History of Muskingum County, Ohio ; with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent men and pioneers, 1794, Part 4

Author: Everhart, J. F; Graham, A. A., Columbus, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: [Columbus, O.] : F.J. Everhart & Co.
Number of Pages: 600

USA > Ohio > Muskingum County > History of Muskingum County, Ohio ; with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent men and pioneers, 1794 > Part 4

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P. 195 : Again, as the mouth is that part by which speech is effected, lineal portraits of the mouth, in the various forms it takes in enuncia- tion, are used to make the various elements of speech, which characters I call oral. As the first mode of numeration with all people is the fingers, so we find a system of numeral charac- ters expressly formed on this idea. But they had other methods also of numeration, speci- mens of which are found in every hieroglyphic inscription. It is not only true that the Egyp- tians used elementary writing, but they had two sorts of these elements. Those which took their form and character from the mouth-oral.

P. 19: The others, which I conceive to be the secret cypher, I have, for distinction sake, deter- mined to call the Ogmian (the secret writing of the Druids) was so called. God, the supreme Being, is pictured by the only two following symbols, invariably the same : First, by a winged globe, or circle, signifying infinity, unity, activ- ity, and omnipresence ; secondly, a globe or cir- cle, through which a serpent, the symbol of life, is passant, signifying the creative and plastic mani- festation of the first cause, animating and gov- erning the material world.

P. 197 : Plato, in his second dialogue on laws, explains on this point : " These types and fig- ures, be they such as they are, and whatever they are, they are formed on a basis of an insti- tution of the government of Egypt, which directs that no sculptor, painter, or statuary shall ren- der any idea of improvement, or on any pre- tense whatever presume to innovate in these determined forms, or to introduce any other than the constitutional ones of his country. Hence it is, as yon observe, that those forms and figures which were formed or painted hundreds of ages past, be they what they may, are exactly the forms and figures, neither better nor worse. which are sculptured and painted at thisday." Plato de Lezibus, lib. I. p. 789.

Idem, p. 206-7-8: Clemens Alexandrinus, who must have understood this matter. living on the spot, gives an explicit account of it in the fifthi book of his Stromata, of which I venture to give the following translation : " Those who receive their education amongst the Egyptians

HISTORY OF MUSKINGUM COUNTY, OHIO.

learn in the first place the method of the Egyp- tian elementary writing, or letters, which is called the Epistolary writing ; secondly, the Sacerdotal, which the hierographists, the priest- scribes use ; lastly, as the perfecting of this part of education, the hieroglyphics. This consists of two methods ; the one is written by elements in direct terms ; the other is symbolic. The sym- bolic may again be divided into two kinds; the first as a picture or direct portrait of the matter or thing intended to be described ; the second is written by metaphorical representations. This is sometimes allegorized by enigmas." If my translation be just, it describes the fact as it will be found to have existed. It describes, first, the generical distinctions ; the writing by elements or letters, and the picture writing, and next the three species of each genus. First, the writing for common business (the demotic, as Herodo- tus calls it), next, the court-hand, that which the Sacerdotal scribes used ; and lastly, that which was used in the sacred engraved inscriptions, which is so often, to this day, on the obelisques and other public records. The first, the sym- bolic, was applied in actual portraits of the thing described ; the second used, as Plato expresses it, metaphors for descriptions ; the third, which allegorized these pictures and enigmas, which the original writers, ne suspicate guidem senet. I have already explained, as the mere physiolo- gic commentaries, the divine romances of the learned priests.'

The reader will recall the language of Mr. Schoolcraft : " The Aztecs were not aborigines, or first inhabitants." And "It was an early thought that the manners and customs of the tribes savored of the Mongolic or Samoiden type. The tribes of the East Indies -- embracing much of the generic type and moral. The whole of the western and northwestern antiquities of - the highest class, embracing every monument of the kind north of Utah, and the country north of the Gila, to which the Lottec and Aztec civil- izations probably reached, may be viewed to- gether by the antiquarian as forming the second type of American Antique civilization-that this type was a transferred Americo-Shemitic charac- ter, appears probable from renewed inquiries on the languages."

These views are corroborated by the other writers, as set forth in these quotations, and by Alexander Winchell, L.L.D., Professor of Geol- ogy and Palæentology in the University of Mich- igan. In his work "Pre-Adamites," p. 52, chap. vi., he groups the races in three divisions, according to prevailing color. Ethnologists rely on color to only a limited extent, and at most account it but one among many physical and linguistic considerations, regarded as throwing light on racial distinctions and affiliations. Yet color shows a strange and persistent independ- ence of the physical environment.

