ARCHEOLOGY 

 KOWKE 



] MOUNDS IN GRANT (^OUNTY 67 



ascertained) in the valley between Il^ew creek and Alleghany mountains, 

 a very small, soft, steatite i)l6ittbrm pipe, decorated with incised straight 

 and zigzag lines, was found. 



On the eastern edge of the town of Petersburg was a small earth 

 mound, now entirely destroyed. Xo one could remember whether any- 

 thing had been found in it, but Hint implements are abundant about 

 its site. 



At the oi)posite end of the town a mound of earth and svone formerly 

 stood, but it has long since been leveled. It is said to Imve contained 

 a black steatite platform pijie, many Hints, and some other relics whose 

 character could not be learned. 



On a high point 2 miles soutli <>f Petersburg are two small cairus, 

 both of which have been opened. 



Half a mile north of the town, on a hill, is an undisturbed mound of 

 earth and stone, about 40 feet in diameter and 4 feet high; and near it 

 the remains of a stone mound about 30 feet in diameter, now mostly 

 hauled away. 



On the Cunningham place, in the river bottom, a mile below Peters- 

 l)urg, was an earth mound, but it has been destroyed by years of culti- 

 vation and no record of the contents is now obtainable from the resi- 

 dents of the neighborhood. 



There is a cairn on the Stump farm, 5 miles south of Petersburg, and 

 a mile east of the turnpike. 



"Ir.dian-liouse cave," about U) miles above Petersburg, on the right 

 side of South branch, takes its name from a tradition that it was an 

 Indian dwelling place. As the floor is of solid stone over nearly its 

 entire extent, there is no means of verifying or disproving the account. 



HARDY COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



"Old Fields" takes its name from the fact that when the earliest 

 white explorers entered the valley there was a clearing on the left bank 

 of South branch, just above the "Trough," at what is known as the 

 "IS'eck," on the McNeill place. A fort was established here and many 

 battles took place between the whites and the Indians. On the moun 

 tain near the upper end of the "Trough" human bones covered witli 

 stones have been found in crevices formed by erosion of the upturned 

 strata; while on "Indian (irave ridge," 3i miles east of "Old Fields," 

 was a cairn, and on the mountain, a inilefarther southward, there were 

 - or 3 others, supposed to contain the remains of Indians slain in early 

 bolder warfare. None of these cairns are more than 12 or 15 feet in 

 diameter, and to exi)lorers they have yielded nothing except a few bone 

 fragments. 



On the Cunningham farm, next south of "Old Fields," on a level 

 terrace 40 feet above the river, are 2 mounds, one 35 feet in difuneter 

 and 2 feet high, the other 20 feet in diameter and 18 inches high. The 

 central portion in each is stone, the remainder earth. A short distance 



