pg 9

The first people to inhabit Louisa county were the Mound Builders. This ancient race disappeared before historic times and is known only by such of its works as have survived the destructive elements of time. Whence it came, and when, how long it remained in the land and whither it departed, may never be known.

Earthen walls, mounds, figures, ditches and pits, implements of war and of art, of the chase, of husbandry and the home, made of stone, metal, bone and shell, point to a people far in advance of savagry, a people of fixed habitation and living under something akin to government.

Louisa county had its full share of this ancient race. The high bluffs of the Mississippi and the Iowa rivers were their favorite dwelling places. The rich valleys below may have been their fields and the adjacent streams and forests their hunting grounds.

Toolesboro must have been a place of some importance among them, for here are found some of their most extensive works. It required the labor of man for many days to construct the great mounds and walls, still in evidence on the river bluffs about this village. There was also an ancient work, now obliterated, called a fort, adjacent to these mounds. A description and sketch of this interesting work will be found in connection with some observations taken from Mr. Newhall's "Sketches of Iowa." As there are no pits in evidence to indicate the place whence the earth was taken, we can only infer that it was loosened with a flint hoe, or other crude tool, and borne in baskets to the place of deposit, as fragments of such baskets made of bark, have been found in mounds at other places.

Modern civilization tends to level and obliterate these evidences of an interesting past. The spade of the curiosity seeker, and the plow of the farmer gradually remove these traces of our ancient inhabitants. It is greatly to the credit of the people of Toolesboro to preserve one and the chief of these great ruins. The fine mound on the border of this village is the largest known to exist in Iowa, and its sacred contents have never been disturbed. Many of its sister mounds have been opened and destroyed, and the earth walls near by have been almost leveled by the plow.

But scientific exploration is not to be condemned. Without such aid history would have no record of primeval people. The Davenport Academy of Science has for many years conducted many well advised explorations of the ancient mounds and works found in the valley of the Mississippi river. Its collection of Mound Builder antiquities is the finest in the United States. In conducting ...

pg 10

... its field work it has been careful to preserve all relics discovered, giving to each locality due credit for all contributions and being especially careful to restore the disturbed works to their former condition. Its museum is open to the public. It is known throughout both our country and Europe, and many antiquarians visit it for study in this interesting field.

Many years ago the academy opened some of the Toolesboro mounds, and secured, in addition to the usual stone axes, flint spears and arrow heads, etc., a number of axes and implements made of native copper. Nearly a dozen copper axes were secured. In size they range from five to eight inches long, having a cutting edge of two to three and a half inches and are from a half to one and a quarter inches thick. They are made of native copper and were beaten and ground into shape. The outside of each was heavily coated with the green oxide of copper, on removal of which the pure metalic copper appeared. This collection of copper axes is unique and valuable because some of the axes were wrapped in a coarse cloth with an outer wrapping of bark. This cloth is fossilized by the copper salts but it shows the fibre and the weaving with remarkable distinctness. The texture of the cloth was about as coarse as very heavy huck or linen toweling. The threads of both warp and woof were the same size and tightly twisted.

Extensive Mound Builders works are also found in the eastern part of Grand View township, on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi. The most noticeable of these works is an area of about two acres enclosed by two parallel walls of earth, five to six feet high, and a ditch nearly as deep, and a circular excavation at the west side about a hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. At the foot of the bluff below this pit are two natural flowing springs, one of sulphur water and the other pure.

The Davenport Academy of Science is famous among antiquarians, for two specimens of ancient art found in this vicinity. These are the "Elephant Pipes." One of these was taken from a mound on the farm of P. Haas, by Mr. Haas and Rev. A. Blumer, a zealous member of the academy, and the other was picked up by a farmer, whose name is unknown, and given to Mr. Blumer. These are now preserved in the museum of the academy. These pipes are made of a dark brown stone, quite hard and well polished. The bowl of the pipe is carved out of the back of the elephant, and the base of each is convex upward. They are each about four inches long, two and a half inches high and one and one-eighth inches thick. The body is comparatively large. The feet, tail and proboscis are well formed, but there is an absence of tusks. Other pipes similar in material and form were found here, representing mostly some beast, bird or man.

