OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 354 Today's Topics: #1 HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 2 [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] ------------------------------ X-Message: #1 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:49:57, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: HAMILTON COUNTY - PART 2 HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898 HAMILTON "But the whole tale is not yet told. Not once only did these tremendous floods occur. In the ensuing winter the dam was repaired by the advancing ice, relieved from the melting effects of the sun and of the floods. Year after year was this conflict repeated. How often we cannot tell. But there came at last a summer when the Cincinnati dam was broken for the last time; when the winter with its snow and ice failed to renew it, when the channel remained permanently clear, and Lake Ohio had disappeared forever from the geography of North America. How many years or ages this conflict between the lake and the dam continued it is quite impossible to say, but the quantity of wreckage found in the valley of the lower Ohio, and even in that of the Mississippi, below their point of junction, is sufficient to convince us that it was no short time. 'The Age of Great Floods' formed a striking episode in the story of the 'Retreat of the Ice.' Long afterwards must the valley have borne the marks of these disastrous torrents, far surpassing in intensity anything now known on earth. The great flood of 1885, when the ice-laden water slowly rose seventy three feet above low-water mark, will long be remembered by Cincinnati and her inhabitants. But that flood, terrible as it was, sinks into insignificance beside the furious torrents caused by the sudden, even though partial, breach of an ice-dam hundreds of feet in height, and the discharge of a body of water held behind it, and forming a lake of 20,000 square miles in extent. To the human dwellers in the Ohio valley -for we have reason to believe that the valley was in that day tenanted by man -these floods must have proved disastrous in the extreme. It is scarcely likely that they were often forecast. The whole population of the bottom lands must have been repeatedly swept away; and it is far from being unlikely that in these and other similar catastrophes in different parts of the world, which characterized certain stages in the Glacial era, will be found the far-off basis on which rest those traditions of a flood that are found among almost all savage nations, especially in the north temperate zone." MADISONVILLE, eight miles northeast of Cincinnati (in a cross valley about five miles in length, connecting Mill creek with the Little Miami back of Avondale, Walnut Hills and the observatory), is an extremely interesting region, as connected with the glacial period. This valley, or depression, is generally level, from one to two miles wide, and about 200 feet above the low water-mark in the Ohio, and from 200 to 300 feet below the adjacent hills. It is occupied by a deposit of gravel, sand and loam, belonging to the glacial-terrace epoch. In the article, "Glacial Man in Ohio," by Prof. Wright, in Vol. I., page 93, is given a map of this region. The article also speaks of the discoveries of Dr. C.L.Metz of two palaeolithic implements, which prove that man lived in Ohio before the close of the glacial period, say from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, before which there were no Niagara Falls and no Lake Erie. The first implements was found at Madisonville by him, in 1885, while digging a cistern. "In making the excavation for this he penetrated the loam eight feet before reaching the gravel, and then near the surface of the gravel this implement was found. There is no chance for it to have been covered by any slide, for the plain is extensive and level-topped, and there had evidently been no previous disturbance of the gravel." "It is not smoothed, but simply a rudely chipped, pointed weapon about three inches long." The other palaeolith was found by Dr. Metz, in the spring of 1887, in an excavation in a similar deposit near Loveland, some thirty feet below the surface, and near where some mastodon bones had previously been found. It was an oblong stone about six inches long, four and a half inches wide, which had here been chipped all around to an edge. Similar discoveries have since been made in Tuscarawas county. Dr. Metz has favored us with the following article upon discoveries in the mounds and earthworks of the lost race which inhabited this region after the glacial era. They are all upon the surface, being built upon the summits of the glacial-terrace or upon the present flood plains. THE PREHISTORIC MONUMENTS OF HAMILTON COUNTY The territory comprising Hamilton county appears to have been one of the great centres of the aboriginal inhabitants. This is evidenced by the great number of earthworks, mounds and extensive burial places found throughout the county. MOUNDS AND EARTHWORKS. -The mounds and the earhtworks are found most numerous in the valleys of the little and Great Miami and in the