COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD HISTORY OF OHIO CHAPTER I SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF OHIO IT WAS LONG AGO From the earliest recorded time man has contemplated with inquiring interest and awe and wonder the twin mysteries—the two eternities —the one from whence he came—the one to which he is to go. Speculation upon the remote past, we are told, is unprofitable, but that can not take from us our instinctive interest in the origin of the wonder-world in which we dwell. The marvel of creation presents questions that science has not definitely answered. In the far off "beginning" the earth took form and through succeeding ages was gradually fitted for the abode of civilized man. Years ago when the writer was a student in one of the excellent colleges with which Ohio abounds, he had occasion at times to go to one of the village groceries where the permanent resident philosophers were accustomed to assemble and discuss all questions, including the management of the college, politics, religion and the beginning and end of things generally. There were two groceries in the village. One was in harmony with "the spirit of the institution" and the existing order ; the other was the center of local protest, the tribunal of oracular proclamation, the dispensatory of opinions that were sometimes startling and iconoclastic. It is the latter grocery that we have in mind. On a certain day in the late autumn, when the warmth of the stove in the little grocery made it a comfortable place of resort for the local philosophers, whose good wives and daughters, for the most part, were rooming and boarding the college students, one of the older of the choice spirits assembled rose from the bench near the stove and slowly approached the proprietor, who was standing in judicial attitude behind the counter. "Cale," said the octogenarian, "how long has it been since the earth was made ?" By general consent, either because of faith in his judgment or gratitude for his hospitality, questions of doubt or dispute were generally referred to Cale, the proprietor. On this occasion, with all the dignity of a judge on the bench, Cale smoothed back his thin hair, stroked his iron gray beard, adjusted his glasses and solemnly said : "It was a long time ago, —a l-o-n-g t-i-m-e ago." At these words the elder philosopher resumed his seat near the stove, and there was silence, save the comforting roar of the fire. Well, why should there not be ? With that answer the plodding plowman and the college professor, the layman and the theologian, and coal heaver and the scientist may agree. It was a long time ago. - 1 - 2 - HISTORY OF OHIO CREATION OF THE EARTH Some Theories Briefly Stated The astronomer and the geologist have undertaken to give a more definite answer. They have considered not only the time but the process of creation. The nebular hypothesis, advanced by Laplace, for almost a century was accepted by scientists. It assumed that "in the beginning" the sun, the planets and their satellites were distributed through space in a great gaseous spheroid that extended far beyond the orbit of Neptune, the most distant planet of the solar system. By some initial propulsion it revolved about its center and gradually contracted in obedience to the law of gravitation. As this process advanced, rings of gaseous matter were thrown off which in time collected and formed the planets revolving on axes in the direction of the original impulse. The planets in turn threw off similar rings, which became satellites or moons. The greatest mass of this vast nebula finally contracted into the center of the system and became the sun. According to this theory all of these bodies, sun, planets and satellites, when formed were in a highly heated gaseous or liquid condition. The sun and two or three of the larger planets are believed still to be in such condition. Others of the planets and satellites, including the earth and the moon, have cooled until they are covered with a crust of comparative stability. The rings around the planet Saturn were supposed to be material for other satellites, or moons. The interior heat of the earth, increasing with the distance from the surface toward the center, was assumed to be due to the original condition of the planet and destined ultimately to be dissipated as the cooling process went on. Ages hence warmth and light and life were to cease, and all the members of the solar system were to roll "blind and blackening" through space—"A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay." To cheer the living, the fulfillment of this dark prophecy was fixed at millions of years in the future. In the past twenty-five years, however, the nebular hypothesis has been critically scrutinized and put to severe tests. Recent astronomical and geological discoveries have so thoroughly shaken faith in it that certain eminent scientists no longer regard it as a plausible hypothesis. Some of the satellites do not move in the direction of the "original propulsions." The rocks of the earth do not indicate a gradual cooling of the crust and a gradually colder climate, which would naturally follow the change from a molten condition. Early rock formations bear evidence of glaciation—ice ages—alternating with periods of tropical climate reaching almost from pole to pole. These are only a few of the facts cited to make the nebular hypothesis untenable. In search for a more plausible theory of creation Dr. Thomas C. Chamberlain, the well known authority on geology, has suggested the "planetismal" hypothesis. He presupposes that in the distant past, billions of years ago, a star came so close to our sun that it created a great disturbance in that body, resulting in tidal protuberances extending beyond the orbit of Neptune and a spiral nebula with planetary knots that in time became planets and smaller knots that became satellites and asteroids. The planets according to this plan, grew by additions of solid and gaseous material from without until their mass became so great that internal heat was generated by the attraction of gravity. This theory, Chamberlain insists, satisfactorily accounts for the observed phenomena, especially those recorded in the rock structure of the earth. The "planetismal" theory had scarcely begun to attract favorable consideration when it, too, was subjected to adverse criticism. While its assumptions accorded more nearly with the results of scientific research, it left many related questions unanswered and an effort has COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 3 been made to set it aside for a more comprehensive and satisfactory hypothesis than that advanced by Laplace. Mr. George Henry Lepper, of Pittsburgh, in an ample volume, "From Nebula to Nebula," describes the various theories of creation which have been published and goes after them with an iconoclastic hammer. He makes short shrift of the "planetismal" theory, declaring that it is based on the Newtonian explanation of the cause of the tides which, he claims has been exploded and generally abandoned. Other considerations equally, in the opinion of Mr. Lepper, render the theory of Doctor Chamberlain misty and improbable. Lepper, after disposing of the hypothesis here briefly stated and others that he finds equally untenable, advances one of his own which, he claims, accounts for the phenomena of the universe as recorded to date and answers all the questions that have been raised in regard to the creation of our solar system. He makes gravity, the attraction of matter for matter, the creative and controlling power of the universe. It is the source, the never failing and eternal source, of heat and light and motion. The sun, the planets, the satellites of our system and the stars that twinkle in the unmeasured depths of space beyond were made of primordial matter, in the form of gas or dust particles by this power, and as they grew the enormous pressure, due to the same power, created heat. This is the source of the wonderful heat of the sun and the interior heat of the earth. The greater heat of the former is due to its greater mass. According to this theory the sun at different times in its history, as it grew in size, became so intensely heated that the explosive force of its imprisoned gases threw off, in different eras, great masses of its materials in the form of nebulae or cloud-like gas and dust into space and these ejected masses became in time the planets and other bodies of our solar system. As the planets grew by the addition of materials attracted to their surface by this same power of gravity, by virtue of the superincumbent weight of materials heat developed in the interior increasing with growth of the planets. So long as the pressure due to the size of the planet remains constant the interior heat will not diminish. If the earth should increase to the size of the sun, according to the theory, it would be heated to incandescence like the sun, and take its place