is a thin seam of coal of six inches, testing on two feet of fire-clay, immediately beneath the flint or buhr, on a section of Flint ridge, which he measured, and that said seam of coal had the stratigraphical position of the Nelsonville or Straitsville coal, being seventy-seven and one-half feet above the Putnam hill limestone, which is found in unusual thickness above the cannel coal, thereby giving the position of the buhr to be just over the Nelsonville coal.
"Professor M. C. Read, of the corps of Ohio geologists, who surveyed Flint ridge, also found a thin vein of coal resting upon a bed of fire-clay, immediately under the flint or buhr, as will appear, by reference to the third volume of Ohio Geology, page , 353, where he gives a general section of the rocks exposed in Licking county."
B. C. Woodward, in a paper read before the Pioneer Association of Licking county, gives the following regarding the geology of the eastern portion of the county, taken mostly from a publication by Mr. Dille:
"It would, perhaps, be difficult to find any equal territory containing so practical a summary of geology as Licking county. It embraces so many of the various formations of which that science treats, that whoever would investigate these subjects will find it a most desirable field to explore. In the western borders are found the carboniferous shales, with the sub-carboniferous; fine grains of sandstone and shales over which lies the drift, composed of the debris of all the older formations from the granite to the recent plutonic, with the spoils of the post-pliocene and intermediate types from the silurian up to the diluvian. The records of all ages during the organic series of the earth's progress, are kept in nature's great vaults in Licking county.
"The mineral resources of the eastern half of Licking county are more in place, and less disturbed by the drift, or covered by it, than the western; though there is scarcely a township in the county that has not been more or less invaded by the Great Flood.
"Wherever the drift extends the soil is improved by its deposits, but there are some places in which, instead of depositing, it denuded the original earth, and in such case it impoverished rather than fructified the soil. There are some such places in the eastern pan of the county.
"The supply of stone for all purposes of building is abundant, and the quality may be ranked among the best. The fine granite sandstone, called, by Ohio geologists, the Waverly rock, by those of New York, the Chemung, and, in Nova Scotia, the grindstone grit, when properly worked is among the most beautiful building stones in the United States. The stratum of this rock is about two hundred feet thick in this county, and its superficial face some twenty miles wide. Those who have examined the fine structures of this stone in Cincinnati must admit that no stone equals it as an architectural material. Its sober drab or neutral color, and smooth surface, has a most pleasing effect in a large house or block of buildings. When near the ground, exposed to wetting and drying, freezing and thawing, it does not weather well, and is liable to disintegrate: but when not thus exposed, if free from sulphur, it is one of the most durable of building rocks.
"The conglomerate. or coarse-grained stone, overlies the fine-grained; is a stratum of one hundred and twenty to two hundred feet thick, and of a superficial width from east to west of some thirty miles. It weathers well, and is a durable building stone: standing all temperatures and seasons. and is a favorite wherever attainable. Small cubes of galena and sulphuret of lead are occasionally found in this rock. but never in workable quantities. These occasionally last named formations are persistent and run regularly from north to south as a line of bearing with a dip to the eastward.
"There are occasional rock formations, like coal beds, that may have a value when properly developed and managed, of no little economical interest. The first worthy of the name is the carbonate of lime. This is found in Madison, Franklin, Hopewell, and one or two other townships. The nearest to Newark is on Metcalf's and Smith's hills, in the two first named townships. It nowhere produces the best lime, yet it is said to make a strong cement, and may be used as a fertilizer with good effect.
"Secondly, waterlime. This exists in at least two places, viz.: near the opening of the Flint Ridge cannel coal mine, and on the road from Hoskinson's to the National road, which crosses the latter some two miles west of Brownsville. I am not aware that this water-lime has been tested.
"Thirdly, sulphate of pyrites is found in small masses on Flint ridge.
"The fossil remains of the county are not equaled by any equal area in the Mate. These are nearly all confined to the eastern part of the county. They consist of plants and shells. The ubiquitous seas, with their myriads have rolled over the lands, which, under other conditions, rejoice under the green foliage of prismatic vegetation. Wherever the fine-grained sandstone is found, the shells of marine animals are abundant, and the occasional patches of limestone are full of them; but the coarse-grained sandstone, near many of the coal beds, are marked with beautiful impressions, or casts of plants of the coal period. The coarseness of the material is not favorable for he delicate impressions of the leaves, but the shales associated with the coal, frequently yielded the very finest specimens of the foliage of primitive time.
"The pipe clay so extensively used in the manufacture of stone-ware must not be overlooked. This almost universal associate of the coal bed is suggestive of the probability that each earth was a necessary sub-soil of the swamp or marsh in which the coal plants grow. If such was the fact this fine clay subserves a two-fold economy-first, giving that valuable fuel to the
HISTORY OF LICKING; COUNTY. - 173
world, and secondly, furnishing a material for a valuable manufactured article. The pipe or fine clay in the vicinity of Flint ridge, is a superior article, and with skill in the an, would probably produce an excellent and beautiful pottery.
"As a study, the theorist in geology would do well to consult the broad page of this county before he forms his conclusions.
"Professor Aggasiz, in maintaining his glacial theory, in opposition to the iceberg hypothesis, to account for the transportation of large masses of rocks and earth from such places, said: ' If icebergs were the floats upon which such burdens were borne, the drift would be found to be stratified, for each successive field of icebergs would deposit its load wherever it was stranded, and the next would drop its load over the other, soon, therefore, exhibiting a well defined stratification, which is never the case.' Had he visited Licking county, he would have found facts to overturn his objections. Nothing is more clear than the stratification of the drift in all parts of the county where the drift exists.
"This drift lies unconformably upon the older rocks everywhere. The older structure is the blue clay, and if it is examined carefully, we may come with a reasonable certainty to the source of this material in the black shales which crop out on Walnut creek, twenty-five miles west of Newark. Pieces of this shale are frequently found in the clay, and we can hardly be mistaken as to its origin. In the clayey earth, overlying the blue clay, the Cliff' limestone, in places just west of Columbus, is found in some places abundantly.
"Next in ascent is the blue limestone from the Cincinnati range. And in the upper, or last, is to be found the plutonic, primitive rocks of the great chain of the Rocky mountains, associated with the last drift. Small grains of gold are frequently found. A confirmation of this statement as to the stratified drift should be carefully made, as it is of scientific value."
From the foregoing glance at its geologic wealth, it is obvious that Licking county presents greater facilities for the practical study of this science, and of the causes which have contributed to form the prolific soil than any other single locality in Ohio.
The Flint ridge alone is one of the most interesting regions of-the State, either for the geologist or the antiquarian.
174 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY
CHAPTER XIX.
FLORA AND FAUNA.
BEAUTY OF THE LICKING VALLEY-VARIETIES OF TIMBER-WILD GRAPES AND OTHER FRUITS- GINSENG-THE ORCHARD OF WILD CHERRY TREES ANIMALS: BUY PANTHERS - BEAR - WOLVES - DEER - FOXES ITS, AND OTHER SMALL ANIMALS-WILD TURKEYS - PHEASANTS - QUAILS, ETC. SINGING BIRDS-DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF FISH-SNAKES AND CREEPING THINGS-INSECTS. FTC.
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
THE territory of Licking county in its wilderness state, presented landscapes of a greatly diversified character, from the comparative tameness of a commonplace oak forest, without undergrowth, to that presented by the romantic wildness of such mountain scenery as the rough, almost impassable spurs and buhr-covered steeps of Flint ridge, and the high, rocky bluffs, towering peaks and dark glens of Licking narrows and the Rocky fork.
When seventy years or more ago Hughes and Ratliff, the earliest settlers, occupied Licking valley they must have been surprised at the variety and beauty of its vegetable productions. The silence of the primeval woods had until then been unbroken; the forest was here in all its native majesty and beauty; the gigantic size and venerable antiquity of the trees, the rankness of the weeds, grasses and trailing vines which formed a thick covering for the ground, the luxuriance and variety of the underbrush, the long vines that reached to the tops of the tallest trees, the parasites that hung in clusters from the loftiest boughs, the brilliancy of the autumnal foliage, the splendor and variety of the vernal flowers, the snowy whiteness of the dog-wood blossoms of early spring and the exuberance of the fruits that were maturing during the summer and autumn, were undoubted manifestations of the most vigorous vegetable life, and an encouraging proof of the quality of the soil. The yield *of nuts, berries, grapes, plums, and other wild fruits, was immense, and these for years, perhaps centuries, had been dropping and wasting, save, only, the few gathered by the red man. The surface of the country was beautifully diversified by hill and valley; by the rough, mountainous region of the eastern half of the county, and the level, beautifully undulating lands of the western half, varied by, here and there, a small swamp, pond, prairie, lakelet, spring or running stream-almost every variety of natural scenery appeared to the eye of the pioneer.
Along the streams, on the bottom land, and also on the more level or second bottom lands grew the walnut; butternut, sycamore, hickory, sugar, maple, hackberry, white, black and blue ash, linden, white and red elm, and the beech, which, however, prevailed principally in the central and western parts of the county; together with the box-elder, red and yellow plum, black-haw, crab-apple, red-bud, dog-wood, ironwood, American multi-flora, arrowwood, kinnakinnick, June berry, and a few others. These were found in various places on the above described lands.
