Brown County, Ohio - Chapter 1: Physical Features and Pre-Historic Remains, 1883

BROWN COUNTY borders on tbe majestic Ohio, and may properly be termed an Ohio River County; but in the division of the State of Ohio into hydrographic basins it has usually been placed in the Miami Valley. It lies nearly midway between the Little Miami and the Scioto; a small portion of the county is drained by East Fork into the Little Miami; no part of the drainage reaches the Scioto. Nearly all of the surface is drained directly into the Ohio by White Oak, Straight and Eagle Creeks and smaller streams.

The county contains 470 square miles, and is bounded on the north by Clinton, on the east by Highland and Adams, on the west by Clermont, and on the south by the Ohio River. Although not the largest in the State, a longer line can be drawn in it than in any other county in Ohio, the diagonal from the southeast to the northwest corners being about forty-five miles. The county has a different shape from that of any other in the State, about onefourth of its area forming what is popularly called "the boot leg," being from seven to eight miles in width and fifteen in length.

Perhaps no county in Ohio has a more diversified topography or contains a greater variety of soil. Within it are hills so steep and high that they may be called mountains, and large tracts of land marvelously level; extensive areas drained by nature in the most perfect manner, and swamps of vast extent; farms on steep hill-sides, and farms all "wetlands;" black swamps, white swamps and limestone hills; beech lands and oak lands. The county has some of the richest and some of the poorest soil in the State.

The county may be considered as an extensive plain, originally level, and elevated above the Ohio from four hundred to five hundred feet, and having only a slight inclination toward the south. The streams rising in the highest lands have a rapid fall in reaching the Ohio, and have cut for themselves deep channels. Hills as high and steep as those along the Ohio extend some distance up the principal streams which drain the county. The deep channels of these streams are serious impediments in the construction of roads and railways. On account of their rapid descent, the roar of the waters of White Oak Creek is much greater than that of the Miarnis.

Picturesque scenery may be found in the county along the Ohio and the streams which flow into it. Tbe hills along the Ohio are said, perhaps with truth, to be unsurpassed in beauty on the globe. The roads leading from the river to reach the high table- lands pass along the beds of the streams between beautifully undulating hills, now denuded of their forest covering, and furnishing valuable and productive farms for tobacco growing. On the turnpike between Ripley and Georgetown, is an extended view of hilly and broken land. A singularly formed elevation near Georgetown, called Bald Point, commands a beautiful view of the wide and deep-cut channel of the White Oak. This narrow and high ridge is in the bend of the stream; has nearly precipi- tous sides, and on either hand from its crest can be seen the >f the stream three hundred feet below. The Cincinnati road formerly passed over this ridge, but. the way, being both difficult and dangerous for vehicles, was abandoned. The ascent is, however, comparatively easy for the foot passenger, who finds his path strewn with numerous fossils of many species.

The northern portion of the county constitutes a part of an extended fiatlying tract, which takes in portions of Warren, Clermont, Clinton, Brown and Highland, the surface of which is almost a dead level, and was long popularly known as ''the swamps." These swamps have mostly been drained, but the* descent from them is so slight that there are extensive localities in which the water can be taken with nearly equal facility in different directions. In the early settlement of the county, these wet lands were considered worthless; they were called slashes, and were covered with water more than half the summer. A change has taken place in public opinion concerning their value. As the lands have been reclaimed, the soil, which at first was stubborn and intractable, has been found under a wise management to be rich in agricultural possibilities. These swamps, however, long delayed the settlement and improvement of a considerable portion of the county. They long remained covered with the de.:se original forests, which shut out the sun's rays from the surface of ground, and, tying about the sources of the streams, they furnished a constant supply of water for the tributaries of the Ohio which flow through the county.

The soils of the county are of two classes, having distinct origins, viz. , native and foreign. The native soil consists of clays and sands formed by the disintegration of the native limestone rocks, or those immediately underlying the soil. It is chiefly found on the slopes of the hills along the Ohio and its tributary streams, and constitutes a considerable proportion of the southern half of the county. This soil is of great strength and fertility, and is well adapted to the growth of Indian corn and wheat. The famous tobacco lands of this county belong to this class. The foreign soil consists of drift or materials of foreign origin, and is made up of yellow, white and black clays, and alluvium. These different soils were characterized by different kinds of forest growths. The indigenous trees were the best evidence to the early settler of the character, capacity and fertility of the soil. Although there is usually much difference between native and foreign soils, yet as the underlying rock is limestone, and the gravels and sands of the drift are largely composed of the same kind of rock, the foreign soils in this region are largely calcareous.