as a star in the universe. The planets of our system owe their origin to the materials thrown into space by eruptive explosions of unusual magnitude in the sun. Smaller eruptions in that luminary produce the sun-spots frequently observed. Some have advanced the theory that large spots on the sun in past ages are responsible for sudden changes of temperature on the earth's surface, for the ice ages that at various times have left their unquestioned records in the rocks. The book, "From Nebula to Nebula," is an important contribution to the speculation as to the creation of the universe, our solar system, and the good old planet on which we live. It presents a discussion of the various hypotheses within the limits of a single volume. Whether the materials of our earth were originally cosmic dust in the form of rings thrown off the nebula of our solar system according to the hypothesis of Laplace, or whether they were shot out of the sun in an eruptive explosion, is immaterial for our present purpose. It is enough for us to know that in the far off beginning Ohio, though unnamed as yet and without form or fame, was a part of the primordial cosmos, the eternity whence came the created things of today. GEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF OHIO When the earth took spherical and solid form, it presented in the earliest ages whose records have been deciphered on the rocks, a surface of land and water. The continental areas were then limited and low. 4 - HISTORY OF OHIO Much of what now constitutes the dry land was under water. In North America the land portions were chiefly north of the Great Lakes. What is now the Mississippi valley was then covered by a great inland sea of comparatively shallow depth. It should be remembered, even at the expense of repetition, that sedimentary rocks, or those formed and placed by the action of water, are deposited in successive layers or strata. At the basis of all such rock formation is what, for a better designation, we may call the primordial bed rock. Scientists differ as to its origin. Those who still THE ISLAND FORMED IN ORDOVICIAN TIMES, INCLUDING PORTIONS OF INDIANA, OHIO AND KENTUCKY The map presents the island as it appeared at the end of the Ordovician Period. Around it is the Epicontinental Sea, on the bed of which had already been formed the Cambrian and Ordovician strata of rocks. The Cambrian rocks are beneath the Ordovician, and did not come to the surface when the island rose from the Epicontinental Sea. accept the nebular hypothesis of Laplace claim that this bed rock is a part of the original crust of the earth and was formed when the surface changed, in cooling, from a molten to a solid condition. Others claim that the heat that produced this came from the center of the earth. It is enough for us to know that this primordial bed rock exists ; that its condition is due to heat ; that the elements composing it are of igneous or metamorphic origin. Upon this foundation were deposited the sedimentary rock formations of subsequent time. The bed rock in some regions attained great thickness-12,000 feet in the canyon of the Colorado ; one to nine miles in portions of Canada. It furnishes granite building stones and the rich copper and iron deposits of the Lake Superior region. In Ohio, however, it is known only as the bed rock upon which the sedimentary rocks of succeeding ages have been laid. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 5 In the periods of the formation of this bed-rock, life is supposed to have first appeared. Its earliest forms left no fossil remains, but were carried over into the more numerous and substantial life forms of the Cambrian period. The action of the water washed sediment from the land which was deposited over the ocean bed. Through the Cambrian period of rock formation what is now Ohio was under water. Through most of the Ordovician period which followed it was still a portion of the bed of the THE PORTION OF THE ORDOVICIAN ISLAND IN OHIO This portion of the island in what is now Southwestern Ohio was the first permanently dry land within the limits of the state. The Ordovician rocks, from the lower strata upward, included the Trenton, Eden and Richland shales and limestones. great interior salt water sea, but near the close of that period a small portion, about one-eighteenth of the entire state, emerged from the water. It was part of an island that lay in the states of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. A glance at the map will show the extent of the island at this period. In the Cambrian era many forms of animal life appeared in the shallow interior ocean. These were trilobites, brachiopods, sea worms and mollusks, pelecypods (oysters). Most of these forms of life were carried over to the succeeding Ordovician period. Their remains abound in the surface rocks that appear in the first dry land of Ohio. Vegetation, if it existed at all, was confined to the simplest and lowest forms of plant life. 6 - HISTORY OF OHIO The portions of Ohio that had risen from the sea at the close of the Ordovician period included all of Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Butler, Warren and portions of Adams, Highland, Clinton, Greene, Montgomery, Preble, Clarke and Miami counties. The primordial bed rock of the great inland sea, at the close of the Ordovician period, was overlaid with two series of rock formations—the Cambrian and the Ordovician—deposited through millions of years by action of the water. PORTIONS OF OHIO ABOVE THE WATER AT THE END OF THE SILURIAN PERIOD Following the Ordovician Period the strata of rocks formed in thc succeeding or Silurian Period were deposited over the bed of the inland or Epicontinental Sea, and at the end of the period the shaded portion shown on the map was dry land. The Silurian rocks, deposited above the Ordovician, from the lower strata of the Silurian upward, were the Brassfield limestone and the Niagara limestone and shale. The Ordovician period was succeeded by the Silurian. Some of the older text books of geology call the Ordovician period the Lower Silurian and the period that we are now about to consider the Upper Silurian. The modern nomenclature is here followed. In the Silurian period the forms of life of Ordovician time continued and some new forms appeared. The marine life was much more abundant than in the previous period. Blastoids appeared for the first time. Star fishes and serpent stars were not very numerous. Trilobites were abundant as were brachiopods, mollusks and corals. At the close COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 9 of the period the earliest scorpions left their remains in some of the rock formations. Fish also began to appear and signalize the transition to the next period in the progress of animal life. Geologists generally agree that vegetation occurred on the land through this period, limited to very narrow portions along the shore line, but practically no evidence of this fact is found in the rock fossils. Through this period there was a gradual emergence of Ohio from the interior sea which continued to be salt water. It is assumed that the   PORTIONS OF OHIO ABOVE THE WATER AT THE END OF THE MONROE FORMATION Geologists are a little uncertain as to what period should be referred the Monroe limestone which was formed immediately above the Silurian. It seems to be intermediate between the Silurian and Devonian periods, and is somewhat distinctly separated from both. At the close of the formation of the Monroe limestone the state had emerged from the Epicontinental Sea as shown on the map. water of this interior sea at this time evaporated more rapidly than it flowed in from the ocean. The great salt formations were then formed farther to the East, especially in the State of New York. The saline formations of Ohio are supposed to have had a similar origin. The emergence of the land from the waters of the sea was not continuous and uninterrupted. At times there were subsidences of the land but on the whole there was a distinct extension of the portion above the water. At the close of what is generally included in the Silurian period 8 - HISTORY OF OHIO the following counties had emerged : Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Butler, Warren, Clinton, Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Darke, Miami and Shelby together with portions of the following counties : Adams, Highland, Fayette, Clarke, Campaign, Logan, Auglaize, Mercer, VanWert, Allen, Hardin, Marion, Wyandotte, Hancock, Seneca, Wood, Sandusky, Ottawa and Lucas. If the period of the Monroe limestone formation is added as a part of the Silurian there is a considerable extension of dry land as seen by reference to the map. At the close of that period the western shore line passed through Paulding, Putnam, Henry, Wood and Lucas counties ; while the eastern shore, which was clearly defined, extended southward from the northwest corner of Erie County through