II. 



Plan of an Ancient Fortification at Marietta, Ohio. 

 By WINTHROP SARGENT. 



{^Communicated to the Academy, May 29//;, 1787. Brovghl to the Notice of the Academy at a Meeting 

 held February 13th, 1850, by Henry I. Bowditch, M. D., Librarian.) 



Some months since, while examining some old manuscripts belonging to the library 

 of the American Academy, I found the accompanying plan of the ancient structures 

 at Marietta, Ohio. It bears a date four years earlier than any documents mentioned 

 by Messrs. Squiers and Davis, in the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to 

 Knowledge. It appears, by the records of the Academy, to have been received at the 

 meeting held May 29th, 1787; but it has never been published in the Memoirs, and I 

 am not aware that it has appeared in any other form. 



These structures at Marietta are incidentally alluded to in a letter addressed by 

 General Parsons to President Willard, of Harvard University, dated October 2d, 1786, 

 and published in the Academy's Memoirs, First Series, Vol. II. p. 122. In this letter 

 there is mention made of another plan that had been transmitted to President Stiles, 

 of Yale College. Of that plan I have no knowledge. 



On comparing the plan given in the Smithsonian Contributions with that belonging 

 to the Academy, the two will be found to bear a very close resemblance. In fact, all 

 the main features, and most of the details, completely correspond. There are, however, 

 some discrepancies. Those most evident are the following, viz. : — The wall and lunette, 

 marked M and L on the Academy's plan, which Mr. Sargent says were somewhat di- 

 lapidated when he examined them, have now disappeared. At least they are not 

 found upon the Smithsonian drawing, which was carefully copied from one made by 



VOL. V. NEAV SERIES. 4 



