Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Camping near Ceremonial Grounds


We stayed overnight at Old Stone Fort State Archeological Park.  The campground is nothing special (though having water and electricity was nice).  The cool part is the area was used by Native Americans for ceremonies (or maybe just for sporting events or weddings or for trading cards, no one really knows!) from 0 to 500 CE.  Old Stone Fort was built and used during the Woodland period. Interestingly, it is a part of the Hopewell culture that built the mounds in Newark Ohio (http://tandtrv.blogspot.com/2012/10/ohio-indian-mounds.html)
 
A river splits into two right at this point and drops over some rather spectacular waterfalls on both sides of the ceremonial area. Some of these waterfalls are very loud and powerful. Several mills were located here over the years to use the power of the water including paper mills, a distillery, cotton gin, saw mill, rope mill and a grist mill.


 



It isn't really a fort, just short walls (3-4’ high) around a 50 acre field.

 
 
At one point on the path we saw this snake all curled up ready to strike.  I definitely hesitated before stepping in front of this to continue on our way.
 

 

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