Huntington County, Indiana - Chapter 1, 1887

Chapter 1

Geology - General Features - The Original Wabash - Sections at Markle and Warren - Lime and its Analysis - Deposits at Andrews - Oil Well at Silver Creek - The Glacial Drift, etc.

HUNTINGTON COUNTY is in the form of a rectangle, with the greater diameter lying north and south. It contains about 384 square miles. The physical features of the county are not marked by any prominent hills or elevated points, the general surface being slightly elevated table land that will hardly exceed 300 feet above the surface of Lake Erie. It is well watered by Wabash River and its tributaries, Little River, Salamonie River, Silver and Clear creeks, and a number of small branches which flow from the north and south into the principal stream. It will be seen, by reference to a good map, that Wabash and St. Mary's rivers rise in Mercer and Shelby counties, Ohio, on opposite sides of a narrow water-shed, and flow in the same direction, northwest, until the latter stream reaches a point near Fort Wayne, from whence it turns northeast and joins the Maumee, which flows northeast to Lake Erie. St. Joseph River rises in Michigan, flows southwest to Fort Wayne where it also joins the Maumee River. This remarkable hydrographical feature of this part of the State has long attracted the attention of topographers and geographers. Prof. Gilbert, of Ohio, attributes this water phenomena to at least two concentric elevated ridges, one near Defiance, in Ohio, and the other near Fort Wayne, these ridges being terminal moraines.

While there is much evidence presented by the course of the streams and other physiographical features of the country to sustain this view of the subject, there are yet some striking facts which seem to indicate that both St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers were once tributaries of Wabash River. The waters of Little River have their rise in a marsh seven miles southwest of Fort Wayne, and this swamp, in times of freshets, brings it into intimate connection with St. Mary's River. The old bed of Little River, where it emerges from the swamp, is as broad as the

"Wabash in the southeast corner of Huntington County and fully as broad as the St. Joseph at Fort Wayne. That the latter stream and St. Mary's River once formed a part of Little River and constituted the main source of Wabash river may be further inferred from their general parallelism to the courses of the streams that enter the Wabash from the southeast and northeast; Salamonie and Mississinewa on the one side and Eel and Tippecanoe rivers on the other.

The only well marked evidence of terminal moraines in this county lies along both banks of Little and Wabash rivers. The large boulders which mark their boundaries are forty to fifty feet above the beds of the streams. These boulders are very conspicuous above and below the town of Huntington. This county was named in honor of Samuel Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Huntington is the county seat and is situated on Little River, two miles above its junction with Wabash River. It is built on the boulder terrace fifty-two feet above Wabash River and Erie Canal, which is here, by engineers' levels, eleven feet lower than Fort Wayne.

The only rocks exposed, in place in this county, are of paleozoic age and belong to the Niagara epoch. The erratic material composing the glacial drift, rests immediately upon the N iagara, and is succeeded by clay, without organic remains, which may or may not belong to the loess. On this clay we have the recent soil accumulations.

The most eastern out-crop of the Niagara, in the county, is at Markle on the Wabash River. The rock here is quarried from the bed of the river. It has a blue-gray color, irregular fracture, is in four to six inch layers, and in this part of the county is a favorite building stone. The section exposed in the river bank at Markle. is : »

The beds used for masonry can only be quarried during periods of low water when the current can be turned from it by inexpensive temporary dams. Another crop of this stone is seen along the Salamonie at Warren and at points above and below. Half a mile east of Warren, John A. Lewis has a lime kiln situated in a shallow ravine on the crop of the porous, buff magnesian limestone. In quarrying he has gone down only six feet. The stone is schistose and false bedded, which gives it the appearance of having a strong dip to the southwest. Analysis of Limestone from this quarry gives :

