Mohican State Park

At a glance

Overview

Mohican State Park is a 1,110-acre park on the Clear Fork of the Mohican River below Pleasant Hill Lake, south of Loudonville in Ashland County, surrounded by the 4,525-acre Mohican-Memorial State Forest. Its centerpiece is the Clear Fork Gorge, cut into sandstone by glacial meltwater at the edge of the last ice sheet and sheltering native white pine and eastern hemlock; the National Park Service named it a National Natural Landmark in 1967. Delaware villages stood nearby at Helltown on the Clear Fork and Greentown on the Black Fork until the War of 1812, and Loudonville was laid out in 1814. The state began buying worn-out farmland here in 1928, the Civilian Conservation Corps replanted it in the 1930s, and the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Clear Fork at Pleasant Hill in 1936. The park was split off from the state forest as Clear Fork State Park in 1949 and renamed Mohican in 1966.

The name

The Mohican River is named for the Mohican (Mahican) people, and the Geographic Names Information System lists older names for it including Mohiccan John Creek and Mohickin Johns River. Baughman's 1909 Ashland County history records that around 1762 a Mohican leader known as Mohican John brought a band of about 200 to the Jerome Fork near present Jeromesville and founded Mohican Johnstown, and that Loudonville is named for James Loudon Priest, one of the two men who laid it out in 1814. According to the state park, it was first called Clear Fork State Park and was renamed Mohican State Park in 1966 to end confusion with Mansfield's Clear Fork Reservoir. (source)

How the land formed

The last glacier to enter Ohio, the Wisconsinan, stopped advancing in the Mohican country and left moraines along its edge. Meltwater at the ice front cut the narrow Clear Fork Gorge into sandstone bedrock; the state forest's management plan adds that the glaciers reversed the Clear Fork's earlier westerly flow. The gorge is about 1,000 feet wide at the top and more than 300 feet deep. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources dates these events to more than 12,000 years ago, while the state historical marker at the overlook says the gorge was cut 14,000 to 24,000 years ago. Upstream at Newville, Richland County's 1880 history described the Clear Fork's rock bluffs as about 100 feet of coarse Waverly sandstone and conglomerate. The gorge shelters towering hemlocks and stands of old-growth white pine. (source)

Native American history

The state park describes the Mohican country as a Delaware (Lenape) hunting ground with several villages nearby. Helltown stood on the Clear Fork a mile and a half below Newville, upstream of today's Pleasant Hill Lake; its Delaware residents, who had come west from Pennsylvania around 1745, named it with the German word hell (clear) and the English word town, the town on the clear stream. After the Gnadenhutten massacre of Christian Delaware in 1782 they fled to the Wyandot at Upper Sandusky, then resettled at Greentown on the Black Fork, using Helltown as a hunting camp until 1812. Mohican Johnstown was founded around 1762 near Jeromesville by Mohican John's band of Mohicans. Greentown held more than 150 dwellings by 1812; after Hull's surrender at Detroit its people were removed to Piqua that fall and militiamen burned the village. Earthworks and mounds were recorded near Greentown in the Black Fork valley, and a burial ground of about sixteen graves at Helltown.

• Helltown: village, right bank of the Clear Fork, 1.5 miles below Newville, near the mouth of Switzer's Run (Worthington Township, Richland County), c. 1745 to 1782; hunting camp until 1812
• Greentown: village, on the Black Fork about two miles above Perrysville (Green Township, Ashland County), c. 1783 to 1812
• Greentown burial ground: burial, a few rods north of the Black Fork, section 18, Green Township, Ashland County, 1780s to 1812
• Circular earthwork with central mound near Greentown: earthwork, half a mile northwest of Greentown, section 17, Green Township, precontact (undated)
• Mohican Johnstown (Jerometown): village, west side of the Jerome Fork, half a mile west of Jeromesville, c. 1762 to 1812
• Helltown-Greentown trail: trail, about five miles between the Clear Fork and Black Fork villages, 1782 to 1812

