Butler County, Ohio - Defensive Enclosures, 1879

Defensive Enclosures

Through the lapse of countless ages the rivers have been cutting their deep valleys and, in a measure, dividing the vast sedimentary basin extending from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. The gradual wasting of the water has made shallow depressions in the alluvial plain, writing its record in the broad terraces that mark the deserted levels. - These table-lands are indented by numerous ravines, and the junctions of one stream with another have formed tracts considerably elevated, and almost entirely separated from the main terrace. From the effect of the water we have valleys, gorges, ravines, bluffs, headlands, and hills. The table-lands bordering on the valleys have been so wasted by the action of water as, in numberless cases, to present sides difficult of ascent, and in not a few almost absolutely inaccessible. These hills are sometimes surrounded on three sides by deep ravines and the bluff on the valley, leaving simply an isthmus, by which one may easily pass to the broad terrace. Many of these bluff headlands and isolated hills, with their broad and level summits, present every requisite for a stronghold. Where such hills are in the vicinity of an extensive valley, the military works may be seen on the one best adapted for purposes of defense. These defenses show great labor and skill ; the walls extend a little below the brow of the hill and vary in height and solidity, as the declivity is more or less, perpendicular. The side most exposed to attack and the approaches are protected by trenches and overlapping walls more or less numerous in different forts. The trench is usually on the exterior of the wall. The gateways in the walls, situated at the points most easy of approach, are guarded by overlapping walls, or a series of them, and in some cases accompanied by a mound rising above the rest of the works, probably designed for both observation and defense. Great engineering skill is invariably displayed in protecting the points most exposed to attack, and care has been exercised against any flanking movement that might be made by an enemy.

A large number of the defensive works occupy the peninsulas formed by the bends of streams^ and consist of a line of ditch and embankments or several lines carried across the isthmus, and not infrequently diagonally from the banks of one stream to the banks of another. The attention of the reader will here be called to those of the defensive works.

Fort Ajicient. - No work on the JNIound Builders would be complete without a description of Fort Ancient, the most celebrated, and the one most generally known of all the fortifications of this people. It is situated on the east bank of the Little INIiami River, in Warren County, Ohio, and about thirty-three miles northeast of Cincinnati. It has beeu frequently surveyed, and much has been written concerning it, so that, in this place, it will not be nece.'fsary to give an extended notice of it. Keference to the accompanying engraving will assist the reader in forming a conception of the structure.

The terrace, iq)on which the fort is located, is very difficult of access from the west. The road leading from Jicbanon to Chillicothe passes through it on the north, and its descent into the valley is steep and winding. A few years ago the enclosure for the most i)art was covered with a primitive forest, with a superabundant undergrowth consisting chiefly of blackberry bushes.

It has already been stated there are about five miles of wall enclosing an area of a little more than one hundred acres. The embankment is composed of a tough, diluvial clay, ranging from five feet to twenty in height, and averaging between nine and ten feet, and contains six hundred and twenty-eight thousand eight hundred cubic yards of excavation.

The hill upon which the w^ork is located is a level plain, divided into two parts by a peninsula, its summit being two hundred and thirty feet above the level of the Little Miami. The position is a strong one. On the west, towards the Little Miami, is a precipitous bank of two hundred feet. Two ravines originate near each other, on the east side and, diverging, sweep around the hill and enter the river, the one above and the other below the Avork. On the very verge of the ravines the embankment is raised, and winds around the spurs and re-enters to pass the heads of gullies, and in several places is carried down into ravines from fifty to one hundred feet deep. Where the work is most exposed to an enemy it is of the greatest solidity and strength. At the isthmus the walls are twenty feet high. Where the Chillicothe road enters from the west, the wall is fourteen feet high by sixty feet base. The south division is naturally impregnable to any assault that could be made by a primitive pco])le. In order to protect themselves should the north division be carried, two crescent walls have been thrown across the isthmus, with the convex side towards the north. A little south of these are two mounds, situated at the narrowest part of the isthmus. On the steep slope of the southern portion of the hill where it approaches nearest the river, as a farther precaution have been constructed three parallel terraces, which command a fine view of the valley in both directions. Some, however, have regarded these embankments as land-slides.