97.01 One mile below Warren, Elisha Christman has a lime kiln, and is using the stone from a crop on the bank of the Salamonie Elver. Six to eight feet of stone is seen above the bed of the stream. Similar rock is seen again near the grist mill at Bellmont. At the bridge over Wabash River, one and a half miles south of Huntington, there is a crop of Niagara exposed, sixteen feet above the bed of the river. This stone was used in the bridge abutments, but already shows signs of rapid decay by crumbling under the influence of water and frost. The principal part of the bed is an earthy limestone, and presents the appearance of a very good hydraulic stone. Its composition in 100 parts is :

99.68 It will be seen that this stone differs from the Markle stone in the large amount of insoluble silicates which it contains, 32.50 percent., the former only having 3.25 per cent. As before stated, it will make a very good hydraulic cement but is totally unsuited for masonry where durability is desired.

The greatest development of the Niagara is seen along the banks of Little River above and below Huntington. The most easterly crop is on Section 18, Township 28, Range 10, about three and a half miles from Huntington. From this point east it remains covered by drift and is penetrated at the depth of eighty- eight feet by the Fort Wayne well. Lime kilns have been established all along the crop and the burning of lime constitutes one of the chief industries of the county. Thirty-one kilns were in active operation making caustic lime at the time of my visit. Eight of the number are perpetual kilns, the remainder are occasional kilns which require to be completely discharged and cooled before re filling.

This lime is held in high estimation and meets with a ready market not only in Indiana, but in Ohio and Illinois, as well. The composition of the stone used at the respective kilns on Little River in 1875 is given in the following table :

The quality of the burnt lime is mainly due to the constituents of the limestone from which it is made. When the stone is principally composed of carbonate of lime the resulting lime is what is called by the masons " fat lime " or quick setting. But if the stone is a dolomite, composed of equal equivalents of carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia, the resulting lime forms a short, thin pulp with water and is termed " poor." For ordinary mortar, fat lime is objectionable on account of the rapidity with which it sets and becomes too hard to enter into close combination with the brick. Therefore, a medium quality of lime, termed " slow setting," is sought for, since it will yield a mortar that when spread over a large space will give the mason an opportunity to adjust a number of bricks before it commences to set. This property is found in lime where the magnesia does not form too large a per cent.

Geology

tion of the limestones in this county varies as regards the amount of insoluble silicates, alumina and magnesia, which they contain, nor is it fully understood why these substances, when present in quick-lime in proportions that are quite variable, give to it hydraulic properties, so that, with our present chemical knowledge of the subject, one is at a loss, in the absence of actual practical tests, made of its binding qualities, to decide where the mortar ceases to be air- setting aad becomes hydraulic or water-setting.

Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, yield good but slow air-setting caustic lime. Number 5 will undoubtedly give a lime that will have hydraulic properties, or set under water.

The limestone, which is considered the best for making quicklime, is a buff, porous stone containing large quantities of casts of Pentameroiis oblongus, Amphicoelia costata, Bhynchonella spf, Orthis annulatum, O. crebescens, Chonophyllum niagarensis, Favosities niagarensis, Haly sites catenulata, Fenestella sp?. These fossils are particularly abundant at McOarty's quarry. Pentainerus oblongus is especially conspicuous and gives the stone the appearance of a breccia.

The rock at some of the quarries lies in waves, and is peculiarly characterized by false bedding, which sometimes gives the appearance of a disturbed strata, dipping in various directions at a high angle. There are quarries on the left bank of the river, where the buff magnesian limestone, so famous for the good lime which it yields, is mixed with, and sometimes replaced by, a bluish earthy hydraulic limestone, resembling the stone at the bridge over Wabash River. Considerable money has been spent in trying to make of it a marketable lime, and to introduce it as a building stone, but in both instances it has proved comparatively worthless; it may, however, by judicious selection, be used for the manufacture of hydraulic cement.