The gum, cucumber and sassafras trees were found on the clay formation, while on the hills, the different varieties of oak abounded, with a small sprinkling of the tulip or yellow poplar, and, in limited numbers. most of the above mentioned as abounding in the level lands.
On Flint ridge the chestnut was the prevailing wood. At the Licking Narrows, in the glens of the Rocky fork- and on the tall peaks along that stream generally; and on the eastern bank of North fork, as well as on the south side of Licking river, cedar, pine, hemlock, laurel and other evergreens peculiar to mountainous regions, prevailed to a considerable extent.
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 175
Many of the grape-vines on the bottom lands were of enormous size, approximating in thickness a man's body. These sometimes spread themselves through the branches of half a score or more of the largest trees, completely shutting out the sun-light, and bearing immense quantities of fruit. The huckleberry, confined principally, to the hills, yielded fruit bountifully. Some other berries grew spontaneously, as the strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, and, in a few localities, the cranberry. The prairie, or cranberry swamp in the eastern part of Washington township, and the swamp lands about the reservoir, some seasons yielded the cranberry in great abundance, which were, even in an early day, an article of traffic, participated in by the Indians as well as the pioneers. The early settlers laid up for use during the winter months, large quantities of these wild fruits, and also chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, butternuts and hickory nuts. Paw-paws and May apples were plenty and were used to a considerable extent.
The ginseng plant abounded in most localities, in early times, and was an article of extensive traffic, both by whites and Indians, for many years after the first settlement of the county. Every merchant bought it. Beeswax, tallow, furs, hides, feathers, coon-skins and whiskey were not more general articles of trade and barter than ginseng. It disappeared as an article of commerce in the county about 1835, and has not since been known. The plant was exhausted. It was wholly of spontaneous growth and never an article of culture. It was a jointed taper root as large as a man's finger, and when dry was of a yellowish white color, with, a mucilaginous sweetness of taste, somewhat resembling licorice, accompanied with a very slight bitterness. It was exported to China, where it was in demand for its real or supposed medicinal virtues.
Between the Raccoon and South fork, near their junction, covering an area of a .number of square miles, and extending several miles west of Newark, existed, at the first settlement of the country, a grove of wild cherry, doubtless the growth of centuries, which for numbers, size and quality were hardly equaled in any section of the United States. They were thick, tall, of wide-spreading branches, tolerably clear#f knots, and generally sound, except those that gave indications of great age. The woodman's axe had been laid upon but few of these splendid trees, when first noticed in 1825; but not long after, their commercial value became known, and when the Ohio canal opened in 1833, they gradually disappeared, being shipped to Cincinnati and converted into lumber for furniture. But few of these trees now remain to mark the spot where once stood this famous orchard. The concentric circles of many of them indicated that they were centuries old; fixing the date of their origin in the pre-historic age of the country. Many of them stood on the works of the Mound Builders.
When the wave of white settlers first touched the borders of Licking county, a great variety of . wild animals contended with the Indian for supremacy. Some of the native animals of this primeval forest had gradually given way to the general westward movement of the white race. The buffalo was gone, probably never to return, at least in any number. A few years after the first settlement, probably about 1803, a small herd, six or eight in number, strayed from their usual haunts further west, and reached a point a short distance east of where Wills creek empties into the Muskingum. Here for a day or two they were pursued by the late John Channel, a famous hunter and pioneer, and perhaps by others, but without success so far as Mr. Channel was concerned. This information is given on the authority of Adam Seymour, who was here at that time, and Mr. E. S. Woods, who obtained the information from Mr. Channel himself. This was probably the last sight of wild buffaloes east of the Scioto.
The elk, too, was gone when the pioneers came, but the numerous wide-spreading antlers he once carried, were found profusely scattered in the forest, showing conclusively that he had once been here in considerable numbers, and at no remote period; but no living wild elk was ever discovered here by the pioneers.
Panthers were not numerous, but occasionally one was seen or heard, and a few were killed during the first ten or fifteen years after the first settlement. An Indian, early in 1805, killed one near the mouth of Brushy fork, three miles north of
176 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
Newark, which was supposed to have been the mate of one killed in the same year, near his residence, one mile north of Newark, by Mr. Jacob Wilson. Panthers disappeared from this section about 1812.
Bears were more numerous and remained longer; an occasional straggler being seen at intervals of many years, until 1846, when two were killed by Alpheus Channel. These were, probably, the last seen in the county. Lewis Farmer informed Mr. Isaac Smucker that he killed one in 1806, near Granville, that weighed four hundred pounds. Bruin was hard on young domestic animals, pigs particularly, he had a good appetite for, and it was with great difficulty that the pioneers were able to raise their own pork.
Wolves were found in great abundance, and long continued to be a great annoyance to the settlers. The legislature encouraged their extermination by laws which authorized the payment of liberal sums for wolf scalps, both old and young. The records of the county commissioners show that large sums were paid the pioneers of the county for wolf scalps; four dollars being the price for full grown and two dollars for those less than full size. They have long since disappeared.
Deer were very abundant, and for many years after the first settlement, supplied the pioneers with most of their animal food. The pioneers were mostly hunters, and the chase yielded them much profit as well as amusement. So numerous were the deer in early times that an hour's hunt was generally sufficient for securing a fine buck or the more palatable doe or fawn. So plenty and tame were they that they were killed frequently with a shotgun charged only with squirrel shot.
Gray foxes, raccoons and ground-hogs were plenty, and hunting them afforded fine sport. The two latter of these are yet found in limited numbers, but the first has, probably, entirely disappeared.
Red foxes, catamounts, wild-cats and porcupines, were found in large numbers, but they early disappeared, except the first named, which may, perhaps, even yet, be occasionally found.
Rabbits and squirrels, if not here before the settlement of the county, came soon after in great numbers, and still remain. They seem to follow rather than precede the settlements.
The beaver and otter were here in considerable numbers, and were much sought after by the trapper for their valuable furs. The former has long since disappeared, and the latter is exceedingly scarce, if indeed, any remain.
Muskrats were very numerous and have continued so, affording much profit to the hunter and trapper.
Wild turkeys were also very abundant in pioneer days, and so continued for many years, affording no inconsiderable portion of the food of the early settlers. They were so numerous and tame that they could be procured by the hunter on very short notice. They are yet occasionally found in the woods.
Pheasants were not so numerous as the turkey, and have almost wholly disappeared.
Wild geese and ducks were plenty around the little lakes and swamps, and along the streams. These are rarely seen at present.
Quails are not natives of the wilderness; neither are crows, black-birds, blue-birds nor turtle-doves, but they all became plenty after the settlement of the county, and still remain in moderate quantities.
Bees were plenty, and the tables of the pioneers were generally supplied with honey.
Cranes, woodcocks, woodpeckers and pigeons were plenty, and yet remain, with the exception of the first named.
Birds of prey, such as turkey-buzzards or vultures, hawks, ravens, owls and eagles, were very numerous, but have been slowly disappearing, par ticularly the eagle, which is now seldom seen.
Singing birds of various kinds became plenty soon after the settlement of the county, and yet remain.
The streams abounded in fish of large size. Elias Hughes once gigged or speared a pike, which, when suspended to the top of his cabin door reached to the floor. The pike were from two to five feet in length. Isaac Stadden once, in early times, shot a pike at "high banks" in the Licking, near his residence, that measured nearly six feet in length. He ran a stick through its gills, and when placed on his shoulder the tail of the fish touched the ground. The pike has almost, if not entirely, disappeared from the waters of the county.
The catfish was plenty and of large size, but
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 177
there were no eels. The white perch and sucker were numerous and of large size; the black jack and clear jack were here and grew large, but have long since disappeared. The streams, no less than the forests, contributed to the support of the early settlers. Indeed so plenty were game, fish, fur animals, and the fruits and other spontaneous productions that it was hardly necessary to till the ground to procure subsistence.
Serpents were of many varieties and in great abundance. Especially numerous were the rattlesnake, the copper-head viper, blacksnake, garter snake and watersnake. They were often found in the cabins of the settlers and even in their beds. It was not unusual for the settlers to be bitten by them, but few, if any, deaths occurred from this cause, as the settlers understood the treatment of snake bites.
There was a snake den on the south bank of Licking river, a mile below Newark, in the year 1803, which the settlers determined to break up. They accordingly procured a quantity of powder, and blew it up, the snakes flying high in the air, and in every direction, killing many of them; still the survivors were sufficiently numerous to be more or less annoying and troublesome.
For many years the people were troubled with snakes, but the venomous kind have long since disappeared. Scorpions and lizards abounded, and were not in high favor with the pioneers.
Insects of various kinds were numerous and troublesome. Spiders, particularly, were plenty and of large size. Gnats, hornets, yellow-jackets, mesquites and horse-flies were in great abundance and exceedingly annoying to man and beast.
The wolf and the more venomous serpents were the most formidable and annoying enemies of the early settlers. Panthers were much dreaded, but fortunately were not numerous. The fox, mink and pole-cat frequently made raids on the hen-roost.
Most of these animals, especially the more troublesome ones, have long since disappeared.
The distinct class known in pioneer times as the hunter, a class of which Elias Hughes and John Channel were fair representatives, has pretty nearly gone out of existence. So also has the class known as the trapper, represented by Billy Dragoo and Joel Williams. Those also known as fishermen, represented by John Sparks and John Scammahorn, have almost disappeared as a distinct class. People change, and conform their lives to the times in which they live.
