History of Atchison County Kansas
by Sheffield Ingalls
CHAPTER II.
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PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.________
EVIDENCES OF PALEOLITHIC MAN——AN ANCIENT FORTIFICATION——ABORIGINAL
VILLAGE AND CAMP SITES——THE INGALLS AND OTHER BURIAL MOUNDS.
How long the region embraced in Atchison county has been the home
of man is not known, but the finding of a prehistoric human skeleton, com-
puted by the highest anthropological and geological authorities to be at least
10,000 years old, in the adjoining county of Leavenworth, favors the pre-
sumption that what is now Atchison county was occupied by man at an equally
remote period. Evidences of a very early human existence here have been
found at various times. Near Potter, in this county, the writer found deep
•in the undisturbed gravel and clay, a rude flint implement that unquestionably
had been fashioned by prehistoric man, evidently, of what is known as the
Paleolithic period. In drilling the well at the power house of the Atchison
Street Railway, Light and Power Company, the late T. J. Ingels, of Atchison,
encountered at a great depth, several fragments of fossilized bone, inter-
mingled with charcoal, evidently the remains of a very ancient fireplace.
About 1880, M. M. Trimmer, an Atchison contractor, in opening a stone
quarry at the northeast point of the Branchtown hill, near the confluence of
White Clay and Brewery creeks, in Atchison, unexpectedly encountered a pit
or excavation, eighty feet long, sixty feet wide, and eighteen feet deep, in
the solid rock formation of the hill. The surface of the hill is composed of
drift or gravel, and the pit had become filled with this gravel to the original
surface, thus obliterating all external evidences of its existence. The lower
layer of stone, about six inches thick, had been left for a floor in the pit, and
in the northwest comer this lower strata of stone for about four feet square
had been removed. Water issued from the ground at this point indicating
that a spring or well, or source of water supply, had been located here. A
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22 HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY
careful examination of the place at the time showed unmistakably that this
excavation had been made by human hands at a very early period and was
probably used as a fortification or defensive work. Prehistoric excavations
of this character, made in the solid rock, are common in Europe, but almost
unknown in America, except in the cases of ancient flint and steatite quar-
ries, and the absence of either in the Atchison formation, except an occasional
flint nodule, precludes the possibility that this was just an aboriginal quarry.
The Smithsonian authorities at Washington pronounced the work worthy of
careful study, but unfortunately it was obliterated by the progress of the
quarrying. Many weapons and implements of the stone age have been found
in the vicinity of this pit.
Almost the entire surface of Atchison county, particularly where border-
ing streams, presents various traces of aboriginal occupancy, from the silent
sepulchers of the dead and the mouldy rubbish of the wigwam, to the solitary
arrowhead lost on the happy chase or the sanguinary war path. In many
places these remains blend into the prehistoric, semi-historic and historic
periods, showing evidences of a succession of occupancy. For instance we
find the Neolithic stone celts or hatchets, the Neoeric iron tomahawks; frag-
ments of fragile earthenware, mixed and moulded by the prehistoric potter,
and bits of modern decorated porcelain made by some pale-faced patterner
of Palissy; ornaments of stone, bone and shell; trinkets of brass and beads
of glass, intermingled in confusion and profusion. These numerous relics
of different peoples and periods, showing, as they do, diverse stages of cul-
ture and advancement, warrant the opinion that Atchison county, with its
many natural advantages, was a favorite resort of successive peoples from
time immemorial. Favorably situated at the great western bend of the Mis-
souri river and at the outskirts of which was one of the richest Indian hunting
grounds in the great wild West, embracing and surrounded by every natural
advantage that would make it the prospective and wonted haunt of a wild-
race, it was a prehfstoric paradise, as it is today, a modern Arcadia.
The writer has personally examined hundreds of ancient Indian village,
camp and workshop sites, and opened a number of mounds in Atchison county.
The first ancient mounds ever opened in the county were on a very rugged
hill known as the "Devil's Backbone," bordering Owl creek, and overlooking
the Missouri river, in 1891. There were two of them, and they contained
stone sepulchers in which the Indians had cremated their dead. Other stone
grave mounds have been opened on the farms of John Myers, on Independ-
ence creek, in the northeastern part of the county; Maurice Fiehley, on
23 HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY
State Orphans' Home, Atchison, Kan.
Stranger creek, near Potter; George Storch, on Alcom or Whiskey creek,
just south of Atchison, and in several other places. The most interesting
mound ever excavated in the county, however, was what is known as the In-
galls Mound, on land belonging to the estate of the late United States Senator
John J. Ingalls, on a bluff of the Missouri river, at the mouth of Walnut
creek, about five miles below Atchison. This mound was discovered by Sen-
ator Ingalls at an early day, and opened by the writer in 1907. It was fifteen
feet in diameter, and was composed of alternate layers of stone and earth
one on top of the other, the remains of several Indians being imbedded in the
earth between the layers of stone. These remains were in a bad state of decay,
most of the bones crumbling while being removed. The bones of each per-
son had been placed in the mound in compact bundles, which seems to indi-
cate that they had been removed, from some temporary place of interment,
perhaps from dilapidated scaffold burials, and deposited here in final sepul-
ture. In some of the layers not only the bones but the rocks and earth were
considerably burned, indicating incinerary funeral rites, while in others there
were not the least marks of fire. The undermost layer, about three feet from
24 HISTORY OF ATCHISON COUNTY
the top, was a veritable cinder pit, being a burned mass or conglomerate of
charcoal and charred and calcined human remains, showing no regularity or
outline of skeletons, but all in utter confusion. A solitary pearl bead was
the only object that withstood the terrible heat to which the lower tier of re-
mains had been subjected. In one of the upper tiers were the bones of two
infants. With one of them was a necklace of small shells of a species not
native here. With another bundle of bones were two small, neatly chipped
flint knives, a flint scraper, a bone whistle or "call," several deer horn imple-
ments, and a large flint implement of doubtful usage, known to archeologists
as a "turtle-back," because of its shape. With another bundle of bones, and
which they seemed to be clasping, were several mussel shells, badly decom-
posed. One small ornament of an animal or bird claw, several flint arrow-
heads, and some fragments of pottery, were also found. In one of the skulls
was embedded the flint blade of a war-club. Thirty-one yards northwest of
this mound was found another of less prominence. It contained a burned
mass of human remains, covered with a layer of about six inches of clay,
baked almost to the consistency of brick. Lack of space forbids a mention
of many other interesting archaeological discoveries made in this county from
time to time. Suffice to say that there is ample evidence that within the bor-
ders of Atchison county there lived and thrived and passed away a consider-
able aboriginal population.
