Sandusky County, Ohio - Chapter 2: Ancient Earthworks and Who Constructed Them, 1909

Chapter 2: Ancient Earthworks and Who Constructed Them

Ancient Earthworks - Old Fort and Relics at Muskash - Mounds in Riley and Sandusky Townships - Human Remains Found Near the Williams Residence in 1840 - Old Fortifcations at Croghansville - Ancient Fort in

There were the remains of a line of earthworks which appear to have extended from Muskash Point, in what is now Erie County, southward on the solid lands along the marshes of Sandusky Bay to the Sandusky River, striking the river in Section 12, Township 5, Range 15; thence up the river to what is known as Negro Point, and further up the river on the high banks on the east side, extending to the south line of the county in Ballville Township.

(t) Mr. Michael Stull, an aged farmer now deceased, of Riley Township, in 18790 informed Homer Everett, who was then investigating the matter for historical purposes, that in 1820 he came to Muskash and owned a piece of land there, on which were the remains of a considerable ancient fort. The walls were of earth, in a circular form and inclosing several acres of ground, with gate-like openings. He found therein, flint arrow heads, stone axes, and numerous specimens in various forms of rude pottery, which appeared to have been made of burnt clay largely mixed with pulverized shells.

(3) Another on the farm then owned by Mr. Stull in Section 12 in Riley. The site of this last structure was in August, 1879, when Mr. Everett visited it, part of a beautiful clover field, not revealing even a trace of its walls or form. Mr. Stull had leveled it himself. It was, according to his description of it, circular in form, with two openings opposite each other. The circle was about twenty rods in diameter.

A distinguishing feature of this fort was that a part of the wall on the west side was made by piling soft limestones, which were found in plenty on the surface of the land a short distance from its structure. The walls when first seen by Mr. Stull, were about four feet high. The ridge of soit limestone had been covered on the sides and on top by earth to a considerable height; the other portions of the wall were composed of a ridge of earth only.

(7) Another was on the Williams Reserve, still farther up the river, in Section 14, same township. This included five or six acres of land, situated partly on the land once owned by L. D. Williams, and partly on another tract. The five last mentioned of these ancient works were in the form of semicircles, the river forming the are. The banks of the river where these remains were found, is composed of earth which dissolves readily and washes away by the action of the water upon the land, which, in times past, was some distance from the river. It is quite plain, therefore, that these, like the one at Muskash Point and the one of the Stull farm, were originally circular in form, and some distance from the perpen- dicular low bank of the river, for all the re- 'mains of the other forts in this chain, unaffected by the wash of the stream, are in that form complete.

(8) There are evidences of another of the same kind above the Williams Reserve a short distance, on the high bank of the river, in Section 13, Sandusky Township. This work is different in form from the others mentioned, being nearly square, and is supposed to include about three acres of land. It is situated where there was once an Indian village called Muncietown, about three miles below the city of Fremont. '

(9) Another and larger one of these works was found a little down the river from the residence of Mr. L. D. Williams, which, he said was a circle and included ten acres of land.

(10) Near the residence of Mr. Williams, and not far from it, was found a mound about fifty feet in diameter, which must have been of very ancient construction. Mr. Williams said that about the year 1820 he assisted in cutting down a white oak tree which stood on the very summit of the mound, for the purpose of capturing a swarm of bees which had long been in the tree, and that this tree was then near three feet in diameter, and the elevation of the mound was eight feet above the general level of the surrounding land. The mound was afterward opened by Mr. John Shannon, of this county, and his brother, about the year 1840. The mound he said attracted considerable observation and much speculation among the observers as to what it was raised for, and what might be in it. The stump of the oak had then so far decayed that it was removed without much difficulty. On removing the earth from a considerable space and a little below the general level of the surface around the mound, they found the teeth of a human being in good presegvation. Upon further carefully removing the earth they found, marked in a different colored earth from that surrounding it, the figure of a man of giant size, plainly to be seen. Where the breast of the buried man had lain were found two ovalshaped plates of what appeared to be white mica. One of these plates appeared to have been perforated, as there was a round hole in it near the center. On the other plate were dark streaks and spots, which the discoverers supposed might be characters or letters, understood at the time, recording the name and rank of the man who had been buried, and the circumstances of his death; but these inferences can only be entitled to the rank of conjectures; what became of the teeth or mica no one now knows.

(11) Following the river up about two miles from the location of the mound just mentioned, the remains of another ancient fortification were found on the hill overlooking the river. It included the block of lots once called the old Whyler or Moore property, where there was once a brick cottage, not now standing. Here the hill or bluff trends quite sharply to the east for some distance, and then curves southward. No more advantageous point for a fortification and lookout could be found along the whole course of the Sandusky River than this one.

The late Julius Patterson told Mr. Everett that he saw the remains of this fortification before improvements had obliterated it. According to his description of the location of these remains this fort was in the original plat of the town of Croghansville, on Lots 649, 650, 667, 668, 669, 670, as now numbered on the present map of the city, and perhaps other parts of other lots. In the government survey of Croghansville, made in 1817, this ancient fortification is mentioned in the field notes, and the width and depth of the ditches surrounding the same are specially noted by the surveyor, Joseph Wampler. From these field notes it appears that this fort included all the land on the east bank of the river between what is now Pine Street and Kentucky Avenue and eastward to about Second Street.

