274 ANTIQUITIES OF TENNESSEE. 



center of the great cemetery stands a huge mound, the finest in tke coun- 

 try, and one which I was anxious to examine, but was prevented from 

 doing so by the scruples of the owner. I examined some of the graves, 

 however. I found them, as usual, composed of flat stones, set edgewise, 

 with stone bottoms, but no covering except earth. Several pieces of 

 crockery were broken by the carelessness of the assistants. One spec- 

 imen resembles perfectly a squash, and tends to show that this vegeta- 

 ble at least was familiar to these people. I also obtained a string of 

 bead!?, and an amulet which resembles the face of a man. Many relics 

 have been taken from these graves, but being considered of little 

 value were neglected until lost or destroyed. There was at one time a 

 large fortified camp which withstood the changes of time, but it has 

 long since yielded to the influence of the plow. Three miles south of 

 Franklin, on a blufi" of Big Harpeth Eiver, was another camp, covering 

 twelve acres of laud, each end of the inclosing earth-work resting upon 

 the bluff. This camp was surrounded by a wall and ditch, and three 

 mounds were within the inclosure. Three mounds were examined in 

 1867 by Professor Jones, the result of which I have not been able to 

 procure. I found a few isolated graves there, from which I procured a 

 very perfect vase with ears to it. This vase was lying inverted by the 

 neck of a male skeleton, and there were also some bones of a deer. A 

 pile of rocks near by indicated, as I thought, a grave, but I found it to be 

 an oven, lined at the bottom and sides with baked clay, and covered 

 with flat rocks. It had broken pieces of pottery in it. On the largest of 

 the three mounds, about half-way up the slope, a grave was discovered 

 containing a large skeleton. Pierciug the sternum, from the interior, 

 was a small, delicately-made arrow-head, the cause, no doubt, of the 

 death of the buried man. 



The most celebrated cemetery, and the one most frequently resorted 

 to by relic-hunters, is at "Old Town," seven miles northwest of Frank- 

 lin, on the farm of Mrs. Brown. Formerly, like other encampments, 

 it had a wall and ditch surrounding it, but they are gone. There were 

 many graves and mounds scattered over the inclosure. Most of these 

 graves have long since been emptied of their contents, and the mounds, 

 for the most part, have been dug into. However, I obtained some 

 very interesting relics here, among them two beautiful pieces of ivory 

 carved with a precision seldom seen among Indians. They are made 

 from a tusk, probably, of the mastodon. The larger one must have 

 come from the tusk of a monster, for to furnish material for such a 

 gorget it must have been 12 inches in diameter. These gorgets have 

 two holes in the edge, near each other, and they were most probably 

 worn suspended on the breast, and may have been emblems of authority. 

 One of them was in the grave of a giant, for a large man could pass the 

 lower jaw-bone around his face; and the thigh-bone was four inches 

 longer than that of a man six feet two inches high. A piece was frac- 

 tured off one edge by accident after taking it up. Another string of 



