History of Miami County CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY AND DESCRIPTIVE Introductory—First Lords of the Soil, the Mound Builders—Speculations and Traditions as to the Mound Builders—The Indians not the Aborigines—Corning of the White Man—Resistance of the Indians—Area of Miami County—Its Division into Twelve Townships—Topography, Elevation, Drainage—Fertility of the Soil—Disappearance of the Forests—Conditions Favorable to Agriculture—Tributaries of the Miami—Geological Foundations—Prehistoric Remains—Indian Occupancy —Early Abundance of Game. In the preparation of this work the author will incline to the narrative rather than to the technical style. He will give the principal facts as they appeal to him, clothing them in language easily understood, leaving to the close student the disputed points and those which border on tradition. There is nothing in local history so confusing as that which borders on the obscure, and history, to be intelligible, should be stripped of the mistiness which sometimes surrounds it. The true history of a country is that of its people, for they are the makers of history. After the discoverer comes the pioneer, who is the avant courier of trade, commerce, the arts and sciences. The sound of his axe is succeeded by the music of countless wheels of industry, and from small beginnings in the wilderness spring the myriad avenues of civilization which, diverging like the spokes of a wheel, complete in time the upbuilding of a community or the glory of a nation. That this is the case locally I will endeavor to show in the following pages. There exists no doubt that the first "lords of the soil" embraced within the present borders of Miami County were a race of people known as the Mound Build- - 21 - 22 - HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY ers. Of this race, which vanished before the coming of the Indian, we have traces in the shape of mounds, fortifications, and relics of earth and stone. Whence came the Mound Builder and whither he went is to this day a subject for speculation. J. F. McLean, who is an authority on the Mound Builders and their works, calls them "an ancient and unknown race of people, possesing a well-developed type of civilization, who once inhabited the Valley of the Ohio." It is but fair to say that his opinion of the attainments of this people is disputed by other writers. "This race," continues Professor McLean, "has left us no written history, but the testimony of its existence and advancement in the arts and sciences is attested in the stupendous structures consisting of mounds, walled enclosures and domestic implements, which have long attracted the attention of observers, scientists, and the public generally. The ethnologist has been intensely interested as to the type of mankind that constructed the remains. - Many are the theories that have been propounded, but certain testimonies exist which enable us to arrive at plausible conclusions." It is no longer believed that the Indian erected the squares and parallelograms found in different parts of Ohio nor the mounds which exist in various parts of this country. "The North American Indian," continues the authority above quoted,"has no habits of progressive industry. There is not one scintilla of evidence that he built these mounds. His own testimony is against it. To say the least, he was incapable of the task. For instance, one Indian tradition avers that the primitive inhabitants of Kentucky perished in a war of extermination waged against them by the red tribes, and the Indian chief Tobacco informed George Rogers Clarke of a tradition in which it was stated that there was a battle at Sandy Island which decided the fate of the ancient inhabitants. Chief Cornplanter affirmed that Ohio, and this local section as well, had once been inhabited by a white race who were familiar with the arts of which they (The Indians) knew nothing. There is no doubt that the Indians had such traditions. They saw the various mounds and, being unable to account for them, they invented traditions which, to their romantic minds, would suit the ease. The red man was a born story teller. Every campfire had its romanticist, and the wigwams that dotted the vast region through which the Miami flows heard more than one fanciful story of the vanished races. There is no definite history that all the stone implements and weapons which are found to this day within the boundaries of Miami County came from the hands of the Indian. In regard to the makers of these relics there is a large amount of speculation. Dr. Abbott and others have discovered a Paleolithic man and another whom they link kindredly to the Eskimo. Then we have also the Mound Builder and the pre-historic Indian, and the latter day "Lo." That the Indian manufactured stone weapons, implements, etc., there is not much doubt. From diggings made within the Ohio Valley in 1884 the following conclusions as to how the arrow-head was formed may here be given: "The primitive man first removed the outlying stratum of earth. On reaching the flint a large fire was made on it which caused the rock to shatter ; water probably being thrown on it to hasten the AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 23 work. Removing such pieces as could be detached, the process was repeated, if necessary, until the limestone below was reached and a hole made large enough to work in. The burnt portions being all taken off and thrown out of the way, clay was plastered along the upper half of the flint to protect it from the heat, and a fire built in the bottom of the hole against the larger and lower part. "With the large boulders he broke off the upper unburned portion and carried it to some convenient level spot, where, with smaller hammers, the blocks were broken into suitable size for working. It is a singular fact that no arrowheads or other specimens were made where these blocks were broken up, but the small pieces were always