Brush makes exciting addition to Killbuck Valley Museum
For many years Dr. Nigel Brush has had his archeological findings displayed at the Killbuck Valley Museum. Now an exciting addition to that collection adds to the pieces of history inside.
Killbuck Valley Museum better be careful if it wants to keep its moniker as Holmes County’s best-kept secret because its most recent summer addition to its collection of natural and cultural history items should be a real drawing card.
Recently, the museum added a collection from Dr. Nigel Brush that truly enhances what was already a fascinating natural and historical collection. Brush has introduced his assemblage, which was formerly featured as part of the “Science on Display” collection in the Kettering Center at Ashland University.
Complete with rocks, meteorites, fossils and bones, the new addition to the museum will undoubtedly fascinate those who venture inside.
“We didn’t actually have room to put the entire display up at Ashland like it is here because we didn’t have room,” Brush said. “The pictures, documentation and rocks are all added to the display.”
The new historical pieces arrive in Killbuck, courtesy of the Ice Age.
Brush said the rocks in the display are carbon dated at more than 1 billion years old and are all metamorphic because the only rocks that can survive that length of time are buried well below the Earth’s surface.
The display includes nine different types of rock, all of which tell the story of the glacial activity that rolled in through Canada and into North America, eventually stopping and depositing much of the material that got caught up inside the glacier right here in the Holmes and Wayne area.
The rock display paints a picture of the various types of stones from the period of that glacier activity.
However, perhaps the items that will draw the most attention to visitors will be the addition of more mastodon bones to enhance the mastodon display that already existed.
The bones, teeth, vertebrae and tusk showcase the mammoth size of these ancient beasts. In addition, there are several unique replica skulls of other animals from a bygone era.
“These types of skulls that are real finds are extremely rare,” Brush said of animals like the sabretooth American Lion, sabretooth cats and a 10-foot-tall ground sloth, the latter of which was found years ago in Berlin. “There are a lot of local finds in this collection.”
Brush famously excavated a pair of local geological sites where mastodon remains were discovered, and some of those finds have resided in the Killbuck Valley Museum for many years. However, in adding this new collection, Brush’s discoveries take on a whole new light.
Brush is a 1969 graduate of West Holmes High School and has a PhD in anthropology from UCLA.
Since 1982 he has been one of the nation’s top archaeologists and has been conducting archaeological and geological field work in Holmes, Wayne and Coshocton counties including the pair of mastodon sites and six late prehistoric village sites in the Walhonding Valley area. Other field work includes exploring 30 rock shelters in the Killbuck Valley.
Brush is a professor emeritus of geology at Ashland University and an affiliated scholar in the archaeological program and department of anthropology and sociology at The College of Wooster.
What still lies beneath the earth around Wayne and Holmes counties, waiting to be discovered?
Brush said most of these finds are located by accident by everyday people, so there could be more to come.
Until then the public has a chance to explore all these finds and the entirety of Brush’s collection in the museum at Killbuck.
According to Bob Porter, president of Killbuck Valley Museum, the history and stories inside the museum were already fascinating, but this new addition really helps bring the mastodon and glacier story to life in a new way.
“This really is a spectacular addition to our museum,” Porter said. “The work Nigel has done is so important to telling the story of our past. He has always been such a big part of our museum, and now we have probably the finest mastodon collection this side of the Cleveland Museum of History.”
Porter said Brush will be in for a special event at the Duncan Theater across from the museum in July to speak about the extinction of Ice Age animals.
Killbuck Valley Museum is located on Front Street in Killbuck and is open Saturdays and Sundays May 1 through Oct. 31 from 1-4 p.m. It also is available for group tours on other days, which can be made by appointment by calling Porter at 330-763-0133. Admission is by donation.