Chapter 11
Half a mile south of St. Elizabeth is the Ben Bode Cave. The roof has fallen in near the front, leaving the original exterior standing as a natural bridge a few feet wide. The present entrance to the cavern is 40 feet behind the bridge. It has a wet, rocky floor, and much water flows through it after a rain.
LUCKENHOFF CAVE
On John Luckenhoff's farm, three-fourths of a mile south of St. Elizabeth, facing Tavern Creek, is a small cave with a rocky floor. The entrance is nearly blocked with a mass of stalagmite, behind which the cave is dark.
JURGGENMEYER CAVE
It was reported that in a "cave" on the farm of Conrad Jurggenmeyer, 2½ miles east of St. Elizabeth, a human skull was discovered. The statement may be true; but instead of a cave there is only a tunnel a few rods in length. Beyond the upper arch is an open ravine.
DAERHOFF CAVE
On Ben Daerhoff's farm, 4 miles north of St. Elizabeth, is a cavern facing a narrow valley through which a small stream flows to Tavern Creek a mile and a half away. The entrance is 8 feet high and 55 feet wide. It is well lighted to a depth of 120 feet, where it makes a turn. Dry earth extends back for 55 feet; from there on it is muddy. A small stream flows along one wall, from the wet portion of the floor to the entrance; with a little ditching this could be made to drain off all the water, forming a dry bottom to the rear wall. No refuse of any kind could be found, and the owner says he has never observed any either in the cave or in front of it.
CAVE NEAR MOUTH OF TAVERN CREEK
In the bluff facing Tavern Creek, half a mile above its junction with the Osage, is a cave with an entrance 10 feet high and the same in width. It has a depth of 45 feet in daylight. The floor is of clay and angular gravel, and so wet that puddles are found near the entrance.
BAT CAVE (34)
This is in a bluff facing the Osage, a mile south of the Rock Island Railway bridge. It is not accessible except by means of a ladder or stairway fully 60 feet long. The roof overhangs the entrance, and the floor projects over a shallow rock shelter which reaches for a few rods along the foot of the bluff. A small amount of water seeps from the entrance. Persons who explored the cavern years ago--there is no way to reach it at present--say it divides into three large chambers, mostly dry, and with floors of solid rock or of earth containing much rock.
GRAVE AT MOUTH OF SALINE CREEK (35)
Four miles below Tuscumbia, on the left bank of the Osage, is the mouth of Saline Creek which comes in from the north. On the lower (east) side of their junction, on the farm of Charles Tillman, is a low spur projecting toward the creek. On this is a pile of stones, all that remains of a vault or box grave which formerly existed there. Mr. Tillman says it was originally 35 or 40 feet across, a mound or rounded heap of stones, those about the top being larger than those nearer the base. Needing rock for various purposes, he procured them from this pile, beginning at the top to remove them and proceeding outward. In the course of this work he found that a wall had been built up to a height of about 4 feet, forming a practically square inclosure. The space within was filled and the structure entirely covered with rocks of various sizes. He removed the stones as he reached them, and consequently did not notice whether the outer face of the wall was straighter or smoother than the inner face, or whether there was any particular difference. In all, he took away not less than 40 wagon loads of stones.
On the level top of the hill from which the spur extends is a village site, where mortars, pestles, quantities of flints, and much broken pottery have been found; but no shell.
STARK'S CAVE (36)
Six miles south of Eldon, on a farm now owned by George Irvin, is a cave which is continuous with a small ravine leading up to it. The entrance is 45 feet wide and 16 feet high; a small stream flows from it, along the foot of the left (northern) wall. This skirts a thin deposit of damp earth, which lies along the southern wall, gradually narrowing as it extends inward, until at 50 feet it runs out at the edge of a shallow pool reaching nearly across the cave. The bottom, except for the earth mentioned, is rocky.
The cave was never fit for occupancy.
