History of Clinton County Ohio

Front matter

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Dedication

To the dear, departed ones, whose busy hands changed the giant forests into fertile fields; whose love of home established the hearthstones, the tender ties of which yet bind together the heartstrings of the native born; whose patriotism gave the best of their lives and substance for the defense of their country; whose graves make sacred the soil their feet so often trod.

A Reproduction by UNIGRAPHIC, INC. 1401 North Fares Avenue Evansville, Indiana 47711 nineteen hundred and eighty

Foreword

All life and achievement is evolution; present wisdom comes from past experience, and present commercial prosperity has come only from past exertion and suffering. The deeds and motives of the men who have gone before have been instrumental in shaping the destinies of later communities and states. The development of a new country was at once a task and a privilege. It required great courage, sacrifice and privation. Compare the present conditions of the people of Clinton county, Ohio, with what they were one hundred years ago. From a trackless wilderness and virgin land, it has come to be a center of prosperity and civilization, with millions of wealth, systems of railways, grand educational institutions, splendid industries and immense agricultural and mineral productions. Can any thinking person be insensible to the fascination of the study which discloses the aspirations and efforts of the early pioneers who so strongly laid the foundation upon which has been reared the magnificent prosperity of later days? To perpetuate the story of these people and to trace and record the social, political and industrial progress of the community from its first inception, is the function of the local historian. A sincere purpose to preserve facts and personal memoirs that are deserving of perpetuation, and which unite the present to the past; is the motive for the present publication. A specially valuable and interesting department is that one devoted to the sketches of representative citizens of these counties whose records deserve preservation because of their worth, effort and accomplishment. The publishers desire to extend their thanks to the gentlemen who have so faithfully labored to this end. Thanks are also due to the citizens of Clinton county for the uniform kindness with which they have regarded this undertaking, and for their many services rendered in the gaining of necessary information.

In placing the “History of Clinton county, Ohio,” before the citizens. the publishers can conscientiously claim that they have carried out the plan as outlined in the prospectus. Every biographical sketch in the work has been submitted to the party interested, for correction, and therefore any error of fact, if there be any, is solely due to the person for whom the sketch was prepared. Confident that our effort to please will fully meet the approbation of the public, we are,

Respectfully, TUESPUBLISHERS.

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Chapter I—related State History

First White Men in Northwest Territory—English and French Claims— Three Successive Sovereign Flags Over Present Ohio Territory—Passing of the Indians—Battle of Fallen Timbers—Northwest Territory—Ohio, the First Northwest State—Early Settlements—Activities of the Traders— French and Indian War—Pontiac’s Conspiracy—Northwest Territory and Quebec Act—Revolutionary Period—George Rogers Clark and His Campaign—First Surveys and Early Settlers—Ordinance of 1787—First Stage of Government Under the Ordinance—Second Stage—Organization of the Northwest Territory—Representative Stage of Government—First Territorial Legislature—Division of 1800—Census of 1800—Symmes Purchase and Other Early Settlements—County Organization—Indian Wars—Formation of a New State—Date of Ohio’s Admission to the Union—Capitals of Northwest Territory and of Ohio—Constitutional History of Ohio—Military Record—Land Grants—Military Lands—Refugee Tract—Road Lands—Canal Grants—Zane Sections—Ministerial Lands—School Sections—Ohio Politics —Boundary Lines.

CHARTER 11 GHOGRAPHY. TOPOGRAPHY “AND? GEOEROGY=-== 2 22e5

Location and Boundaries of Clinton County—Area—Topography—Diversified Natural Features—Streams and Drainage—Geological Formations— Glacial Period—The Drift—Boulders, Gravel and Sand—Bones—Stone Implements—The Cincinnati Group—Clinton Formation—Niagara Formation.

GHANPA a Rei ORGANIZA LLON On ICLIN PON] COUNT Yas === es eee ee

Legislative Act Establishing County—Commissioners Record—Survey of the County—Location of the County Seat—Erection of Townships—Their Subsequent Subdivisions—Court House History—Jails-—-County Office Buildings—The New Court House and Jail—County Officers—Sheriffs— Coroners—Treasurers—Recorders—Auditors—Representatives in the State Legislature—State Senators—Commissioners—District Assessor—Deputy Assessors’ Returns for 1915—Board of Soldiers’ Relief.

