The Champlain tercentenary

by New York . Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission; Henry Wayland Hill

Of earthenware or pottery a very great variety has been found. In this more than in any of the stone objects we are able at least partially to separate the Algonkian from the Iroquoian. The earthenware of the Champlain valley is sometimes almost without decoration, but by far the greater portion was ornamented at least about the rim and usually over much of the upper portion and sometimes even inside the upper part for one or two inches below the rim. No animal or human form is found in any specimen. The form is always globular below, the rim being contracted and variously shaped. In some cases the rim is quadrangular or five or six sided, although as stated, the lower part is always globular. Whole jars are, as is to be expected, very rare, but three fine specimens from Vermont are in the University Museum and one was in the fine collection of Dr. D. S. Kellogg of Plattsburgh, which was found near that place.[3] Large fragments, in some instances almost enough to reconstruct a whole jar, have been found on both sides of the valley. For the most part the pottery of the region is in fragments from the size of one’s hand to mere bits not larger than a pea. These fragments have been found in very great quantity. A short distance north of Plattsburgh near what is locally called “The Creek,” there were evidently many jars made, for some years ago the sand blown off revealed the old fireplaces where the pots were burned and an immense number of fragments were picked up. The decoration is in all cases indented, none in relief. It consists of all sorts of figures, crescents, key-shaped figures, circles, dots, triangles, squares, zigzags, etc., and groups of lines, arranged in every conceivable fashion, all stamped or drawn on the clay when it was soft. Some of the patterns are really very attractive and done with no little skill. Only by the aid of plates can any adequate idea of the variety and elegance of these designs or of the earthenware as a whole be given.

In quality the Champlain valley pottery varies as in every other respect. Some of it is of the finest paste and carefully burned; some is of very coarse material and more carelessly burned. Over the surface of most specimens after the piece was shaped and perhaps partly dried, a thin, smooth paste was added which covered the ruder mass of which the jar was mainly composed. As to the size of most of the jars it is only possible to give an approximate measure because of their fragmentary condition, but, with those that are entire and the larger fragments as guides, it may be said that they varied from those holding a pint to those holding ten quarts. As to what may be called the nationality of the pottery, it may be noticed that while there is much resemblance there are important differences. The entire jars and the finest of the fragments are to be regarded as made by Iroquois, while the simpler forms, especially those found on the eastern side of the valley are Algonkian. While the work of the Iroquois is superior to that of the Algonkins, yet when it is remembered that all of the pottery was made entirely by hand, the regularity of form and general excellence are remarkable.

Soapstone dishes, such as are common in some parts of New England, are also found here, but they are very infrequent and always badly broken. Soapstone is not uncommon on the Vermont side of the valley, but the ancient residents seem to have preferred to use pots of earthenware.

Bone was probably used by the aborigines to a much greater extent than now appears, for this material was used to so great an extent by other tribes and is so readily fashioned into certain classes of implements and was always at hand that it would surely have been a common material for many of the smaller implements, such as awls, needles, points for marking pottery, fishing spears and the like.

Until within a few years only a very few bone objects of any sort had been found, but recently quite a number of various sorts have been found on the east shore of the lake and a few on the west. Some of these are like the many-barbed spear points of the Eskimo, but most are the ordinary awls, blunt points, etc. These latter were probably used mainly for drawing the lines and figures on the unbaked pottery. Canine teeth of the bear were carefully and evidently with no little labor cut or ground until half was removed and the remaining half brought to a sharp edge. As would be expected, objects of shell are uncommon and all that have been found are marine and from southern species. The little marginella conoidalis of the Carolina coast was used whole, evidently as beads, and the columella of the ordinary conch was cut into large beads an inch or more long and nearly as much in diameter. Like the beads made from the marginella these were perforated longitudinally and the surface ground smooth. These shell beads are interesting because they are proof of traffic between the northern and southern tribes. Bits of coral several inches long, the surface smoothed, have been found and furnish added evidence of trade with other tribes, as none of these materials can be obtained from northern waters.

Native copper is not found nearer the Champlain valley than Lake Superior, and here again we find proof of traffic with distant tribes, for copper implements and ornaments of different sorts have been found in several localities on both sides of the lake. Spear points, knives, celts, gouges made from copper, beaten into shape, have been found, and one large specimen weighing thirty-eight ounces, a celt eight inches long, was evidently cast in a mould. This was found a few years ago at the mouth of Otter creek, on the Vermont shore.

Besides those objects, which were for use as tools, there are copper bars, which were probably ornaments, and small beads made by beating the metal into sheets and rolling pieces of the thin copper into cylinders. We cannot know much as to the age of the objects thus far mentioned. It is certain that their use reaches back centuries before the coming of the white men, but how far into the remote past of this country none may say. When we find anything made from iron, however, there is no difficulty in assigning it an age, since the French adventurers came to the American wilderness and bartered their hatchets and other articles of iron for that which they needed from the savages. Queer shaped axes or tomahawks, pipes, etc., are now and then found always much rusted, but always of interest.

In the preceding pages there has not been any attempt to give more than a summary of what has been found during the past fifty or seventy-five years in the Champlain valley, which illustrates somewhat the life and handicraft of those to whom the region belonged before it was taken from them by the incoming Europeans.

Those who may care to pursue the subject further are referred to Dr. Beauchamp’s writings in Bulletins 16, 22, 50, 89 of the New York State Museum and to articles by the writer of this paper in the American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, pp. 607-623, plates XXIX-XXXVII; Vol. 13, pp. 239-249, plates XII-XVII; Vol. 14, pp. 72-80, plates I-V, also Seventh Report Vermont State Geologist, pp. 55-73, plates V-XVIII.