Upper PIQUA's Stone Wall

One of the most unusual structures left in Miami County, Ohio by the Adena Mound Builders was that of a Great Stone Wall in Upper Piqua.

This structure was first noted in Dr Daniel Drake's 1815 work titled, "A View of Cincinnati and the Miami Valley".   In 1823, Major S.H. Long was heading an expedition from Philadelphia to the Mississippi River.  He passed through Piqua and stopped long enough to make a detailed description and sketch of five circular earthworks that were in the confines of modern Day Piqua.  He also visited the Stone Wall that sat at the edge of Upper Piqua.  Major Long described it "as a pavement of loose stones about six feet wide and it appeared as if they had once formed a wall.  He stated that the south part of the wall was on top of the high bluff and the opposite wall was 900 feet north.  It's general outline was elliptical with its east and west length fifteen hundred feet and it enclosed about eighteen acres.  The stones making up the wall ranged in size from the size of a walnut to as large as a man could carry".   Long also explored a mound that was within the wall.

Colonel John Johnston wrote to the author of the map, James McBride, who surveyed the area  in the 1840's.......  "The work stands on the most elevated ground for a great distance around, embracing the brow of a hill and is what would be deemed a very commanding position.  I have never seen any ancient work but this, in which earth and stone were combined in constituting this defensive wall."

So other than the effects of time, what happened to the wall?  A citizen later noted in his reminisces that his family observed wagon loads of stones hauled away to create home foundations.

A transcription from McBride's map states:   

Plan of an Ancient Work in the County of Miami State of Ohio, 

two miles and a half above the Town of Piqua, 

on the farm of Col. John Johnston 

Surveyed December 19th 1844 by James McBride

Containing 18 acres and 19 square poles

Mound 5 feet high 27 chains