USA > Ohio > Fulton County > The County of Fulton: A History of Fulton County, Ohio, from the Earliest Days, with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Townships; Also a Biographical Department. > Part 2
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"When we uncovered the altar in Mound No. 6 and exposed it to view almost in its entirety. we had before us the sacrificial altar of a great, lost, powerful people. We saw it as they saw it. ten or more centuries ago, when they covered up its fires forever. It told us much -it told us nothing. They burned human beings; they burned animals.
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Was it cremation? Hardly, for it was not complete. Was it sacri- ficial? Probably. But to what deity or deities? Alas! We will never know. Who did these people succeed? What caused the destruc- tion of the Mound Builders? Who followed them? A thousand years from now who will have succeeded us?"
In every instance it was definitely ascertained that many persons were buried in the same mound. Mr. Howard was authority for the statement that the Indians had no knowledge, traditionary or other- wise, concerning these earthworks, and if the Mound Builders were the ancestors of the Red Men of recent date, such fact was unknown. and unsuspected by the latter. Mr. Howard associated from boyhood with them and accompanied them to their reservation beyond the Mississippi ; was always their friend; able to converse with them in their own language, to get into their inner lives, as it were; to ap- preciate and credit them with their virtues and condemn their faults, he easily became their confidant and possessed of their traditions. He stated at the time of the excavations that he heard old Chief Win- nameg say "that the oldest man did not know who made the mounds. and that nobody knew, but he thought that a great battle had been fought there and the dead buried in the mounds." It is a well-known fact that the Indians never prepared burial places for their dead like the mounds referred to; neither did they erect altars, where animals and human beings were immolated to secure the favor of the Great Spirit and afterward cover such altars with a mound of earth. These, and many other important considerations lead the majority of students of antiquity to the opinion that the Mound Builders were a distinct race of people. and that they inhabited a large portion of America long before the Red Men took possession.
The principal mounds in this county have now been mentioned, and it will be well to notice the implements made by the extinct race. Very few utensils, made of copper, have been found in this part of Ohio, owing partly to the fact of the unexplored condition of many of the mounds, and to the additional fact that little, if any, copper exists in this part of the United States. What does exist is in loose frag- ments that have been washed down from the upper lake region. When mounds are explored, great care is necessary lest these small utensils be lost. as they are commonly scattered through the mass, and are not always in close proximity to the skeletons. The copper deposits about Lake Superior furnished the prehistoric man with this metal, and, judging from the number of relics. now found. which were made of this metal, it must have been quite abundant. The population then must also have been quite numerous. as occasionally copper implements, tempered to an exceeding hardness. are found about the country. These implements are small. generally less than half a pound in weight. and seldom exceeding three pounds. There were millions of these in use during the period of the ancient dwel- lers, which must have been thousands of years in duration. The cop- per implements left on the surface soon disappeared by decomposi- tion, to which copper is nearly as subject as iron. Only a part of the
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dead Mound Builders were placed in burial mounds, and of these only a part were buried with their copper ornaments on and about them. Of those that were, only a small part have been discovered, and in many instances, the slight layer of earth over them has not pre- vented the decay and disappearance of the copper relics. Articles of bronze or brass are not found with the remains of the builders of the mounds, and it is evident they knew nothing of these metals in the Ohio Valley; nor did they possess any of the copper that had been melted and cast in moulds.
Stone relics, however, are very numerous and well preserved. Stone axes, stone mauls, stone hammers. stone chisels, etc., are very plentiful yet, and were the common implements of the prehistoric man in this part of the West. None were made with holes or eyes for the insertion of a helve or handle. They were made more perfect by rubbing and polishing, probably done from time to time, after they were brought into use. A handle or helve. made of a withe or split stick, was fastened in the groove by thongs of hide. The bit is narrower than the body of the ax, which is generally not well enough balanced to be of much value as a cutting instrument. It is very seldom the material is hard enough to cut green and sound timber. The poll is usually round, but sometimes flat, and, rarely, pointed. It is much better adapted to breaking than cutting, while the smaller ones are better fitted for war clubs than tools. As a maul to break dry limbs they were very efficient, which was probably the use made of them. In weight they range from half a pound to sixteen pounds, but are generally less than three pounds. The very heavy ones must have been kept at the regular camps and villages, as they could not have been carried far, even in canoes. Such axes are occasionally found in the Indian towns on the frontier, as they were found in Ohio, among the aborigines. The Mound Builders apparently did not give them as much prominence among their implements as their savage successors. Double headed hammers have the grooves in the middle. They were made of the same material as the axes, so balanced as to give a blow with equal force at either end. Their mechanical sym- metry is often perfect. As a weapon in war, they were indeed formid- able, for which purpose they are yet used in the wilds of the far West.
