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Fragments of Pilgrimage - Pike County - "A singular work of art ..."

  • 4 days ago
  • 6 min read
Figure 1: Just north of the square pad of the radio tower
Figure 1: Just north of the square pad of the radio tower

"A singular work of art occurs on the top of a high hill, standing in the rear of the town of Piketon, and overlooking it, which it may not be out of place to mention here. It consists of a perfectly circular excavation, thirty feet in diameter, and twelve feet deep, terminating in a point at the bottom. It contains water for the greater part of the year. A slight and regular wall is thrown up around its edge. A full and very distinct view of the graded way just described is commanded from this point." [Squier & Davis 1847, p. 201]


Old Business


An important piece of information in finding the Big Bottom site is the mention of prehistoric excavations used in the construction of the Ohio Canal. I have not found anything in particular as of yet, but I have gathered a list of names of contractors and engineers who participated in the construction:


  • James Emmitt - Entrepreneur from Waverly, Ohio. Supporter of the canal, later owned canal boats and a warehouse. He had the canal built on the west side of the river and successfully campaigned to move the county seat from Piketon to Waverly.

  • David Bates - Principal Engineer

  • Samuel Forrer - Assistant and Resident Engineer

  • Fransis Cleveland and Richard Howe - Assistant Engineers. They were specifically assigned to the southern section.

Correspondence can be found in the following places;


I have also contacted the Pike County Historical Society about the location of Switzer's Point, but have received no reply. [Pike County Historical Society] I plan to try again in Ross County. I also tried to access the Ohio Archaeological Inventory Database, but was denied because I don't have the credentials. [Ohio Archaeological Inventory]


I have gotten access to N'omi Greber's report of the region just east of Omega, Ohio, which is the other possibility for the location of Big Bottom. This is a dense document, and I am still trying to parse out some meaning. [Bier Jr. & Greber 1982]


Introduction


In a previous article using georeferencing, I was able to recreate Jarrod Burks ' map of Piketon earthworks as GIS features. [Piketon] The quote above appears at the end of Squier & Davis's description of the Piketon earthwork. What to actually call this? Is it a well or perhaps a dug-out spring? I am unable to find any archaeological investigations or if it is a known location in the Ohio Archaeological Inventory. There is no guarantee that this structure is Middle Woodland or earlier, or later, but I assume it is pre-Contact. The statement that the Graded Way can be seen from the lip might have significance or not. The shape of the structure is so singular that if it still exists, it would be easy to find. This was true. I believe it is just north of a radio tower on a promontory south of Piketon. The tower is on a slightly higher patch of land.


Tower from a road at the south end of Piketon, Ohio {Google Street View 2026]
Tower from a road at the south end of Piketon, Ohio {Google Street View 2026]

Whether this is the 'singular work of art' or not depends on whether it conforms to Squier & Davis' description, and on whether the structure is known and whether it has been studied. I have contacted the Ohio Archaeological Inventory, but as of this writing, they haven't responded.


Analysis


Figure 2.Terrain profile North - South
Figure 2.Terrain profile North - South
Figure 3. Terrain profile West - East
Figure 3. Terrain profile West - East

The following table shows my measurements using the profiles above, along with the measurements in Squier & Davis:

S & D Depth

S & D Width

S & D Bottom

Bottom


Rim Height from Ground

Depth from Rim

Depth from Ground

Rim to Rim Width

Width of Bottom

10

30

low point in the middle

flat

NS




68

27





WE




67

30





Average




67.5

28.5















N

1

8.22

7.22







S

1.99

8.94

6.95







W

1.61

6.9

5.29







E

2.73

8.58

5.85







Average

1.83

8.16

6.33



Table 1: Colored cells are final measurements

Notice that the floor of the structure is flat rather than sloping down to a point, but this could be because it has been filled in. The north and east rims are higher because of a utility road going to the radio tower.


Squier & Davis state that: "A full and very distinct view of the graded way just described is commanded from this point ..." I created a viewshed from the west edge and from a little further south, where the tower is, which is higher. Both viewsheds show that a portion of the graded way is visible, but neither shows the north entrance, where it is proposed by Burks. [Burks 2011] This is because of a ridge blocking it. Does Burks place the entrance too far north? There is a road heading west from the main highway called Indian Terrace Road. Does this road represent the true entrance? If so, it is squarely in both views. Other possibilities are:


  • Squier & Davis are mistaken

  • The landscape around the site has changed

  • This is not the correct location


To look at this more closely, I found a 1915 topo of the Piketon area and compared it to the current DEM. [Pastmaps] Fowke's map of the graded way was published in 1902. [Burks 2011, p. 12] By placing the topo over a hillshade view of Burks' model of the graded way, it can be seen that a large section of the western terrace has been shaved back since 1915. A much clearer view is seen by placing the topo over


Figure 4: Viewshed and topo maps
Figure 4: Viewshed and topo maps

Conclusions


I consider the graded way to be just the portion of the earthworks that is double-walled. If the 1915 topo is accurate, then Burks ' rendition of the graded way needs to be moved slightly to the east. This might have been my mistake, as I took the location from a scan inside a PDF of a paper, and not from any GIS source. The graded way is not as visible from the site today as Squier & Davis wrote in 1847, and the bottom no longer goes to a point. The now flat bottom is close to the 30 ft they measured, but the rim-to-rim width is much larger.


Without an excavation, it is impossible to tell whether this is the correct location of this "singular artwork." At this time, I have no information on any past exploration beyond Squire & Davis. The digging of a large hole suggests a well or the entrance to a spring, but the location next to a modern communication structure suggests using it to signal by fire. Again, the need to study this more closely.


A possible mound

Figure 5. A possible mound
Figure 5. A possible mound

Slightly north of Piketon and east of the Teays Valley, I found another interesting anomaly. At first, I thought it was a second "singular work of art," but its location above a creek and its profile changed my mind.


Figure 6. Terrain profile of a possible mound
Figure 6. Terrain profile of a possible mound

Gerard Fowke, the itinerant archaeologist who walked much of the Woodlands, excavated many mounds in Pike County during the 1880s. [Ohio History Connection 2026] [Fowke & Moorehead 1894] [Fowke 1902] Jarrod Burks states that he wrote up his findings years later, based on notes and memory, and that his write-up is vague about the location of many of these mounds. [Burks 2011, p. 22] Fowke excavated a mound by slicing off the top and then digging a hole down through this flattened center to the burials, which Burks calls "the circle method." [Burks 2011, p. 31]

Fowke's (1895) description of Vulgamore Mound [Burks 2011, p. 31]
Fowke's (1895) description of Vulgamore Mound [Burks 2011, p. 31]

The profile suggests that the possible mound that I found could be a mound that Fowke has excavated. I have not heard from the Ohio Archaeological Inventory as of this writing.


  • QGIS project for maps

  • Python code to add rasters to a GeoPackage



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