Ohio History Journal

PRE-HISTORIC EARTHWORKS OF RICHLAND

COUNTY.

 

BY A. J. BAUGHMAN.

Secretary Richland County Historical Society.

"Here stand mounds, erected by a race

Unknown in history or in poets' songs."

In our own county we see evidences of a pre-historic people

whose origin and fate are unknown. We know of them only by

the monuments they reared in the form of earth-works, and as

these principally are mounds, we call the people who made them

"Mound Builders." The term is not a distinguishing one, for

people the world over have been mound builders, more or less,

from generation to generation.

In no other country are earth-works more plainly divided

into classes than here in America. In some places fortified hills

and eminences suggest the citadel of a tribe or people. Again,

embankments, circular or square, separate and in combination,

enclosing, perhaps, one or more mounds, excite our curiosity, but

fail to satisfy it, and we ask, "Are these fading embankments the

boundaries of sacred enclosures, or the fortifications of a camp,

or the foundations on which were built communal houses?"

In the Blackfork valley-especially the part taken from Rich-

land and given to Ashland county-there are numerous mounds

and other earth-works, but only a few can be considered in the

limit of this paper.

On the southwest quarter of section 17, Green township, half

a mile northwest of Greentown, there was in the years agone a

circular embankment embracing about half an acre of ground.

The embankment was about five feet in height in the days of old

Greentown. There was a "gate-way" to the west, about twelve

feet wide. In the center of the enclosure there was a mound into

which excavations were made about fifty years ago to the depth

of nine feet, which appeared to be the depth of the artificial work.

Coal, wood and feathers were found in the lower strata.

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Within a mile east of Greentown there was a similar em-

bankment, embracing an acre of ground, but there was no mound

within this enclosure.

The Parr "fort" was a circular earth-work, about seven feet

high and twelve to fourteen feet in diameter at the base. It en-

closed an area of about three acres. Very near it on the east side,

stood a large mound, from which copper beads and stone imple-

ments have been taken. About 70 years ago the late Dr. Hen-

derson had these mounds opened, and in them were found human

bones, decayed wood, charcoal, a stone pipe and a copper wedge.

The wedge created quite a sensation at the time, as it was sup-

posed to be gold.

The Darling "fort," in the Clearfork valley, below St. Johns,

was another earth-work containing nearly three acres. When

first discovered by Judge Peter Kinney, in 1810, its embankments

were about three feet high, covered with forest trees centuries

old. In this "fort," stone axes and other implements were

found.

There is a small mound at the northern limit of the city of

Mansfield near the "Medicine Spring." It is about fifteen rods

in length and five in breadth. This mound or knoll is, perhaps,

a natural elevation, although some think it is an artificial mound

on account of its geometrical proportions and its geographical

alignment, and its "eastern position" suggests that it might have

been built for an altar upon which to offer religious rites. It is

not known that any exhumation has ever been made, and the

origin of the knoll, whether natural or artificial, is a matter of

conjecture.

The Lafferty mound, about which there is so much specu-

lative query as to whether its formation was of geological or

archaeological origin, with about an equal division of opinion, is

situate four miles east of Bellville, on Uriah Lafferty's farm.

The mound is 1OO feet in height and its base covers an area

of six acres. It is oblong in shape, extending east and west, and

is as symmetrical as though it had been planned by an architect

and rounded with a mason's trowel.

The size of the mound does not preclude the probability that

it is an artificial earth-work, for Nebuchadnezzar built a mound

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Pre-Historic Earth- Works of Richland County.   69

 

four times as high within the walls of the city of Babylon, to

please a caprice of his wife.

As the Lafferty mound has never been opened nor scientific-

ally examined, theories as to its origin and formation are largely

speculative.

The valley in which the Lafferty mound stands has been

called the garden-spot of Richland county, and is as beautiful in

its scenic landscapes as it is rich and productive in its soil.

From the summit of the mound, the view to the west is one

of enhancing beauty. In the distance, hill-tops notch the horizon

and lift their green crowns in a summer day, through the clear,

soft atmosphere into the azure sky, making a landscape view of

unsurpassing loveliness.

There is an ancient earth-work two miles east of Mansfield

that is but little known by our people of to-day, although it was

surveyed and mapped by the county surveyor in October, 1878.

It is situated on the Balliett farm, and is approached by the road

leading east from the top of the Sherman hill, and is the most

noted of its kind within the present limit of Richland county.

