Sandusky County, Ohio - Chapter 3: Topography, 1909

Chapter 3: Topography

Surface and Inclination of Land - Highest Grounds - Sea Level - Sand Ridges im Eastern Part of the County - Sinkholes - U nderground Waters - Forests - Streams - S andusky River and Tributaries - Bay and Marshes - Portage River - Effects of Winds and Waters on the Shores - Destruction of Trees by Rise of Waters - Tilting of the Earth -

Physical Features

The surface of the land in the county is mainly flat, with a general inclination as indicated by the natural drainage, from south to north, bearing northeasterly, and, as shown by recent government topographical surveys, the average altitude at the south boundary line is approximately 680 feet above sea level, and about 100 feet higher than at the north. The highest land is at Bellevue in York Township, being 751 feet above the level of the sea. Other levels higher than the average are as follows: 750 feet in Sections 23 and 30 in York Township; 730 feet in Section 34 in Green Creek Township; 710 feet in Sections ee | and 27 in Scott Township and in Section 19 Jackson Township. At or near the villages of Greenspring and Burgoon the elevation is 700 feet, and also the same in Sections 3 and 18 in York, and 34 in Townsend Townships. The average above sea level at the north boundary line of the county is about 580 feet. Sandusky Bay is 573 feet. At the Court House the altitude is 636 feet above the level of the sea.

The surface in York and Green Creek Townships is more undulating than in any other sections of the county, except, possibly, in the immediate vicinity of the river in Ballville Township. Three well defined sand ridges angle through these townships in a northeast direction from the southwest, known as North, South and Butternut Ridges. The last mentioned takes its name from the large number of white walnut or butternut trees originally growing thereon. It begins near the southeast corner of Green Creek and Joses its identity near.the turn-pike road in York. The crest of North Ridge trends through Green Creek, and extends across the northeast corner of York, and southeast corner of Townsend, and thence into Erie County. South Ridge takes a parallel course, and its crest is about

North Ridge. There are but few surface streams in York Township, and the natural drainage at first, and until improvements in the way of artificial drainage was effected, was largely through numerous sinkholes there found, having outlets into running waters many feet beneath the surface of the land. The part of the county west from the Sandusky River lies within the region known as the 'Black Swamp." The surface is not very low but it is level, wet and swampy, or was so before the work of clearing and draining transformed the swampy wilderness into fertile fields. Originally it sustained a growth of forest trees, so dense as to be almost impenetrable to the sun's rays, and much of the country was covered with water a considerable part of the year. Some idea of its condition may be found in a letter of Gen. Harrison in November, 1812, to the War Department, in which he writes: "An idea can scarcely be formed of the difficulty with which land transportation is effected north of the goth latitude in this country. Beyond that it is almost a continued swamp. The greater part of the way at this season is covered with water. Such is actually the situation of that space between the Sandusky and the Maumee Rapids." There are, however, a few stone and sand ridges occurring in the part mentioned. The soil of the swamps is deep and, composed of a black decayed vegetable matter and when drained is very productive of crops of grain, grass and garden vegetables. The township of Riley and parts of Sandusky, Green Creek and Townsend are covered with soil similar to that just described.

The Forests

Originally the county was, in general, quite densely timbered, although in every township some treeless land was found, both dry and wet, as appears from the field notes of the early surveys (1819-20): made by direction of the Government. In examining, now, the records of these surveys, one is surprised to find the many references, in the field notes kept by the surveyors, to these treeless portions, designated by them as prairies, some of which are noted as dry prairies, some as_ wet, while others, as covered with water. The greater number and extent of these prairies, however, are noted as being in Rice and Scott Townships. In the central and southeastern portions of the township of York occurred the barrens known as "Oak Openings," where the larger forest trees were really "few and far between,"' but where occurring they consisted mostly of white oak, interspersed with scattering hickory. The undergrowth was small hickory, shrub oak, sassafras, spice, hazel, huckleberry and alder.

The forests, through the county generally, consisted of white, black, red, scarlet, bur and pin oak, white and red (slippery) elm, white, black and blue ash, common and big shell bark hickory, smooth hickory, white and yellow poplar, cottonwood, linden (basswood), sugar maple, beech, black and white walnut, soft maple, buckeye, sycamore, hackberry. honey locust, willow and ironwood. The chestnut was found in a very few places in the county - among them being Green Creek Township, south of Clyde; Sandusky Township on east side of the river in Section 23; in southwest corner of Madison, and in the northwest corner of Scott Townships.