Mounds are to be found in many of the prominent bluffs of the county. Implements of war and the chase are quite uniformly scattered over the county. Many stone axes are found and flint arrow heads, spear heads, knives, scrapers and hoes have been very common. The number and size of these earthworks, and the abundance of these works of art representing both war and peace, attest the uniformity with which these people inhabited the county as well as their number and the length of time they lived in possession.

Taking the whole country, the most extensive earthworks are found in the level river valleys and not on the bluffs. The most extensive series of embank...

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... ments, figures and mounds, are to be found in the state of Ohio. Wisconsin contains an embankment representing an elephant. The largest mound in the United States is the Cahokia mound in Illinois, a few miles above St. Louis. This is a stupendous pile of earth,— a parellelogram, 700 feet by 500 feet and 90 feet high, and covers six acres; and a causeway 150 feet wide and 300 feet long leads to the top. A similar but smaller pyramid is near Saltzertown, Mississippi,— 600 feet by 400 feet, and 40 feet high, covering about five acres. The "great serpent" in Adams county, Ohio, is 700 feet long, and the "alligator" in Licking county, Ohio, is 250 feet long. Near Wheeling, West Virginia, is a huge mound 900 feet in circumference and 70 feet high.

We cannot certainly .know the purpose for which these works were erected. Ditches and embankments were probably for defense. Animal figures for Deities and mounds were sepulchral or sacrificial.

The Mound Builders can only be mentioned in the most general terms. It was an ancient race. It had disappeared before the Columbian discovery; the modern Indian had no tradition of it, and great trees showing an annular growth of many centuries have grown and fallen on its works. It was numerically strong; for the huge masses of earth piled up in its great pyramids, and countless mounds and embankments point to united effort of a numerous people covering a large period of time. This people had permanent dwellings, for a nomad people would have neither motive nor ability for such construction. They cultivated the soil. The sites of their settlements were adjacent to rich valleys, instruments adapted to husbandry are found in the locality, and people in such numbers could not otherwise exist. They attained to a fair degree of civilization, for they used implements of stone, metal, shell and bone and wove cloth. They had commercial relations with most regions, for their copper came from the Lake Superior region, where their ancient mines are still to be seen; their mica from New Hampshire or the Carolinas, and their obsidian from Nevada or Mexico, and sea shells must have come from the gulf or the Atlantic.

They were largely given to pursuits of peace, for otherwise they would not have been driven from their homes by the savage tribes, who later possessed the land. They were under no general government, for if they had been they could have successfully opposed the invading foe. They were under some form of local government, for their mighty works could only be accomplished by a power compelling united effort.

Such numbers would hardly desert the vast territory by common consent, and it is hardly possible that a pestilence carried them away. We may infer that most of them were destroyed by an invading tribe or tribes. Their savage foes would naturally covet their granaries and stores and would find this docile race easy victims of their savage greed, and might have no use for slaves except for torture. They may gradually have been driven south for there was an old tradition among the Toltec Mexicans that their ancestors came from the northland.

One of the most entertaining and instructive works on early Iowa history is Newhall's "Sketches of Iowa," published in 1840. Mr. Newhall was at that time a resident of Burlington and was a writer and speaker of some prominence; was at one time interested in the town site of Florence in this county, and was a frequent visitor to the county; and we shall have frequent occasion to use ...

