Far back in the dim ages of the past, this land
teemed with a busy population, and Adams county
was adorned with beautiful fields that were
covered with luxuriant crops of golden grain,
that supplied the inhabitants with an ample
sustenance. Their dwellings dotted the
valleys or nestled near the ravines that cut
gaps into the hills, through which flowed
streams of pure crystal water, that subserved
the uses and ministered to the comforts of the
people. Happy children with gleeful mirth,
gamboled in the bright sunshine over the fields
or through the groves, or perchance climbed the
steeps to gather the wild flowers that so
enticingly looked out from their quiet abodes.
Domestic animals lazily grazed the rich
pastures, or leisurely climbed the slopes to
browse the herbage there. We can gladly
hope that in these early days, which reached
back almost to creation's morn, when the earth
was new and bright, that man was not yet stained
with crime, nor his hands dyed in the blood of
his fellow man, but each could sit under his own
fig tree, with none to molest or or make
him afraid. There is reason to believe
that their days were happily and pleasantly
spent in the peaceful occupation of providing
for their wants, and in offering sacrifices and
supplicacatious to their deities.
Age on age circled away over this happy and
contented people, but a change was to some at
last. Dire calamities of some kind, at
length overwhelmed the the land, and the
people who had occupied it so long, were
destroyed, but whether by pestilence, famine, or
whether exterminated or driven from it, by some
cruel and savage enemy, is not known. It
is probable that the latter was case, that the
inhabitants after offering all the resistance in
their power, were compelled to give way to the
superior force of a relentless foe, and as they
retired before the Envaders, the fleeing exiles
doubtlessly cast many longing, sorrowing looks
behind upon the homes they were forced to leave,
and the land they were to see no more.
The conquerors, whoever they may have been, seem not to
have occupied or improved the country they had
wrested from its occupants, but left it to
relapse into wilderness again. Centuries
have since rolled their courses over these
Elysian fields, which have long ago, again been
covered with dense forests while not a trace or
vestige of their habitations remain - all have
disappeared before the great destroyer - Time.
This people have left no trace of their history,
except what can be gathered from the remains of
their works, that have survived the wreck of
time; and even these memorials of departed
nations are fast being obliterated by the
ruthless hands of those who have finally
succeeded |
to the heritage of the vanished races.
Those successors who boast of their refinement,
high civilization and christianity, not
satisfied with the vandal destruction of the
works left by these pre-historic people, have,
with sacriligious hands, invaded the quiet
sanctuaries of the dead, and with the plowshare,
remorselessly exhumed the remains of the silent
sleeper's beneath the soil. Many of the
burial grounds of the sleeping dead have been
converted into fields, where acres are to-day,
literally covered with fragments of human bone,
that lie bleaching upon the surface, and which
fertilize the soil and cause it to bring forth
larger crops, to fill the coffers of the living.
O shame! where is thy blush!
Had we the space we would give a more full account.
MOUND BUILDERS WORK
Although
generation after generation of the Mound
Builders here lived and flourished, and
peradventure reached the acrue of their glory,
then passed through age after age of decadence
and decrepitude, into the receptacle of things
lost upon earth, without transmitting to us of
these latter days anything that can properly be
called history; and though no record of their
exploits has come down to us through the
intervening centuries, yet their still enduring
works furnish the laborious student some
indications, even though they be alight, of the
peculiarities and characteristics of their
builders, and afford us some data as to the
probable history they made during the unknown,
perchance barren, uneventful cycles of their
long career as a nation or race. As the
history of the Mound Builders is as yet an
unwritten one, it is a matter of gratulation
that so many waymarks and traces of them yet
remain. By the aid of their mill remaining
works we are able to gather much of their
manners, habits and customs, their general
characteristics, their mode of life, the extent
of their knowledge of the arts, their husbandry,
their state of civilization, their religion and
its rites.
Mounds, enclosures and other works of these
pre-historic people were built for various
specific purposes differing from each other
somewhat according to the uses for which they
were designed.
AN ANCIENT WORK.
On the farm of
Samuel McClung, in the northern part of
Tiffin township, Adams county, O., is a circular
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enclosure of about thirty acres, that is
undoubtedly a work of the Mound Builders.
It is almost, if not quite, an exact circle, and
bears evidence of great antiquity. Mink or
Town run passes nearly centrally through it from
west to east. This stream is somewhat
rocky or stony, and the embankments of the work,
which extend at right angles with the ravine are
to a considerable distance on either side of the
run, filled with stone promiscuously
intermingled with earth. Some of these
rocks are as heavy as tow men can carry, and
were doubtless transported by hand from the
creek to the place they occupy in the walls,
until the distance became greater than the
workmen liked to carry them in this manner,
after which the embankment appears to have been
made mainly of earth, with a few scattering
stones, such as were perhaps, gathered along the
line of the works thrown up.
Those portions of the wall in which stone is freely
used, are much better preserved than the parts
built of earth. Although full grown forest
trees now cover the former, the embankment
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yet remains two or three feet above the original
surface of the ground, while those portions
constructed of earth, are in some places
scarcely traceable. These embankments
were, doubtless originally, of considerable
height, but the wear of time during the
unnumbered centuries that have passed by since
they were built, has nearly obliterated them.
They bear unmistakable evidence of great
antiquity.
The only gateway or entrance to this work that we
discovered, was on the west side, where the
creek enters the enclosure. The walls on
either side of the stream, instead of
terminating abruptly as they approach it, are,
as it were bent round to the outside in a
circle, till they reach the embankment behind,
making the ends of the walls at the gateway,
terminate in a circular sub turned outward.
These circles are 40 or 45 feet in diameter.
The gateway is over 100 paces in width. On
the outside of this work, some twenty rods east
of it, are five or six small low mounds, one of
which has been examined by Mr. McClung
to the depth of four or five feet, but
nothing was found.
In side of the enclosure, not far from its eastern
wall, is a small mound, that before the land was
cleared, was some six feet high, and twenty or
thirty feet in diameter at the base. This
is in a field belonging to Mr. Treber,
that cuts off a segment of the plow. By
digging into it Mr. McClung found
charcoal and ashes, and a part of a broken pot
of earthenware, but he has suffered them to be
lost. |