178 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY
CHAPTER XX.
MINERALOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.
MINERALOGY OF FLINT RIDGE-PROFESSOR READ O\ THE FLINT OF FLINT RIDGE-COAL DEPOSIT-ISAAC SMUCKER ON THE FORMATION OF 'MINERAL COALS AND THE PALEONTOLOGY OF FLINT RIDGE.
"Arts perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse;
But for the dull and flowerless weed
Some healing virtue still must plead,
And the rough ore must find its honors in its use."
-Whittier,
IN mineralogy there is much to interest the scientist and business man, within the county limits. Perhaps Flint ridge is one of the most interesting localities for the mineralogist. Hon. Isaac Smucker thus writes of it:
"Mineralogy has an admirable and extensive development in Flint ridge. There the mineralogical manifestations are not only diversified, but also highly interesting among the stones, rocks, ores, metals, clays, earths and minerals found on and in Flint ridge are the flint or buhr-stone, the sand-stone, the hornstone, the lime-stone, the oil-stone, the conglomerate rock, the iron ore, the granite boulder, fire-clay, blue-clay shale, slaty clay, potter's clay, slate, bituminous slate, bituminous coal, and cannel coal.
The economic value of some of the foregoing deposits has been considerable, at different times. To the aboriginal inhabitants the flint-stones of the ridge must have been of great value, as from them they made, during many passing ages, their knives, spear and arrow heads, and perhaps other implements and ornaments. The flint of the ridge was, for many years, extensively manufactured into mill-stones, or what millers called "buhrs," and liberal profits were realized, but of late years this branch of manufacture has been abandoned, the French buhr being found superior in quality. Moreover, the best quality of the flint of the ridge, which alone was suitable for buhrs, was mainly worked out, and what remains is not attainable, or, at least, is not so readily quarried as to justify the continued profitable prosecution of the aforesaid industry. In many mills, however, in early times in Ohio, and until a comparatively recent period, the Flint ridge buhrs were used, and found to be an economical and excellent substitute for the French buhr, particularly for grinding corn, rye and buck-wheat. It is also said that the purer portions of the flint made good oil-stones, and when crushed also served a valuable purpose in manufacturing glass, and, I believe, also fire-brick.
"The iron ore of Flint ridge has probably not been found sufficient in quantity, nor of such quality as to admit of extensive utilization, by the erection of furnaces; and it is too remote from such as are now in operation to pay transportation. The same may also be said of the building stones of the ridge, and for the same reason their use has been limited. But the fire-clay, as well as the potter's clay, has been brought into market in the form of fire-brick, and in the manufacture and sale, to a considerable extent, of the well-known stone-ware, long and extensively known in Ohio and in the west.
"Bituminous coal has not been mined on the Flint ridge to any extent, its seams being too thin to admit of it with profit. But the cannel coal of the ridge has been mined and marketed for a period of more than forty years, and continues to be thus mined and marketed, presumably with a fair profit. It is used to some extent for the manufacture of gas in Newark, as well as for fuel purposes there, and in the neighborhoods adjacent to the mines. For a time, says Professor Read (see volume three, Ohio Geology, page 356), it was extensively used for the production of coal-oil, the following average yield being obtained from the distillation of a ton of coal:
Crude oil, forty gallons;
Refined oil, seventeen and one-half gallons;
Lubricating oil, seven and one-half gallons ;
Paraphine, three and three-fourths to five pounds.
When crude petroleum was placed upon the market at two cents per gallon in 1861-62, this branch of industry was of necessity suspended, and has not since been resumed, owing to the impossibility of competing with the petroleum of the oil wells.
"The main entrance into the Flint ridge cannel coal bed is that of the Licking County Cannel Coal company, more than a mile from the western termination of the ridge, at a point, says Professor Read, about one hundred feet, by his barometer, and one hundred and four feet by other measurements, below Flint ridge, meaning, I'suppose, below its highest point. The professor found it 'capped' by a thick bed of lime-stone, presenting with the coals, shales and fire-clays, the following section:
Earthy lime-stone, two, and one-half feet;
Pure lime-stone, two and one-half feet;
Cannel coal, one foot;
Fire-clay, three feet;
Cannel coal, four feet;
Black shale, nine inches;
Cannel coal, ten inches;
Fire-clay, thickness not given.
An analysis of the Flint ridge cannel coal giyes, approximately, in round numbers, twenty per cent. of ash, thirty-seven percent of volatile matter, and forty-three per cent. of fixed carbon. President Orton, of the Ohio State University, pronounces it the best cannel coal in Ohio (as can be seen by reference to volume four, page 913, of Ohio Geology).
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 179
Professor Read, above quoted, says, regarding the flint of Flint ridge:
"Any one traversing this ridge for the first time would be surprised to find such a deposit on such a geological horizon. It simulates very accurately the broken-up debris of a vertical dike, the fragment often covered with perfect crystals of quartz, the rock itself being highly crystalline and often translucent. It is something of a puzzle to understand how such a deposit is found in a series of undisturbed and unmodified rocks The adjacent surfaces. of two blocks of the chert are often found covered with the quartz crystals of considerable size, as thoroughly interlocking with each other as if one were a cast and the other a matrix. I cannot imagine the conditions which would spread such a deposit over the floor of a sea or any other body of water. A substitution of silicious matter deposited from solution, in the place of a soluble limestone previously deposited, is the only plausible explanation. This substitution has taken place over large areas in this part of the State, and has left these silicious deposits only upon the horizons of the different limestones.
Professor Read continues, regarding the coal deposit in different parts of the county:
"Coal No. 1 is, in several localities in the county, of sufficient thickness to be mined for local consumption.. In some places it rests upon a thin bed of carboniferous conglomerate, in others upon the olive shales of the Waverly; a bed of fire-clay and a thin stratum of shale being sometimes interposed between it and these rocks.
"In Madison township, about two miles southeast of Newark, about two hundred tons of this coal have been taken from Dr. Wilson's mine. The coal, as far as worked, was of fine quality, and reached a thickness of thirty inches. Near this point, a shaft sunk through the coals disclosed the including strata as follows
"First-Shale, four feet.
"Second-Coal, two feet.
"Third-Conglomerate.
"On this hill the limestone of the cannel coal is, by barometer, one hundred feet above coal No. 1. On the southeast quarter of section one, Hopewell township, entries have been carried into the coal where it is reported to be from eighteen to twenty inches thick. On Lewis Bakers land, Mary Ann township, it is found near the top of the hill, and, when opened, ranges in thickness from one and a half to two feet. The Conglomerate here appears in a led a few feet below it.
"On Wesley Painter's land, in the west part of Fallsbury township, coal No. 1 has about the same thickness, and the including strata, are as follows:
"First-Gray shale, thickness undetermined.
"Second-Coal, one and a half to two feet.
"Third-Fire-clay, one foot.
"Fourth-Hard, white sand-rock, with Stigmaria.
"At an opening on Jacob Priest"s land, in Fallsbury township, this coal is from two and a half to three feet thick, in two benches; is bright and hard; a very good coal; but containing a rather large percentage of sulphur. On the whole this is the best exposure of coal No. r observed in the county, but as the roof is sandstone, it is more liable to be reduced in thickness as the entry is carried further into the hill.
"It will be apparent that the coal of the county is quite limited in quantity, and that, aside from the cannel, none of it is first quality.
"Citizens report that coal has been found on Alligator hill, a little east of Granville. Several excavations have been made into the hill, and one near the top. All expose shaly sandstone, which can be clearly identified as Wavetly, and the debris of the Waverly is strewn over the surface of the highest part. I think no coal can be found in the hills, in this part of the county. It is true that in several places on the western margin of our coal-fields coal is found, in one sense, below the Upper Waverly. It is found, topographically, below it, not geologically, in valleys, on the slopes of the Waverly hills, which, in this neighborhood, rose above the old coal marshes, and marked the original western limit of the coal-fields. My observations in this county, and northward, along the margin of the coal-field, render it very certain that the supposition sometimes made, that the Ohio coals were once continued westward over the Devonian and Silurian rocks to the Indiana and Illinois field, and that they have since been carried away by erosion, is untenable."
The following extracts are' from the address of B. C. Woodward:
"There is a directing and compensating Providence in nature. That which was denied to eastern Licking county by the benefits of the drift, was presented to it by the sweeping waste of waters. Stores of minerals laid up in prior periods were undisturbed and kept for the use of civilized man. Ohio geologists have conceded to this but a little corner of Bowling Green and Hopewell townships as included within the great Alleghany coal-field. Yet there are small lenticular masses of coal, some in workable beds, in Madison, Franklin, Bowling Green, Hopewell, Hanover, Mary Ann, Perry and Fallsbury townships. These small, isolated coal-fields present an instructive lesson, for though remote from each other, the quality is so similar, that it may, with a single exception, be called identical in kind and quality.
