The history of Hardin county, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1076

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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 cutting tools for wood, they were not sufficiently hard, and do not show such use, excepting a a few flint chisels. They may have been applied as coal scrapers where

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wood had been burned; but this could not have been a general thing with- out destroying the perfect edge most of them now exhibit. The grooved axes were much better adapted to this purpose.

Stone pestles are not plentiful in this portion of the State, while stone mortars are rare, indicating that they were made of wood, which is lighter and more easily transported. 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 turning 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.

There is almost an endless variety of perforated plates, thread-sizers, shuttles, etc. They are usually made of striped slate, most of which have tapering holes through them flatwise, 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 orna- mentation, as many of them may well have been worn suspended as beads or ornaments. Some partake of the character of badges or ensigns of authority, while others, if strung together on thongs or belts, would serve as a coat of mail, protecting 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, rawhide or sinew. The most common theory regarding their use is, however, lacking one important feature. None of them show signs of wear by use. The edges of the holes through them are sharp and perfect, and this objection applies equally well to their use as suspended ornaments. Some of them are shuttle form, through which coarse thread might have been passed for weaving rude cloth of bark or of fibrous plants. There are also double-ended and pointed ones, with a cross section, about the middle of which is a circle and through which is a perforation.

A great variety of wands or badges of distinction are found. They are nearly all fabricated from striped and variegated slate, highly finished, very symmetrical and elegant in proportion, evidently designed to be orna- mental. The material is compact 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, and the single crescent, perhaps, signified a rank next below the double. In the collection of John S. B. Matson, of Richland County, there is a rough-hewn double-crescent in process of construction, the horns of which turn inward, while in nearly or quite all the finished ones 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 in either is from two-fifths to 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

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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, apparently to insert a light wooden rod or staff. They were probably emblems of distinction but not ornaments, and as nothing like them is known among the modern tribes in form or use, they have been attributed to the Mound Builders.

In addition to stone ornaments, the pre-historic man seems to have had a penchant, like his savage successors, to bedaub his body with various col- ors, derived from different colored 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 appli- cation to the body. Such paint cups are not common in this State; in fact, they are quite rare, but one being known to exist-that in the collec- tion of Dr. Craig, of Mansfield, Richland County.

The comparative rarity of aboriginal smoking pipes is easily explained by the fact that they were not discarded as were weapons when those by whom they were fashioned entered upon the iron age. The advances of the whites in no way lessened the demand for pipes, nor did the whites substi- tute a better implement. The pipes were retained and used until worn out or broken, save the few that were buried with their dead owners, and what was the ultimate fate of these can only be conjectured. In very few instances does an Indian grave contain a pipe, and if the practice of bury- ing the pipe with its owner was a common one, it is probable that the . graves were opened and robbed of this coveted article by members of the same or some other tribe.

It only remains to notice the "flints," in addition to which a few other archeological 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. They are chiefly made of hard and brittle silicious mate- rials ; are easily damaged in hitting any object at which they are aimed, hence many of them bear marks of violent use. Perfect specimens are, however, by no means rare. The art of arrow-making survives to the pres- ent day among certain Indian tribes, from whom is learned the manner of producing them.

A classification of arrow-heads is rarely attempted by archaeologists, as 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 their manufacturers, and their number, we might say, is infinite. They may have been made by chipping-probably most of them were-and some may have been ground.

Spear-heads exhibit as large a variety as arrow-heads, and, like the lat- ter, 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 was to make these imple- ments, selling them to or exchanging them with their neighbors for wam-

A.M. Munsow, M. D.

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pum or peltries. When the Indian desired an arrow or spear 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's horn, from eight to sixteen inches in length, or of slender, short pieces of the same material, bound with sinews to wooden sticks resem- bling 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, with much ingenuity, until the flake assumed the desired form.

