Clay County Gigantic Proportions
Clay County was formed in 1825. Its name is in honor of Henry Clay,a famous antebellum American statesman.
Sandy Knoll, about a mile west of the Eel river, east of a line from Coffee to Howesville, has attracted more attention, as such, than any other, or perhaps, all other points in the country. All of the skeletons were discovered were of gigantic proportions, a stature of seven feet, or thereabouts, all in a sitting posture, with fractured femurs, or thigh bones, a phenomena unexplained. John B. Poe, one of the early pioneers, himself six feet in height and proportionally developed, who made excavations and tests, found the tibia (bone of the lower leg) in all cases one to two inches longer than his own, and could place the maxillary (lower jaw bone) over his own, flesh and all.
- History of Clay County, Indiana. 1909. . . “All the skeletons discovered were of gigantic proportions, a stature of seven feet.”