USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > History of Erie County, Pennsylvania, Volume One > Part 4
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Thus much for the paleolithic and the neolithic age of mankind here. Now what can we say for those who apparently came next after those ancient dwellers in the land? And again we must turn to the story as it is found written in the works which mankind constructed in that period, and which have as yet not perished from the earth.
It is well known that a peculiar people, usually styled "The Mys- terious People", once inhabited the interior portions of North America, including Tennessee, Ohio, western Pennsylvania and western New York.
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Where these people came from, who and what they were, and last, but far from least, what finally became of them, is yet, and is likely to long remain, one of the great, unsolved mysteries of the world. It is likely to rival the age old inquiry as to the fate of "The Lost Ten Tribes". All that we are likely to know about these people is from what we can learn from the great earthen banks, mounds, hut rings, game drives, temple mounds, observatory mounds, burial mounds, forts, and other forms of construction. These are so sufficiently numerous and largely well pre- served as to afford us plenty of food for contemplation and reflection. Many of the "works" of this mysterious people are found widely scat- tered; but by far the most numerous is to be found in the Mississippi River basin, and up the valleys of its tributary rivers. It is conjectured that these people utilized those great water ways as highways of com- munication, and that they confined their activities to a territory on either side of those great streams within convenient distance for ready com- munication. The works which are found within this central portion of our land, are distinctive of this people; for while east of the Allegheny Mountains may be found some earth-works such as stockades, village enclosures and fortified enclosures, and in the far west there are rock fortresses, stone structures and pueblos, nowhere else can be found such vast numbers of them, and in such great variety of purpose-so massive, solid, and of such peculiar forms. In these particulars these works are certainly characteristic, and identify these as a distinctive people; and wherever, within their territory, a structure may have been erected by some later race of men, it may readily be noted as such because of the absence of the qualities which mark those erected by the Mound-builders. Dr. Peet presents a descriptive account of the habitat of those people which is well worth reproducing here. He says "We take the picture presented by this valley and find it strikingly adapted to the use of a class of people who were partially civilized. On either side are the high mountains, constituting barriers to their great domain. At the foot of the western mountains are the plateaus or table-lands, which have formed from time immemorial the feeding places for the great herds of buffaloes. In the northern portion of the valley, bordering upon the chain of the great lakes, are great forests abounding in wild animals of all kinds, which must have been the hunting grounds of this obscure people. The center was traversed by the Appalachian range, which was the fit abode for a military class of people. Along the lines of the great streams were the
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many terraces, forming sites upon which the people could build their villages, and yet have access to the waters which flowed at their base. Many of these terraces were formed by the gravel beds left by the great glacial sea which once rested upon the northern portion of the valley. Below the terraces, and all along the borders of the rivers, were the rich alluvial bottom lands which so favored the cultivation of maize and yielded rich return to a slight amount of labor. Broad prairies interspersed with forests and groves, and traversed with numberless streams gave variety to the scene. It was a region built on a grand scale and was capable of supporting a numerous and industrious population. We may suppose that the Mound-builders when they entered it, were influenced by their sur- roundings, and that they soon learned its resources. We cannot look upon them as merely hunters or wild savages, but a people who were capable of filling this broad domain with a life peculiar to themselves, and yet were correllated to the scene in which they were placed. Here, with a diversity of climate and an abundance of products, the people led a varied life. They were to gain their subsistence from the great forests and from the wide prairies, and were to fill them with their activities. A river system which, for thousands of miles, drained the interior, furnished the channels for communication, and was evidently well understood by this people. A vast sedimentary basin, through which the rivers have worn deep channels, leaving table-lands, cut by a thousand ravines, and presenting bluffs, head-lands, high hills, narrow isthmuses, detached, island-like cliffs, in some cases difficult of access, furnished many places on which this people could build their defenses, covering them with com- plicated works resembling the citadels of the Old World, beneath which they could place their villages and dwell in safety."
