Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1913-02-11
NUMBER 6

A dead body, unclothed, slashed, crushed,
exposed four to six days, repulsive to
touch, would we'll be sunk into the soil
where it lay. Probably they had no I'M
plements for digging, and axes must
shape substitutes the ground just there
might be hard, rocky repelling tools and
strength; or other reasons might call tor
the removal of the loathsome corpse;
then this mound of lighter soil and
gravel would we'll be chosen, and its
center would be the suitable burial spot.
Or the boulder might seem proper
| footstone, but not a headstone, for
though the turtleback dips only slightly
below the horizontal, the ground beyond
the stone drops away rapidly, and by the
strong slopes adjacent comely inter
ment would lay the feet downward.
Such seem the conditions then at this
particular ridge of the hillside, but one
cannot wisely assert how men would
plan hasty burial in primeval forest
A shallow grave by lack of tools or
other reasons is assumed then a grave
mound so much higher would be re-
luired OF earth or stone. Indeed by
natural, almost universal practice in unin
habited places, and where stone is plenty
and no concealment desired, as in The
Burial OF Sir John Moore" stones would
be heaped above the dead. Likewise in
early times in New England, layers of
stones just within graves repelled raven
ing wolves. Desirable, even necessary
was cairn of stones above the remains
If Jonathan Snow.
Traditions also have declared it the
fact. \ published sketch dozen years
lgo had the statement apparently fully
certified and reliable. Mr.. Hamln had
written explicitly, "a mound OF stones
loosely thrown together marks the spot
Ninety years ago that was known and
accepted as the prevailing view or by his
own investigation.
The general camping ground not the
precise spot OF the camp-has been well
';nown in town from the first. Local
tradition in each generation has believed
it knew the place OF burial. But expecta-
ton created by Mr.. Hamlin and by later
tradition is frustrated. On the mound
now alleged to be the grave lies no heap
# stones. No grassgrown cairn has
been discovered. When once certified
the first settlers the heap would reveal
Is meaning and be an abiding witness;
lre can not conceive that any man would
emove such stones for business uses,
specially when others were plenty.
Only rudeSt cultivation was ever applied
% those rocky channeled slopes; surely
that ridge and mound escaped the plow.
But no cairn is there, only boulder.
las the heap once cast up crumbled. has
il sunken into the soil, been overgrown?
Not easily on the highest knob OF the
ridge. Has early tradition gone astray?
How has the reputed burial spot lost its
cairn? Boulders. rocks, pebbles, are
found here and there but none heaped,
piled up by the hands of men. Or not
lar away is there heap OF stones, not
eft BY natures convulsions nor by
glacial deposit, but cast together by
purpose. a true cairn, sunken, grass
grown. leaf-buried, noticeable only by
searching eyes, but now somewhere a
witness OF authority, giving testimony un-
changed through $50 years, that the muir
dered hunter OF the Little Androscoggin
had there his burial, grave-clothed II at
all with the green textures woven on
hemlock and spruce.
When the spot. the present or another,
shall be fully certified, or before, the
:own OF Paris, or the Colonial Danes,
will make wise response to the demand
20 hold in memory historic events by
setting up some form of memorial to
victim of the last Indian War.