A chromatic classification, moreover, will be most convenient for the present purpose.

Conspectus of Types : I. White Race (Med- iterranean), or the Blushing Race.

I. Blonde Family (Japhetites, Aryans, or Indo- Europeans.)

2. Brunette Family (Semites).

3. Sun-burnt Family (Hamites).

II. Brown Races : (1.) Mongoloid Race (Tartar, Turanian).

I. Malay Family.

2. Maylayo-Chinese Family.

3. Chinese Family.

4. Japanese Family (including Coreans).

5. Altaic Family.

6. Behring's Family.

7. American Family.

(2.) Dravidean Race.

I. Dekkanese Family.

2. Cingalese Family.

3. Menda Family (Jungle Tribes, or Primitive Dravidæ).

This tabulation is continued in the Black Races, but enough is given to certify that the aborigines of America date back to the first division of the Brown Races, viz. : the Mongoloid race, having passed through peculiar changes, chiefly climatic, known as the Malay Family, Malayo-Chinese, Japanese, Altaic, Behrings, and lastly, the American, or, what seems most probable, a tribe from this stock found its way via Behrings Strait to this continent.

They were of the Brunette Family, whom the ancient Egyptians styled "yellow ;" but this is a better designation of some of the Mongoloid families. The birth-right Jews, in all countries, and the Arabs, are the best examples of this fam- ily. This is no insignificant aid to our compre- hension of their intellectual status, and harmon- izes with the implied belief of the majority of the writers on this subject that they were an intellec- tual people, and doubtless as well informed as any below the white race, if we may even ex- cept this.

Mr. Winchell adds: "The Mongoloids, or Turanians, are the most numerous, and by far the most widely dispersed of all the races. [These are facts which seem to possess much significance.] They are characterized by long, straight, black hair, which is cylindrical in sec- tion, by nearly a complete absence of beard and hair on the body, by a dark-colored skin. vary- ing from a leather-like yellow to deep brown, or sometimes tending to red, and by prominent cheek bones, generally accompanied by oblique setting of the eyes. *

* The true Mon- gols, also called Tartars, stretch in their numer- ous tribes from the eastern part of the desert of Gobi, north to Lake Baikal, and westward as far as Kalmucks, to European Russia. The Turks, of which the Uighars, Osmanlis, Yakats, Turco- mans and Kirghis are the principal branches, are spread over the wide region from the Altai Mountains, through Turkistan to the Caspian Sea, and in isolated tribes through the Caucasus to Hungary and European Turkey. The European Turks have lost most of their Mongol- oid characters by long admixture with the Arvan stock, but their languages preserve distinctly the evidences of their Mongoloid origin."

HISTORY OF MUSKINGUM COUNTY, OHIO.

Idem, p. 66: " The American family of Mon- goloids embraces all the aboriginal population of both continents, except the Behrings tribes. All researches hitherto have failed to establish the existence of more than one race, whether among the anciently half civilized or the hunting tribes, and have only resulted in the conviction that an American race of men, as distinct from Mongol- oids, is only a prepossession arising from their continual isolation and remoteness from their Asiatic kinsmen, when contemplated across the Atlantic by European ethnologists. The phys- ical affinities of the American Indian, especially in view of the connecting types of the Haidahs (a tribe of Tlinkites), the Alents, the Helmes, the Coreans, and Japanese, are sufficiently close to convince any unprejudiced student that all the populations of America have been derived from the Asiatic continent."

Thus we have passed in review the opinions of the authors who have written most concisely, as well as from the best known data concerning the peculiar people called the Mound Builders ; and after presenting the report of the Historical Association organized in Brush Creek township, Muskingum county, Ohio, for the purpose of securing the most reliable and complete data concerning that township, to be incorporated in the history of this county, it will doubtless ap- pear to others, as it has to the writer, that this resume has rendered intelligible the existence of the Mound Builder remains in Ohio, and enabled us to interpret the inscription on the stone found in the mound in Brush Creek township :

" BRUSH CREEK TOWNSHIP, March 3, 1880. "To Dr. f. T. Everhart, A.M., Historian :

" DEAR SIR : On December 1, 1879, we assem- bled with a large number of people for the pur- pose of excavating into and examining the con- tents of an ancient mound, located on the farm of Mr. J. M. Baughman, in Brush creek town- ship, Muskingum county, Ohio.

