The Indian Head Rock is an eight-ton sandstone boulder, which had rested at the bottom of the Ohio River, until September 2007 when it was retrieved by a group of local divers, led by amateur historian Steve Shaffer of Ironton, Ohio. The recovery of the perennially submerged rock, which was the subject of local lore since the 1800s, was celebrated by Ohio and Kentucky residents in the months that followed. City of Portsmouth, Ohio officials had planned to display the Indian Head Rock in a manner appropriate for the preservation of the historic boulder. However an ensuing interstate dispute led to charges being brought against Shaffer and his fellow divers and a suit demanding the rock be returned to Kentucky. Legal issues were resolved in 2010 and the rock was returned. From 2010 to 2020, the rock was stored in a county highway maintenance garage. In September 2020 it was placed in a small roofed structure enclosed with chain link fencing, despite ongoing concerns that it should be protected in a climate-controlled structure.
The controversy surrounding the salvaging of the Indian Head Rock in 2007 is the subject of a 2017 documentary, "Between the Rock and the Commonwealth." The documentary has been broadcast on public television stations in Ohio and Kentucky since June 2017.
Etymology
The name Indian Head Rock comes from a carving on the bottom of the boulder with the features of a human face. It has been theorized that the face was carved by a Native American artist as a petroglyph, a boatman as a river gauge, or was carved by John Book from Portsmouth, Ohio who later fought in the Battle of Shiloh. Other theories include that a band of robbers used it to mark their nearby stash and that a quarryman carved the face with a metal device.
The first surviving historical reference to the boulder by name is from Squier and Davis's Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848). "It is familiarly known as the "Indian's Head," and is regarded as a sort of river gage or meter. When the water-line is at the top of the head, the river is considered very low."
Newspaper reports in the 19th century referred to the boulder as the Indian Head. In the early 20th century, it was referred to as Indian Rock, rather than Indian Head Rock.
The boulder has sometimes been called Portsmouth Indian Head Rock due to its history and proximity to the City of Portsmouth, and to disambiguate it from other "Indian Head" rocks.
History
Origin
The Indian Head Rock originated as part of "Quaternary Pleistocene and Recent Landslide deposits" from the Kentucky hillside facing the city of Portsmouth. The landslide deposits consist of "unconsolidated angular boulders and finer debris; found at base of steep slopes along Ohio River." An early account of the Indian Head Rock (1891) stated that "The rock is not of the freestone formation of the river bed at this point, but is a hard sandstone, and must have rolled from the top of the hill in remote ages. The face was probably made to commemorate the lowest water ever known in the Ohio river since white men settled upon it." At that time there was already "a multitude of...names and characters, evidently quite ancient" carved in the rock.
The angular surfaces of the boulder were worn smooth over time by the flow of the river. A 1908 newspaper account stated: "That the rock rolled off the hill at some remote period seems assured, as it is of the same formation as the summit of the river hills. It is now smooth as a bowling ball, made so by the motion of the water for generations. Histories of the river of as early a date as 1811 mention its presence."
19th century
The first known reference to the Indian Head Rock was to its use as a gauge of the Ohio River. A log kept by a local resident recorded the river stage with reference to various points on the rock: the mouth or the eyes of the carving or the top of the rock. (E.g., "1849--Sept. 23, top of rock 2 1/2 inches under water", "1851--Sept 27, eyes to be seen--the lowest measure on record from 1839 to this date.", and "1854--Sept. 5, mouth just on the water-line--therefore lower than since 1839.") The first record in the log was dated November 10, 1839, when the mouth of the figure was said to be "10 1/4 inches out of the water."
On July 26, 1851, a Portsmouth newspaper reported that "The river is now within three inches of the Indian Head. This mark is the outline of a human head engraved upon a large rock now but a few feet from shore." The story credited the carving to "pioneers, [who] cut it for a low water mark."