BUAPTER 1 Ve0NND GRANTS, ENTRIES AND SURVEYS--=_--2 2 ---_-

Virginia Cession, and Its Conditions—Military Tract and Its Survey—First Entries in Territory Now Comprising the County of Clinton—The Murray Deeds—Difficulties of Early Surveyors.

CPAP TER Ve ERRLY SELTLEMENT IN CLINTON COUNTY __-_-2-~ _-<

Natural Condition and Appearance of the Country at the Beginning of Settlement—Opening of the Land-office—Prior Explorations—The First Settler —The VanMeter Family—Wilson Family—Township Settlements.

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CHAPTER JI—RELATED STATE HISTORY

First White Men in Northwest Territory—English and French Claims— Three Successive Sovereign Flags Over Present Ohio Territory—Passing of the Indians—Battle of Fallen Timbers—Northwest Territory—Ohio, the First Northwest State—Early Settlements—Activities of the Traders— French and Indian War—Pontiac’s Conspiracy—Northwest Territory and Quebec Act—Revolutionary Period—George Rogers Clark and His Campaign—First Surveys and Early Settlers—Ordinance of 1787—First Stage of Government Under the Ordinance—Second Stage—Organization of the Northwest Territory—Representative Stage of Government—First Territorial Legislature—Division of 1800—Census of 1800—Symmes Purchase and Other Early Settlements—County Organization—Indian Wars—Formation of a New State—Date of Ohio’s Admission to the Union—Capitals of Northwest Territory and of Ohio—Constitutional History of Ohio—Military Record—Land Grants—Military Lands—Refugee Tract—Road Lands—Canal Grants—Zane Sections—Ministerial Lands—School Sections—Ohio Politics —Boundary Lines.

CHARTER 11—GEhOGRAPH Y- TOPOGRAPHY "AND* GEOLOG Y= 2-22-22)

Location and Boundaries of Clinton County—Area—Topography—Diversified Natural Features—Streams and Drainage—Geological Formations— Glacial Period—The Drift—Boulders, Gravel and Sand—Bones—Stone Implements—The Cincinnati Group—Clinton Formation—Niagara Formation.

GHAPTER [HM—ORGANIZATION OF OCELINTON- COUNT Y—-—-_-sse= ea

Legislative Act Establishing County—Commissioners Record—Survey of the County—Location of the County Seat—Erection of Townships—Their Subsequent Subdivisions—Court House History—Jails-—-County Office Buildings—The New Court House and Jail—County Officers—Sheriffs— Coroners—Treasurers—Recorders—Auditors—Representatives in the State Legislature—State Senators—Commissioners—District Assessor—Deputy Assessors’ Returns for 1915—Board of Soldiers’ Relief.

GUAPTER (V=LAND GRANTS, ENTRIES AND SURVEYS------- 2 _--_-

Virginia Cession, and Its Conditions—Military Tract and Its Survey—First Entries in Territory Now Comprising the County of Clinton—The Murray Deeds—Difficulties of Early Surveyors.

SGEUNPIPR Va EAREY SELILEMENT IN CLINTON - COUNTY ___-----2_W.

Natural Condition and Appearance of the Country at the Beginning of Settlement—Opening of the Land-office—Prior Explorations—The First Settler —The VanMeter Family—Wilson Family—Township Settlements.

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Contents

CHAPTER VI—HIGHWAYS AND TRANSPORTATION = 89 Indian Trails—Laying Out of the First Roads—Early Commissioners’ Records—History of Some of the Well-known Early Roads—Turnpikes, Plank Roads and Early Improvements—Plank Road Companies—Abolition of Tolls—Railroads—Public Aid in Building of the First Railroads—Proposed Roads—Highway Statistics—Bridges—Macadamized Roads—County Highway Superintendent—Limestone for Road Construction.

CHAPTER *VII—MILITARY .HISTORYSOF CLINTON COUR by -101

Residents of Clinton County Who Served in the War of the Revolution— The War of 1812—Clinton County Men in the Mexican War—The Civil War—Clinton County’s Magnificent Record in Enlistments—Relief of Soldiers’ Families—Soldiers’ Aid Society—Military Committee for Clinton County—Warp and Woof—The First Draft—Cincinnati Threatened—The Second Draft—The Second Morgan Scare—The Third Draft—The Various Commands in Which Clinton County Men Served.