HOUSE MOUNDS
In an old "History of Miller County" mention is made of a large group of small mounds on a certain man's farm, without giving the locality. It is believed by old residents that this man "lived at one time 2 or 3 miles west of Ullman." If they existed, they were no doubt house mounds.
CAIRNS
Several graves, in a group, were formerly on John Tillman's land, 6 miles south of Eugene. The stones have been entirely removed. When the ground was plowed bullets were found under the sites of the cairns.
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MARIES COUNTY
INDIAN FORD CAVE (37)
This is a fourth of a mile up the river from the bridge crossing the Gasconade, 2½ miles east of Vienna. It is near the top of the hill at the head of a shallow ravine. The entrance, 35 feet wide, can be reached conveniently only near one wall, as a pile of talus immediately in front completely closes the opening; behind it the roof is 7 feet above the floor. If this accumulated material, which has increased somewhat in height within the memory of men now living, were removed to the level of the floor, the main chamber would be amply lighted to its end, a distance of 150 feet. There is a gradual downward incline from front to rear, the floor sloping more rapidly than the roof. After hard rains some water runs into the cavern from the inner slope of the talus; otherwise the floor is perfectly dry for 65 feet, then becomes wet, and near the rear wall there is standing water. It is apparent that a former drainage outlet in this direction is now choked with sediment, brought down perhaps through a branch opening. At 25 feet within the entrance the cavern is 25 feet wide; at 65 feet the distance across is 35 feet, with both walls sloping away like a low-pitched roof and loose earth filling the space under them. At the rear wall the width between the two branches into which the cave divides is 40 to 50 feet. The floor here is clay, with numerous little puddles.
Some pottery, bone, and much shell, but no flint chips, are scattered on the floor and for 50 or 60 feet down the slope outside.
The cavern would make an excellent habitation and is well worth excavating.
LACKAYE'S BLUFF CAVE (38)
This is on the farm of Harrison Hutchinson, who lives 10 miles southeast of Freeburg, on the road to Paydown. It is near the top of a bluff facing the Gasconade. Talus has accumulated in the front part of the cavern until it rises within 2 feet of the roof; farther back the cavity is of sufficient height for a man to stand erect, although nowhere more than 10 feet wide. Owing to the talus the interior is in almost total darkness. Were this accumulation removed the roof at the entrance would be 8 or 9 feet above the floor. The cavern may have been occupied, but there are no indications of such fact, although the recent natural deposits may conceal some remains.
HURRICANE BLUFF CAVE
Half a mile below Lackaye Bluff, opposite the lower end of an island in the Gasconade, is a rock shelter 85 feet in length, 15 feet high in front, 6 feet high at the rear, and 15 feet deep along the middle portion, wedging out at either end. A large pile of talus in front forms a natural windbreak, and the depression is a favorite camping place with present-day hunters and fishermen. A small quantity of flint chips and many shells can be seen around the wall and for some distance down the slope in front. The site may repay investigation, though there is no great depth of earth.
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It is reported that paintings of a deer or elk and other objects are to be seen on the face of a bluff near Paydown.
STRATMAN CAVE (39)
On the farm of Henry L. Stratman, 2½ miles above the Rock Island Railway bridge across the Gasconade River, is a cave near the top of a bluff facing the Gasconade. The entrance is 33 feet wide and 35 feet high. Forty feet back the walls approach each other, forming a doorway or short passage 5 feet wide. Beyond this is a room 18 feet deep and 9 feet across, with a rock ledge or shelf on each side several feet wide and elevated from a foot to 2 feet above the earth floor. This room is well lighted. The earth at the rear is 10 feet higher than at the main entrance. Behind this, in turn, nearly shut off by a large column of stalagmite, is a third room, 8 feet wide, whose earth floor rises rapidly. Were the stalagmite removed, there would be ample light for 20 or 30 feet farther, or about 90 feet in all.
Refuse, mostly shell, shows for 100 feet down the hill. There is some shell in the cave, along the walls; but most of the floor is a comparatively recent accumulation of roof dust and small fragments of rock, and is quite dry as far as light penetrates.