There are over seventy gateways in the embankment, having a width of from ten to fifteen feci. These could not have all been for places of ingress and egress. I noticed, during a visit to the place in the summer of

Defensive Enclosuees

1866, that some of tlicni faced the precipitous ravines, with made earth thrown out. These appeared to be intended for outposts for sharpshooters. By some they are regarded to have been places for block-houses or bastions composed of timber. The walls are not accompanied by a ditch, but within the work there are not less than twenty-four reservoirs, which, in connection with the springs, would supply sufficient water for any number which might there be besieged by an invader.

At nu...erous points are found large quantities of water-worn stone which, after an incredible amount of labor, have been carried from the river below. Near the exterior of the eastern wall of the north division are two large mounds from which start off two parallel walls that continue for a distance of thirteen hundred and fifty feet, when they suddenly come together, enclosing another mound at the most eastern extremity. These walls are now, owing to the plow, almost entirely obliterated. They are shown in the supplementary plan.

Mr. Isaac Peacock, for many years county surveyor of Warren County, while making a survey of this fort, discovered a cave in the side of the hill. This was duly noted in his field notes at the time, but in searching for these notes, in order to place them in the hands of the author, they were nowhere to be found

In order to appreciate this, the most interesting remains of antiquity which this country affords, and to gain a fair understanding of it, it is necessary to see and examine it in person.

Fortification Near Bournevilh. - In respect to the magnitude of the area inclosed, the largest fortification in the country is that near Bourneville, twelve miles west of Chillicothe. The hill upon which it is situated is about four hundred feet high, and remarkable for the general abruptness of its sides. It projects into the broad valley of Paint Creek - being washed on two sides by small creeks. Its summit is a broad and fertile plain with depressions, some of which contain water during the entire year, and one covering about two acres.

The fortification consists of a stone wall, two miles and a quarter in length, and encloses an area of about one hundred and forty acres. The structure does not now present the features of a true wall, but has the ap23earance of having fallen outwards. There are indications along certain parts of the line that it was regularly faced on the exterior.

The wall is carried round the hill a little below the brow, save where it rise's to cut oif the narrow spurs and to separate the hill from the land beyond. Upon the western face of the hill, the wall covers a space varying from thirty to fifty feet in width, and resembles the protection walls along the embankments of railroads where they are exposed to the action of large streams. Along the eastern face of the hill the wall is heavier, with a height of four feet and a base of fifteen or twenty feet. On this side the hill's declivity is less abrupt. The isthmus, which is seven hundred feet wide and the easiest point of access, has the heaviest wall. On this isthmus the amount of stone was so great that after two farmers had removed enough to form a line fence between their lands, their removal is hardly perceptible. The wall is continuous save at the gateways, and on one point of the hill where it is so precipitous as to be inaccessible. The work contains five gateways, three of them being on the isthmus. At the gateways the amount of stone is four times as great as at any other point, and constitutes broad mound-shaped heaps. Originally there was still another gateway, but for some reason only known to themselves, they saw fit to close it up. The > mound-shaped heaps at the gateways exhibit the marks of intense heat, which is also discernible on certain other j)oints of the wall. Within the enclosure arc two stone mounds burned throughout. These are located near the line of the wall commanding the broadest extent . of country. These burnt stones prove that powerful fires have there been maintained for long ])eriods, and undoubtedly used as signals of alarm. INIost of the wall is covered with gigantic forest trees twisting their roots among the stones, and assisting to dislodge them from the position in which they were placed by the builders. This wall may have originally been regularly laid up. That it is now completely in ruins is not singular when the great laj^se of time is taken into consideration, and the fact that it is situated upon a yielding and disintegrating declivity, and that successive forest trees, in their growth and decay, have done much to assist in its demolition. The wall was, probably, on an average, eight feet high with equal base. A fort of this description, to a primitive i)eople, must have been impregnable. The fortification overlooks a number of extensive groups of ancient works, and must have been to the people of the valley what the block-houses and forts were to the first white settlers of this country.

Fortification Near Carlisle. - Among the most important works of the defensive order is that situated in both Montgomery and Warren Counties, about two miles west of Carlisle Station, Ohio. As public attention has not been called to it, a somewhat minute discription will here be given. My attention was called to it in the summer of 1876 and on the 31st of August of that year I made a hasty visit to it. An incomplete survey of it was made September 5th, 1875, by Messrs. S. H. Binkley and C. E. Blossom, both of whom are very much interested in American antiquities. To this survey I made observations of my own, and certain measurements which may not be absolutely accurate.