Chapter II. Geography, Topography And Geology

Clinton county is located in the southwestern portion of the state of Ohio. It is bounded on the north by Greene and a part of Fayette county, east by Fayette, south and southeast by Brown and Highland counties, and west by Warren county. Its-county seat, Wilmington, is only fifty-six miles, by rail, northeast of Cincinnati. Brown county only intervenes on the south between Clinton county and the Ohio river, while on the west it is separated by two counties, Warren and Butler, from the boundary line between Ohio and Indiana. It lies on the dividing ridge between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers, waters draining from it into both of these streams. Clinton county includes an area of four hundred square miles.

/ TOPOGRAPHY.

Clinton county, in its natural features, is greatly diversified. In, the northern and southern portions of the county are large areas which are included in level and fertile plains, while along the numerous streams the topography is more broken. It becomes more or less hilly in some sections, and in many places even abrupt and bluffy. The greater portion of the drainage of the county is into the tributaries of the Little Miami river, which are also the principal waterways. Todd’s fork, the greatest of these tributaries, flows west and southwest and was named previous to 1787, probably from some of the Todds who settled early in Ohio and were among its prominent pioneers and Indian fighters. It has for its branches, East fork of Todd’s fork, named for its location; Cowan’s, named for John Cowan, who owned R. Campbell’s survey No. 2249, on that stream; Lytle’s creek (named for Gen. William Lytle, also a surveyor of these lands), draining the central portion of the county; Caesar’s creek, flowing across the extreme northwest corner, named for a favorite servant of some of the early surveyors, who died and was buried on its banks; Anderson’s fork, rising in the northeast part of the county, flowing west and northwest and draining the northern portion of the county, deriving its name from Col. Richard C. Anderson, the principal surveyor; East fork of the Little Miami, flowing southerly from the Snow Hill locality and forming a portion of the boundary line between Clinton and Highland counties; Little Hast fork of the Little Miami, Silver creek, Stone lick and numerous smaller streams also assist in the drainage. Wilson’s branch of Rattlesnake creek (named for Amos and Isaac Wilson, early settlers), drains into the Scioto from the northeast part of the county—Ricbhland and Wilson townships—while Lee’s creek, also a tributary of the Scioto and named in honor of Peter Lee, a surveyor of Virginia military lands, drains a portion of Wayne township. The derivation of the names, Dutch creek, Buck run and Turkey run, can easily be understood.

Todd’s fork of the Little Miami is the largest stream in the county, and, in the days of the early settlements, furnished fair water power, which was available most of the year. At present, owing to the lowering of the water line and the lack of steady feed from the head. streams, there is little power except at seasons when the stream is swollen by rain or melting snow. Todd’s fork was widely known at the beginning of the nineteenth century, for on its banks some of the most prominent among the early settlements in the county were made. All the streams in this region are subject to sudden, and sometimes disastrous, freshets, which subside quite as rapidly as they rise. The nature of the country is such that no great natural reservoirs exist, and the streams are, therefore, without a reserve supply to keep them steady, for, with the clearing away of the timber, the swamps have been drained and this source cut off.

Anderson’s fork runs in places upon strata of the Niagara limestone, and is generally not much above bedded stone. This stream cuts through a portion of the pentamerous beds of the Niagara formation to a depth of from five to ten feet at Port William, in Liberty township. Above Port William and along this stream is a tract known as the “prairie,” extending a number of miles and possessing a deep, rich, black soil. It was doubtless once the location of a swamp or shallow lake. Northeast of this prairie is supposed to be the highest point of land in the county, it being between seven hundred and eight hundred feet above low water mark of the Ohio river at Cincinnati. In the southern part of the county, at a place a short distance east of New Vienna, on the line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, the elevation is seven hundred and thirty-seven and one-half feet above the same comparative location. Anderson’s fork receives but few tributaries in all its course, the tract which it drains being comparatively long and narrow. The bedded stone in its channel is of the Niagara formation as far down as the Lumberton quarries, where it strikes and cuts very nearly through the formation known to geologists as Clinton, and, at a point farther down stream, at Ingalls’ dam, just outside of Clinton county, it cuts about four feet of purple red shale underlying the Clinton, and, strikes the higher of the Cincinnati group, or blue limestone. The East fork of Todd’s fork also penetrates the blue limestone, cutting into it to a depth of nearly one hundred feet within three or four miles of Clarksville.

GEOLOGY.

