The Maumee Valley
". . . the ridge which determines the courses of the St. Joseph and St. Marys rivers is a buried terminal moraine of the glacier that moved southwestward through the Maumee valley. . . . Its irregularly curved outline accords intimately with the configuration of the valley, and with the direction of the ice markings; its concavity is turned toward the source of motion. . . at every stage of its [the ice sheet's] existence--its margin must have been variously notched and lobed in conformity with the contour of the country, the higher lands being first laid bare by the encroaching secular summer."
NOTE: 'secular' in this context meaning, 'continuing through long ages'
Quoted by Richard Foster Flint from G. K. Gilbert, geologist on the Ohio Geological Survey in 1871. From Flint's intro. to Quaternary of the United States, p. 4. Flint continues, "This succinct and thoughtful description apparently refers to the Wabash and Fort Wayne Moraines of current nomenclature" (p. 4).
O. M. Spencer describes this country in his account of his capture by Indians in 1792, four years after John Tanner was captured by Indians. After travelling six days with his two Indian captors from where he was abducted on the Ohio River at a town called Columbia near Cincinnati, where there was a garrison at Fort Washington, he arrives at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers, at, probably, Blue Jackets Town, though he does not name it:
"Having travelled since morning about thirty miles, two hours before sunset we forded a large stream, (then to me waist high,) to which Wawpawwawquaw pointing said, Miami; and which from its course here, a little north of west, from its long rapid, and from the appearance of the banks on both sides, I have since been satisfied that we crossed about two miles above Sidney. We camped in the evening about six miles beyond the Miami, at a small creek; [...]. In the course of a few hours' travelling this morning, crossing a great many small branches running in various directions, and then passing through a very extensive prairie, we came to a stream running northwardly, and following its course until noon, halted by the side of a small rivulet [...]" (68-9).
NOTE: Perhaps these "small branches running in various directions" may refer to what Butzer describes with respect to a step or stage in stream erosion as "corrasion through shallow, poorly-defined rivulets following channels of temporary drainage" (120).
corrasion: the process in which the surface of the earth is abraded by the action of water, wind, etc.
"Still travelling down the Auglaize, about three hours after sunrise on the morning of the 12th July, we came in sight of an Indian village [...]" (70).
The same day he visits another Indian village (71).
Here is Tanner's account shortly after he was captured:
"It was about one mile from my father's house to the place where they threw me into a hickory bark canoe [...]. Into this they all seven jumped, and immediately crossed the Ohio, landing at the mouth of the Big Miami [the Miami River?], and on the south side of that river (p. 5, 1956 ed. of Narrative of John Tanner).
"After they had eaten a little, they began to ascend the Miami [...]. It was, I think, four days after we left the Ohio that we came to a considerable river [?], running, as I suppose, into the Miami. This river was wide, and so deep that I could not wade across it (p. 6).
"It was a day or two after this that we met a party of twenty or thirty Indians, on their way to the settlements [?]. Old Manito-o-geezhik had much to say to them; subsequently I learned that they were a party of Shawneese; that they received information from our party of the whites who were in pursuit of us about the forks of the Miami; and that they went in pursuit of them, and that a severe skirmish happened between them, in which numbers were killed on both sides" (p. 7).
When Cooh-coo-cheeh learns of the news that Spencer will be departing for home she is very sad as she considered him a son:
"That evening she seemed more than usually disposed to converse with me, and repeating her inquiries about my parents, their rank in society, how long they had lived on the Ohio, and many such questions, asked me particularly of the place of their former residence; and when I told her that they once lived not far from the sea shore, and near New-York; and that their forefathers were English, who came from the island on the eastern side of the great salt lake, south and east of us, her brow for a moment seemed deeply clouded, and the mournful tones of her voice betrayed her mingled feeling of melancholy and regret. She spoke of the first landing of the 'pale faces' from their monstrous canoes, with their great white wings, as seen by her ancestors; of their early settlements, their rapid growth, their widely-spreading population, their increasing strength and power, their insatiable avarice, and their continued encroachments on the red men; who, reduced by diseases, thinned by civil wars, and diminished by their long and various struggles, first with the British, (Met-a-coo-se-a-qua,) then with Se-mon-the, (the Americans or Long Knives,) were no longer powerful; and that they would not be satisfied until they had crowded the Indians to the extreme north, to perish on the great Ice lake; or to the far west, until pushing those who should escape from their rifles, into the great waters, all would at length be exterminated. She spoke of the anger of the Great Spirit against the red men, especially those of her own nation, nearly all of whom had perished; and that herself and her children, the remnant of her race, would soon sleep in the ground, and that there would be none to gather them at the feast of the dead, or to celebrate their obsequies. But her countenance soon kindled with animation, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure, when changing the mournful theme, she ended with a most glowing description of the beautiful hunting grounds, the ever-during abode of the brave and good red men. These she described as lying far, far beyond the vast western ocean, and as being ten-fold larger than the great continent of America. There, she said, the changing seasons brought no extremes of heat or cold, wet or drought; none were sick, none became old or infirm; and well do I recollect, that pointing to the large poplars near us, some of which were five or six feet in diameter, and rose eighty feet without a limb, she spoke of the largest trees of that country as being twenty times larger, and spreading their broad tops among the stars. Corn , and beans, and pumpkins, and melons, she said, grew more spontaneously; the trees were loaded with the richest fruits; the ground was clothed with perpetual verdure, and the flowers on the prairies were ever blooming and fragrant; the springs were abundant, clear, and cool; the rivers large, deep, and transparent, abounding with fish of endless varieties; the fine open woods were stocked with innumerable herds of buffalos, deer, elk, and moose, and every species of game: in short, there was a paradise containing all that could delight the mind or gratify the senses, and to crown all, the exclusive home of the Indians.-- The little Canadian Frenchman, for such was the messenger [of the news that Spencer would depart for home], listened with that attention, which, among the Indians, is inseparable from good manners; frequently expressing his admiration and even his wonder, though once or twice turning to me and smiling credulously, he said, 'Ma foi! dat is grand contry'."
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