USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Glimpses of historic Madison County, Kentucky > Part 2
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Starting with the bedrock of black shale and going upwards the history of this mound was as follows:
First a fire was kindled upon the rock as shown by eight inches of charcoal over a considerable area which was overlain with clay. Then flat rocks were laid to form a platform over which a mound of earth was built. In this mound the chief's head was buried and with him his copper armor plates and a medium sized conch shell. He was a mature man for the cusps of his teeth were worn flat by chewing hard, gritty food. There are four pieces of copper armor. Three are flat smooth plates one-fiftieth to one- sixtieth inch thick with surface dimensions of 7.5 by 4.3 inches, 8 by 4.4 inches, 8 by 4.8 inches. They are curved at both ends. Each has two holes through which to fasten the plates to the body. These plates partially protected the chest and abdomen. Near the lower edge of one breast plate was a jagged hole evidently caused by an arrow or spear. A fourth piece of copper, in shape resembling a canoe, is 7.4 inches long by 2.5 inches wide and one-sixtieth of an inch thick. It was to protect the vital organs. Flat rocks had been laid over the mound on all sides and clay covered these rocks. On what had been the summit of this mound there is a thick bed of charcoal containing a mass of fragmental human bones. The charcoal and bones layer changes horizontally to charcoal with
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BOGIE HOUSE
Prehistoric "Bogie Circle" Mounds, from a drawing in the French Tipton Papers, by Jim Meeks, E.K.S.C. student. See Chapter I.
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7 MILE TO BOGIF'S MILL
CREEK
Prehistoric Mound, at Round Hill near Kirksville. See Map.
Merritt Jones Tavern during the Civil War period. Gen. Grant and staff were entertained here over night in 1864. Now called the "Grant House." See map and illustration elsewhere.
The Andrew Bogie House, built in 1796, on Silver Creek. (From a painting by Algin Reeves. ) The house is still a residence.
Bogie's Mill on Silver Creek, built in 1810. The site is still visible. (From a picture in the French Tipton Papers. )
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no bones where the fire had extended farther than the group of victims that apparently had been burned on the crest of the mound. The entire mound was then covered by clay and large limestone rocks brought from the valley below were placed on the surface.
MOUNDS AND OTHER FORTS
Near the village of Kirksville is a typical, conical mound. It is one of the largest of its kind in Kentucky. It is about twenty- feet high and two hundred and fifty feet in circumference (see illustration). An exploration some twenty years ago proved it to be a burial mound. A smaller earthern structure, twelve to fifteen feet high is less than a hundred feet from the bridge over Silver Creek in sight of the fine brick home, built by Colonel Samuel Estill and now the residence of Mrs. J. B. Noland and her son, Turley and his wife on the Barnes Mill Pike. It is most likely a burial mound, too.
Farther down Silver Creek there are or were mounds and stone structures that, evidently, were not burial places. There were two perfect circular earthern structures, sometimes called the Bogie Circle Mounds, about eight miles from Richmond and on the foothills not far from the right bank of the Silver Creek. According to French Tipton (see "Bibliography") who explored these mounds prior to 1901 and left a drawing of their shapes and relative posi- tions, the larger mound was 180 feet, and the smaller, 100 feet in diameter. The circles were 434 feet apart from center to center. A ditch, or moat, six feet deep and forty feet wide was within the larger circular mound, and one of the same depth and thirty feet wide was within the smaller circular mound. The circular earthern works were sodded with bluegrass, the larger having an entrance forty feet wide on the south, and the smaller, an entrance 10 feet wide on the southwest. The senior author visited these mounds about twenty years ago and found them worn by time. A small branch separated the knolls on which the mounds had been built.
Squire Boone, a brother of Daniel, observed and reported a favorable site for a water mill on Silver Creek, not far from these mounds. James Bogie, who patented the land in that region, built a mill race and a mill at this place. The mill may have been the Bogie Mill, the foundation of which may still be seen. French
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Tipton took a picture of this mill or a later one which is shown on one of the pages of illustrations.
