The Pre-History of Scioto County

[Doc Panther]

Fort Ancient is no doubt the largest Hopewell site that I've explored.

What's interesting is that they had a North Fort and a South Fort.....constructed for the living and the dead....the North Fort more for ceremonial events and the South Fort more like cemetary.

It's well worth a visit as they have a decent museum and activity center on site.

[Burg_Grad_77]

I guess I should have checked back on this post from time to time since I see a lot of new reponses have been made.

buckeye83, thanks for posting that info on the Feurt Site. Feurt has always been a favorite site for me to hunt and collect artifacts from. I have found some really nice pieces there in the past 30 years or so. It's amazing what you can find down over the hill and in the runoff beside the dogpound after a good hard rain. David Kuhn bought part of the site close to the dogpound and has been doing an excavation there for about 5 years now. He has a professional archy helping him do most of the work and they are doing a paper on it as they go. I know Dave has found some really nice pieces and all they are excavating is the middens or trash pits.

Doc Panther, Bill and Charlie Wertz's collection that is on display at Portsmouth is a mere shadow of it's former self. I saw a video that was made by Skip Bower of South Shore in about 1978 that showed the Wertz collection right before Bill died and it was unbelievable. I would estimate there were between 50 to 100 thousand artifacts in that basement. He had showcase after showcase just filled with everything you could imagine. He had closets that when opened revealed shelf after shelf of Axes, Pestles, Celts, Pipes, etc. It was unreal. The story I was told was that Bills father Charles Wertz was one of the original home builders in Portsmouth and his crew would go in and bulldoze through a mound, collect all the artifacts and then build a house and move on to the next. He also collected from the local sites like Feurt, Hardin Village, Goldcamp, and numerous others. Bill started as a young boy and kept collecting after his father died and left him the collection. I had heard stories that Mrs Wertz became senile and sold the collection to some unscrupulous dealer who dispersed a lot of it out before being caught and sent to prison and what was left of the collection is what you see at the museum.

caglewis, I grew up right outside of Dayton in a town named Springboro until I was 12 years old and we moved to Wheelersburg. My family visited Ft Ancient all the time, at least once a summer, so we could explore the mounds and run all around down by the river on all the trails. I never found any artifacts along the Little Miami river that runs close by but I did find some nice fossils in the river. Like Doc said, the Ft Ancient site is actually a misnomer because it was originally built by the Hopewell close to a 1000 years earlier and then occupied by the Ft Ancient Indians much later. Of course, the Adena and the Hopewell both were named after the farms or estate where the first artifacts of their specific type were found and that being the Adena being found in a mound on the Adena estate of then Governor Thomas Worthington in Chillicothe. The Hopewell recieved thier name from that artifacts that were first found in a mound on the property of the man who owned the Mounds in Chillicothe that are now known as the Mound City Group. His last name was Hopewell and I believe he was Colonel.

[SodBuster]

Great thread, I'm new to all this computer stuff. I graduated from burg 94, Burg_Grad77 you have an impressive collection. I just hunted the old white farm house area, on old 52 had a decent day, fields are still not planted. Except for all the no-till around Holiday Point bummer we lost alot there. Also hunted silom area fields are planted. Have to wait for the river to go down and i'll race you all to river banks "just kidding" good luck to you all.

[Doc Panther]

His last name was Hopewell and I believe he was Colonel.

Correct BG 77.....Col. Mordecai Hopewell........his farm is located between Frankfort and Chillicothe in Ross Co.......it's a favorite hiking site of mine and has received some attention lately.....a new parking lot and restroom on site.....of all the Hopewell sites I've visited it and Spring Hill near Bainbridge are my favorites and both are to receive some attention from the National Park Service.

Mordecai's farm is mostly a flat Hopewell ceremonial site that looks like about 3 football fields surrounded by earthen walls.....a huge mound near the center contained a stone panther effigy and many of the artifacts ended up in the British Museum and the museum in Chicago.....it has a natural hill amphitheater overlooking the area where I've daydreamed many times on how the site was used.

Spring Hill was recently purchased by a private group out of Hillsboro and will eventually be maintained by the US Park people....I was fortunate enough to take a trip with some park rangers to visit the site and although not as big as Ft. Ancient...it still was a hilltop ceremonial site of immense size and importance.....some smelted metals like copper were found on site......it really was impressive.

[Burg_Grad_77]

Here's a few pictures of my latest finds and acquisitions. The first picture is some pices I just got in trade at a show in Cincinnati on July 17th. Some of you might recognize the name Fred Tindall as being the owner of the old Tindall Sign Shop that was in Porstmouth. I contacted Fred, who is now in Ft Myers Florida and he confirmed that he had found all of these over a 2 day period from the Schisler Site just south of Lucasville behind the ODOT garage and from the Webster Mound in South Shore, Ky. The rest are things I have found since my last pictures, including 2 more Pipes. There is still a lot of pieces left out there to be found if you just take the time to look.

[Senators_soccer]

Does anybody have any tips for finding some arrowheads? I've been looking up by raven rock recently and haven't found any at all..

[Burg_Grad_77]

I had forgotten completely about this thread. Lots of good info on here if anyone is interested in our areas early history.

[Omega]

Thanks BG77 for a great write up. Being long gone from Ohio I have forgotten much about Ohio's pre-history. 55 years ago I used to live out on Lockner Rd near Clay High School. I never realized the old Gable farm was on a Hopewell site, even though the then small housing development was called "Hopewell Village" and on occasion we would find the odd bit of pottery pieces on the farm lanes.