The streams and nature of the soil, however, had much to do with the difference in species and varieties of trees as to their distribution. Among those on the higher and naturally better drained land, and along the higher banks of streams may be mentioned, the white oak, sugar maple, walnut, yellow poplar and beech, while on the lower and wetter grounds occurred generally the elm, cottonwood, soft maple, black ash, sycamore, bur, oak, hackberry, and willow. The undergrowth was mainly shrub oak, shrub hickory, thorn, wild crab, water beech, dogwood, hazel, sumach, papaw and spicewood.

Some of the early settlers, coming from the east, on entering the "Oak Openings" were not favorably impressed with the soil as to. fertility, supposing that a soil which had not produced large trees in abundance, would not produce large crops, so many of them passed by these barrens and settled in the heavily timbered regions, some going into the "north woods" in what is now Riley and Townsend Townships, while others went into Green Creek and other territory further west; and there spent the best part of their days in making farms in the dense forests, instead of settling on lands, already nearly cleared by nature; and which subsequently proved to be of the best quality for the production of crops of nearly all kinds. Many of these settlers were afterward known to express regret in regard to the mistake they had thus made.

Shrubs, Vines And Plants

A few among the many are as follows: Swamp rose, wahoo, hop tree, sweet brier, nine-bark, witch-hazel, barberry, winterberry, dwarf wild rose, dwarf thorn, syringa, blackhaw, bayberry, hazelnut, redbud, pussy willow, foxgrape, frost grape, trumpet creeper, trumpet honeysuckle, virgin's bower, Virginia creeper or woodbine, sarsaparilla, five-leaved ivy, three-leaved, or poison ivy, morning glory, wild cucumber, wild potato vine, sweet flag, blue flag, rose mallows, dragon-head, lobelia, or cardinal flower, geranium or cranesbill, hloodroot, mandrake, lady's slipper or moccasin flower, columbine, butteicup, water-lily, yellow pond-lily, aster, anemone, spring beauty, trillium, hepatica, or liver-leaf, Indian turnip, goldenrod, adder-tongue, violet, swect-william, coreopsis, peppermint, spearmint, horsemint, poke, hoarhound, ginger, water-cress, boneset, pepper-grass, ferns, golden-seal, elecampane, cumfrey and cohosh. WILD ANIMALS.

The buffalo, elk, deer, bear, panther and wolf, formerly here, are no longer to be found. The same is also true of the beaver, badger, otter, wild cat and porcupine. The wolf was probably the last to finally disappear. As late as the forties, the amount paid annuaily for wolf scalps by the county, was one hundred dollars and more, as the records show. It may be said without much exaggeration that "the woods were fuli of them." Wolf Creek was appropriately named because this animal was so numerous in the swamp near its source and in the thickets around the wet prairie at its mouth. Among others of the wild animals originally within the county were the gray and red fox, raccoon, opossum, wild cat, otter, badger, skunk, muskrat, mink, gray, black and fox squirrel, flying squirrel, woodchuck and chipmink,

As to the existence, here, of buffalo and elk we have the following authorities: Atwater in his History of Ohio says: "We had once the bison and the elk in vast numbers all over Ohio."

Prof. Brayton in his report on zoology in Vol. 1, p. 73, Ohio Geological Survey, says: "There is ample evidence of the former existence and abundance of buffalo in northern Ohio."

In this same volume, Dr. Kirtland says: "The elk was frequently to be met with in Ashtabula County, until within the last six years" (1838).

Birds And Fowls

A partial list is as follows: Robin, bluebird, catbird, thrushes, kinglets, warblets, wrens, skylark, rose-breasted grosbeak, cardinal gros- beak, scarlet tanager, marten, swallow, waxwing, vireos, orioles, finch, bobolink, yellowbird, yellow hammier or flicker, sparrow, woodpeckers, blackbirds, crows, bluejay, snowbird, indigo bird, whip-poor-will, humming-birds, cuckoo, dove, pigeon, red-winged blackbird, eagles, hawks, owls, quail, plover, snipe, woodcock, heron, bittern, crane, pelican, swan, wild geese, ducks, wild turkey, loon, gull, tern, killdeer, divers and buzzard.

In the volume before quoted, Dr. Kirtland writes (1850) : "Wild geese, swans, ducks and wading birds literally swarmed about every lake, pond and creek during spring and autuinn."