Just along the west edge of Huntington, quarries have been opened at several places, running north from the river, for flagging and building stone. At the most southern opening, about one hundred yards from the river, we find:

The dip at this quarry appears to be 8° in the direction of 40° east of south. The chert is in large detached masses and mixed with buff magnesian limestone. North, seventy yards, at another quarry, the buff magnesian limestone is free from chert, but is schistose and false bedded, with an apparent dip of 20° at the south part of the quarry, but going back some ten yards, the apparent dip is 37° south 40° east. Half a mile down the stream, the rocks at the river edge dip about 80° south 70° east. At the Drover quarry, a large opening has been made by quarrying stone for lime. The rocks are false bedded and appear to dip in every direction from the centre of the quarry. The surface rocks, where excavations commenced and went to the depth of twenty feet is buff magnesian, coral bearing limestone. In some parts of the quarry there are masses of Favosites niagarensis so large as to lead at once to the belief that the entire bed of stone was derived from an ancient coral reef. The great disorder of the strata, mainly due to false bedding or peculiar arrangement of the material constituting the present rocks, has led many to infer that this irregularity was due to earthquake or volcanic action. This is the more deceptive since the apparent elevations have their surfaces capped with enduring beds of chert or impure flint, and along the local waves in the strata stand in elevated knobs which fancy has construed into volcanic cones. Huntington is located on one of these flint ridges and the locality was known to the Indians by the name of "We-pe-cha-an-gange^' ov flint place. The flint of this locality was of great value to the Indians as the material of which they fashioned their arrow points, spear points and flint knives.

At dam No. 1 across Wabash River, two miles below Huntington, the Niagara rock appears along the left bank of the stream and served for one of the abutments of the dam. The beds are thin, cherty and much weathered on exposed edges. The rock forms the bed of the river and presents a vertical face ten and a half feet in height on the left shore, while in the bottom on the opposite side of the river it is entirely replaced by the drift. A few feet below the dam there is a slight anticlinal axis, the dip being 4° south- east on one side of the crown and 4° north-west on the other.

Col. Milligan's quarry, just below Huntington on the bank of Little River, has yielded some of the best looking stone for flaggmg and mason work to be found in the neighborhood. The stripping is quite light, and the section obtained, shows:

7 00 On Wabash River, about one mile northwest of Andrews, Joseph Leedy opened a quarry to procure 'stone for the abutments of a new bridge to be built across the river where the road leading north from Andrews crosses it. The stone is quarried at a crop in the river bank, and furnishes the following section:

The beds are very irregular, with an apparent dip of 8° to the southwest. On the opposite side of the river and at Loon creek, similar rock is seen. The entire thickness at the crop is twenty feet, and the apparent dip is 20° northeast. This stone was quarried and used in the construction of locks on the canal, but can not be considered a durable stone. Near this old quarry and on Section 2<J, Township 28, Range 8, there is a strong chalybeate spring. It rises up above the surface of the ground and flows over ihe side of the gum curbing in a bold stream; it is strongly charged with iron, and is cool and pleasant to the taste. The water possesses valuable medicinal properties, is close to the thriving village of Andrews, on the Wabash Railroad, and might be made a place of resort for invalids who require a mild tonic. An additional attraction may also be found in the saline sulphur water, on Section 14, Township 28, Range 8, scarcely a mile distant from the chalybeate spring.

The sulphur water flows from an artesian well bored for coal oil on the bank of Silver Creek. No record could be found of this bore, but it is supposed that the water comes from a depth of about 600 feet, and flows out at the top of a wooden pump stock, four or five feet above the surface. Judging by the taste, it is strong in chloride of sodium and other mineral salts, and emits a strong odor of sulphureted hydrogen mixed with marsh gas, carbureted hydrogen. The existence of the latter gas in the boggy places along the creek, led to the selection of this locality as one most likely to furnish oil, from the well-known fact that carbureted hydrogen usually accompanies the oil in the famous wells on Oil Creek, in Pennsy Ivania. In this case, however, no oil was obtained. Anywhere in the marsh near the well, if a stick is run down into the mud and vegetable matter, carbureted hydrogen will escape, and if touched with a lighted match takes fire and burns. This well is peculiarly interesting, since it lies almost mid- way between Fort Wayne, where a well was bored to the depth of 3000 feet, and Wabash, where a well went to the depth of 2270 feet, neither of which found water that would rise to the surface.

