Pg 445

         In sinking wells, many of the farmers and others have found pieces of timber, deer horns, etc., at a depth ranging from ten to sixty feet below the surface of the ground. About 1860, George Safley, living near Red Oak Grove, was sinking a well, and at a depth of sixty feet, found a piece of what was believed by many, to be red cedar timber. It was about the thickness of a man’s arm, and a part of it was in a very fair state of preservation. About the same time, William M. Knott was also engaged in sinking a well on the farm now owned by John Miller, one-half mile west of Tipton, and at the depth of forty feet, found several pieces of timber of from six to eight inches in length, and about as thick as a man’s wrist. Most of the pieces were well preserved and quite solid, and, as far as could be discovered, were either pine or cedar knots. A number of other well-diggers made similar discoveries of timber at various depths from the surface of the ground, which, for a time, were subjects of wonder to the curiously inclined.

         Almost simultaneously with the finding of the pieces of timber in the Safley and Knott wells, Charles Ford was sinking a well on the farm now owned by his son, Rolla Ford, in Virginia Grove, three and a half miles southeast of Tipton, and at a depth of twenty-six feet found a buck horn almost as perfect and solid as when it fell from the head upon which it had grown. How long . . .

Pg 446

. . . those things had been buried so deep down in the earth no one knows. Where they came from, or what changes the earth had gone through after they lodged where they were found, are questions that can be better answered by the researches of the antiquarian than by the geologist or county historian.

         May 11 and 12, 1878, Messrs. Dr. G. L. Stemple, Sewall, Gower and others, at Cedar Bluff, opened what was called an ancient mound, on the Gower place, on the west side of Cedar River. A Springdale correspondent of the Advertiser (Tipton), writing under date of May 13, in speaking of the opening of this mound and its hitherto hidden relics, said:

         This primeval graveyard is located on the summit one of the highest bluffs in that vicinity, situated on the Gower farm, about a half a mile below the bridge that spans the Cedar River at this point (Cedar Bluff). The mound was noticed by some of the early settlers, but did not excite any particular interest until of late.

         The Doctor being quite an enthusiastic worker in scientific matters, concluded he would disturb the long quietude of the ancient burial place. Accordingly they proceeded to open five elevations of earth, and in each one they found prints of decomposed forms, in three of them nothing but particles of dust marked the pre-existence of any material body, but in the other two they found quite a number of remaining bones.

         Dr. Stemple gives the following as his opinion of this early type of man: First, from the size of the bones, when compared with a medium skeleton of the present day, that they were much larger, very muscular and of portly form, standing eight feet in height. It is estimated from the portion of the skull found—a portion of the frontal, the right parietal and a portion of the occipital bone—that the capacity of the brain in cubic inches was as large, if not larger, than the average capacity of the intellectual brain of the present day. According to an indefinite measure made by the Doctor and myself (the correspondent), the horizontal circumference, just above the ears, would equal twenty-four inches, while that of an average sized head of to-day, according to the leading physiologists, measures but twenty-two.

         Dr. Stemple concludes that they belong to a distinct race that existed prior to the Indian. From the charred particles found near the surface of the excavation, he supposes them to have been a fire-worshiping people, and from the posture occupied in the sepulcher, that they regarded the sun as the great center of omnipotent power. From the implements found beside the remaining parts and the care that had been taken for the preservation of the body, he considered the race allied to the manners and customs of the Egyptians who believed that the body was not entirely unconscious, while an inhabitant of the tomb, but that at some future period the soul and body would again unite.

         These bones are in the possession of Dr. Stemple, at Cedar Bluff, where they may be seen and examined by the curious and speculative.