"The first point that I wish to make is that the builders of Fort Ancient selected this site for their work with a wide and accurate knowledge of this part of the country. You all know of the picturesque location, in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Little Miami, on the table land that bounds and in places almost overhangs the river, and which is from two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the river level. Availing themselves of spurs of the old table land which were almost entirely cut off by the gorges tributary to the river, they ran their earth walls with infinite toil in a tortuous, crenulated line along the margins of the declivities. Where the latter was sharp and precepitous the earth walls were left lighter. Where it became necessary to cross the table land, or where the slopes were gradual, the walls were made especially high and strong. The eye and brain of a military engineer, a Vauban of the olden time, is clearly seen in all this. We cannot be mistaken in regard to it when we thus find the weak places made strong, and the strong places left as far as possible to their own natural defenses. The openings from the fort, also, lead out in every case to points easily made defensible and that command views from several directions.
"In the second place we cannot be mistaken in seeing in the work of Fort Ancient striking evidences of an organized society, of intelligent leadership, in a word, of strong government. A vast deal of labor was done here and it was done methodically, systematically and with continuity. Here again you must think of the conditions under which the work was accomplished. There were no beasts of burden to share the labor of their owners; the work was all done by human muscles. Buckets full of earth, each containing from a peck to a half bushel, borne on the backs of men or women, slowly built up these walls, which are nearly five miles in length and which have a maximum height of not less than twenty feet. Reduced to more familiar measurements the earth used in the walls was about 172,000,000 cubic feet."
"Can we be wrong in further concluding that this work was done under a strong and efficient government? Men have always shown that they do not love hard work, and yet hard work was done persistently here. Are there not evidences on the face of the facts that they were held to their tasks by some strong control?
"It is said that the Roman legion required only a square of seven hundred yards to effect the strongest encampment known to the ancients of Europe or Asia, but within these formidable lines there might be congregated at a moment's notice, fifty or sixty thousand men, with all their materials of war, women, children, and household goods."
"There are two mounds seen just outside of the walls at the upper end. From these mounds two low parallel walls extended in a northeasterly direction some thirteen hundred and fifty feet, their distant ends joining around a small mound. As this mound was not well situated for signal purposes, inasmuch as it did not command a very extensive view, and as the embankments would afford very little protection unless provided with palisades, it seems as if the most satisfactory explanation we have is that it was in the nature of a religious work.
"Mr. Hosea thinks he has found satisfactory evidence that between these walls there was a paved street, as he discovered in one place, about two feet below the present surface, a pavement of flat stones. From this as a hint he eloquently says: 'Imagination was not slow to conjure up the scene which was once doubtless familiar to the dwellers of Fort Ancient. A train of worshippers, led by priests clad in their sacred robes and bearing aloft the holy utensils, pass in the early morning ere yet the mists have arisen in the valley below, on the gently swelling ridge on which the ancient roadway lies. They near the mound, and a solemn stillness succeeds their chanting songs; the priests ascend the hill of sacrifice and prepare the sacred fire. Now the first beams of the rising sun shoot up athwart the ruddy sky, gilding the topmost boughs of the trees. The holy flame is kindled, a curling wreath of smoke arises to greet the coming god; the tremulous hush which was upon all nature breaks into vocal joy, and the songs of gladness burst from the throats of the waiting multitude as the glorious luminary arises in majesty and beams upon his adoring people, a promise of renewed life and happiness. Vain promise, since his rays cannot penetrate the utter darkness which for ages has settled over this people.' Thus imagination suggests, and enthusiasm paints, a scene, but from positive knowledge we can neither affirm nor deny its truth."
The largest of the burial mounds is situated at the junction of Grave Creels and the Ohio river, twelve miles below Wheeling, West Virginia. It measures seventy feet in height and is nearly one thousand feet in circumference. An excavation made from the top downward, and from one side of the base to the center disclosed the fact that the mound contained two sepulchres, one at the base and one near the center of the mound. These chambers had been constructed of logs, and covered with stone. The lower chamber contained two skeletons, one of which is supposed to have been a female. The upper chamber contained but one skeleton. In addition to these, there were found a great number of shell beads, ornaments of mica, and bracelets of copper.
It mast have been indeed a great work for people who had neither metallic tools nor domestic animals to have erected such a great mound. The earth for its construction was probably scraped from the surface and carried to the mound in baskets. A people who could erect such a monument as this, with such scanty means at their command, must have possessed those qualities which would sooner or later have brought them civilization.
Charles Dickens, when visiting America, gives this impression that the Big Grave made upon him "…the host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder—so old that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their roots into the earth, and so high that it is a hill, even among the hills that Nature planted around it. The very river, as though it shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who lived so pleasantly here in their blessed ignorance of white existence hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple near this mound, and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek."
Standing here in this lovely region, chosen by a vanished race as their last resting place, we recalled the words of an Ohio poet: