Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Story of Cooperstown by Ralph Birdsall
page 19 of 348 (05%)
areas where fires had been located, the soil being well baked, with
mingled charcoal and burned bones. There were also about the fire sites
fragments of deer horn, bears' teeth, and much broken pottery. Spear
heads were rather few, sinkers and hammer-stones more numerous. I never
found any perfect axes, but did find fragments."

The great number of imperfect arrow-heads and flint chips found here, as
well as on the flat northeast of Iroquois Farm house, and on the low
land between the O-te-sa-ga and the Country Club house, shows the
frequent occupation of these places as Indian camps.

[Illustration: THE OTSEGO IROQUOIS PIPE

(Seven-tenths actual size)]

In 1916 David R. Dorn conducted a more intensive examination of the plot
explored by Dr. White and Dr. Ferguson. His investigation revealed a
site that showed two distinct layers of Indian relics, the lower and
more ancient being of Algonquin type, while the signs of later occupancy
were Iroquois. At about eighteen inches beneath the surface was found
the complete skeleton of an Iroquois Indian. With the skeleton was
unearthed a pipe, of Iroquois manufacture, which Arthur C. Parker, the
State archeologist, declared to be one of the most perfect specimens
known.

Taking all the evidence together, it may be asserted that the present
site of Cooperstown was from ancient times the resort of Indian hunters
and fishermen, and at a later period, more than a generation before its
settlement by white men, as indicated by the size of the apple trees
which they found, included a settled Indian village.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge