Adena Mansion

At a glance

Overview

Adena is the sandstone hilltop house that Thomas Worthington, a Virginian who freed his slaves and moved to Chillicothe in 1798, built in 1805-1807 from plans by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. From Chillicothe, which Nathaniel Massie laid out in 1796 and which served as capital of the Northwest Territory from 1800 and of the new state from 1803 to 1810 and 1812 to 1816, Worthington led the fight for statehood and went on to serve as one of Ohio's first U.S. senators and as its sixth governor. The house, first called Mount Prospect Hall, was renamed Adena in 1811; a great burial mound on the estate, dug in 1901, gave its name to the Adena culture and yielded the Adena Pipe, now Ohio's official state artifact. After the family sold the house in 1903, the Smith family's daughter gave it to the state in 1946, and the Ohio Historical Society restored it and opened it in 1953. The view of Mount Logan from Adena is written into Ohio's coat of arms, and the estate was named a National Historic Landmark in 2003.

The name

Worthington called the house Mount Prospect Hall, for its view, until 1811, when he found the name 'Adena' in a book on ancient history, described as meaning places 'remarkable for the delightfulness of their situations.' A museum exhibit at the site says the word is Hebrew, a claim Wikipedia marks as unsourced. The Adena culture and the village of Adena in Jefferson County are both named for the estate. Chillicothe comes from the Shawnee name of one of the tribe's five divisions and its main town; Wikipedia translates it 'principal town,' while the NPS administrative history of Mound City gives 'dwelling place, or the place where people live.' (source)

Native American history

The estate held the Adena Mound, a burial mound 26 feet high that William C. Mills of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society excavated in 1901. It became the type site of the Adena culture, and radiocarbon dates on bark and textile Mills saved place its construction between about 100 BC and AD 40 (older estimates ran from 700 BC to AD 100). The Hopewell culture, which followed, built the great earthworks around Chillicothe, among them Mound City four miles north of town. In the 1700s the Scioto valley was Shawnee country; Wikipedia, citing Charles Hanna, says Shawnee from Lower Shawneetown settled at or near the site of Chillicothe in 1758, and the town takes its name from the Chalahgawtha (Chillicothe) division, whose main town moved among at least five Ohio locations, including Frankfort and Hopetown in Ross County. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville extinguished Native claims in the Scioto valley, and settlers from Virginia and Kentucky followed. In September 1807 Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Roundhead and Panther stayed a week at Worthington's home after a peace council at Greenville.

• Adena Mound (type site of the Adena culture): mound, on the former Worthington estate, near Chillicothe, Early Woodland, c. 100 BC to AD 40
• Shawnee town of Chillicothe (Tshilikautha division): village, present-day Frankfort, Ross County, shortly before the American Revolution
• Shawnee settlement from Lower Shawneetown: village, at or near present-day Chillicothe, 1758
• Treaty of Greenville: treaty, extinguished Native claims in the Scioto valley, 1795

Stories

Leaving slavery behind

Thomas Worthington and his brother-in-law Edward Tiffin, who married Worthington's sister and became Ohio's first governor, despised slavery, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had barred it from the Ohio country. In 1797 Worthington freed all his slaves in Virginia and traded his Berkeley County land for warrants in the Virginia Military District. On March 14, 1798, a party of Worthingtons, Tiffins, Swearingens, millwright neighbors and a group of free Black servants set out with furniture, silver, chickens, fruit trees and seeds. They crossed the mountains on Braddock's Road to Pittsburgh, floated 345 miles down the Ohio past the Marietta earthworks to the mouth of the Scioto, and then walked and rode up the river path. They reached the wilderness settlement of Chillicothe on April 17. (source)

A palace in the wilderness

In 1805 Worthington had Benjamin Henry Latrobe, surveyor of the public buildings under Jefferson, draw plans for a stone house on the hill above his log home. The Morris brothers of Virginia laid the sandstone, quarried on the estate, in walls 24 inches thick; the main block was 64 by 44 feet, with glass from Albert Gallatin's factory, wallpaper from Baltimore and marble for three of its fifteen fireplaces from Philadelphia. A vista cut through the virgin timber framed Mount Logan to the east, and German redemptioners laid out terraced gardens and a 51-acre ornamental grove. A traveler who climbed to the roof platform saw mostly woods, with smoke from settlers clearing land. At the time it went up, it was called 'the most magnificent mansion west of the Alleghenies.' (source)

Tecumseh at Worthington's table

In September 1807, with a thousand Indians gathered on Ohio's frontier and rumors of war spreading, Governor Kirker sent Worthington and Duncan McArthur as agents to Greenville. There they met more than five hundred Indians under Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet and won a pledge of neutrality in any war with Britain. Afterward Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Roundhead and Panther rode back to Chillicothe with them and stayed a week at Worthington's home. Blue Jacket, who had fought Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers in 1794, often stopped at Adena with other chiefs, and through him Worthington had real influence. He later regretted Harrison's 1811 march to Tippecanoe, believing the land grievances could only be settled by negotiation. (source)

The sunrise on the Great Seal (legend)

Ohio's first seal, sketched by Secretary of State William Creighton Jr. and adopted on March 25, 1803, showed a sheaf of wheat, seventeen arrows and a sun rising over a mountain. According to a story long told in Chillicothe, Creighton came out of an all-night meeting at Worthington's estate in 1803 and saw 'the rising sun of the new state' over Mount Logan, and drew what he saw. Most historians treat the story as apocryphal, since suns, mountains and wheat were common emblems of the day. Ohio law settled the point anyway: since 1996 the coat of arms has officially shown Mount Logan 'as viewed from Adena state memorial.' (source)