The entrance is much more easily reached from the top of the hill than from the foot of the bluff.
The trend and appearance of the reentrant side walls connecting the present entrance with the straight face of the cliff indicates that the earth in the cavern has a depth of 30 feet or more. Should this prove to be the case, here would be a most excellent place to search for evidence of occupation which, whether continuous or not, might bridge the time from the modern Indian to the earliest inhabitant.
Certainly no other cave in Missouri offers such facilities or inducements for careful and thorough investigation with a view to determining the existence of an early "cave man" in this country.
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OSAGE COUNTY
RIVER CAVE (40)
This is at the foot of a bluff facing the Gasconade, 2½ miles below Gascondy. It has a solid rock bottom, rising steeply for a few feet within the entrance, and a constantly flowing stream covers half the space between the walls.
ROCK SHELTER
There is an excellent rock shelter, 50 feet long, over which the cliff projects for 15 feet, in front and to one side of the entrance of River Cave. On this is a slight depth of earth in which were found some broken bones and shells. The site is an excellent one for camping parties, but has no evidence of other than temporary use.
STEUFFER CAVE
Four miles east of Freeburg, in a ravine, is a cavern popularly known as Beer Cave, being formerly used as a storage room for beer made in a brewery built just in front of it. The entrance is 8 feet wide and 12 feet high. The front chamber, having practically the same dimensions, extends directly back for 50 feet, then makes a turn. The floor is a mixture of clay and angular gravel, with a continuous downward slope from front to rear. Water cracks show that it is sometimes flooded.
The place was never fit for living in.
CAIRNS
At the Gasconade River bridge, on the Rich Fountain road, two creeks on the west side, Brush and Swan, separated only by a narrow ridge which terminates abruptly at either end, come in a fourth of a mile apart. Both rise in the same lake, 6 miles from the river, and flow through parallel valleys, thus draining an abandoned ox-bow curve of the stream.
On the extreme eastern point of this ridge are two cairns. A fourth of a mile from these are two others; and farther back still more of them. All are now destroyed. They were the usual conical heaps of stone, 18 to 20 feet across.
HOUSE MOUNDS (41)
A group of house mounds extends for half a mile eastward from Rich Fountain, along the valley of Brush Creek. They are fully 100 in number, and it is said there were formerly many more which are now leveled by cultivation. The ground is low, in some places swampy, so that water or mud surrounds many of them after a heavy rain.
"INDIAN FORT" (42)
This structure, also called the "Indian Lookout," is located on a bluff facing the Osage, half a mile below the "Painted Rock," and near the buildings of the Painted Rock Country Club, of Jefferson City.
Except for a slight projection or offset at one side, which contains an opening or doorway, it was practically identical in appearance with the vault graves along the Missouri River bluffs, described in Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 37; or else with those on Big Piney River in Pulaski County. It is formed of sandstone slabs, once laid up in a wall but now scattered in confusion as if fallen or thrown down. Apparently it measured about 32 to 35 feet outside and 12 or 13 feet inside.
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COLE COUNTY
NATURAL BRIDGE CAVE
This is at the top of a bluff facing the Osage, one-half mile below the Rock Island bridge. It is only 10 feet wide and the same in height, and extends back 20 feet to a narrow passage which is almost closed by stalagmite. The site is difficult to reach, but disclosed a few fragments of pottery and some shell. The earth of the floor ascends rather steeply to the rear and contains many large rocks. It was only a camping place.
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MORGAN COUNTY
SPEERS CAVE
On the Brown property, 7 miles southeast of Stover, is a reported cave, which proved to be a natural tunnel 400 feet long. The drainage from several farms passes through it from ravines above. The lower entrance is 40 feet wide and 50 feet high, the upper entrance 20 feet wide and 10 feet high.
Natural bridges and tunnels of varying lengths and widths are rather common in this part of the Osage Valley.