Stories

Helltown, the town on the clear stream

The oldest named place on the Clear Fork is Helltown, and the name was not meant as a curse. Dr. J. P. Henderson, quoted in Richland County's 1880 history, wrote that its Delaware residents had lived among German and English settlers in Pennsylvania before moving west around 1745, and named the village from the German hell, meaning clear, and the English town. It stood on a high bank of the Clear Fork a mile and a half below Newville, where the stream was easy to ford and a spring rose nearby, with a graveyard of about sixteen graves on the slope behind it. When word came of the massacre of Christian Delaware at Gnadenhutten, the people fled to the Wyandot at Upper Sandusky, then moved to Greentown on the Black Fork, about five miles away. Helltown served as a hunting camp until 1812, and a deep trail linked the two villages. Henderson dates Gnadenhutten to the spring of 1781; the state marker at Greentown gives 1782, the accepted year. (source)

The burning of Greentown and the Copus cabin, 1812

By 1812 Greentown on the Black Fork had more than 150 dwellings under its leader, Armstrong. After General William Hull surrendered Detroit to the British on August 16, 1812, settlers feared the Greentown Delaware would join the enemy, and between August 27 and September 3 they were ordered out. The preacher James Copus, a friend of the village, persuaded Armstrong to go by promising that the town's property would be protected, but militiamen who stayed behind burned it. Within days, as the state's frontier-violence marker records, raiders allied with the British struck: on September 10 they killed Frederick Zimmer's family and neighbor Martin Ruffner, and on September 15 Copus and three militiamen died defending the Copus cabin. According to tradition, Johnny Appleseed ran through the region warning settlers after the attacks. (source)

Whose name is on Lyons Falls?

Big and Little Lyons Falls drop into the Clear Fork Gorge, and for years people believed they were named for the Delaware warrior Tom Lyons. In 1909 the Ashland County historian A. J. Baughman set out to correct that. Tom Lyons, he wrote, was killed around 1820 near the Leedy swamp in southern Richland County and buried there. The Lyons buried at the falls was Paul Lyons, a white settler who squatted on land too rough to farm, hunted and fished, helped neighbors at harvest, and was remembered as a good reader and singer. He died around 1856 after an accident while hauling logs and was buried between the two falls; visitors later shot his wooden headboard to splinters, and a doctor dug up the skeleton. The forest's management plan adds that Johnny Appleseed is said to have carved his name in the sandstone at the falls, a carving the park reports has since worn away. (source)

Flatboats from Loudonville to New Orleans

Loudonville was laid out in 1814 around a single log cabin owned by Stephen Butler, which served as both a two-family home and a tavern. Mary E. Stewart's sketch of about 1863, reprinted in Baughman's 1909 county history, records that from 1817 until about 1830 local men built flatboats that carried about 45 tons each. Loaded with flour and whiskey, they floated down the Black Fork into the Mohican, the Walhonding (then called the White Woman), the Muskingum and the Ohio to Louisville and New Orleans. Flour that brought $2.50 to $3 a barrel in Loudonville sold for $5 or $6 at New Orleans. The trade ended when the Muskingum improvements and the Walhonding Canal were finished. (source)

From worn-out farms to a state forest

Much of the land around the gorge had been cleared for farming in the 1800s, then eroded, lost its fertility and was abandoned. The Ohio Division of Forestry began buying it in 1928 and made replanting its first job. A Civilian Conservation Corps camp on the forest in the 1930s planted more than two million trees, many of them white and red pine plantations, and built roads, bridges, firebreaks, trails, picnic shelters and two fire towers. (source)

