Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1909-08-17
Mounds In the West.
EFFORTS TO SAVE ONE FROM THE REAL
ESTATE MEN.
(From the Pashnnder.)

(ErOm S0e EbtnuuucE.J
The mounds of the American mound
builders are tho sphinx Of the western
world, for they represent people SO
ancient that not even tradition has Q
word to say of them. The remains OF
human skeletons that have been taken
from the mounds have been 30 far de-
cayed that no single bone entire has
been recovered. This fact 10 used as an
argument by those who believe in the
great antiquity of the mounds, for In
England, where the moist climate is
much less favorable to the preservation
of such remains, skeletons have been
found which are known to have been
buried 1900 years ago. The Mound
builders we're people OF intelligence,
az these monuments OF their industry
show, for they built them square, cir
cular and octagonal. Some of them, In
the form of great cones, tower up above
the surrounding trees OF the forests.
But the builders are vanished race and
the mounds the only trace they left be-
hind. Of their manners, customs, lam
guage, religion and laws we know moth
ing and are not likely to know anything;
whence they came and whittier they
went are mysteries never to be solved.
By some they are thought to have been
exterminated by the IroquOis Indians;
Others think they migrated and were
absorbed by the races in Mexico. But
al the books written on the subject
have been mere expositions of theories,
and all we know of them ia that they
were here and were scattered widely
over our continent, for their mounds,
weapons and utensils are found in many
sections of the land.
West Virginia boasts as the possessor
of the greatest of these mounds, for in
Moundsville, Marshall County, of that
state, the Mound builders piled up a
tremendous memorial. 1t Is shaped like
the frustrum of a cone, and stands 90
feet high, with base circumference of
nearly 1000 feet and diameter Of 90
feet at the summit. In ITO one Joseph
Tomlinson, the first pioneer to settle in
this region, pushed through the forest,
discovered this symmetrical hill and
assembled to the top. He noticed that
the trees which grew there were as large
and apparently as old as those which
fourished in the forest below. In fact,
when giant oak was felled some time
after this it was found by the rings Of
the tree that it was already 500 years
old, so that the mound must have been
built some 200 years before America was
discovered, perhaps long before that.
| On some of the beach trees on the sum-
nit Tomlinson found names and dates
cut, one date being 1884 No doubt
ages ago this identical place was me-
tropolis of the Mound builders, and who
knows but that their civilization was
built upon that of some other race? To-
day the goth century city of Moundsville
ia built around this relic of the past.
Sublime contrast of the ages, where the
more than thousand-year-old memorial
of an unannalized people looks down up
on the progress of a modern city
Inasmuch as the great mound stands
| in the heart of hourishing city and
,vers a block of real estate that could
he utilized for building purposes, there
has been talk of leveling the mound and
building business houses upon the
ancient site. Many of the West Vir-
ginia school teachers and other citizens
are making a most landable effort to
have the mound bought and preserved
as the property of the state. The price
fixed upon it is $25, 200, and recently
Mound day was observed throughout
the state by the public schools for the
purpose of stirring up interest in the
mound and collecting money toward its
purchase.