Volume three of the state geological report contains an article of merit on the geology of Clinton county prepared by John Hussey, as follows:

“Tf we trace the line of outcrops of the various formations from the point in the western part of Clinton county, where Todd’s fork leaves the county, we shall‘find that the strata of stone seen under those we meet proceed to the east, and if a well were dug deep enough at Wilmington or Washington, it would cut through all the strata found to the west as far as Cincinnati. The great Niagara system lies immediately beneath Wilmington; next, the Clinton iron ore and stratified stone of this formation, about thirty feet in thickness; then, underlying this and underlaid by the blue limestone of the Cincinnati group, there is a thickness of some three or four feet of ferruginous clay.

DENUDING AGENCIES.

“After the deposition of the rocks now found in Clinton county, the surface was not long, at an early geological period, beneath the surface of the sea. While the deposit of sandstone which extends almost from the very border of Fayette county to the south indefinitely, and to the east, underlying the coal, was being made, the land to the north was above water, as well as when the deposits above the sandstone were made; at least, whatever material, organic or inorganic, was ever deposited here, has long since disappeared. We haye some evidence, however, that the slate which immediately underlies the sandstone extended somewhat farther north than the sandstone itself has been found. * * * Where formations in Clinton county, which were formerly continuous, have been partially removed, as on Cliff run, the Clinton formation is seen in its full thickness, while excavations show that its continuity is broken to the east of this locality, so that the exposure of white limestone on Cliff run is a mere island of that kind of stone. Besides the wearing away of the general surface and the removal of particular parts of formations, there were causes at work which have excavated channels far below the general surface. Ice, in the form of glaciers, is generally regarded as the means by which the denudation above alluded to has been effected. At this point it may be well to take up the ice age and its effects on this region: in a more detailed form.

“Dr. G. M. Austin prepared an article in 1911 from which we have the privilege of taking extracts. ‘As early as the middle of the Devonian age a long narrow strip of the ancient sea bottom, extending from central Kentucky to Lake Erie, near Sandusky, and including the territory of Clinton county, was lifted above the surface and has since then formed a part of the dry land of the earth.

_ ‘On this new island, for such it then was, the rains soon gave rise to streams, and these, acting upon the surface through the countless ages that followed, cut deep channels into the strata and in time widened these, in many places, into broad valleys. Indeed, so extensive was this erosion that long before the beginning of the Ice age the land in these parts had been changed from the comparatively level plain it was at first, into a region of rough hills and deep, intersecting valleys such as we may now see in Pike county and other such eastern counties of our state which lie outside the area of glacial action.’

“Wilmington is built over one of these ancient filled-up valleys, while the college stands on the high ground that then formed its eastern limit. Could one have stood at the latter point at the close of the Pliocene age and looked toward the west, his eyes would have beheld an immense depression two-thirds as deep as the valley of the Miami at Ft. Ancient, stretching away toward the south and east beyond the limits of vision. The area of this ancient valley must have been fully seventy square miles. The erosion caused by our modern streams and the use of the drill in sinking wells have shown that its boundaries were about as follow: On the north beginning at Hawe's chapel, it follows an irregular course toward the southwest, passing a mile north of Starbucktown, near the Children’s Home and parallel to Todd’s fork to below Sligo; on the west, by way of Ogden and Villars’ chapel to Midland City; on the south from Midland City, not far from the line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, to the neighborhood of Farmers’ Station; on the east from Farmers’ Station, by way of Snow Hill and New Antioch. to Wilmington, including within its limits all of Washington township, and large portions of Union, Adams, Vernon, Marion, Clark, Jefferson and Greene. A considerable stream, probably as large as the Little Miami, must have flowed through this valley, coming from the south and passing out of the county toward the northeast by way of Starbucktown and Bloomington. Many lesser valleys and ravines, each furnishing an outlet for some rivulet or stream, must have opened into this great central valley, but most of these are now deeply buried under the drift and their location and extent will not be known until the drill has been sunk in every part of the county and the records of its findings brought together and compared.

“Such, in brief, was the topography of our county in these ancient times, and yet, though it differed so greatly from the present that the two possess scarcely a single feature in common, the difference is no more extreme than exists between the climates and life forms of the two periods.

“Authorities are agreed that even so late as the closing epoch of the Tertiary period a sub-tropical, or warm temperate, climate prevailed as far north as the latitude of the Great Bakes; a climate as now exists in Mexico and southern Florida. These conclusions are based largely on the character of the flora and fauna that flourished in those early days.