Sandusky, Seneca, Wyandotte, Marion, Delaware, Union, Madison, Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Fayette, Pike and Adams counties. It will be seen that the dry land of Ohio in process of formation now extended from the lakes to a line afterward followed by the Ohio River. Next in order of time came the Devonian period, sometimes spoken of as the age of fishes, because of their appearance in great numbers for the first time in this period. The forms of marine life of the previous period continued, most of them more abundantly. This could not be said of some forms, however. The trilobites, the fossils of which so frequently abound in Ordovician and Silurian time, are now less frequently found in the rock formations of this period. The Devonian limestone measures of Ohio are rich in fossil remains. The state house is built of this limestone. In the survey of the Columbus quadrangle under the direction of State Geologist J. A. Bownocker, a very complete description of the Devonian limestone of this vicinity and its fossil remains is presented in a most interesting bulletin. Among the fossils described are the following classes : Brachiopods, crustallans, pelecypods, gastropods, cephalopods and others of minor importance. It is interesting to note that among the crustations are found some excellent specimen fossils of the trilobite, in spite of the fact that at this period the tide was turning against this interesting representative of paleozoic time. The pleuronotus decewi, a coiled gastropod, whose fossil remains are common in the Columbus limestone, is well illustrated in the cut from the bulletin to which reference has been made. Other forms of life belonging to this period are liberally illustrated in the same work and a few of the cuts are presented here. But this, as observed at the beginning, was not inappropriately styled the age of fishes. The fossils of these are well represented in the rock formations of Ohio. Doctor Chamberlain in one of his recent books thus describes characteristic life of this period : "Fishes were a conspicuous part of the new fauna. The arthrodirans reached their climax, and some of the species were among the largest fish ever known. Some of them had an estimated length of twenty feet, and had strong mandibles two feet long which, in lieu of teeth, had cutting edges that closed shears-like, after the fashion of the mandibles of turtles. The front part of the body was encased in heavy plates. Some of the finspines of sharks were a foot long." The author of the above statement then presents an illustration of the fossil remains of a portion of one of these fish found in the Devonian rocks near Delaware, Ohio. At this time the interior sea, which still covered more than the eastern half of what is now Ohio, was teeming with sharks which seemed to have been masters of the briny deep. Their remains are found in different portions of the rock formation of the Devonian period. Some of the finest specimens have been found in the northern part of the state. Considerable progress had been made in the land life through this period, which, at its close was represented by plants, snails, insects, myriapods, scorpions and amphibians. The plants had little foliage. They included ferns, rushes and other simple forms. Near the close of COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 9 the period plant life had made considerable progress. Forests began to appear in marshy places on the sea shore and along the streams. These were made up of fern-like and rush-like growths of large size. And club mosses are said to have attained the height of small trees. The progress of emergence from the sea in the Ohio region continued through this period. At its close all the western part of the state, except small portions of Fulton and Defiance counties and most of Williams County, was dry land. The southern shore of Lake Erie had PORTIONS OF OHIO ABOVE THE WATER AT THE END OF THE DEVONIAN PERIOD Following the Monroe formation, the strata of rocks formed in the succeeding or Devonian Period were deposited over the bed of the inland or Epicontinental Sea, and at the end of the period the shaded portion shown on the map was dry land. The Devonian rocks deposited above the Monroe formation, from the lower strata upward, were the Columbus and Delaware limestones and shales and the Olentangy and Ohio shales. developed, though it was separated in places by a very narrow strip of land from the interior sea that still spread over the eastern portion of the state. Most of Ashtabula County, as will be seen from the map, was dry land. Thence the shore line extended through Lake, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Erie, Huron, Crawford, Morrow, Delaware, Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Pike and Adams counties. At the close of the Devonian period the rock formations of the epicontinental sea consisted successively of the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods. These were built up regularly from the 10 - HISTORY OF OHIO primordial bedrock and all were covered by the sea, which had gradually been growing more shallow and marsh-like. Soon the dense vegetation of the Carboniferous period appeared in all its grandeur. It is believed that the marshes were overhung With a dense fog, through which the sun-rays penetrated but dimly. Huge ferns were in evidence almost everywhere, and dense thickets of Calamites rose from the sodden earth to a height of forty feet. These plants were closely allied to the equiseta or "horse-tails" of the present: The vast monotonous forests were made PORTIONS OF OHIO ABOVE THE WATER AT THE END OF THE MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD Following the Devonian Period, the strata of rocks formed in the succeeding or Mississippian Period were deposited over the bed of the inland or Epicontinental Sea, and at the end of the period the shaded portion shown on the map was dry land. The Mississippian rocks deposited above the Devonian, from the lower strata upward, were the Waverly and the Maxville shales, sandstone and limestone. up of a number of trees, chief of which were the Lepidoclendrons and the Sigillaria. The Lepidodendron was a club-moss that frequently grew to the height of seventy feet, branching somewhat after the manner of modern trees. The leaf-scars of the body were systematically arranged in spiral lines, due to the arrangement of the spine-like leaves before they fell. The Sigillaria was similar to the Lepidodendron, but its trunk was vertically fluted, and in these flutes the leaf scars were like the impressions of a seal. It seems to have been less disposed, than the Lepidodendron, to divide into branches. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 11 The plants of this period reached through many degrees of latitude. It seems that there must have been a somewhat equable temperature from the equator almost to the north pole. In the Ohio region this vegetation was especially dense. Year after year it grew upward and fell into the swampy remnant of the epicontinental sea until vast stores of it were collected beneath the stagnant waters. As this sea bed gradually sank the vegetable growth accumulated in enormous masses over wide areas. Later the bed of the sea seemed to sink more rapidly than the vegetable growth accumulated, and finally great masses of gravel and sand and silt washed in and covered up the vegetation beds. Above them limestone and sandstone formations spread out over large areas, and shales were at certain periods deposited. Finally the bed of the sea began to rise again, and these various formations were once more brought above the surface. Through the thousands of years that these changes were in progress the vegetable accumulations were compressed into veins of coal. There can be no question as to the origin of the coal measures. Throughout Ohio the coal veins are closely associated with impressions of ferns and trees and practically everything that went to make up the vegetable growth of the period. Stumps of trees have been preserved in form, though converted into stone, that are so natural that even a child could distinguish them at once as tree stumps. Some of these are on exhibition in Orton Hall at Ohio State University. The animal life of the previous periods continued through the Carboniferous. Trilobites, which had survived from the earliest geological time, however, began early to disappear, and at the close of the period became extinct. Scorpions were abundant, and the first spiders appeared. The carboniferous forests swarmed with dragon flies, some with a spread of wing of two feet or more. Flies, crickets, locusts and cock-roaches abounded. Flowering plants had not appeared, nor the insects that love to explore their honey depths. The strange fish, the ostracoderm, that combined in its individual make-up some of the characters of the invertebrate and the fish, a sort of connecting link between the two, permanently disappeared. The vertebrates