Implements known as "fleshers" and "skinners," chisel-formed. commonly called "celts," were probably used as aids in peeling the skins of animals from the meat and bones. For the purpose of cut- ting tools from wood they were not sufficiently hard, and do not show such use, excepting a few flint chisels. They may have been applied as coal scrapers where wood had been burned; but this could not have been a general thing without destroying the perfect edge most of them now exhibit. The grooved axes were much better adapted to this purpose. Fleshers and scrapers of various sizes and shapes are numerous in this county.
Pestles to grind maize so as to fit it for cooking have been found in a variety of forms-some cylindrical, some bell-shaped and some cone-like. The materials are also various, consisting of green stone,
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syenite, quartz, etc., and sometimes sandstone. Most of the pestles are short, with a wide base, tapering toward the top. They were probably used with one hand, and moved about in the mortar in a circle. The long, round instrument, usually called a pestle, does not appear to be fitted for crushing seeds and grain by pounding or turn- ing in the mortar. It was probably used as a rolling pin, perhaps on a board or leveled log, but not upon stone. It is seldom found smooth or polished, and varies from seven to thirteen inches in length. In outline they taper toward each end, which is generally smooth and circular in form, as though it had been twirled in an upright position.
Perforated plates, thread sizers, shuttles, etc., generally made of striped slate, are met with in an almost endless variety of forms, most of which have tapering holes through them flat-wise, the use of which has been much discussed. They are generally symmetrical, the material fine grained, and their proportions graceful, as though their principal use was that of ornamentation. Many of them may well have been worn suspended as beads or ornaments. Some partake of the character of badges or insignias of authority. Others, if strung together on thongs, or belts, would serve as a coat of mail, protect- ing the breast or back against the arrows of an enemy. A number of them would serve to size and twist twine or coarse thread made of bark, raw-hide, or sinew. The most common theory regarding their use is, however, lacking one important feature-none of them show signs of use by wearing, the edges of the holes through them being sharp and perfect. This objection applies equally well to their use as suspended ornaments. Some of them are shuttle-form, through which coarse threads might have been passed for weaving rude cloth of bark or of fibrous plants, such as milk-weed or thistles. There are also double-ended and jointed ones, with a cross section, about the middle of which is a circle and through which is a perforation.
Badges and wands, in a variety of forms, are frequently found. A perfect specimen of a double crescent was picked up by George Kim- bell of Williams county, several years ago, and several single crescents have been found from time to time. Wands and badges are nearly all fabricated from striped and variegated slate, highly finished, very symmetrical and elegant in proportions, evidently designed to be ornamental. If they were stronger and heavier some of them would serve the purpose of hatchets or battle-axes. The material is com- pact and fine grained; but the eyes, or holes for handles or staves, are quite small, seldom half an inch in diameter. Their edges are not sharp, but rounded, and the body is thin, usually less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The form of badges known as "double- crescents" are the most elegant and expensive of any yet brought to notice. They were probably used to indicate the highest rank or office. The single crescent perhaps signified a rank next below the double. In nearly or quite all the crescents the points turn outward. The finish around the bore of all winged badges and the crescents is the same, and the size of the bore about the same-from two-fifths to
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three-fifths of an inch. On one side of all is a narrow ridge; on the other, a flat band, lengthwise, like a ridge that has been ground down to a width of one to two-tenths of an inch. Badges and crescents are invariably made of banded slate, generally of a greenish shade of color. The other forms of wands or badges, such as those with symmetrical wings or blades, are also made of green striped slate, ·highly polished, with a bore of about one-half inch in diameter, ap- parently to insert a light wooden rod or staff. They were probably emblems of distinction, and were not ornaments. Nothing like them is known among the modern tribes. in form or use, hence they are attributed to the Mound Builders. In addition to stone ornaments, the prehistoric man seems to have had a penchant, like his savage successors, to bedaub his body with various colors, derived from differ- ent minerals. These compounds were mixed in hollowed stones or diminutive mortars-"paint cups"-in which the mineral mass of colored clay was reduced to powder and prepared for application to the body. Such paint cups are not common in this county, in fact they are quite rare.
A few pipes of special note have been found. Three were found in the east part of Williams county, of which one represented a tortoise, one a frog and one a duck. The comparative rarity of aboriginal smoking pipes is easily explained by the fact that they were not dis- carded, as were weapons, when those by whom they were fashioned entered upon the iron age. The advance of the whites in no way lessened the demand for pipes, nor did the whites substitute a better implement. The pipes were retained and used until worn out or broken, save the few that were buried with their dead owners. What was the ultimate fate of these can only be conjectured. In very few instances does an Indian grave contain a pipe. If the practice of burying the pipe with its owner was common, it is probable that the graves were opened and robbed of this coveted article by members of the same or some other tribes.