James Bogie chose the plateau in the smaller circular mound as a family burial ground. Fortunately it has been preserved. The owner of the land has recently leveled the larger mound to facilitate tilling the field.
There was another pair of circular mounds about a mile north- east of the Bogie mounds. They were about 140 yards apart; one was of earth and the other of stone. The stone was the smaller with a diameter of 140 feet from outside measurement, and in like manner the other circle was 240 feet across. The latter, ac- cording to Tipton, had an "embankment" of forty-five feet. The structures were on a line of nearly due north and south. John Clark, who hauled stone from the southern and smaller mound, told Tipton that the stone was unlike any rock to be found anywhere near.
On the Armstrong-Gilbert farm, east of the new pike from the Blue Grass Ordnance to Berea, is a small conical mound on the highest knoll in a large area. A growth of trees has preserved it, though it may have been larger at one time. It is now about 7 or 8 feet high and perhaps twenty or thirty feet in diameter. It appears to be a burial mound, but its relative position to the forts described by Dr. Burroughs and the region north and northeast suggests its use as a signal point for persons in the forts on the heighths in the distance.
French Tipton mentions mounds all over Madison County. He found many such burial places in northern Madison, and near Million on the Tates Creek road in the northwestern part of the County, he describes a burial mound of extraordinary quality. It was one of six such graves, 200 feet apart, on this ridge, each with stones set in a circle. This particular mound had a sarcophogus, or walled in grave, six feet below the ground level. Four feet above it was an enclosure, nine or ten feet square, with a flat stone floor, about two feet below the ground level.
In 1881, General James Runyon found a skull and several skeletons, and a supposed spear point a foot long in plowing over a mound on Otter Creek within three miles of Richmond. An account, however, of the exploration of a mound near the village
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
of Moberly, under the direction of Colonel Bennett H. Young might well close this chapter.
THE MOBERLY MOUND
Colonel Young was a prominent citizen of Louisville and one of the ten founders of The Filson'in 1884. His description of the ex- cavations appeared, in all probability in the Richmond Climax, of which French Tipton was editor at the time, July, 1897, that the exploration of the mound occurred. Madison's present County Judge R. O. Moberly witnessed the exploration of the mound on his uncle's property.
The account used is a clipping attached to page 212 of Tipton's "Memorandum Book." The following is Mr. Young's account:
"I had promised the Filson Club that when the vacation of the courts occurred I would take my recreation by devoting one day in each week for eight weeks to these monuments in this State and writing for the public some account, not only of these people, but of such discoveries as I might be able to make.
"On the 18th and 19th of July I visited Madison county a second time in these explorations. This county is undoubtedly the richest in these mounds of all the counties in the State. Some of the mounds are marvelous, not only of symmetry, but of size. The one at Kirksville, the one at White's turnpike, near Senator Harris', and the one between his place and Richmond- about three miles southwest of Richmond-and three near Waco, and one immediately east of the limits of the city of Richmond, con- stitute as splendid a chain of single mounds as can be found anywhere in the United States .
"Two miles South of Waco, ... on the property of Mr. John Moberly, I found a mound ninety feet in diameter, and although over its surface cultivation had gone on for twenty or thirty years, it was still twelve feet in height. This mound Mr. Moberly kindly consented that I might demolish. ...
"I first ran a trench three feet deep through the mound, due north and south. From the top of the mound, on the north side, there was a peculiar white clay not known in the immediate locality covering a space about seven feet long and two or three feet wide; this clay was used from the top to the bottom of the mound would indicate that the body over which it had been packed in must 1. Club.
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have been one of more than usual importance, and the bones, which will be hereafter described, showed that the man was a person of tremendous stature, and was much larger than the other persons whose remains were interred in this mound.
