58 EXPLORATION OF BURTON MOUND [ETH. ANN, 44 
view Nidever tells of his purchase of the mound property from 
Joseph Chapman in 1840, and of his hiding out in the old adobe house 
on the mound at the time of the invasion of California by the 
Americans. He says: 
I was born in 1802, Dec. 20, in Sulivan Co., East Tenn. My father, also 
named George, was a native of Penn.; I do not remember the town... . 
In the fall of 1840 I bought what is now known as the Burton Mound prop- 
erty from Joseph Chapman, who had purchased it from the mission. It had 
formerly been used to store hides in by the Fathers. 
OWNERSHIP BY A. F. HINCHMAN 
In 1851 Captain Nidever sold the mound property to A. F. Hinch- 
man, Santa Barbara attorney and a prominent citizen. Miss Stella 
G. Hinchman, daughter of A. F. Hinchman, has very kindly fur- 
nished interesting information and documents on the history of the 
mound at that period. 
In a letter dated July 3, 1923, Miss Hinchman writes as follows: 
Having read some articles printed in the Los Angeles papers which tell 
of the work you are doing in Santa Barbara, I am taking the liberty of 
writing to you because I am interested in your discoveries, as my father 
sold the property to Mr. Lewis T. Burton, and it was then called “ La Playa” 
(The Beach). In 1849 my father, Augustus F. Hinchman, in company with 
his classmate, Mr. Edward Sherman Hoar, of Massachusetts, a brother of the 
late Judge Hoar, both having graduated from Harvard and also from the 
Harvard Law School, decided to go to California, but on the trip my father 
contracted the Panama fever, and when they arrived in San Francisco he was 
too ill to go to the gold fields, and his doctor advised him to go south and 
camp until he regained his health. Mr. Hoar and my father went to Santa 
Barbara expecting to stay a few weeks, but they were so delighted with the 
place that they decided to remain and open a law Office. 
After they acquired a practice my father decided to have a home and bougbt 
Burton Mound from Mr. George C. Nidever, with the knowledge that it had 
been an Indian burial ground. The property originally belonged to the church, 
the church sold it to Mr. Joseph Chapman, Mr. Chapman sold it to Mr. Nidever, 
and Mr. Nidever to my father. 
As soon as my father acquired the property, he started to beautify the place, 
laying out a garden and planting trees. As soon as they commenced to work, 
they unearthed mortars, pestles, skulls and bones. 
About that time a member of the Smithsonian Institution was in California 
and my father entertained him and gave him many relics for the Smithsonian. 
The only thing my father retained was a pipe, and the skulls and bones were 
eremated. I think that if you look at the records of the Smithsonian of the 
years 1851 and 1853, you will get some information about them. My brother 
visited the Smithsonian Institution some years ago and was told that they had 
been placed with the other Indian relics, but he did not locate them. 
In a letter dated December 6, 1851, Mr. Hinchman says: 
One of the first things that strikes the eye of a stranger, who comes to Santa 
Barbara, is a little hill which breaks the uniformity of the plain, rising perhaps 
20 feet above the general level of the surrounding land. The hill has a 
gradual slope on all sides to its base and covers about 15 acres. All the 
