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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL FEATURES. GEOGRAPHY-TOPOGRAPHY-GEOLOGY-SOILS, ETC. UNION COUNTY occupies a nearly central position in the State of Ohio, and is bounded north by Hardin and Marion Counties, east by Marion and Delaware, south by Franklin and Madison, and west by Champaign and Logan. Its area by townships is as follows: TOWNSHIPS NO. OF ACRES. Allen ..............................................19,037 Claibourne .....................................19,560 Richwood School District ............. 1,571 Darby ............................................ 19,416 Dover .............................................14,203 Jackson .......................................... 17,776 Jerome ........................................... 22,718 Leesburg ........................................ 18,677 Liberty ........................................... 23,022 Mill Creek ......................................13,807 Paris ............................................... 19,649 Marysville School District ............ 1,973 Taylor ............................................. 16,463 Union .............................................. 22,095 Washington .....................................17,819 York ............................................... 23,523 Total ..............................................271,309 This area lacks but fifty-one acres of being 424 square miles; the figures are from the abstract of the tax duplicate for 1882, in the office of the County Auditor. There are at this time (November, 1882), twenty-one post offices in the county, as follows: Boke's Creek (at the village of Summersville), Broadway, Byhalia, Claibourne, Irwin, Jerome (at the village of Frankfort), Magnetic Springs, Marysville, Milford Center, Now California, Now Dover, Peoria, Pharisburg, Pottersburg, Raymond's (at the village of Newton), Richwood, Rush Creek (at the village of Essex), Unionville Center, Watkins, Woodland, York. The county contains four incorporated villages: Marysville, in Paris Township; Richwood, in Claibourne Township: Milford Center, in Union Township, and Unionville Center in Darby Township. A movement has been made looking to the incorporation of Magnetic Springs, in Leesburg Township, but as yet without result. The other villages of the county are: Woodland and' Essex, in Jackson Township; Byhalia, in Washington; Claibourne, in Claibourne; Summersville and York Center, in York; Newton and Peoria, in Liberty; Broadway, in Taylor; Pharisburg, in Leesburg; Now Dover, in Dover; Pottersburg, in Allen; Irwin, in Union; Frankfort, New California, and a portion of Plain City, in Jerome. Allen Center, in Allen, and Bridgeport and Chuckery, in Darby, are points which have "a local habitation and 216 - HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. a name," without having special importance otherwise. Marysville, the county seat, has the largest population, and Richwood is next in point of numbers. Milford Center, Unionville Center and Magnetic Springs follow in about the order named, although the latter has perhaps the largest population of the three during the summer season, when the place is thronged with invalids, located temporarily for the purpose of treatment with the waters of the numerous medical springs which have been tapped and made to yield abundantly of their life-giving qualities. The entire area of the county of Union is drained into the Scioto River, the principal channels through which this is effected being Rush, Fulton, Boke's, Blue's, Mill, Big Darby and Little Darby Creeks. with such lesser tributaries as Rocky Fork of Rush Creek, "Big Swale," Patton Run, Powder Lick Run, Brush Run, Ottawa Creek, Big Run, Peacock Run, Flat Branch Ditch, Otter Run, Bear Swamp Run, Buck Run, Opossum Run, Cross' Run, Phelps' Run, Grassy Run, Dunn's Run, Spring Run, Prairie Run, Watson Run, Hay Run, Proctor Run, Treacle Creek, Cow Run, Robinson's Run, Sager Run, Sugar Run, Indian Run, and many not dignified with names. The, origin of a few of these names is known, as for instance, Rush Creek, being a sluggish stream, is probably named from the rushes which grow along its banks; Blue's Creek, so called for an unfortunate individual named Blue, who was one of an early surveying party, and received a ducking in its waters; Mill Creek was named probably from the fact of its furnishing power for very early mills in Delaware County; Darby Creek is said to have been named after an Indian chief who once lived in this region. The other streams, or most of them, have names plainly showing their origin, generally from local circumstances The general course of nearly all these streams is southeast. In former years, they furnished fair mill power, but it has since been found necessary to introduce steam in most instances for manufacturing or mill purposes. The greater part of Union County is either level or gently undulating. The rougher portions are on the upper waters of Mill Creek and in Jerome Township. There is little in the county to which the term "hill" Can properly be applied, although the divide between Mill and Blue's Creeks would in some regions be termed a hill, and the broken lands along Big Darby approach nearly to that dignity. The streams have cut below the natural level, Big Darby Creek having the deepest channel. South of this stream are the well-known "Darby Plains," whose fertile soil has yielded golden returns for the labors of the husbandman through many years. In Liberty, Paris and Allen Townships, including the locality known as the "Bear Swamp," is a district formerly known as the "Flat Woods," from being very level and covered with a dense growth of timber. The latter has been largely cleared away, and a thorough system of drainage has reclaimed most of the land, including even the "Bear Swamp," in which it is now stated corn is grown where once was a wooded morass and a shallow lake. In Claibourne Township, north of Richwood, is a very level tract known as the " Big Swale," which is difficult to drain, such drainage as here is being into Rush Creek.. GEOLOGY. This portion of the chapter will be principally from an account prepared a few years since by N. H. Winchell, on the State geological survey, with additional items concerning the waters which have recently been discovered on Boke's Creek, at what is now the village of Magnetic Springs. Prof. Winchell's report is as follows: "Natural Drainage. -The surface drainage all passes into the Scioto Valley, by streams which flow with gentle current in a southeasterly direc-
HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. - 217 tion. They rise in the Logan County Corniferous area, a region of very rough or hilly surface, rising several hundred feet above the surrounding waterlime flats, and toward the southeast enter upon another area of Corniferous, which, although presenting different surface features, yet is not so broken as the Logan County area. There is a remarkable uniformity in direction and alternation in these streams. The principal valleys have a slope to the east or southeast, toward the Scioto, the valley of which is excavated over an hundred feet in the bed rock, in Delaware County. To one who has closely observed the systems of drainage in the various counties, and has aimed to ascertain from the effects seen the causes that located streams in various parts of Northwestern Ohio, this alone suggests a halting retreat of a glacier across the county, throwing, down greater accumulations of drift where it remained stationary for a length of time. Such would be the divides between the streams. the valleys being in those belts where the drift was left thinner But, with a single exception, nothing of this is indicated by the surface features so far as the time devoted to the survey would disclose. The whole county was carefully examined. In counties further northwest, where such moraines are seen to guide the drainage diagonally across the general slope of the surface, the tributary streams all join the main streams from the same direction, but in Union County streams enter the main valleys from opposite sides. The surface between the streams is flat, and there is no evidence of a thickening of the drift, except between Big Darby and Mill Creeks Surface Features. -Between Big Darby and Mill Creeks there is a very noticeable thickening of drift. It rises into long ridges and high knolls, which consist of hardpan or glacier drifts. Northern bowlders and stones are on the surface and in the soil indiscriminately, though the same is true to some extent throughout the county. This ridge of drift is greatly developed at New California, where wells are sunk to the depth of fifty-four feet without meeting anything but blue clay, the water obtained being bitter. West and south of Marysville, two or three miles, the surface is high and rolling. with clay hills. Toward the north and east it is flat, with gravel near the surface in some places. Between Milford Center and Unionville, clay knobs and rolling land can be seen north of Darby Creek, while toward the south and in Union Township, the Darby Plains extend several miles. Wells at Pottersburg penetrate the drift over sixty feet without meeting the rock, but obtain good water at that depth. About Newton there is a very rolling and bluffy tract of land, some of the wells obtaining bitter water in blue clay at fifty two feet. This rolling strip of clay knobs dies out toward the south and west, and toward the north and east. Throughout the rest of the county the surface is very nearly flat, wells being usually less than twenty-five feet. This belt of clay knobs crosses the entire county, although it seems to turn a little toward the north in Jerome Township. The following elevations above Lake Erie are taken from profiles of railroads that cross the county: Richwood .......................................................................369 feet. Broadway .......................................................................422 feet. Marysville...................................................................... 425 feet. The following points of elevation were obtained by aneroid barometer, connecting with railroad stations: Marysville (with Bellefontaine) ..................................... 325 feet. New California ............................................................... 375 feet. Hill east of New California ............................................ 395 feet. Plain City ........................................................................ 225 feet. Hills west of Marysville .................................................. 355 feet. Peoria ............................................................................... 410 feet. Newton ............................................................................. 460 feet. Pharisburg ........................................................................ 304feet
218 - HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. Essex .................................................................................. 359 feet. Northeast corner Washington Township ............................389 feet. York Center ....................................................................... 399 feet. Survey No. 5,270, Allen Township ................................... 485 feet. Allen Center ....................................................................... 435 feet. Milford Center ................................................................... 