The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-10-28
NUTMEG INDIAN RELICS.



of these articles was found in an EN-
road track by a Wesleyan student {
few years ago. Such a quantity O
quartz specimens were unearthed thai
it was thought, an Indian workshop o.
the old days had been uncovered. The
collection was placed in the college
museum The Peabody collection, be
fore alluded to, Is very fine in all re-
spects, particularly that from western
sources thanks to the efforts of the
late Professor o. C. Marsh. the paleon
tologist. 1t contains a number of per-
feet Indian skeletons from this State
believe.
In southern Connecticut, popularity
by which the movements of the In
dams can be traced is the enormous
heaps of clam and oyster shells left by
them. In some places there are whole
entertainments composed practically OF
nothing but these shells, and in a rail-
road cut below Massapeag on the Cen
trail Vermont line two skeletons were
unearthed standing erect with the
shells piled around them No evidences
of relics were discovered.
Many of the stone weapons found in
the fields in Connecticut are known to
have been taken from spots where some
of the boodiest battles, in Indian his
tory were fought
Old Indian Canoes.
That all the Indians were basket
makers is possibly an indisputable fact,
| but of course few evidences of this can
be gained from remains left by the ex-
tinct tribes. There are however, still
some traces left of their skill as boat
builders. Indian canoes in condition
of greater or less preservation have
within a year been located in three
widely separated portions of our terri
tory. A. B. Heath of Otis, Mass has
one eighteen feet long. which he be-
| lieves to be over 200 years old, and
which he thinks was used by the
Waramaugs in the northwestern part
of this State: there is an old Indian
canoes over thirty feet long on the
Quinnipiac River at Fair Haven, which
is SO aged that no one can tell the date
of its birth, and there Is, or was until
recently at least. the bow and one side
of an Indian canoe lying in spring
hole at Meech's Bay, formerly called
Asaph's Bay, near the latest quarters
of the Harvard University crew on the
Thames River. All of these boats were
made from pine logs and followed out
either by being hewed or burned. In
the case of the last two mentioned,
both We're plainly the product of many
days of toll, judging from their crude
workmanship. They are left very thick
at the bow and stern in order to keep
the water from making it's way through
the pores of the wood All Indian dug
outs which have seen are easily over
turned, and all of them will make good
speed when properly propelled, as they
are long, and narrow for their length
But they are by no menas as light
as the bark canoe that Longfellow so
pleasingly describes. OF the three ca
noes above mentioned, that owned by
Mr.. Heath has the most satisfactory
history. He found it buried by the side
of a lake in the woods under MOSES
and ferns forty years ago, and it still
floats lightly and tight upon the water
The New Haven canoe Is a much bigger
craft, and with some of it's fellows dug
out by white men on the same lines, is
still used, | am told, in the oyster
dredging industry in New Haven har-
Dor. It's bottom became worn so thin
that it was necessary to replace 1t
with false one which has been nicely
fastened on. New Haven is the home
of the oyster sharpe. Why the har-
Dor oyster man there persists in using
a dugout canoe after the manner of
the Indian, in his work, l could never
especially as he has to
send away to get logs of the proper size
to make his canoe of. But the fact re-
mains that probably half score of
these ugly dugouts are in use on the |
Quinnipiac to-day and by some are
more esteemed than the round bottom
ed boats or even the far famed shar- |
pies. / presume the element of cheap |
ness is considered in their employment |
as they cost but little to build, nothing |
to keep in repair and last long time. |
The Thames River canoe or part Of |
canoe, had been in a debilitated and |
condition for years when
it was laid ashore at the spring. 1t |
possibly carried the warlke Pequots |
On the Thames after their crushing
defeats by the colonists, and it may
have at one time been owned by the
M0neSanS OF DnCdS Ddnu. It's pres
ence at the spring attracted little or no
from recent white dwellers of |
the country side, as they had been used
to seeing it for many years.
The Survival of the F'ittest.
In his travels through the South and
West in search of relics of former
aboriginal tribes, as well as in looking
about New England, Mr.. Palmer has
found everywhere evidences of the
ruth of the doctrine of the survival of
ittest. The Nurse(?) inscription on
Dighton Rock, q similar one on the
shores of Mount Hope Bay, and the un-
covering Of the skeleton with metal
breast plate at Fall River yeras ago,
furnish US with pages of early history
If a people that were evidently unable
o maintain an existence in New Eng
and. Proceeding westward. to .Connec-
lieut., for instance, the ground fairly
GEMS with evidences of it's occupation
" fierce and warlike tribes Of Indians ]
# which only few mixed blooied peo-
lie now exist. In the West and South
he mysterious mound builders lived for {
CENTURIES and fourished, to be wiped
ut probably upon the appearance Of
he Indians, and the Indians have in
tn 10 EnoliGl1 |