“The land. appears to have been as heavily forested then as in recent times, but, while we recognize among the fossil wreckage of those old forests such familiar forms as the poplar, maple, hickory, beech and the sycamore, with them are the live oak, magnolia, cinnamon, wild fig and several species of palms, plant forms that are now restricted to the warm regions of the south.

“Yet varied and magnificent as was the flora that then clothed the land, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the marvelous fauna of that day. For huge ness of bulk and number of species, its mammals have not been equalled in any other age. Had we before us a list of all the animals from the different parts of the world that have been assigned to this age, it would present a lengthy and magnificent array.

When a list of those whose remains have been found so near our home that we may be reasonably sure that they once inhabited this locality, cannot fail to impress us by the number and character of its forms. Such a list would include a lion as large as that now found in Africa; two saber-toothed tigers, one of these as large as the modern Bengal tiger; a great wolf; a weasel the size of the otter, and a bear which equalled if not exceeded in size the largest grizzly; also a huge ox, a gigantic animal, one-third larger than the largest buffalo of the plains, with widely-spreading horns that measured fully ten feet from tip to tip; two extinct species related to the musk ox of the -north; | an elk as large as the Irish elk; an extinct peccary, and two other species related to

that genus; two species of tapir; two of the horse; a gigantic beaver as large as the American black bear; a porcupine as large as a small deer; three genera, each repre-

sented by a number of species of the giant sloth, one at least of which was as large as the rhinoceros; and, finally, two elephants, the mammoth and the mastodon. But ‘ these are only the larger animals that then lived; to make the catalog complete, there

should be added a number of small species now extinct, and still others whose repre-

sentatives are still living.

“These were the conditions of topography, climate and life that prevailed in this state and locality in the early days of the post-pliocene era—an era that seems but little farther removed from the present day than yesterday when measured by the countless ages that reach back from it to the beginning of geological changes on our planet. For splendid as was that time, with its warmth of climate and wealth of life, its end was close at hand, and the changes were already under way which were to reach their climax in that remarkable age of ice at the close of which the present dates its beginning.

“As early as the middle of the pliocene, a slowly-falling temperature began to develop in the northern hemisphere, and gradually, as these thermic changes went on through many centuries, the warm and equable temperature that had prevailed so long ago gave place to one of decided chill. Hach winter became colder than the previous and the summers more chilly and damp. The more tender animals gradually died out and the less hardy plants began to be winter killed or failed to mature their fruits.

“As the forests were thus decimated, other and hardier species replaced those which had disappeared. The animals also which had perished from cold were replaced by others migrating from colder regions, which, in the course of generations, seem to have become dwarfed and covered with a more shaggy coat of fur.

“The winter snows at length failed to melt upon the hill tops and in time gave rise to glaciers which crept slowly downward into the valleys. The cold grew more intense and at length the ice and snow were everywhere. The last of the hardy plants and animals were overwhelmed and all the northern lands lay dead and frozen under the pall of the glacial winter.

“How long this period of bitter cold continued cannot be ascertained. Its dreary reign was undoubtedly a very long one. In the White mountains it has been shown that the ice had time to attain a thickness of 6,000 feet; in! northern New England 5,000 feet; in southwestern Massachusetts, 2,800 feet; in southern Connecticut 1,000 feet, and in the Catskills, 3,000 feet. This mighty sheet of ice moved slowly towards the south at a rate, judging from the movements of the modern glaciers, of not more than two or three feet a day. Yet so long did the age continue that ample time was given for the transportation of boulders, wrenched from the cliffs of the Canadian highlands, quite down to the Ohio river. Under the heavy heel of this enormous moving mass the land was stripped bare of its ancient soil, the hills were ground down, the valleys filled with wreckage to their brims and the surface changed into a level plain.

Once, at least, in the midst of this remarkable age there was a break in the rigor of the climate, the heavy ice sheet retreated back toward the north and, on the uncovered land, peat bogs formed in the depressions and forests of birch, hemlock and cedar sprang up from the soil. A peat bed of this period, containing fossil insects and grasses,

. underlies a part of Wilmington, while throughout the county traces of the old forest haye been met with in many places. But this intermission was of comparatively short duration; the bitter chill of the Arctics again settled over the land, the ice for a second time came slowly down to the Ohio river and the glacial winter continued its rule for many centuries longer.

“At last, however, its long, gloomy reign was ended. Its unhospitable climate gave place to the mild temperature of the present day and out of the chaos it had wrought, slowly emerged a new era, the noblest of all that have yet been, the Age of Man.

