Ohio History Journal

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

BY THE EDITOR

THE MOUND BUILDERS

A chorus of cordial appreciation greets the sumptu-

ous volume entitled The Mound Builders, by Henry

Clyde Shetrone, Director of the Ohio State Archaeologi-

cal and Historical Society. Promptly on its appearance

from the press, the following appreciative review ap-

peared in the Cincinnati Enquirer:

THE MOUND BUILDERS

THE MOUND BUILDERS. By Henry Clyde Shetrone. D. Apple-

ton & Co., New York.

Ohio should be proud that it is the accepted cradle of Amer-

ica's greatest primitive people; it should be proud that an Ohio

man is recognized as the greatest living authority on that people's

life and customs, and it should find source of lasting satisfaction

in the fact that this same Ohio man has given to scientific litera-

ture a book that is certain to take its place as the standard defini-

tive work on the subject.

"Scientific literature" perhaps is hardly the most apt de-

scription of Mr. Shetrone's classic effort, for he has combined

cold science with a happy and warming medium of popular phrase,

and the result is a book that for layman and student of arch-

aeology alike, packs honest romance and really exciting reading.

Even a reader with little or no inherent love or interest in

Ohio should find it hard to lay the volume aside, once he has fairly

launched into it.

Mr. Shetrone, who is curator of the Ohio Archaeological

Society, Columbus, has produced more than what he set out to

write--"a book that will give me the important facts regarding

the Mound Builders." It is this reviewer's opinion that the book

will take its place alongside that one real classic of early Amer-

ican archaeology, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,

by Squier and Davis, which, although laid on the world's doorstep

in 1848, still is recognized as the foundation, or keystone, of all

(845)

Reviews, Notes and Comments             847

locality by perusing the book, for the mounds of Madisonville,

Ault Park and of the Miami Valley in general are discussed in

detail, as to what they have revealed, when explored, their signifi-

cance as evidences of the ancient cultures, etc.

The mounds of Ohio, if it be not known to the lay reader,

were built by a race that lived throughout this section, probably

many centuries before the coming of the Indian, as that designa-

tion is popularly used. In other words, they roamed the hills and

valleys long before the coming of the Europeans. They probably

were descendants of Mongols, who migrated across the Bering

Straits.

Their primitive mode of living, in bark and skin tepees, per-

haps belied the remarkable development of their aesthetic and

utilitarian senses, and certain evidences of their handiwork, as in

the fashioning of pottery, tobacco pipes, beads, armor and in the

weaving of shawls and other textile products are hardly surpassed

in quality and workmanship, even today.

Oddly enough, even with such highly developed skill in pro-

viding the articles of every day use, the Mound Builders, by their

very act of constructing mounds, apparently laid greater stress on

some mystical belief in the hereafter. Their burials of the dead,

many of which have been revealed in tumuli explorations, have

given evidence that they believed stoutly in a future after death.

Influenced perhaps by an inherent reverence and respect for

leaders of their people, they buried, with the bodies of their tribe

members, beads, shawls, flint arrowheads and ceremonial pieces,

armor--hand-beaten from native copper or magnetic iron--and

gaming discs. In many instances, trophy skulls have been found,

resting alongside perhaps a conqueror in war's foray.

Small, round stones, exactly like young America's marbles

of today, have been found, and in one instance, as they were

brought to light alongside the skeletal remains of a young boy,

called forth the cogitating remark from a mound workman, that

"He must have been the champion marble player of the village"

--an observation that Mr. Shetrone believes may be more truth

than poetry.

The Ohio field is marked by three distinct cultures, in the

ascending order of their importance: The Adena, the Fort Ancient

and the Hopewell. Each is treated fully. Archaeological fields

in other states also are examined in the course of Mr. Shetrone's

book, as their importance, or the knowledge of their contents,

justifies.

The Mound Builders is just the book that has been wanting

in the field of archaeological literature. Of cut-and-dried, cold

and wearisome formal reports there have been many, but books

848      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

combining science and popular fancy have been few. Here is a

companion piece for books on the subject for all time, and one

that certainly will find its way into every college and university

of the country, as a standard reference work.

This work appears in a beautiful and dignified

volume of 508 pages, with an excellent index which will

please the librarian and the general reader.  In topog-

raphy, paper and illustration it is worthy of the message

that it bears.  It is lucid in style and comprehensive in

scope.     It has its appeal to the scholar and the general

reader.    There is not a dull page in the book. The

prominence that it gives to the Mound Builder in Ohio

is due to the fact that this state is peculiarly rich in

prehistoric remains.  Adequate consideration is given

to every section of the Union.  In recent years many

interesting archaeological discoveries have been made in

this field. All the important information that has been

gleaned from it to date is presented in this volume.

Attractive and instructive illustrations are found on

almost every page. The price of the book is $7.50. It

may be had by addressing the publisher in New York

or the author in Columbus, Ohio.

A NOTEWORTHY BOOK BY LANDON C. BELL

Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg County, Virginia, 1746-

1816. By Landon C. Bell, Ph. B., M. A., LL. B.

The William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia,

1930.

In a recent book entitled The Great Awakening in

Virginia, 1740-1790, we are told that "at the opening of

the eighteenth century, not more than one in twenty were

850       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the Church was not only a religious institution, but it was also

in a very real sense a public, official, governmental agency. The

whole institution was supported from public revenue. The Church

houses were built, the glebes were purchased and equipped, and

the parish ministers or rectors were supported by public taxes.

The repression of all forms of immorality and vice, the support

and relief of the poor were matters within the jurisdiction of

the vestries. The establishment and maintenance of the lines

or boundaries of the lands of the various owners, through a

proceeding known as "processioning" were functions of the

Church acting through the vestries or their appointees. And the

only records of births, marriages and death officially kept were

parish or church records.

