OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 18A ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 March 9, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio By Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - Part 18 A +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Facts on Honey The honeybee has been found in Asia and Europe for hundreds of years and was not found in North America until the 1600's when the bee was brought to the colonies. The Native American called the honey bee " White Man's flies. " It was not easy to keep the honeybee in a confined environment at first, as it was needed to help pollinate the crops. Therefore the bee was permitted to roam free and build its hives where it may be suitable. Perferredly in hollow trees. The bees provided the pioneer with their sweet necter with the purest of honey from the honeycomb. It was not only used for cooking or sweetening, but was also used for medicinal purposes. Honey is a natural energy restorer when it was used with a teaspoonful in warm water. It contains water, pollen, fructose, glucose and enzimes, It was also used to help heal small wounds when it was applied to a bandage, and helped to prevent scarring and quick healing of the skin. The pioneer used honey with hot water for dissolving mucus when they had a cold for the children, adding a little rum for adults. When a hive was found, precious honey for the cooking was harvested by the most experienced harvestor of the family. It was used as a sweetner in many foods and the honey was kept in closed containers, and could be kept for indefinate amount of time. The bees wax was also used in the making of candles. Colors of Honey White color is from clover and alfalfas Very light Amber color is from Wildflowers Light Amber color is from Orange Blossoms. Plain Amber color is from Buckwheats The colors comes from the nectar of the plants The lightest colors have the mildest flavors, while the darkest colors have fuller flavors. Honey mixed with home churned sweet butter was loved by all on special occasions in the Ohio home. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Salt Springs in the Western Reserve Salt was a precious commodity in the pioneer days, and was sought after as gold and oil are today. Both Indians and settlers used salt to preserve and cure meats and for medicinal purposes; the settlers also used it to harden lye soap as well as a leavening agent for bread They were on the lookout for salt springs as a source for salt, otherwise they had to transport it overland from the sea, an arduous task and expensive alternative. The history of Mineral Ridge, the history of Weathersfield Township, and the histories of Trumbull and Mohoning Counties all begin at the Salt Springs. " Mahoning " is an Indian name for a salt lick. In prehistoric times salt licks attracted mammals such as mammoths and mastodons. Geologists have found fossils in Kentucky at Big Bone Licks and in southern Ohio at the Scioto Salt Springs. Salt licks also attacted Indians, not only for the good hunting, but also for the salt itself. On Salt Springs Road, where four springs spread over two to three acres, Indians boiled the sightly sulphurous water in pottery vessels until the water evaporated and nothing was left but salt. Fur traders were familiar with the Salt Springs, as they traded furs with the indians for brass and iron kettles for boiling salt. The springs were noted on a map printed in 1755 by Benjamin Franklin. The first settlers to arrive paddled their canoes and flat boats from Pittsburg to the Beaver River and up the Mahoning River, which was 1/2 mile north of the Salt Springs. The settlers cut down trees for firewood and built cabins where they lived while boiling salt. The camp became a gathering place for a colorful group of salt boilers, settlers, ruffians, traders, and indians. Famous for salt and the springs became infamous for murders and drunken brawls. During the Revolutionary War, General Hand, who was in charge of the American forces at Pittsburg, heard a false report that the British were storing supplies at the Salt Spings camp. In what became known facetiously as the " Squaw Campaign, " General Hand and his troops proceeded to the Salt Springs, where they attacked the peaceful indians who were boiling salt and killed three squaws and a young boy. In 1796, Kribs, a storekeeper for traders Duncan & Wilson was murdered by Indians and his body eaten by wolves. In another incident that nearly set off an indian uprising was when Joseph McMahon and Richard Story shot and killed Captain George, a Tuscarawan. and Spotted John, a Seneca, who was partly white. Story fled the area. McMahon's trial in 1800 resulted in his acquittal on self defense; ironically, he was reportedly killed by Indians while returning from a campaign during the war of 1812. The land around the Salt Springs was prime real estate; it was cleared; Pittsburg was comparatively close by; and a salt boiler could make a fortune. Samuel Holden Parsons