Barry County – 22 Skeletons 7 to 8 Ft in Height
Very Old Inhabitants
Special Telegram to Chicago Times.
BATTLE CREEK, MICH, June 22.
William D. Rhoades, Curator of the High School Museum, who has just returned from a trip into Barry County, where he has been engaged in making a collection of specimens for the Museum, relates the particulars of a very interesting archaeological discovery, which is the first intelligence that our antiquarians have received of the fact. Last fall, while a Mr. Cartwright was breaking up a new piece of land for wheat, and was plowing over some old mold, his plow cut off the skulls of seven skeletons. Mr. Cartwright was considerably startled by the ghastly sight of twelve skulls rolling all at once in the furrow but proceeded to an investigation when twenty-two skeletons were found, sitting upright, face to face, in a circle. A number of arrowheads, stone pipes, and hatchets were found with the skeletons; also, a silver breastplate covered with curious inscriptions. This plate was sold to a young man for $10, who has since moved away, and our archaeologists are now endeavoring to get trace of it, as they expect it will reveal something interesting to them.
The next remarkable part of the discovery was the size of the skeletons. They were giants and averaged from seven to eight feet in height. The lower jawbone of any of them could be fitted with the greatest ease right over a man’s face. The teeth were all perfectly preserved and very large. The bones were again buried by Mr. C. A party of antiquarians from this city will visit his farm as soon as the wheat is out and exhume them and also penetrate another similar mound adjacent.
Old settlers say that when they came into the country, the Indians, although they had a burial place nearby, had no knowledge of these old mounds and said that they were built before the recollection of their forefathers. Archaeologists are much interested in this important discovery and expect to find the skeletons to be the remains of the mound builders
- Michigan, Barry County, Weekly Kansas Chief, 1874