STAKE NO. 9.
These are the best preserved ruins on the trail. Some restoration has been done around the doorways, using a dark mud to distinguish it from the original. The black soot deposit on the ceilings is the result of using pitch Pine for fuel. If you look closely at the inside walls of this room you will see the handprints of the women who plastered it—prints placed here long before America was discovered. Since so many people wish to see them, we ask that you do not touch the wall; otherwise in a few years the handprints would be completely obliterated.
Women Doing Masonry
Note the smoke-blackened rocks inside the wall itself. They show that the stones were re-used from an earlier dwelling, probably constructed at the same site.