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| Google Map of Mound Builders Country Club Newark Earthworks (circle and octogon) |
I love to play
golf! It seems like I’ve been playing
golf my whole life, but I was probably eight or nine when I actually
started. Now that I’m over sixty, I
still enjoy the game especially playing exceptionally beautiful or unusual
courses. Well, I’ve run across a golf
course that certainly fits that description!
Yet, I have mixed feelings about playing the course.
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| Map of Newark Earthworks 1848 |
The name of the
course is “Mound Builders Country Club” in Newark, Ohio. Because it is a private course, I probably
couldn’t ever play it anyway, but what gives me pause is the course’s location. It was built right on top of one of the
premier Native American earthworks.
Sometimes called the “Newark Earthworks” since it was so designated in a
drawing by Squier and Davis in 1848, it is more popularly known by the names of
three preserved sections “Octogon Earthworks ”, “Great Circle Earthworks”, and
the “Wright Earthworks”.
What are they? They are THE largest earthen enclosures in the
world occupying over 3,000 acres. Today,
about 206 acres remain of the site and is preserved as a state park by the Ohio
Historical Society. It was built by the
Hopewell Culture between 250 AD and 500 AD and was a sacred place of ceremony,
social gathering, trade, worship, and was
an enormous lunar observatory used to track the moon’s orbit during its
18.6-year cycle. The Circle and Octogon
were used to determine events throughout the 18.6 year lunar cycle through
exacting alignments. Watch this very interesting video on the alignment.
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| Newark Earthworks today |
The “Great Circle
Earthworks” is 1,054 feet wide, which is the largest circular earthwork in the
Amercas (in construction effort).
Eight-foot walls encircle a five-foot moat-like ditch that grows deeper
and the walls grow higher at the entrance.
The “Octagon
Earthworks” which includes a large octagon and connected circle mounds is twice
as precise as the famous Stonehenge in England.
The site has had
an interesting history. From 1892 to
1908, it was an Ohio State militia encampment.
Then it was owned by the Newark Board of Trade until 1918. In 1910, they leased the property to Mound
Builder Country Club which developed the site as a golf course. In 1918, the court appointed a trustee to
manage the property until 1933. In 1997,
the Ohio Historical Society signed a lease with the Country Club to maintain,
secure and provide limited public access to the site.
In the Squier and
Davis drawing, note that the site originally contained a geometrically
near-perfect square enclosure that enclosed about 20 acres. Farming, construction of the Ohio Canal, and
residential building has consumed all but a 200-foot segment of one wall.
Below is a diagram of lunar alignments.
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