TUSCARAWAS COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: County history (published 1888) Part 1 *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Submitted by: MRS GINA M REASONER Email: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com Date: August 5, 1999 *********************************************************************** HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1888 TUSCARAWAS COUNTY - PART 1 TUSCARAWAS COUNTY was formed from Muskingum, February 15, 1808. The name is that of an Indian tribe, and in one of their dialects signifies "open mouth." This is a fertile, well-cultivated county, partly level and partly rolling and hilly. Iron ore, fire clay and coal abound. It was first permanently settled about the year 1803, by emigrants from Western Virginia and Pennsylvania, many of whom were of German origin. Area about 520 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 131,347; in pasture, 114,83; woodland, 58,165; lying waste, 5,638; produced in wheat, 480,585 bushels; rye, 2,585; buckwheat, 663; oats, 552,788; barley, 1,995; corn, 652,929; broom corn, 1,000 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 43,758 tons; clover hay, 7,627; flaxseed, 15 bushels; potatoes, 109,672; butter, 635,400 lbs.; cheese, 812,114; sorghum, 1,946 gallons; maple syrup, 1,683; honey, 5,645 lbs; eggs,550,117 dozen; grapes, 8,730 lbs.; wine, 370 gallons; sweet potatoes, 191 bushels; apples, 24,787; peaches, 15,998; pears, 1,307; wool, 381,026 lbs; milch cows owned, 10,781. Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888: Coal, 546,117 tons, employing 870 miners and 134 outside employees; iron ore, 33,287 tons; fire clay, 21,950 tons. School census, 1888, 15,370; teachers, 304. Miles of railroad track, 163. CENSUS CENSUS TOWNSHIPS 1840 1880 Auburn 1,400 Bucks 1,547 1,129 Clay 864 1,293 Dover 2,247 4,107 Fairfield 866 814 Franklin 1,166 Goshen 1,885 5,226 Jefferson 992 1,258 Lawrence 1,523 1,723 Mill 1,225 5,514 Oxford 826 1,968 Perry 1,381 1,208 Rush 1,293 1,037 Salem 1,121 2,457 Sandy 1,415 1,864 Sugar Creek 1,450 1,462 Union 945 714 Warren 1,173 869 Warwick 864 1,525 Washington 978 1,089 Wayne 2,142 1,295 York 865 1,080 Population of Tuscarawas in 1820 was 8,328; 1830, 14,298; 1840, 25,632; 1860, 32,463; 1880, 40,198; of whom 32,753 were born in Ohio; 1,716 Pennsylvania; 262 Virginia; 198 New York; 136 Indiana; 32 Kentucky; 2,073 German Empire; 442 England and Wales; 356 Ireland; 153 Scotland; 49 British America; 41 France, and 5 Sweden and Norway. Census, 1890, 466,618. PALAEOLITHIC MAN IN OHIO. In the beginning of our first volume is an article by Prof. G. Frederick Wright, entitled "Glacial Man in Ohio," and in Hamilton County more upon the same general subject. In October, 1889, a discovery, by Mr. W.C. Mills, was made in Tuscarawas county, which helps to confirm the conclusions of Mr. Wright as to the existence of man in Ohio in the glacial era, say 8 to 10,000 years ago. Mr. Wright, in The Nation, for April 24, 1890, gave the following paper upon this discovery, dated at Oberlin ten days previously: Two or three weeks ago Mr. W.C. Mills, Secretary of the Archaeological Society of New Comerstown, Tuscarawas county, Ohio, sent to me a flint implement which, according to his description, seemed to have been found in the undisturbed gravel of the glacial terrace which everywhere lines the valley of the Tuscarawas river. In order the more fully to judge of the significance of the discovery, I visited the locality last week, together with a small party of Cleveland gentlemen. The result of the investigation cannot fail to be of considerable public interest. The flint implement referred to is a perfect representative of the palaeolithic type found in Northern France and Southern England. It is four inches long, two inches wide, and an inch and a half through at its larger end, tapering gradually to a point and carefully chipped to an edge all round. Fig. 472 in Evans's "Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain" would pass for a very good representation of it. The material is black flint, or chert, such as occurs in the "Lower Mercer" limestone strata not many miles away, and has upon all the surface that peculiar glazed appearance which indicates considerable age. New Comerstown is situated upon the right bank of the Tuscarawas river, about one hundred miles directly south of Cleveland and forty miles south of the glacial boundary in Ohio. The latter part of the journey from the north to reach the place is such a complete demonstration of the now accepted theory concerning the origin of the terraces along this river, and others similarly situated, that a brief description of it will be profitable. The headwaters both of the Tuscarawas itself and of the several branches which unite with it before reaching Canal Dover are all within the glaciated area, thus affording access to an unlimited quantity of debris brought by the continental ice-sheet from the Laurentian region in Canada. Immediately below the glacial boundary, all these streams are bordered with extensive terraces, the material of which consists of assorted matter from the glacial drift such as would naturally have been carried down during the closing floods of the glacial period. From Canal Dover to New Comerstown the Tuscarawas river makes a long bend to the east, but the railroad cuts across the elbow, and for twenty miles or more finds its way through two small valleys tributary to the main line of drainage. The course of the railroad first strikes up the valley of Stone creek, following it for several miles. But no sooner does it enter this tributary valley than it leaves behind the terraces and other gravel deposits which mark the main valley and every tributary farther north. At length the road, after passing through a tunnel, strikes into the headwaters of Buckhorn creek, which runs southward to join the Tuscarawas at New Comerstown. Here, too, for several miles, there is a total absence of terraces or of any deposits of gravel. On