Clear Creek Indian Trails

This entry is a bit of a follow-up on yesterday’s A Snortin’ Good O’Meara O’Vencha Hike.

It turns out that the place we started our hike was at the intersection of two major Indian Trails.

The hike started at Starner House, which is the park headquarters. That, in turn, is practically next to Written Rock, a rock overhang typical of the Hocking Hills region. It is called “Written” due to some Native American petroglyphs or markings on some of the rocks there.

I happened to find out about the Indian trails about a month ago while reading Crossroads and Fence Posts by Charles Goslin. Mr. Goslin was a nature columnist for the local Lancaster paper staring in the 1950s. The nature center at Alley Park is named after him.

(Also, his brother was an archeologist who excavated Kettle Hill Cave, back in the late 1940s, finding signs of ancient Native American habitation.)

Here is part of a map of the Ohio Indian Trails in the region, from William Mills’ 1914 Archeological Atlas of Ohio.

Indian Trails Between Portsmouth and Lancaster

One of the trails ran right through the Clear Creek valley. From Goslin’s page 14:

The first white men to see Written Rock may have been members of Lord Dunmore’s army while enroute to the Pickaway Plains during the Dunmore War. The Indian trail through Clear Creek Gorge would have been the logical route from the falls of the Hockhocking (Hocking) River to the banks of Scippo Creek where Camp Charlotte was established.

This is the trail called “The Belpre Trail”. It ran from Belpre, Ohio (across the Ohio River from Parkersburg, WV) to an Indian village near where Circleville is named Maguck. Here’s part of the description of the trail from Frank Wilcox’s Ohio Indian Trails.

It then led west on the high ridge between Rush Creek and the Hocking, passing probably four miles north of Logan to Rockbridge on the Hocking. (S. 31.)

Continuing westward, it passed through Revenge and Drinkle, where it began to descend the long slopes of the hilly Hocking region and led due west to Circleville over the prairies.

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It passes north of the more spectacular scenic territory of Hocking County, but crosses the trail from Portsmouth to Lancaster at Clear Creek, about five miles west of Rockbridge.

That north/south trail from Portsmouth to Lancaster was called the Standing Stone Trail, from Mt. Pleasant, a sandstone knob in Lancaster.

Later in his book, Goslin says more about the Standing Stone Trail:

Lord Dunmore’s army, enroute to the Pickaway Plains in October of 1774, passed through what is now Madison Township. Serving as his Indian Scouts were Simon Kenton and Simon Girty. Another Indian trail passed through Madison Township from north to south, to cross the Clear Creek valley at Written Rock enroute to the salt springs in what is now Jackson County.

This is what Wilcox says about the Standing Stone Trail around Clear Creek:

From the Rock House the trail led down, by the present entrance of the State Park, to Mound Crossing on the road from South Bloomingville to Logan, and so northward seven miles to the crossing of the Belpre Trail west of Rockbridge. It followed a northerly ridge to where the State Industrial School stands, and passing east of Jacob’s Ladder and Christmas Rocks, led down the tracks of the electric line to Lancaster, where at the southwest end of town it joined the trail to Coshocton from Circleville.

As shown in the above map, and alluded to above, there was yet a third trail, The Coshocton Trail, that left the Indian town of Maguck.

But back to Goslin:

Written Rock could at one time be approached by still another way, the Lead Mine Hollow Road. Now, this approach through the covered bridge is no longer possible; Lead Mine Hollow Road has been abandoned.

When we hiked up to Winnowing Rock we were, for at least part of the hike, on Lead Mine Hollow Road, which headed up the valley about ½ mile and then turned up the valley where Lake Emily is now. And we were undoubted on the Standing Stone Trail for some part of that.

Lead Mine Hollow Road has its own interesting story.

There were continuing rumors that the Indians had lead mines in the area. Lead, of course, was quite valuable for making bullets.

Toby Town was another Indian village in Fairfield County, about 12 miles to the northwest of Written Rock.

Here’s a recollection regarding Toby Town, from Hervey Scott’s A Complete History of Fairfield County, Ohio:

The Indians would take a short journey eastward, and come back with plenty of lead, which they traded to the whites. No one ever knew, nor was it ever found out where they obtained it; but from the length of time they were absent, the place could not have been very distant. An opinion long after prevailed that it was obtained near the present site of the rock-mills. But all search for the place has thus far proved futile.

As noted, plenty of people searched for lead mines, hence the name of the road, but nobody ever found one anywhere in Ohio. My guess is that the Indians got their lead from caches “liberated” from white settlers.

Anyways, there is a lot of history sitting smack dab in the middle of Clear Creek Metro Park.

I’ve taken the information I’ve found here and tried to put it onto a comprehensive map showing the terrain. Admittedly, most of the locations of the trails is just speculation on my part, based partly on where I, with my extensive hiking experience, would put the trail.

I’ve also mixed current locations (e.g., Royalton, Circleville) and now long-gone locations (e.g., Toby Town, Maguck). But you can get a real feel for the topography, trails, and locations from back then.

Grand Look at Indian Trails Near the Hocking

If you click on the map, you’ll get my 1200-pixel wide original.

I hope you find it interesting.