3N, P. C., MARCH 21, 1926 -PART 5. 
3 
Smithsonian Scientist Discovers 
Suggestion That Site at Piney Branch Be Preserved as a Park Has Support of Many Per¬ 
sons Who Are Interested in Archeology. 
AN’S antiquity on the Ameri¬ 
can continent has been a 
subject for scientific investi¬ 
gation and for fascinating 
speculation ever since the 
discovery of the New World by Colum¬ 
bus. With the constant unearthing 
of new evidence of the. presence of 
ancient man, each generation has con¬ 
tributed some of its best scientific 
minds to the deciphering of the story 
hidden in these, relics. The question 
has been raised anew by each new dis¬ 
covery of human bones under circum¬ 
stances which indicate real antiquity, 
such as the various discoveries of ap¬ 
parently ancient human skeletal re¬ 
mains in Florida, certain of which 
are now being investigated under 
Smithsonian auspices. 
In many respects the problem is as 
far from solution today as it was 400 
years ago. Facts upon which to base 
a scientific solution are still lacking. 
Yet some theories or assumptions here¬ 
tofore held by scientists in this coun¬ 
try and abroad have been disproved 
and the subject has been cleared of 
hasty speculation within recent dec¬ 
ades. In this work the Smithsonian 
Institution has played a leading part. 
It is a remarkable coincidence that 
within the limits of "Washington, the 
Capital City of the great Nation of the 
race which deprived the. American 
aborigines of their birthright and suc¬ 
ceeded them in possession of the 
Northern Hemisphere, has been found 
the site, of one of the most important 
workshops east of the Mississippi 
River, where these early Americans 
manufactured their implements of war 
and the chase. It is an interesting 
fact That Dr. William Henry Holmes 
of the Smithsonian Institution, by 
his excavations on this site, contrib¬ 
uted knowledge that, revolutionized 
scientific thought on this important 
question and placed American archeol¬ 
ogy on a new foundation. 
* * * * 
'^/’ITHIN 2 1-3 miles of the White 
House, this spot 4 in the secluded 
little valley of Piney Branch, west of 
Sixteenth street, has long been un¬ 
marked and is today in danger of 
complete, obliteration by modern build¬ 
ing operations. At last, however, , a 
definite movement is gaining headway, 
backed by Smithsonian scientists and 
the Federal Office of Public Buildings 
and Public Parks of the National Cap¬ 
ital, to preserve it as a public park 
a,nd mark the spot with a suitable 
bronze group showing the ancient 
quarrymen and implement-makers at 
work. 
“The Piney Branch site is not only 
of great interest historically,” says Dr. 
Holmes, “but is scientifically one of 
the most interesting spots in America. 
When, 40 years ago, I began the study 
of the ancient remains of the East¬ 
ern States, the archeologists of Wash¬ 
ington, New York, Boston and other 
cities were gathering rudely chipped 
stones such as are found on the slopes 
of Piney Branch. They filled museum 
cases with them and labeled them 
‘American Paleolithic Implements.’ 
PLASTER GROUP ILLUSTRATING WORK IN A QUARRY SHOP. 
The archeologists of the world accept¬ 
ed without hesitation the view that 
these chipped stones were the imple¬ 
ments of a race preceding the Indian, 
a race of glacial age, that in the scale 
of culture had never risen above the 
use of rude stone tools. 
“One day it struck me as an im¬ 
portant fact that none of these so-called 
implements showed any signs of having 
been used. I examined them closely 
and visited the Piney Branch region 
and soon reached the conclusion that 
the existing ideas were all wrong—that 
these chipped stones were riot imple¬ 
ments of a race that had lived here 
perhaps 40,00 or. 50,000 years ago. 
They were, in fact, not implements at 
all, but the rejectage of tlje difficult 
chipping process, the failures of the 
Indian blade maker, left on the quarry 
sites'as simple refuse. The successful 
blades—not one in 20 attempts—were 
carried to the villages and finished 
to serve as weapons of war and the 
chase and in the various primitive 
arts. 
“For a score of years controversy 
over this , interpretation raged, but 
there is today, so far as I know, not in 
any museum in the world a single 
American shaped stone of any kind 
labeled as belonging to the glacial 
period or to‘a stone age of culture 
corresponding with that of the Old 
World. 
“Investigations carried on in Piney 
Branch thus resulted in settling one’ 
of the most important questions in¬ 
volved in the aboriginal history of 
America. For cogent reasons, both 
historical and scientific, this site, in 
the city of Washington, should, with 
its forested slopes and beds o"f chipped 
stones, be preserved and marked. 