before the close of this period had "followed the arthropods and the mollusks upon the land and had evolved a higher type, adapted to the new environment." This type we know as the amphibians, the frogs and salamanders, with lungs for breathing the air and limbs for moving on the land. They were the connecting link between the fish of the sea and the reptiles that later pervaded the land. The amphibians of this period differed in many respects from those of our own. They wore an armor of bony scales that protected them from beneath and sometimes extended over their backs. The Carboniferous formations in Ohio are divided mainly into the Mississippian and the Pennsylvanian. The former was first formed. At its close the interior sea had still .farther receded. Fulton, Williams and Defiance counties were now permanent dry land. The eastern shore line, beginning with Trumbull County, passes through Mahoning, Portage, Geauga, Summit, Medina, Wayne, Stark, Holmes, Coshocton, Muskingum, Licking, Perry, Fairfield, Hocking, Vinton, Jackson and Scioto counties. The Pennsylvanian includes a further extension into the southeastern part of Ohio. The shore line at its close had become considerably shortened. It then passed from the southern boundary of Jefferson County, through Belmont, Monroe, Washington, Noble, Morgan, Athens and Meigs counties. The territory included in the Pennsylvanian is very rich in bituminous coal. The remaining portion of the state was soon out of the marshy remnant of the inland sea, and Ohio's land formation was complete. This remnant, which was assigned to the Permian period, was also rich in coal measures. The forests of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria became 12 - HISTORY OF OHIO PORTIONS OF OHIO ABOVE THE WATER AT THE END OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN PERIOD Following the Mississippian Period, the strata of rocks formed in the succeeding or Pennsylvanian Period were deposited over the bed of the inland or Epicontinental sea, and at the end of the period the shaded portion shown on the map was dry land. The Pennsylvanian rocks were as follows: Pottsville and Allegheny coal, sandstone, shales and limestone; the Conemaugh shales, sandstones, coal and limestone; the Monongahela coal, shales and sandstones. The small portion of Ohio still under water at the end of the Pennsylvanian Period belongs to the Permian Period. Following the Pennsylvanian Period, the strata of rocks formed in the succeeding or Permian Period were deposited over the bed of the inland or Epicontinental Sea, and at the end of the Permian Period the unshaded portion of the map was dry land. The Permian rocks, deposited above the Pennsylvanian, from the lower strata upward, were the Dunkard shales, sandstone and coal. While the word "period" has been used for convenience to designate the time of the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian and Permian formations, respectively, they all belong to the one great period—the Carboniferous. rare and the Calamites became extinct. The trees were replaced by tree ferns and conifers. Plant and animal life went through many changes. A remarkable increase in the number and size of the reptiles of this period is noteworthy, though for convenience they are often classified with the following period. It must not be concluded, since the Ohio country was permanent dry land, that it was not subject to subsequent changes. Its evolution from the primordial bed rock of the epicontinental sea into permanent dry land has been briefly traced. It is hoped that the accompanying maps may make it easy for the layman who has not studied geology to follow this evolution. THE OHIO REGION IN THE GLACIAL AGE Long after the Epicontinental Sea had receded from what now constitutes Ohio and this region had become permanently dry land, a great ice sheet or glacier slowly descended from what is now Canada, moving over Lake Erie and a portion of the Ohio country. Some writers have estimated that this ice sheet was in places perhaps two miles thick. It brought with it great quantities of granite rock from Canada and these are now found distributed over the region that it covered. It leveled the surface of the earth over which it passed, ground rock formations into sand and silt, filled valleys, dammed streams and rivers and changed in many instances the surface and drainage system of northern and western Ohio. It pressed onward until the ice melted at the southern limit indicated on the map. Some evidence has been found indicating that man inhabited the region before the descent of this glacier, but this evidence is far from satisfactory and conclusive. Following the ice age this region was the abode of many animals of immense size. The mastodon and the mammoth roamed over the plains and through the forests. The skeleton of a mastodon found in Franklin County is now on exhibition in Orton Hall at the Ohio State University. The skeleton of a mammoth found in Morrow County has recently been acquired by the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and will soon be mounted in its museum. The tusks of these measure from twelve to thirteen feet in length. CHAPTER II A HISTORY OF FLOOD CONTROL IN OHIO By Arthur E. Morgan and C. A. Bock The great ice cap, which covered Northeastern North America during the Glacial period, is estimated to have been about two miles thick in the region northeast of the Great Lakes. The weight of this great mass caused it to creep gradually toward the ocean on the east and toward the south, where the pressure was less. In this relentless advance it ground off the hilltops and filled up the valleys, changing the region south of the Great Lakes from one of hills and valleys to a broad plain. The ice sheet came to an end some distance north of the Ohio River, and from its margin southward the hills remained undisturbed. The hilly country around Cincinnati furnishes a picture of what much of the state would be like, but for the glaciers. The moving mass of ice, with its burden of boulders, gravel and powdered rock, wiped out old river valleys, changed the courses of streams, and quite remade the surface geography of Ohio. Some of the old river valleys, as the Miami River north and south of Dayton, and the Mad River east of Dayton, were filled in with this glacial debris to a depth of more than 200 feet. In some parts a new surface soil was left, composed of this groundup rock, known as glacial till. On other great areas the limestone rock was left bare. As the years passed, the lime was leached out by the rains, and the remaining impurities of the limestone were left behind to form the fertile residual soils of central Ohio. Not only did the ice sheet change the course of rivers, but it largely wiped out the local drainage. When white men first visited the central part of the state they found a densely wooded plain, poorly drained in many parts, and breeding mosquitoes and other insect pests. The malaria or "fever and ague" of the early days was carried by mosquitoes which bred in these undrained swamps. The last hundred years has seen the almost complete elimination of swamps from Ohio. First by open ditches and then by tiling, Ohio farmers have brought almost the whole of the flat lands of the state into profitable cultivation. Little by little a body of laws and of judicial decisions has grown up to define and to facilitate the drainage development until the drainage code of Ohio has become voluminous and comprehensive, if not well organized. The invention and building of excavating machinery in Ohio for digging the ditches has developed into thriving industries in Cleveland, Bucyrus, Marion and Findlay, that now find markets for their product all over the world, and the manufacture of drain tile has contributed to making Ohio the foremost state in the ceramic industry. But while the farm land was being reclaimed, flood conditions in the main rivers were only becoming aggravated. Under primitive conditions the flat undrained woods served as storage basins to retard the flow of rain water into the rivers. The clearing of the land and its drainage through large open canals tended to hasten the flow of storm water directly into the larger streams. Omitting the Ohio River from consideration for the time being, flood conditions in Ohio rivers are due largely to the lay of the land left by the glaciers. The old deep gorges were filled with glacial debris, and in place of narrow, deep gorges we have flat valleys through which the present rivers wind their crooked way. - 13 - COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 15 Like all other rivers, these stream channels are but the paths worn by water flowing down hill along the line of least resistance. The sizes of the stream channels are only the chance results of the working of natural forces. Some rivers have channels far too large for the most extreme flood flow, like the Grand Canyon in Arizona, while others are too small to