"The skeleton was found laying due east and west; it had been placed upon the natural surface, covered first with a rich loam, and afterward with the white clay. There were some ashes and charcoal in the strata of clay overlaying the skeleton. We recovered the lower jaw in almost perfect condition. The skull was that apparently of a very large man, and the bones would indicate that he was a third larger than those who were placed with him in this sepulchre. The teeth had become somewhat worn, but showed no mark of decay at any point, and although this man had likely been buried for 500 years, his teeth were now so beautiful and white that they would command the admiration of any dentist of this period; and while the bones showed the effects of decay as soon as exposed to the atmosphere, when taken from the ground they were solid and perfect. Near his head was placed a slate ornament. Unfortunately, it was struck by a pick and broken, but both pieces are preserved. Near his toes was another pendant, made of a white stone, which had not been able to resist decay. It was made of carboniferous limestone and bore the appearance of a stalactite. Six spear heads, standing on end, were placed between the feet, and immediately opposite his face was a square white stone, which had evidences of having been used as a whetstone for some implements. It was made of a very fine quality of sandstone. As we use metals, our whetstones are without grit; the Mound Builder's implements were of stone, and with grit.
"Not satisfied with the revelations of the trench, I resolved to tear down half the mound; and so, taking the east side, with plow and scrapers, I cut the whole side of the mound away. Two and a half feet below the surface, on the south side, we found another skeleton, the bones of which indicated a man about five feet ten inches high. The thigh bones and part of the skull and the teeth were well preserved. The enamel of the teeth was as bright as on the day when sorrowing friends had deposited his body in the top of the tomb. Charcoal and ashes had been placed around the body, and all through the mound we found continual traces of charcoal, which being indestructible, after these long years was
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
in a perfect state of preservation. Here and there, small fragments of mica were picked up. This substance is said to be always found in Kentucky mounds, and it was believed by these people to have some mysterious power or influence in connection with the dead.
"The skeleton first discovered was clearly that of a man of distinction. The manner of marking the spot of his sepulchre was peculiar and unusual and the three fleshers, the gorgets, the pendant, whetstone, pipe and arrangement of spear point all show that unusual honor had been shown to this Mound Builder of such proportions. I weigh 190 pounds, and am close to six feet high, and yet his lower jaw could be easily put over the outside of mine, and his thigh bones and skull made it absolutely sure that he was seven feet high. His finger and toe bones main- tained the same extraordinary proportions. . . .
"Northeast of the great man of the mound and two feet higher we came upon another skeleton. This man was of ordinary size, about five feet ten inches high, and the method of burial demon- strated far less care and appreciation. The fleshers and flints in his case were disposed of differently, and no insignia of rank and distinction were deposited with him. A little further east an- other skelton was found, and in the top of the mound the fourth was located.
"But the most curious of all the treasures of the mound were two copper beads. They were eight and a half feet below the surface in the southeast quarter of the mound, and not in connection with any remains. We saw three, but only got two. It is com- posed of Lake Superior copper, and was hammered out into a straight bar and then bent around and stone welded, so as to make a bead with a hole through the center. The most wonderful feature of these beads was that by extraordinary accident in one of them the string with which it was held had been perfectly pre- served. All the indications showed the mound to be several hundred years old; and how through all these ages, the section of the thread holding this bead was perfectly preserved, was a marvel. Put under a microscope, the fibre of the thread is distinct and well defined. It has the appearance of being made of the lining of some bark. It has been and will be carefully preserved, and submitted for in- spection to such experts as care to examine it.
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"What appears to be a fragment of a king's pipe was found near him on the right side. It has in it a black substance resembling nicotine, and I shall submit this to analysis, hoping that this sug- gestion will turn out to be the correct opinion of the deposit in the pipe stem.
"Some doubts have been raised as to the earth mounds in Central Kentucky being places of sepulchre for this long lost race, but the contents of this Moberly mound show that it was a mausoleum, and that under it was laid a man of huge stature and great distinction.
"Doubtless the spirits of these departed Mound Builders looked down from another world and wondered why, hundreds of years afterwards; men with curious minds and exploring hands should open this tomb and bear from this sacred repository the bones, the mementoes and the treasures which their tender and loving hearts had prompted them to place within it, to commemorate the deeds of their king, and to perpetuate the renown of their mighty leader. ...
