REMAINS IN NEW ENGLAND. 29 



at East Hartford, Conn., and deposited in the museum of Yale College. Other 

 remains of aboriginal art and labor, little conspicuous as they were, also attracted 

 attention. 



Rev. Gideon Hawley, who about A. D. 1754, was among the Indians of western 

 Massachusetts and eastern New York, as a missionary, on one occasion saw his 

 Indian guide near Schoharie, looking for a stone, which, when found, he carefully 

 added to an ancient pile. Being pressed for a reason the Indian was reluctant to 

 speak on the subject, but stated that his father had done so before and enjoined the 

 same duty on him. Mr. Hawley remarks that he observed such heaps of stones in 

 every part of the country ; the largest being on the mountain between Stockbridge 

 and Great Barrington, in Massachusetts. He says, moreover, " we have a sacrifice 

 rock, as it is termed, between Plymouth and Sandwich, to which stones and sticks 

 are cast by Indians who pass it. This custom, or rite, is an acknowledgment of an 

 invisible God whom this people worship. This heap is his altar. The stone that 

 is collected is the oblation of the traveller." 1 



A similar heap, or mound of stones, was described by Noah Webster, in 1789, as 

 situated about seven miles from Hartford, on the road to Farmington, Conn., where, 

 according to the tradition of the inhabitants, an Indian was buried, and every one 

 of his race on passing by was accustomed to add a stone to the pile. 2 



In 1795, Rev. Jacob Bailey communicated to Jeremy Belknap, the historian, 

 then Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, an article 

 entitled, "Observations and conjectures on the antiquities of America." In this, 

 as proving the existence of works which exceed the contrivance and ability of the 

 existing generation of Indians, he describes a mound upon an extensive plain, near 

 the mouth of the Kennebec river, in Maine, which he states to be six hundred 

 feet in circumference, and perhaps fifty feet high, and composed of stones inter- 

 mingled with earth and sand — the summit being a flat surface, nearly twenty feet 

 in diameter, and exhibiting a kind of pavement of large smooth stones. Thus it 

 had appeared twenty-five years before ; and its artificial character was supposed to 

 be indicated by the fact that the surrounding lands, for some distance, were entirely 

 destitute of stones — excepting on the beaches of the river, where they resembled 

 those forming the mound. 3 



Rev. Jonathan Edwards, of New Haven, afterwards President of Union College, 

 at Schenectady, a son of the celebrated metaphysician, communicated to the Con- 

 necticut Society of Arts and Sciences, in 1788, his important "Observations on the 

 language of the Muhhekaneew (Mohegan) Indians." This treatise was reprinted 

 in 1823, in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, with great 

 additions by Mr. Pickering, and may fairly be considered as the foundation of the 

 significant philological discovery of a radical connection among Indian languages, 

 notwithstanding a wide local separation, and great diversities of dialect. The author 

 had remarkable cpjalifications for detecting and developing the most delicate gram- 

 matical peculiarities ; having begun to learn the language of the Mohegans at six 



' Mass. Hist. Coll., 1st se. IV. 59. s Am. Museum, VI. 234. 



3 Mass. Hist. Coll., 1st se. IV. 104. 