"That exception is the cannel coal of the flint ridge; all other beds afford that variety called by miners cherry coal. It is dry, bums without much flame, makes a hot fire, and is valuable fuel. The sameness of the coal in all the different beds, teaches that it was all produced under like conditions. This is shown, too, by the fossil plants associated with it in its several deposits. The cannel coal of Flint ridge is limited to a small district, perhaps not more than three hundred acres, is a workable bed, valuable for gas, oil or fuel. The working of this bed shows that active energies have operated here since the formation of coal. The fossil shells, especially the lingula, with other mollusks of the same age, indicate that it is an ancient deposit. The Flint ridge itself, being composed of silica in a greater or less crystalline state, enclosing, in many instances, fossil shells, indicate that heat, and perhaps hot water, impregnated with silica, has been active there, with a force sufficient to upheave it to its present level.
"The Hopewell coal, in the neighborhood of Gratiot, is of true bituminous variety. This is a deep stratum, and one of the best coal mines in the State.
"Although the early settlers were fully aware of these coal deposits, they, from force of circumstances, did not for some years, give much attention to them. The clearing of the land furnished an abundance of fuel, and hence they did not need the coal. But as the forests disappeared, its importance was
180 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
more appreciated, and its extent more fully developed. Wherever coal is found, iron is associated with it. The Mary Ann furnace, in operation some thirty-five years, produced thousands of tons of iron from the ores of the county. The Granville furnace was chiefly supplied with ores from the same coal region, and has produced several thousand tons of the metal."
The following extract from the address of Hon. Isaac Smucker, delivered at the Young Men's Christian Association rooms, January 2, 1880, regarding the formation, etc., of mineral coals, will be found interesting in this connection:
"It is one of the well established facts of geology and chemistry that all mineral coals are of vegetable origin, hence botany is enlisted to elucidate phenomena relating to them. They are composed of the strange, gigantic flora or herbaria of the past, the far past carboniferous epoch, innumerable specimens of which have been so faithfully preserved in our coal-beds. Geologists teach us that the different strata or layers of coal were, each one, originally deposited at or upon the surface, and that deposits were repeated at intervals, of variable distances or periods of time apart, being separated by parallel layers of sandstone, shales, limestone and other rock formations, ranging in thickness from afoot or two to an hundred feet, and sometimes more, the deposit or production of which, between the various strata or beds of coal must have required the lapse of many thousands of years, perhaps in most cases many times tens of thousands of years. The numerous deposits of coal, and the intervening layers of stones of different kinds are credited mainly to the indefinitely long geological period known as the carboniferous. I say mainly but not wholly, for I think it can be demonstrated that the process of coal production, or at least of the inferior kinds, such as peat and lignite is now going on in lagoons, marshes and bogs, and probably has been going on ever since the termination of the carboniferous or great coal age.
"That our coals, in all their varieties, embracing peat, lignite, brown coal, bituminous, cannel, anthracite coal, also coke, plumbago, or graphite, are of vegetable origin, seems to be a generally admitted fact, and if further proof were needed, it could be found by closely observing certain natural processes now going on; for in nature, coal, or at least peat and lignite, can be seen in various stages of formation where vegetable tissue is heaped up and accumulated in bogs. On digging deep down into these bogs where the woody matter is surrounded by moisture and other favorable conditions for gradual decomposition, it is, ascertained that the slow process of transforming said woody material into the combustible called peat is going on. And when peat becomes hardened by the lapse of ages, by diminished moisture, by evaporation, through the action of the elements, and otherwise changed by other causes, it becomes lignite. It is known that in the oldest peat bogs in Europe, at or near their bottom, a thin stratum of coal is generally found, and that there is reason to believe that the entire material composing those bogs, if undisturbed, would ultimately, under a combination of favorable circumstances develop into coal-beds, the afore-named stratum at or near the bottom of the bogs, being the incipient formation thereof. Those favorable circumstances are, in part, the continued full growth, for an indefinitely long period, of aquatic vegetation, the debris of whic would ultimately, by depression or sinking of the locality, an by water action, or by any other cause that resulted in inundation, which would by its sedimentary accumulations, form a covering for those beds of vegetable deposits. Most of those sedimentary accumulations are sand, pebbles, gravel, clay, mud, and other earthy matter. Where the sedimentary deposit is sand, and all favorable circumstances are present and continued in active operation for long ages, the present product would be a led of sandstone; when, by reason of a strong current, pebbles were carried along with the sand and intermingled with it, the result would be a conglomerate sandstone, such as is found at the mouth of the Rocky fork, and all along through the "Licking narrows;" where earthy matter, gravel and clay are the deposit, the products are, of course, different; and where the deposit consists of a combination of any or all of those materiels, there is no difficulty in arriving at a correct knowledge of the facts in the case; and finally, when the sedimentary deposit is what is popularly called a kind of a clayey mud, if the requisite constituent elements are present, such as silex, alumina, oxide and sulphate of iron, potash, magnesia and carbon, the product will ultimately be shale or argillaceous slates. These shale and slate deposits are often found in layers immediately above and below coal-beds, and generally contain more or less of carbonaceous matter, and possibly other constituent elements of mineral coal, in limited quantities. The amount of carbon they contain is so small as to preclude their use as fuel, although they are, in a sense, combustible, and by heat can be reduced to their original elements. This may be chiefly because they have been so long in proximity to the coal deposits, where they were placed by the action of water, and solidified in pursuance of the operation of nature's laws.
"Water action, let it be borne in mind, is an important agency, indeed an essential instrumentality in coal production, and I might add also in most other productions, as well as in giving shape and form to the surface of our globe, for it has assuredly been instrumental in floating into position the materials of .which the earth is composed. The processes of coal formation, and the production of numerous other inanimate things of this world, are in active operation now, as they have been through the almost interminable geological ages of the past, and will so continue through the long cycles of the coming future. Indeed the process of creation itself is, in an important sense, a continuity-thus far it has been a progressive work, is still going on, and may go on unceasingly. A day with the Lord, the Bible informs us, is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, that is, as one day of creation, by which is meant simply an indefinitely long geological day, age or period, as Hugh 'Miller, the author of "The Old Red Sandstone," also of "The Foot-prints of the Creator," and of "The Testimony of the Rocks," has maintained, making the six days of creation in Genesis to stand for six indefinitely long geological days or periods. In these views of the biblical bearings of geology he has the concurrence of Professors Silliman and Hitchcock and many other Christian scientists.
"Cuvier, the great naturalist, taught that the earth had been inhabited by a succession of different series of animals that ultimately became extinct, and that those of each period were peculiar-to the age in which they lived. And the same is true also of aquatic and marine animals. The extinction, from natural causes, of the huge animals that once existed in the Ohio valley, as their remains will show, such as the mastodon, the megatherium and the mammoth, and their substitution by others better adapted to existing atmospheric, climatic and
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 181
general conditions, fully corroborate the views here expressed. And the same is true of other animals, also of reptilian monsters now extinct, and of birds and insects, whose places have been taken by others.
"The main or essential factors in coal production, during the carboniferous period, were: first, an atmosphere so heavily charged with carbon as to preclude the possibility of the existence of warm blooded animals; , second, a huge growth of aquatic vegetation; third, heat; fourth, water action; fifth, moisture; sixth, decomposition; seventh, weight or pressure; eighth, a favorable climate; ninth, time. And when and where all the foregoing conditions and elements are present and in active operation, the elements being in proper proportions and combinations, and the climate is favorable for coal production, then, of course, the result will be coal. Chemists have, by chemical combinations and processes, manufactured coal, and therefore know all about its constituent elements, but the chemist with his retort charged with materials for manufacturing coal is at a disadvantage in competition with the production of nature's laboratory. Of course the formation of coal, or rather of peat and lignite, is now a much slower process than it was during the ages of more luxuriant vegetable growths, and when carbon was so redundant as to render warm blooded life impossible.
"' In Holland, Denmark and Sweden,' says Lesquereux, ' the thick deposits of peat are separated into distinct beds by strata of sand and mud, giving the best possible elucidation of the process of stratification of the coal measures.' ' For their formation,' says 'Maury, 'these bogs require a basin rendered impermeable by a substratum of clay and an active growth of aquatic or semi-xrial plants, having their roots in water, while their branches and leaves expand on the surface thereof, or rise in the air above it, constantly growing in the same place, whose debris, falling year after year, is heaped up and preserved against atmospheric decomposition by stagnant water or great humidity in the air.' It was during the carboniferous epoch, the geological age of gigantic vegetable growths, when our principal and most valuable beds of coal were deposited; and then it was when all the most favorable circumstances for the production of coal were in their highest development; when, in fact, the conditions which tended most to promote the rapid formation of coal, in the different varieties, were all present and in active operation.
"During the carboniferous age of the earth's history, water covered very much more of its area than it does now, and portions of the continents were so little raised. above its surface that a slight elevation or depression would change the lagoons, marshes and bogs into dry land, or sink them below the surface of the sea. When air passes over, or rests on oceans, lakes or rivers, it becomes laden with vapor, whose influence is very potent, as the power of vapor to absorb and retain is very many times greater than that of air; hence as water then preponderated so largely over land, the atmosphere was heavily charged with moisture, which, as well as heat, was essential in a coal producing climate. In fact the absence of annual rings or concentric circles, in carboniferous plants, found as fossils in our coal-beds, proves that there was no winter when and where our coal was produced; and as the same kind of coal-plants grew at the same time in Europe and America, as geologists have demonstrated, the same. climate, substantially, must then have prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic. During the carboniferous epoch the atmosphere was so largely charged with carbonic acid that; as already stated, warm-blooded animals could not exist in it; hence no fossil remains of such are found in our coal-beds, or in the earth or stone formations of an interior age.
