USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 13
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In an article on "Pre-historic Man in America," published in The Forum in January, 1890, Maj. J. W. Powell (previously mentioned) said :
"Widely scattered throughout the United States, from sea to sea, artificial mounds are discovered which may be enumerated by the thousands or hundreds of thousands .* They vary greatly in size ; some are so small that a half-dozen laborers with shovels might construct one of them in a day, while others cover acres and are scores of feet in height. These mounds were observed by the earliest explorers and pioneers of the country .; They did not attract great attention, however, until the science of archaeology demanded their investigation. Then they were assumed to furnish evidence of a race of people older than the Indian tribes."
* It may be noted here that there were Mound-builders in Siberia at a very early day. Bell, in his "Journey from Petersburg to Pekin," gives an account of mounds that he saw in the year 1720 (when making a trans-Siberian journey with a Russian embassy to the Court of China), and which he considered the tombs of ancient heroes. The author says (Vol. I, page 253) : "Many persons go from Tomsk [a city in southern-central Siberia] and other parts every Summer to these graves, which they dig up, and find among the ashes of the dead considerable quantities of gold, silver, brass and some precious stones ; but particularly hilts of swords and armor. They find, also, ornaments of saddles and bridles, and other trappings for horses; and even the bones of horses, and sometimes those of elephants. Whence it appears that, when any person or general of distinction was interred, all his arms, his favorite horse and servant were buried with him in the same grave. This custom prevails to this day among the Kalmuks and other Tartars, and seems to be of great antiquity."
¡ The Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee and other southern tribes of Indians, occupying what we now call the "Gulf States," were first visited by Fernando de Soto in 1540, on his famous expedition when he dis- covered the Mississippi. The narratives of his explorations represent these Indians as cultivating extensive fields of corn, living in well-fortified towns-their houses erected on artificial mounds, and the villages having defenses of embankments of earth. These statements are verified by existing remains.
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No other part of the United States has proved such a treasure-house of relics of pre-historic man and the Mound-builders- "whose vast earthworks are still, after a century of study, the perplexity of archæologists"- as south- ern Ohio ; and of this ter- ritory the Scioto Valley has been probably the richest area. Many archæ- Group of Mounds (circa 1840) on the left bank of the Scioto River, six miles south-east of Chillicothe, Ohio. ologists and anthropolo- gists (including Dr. Brinton previously mentioned) favor the theory that the Mound-builders of Ohio were of the same race as the Choctaws, Cherokees and other southern Indian tribes, and were probably their ancestors. The existing remains of the southern tribes referred to certainly compare favorably in size and construction with those left by the mysterious Ohio race, or tribes .* It is clear, also, that the latter had much in common with those well-known tribes of Indians, the Mandans, Onondagas and Oneidas, in their way of disposing and pro- tecting their homes.
Some writers have claimed for the Mound-builders of the Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys an existence dating fully one thousand years ago ; while others have regarded them as a race so remote from the present Indian tribes that there could be nothing in common between them. Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, however, in his comparative study of North American Indian life, published in 1901 under the title "The North Americans of Yesterday," says that the Mound-builders "were only Amerinds whose development took a form that was impressive and lasting." And, to quote further from the Forum article of Maj. Powell :
"It is enough to say that the Mound-builders were the Indian tribes discovered by white men. It may well be that some of the mounds were erected by tribes extinct when Columbus first saw these shores, but they were kindred in culture to the peoples that still existed. * * * No ruin has been discovered where evidences of a higher culture are found then exists in modern times at Zuñi, Oraibi or Laguna. The earliest may have been built thousands of years ago, but they were built by the ancestors of existing tribes and their congeners."
Squier, previously mentioned (on page 93), wrote as follows in 1860 concerning the Mound-builders of Ohiot :
"They must have been a numerous, stationary and agricultural people ; for a nomadic population would never rear works so extensive, systematic and manifestly of permanent intention ; and a population so large as to afford the labor for their construc- tion could not subsist on the precarious and scanty returns of the chase. And if the Mound-builders were a numerous, stationary and agricultural people, it follows almost of necessity that their customs, laws and religion had assumed a fixed and well-defined form. * * * In all these [mentioned] respects their works show them to have been far in advance of the tribes found in occupation of the country at the time of the Dis- covery. But there is no evidence that their condition was anything more than an approximation to that attained by the ancient Mexicans, Central Americans and Peruvians. * ** *
"As regards the antiquity of the works of the Mississippi Valley, nothing can be affirmed with exactness. That many of them are very ancient, dating back by
* See page 100.