HOUSE MOUNDS (43)
Southeast of Stover, beginning at the edge of the town, is a group of house mounds extending over an area having a very irregular outline, but fully half a mile across in any direction. They vary from 20 to 35 feet in diameter and are scattered promiscuously at intervals of 25 to 150 feet. The surface on which they are built reaches over a succession of small knolls and ridges with slopes of 4 or 5 degrees. Most of them are along the sides of a wide, shallow valley draining northward, and of two or three small tributary depressions coming into it from either side, though a number are also to be found beyond the slight watershed which separates this drainage area from that to the southward. They exist in woods, meadows, and cultivated ground, so that some of them retain their original form, others are flattened and widened, while still others are barely traceable. Probably some have been entirely effaced by plow and harrow.
II. CAVE EXPLORATIONS IN OTHER STATES
INTRODUCTION
Certain conditions are to be taken into account in deciding whether a cave afforded a desirable permanent shelter to primitive man. It should be accessible; the floor should be dry, at least fairly level, and sufficiently free from large rocks to allow the inmates to move about freely; the entrance should be large enough to permit free passage and to light the interior to a distance that would insure protection from the elements. Temporary shelters or camping places might be deficient in some of these particulars and still be resorted to frequently; but if there were opportunity for choice, a man with intelligence to select a cave in which to live continually would, it is fair to assume, look for one possessing such features.
If such conditions, once established, were free from the mutations of time, the explorer would have but little difficulty in deciding upon a suitable site for his labors. But limestone, more than any other solid rock, is subject to constant erosion, crumbling, and falling; while the soil and loose fragments resulting from such action move downward year by year over the slopes and into any cavities where they can find their way. In the course of centuries the entire aspect of a cave may be so altered as to bear no resemblance whatever to its original appearance. Consequently a careful study must be made of the immediate surroundings, in order to determine what topographical changes may have occurred since the earliest time within which it is probable that man may have existed in that locality. Should the floor, at present, be of solid rock; or covered with only a slight layer of earth; or have a stream flowing over it; or show by marks upon the walls that it is subject to inundation either from adjacent streams or by surface water which finds its way in through sink holes; or be in such situation as to make it apparent that the original bottom was thus flooded in comparatively modern times, even though such may not now be the case--in any such event excavation would be labor wasted. On the other hand, all the necessary requirements for a convenient residence may now be present, and yet result from causes which have begun to operate within the historic period. In other words, there are very few cases in which the present appearance of a cave is to be deemed a certain or even an approximate indication of its actual state a few thousand years ago. There is only one way to determine whether extended excavations may possibly result in satisfactory returns, and that is to sink shafts or run trenches in the superficial deposits.
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INDIANA
The cave region of this State extends from Owen and Morgan Counties to the Ohio River. The caverns and sink holes gradually increase in number and size toward the south, until they culminate in Wyandotte Cave, second only to Mammoth Cave of Kentucky in extent, and in the so-called "valleys" of Harrison County which are in reality nothing but sink holes several square miles in extent. Some of the caverns are described in detail by W.S. Blatchley, the State geologist, in the Twenty-first Annual Report of the Survey (1896). Very few of those mentioned by him are at all suitable for permanent occupancy, though several would afford excellent shelter except in the rainy season, at which time most of them have the floors muddy or perhaps covered with water for weeks in succession. Such as were visited in these explorations will now be taken up in their order.
LAWRENCE COUNTY
ROCK LEDGE QUARRY.--Early in 1903 periodicals mentioned an interesting discovery made at this place. According to the report, workmen in excavating a cut for a railway found an old cave entirely filled with stalagmite matter. In this, 10 feet below the former top of the cave--the cut did not extend to the bottom of the stalagmite--were discovered some bones which were pronounced by "several physicians" to be those of a human being. Among them was a "jaw tooth" (molar) and part of a skull. Correspondence failing to elicit any satisfactory information, a visit was made to the site. The cave could not be traced in either direction from the railway cut; but it had plainly served as an outlet for several large sink holes on the hill above it. Nothing could be learned here regarding the matter except that the objects had been found and were then in the museum of the State University at Bloomington. This place was next visited and the specimens inspected. There were many fragments still imbedded in the matrix, which was travertine rather than stalagmite. No exact determination of them had been made, but only casual inspection was needed to see that none of them could be human. The "jaw tooth" was from a peccary, the "human skull" was the carapace of a tortoise.
