of the surrounding soil. He has been settled here thirty years, but always forted until the conclusion of the Indian war by General Wayne. He then attempted to establish a town on the opposite side of the creek from his house; but it remains without augmentation, with only eleven cottages and cabins. The neighbouring country however is improving, though slowly. Mr. Tomlinson has a very good two story brick house, almost finished, fine apple and peach orchards, and a good farm.[75]
Mrs. Tomlinson obligingly permitted one of her sons to guide us to what is called the Indian grave, which is a short quarter of a mile to the southward of the house. It is a circular mound, like the frustum of a cone, about one hundred and eighty yards in circumference round the base, sixty round the flat on the top, and about seventy feet perpendicular height. In the centre of the flat top is a shallow hollow, like the filled up crater of an old volcano, which hollow or settle is said to have been formed within the memory of the first neighbouring settlers, and is supposed by them to be occasioned by the settling of the earth on the decayed bodies.
The whole mount appears to be formed of clay, and from its regularity, is evidently a work of art, though I am not of opinion that it has been a general or publick cemetery, but either a mausoleum raised over, and in memory of some great Indian chief, a temple for religious worship, or the scite of a fortification, or citadel to serve as a place of retreat from a superior foe. About three years ago, the neighbours perforated the north side, at about half the elevation, digging in horizontally about twelve feet, without any {98} other satisfaction to their curiosity, than the finding of part of a human jaw bone, the bone rough and honeycombed, but
