The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-10-09
DAVIS
AND HIS LAST RESTING PLACE
Remarkable Coincidence in Connection With the
Life of an Outlaw.-Son Buys Fathers
Last Resting Place Unintentionally.

cypress ana cane, lie TWO ldiSe
mounds in the midst of what was
once a swamp. In later years the
levee builders have lifted hands
against the river foods, and drainage
commissions have so wrought that
the whilom swamp lies mostly high
and dry. Here and there lagoons
mantle. and everywhere the face Of
the land is wreathed with vines and
rank weeds. Switch cane protrudes
itself. rich and luXuriant. Deer slip
through the glades. Now and then a
big black bear crashes through the
massed vegetation.
The ring of the Ak is just begin
ming to be heard, the first note Of
civilization, faint and far across the
wilderness. But the two mounds,
Notwithstanding they represent a
most valuable asset in that land of
marsh and moor, lie undlsturbed.
The wilderness for more than mile
on each side of them retains its prl-
meval character.
Only once within the memory of
man now living has an attempt been
made to utilize these two mounds,
and this is the story of that attempt.
The negroes and poor whites who
cling precariously to the fringes OF
the swamp and by sheer cunning and
daring wiring a scanty living from
it's treasury of wild life, declare that
the mounds, and, in fact, the whole
region for mile or two about them,
is ''ha nted.'
Just what the "ha mt may be
seems somewhat uncertain. Most OF
the negroes refuse absolutely to dis
cuss it at all. Nor is the account to
be won from the poor whites of the
section by ingratiating division OF
tobacco and 'sperits," any more CO.
herent or illuminating. That it is
something monstrous all agree, and
all. with one accord, religiously avoid
the proximity of the mounds.
Five years ago a Wisconsin man,
attracted by the fertility of the "del-
ta'' soil and the rapidity with which
levee and drainage canal were re-
claiming the swamp, bought a tract
of several thousand acres of this
land, including these two big
mounds. A few months later he came
down and began fencing in his estate
and making preparations to build
hendsome residence upon it.
In order to carry forward this
work. it is worth nothing, he was
compelled to import labor from a
distance, for none of the natives
would turn a hand at this fencing,
and any of them would have signed
his own death warrant as soon as
work on the residence when it was
announced that it was to be erected
on the larger of the two mounds.
Nor was the work destined to be
carried far, for while the workmen
were digging shallow trenches along
the top of the big mound, in which
to lay the foundation walls, one of
them dropped his pick with yell
and ran frantically from the spot.
He had driven the implement up to
the handle into a moldering human
skull.
When the work was resumed the
entire skeleton of a powerful man
was unearthed. 1t was magnificent
specimen of it's kind, with one eX-
ception: Where the bones OF the
left arm should have been lay a
hideous Mathematician thing which
seemed to be formed Of the three
bones of the arm and forearm, ce-
mented in an angle of about 100
degrees by a bony knot twice the
size of the natural elbow.
The Wisconsin man, whose name
is withheld for obvious reasons, turn
ed white as a sheet at the sight of
this object, and at once called for
his horse and rode away. That night
he was closeted for an hour with an
old physician of Grenada, one OF
the oldest settlers of the district,
who shall be known as DR.. Smythe.
When the Illinois Central train came
along a few hours later, northWard
bound, the Wisconsin man boarded
it. He was never seen in that section
again. The following day DR..
Smythe advertised the mounds and
the lands surrounding them for sale.
They are still on the market with
cut a buyer.
1t was from old DR.. Smythe, now
an octogenarian and retired from
medical practice, that the tangled
web of events lying back of the