This work is situated on the summit of a hill a few rods west of Big Twin. The hill is bounded on the north and south by deep ravines; on the east by a precipitous bluif, with a declivity varying from one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred feet. On the east of this bluff is an alluvial terrace leading to the Big Twin. This terrace is divided into two parts, an upper and lower, formed in the direction of the stream. On the west the hill is connected with the level lands by a broad peninsula. The wall is not accompanied by a ditch, and is situated on the brow of the hill, except on the northern side, where it occurs a little below. The wall, for the most part, is made of surface material, although limestone is found in the southwestern gate. On the west, w^here the enclosure is most exposed, are discovered three walls. The entire length of the wall, on thedirect line of the middle wall, is three thousand six hundred m.d seventy-six feet, and encloses an area of from twelve to fifteen acres. The length of the wall on the Twin bluff is eleven hundred and ten feet. The interior is cultivated, and wdien I visited it was planted in corn, w^hicli made it very unfavorable for practical observation. A part of the wall is under cultivation, but the greater portion is covered with a thick undergrowth of briars, which makes it almost impossible to pass upon it. In some places the forest trees are still growing upon it. Within the enclosure were originally two stone mounds and one stone circle. The circle was near the center of the enclosed area. The proprietor informed me that the circle was twenty feet in diameter and three feet in height when he obtained possession of the land. Some of the oldest settlers remember it to have once been not less than eight feet high. The amount of stone in the two mounds and circle was so great as to be of sufficient importance to the white man that in order to obtain it a roadway was cut from the brow of the precipice down to the valley below. Hundreds of wagon loads w^re removed and used in building dwelling houses, barns, wells, etc. Depressions now mark the spots where the mounds once existed, and only broken limestone tells where the circle once stood.

Of the walls to the west the exterior one is the heaviest, and is comj^osed of clay. It is removed to quite a distance from the middle wall and encloses considerable more territory. The gateway is in an orchard, but the greater portion in a meadow. The plow is fast demolishing all these walls on the peninsula, though they are still raised above the surface from two to four feet. Where the plow has not touched the wall the base is much narrower.

On the northeast corner of the work is a graded way of eight hundred and four feet leading to the bank of Twin. At three hundred and twentv-four feet the graded way reaches the upper terrace, or the bottom of the hill. Here we miss fifty-seven feet of the embankment, owing to its having been cut away by the encroachment of the stream in the north ravine. From the wash I distinctly traced the embankment two hundred and ninety-seven feet, or to Avithin one hundred and twenty-six feet of the bank of Twin. The remaining distance is very indistinct, owing to its having been almost entirely obliterated by the plow. At the point where the embankment approaches Twin, the bank of the latter is perpendicular, having a declivity of thirtyone feet. The graded way follows the bank of the stream in the ravine until it reaches within one hundred and forty feet of Twin, where it diverges, and forms a straight line. In taking the grade or fall of this graded way as it descends from the fort or the bluif, I found it to be where it is steepest one foot in two and one-half; at another point, one foot in three and one-half, and near the foot of the hill, one in five. Where this way reaches the wall of the enclosure, there is a Avash through which the water passes during rains. This wash was originally, I suppose, a narrow gateway used for the purpose of ingress and egress. Why this graded way was constructed I can only conjecture. It is evident that on the bluff it was for the purpose of making the ascent more easy, and in this work nature assisted them by throwing out a partial embankment. Tlie embankment along the terrace, however, I can account for only on the supposition that when the Mound Builders occupied this country, the terrace w^as a swamp. Its direction from Twin indicates that it was a passage way for those coming from or living on the east side of Big Twin Creek.

On the southeast corner of the fort is another way leading to the second or lower river-terrace. This way is so remarkable that those who have seen it have suj)- posed it to be artificial. Upon examining it I was at (Uice led to the conclusion that it had been formed by the action of water, and owing to a peculiar depression in it, near the wall of the fort, I have no hesitancy in saying that this way is so perfect that the Mound Builders never sought to improve it. The depression was undoubtedly caused by water pouring over it, or upon it, when it first began to cut these furrows in the hills that we see everyAvhere.

