The Old Portage, an eight-mile overland connection between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas Rivers, was the longer of two portages used by prehistoric peoples and early settlers. This was just one link in the water route between Lake Erie and the Ohio River that prehistoric Native Americans traveled seasonally. Using canoes and small dugout boats, they navigated the rivers and wetlands of this region to harvest wild food and hunt. The water route was also important for trade, especially for the high quality flint found at Flint Ridge near Newark, in southern Ohio. Most arrowheads found locally are made from such flint.
As early European explorers and settlers began to move into this area, they too traveled the Old Portage. With the signing of the Treaty of Fort MacIntosh in 1785, the Portage Path became a boundary between "Indian" lands to the west and those available for white settlers to the east.
[Inset photo caption reads] The bronze statue commemorates the lives and the route of ancient peoples and marks the beginning of the Portage Path. It was made from a model created by Peter Jones, a member of the Onondaga tribe of New York State.
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