“As a result of the amelioration of the glacial climate, the surface of the land within the area of glacial action was again subject to a series of changes only second in importance to those already described. We have seen how the advance of the ice totally effaced the physical landmarks of the old era and reduced its hills and valleys to a level plain. Now, during its period of dissolution, the order is reversed and we see the plain changed into the gentle, rolling country of upland and valley as it now exists. Practically all our modern streams within the drift area date their beginning from this period of glacial decadence. Commencing at the southern limit of the ice sheet, they slowly lengthened their channels to the northward as the ice retreated until they reached their present limits, sometimes making their way along the course of some ancient stream, sometimes across the filled-up valleys, but more frequently along new routes where no stream had flowed before. In this county, Lytle’s creek, Wilson’s branch and Silver creek flow their entire length across an ancient valley, while the lower reaches of Cowan’s creek and Hast fork, all of Sewall’s run and much of. Todd’s fork are along recent channels cut in the bedded rock.

“The melting of so vast a mass of ice made this a period of annual floods, greater in volume than any the world has since known. With each return of the summer, the whole land was deluged with water and the streams were changed for a time into veritable rivers which cut deeply and widely into the glacial clays and hollowed out deep gorges in the underlying rocks.

“Along the flanks of these new valleys were then deposited those extensive beds of glacial gravel which have proved so valuable in the building of our modern roads, while on the uplands, recessional moraines, kames and drumlins marked the line of glacial retreat.. Many of these last-named deposits may now be seen in our county; one of the moraines, the largest, which crosses the county by way of Bloomington and Reesville, forms the divide between the Miami and Scioto rivers.

“Innumerable depressions were left in the glacial clays, which became the sights of ponds and lakelets that at first must have covered most of the level parts of the county.

“In the meantime, the ice very slowly retreated beyond our borders, the floods ceased, the, streams dwindled to their present volume and the naked land differed little from the’ present time as far as its physical contour of upland and valley is concerned. It wa merely waiting the return of life. On the stiff, barren clays of this new land vegetation gradually extended until its surface was again clothed in verdure, forests of modern trees took the place of groves of ancient cinnamon and figs, and the ponds and lakes began to fill with decayed vegetation, thus storing up material for the fertile black soils whose wide distribution has contributed so largely to the wealth and prosperity of our, county. With the return of vegetation, a new race of animals also appeared, and man, and thus at last the great cycle of changes wrought by the Age of

Ice was fully complete.

THE DRIFT.

“Judging from the present evidences which we can find in the sinking of wells, this land was once covered with water. This was probably accomplished by the land sinking down beneath the surface of the water. Every indication points to water as the medium by which the deposits were made. Upon the stone everywhere are found traces of more or less loose material. ‘The study of this material will prove that it is a sort of drift, composed of clay with varying proportions of sand and gravel, with occasional rounded blocks of granite rock, and with the remains of trees and, sometimes, other vegetation. The greatest thickness of the drift in our district is in Clinton county, east of the “prairie,” where a deposit of over one hundred feet is found. Whether the whole surface of the country was once covered as deeply as this limited area, may admit of doubt; but there are reasons for believing that the surface was once covered with a heavy drift deposit. In some places the soft material has been washed away, leaving large accumulations of sand and gravel; in other places, as the level region between the East fork of Todd’s fork and Blanchester, the material of the drift was a finer sediment than is found in other places, and has not been removed or disturbed to such a degree as in other portions of the county, and, consequently, even if sand and gravel exist in it, there are no such beds of these substances as are found where the sediment had a fine character or was subsequently washed in currents of water. The clays of the drift are both blue and yellow, the former apparently prevailing in both counties, as shown in the excavations for wells. There was considerable variation in reports of the strata penetrated in sfnking wells, but blue clay—or, as it is freqnently called, blue mud—from its appearance, was uniformly found, though there was no uniformity on the thickness of it. Sometimes it is but a few feet in thickness, and in other places, not a mile distant, it is no less than forty feet thick. It is generally interstratified with sand and fine grayel, but sometimes no such stratification is seen. Water is found very nearly everywhere within a few feet of the surface of the earth, so that it is seldom that excavations are farther than from ten to twenty feet below the surface, and our knowledge is limited of the material underlying to this slight extent. * * * In some parts of this district, particularly those which are flat, there does not occur, within the usual range of the wells, much, if any, yellow clay. If it found, it is just below the soil for from three to ten feet, where fine, grained blue clay invariably occurs interstratified with sand.