It will be seen from the foregoing remarks, that the only stratified rocks found in the county crop in a few localities along the streams, and that while they are eminently suited for the manufacture of quick-lime, it is only in rare instances that layers are found at all suitable for masonry, where durability is considered of prime importance. The Niagara, in this State, is not metalliferous, it does not even furnish notable quantities of ironore. Nevertheless, some years ago there was considerable excitement raised about the reported existence of gold in the rocks at the Drover quarry. Specimens of the reported gold ore were taken to New York, by Mr. Backus, and they were reported by some one to yield $158.00 to the ton. Stock to the amount of $10,000 was sold and with the money thus raised, the company erected a mill and purchased the necessary machinery for crushing the rock and saving the precious metal. Unfortunately for the success of the enterprise, the rock, as any intelligent geologist could have told them at a glance, proved totally barren of precious metals, and all the company could realize after spending much money, was the value of the, to them, useless machinery. It proved to be iron pyrites partly decomposed on the surface and filling isolated cavities in the cherty, magnesian limestone.

The drift covers the entire county, and can not be less than 100 to 130 feet thick over a great portion of the table-land. The upper portion is composed of irregular beds of sand, clay and gravel. Boulders and hard plastic clay lie at the base. The larger boulders, "Roches moutonnees," lie along both shores of Little River and Wabash River at an elevation of forty to fifty feet above the streams. They are particularly abundant above and below Huntington on the right bank of Little river. Their surfaces are scratched and grooved, but I was unable to find glacial scratches on the stratified rocks where they are exposed to view. This may, in part, be due to the fact that no fresh surface of the upper layers were seen, and the readiness with which the Niagara weathers, would soon obliterate all traces of such marks. From the manner in which the boulders lie along the borders of Little River, one is led to the conclusion that the stream has cut its way between two lateral moraines. A very large granite boulder, weighing many tons, lies in the bed of Little River three and a half miles above Huntington, which from a fancied resemblance in shape to a saddle, has received the name of " Saddle Rock." This boulder rests immediately on the Niagara which is here seen in the bed of the river for the last time as you ascend the stream, and is not again found above the surface in an easterly direction before reaching the borders of Ohio. The large beds of sand found in the upper part of the drift are particularly valuable in this part of the State since they furnish the only source from which this essential ingredient of good mortar can be had. There is a very large deposit of sand in the northwest border of Huntington. It is ten or twelve feet thick and the lines of deposition present the characteristic features of what is termed in rock strata " false bedding."' The sand from this pit is held in high estimation by the masons and plasterers, and finds a ready market.

The recent excitement throughout the northeastern portion of Indiana, caused by the finding of natural gas in many places, has had some effect in Huntington County. Up to this writing, however, all efforts to find that uncertain quantity have proved futile. It is more than probable that the southern and especially the southwestern portion cff the county will under the proper drilling yield this much desired article. Thus far natural gas has not been found in what is known as the Wabash Arch in any part of the State. This arch is the outline of certain exposures of rocks and follows very closely the course of the Wabash River. It is the theory of some, that the disturbances and upheavals of former ages, which have left the strata of the rocks along this ach tilted in so many directions, that the gas has all escaped in that portion of the country. It seems at least plausible that this is the case, and on any other ground it is hard to explain why this subtile compound of the earth so persistently refuses to manifest itself north of this Wabash Arch. The citizens of both Warren and Huntington, have made attempts at finding it, but failure has followed in each case, the result being, a brackish water at the bottom of each well. In several instances a strong odor of the gas was obtained, and for a time the hopes of the investors ran high. Other efforts will doubtless be made and it is possible that some of them will succeed.