Ohio History Journal

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living authorities. He informed me at that time that he had been trying

to induce Professor Wright to visit Wadsworth, for that purpose. Every

one who is acquainted with Capt. T. D. Wolbach knows that it is utterly

impossible for him to deceive. Habit makes character, and his word

alone is worth most men's bond.

 

 

 

WERE THE MOUNDS USED FOR DWELLINGS.

[As a sample of the various curious theories advanced by dif-

ferent writers concerning the purposes of the mounds, we give the fol-

lowing, written by Dr. I. N. Smith, Westerville, Ohio, and published

some time ago in The Ohio State Journal. - EDITOR.]

Were the earthworks which the Mound-Builders left built for dwell-

ing places? Dr. I. N. Smith of Westerville is urging this theory. He

says:

The unknown has a certain fascination for many who will work

away for years, or until the mystery will be in certain degree solved.

We, as a people, have been planted on this American continent, where

we found a people scattered over its entire extent, who knew nothing

of the people who preceded them. They knew nothing as to who built

these ancient works, nor what became of them. The people we found

here-The American Indians-or native Americans-showed different

physical build, according to the tribes to which they belonged.

Not so the Mound-builders. So far as can be ascertained, they

presented a certain fixed type of manhood, that was alike over the whole

extent of the North American continent. Their works were alike. How

came this similarity over so vast an extent, where the only communi-

cation was by footpaths and trails?

A theory to be of any value must account for existing known facts,

or a greater percentage of the known facts than some other theory.

The theory I wish to advance now is that these people came from the

south, gradually working farther north along our system of rivers,

going south each year with birds and returning to their northern haunts

the next spring. This ebb and flow of a people who gradually increased

until they became millions were the means by which we find the simi-

larity of physical constitution and the sameness of all their works.

 

 

NOT JUDGED BY PRESENT CONDITIONS

Now let us look at the enigma--the mound. There has been too

much judging by our own mode of living-by our own civilization-

by what might be termed "extreme poetic license," if I may be allowed

such an expression. Let us again theorize. Suppose that after these people

had grown in numbers to such an extent that the locality where they

spent the greater part of the year began to be of some value. Well, sup-

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112        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

pose they selected a certain few to stay on this ground and hold posses-

sion: What would these people most need? A house to protect them

from the rigors of the winter till their friends came back from the South.

These mounds as we find them here in Ohio were to live in during

the winter. Some have the remains of human being in them. Some

have not.

In the West, Iowa, for instance, there are no human remains-

so far as my experience goes. But there are the bones of deer and other

animals. The general formation of the mound is the same, except in

the Des Moines river. Each has a sand well in the center to dispose

of the water from the melting snow that might come in during the

winter.

In the ancient mounds in Ohio, will be found human remains in

all manner of shapes and positions, of which I will speak later on.

Now these were made with split logs, providing a frame work in a

circular form, after which the dirt was piled against it, making the

house two or three times the height of the mound as we see it.

But as the frame rotted away the earth settled down by its own

weight, which always left a depression in the center. Here in Frank-

lin county we find the hearthstone in this center, which was for fire.

In other parts of the world today we find this plan of a rude house,

with the forked body of a tree to climb out on. Smoke did not cut any

figure with these people.

 

 

TO GO FROM ONE TO ANOTHER.

In Iowa we see the same general plan as here. But in addition

we find that a well had been dug from 5 to 8 feet in depth and this

filled with sand. On top of this was the hearthstone, as here, and

strewn about are ashes and charcoal with bones of game animals. But

in a great majority of cases no human bones are found. Some of these

mounds still show the imprint of the split timber in the soil after the

timber has long since decayed.

In Webster county, Iowa, we could see in the early settlement of the

country that a line of mounds would extend due east and west, from one

river to another. Another feature which we do not see here is that on

the large streams these earth houses are connected by a covered earth-

way, so that one could go from one house to another.

There have been two great centers of population known as "mound

builders," viz, in Missouri, Illinois and Ohio, as one center, and the south,

especially Tennessee, the other and the mixing of these people did not

come by way across the continent, but by the mingling of north and

south migration. The little clay stew pot found in the mounds of Iowa

and Missouri was made with exactly the same tools as those found in

Ohio and Tennessee.

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But the clay in Ohio would not stand the touch of time. In Chat-

tanooga, Tenn., and in Missouri and Iowa we fnd wagon loads of these

clay stew pots. These are washed out by the rivers in Iowa and found

in mounds in Missouri and Tennessee.

Ohio was at one time undoubtedly a prairie country, or nearly so,

on whose broad stretches of plain roamed uncounted millions of buffalo

and other wild animals. Then came the mound builders, who lived on

this vast game preserve, in undisputed possession. This state of affairs

may have continued for centuries, with the gradual tendency of acclima-

tion and localization, which may have changed them to a difference in

type as we find the American Indians.

 

 

SWEPT AWAY BY INDIANS.

Or the old mound builders may have been swept away by the red

men, who may have caught them in Ohio in their winter houses, like

rats in a trap, the houses falling down on them and making for them

their only monuments known to us, the ancient mounds.

I mentioned the fact that in Iowa there are no human remains

in the mounds. This may have come from the fact that this people

were driven out in summer, when these earth houses were not in use,

and in consequence no one in them.

Now I am not interested in any pet theory, only so far as it may

offer a solution or plan to work out a solution of an unknown problem.

If some one has a better way of accounting for what we find left by

these mysterious people I will be pleased to have him bring it forward.

Some may say: "What reason have you for thinking they came from

the South?"

We find things here in Ohio that were made of onyx and stone

from Mexico.

Some may say: "Why, these mounds were for burial mounds."

If so, all mounds would have human remains in them. But they have

not. Again, some may say: "What about Circleville, where there were

hundreds of skeletons carted away when the mound was leveled?"

That's easy to account for. There had been a battle. The mound build-

ers had been killed and thrown into their own houses by the victors.

In a great many instances there seems to be the evidence that the

houses had been set on fire on the outside, then the lead bodies thrown

in.

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