As the weather improves, I’ve been out hiking quite a bit more. Last week I headed to Parrish Rocks in Hocking Hills. To my eye, this is probably the prettiest waterfall there. Yes, Cedar Falls is pretty spectacular with quite a bit of water volume, but Parrish Rocks is a much higher fall (though it does have much less water).
When I was there I used my cell phone to take a picture. The following is actually two pictures stitched together:
Parrish Rocks
The location is marked on official USGS topo maps. I always wondered about the spelling. Was it maybe named after a church parish (possibly from the wonderment of seeing it)? Nope, not the case. Back in the 1800s the property it was owned by Solomon Parrish (with 2 “r”s). That is undoubtedly where the name came from.
A few years back the Ohio Barefoot Hikers did a hike there. You can see additional pictures of Parrish Rocks here. (The last two pictures on that page are not of Parrish Rocks, but the lower falls at Old Man’s Cave.)
Ahcuah 
Hi, I don’t know when or if you’ll see this, but I wanted to thank you so much for your blogs about Parrish Rocks.
I am a Great, Great, Great Granddaughter of Solomon Parrish. Who, as you said, owned the land Parrish Rocks is on. My Grandmother always said we had owned land that had become part of Hocking Hills State Park. She remembered coming to her grandfather’s farm (Solomon’s son Thomas) and playing “in all the caves.” I always wondered what caves she played in and whether we had actually owned Old Man’s Cave or Ash Cave. (I don’t think we did, but we owned a lot of land in the general area.) I was researching online land records to try to figure out where our land was when I came upon this website and your references to Parrish Rocks. I had no idea they existed. I was so excited!
So, my husband and I headed from Michigan to Hocking Hills last month, armed with a topo map from your website showing Parrish Rocks and copies of the pictures you had posted. Our goal – to find Parrish Rocks and walk around where my ancestors had walked. After several hours in the county courthouse researching land records, we headed for the Park. No one in the Visitor Center had heard of Parrish Rocks nor did it appear on any of their maps. So they couldn’t tell us how to get there. After reading your narratives, we knew we would probably have to go off the beaten path…we just weren’t sure where to begin.
We finally went to the State Forest office (rather than talking to the State Park people). The person there contacted a Forest Ranger, who knew exactly what we were talking about! So we learned Parrish Rocks are on State Forest land rather than in the State Park. He told us to enter from Chapel Ridge Road (most of which, in that area, was on my family’s property years ago). He told us which path to take…which turned out to be one of the blue paths on your map. Of course, it started raining as soon as we got out of our car to start down the path. We had come this far, we weren’t going to give up just because of a little rain. (No, we didn’t climb around on any wet rocks.) With your map, we knew when to leave the path and start looking for the rocks. As you know, that path took us to the top of the rocks…but we found them!!!!! I compared the scene with your picture, and I knew we were in the right place! I was so excited! The whole path we hiked had been on my ancestor’s land. So I was walking right through what had been part of their farm.
I took some pictures…which didn’t turn out very well because it’s just not a good angle plus it was overcast. We continued cross country trying to find our way to the bottom of the ravine so we could look at the rocks from below. Of course there was no water going over the falls at this time of year. We didn’t make it to the bottom though. We kept running into steep areas, and we didn’t want to get lost, and it was still raining. We did find an outcropping we thought looked like a face and several other caves we sat in for awhile.
I would like to go back in the spring when there would be fewer leaves on the trees and the waterfall might be active.
Again, I wanted to thank you for the information you posted about Parrish Rocks. It gave me a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors. I’m an enthusiastic genealogist, so this is really neat to me.
While we were in the area, I visited the cemetery where Solomon and several members of his family are buried. I let him know that his land is still being enjoyed today.
Thanks again,
Deb Taylor