CHILLICOTHE

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This elegant historic town was Ohio’s first capital city, settled in large part by Virginians around 1800. It flourished during the canal era from the 1830s. Roger G. Kennedy, author of Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization, and Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, has aptly called Chillicothe “The Delphi of North America” in view of both the remarkable concentration of Greek Revival architecture in its historic districts, and its apparent status as the heartland, and spiritual and creative center, of the brilliant Hopewell culture, whose influence was spread across more than half the continent seventeen centuries ago. Indeed, this immediate vicinity held the densest concentration of geometric earthwork sites, which no doubt helped prompt the 1840s efforts of local physician Edwin Davis and newspaper publisher Ephriam Squier, both skilled amateur archaeologists, to collaborate on what would become the first publication of the new Smithsonian Institution: their magisterial and beautifully-illustrated Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley of 1848. The huge majority of the wonders they illustrated and described were in southern Ohio.

Downtown Historic Districts: The seventeen large city blocks bounded by High, Water, Seventh, and Mulberry Streets create a wonderful ambience of intact nineteenth-century commercial architecture (much of it very early), specimen houses in many glorious styles, and several exquisite, nationally-important works of Greek Revival domestic architecture. The most interesting shops cluster near the top of Paint Street; many overlooking Water Street (the former canal) and a large park preserving a picturesque old meander of the Youctangy River. James Emmitt’s huge flour warehouse built for canal commerce survives at Main and Mulberry Streets. Brick-paved East Fourth Street is lined with stately Victorians (#56 was Mordecai Hopewell’s town house). The Adena-era Story Mound is in the northwestern part of town, along Allen Avenue (seventh left off SR 104 north of Main) at Delano Street.

Paint Street, Chillicothe

Greek Revival Masterpieces: The finest examples of Greek Revival are along South Paint Street, including the large Atwood-Wilson House at Paint and Fifth Streets, and next door the single-story “Temple of the Winds” (Bartlett-Ritchart-Cunningham House). Many architectural treasures, with elegant porticos, details, and proportions, line the surrounding streets and alleyways, especially West Second Street. Of special prominence throughout the city and the region, for both dwellings and infrastructure, is the distinctive, golden, honey-colored Waverly (or Berea) sandstone.

Second Street, Chillicothe

Ross County Historical Society Museum: A collection of historic buildings near Paint and Fifth Streets house excellent collections illuminating the city’s ancient and historical past, including many well-presented Adena and Hopewell-era pieces. The Camp Sherman Room and the adjacent McKell Library are excellent resources for the study of the early history of this prominent city, and its distinguished antiquity.

Bellevue Avenue: Following an original segment of Zane’s Trace, this street passes “Tanglewood” a superb Greek Revival Villa of 1835, the entrance to Grandview Cemetery (on a prominent ridge with beautiful views and many early graves – Worthington, Renick, Hopewell), and the entrance to “Paint Hill”, cattle-baron George Renick’s elegant stone mansion of 1804 (now the Presbyterian manse, up behind the church). Farther out, after passing the site of the now-invisible Junction Group of earthworks (near Plyley’s Lane, in a meadow on the left), take the left into Alum Cliff Road and follow the river (Paint Creek) to the giant black cliffs, near where the road ends and the river enters an impassable gorge.

Adena Mansion and Gardens: On a hill overlooking the city, stands the 2000-acre hilltop estate of Senator Thomas Worthington, an early settler in Ohio, its first US senator and its sixth governor. A new Museum and Education Center interprets the life and history of early 1800s Ohio (847 Adena Road, Chillicothe; 740 772 1500). Adena’s architectural significance lies in the fact that the 1807 mansion was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, America’s first professional architect (who also designed the US Capitol for Worthington’s friend, Thomas Jefferson). Like many others who settled the Chillicothe region, Worthington was a Virginian, and his grand, elegant house and gardens reflect well the post-revolutionary-war transposition of Virginia aristocratic ideals (minus slavery, notably) into the Ohio Country. The house and interiors were inspired by distinguished French, English, and American precedents, and have been largely restored to Worthington’s time.

Adena Mansion

The Great Seal and the Adena Mound: The rolling estate looks out over the scenic Scioto Valley and Mount Logan, which, standing prominently across the river amongst the dramatically-formed ridges of the Appalachian escarpment, inspired the design of Ohio’s state seal: Worthington and his friends, the story goes, concluded an all night card game by emerging onto the north lawn in time to watch the sun rise over these distinctive formations, now “Great Seal State Park”. Worthington, like Jefferson, had respectful views toward the Indians in the region and admired the spectacular earthen architecture of their distant Native ancestors. It was excavations of a mound on this estate that later provided distinctive evidence of the cultural practices of the pre-Hopewell era (800 – 100 BC), therefore called “Adena,” which involved certain grave practices, pottery making, mound building, and the construction of earthen rings of various sizes.

Tecumseh: Worthington and his friends had various encounters with the Indians in the area, and their leaders, most famously the brilliant Shawnee leader Tecumseh, whose heroic story of resistance to Euro-American encroachment is relayed in an epic outdoor drama during the summer months, just north of Chillicothe. The elaborate production uses the huge outdoor stages of the Sugarloaf Mountain Amphitheater. (For information call 866 775 0700.)