These great earth works may be briefly described as follows. Both the number and the greatness of these works challenge our amazement. Many thousands of the burial mounds and some 1,500 enclosures, have been discovered in Ohio alone. One embankment extends for a distance of 20 miles. Some of the earthen walls are 30 feet high, and encircle a space of from 50 to 400 acres for their fortifications. Pyramids 100 feet high which cover a plot of 16 acres are found, and these divided some- times into wide terraces 300 feet long and 50 feet wide, were used to build their great houses upon. Other great mounds were used as lookout sta- tions, and were 50, 60 and even 100 feet in height. In some parts of their territory they had constructed great game drives, into which the hunted
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game was driven, and where it could be retained until wanted. These consisted of earth banks thrown up in great encircling lines, from which extended other earth banks, usually in straight lines on either side of a narrow space which formed a lane as it were, connecting with guiding banks which reached out still farther to guide the game towards the central enclosure, or pound. In some places were hundreds of acres laid out in curious patterns as garden beds; other works were in the forms of circles, some of which were used as fort-rings, hut-rings, village-circles, dance-circles, lodge-circles, and all being more or less interspersed with mounds adapted, some to worship and religious rites, others to look-out stations, building-sites for their great houses, burial places, and other purposes ; while other mounds were in the form of great and small pyra- mids, some of which were terraced in peculiar manners; still others were effigy mounds, constructed in the forms of elephants, bears, elk and moose depicted as feeding; panthers and wolves as fighting; wild ducks, geese, hawks, eagles, swallows and pigeons as flying; foxes, squirrels, raccoons, as running; fish and turtles as swimming; lizards, snakes, eels and tad- poles as crawling; and all so arranged and placed as to be appropriate to their various surroundings. They portray a most vivid picture of the animal and bird life of the region as it then existed. But these mounds are found almost exclusively in the region west of Lake Michigan and east of the Mississippi. And still further it must be observed that very few, if any, animals of any other region are found amongst these effigies. The game-drives are largely to be found in and near by Wisconsin. The district within which are found the greater number of burial-mounds is that large territory comprising the present states of Indiana, Illinois (especially the northern portion), all of Minnesota, Dakota and Iowa, parts of Kansas and Missouri. Within these burial-mounds have been found the remains of the dead, and with them a great variety of relics such as pipes in the forms of beavers, otters, lizards, turtles, prairie-dogs, raccoons, panthers, prairie-chickens, frogs, and other small animals, a few being in the forms of the mammoth, the mastodon or the elephant. Many spear-heads, arrow-heads, knives, needles, awls, axes or celts, and sometimes fabrics of some material which had been woven and may have been used in the clothing of the people, have also been found within these burial mounds. Another, or third, region occupied by them contains the more war-like works, such as military and defensive constructions. This region is embraced within western New York, Pennsylvania, and West
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Virginia. The region along the south shore of Lake Erie, and west into Michigan, is within this section.
A fourth region, located in the valley of the Ohio, may be termed the region of "Village Enclosures", or as sometimes termed "Sacred En- closures". This region was apparently devoted to the more peaceful pur- suits of agriculture, and the earth constructions are in the forms of the square and two circles adjoined. These village-enclosures were usually situated upon the wide second terraces, from whence a clear view of the great, rich bottom lands could be had; while upon the hills near by were constructed the conical mounds, evidently used as look-out stations. Many forts of ancient construction, placed where they could be used for military stations or as places of convenient refuge, are to be found distributed throughout this region. In addition to those works there are also, within this region, enclosures which surround groups of burial mounds. These burial mounds often contain altars whereon were deposited great quanti- ties of costly offerings, such as mica plates, arrow-heads, carved pipes, articles made from pearl, and many prized personal ornaments. In this same territory are a number of pyramids of truncated form, with ways graded up to the summit platforms, which have come to be denominated "temple mounds", in the belief that they had been used as places for assemblages for religious ceremonies. Within one such enclosure are three such platform pyramids, and from the enclosure down to the edge of the water extends two high banks with a graded road-way between them sloping upwards into the enclosure, and with a high lookout mound surrounded by a circle having a ditch within the circle, at one end of this group.