region between the Little Miami and Ohio rivers. Of the mounds, 437 have been observed in the county, the largest of which is located on the Levi Martin estate, about one mile east of the village of Newtown. The dimensions of this mound from actual measurements are as follows: Circumference at base, 625 feet; width at base, 150 feet; length at base, 250 feet; perpendicular height, 40 feet. EARTH ENCLOSURES. -Of the earthworks, or enclosures, fifteen in number have been located, the principal ones being the "Fortified Hill" Near the mouth of the great Miami river, figured and described by Squire and Davis in their "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. [see Plate IX., No. 2 Vol. I., Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge], and the very interesting earthworks located on the lands of Mr. Michael Turner, near the junction of the East Ford and Little Miami river in Anderson township, and which the writer takes the liberty to designate as the "Whittlesey and Turner group of works." This group of works was first described by T.C. Day, esq., in a paper entitled "The Antiquities of the Miami Valley." Cincinnati Chronicle, November, 1839, and subsequently, in 1850, were surveyed and described by Col. Charles Whittlesey in Vol. III., Article 7, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Of this work Mr. Days says: "The site of this stupendous fortification, if we may so call it is a few rods to the right of the road leading from Newton to Milford, and about midway between them. It is situated on a ridge of land that juts out from the third bottom of the Little Miami, and reaches within 300 yards of its bed. From the top of the ridge to low water-mark is probably 100 feet. It terminates with quite a sharp point, and its sides are very abrupt, bearing evident marks of having once been swept by some stream of water, probably the Miami. It forms an extremity of an immense bend. Curving into what is now called the third bottom, but which is evidently of alluvial formation. Its probable height is forty feet and its length about a quarter of a mile before it expands out and forms the third alluvial bottom. About 150 yards from the extreme point of this ridge, the ancient workmen having cut a ditch directly through it, it is thirty feet in depth, its length, a semi-circular curve, is 500 feet, and its width at the top is eighty feet, having a level base of forty feet. At the time of its formation it was probably cut to the base of the ridge, but the washing of the rains has filled it up to its present height. Forty feet from the western side of the ditch is placed the low circular wall of the fort, which describes in its circumference an area of about four acres. The wall is probably three feet in mean height, and is composed of clay occasionally mixed with small flat river stone. It keeps at an exact distance from the top of the ditch, but approaches nearer to the edge of the ridge. The form of the fort is a perfect circle, and is 200 yards in diameter. Its western side is defended with a ditch, cut through in the same manner as the one on the eastern side. Its width and depth is the same, but its length is greater by 200 feet, as the ridge is that much wider than where the other is cut through. The wall of this fort keeps exactly the same distance from the top of this ditch as of the other, viz.: forty feet. Its curve is exactly t he opposite of that of the other, so as to form two segments of a circle. At the southeastern side of the fort there is an opening in the wall thirty-six yards wide, and opposite this opening is one of the most marked features of this wonderful monument. A causeway extends out from the ridge about 300 feet in length, 100 feet in width, with a gradual descent to the alluvial bottom at its base. The material of this construction is evidently a portion of the earth excavated from the ditches....."To defend this entrance they raised a mound of earth seven feet high, forty wide and seventy-five long. It is placed about 100 feet from the mouth of the causeway, and is so situated that its garrison could sweep it to its base." The mound above referred to was explored by the writer under the auspices of Prof. F.W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., and we quote from their Sixteenth Annual Report: "The large mound proved a most intere sting structure, unlike anything heretofore discovered. It contained a small central tumulus, surrounded by a carefully built stone-wall and covered in by a platform of stones, over which was a mass of clay. On this wall were two depressions in each of which a body had been laid, and outside the wall in the surrounding clay were found several skeletons, one of them lying upon a platform of stones. With these skeletons were found a copper celt, ornaments made of copper and shell, and two large sea-shells. With each of three skeletons was a pair of the spool-shaped ear ornaments of copper, and in every instance these ornaments were found one on either side near the skull." -continued in part 3 -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #354 *******************************************