Dr. J. C. Banning, of Round Head, possesses the finest archaeological collection in Hardin County. He says : "I have fifty-four stone axes, some of them very large and highly polished; fifty-three stone wedges or fleshers ; twenty-four stone hammers ; sixty slate ornaments, pipes, badges and wands, with and without holes drilled through them ; six stone rubbers, pestles or pounders, and between three and four hundred arrow and spear points. One mortar found just east of the Scioto marsh is quite an im- portant specimen. I judge the stone would weigh nearly 800 pounds. The cavity will hold about half a gallon of corn, and the smaller end of the stone is fashioned into a kind of saddle or place to sit while pounding or grinding. Seated in this saddle, with one foot on each side of the mortar, it just fits an ordinary sized man. An important point developed in con- nection with this mortar, is that the people using it must have had per- manent places of abode, as the stone is too large to move without great difficulty. My collection was gathered principally in this county."

The territory embraced in Hardin County is not so distinctly or thickly dotted with the silent monuments of the pre-historic race, as those counties farther south in the Scioto and Miami Valleys; yet enough remained upon the coming of the whites to satisfy the antiquarian that it was once their place of abode. Thorough investigation has convinced us that all of the remains in this portion of Ohio may be classed under the head of Burial Mounds, and, with one exception, were of such small altitude that the aver- age pioneer regarded them as gravel banks or natural elevations. It is to be regretted that most of these way-marks of a forgotten people have been so completely obliterated by the agriculturist as to leave little or no trace of their location or size, therefore their history is forever buried in oblivion.

In the northwest corner of Lynn Township, south of the Scioto River, is located a burial mound, oblong in shape, 40x50 feet in diameter, and rising to a height of about five feet ere the destructive hand of iconoclasm began the leveling process. Different parties have dug into this mound from time to time. In 1880, Mrs. Collins, who lives close by, took therefrom a piece of silver- plated copper about the size of a man's hand, also several smaller specimens of the same metal, together with some flints, which were taken to Washing- ton, D. C., by Gen. J. S. Robinson, and presented to the Smithsonian Institution, to be preserved in its archæological collection. During the sum- mer of 1882, Prof. Palmer, of the same institution, in company with L. T. Hunt, of Kenton, Ohio, spent a couple of days investigating the pre-historic remains of Hardin County. He did some excavating in this mound and found evidences of fire, also a few specimens of stone implements, pottery, etc., which he thought worthy of preservation, and carried to Washington for the Smithsonian collection. Scattered throughout the county are numer-

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ous gravel banks, which were much used by the Indians as burial places, and these are apt to be erroneously called mounds, which they are not. In removing the gravel for the construction of roads, hundreds of human skel- etons have been exumed, with many Indian relics, comprising copper beads, stone beads, stone axes, fleshers, flint spear-heads and arrow-points, pick- shaped instruments, including perforated tubes, and flat, smoothly polished plates of a greenish-gray colored slate. These findings are common in every portion of the State, but, doubtless, belonged to the American Indians -the second race that dwelt in this land.

The only other mound of which we have been able to learn anything definite, was located in Hale Township, between Mount Victory and Ridge- way, on the line of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad, and opened in 1856, by John S. B. Matson, during the construc- tion of that road. This mound was regarded asone of the most remarkable in Ohio, and as Mr. Matson published the result of his investigations, we cannot do better than to give his description verbatim. He says : " I com- menced removing a gravel bank for the purpose of ballasting a part of the railroad. I learned shortly after my arrival that the bank was an ancient burial ground. This information caused me to examine the ground and note discoveries. Before I came, there had been a track graded and laid. This. track separated a short distance east of the mound, one track on the south the other on the north. The men who graded the track had taken the loam off where the track ran, and cast it out from the mound. We removed the gravel from both sides, moving the track up to the bank when it became dif- ficult to load. The loading was done on gravel cars, by men with shovels, and hauled out with an' engine. The average amount removed was about

220 cubic yards per day. About six weeks in the winter we had to sus- pend operations on account of the ground freezing.

" The mound covered an area of one and a half acres, being covered with an orchard of apple trees then in bearing. Several large stumps and a few trees of the original growth still remained thereon. I was informed by citizens of the vicinity that there had been a remarkably heavy growth of timber on the mound. The stumps remaining were large. The mound is what I would call double, the larger and higher part to the east. About two-thirds of the mound was embraced in this part. The eastern portion presented the appearance of a smaller hill having been pressed against the other, leaving a depression between them of three or four feet below the highest point of the smaller and five or six feet below a corresponding point of the larger. Both parts had the appearance of hav- ing had surface work done to give them a beautiful oval shape. The loam I found deepest on the highest points, where it is generally of less depth. The interior was composed of a clean limestone gravel and sand, evidently formed by decomposition of the strata, and very plainly marked. In the eastern or smaller part of the mound, was an excavation that had been made by citizens of the vicinity for sand for building purposes, in which excavation I learned a number of skeletons had been exhumed having beads and trinkets on, which were reported as being similar to those I afterward found, but I was unable to obtain any of them. A little south of the highest point of . the western mound was an excavation made by the railroad company for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of gravel, but no remains were found in it.