Originally, and for a very long time, marriage ceremonies

could be validly performed, technically, only by duly accredited

ministers of the established church; and the publication of banns

was a legal substitute for a marriage bond. In other words, a

marriage might be validly celebrated, under the law, pursuant to a

license obtained upon execution of a "marriage bond," or pursu-

ant to publication of banns, without a marriage bond or license.

This latter fact seems to be overlooked by many learned and skill-

ful genealogists, who evidently are under the impression that in

the Colonial era every marriage would be, or at least should be

evidenced by a marriage license bond, as a necessary prerequisite.

This is an erroneous assumption. There has been, apparently, such

real confusion of understanding respecting the subject that a

brief review of it may serve a useful purpose.

Then follows a review of acts by Great Britain reg-

ulating the solemnizing of marriages by the Church of

England from 1631 to the Revolution, and the act passed

by the Legislature of Virginia in October, 1780, by

which the ministers of all Christian denominations were

authorized "to celebrate the rights (rite) of matri-

mony." The approach to this tolerant act had been

gradual. At the beginning of the colonial period au-

thority to celebrate marriages had been reserved almost

exclusively to the Episcopal Church. The fees for civil

marriage by "Marriage Bond" were much higher than

Reviews, Notes and Comments           851

for the celebration of the ceremony by the "publication

of banns" by the "Established Church."

The rise of the "Dissenters," Presbyterians, Baptists,

Methodists and other minor denominations, together

with increasing political hostility to the mother country

finally led to equal recognition of all Christian denomi-

nations.

It is with the exercise of the special privileges and

powers of the Established Church through the period

designated that Mr. Bell writes in his ample volume of

633 pages. Following the introduction are chapters de-

voted to (1) "The Parish," (2) "The Vestry," (3) "The

Churches" (4) "The Glebe."

The Cumberland Parish at first included a large por-

tion of southwestern Virginia. It was afterward di-

vided into ten counties with each a separate parish.

Cumberland Parish and Lunenburg County continue to

occupy a portion of the original territory with greatly

restricted boundaries. A carefully executed map re-

veals at a glance the different divisions and the dates of

their establishment. This is a distinct aid to the text.

The opening paragraphs of the chapter on the "The

Vestry" are so illuminating that we quote two of them

in full:

The Vestries were, in the Colonial establishment, one of

the two most important local institutions. The other was the

County Courts. These two bodies were the great repositories of

power in Colonial Virginia; and the Vestries were second only

to the County Courts in influence, if not indeed, in power. Theo-

retically, the Vestries represented the popular will or sentiment

of the communities as they were chosen at intervals by a ma-

jority of the qualified voters, while the County Courts were a

self-perpetuating body, and the members served for life. And

while these facts suggest that there would be a very great dif-

852       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ference in their points of view and wishes, such was not in fact

the case; and if so at all, it was true in far less degree than

might be assumed, for in the main the members of both bodies

were drawn from the more prominent, influential and aristocratic

element of the population.

Bishop Meade contends, not without considerable reason to

support his position, that the Vestries were the real depositories

of power in Colonial Virginia. Thus he says: "They not only

governed the Church by the election of ministers, the levying of

taxes, the enforcing of laws, but they made laws in the House

of Burgesses; for the burgesses were the most intelligent and in-

fluential men of the parish, and were mostly Vestrymen."

Among the important powers of Vestrymen were

the "Processioning of Lands," fully described in a subse-

quent chapter.    By "processioning" as used here, is

meant the determining of the metes and bounds of prop-

erty in lands. The county courts were required by law

to "direct the vestry of each parish within their county

respectively to divide their parishes" into precincts and

to appoint two or more freeholders to procession every

person's land in the precinct and make a report to the

Vestry. The processioning of the lands three times and

the entering of the required records in a register of the

Vestry, was declared "sufficient to settle such bounds, so

as the same may never afterward be altered."

The chapter closes with a complete list of the vestry-

men and church wardens of Cumberland Parish.

"The Churches," and "The Ministers" of the region

embraced in the work have been the subject of tireless

investigation by the author. Starting with perhaps a

single church prior to 1846, the vestry authorized the

building of four new churches in that year. The num-

ber steadily increased with the settlement of the colony

until the coming of the Dissenters and the advent of the

Reviews, Notes and Comments       853

revolutionary spirit. As far as possible from the rec-

ords, the lives of the ministers are traced. "Of some

of these" we are told, "but little is known; and of none

are all the details that might be wished available. Pos-

sibly the sketches of Reverend James Craig and Rev-

erend John Cameron here presented, are the most exten-

sive accounts of them, and it is hoped, the most accu-

rate anywhere to be found." Extended chapters are

given to each of these and their numerous descendants.

An informing chapter is devoted to "The Glebe."

The glebe was the estate owned by the church and made

the home of the minister. It was his to use while he

served the congregation. The "mansion house" on the

glebe corresponded closely to the modern parsonage.

For a long period every parish was required by law to

provide a glebe for its minister and to erect and main-

tain thereon a mansion house and other buildings.

The chapters of "Genealogical Notes," collected dur-

ing his investigation of the church and legal records,

the author tells us he might have omitted entirely, but he

finally concluded to publish them. Doubtless many a

genealogist will thank him for this. The list includes

names of prominent early families of Virginia whose an-

cestors at that period were officially identified with the

Church of England.

Reverend John Cameron's Register contains a list

of four hundred and fifty-nine marriages kept by him

(1784-1793) for Bristol Parish. This is published in

full.

"The principal purpose of this volume," the author

tells us "is to present in print the Vestry Book of Cum-