Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Anthropology/Mounds, Workshops, and Stone-Heaps in Jefferson County, Alabama
MOUNDS, WORKSHOPS, AND STONE-HEAPS IN JEFFERSON COUNTY, ALABAMA.
By William Gesner, of Birmingham, Alabama.
Three mounds are to be seen in township 17, range 1 west, of Jefferson County, about 4 miles north of Birmingham, and west of the South and North Alabama Railroad, in that portion of Jones Valley through which flows Village Creek from east to west. They are on the north side of the creek where it is forded, on the Birmingham and Huntsville wagon road, and west of the machinery and buildings of the Birmingham Water Works Company about 1 mile. The largest of them is nearest to, and visible from, this road toward the west. The one, which is the most southerly of the group, appears to be about 30 feet high, conical, and about 100 feet in diameter at its base; the others, distant from it and from each other, about 300 yards, are not in a direct line with each other. The second one north has not one-third the dimension of the first, and the third is much smaller than the second. They are situated on the plain of one of the most fertile tracts of land in Jones Valley, which has been cultivated for more than fifty years.
Five Mile Creek, also flowing from east to west, through the hills, from out of this Jones anticlinal Valley, along the base of low ridges of Millstone Grit, bordering the Warrior Coal Field on the southeast, being crossed at Boyles Gap, on the South and North Alabama Railroad, places these mounds between two streams, abounding in fish, and tributary to the Black Warrior River. Their immediate locality is unsurpassed by any other region of the State for number, size, clearness, and coolness of the springs, issuing from out both the ridges of Silurian quartzites, and beds of limestone outcropping in the valley. They have been injured to some extent by hunters and farming operations, particularly the smallest one, but the largest one has oaks and other trees of large dimensions on it, growing without thriving. No explorations having been made of any of them, their arrangement and composition remain unknown.
Workshops.—In township 18, range 7 east, of Talladega County, on the headwaters of Talladega Creek, at the eastern end of Cedar Ridge, (a spur of the Rebecca Potsdam sandstone Mountain) in the old fields where the Montgomery Mining & Manufacturing Company's, Sulphur, Bluestone, Copperas, and Alum Works were situated, wagon loads of quartz fragments, broken arrow-heads, and spear-points, cover the ground; but on a much larger scale appears to have been the manufactory of these implements in township 19, range 27 east, of Lee County, on the Columbus Georgia branch of the Western Railroad east of Yongesborough; for in the fields, on the southeastern side of a low ridge called Storees Mountain, many acres are covered with the broken quartz, in every variety of that mineral found in this hill, from transparent rock crystal to jasper and chalcedony; among which occasional good implements occur.
Stone-heaps.—In township 23, range 14 east, of Chilton County, on the middle prong of Yellowleaf Creek, about 3½ miles northeast of Jemison Station, on the South and North Alabama Railroad, there are three stone heaps. The first one is about 100 yards from and on the west bank, being about 20 feet in diameter, and from 4 to 5 feet high at the center, with a post oak and pine growing on it of ancient appearance, and each of them about 8 inches in stump measurement. Two others nearly west of this, distant about 700 yards on the eastern brow of the ridge, are about 100 yards apart; one of them about 10 and the other 20 feet in diameter at the base and from 4 to 5 feet high at the center, which, though in the primitive forest, have no trees growing on them. Another, 1 mile east of these, on a more westerly ridge, in the same range and township, is about 50 feet in diameter at the base and over 5 feet high at the center. In township 21, range 3 west, on the quartzite ridge east of Siluria (about 1 mile), on the South and North Alabama Railroad, occurs a smaller stone heap than any of those before mentioned, supposed to be the grave of an Indian warrior.