Unveiling of the Cresap Tablet. 141
vation of their historic sites, mounds,
circles, squares, and the tokens
of a bygone civilization found therein.
To you, and to your keeping, we present
this Tablet, and are happy
in so doing.
We realize that you, and the great State
of Ohio, are leading in the
procession of progress. To you, the
custodian of the glories of the past,
peoples, records, and their trophies of
valor, we consign this Tablet, and
leave it under your protection, and that
of "Old Glory." Once again in
behalf of the Cresap Clan, we thank you.
With like purpose words of appreciation
in behalf of the
descendants of Captain Michael Cresap
were tendered to the
State Society by Mr. Charles H. Lewis,
who is a descendant of
the one in whose honor the tablet was
erected. His closing words
were:
"In this beautiful setting, now
filled with peace and plenty,
unafraid we breathe the spirit of
pioneer heroism. Here met civil-
ization and savage. Short the story-
Buried, -lost forever is
the tomahawk;
Broken, and useless is the flintlock;
The voice of Logan is silenced."
In connection with this occasion
Mr. Frank Tallmadge had
offered a money prize to the school
pupils of Circleville for
the most meritorious essay on the
historical plains of Pickaway
Township. The prize was awarded to Miss
Arista Arledge.
The essay is here given in full:
PICKAWAY COUNTY.
Pickaway County is one of our most
historical counties in Ohio.
It was formed January 12, 1810. The name
is a misspelling of Piqua,
the name of a tribe of Shawnee Indians.
We learn that most of our
formal Indian settlements were near the
Scioto river in the Pickaway
Plains.
The remarkable Pickaway Plains may be
designated as the section
lying between the Scioto on the west,
Salt Creek on the east, and extend-
ing north and south between lines which
would run respectively east
and west through Circleville and
Chillicothe. This rich bottom land, the
most fertile in Ohio, was the most
favorite location of the prehistoric
Mound Builders, as well as the most
historic field of the Ohio Indians.
Of the earliest inhabitants of the Ohio
Valley, the Indians had
neither knowledge nor tradition. They
belong to the prehistoric ages
and, -"These ages have no memory,
but they left a record."