188 EARLY HISTORY OF CAFE MAY COUNTT. 



of having been done bj artificial means, as practiced at present on 

 the Columbia among the Flat Heads. A jaw-bone of huge dimen- 

 sions was likewise found, which was coveted by the observer ; but 

 the superstitions of the owner of the soil believing it was sacrile- 

 gious, and that he would be visited by the just indignation of 

 Heaven if he suffered any of the teeth to be removed, prevailed on 

 us to return it again to its mother earth. 



In 1630, when sixteen miles square Was purchased of nine Indian 

 chiefs, it would infer their numbers must have been considerable, 

 or so numerous a list of chiefs could not have been found on a spot 

 so limited. Yet, in 1692, we find them reduced to fractional parts, 

 and besotted with rum.* 



A tradition is related by some of the oldest inhabitants, that in 

 the early part of the eighteenth century, the remnant of Indiana 

 remaining in the county, feeling themselves aggrieved in various 

 ways by the presence of the whites, held a council in the evening 

 in the woods back of Gravelly Run, at which they decided to emi^ 

 grate ; which determination they carried into effect the same night; 

 Whither they went no one knew, nor were they heard from after- 

 wards. In less than fifty years from the first settlement of the 

 county, the aborigines had bid a final adieu to their ocean haunts 

 and fishing grounds. 



Less than two centuries ago Cape May, as well as most other 

 parts of our State, was a wilderness ; her fields and lawns were 

 dense and forbidding forests ; the stately Indian roved over her 

 domain in his native dignity and grandeur, lord of the soil, and 

 master of himself and actions, with few wants and numberless faci- 

 lities for supplying them. Civilization, his bane and dire enemy, 

 smote him in a vital part; he dwindled before it as the reed before 

 the flame ; and was soon destroyed by its influences, or compelled to 

 emigrate to other regions to prolong for a while the doom afliixefl to 

 his name and nation. 



* Court Kecords and Proud's Penniylvania. 