approaching the mouth of the creek, however, a vast gravel deposit derived from the northern drift is encountered, in which the railroad company is making extensive excavations to get material for ballasting their track. Thus, in this short journey, there was demonstrated before our eyes the limitation of these peculiar gravel deposits to the main valley of the river, and so, by consequence, their glacial age and origin. It was in this last-named gravel-bank on the 27th of October, 1889, that Mr. Mills found the palaeolith above described. The surface of the terrace is at this point thirty-five feet above the flood-plain of the Tuscarawas. The valley of the river is about a mile wide. This gravel had been deposited in a recess at the mouth of Buckhorn creek, where it was protected from subsequent erosion, and extended up the creek about a quarter of a mile, but, according to the law of such deposits, with gradually diminishing height as one recedes from the main line of deposition. The implement was found by Mr. Mills himself, in undisturbed strata, fifteen feet below the surface of the terrace; thus connecting it, beyond question, with the period when the terrace itself was in process of deposition, and adding another witness to the fact, the man was in the valley of the Mississippi while the ice of the glacial period still lingered over a large part of its northern area. The importance of this discovery is enhanced by the fact that this is only the fifth locality in which similar discoveries have been made in this country, the other places being Trenton, N.J., Madisonville, Ohio, Medora, Ind., and Little Falls, Minn. But in many respects this is the most interesting of them all, especially as connected with previous predictions of my own in the matter, though it is proper to say that Mr. Mills was not, at the time he made the discovery, aware of what had been written on the subject. When in 1882, after having surveyed the glacial boundary across Pennsylvania, I continued a similar work in Ohio, I was at once struck with the similarity of the conditions in the various streams in Ohio flowing out the glaciated region (and especially in the Tuscarawas river), to those in the Delaware river, where Dr. C.C. Abbott had reported the discovery of palaeolithic implements at Trenton, N.J. Attention was called to this similarity in various periodicals at the time, as well as in my Report upon the Glacial Boundary made to the Western Reserve Historical Society in 1883 (pp. 26, 27), where it was said that the Ohio abounds in streams situated similarly to the Delaware with reference to glacial terraces, and that "the probability is that if he (man) was in New Jersey at that time (during the deposition of the glacial terraces), he was upon the banks of the Ohio, and the extensive terrace and gravel deposits in the southern part of the State should be closely scanned by archaeologists. When observers become familiar with the rude form of these palaeolithic implements, they will doubtless find them in abundance." Whereupon a dozen streams, among them the Tuscarawas, were mentioned in which the conditions were favorable for such investigations. The present discovery, therefore, coming as it does in addition to those of Dr. Metz int the Little Miami valley and of Mr. Cresson in the valley of White river, Ind., has great cumulative weight, and forces, even on the most unwilling, the conviction that glacial man on this continent is not a myth, but a reality. A glance at the physical features of the region in Ohio and Indiana where these palaeoliths have been found, shows their eminent adaptation to the primitive conditions of life indicated by the implements themselves. The Tuscarawas valley has been formed by erosion through the parallel strata of sandstone and limestone here composing the coal formation. The summits of the hills on either side rise to heights of from 300 to 500 feet, and their perpendicular faces abound even now with commodious shelters for primitive man. But in pre-glacial times the trough of the Tuscarawas was 175 feet deeper than at present, that amount of glacial gravel having been deposited along the bottom, thus raising it to its present level. Hence in pre-glacial times the opportunities for shelter must have been much superior even to those which are now in existence. The present forests of the region consist of beech, oak, tulip, maple and other deciduous trees. Evergreens are now totally absent, but the advancing ice of the glacial period found here vast forests of evergreen trees. Not many miles distant, terraces of the same age, with this at New Comerstown have, within recent years yielded great quantities of red-cedar logs, still so fresh as to be manufactured into utensils for household use. The relation of glacial man to the mound-builders is so often made a subject of inquiry that a brief answer will here be in place. The above relic of man's occupancy of Ohio was found in the glacial terrace, and belongs to a race living in that distant period when the ice-front was not far north of them, and when the terraces were in process of deposition. Thus this race is unquestionably linked with the great ice age. The mound-builders came into the region at a much later date, and reared their imposing structures upon the surface, of these terraces, when the settled conditions of the present time had been attained, and there is nothing to show that their occupancy began more than one or two thousand years since, while their implements and other works of art are of an entirely different type from the rude relics of the palaeolithic age. If, therefore, interest in a work of art is in proportion to its antiquity, this single implement from New Comerstown, together with the few others found in similar conditions, must be ranked among the most interesting in the world, and will do much to render North America a field of archaeological research second to no other in importance. -conintued in part 2 *************OH-FOOTSEPS Mailing List***************************