"The mound is situated on the summitof a hill, rising 152 feet above the bed of the stream called Brush creek. It is about 64 feet in width by about 90 feet in length, having an altitude of II feet 3 inches ; is nearly flat on top. On the mound were found the stumps of sixteen trees, ranging in size from 8 inches to 23 feet in ·diameter.

We began the investigations by digging a trench four feet wide from the east side. When the depth of eight feet had been reached, we found a human skeleton, deeply charred, in close proximity to a stake six feet in length and four inches in thickness, also deeply charred, and standing in an upright position. We found the cranium, vertebræ, pelvis and metacarpal bones near, while the femurs and tibnla extended hori- zontally from the stake. At this juncture work was abandoned, on account of the lateness of the hour, until Monday, December 8th, when it was resumed by opening the mound from the north- west. When at the depth of seven and a half

feet in the north trench, came upon two enormous skeletons, male and female, lying one above the other, faces together, and heads toward the west. The male, by actual measurement, proved to be nine feet six inches ; the female eight feet nine inches in length. At about the same depth in the west trench we found two more skeletons, lying two feet apart, faces upward, and heads to the east. These, it is believed, were fully as large as those already measured, but the condi- tion in which they were found rendered exact measurement impossible. On December 22d we began digging at the southeast portion of the mound, and had not proceeded more than three feet when we discovered an altar, built of sand- rock. The altar was six feet in width and twelve feet in length, and was filled with clay, and of about the same shape that the mound originally was. On the top, which was composed of two flat flag-rocks, forming an area of about two feet in width and six in length, was found wood-ashes and charcoal to the amount of five or six bush- els. Immediately behind, or west of the altar, were found three skeletons, deeply charred, and covered with ashes, lying faces upward, heads toward the south, measuring, respectively : eight feet ten, nine feet two, and nine feet four inches in length. In another grave a female skeleton eight feet long, and a male skeleton nine feet four inches long-the female lowermost, and the face downward, and the male on top, face upward, behind the site of the altar. After pro- ceeding about tour feet, we found, within three feet of the top of the mound, and five feet above the natural surface, a coffin or burial case, made of a peculiar kind of yellow clay, the like of which we have not found in the township ; con- sequently, we believe it was brought from a dis- tance. Within the casket were confined the re- mains of a female eight feet in length, an infant three and a half feet in length, the skull of which was scarcely thicker than the blade of an ordi- nary case-knife. The skull of the female would average in thickness about one-eighth of an inch, measured eighteen and three-fourth inches from the supra-orbital ridge to the external occi- pital protuberance ; was remarkably smooth : perfectly formed. Within the enclosure was a figure or image of an infant but sixteen inches in length, made of the yellow clay of which the casket was formed ; also, a roll of peculiar black substance encased in the yellow clay, twelve inches in length by four inches in diameter. which crumbled to dust when exposed to the air.

We also found what appears to have been the handle and part of the side of a huge vase ; it was nicely glazed, almost black in color, and burned very hard. From within a few inches of the coffin was taken a sand-rock, having a surface of twelve by fourteen inches (which had also passed through the fire), upon which were en- graved the following described hieroglyphics :" [Here a space was left in the note-book for the representation of the inscription found upon the stone ; but, for the sake of a true representation,

HISTORY OF MUSKINGUM COUNTY, OHIO.

we determined to have photographs made, and make one a part of this report. ]

Proceeding north about four feet from where we found the coffin, and within six inches of the top of the mound, we discovered a huge skeleton lying on its face, with the head toward the west. Mr. J. M. Baughman came upon this one acci- dentally, and, as it fell to pieces, he thinks no one could tell how long it was, but those who saw it unanimously declared it to be the largest of any yet discovered.

We have found eleven human skeletons in all, seven of which have been subjected to fire ; and, what is remarkable, we have not found a tooth in all the excavations.

The above report contains nothing but facts briefly told, and knowing that the public has been humbugged and imposed upon by archæol- ogists, we wish to fortify our own statements by giving the following testimonial :

We, the undersigned citizens of Brush Creek township, having been present and taken part in the above excavations, do certify that the state. ments herewith set forth are true and correct, and in no particular has the writer deviated from the facts in the case.

[Signed.] THOMAS D. SHOWERS, JOHN WORSTALL, MARSHALL COOPER, J. M. BAUGHMAN, S. S. BAUGHMAN, JOHN E. McCoy."