Another region, along the Atlantic coast, wherein the mounds are conical, within circular enclosures, are found in the Kenawha valley; the very interesting "grave-pits" which contain stone cists shaped similar to bee-hives of the olden time, are found in North Carolina. Innumerable shell-mounds are found throughout the southern portion of the Atlantic coast district, and some of the conical mounds in this district appear to have been the foundations of rotundas, posts having been found set in them. A peculiar construction is found south of the Ohio River, between it and the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, where the country is quite mountainous, and the ancient people might with propriety be called the Mountain Mound-builders. Their works consist of fortified erections, but with this significant difference from those farther north, that they appear
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to have been both fortification and village enclosures, as they provided for the means of defense and also for permanent residences within the same enclosures. Those north of the Ohio are sometimes double, and sometimes even triple enclosures; while these south of the Ohio are always single. These latter are in situations well chosen for defensive purposes, but within them are to be found burial, domicilliary and pyra- midal mounds, thus indicating that they were used also as places of per- manent residence, and very evidently for long periods of time. Here also are found the stone graves which are characteristic of this region, al- though they are to be observed in other localities as well. Another char- acteristic region is one located adjoining this last, where the lands are uniformly low and swampy, with sandy ridges interspersed; and where the waters often overflow the country. It might be called the region of Lodge Circles, as these are peculiarly plenty in this region. Here, too, are found large quantities of pottery, showing that those who dwelt here were largely engaged in the making of it. This pottery resembles that found in the stone graves near the great Cahokia Mound in the vicinity of St. Louis, and is practically conceded to have been made by Natchez Indian tribes who formerly inhabited that section. The Chickasaws and Choctaws also dwelt in that region, and may have had a part in its making.
All of this leaves the original query as to who and what these ancient peoples who preceded the time of the native Indians on this continent were. We have been as yet unable to identify either their origin, or their fate. Neither is it at all determined as to where they came from, if indeed they did not have their origin here. But it is very possible that during the ages since man became a native of this planet, that many, many types and races of people have lived in this land, one type succeed- ing another in almost endless variety, and race after race succumbing in its turn through military defeat, epidemics, absorption into other peoples, or otherwise, until we had the final successors in the Indians who gave way to the advent of our own white race.
From what has been learned of the so-called Mound-builders, we believe that there must have been many epochs during which they per- sisted here. We are also assured from the works and relics remaining of them, that there must have been many classes or types of them, some existing in one locality, others in other places, within the country. Then, too, there seems to have been different types of them in successive epochs or ages; so that the Mound-builders cannot be considered as being a dis- (6)
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tinct and single type of people, but the name is used by scholars to apply to those peoples, of whatever character, who lived within our country, especially the middle, northern and eastern portions of it, during the interval of time when earth works were constructed and used. This interval of time is properly called "The Mound Builders' Age", and it bears just as distinctive features as did the Paleolithic Age, or the Neo- lithic Age, each of which had its period in this land, and also including our own county. The definitive limits for each of these three various ages, cannot, of course, be certainly determined as yet. Just how many thousands or hundreds of years were covered by either, or each, of them is unknown; likewise the year with which each, or either of them opened, or closed, is as yet wholly unknown to us; but it is considered certain that each one of those ages consumed long periods of time during which humanity must have made scarcely perceptible progress towards enlight- enment and advanced ways of living.
The Paleolithic Age in this country is of course marked by relics of the most crude and primitive type, showing little or no effort on the part of pre-historic man to shape or improve the stones which he picked up. It is also typified by the remains and relics of man found in conjunction with the remains of certain extinct animals, the megatherium, then the mastodon, and later the remains of the now almost extinct buffalo, are typical of the Paleolithic, then the Neolithic, and the later Mound-build- ing, Ages. But it is also true that there is no finely drawn line separating the various ages ; but each age ran into its succeeding period; and each succeeding period had birth within the period which preceded it. Each age had need of a period of development, in order to achieve its charac- teristic type. And we must consider that the Mound-builders' Age, is really identified with the Neolithic Age, or at least of the latter portion of that period.