These works are upon an elevation at the east side of the

head of Spook Hollow, and consist of an opal-shaped embank-

ment or fort 594 feet long, by 238 feet wide in the center, and

contains two and two-thirds acres. Southwest of the fort, 710

feet, there is a spring at the side of the ravine from which a

copious flow of water issues in all seasons of the year.

Directly south of the "fort," upon the side of the hill leading

to the old stage road, is the furnace which is an excavation walled

with stone like a well and is called a "furnace," as charcoal,

charred bones and evidences that fire had been used there were

found at the bottom of the drift with which the place was filled.

This "furnace" is about five feet across, is circular in form and

its uses and purposes must be conjectured.

At the east side of the fort there were a number of depressions,

varying from four to twenty feet, but they have been so filled up

in the tilling of the land as to be nearly obliterated. In excavat-

ing one of these depressions at the time of the survey, at a depth

of eight feet, a drift was struck leading toward the fort. Geo-

graphically, the "fort" was platted upon longitudinal lines and

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upon geometrical measurements, and the depressions were vari-

ously located with relative mathematical distances, all giving evi-

dences that the people who planned and made and occupied these

works were well advanced in mathematics.

Since their day and occupancy large forest trees have grown

upon these earth-works -trees of at least six centuries' growth.

These works are relics of that pre-historic age of which much

has been written and but little is known. The perspective view

of the fort in the outline is still discernible from the road, and

the location was well chosen, as it commands a fine view of the

valley opening to the south. Looking over and beyond Spook

Hollow, which with its weird traditions, lies at the base of the

hill, a valley of gardenlike loveliness is presented and the land-

scape picture extends for miles, embracing the hills in the far

distance, amid which the spire upon the church steeple at Cesarea

can be seen.

What connection, if any, existed between the Mound Builders

and the Indians is yet unsettled. But it appears certain that many

years before Columbus discovered America, the Mound Builders

had settlements here in Richland county, as these ancient earth-

works attest. That the people were not unacquainted with war

is shown by their numerous fortified enclosures. These mounds

and other antiquities give us some knowledge of a people that

lived here when civilization was but in the dawn in Europe. The

history of our own country is at least as interesting as that of the

land of Pharaohs, or of storied Greece, for here we see evidence

of an ancient culture, as well as the footprints of a vanished

people.

It is claimed by writers that the Mound Builders were of

Asiatic origin and were, as a people, immense in numbers and

well advanced in many of the arts. Similarity in certain things

indicates that they were of Phoenician descent. Of the Mound

Builders, we have speculated much, and know but little.

A local writer claimed that the Richland-Ashland mounds do

not belong to the pre-historic class -that they were made at a

more recent period, that they were built in the 17th century by

the Eries to protect their people from the invasions of the Iroquois

tribe.

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Pre-Historic Earth- Works of Richland County.        71

 

When Judge Kinney and party felled trees that had grown

upon the earth-works at the Darling "fort," the "growths"

showed that the trees had been growing there several centuries

before the war between the Eries and the Six Nations. The same

is true of the "fort" near Spook Hollow, and at other places.

When looking at the past, let us recognize the fact that na-

tions as well as individuals pass away and are forgotten.

Some of our mounds were used as sepulchres for the dead,

and should not be desecrated-even in the interest of historical

research and investigation.

An old-time poet wrote:

"Oh, Mound! consecrated before

The white man's foot e'er trod on shore,

To battle's strife and valour's grave,

Spare! oh, spare, the buried brave!

"A thousand winters passed away,

And yet demolished not the clay,

Which on yon hillock held in trust

The quiet of the warrior's dust.

"The Indian came and went again;

He hunted through the lengthened plain;

And from the mound he oft beheld

The present silent battlefield.

"But did the Indian e'er presume,

To violate that ancient tomb?

Ah, no! he had the soldier's grace

Which spares the soldier's resting place.

"It is alone for Christian hand

To sever that sepulchral band,

Which ever to the view is spread,

To bind the living to the dead."

Some may say why attempt to roll back the flight of years

to learn of a pre-historic people, for the search-light of investiga-

tion makes but little impression on the night of time. We have

no data on which to base an estimate as to the antiquity of man,

but we can contemplate the great periods of geological times,

and the infinite greatness of the works of creation, as disclosed

by Astronomy, with man's primeval condition, as made evident

by archaeology, and exclaim: "What is man that Thou art mind-

ful of him !"

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