Big Creek is a tributary of the Grand River and flows through

Lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

and

Geauga Geauga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,397. The county seat is Chardon. The county is named for an Onondaga or Seneca language word meaning 'raccoon', originally the name of the ...

counties in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. It rises in glacial till near

Chardon, Ohio Chardon is a city in and the county seat of Geauga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,242 at the 2020 census.Defiance Moraine Defiance may refer to: Film, television and theatre * ''Defiance'' (1952 film), a Swedish drama film directed by Gustaf Molander * ''Defiance'' (1980 film), an American crime drama starring Jan-Michael Vincent * ''Defiance'' (2002 film), a ...

on its way north and exposes rock formations from the

Paleozoic Era The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

, including the fossiliferous

Chagrin Shale The Chagrin Shale is a shale geologic formation in the eastern United States that is approximately 365 million years old. The Chagrin Shale is a gray shale that begins thin and deep underground in north-central Ohio. As it proceeds east, the for ...

. It joins the Grand River in Painesville Township in Helen Hazen Wyman Park. With a watershed of its tributaries include Cutts, Jenks, Aylworth, East, Gordon and Kellogg Creeks. It has previously been known as Bigg Creek, and West Creek. Big Creek flows through a number of parks, and is known for its fishing of smallmouth bass, and

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

that spawn in the creek.

History

Although now an area for recreation including hiking, fishing and camping the Big Creek valley was once a place of industrial activity with saw mills, iron furnaces and a leather tannery. One of the mills was owned by

Eber Howe Eber Dudley Howe (June 9, 1798 – November 10, 1885) was the founder and editor of the ''Painesville Telegraph'', a newspaper that published in Painesville, Ohio, starting in 1822. Howe was the author of one of the first books that was critical ...

a local newspaper editor and

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

, who used the mill as a "station" on the

Underground railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

for slaves who were escaping to Canada by crossing

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

at Painesville. As the route allowed the slaves to reach liberty, the mill became known as Liberty Hollow. Pease Hollow (now at the corner of Cascade Road and Girdled Road) was the site of a mill that was built by David Pease and used to power lathes and tools for turning wood to make furniture & small wares. Griswold Hollow (now Clark Road from Robinson Road to the Concord Township Line) was the site of a small sandstone quarry (along Jenks Creek) that was noted in a Geological Survey of the area in 1912.

Flora and Fauna

Big Creek traverses three nearly contiguous forested parks. The terrain is undulating and dissected by many small tributary streams with steep banks. In some places, the creek cuts through 40 to 50 feet of till and provides scenic overlooks. The wetter lowland areas near the creek are home to sycamore and cottonwood trees while the better drained hilltops are generally home to a Beech-Maple forest interspersed with patches of predominantly red oak, hemlock, and hickory trees. Wildflowers including trilliums and bluebells are abundant in the spring. The forests are home to abundant white tailed deer and turkeys. Red, gray, black, flying, and fox squirrels, racoons, possum, foxes and coyotes are also frequently seen. Black bears have been reported in nearby areas. Kingfishers and wood ducks can be spotted along the creek, and swallows make nests in the banks that overlook open areas. Numerous types of woodpeckers can be spotted or heard in the forest, including pileated, red bellied, hairy, and downy.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Geauga County, Ohio Rivers of Lake County, Ohio Rivers of Ohio

History

Flora and Fauna

See also

References