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Bath Township
was part of the Indian lands of the
Western Reserve and was not opened
for settlement until after the
Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805.
Bath was first known as Wheatfield
and was also known as Hammondsburg
after one of the early settlers. It
finally adopted the name Bath right
after the War of 1812.
The
area of Indigo Lake in the Cuyahoga
Valley National Park has a long
history. The traces of the Mound
Builders (from 3000BC - 200AD) in Bath
are difficult to find. If you walk
along the ridge across the road from
the Hale Homestead, within the park of
Indigo Lake, you may come across an
oval cavity in the earth with raised
edges, according to Whittlesey in
1871.
To
the south (probably on what used to be
the Cranz property) a wall-like
formation of earth can be seen on a
slope in the ground, according to
Bierce in 1854. There are also several
mounds in Bath and Northampton but it
would take an expert to identify most
of them now; plowing and erosion take
their toll on the structures. Even in
1871 Whittlesey complained that some
mounds, which he had indicated were in
Bath, were barely visible. Farmers
deliberately plowed them level, for
they almost always were made of rich
soil. 1
The
Indians (Chief Pontiac's and Chief
Ogoontz tribe, the Ottawa's, with
neighbors Mingo's, Delaware's,
Chippewa's, and Wyandotte's ) also
made the job of learning about the
Mound Builders more difficult. They
showed no knowledge of the earlier
race.2 Perhaps, if the Mound Builders
were very long past, even Indian lore
could not remember them.
The
Indians made changes in the
mounds by camping on them, burying
their own dead in them, and leaving
stone artifacts in them which could be
confused with the tools of the Mound
Builders.3
After
the Mound Builders and then the
Indians, this area belonged to
Jonathan Hale. Mr. Hale arrived from
Connecticut in the late summer of 1810
to find several squatters on his land.
After working with the squatters and
his neighbors Mr. Hale slowly formed
his land into a beautiful farm. Now
preserved as a part of the Cuyahoga
Valley National Park it has a
beautiful lake, woods and trails.
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