Rush
Township and Rushtown have an interesting history with more than
their share of mystery. The Utts and a few others came here in 1797
and 1798. Then, many others came soon after, of whom are recalled
Dan'l Kirkendall, George Herod, Thos. Jones, Thomas Arnold, Jas.
Wallace, Wm. Russell, Mrs. Hester Brown and family and John Shultz.
Rush
Township was the last of the municipal divisions of the county
organized, and was taken wholly from Union Township, June 3, 1867. It
is named for Dr. Benjamin Rush, an early physician and Founding
Father of the United States.
From
its beginnings of white settlement, Rush has been known for its
immense quarries of freestone – as evidenced in the Inskeep Stone
Works – and its popular inland waterways. However, to trace the
history of human population in the area, one must research history
dating back thousands of years ago.
Tremper Mound
The Tremper Earthworks included an earthen enclosure roughly in the shape of an oval with flattened sides. The oval was 480 feet by 407 feet with an opening in the southwestern part of the enclosure. At the center of the enclosure was a large, irregularly-shaped mound. Some people believed it was an effigy mound built in the shape of an animal, such as a tapir or even an elephant. Neither of these creatures lived in North America at the time the mound was built. It is still not clear if the mound had been built as an effigy.
William C. Mills of the Ohio Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) excavated the Tremper Mound in 1915. At the base of the mound, he discovered numerous postmolds that revealed the outline of an ancient wooden structure 200 feet long by 100 feet wide. The pattern of postmolds showed that there had been a main building with several smaller chambers at the eastern end.
Evidence supports that
here was a large charnel house here. The complex pattern of
compartments in the house gave the mound its odd shape. The Hopewell
culture probably built additions to the charnel house over the
years.
Unlike the Hopewell groups in Ross County, those using the charnel house at Tremper did not bury their dead in single graves or log tombs. On the contrary, about 375 persons were cremated in the 12 crematory basins. The remains were interred in 4 burial depositories. A fifth depository was empty at the time of the excavation. Two people were buried in graves beneath the floor of the charnel house.
The most significant discovery made at Tremper Mound was a
collection of more than 500 objects that had been deliberately broken
up and left in one of the eastern side chambers. Included in this
deposit were 136 smoking pipes, most of which had been made from
catlinite or pipestone. Ninety of these were effigy pipes and were
carefully sculpted in the shapes of a variety of creatures. Some of
the pipes look like hawks, owls, herons, and cranes. Other
pipes found at Tremper resemble bears, wolves, dogs, beavers,
cougars, otters, and turtles. Unlike the Hopewell groups in Ross County, those using the charnel house at Tremper did not bury their dead in single graves or log tombs. On the contrary, about 375 persons were cremated in the 12 crematory basins. The remains were interred in 4 burial depositories. A fifth depository was empty at the time of the excavation. Two people were buried in graves beneath the floor of the charnel house.
The remarkable animal effigy
platform pipes of the Hopewell culture are among the most delicate
and naturalistic of these sculpted effigies. Tests have shown that
the majority of the pipes were made from Sterling pipestone from
northwestern Illinois.
Many of the Tremper pipes are now on display at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, Ohio.
Crichton's Inn
Crichton's Inn
Crichton's Inn was located
near where McDermott-Rushtown Road connects with State Route 104 and
the Ohio Canal. For those in Southern Ohio, it was a popular summer
vacation spot with a large dining room, accommodating up to 100
people; 30 guest rooms; and a space in the yard for summer tent camps
to house the overflow.
Visitors could access the
inn by rail – a Norfolk & Western station was located in
Rushtown a short distance away – or by canal – the Ohio-Erie
Canal was also nearby.
Crichton's was known as a
“swinging place” with a very popular attraction. Edward A.
Glockner explained: “There was a hug forty-foot handmade hammock up
there, and boys and girls would go up there and swing each other!”
Besides the gigantic
hammock, entertainment at the inn included music, dancing, meals,
hiking trails, and outdoor games The resort also offered a medicinal
herb garden with cultivated ginseng, billiards, horseshoes, and a
“two-lane bowling alley where you had to set your own pins.”
Marjorie Drew Lloyd
relates, “When you arrived, there were fresh linens for the guests
– the next clean linens you washed for yourselves. Guests also
cleaned their own rooms, and families vacating the city heat would
come for a month and do all their own cooking. It was nice, a home
away from home, and even in the off-season, the inn's 30 rooms
generally were full on weekends and holidays.”
Crichton's Inn closed in
1919 “when another mode of transportation was encouraging people to
seek more complex entertainments farther away from home.”
The Ohio and Erie Canal
The Ohio and Erie Canal, which was
under construction in this area 1830-1832, crossed the farm of George
Heroedh, a stone contractor. He built the Elbow Lock, Camp Creek
culvert, and more. While the canal was being dug, his wife Elizabeth
often cooked for 60 or more hungry workers.
George promised his wife when his
contract was up, he would build her a Baptist church on their
property. Until then, members met in homes. Some canal workers
attended services and helped George burn bricks to build the new
church called Bethany. The church was dedicated November 30, 1834,
and was home to 127 members at the time.
Slaves also traveled this area, and in
1861, workers left their jobs to join the war causing Ohio to
privatize the canal until 1877. In 1881 the G.A.R. formed, holding
meetings at Bethany for living veterans.
Lock 49 at Rushtown
Rushtown, Looking North
A Curiosity
Sources
Henry
Towne Bannon. Stories Old and Often
Told, Being Chronicles of Scioto County Ohio.
Baltimore: Waverly Press. p. 274. 1927.
Andrew
Lee Feight, Ph.D., “Canal Lock 48 & Rushtown,” Scioto
Historical.
Newsletter
of SCCOGS and the publication History of the Lower Scioto Valley.
“Ohio
and Erie Canal in Scioto County, Ohio.” portsmouthinfo.net.
“Virtual
First Ohioans.” Section 5-B. Ohio History Connection.
“Tremper Mound and Earthworks.” Ohio History Central.
Added Later -- Info on "The Curiosity"
Patricia Williams, Retired English Instructor of Lucasville wrote ...
"The William Russell mentioned in this story is my 3x great-grandfather. He came to this country as an orphan, first to Philadelphia, then down the Ohio to Maysville. He moved to Adams County and married Nancy Wood, daughter of Benjamin Wood. He lived sort of back and forth between Adams and Scioto counties. He was the first clerk of courts of Scioto County, served in the state legislature, and three terms in the US House of Representatives. He moved to Rushtown at the mouth of Brush Creek. He and a son were the first two people buried (on the same day!) in Rushtown Cemetery.). I've never been able to find out why they died at the same time.
"The James Russell mentioned was William's son. My father once hiked to the top of Campbell Hill ( directly across from Lucasville with the flasher towers) and saw the hot spot for himself. Another son, Albert, died in a confederate prison camp in Georgia and is buried at Marietta GA."
Patrick Crabtree, Local Historian and Naturalist or Lucasville ...
Patrick told me about the steam hole, which he said was situated on what was originally known as Camel Hill. While hunting, he found a meteorite near the site, which he described as a rather small frog-pond like indentation near a huge old hickory tree. He didn't retrieve the mass at the time, but after seeing a Nova presentation about such fallout years later, Pat and a friend attempted to find the steam hole.
This trek was taken after an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line. Pat said he and his friend discovered that the entire landscape had changed -- gone was the steam hole and even the huge tree. He believes the spot was the site of a meteorite strike, and he thinks his find years earlier was just a part of a much larger object that hit and formed the steam hole.
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