knew a good deal when he saw one. He was a prominent lawyer from an influential Connecticut family and had been a General in the Revolutionary War. As one of the first judges of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, he was familiar with the area. In 1788 Parsons organized a syndicate to purchase 25,000 acres at 50 cents an acre from the State of Connecticut, reserving 4,000 acres around the Salt Springs for himself. In November 1789 Parsons drowned on his way home to Marietta when his canoe overturned at Beaver Falls rapids. Parson's purchase was the only land sold by Connecticut before it sold the entire Western Reserve-- 5,000 square miles -- to the Connecticut Land Co. in 1795. The Connecticut Land Co. surveyed and divided the land into Townships five miles squares. Weathersfield Township beame Township Three of Range three of the Connecticut Western Reserve. In 1809, Warren was elected county seat of the Western Reserve. In 1810, salt boilers discovered that if they drilled 100 feet or more, they could find a higher concentrate of salt. This discovery brought an end to making salt from weak surface salt springs. The first industry in Weathersfield township was also related to salt, as it was used in making glazed earthenware. In 1816 two potteries were built near the Salt Springs. They used firebrick clay found near the springs; however, the potteries moved when better clay was found elsewhere. Although salt boiling was at this site at an end, the Salt Springs still attracted people in search of what they considered medicinal water. The Niles Company built a 40 room health resort next to the Salt Springs. It was an ambitious project that called for building a road down a canyon that ran from the Saly Springs to the river, a spring house, a bath house, boat launches and a wharf. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Influence of Salt Availability on Mankind To appreciate the importance and significance of the Scioto Salt Springs, one has to think back beyond 160 years before salt became a common item. You have to go back in time when people had to rely on natural flowing salt springs at inland locations. Sucessful drilling for richer brines about 1810 marked an end to the boiling of weak surface salt springs. Prehistoric Animals The Scioto Salt Springs are but thirty miles from the glacial front and behind a range of hills which would provided somewhat of a barrier to the chilling ice. This fact plus the availability of low arctic vegetation and the salt springs made conditions favorable for the survival of prehistoric mammals. Extensive research in Kentucky at Big Bone Licks has related the above condition to the common occurrence of these extinct creatures who left their bones engulfed in the mud, clay, and gravel at their common meeting grounds-- the salt licks. Among the animals listed are: mammoths, mastodons, peccaries, tapirs, Arctic bear, elk, and the phylum of major and minor fauna. Over the hundreds of thousands of years of the existence of these prehistoric animals, the Scioto Salt Springs was an attraction to them, because there are ample records of their bones being commonly found in digging salt wells in the alluvium. The Ohio Geological Report of 1838 contains, probably, the most complete and authentic description of prehistoric animals in relation to the Scioto Salt Springs. The geologist, C. Briggs, Hildreth, and others obtained detaled information directly from their learned friend, George L. Crookham. Crookham, a naturalist, teacher and scholar had had the opportunity of examining the many fossil bones and whatever other curiosities the early salt boilers found in the Salt Springs neigborhood. The geological corp in 1837/38, no doubt, quizzed him avidly and felt assured of his accurate observations. Briggs and the other geologists had the thrill, themselves to unearth the remains of a mammoth skeleton which had been on the way or leaving the Scioto Salt Springs. They learned of the finding of some bones on a branch of Salt Creek in the northern part of Jackson County about two years previously to the time of their survey ( circa 1836 ). Their subsequent research on the site and recorded observations will be most useful in analyzing the potential for finding similar fossil bones today. Geologists are stratification experts and, in this case, may have provided the clue to findings in the valley at Jackson. It will be observed in the quotation below from Briggs' report, and his description later in this report that it was found that the Sharon conglomerate rock which is in the bed of the stream at Boone Rocks dips rapidly to the eastward. They discovered this in digging wells to procure a more plentiful quantity of salt water. Briggs explains that the " mud wells " were in stratified layers of clay, sand, and gravel, to a depth of 30 feet. He says that these occupy a basin-shaped cavity in the conglomerate which they indentified as the " rock salt." " The brine," he states, " without a doubt, was produced by the