Such a memorial would have a unique 
'nterest today, and an interest that 
would grow as the centuries pass.” 
Dr. Holmes modestly refrained from 
saying that his investigations and in¬ 
terpretations of the material he found 
as the result of his excavations in the 
r Piney. Branch Valley raised him to a 
foremost position among American 
archeologists. lie has now passed his 
tion of this whole site, which is of so 
much interest to American historians 
and scientists throughout the world, 
before it is . obliterated by the rapidly 
ILLUSTRATING THE QUARRY FORMATION. 
makers whose race was driven from 
its ancient home by the white race 
which now occupies the land and has 
built its great Capital City where the 
Indians once busily carried on in¬ 
dustry and trade. 
“I have been especially interested in 
the development of the northwestern 
suburbs of Washington,” wrote Dr. 
Holmes to Col. Sherrill, “and my re¬ 
cent visit with you to Piney Branch 
has aroused anew the hope that this 
secluded little valley may yet be res¬ 
cued, at least in large part, from the 
ruthless invasion of suburban im¬ 
provement. 
“This valley, as you know, deserves 
the city’s attention, not only on ac¬ 
count of its "romantic beauty and de¬ 
sirability as a park area,' but especial¬ 
ly for the reason that it bears on its 
forest-covered slopes, one of the most 
important historical sites east of the 
Allegheny Mountains—the site on 
which for hundreds, possibly thou¬ 
sands, of years the Indian tribes of 
the Potomac Valley quarried quartzite 
bowlders from -which they roughed out 
'by "fractti"re'"fheir irnpTemefife of war 
and' the chase. The numerous tribal 
groups dwelt in the villages Scattered 
along the banks of the • and 
its = tributaries. Unmolested, thev 
from the valley in 1690. Since that 
date barely ten generations have 
passed, yet today the only permanent 
.mark of their presence here, the only 
existing reminder that such a people 
ever dwelt within the District of Co¬ 
lumbia are these deposits of quarry- 
shop refuse covering acres of ground, 
on the site of which will in a few years 
be the very center of the Capital City 
the usurping race.. 
“A most serious question thus pre¬ 
sents . itself to our people. Shall we 
go on selling and buying and selling 
again the hills. and valleys of their 
birthright, amassing fortunes upon 
fortunes, without a thought of their 
former existence or their, sacrifice? In 
the world’s history races have suc¬ 
ceeded races in the possession of the 
garden spots of the world, and are we 
to follow the example of the bar¬ 
barians of the past? Or shall we pre¬ 
serve this 1 Piney Branch site, erecting 
thereon a monument, a memorial, to 
show the world that we are not utter 
in grates?” 
* ; * * * 
UOR nearly half a“ century Dr." 
Holmes has been associated with 
the Smithsonian Institution in many 
different lines of scien tifle gxitleaVo'i^ 
/CnriHmiort nn Bo o-ev \ 
* * * *• 
A/TOST of the important facts re- 
lating to the Piney Branch site 
were explained to Lieut. Col. Clarence 
Sherrill shortly before he resigned as 
director of public buildings and pub¬ 
lic parks in Washington, and he ap¬ 
proved the project. Maj. U. S. Grant, 
grandson of the great Civil War gen¬ 
eral and President of the United 
States, who has succeeded Col. Sher¬ 
rill, hopes to go forward -with the plan 
to buy the land and make a park along 
Piney Branch. 
Preliminary surveys have been 
made and some small portions of land 
have been ac<fuired. Only lack of 
funds prevents the completion of the 
project. Maj. Grant looks forward to 
the time when Congress will make 
the money available for the preserva- 
DIGGING INDIAN RELICS FROM THE PINEY BRANCH QUARRY. 
fished in the beautiful streams and 
hunted in the primeval forests. They 
Had no forebodings of the fate that 
awaited them—the complete surren¬ 
der to foreign and merciless invaders 
of the birthright of their race. 
“The first white man arrived in 
1620 and the last Indian disappeared 
eightieth milestone in life, his birth 
having occurred the same year that 
the Smithsonian Institution was 
founded. His mind is as active as 
ever, and he is absorbed with many 
studies, but the preservation for 
future generations of Americans of 
the Piney Branch site he regards as 
of great importance and it lies close 
to his heart. 
encroaching suburban building opera¬ 
tions. 
Not long before Col. Sherrill left 
Washington he went over the ground 
with Dr. Holmes, and together they 
selected a place for the erection of the 
proposed group of statuary as a me¬ 
morial to the aboriginal implement 