+ See "Ancient Monuments in the United States," Harper's Magazine, XXI : 177 (July, 1860).
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thousands of years, seems to be fairly deducible from a variety of circumstances. Not only are they covered by primitive forests of trees, some of which have an antiquity of from 600 to 800 years, but even these forests appear to stand on the debris of others equally venerable, which preceded them, since the era of the mounds."
Gerard Fowke, of Chillicothe, Ohio, an archæologist of experience and standing, has recently said* :
"So far as has yet been discovered, the Mound-builders could not build a stone wall that would stand up. In the absence of springs or streams they could procure water only by excavating a shallow pond ; they could not even wall up a spring when one was convenient. They left not one stone used in building that shows any mark of a dressing tool. Their mounds and embankments were built by bringing loads of earth, never larger than one person could easily carry, in baskets or skins, as is proved by the hundreds of lens-shaped masses observable in the larger mounds. They had not the slightest knowledge of the economic use of metals-treating what little they had as a sort of malleable stone ; even galena, which it seems impossible they could have used without discovering its low melting point, was always worked, if worked at all, as a piece of slate or other ornamental stone would be.
"They left nothing to indicate that any system of written language existed among them, the few 'hieroglyphics' on the 'inscribed tablets' having no more significance than the modern carving by a boy on the smooth bark of the beech, or else being deliberate frauds-generally the latter in the case of the more elaborate specimens. They had not a single beast of burden, unless we accept the 'proof' offered by a New York author that they harnessed up mastodons and worked them. Beyond.peddling from tribe to tribe a few ornaments or other small articles that a man could easily carry, or transport in a
canoe, they had no trade or commerce. * * Again it is stated that 'the great magnitude of the works show a numerous population distributed over a wide area, but all subject to one great central power, with kings and chiefs and high priests and laws and established religious systems and despotic power and servile obedience.' If the assump- tion upon which all this is based were correct-namely, that the various works scattered through the Mississippi Valley were occupied at one time by one people-there would be some probability of its truth ; but the little that is definitely known points the other way- to distinct races of Mound-builders at widely separated periods of time."
Nearly all the large mounds in Ohio have been carefully explored by archæologists and others. The last one to be opened and leveled to the ground was known as "the Great Adena Mound," and was situated just north of Chillicothe. It was one of the largest known in Ohio, being originally twenty-six feet in height and 175 feet in diameter, and was located on the estate purchased over a hundred years ago by Gov. Thomas Worthington of Ohio. In 1809 Jacob Cist of Wilkes-Barré visited this mound and made a drawing of its outlines, or ground-plan, which, together with a brief description of the same written by Mr. Cist, was published under the title, "Ruins of an Ancient Work on the Scioto," in the November, 1809, number of The Portfolio. Neither Governor Worthington nor any of his descendants would ever allow this mound to be disturbed ; but a few years ago the property passed out of the family's hands, and its exploration was at once arranged for by the Ohio State Historical and Archæological Society.
The work of removing the earth composing this mound occupied a force of laborers for several weeks in the Summer of 1901; but the operations were rich in results. Twenty-four skeletons were exhumed, together with numberless implements and ornaments of rare workinan- ship. Perhaps the most interesting find in the entire mound was almost at the exact center of the base. Here a carefully constructed mauso- leum of logs was found, and in it the skeleton of an adult in a fine state of preservation. It was evidently that of the chieftan in whose honor the mound was begun, for with the skeleton were found a necklace made of bears' claws, a number of awls and spear heads of slate and horn, and a remarkable pipe eight inches in length and beautifully
* See the New York Tribune, December 20, 1903.
