I' Preface N presenting this work to the public I have but one object in view, and that is to instill in the minds of the youth a love and patriotism for their own great state, and to revive within the fleeting memories of the older generations a knowledge of events which have passed. Little originality in this work is claimed, as the early Buckeyes found time in their busy lives to make ample records of all important passing events. In writing this history reference was made to all available histories and records of the state, and accuracy, and not euphony was the single aim of the writer J. P. LAWYER. THE GLACIAL PERIOD HE history of man in the territory now comprising the State of Ohio, begins with ΤΗ the glacial period. The physical conditions of the country, at that early period of the world's history, can only be learned from the inscriptions written by the hand of nature upon huge tables of stone. All we know of man, in that far-away time, all we know of his appearance, manners and customs we learn from a few, but certain sentences written in rude stone implements found imbedded and undisturbed in the glacial formations. To understand the history of man during that early period of his existence, it is necessary to inquire into the physical conditions of the territory he then occupied. The whole of the northern part of the continent of North America was covered with a great sea of ice, extending as far south, on the Atlantic coast as New Jersey, and reaching in the middle states almost to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and further west approaching a point not far distant from the Black Hills. The moraine marking the southern boundary of the glaciated area in Ohio enters the state as far south as New Lisbon, in Columbiana county, extends almost west to Canton in Stark county, where it bears to the southwest and passes through Millersburgh, in Holmes county, to a point in the southern part of Ashland county, where it makes a short turn to the south, passing through Newark, Lancaster, Chillicothe, West Union and crosses the Ohio river into Kentucky at a point not far from Maysville. The fields of ice that invaded. Ohio were forced into that region, by the pressure of the great ocean of ice lying to the north of the region of the Great Lakes. Their course can be as readily traced by the student of geology, as the course of a rabbit in the snow, by the hunter. A glacier always carries with it large fragments of rock, and immense quantities of sand and gravel. If the bed rock over which it passes is softer than the boulders carried by it, grooves will be cut in the bed rock, some large and some small, depending on the size of the boulders, while the sand and gravel will polish the surface or leave but fine traces extending always in the direction of the larger grooves. The best place in the state and perhaps in the world to observe this phenomena is on the rocky islands near Sandusky, Ohio. |