612 AUTHENTIC HISTORY 



The subjoined discovery took place in 1828 : 



" We have received from Doctor David Watson, of Bainbridge, in this county, several 

 curiosities discovered in the neighborhood of that jilace, by the laborers employed on 

 the Pennsylvania canal, among which are a stone tobacco pipe, very neatly formed, a 

 rude tomahawk, a small brass basin, two keys, a small globular bell, and some broken 

 pieces of Indian pottery; but the greatest curiosity is the scull bone of an Indian, whicli 

 materially differs in form any that we have ever seen belonging to the human species. 

 The skull is remarkably large, and of an oblong or oval form; the, bones themselves of 

 which it is composed, have been very thin, much more so than is usually the case. 

 What is very remarkable in the general outline of the skull, is the peculiar manner in 

 which the frontal bone, which forms the forehead, recedes from the root of the nose 

 and the superciliary ridges on which the eyebrows rest, and rather lies on the top of 

 the head than juts over the rest of the face, as is usual. Thus there is no forehead, 

 properly so called ; the cranium in this respect presenting rather the appearance of the 

 skull of a dog than a human being. The Choctaw tribe of Indians were formerly in 

 the habit of flattening their heads in this manner, by binding metallic plates on the 

 foreheads of their male children. A chief having this singular appearance, was in 

 Philadelphia in the year 179G. Indians inhabiting the sources of the Missouri, are to 

 this day in the habit of moulding their skulls into this form. The Incas or kings of 

 Pera, and all those partaking of their being within a certain degree of consanguinity to 

 them, (and they only, ) were allowed to enjoy the imi:)erial privilege of having their 

 heads thus modeled. It may be worthy of observation, that this artificial conforma- 

 tion is not known in the slightest degree to impair the mental opei-ation. The skull 

 above mentioned is that of a male, probably about 45 or 50 years of age. 



"The whole have been presented to Mr. Landis, who has since received from John 

 Hamilton, Esq., who resides near Bainbridge, an ornamented tobacco pipe, which has 

 a human head rudely carved upon it; also some beads, and a curious bead, ajiparently 

 made of clay, which is as hard as stone." — Lancaster Gazette. 



Forty years later, the same locality discloses similar relics. "In the fall ot 1868, 

 while workmen were engaged at the ql^arries of Messrs. J. L. Kerr & Co., on the farm 

 of Jacob Haldeman, Esq., near Bainbridge, Lancaster county, in clearing the clay 

 from off the limestone, they dug up the larger bones of six fully developed bodies, be- 

 sides a collection of trinkets, consisting of beads, necklace, pipes and several hatchets. 

 These partial skeletons were found about eighteen inches beneath the surface and in 

 close proxunit'y to each other. The pipes are nicely carved, and together with the 

 beads and other articles, are in a good state of preservation." 



In this connection we add the following communication: 



"Mr. A. Morlot, of Lausanne, Switzerland, made a communication to the American 

 Philosophical Society, in whose proceedings it was published (with a plate) in Novem- 

 ber, 1862, in which he calls attention to certain enamel beads found in Indian graves at 

 Beverly, in Canada; a similar one having been found near Stockholm, in Sweden, and 

 another from a grave-mound in Jutland. These are considered to be of ancient Phoenician 

 manufacture. 'It follows, that those glass beads and baldrics from the ossi;aries at 

 Beverly, are anterior to the Christian era, and that America appears to have been visited 

 already at that remote period by Europeans, most likely by those skilful navigators, the 

 Phoenicians.' — Morlot. 



"Whilst digging the Pennsylvania canal near Bainbridge, in this county, small copper 

 beads were found, made by bending into a circle, bits of flat wire, about a sixteenth of 

 an inch wdde, and enamel baldrics (tubular beads) about an eighth of an inch in diameter 

 and an inch and a half long, of the red color of the celebrated pipe-stone of Minnesota, 

 when this is wet. A single bead of the Beverly pattern, 5-16 of an inch in diameter, 

 and one-fourth of an inch long, the form spherical with the ends compressed, color deep 

 blue, and a paler blue in alternate longitudinal stripes, ends red, separated from the 