care for even ordinary freshets. The Miami, Mad, Stillwater and Scioto rivers have dug channels for themselves about large enough to carry the ordinary high water occurring each spring, but only enough to carry about one-tenth of the flow of the most extreme floods. The flow in streams under natural conditions varies greatly. For instance, the low water flow in the Miami River at Dayton is at times less than 250 cubic feet per second, while in March, 1913, the flood flow was approximately 250,000 cubic feet per second. Such streams during high water periods have a tendency to build flat flood plains by the deposits from their muddy waters, producing land of great fertility. In the first settlement of the country it was natural that men should locate along the rivers, because, in the absence of roads, the rivers were the first highways. It is fortunate that this was so, because modern industry and modern civilization demand water in such quantities as can be furnished only by streams of considerable volume. The tendency has been not only to improve the fertile valley bottoms for cultivation, but to build factories, railroads and towns along the river banks. Many of Ohio's cities and villages have been built, at least in part, upon the flat bottom lands along the rivers. In times of heavy rainfall the rivers overflow these bottoms, and there is great damage to property, and sometimes a great loss of life. Cincinnati, Portsmouth and Marietta on the Ohio River ; Piqua, Troy, Dayton, Middletown and Hamilton on the Miami ; Springfield on Buck Creek ; Kenton, Columbus, Circleville and Chillicothe on the Scioto ; Delaware on the Olentangy ; Newark on the Licking; Zanesville and McConnelsville on the Muskingum ; Massillon on the Tuscarawas ; Alliance on the Mahoning ; Cleveland on the Cuyahoga ; Tiffin and Fremont on the Sandusky ; Defiance and Toledo on the Maumee ; Findlay on the Blanchard ; Lima on Ottawa River Fostoria on Portage River ; Xenia on Shawnee Creek—all these are examples of Ohio cities built partly within the flood plains of rivers, and all have been subject to damage from floods. While floods in Ohio rivers were perhaps increased by drainage operations, yet they began to trouble the inhabitants before drainage operations had begun. Dayton was founded in 1796, and in 1805, while the country was still a wilderness, a flood occurred on the Miami River, which did great damage to the new settlement, and which was larger than any later flood for more than a hundred years. In 1814 the Miami, at Dayton, again overflowed its banks and destroyed the levees built just after the 1805 flood. Other floods of considerable magnitude occurred in 1828, 1832, 1847, 1866, 1883, 1886, 1897 and 1898. Similarly destructive floods occurred in Columbus in 1828, 1838, 1865, 1870, 1883 and 1898. Other cities also suffered serious damage from inundation from time to time, but in these early floods the damage was less severe because of the limited industrial development and loss of life not so great because the population was less dense. Furthermore in those days a flood was regarded more as being an act of providence which was not in the province of man to control, and efforts to ameliorate or prevent flood conditions were limited to purely local projects of building levees or slight improvement of existing channels, and these improvements more often were designed solely to prevent the overflow of agricultural lands rather than to protect against loss of life and damage to property in cities and towns. During the past fifty years the concentration of population and industries on the flat lands of river flood plains in Ohio has accelerated with tremendous rapidity, and the intense use of such lands has created 16 - HISTORY OF OHIO flood problems which, with the increasing value of the property, become increasingly difficult to solve. The real meaning of this growing flood menace, however, had been only vaguely sensed by a few hydraulic engineers in the country who had made some study of floods in an incidental way, and not at all by the people at large, until the great floods of 1913 demonstrated the terrible possibilities of such situations. These floods were so destructive to life and property and so widespread over the state as to cause considerable investigation into possible methods of protection against future flood disasters. The unprecedented stages and extreme suddenness of their occurrence were particularly disastrous in the Scioto and Miami valleys and gave rise to a stronab public senti- ment in Columbus, Dayton and other cities that such calamities must not be permitted to recur. On the Ohio River itself the feeling of alarm was not so intense, since the flood crest arrived more slowly and the river cities had long been accustomed to suffer periodical damage from inundations. Local engineers, county, city and state officials and Federal Government engineers began to take a lively interest in flood control problems and to study methods of relief. Thus as part of the general conquest of the land, men now are undertaking to control these floods, so that life and property will no longer be endangered. In the end, life and property are safe and the river presents one more case of man's mastery of his environment. As the most striking example of this kind of mastery in Ohio, a brief sketch will be given of the Miami Valley flood control project. THE MIAMI PROJECT The City of Dayton was settled in 1796, and in 1805 the first serious flood occurred, which covered most of the settlement. A small levee was built to protect from a recurrence, but it was washed out very soon. Thereafter for more than a century the city would be flooded from time to time, and after the flood the levees would be strengthened to a point where the people would be assured of protection. About 1910 a flood control program was undertaken by the city, which was supposed to afford protection against the greatest possible flood. Bonds had been issued and contracts let, and the contractor was just about to begin work when the great flood of 1913 swept away the contractor's equipment and demonstrated again that the proposed flood control would have been completely inadequate. The experience of Dayton had been repeated in nearly all the cities of the. Miami Valley, from Piqua on the north to Hamilton on the south, where successive floods had been followed by protective works which were relied upon for future security. On the 23rd, 24th and 25th of March, 1913, a rainstorm occurred over Ohio and Indiana, which exceeded in area and intensity any that occurred since the settlement of this region. The center of this storm area was over the Miami Valley, where as much as ten inches of rain fell on March 24th and 25th. The ground was still saturated from rains earlier in the year, and between 80 and 90 per cent of this rain fall at once flowed into the rivers. In the cities on the Miami River damage to property amounted to more than $100,000,000, and about 400 lives were lost. Columbus, on the Scioto River, suffered somewhat less severely, and nearly every town and city in Southern Ohio, which occupied river bottom land, was damaged. For several weeks everyones' attention was directed to steps for immediate relief, but as the debris and mud were cleared away and the hungry :were fed, a. demand developed for permanent protection. In Dayton a "flood prevention" committee was organized, and John H. Patterson, president of the National Cash Register Company, was made chairman. He was represented on the committee by Edward A. Deeds, vice president of the National Cash Register Company, who later was COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 17 made chairman of the committee, and was the guiding spirit of the whole flood prevention program. The other members of the committee were Walter Worman, Walter S. Kidder, Edward W. Hanley, H. E. Talbott, John W. Stoddard, Adam Schantz and Frank Huffman. One of the first acts of the Flood Prevention Committee was to pass a resolution : " * * * that there be prompt and definite action to determine the cause of the inundation of the City of Dayton on March 25, 1913, and to apply the maximum of human knowledge and scientific skill with the necessary measure of financial resources to prevent the recurrence o f a similar calamity. " * * * That to enable this committee to take up the vast program of surveys, plans, specifications, condemnations, contracts and construction incidental to and connected with the work of protection of life and property, to allay the fears and misgivings of the people, and to reinstate the beautiful City of Dayton as an attractive location for home life, happiness and commercial prestige and success, there shall be provided a Flood Prevention Fund of $2,000,000." * * * This action resulted in the establishment of a $2,000,000 fund from subscriptions by the citizens of Dayton ; the employment of the Morgan Engineering Company to make a thorough investigation and