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The North Benton Mound: A Hopewell Site in Ohio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Willis H. Magrath
Willis H. Magrath*
Affiliation:
Alliance, Ohio
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Extract

The North Benton Mound is a Hopewell site located in Mahoning County, northeastern Ohio. This mound is on the farm of Mr. John Malmsberry, near the village of North Benton. Mr. Roy Saltsman and the writer participated in the excavation of the site. The photographs and other records were made by the writer.

The recent history of the mound is interesting. The grave of Judge William Smith, original owner of the mound, was placed some seven or eight feet north of the crest. It is shown in the cross section (Fig. 4). When Smith died in 1837 with the strange request that he be buried in the mound, the top was apparently cut off to make a burial platform; the removed dirt which was thrown down upon the south shoulder is represented on the projected cross section by broken hatching. The mound, situated on a high knoll, later became an even more conspicuous landmark when conifers were planted on it and grew to great size.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , July 1945 , pp. 40 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1945

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References

1 Valuable guidance was received from the staff of Mount Union College, particularly from Dr. Joseph M. Scott, in bone structure, and Professor G. C. Lamb, in geology. Acknowledgements are made to Dr. John R. Cooper, Ohio Wesleyan University, for identification of minerals, and to Mr. Richard G. Morgan, Mr. H. Holmes Ellis, Lt. Col. Dache M. Reeves, Dr. Carl E. Guthe, Mr. W. C. McKern, Dr. Thome Deuel, Dr. J. Alden Mason, Dr. Philip Phillips, and Dr. Alexander Wetmore for assistance in many ways. To Mr. Clyde Vannaman and other students of Mount Union College; Mr. Ernest Stanley and Mr. Beryll Hartzell of North Benton; Mr. James Magrath, Mr. William Saltsman, and Mr. W. H. Mathews of Salem, Ohio, the writer is deeply indebted for generous aid without which it would have been impossible to conduct this exploration.

2 In a mound near Brownsville, Ohio, excavated by Mr. Ray LePage in 1936, the single burial, that of a large male, I was encased in a hard shell of material resembling fire clay. The shell could hardly be broken with the finger

3 Cyrus Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, Bureau of American Ethnology, Twelfth Annual Report, 1894.

4 Dr. J. B. Wilkinson of Alliance, Ohio, called the writer's attention to this condition.

5 Although Mr. Magrath's revised manuscript was received in November, 1940, subsequent delays in preparing it for publication have been beyond the control of either Mr. Magrath or the editor.