Mound City and Hopewell Culture NHP: Excursions among the monumental antiquities of these gorgeous hills and valleys should begin here, at the Visitors Center of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, about three miles north of Main Street on SR 104 (16062 SR 104; 740 774 1126), with its fine artifact collection and orientation programs. Immediately outside the museum, Mound City – the completely unique ensemble of mounds and enclosing wall – is visible against a backdrop of the forests, river, and prominent hills. Enter the western gateway and walk among the 23 mounds, of various shapes, sizes, and purposes. Although each one covers the remains of a funerary or ceremonial building, excavations have revealed some highly specific features. Some held spectacular collections such as effigy smoking pipes or shimmering blankets of mica.

Chilicothe Geometric Eathworks 1848

The Mound City Enclosure: The embracing enclosure here was likely a prototype for the more precise and complex geometric figures of later Hopewell-era monuments. This place is unique among Hopewell-era sites, and may reflect a period of time when mound building was just beginning to be augmented by bigger, grander ideas about geometric form and enclosure. Here they created a collective cultural monument on a much larger scale than previous mounds or clusters: one imagines bigger festivals, with more complex clan relations, and therefore needs for more embracing, and eventually differentiated spatial enclosures for sacred rituals and memorial activities. With its distinctive rounded corners, the wall mimics the shape of houses at the time.

The Mound City Enclosure: The embracing enclosure here was likely a prototype for the more precise and complex geometric figures of later Hopewell-era monuments. This place is unique among Hopewell-era sites, and may reflect a period of time when mound building was just beginning to be augmented by bigger, grander ideas about geometric form and enclosure. Here they created a collective cultural monument on a much larger scale than previous mounds or clusters: one imagines bigger festivals, with more complex clan relations, and therefore needs for more embracing, and eventually differentiated spatial enclosures for sacred rituals and memorial activities. With its distinctive rounded corners, the wall mimics the shape of houses at the time.

Mound City

The Mounds: Paired mounds to the left of the West gateway covered the sites of two connected buildings that contained “shimmering blankets of mica” over graves. The connected buildings were likely a prototype for the complex building plan-forms developed at Seip and Liberty earthworks. The tallest, central mound covers several elaborate graves, originally with canopy structures and accompanied by spectacular artifacts. A mound near the southwest corner contained dozens of broken animal-effigy smoking pipes, almost identical to another set found at the Tremper Mound near Portsmouth. All the mounds were built over building remains, mostly funerary; while the site was in use, a combination of functioning buildings and memorializing mounds would have been visible.

The Mound City Riverbank: A new concrete staircase enters the forest along the banks of the Scioto River, descending through the long, ancient Graded Way. This monumental, excavated ramp area resembles others built by the ancients at Stubbs and Marietta, and was probably their ceremonial pathway up to the enclosure from the river. Looking across the river, one can imagine the huge circle, square, and passage of the Hopeton earthworks once standing visible on the opposite terrace.

Mound City, Squier and Davis

The Hopewell Mound Group: An imaginary axial centerline through Mound City, extended to the west-southwest, would pass exactly through a gap in the hills and establish the central axis, about 3½ miles away, of the square end of the brilliant Hopewell Mound Group. These two sites, taken together, present the apex of Hopewell-era ceremonial complexity and craft artistry. Reach the site by heading west from downtown Chillicothe, via US 50, and turning northwest on Anderson Station Road for about 2½ miles. Beside a small parking lot is a display panel providing orientation to the vast open meadow that was once the earthwork. For its astonishing complexity and spectacular artifacts, this became the “type site” of the entire culture, as defined by archaeologists. Though subtle today, the wide profile of the large, 3-lobed mound can be detected in the open field (there is a marker farther down the road). It was re-arranged after excavations here on Mordecai Hopewell’s farm in the 1890s, led by Warren K. Moorehead, and which produced dazzling artifact exhibits for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (the “White City”). The huge irregular enclosure also contained many other rings and mounds, some of earlier Adena origin, and some still being discovered by the National Park staff’s remote-sensing methods. The trail from the parking lot leads to the surviving walls and ditches along the northern hilltop, still retaining water like those at Fort Ancient, as was likely intended by their makers.

Hopeton and High Bank Earthworks: Although not visitable (or easily visible) today, two other elaborate geometric earthworks in the vicinity are preserved by the National Park Service: On the upper terrace across the river from Mound City are the remains of the Hopeton earthworks, a square and circle with walls originally up to 12 feet high; and the High Bank Earthworks, a giant circle-octagon (comparable to Newark’s Octagon Earthworks) is south of Chillicothe just off US 23, with a long, complex tail that stretched far down the edge of the terrace towards the river.

High Bank Earthworks, CERHAS Rendering

Eating and Sleeping: For drinks and light meals in Chillicothe’s historic center, visit Schlegel’s Coffee Shop on Paint Street, or Crosskeys Tavern (17 East Main). Grinders (also on Paint) is legendary for sandwiches. Good breakfasts and lunches are served at Carl’s Townhouse, a restored diner from the 1939 New York Worlds Fair (95 West Second Street). The Old Canal Smokehouse at Water and Mulberry Streets (where the canal turned a corner, and once the red-light district) serves outstanding dinners featuring meats smoked on the premises. Bill Hirsch, a former presidential butler, has returned to his hometown from Washington DC to welcome guests in a stately Greek Revival home built in 1843 by Jacob Atwood, a financier from Baltimore: the Atwood House Bed-and-Breakfast (68 South Paint Street; 740 774 1606). Other accommodations in the historic center include the Green House Bed-and-Breakfast, the grand 1894 Queen Anne Style residence of banker George Hunter Smith (47 East Fifth Street; 740 775 5313). A wide range of chain lodgings and food outlets is available on North Bridge Street (Route 159). The Ross County Convention and Visitors Bureau http://www.visitchillicotheohio.com can provide further information on where to stay and what to do in the area.