- Ohio History in 2000 Words
- Mound Builders
- Native Ohioans
- The Ohio Company
- Ohio's Wood Forts
- Indian Wars
- War of 1812
- Ohio's Canals
- Ohio's Road
- Scenic Railroads / Museums
- Underground Railroad
- Civil War in Ohio
Next to several counties in southern Ohio, Licking County probably has the greatest number of earthworks indicating these two areas were centers for Mound Builders dating back to the first Century or earlier.
Many of the earthworks and mounds were cataloged and surveyed in the late 1840s. There was one mound of particular importance that was known to exist in Licking County, about 8 miles south of Newark near a new 19th Century construction project known as the Ohio Erie Canal.
The first shovels of dirt were ceremoniously removed just south of Heath in 1825. This event marked the beginning of the canal's construction that would take seven years to complete connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio River at Portsmouth.
The engineering of the canal required the use of rivers where possible, and channels dug where they were not. In many locations feeder lakes were constructed to provide enough water to keep those channels filled. One of those feeder lakes was constructed south of Newark and was known as the Licking Summit Reservoir.
Just one mile east of this reservoir was an Adena burial mound. While burial mounds were found all of the state, this particular mound was unique. In fact it was unique to all of North America.
This unique mound became known as the Reservoir Stone Mound. It was a large, a very large mound-- fifty feet in height (the Miamisburg Mound is 65 feet in height) but the really unique feature was that it the earthen mound was covered with stacked stones.
The base of the mound was 182 feet in diameter with a shallow trench surrounding the base and then a wall surrounding the mound with an opening on the east end of the enclosure and an open field on the west side of the mound within the enclosure. Early pioneer accounts mention the large number of rattlesnakes that inhabited the stone mound.
As construction on the Licking Summit Reservoir progressed, it was decided that to protect the east bank of the reservoir from erosion required a layer of stone. From 1831 – 1832, up to 75 wagon teams were assembled to move the stone from the giant stone mound to the east bank. It was estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 wagon loads of stone were carried away from the mound.
As they were removing the stone, it was discovered the stones were covering 16 smaller mounds of earth around the outer circumference of the mound. Once the stones were removed, the exposed mounds were left alone until 1850 when a some local farmers dug into one of the mounds and uncovered a burial site and a number of artifacts. The burial site was covered with some remarkably preserved logs laid side-by side creating a wood slab. One of the farmers noted the cut marks on the tree as being accomplished by someone with extremely sharp tools, and not stone axes as was believed.
Some of this wooden slab was forwarded to a university. In 2015 local archeologist Bradley Lepper, acquired a small sliver of that wood for carbon dating. The results of this testing indicated the tree was cut down around 130 A.D.
Over the years since the protective stones being removed for the reservoir, the uncovered mounds were surveyed and de-constructed by several excavations. Today the land were these mounds were located has been mostly leveled by generations of farming and only a the partial remains of the large mound still exist, but are not accessible by the public.
When the engineers realized the Licking Summit Reservoir was not large enough to maintain water levels it was enlarged. By 1890 the canals in Ohio had been abandoned and replaced entirely by railroads. In 1894 Ohio's General Assembly designated the feeder reservoirs be converted into public parks. It was at this time the Licking Summit Reservoir name was changed to Buckeye Lake.
Located in Montgomery County, on the south side of Dayton is the Miamisburg Mound State Memorial. This conical mound is the largest conical mound in Ohio at a height over 65'. It is also the 2nd largest conical mound in eastern North America. Is is thought to be part of the Adena Culture in the Early Woodland Period.
©
Ohio City Productions, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.