"The State of Ohio, Muskingum county, ss :

William T. Lewis, being first by me duly sworn, deposeth and saith: I began work on the Smith Gallery on September 2d, 1879, and continued to work there until June 14, 1880 ; and that between December 20, 1879, and January 10, 1880, I photographed for Dr. J. F. Everhart an engraved stone, said to have been exhumed from a mound in Brush Creek Township, and that I have this day identified the negative that I then took, in the Gallery No. 101, Main street, Zanesville, Ohio ; that when I was about to print the picture for Dr. Everhart I assured him I could, by retouching the negative, make the characters on the stone appear plainer, and that Dr. Everhart objected, saying he wanted nothing more or less than an exact copy of the stone, with- out any alterations whatever, and that I am pre- pared to identify the stone from which the nega- tive referred to was taken, and that there was no sign of any recent engraving or marking on the engraved side of the stone.

W. T. LEWIS.

Sworn to before me and subscribed in my presence this 16th day of March, A. D. 1881. WM. H. CUNNINGHAM, JR.,

Notary Public in and for said county and State."

The reader will observe in the Report the ab- sence of scientific precautions, and perhaps the scientist who expects to find things in a scientific way may censure us for this, but when it is re- membered that the object in this, as in every ef-

fort in exploring hidden things, is to read the facts discovered, without the shackles of theory, it will be conceded that this could not have been accomplished better than by leaving the explor- ation to those who had no theoretic knowledge on the subject.

And that whatever the inscription might mean remained for development by research, as no tyro could decipher characters as old as these have been found to be, and the inscription had not yet been viewed by an archaelogist, or one acquainted with the characters.

Having the Report, and having seen the mound, measured it, counted the stumps thereon, inspected the graves and nearly all of their con- tents, and having the inscribed stone, I under- took to collate the opinions of not only the best known writers on the subject, but to gather wis- dom from the savants in America, England and the Canadas, to whom photographs and a brief account of the contents of the mnound were sent. Many of these expressed themselves greatly in- terested, particularly in the inscription, and promised to give it their most earnest attention, and kindly intimated their views concerning some of the characters ; but generally urged the propriety of exercising great precaution, in ex- huming and measuring the skeletons, which, by the way, were measured. in situ.

Finally, I was urged by officers of the Ameri- can Association for the Advancement of Science to appear at their next annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, in August, 1880, with the tablet, and a paper on the subject. At that meeting I read a paper on "The Mound Builders," sub- stantially the same as this, and exhibited a speci- men of the clay that composed the coffin or casket ; specimens of the bones contained in the casket, showing their decayed condition, and the tablet. 'The latter, particularly, was examined by many with great scrutiny and pronounced a veritable mound builder relic of ancient make.

The outline of history here given is believed to be sustained by the fuller text of the authors quoted, and the interpretation of the inscription is possibly the only legitimate rendering with the light we now have.

The stone was found in a reclining position, with its dorsal aspect uppermost, and into which Mr. J. M. Baughman stuck the point of his coal pick, as stated by him and confirmed by the well- known marks of that instrument in their original freshness in the stone. It was but partially cleaned when brought to the writer, and was then cleansed with water and a brush, and was photographed without manipulation, and the pictures were printed without retouching the negative.

The position of the stone indicated that it had once been erected with the parallel lines perpen- dicular. Observing the angle marks, however, and remembering that "angle stones" were found upon the Great Pyramid, and that they were placed with the vertex of the angle upper- most, the writer postured the stone accordingly, and recognizing certain of the characters as

HISTORY OF MUSKINGUM COUNTY, OHIO.

Greek, and that, according to many writers, characters of ideation have been postured differ- ently in different ages, evidenced especially in Webster's Dictionary of the English Language, 1879. P. 1762 : Chart of "Ancient Alphabets," it was deemed legitimate to adopt the same course.

The first left hand character between the upper parallel lines is Alpha, the second is Omega, the third a spot, a numeral, the next a sceptre with a numeral above, the next numerals of order, the next a serpent-symbol of life-spirit, the next the sign of addition, the next Delta, the next the ligatured Greek sign of the infinitive ; the cavity between the upper and lower rows of characters is to be grouped with those below the lower row, and represents sun, moon and stars, or heavenly bodies ; the first left hand character in the lower row represents a seal or stamp in use the third century B. C. [See Dr. Julius Eutings' table of Semitic characters, in outlines of Hebrew Gram- mar, by Gustavus Bickell, D. D., Leipzig.] The next is another form of the serpent, asso- ciated with a numeral, the next the ligatured character repeated, the next numerals.of order, the last the angle marks, corresponding with the "angle stones.'