(12) There were a few years ago the remains of another fortification about two miles from the last mentioned on the bluff commonly known as the Blue Banks.

(13) The remains of another ancient fort were discovered by our informant some distance from the river, on Sugar Creek, in the south part of Ballville Township, on the east side of the river.

Authors Of These Works

There can be no doubt that these earthworks and other evidences of the occupation of this region by an ancient people, were the work of men who lived very long after the Ice Period, allowing them a great antiquity, according to human chronology. The span of human history we know is very brief compared with the world's physical history and is measured in years and centuries, while the long stretch of time, required by the seemingly slow-moving but mighty changes in the structure and surface of the earth, is measured by epochs, cycles and ages. Even the Mound Builders, who dwelt in the valley of the Scioto, Miami and Muskingum, began their existence long after the Glacial Period, and it must have been many centuries before the Mound Builders reached such a degree of organization as to have been able to build earthworks of such magnitude, and so extensive as existed in those valleys - in some instances extending almost to Lake Erie, and as to attain such a degree of culture as to construct works of such exaet proportions, and perfect symmetry, for primitive people move as slowly as the receding glaciers that they follow, and are long in acquiring even a small degree of civilization, as all" records show.

As to who were the authors of the earth works in Sandusky County, written history does not certainly tell, but with such few facts as it has given us, and archzological investigation offered, and by the aid of some Indian traditions, we are able to determine with some degiee of certainty who were their authors. By later researches it has been discovered that Indian traditions have often remarkable foundations in fact - and sometimes none at all.

The Huron-Iroquois, to whom the Eries, the Hurons of Canada, the Six Nations of New York, and some other tribes belonged, have similar customs and spoke in a similar tongue, sometimes called the Wyandot. They have a well-known tradition that away back in the past, their ancestors waged a war upon a powerful people who built many forts extending from the south to the southern shore of

Lake Erie. The Leni Lenape or Delawares, who spoke a different language, known as the Algonquin, were a famous people who preserved their history well, have a concurrent and well-defined tradition, that their ancestors joined with the Huron-Iroquois in the war with this powerful people, whom the Delawares called the Alligewi, believed to have been the mysterious Mound Builders, vanquished them, and drove them southward and down the Mississippi. After this war, we are informed the Delawares journeyed eastward and became the great rivals and mortals foes of the Iroquois branch of the Huron-Iroquois family of Indians; that the Huron-Iroquois lingered for a while around Lake Erie, and all finally journeyed eastward with the exception of that portion that was afterwards known as the Itries, and possibly the Senecas. We have reason to believe the Eries continued to occupy the region south of that lake, and gave it its name.

About 1634, the French Jesuits established a mission among the Hurons, on the Georgian Bay in Canada. These Catholic priests were able, observing and trustworthy men. They for some years sent reports to the head of their mission, containing interesting facts concerning the Indians in that far distant part of the continent. These reports are well known as the "Relations of the Jesuits." From them we are able to gain some further knowledge of the Eries, or Nations of the Cat.

As early as 1640, Father Ragueneau, one of these Jesuit priests, writes: "These people of the Cat have a number of stationary villages, for they till the soil and speak the language of the Hurons."

We have vague accounts of the wars of the Fries with enemies west of them, by which they were slowly forced eastward along the southern shore of Lake Erie, toward the Alleghany, where they had frequent wars with the Iroquois, and where authentic history at last finds them.

About 1655 they were defeated in a great battle with the Iroquois, and entirely destroyed as a nation. Those not killed in this battle were burned at the stake after it, or perished in the woods of starvation and exposure, or.

were adopted by other Indian nations. Very many of them were adopted by the Iroquois or Six Nations, their conquerors. To this day, in the veins of many a Seneca runs the blood of some Erie ancestor. In the "Relations of the Jesuits," is given an account of this battle, and the reprisals that preceded it. Father Simeon Le Moyne visited the chief village of the Onondagas in New York, in August, 1654, and witnessed the preparation of the Iroquois for this war, when 1800 warriors were gathered from the four western nations of the Iroquois confederacy to invade the country of the Eries. When they were destroyed they dwelt in western New York, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

That the Eries were the same race that constructed the earthworks in Sandusky County, we have further evidence, in the valley of the Alleghany, French Creek, the Canandaigua and the Conewango; around Chautauqua Lake, and along the shore of Lake Erie are scattered the evidences of their long possession.

In Chautauqua County, New York, alone there were not less than thirty circular earthworks, when the first white settlers came there. Besides the ordinary burial places, there were several ossuaries or bone pits, where the

The remains found in western New York and the methods of life of the authors, as gathered from the evidences so left by them, closely resemble those of the people who constructed the earthworks in Sandusky County. The distribution of these earthworks along the water courses, the size and height of the embankments, their irregularity of form, the lack of skill in construction, the mounds, the character of the stone implements and the rude pottery, would answer for a general description of the ancient remains of the Eries in Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties in New York.

Such differences as exist may be due to the fact that the western earthworks and mounds were constructed at an earlier date, and that a longer period has elasped for their' decay. It has been 250 years and more since the Eries were destroyed. Several centuries must have elapsed before that event, while they were being pushed eastward to the place of their extermination, which would account for the better preservation of the bones of the dead buried in the eastern and last home of the Eries.