Continued from the previous post regarding the extent of the “Great Black Swamp,” and the Heartland theorists misunderstanding of it and misplacement of the Narrow Pass described by Mormon as “the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east” (Alma 50:34, emphasis added).
As recently as the 19th century, a swath of northwest Ohio was swampland formed by the recession of a glacier, leaving extensive wetlands that covered some 1,500 square miles along the Maumee River, from Lake Erie almost to Fort Wayne, Indiana—an area referred to as the “Great Black Swamp.” The word “swamp” tends to evoke an image in the mind of places like the Everglades of southern Florida, a 1.5-million-acre wetlands preserve that is often compared to a grassy, slow-moving river, made up of coastal mangroves, sawgrass marshes and pine flatwoods—a relatively impassable swamp except by boat; or the Okefenokee Swamp, a wetland in Georgia, along the Florida border, which gives rise to a shallow but impassable 438,000-acre, peat-filled wetland.
Thus the “Great Black Swamp in northern Ohio suggests to the mind that it was an impassable deterrent to travel. However, it is important to know why it was so named.
The four most common examples of wetlands are bogs, fens, marshes and swamps
First of all, the word “Wetlands” may be dry for extended periods, but in general its water table is shallow—at or near the land surface long enough each year to support aquatic plants. As an example, Bogs are one of North America's most distinctive kinds of wetlands. They are characterized by spongy peat deposits, acidic waters and a floor covered by a thick carpet of sphagnum moss. Most bogs in the United States are found in the northern states and often formed in old glacial lakes. They may have either considerable amounts of open water surrounded by floating vegetation or vegetation may have completely filled the lake (terrestrialization).
On the other hand, Fens support a much more diverse plant and animal community, and covered by grasses, sedges, rushes and wildflowers. Some fens are characterized by parallel ridges of vegetation separated by less productive hollows. The ridges of these patterned fens form perpendicular to the downslope direction of water movement. Over time, peat builds up and separates the fen from its groundwater supply. When this happens, the fen receives fewer nutrients, and like bogs, are mostly a northern hemisphere phenomenon, occurring in the northeastern United States, the Great Lakes region, the Rocky Mountains and much of Canada. They are generally associated with low temperatures and short growing seasons, where ample precipitation and high humidity cause excessive moisture to accumulate, and may in time even become a bog.
Marshes are
defined as wetlands frequently or continually inundated with water,
characterized by emergent soft-stemmed vegetation adapted to saturated soil
conditions. Non-tidal marshes are the most prevalent and widely distributed
wetlands in North America. They are mostly freshwater marshes, although some
are brackish or alkaline, and frequently occur along streams in poorly drained
depressions and in the shallow water along the boundaries of lakes, ponds and
rivers. Water levels in these wetlands generally vary from a few inches to two
or three feet, and some marshes, like prairie potholes, may periodically dry
out completely.
Swamps come in different land forms, from lots of groundwater, to partial groundwater, to nearly no groundwater, though the ground or elevated ground spots are boggy with peat or other flora that survives in nearly constant water tables
On the other hand, a Swamp is any wetland dominated by woody plants. There are many different kinds of swamps, with forested swamps found in the Northeast, and characterized by saturated soils during the growing season and standing water during certain times of the year. In very dry years they may represent the only shallow water for miles and their presence is critical to the survival of wetland-dependent species.
The point is, these four different types are more of a scientific differentiation rather than one characterized by sight. And since the early settlers to the northeastern states were not wetlands Biologists, it is understandable they gave the area, which was covered with standing water and dense forests with their leaves falling into the water and decomposing, turning the water black—the name “Black Swamp.”
Following the one-hour battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794—the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, between the U.S. military and an alliance of mixed Indian tribes reinforced by British and Canadian soldiers dressed as Indians, Major General “Mad Anthony” Wayne led his Legion to unquestionable victory that so disorganized and broke the confederacy’s moral, that the treaty of Granville followed.
This 1795 treaty gave control of the entire region of what is now Ohio to the United States government except for the Northwest Quadrant, which became Indian Territory.