The pipe and the bark

In 1901 William C. Mills, curator of archaeology for the state historical society, dug away the 26-foot burial mound on the old Worthington estate. Among the finds was a pipestone pipe carved in human form, the Adena Pipe, which the legislature made Ohio's state artifact in 2013 after students at the Columbus School for Girls lobbied for it. Mills also saved plain strips of black locust bark that had lined the tombs, material he could have thrown away. More than a century later, when a researcher asked the society for the mound's precise age, curators sent two bark fragments and a piece of woven textile to a laboratory. The results, reported in January 2014, dated the mound to 100 BC to AD 40, far narrower than the old estimate of 700 BC to AD 100. (source)

A capital that kept moving

Congress moved the Northwest Territory's seat of government to Chillicothe in 1800, and on November 3 the legislature met in the largest building in town, Bazil Abrams' log 'big house,' whose ground-floor room had served as courthouse, church and singing school while a billiard table filled the room upstairs. When Governor St. Clair's allies tried to move the capital to Cincinnati, young Chillicotheans stirred up by Michael Baldwin rioted in December 1801 and threatened to burn the governor in effigy. Chillicothe hosted the 1802 constitutional convention and was the state capital from 1803. In 1810 the legislature moved to Zanesville, blaming Chillicothe's poor taverns and its failure to fund a new statehouse; the capital came back in 1812 and left for good in 1816, for a new statehouse in Columbus. (source)

Timeline

• c. 100 BC to AD 40: People of the Adena culture build the 26-foot burial mound that later stands on the Worthington estate, according to 2013 radiocarbon dates. (source)
• 1795: The Treaty of Greenville extinguishes American Indian claims in the Scioto valley. (source)
• 1796: Nathaniel Massie of Virginia lays out Chillicothe on the Scioto, in Virginia's military district for Revolutionary War veterans. (source)
• 1797: Preparing to move west, Thomas Worthington frees all his slaves in Berkeley County, Virginia. (source)
• 1798: The Worthington and Tiffin families leave Virginia on March 14 and reach Chillicothe on April 17. (source)
• 1798: Ross County is created with Chillicothe as its county seat. (source)
• 1800: On November 3 the territorial legislature meets at Chillicothe, the new seat of government, in Bazil Abrams' two-story log house at Second and Walnut streets. (source)
• 1801: In December, supporters of the Chillicothe party riot against Governor Arthur St. Clair's plan to redivide the territory and move the capital to Cincinnati. (source)
• 1802: Worthington lobbies in Washington as Congress debates and passes the Enabling Act that opens the way to statehood. (source)
• 1802: Ohio's first constitution is adopted at Chillicothe on November 29, taking effect March 1, 1803. (source)
• 1803: Worthington becomes one of Ohio's first U.S. senators, serving from 1803 to 1807, while Chillicothe serves as the first state capital. (source)
• 1805: While in Washington, Worthington commissions Benjamin Henry Latrobe, surveyor of the public buildings, to draw plans for a stone house. (source)
• 1807: The sandstone mansion on the hilltop south of the family's 1802 log house is completed. (source)
• 1807: In September Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Roundhead and Panther return with Worthington and Duncan McArthur from a council at Greenville and stay a week at Worthington's home. (source)
• 1810: The legislature moves the seat of government to Zanesville, partly because Chillicothe had not raised enough for a new statehouse. (source)
• 1811: Worthington renames Mount Prospect Hall 'Adena.' (source)
• 1812: The capital returns to Chillicothe, where it stays until 1816. (source)
• 1814: Worthington is elected Ohio's sixth governor, serving until 1818. (source)
• 1816: The seat of government moves to Columbus, where the General Assembly meets in the unfinished capitol on December 2. (source)
• 1827: Worthington dies in New York on June 20, and after a procession from Hopetown he is buried at Adena; his remains were later moved to Grandview Cemetery. (source)
• 1901: William C. Mills excavates the Adena Mound and finds the Adena Pipe. (source)
• 1903: The Worthington family sells Adena to George Hunter Smith and Clara Boggs Smith of Chillicothe. (source)
• 1907: A replica of the mansion is built for the Jamestown Exposition, a century after the original was finished. (source)
• 1937: The Historic American Buildings Survey photographs Adena on May 2, 1937. (source)
• 1946: Elizabeth S. Fetterolf gives Adena and about 330 acres to the State of Ohio as a memorial to her parents. (source)
• 1953: The Ohio Historical Society opens the restored and furnished house to the public for Ohio's sesquicentennial. (source)
• 1970: Adena is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 10, 1970. (source)
• 1996: Senate Bill 213 fixes the view of Mount Logan 'as viewed from Adena state memorial' in the state coat of arms. (source)
• 2003: Restored for the Ohio Bicentennial, the estate is designated a National Historic Landmark on February 28, 2003. (source)
• 2013: Senate Bill 33, effective August 15, 2013, makes the Adena Pipe, found by William C. Mills in 1901, Ohio's official state artifact. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Adena Mansion
• en.wikipedia.org: Thomas Worthington (governor)
• en.wikipedia.org: Chillicothe, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Seal of Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Adena mound
• kb.osu.edu
• ohiohistory.org: adena mansion gardens
• codes.ohio.gov: section 5.04
• codes.ohio.gov: section 5.075
• dispatch.com
• archive.org: amidstancientmon00cock djvu.txt
• commons.wikimedia.org: File:Historic American Buildings Survey, Eugene F. Schrand, Photographer May 2, 1937 VI