By turning into Sisters creek near the mouth of the St. Johns river, an inland passage by water can be made to Fernandina. This inland route has been carefully searched by us for mounds upon two occasions.
Low mound at the Sawpit, Duval County. Low mound at Dr. Harrison’s, Amelia Island, Nassau County. Mound south of Suarez Bluff, Amelia Island, Nassau County. Mound northeast of Suarez Bluff, Amelia Island, Nassau County. Light-house mound, Fernandina, Nassau County.
Low Mound at the Sawpit, Duval County
A small mound at the Sawpit, about 10 miles north of the St. Johns river, 4 feet in height and 35 feet across the base, was completely dug through by us as to its central portion. A few crumbling skeletons in anatomical order were discovered unassociated with any art relics whatsoever.
On the southern end of Talbot Island, Duval County, on the property of Mr. Spicer Houston, of Mayport, are two symmetrical sand mounds about one-half mile apart. This gentleman values the right to investigate at one thousand dollars and is still owner of undisturbed aboriginal earthworks.
Low Mound at Dr. Harrison’s, Amelia Island
On the property of Dr. Robert Harrison, about one-half mile in an easterly direction from his house, which overlooks the Amelia river at a point about one mile, in a southerly direction, from Suarez Bluff (Amelia City, Nassau County) was a mound 1.5 feet high and 30 feet across the base. It had sustained little if any previous investigation and was totally demolished by us.
It was composed of yellowish sand with pockets of white sand, and through the central portion a layer of white sand several inches in thickness ran considerably below the level of the surrounding territory.
Interments, probably a dozen in all, were, curiously enough, marginal and beneath the slope, no remains being met with in or near the central portion of the mound. Both forms of burial, the bunched and that in anatomical order, were present. In one case the remains were in part calcined, while other portions of the skeleton were charred in places only. No charcoal or fire-whitened sand lay with these bones which consequently must have been exposed to flames elsewhere.
A number of the burials lay beneath deposits of oyster shells.