It only remains to notice the "flints." in addition to which a few other archaeological relics of minor importance are found about the country, but none of sufficient import to merit mention. or to throw additional light on the lost tribes of America. Arrow and spear heads and other similar pieces of flaked flints are the most abundant of any aboriginal relics in the United States. Stone implements, such as have been heretofore mentioned, have been found in all parts of Fulton county, but more frequently along the ban's of Tiffin river and other streams. "Indian arrows," on the contrary. are found everywhere; and there is not a boy living amid pastoral surround- ings, who does not treasure among his possessions a few of the flinty weapons. They are chiefly made of hard and brittle siliceous mate- rials; are easily damaged in hitting any object at which they are aimed, hence many of them bear marks of violent use. Perfect speci- mens are, however, by no means rare. The art of arrow-making survives to the present day among certain Indian tribes, from whom is learned the art practiced that produces them. A classification of
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arrow-heads is not within the scope of this work; indeed, it is rarely attempted by archaeologists. The styles are almost as numerous as their makers. In general, they are all the same in outline, mostly leaf-shaped. varying according to the taste of those who construct them. They may have been chipped-probably most of them were- and some may have been ground. Spear heads exhibit as large a variety as arrow-heads. Like arrow-heads, spear-heads were inserted in wooden handles of various lengths, though in many tribes they were fastened by thongs of untanned leather or sinews. Their modes of manufacture were generally the same. Sometimes tribes contained "arrow-makers," whose business it was to make these implements, selling them to or exchanging them with their neighbors for wam- pum or peltry. When the Indian desired an arrow-head, he could buy one of the "arrow-maker" or make one himself. The common method was to take a chipping implement, generally made of the pointed rods of a deer horn, from eight to sixteen inches in length, or of slender, short pieces of the same material, bound with sinews to wooden sticks, resembling arrow shafts. The "arrow-maker" held in his left hand the flake of flint or obsidian on which he intended to operate, and pressing the point of the tool against its edge, detached scale after scale until the flake assumed the desired form.
The peculiar and distinctive features of these various relics of past ages may be of little interest to some readers: but the fact of their existence, and that they are the only remains of a race of human beings who passed away, possibly hundreds of years before the advent of the white man on the American continent, urges the effort to solve the mystery of the ancient people and their works. And from the great number and variety of stone implements found in Fulton county, one would suppose that this section was a favorite locality of that peculiar race; and that fact adds a local interest to what would otherwise be, perhaps. a dry subject. A nation doubtless arose and fell in the same region where now thrives an Anglo-Saxon civiliza- tion; and we, "who tread on the earth that lies over their brow," can obtain information concerning them only by a careful study of the implements and works they have left behind them. But the solu- tion of the problem has baffled the skill. research and learning of the most noted scientists of two continents, since the existence of these "works of human hands" was first determined. True, we have theo- ries, ably supported by argument, and these. in the absence of abso- lutely established facts, we must accept, weigh, adopt, or discard, and still remain in darkness as to the origin, mission and final destiny of the Mound Builders.
Judging by the works which they have left-and that is in accord 'with scriptural suggestion-they were a powerful race of slightly civilized and industrious people. The earth monuments only remain, these enclosing relics of rude art. together with the last lingering remains of mortality-the crumbling skeletons-which the curious investigators have disturbed in their resting places. But even these have yielded to scientific minds, strongly imaginative, some knowl-
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edge of the character and lives of the race. The Twentieth century dawned in almost as great ignorance of the prehistoric race as did the Nineteenth; yet in the ever restless spirit of modern investigation, efforts have been made to link the Mound Builders with some ancient and far distant race of civilized mankind.
As early as 1772, Rev. David Jones publicly noted the existence of the mounds and advanced his views concerning them. In 1784, Arthur . Lee wrote a treatise on the lost race and advanced some rather visionary ideas regarding it. But the first general survey of the works was made by Caleb Atwater of Circleville, O., in 1819, under the auspices and at the expense of the Archaeological Society of Worcester, Mass. About 1836, Dr. Edwin Hamilton Davis of Chiili- cothe, was employed with Col. Charles Whittlesey in explorations and surveys of the Newark antiquities. In this work Dr. Davis became greaty interested and continued his investigations and collec- tions ever afterward. Ephraim George Squier of New York, also became greatly interested in archaeological matters, and in 1846, he and Dr. Davis joined in the preparation of a work which formerly stood at the head of the archaeological literature of North America. Recognizing the merit of this work, the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., assumed a protectorate over it, and in 1848 pub- lished the work of Squier and Davis, together with some plans and notes furnished by others, under title of "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." This publication constituted the first systematic work with descriptions and figures of the numerous remains of the Mound Builders. From that day to the present, the Smithsonian Institution has continued to publish books and original papers relat- ing to this subject. Stimulated by this national recognition, and in view of the absorbing interest of the subject, many original investiga -. tors have published manuscripts and books at private expense, some of which are very elaborate and complete.
