Adams County, Ohio - Chapter 25, 1880

Chapter 25

Far back in the dim ages of the past, this land teemed with a busy population, and Adams county was adorned with beautiful fields that were covered with luxuriant crops of golden grain, that supplied the inhabitants with an ample sustenance. Their dwellings dotted the valleys or nestled near the ravines that cut gaps into the lulls, through which llowcd streams of pure crystal water, that subserved the uses and ministered to tho comforts of the people. Happy children with gleeful mirth, gamboled in the bright sunshine over the fields or through the groves, or perchance climbed the steeps to gather tho wild flowers t lint so c»- | ticingly> looked out from their quiet abodes. Domestic animals lazily grazed the rich pastures, or leisurely climbed the slopes to browse the herbage there. We can gladly hope that in these early days, which reached back almost to creation's morn, when the earth was new and bright, that man was not yet stained with crime, not* his hands dyed in the blood of bis fellow man, but each could sit under his own fig tree, with none to molest or or make him afraid. # There is reason to believe that their days were happily and pleasantly spent in the peaceful occupation of providing for their wants, and in offering sacrifices and supplicacations to their deities. Age on age circled away over this happy and contented people, but a change was to come at last. Dire calamities of some kind, at length overwhelmed the the land, and the people who hud occupied it so long, were destroyed, but whether by pestilence, famine, or whether exterminated or driven from it, by some cruel and savage enemy, is not known. It is probable that the latter was the case, that the inhabitants alter offering all the resistance in then* power, were compelled to give way to the superior force of a relentless foe, and as they retired before the invaders, the fleeing exiles doubtlessly cast many longing, sorrowing looks behind upon the homes they were forced to leave, and the land they were to see no more.

The conquerors, whoever they may have been, seem not to have occupied or improved the country they had wrested from its occupants, but left it to relapse into wilderness again. Centuries have since rolled their courses over these Elysian fields, which have long ago, again been covered with dense forest*, while not a trace or vestige of their habitations remain - all have disappeared before the great destroyer - Time.

This people have left no trace of their history, except what can be gathered from the remains of their works, that have survived the wreck of time ; and even these memorials of departed nations are fast being obliterated hv the ruthless hands of those who have finally succeeded to the heritage of the vanished races. These successors who boast of their refinement, high civilization and Christianity, not satisfied with the vandal destruction of the works left by these pre-historic people, have, with sacriligious hands, invaded the quiet sanctuaries of the dead, and with the plowshare, remorselessly exhumed the remains of the silent sleeper's beneath the soil. Many of the burial grounds of the sleeping dead have been converted into fields, where acres are to-day, literally covered with fragments of human hone, that lie bleaching upon the surface, and which fertilize the soil and cause it to bring forth larger crops, to fill the coffers of the living. O, shame! where is thy blush !

Although generation after generation of the Mound Builders here lived and flourished, and peradventure reached the acme of their glory, then passed through age after age of decadence ami decrepitude, into the receptacle of things lost upon earth, without transmitting to us of these latter days anything that can properly he called history; and though no record ot their exploits has come down to us through the intervening centuries, yet their still enduring works furnish the laborious student some indications, even though they be slight, of the peculiarities and characteristics of their builders, and afford us some data as to the probable history they made during the unknown, perchance barren, uneventful cycles of their long career as a nation or race. As the history of the Mound Builders is as yet au unwritten one, it is a matter of gratulation that so many waymarks and traces of them yet remain. By the aid of their still remaining works wc are able to gather much of their manners, habits and customs, their general characteristics, their mode of life, the extent of their knowledge of the arts, their husbandry, their state of civilization, their religion and its rites.

Mounds, enclosures and other works of t, ,>sc pre-historic people were built for various specific purposes differing from each other somewhat according to the uses for which they were designed.

An Ancient Work

On the farm of Samuel McCluug, in the northern part of Tiffin township, Adams county, O , is a circular enclosure of about thirty acres, that is undoubtedly a work of the, Mound Builders. It is almost,^. dot quite, an exact circle, and hears evidence of great antiquity. Mink or Town run passes nearly centrally through it from west to cast. This stream is somewhat rocky or stony, and the embankments of tho work, which extend at right angles with the ravine are to a considerable distance oil cither side of the run, filled with stone promiscuously 'intermingled with earth. Some of these rocks arc as heavy as two mea can carry, and were doubtless transported by baud from the creek to the piano they occupy in tho walls, until the distance became greater than the workmen liked to carry them in this mantier, after which tho embankment appear** to have been made mainly of earth, with a few scattering stones, such as were, |>crhnps, gathered along the line of the works thrown up.

Those portions of the wall in which stone is Jfccelv used, are much hotter preserved than tho parts built of earth. Although full grown forest trees now cover the former, the embankment vet remains two or tlirce fool above tl\c original surface oftlio ground, while tliosc portions constructed of earth, are ill some jilaees scarcely traceable. Tlicso cmbanknibuls wore, doubtless originally, of considerable height, but the wear of time during the unnumbered centuries that have passed by sinco they wore built, has nearly obliterate i them. They bear unmistakable evideuce of great antiquity.

Tho only gateway or entrance to this work that we discovered, was on tho west side, where the creek outers tho enclosure. The walls on cither side of tho stream, instead of terminating abruptly as they approach it, aro, as it were, bent round to tho outside in a circle, till they reach the embankment behind, making the ends of the walls at the gateway, terminate in a circular nub turned outward. Thcso circles arc 40 or 45 feet in diameter. The gateway is over 100 paces in width. On tho outside of this work, some twenty rods east of it, are five or six small low mounds, one of which has been examined by Mr. McClung to the depth of four or fi ve feet, but nothing was found.

Inside of the enclosure, not far from its eastern wall, is a small mound, that before the land was cleared, was some six feet high, and twenty or thirty feet in diameter at the base. This is in a field belonging to Mr. Trcber, that cuts off a segment of the circle, containing about two acres. It is now nearly leveled by the plow. By digging into it Mr. McClung found charcoal and ashes, and apart of a broken pot of earthenware, but lie has suffered them to be lost.