1909] The Ottawa Naturalist. 99 



Bay Streets. This is no fiction, but a fact, supported by the 

 most trustworthy evidence. The proof is contained in an article 

 in the Canadian Journal, Vol. 1, 1852-1853, bv the late Dr. 

 Edward Van Courtland, which describes an Indian burying 

 ground and its contents discovered at Bytown (Ottawa) in 1843. 



Dr. Van Courtland states that in 1843 some workmen, who 

 were digging sand for mortar for the old suspension bridge, 

 unearthed a large quantity of human bones. He immediately 

 hurried to the spot and found that the contents of an Indian 

 burying ground were being uncovered. The doctor continues: 

 "N- thing p.^ssibly cotdd have been more happily chosen for 

 sepulture than the spot in question, situated on a projecting 

 point of land directly in rear of the encampment, at a carrying- 

 place and about half a mile below the mighty cataract of the 

 Chaudiere, it at once demonstrated a fact handed down to us by 

 tradition, that the aborigines were in the habit v;hen they 

 could, of burving their dead near running waters. The verv 

 oldest settlers, including the Patriarch of the Ottawa, the late 

 Philemon Wright, and who had located nearbv some thirty years 

 before^ had never heard of this being a bur3dng place, although 

 Indians existedin considerable numbers about the locality when he 

 dwelt in the forest; added to the fact that a htige pine tree grow- 

 ing directlv over one of the graves, was conclusive evidence of 

 its being used as a place of sepulture long ere the white man m 

 his progressive march had desolated the hearths of the untutored 

 savage." After two days digging the results were as follows: 



"One very large, apparently common grave, containing the 

 vestiges of about twenty bodies, of various ages, a goodly share 

 of them being children, together with portions of the remains of 

 two dogs' heads ;the confused state in which the bones were found 

 showed that no care whatever had been taken in burying the 

 original owners, and a question presented itself as to whether 

 they might not have all been thrown indiscriminately into one 

 pit at the same time, having fallen victims to some epidemic, or 

 beneath the hands of some other hostile tribe; nothing however, 

 could be detected on the skulls, to indicate that they fell by the 

 tomahawk, but save sundry long bones, a few pelvi, and six 

 perfect skulls the remainder crumbled into dust on exposure to 

 the air, in every instance the bones were deeply colored from 

 Red Hematite which the aborigines used in painting, or rather in 

 bedaubing their bodies, falling in the form of a deposit on them 

 when the flesh had become corrupted. The material appears 

 to have been very lavishly applied from the fact of the sand 



-Philemon Wright, with 25 followers, arrive 1 at the site nl" the pre- 

 sent City of Hull on the 7th of March, 180Tr. 