percolation of water through the rock into this reservoir." The stratification record which is called attention to is that record in a plate in the 1838 Geological Report which shows mammoth bones under a stratified layer of clays of various characteristics. These gentlemen successfully dug and recorded their findings at the site of the mammoth find in the north-west part of the country. As before observed, some of the salt wells in Jackson county were dug in a depsit of caly, sand, and gravel, occupying a basin-saped cavity in the superior part of the conglomerate. In nearly all these wells were found fossil bones, consisting of jaws, teeth, tusks, vertebrae, and ribs, which, from the discriptions given by Mr. Crookham, belong to extinct species of animals. >From his discriptions, remains of the megatherium, and of the fossil elephant, were among the number. As reported; " In the early spring, some bones, so large as to attract the attention of the inhabitants, became exposed in the bank of one of the branches of Salt creek, in the northwest part of Jackson county . They were dug out by individuals in the vicinity, from whom we obtained a tooth, a part of the lower jaw, and some ribs. In the examinations at this place, during the past season, it was concluded to make further explorations, not only with the hope of finding other bones, but with a view of ascertaining the situation, and the nature of the materials, in which they are found. The mutilated and decayed fragments of the skull, two grinders, two patellae, seven or eight ribs, as many vertebrae, and a tusk. Many of these are nearly perfect, except the bones of the head. The tusk, though it may be frail, it was necessary to saw it into four pieces, in order to remove it. The following are the dimensions of the tusk, taken before it was removed from the place in which it was found: Length on the outer curve... 10 ft 9 " Length inner curve ... 8 ft 9" Circumference at base ... 1 ft 9 " Circumference 2 ft from base... 1 ft 10" Circumference 4 ft from base... 1 ft 11" Circumference 7.5 ft from base..1 ft 7.5" This tusk weighed, when taken from the earth, 180 lbs. The weight of the largest tooth is under 8-1/4 lbs. These bones were dug from the bank of a creek, near the water, where they were found under a superincumbent mass of stratified materials 15 to 18 feet in thickness. The arrangement of these materials, and the relative position in which these intereting fossils were found in the following layers; No.1 is a yellowish clay, or loan, which now forms the surface of swamp about one mile in length, and one -fourth to half a mile in breadth. It is covered with large forest trees, many of which from their size, must have been growing many centuries-- 5-1/2 feet. No 2. This layer is a yellowish sandy clay. 7-1/2 feet. No.3. is an irregular layer of ferruginous sand, tinged with shades of red and yellow, and pertially cemented with iron-- 4 to 8 inches. No. 4. is a chocolate colored clay of mud, the inferior part of which contains the remains of a few gramineous plants, very much decayed.--2 feet. No. 5. Sandy clay, colored like No.4, but a little lighter-- 1-1/2 foot. No.6. is the stratum containing the bones. It consistes, judging from external characters, of sand and clay, containing a large proportion of animal and vegetable matter-- 1 to 1-1/2 foot. These bones, from their position, had evidently been subjected to some violence before they were covered with the stratified deposits which have been described. The jaw and grinders, with the other bones which we have thus slightly noticed, evidently belong to an extinct species of the elephant, now found in a fossil state. As the teeth differ from any which are figured and described in the books to which I have access at the present time. It is possible they may belong to an undescribed species." The full effects of the glacial period was quite unknown to the primary geologists of Ohio. They surmised that drainage patterns had been altered and subsequent depositions partially filled older valleys. They did not realize the extent of interglacial flooding which filled pre-glacial valleys, including that of Salt Lick Creek. As at Big Bone Lick, there would have been a backwater into the tributaries of the Scioto or earlier Teays River. These periods of deposition left indentifiable stratifications-- many remains of trees, and other vegetation and animal entrapments. Briggs' detailed description of these 15 to 18 feet of stratification materials under which the mammoth skeleton was unearthed is a perfect clue to matching strata which might be found in the immediate vicinity of the salt springs at Jackson. Bones and tree parts have been found in deep-buried clay strata in the Hocking and Scioto Valleys which drained from glacial front. There should be a relationship between the post-glacial deposits at the mammoth site and the salt springs with relation to the possibility of finding other buried fauna. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 18 B.