"At times there was a little manifestation of superstition. When we were about to remove part of one of the skeletons, some humorous member of the party threw some clods into the trench. This was considered a supernatural protest against grave desecra- tion, and immediately all hands dropped their tools and rushed from the opening, expecting every moment that the ghost of a Mound Builder, with avenging hand, would inflict immediately a direful punishment, and it was some moments before I could induce a portion of the workers to follow me back to work."
In 1910 the Filson Club published Colonel Young's Prehistoric Men of Kentucky. On pages 38-40 the author gives the following description of the contents of the Moberly mound:
"In August, 1897, the author was permitted to examine what is known as the Moberly Mound, in Madison County, six miles east of Richmond. As this was one of his earliest excavations, he was not able to remove the mound with as much care, skill, and patience as has marked subsequent explorations. This was a burial mound. It contained approximately three thousand cubic yards of earth, and it was calculated that it would have required one hundred men forty days to have erected this monument. It contained six burials, evidently made at the same time. Five of these were men,
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
probably past the meridian of life. The sixth was a younger person, not more than twenty years of age. These six bodies had been laid upon the natural surface of the ground and over them had been placed cloth or skins of some kind, and on the top of this, earth, which had been brought a distance of two hundred and fifty feet.
About three feet from the center line was a skeleton lying east and west, with head to the west. The skull was in a good state of preservation. The body was lying upon its back, face upward, hands lying close to the sides, feet straight out. The teeth indicated a man advanced in years, being much worn, two of the lower molars being gone. On the breast there was a beautiful grooved syenite ax, and beside it a scraper with a perfect edge which had been produced by a whetstone, and this whetstone lay close to the scraper. On the inside of the leg was a remarkable wound. which fixed the cause of death of this man whose remains we were so ruthlessly removing after his sleep of ages. In the shaft of the left femur was a large flint spearhead driven entirely through the bone.
It required no wide sweep of the imagination to carry one back across the hundreds of years intervening between the construc- tion of this mound and the present day, and to clothe in living forms the warrior and his companions, and to understand how, on the fateful day when he received the death-wound, he was engaged in combating with his country's enemies. He had not died by ac- cident, but had come to his end by violence when in conflict with some foe quicker and more powerful than himself.
"The position of the flint spearhead in the bone showed that the struggle had been a very close encounter; that he and his antagon- ist, face to face, eye to eye, and hand to hand, had fought out to the death the contest which ended his life. It was apparent from the angle of the weapon in the bone that the combatants had been very close together, and that the Mound Builder who was wounded and died had fought a right-handed man. The size of the spear- head demonstrated beyond question that it could not have been driven from a bow, and that only a spear handle could carry it with sufficient force to cut through the flesh and bone; and the di- rection of the blow made it certain that at the time of the infliction of the wound the antagonists could not have been separated more than two or three feet. Probably the thrust had been directed at
Basin Knob (left) and Morton's Knob (right) showing original site X of the "1770 Squire Boone" rock. See County map and Burrough's map of Basin Fort.
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Big Hill view toward Richmond: (1) The Pallisades; (2) Madison-Jackson County Highway; (3) Jones Tavern; (4) The Boone Trail; (5) Pilot Knob. See County map.
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GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
the heart, but in the encounter the aim of the antagonist had been diverted, and instead of striking the heart had glanced down- ward and passed through the bone of his leg, a short distance below and in close proximity to the femoral artery, inflicting an injury which caused death from loss of blood."
CHAPTER II
Booneland
DANIEL BOONE
D ANIEL BOONE, the most famous pioneer connected with the history of Madison County and Kentucky, was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 1734. His parents moved, about 1748, to Holman's Ford on the Yadkin River in North Caro- lina, where Daniel married Rebecca Bryan in 1755. He was with Braddock in 1755 in his unfortunate expedition against the French in Western Pennsylvania. Ten years later he visited Florida and made plans to settle there. Soon after returning from Florida he became interested in Kentucky, which he and his brother Squire explored during the years 1769-71.
