Arkansas County – A Giant Race 8 and 10 Feet Tall
A Giant Race
(From the Memphis Appeal)
THE INDIAN MOUND CMCKA BAWBA—ni’MAN SKELETONS EIGHT AND TEN FEET IN HEIGHT —RELICS OF ATORMER AGE. Tvo miles west of Barfield Point, in Arkansas county, Ark., on tho east bank of tie lovely stream called Pemescott llivtr, stands an Indian mound, some twenty-five feet high, and about an acre in area at the top. This mound is called Chickasawba, and from it the high and beautiful country surrounding it, some twelve square miles in area, derives its name— Chickasawba. The mound derives its name form Chickasawba, a chief of the Shawnee tribe, who lived, died, and was buried there. This chief was one of the last of the race of hunters who lived in that beautiful region, and who once peopled it quite thickly—for Indians we mean. From 1820 to 1831 he and his hunters assembled annually at Barfield Point, then as now* the principal shipping place of the surrounding country, and bartered off their furs, peltries, buffalo robes, and honey to the white settlers and the trading boats on the river, receiving in return powder, shot, lead, blankets, money, &c. Aunt Kitty Williams, who now resides there, relates that Chickasawba would frequently bring in for sale at one time as much as twenty gallons of pure honey in deerskin bags slung to his back. He was aiwnv* a firm friond of whites, a man of gigantic stature and herculean strength. In his nineteenth year he took a young wife, and by her had two children. In 1831 she died, and the old chief did not long survive her, dying in the samo year, aged 93 or 94 years. Mr. W. Fitzgerald, who moved in that country in 1822, says that up to tho time of his death, Chickasawba supplied him with game. He was buried at the foot of the mound on which he had lived, by his tribe, most of whom departed for the Nation immediately after performing his funeral rites. A few, however, lingered there up to a late date, the last of them, we believe, being John East, who, in 1860, at the breaking out of the war, joined Captain Charley Bowcn’s company of the late ” go-called.” and fought the war through, as gallant a ” reb” as any of them, coming back home in 18G5 to return to the arts of peace. Chickasawba was perfectly honest, and the best informed chief of his tribe. His contemporary chiefs were Long Knife, Sunshine, Corn Meal, Moonshine, (Mike Brennan,) &c. Mike Brennan and Quill buried him. He left a son named John Pemescott.
- Washington Standard, Volume X, Number 52, 29 October 1870