315 feet. "Soil and Timber. --The soil is one derived entirely from the drift, and may be denominated in general a gravelly clay. It exhibits the well-known characteristics of fertility and endurance that mark all the drift soils of Northwestern Ohio. It shows a very fair sprinkling of stones and bowlders, but in some places is very fine and heavy. It is only along the immediate river banks, on the bottom lands, that the sandy element prevails, and it is then confined to the alluvium." Among the species of timber noted by Mr. Winchell, are sugar and soft maple, beech, several varieties of elm, ash and oak, linn or basswood, dogwood, shagbark and pig hickory, sycamore or "buttonwood," buckeye, prickly ash, blue beech, honey locust, hackberry, thorn, black willow, black walnut, black cherry, wild apple, ironwood, cottonwood, papaw, trembling aspen and Judas tree; several others are found in different varieties of willow, the butternut, etc. He proceeds with the geological structure as follows: "The rocks of the county embrace the following limestones, including also the Oriskany sandstone: Hamilton or Upper Corniferous.................... Devonian Lower Corniferous ....................................... Devonian. Oriskany........................................................ Devonian Waterlime ..................................................... Upper Silurian. "By the Hamilton is here meant the blue limestone which is quarried at Delaware, and which is regarded by Dr. Newberry as partly Hamilton and partly Corniferous. It has been mentioned frequently by the writer in reporting on counties in Northwestern Ohio, under the designation of Upper Corniferous, in order to keep its district from the underlying limestone, which is plainly Corniferous. The Lower Corniferous is well represented in the quarries in Mill Creek Township. The Oriskany has not been seen within the county, but is probably conglomeratic, since it has that character in Delaware County. These limestones, with the Oriskany, make up the Devonian, so far as represented within the county. The rock which immediately underlies the Oriskany belongs to the Upper Silurian. It is the waterlime member of the Lower Helderberg. The Devonian is found only in the southeastern part of the county, although there are some evidences, in the form of large fragments, that it extends as far west as Marysville. It underlies the most of Mill Creek and Jerome Townships. The rest of the county is occupied by the waterlime. "The Hamilton, or Upper Corniferous. -This limestone occupies but a small area in the southeastern part of the county. It is hard and blue, and identical with the blue stone quarried at Delaware. Any favorable outcrop in that section should be thoroughly opened for building stone. This part of the county, though, is mainly covered with a heavy forest, and the strike of the formation is not known. Hensell & Fox, near Frankfort, have the only quarry in the county in this stone. "The Lower Corniferous.-The Delhi stone of the Lower Corniferous is quarried at a number of places in Mill Creek Township. The quarry of Thompson & Brown, six miles southeast of Dover, exposes about four feet of fossiliferous, sometimes crinoidal limestone, in beds of two to four inches. It is principally burned for quicklime, but is also sold for cheap foundation stone. The lime which it makes is like that already described made from the same beds at Delhi, in Delaware County. The fossils seen here are Crytoceras HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. - 219 undulatum, a handsome little Strophomena, a large cyathophylloid coral, the pygidium of a trilobite, and various remains of fishes. There are also common a large Strophomena and a small Cyathophylloid. The quarry of John Piersol, about three miles east of Watkinsville; that of William Hays, a mile northwest from Piersol's; those of John S. Smart, near Piersol's and that of Daniel Long, in the northeast corner of the angle of the county, are all in the Cornerstones, and near the horizon of Thompson & Brown's. "Oriskany Conglomerate.-The only proof that this, usually a sandy limestone or a clean quartz grit, has the character of a conglomerate in Union County, consists in the appearance of that character near the county line, in Mill Creek. It there contains water-worn pebbles of the underlying waterlime, which are sometimes two or three inches in diameter. The whole thickness is not more than an two feet. "Wells and Springs.-The following observations on the common wells of the county are of interest. They give some idea of the accessibility of water for domestic purposes, and of the composition of the drift, as well as of its thickness at various places: [Here follows a description of thirty-nine wells in various parts of the county, varying in depth from eleven to sixty three feet. The shallower wells are sunk in gravel and afford good water, as a rule, while the deeper ones do not always do so, it having in several instances a sulphurous, irony or bitter taste. The deep wells were sunk through the gravel and penetrated at various depths into yellow, blue and brown clay, nowhere striking the rock. The shallowest and the deepest wells are both in Allen Township, according to Prof. Winchell's table, and are but two or three miles apart.] "The Waterlime. -This limestone is so named from its known hydraulic qualities, in other States as well as in some places in Ohio. It appears in outcrop in widely separated parts of the county, and probably is the surface bedrock throughout, the most of the county. The quarry of William Ramsey, in the bed of Mill Creek, in Mill Creek Township, although not now in operation, is sufficiently developed to show the waterlime characters. Aaron Sewell burns a little lime here. The foundation for the old court house at Marysville was taken out here.. The stone is in beds of about four inches, but is wavy, Some of it is brecciated. The creek has excavated about Lou, feet in this limestone along here, the overlying, Corniferous receding from the stream on both sides. This narrow bolt of waterlime extends northward and makes, probably, an isolated outlier of Corniferous which occupies part of Dover Township and crosses the Scioto, in Delaware