Edge of Appalachia Preserve — Public Lands Institute

Public Lands Institute

Geological age: ~430 Mya Silurian dolomite (Peebles Dolomite, Wenlockian stage); underlying Ordovician shale and limestone exposed in stream valley bottoms
Epoch: Middle Silurian (Wenlockian)
Native lands: Adena (c. 1000 BC-AD 100) and Hopewell (c. 200 BC-500 AD) cultures with sustained presence in Adams County; Serpent Mound, a 1,348-foot effigy mound whose authorship is debated between Adena (~300 BCE, radiocarbon 2014/2019) and Fort Ancient (c. AD 1000-1550, charcoal 1991), sits on a bluff directly above Ohio Brush Creek 7 miles northeast of the preserve; both the Shawnee Tribe and Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma hold formal ancestral connection to the site; the Warrior's Path, a major north-south Indigenous corridor linking the Great Lakes to the Carolinas, passed through the Ohio River corridor here; Shawandasse Tula (Shawanwaki/Shawnee) and Myaamia (Miami) held south-central Ohio; ceded via Treaty of Greene Ville (August 3, 1795); remaining Ohio Shawnee removed west via Treaty with the Shawnee 1831
Displacement & Tenure: Adams County lies entirely within the Virginia Military District, opened to Virginia Continental Army land warrants beginning 1794 under metes-and-bounds survey; Indigenous title extinguished via Treaty of Greene Ville (August 3, 1795), whose Article 3 boundary placed Adams County fully within the ceded territory; approximately 25% of the Virginia Military District was subsequently acquired by 25 individuals through warrant speculation; Adams County organized 1797; The Nature Conservancy began acquiring preserve lands in 1959
Shadow History: Killen Generating Station (closed 2018), situated within the Ohio Brush Creek drainage basin upstream from the Ohio River confluence, discharged coal ash slurry directly into the Ohio River during 2020 ash pond dewatering in more than 30 documented incidents; unlined ash ponds at Killen and J.M. Stuart Station continue to leach arsenic, boron, cobalt, lithium, and molybdenum into the regional aquifer above drinking-water standards; a 1977-79 archaeological survey documented prehistoric occupation at the Ohio Brush Creek-Ohio River confluence at the Killen site before the area was committed to ash disposal
Ecology: Mixed mesophytic forest, dry limestone prairies, and cedar barrens on thin Silurian dolomite soils along the Appalachian Escarpment; 30 ecological communities, 8 globally rare; over 1,200 plant species including American bluehearts (Buchnera americana), rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), and gladecress; holds the only Allegheny woodrat (Neotoma magister) population in Ohio; green salamander (Aneides aeneus, Ohio-listed Endangered) documented; among the most biologically diverse areas in the Midwestern United States
Hydrology: Ohio Brush Creek watershed; Ohio Brush Creek, a 59.9-mile tributary of the Ohio River draining 435 square miles, flows through the preserve with canoe access at Creek's Bend; Cedar Run gorge feeds Cedar Falls, a 15-foot waterfall over Silurian limestone ledges
Acreage: 21,000
GPS: 38.7924° N, 83.3840° W

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