Big Twin once swept along the foot of the bluff, and at the southern extremity of the hill made an angle, and flowed easterly for a short distance. When this was the course of the creek, the stream in the southern ravine was cutting its way deeper and deeper, and seeking to enter Txyin at a point farther below. It succeeded in flowing into the creek a little below the bluff, thus leaving this very narrow neck of land with its precipitous sides. I found the entire length of this way, from the narrow gateway in the w^all to the point where it reaches the terrace, to be four hundred and thirteen feet. Forty-nine feet from the gateway, a spur leads from the the way to the right. The upper portion of the way is so narrow that only one person can walk upon its crown, although five may go abreast on its rounded surface. As it approaches the river-terrace it gradually becomes broader and steeper. Forest trees of large growth are seen growing upon both of these ways. On the former, near the waste, I saw a red' oak directly upon the center or middle of the wall, which was not less than four feet in diameter.

This ancient fortification overlooks the fertile valley lying between the Twin and the Great Miami. Some seven miles distant, on the northeast, is the great mound at Miamisburg, while six miles to the east, and not far from Springboro, is another mound. At Franklin is the remains of a stone dam, discovered in excavating for the hydraulic, in the alluvial deposit, and belonging to the epoch of the ^lound Builders.

As relics of the fort, I brought aAvay two stone axes, both of green stone. I have never seen any figured similar to one of them. It tapers to an edge in both directions, has the usual crease for fastening on the handle, and is six inches long, five and one-half wide, and weighs four pounds. The crease in the other is continued only on three sides, the back of the axe being left flat, so that, when lashed to the handle, it could be tightened by wedging. It is five and one-half inches long, three wide, and weighs three pounds.

Among the other fortifications may be mentioned the following: Fort Hill, in Highland County, twelve miles from Hillsboro, is situated on the summit of a hill five hundred feet above Brush Creek. The wall is composed of mingled earth and stone, and is over a mile and onehalf in length, varying from six to ten feet in height, »vith an average base of from thirty-five to forty feet. It is accompanied by a ditch, and encloses an area of forty-eight acres.

On the west bank of the Great Miami, two and one-half miles above Piqua, is a work composed of earth intermixed with large quantities of stone, enclosing an Dval-shaped area of eighteen acres.

Three miles below Dayton, on the east side of the Great Miami, on a hill one hundred and sixty feet high, is a fort enclosing twenty-four acres. The gateway on the south is covered upon the interior by a ditch twenty feet wide and seven hundred feet long. On the northern line of the embankment is a small mound, from the top of which a full view of the country for a long distance up and down the river may be obtained.

Other works might be particularly noticed, which are given in the list of the Earth Works of Ohio at the close of the volume. Among the fortifications occurring in other States, the most extensively known are the following : Near Lexington, at the mouth of Flat Run, Bourbon County, and the one on the left bank of Olentangy Creek, four and one-half miles north of Worthington, in Fayette County, Kentucky, and in Franklin County, Tennessee.

Remarks. - The descriptions and examples thus given will serve to form some conception of the magnitude of these structures. It is not to be presumed that the modern art of constructing works of defense was known to them. AYorks of wood, used for defense, may have accompanied these walls. Some have supposed that palisades were erected upon them, but during the ages have crumbled away. Indeed, such appears to have been the case from the general feature of these structures. The gateways were undoubtedly barricaded with timbers. They certainly were not left open to the fire and assault of an enemy. It is natural to infer that the stone heaps found at some of the gateways were used to barricade the entrance during an invasion. But these stone heaps do not appear at all the gateways, in fact but at few of them, and hence we are forced to believe that timber was generally employed. It is difficult to tell the original heights of any of the walls composed of clay. Durin^g the great lapse of time, which they have undergone, tlie changes in the weather, the rains, the freezings and thawings have washed them gradually down until we meet with only the remnants. If they were built of sun-dried brick, then they probably ranged from fifteen to thirty feet in height, and possibly more. These works were probably guarded at all times, and the mounds within them used as alarm posts, and the fire a])- pearing upon them was to give warning to the people in the valley that the enemy was near at hand. If I am capable of judging, I would say that some of the forts have been taken by assault. I noticed that this is the case with the one I have been so particular to describe in this chapter. I noticed the gateway at the natural graded way was partially closed; that it was filled almost to the hi'ight of the wall ; that here we discover mingled clay and limestone, haviug the appearance of being hastily thrown together. That the work could be assaulted from this point the general features indicate. That it was assaulted I do not doubt. That there were serious invasions, and that great conflicts occurred, the number and formidable appearance of these Avorks amply testify.