INDIAN GRAVES IN FLOYD AND CHICKASAW COUNTIES, 



IOWA. 



By Clement L. Webster, Charles City, Iowa, 



Our Indians, like the wild buffalo, are fast disappearing before the ad- 

 vance of civilization. Only a few generations hence and the last ves- 

 tige of this once noble race will have disappeared, and nothing be left 

 to mark their occupancy of this broad and beautiful laud of ours save 

 the few graves of their dead which dot our hills and valley sides. And 

 even these silent records of a fast vanishing race are rapidl^^ disap]>ear- 

 ing with the march of time. So It seems fitting and well that whatever 

 of interest they may ])osses8 be recorded now. 



On a low but dry piece of ground, in what was known as " Carman's 

 Woods," near the confluence of Beaver Dam Brook* with the Shellrock 

 River, one-half mile north from Rockford, in Floyd County, a peculiar 

 Indian grave is located. 



This grave is 7 feet long, 2^ feet wide, 1^ feet in height, and 3 feet in 

 depth. 



Mr. Merton T. Webster and the writer together made an exploration 

 of this grave, but without finding human remains or relics of any kind, 

 'i he grave had been excavated in the soil down to the underlying lime- 

 stone strata. Running lengthwise through the center of tlie grave, 

 from bottom to top, was a row of limestone slabs from 2 to 3 inches in 

 thickness set up edgewise. 



For the first foot the grave had been filled in with small fragments 

 and blocks of limestone; the rest of it was then filled by laying in, ob- 

 liquely, slabs of limestone on each side of the central row, one edge rest- 

 ing in the outer portion of the grave and the other against the central 

 row of stones. The surface slabs were so large and heavy as to require 

 the entire strength of one man to remove them. 



The following section (Fig. 7) will illustrate this description. 



Two miles northwest from Charles City, in Floyd County, are located 

 a group of four Indian graves t This group of graves is situated on 



* This is now called " Whisky Creek" by some. 



tThe exact location of this <;roiip and the isolated one above described are indi- 

 cated on the map (Fig. 2) which accompanies the preceding paper entitled "Ancient 

 Mounds and Earthworks in Floyd and Cerro Gordo Counties, Iowa." (Jnte, p.577.) 

 590 