County. from near Millville, southwesterly. The waterlime also is exposed on Ingham Wood's land, one mile northwest of Pharisburg, in Boggs [Boke's] Creek; also on John Grandy's, near Wood's, as well as on the next farm above Peter Jolliff's. It occurs again on John Gray's and Alfred Davis' land, half a mile north of Byhalia, in the bed of Little Rush Creek. At York Center, it appears on Aaron Shirk's and Hiram Watt's land, on the north side of Boke's Creek. On the south side of the creek it also affords good exposures on the land of Montreville Henry, John Timons John Shirk and Finley Davis, where it has been burned some for lime for Mr. Shirk; but it is not now wrought. It is mainly a surface exposure in the beds and low banks of the creek. At Unionville, the waterlime appears in Big Darby Creek. It was recently opened for lime by F. J. Sager and J. C. Robinson. The beds are from four to eight inches thick. and fine gained. This is said to be underlaid by a blue clay which is four feet thick. It also occurs two miles above Unionville, on James Martin's land: and a mile further down on land of Elijah Mitchell. It was formerly wrought a little on the land of Mr. Sager three-fourths of a mile below the 220 - HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. village, where the beds were from four to eight inches. It is also seen on H Pennington's land, just below Mr. Sager's. "The Drift.-This deposit in Union County shows evidence of more recent date than it does generally in Delaware County. It appears very similar to the drift in the northwest corner of Delaware County. This evidence is of two kinds: (1st), that which pertains to the rock; (2d,) that which pertains to the drift itself. (1) The streams of the county have not excavated channels in the rock, and but very rarely expose it in their beds. This is not strictly true in the southeastern part, in the area of the Corniferous, where there is some erosion in the rock, like that seen throughout the most of Delaware County. This indicates that in the southeastern corner the erosion by streams has been longest continued, although that part of the county has at the same time less elevation above Lake Erie-in other words, that the overspread of drift in the southeastern part of the county was earlier than in the rest of the county. The rock, where exposed in the southeastern part of the county, has the same long weathered appearance, even when freshly uncovered by the removal of the drift, that is observable in Delaware County. The marks of glacial action are dim. The natural jointing and planes of separation are loosely filled in with the effects of oxidation and decomposition to a greater depth than in the rest of the county. (2) If we revert to the appearance of the drift, itself, the most striking contrast is presented in the general smoothness of the surface throughout the county, compared to the surface of Delaware County. This is partly due to the effect of less erosion on the drift by the streams, and partly to the evenness of the rock surface. With a single exception, the drift seems to have been very uniformly and gently deposited in Union County. The uniform direction of and the regular intervals between the main streams may all have been at first determined by slight differences in the thickness of the drift deposited, but such differences are now so obscured that they cannot be detected by the eye, except in the interval between the Big Darby and Mill Creeks. Besides this general flatness of surface, the yellowish color, caused by the formation and infiltration of hydrated oxides from above, does not extend so far downward in Union County as in Delaware. In the latter county, the light-colored clay extends downward to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, and sometimes as much as twenty-five feet. In the former, the blue clay is usually met within ten feet. It sometimes rises within eight feet of the surface, and occasionally the yellowish color extends to twelve or fifteen feet. The depth of such superficial coloring seems to vary not only with the length of time the drift may have been exposed to the air and surface water, but also with the. ease with which these agents find access below. A sandy or gravelly knoll is generally weathered deeper than one of clay, and a rolling surface is apt to be more deeply oxidated than a flat one. The drift ridge which separates Big Darby and Mill Creeks has already been alluded to under the head 'surface features.' Its exact form, limits and location, even within the county, have not been made out. The time given to the county would not allow a careful survey of this ridge in detail. It is well known to the inhabitants of the county. It forms a belt of high and rolling clay land which shows bowlders and gravel somewhat more abundantly than the surface of the rest of the county. It is believed to be of the nature of a glacial moraine, and was probably thrown down by the ice at a period when the retreating ice-foot was nearly stationary for a long time at about that place. It is very similar to those other very extended drift moraines that cross Northwestern Ohio, but is somewhat more clayey than they. Its connection with them is not known, but it was doubtless contemporaneous in origin with one of them. The elevated region in Logan County, where HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. - 221 there is an island of Devonian rock which withstood the ice period, was a disturbing, element in the otherwise very regular contour of the foot of the glacier. Union County seems to have been in the pathway of a spur or branch of the ice sheet, and to have suffered very extensive erosion thereby. After the actual withdrawal of the ice from the county, the drainage of a large tract of ice-covered surface would have passed principally through the same path. way. This pathway is bounded on either side by a persistent barrier of Corniferous