Sandusky River And Tributaries

As mentioned in another chapter, the Sandusky River has its rise in Richland County and flows through Crawford, Wyandot, Seneca and Sandusky Counties to its lower rapids at I'remont, whence it pursues a general northeasterly course to where it empties into Sandusky Bay, a distance in a straight line of about S88 miles from its source, but by way of its many windings the distance is more than onehalf greater than a direct course. From its source to the slack water, which reaches Fremont, there is a fall of an average of about six feet to the mile. From there to its mouth the river is very sluggish with about one foot fall to the mile. At the lower rapids is the head of navigation. The influence of northerly and easterly winds upon the waters of Sandusky Bay and the river, extends to the slack water, at the terminal of the lower rapids, a short distance south of the Lake [rie & Western Railway bridge at Fremont, and at times raises the water here over two feet higher than the ordinary stage. From measurements taken from the government surveys, the distance from the bridge at State Street, in Fremont, to the mouth of the river at the lower end of Eagle Island, measured along the center of the channel, is 171%4 miles. The river forks at Eagle Island, the old channel being to the south of the island, and emptying its waters into Sandusky Bay at the eastern extremity of what was formerly a part of Peach Island; on which early history, as we shall see, informs us was located Fort Junandat, the fort and home of Nicolas, the rebel Wyandot chief.

In 1865-6 a cut or channel was dredged through on the north side of Eagle Island to a depth of ten feet, which has since been used as the main channel of the river. The river receives only very few local additions, as tributaries, from its source to its mouth. Its most southern tributary, in this county, is Wolf Creek, while four miles north of Fremont, it receives the waters of Muscallonge Creek.

The next largest stream in the county is Portage River, which enters Madison Township near the northwest corner and flows thence into and through Woodville Township and Village, and thence to the northwest corner of Section 26, where it passes into Ottawa County. It is not a tributary of the Sandusky. Sugar Creek, in the west part of the county, is a tributary to Portage River. Mud Creek on the west, and Green Creek, South Creek and Bark Creek on the east,, flow in a northeasterly direction: nearly parallel with the Sandusky for many miles, gradually converging until they unite with the Sandusky, near the northern boundary of the county.

Green Creek is the most important of these. The west branch of this stream rises in Seneca County, about three-fourths of a mile south of the north boundary line of said county, its source being a series of sulphur springs, the largest of which, it is said, discharges about six hundred cubic feet of water per minute. The spring, which is the source of the east and the main branch, is the most celebrated of all the springs in the country, and is known as "Green Spring." It is located in Section 31, Green Creek Township, Sandusky County, about a half mile north from its south boundary line. Here, "a river of water forces itself through a fissure in the rock bed fifty feet below the surface, and from a great natural well ten feet in circumference and reaching to a depth of eighteen feet, without an obstruction, discharges eight million gallons of water every twenty-four hours. The water is strongly impregnated with sulphur and other mineral solutions, which stain every substance coming in permanent contact with it a rich emerald, varying in shade under the influence of light." Visitors, when first seeing the water as it gushes forth, frequently designate it as "liquid emerald." The water is reputed to possess highly curative medicinal properties. The two branches unite near the center of Section 30 forming the stream of Green Creek.

The removal of the heavy forests, the clearing, ditching and under draining of the lands have wrought a great change in all our streams. Formerly the water stood higher in all of them during the entire year, and was much less subject to changes of season than now. Following heavy, or continual rains, the streams now rise with great rapidity, overflowing their banks, and the strong currents washing the shores carry sediment down to the slack water where the deposits are gradually filling up the channels. Although the bed of the river south of Fremont is eroded in part into the native limestone yet the water is not. as "hard" as the water of many wells of the vicinity. "From below the city of Fremont to where it joins the broad waters, near its mouth, it is of nearly uniform width, being about 100 yards wide. The average depth is about fourteen feet, except on the bars, the principal one of which is known as Whitaker Bar, about two and one-half miles north of Freemont; also at the junction of Mud Creek Bay, and at the dredged cut at its mouth, the channel has filled up with deposits and soft ooze until, in the summer of 1908, there were less than | six feet of water over the most shallow places.