plans for flood control ; and the organization of the Miami Valley Flood Prevention Association. The work done by this valley association was naturally of a very general character, and its activities did not continue beyond several meetings. Its chief service was to bring together from the various parts of the valley those men who were taking a potential interest in the flood control cause, and to enlist the cooperation of the various cities in the valley, for the working out of effective measures for flood control. Soon after the 1913 flood numerous plans were suggested for flood protection. Many of these, though having the guise of engineering reports, were developed from meager and inaccurate data and were at once impractical and wholly inadequate. The public demand for quick action operated in a measure to make some of these immature proposals a hindrance to the working out of an effective plan for the entire valley. A report of a different character was submitted to the Chief Engineers of the United States Army 1 by a board of army engineers, which among other things, set forth the necessity of making complete surveys and investigations before the adoption of any plan. It was along these lines that the work at Dayton was undertaken, one of the first of the engineer's reports 2 stating that " * * * it has been our aim to investigate every possible method of flood protection in order to be assured that no possibilities are overlooked." This policy of thorough investigation was largely responsible for the great forward stride made in the progress of flood control in Ohio. The aim of this work was, in general, to make a complete and coordinated survey of flood conditions in the Miami Valley, to develop a comprehensive plan of protection from further flood destruction, to secure the adoption of such a plan by the several cities and parts of counties involved, and to provide the necessary legal machinery by which such a project could be organized, financed and properly executed. A thorough study of the storm rainfall records of the Eastern United States developed that while the 1913 precipitation was unusually intense and covered a large area, it was not impossible for a somewhat greater rainfall to occur on a similar area. Such extreme rainfalls would come only at long intervals, but it was felt in the Miami Valley that any flood control works to be built should now be made adequate to give complete protection. 1 Report to Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, May 26, 1913, by Special Board of Army Engineers. 2 Preliminary report of Morgan Engineering Company, Oct. 3, 1913. 18 - HISTORY OF OHIO Contrary to the general expectation, it was found that a system of retarding reservoirs, to hold back excessive flood waters, combined with some channel improvement through the cities and towns, afforded the best plan for flood protection in the valley. It was also found that while it was financially impossible for any one of the cities alone to secure complete protection, a coordinated system of control for the valley was entirely feasible. When these findings were made known to the Flood Prevention Committee by their engineers, four great obstacles, interwoven with the intricate complications of many minor difficulties, presented themselves. These were, briefly : (1) Local opposition caused by ignorance or misunderstanding of the plans. (2) Lack of cooperation among various cities affected. (3) A general prejudice, somewhat vague, but very definite in its effect, against the use of reservoirs for controlling floods. (4) No laws existed in Ohio under which such a project could be legally _organized, financed, executed and maintained. An educational campaign was immediately instituted in the valley to overcome the first three difficulties. Wide publicity was given the plans in local newspapers and magazines, and many talks illustrated with slides, maps, diagrams and statistics, were given at public places and every opportunity possible afforded for the public to become informed. A working model was made of one of the proposed retarding reservoirs, and this photographed in action. Both the model and the picture of its operation were exhibited in many places. One of the most stubborn phases of the opposition was that of farmers living in or near the proposed retarding basins, based largely upon the misrepresentation of local attorneys that not only would their lands be confiscated, but they would be taxed as well, to carry out the project. Early in the investigations the engineers requested the appointment of a board of consulting engineers, which was composed of nationally known experts. The independent investigation of these men furnished a solid moral backing. The thorough analyses of the plans made by one member of the board, 3 and his whole-hearted support of them, were particularly useful in combatting the prejudice against dams, which owed its origin largely to some previous reports by government engineers questioning the advisability of using retarding dams for flood control on the upper Ohio River tributaries. The numerous laws of Ohio governing the construction of ditches, bridges, sewers, levees, channels, dams or other structures that might be a part of an extensive flood control system had been individually conceived and enacted for particular limited problems and local necessities, and were wholly lacking in the comprehensive provisions required for a large cooperative undertaking. They did not furnish legal machinery for uniting the many interests needing flood protection into an effective organization, provided no means for working out and officially adopting a satisfactory plan, offered no means for safeguarding individual and collective interests and rights, and established no practical basis for an equitable distribution of the cost of so large an undertaking. Neither did the existing laws provide authority for enforcing the requirements of such a project. This situation resulted in the drafting of the "Conservancy Act of Ohio." The problem of preparing this law was approached from the engineers' point of view. The law must be designed to provide wide freedom of action to carry out any type of improvement ; an effective agency for getting results, such as corporation form of management ; freedom from politics ; governmental powers, such as right of eminent domain ; police powers and taxing powers ; harmony with existing laws ; cooper- 3 Late General H. M. Chittenden, Consulting Engineer to Flood Prevention Committee. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 19 ation among governmental units and private organizations ; control over stream obstructions and over the use of water ; and general adaptability suitable to any situation and must be comprehensive enough so as not to need amendment for problems that might arise in other parts of the state. As finally enacted on March 17, 1914, the Conservancy Act provides for the establishment of conservancy districts in Ohio, through petition of property owners to the court of common pleas of any county wholly or partly within the proposed district, for any or. all of the following purposes : (a) preventing floods ; (b) regulating stream channels by changing, widening and deepening the same; (c) reclaiming or filling wet and overflowed lands ; (d) providing for irrigation where it may be needed ; (e) regulating the flow of streams ; (f ) diverting, or in whole or in part eliminating water courses ; and incident to such purposes and to enable their accomplishment, to straighten, widen, deepen, change, divert, or change the course or terminus of, any natural or artificial water course ; to build reservoirs, canals, levees, walls, embankments, bridges, or dams ; to maintain, operate and repair any of the construction herein named ; and to do all other things necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes of this act. A conservancy district may be established by a majority decision of a court consisting of one common pleas judge from each county having land in the district. This court becomes the "Conservancy Court" of that district, and appoints a board of three directors to manage the district, who in turn may employ engineers, attorneys and other assistants as deemed necessary. A plan for the improvement is prepared by the chief engineer and passed upon by the board of directors, is submitted to a formal hearing of objections and then subject to the approval of the court. An appraisal of benefits and damages resulting from the execution of the proposed plan is made by a board of three appraisers appointed by the conservancy court. This appraisal is also subject to a hearing of exceptions before it can be approved by the court for the issue of the bonds to finance the construction. Any owner has the right to appeal from his award of benefits or damages. No property can be confiscated—and damage must be paid where damage is sustained. The law was rigidly tested as to constitutionality, and