It is believed that the Mound-builders were familiar with, used and somewhat developed "the copper mines of Lake Superior; the salt mines of Illinois and Kentucky; the garden beds of Michigan; the pipe-stone quarries of Minnesota; the extensive potteries of Missouri; the stone graves of Illinois ; the work-shops, the stone cairns, the stone walls, the ancient roadways, and the old walled towns of Georgia; the hut-rings of Arkansas; the shelter-caves of Tennessee and Ohio; the mica mines of South Carolina; the quarries in Flint Ridge in Ohio; the ancient hearths of Ohio; the bone beds and alabaster caves in Indiana; the shell-heaps of
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Florida; oil wells and ancient mines, and the rock inscriptions which are scattered over the territory everywhere. We ascribe all of these to the Mound-builders and conclude that they were worked by this people, for the relics from the mines and quarries are found in the mounds." Be- sides these things found in those earth works, are also found later deposits obviously placed by later (aborigines) races within the works which those same races found already constructed.
In Erie County we have numerous reminders of this old, prehistoric race of humans; or at least numerous such relics have been found here and a very few remaining ones are still to be seen. These may be enumer- ated as follows:
A circular embankment in Wayne Township, west of Corry, sur- rounds about three acres of ground, and is still apparent. Surrounding this embankment was a trench. This embankment, while still visible, is much reduced in height from what it was when the first settlers came into the county. When discovered it was much higher, and covered by huge forest trees. It is now little more than one to two feet high. A few rods to the west of it, used to be another circle, a trifle smaller than the first one; but no care has been taken of it and the people owning the · premises have heedlessly plowed and cultivated over and through it until it is practically obliterated.
Another used to be the one on what was years ago the John Pomeroy farm west of Cranesville. It had a double enclosure upon which great forest trees of oak and other varieties were growing in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. The remains of a fire were found within it about 18 inches or so below the surface; while arrow-heads, a huge skeleton, celts, and many other such like relics were found scattered about. On the opposite bank of the near-by creek, Conneaut, was formerly another of similar character and appearance, and enclosing the same area. Could these have been the forts of two opposing forces, and this the scene of a desperate conflict in those far away days, or were these two enclosures the defensive works of a community of those Mound-building people? We shall perhaps never know. A large mound is located upon this same farm. It is about 100 feet long by 50 feet in width and 25 feet high. Extrava- gant stories of mammoth human skeletons having been excavated here have been told.
There is still to be seen remnants of a large circular enclosure on the premises of Mr. W. A. Parker, on the south side of the Lake Road, east
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of the village of Avonia. A stream just west of the enclosure has been known all these years as "Fort Run". Mr. Parker is desirous of securing data concerning the history of the enclosure, and of monumenting and preserving it as an interesting relic of prehistoric days. We fear he will be disappointed in the amount of data he will be able to secure; but he is to be commended for his active interest in, and care of, this valuable and priceless memorial. Years since there was to be seen the remains of an old fortification of this character between Girard and Springfield. We are without data as to its exact location. It is said that a human thigh bone was taken from a grave near by it which measured the incredible size of 4 inches longer than that of a man present who stood 6 feet 2 inches in height. All about the neighborhood where Mr. James Blair settled, and where is located "The Devil's Back Bone", have been found numberless arrow-heads, pipes, pestles for pounding corn in their mortars, and other relics. A large cache of more than 50 arrow-heads and stone axes was uncovered near the farm once owned by Col. E. P. Gould in Springfield township. This was just below the surface in the public road. Near the mouth of Walnut Creek was a large mound which was opened many years ago, but a few fragments of human remains was all that rewarded the searchers. But many relics such as arrow-heads, celts, axes, and the like had been picked up in that immediate vicinity. On the line of the P. & E. R. R., just beyond Warfeltown, in Erie, used to be a famous place for school children, and