The topography of that part of Sandusky County adjacent to the mouth of the Sandusky River, and head of Sandusky Bay, has so materially changed from the time of the making of the first rough maps, by the early French and English explorers, in about 1754; and from the time of the surveys by the government in 1820, as compared with the surveys made as late as 1893, that it is quite difficult to reconcile the change until one has studied the conditions that produced it. The first government survey made of the northern part of this county in 1820, by Sylvanus Bourne, shows Eagle Island at the mouth of the river, as containing an area of 134 acres of land and covered with heavy timber, mostly honey locust and walnut; today there is scarcely oneeighth of an acre of dry ground remaining, marked by only a few willow trees. M. de Lery's map of 1854 shows the northern and southern shore lines, at the west end of the bay to be quite parallel with each other, and the bay of a general uniform width. The west end is now more than six miles wide, with a deep bow southward. Along its southern shore were dense primeval forests of oak, ash and elm, but the northeast gales produced heavy seas, raising the level of the water over the lands, and washing the carth away from the roots of the trees, until unsupported, they tipped over into the bay; a large amount of new earth being thus loosened by the roots as the trees fell, facilitated further inroads by the waves.

The greatest change on the bay has been along the shore from a few miles east of Pickerel Creck, to the mouth of the river. The bay here is wider than farther east, and as the shores receive the full sweep of the northeast seas, erosion shows with greater force and extent on the south shore than on the opposite side of the bay. Several of the present land owners 14 this vicinity say, that the shores have washed away from eighty to one hundred rods during their recollection. The north shore of the bay has, from recent measurements compared with the original government survey of 6820, receded as much as forty rods near Presque Isle, while at its western end it has undoubtedly receded much farther. The great northeast storms, which there so frequently occur, have produced lasting changes on the bay and marshes; and those wlich were most effective, because occurring at a time of the highest water, were in 1857-1862. A large part of Eagle Island, as well as many acres along the south shore, were washed away in these storms. Kecords show that Lake Irie reached a higher level in 1838 than ever before, so far as we have evidence, and much of the timber bordering the shores of the bay and on the islands was killed by the stand of high water then, and also by the later high water of 1858 to 1860.

from Raccoon Creck to South Creek -was formerly prairie, covered with joint grass and hoop-pole grass, as was also that west of South Creek to Green Creek. Records of the lake level, kept in different places, show, that at four times in the first half of the last century, the water was lower than at any time in the last half. In 1810 and in 1819 it was lower than at any time since 1820; in 1841 and 1846 it was lower than at any time since the latter date. In the absence of any record of exact measurements of lake levels west of Cleveland, we have, however, evidence that the water about Sandusky Bay and the islands was lower in the early part of the last century than it was later.

Certain it is, that during the past century, heavy timber grew in and about the Sandusky River marshes, where there is now two or three feet of water, and no timber. From a survey made for the Winnous Point Club in 1893, in eight sections of land adjacent to the mouth of the river, there is not now more than half a section of dry land. These same sections in the survey made by the government surveyor in 1820, show five and one-half sections of dry land, most of which is now open water and marsh. In the broad water to the west of Eagle Island, were located Peach, Graveyard, Squaw and Cape Islands and the Middle Ground; the latter two have entirely washed away in late years and Peach, Graveyard and Squaw Islands are so diminished in size that the noted rebel chief, Nicolas, and his band of recalcitrant Wyandots who inhabited Peach and Graveyard Islands in 1745. would today have much difficulty in securing sufhcient dry ground for a habitation. The same is also true of Cherry Island, where some accounts say he at first settled.

From the statements of a number of land owners residing along the shores of the bay, who are familiar with the annual encroachment of its waters, it is safe to sav that the present site of Fort Sandusky, which was, according to the Journal of M. de Lery, built on the north shore of the bay nearest to the Portage to Lake Erie in about 1745. is prob ebly one-eighth of a mile out in the Sandusky Bay, and, of course, now under water. M.

And Representative Citizens 49

de Lery was a distinguished French Army Enginecr, whose residence was at Quebec. He traversed the regions described and kept a journal of his travels.

Prof. E. L. Moseley in 1904, in an address before the Ohio State Academy of Science on the "Formation of Sandusky Bay and Cedar Point" says:

"The bay with the connected marshes is probably twenty per cent Jarger now than in 1820. So far as the enlargement is due to erosion it should proceed more rapidly the wider the bay becomes, for the waves attain greater force. The effect of the waves, however, is diminished by the bay bridge, by jetties at the entrance to the bay, by docks and by stones put on the shore purposely to protect the land. The enlargement of the bay, due to the subsidence of the land, may be partly prevented by dikes and may be effected to some extent by changes at Niagara Falls, produced by human agency. We may reasonably expect, however, that the bay will continue to spread over the adjacent lowland much as it has been doing for centuries past.

