The Brokaw Site is located off of

U.S. Route 40 U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America, is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid-Atlantic States. As with most routes wh ...

in Richland Township, just west of

St. Clairsville, Ohio St. Clairsville is a city in and the county seat of Belmont County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,096 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Wheeling metropolitan area. History The seat of justice of Belmont County was originally know ...

. The site was added to the National Register on 1976-06-17.

History

The site was once the location of a prehistoric village originally settled in the Archaic period and later by the Middle to

Late Woodland In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologi ...

people, as the discovery record has turned up projectile points and ceramics dating from those time periods.Pickenpaugh, Thomas E.; ''Stone Artifacts from the Brokaw Site''; Ohio Archaeologist; 1976 The main village site is located on the relatively flat top of a hill roughly about above sea level. The site is estimated to encompass 2-3 acres. The site during its occupation overlooked a roughly-hewn hunting trail, later used as the outline of the first roads and eventually becoming National Road. This vantage point, plus the presence of four springs which flow downstream into a feeder creek of the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, made this site ideal for settlement. The property was bought by John Brokaw, who settled into a homestead on a part of the same hilltop. It was during his ownership that several artifacts were found, resulting in Brokaw authorizing a dig site during the years from 1972-1974. After extensive study, the investigating team approached Brokaw about placing the site on the National Register. Brokaw informed the team that the site was directly above a large coal seam and had already given permission for the strip mining of the area. However, the mining activity was delayed indefinitely as the site was eventually placed on the Register by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

Today

The entire hilltop was cleared around the start of the 20th century as evidenced by the bordering Locust and

cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...

trees in the fence lines and has been used as pasture and cultivation land. Much of the surrounding area has been radically transformed, as an ongoing housing development is slowly encroaching on the site and a reservoir was dug out east of the site.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Belmont County, Ohio Archaic period in North America Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Archaeological sites in Belmont County, Ohio