"Early in the carboniferous age the coal-plants were doubtless of comparatively limited size, whose leaves floated on the surface of shallow marshes or lagoons. Gradually those aquatic plants grew larger and larger, the existing and steadily augmenting conditions for their better development being present, they naturally took root in increasing quantities and strength in those lagoons or marshes whose surfaces were partially covered with water, adding the growth of each year, slowly and silently, to the accumulating mass. As the age advanced these plants attained to a larger and still larger size, whose immense leaves and spreading branches would ultimately die and sink to the bottom, and thus form a bed for succeeding vegetable growths of such proportions and in such quantities as to throw into insignificance anything of the same species in our day! This process, repeated for an indefinitely long period, finally resulted in producing peat, lignite, coal of various kinds, coke and plumbago. The horsetail flag, fossilized in coal-beds, has been found fourteen inches in diameter, while now it seldom reaches a thickness of one inch. Club-mosses, even within the tropics, are now of small size, while in coal formation, petrified, they have been found as thick as a man's body and fifty feet or more in length. Our ferns are of diminutive, dwarfish size, but in carboniferous times they reached the height of more than fifty feet. 'Other coal-plants," says Maury, 'grew to the same wonderful proportions, and as they fell others sprang up, and thus the 'heaping' process continued until nature caused some subsidence of the ground, the water closed over it all, and the currents deposited mud or sand; if the former a laver of slate was the ultimate result; if the latter a stratum of sandstone would be formed; and if pebbles were intermingled with the sand, the result would be a layer of conglomerate sandstone, such as we have in great abundance along the banks of the Rocky fork and in the ' Licking narrows,' which, it is plain to be seen, was formed exactly as here suggested.' After this subsidence, and the inundation ceased, the water having formed another bed or channel, fresh growths sprang up and a new deposit was formed, to sink and be covered up in turn; and as often as these periods of test and submergence were repeated, so often would a new bed of coal come into existence, and in this oft-repeated process is found the simple, rational explanation why the coal measures generally consist of more than one seam or stratum; or in other words why there happen to be intervening or alternate sedimentary strata between the beds or layers of coal, the lower one of these coal strata, and its sedimentary covering, being, in many instances, found to be more than a thousand feet below the surface of the earth. This is undoubtedly more generally the known state of facts in Great Britain, where shaft-mining is the common method, than in the United States, where out-croping beds of coal are mainly utilized, and which in a sense is known as surface-mining. The thickness of those sedimentary deposits between the coal strata (sometimes a hundred feet or more), furnishes some idea of the immense duration of the uncounted ages or cycles of time that passed by, during the process of their formation. To accomplish a single revolution of the precession of the equinoxes, or what is known as a movement of the equinoctial points from east to west, requires but little less then twenty-five thousand years, and we are, told by geologists that very 'many of those revolutions were recorded on nature's
182 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
pages, during the progress of the accumulations of the sedimentary substances which formed but a single one of the layers, deep down in the earth, resting upon the surface of a coalbed below it, and under another above it.
"After the vegetable deposits which formed coal-beds were covered up, Maury says, ' a gradual decomposition took place, which consisted in an evolution of a portion of the carbon, and most of the hydrogen and oxygen, in the form of water and gasses from the woody tissue, leaving a larger and larger per- centage of the carbon of the plant behind, while the increased pressure of the accumulating strata above, served to compress and solidify the mass,' which before had been in a state of fusion, probably of about the consistence of tar in a mild climate.
"But before this solidification took place, as Liebig has proved by direct experiment, in the process of slow decomposition of vegetable matter in water, a softening had occurred, j and it is to this that we must ascribe the fact that no delicate fossils are ever found in the coal itself, as the tissue and form were destroyed by the softening and subsequent pressure, though cases are met with where solid trunks of trees have resisted this softening process, and are found standing erect in the seams while their roots are plainly traced in the clay slates below. In the shales and slates above and below, which it will be remembered, were originally- soft, plastic mud, naturally, therefore, the plant impressions therein are as sharp and clear is though they had been sketched with alt artist's pencil."
After citing various eminent authorities in proof of the correctness of his theory, Mr. Smacker continues:
"From the foregoing it will be seen that I have been dealing with a solved problem, a problem that scientists have often solved by the methods of the laboratory-by the microscope by critical investigation -by close examination-by careful observation and philosophical reasoning--by scientific and logical deduction-by intelligent experiment-by accurate inspection-by established data -is to causes and their effects by the concurrent belief and testimony of nearly all the eminent geologists of Europe and America, who have written upon the subject, and who are supported substantially by most of the learned professors of science in the principal colleges and universities of both the eastern and western continents, and no less by oft-repeated and unmistakable demonstration itself.
"I have expressed the belief in this paper that the process of peat, lignite and perhaps coal production is now going oil, as it has been going on through the slow-moving and well-nigh unending geological ages of the past, and probably will continue to go on through all future time! And I will take this occasion to express the belief that there is now in process of formation a led of peat, within the limits of Newark. The location of this bed of peat is between the North Fork feeder and the North Fork creek. If Locust street were extended due east over the feeder to the creek, it would pass near it.
"Again, I think peat could be found in the swamp between the Central railroad and the Cherry Valley road, a mile or more west of Newark. That swamp was largely a dry prairie, serving the purposes of a race-track until the earthquakes in the Mississippi valley, in 1811-12, when, by depression, it was transformed into a pond, and remained such until it was partially drained, some thirty years ago. The belief is not an unreasonable one that peat has been in process of formation there during many of the ages of the past, and that that process is still going on, and will certainly not cease as long as the conditions for the production of that material remain favorable.
"And there is but little doubt that the Cranberry marshes in the vicinity of the reservoir and also the Bloody Ran swamps, near Kirkersville, are peat-bearing localities. And finally, I refer to another locality within the limits of Licking county, where the surface or external appearances are equally promising indications of the existence and progressive growth of peat: I mean the Cranberry marsh, in early times called "Warthan's Prairie," and later, "Wilson's Prairie," situated a few miles southeast of Utica. And what is true of the above named localities is doubtless as true of many points .of similar external appearance and surroundings, found to a greater or less extent in every section of our country."
In another address :fir. Smacker says regarding the paleontology of Flint ridge
'The paleontology of the Flint ridge is as yet comparatively but little known. The earlier-time records of that locality were ineffaceably engraved there in fossil characters-its primeval history was written deep down in the earth by God and nature, in the unerring language of petrifaction; its old-time annals were indelibly inscribed in the unmistakable nomenclature of geology; upon its extensive beds of minerals, stones and rocks, its organic remains, imbedded in the limestone formations far down Beneath the surface. tell us of the great past, when this ridge was in its primeval condition. long ages before man existed or could exist upon it; its vegetation in petrifaction, imprinted with nature's graver, upon its coal and other deposits, tells us in the more than exactness and certainty of scientific language of the long geological ages and carboniferous epochs, now long gone by, when another and more luxuriant vegetation, one much more charged with carbon, grew and flourished there, and when marine organisms also were redundant there as well as in contiguous land and water localities, which, largely by water action, contributed the now fossilized vegetable and organic remains found in the coal, limestone and other mineral formations of the Flint ridge.
But although the lexicon of paleontology is given to us in petrified or stone characters, letters and words, and in well marked fossilized vegetation, such as plants and shrubs and trees, also of distinct and almost living organic forms that were once animate with life, engraved by nature upon our long Buried sedimentary stones and rocks and other mineral deposits; nevertheless the careful and persevering student of the alphabet in which that lexicon was written, soon learns to read, translate, interpret and understand it as if it were a matter settled as with the unerring certainty of demonstrated science itself. All this can be clone, has been done, and is being constantly- done by those who have untiringly and zealously devoted the requisite ! amount of time, labor and talents to its accomplishment.
"By the study of organic remains,' said the late Col. Foster, it has been discovered that each of the sedimentary deposits has its characteristic fossils. By this means we can determine the epochs of the different formations, identify the same formation at remote points, and throughout all its lithological changes, and even calculate with some degree of certainty the periods when the present mountain chains were lifted up. These fossils,' he continues, 'indicate a progressive development of organic life from the coral, closely allied to the vege-
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 183
table, up to man, the head of created beings. From them also we learn the various revolutions which the earth has undergone, the changes in the temperature of its surface, and the animals which peopled it in periods far remote.'
"The author of the foregoing paragraph (the late Colonel Foster), when a member of the Ohio corps of geologists, in 1837, explored Flint ridge, in the interest of paleontology, and reported that he found fossilized organic remains there in great perfection and beauty. The following he named as of most frequent occurrence
"First-Terebratnla, that is, a genus of bivalve mollusks of the class Brachiopoda, in which one of the valves is perforated for the transmission of a sort of tendinous ligament, by which . the animal fixes itself to submarine animals. This order of molluscous animals is also characterized by two fleshy arms or labial processes, which they can protrude or withdraw, and which serve for prehension.
"Second-Eanrini, a fossil belonging to the asteria or star-fish family, consisting of numerous pointed arms radiating from around a centre in which the mouth is situated, and is supported on a jointed stem, therein differing from all the recent asterias.