Native Americans from all regions of Ohio surrendered their lands in southern and eastern Ohio, and moved into Northwest Ohio—which was reserved as Indian Territory—where they established their villages along the edges of the swamp, and used the swamp itself as a very fertile hunting ground—suggesting the swamp area was penetrable on foot and by canoe.
The Maumee River watershed was once part of the Great Black Swamp, a remnant of Glacial Lake Maumee, the proglacial ancestor of Lake Erie. The 1,500-square-mile swamp was a vast network of forests, wetlands, and grasslands
The enormous water-lands of the Great Black Swamp may have been settled later than other areas of what is now northern Ohio, but they disappeared faster and with fewer traces than almost any other ecosystem in the region. They passed before anybody systematically studied their trees and plants, their animals, or their bird life. Because of this, anyone who tries to reconstruct a picture of the area's natural history engages in a fair amount of guesswork.
Since the Black Swamp was over 90% drained in the early to mid 1800s by American settlers—there are only a few minor areas that survived into the 1900s, which are almost entirely gone today—there is no way to scientifically determine what really existed in the more than 1.5 million acres that originally made up the area from Toledo and Sandusky westward to Fort Wayne. It is simply called the “Great Black Swamp.” But the main point is that it was penetrable and not impassable as Heartland theorists like to claim in order to bolster their model of a Narrow Pass between Lake Erie (Black Swamp) and Lake Michigan (Lake Chicago), which in effect left a corridor between 60 and 90 miles side (hardly “narrow” or “small”).
While theorist claim the glaciers prepared the land for the swamp by grinding down the country's earlier relief, and when they melted about 12,000 years ago, they formed Lakes Maumee, Whittlesey and Warren earlier, and larger versions of present Lake Erie, geologists claim a different story regarding the sizes of the Great Lakes between 14,000 years ago and4,000 years ago.
A Geological view of the Lake sizes by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Detroit District, covering the past 14,000 years
As the lakes in turn withdrew, they left behind a pavement-flat plain covered with fine, clay sediment impervious to water and crossed occasionally by low moraines and old, sandy beach ridges.
While theorist claim the glaciers prepared the land for the swamp by grinding down the country's earlier relief, and when they melted about 12,000 years ago, they formed Lakes Maumee, Whittlesey and Warren s well as larger versions of present Lake Erie—however, geologists claim a different story regarding the sizes of the Great Lakes between 14,000-years ago and 4,000-years ago.
These were the factors that formed the big morass: a slope toward the northeast of only about four feet each mile, fine blue clay subsoil that cupped water, and low beach ridges that ran across the direction of drainage. For a while, the area was a vast cattail marsh, busy with waterfowl, but natural plant succession gradually formed a thick swamp forest.
Ancient elm and ash trees grew with their roots in the standing waters, with massive oaks and hickories on the sandy beach ridges
In this swamp, ancient elm and ash trees grew with their roots in the standing waters, with massive oaks and hickories on the sandy beach ridges. Windfalls, especially the tumbled trees uprooted by occasional tornadoes, together with the deep, heavy mud, made the region almost impassable. No one knows the origin of the name "Black Swamp.” Nineteenth-century land speculators claimed that it referred to the rich black soil, but early travelers thought it fittingly described the forest's gloom and its feeling of ominous remoteness.
The question is, was the Black Swamp a deterrent to dedicated travel, such as by Nephite armies or Lamanite warriors? If, indeed that swamp closed off the entire area between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, except for a narrow pass, the swamp itself was not impassable as has been shown by early penetration. Men, typically soldiers, but not always, penetrated the swamp, walking in muddy water from calf deep to nearly waist deep—it was not easy, and probably would have deterred the faint-hearted, but it would not have deterred units of Capt. Moroni’s army, or the armies of Mormon, and especially not Lamanite warriors bent on wiping out the Nephites.
(See the next post for a continuation of the Great Black Swamp, and the Heartland theorists misunderstanding of it and misplacement of the Narrow Pass described by Mormon as “the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east” (Alma 50:34, emphasis added)
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