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... extracts from his work. He was much interested in the Mound Builders and his work contains the only description we have been able to find of the old fort, near Toolesboro. It is found in an article on "Antiquities and Mounds." After indulging in some speculation concerning who the Mound Builders were and from whence they came, he speaks of having examined this old fortification at Black Hawk on the north side of the Iowa river, and then says:

"The site of the town itself is marked and striking. A portion of the village is located under a high precipitous bluff. Upon ascending this, the country sweeps off in a very gradual descent of beautiful prairie. Upon the margin of this bluff (which is of great height, and nearly perpendicular towards the river) there are eight conical mounds, averaging from twenty to thirty feet in height, and about eighty feet in circumference at the base, with a small area or terrace upon their summits. From the top of these mounds the view is almost boundless, embracing every point of the compass. Indeed from the Falls of St. Anthony to the mouth of the Ohio, I know of but few panoramic views so extensive and so varied. Overlooking the broad Mississippi, and the wide and extended prairies of Illinois in the east, the 'Flint Hills' in the south, and the high bluffs of Bloomington in the north, I was particularly struck with the different points that could be brought to bear upon each other by a line of telegraphs or beacon lights upon a wide extent of country. A few feet in the rear appear indistinct vestiges of the old fort, now almost obliterated by the work of time. The embankment is of earth, and, in many portions, can be distinctly traced, enclosing an area of five or six acres, the angles and bastions exhibiting the form of an octagonal crescent. It evidently appears to have been constructed for the purpose of defense, the points of the angles and intervening flanks showing, conclusively, a knowledge of the engineering and military science. Opposite the mounds and upon the western side of the fort, the early settlers of the place informed me that, previous to the grounds having been plowed up, a distinct lane or covert way was visible, formed by two parallel embankments, and leading some eighty or ninety feet to a spring; although at the present time, this embankment is scarcely perceptible, the work of the plow having obliterated nearly every trace of its outline. Within the fort I have discovered detached fragments of pottery, pieces of pitcher handles, urns, etc., unlike anything of the present day, also several flint spears, or javelins. Some of the pottery bore the visible marks of being glazed, and the distinct impression of diagonal marks forming diamonds and fluted rims, evincing much skill and workmanship. Many of the neighbors informed me that, on excavating some mounds, a few miles distant, several well formed furnaces had been discovered; in fact, all the ware discovered in the fort, bore conclusively the process of heat, i. e., of having been baked. Many of the most aged Indians of the Sac and Fox tribes have been interrogated upon the subject and history of this fort, but they have no tradition more than a sort of innate reverence for the neighborhood of mounds, viewing them in the light of consecrated places."

On page 234 Mr. Newhall gives a diagram or sketch of this ancient work and in order that our readers may have a better idea of it than can be given otherwise, we have procured a cut of it. After this cut was made we caused it to be published in the Wapello Tribune, accompanied by a request for any one who was familiar with the matter to locate the point where the spring used...

Chart of Old Fort at Toolesboro

pg 13

... to be, as shown in the sketch; after seeing the sketch Mr. Anson Kimball designated the place where in his opinion the spring undoubtedly was, at one time, and this place is on the lands now owned by C. L. Mosier, and would seem to be at about the proper distance and in about the proper direction from the mounds which are still standing on the bluffs. Mr. Newhall also makes some interesting observations upon the similarity between the works at Toolesboro and some that are found in Ohio. We quote again: "The reader must observe the striking similarity between these works and those described on the banks of the Muskingum. The situation of those works is on an elevated plain, above the present banks of the Muskingum on the east side, and about half a mile from its junction with the Ohio. They consist of walls and mounds of earth, in direct line, and in circular form. On each side are several openings resembling gateways. Allusion is also made to a covert way of two parallel walls of earth, leading toward the river. "Atwater, in allusion to the same 'works,' remarks: 'On the outside of the parapet I picked up a considerable number of fragments of ancient potter's ware. This ware is ornamented with lines, some of them quite curious and ingenious, on the outside, and has a partial glazing on the inside. The fragments, on breaking them, look quite dark, with brilliant particles appearing as you hold them to the light.'

"The similitude is so striking that I could not give a better description to those I picked up at Black Hawk. Many gentlemen, familiar with the antiquities of Ohio, among whom was Governor Robert Lucas, instantly recognized the similarity."

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