limestone. It is probable, also, that the Waverly overlaid this area, at least in the Logan County island, since fragments of the Berea grit are found in the drift in the Southwestern part of Union County. The effect of this drainage over the county is probably seen in the near approach to the surface of heavy gravel beds in the drift over wide tracts, although the level of the county in the same tracts is now that of the general country, and is perfectly flat. This may be seen in the frequent gravel pits about Richwood and Essex, where the surface is outwardly comparable to that of the Black Swamp of Northwestern Ohio, but is so closely underlaid with gravel that almost every collar encounters it within three or four feet. This gravel belt runs southward toward Pharisburg, and is also penetrated on the farm of Mr. Josiah Westlake, a mile and a half north of Marysville. who avers that small shiner fish appear late in the summer, or in the fall of nearly every year, in a shallow well curbed by a 'gum,' which is inserted in an excavation penetrating to the gravel, or to the water of a subterranean lake. This circumstance would not be mentioned had it not been frequently reported by others in reference to certain wells in Defiance and Fulton Counties. The facts are given with great circumstantiality and positiveness, and cannot safely be denied. "Material Resources. .-The most of the county is poorly supplied with building stone. This necessary article is imported from Logan County, where the Onondaga quarries at Middleburg afford a good stone.; from the quarries in the Hamilton, at Marion, in Marion County, and from the same at Delaware. The quarries in the limestone of the Devonian, in the Southeastern part of the county, would probably be better patronized if better roads intersected that section, and if the quarries themselves were energetically developed. Not much lime is made in the county; the drift clays, however, are freely used in the manufacture of red brick and tile. There is a great deal of standing timber yet in Union County. The natural features and the geological structure of the. county will forever preclude the development of any other element of material wealth that will rank with that of agriculture." MAGNETIC SPRINGS. A more complete account of these springs and the villa e which has grown up around them in two years' time, will be found in the history of Leesburg Township, in which they are located. There is no doubt of the wonderful efficacy of the waters in certain diseases. The appended analyses of the waters of two of the springs will give an idea of their medicinal virtues: SULPHUR SPRING. Chloride of sodium ....................................................................................1.084 grains. Sulphate of potassa ................................................................................... 0.215 grains. Sulphate of soda ........................................................................................0.293 grains. Sulphate of lime ...................................................................................... 4.191 grains. Bicarbonate of lime ................................................................................ 20.419 grains. Bicarbonate of magnesia ........................................................................ 20.170 grains. Bicarbonate of iron ................................................................................. 0.815 grains. Phosphate of soda .....................................................................................Traces. Silica ........................................................................................................ 0.157 grains. Organic matter .......................................................................................... 0.343 grains. Total to one gallon ...................................................................................53.087 grains. 222 - HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. MAGNETIC SPRING. Chloride of sodium ................................................................................0.789 grains. Sulphate of potassa ............................................................................... 0.223 grains. Sulphate of sodium ............................................................................... 0.416 grains. Sulphate of lime .................................................................................... 3.271 grains. Sulphate of magnesia ............................................................................ 2.304 grains. Bi-carbonate of lime ............................................................................ 19.201 grains. Bicarbonate of magnesia ...................................................................... 17.014 grains. Bicarbonate of iron ............................................................................... 0.153 grains. Alumina ............................................................................................... 0.115 grains. Silica ..................................................................................................... 0.242 grains. Organic matter ...................................................................................... 0.569 grains. Total to one gallon ................................................................................44.897 grains. These analyses are copied from the published report given after they had been made by Prof. E. S. Wayne, of Cincinnati, in February, 1882. There are several other springs at the place, the waters being similar to these, and a new well is now being sunk which, when the writer visited the place in the fore part of November, 1882, had reached a depth of 513 feet, and was being then drilled through a hard flinty rock. having passed through numerous strata of blue clay. It is the only deep boring in the comity. 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