"Third-Anthophylla, described by Colonel Foster as a mineral of the horn-blende family, occurring in brittle fibers, or fibrous or bladed masses (primarily flower and leaf,) of differ. eat shades of dark brown, and with a semi-metallic luster. It consists chiefly of silica, magnesia and oxyd of iron, and is found abundantly in some varieties of primary rocks.
"Fourth-Spirifera, known as an extinct genus of mollusks, having a shell with two internal calcareous spiral appendages.
"Fifth-lnfusoria, described by Dana as microscopic animals habiting waters and liquids of various kinds, and having no organs of motion, except exceedingly minute hairs.
"Sixth - Trilobites, an extinct family of crustacea, found in the earliest fossiliferous strata, Colonel Foster reported, were also found in a limestone on the ridge, and remarked that its occurrence (it being a fossil not observed, generally, in the coal measures), indicated that it flourished there after it had ceased to exist in other countries.
"Seventh.-Lingula, which belongs to the grass family of fossils, with flat leaves, not including the stem or the sheath of the stem. One author speaks of some specimens of this class of fossils as having the form of 'a strap-shaped corrolla of flowers.'
"Eighth - Producta, which is an -extinct genus, says a late author, of bivalve shells closely allied to the living genus Terebratula (described as the first of this list), and which the writer says are found only in the older secondary rocks.
"Professor E. B. Andrews, who, as one of the geological corps of Ohio, explored Flint ridge in 1869, gives us some information in regard to the palentology of that locality. He says that the basins or depressions which contain the cannel coal were filled with water while the process of coal formation was going on, which is proved by the abundant presence of the marine shell Lingula. He also obtained a specimen of Stigmaria, made up of coal itself, which still retained its cylindrical form. It is a fossil coal plant, says Buck, and, having a large dome shaped stem or trunk. Both were found by Professor Andrews most abundant in the lower part of the coal. In the lower coal measures of Flint ridge he also found a specimen of Synocladia or Biserialis, that is, a double-rowed class of fossils, notched on the edge like a saw, or a serrate leaf, pointing to the extremity, some of them having the serratures toothed. It grows in very rapidly, spreading, funnel-shaped form, the stems seeming to radiate from the same point, and throwing off on each side lateral branches, which also give off, in the same way, lateral branchlets.
" Professor Andrews also found specimens of the Ptilodictya, or bifurcated ramose, the bifurcations occurring usually at rather distant intervals. They were branched as a stem or root, having lateral divisions, poriferous surfaces, six to eight longitudinal rows, separated by spaces of double the diameter of the spores."
Professor Andrews also found shells of the genus Placnnopsis, which were slightly oblique, with lengths and breadths nearly equal, cardinal margin nearly straight, not quite equaling the greatest breadth of the valves, beak small, depressed, and but slightly projecting beyond the cardinal margin, near the middle of which it is placed, with scarcely perceptible obliquity.
Another shell was found in the dark shales of the Flint ridge coal measures, described by Professor Andrews as obliquely subovate, compressed, very thin, posterior basal margin regularly rounded, and surface marked by regular concentric unduations. with intermediate parallel strife.
And still another shell was found on the ridge, which was described as of large size, of smooth surface, or showing only obscure lines of growth. A full description of most of the foregoing, found by Professor Andrews, is given in volume two, Ohio Paleontology, pages 326-37.
Professor Andrews also reported a bed of dark blue fossiliferous limestone, ranging in thickness from twelve to fourteen feet, situated four feet nine inches above the cannel coal at the mine, and separated from it by a deposit of blue clay slate of four inches of bituminous coal, and a stratum of five inches of bituminous slate. This limestone he found abounding in fossils, and he states that he utilized them so far as to make a hand some collection, but he did not furnish a detailed description of them. The shales and limestone of Flint ridge were found by Professor Andrews to have identically similar fossils. Further explorations would doubtless richly reward, with abundant success, the paleontologists' labors on the ridge.
184 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY
CHAPTER XXI.
ARCHEOLOGY.
MOUND BUILDERS AND INDIANS-ANTIQUITIES-THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MOUNDS, EFFIGIES AND INCLOSURES: - SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS-SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS - TEMPLE MOUNDS-MOUNDS OF OBSERVATION-MEMORIAL OR MONUMENTAL MOUNDS - EFFIGIES OR ANIMAL MOUNDS - INCLOSURES - COVERED WAYS-SACRED INCLOSURES - LESSONS TAUGHT BY THESE WORKS - THE IMPLEMENTS USED BY MOUND BUILDERS AND INDIANS.
- back in the bygone time.
Lost 'mid the rubbish of forgotten things."
THE archaeologist has found the territory embraced within the present limits of Licking county- a most excellent one. It is probably the most interesting field for the scientist and antiquarian in the State or United States. When the wave of white emigration reached the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, the discovery was made of strange looking mounds of earth, here and there, and, after a time, learning that these and other similar works were of pre-historic origin-the work of an unknown race of people-they- were called, in a general way, "Ancient Mounds," and in time the lost race that erected them came to be appropriately named the "Mound Builders." There is no authentic history regarding this people. The known records of the world are silent-as silent as these monuments that perpetuate their memory. There are many theories regarding them, but this is all that can be said -nothing of their origin or end is certainly known.
They probably antedate the various Indian tribes who anciently occupied and claimed title to the soil of Ohio. Probably many centuries elapsed between the first occupancy here by the Mound Builders and the advent of the earliest Indian tribes or nations, though this is only conjecture.
This county was once, and, peradventure, continued to be through many passing centuries, their most favored locality. The extent, variety, elaborate, and labyrinthian intricacies of their works, still found in many sections of Ohio, clearly indicate the plausibility of this view. Here they dwelt for ages, erected their works and made a long chapter of history, albeit it is yet unwritten-a history whose leading features and general characteristics can be gathered only from those of their works that yet exist. It must be collected scrap by scrap, and item by item, after a thorough examination and patient investigation of their works, and by careful, laborious, faithful study of their wonderful remains. The principal events and leading incidents in the strange career of this mysterious and apparently now extinct people, can be traced out and recorded only so far as they are clearly indicated by those of their works which yet remain, but which, it is to be regretted, are, to a large extent, in a state of mutilation and partial ruin, and rapidly tending to utter extinction under inconoclastic wantonness, and the operations of the plow; also from the devastating effects of the elements, and the destructive tendencies of the great destroyer-Time.
There is no reason to believe that the Mound Builders ever had a written language, and, if they had not, it must be manifest that very few authentic facts pertaining to their domestic and local history, can be verified by reliable testimony other than that deduced from their works, which are the sole memorials left by them to enable us to work out the problems of their origin, their history, habits, manners, customs, general characteristics, mode of life, the extent of their knowledge of the arts, of husbandry, their state of civilization, their religion and its rites, their ultimate fate, and the manner and circumstances of their final disappearance, whether by process of absorption from intermingling and intermarrying with other and more vigorous races, by dispersion or captivity, or by extinction through war, pestilence, or famine.
HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY. - 185
Although generation after generation of Mound Builders here lived and flourished, and, peradventure, reached the acme of their glory, then passed through age after age of decadence and decrepitude into "the receptacle of things lost upon earth," without leaving anything that may properly be called history; and though no records of their exploits have come down to this generation through the intervening centuries, yet their enduring works furnish the laborious student some indications, even though they be slight, of the characteristics of their builders, and afford some data as to the probable history they made during the unknown, perchance barren, uneventful cycles of their indefinitely long career as a nation or race.
As the history of the Mound Builders is yet unwritten, it is certainly a matter of gratulation that so many way-marks and traces of this people yet remain within the boundaries of Ohio. Their works in the State, still existing in a tolerably perfect condition, are approximately estimated at ten thousand, but they doubtless far exceeded that number at the time of the first permanent Anglo-American settlement here, in 1788.
Only such monuments, or remains of ancient works can be properly ascribed to the Mound Builders as were really regarded by the Indian tribes at the period of the first settlement at Marietta as antiquities, or as the ruins and relics of an extinct race, and "concerning the origin of which they were wholly ignorant, or only possessed a traditionary knowledge."
These-consisted of mounds, effigies and inclosures, which are known and designated as the three general classes of ancient works that can be appropriately regarded as belonging to the Mound Builders. Mounds are sub-divided into sepulchral, sacrificial, temple (or truncated); also of observation, and memorial or monumental.
Effigies are sometimes called animal mounds, sometimes emblematic, and frequently symbolical.
Inclosures are of several kinds, one class being known as military or defensive works; another as parallel embankments or covered ways; and the third as sacred inclosures.
Under the general title of inclosures, are also walls of circuinvalation or ramparts constructed for military or defensive works, while others were doubtless walls surrounding the residence of the reigning monarch; perchance others were erected for the performance within them of their national games and amusements, and perhaps many also served a purpose in the performance of their religious rites and ceremonies, and facilitated indulgence in some superstitious practices.
Most of the above named works were constructed of earth, a few of stone, and perhaps fewer still of earth and stone combined. The title each bears indicates, in a measure, the uses they are supposed to have served.
Sepulchral mounds are generally conical in form and are more numerous than any other kinds. They are of all sizes, ranging from a very small altitude, to about seventy feet in height, and always contain one or more skeletons, .or parts thereof, or present other plausible indications of having been built or used for purposes of sepulture, and were, unmistakably, memorials raised over the dead.
