TARLTON AND THE “ROAD”

The diagonal route between Chillicothe and Newark approximates the possible “Great Hopewell Road” – an ancient, arrow-straight route suggested by recorded remains near its northern end. Use SR 104 out of Chillicothe, then SR 159 from Tarlton and SR 37 from Lancaster to Granville.

Canal at Sunset, Circleville

Circleville Drawing, GFWittich

The Ohio and Erie Canal: Leave Chillicothe going north on State Route 104 where, along the river terraces on both sides, there were once many more geometric earthworks. The road parallels a preserved section of the Ohio and Erie Canal. At the village of Westfall, take Canal Road to the right to view these beautiful remnants up close: the waterway and now-tree-lined tow-path parallel the Scioto River. Near the intersection with US 22, Canal Park offers access to canal related views and constructions. From here, after crossing the Scioto River in an aqueduct, the canal route continued northward, then east toward the town of Baltimore, and Buckeye Lake, where there are more significant remains.

Circleville: In downtown Circleville, US 22 becomes Main Street, following the axis line that bisected the ancient earthworks here: a giant double-ringed circle, from which the town took its name, and an attached square. Circleville was the home of Caleb Atwater, postmaster and eccentric surveyor of Ohio Antiquities in the 1820s, and an early advocate for their preservation. The town’s original layout had concentric and radial streets inside its namesake circle, with an octagonal courthouse in the center. Over the protests of Atwater and others, it was later replaced with a regular grid, but a drawing of this inventive layout was made in the early 1800s by the founder of a local candy company, and still adorns the boxes at Wittich’s Candy Shop (117 W. High Street). A nearby historical marker recalls Atwater’s efforts at documentation and preservation. The Pickaway County Historical Society Museum contains excellent exhibits, including antiquities from the area.

Pickaway Plains and Logan Elm: South of Circleville along US 23 are, to the west, the Pickaway Plains, an ancient, glacially-created rolling prairie landscape that was a favored settlement region of the Shawnee Indians up until the time of Euro-American encroachment. To the east of the modern highway is the Logan Elm State Memorial, the probable setting of Chief Logan’s eloquent 1774 speech on Indian-white relations, delivered under a huge elm tree. The tree died in 1964; the site now commemorates both the Chief’s ideas, and other Indian and settler events.

Tarlton and the Cross Mound: Take SR 56 and then SR 159 east out of Circleville to the village of Tarlton, which was a main stage coach connection point along Zane’s Trace (from Zanesville to Maysville KY), commemorated here by a historical marker. Old houses provide a sense of the old road and the conditions of stage travel. Not quite a mile north from the village center, on Reading Road, is a shaded parking area on the left. The unique Tarlton Cross Mound is reached from this small picnic area by means of an interesting early concrete suspension bridge (the work of the 1930s WPA) over the rushing waters of Salt Creek. The trail winds up the hill to the unique plus-sign-shaped mound crowning a small wooded ridge. Probably built by middle-woodland (Hopewell-era) peoples or later, the equal-armed figure was partly created “subtractively” by the removal of soil from the hill. The small dip in the center may be by design (a water feature?) or an early intrusive excavation. According to all the early 19th century accounts the pathway and the earthwork were always somehow kept free of vegetation as if by continuous use. Other small mounds in the woods nearby form a square.

Tarlton Cross, Squier and Davis

The “Great Hopewell Road” Hypothesis: From Tarlton village, take Route 156 north towards Lancaster. This route skirts the edge of the Appalachian Plateau, and also approximates the route of the possible “Great Hopewell Road,” an arrow-straight, sixty-mile ancient thoroughfare which may have connected Newark and Chillicothe, the Hopewell era’s two greatest ceremonial centers. Dr. Bradley Lepper of the Ohio Historical Society has discovered tantalizing evidence on old aerial photographs and drawings, proving the road did extend for at least several miles out of Newark, headed in exactly this direction and aiming for Chillicothe. The full distance has not yet been proven by on-the-ground surveys.

Lancaster: Lancaster is an attractive, historic town and the seat of Fairfield County. A pleasant downtown district is home to many shops, galleries, and cafés, and the nearby hillside offers a superb collection of large, historic houses. Among them is the Reese-Peters House, a spectacular Greek Revival mansion now in use as the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, and offering varied exhibitions. Also nearby are the Georgian Museum (an 1832 mansion), the Sherman House Museum (birthplace of the Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman), and the Ohio Glass Museum. The surrounding country roads lead to many golf courses and covered bridges. The cliff above the town (now overlooking the county fairgrounds) was used by Indians on the watch for encroaching white settlers. The unique Stonewall Cemetery stands about 3 miles southwest of downtown (US 22 just over 2 miles, then left on Stonewall Cemetery Road for about 1 mile): a 12-sided, 60-foot diameter, walled cemetery meticulously constructed of Blackhand sandstone in 1838 by Nathanial and Gustin Wilson (call ahead for access 740 681 7249).

Houses, Lancaster

Buckeye Lake: Enroute northward toward Granville is Buckeye Lake State Park. Its long history dates back to the construction of this reservoir in the early 1800s as the high-point feeder for the state’s new canal system: south through Millersport and the “Deep Cut” towards Baltimore and Circleville, and north through Lakeside to Hebron and Newark. By 1900, the canals had been long abandoned, but there were lively amusement parks along the shore. A historical museum tells the stories and displays artifacts from the heyday of the canals, and the later inter-urban train line and amusement parks. Boat excursions are offered around the lakeshore and the Cranberry Bogs. The embankments of this huge, artificial lake were built in part with stone and earth from a very large nearby burial mound. Deep Cut Road just outside Millersport traces the major engineering feat that was needed to complete the Ohio and Erie canal system, cutting a water channel through a tall ridge. Significant water-filled remnants extend south and west though the town of Baltimore. More canal traces are evident from Buckeye Lake north toward Hebron, and even along fast-developing SR 79 below Heath and Newark, where the characteristic massive sandstone blocks stand in a few remaining front yards.

Eating and Sleeping: Shaw’s Restaurant and Inn, overlooking a shady square in downtown Lancaster, provides very good meals plus twenty-five individually-decorated guest rooms (123 North Broad Street; 740 654 1842). Chain lodgings and eateries are available in Circleville or Lancaster, or at the I-70 interchanges above Buckeye Lake.