Indian occupation evidenced

The party dug first on Lot 818. Although it found no evidence of human burial or trade goods, it did find scattered flint, animal bone fragments and grit-tempered cordmarked pottery shards indicating that Indians had occupied this area much earlier than the Pymatuning Town era. Apparently extensive digging had been done here much earlier. Later diggings left a large trench. But the group examined the soil thrown from these diggings and could find no evidence of a historic component. The party moved its search to Lot 712 where traces remained of several old diggings, including those of Cadzow. Sipe and Marco Hervatin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, just two years earlier, had found the burial of a horse and a small brass cone near the edge of an old fireplace about 100 feet north and 216 feet east of this lot. Dr. Dragoo's party cleaned the side walls of this excavation and dug several tests in the surrounding area, all to no avail. However, in an area east and north of Lot 712, they found several small, shallow refuse pits, and a large refuse pit. In the large pit they found fragments of native animal bones such as deer and several bones of a domesticated pig. With the bones were fragments of old glass and chinaware typical of the late 18th. and early 19th. centuries. In form, said Dr. Dragoo, the pits appeared to be typically Indian and probably were near one of the Delaware sites, but he found no evidence of human burials here either. There were several small pits and a layer of refuse directly on the line dividing Donation Lands Lots 720 and 810, In this refuse, Dragoo's party found fragments of glass, chinaware, pewter spoons and handwrought iron nails, which they felt dated from the late 1700s.

Sandstone slags found

Near the area, and covering part of it, Dragoo found a small pile of sandstone slags, like those found at other historic Indian sites and used as footers under log cabins. He felt farmers removed them from the nearby cultivated field and piled them where the were found. Dragoo's party still found no burial pits, but they did find evidence of occupation or a house site east of Lot 712. Although he still had not found the cemetery at that time, he felt it could be the major dwelling place of the village on the second terrain that rose abruptly behind the bottom lands. This terrace, Dragoo said, would have been safe from flood waters and was large enough to have accommodated the 15 houses Hutchins saw in 1761. As the party kept surveying the land, it found a small knoll near the base of the hill, about 400 feet north of the corner and ranging from 20 feet east to 175 feet west of the corner. On the south side of the knoll, said Dr. Dragoo, the land dropped off steeply into a swamp, and on the east it was separated by a ravine from the main terrace where evidence of habitation had been found. This knoll, like the main terrace, had been dug into extensively. Dragoo said virtually every foot of this area appeared disturbed, but the diggings appeared to be much older than those on the main terrace. Still, the soil from these diggings gave no evidence of human bones or trade goods, but the party decided to search here more thoroughly. Diggings revealed the soil here also had been disturbed previously. At 30 inches, the party found the skeleton of a horse completely equipped with iron shoes, typical of those put on farm horses in the late 1880s. As the party dug, it found additional disturbances but no human bones. After digging many test pits and finding only that someone else had dug before, the party at last found the first human burial. It was of an adult female, fully extended on the back with the head to the east. There was a flat sandstone slab over the feet, but no more objects were found.


Burial rites traditional

Dragoo said the custom of placing stone slabs in a historic Delaware grave seems to have been common to the Upper Ohio Valley for his party found several burials similarly equipped at the Chambers Site which Carnegie Museum excavated in 1959-60. The party extended its work in all directions now, and found another grave pit immediately to the south. But, it had been vandalized. In the disturbed soil, the party found the bones of a lower right arm, two brass hawk bells and several blue-and-white glass trade beads. These were the only artifacts of historic origin they found in the entire cemetery. Although they found outlines of several other graves nearby, all had been looted and their contents removed. The party searched throughout other areas of the cemetery, but all it found was more evidence of almost total vandalism of the gravesites. Although it didn't doubt it had found the village and cemetery of Pymatuning Town, it found it had arrived on the scene about 75 years too late. Local residents gave accounts that indicated the looting took place in the 1890s. Dragoo said the Indian burials may have been discovered by farmers when they buried the farm horse in the knoll. This touched off a wave of intensive digging that nearly cleaned the cemetery of all contents. The party accomplished its goal of documenting this as the site of Pymatuning Town, but it didn't add to the knowledge of the site as already presented. However, said Dragoo, the group's study of the topography of the site did add a few more details. It substantiated Henderson's remarks that Lots 810 and 818 were bottomlands upon which the cornfields were located. They would have been ideal for crops but too low for the village. No evidence of village debris of either early or late cultures was found on those areas.

Land was swampy

Dragoo did question Henderson's comments that "a great part of an old Indian town" was located on Lot 720, since he found most of the lower portion of this lot to be swamp behind which the land rose steeply. Except for the area on which his party found the cemetery, and a small portion of the upper terrace immediately west of the documented corner, Dragoo said, there would have been little level land in this lot upon which to build cabins. Dragoo concluded that, except for the small area in Lot 720 and a small area in the northwest corner of Lot 818, the village would have been most ideally located upon the high terrace of Lot 712 since that was where his party found most of the evidence of occupation.