By some archaeologists it is maintained that the size of these mounds bears a certain relation to the importance, when living, of the person over whose remains they were erected.
In this class of mounds are often found implements and ornaments, supposed to have been buried with the person or persons there interred, under the superstitious and delusive notion, still entertained by some tribes of American Indians, who indulge in similar practices, that they might be useful to them in the happy hunting grounds of the future state.
The practice being one common to both the Indians and Mound Builders, apparently connects the former with the latter, and raises the presumption that the Indians may have descended from the Mound Builders.
That fire was used in the burial ceremonies of the Mound Builders is manifest from the fact that charcoal is, often, if not always, found in close proximity to the skeleton. The presence of ashes, igneous stones, and other traces of the action of fire in these tombs, renders it quite probable this element was employed in their burial ceremonies.
Mica is often found in proximity to the skeletons, as well as specimens of pottery, bone • and copper beads, and animal bones.
The name given to this description of tumuli
186 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
clearly indicates that they were erected chiefly for burial purposes. They generally contain but a limited number of skeletons, indeed, often but a single one; but Professor Marsh, of the Sheffield scientific , school, connected with Yale college, a few years ago opened a mound in this county, which contained seventeen skeletons in whole or in part. in Hardin county, in which were found
The most remarkable of all mounds in the State, was one m Hardin county, in which were found about three hundred skeletons. A doubt has, however, been expressed that these were all 'Mound Builders' skeletons-some persons entertaining the belief that they were Indian remains, as it is well known that the Indians frequently buried their dead on or near the mounds.
Sacrificial mounds are usually stratified, the strata being convex layers of clay and loam, alternating with a layer of fine sand. They generally contain ashes, charcoal, igneous stones, calcined animal bones, beads, stone implements, pottery and specimens of rude sculpture. These mounds are frequently found within enclosures, which were supposed to have been in some way connected with the performance of the religious rites and ceremonies of the Mound Builders. An altar of stone or burnt clay is usually found in this class of mounds.
These altars, which sometimes rest on the surface of the original earth, at the centre of the mound are symmetrically shaped, and are among the chief distinguishing characteristics of-sacrificial mounds. Upon these altars sacrifices of animals, and probably of human beings, were offered, the fire being used to some extent in that superstitious and cruel performance. Some of this class of mounds seem also to have been used for purposes of sepulture as well as sacrifice; the presence of skeletons, in some of them at least, suggest their sepulchral as well as sacrificial character.
In common with sepulchral mounds these likewise contain implements of war, also mica from the Alleghanies, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, obsidian, and in some instances porphyry from Mexico, as well as silver and copper articles, both for use and ornament.
Temple mounds are less numerous and generally larger than the preceding classes, and in form are oftenest circular or oval; but, whether round, square, oblong, oval, octangular, or whatever form, are invariably truncated, having the appearance of being in an unfinished condition. They are frequently surrounded by embankments, and many of them have spiral pathways, steps, or inclined planes leading to their summits. They are generally of large base and of comparatively limited altitude.
The supposition is that the summits of these mounds-were crowned with structures of wood that served the purposes of temples, all traces of which, however, owing to the perishable nature of the materials used in their construction, have disappeared. They were also used to a limited extent for burial purposes, as well as for uses connected with their religion.
Mounds of Observation are generally situated upon eminences, and were doubtless "observatories," "alarm posts," "watch towers," "signal stations," or "look outs," serving the purposes indicated by their title. They are said by some writers to occur in chains or regular systems, and that many of them still bear traces of the beacon fires that were once burning on them. They are sometimes found in connection with embankments and enclosures, forming a portion, though greatly enlarged, of the banks of earth or stones that compose said embankments and enclosures.
One of this description is situated two miles west of Newark, and though somewhat mutilated, is yet about twenty-five feet high.
This class of mounds is tolerably numerous in some portions of the State.
Memorial or Monumental mounds belong to the class of tumuli that were erected to perpetuate the memory of some important event, or in honor of some distinguished character. They are mostly built of earth, but some of the stone mounds found in some portions of the State probably belong to this not numerous class.
Effigies or Animal mounds are simply raised figures or gigantic basso relieves of men, beasts, birds or reptiles, and in some instances, of inanimate objects. They are on the surface of the earth, raised to a limited height, generally from one foot to six feet above the natural surface of the ground. Mr. Schoolcraft, an authority, calls
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this class of ancient works Emblematic mounds, and expresses the belief that they were "Totems" or "heraldic symbols." Professor Daniel Wilson, the learned author of "Pre-historic Man," and other writers of distinction, call them Symbolical mounds, and hold the opinion that they were erected as objects of worship, or for altars upon which sacrifices were offered, or that they served some other purposes connected with the religious worship of their idolatrous and superstitious constructors.
Of the three most notable examples of Effigies in the State, two are situated in this county. One is the Eagle mound, near the center of what is known as the "Old Fort," near Newark; and the other is called the "Alligator mound," and is situated on the summit of a hill nearly two hundred feet high, near Granville. Both of these renowned works will receive more particular attention in the histories of the townships in which they are located.
Inclosures defensive and sacred, have been briefly mentioned. ?Most of them are earth-works, though a few are of stone. Defensive enclosures are of irregular form, are always on high ground, and in naturally strong positions, frequently on the summits of hills and steep bluffs, and are often strengthened by exterior ditches. The walls generally wind around the borders of the elevations they occupy, and where the nature of the ground renders some points more accessible than others,. the height of the wall and the depth of the ditch at those weak points are proportionally increased. The gate-ways are narrow, few in number, and well guarded by embankments placed a few yards inside of the openings or gate-ways, parallel with them, and projecting somewhat beyond them at each end, thus fully covering the entrances, which, in some cases, are still further protected by projecting walls on either side of them.
These works are somewhat numerous, and indicate a clear appreciation of the elements, at least, of fortification, and unmistakably point out the purpose for which they were constructed. A large number of these defensive works consists of a line of ditch and embankments, or several lines carried across the neck of peninsulas or bluff' head-lands, formed within the bends of streams-an easy and obvious mode of fortification, common to all rude peoples. To this class of inclosures belongs that situated on the summit of a hill one mile east of Alligator mound in Licking county.
Covered ways are parallel walls of earth of limited height, and are frequently found contiguous to inclosures, sometimes, indeed, connecting them by extending from one to another. One of their purposes, at least, seems to have been the protection of those passing to and fro within them.
Sacred inclosures are mainly distinguished from those of a military character by the regularity of their form, their different construction and their more frequent occurrence. They are of all shapes and forms, and where moats or ditches exist they areinvariably found in the inside of the embankments. They are generally in the form of geometrical figures of surprising accuracy, such as circles, squares, hexagons, octagons, ellipses, parallelograms and of various others. They are sometimes found within military inclosures, and evidently had some connection with the religious ideas and ceremonies of their builders. Frequently there is situated in the center of this class of works a mound, or elevation, supposed to have served the purposes of an altar upon which sacrifices were offered, or which was, at least, in some way, used in conducting their religious services. Within these sacred inclosures were doubtless celebrated religious festivals, and upon those central mounds or altars were undoubtedly performed, by priestly hands, the rites and ceremonies demanded by their sacrificial and idolatrous religion.
The very extensive works near Newark, known as the "Old Fort," and situated in the fairgrounds, evidently belong to this class, and receive particular attention in another chapter. Some archaeologists, however, maintain that many works called sacred inclosures were erected for and used as places of amusement, where these ancient people practiced their national games, and celebrated their great national events, where they held their national festivals and indulged in their national jubilees, as well as performed the ceremonies of their religion.
It may be that there are those (and there are many such) within which no central elevation or altar occurs, were erected for the purposes last named, and not exclusively (if at all) for purposes
188 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
connected with their religion, and are therefore erroneously called sacred inclosures.
Other ancient peoples, if indeed not all the nations of antiquity, had their national games, amusements, festivals and jubilees, and why not the Mound Builders? Without doubt they had, and congregated within their inclosures to practice, celebrate and enjoy them.
It is natural to indulge in speculations regarding these ancient works. Probably none of them have been constructed since Christopher Columbus reached America in 1492. About sixty years ago a tree which stood upon the bank of the inclosure last named, at a point where the bank was twenty feet high, was cut down, and its concentric circles ; numbered five hundred and fifty, thus proving conclusively that the said inclosure was constructed more than six hundred years ago.,
Authorities differ regarding many matters connected with the Mound Builders, but a few facts seem to be fully established by their works. There can be no doubt that they were a numerous people. Works so elaborate, so gigantic, could not have been erected by a people insignificant in numbers. This is the more apparent when it is considered that they were without iron or any suitable metal instruments or tools with which to perform their herculean labors.
It could scarcely have been otherwise than that they were also the subjects of a single strong government, because, under any other, the performance of such an immense amount of, probably, enforced labor could not have been secured. Very likely some sort of vassalage or servitude prevailed. There is' abundant evidence that they were a war-like people, and probably, like some savage nations now existing, they made slaves of their prisoners. The number and magnitude of their works, and their extensive range and uniformity, prove that they were essentially homogeneous in customs, habits, religion, and government. The general features common to all their remains identify them as appertaining to a single grand system, owing its origin to men moving in the same direction, acting under common impulses, and influenced by similar causes.
