CHAPTER II.
THE PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
THE beginning of the history of the mouth and valley of the Maumee River, is involved in unusual obscurity. The first settlements of the Dutch, and afterward of the English, were up the Hudson, and slowly towards the interior of the State of New York. Between these settlements and Ohio was the Iroquois Confederacy (Five Nations), the most powerful of Indian Tribes. They were not in the main unfriendly to these settlements; but there was in the earliest times little temptation to penetrate beyond, and in later days the Iroquois claimed to control Ohio as their bunting-ground.
In 1609, about a quarter of a century before Lake Erie was known, Champlain, at the request of the Ottawas, met in battle the Iroquois. This was the first introduction of the latter to civilization. The lines of the allies opened, and the Indians were struck, as seemed to them, by " lightning from the gods," with the usual " thunder." But the confederated Iroquois in the end conquered the other Indian nations, and this brilliant exploit of Champlain, for nearly a century and a half, prevented the settlement of the Ohio. The Iroquois were not friendly, though not always at war.
The French way to the West, for trade and settlement, was North of Lake Erie. In 1671, Lake Superior was quite well represented on the maps. As late as 1744, the French official Geographer, in the map furnished for that learned work, Charlevoix's "New France," has along the South shore of Lake Erie the legend, " Toute cette cote n'est presque point comme " (All this shore is nearly unknown). The other more Southern English Colonies were separated from the West by the Alleghanies-often on the maps not inaptly called " The Endless Mountains." Gradually from the East and the West, adventurers, traders and settlements approached what is now Ohio; and when Washington was a young man, the French and English first met in the West. The country of the Ohio was the border-land on which they met. It had for many years lain between them. It continued thereafter to be the border land, all through the Revolution, and even in the war between the United States and Great Britain, known as the War of 1812. Even in that war we can tell pretty well what was done by the people of New York and of Pennsylvania, and the sons of Kentucky are reasonably prominent in written history. The West in British hands was well reported; but we know little of the part of Ohio in that war, except as we gather its history from the narratives of citizens of other States. As was the case of the English and Scottish border, and as is the ease of border-lands generally, the history of Ohio is rich in romance and dramatic interest, but precise information is wanting.
The earliest known man in Europe was the Glacial Man-living when most of Europe was covered with glaciers, and following up closely the retreating ice. A large share of the United States was similarly covered. The Southern limit is easily traced and with close accuracy. Even the very farms which that limit crossed, can be and have been pointed out, This Southern line-the terminal Moraine, as it is called-formed a continuous line from the Atlantic Ocean to at least the Mississippi River. The line entered Ohio on the center line of Columbiana County, not far from a line with the center of the State, and pursued a zigzag course to the Southwest, crossing the present valley of the Ohio in Brown County, some distance East of Cincinnati ; re-crossing into Indiana below Cincinnati, and zigzagging to the Mississippi. The accumulations of the ice are found 500 to 600 feet on each side of the Ohio River, at Cincinnati. At that point was a great glacial darn. The Ohio must have been a Lake, with its water several hundred feet higher than at present, with irregular shores-up the present Valleys of the Rivers flowing into the Ohio. Abundant evidences are found in the Upper Ohio Valley of the existence of this Lake. Toledo, of course, was far behind the front of the belt of ice.
In New Jersey-in the striated beds of gravel which were deposited by the large streams running from the ice-are found thousands of
24 - HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY.
relics of the Glacial Man, substantially identical with those of Europe. As these are found in undisturbed strata 20 feet and more from the surface, they must have been deposited at the time the gravel was. In short, man lived in New Jersey while the ice covered the Northern part of the State. He may have lived along and South of the ice-belt, in the West; and may as well have fished in the Ohio Lake and in the streams leading to it, as in the Sea and the River which deposited the Trenton gravel. There have been found in the West a few relics similar to those of Glacial Man, and supposed to have been his. The line has only recently been traced in the West, so that more precise information is wanting. The Glacial Man is not long known to have been American as well, but surely living on this Continent may have been the earliest inhabitant of Ohio; and, following the retreating ice, have been the first denizen of the Maumee Valley.
The earliest man, however, who left permanent imprint upon the face of the country, was the mysterious Mound Builder-so-called, because we have no other name for him. Nowhere are his works more numerous or more extensive than in Ohio. The Southern Valleys of the State were his thickly populated home. These works are far less in number in the Northern part of the State, and still less in the lower Maumee Valley. That may well then have been to him, for some reason, a " borderland."
The earliest dweller in Ohio may not unlikely-if he passed over the site of Toledo at all-have passed over a Lake. Before the Glacial period, Lake Erie was a River. The glacial streams from the South emptied their waters some 200 feet lower than at present. As that is about the depth of Lake Erie, there could then have been no such Lake. The Niagara River (to call it by that name), did not then flow over the present Falls, but had a channel to the North, and at a level not far from that below the Falls. That channel has been partly identified, but the ice which dammed the Ohio, dammed the Niagara, as well, and high enough so that in the retreat, Lake Erie was higher than at present. The well known ridges were Lake beaches, and the Lake has not yet, by far, found its ancient level.
The country of the Maumee differs widely from the Moraine in its manner of deposit, and may well have been the bottoms of Lake, higher than the present, causing a level deposition of matter not so deposited where the ice alone had covered the land. Possibly, in the earlier days of the Mound Builder, it may have been covered with water, Niagara River having a higher bed than now. Some Mounds are found not far from Toledo, and on land no higher. But the days of the Mound Builder in Ohio were ended, and they had disappeared from the State. Peace gave way to war, and agriculture to a more savage life. There is no reason to suppose that the people who drove away the Mound Builders were any other than those found succeeding them and in a desultory way dwelling on their lands