It is a noticeable feature of all the early publications in this depart- ment of archaeology that they attach great antiquity to the Mound Builders. The variations in this regard are also very great. Some assume that thousands of years have elapsed since the building of these ancient relics, and all agree that they are very old. Eminent authorities are as widely at variance regarding their antiquity as they are concerning their origin and purpose. In closing this chapter we present the views of a number of recognized authorities as tend- ing to show that the Mound Builders were, or may have been, the immediate predecessors of the Indians found here on the advent of the white man.
The Marquise de Nadaillac, in his admirable work on "Prehistoric America," published in 1895, and edited and verified by W. H. Dalle, sums up a voluminous discussion as follows : "What, it may be asked, are we to believe was the character of the race to which, for the pur- pose of clearness, we have for the time being applied the term, 'Mound Builders?' The answer must be, they were no more nor less than the immediate predecessors, in blood and culture, of the Indians
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described by DeSoto's chroniclers and other early explorers, the Indians who inhabited the region of the mounds at the time of their discovery by civilized men. As, in the far north, the Aleuts, up to the time of their discovery, were, by the testimony of the shell' heaps as well as their language, the direct successors of the early eskimo- so in the fertile basin of the Mississippi, the Indians were the builders, or the successors of the builders, of the singular and varied struc- tures attributed to the Mound Builders. It is here that a very differ- ent opinion has been widely entertained, chiefly by those who were not aware of the historical evidence. Even Mr. Squier, who, in his famous work on the ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley, makes no distinction in these remains, but speaks of the Mound Builders as an extinct race and contrasts their progress in the arts with the supposed low condition of the modern Indians, in a subse- quent publication felt compelled to modify his views and distinguish between the earthworks of western New York, which he admits to be of purely Indian origin, and those found in southern Ohio. Fur- ther researches have shown that no line can be drawn between the two; the differences are merely of degree. For the most part the objects found in them, from the rude knife to the carved and polished 'gorget,' might have been taken from the inmost recesses of a mound or picked up on the surface among the debris of a recent Indian village, and the most experienced archeologist could not decide which was their origin. Lucian Carr has recently reviewed the whole subject in a manner which cannot but carry conviction to the impatient archaeologist, but the conclusions he arrives at have the weight of other, and, as all will admit, most distinguished author- ity. It is not asserted that the mounds were built by any particular tribe, or at any particular period, nor that each and every tribe of the Mississippi valley erected such structures, nor that there were not differences of culture and proficiency in the arts between different tribes of Mound Builders, as between the tribes of modern Indians now known. All that can be claimed is that there is nothing in the mounds beyond the power of such people as inhabited the region when discovered; that those people are known to have constructed many of the mounds now, or recently existing, and that there is no evidence that any other, or different people, had any hand in the construction of those mounds in regard to which direct historical evidence is wanting. Summing up the results that have been attained, it may be safely said that, so far from there being any a priori reason why the red Indians could not have erected these works, the evidence shows, conclusively, that in New York and the Gulf states they did build mounds and embankments that are essentially of the same character as those found in Ohio."
Lucian Carr says: "In view of the fact that these same Indians are the only people, except the whites, who, so far as we know, have ever held the region over which these works are scattered, it is believed that we are fully justified in claiming that the mounds and enclosures of Ohio, like those in New York and the Gulf states, were the work of
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the red Indians of historic times, or of their immediate ancestors. To deny this conclusion, and to accept its alternative, ascribing these remains to a mythical people of a different civilization, is to reject a simple and satisfactory explanation of a fact in favor of one that is far-fetched and incomplete, and this is neither science nor logic."
We quote a few brief extracts from sayings of other eminent stu- dents and scholars, and leave the determination of the question to the patient reader :
"The earthworks differ less in kind than in degree from other remains respecting which history has not been entirely silent."- Haven.
"There is nothing, indeed, in the magnitude and structure of our western mounds which a semi-hunter and semi-agricultural popula- tion, like that which may be ascribed to the ancestors or Indian pre- decessors of the existing race, could not have executed."-School- craft.
"All these earth-works-and I am inclined to assert the same of the whole of those in the Atlantic states, and the majority in the Mississippi valley-were the production, not of some mythical tribe of high civilization in remote antiquity, but of the identical nations found by the whites residing in these regions."-Brinton.
"No doubt that they were erected by the forefathers of the present Indians."-Gen. Lewis Cass.
"Nothing in them which may not have been performed by a savage people."-Gallatin.
'The old idea that the Mound Builders were peoples distinct from, and other than, the Indians of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, and their progenitors, appears unfounded in fact and fanciful."-C. C. Jones.
"Mound Builders were tribes of American Indians of the same race with the tribes now living."-Judge M. F. Force.
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