others, to search for skulls and other human remains. Many burial mounds were to be then found thereabouts, which when disturbed yielded many a treasure as a reward for efforts of the searchers. It is said a very large human skeleton was found there, and with it two copper bowls which had been perforated around their edges and held together with a buckskin thong laced in and out of these perfo- rations. The bowls held about a pint of beads each ; but what has become of either bowls or beads, we have been unable to learn. Some years since, on the farm of Judge Sterrett just south of Wesleyville, were found sev- eral human skeletons in a sitting posture facing the east. Numerous drinking vessels were found accompanying them. Other graves in the vicinity had similar contents, all facing the east. A large mound near the New York Central R. R. tracks in North East township, about three miles east of the borough of North East, was opened many years ago by Dr. Heard, a prominent physician and surgeon of that place, and several skeletons uncovered, all with the feet pointed towards the center as in
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the spokes of a wheel. A number of stone relics were found, all of which the doctor packed up and sent to an eastern medical school, we believe it was the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia. Another small mound was opened a year or so ago in Mckean township, which yielded a skeleton. But in all of these cases the opening was done without any scientific object in view, and no accurate measurements or scientific data was preserved. This is to be regretted. There is one quite large mound just south of the Buffalo Road and in the middle of a field just west of Fredonia, N. Y., which the owner of the property has consistently, and properly, refused to have molested; and so it stands undisturbed, with some trees growing upon it; while another one near by was carelessly plowed and cultivated until it has disappeared entirely.
A most singular "find" was once made by Mr. Francis Carnahan while plowing a field in Harborcreek township in 1825. It was a strange looking bead, which he cleaned and preserved, and which later fell into the hands of L. G. Olmstead, LL. D., who was an archaeologist as well as a traveler of note. He had no hesitation in pronouncing it one of the celebrated "Chorean Beads" formerly used in the religious ceremonies in ancient Egypt. He kept it for a long time as one of his most priceless treasures. He was formerly from Erie County, but at that time resided at Fort Edward, N. Y. It is said there are only about 30 of those famous beads in existence, and the others are deposited in the great museums of the world. We learn that this one ultimately found its way into the Erie Public Museum where it is treasused above price.
Thus it will be seen that Erie County once formed the scene of activ- ities of that wonderful and mysterious race of humans who had a very numerous population, and which dominated the entire region to our west, and mayhap have had communication with the peoples of Europe.
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CHAPTER III
INDIAN INHABITANTS.
NATIONS, TRIBES, HABITS, CUSTOMS, ETIQUETTE, RELIGIONS, LAWS, ETC .- ERIES, ERIEZ, ERIE-HONONS-ERIGAS-CHATS CATS, MAD SPIRITS, NEUTRES-IN- DIAN CITY OF REFUGE, OR OF PEACE-FRENCH DISCOVER ST. LAWRENCE RIVER.
Whether or no the natives in this country, when white folks discov- ered it in 1492, were the direct descendants of those other pre-historic and pre-traditional peoples who constructed the great earth-works here- abouts, and who left relics in the great terminal moraines of the glacial sea ; or whether they were an utterly alien race to those former ones, we may never certainly determine. These later races may have found their way eastward from Europe and Asia over the great ice-bridge of the glacial seas in some ancient, human, tidal-wave and have found and destroyed the native races whom they found here; or those older races may have been overcome by some pestilence which all but destroyed them, and the native Indians have resulted as a succeeding remnant of the former greatness. Who knows the manner or the reasons for the work- ings of Providence in such great world issues? Our own belief is that the Mound-builders were a distinct race of people, whose habits and activities were wholly different from those of the succeeding tribes and nations whom Europeans found here. They have left behind them, as mute testi- monials of their existence, innumerable works which testify to their skill and ingenuity, as well as to their persistent and active industry. Their fate, as well as their origin, is one of the great world mysteries; likewise the origin of the American Indian, and the time and cause of his appear-
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