successfully withstood several attempts for its repeal and amendment. Only the most earnest efforts of the Flood Prevention Committee and its engineers, backed by newspapers, churches, chambers of commerce and other institutions, made it possible to preserve the law in its complete original form through these political struggles in the Legislature. Ohio thus was provided with the most comprehensive and effective legal machinery in this country for dealing with any water control or conservation problem that might arise. On the day following the signing of the Conservancy Act Ly Governor Cox a petition was filed for the establishment of the Miami Conservancy District. A court of ten common pleas judges was convened on March 20, 1914, to hear this petition, and an attendance of over 2,000 people evidenced the wide interest in the proceedings. Attorneys for the opposition entered objections to the jurisdiction of the court, raised questions of constitutionality of the Act and secured some delay, and on April 18 the court voted 5 to 4 in over-ruling all the objections, one judge being absent. Since a vote of 6, or a majority of the ten judges was required, the result was a failure to establish the district. This was followed by much legal procedure, by which the constitutionality of the Act was firmly established and during which the working out of engineering and construction features went steadily forward. On June 20 - HISTORY OF OHIO 28, 1915, the court formally created the Miami Conservancy District and appointed as its directors Col. Edward A. Deeds, Henry M. Allen and Gordon S. Rentschler. The directors immediately arranged for the engineers of the Flood Prevention Committee to continue on the work, and appointed other necessary assistants. In January, 1916, the district was furnished a splendid home in the newly completed Conservancy Building in Dayton presented to the project by Colonel Deeds. This housed the administrative, engineering and appraisal forces of the district and is now being used as a permanent repository for the records. It stands on the bank of the Miami River as a fitting monument to the earnest efforts of its donor and to the great pioneering work of the valley for progress in flood control. In developing and perfecting plans for the flood control system for the Miami Valley, probably the most extensive and thorough investigation ever undertaken of rainfall and floods, flow of water in open channels, the effects of a system of combined reservoirs and channel improvement, and allied .hydraulic problems, was made. All available related data was secured from Federal Government, state and private sources and thoroughly analyzed, and considerable information from foreign countries was investigated. The results of these studies have been largely set forth in a series of ten technical reports issued by the district.4 These volumes make available to the residents of the state and to the technical world at large much data that will have considerable usefulness on other similar projects. A complete plan for the control of floods in the Miami Valley was submitted to the board of directors of the district by the chief engineer early in 1916, and the letter of transmittal stated, in part : "Following the organization of The Miami Conservancy District by order of the court on the 28th of June, 1915, the appointment of your board on the 28th of June, 1915, as the board of directors of the district, and the appointment dated the 7th of July, 1915, of the undersigned as chief engineer of the district, with instructions to prepare a plan for the protection of the district from floods ; he proceeded to prepare such a plan, which is herewith presented for your consideration, with the recommendation that it be adopted as the Official Plan of The Miami Conservancy District, as provided for in Section 12 of the Conservancy Act of Ohio. In the preparation of the plan, your engineers have supplemented and completed the data secured and the work done by The Morgan Engineering Company under the direction of The Dayton Flood Prevention Committee. * * * "When this plan is carried into effect the Miami Valley, in our opinion, will be permanently protected from serious damage by flood. In its necessity for flood prevention, the valley is not unique. Wherever, along the rivers of this country, industrial and agricultural development reaches a high stage, the protection of these interests from damage by uncontrolled flood waters becomes necessary, and must be secured before permanent prosperity is established. * * * "In the preparation of the plan a considerable amount of original engineering investigation has been carried on by the engineering force. * * *" This report was printed in three volumes and accompanied by two volumes of photographic reproductions and drawings. It included a 4 - Technical reports, Miami Conservancy District; I, The Miami Valley and the 1913 Flood; II, History of the Miami Flood Control Project; III, Hydraulic Jump and Backwater Curves; IV, Calculation of Flow in Open Channels; V, Storm Rainfall of the Eastern United States; VI, Contract Forms and Specifications; VII, Hydraulics of the Miami Flood Control Project; VIII, Rainfall and Runoff in the Miami Valley;. IX, The Accounting and Cost Keeping System of the Department of Engineering and Construction, and X, Construction Plant and Methods as Used on the Miami Conservancy Project. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 21 description of the plan, list of properties affected, specifications, plans, estimates of quantities and cost, and much detailed information for use in constructing the works. This plan was adopted by the board of directors as the Official Plan of the district on May 10, 1916. On October 3, 1916, the conservancy court, composed of nine common pleas judges, convened in Dayton for a public hearing on objections to the plan. This hearing was notable on account of the large amount of expert testimony submitted, and because of the most complete and orderly presentation and explanation of the plan by the engineers of the district. It continued over a period of seven weeks and the testimony fills over 3,000 typewritten pages. On one occasion the chief engineer for five consecutive days replied to a continuous cross examination by the opposing attorneys. Added to his testimony was that of T. W. Jaycox, consulting engineer of Denver, with extended experience in the construction of earth dams in the West ; of F. J. Fischer, con- THE GERMANTOWN DAM struction engineer of the Los Angeles Water Supply Commission ; of Brig.-Gen. Wm. H. Bixby, former Chief of Engineers, U. S., Army ; of Daniel W. Mead, hydraulic engineer of Madison, Wisconsin ; and of Brig.-Gen. H. M. Chittenden, of Seattle, Washington, also former Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army. These engineers expressed unqualified approval of the official plan. General Chittenden stated on the stand that this plan had been worked out with more care and thoroughness than any engineering project of which he had any knowledge. He took occasion to say particularly that the Panama Canal was not an exception. On November 24, 1916, the court formally approved the official plan. A report subsequently issued by the Ohio Flood Board of Army Engineers made the following references to the official plan : "It is probable that the best protection for Dayton under existing conditions would be dams, one each on the Stillwater, Upper Miami, and Mad Rivers, just above Dayton, so designed as to reduce the maximum standard storm discharge at Dayton to an amount which can be economically and safely cared for by improvement of the Dayton channel, which is probably not less than 100,000 second feet. * * * "Adequacy of the Plans—It was felt by those concerned that a project involving such a large sum, in order to justify the expenditure, should furnish as complete protection as possible. Realizing this the conservancy district has based the reservoir capacities and channel im- 22 - HISTORY OF OHIO provements upon a standard storm greater in intensity than that of 1913. The standard storm was adopted after an exhaustive search covering the records of all storms east of the Rocky Rountains so far as the a S. Weather Bureau files record them. * * * "Spillways—In order that the dams shall not be overtopped their safety is secured by means of spillways which are adequate to care for a storm far in excess of the standard storm. * * "The reservoirs proposed above Dayton are well located to secure the maximum benefit for that city. They are sufficiently near to control all but 70 square miles of the entire drainage area above Dayton. This 70 miles is not believed to be extensive enough to cause any danger to Dayton due to severe local storms. * * * " * * * While the plan does not include the entire valley it aims to provide protection for all places where such protection is most urgently needed so far as can be economically justified. * * * " The