The discovery that " Alpha and Omega" are the first two characters of the inscription was as startling as it is true. And the connection with the Great Pyramid, as indicated by the corre- sponding signs, " the angle stones," found only on the Pyramids, and upon this grave stone, as far as now known, began to loom up, and Mr. Smyth's three keys for the opening of the Great Pyramid seemed to have a bearing upon this inscription ; so that they are here quoted for the benefit of the reader. "Key first: The key of pure mathematics." "Key the second : The key of applied mathematics-of astronomical and physical science." "Key the third : The key of positive human history,-past, present, and future, as supplied in some of its leading points and chief religious connections by Divine Revelation to certain chosen and inspired men of the Hebrew race through ancient and media- val times ; but now to be found, by all the world, collected in the Old and New Testaments."

There is no twisting, no forcing needed in using any of these keys ; and, least of all, is any alteration of them required for this particular purpose."

Here, then, is " a new departure ;"-not de- vised, but substantiated by the Astronomer Royal, of Scotland. And, in order to combine the mode of interpretation indicated by reference to the Old and New Testaments, so clearly shown to be the way, with the indications by the authors adduced, a brief resume will be found profitable.

Mr. Conant certifies that the mounds were constructed by a people who burned their dead ; a race homogenous in arts and worship ; and he gives an account of a neatly carved tombstone found near the head of a skeleton in the mound on the Payson farm in Utah; and of an un-

known kind of wheat found in the same enclos- ure ; and plastered houses in those mounds.

Mr. Short has strong reasons for supposing a remote intercourse between Asia and the Pacific coast ; and recites the Historian Bancroft's state- ment, that " the natives'on both sides of Beh- ring's Straits are identical in physical appear- ance ;" and Mr. Short denies the autoch-thonic origin of the aborigines ; and cites Prof. Haeckel as having the same views on this subject.

MacLean gives an account of skeletons taken from the tumulli of Europe known to have been there not less than 2,000 years, and still well preserved, while those we find are so decayed as to prevent examination, other than measuring in situ.

Dr. Fish, the Egyptologist, states that stone inscriptions were the earliest types of written language in Egypt and elsewhere; that the forms of ideation were sometimes relative and sometimes cognate, and then became contracted into a word or syllable ; that the channel of re- search has been the Theosophy older than Menu, Sabeism or the fires of Iran ; the mono- theism of the race kindred to the Abrahamic, of whom Melchi-Zedek is the oldest pontiff king : the prophetic nature of the chronology in events in the history of the Hebrew race a strong indi- cation of a theistic design on the part of the builder ; the "sacred cubit"-especially the cubit of 25 Pyramid inches-not in use by the Egyptians or Hebrews, but given, as witnessed by Ezekiel xl. 5. And again, in an able article on the Rosicrucians : " In the most ancient times there was an intellectuality which surpasses modern conception ; that it lay in the possession of a few with whom it perished, that it was not obtained by the slow process of experience : that it was mostly mathematical and geometric, and finally that an arcana of the caballa may possi- bly have been an clement which led to prophecy.

"Piazzi Smyth discovers to us "The King's Chamber," " The Queen's Chamber," with one angle stone over the entrance of each, and on the outside of the Great Pyramid two angle stones at the north entrance. and as Cheops and his wife, or Queen, were to have been buried there, and these symbols have been found to be the only signs therein and thereon, the interpre- tation is that two distinguished persons were entombed there. This, with the use of three angel stones in Abooseir, Middle Pyr .. lat. 29.54 ; Abooseir, G. Pyr., lat. 29.54 ; under like circumstances, in the absence of any other sym- bol expressive of the fact that three distinguished persons were entombed there, corroborates the interpretations : he also confirms Mr. Taylor's opinion, that he had " discovered in some of the measurements of the Great Pyramid, certain scientific results which speak more than. or rather quite different from any human intelli- gence." Baldwin-Pre-Historic Nations-finds evidence of civilization in both Americas older than Homer.

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History of Muskingum County, Ohio ; with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent men and pioneers, 1794, Part 4

Author: Everhart, J. F; Graham, A. A., Columbus, Ohio, pub Publication date: 1882 Publisher: [Columbus, O.] : F.J. Everhart & Co. Number of Pages: 600

Author: Everhart, J. F; Graham, A. A., Columbus, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: [Columbus, O.] : F.J. Everhart & Co.
Number of Pages: 600