BUSHNELL] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FOEMS OF BURIAL 23 



Heckewelder did not give the exact location of the burial of the 

 wife of the Delaware chief Skingask^ although he gave the date, 1762, 

 and elsewhere in his narrative mentioned living at that time " at 

 Tuscarawas on the Muskingum." To have reached Tuscarawas he 

 would have traversed the great trail leading westward from western 

 Pennsylvania, passing the mouth of Beaver River, a stream which 

 flows from the north and enters the right bank of the Ohio 

 28| miles below Pittsburgh. On the map which accompanied Wash- 

 ington's Journal, printed in London in 1754, a Delaware village is 

 indicated on the right bank of the Ohio just below the mouth of 

 the Beaver. Two years later, on a small map in the London Maga- 

 zine for December, 1756, this Delaware village bore the name Shin- 

 goes town, and so it continued on various maps until long after 

 the Revolution, although the name was spelled in many ways. Un- 

 doubtedly Shingask of Heckewelder was the Shingoe whose town 

 stood at the mouth of the Beaver, and here occurred the burial of 

 the wife of the Delaware chief, probably when Heckewelder was 

 on his way to Tuscarawas, some miles westward. 



When Col. Bouquet traversed the same trail on his expedition 

 against the native villages beyond the Ohio he crossed Beaver Creek. 

 This M^as on Saturday, October 6, 1764, and there were then standing 

 near the ford " about seven houses, which Avere deserted and destroyed 

 by the Indians, after their defeat at Bushy Run, when they forsook 

 all their remaining settlements in this part of the country." The 

 battle of Bushy Run took place during the two days, August 5 and 6, 

 1763, and consequently the village at the mouth of the Beaver, evi- 

 dently SMngoes town, was abandoned the year after it was visited by 

 Heckewelder, but the name continued on certain maps long after 

 that time. 



Some very interesting references to the burial customs of the 

 people of the same region, more particularly the Delaware, are con- 

 tained in a work by another missionary. It was said that the place 

 of burial was some distance from the dwellings, and that the graves 

 were usually prepared by old women, as the younger members of the 

 tribes disliked such work. " Before they had hatchets and other tools, 

 they used to line the inside of the grave with the bark of trees, and 

 when the corpse was let down, they placed some pieces of wood 

 across, which were again covered with bark, and then the earth 

 thrown in, to fill up the grave. But now they usually place three 

 boards, not nailed together, into the grave, in such a manner that the 

 corpse may lie between them. A fourth board being laid over it as a 

 cover, the grave is filled up with earth. Now and then they procure 

 a proper coffin. ... If they have a coffin, it is placed in the 

 grave empty. Then the corpse is carried out, lying upon a linen 

 cloth, full in view, that the finery and ornaments, with all the effects 