*
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carved. Two other large mausoleums had been constructed on the base line a short distance from the center. In one of these was found the body of a child, about twelve years old. About the loins had been wrapped bands of cloth, much of which was, when discovered, still in fine condition ; and then, over all, was wound sheet after sheet of birch bark, held in place by splints of wood. The third mausoleumn was V-shaped, and in this was found the skeleton of an adult that had on its arms a number of bracelets of beaten copper. Lying on the arın bones was a long, narrow gorget, held to the arm by one of the bracelets. Over the head of the skeleton of a child was a curious head- dress made of strips of mica about an inch in width, perforated at the ends with small holes. The mica composing this is believed to have been brought from North Carolina, as in that State is the nearest known locality where the same grade of mica is found.
The most unique of the many remarkable Ohio mounds with which archæologists, early and recent, have been familiar, is the one known everywhere as the "Serpent Mound." It is located in what for the past sixteen years has been called Serpent Mound Park, in Adams County, on the southern border of Ohio. This park is owned and carefully con- served by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Along the eastern bank of Brush Creek-the western boundary of the park-a huge serpent, formed of yellow clay, stretches in graceful folds. It measures 1,254 feet in length, from four to five feet in height, with an average width of twenty feet. In front of its wide-extended jaws lies an oval mound, called "the egg," its major axis being one hundred and twenty feet and its minor axis sixty feet in length. The whole structure presents a strange and weird appearance -fairly indicated by the accompanying illustration, reproduced from The Four-Track News (New York) of January, 1904, by courtesy of the publisher.
Nearly fifty years ago E. G. Squier wrote* of this mound :
"It is unquestionably, in many respects, the most extraordinary and interesting
monument of antiquity yet discovered in the United States. *
* * It cannot be supposed to be the offspring of an idle fancy or a savage whim. In its position, and the harmony and elaboration of structure, it bears the evidences of design ; and it seems to have been begun and finished in accordance with a matured plan, and not to have been the result of successive and unmeaning combinations."
* In "Ancient Monuments in the United States."
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For a very full and interesting account (with many illustrations) of the "Serpent Mound," and other pre-historic remains in the Ohio Valley, the reader is referred to two articles by Prof. F. W. Putnam (previously mentioned) in The Century Magazine, XVII: 698, 871 (March and April, 1890).
The oldest tribe or nation of Indians within the present limits of the United States (excluding Alaska and the Island possessions), of which there is a distinct tradition, was the Alleghan, Allegewi or Tal- ligewi. Its name is perpetuated in that of the principal mountain- chain or system traversing the country-the Allegheny. This "semi- civilized" tribe, or, perhaps, confederacy, had the seat of its power, at a very early period, in the valley of the Ohio River and its confluent streams, and there are evidences that the ancient Alleghans and their allies and confederates lived in fixed towns, cultivated the soil and, without much doubt, were the Mound-builders. According to Indian tradition the Alleghans, driven from their ancient seats by a combina- tion against them of the Lenni Lenâpés (Delawares) and the Mengwes, or Mingoes (Iroquois), fled southward.'
"About the period 1500-1600 those related tribes whom we now know by the name of Algonkins [or Algonquins] occupied the Atlantic coast from the Savannah River on the south to the Strait of Belle Isle on the north. The whole of Newfoundland was in their possession ; in Labrador they were neighbors to the Eskimos; their northernmost branch dwelt along the southern shores of Hudson Bay, and followed the streams which flow into it from the west. East of the Alleghenies, in the valleys of the Delaware, the Potomac and the Hud- son, over the barren hills of New England and Nova Scotia, and throughout the swamps and forests of Virginia and the Carolinas, their osier cabins and palisadoed strongholds, their maize fields and workshops of stone implements were numerously located."t
There has been some difficulty in properly locating the tribe from which the Algonkin family has taken its name, but it is generally believed that it had its seat somewhere in Canada, between the St. Lawrence River and Hudson Bay. Tradition points to that region, and there the language of the Algonkin stock is found in its purest and most archaic form. The majority of the members of this original tribe apparently divided at a very early day into two branches, the one follow- ing the Atlantic coast southward, and the other the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes westward At the period previously mentioned (1500- 1600) the Algonkins composed the largest family of North American Indians, and the area occupied by them was more extensive than that of any other linguistic stock. In New England they were known as Abnakis, Pequots, Narragansetts, etc .; on the Hudson, as Mahikans, Mohicans or Mohegans ; on the Delaware, as Lenni Lenâpés ; in Mary- land, as Nanticokes ; in Virginia, as Powhatans, while the most southern representatives of this family, or stock, were the Shawanoes, Shawanese or Shawnees, who once lived on the Tennessee River, and were closely related to the Mahikans of New York.
