S2 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE! 



If the grand old lady of stone, whose features stand out 

 fifteen feet high from shoulder to crown looking from a high 

 promontory of the Eagle Cliff fault line in Saline county, 

 could only speak, she could tell wondrous tales of the men 

 who trod the valleys below during the centuries since the 

 mammoth mired in the muck of the Saline valley just be- 

 yond the southernmost extension of the glacial drift. 



The early white explorers had objectives farther on. The 

 trappers and hunters came and went. Of why and when the 

 French built Fort Massac, little is known. George Rogers 

 Clark came and went on and we think we know his trail. 

 At least we have marked it with monuments. 



The Ohio was the natural highway to the south and west 

 and it was easy to go on past the forbidding rocky Ozarks. 

 Yet there were fertile valleys and, in the valley of the Saline 

 near Equality, there were salt wells. Man must have salt, 

 so he came to get it and sometimes to stay. So Equality and 

 Shawneetown date back to a time when Chicago was un- 

 thought of, Equality being the industrial center and Shaw- 

 neetown the fort. All trails and all roads led by the salt 

 wells. Negroes were brought to help in a later day. A bank 

 was established at Shawneetown in 1816 and the building, 

 now used as a residence, still stands. 



Robbers and horse thieves came with settlements and in- 

 dustry. The famous cave at Cave in Rock in Hardin county 

 was the scene of many a crime. Flat-boatmen mysteriously 

 disappeared in this vicinity. The famous Ford gang and 

 other gangs of outlaws and thieves were thought to have 

 headquarters here. Following is a quotation from a letter 

 written by Mrs. Kate Reynolds Sears of Whitewright, 

 Texas, in answer to a request from me made a few years 

 ago. 



"Wm. McKay Robinson was the grandfather of the 

 writer, her mother, Mary Thomas Robinson, having been 

 his sixth child, and as a small child I have heard my grand- 

 mother, Mrs. Wm. M. Robinson, who was Rachel Hampton 

 Thomas, tell the story to my listening ears. 



"The uncle for whom my grandfather had been named 

 had been beheaded and an aunt of my grandmother's. Aba- 



