The Indian Mounds

Parson cutler told us during that night, when we sat around him at Reading, about queer-shaped mounds of earth in various forms, which had evidently been thrown up many hundred years before, perhaps by the Indians, perhaps by some race of people regarding whom we know nothing; but certain it is there were very many about Marietta. In fact, Campus Martius was built on one of these mounds.

These embankments, as they might really be called; are of various shapes, some like serpents, many, many hundred feet long and I can't say how many feet high, and of such huge proportions that they may be seen from a long distance. There is one, we were told, shaped something after the fashion of an elephant; others are formed in circles, and still others appear to have been made for fortifications.

When we went to bed that night Ben Cushing and I talked until well past midnight concerning what these things might have been, and he announced that it was his intention to dig beneath them, believing there he would find much in the way of treasure; but when he saw the enormous embankments, he soon realized that neither one man nor twenty could make much headway digging beneath them.

I heard General Putnam say it was his belief these mounds had something to do with the religious cere monies of those who had built them; that they had a certain significance in the worship of the Great Spirit; but as for there being treasure beneath them, he laughed at the idea.

If I should set down all Parson Cutler told us on that night concerning the country to which we were going, I might never get further in my story, for the good man talked long and fast, describing so many things of interest, such as the trapping of turkeys, the hunting of bears, and the different methods of killing deer, that my hair would be gray before I could write it all out fairly.

Therefore, instead of attempting to repeat his stories, I will go on with my tale of how we journeyed from Massachusetts into the Ohio country.