A History of Jackson County, Ohio

^ Gc M.U 977.101 J13w v.i ; 1217096 I n«=:NE:AL.OGY COULECTIONf ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00827 1659 //Iciultjj /QuyiJci^ 6^64xiJE^ A HISTORY Jackson County, Ohio D. A^^. A\^II.I.IAMS Volume I. THE SCIOTO Salt Springs JACKSON, OHIO 1900 1217096 PREFACE. The preparation of this work has been a labor of love. It was undertaken not for profit, but for the pleasure which I derive from the study of the past. I have been urged to write a complete history of Jackson county. The material for such a work has been collected, but its publication will depend upon the reception ac- corded to this volume, which is devoted to the period from the advent of man to the sale of the Scioto Salt Springs. Jackson, O., May 22, 1900. INTRODUCTION—Jackson is the seat of justice of an Ohio county of the same name. It is situated on an eastern branch of the Scioto river, in latitude 39 degrees, 15 minutes, north, and longitude 82 degrees, 41 minutes and 48 seconds, west. It was laid out in 1817, on the north half of Section 29, in the Scioto Salt Reserve. This township had been set aside by Congress May 18, 1796, on account of the salt springs within its limits. These springs or licks, are as old as the hills, for that erosion which carved out the valleys between, exposed the strata from which they flow. They were discovered by the wild animals of the forest, and became one of their most favored resorts long before man appeared upon the earth. No better evidence of this is needed than the great quantity of fossil remains of extinct animals, which have been discovered from time to time in the neighborhood of the licks. FOSSIL BONES—The story of the bones found imbedded in the valley of Salt creek forms an important chapter in the history of these licks. Fragments have been found in nearly all the wells, cisterns, miueshafts and railroad excavations in the lowland adjoining them. The greater number had decayed, but many of the larger bones were so well preserved that some of them were easily identified as having belonged to the mammoth, the mastodon, the megatherium and other large animals of the prehistoric period. According to Hildreth, the Scioto Saline may be ranked with the Big Bone and Blue Licks in Kentucky for antiquity, from the fact of the fossil bones of the mastodon and elephant being found at the depth of thirty feet, imbedded in mud and clay. The remains of several of these extinct animals were discovered in digging wells for salt water, along the margin of the creek, consist- ing of tusks, grinders, ribs and vertebrae, showing this creek to have been a noted resort for these huge mammalia. The bones of the mammoth predominated in the deposits discovered. THE MAMMOTH—This name was probably borrowed from the Russian, although some claim that it is a corruption of the Arabic word, behemoth. In modern usage it is applied to an ex- 5 History of Jackson County. tinct form of elephant. It dillered greatly from the elephant of today, for it had a thick coat of hair, or wool, which enabled it to withstand the great cold of the Ice Age. The Scioto Licks were situated south of the Glacier, and a remnant of the mammoth may have survived in their neighborhood until after the close of the Glacial Period. There is a local tradition related by an old Indian chief to some of the early salt boilers, which confirms this belief. It is the story of the death of the "Big Buffalo.'' Seeing a pile of bones which had been thrown out of a salt well, he explained that they belonged to the Big Buffalo. The whites questioned him further, and he gladly told the whole story, as follows: ' ''Long before the Shawanese came into this land to hunt the buffalo, deer, elk and bear, there was a great water, which filled all the valleys and covered all the low ground and even the tops of the low hills. The water had come slowly from everywhere and flowed in where it had never been before. It drowned all the beaver houses, and was deep over the salt springs and licks. The game was all driven out of the low ground and roamed on the hills. The animals were fearful, for the 'Big Buffalo' were on the hills and killed everything before them. The Indians were forced to fly to the highest rocks, where they looked down upon the great water rising all around and threatening to drown the land. The animals did not fear them, but came near them to escape from the Big Buffalo. At last only the toi)S of the hills and ridges appeared above the waters, and it was very cold. The Indians lived in the rocks and the Big Buffalo could not reach them, but they could shoot their arrows and throw their spears at them, and some of them they killed. At last the water began to fall, but there was a lake left, which reached north and south. But the water would not stay. It broke out to the north, and also to the south, with great roaring, making a way through the hills until the water was all gone except a small lake where the salt springs are. The Big Buffalo went into this lake to drink and became fast in the mud and died there, and their bones are deep in the ground. When the Big Buffalo were all gone, the animals which had fled before them, came back, and the Shawanese came here to hunt them, until the white man forced them to make their home near the Big Lakes."^ History of Jackson County. A JACKSON COUNTY MAMMOTH—No perfect specimen of this animal has been found in the immediate neighborhood of the iicks, but the last resting place of one was found in 1835, on a branch of Salt creek, not many miles away. An examination of the remains was made by Caleb Briggs in 1837. His report has been preserved and is as follows: About two years ago, 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 indi- viduals 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 to ascertaining the situation and the nature of the materials in which they were found. The explorations were successful. There were found some mutilated and decayed fragments of the skull, two grinders, two patellae, seven or eight ribs, as many vertebrae and a tusk. Most of these are nearly perfect, except the bones of the head. The tusk, though it retained its natural shape as it lay in the' ground, yet being very 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 feet 9 inches; on the inner curve, 8 feet 9 inches; circumstances at base, 1 foot 9 inches; 2 feet from base^ 1 foot 10 inches; 4 feet from base, 1 foot 11 inches; iVz feet from base, 1 foot 7^/^ inches. This tusk weighed, when taken from the earth, 180 pounds. The weight of the largest tooth is 8 1-4 pounds. 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 section carefully taken on the ground will give a correct idea of the arrangement of the materials, and the relative position in which these interesting fossils were found. No. 1 is a yellowish clay, or loam, which now forms the surface of a swamp about one mile in length, and one-fourth to half a mile History of Jackson County. in breadth; it is covered with large forest trees, many of which from their size must have been growing some centuries—5 1-2 feet. No. 2. This laj^er 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 partially cemented with iron—4 to 8 inches. No. 4 is a chocolate colored clay or 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 feet. No. 6 is the stratum containing the bones. It consists, judg- ing from external characters, of sand and clay, containing a large proportion of animal and vegetable matter—1 to 1 1-2 feet. Those 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.

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