The Big Bone Country of Kentucky

by

John Uri Lloyd

	"Big Bone," a valley hemmed in by high hills, is situated in the western side of Boone County, Kentucky, about three and a half miles from the Ohio River.  To reach it from Covington, take the Lexington Pike to Florence, (9 miles,) thence the Union Pike to Union, (six miles,) thence the Big Bone road to the Springs, (six miles); or somewhat longer, but not so hilly, continue on the Lexington Pile through Florence to Richwood, thence branch off to Big Bone.  Or take the Cincinnati Southern Railway to either Erlanger or Richwood, and by vehicle proceed to Big Bone.  Or go by boat on the Ohio River to Hamilton, (a landing place), thence three and a half miles up the valley to the Springs.  In all cases, transportation must be provided in advance.  Probably the picturesque road via Florence and Union will be preferable.

	Big Bone stands conspicuous as a Kentucky wonder.  When the early settlers came into its precincts, great beaten roads, fifty feet wide, from all directions, led to its waters.  These were "Buffalo Roads."  The springs were sought by thousands of wild animals and numbers of their bones lie yet beneath its soil.  Here the Mammoth and Mastodon struggled and perished, leaving their remains scattered over the surface of the earth, to amaze the pioneer, and it is a matter of record that the early settlers used the rib bones of these great beasts for tent poles, when visiting the springs to make salt.

	In 1784, John Filson, a surveyor and student, the man who came from Lexington, Kentucky, to lay out the village of Losantiville, afterward changed to Cincinnati, issued a History of Kentucky, which, in the preface was certified by Daniel Boon, Levi Todd, and James Harrod, as "as accurate a description of our country as we think can possibly be given."

	In this history, printed while Cincinnati was an untouched wilderness, reference is made to Big Bone as follows:

	"The amazing herds of Buffaloes which resort thither, by their size and number, fill the traveller with amazement and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they have made from
all quarters, as if leading to some populous city;  the vast space of land around these springs defolated as if by a ravaging enemy, and hills reduced to plains; for the land near those springs are chiefly hilly.  These are truly curiosities, and the eye can scarcely be satisfied with admiring them.   A medicinal spring is found near the Big-bone Lick, which has perfectly cured the itch by once bathing ; and experience in time may discover in it other virtues." [Filson, p. 32-33]

	Concerning the monstrous bones, one and a half pages are devoted thereto, beginning as follows:

"At a salt spring, near Ohio river, very large bones are found, far surpassing the size of any species of animals now in America.  The head appears to have been about three feet long, the ribs seven, and the thigh bones about four; one of which is reposited in the library in Philadelphia, and said to weigh seventy-eight pounds. The tusks are above a foot in length, the grinders about five inches square, and eight inches long. These bones have equally excited the amazement of the ignorant, and attracted the attention of the philosopher.  Specimens of them have been sent both to France and England, where they have been examined with the greatest diligence."  [Filson, page 33-34]

	In corrobation of this, the writer, who as a boy lived near Big Bone, affirms that teeth and monstrous fragments were then (1852-1860) common.  His father-in-law, Mr. Thos. Rouse, born in 1816, near the Springs, whose parents came into this section among the earliest pioneers, verifies the recorded statements.  Big Bone was then a great centre [sic], to which led wide beaten roads, on which thousands of buffalo tramped.  And the springs were a centre for every beast known to this section.  There they fought for water, as before had done the mastodon, the mammoth, and possibly other prehistoric animals, as next did the white man and the Indian.

	The jelly ground of Big Bone is a muck of quagmire that surrounds each spring.  Their depths are yet unexplored.  In the early days, they covered acres of ground, but creeping shells of dry earth have covered them to near where now spring the monstrous saline sulphur waters.  In these mud mires, preserved by the salt water, lie yet bones of the prehistoric mastodon and mammoth, and perhaps other forms of animal life unknown; the buffalo and bear of recent days having here a common tomb.

	The Springs are known as "Big Bone Springs," "Big Bone Lick,"  or to the people of that section, as "The Lick."  It was once a popular resort, especially before the day of the railroad.  One hotel in the valley, built in the early part of the century, served its purpose and disappeared.  Another, still standing, was built on the hillside overlooking one of the springs.  The Springs, (excepting the quagmires), are unchanged.  Great streams of rich saline sulphur water, cold, clear, blue-clear, ruch from the earth, accompanied by volumes of free sulphuretted hydrogen gas.

	They are a marvel now, as they ever have been.  To one acquainted with this country, in its primative beauty, the loss of the great forest is painful.  No such woods were elsewhere to be found as stood in and about this valley.  But the deadly ax has kept pace with the deadly rifle; the herds of deer, the bear, the buffalo or bison, the great proud woods, all, all have gone down before the touch of so-called civilization, that withering, scorching thing,that leaves but the bones yet hidden in Big Bone's quagmire, and in the minds of a few men yet alive reminiscences of these things I have just touched upon.

John Uri Lloyd

LLM col 1 Box 39 file 551

The following paper in the same file, dated 5 June 1935 bears on the same subject and forms a fitting appendix to this paper. [ed.]

	BIG BONE, BOONE COUNTY, KENTUCKY

	Said Mr. Thomas Rouse to me, in his reminiscences concerning Big Bone:  "It occurred to us at one time to try to find out how deep the jelly was in the bog at its center.  We therefore had the blacksmith take iron rods, such as were used in making horses shoe nails, and attach them together in such a manner that we could run them down through the jelly to the bottom of the bog.