The symbol of Union Mound, one of the earthworks south of Piketon, comprises the O in SONG.

Union Mound was a part of the Barnes Works on the bank of the Scioto River in Sargents. It was one of the unique structures here that attracted intense interest because of its stark geometric symbolism. It consisted of a circular earthen mound surrounding a square platform, tangent to the circle at its corners. The circle had a diameter of 300 feet, the length of a football field.

The spaces between the square and circle (black areas of the logo) were dug out below ground level to form a moat that probably filled with water. The square was precisely aligned to the cardinal directions -- North, South, East and West. At the eastern side was a rampway providing access to the square. Since the east symbolized resurrection, as the direction of the rising sun, the structure surely had great religious significance.

It is thought that the structure was built very close to the year 373 BC -- that is, almost 2400 years ago -- when a unique arrangement of the northern stars allowed precise alignment to true north. The Greeks were then struggling to "circle the square," but the Scioto Indians surpassed them.

Ephraim Squier, who brought the earthworks of Ohio to worldwide attention in the mid-nineteenth century, described this earthwork in two of his books as providing great insight into the symbolic universe of the Indians who built it. Apparently, the structure also became a potent symbol for Squier, Isaac Barnes, and their circle of radical Whig political activists, who were involved in conducting fugitive slaves to freedom.

There is an indication that Abraham Lincoln, a great fan of Squier's archaeology, saw the earthwork when he visited the Barnes Home in 1848, and that it made an impression on him. When the Whig leader Henry Clay died in 1852, Lincoln eulogized him with these words: "As on a question of liberty, he knew no North, no South, no East, no West, but only the Union which held them all in its sacred circle."

For that reason, we can call it Union Mound.

Union Mound was destroyed by quarrying around 1910. If there is any saving grace in that fact, it is that the structure could be reconstructed on the site, or nearby, without doing any further violence to the ground, so that we can experience the power of the form for those who walked within its walls.