Arrow-heads, made of flint or horn-stone, gouges, pestles, hatchets, and other weapons formed from stone, have been found about the “Hill” and throughout this section. Of the rarer articles, are pipes and beads, a few of the latter of which I have been able to obtain. The gouges, pestles and hatchets, are, I think, frequently made of compact limestone, probably what is now known in Mr. Hall’s State report as the one foot limestone at Le Roy, though many of them seem to be formed of primitive rock, and very likely were worked out from boulders scattered about the country.
Skeletons found about “Fort Hill” and its vicinity sustain the impression that the former occupants of this “military station” were of a larger and more powerful race of men than ourselves. I learned that the skeletons generally indicated a stouter and larger frame. An humerus or shoulder bone of which preserved may safely be said to be one-third larger or stouter than any now swung by the living. A resident of Batavia, Thomas T. Everett, M. D., has in his cabinet a portion of a lower jaw bone full one-third larger than any possessed by the present race of men, which was found in a hill near Le Roy, some two years since. From the same hill arrow-heads and other articles have been removed for many years.
The articles I send you are as follows:—No. 1, an Indian gouge, made of very hard stone, found at “Fort Hill;” No. 3, arrow-heads, of flint; No. 4, beads; No. 5, a bead, evidently formed from a tooth, as the enamel and other distinctive marks indicate; No. 6, a bead, apparently of bone.
No. 2 is a stone tomahawk, presented to me by Jerome A. Clark, Esq., of this village. It was found on his premises half a mile south of this place. I herewith present it to you.
These articles I have sent to-day by a friend, and you will find them by calling at Tammany Hall. I have not yet been able to visit Tonawanda, but am in hopes to do so in a day or two.
Your ob’t serv’t,
FREDERICK FOLLETT.
(G.)
Letter from C. Dewey to Henry R. Schoolcraft.
Fort Hill.
This is celebrated as being the remains of some ancient work, and was supposed to have been a fort. Though the name is pronounced as if hill was the name of some individual, yet the place is a fort on a hill, in the loose use of the word. The name designates the place as Fort-hill, to distinguish it from the hills which have no fort on them. Neither is it a hill, except as you rise from the swale on the north, for it is lower than the land to which it naturally belongs.