EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 187 



most valuable by ten per cent. The black wampum was most 

 esteemed by the Indians, the white being of little value. 



Thompson, in his history of Long Island, page 60, says : " The 

 immense quantity which was manufactured here may account for 

 the fact, that in the most extensive shell banks left by the 

 Indians, it is rare to find a whole shell ; having all been broken in 

 the process of making the wampum." This curious fact applies 

 especially to Cape May, where large deposits of shells are to be 

 seen, mostly contiguous to the bays and sounds ; yet it is rare to 

 see a piece larger than a shilling, and those mostly the white part 

 of the shell, the black having been selected for wampum. 



Of the aborigines of Cape May little seems to be known. It 

 has been argued they were very inconsiderable at the advent of 

 the Europeans.* Plantagenet in 1648,t speaks of a tribe of 

 Indians near Cape May, called Kechemeches, who mustered about 

 fifty men. The same author estimates the whole number in West 

 Jersey at eight hundred ; and Oldmixon, in 1708, computes that 

 " they had been reduced to one quarter of that number." It can- 

 not be denied by any one who will view the seaboard of our county, 

 that they were very numerous at one time here, which is evidenced 

 by town plats, extensive and numberless shell banks, arrow heads, 

 stone hatchets, burying grounds, and other remains existing with us. 

 One of those burying grounds is on the farm formerly Joshua Gar- 

 retson's, near Beesley's Point, which was first discovered by the 

 plowman. The bones (1826) were much decomposed, and some of 

 the tibia or leg bones bore unmistakable evidences of syphilis, one 

 of the fruits presented them by their Christian civilizers. A skull 

 was exhumed which must have belonged to one of great age, as the 

 sutures were entirely obliterated, and the tables firmly cemented toge- 

 ther. From the superciliary ridges, which were well developed, the 

 frontal bone receded almost on a direct line to the place of the occipi- 

 tal and parietal sutures, leaving no forehead, and had the appearance 



» Grordon, p. 62 t Master Brelin's letter. 