Geologically, the stratified rocks of the county belong to the Cincinnati Group, the Hudson River Period, the Lower Silurian Age and the Paleozoic Era. On the Ohio River, near the western boundary of the county, may be found rocks which underlie those exposed at Cincinnati. The Point Pleasant beds of Clermont County are the oldest rocks of Ohio. The latest formed strata of the Cincinnati Group may be found in the highlands of Eagle Township. From Point Pleasant, in Clermont County, to the northeastern corner of Brown County, may be found the entire series of strata of the Lower Silurian of Ohio, having a vertical scale of over seven hundred feet. The Niagara formation, or Upper Silurian, of Adams County extends over the western boundary of that county, and embraces the highest lands in the eastern portion of Eagle Township.

The blue limestone strata form the floor of tho county as well as Southwestern Ohio. The name indicates the color of the rocks. The bluish tinge is due to the presence of an oxide of iron. Exposure frequently changes the color to a light gray or drab. Many of stratified rocks of Brown are popularly termed gray limestone. Geologically, however, they all belong to the strata

The drift beds are spread over almost the entire county. They consist of clays, sands, gravels, bowlders, and buried vegetable remains, all of which have been transported by glacial action, or by glaciers and icebergs, a greater or less distance from the places of their origin. These beds vary much in depth, in the materials of which they are composed and in the order in which the layers of different materials are arranged. Fragments of wood are frequently found deeply buried in the drift.

Bowlders are scattered irregularly over the county as well as other portions of the Miami country, and constitute an interesting feature of the surface geology. They are termed erratic rocks, hardheads or grayheads. They are universally recognized as of northern origin. They are composed of rocks foreign not only to the county but to Ohio. All geologists agree that many of them were brought from the Lake Superior region and the Canadian highlands, and that far the largest number have been brought from beyond the great lakes. Prof. J. S. Newberry, late Chief Geologist of Ohio, believes that these bowlders were deposited at a later date than the most recent stratified beds of drift, and that they were floated to their present resting places by icebergs, just as icebergs are now known to transport great quantities of rocks, gravel and sand, sometimes, in the case of a single iceberg, amounting to 100,000 tons.

There are few bowlders of very large size in the county. One of the largest is found in the immediate neighborhood of Fayetteville. The large masses of cliffs which attract the attention of the traveler on the Ohio River hills above Higginsport are not bowlders, but examples of the Drift Conglomerate, and formed of the gravels of the drift cemented through the agency of lime water.

Fossiliferous remains of great beauty and variety are found in abundance throughout the county. Perhaps no locality in Ohio furnishes superior facilities for the study of the ancient living forms inhabiting the seas, at the bottom of which the upper beds of the Lower Silurian were formed. They occur in such numbers and are so perfectly preserved that the most careless observers have their attention directed to them in the stones by the wayside and in the village pavements. They are ofttimes so crowded together as to constitute the chief substance of the rocks. The higher or Lebanon beds especially are very fossiliferous, and consequently less valuable for building purposes.

The ancient remains of Brown County are chiefly mounds, inclosures and cists. It cannot be said that any law governing the arrangement or distribution of these works has been discovered. They are, perhaps, most numerous in the valleys near the Ohio, but they are found on the flat lands in the north of the county, and also on the most inaccessible places. A small mound is situated on the summit of the hill called Bald Point, near Georgetown. Two mounds near the Ohio, not far from Aberdeen, are the largest in the county. The purpose for which the mounds were built is unknown. They may have been surmounted with houses and appproachable only with ladders, or foundations for watch towers and signal stations, or places of worship and sacrifice. A more common view is that the mounds were places of sepulture and memorials raised over the dead, the largest mounds being erected in honor of distinguished personages. The notion that they contain the remains of vast heaps of dead fallen in great battles is wholly unsupported by the facts obtained from excavations and examinations. But one or two skeletons are usually found in these mounds, and where many are found, it is probable that the later Indians, and, in some cases, Europeans, have buried their dead in them. The new Ameri - can Cyclopedia assumes, from facts and circumstances deemed sufficient to enable us to arrive at approximate conclusions concerning the antiquity of the Mound-Builders' records, that we may infer, for most of these monuments in the Mississippi Valley, an age of not less than 2,000 years. "By whom built, whether their authors migrated to remote lands under the combined attractions of a more fertile soil and more genial clime, or whether they disappeared beneath the victorious arms of an alien race, or were swept out of existence by some direful epidemic or universal famine, are questions probably beyond the power of human investigations to answer. History is silent concerning them, and their very name is lost to tradition itself." The inclosures, which seem to have been works of defense, and are commonly called ancient forts, in Brown County are not numerous or important.

