Knox County in the 1830s was home to healing springs

MOUNT VERNON — Many people think history is nothing more than the collection of names and dates involved in past incidents.

The reality is it provides context. Names and dates mean nothing outside of the context in which they functioned. And a little bit of context is key to suggesting a solution to this week’s little mystery.

Browsing through historical publications, I came across an interesting mention in Henry Howe’s historical abstracts, a publication from the 1800s.

Like many early history collections, it has lots of names, not so many dates, and is very hit or miss on context. It can be a great — if sometimes maddening — resource.

What I noticed was a reference to a location north of Mount Vernon where people in the 1800s would flock to “take the cure.” Howe cites the location as a “magnetic spring,” a curious term at first glance, as water doesn’t tend to draw in metal objects.

But the meaning of the term comes from such a spring having a high iron content. More scientifically, such a spring is called a chalybeate spring.

Such water sources were sometimes called magnetic springs or mineral springs. If sulphur was also present, it might be referred to as a sulphur spring.

They were also known as spas, and often became highly successful businesses where clients gathered to partake of the supposed health benefits of the mineral-rich waters.

Perhaps if they drank the waters, the guests might actually get some benefits from the spring. My guess is that the main health benefit was having a nice vacation where you paid to be pampered while floating around in pleasant water. I could use one of those myself.

So where was this spa?

That’s not so easy to answer. Howe only says that it was located “two miles north of Mount Vernon.” Looking two miles north of town today lands no obvious candidate, so I decided to make use of a historical researcher’s most valuable skill: knowing who to ask.

As readers of this column were forced to experience not all that long ago, I’m not just a writer of local history stories, I’m also a poet. In that area, I’ve met and shared inspiration with many poets from all around this beautiful state and beyond.

One of those is the Canal Winchester poet Chuck Salmons, with whom I became friends through the poetry readings that Mark Hersman used to host at Sips Coffee House in Mount Vernon. Chuck went on to become president of the Ohio Poetry Association, where he has done great work promoting verse in this state, as well as attending national conventions.

But like 99.999% of all creative artists, Chuck has a busy day job as well. He is publications and outreach director for the Ohio Geological Survey.

So, when I come up with an Ohio history question that has some geological basis, I know whom to call. Chuck shared my question with the OGS experts, who were able to dig into their resources and turn up some leads.

James Raabe noted the immediate difficulty that the question presented.

“We do have record of 20-30 water wells north of Mount Vernon that are recorded as flowing, which is an indication that there is adequate head pressure in the aquifer,” Raabe said, but pointed out that any modern listings they have of springs describe themselves as partial lists.

It just goes to show that there’s simply not much demand for information about springs these days, other than the occasional inquiry by a pesky local historian. Other geologists chimed in to say that no major springs are marked on modern maps.

Mapping Geologist Doug Aden took the search to older maps and found some potential candidates that were marked as springs on a 1914 map. One marked as a large spring was once on North Liberty Road, but the location today is nothing more than a low spot in a farm field.

However prominent that spring once was, it appears to have run dry and been filled in and farmed over. This location is a couple miles north of town, as was another one slightly further north on Mansfield Road, but that’s where the context has to be considered.

Howe’s reference came from the early years of Mount Vernon, when it was nothing more than a cluster of buildings around Owl Creek, more or less equivalent to today’s downtown area. A couple miles north of this reference point, and we’re suddenly talking right around the northern edge of today’s Mount Vernon.

The first feature that leaps out is Lake Hiawatha, today the site of the Knox County Fairgrounds. And it was indeed the site of an amusement park in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But I’ve never heard it specifically referred to as a magnetic or mineral spring, and I’ve seen nothing about earlier development of the site.

There is, however, another candidate nearby that is indeed marked as a spring on one of OGS’ earlier maps. It is the pond that stands in front of the Mount Vernon Developmental Center on Vernonview Drive, also known as Ohio State Route 768. Though the campus is currently closed to the public for pandemic safety reasons, the MVDC graciously allowed me to visit and photograph the spring.

It is indeed a spring. The 1871 Caldwell and Starr Atlas of Knox County even bears the label “Big Spring Lot” for the farm upon which it was located, which was owned then by A. E. Skeen. This all made it worth investigating, which I did.

Even though the wind was blowing a stiff south-westerly breeze against the source end of the spring on the day I visited, a steady outflow could be observed combating the wind on the northeast side of the oval-shaped pond.

Above the source, fallen leaves outlined the depressions still in the ground of what must be the original shape of a spring house that once stood here.

Would that have been a structure of, say, only 100 or so years ago? Or could it have been something once used by visitors trekking here to take the cure?

It’s possible that this spring has run for hundreds of years and was used by American Indians before the white settlers arrived. It’s hard to say for sure without an archaeological excavation.

One point in the site’s favor as a candidate for the long-forgotten spa is the later siting of the tuberculosis sanatorium here. For, long before it became the Mount Vernon Developmental Center, it was the Mount Vernon State Tuberculosis Hospital.

Now, it is a documented fact the state committee charged with finding a location for the hospital considered over 100 different sites in Ohio before settling on Mount Vernon in 1904.

Is it possible that someone locally with a dim memory of cures taking place at this location years before steered the committee to this spring?

However it came to be, the complex of buildings was finished and opened in 1909. The widespread availability of antibiotics after World War II led to its closure and transformation into the MVDC.

It would be highly appropriate if this was in fact the original site of a health spa, later continuing the mission of healing in different ways.

While other spas in Ohio became large and successful — such as the Green Springs Sanatarium in Seneca County — Knox County’s modest spa faded away, lingering only as a memory, and, perhaps, as an inspiration to future projects.

Special thanks to Chuck Salmons and his colleagues at the Ohio Geological Survey for their help in researching this column.