next task before the district was the appraisal of the benefit and damages to be assessed against the properties affected by the execution of the plan. This was a gigantic job by reason of the many thousands of pieces of property involved. The work had already been outlined and methods and principles to be followed in its accomplishment had been developed by the engineers during the legal proceedings leading to the approval of the plan. The board of appraisers hired a large corps of assistants to carry out the listing, examination and description of properties. Their report was filed with the court in May, 1917. It furnished an up to date valuation of about 65,000 pieces of property and stated in each case the appraisal of benefits or damage entailed by each parcel from the execution of the plan. The court concluded its hearings on the appraisal report in July, 1917, and issued a decree approving benefits in the amount of $77,000,000. This was about three times the estimated cost of the project. Conditions for financing were very unfavorable because the war was absorbing practically all available resources. The National City Company however indicated its willingness to underwrite the bond issue if the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury offered no objection to financing the work at this time. The situation was explained to Mr. McAdoo who replied : "You call attention to the fact that the flood of March, 1913, destroyed four hundred lives, left forty bereft of reason, and caused a property loss approximating one hundred million dollars, and that the loss of life would probably have been thousands had the flood occurred later in the morning. * * * "Both from what you tell me and from my general knowledge of the situation, I am of the opinion that the preservation of human life and the public welfare are concerned in this conservancy project, and that I ought not to offer any objection to its prompt completion. "Permit me to express my appreciation of your patriotic action in consulting me concerning this matter and requesting my opinion before attempting to finance this work at this time. * * * " The first bonds issued, totaling $15,000,000, were placed on the market in December, 1917. An effort was made to let the construction of the project by contract. On account of war conditions, however, all proposals tendered on the major part of the project were irregular, the contractors going so far in qualifications to protect themselves against possible contingencies that the district could gain nothing by awarding the work to them. Thus it was decided that the district would accomplish the construction with forces employed directly by the district and with equipment purchased for the purpose. The works to be constructed included extensive channel deepening, widening and straightening at Dayton, Hamilton and other locations, COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 23 the building of five large earth dams with concrete outlet and spillway works, the relocation of three steam railroads and one electric railway for considerable distances, and the building of various bridges, roads, walls, bank revetment, sewers, water lines, power lines, and incidental works. The channel improvements required over 5,000,000 cubic yards of excavation and half that amount in levee embankments, and the dams required the placing of over 10,000,000 cubic yards in embankment. The project naturally divided into seven major construction units, of which the most widely separated were about seventy-five miles apart. Being centrally located, Dayton was selected for the general headquarters of the construction organization. Special telephone lines were built to establish direct communication with the various units. In order to accomplish the work within a reasonable time it was necessary to secure adequate and effective machinery, tools and plant. This included a large variety of equipment such as large dredge pumps, electric motors, pipes, railroad locomotives, dump cars, steam and electric hoists, trucks, derricks, concrete mixers, complete gravel washing and screening plants, drilling rigs, cableways, etc. The excavating machinery included twenty-one dragline machines, ranging in size from small machines with only a 30-foot boom to 150-ton machines with 3 to 5 cubic yard buckets and a reach of 100 to 135 feet. At Dayton the equipment included four large river scows, 80 to 120 feet long, for hauling materials excavated from the channels, and for mounting one of the large excavators, and a river type 20 foot by 70 foot steamboat for moving the river equipment. The value of this construction equipment approached $2,000,000. In order to furnish adequate facilities for repairs and to insure the proper maintenance of the construction plant, a central shop was established in Dayton, with a general warehouse adjacent, which carried large stock of supplies, tools, repair parts and small equipment. Also a garage and auto repair shop furnished facilities for hauling and for maintaining the fleet of trucks and automobiles used on the project. These facilities proved invaluable not only in reducing the cost of repairs, but in the great amount of time saved on the work in reducing delays for repairs to a minimum. During the period of the United States participation in the World war, labor rates were high and it was difficult to get and retain efficient workmen. An employment bureau was established at the Dayton headquarters and systematic records kept of the labor used on the job. No camps were established in the cities, but for the work at the dams comfortable housing was furnished for the worknlen by building suitable quarters at each damsite. These villages were built to meet the requirements of the several jobs and included rooming houses and bunkhouses for single men, as well as houses for married men and their families, and were equipped with water supply, light and sewerage. Each village was provided with a store, a mess hall and a school building, and special teachers were employed by the district to insure adequate facilities for the children of the workmen. The district also employed a physician to take care of medical needs of its employees. A central commissary plant, including a bakery, cold storage and ice plant, located at the Taylorsville Dam, distributed bread, meat and other supplies to the various jobs. At the completion of the project the buildings in these villages were for the most part sold and dismantled. Those at the Englewood Dam, however, were left on the site and are now occupied and form the nucleus of a thriving permanent community. Considerable land was required for right of way on which to build the dams, levees and other structures. Furthermore, it was necessary to buy the right to flood other lands within the reservoir basins. Many owners objected to selling such flood easements and preferred to sell their land outright to the district. In the Huffman basin it was found necessary to purchase the entire town of Osborn, which was moved to 24 - HISTORY OF OHIO a new location. The district thus acquired real estate to the value of over $7,000,000. A land department was installed to administer this property. Such real estate as is not required permanently by the district is being sold as rapidly as feasible, retaining the necessary flood easements. The execution of the plan carried with it many incidental improvements of great value to the communities affected, and which otherwise would have been impossible of attainment, or long delayed. These included the providing of park areas, highway and street improvements, bridge improvements and the reservation at the several retarding basins of extensive beautiful timbered areas for public park purposes. At Hamilton it made possible the development of a water power and factory site which induced the building of a large factory in that city. The size of the project and the unique character of its works has attracted considerable attention in this country and Europe. Other reasons for the wide local interest are that it is one of the largest public works ever undertaken in Ohio, that it will influence in a marked degree the development of the Miami Valley, that it occasioned the enactment of the most complete and practically useful conservancy law in use in this country at the time, and that it is the first project of considerable size in this country to utilize the system of combined retarding basins and channel improvement for flood control only. On account of the large number of visitors inspecting. the works a concrete tablet was erected at each of the dams. In order to serve as a permanent reminder of the sole purpose for which the dams were built, a stone was set at each site, or incorporated in the structure, bearing the following inscription : "The dams of the Miami Conservancy District are for flood prevention purposes. Their use for power development or for storage would be a menace to the cities below."