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" Shortly after commencing to load gravel, indications of graves were visible in three places-on both sides of the eastern portion and nearly north of the center of the larger or western part. At the last-named place, two skeletons, side by side, were found in a horizontal position, the feet point- ing east, which had, apparently, been deposited there without their heads, there being no evidence of skulls with them. I found a stone ax or celt of granite, two flint arrow-points, and an implement made of blue stone re- sembling slate, but much harder, the length of which I found to be two and three-fourth inches ; also a large, fresh water clam filled with red paint in good preservation. The flint implements had the appearance of never having been used, being very sharp pointed. These graves were about four feet deep, and the bones crumbled on exposure to the atmosphere.

"The first skeletons taken out of the eastern part of the mound were in better preservation, especially those on the south side. Several skulls were sound, and the other bones of some were so well preserved that, by apply- ing sole leather for ribs, they were wired together. With the first skeleton taken out of this part of the mound I found a thin piece of ivory with two small holes, evidently an ear ornament. Next was the skeleton of a little girl, who may have been eight or ten years old. The skull was in good preservation, and remains in my cabinet. She had a string of beads so made as to be larger in the center of the neck in front, tapering almost to a point at the back of the neck ; she also had a plate of copper on her neck. The lower maxillary and upper joints of the vertebra are yet green from its oxidation. The plate had two rows of dents a part of the way around. The dents look like an impression made on a board with the heel of a boot with tacks. The two last skeletons had been buried in a sitting posture. On the north side, nearly opposite the last-named skeletons, was a grave about four feet deep, in which the remains had been deposited and apparently burned. There were ashes and charcoal, with pieces of charred bones, one or two heads being entire. In the progress of the removal, I found the eastern or small part of the mound to be literally filled with graves. The modes of burial had been various, the depth of remains varying from two to nine feet, while there was a difference of posture in nearly every skeleton. I found that not less than ten or twelve dogs had also been buried-the human and canine side by side.

" One group of nine graves I was so impressed with, I will endeavor to be particularly explicit. The first had two skeletons, that of a male and female, side by side, there not being more than four inches of sand between them. Both had evidently been buried in one grave. The female was buried on her knees, both hands spread over her face, which was down- wards, and a string of conch shell beads around her neck. I found inside her ribs the remains of a fœtus. Her partner was buried horizontal, with face down ; both hands had been placed with their palms on the face, their heads toward the east. After tracing the bones with particular reference to their position and to save those skeletons which were best preserved, I took down the disturbed strata with my hands ; and at the head of the grave I found above the remains, and pointing down, the bones of the index finger, while at the foot of the grave, and at a corresponding height, the bones of a great toe, pointing in a similar manner. The balance of the group were buried some with face down, both hands over the face, others with one hand ;

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HISTORY OF HARDIN COUNTY.

some with face up, and both hands over the face; while another had one hand over the breast the other over the face. All this group had their heads to the east. On one of this group I found a string of copper beads, of which the metal had never been smelted, but evidently had been flaked from the native metal, and rolled around a twisted string, evidence of which was still visible in the beads, which were rude.

" On the north side of the eastern portion, under an oak tree stump (one hundred and fifty years old by growth), were the remains of the largest human bones I had ever seen. The joints of the vertebra seemed as large as those of a horse ! I think they did not indicate a taller form than some others ; but the bones were heavier than any in the mound. I have its inferior maxillary broken, but glued together, in my cabinet. The other bones were so decomposed that they were useless. I could not say as to the posture, as the stump brought down the grave, rendering it out of the ques- tion to note the position. Near the last-named skeleton, perhaps ten feet from it, we came across a grave that had been dug oblong almost six feet deep, three feet wide, and over seven feet long, which they had filled with human bones promiscuously, without regard to order, to the depth of four feet ; on these, in regular order, were placed twenty-seven skulls, with the top of the skulls up. They were about two feet below the surface; the bones so much broken, and I regret to say I did not examine them so par- ticularly as I should have done. One of the skulls had a small hole in it, and I learned afterward that a piece of the femur was found, when they were dumped on the road, having a flint dart fast in the bone.