SHILOAH CAVE.--It was reported that, although the entrance to this cavern, 7 miles northwest of Bedford, was in a sink hole, the floor was level and accessible. The opening is almost at the bottom of the sink, whose slope is quite steep. After every rain the water runs in; and while the floor is level, as stated, it has a constant stream of water flowing over it and is in absolute darkness.
DONNEHUE'S CAVE.--Although water flows continuously from the entrance, the amount of discharge was said to be small and the cave floor level and covered with earth, while the cave itself was large and well lighted. The approach, however, is quite difficult; the earth is nowhere more than 2 or 3 feet thick, and after a heavy rain the stream extends from wall to wall.
Between Bedford and Donnehue's cave is one, unnamed, at the head of a ravine which was once an extension of the cavern. The opening is of fair size but the floor is of rock and the outflow of water is steady.
Just outside the corporate limits of Bedford, to the south, is an opening in the cliff at the head of a deep ravine, more in the nature of a rock house than of a cave. It would make an excellent shelter for a few persons, being accessible, protected from winds, and close to water. While it may have been so used formerly, the deposit of earth and stone on the floor is very scanty and anything beneath could well be quite modern.
Two caves were reported 2 miles south of Bedford. One is a small opening from which a stream issues, flows across a meadow, and enters the other cave, which is much larger. They are parts of one passage, the roof between these openings having broken down, and the stream is the same which finds its outlet at Donnehue's cave.
Several other caves in the vicinity of Bedford were visited. They are all small and of no importance from an archeological standpoint.
DONNELSON'S CAVE.--"The mouth of the cave is found at the head of a deep gorge worn through the limestone by a good-sized stream which flows from the cave and down the gorge to the broader valley beyond. Many centuries ago the cave extended the full length of the gorge, and the waters of the stream flowed directly from its mouth into the valley. The roof of the underground channel finally became so thin that it collapsed, the gorge was then started, and as the centuries went by grew in length, the cave becoming ever shorter by the continued falling of the roof.
"Three passages open directly into the mouth of the cave. The right hand passage has the level of its floor about 5 feet above that of the entrance, while the opening on the left is 12 feet above the level of the stream and very difficult to enter without a ladder. The middle passage extends straight back from the common vestibule or main entry. The latter is 25 feet long, 21 feet high, and 18 feet wide, but at its farther end is reduced to the narrow middle passage between great masses of limestone. The water in this passage is waist deep and explorations must be made by wading or in a light canoe. One hundred feet within is a magnificent cascade, where the stream rushes and leaps down a narrow passage with such violence that the noise is plainly heard at the entrance.
"The right-hand passage for the first 100 feet is about 10 feet high by 15 wide, with a clay bottom and a roof on a level with that of the vestibule. It then expands into a large room, 230 feet long and 40 feet wide, which lies east and west at right angles to the entering passage. This narrows at the west end to 20 feet, and at one point the outer air flows in through a small opening in the roof. From near the small end of the room a narrow passage starts off to the southward and can be traveled for 200 feet, when it becomes too small for further advance. Along this passage a small stream flows, disappearing through a hole in the floor near the entrance to the larger room. Other than this, both right and left passages leaving the main entry are dry.
"The passage at the left of the main entrance to the cave is about 150 feet long by 20 broad, and contains no points of especial interest." [W.S. Blatchley.]
It may be added to the above description that a heavy rain causes a rapid rise of several feet in the stream through the middle passage.
The cavern is situated 3½ miles east of Mitchell. It has been fitted up by the State University as an experiment station for the study of underground fauna and flora.