Timeline

• c. 1745: Delaware people from eastern Pennsylvania settled on Muskingum tributaries, among them the village of Helltown on the Clear Fork. (source)
• c. 1762: Mohican John brought about 200 of his people to the Jerome Fork and founded Mohican Johnstown. (source)
• 1782: After the Gnadenhutten massacre and Crawford's expedition, Delaware and a small group of Mingo abandoned Helltown and settled Greentown on the Black Fork as early as 1783. (source)
• 1782: By one tradition recorded in Richland County's 1880 history, Colonel William Crawford's army passed through Helltown on its march to Upper Sandusky. (source)
• 1807: General James Hedges surveyed Hanover Township, where Loudonville and the park now lie. (source)
• 1810: James L. Priest settled on the Mohican near the future Loudonville. (source)
• 1812: Between August 27 and September 3 the Delaware of Greentown were removed from the village, and militiamen who stayed behind burned the village. (source)
• 1812: On September 10 raiders killed the Zimmer family and Martin Ruffner, and on September 15 Rev. James Copus and three militiamen died defending the Copus cabin. (source)
• 1814: Stephen Butler and James Loudon Priest laid out Loudonville around Butler's one-room cabin tavern and held the first sale of lots on September 14. (source)
• 1817: Loudonville began a flatboat trade in flour and whiskey down the Black Fork, Mohican, Walhonding, Muskingum and Ohio to Louisville and New Orleans that lasted until about 1830. (source)
• 1818: Hanover Township was organized in November; fifteen men voted in its first election. (source)
• 1831: The Wolf Creek grist mill was built north of Loudonville; it now stands in the park. (source)
• 1833: The Ohio Gazetteer listed Loudonville as a post town in Hanover Township, Richland County, with 51 people at the 1830 census. (source)
• c. 1856: Paul Lyons, a settler who lived by the falls that carry his name, died after a logging accident and was buried on the hill between the two falls. (source)
• 1882: About 6,000 people gathered to dedicate monuments over the graves of the 1812 Copus and Zimmer dead; the Copus memorial also carries Johnny Appleseed's name. (source)
• 1928: The Ohio Division of Forestry began buying eroded, abandoned farmland along the Clear Fork for the state forest. (source)
• 1930s: A Civilian Conservation Corps camp on the forest planted more than two million trees and built roads, bridges, firebreaks, trails, shelters and two fire towers. (source)
• 1933: The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District was organized to build flood-control dams in the Muskingum basin, which includes the Mohican. (source)
• 1936: The Army Corps of Engineers completed Pleasant Hill Dam, a 113-foot earth-fill flood-control dam on the Clear Fork, forming Pleasant Hill Lake above the gorge. (source)
• 1949: When the Ohio Department of Natural Resources was created, the park was carved out of the state forest as Clear Fork State Park. (source)
• 1966: Clear Fork State Park was renamed Mohican State Park to end confusion with Mansfield's Clear Fork Reservoir. (source)
• 1967: The National Park Service designated Clear Fork Gorge a National Natural Landmark as an example of glacial stream reversal. (source)
• 1971: The 1831 Wolf Creek grist mill was taken down, moved and rebuilt beside Pine Run in the park. (source)
• 1974: The Mohican Resort and Conference Center, the park lodge, was built. (source)
• 2005: An 8.5-mile mountain bike trail built by the Mohican/Malabar bike club and ODNR opened through the park and forest; it later grew to a 24.5-mile loop. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Mohican State Park
• en.wikipedia.org: Mohican Memorial State Forest
• en.wikipedia.org: Clear Fork Mohican River
• en.wikipedia.org: Mohican River
• en.wikipedia.org: Loudonville, Ohio
• en.wikipedia.org: Pleasant Hill Lake
• en.wikipedia.org: Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District
• en.wikipedia.org: List of National Natural Landmarks in Ohio
• dnr.state.oh.us: Default
• forestry.ohiodnr.gov: Mohican 5yr
• forestry.ohiodnr.gov:80: mohican
• lrh.usace.army.mil: phc
• remarkableohio.org: 6 3 clear fork gorge a feature of ohios forests
• remarkableohio.org: 4 3 greentown delaware village
• remarkableohio.org: 2 3 frontier violence during the war of 1812
• archive.org: historyofashland00baug djvu.txt
• archive.org: historyofrichlan00grah djvu.txt
• archive.org: holmescountyohio00egge djvu.txt
• archive.org: bub gb dt48AAAAYAAJ djvu.txt