# Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/Antiquities of East Windsor, Connecticut

ANTIQUITIES OF EAST WINDSOR, CONNECTICUT.
By E. W. Ellsworth, of East Windsor, Conn.
There are no remains of aboriginal structures in this vicinity. The indications of a former occupation by the aborigines are scattered relies found in the soil. These relics are to be found anywhere, but are not remarkably abundant in any one locality. The most promising places for search are dry sand knolls, in the vicinity of some river, brook, or large spring.
The caving of the banks of the Connecticut River occasionally ​discloses a place of interment. The graves are not in groups, nor arranged according to any plan—sometimes in level loam soil, though sandy elevations seem to have been preferred.
Usually each grave contains the remains of one individual, though, in some cases, those of several have been found near each other. No burial posture is distinctly indicated. Bones, soft, crumbling, and broken, are found. The graves are not more than 3 feet deep. No evidence of artificial preservation of bodies exists, though there is a hint of cremation in the frequent occurrence of charcoal among the bones, which, however, are not plainly calcined.
Spear and arrow heads have been found cached. I have in my possession a find of fourteen flint arrow heads, averaging about two and a half inches in length, and most of them perfect These heads were found at East Windsor Hill, on my father's farm, about 30 rods from Connecticut River, in a sand knoll, about two feet under ground, associated with a little charcoal and sooty sand. A fragment of a small and remarkably thin soapstone cup was found near them; nothing else. They came to light in consequence of the digging of a roadway through the knoll.
Another similar find was made this spring in this town (South Windsor), not far from the line of Connecticut Central Railroad, about midway between South Windsor and Bast Windsor Hill stations, near a brook, in low ground. The cache was opened in plowing, though the plowman did not notice it. Some boys afterward found flint spear heads among the furrows, and dug up the ground, and took out about one hundred heads, each between two and four inches in length, many whole, some broken. There was a scramble among the boys to procure them, and the collection was scattered beyond recovery before it came to the notice of any person interested to preserve it entire.
Arrow heads in unusual numbers are found on sand hills, brought to the surface by rains and winds; and in the same places it is common to find flat and sharp angular chips of flint and quartz, such as are not found in our sand elsewhere. These are suggestive pf the manufacture of arrow and spear points at those localities.
Fragments of clay pottery are common; but there is nothing by which places of manufacture can be located.
Some items of value may be gleaned from the "Connecticut Historical Collections," published by John Warner Barber, New Haven and Hartford, 1836. For instance, "In the south part of the town" (East Windsor, now this town of South Windsor)," where Podunk River crosses the road to Hartford, was an Indian burying ground. A few years since a number of skeletons were discovered, by digging from one to four feet. These skeletons were found lying on one side, knees drawn up to the breast, arms folded, with their heads to the south. A covering of bark seems to have been laid over them, with some few remains of blankets: in one instance a small brass kettle and hatchet ​were found in good preservation, the remains of a gun barrel and lock, a number of glass bottles, one of which was found nearly half filled with some sort of liquid. These articles were probably obtained from the Dutch, either by present or by trade. There was also found a pair of shears, a pistol, lead pipes, strings of wampum, small brass rings, glass beads; a female skeleton with a brass comb; the hair was in a state of preservation wherever it came in contact with the comb. After the Podunks had removed from these parts they were known to have brought a dead child from toward Norwich and interred it in this burying place."
The Podunk Indians were of peaceable disposition, and we have no records of serious feuds between them and the white settlers. They (the Indians) suffered much from forays of the Mohawks, who roamed across the wilderness from the northwest.
Of scattered relics, quartz and flint arrow points are most frequently found here. These were probably in numerous instances lost by the Indians in hunting. Then we have stone axes, hoes, chisels, gouges, and pestles. A large proportion of the axes, hoes, chisels, gouges, and pestles are made of trap-rock, and many of them have had but very little artificial fashioning to adapt them to their uses.
There are localities in this State, one of which in New Britain, I have particularly examined, where trap-rock, broken from the face of a cliff by the atmospheric vicissitudes of centuries, has accumulated in a sloping pile at the foot of the cliff. This débris consists of elongated and angular fragments, some of which, untouched as they are by art, would, if found in our fields to-day, be mistaken for genuine Indian relics. Kettles excavated from lumps of soapstone are sometimes found. These are usually broken and portions missing. They are of rude oval form, with a capacity of from one to three gallons; they have short, projecting handles or lugs at the ends, and are without ornamental carving. The sides and bottoms are from half an inch to an inch in thickness, and are sometimes externally sooted, indicating that they were used in cooking.