* See pages 97 and 102 ; also, Heckewelder's "Tradition of the Lenâpé Migration," in "Pennsylvania- Colonial and Federal," I : 27.
+ Daniel G. Brinton, in "The Lenâpé and their Legends" (1885).
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Most of the tribes mentioned were agricultural, raising ınaize, beans, squashes and tobacco; but they were nomadic-shifting fromn place to place as the hunting and fishing, upon which they chiefly depended, required-although during the greater part of the year they occupied fixed residences in villages or towns. "They were," says Brinton, "skillful in chipping and polishing stone, and they had a definite, even rigid, social organization. Their mythology was extensive, and its legends, as well as the history of their ancestors, were retained in memory by a system of ideographic writing, of which a number of specimens have been preserved. Their intellectual capacities were strong, and the distinguished characters that arose among them displayed in their dealings of war or peace with the Europeans an ability, a bravery and a sense of right on a par with the famed heroes of antiquity." Schoolcraft says* : "The Algonquin language has been more culti- vated than any of the North American tongues. Containing no sounds of difficult utterance, capable of an easy and clear expression, and with a copious vocabulary, it has been the favorite medium of communica- tion on the frontiers from the earliest times. The French at an early period made themselves masters of it; and, from its general use, it has been sometimes called the court language of the Indian. In its various ethnological forms, as spoken by the Delaware, Mohican, Shawnee
* and by many other tribes, it has been familiar to the English colonists from the respective eras of the settlement of Virginia, New York and New England." Etymologists tell us that there are 131 words of Algonkin derivation in the English language-incorporated therein before the Algonkins were compelled to "move on" from their ancient territory towards the setting sun. Some of these words are: "Chip- munk," "hickory," "hominy,""menhaden," "moccasin," "moose," "mug- wump," "musquash," "pemmican," "persimmon," "pappoose," "pone," "porgy," "'possum," "powwow," "raccoon," "samp," "skunk," "squash," "squaw," "succotash," "Tammany," "tautog," "terrapin," "toboggan," "tomahawk," "totem," "wigwam," "woodchuck."
All the Algonkin tribes who dwelt north of the Potomac, on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, and in the basins of the Delaware and Hudson rivers, claimed near kinship and an identical origin, and were at times united into a loose, defensive confederacy. The members of this confederacy were: (1) the Mahikans, or Mohegans (sometimes called "River Indians"), of the Hudson, who occupied the valley of that river to the falls above the present city of Albany, and were the most northern tribe of the Algonkin family in New York, but who finally (about 1630) retired over the Highlands east of them into the valley of the Housatonict ; (2) the various New Jersey tribes-Sankhikans, Rari- tans, Hackinsacks, Navisinks and others, some of whom were branches, clans or sub-tribes of the great Lenâpé tribet ; (3) the Lenâpés proper, or Lenni Lenâpés, or Delawares, on the Delaware River and its branches ; (4) the Nanticokes, occupying all the territory between Chesapeake
*"History of the Indian Tribes of the United States" (edition of 1857), page 673.
t "Evidently, most of the tribes of Massachusetts and Connecticut were comparatively recent offshoots of the parent stem on the Hudson-supposing the course of migration had been eastward."-Brinton.
į Many families of this tribe chose to live by themselves, fixing their abodes in villages and taking a name from their location. Each of these bands had a chief, who, however, was in a measure subordinate to the chief of one of the sub-tribes or to the head-chief of the tribe. See page 103, post ; also, Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, Second Series, V : 81.
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Bay and the Atlantic Ocean except the southern extremity, which appears to have been under the control of the Powhatan tribe of Vir- ginia ; (5) the small tribe called the Conoys, Kanawhas or Ganaweses, whose towns were on the tributaries of the Potomac and Patuxent rivers.