Boone was so charmed with Kentucky that he determined to settle there. In 1773 he started westward with several families, in- cluding his own; but Indians attacked his little company near the Cumberland Mountains and caused opposition to further progress to develop. Boone would have gone on, even though his eldest son was among the slain, but others of his party insisted on turning back. He yielded to their entreaties and returned as far east as the settlements on the Clinch River, where he waited for a more op- portune time to settle in Kentucky. To Daniel Boone, therefore, belongs the first actual attempt to found a settlement in Ken- tucky, and only the irresolution of others prevented his doing so in 1773.
In the summer of 1774 Governor Dunmore, of Virginia, sent Daniel Boone and a companion to warn settlers at Harrodsburg and surveyors elsewhere in Kentucky against dangers from antici- pated Indian attacks. Had Boone not performed this mission James Harrod and others might not have lived to return and reoccupy their cabins at Harrodsburg in March, 1775. It should be noted that Boone acquired a lot and built a cabin at Harrod's settlement during his visit in 1774. One may say, therefore, that Daniel Boone had a close connection with the establishment of the first settlement in Kentucky-Harrodsburg.
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Boone was active in the campaign against the Shawnee Indians in the late summer and autumn of 1774. In March, 1775, in the employ of Richard Henderson and Company, he cut an emigrant trail by way of Cumberland Gap to a place on the south bank of the Kentucky River where Boonesborough was established in April of that year. He directed the defense of Boonesborough in 1776 and 1777, but in January 1778, he was captured while making salt at Blue Licks, some distance north of Boonesborough, and taken to Detroit. The Shawnees refused Governor Hamilton's offer of a hundred pounds for his release, and their chief, Blackfish, adopted him as his son. Boone escaped from the Indians north of the Ohio, as they were returning to attack Boonesborough, and successfully defended the fort at that place during the ten-day siege in Sep- tember, 1778. In 1781 he represented Fayette County in the Vir- ginia legislature. He was in the disastrous Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, where he lost another son, and after this defeat he accom- panied George Rogers Clark's punitive expedition against the Indians north of the Ohio.
Boone lost his titles to lands in Kentucky and, after living in what is now West Virginia and representing Kanawha County in the Virginia legislature, moved, about 1799, to Missouri and ac- cepted a commission from the Spanish government. He made long expeditions into the interior of the Louisiana country and about 1814 went as far as the Yellowstone River. At the time of his death, September 26, 1820, the Missouri legislature declared a twenty- day period of mourning in his memory, and in 1845 the Kentucky legislature caused his and his wife's remains to be moved from Missouri to the cemetery at Frankfort. Collins fittingly says (1874) of this act of Kentucky: "It was as the beautiful and touching manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a beloved parent; and it was right that the generation who were reaping in peace the fruits of his toils and dangers, should desire to have in their midst ... the sepulchre of this primeval patriarch, whose stout heart watched by the cradle of this now powerful commonwealth, in its weak and helpless infancy .. . "
It was indeed fitting, therefore, that the bicentennial of Daniel Boone's birth should be celebrated in the County and State where he rendered his greatest services to the Nation. The Commission created by the Kentucky legislature, early in 1934, for that purpose
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The early plot of Boonesborough. (Courtesy of the Filson Club.) Note the Kentucky River, the site of the Fort, and the burial ground. Use a glass.
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included in its plans for the celebration the establishment of national monuments at Boonesborough, Boone's Station, Bryan's Station, and the Blue Licks Battlefield, in honor of Boone and his associates. This achievement will cause the site of the old fort and town of Boonesborough to become a beautiful park and a great national shrine.
TRANSYLVANIA COLONY
At Hillsborough, North Carolina, on August 27, 1774, Richard Henderson and five others, including Thomas Hart, who later be- came the father-in-law of Henry Clay, formed the Louisa Company. Their purpose was "to rent or purchase land" from the Indians west of the Allegheny Mountains. It appears that for more than a decade earlier the forerunner of this organization-Richard Henderson and Company-had existed, and Daniel Boone had been active in its service in what is now Tennessee and Kentucky. The Louisa Company soon admitted James Hogg and several other North Carolinians to its membership, and changed its name to the Transylvania Company.
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