Fragments of clay pottery are frequently found here, though it is rare to find a single piece large enough to show the size or shape of the vessel from which it was broken. Occasionally a sufficient number of pieces of one utensil are obtainable to admit of a reconstruction. One which I have in my possession was put together with glue and brick-dust, and some gaps were supplied with the same composition. It is now sound, strong, and perfect in appearance, and, for exhibition purposes, as good as if it had never been broken. This pot is egg-shaped, about fourteen and a half inches high and eleven inches in diameter, with a contraction in the rim below the mouth. The sides are about three-eighths of an inch thick. Similar pottery is always rudely ornamented on the outside by dots or lines, smooth or serrated, which were impressed by pointed implements when the clay was soft. Granules of quartz or mica ​were commonly mingled with the clay to prevent cracks in drying; and the ware was finished, without glaze, by burning in the same manner as modern bricks. In fact, it may be regarded as in substance soft brick of poor quality. One of these pots, recently obtained by Dr. Wood, was found in the bank of Connecticut River, in Massachusetts. It was much broken, and has been clumsily reconstructed, but is nearly entire. The bottom is quite sharply conical, and the neck has no contraction, but slopes inward quite uniformly to the brim. The figure is somewhat that of a gigantic beet. Now, if we had given us a strap of leather, say 2 inches wide and 18 inches long, and were required to fasten it as a bail to this kettle, an obvious method would be to punch several small holes in the strap near its ends, and drill corresponding holes in the opposite sides of the neck and brim of the kettle and lace the strap thereto with a couple of strings. Whether this particular kettle ever had such a bail we cannot know, but there are the holes of suitable size and arrangement for the purpose. When I first saw them they struck me as an experimental attempt of the finder to sew or lace the broken parts together; but closer examination satisfied me that they had been drilled before the pot was baked, and while the clay was soft, with some tool like an arrow point. Subsequently I learned that the finder testified that the holes were in the sides of the neck when the kettle was found. There are no other drilled holes in the kettle besides these on opposite sides of the neck.
Breaks in Indian pottery sometimes seem to follow lines originally unsound, which gives a hint that the process of manufacture was not continuous, but that successive portions of the work were built up after previous ones had become firm by drying, from which there sometimes resulted an imperfect union between the wet clay and the dry.
About the year 1840 students of the Theological Institute, then located at East Windsor Hill, found on the bank of Connecticut River, at the west end of the institute grounds, a deposit of Indian relics. The place was a sandy knoll, above the highest water-mark of floods, and was traditionally known as "Gun's Hill," and as the site of an Indian fort. The articles then dug up consisted of fragments of large soapstone kettles, of the form previously described, axes, chisels, gouges, arrow points, and other relics of stone. Referring to the Smithsonian work.
No. 287, by Dr. Rau, there was an article identical with figure 210; the only specimen of its kind that I have known to be found in this region. These relics were scattered among those who found them, and the sand hill has since been cut into by the river, beyond the place where they were found. I have, from that locality, a cup of soapstone that will hold about a pint; and an ancient musket bullet of large size. I have a copper chisel, like Fig. 236; length, 3 inches; width,2; thickness,⅜;
I have several times visited the locality where was found that remarkable ancient implement of wood, which I described in the Smithsonian Report for 1876, p. 445. It lies so low that it is usually covered by the water of the river. I had a good view of it last September, but made no discoveries, and found nothing to modify the inferences set forth in the report. Undoubtedly the place was an ancient swamp, lower than the present average water level of Connecticut River. The soil was very wet with springs, some of them issuing from holes an inch in diameter. In seasons of low water many springs appear along the banks, most of which are ephemeral. The banks being previously filled with water, partly from the river and partly from the accumulations of rain, drain off in a low time.
A great deal of fine quicksand was issuing from the springs above mentioned, and I found more of this minute sand in the clay than I detected when it was in a frozen state. The natural color of the bed where untinged by vegetable material is very blue—quite different from the browns of the loam and sand now deposited by the river. The grooved log described in the report was unchanged. It inclines downward, as it enters the bank near the low-water line, and lies very firmly in place. Prying upon it with a lever ten or twelve feet long did not change its set in the least. I was deterred from attempting to dig it out by the certainty that the hole would immediately fill with water.
I visited the place again on the 18th of this month. The water was low, and appearances were not much changed. I traced the blue clay formation thirty or forty rods farther north than I had previously discovered it, and found it there containing much less vegetable material. Walking about twenty rods south of where I found the mallet, and near the water's edge, on a gently sloping beach of loamy sand, I noticed a portion of a buried stone, about two inches in length and half an inch in width. The pecked and rubbed surface looked familiar, and on being taken out it proved to be a pestle of gneiss 11½ inches long and 2 inches in diameter. It is round and smooth, well made, and perfect, with the exception of a small piece broken from the handle end.
* ↑ West side, midway between Thompsonville and Springfield.
* ↑ "The Archælogical collection of the U. S. National Museum."—Smithsonian Contributions, vol. xxii.