500 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



been under cultivation for more tbau forty years. The spot was long 

 the site of a Seneca village known usually by the name of Ruccaloou. 

 Nothing reliable seems to be known in regard to the date of the estab- 

 lishment of this village, but it was destroyed by Gen. Broadhead in 

 1781. The Seneeas were driven off, but sought refuge in the surround- 

 ing mountains and for a number of years small parties of them returned 

 from time to time to hunt and tisli in the vicinity of tixeir old haunt. 

 When the whites began to settle here in 1809 the ground was covered 

 with a thick growth of hazel bushes, the removal of which brought to 

 light abundant evidences of both habitation and cultivation. House 

 sites were discovered, and fragments of broken jjottery, arrowheads, 

 and other relics were picked up from the surface or turned out by the 

 plow. With these were also found gun locks, hatchets, and other 

 weapons. The corn hills, says an eyewitness, were then as plainly dis- 

 cernible as though but a single year had passed since they were made. 

 The house sites, which were rings of earth with a central hearth or 

 firebed, were more abundant along the river about half a mile above 

 the creek than in the immediate locality of the mounds. 



On the right bank of the river, about a mile above the mouth of the 

 creek, there existed at the time of the settlement spoken of a semicircu- 

 lar earthen wall, then about 3 feet high and including some 8 or 10 acres. 



Fig. y28. — Sectiou of Ii'vincton luouiul. Warreu fomity, Pennsylvania. 



On the same side of the livcr, about half a mile below the mouth of 

 the creek, was an ancient burying ground subsequently used by the 

 white settlers. In digging graves the bones of the ancient buried were 

 frequently unearthed. This was probably the cemetery of the Seneca 

 Indians, as no other for the old village has been discovered. Some 

 bodies, as will hereafter be noticed, had been buried in the mounds, 

 but these were few in number. 



The smallest of the three mounds, which is on the bank just at the 

 mouth of the creek, was 52 feet in diameter and 3^ feet high, though 

 evidently much worn down and expanded by the plow. The chief fea- 

 tures of this mound, as shown in Fig. 328, which represents a vertical 

 section of it, are the pit and large central stone vault (No. 1). The 

 former was found to be 2| feet deep below the natural surface line 

 a b, and about 40 feet in diameter, the diameter probably indicating 

 the original extent of the mound. The upper portion of the vault had 

 fallen in, wedging the stones so tightly together that it was somewhat 

 difflcult to remove them, but the original form and mode of construc- 

 tion could easily be made out without the aid of imagination, as the 

 lower portion was uudistui-bed. The builders had evidently miscalcu- 