That they possessed military skill, and were not without some knowledge of mathematics, is quite evident. Building their defensive works in naturally strong positions, and constructing many of their other works in the form of various geometrical figures, show this. The construction of military works would indicate that they were, occasionally, at least, at war, either among themselves or with some other nation or tribe. If another nation, what other? Perhaps with the North .American Indian to whom the country may have belonged before the Mound Builders entered it: There are various scraps of history relating to the antiquity of the Indian. For. instance, in the annual report of the council of the American Antiquarian society, page 40, occurs this note from Sir Charles Lyell:
"A human cranium, of the aboriginal type of the red Indian race, had been found in the delta of the 'Mississippi, beneath four buried forests, superimposed, one upon another, implying. as estimated by Dr. Dowler, an antiquity of fifty thousand years."
Lyell, himself, estimated the age of the delta at one hundred thousand years. It may be conjectured from many historical facts, that the Mound Builders were a foreign people who invaded the soil of America, as there is but little evidence that they spread themselves over the continent, but much, that they passed through it from northeast to southwest, covering a broad belt, on which they erected their mysterious mounds. The time occupied by them in crossing the continent can only be conjectured. It is a well known historical fact that the Northmen reached the coast of North America from Greenland in 999, A. D. Perhaps the mysterious Mound Builders were no other than these-they came in great numbers, attempted to conquer the country, found the Indians too strong for them, but conquered a certain portion of the .territory, clung together, moved gradually southwest, protecting themselves on the way by forts and other earthworks, finally disappearing in Mexico, either conquering that country or intermingling with and becoming absorbed by that people.
The Mound Builders were doubtless a superstitious people, cherishing faith in some religious system. The amount of labor bestowed upon those of their works that were erected in the interest of their religion, shows a strong tendency
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STONE RELICS
190 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
toward a superstitious belief. They doubtless offered up animals in sacrifice, as a part of their ! religious ceremonies, and it may be that human sacrifices were not unknown among them. Prisoners of war are thus disposed of sometimes by peoples and nations who have attained to as high a grade of civilization as that reached by the Mound Builders. The sacrificial character of their religion is clearly established.
The late Dr. Foster hesitated not to say that they were worshipers of the elements; that they also worshiped the sun, moon and stars; and that they offered up human victims as an acceptable sacrifice to the gods they worshiped. He deduced this fact from the charred or calcined bones that cover their altars. Other high authorities also unhesitatingly assert that there is convincing proof that they were fire-worshipers.
It may be well in this connection to notice, briefly, the implements made and used by this people, especially so far as investigation has revealed their character in Licking county.
Very few copper implements have been found in this part of Ohio, owing partly to the fact o the unexplored condition of many of the mounds, and to the fact that little, if any, copper exists in this part of the United States. What does exist is in loose fragments that have been washed down from the upper lake region. When mounds are explored, great care is necessary lest these small utensils be lost, as they are commonly scattered through the mass, and not always in close proximity to the skeletons. The copper deposits about Lake Superior furnished the pre-historic man with this metal, and, judging from the amount of relics made of this metal now found, it must have been quite abundant. The population of the country, then, must have been quite numerous, as occasional copper implements, tempered to an exceeding hardness, are still found about the country. These implements are small, generally less than half a pound in weight, and seldom exceeding three pounds. There were millions of these in use during the period of the ancient dwellers. which must have been hundreds of years in duration. The copper implements left on the surface soon disappeared by decomposition, to which copper is nearly as liable as iron. Only a part of the dead Mound Builders were placed in burial mounds, and of these only a part were buried with their copper ornaments and implements on and about them. Of those that were, only a small part have been discovered, and, in many instances, the slight depth of earth over them has not prevented the decay and disappearance of the copper relics.
Articles of bronze or brass are not found with
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the builders of the mounds. It is evident they knew nothing of these metals in the Ohio valley, nor did they possess any of the copper that had been melted or cast in molds.
Stone relics are very numerous and well preserved. Stone axes, stone mauls, stone hammers, stone chisels, etc., are very plentiful yet, and were the common implements of the pre-historic man in this part of the west. None were made with holes or eyes for the insertion of a helve or handles, but were grooved to receive a withe twisted into the form of a handle. Under the head of axes, archaeologists include all wrought stones with a groove, a bit and a poll. They are found unpolished, partly polished and polished. The bit was made sharp by rubbing, and the material is hard and tough, generally of trachyte, greenstone, granite, quartz or basalt. Most of them are straight on one edge. In Ohio, it is very rare that stone axes are found in the mounds, indicating that they are modern, or were not so much prized by the Mound Builders as to be objects of burial. Occasionally, axes of softer material are found, such as slate, hematite and sandstone, but these are small in size and not common. They appear to have been manufactured from small, oblong boulders, first brought into shape by a pick, or chipping instrument, the marks of which are visible on nearly all of them. They were made more perfect by rubbing and polishing, probably done from time to time after they were brought into use. A handle or helve, made of a withe or split stick, was fastened in the groove by thongs of hide. The bit is narrower than the body of the axe, which is generally not well enough balanced to be of much value as a cutting instrument.
192 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
It is very seldom the material is hard enough to cut green and sound timber. The poll is usually round, but sometimes flat, and rarely pointed. It is much better adapted to breaking than cutting, while the smaller ones are better fitted for war-clubs than tools. As- a maul to break dry limbs, they were very efficient, which was probably the use made of them. In weight they range from half a pound to sixteen pounds, but are generally less than three pounds. The very heavy ones must have been kept at the regular camps and villages, as they could not have been carried far, even in canoes. Such axes are occasionally found in the Indian towns on the frontier, as they were found in Ohio among the aborigines.. The Mound Builders apparently did not give them as much prominence among their implements as their savage successors. Double-headed hammers have the groove in the middle. They were made of the same material as the axes, so balanced as to give a blow with equal force at either end. Their mechanical symmetry is often perfect. As a weapon in war, they were, indeed, formidable, for which purpose they are yet used among the Indians on the Pacific coast.
Implements, known as " ''fleshers'' and "skinners," chisel-formed, commonly called "celts," were probably used as aids in peeling the skins of animals from the meat and bones. For the purpose of cutting tools for wood, they were not sufficiently hard, and do not show such use, excepting in a few flint chisels. They may have been applied as coal scrapers where wood had been burned; but this could not have been a general thing without destroying the perfect edge most of them now exhibit. The grooved axes were much better adapted to this purpose.
Stone pestles are not plentiful in this county, while stone mortars are rare, indicating that they were made of wood, which is lighter and more easily transported. Most of the pestles are short, with a wide base, tapering toward the top. They were probably used with one hand, and moved about in the mortar in a circle. The long, round instrument, usually called a pestle, does not appear to be fitted for crushing seeds and grain by pounding or turning in the mortar. It was prob-
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ably used as a rolling-pin, perhaps on a board or leveled log, not upon stone. It is seldom found smooth or polished, and varies from seven to thirteen inches in length. In outline they taper toward each end, which is generally smooth, and circular in form, as though it had been twirled in an upright position.
There is almost an endless variety of perforated plates, thread-sizers, shuttles, etc. They are usually made of striped slate, most of which have tapering holes through them flat-wise, the use of which has been much discussed. The accompanying plate exhibits several specimens of these; but there are, doubtless, many other forms and styles. They are generally symmetrical, the material fine grained, and their proportions graceful, as though their principal use was that of ornamentation. Many of them may well have been worn suspended as beads or ornaments. Some partake of the character of badges or ensigns of authority. Others, if strung together on thongs or belts, would serve as a coat of mail, protecting the breast or back against the arrows of an enemy. A number of them would serve to size and twist twine or coarse thread made of bark, rawhide or sinew. The most common theory regarding their use is, how-
194 - HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.
ever, lacking one important feature. None of them show signs of wear by use. The edges of the holes through them are sharp and perfect. This objection applies equally well to their use as suspended ornaments. Some of them are shuttle form, through which coarse threads might have been passed, for weaving rude cloth of bark or of fibrous plants, such as milk-weed or nettles. There are also double-ended and pointed ones, with a cross section about the middle of which is a circle, and through which is a perforation.
A great variety of wands or badges of distinction are found. They are nearly all fabricated from striped and variegated slate, highly finished, very symmetrical and elegant in proportion, evidently designed to be ornamental. If they were stronger and heavier, some of them would serve the purpose of hatchets or battle-axes. The material is compact and fine-grained; but the eyes, or holes, for handles or staves, are quite small, seldom half an inch in diameter. Their edges are not sharp, but rounded, and the body is thin, usually less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness.
The form of badges, known as "double-crescents," are the most elegant and expensive of any yet brought to notice. They were probably used to indicate the highest rank or office. The single crescent, perhaps, signified a rank next below the double. In Mr. John B. Matson's* collection there is a rough-hewn double one in process of construction, the horns of which turn inward. In nearly or quite all the finished ones the points turn outward. The finish around the bore of all winged badges and the crescents is the same, and the size of the bore about -the -same-from two-fifths to three-fifths of an inch. On one side of all is a narrow ridge; on the other, a flat band, lengthwise, like a ridge that has been ground down to a width of one to two-tenths of an inch. Badges
"Mr. Matson resides in Springfield township, Richland county, not far from Spring Mills. He has one of the largest and finest col