Of all the Algonkin stock the Delawares were for many genera- ations the most numerous and powerful. The proper tribal name of these Indians was and is Lenâpé ("â" as in far, "é" as "a" in mate). They called themselves Lenni Lenâpé, meaning "true, or manly, men."* Heckewelder, t in one of his books, states that he well remembers "when they thought the whites had given them the name of 'Delawares' in derision ; but they were reconciled to it on being told that it was the name of a great white chief, Lord de La Warre. As they are fond of being named after distinguished men, they were rather pleased, consider- ing it as a compliment." According to their tradition, as preserved in the writings of Heckewelder, they resided at a very early day in a far western part of the American continent. Having determined to migrate eastward, they set forth in a body on a journey that lasted several years. In due time they came to the river now known as the Mississippi, where they fell in with the Mengwes (later known as the Iroquois), who had likewise migrated from a distant region. It was then that the Lenâpés and Mengwes combined to make war, successfully, on the Alleghans-as previously mentioned. This war lasted many years, during which the Lenâpés lost a great number of their warriors. Event- ually, the conquerors divided the country between themselves-the Mengwes making choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great lakes, and on their tributary streams, and the Lenâpés taking possession of the country to the south. The two nations resided peaceably in this country for a long period of time, when some of the most enterprising huntsmen and warriors of the Lenâpés journeyed to and crossed the swamps and mountains far to the eastward, and continued to advance until they had come to the shore of the ocean. Then they discovered the great rivers, many years later named the Delaware, Hudson, Susque- hanna and Potomac. After a long absence these explorers returned to their nation and reported what they had seen ; whereupon the Lenapés. began to emigrate to the new territory, but at first only in small bands. They settled along the rivers mentioned, making the Delaware the. center of their possessions.
At a much later date, according to the traditions common to all the Algonkin tribes, special dignity and authority were assigned the Lenâpés. Forty tribes, it is said, looked up to them with respect, and they took first place as the "grandfathers" of the family, while the other tribes were called "children," "nephews" and "grandchildren." A Lenâpé traditiont sets forth that, many hundred years before white.men came to America, a treaty of friendship was made by the Lenâpés with other Indian nations, and in memory of this event there was presented to the chief of the Lenâpés a wampum belt with a copper heart in the center of it. This remarkable belt was seen and acknowledged by
* See "Report on Indians in the United States at the Eleventh Census," page 297 ; "Transactions of the Buffalo (N Y.) Historical Society," III : 102, 103; Schoolcraft's "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," page 177.
+ See pages 42, 81 and 100, ante.
į See "Report on Indians in the United States at the Eleventh Census," page 298.
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William Penn, afterwards by various British generals, later by General Washington, and from that time down to about the year 1841 by every Indian tribe in the North and East. It was understood to be still in existence as late as 1858. In presenting this belt at a grand council the Lenâpé chief would always hold it out and ask if any one could detect any change in the heart. Thereupon it would be passed from one chief to another and from one brave to another, and then returned, and each chief would respond that the heart had remained unchange- able and true ; although the sinews that held the wampum might have become rotten from age and had to be replaced with new ones, and although a wampum might have fallen off-whereby a figure in the belt was changed-the heart was always just the same. After exhorting for a time on the subject they would renew their bonds of friendship, smoke the pipe of peace and depart.
When first discovered by the whites the Lenâpés were living on the ·banks of the Delaware in detached bands under separate sachems. On a map published at Amsterdam in 1659 they are represented as occupy- ing the valley of the Delaware from its source to its mouth, extending westward to the Minquas, or Susquehannocks,* and eastward, under the names of various local and totemic clans or bands, f across the entire area of New Jersey to the Hudson. The nation was divided into three sub-tribes or clans, as follows: (1) The Minsi, Munsee, Monsey or Minisink, "the People of the Stony Lands," whose totemic device was the Wolf ; (2) the Unami, Wonamey or Wanamie, "the Down-river People," whose totemnic device was the Turtle, or Tortoise ; (3) the Unalachtigo, "the Tide-water People," whose totemic device was the Turkey.
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