"It has been supposed that the lake, which after the melting of the southern portion of the glacier, overspread a larger arca than Lake Erie docs now, subsided until what are now the islands appeared above its surface. This view is doubtless correct, but there is now much evidence to show that it continued to subside until the islands formed part of the mainland and afterward rose and isolated them again, and is still rising and likcly to submerge them again. The old beaches which may be traced for long distances running nearly paralicl to the present shores of the Great Lakes, must have been level at the time they were formed, but they are not now level, and there has, therefore, been a tilling of that part of the earth's crust which includes the basins of the Great Lakes, as there has been of many other parts. These beaches all have gentle slopes, toward the south and southwest, indicating that in this part of North America, there has been an uplifting of the land toward the north and northeast, or a depression toward the south, southwest or both. The effect of this tilting of the basins of these lakes has heen to raise the water on the south and west, as compared with that on the opposite sides, just as the tipping of a saucer partly filled with water would do.

"The rise of the water due to tilting of the land, 2.14 feet in a century, is about the same as the change of lake level that sometimes occurs within a year, in conscquence of variations in the rainfall; and is considerably less than that produced in Sandusky Bay by a single northeast gale. The present generation is likely to see the water higher than it was in 1858, and in northeast gales, the lower parts of Sandusky submerged; and before the middle of the next century the water at such times may vo quite across the peninsula from Port Clinton to Sandusky Bay. After two or two and a half centuries, the water may cover this part of the peninsula for months at a time and after three centuries may do so at ordinary stages. Marblehead will then be an island and Sandusky Bay will show no resemblance to its present form." and adjoining marshes, which abounded in various kinds of water fowl, principally wild ducks and geese and with fish easy to catch and more easy to entrap, than in larger bodies of water. The settlers along its course at times largely subsisted upon them. The furs of the muskrat, mink, otter and raccoon were the medium of exchange for supplies at the trading posts in early times. In the spring of the year the rapids at the head of the slack water at Lower Sandusky were fairly alive with white bass, which were easily taken out with a seine. While farther down the river in deeper water, sturgeon, muscallonge, black bass, catfish and pickerel were the important catch, -

Sandusky River and marshes were widely known for the excellent duck hunting and fishing. About ten thousand acres of marsh land contiguous to the mouth of the river are owned and controlled by the Ottawa Shooting Club and the Winnous Poirit Club, a majority of whose members are residents of Cleveland. The Fremont Club, on the north bank of Mud Creek, has a very pleasant location and commodious quarters, and is quite freely patronized by its Fremont members. The mouths of the creeks and bays, emptying into the river, were, up to twenty years ago the best shooting grounds to be found for open water ducks. The artificial drainage of the country into the creeks and estuaries has deposited sediment and washings over the feeding grounds of the ducks, and the German carp, which are so numerous in these waters, have so thoroughly rooted out the aquatic vegetation, that now these bodies of water are nearly entirely denuded of any form of food for water fowls. Practically the only duck hunting grounds of any value are the land-locked ponds where, during the summer and early fall, grain is scattered by the shooting clubs, to entice the ducks to these localities.

The black bass, which formerly abounded so plentifully in the river and in Green Creek, have been nearly entirely caught out, mostly with nets or been driven out by the carp, whose society is shunned by these and all other fishes.

50 HISTORY) OT importation, having been introduced into these waters about 1880, 'Their increase has been phenomenal, until the river is literally alive with them. In the spring of the year as many as seven tons of carp have been taken out in a single haul with a seine covering a sweep of three-eighths of a mile, and not to exceed twenty pounds of other fish would be found in the seine. During the year of 1go02 from 800 to 1,000 tons of carp were taken out of Sandusky River and marshes. One crew of seine fishermen on Reach Island paid tonnage tax to the state on 125 tons of carp caught in one season, The catch each year since, while it may vary owing to the stages of the water and the market price of the fish, has been equally as large. While the muskrat have been trapped and hunted in the Sandusky Bay marshes for more than one hundred years, yet seasons of low water and severe winters seem to have depleted their numbers more than has the work of the trappers. The mink and the marsh raccoon are being rapidly exterminated during the past few years.

During the winter of 1908-1go9, the water being very low, from twenty to twenty-five thousand muskrats were caught, for which the trappers realized twenty-four to thirty-two cents per skin.

The following fishes are native to these waters: White, black and calico bass, rock bass, catfish, bulihead, suckers, chub, sunfish, perch, sturgeon, muscallonge, eel and pike or pickerel, but they are becoming scarcer each year as the carp become more plentiful, and fears are entertained that eventually all other fish may be displaced by the carp.