carried to another spot—sometimes only a few yards away. In making large or heavy articles, as axes, pestles, etc., that did not require careful or delicate work from the beginning, he used a hard, tough, pebble, preferring diorite or some form of quartz. With this he could knock off chips and spalls from his inchoate implement until he had removed as much of the useless portion as he could in this way; then, with light blows, he pecked over the entire surface until he had brought it to the correct outline on every side. With a piece of gritty sandstone he ground away the marks of the hammer and finally rubbed off all rough places and scratches with a softer, finer-grained stone than the first, and thus gave the specimen a smooth surface with more or less polish. All instruments for cutting or splitting had the edge made sharp and smooth by rubbing as soon as the form admitted—often before the hammer marks were effaced from other portions; and if a groove was needed it was made as soon as possible." I have been thus particular regarding the manufacture of the stone relics of the vanished races, as gleaned from the conclusions of archaologists, for the information of the school-boy who to-day searches the farms of this county for these interesting relics. He is the coming archeologist and must take the places of those who go before him. The Mound Builder has occupied and ever will occupy the mind of the antiquarian, and his sojourn in the Miami Valley need not be enlarged upon in a work of this nature. He was the true aborigine—a term which applies only to the first inhabitants of a country. Many writers speak of the Indians as aborigines, which term, according to the makers of our dictionaries, is incorrect. The Indians, following the vanished races, became the second occupants of the soil, and henceforth when reference is made to them they will be called Indians, which is their rightful title. In this county relics of early occupation have been found everywhere. They are numerous in some localities and infrequent in others. On the Col. Johnston farm, near Piqua, great numbers have been found, and in certain places throughout the Stillwater region. These relics are the only implement legacies left us by the races which once tenanted this section. In all probability some of the tumuli to be found within our borders would yield results if opened, and on several occasions this has been done. Some gravel pits have brought to light many skeletons, but the skulls when measured have inclined scientists to the opinion that they were the remains of Indians. Not long ago a pit 24 - HISTORY OF MIAMI COUNTY on the eastern side of the county produced a perfect skull faced with a flattened copper plate, which gave credence to the assertion that the remains were those of an Indian chief of distinction. In some of these "finds" no weapons or implements were brought to light. The Indian, as a rule, buried the weapons of the dead with them, unless the hasty abandonment of a field of battle prevented. In one pit on the Joseph Stafford farm in Lost Creek Township more than fifty skeletons were uncovered in one spot, which inclines one to the belief that the early inhabitants fell victims to an epidemic which carried them off in great numbers. It is well known that at various times the red races that inhabited Ohio were decimated by smallpox, a disease for which they had no cure, and consequently they died rapidly. Few Indians were actually killed in battle in Miami County, for, so far as is known, no inter-tribal wars occurred, and the numbers slain by the whites were not great. Summing up everything, there remains no doubt' that this county saw in its primitive state the villages of the Mound Builder. While he left behind him comparatively few traces of his occupancy of our soil, he must have lived here, to vanish in the mists of the past and become one of the enigmas of the ages. The space that exists between his disappearance and the coming of the Indian is indeterminable. Whether it should be counted by decades or centuries no one can tell. If the Mound Builder was the sentient being some have called him, it is strange that he should leave behind him no hieroglyphics by which the learned could arrive at the time of his habitation. The Indians speculated over him ; as has been said, they had traditions of him, but the forests of this vast and now densely populated region are as silent regarding him as are the rivers of the Old World of the first people who looked upon their waters. The Indians of Miami County had their own history to make, and they made it. Too often that history was made to the sorrow of the first settlers. They disputed the ground with the white man; they remained here as long as possible. The white man saw that the land was fair and he wanted a new home west of the Alleghanies, and the forests of Ohio beckoned him irresistibly. The dawn of civilization broke with the vanishment of the savage. The settler came here to remain, and not all the red tribes were strong enough to dispossess him. There could be no peace between the two races. The settler was ready to extend the olive branch, but the Indian rejected it. The warrior saw in the vanguard of civilization a menace; he stood ready to resist every encroachment and it is to his credit that he did it with all his might. There remains among us to-day nothing to mark the Indian occupation of this county. The fertile fields were destined to receive a new race of people, and with the disappearance of the scarlet tribes the whites began that era of prosperity which exists to the present day. The area of Miami County approximates four hundred square miles. It is divided into twelve townships, six on each side of the river, which, rising in Hardin County, flows southward and enters the Ohio near Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The surface of the county is undulating and the soil productive. The land in the western part of