" There was an implement or ornament found having one part like the head of a bird's neck, and shoulders like a horse, cut back of the shoulders, and turned up like the back part of a saddle seat ; the lower part being flat, with a hole drilled diagonally from the lower part of the neck of the base, with a corresponding hole in the back part. This implement was manu- factured of a blue stone resembling slate, but extremely hard. It is prob- able they had a battle, and after the flesh had decomposed they collected the bones and brought them to the mound for burial. I am sure from the posi- tions of the bones, they had not been interred with the flesh on. I found in this part of the mound the remains of at least fifty children, under the age of eight years, some with two, others with four incisors; some with eight, and others with no teeth. On the neck of one infant having two incisors, there was a string of conch shell beads of the largest size, one hun- dred and forty in number ; four of these beads were black, and were about three-fourths of an inch in diameter. The string would weigh one pound or more. Some of the graves had trinkets and beads made of clam shell ; some had bones of the deer, sharp-pointed, others had pieces of deer horns ; some had long-shaped beads around the wrists, I think of ivory. One had a conch shell plate, round, about five inches in diameter, with a hole in the center, half an inch in diameter, with two holes near the edge, for suspen- sion, with a string from the neck, like a breast-plate. Some had birds buried with them. One skeleton taken out of this part of the mound had the appearance of a very aged man ; the point of the inferior maxillary was almost in two parts, while the trachea was bone all around. Quite a number showed indications of extreme age, seven or eight that I observed had bone tracheas.

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" I now return to the western or larger portion of the mound. This part was removed as fast as the former. I soon discovered there were two rows of graves leading direct from the two first mentioned, containing the flint implements, paint, etc., toward the center, each pair having been dug deeper as they approached the center of the mound. Those with the stone axe, paint and flint implements were four feet deep, the depth of each pair increasing about a foot in regular gradation till the last pair, which was as near the center and highest point of the mound as I could calculate, being eighteen feet. The pair next to those with the ax, paint and flint imple- ments were in a sitting posture, as were all in these two files, except the first two. On the head of one of the second pair was a conch shell plate, re- sembling in shape the sole of a moccasin, nine inches in length and three and a half inches greatest breadth. This plate had three holes in it toward the wider end, and it was placed on the top of the head, with the larger end back. Two other skeletons of these two files had similar plates, differing only in size, the smaller being about half the size of the larger. Several implements of stone were found, all differing in shape. They were of stone resembling slate, but much harder.

One of them is three inches long by one and a half broad, in form of a shield, with two holes through it flatwise.

" Farmers picked up some implements in a field adjoining the mound. One given me by Judge Baldwin is a flat stone of slate, with a transverse hole, that I supposed belonged to the same race. As we approached the center of the mound, the graves getting deeper, the bones were much better preserved. Several bodies in decomposition had formed a cement that would have preserved them an almost incalculable length of time. In fact, when first taken out of the cement they had the appearance of bones just dissected, being nearly one-third heavier than those without cement. The four last deepest skeletons all had beads on, some of them quite small, the smallest not as large as a pea. Some were made of clam shells, but mostly of conch or sea shells. Those of clam were so decomposed that they fell to pieces. Three of these skeletons had beads only around the neck, the fourth, being the last one taken out, and the file leader of the two deepest, had, I should think, nearly thirty yards of beads, having four wraps around the neck crossed over the breast and back, passing down between his legs ; strings down his legs to the feet ; also strings along his arms and around his wrists. This remains presented the appearance of being decorated all over. He had no other ornaments or implements that I could find. Near the south side of the western part of the mound, near one of the forest trees, I found the remains of a human being that seemed to be detached from all the rest. I thought, perhaps, he was an Indian of one of the late tribes, who had been buried, probably, on some hunting expedition. There was a piece of deer horn with him that had the appearance of having been the

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The history of Hardin county, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1076

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1076