There are several pre-historic cemeteries in this county, and in some of them a number of skeletons have been found, and frequently implements in connection with the skeletons. The bodies were usually placed in shallow graves, on the sides and ends of which were placed stones on edge, forming a stone box or cist. It has been doubted by some whether these graves are as ancient as the mounds. They were found both in the northern and southern part of the county, but they attracted most attention at the mouth of Eagle Creek. James Finley, Postmaster at West Union, on February 1, 1809, wrote: "Graves are found in different parts of the county. The bodies are deposited in sepulchers made by digging the grave about three feet wide and walling it up with flat stones. The small bones crumble to dust when touched; the large ones are yet sound. Several of these graves are on the bank of the Ohio just above Eagle Creek. The bank has fallen away, and they appear like the end of a conduit made for the conveyance of water. "

The archaeological remains of Brown County are not so numerous or extensive as those of Ross, Pickaway and Warren Counties; yet here, as in almost the whole of the Ohio Valley, are found traces of a numerous and busy ancient and now extinct race, not of: nomadic tribes, but tillers of the soil, workers in copper mines and builders of extensive towns and works of defense - a people with fixed laws, customs and religious rites. Many of the pre-historic works of the county have been obliterated by the cultivation of the soil, and few of them have been accurately surveyed and described. The ancient remains of other counties in Southern Ohio have attracted more attention from writers on American antiquities than any in Brown. In Adams County is an earthwork representing an enormous serpent 1,000 feet in length, which seems about to swallow an egg-shaped figure 164 feet in length. On the summit of Fort Hill, in Highland County, is an ancient work over half a mile in length, a full description and drawing of which are given by Dr. John Locke in the First Geological Report of Ohio. Fort Ancient, in Warren County, one of the largest and most important of the pre-historic works of defense in the Ohio Valley, has been frequently described.

Among the most interesting archaeological relics are the utensils, implements, weapons and personal ornaments of pre-historic times. It should be borne in mind that, while most writers on American antiquities make a distinction between the Mound- Builders and the tribes the whites found in possession of the country, such a line of demarkation cannot well be drawn with accuracy with respect to the stone, flint and copper relics. Some of these relics may belong to a pre-historic race of the distant past, some to the earliest Indian tribes inhabiting the country, and others to later Indians, whose mechanical arts may have been modified by contact and trade with the whites. It is, therefore, impossible to separate the relics of the Mound-Builders from those of the later races. We cannot refer the copper implements to any particular epoch, nor can we determine when the stone age began or ended. Stone implements have been found associated with the remains of animals long since extinct, yet these implements are not different from those known to have been in use among the savage tribes when first seen by the whites.

The relics now under consideration have been found in as great quantities in this county, perhaps, as in any county in Ohio. With respect to the purposes for which they were designed, they may be divided into utensils for domestic use, implements for handicraft, weapons and ornaments. With respect to the materials from which they were fabricated, they are stone, flint, slate, copper, pottery, bone, horn and shell.

The most common relics are the flint arrow-heads, spear-heads and daggers. Thousands of arrow and spear heads have been picked up in the county. Other flint implements, such as knives and cutting tools, scrapers and borers, have been found. Of stone relics, the most common are axes and hammers, grooved so that a forked branch or split stick could be fastened for a handle; balls more or less round, probably used as hand hammers; pestles for crushing grain, and many ornaments - among them flat perforated tubes of highly polished slate, and various forms of flat stones, polished and perforated. Stone pipes are found of various sizes and construction. Specimens of ancient pottery have not been often found in the county.

Charles Rau, the author of several valuable papers on American antiquities, has shown that there was an extensive trade or traffic among the pre-historic races of America. This is rendered evident from the fact that their manufactured articles consist of materials which must have been obtained from sources in far distant localities. The materials of which many relics found in the Miami country are composed, can only be found at a distance of hundreds of miles. The term "flint," used to describe the material of which various chipped implements are manufactured, is used to include various kinds of hard and silicious stones, such as hornstone, jasper, chalcedony, and different kinds of quartz. There have been found in the United States, places where the manufacture of flint implements was carried on. There was a great demand for arrow-heads among the primitive tribes, and, in places where the proper kind of material could be found, there were workshops for their manufacture. An important locality to which the aborigines resorted in Ohio for quarrying flint is now called Flint Ridge, and extends through Muskingum and Licking Counties. Dr. Hildreth says of this ancient flint quarry:

" The compact, silicious material of which this ridge is made up seems to have attracted the notice of the aborigines, who have manufactured it largely into arrow and spear heads, if we may be allowed to judge from the numerous circular excavations which have been made in mining the rock, and the piles of chipped quartz lying on the surface. How extensively it has been worked for those purposes may be imagined from the countless number of the pits, experience having taught them that the rock recently dug from the earth could be split with more freedom than that which had lain exposed to the weather. These excavations are found the whole length of the outcrop, but more abundantly at Flint Ridge, where it is more compact and diversified with rich colors."

The greenish, striped slate, of which variously shaped tablets are made, is believed to occur in no part of the Union except the Atlantic Coast District, and to have been transported, either in a rough or worked condition, from that region to the different parts of the Mississippi Valley, in which the relics are found. The copper used by the aboriginal tribes was probably obtained chiefly from the northern part of Michigan.