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THE SPETNAGLE CACHE OF FLINT

SPEAR-POINTS

Few better examples of ceremonial offerings of chipped flint artifacts than the Spetnagel cache of flint spear-points, recently placed on exhibition in the Museum of the Society by Mr. Albert C. Spetnagel, of Chillicothe, have been found in Ohio or elsewhere. This remarkable cache-lot of upwards of 200 ceremonial spears was unearthed in the spring of 1922 in excavating the basement for a dwelling-house in the northern suburbs of Chillicothe. The discovery, coming to the attention of Mr. Frank Grubb, a member of this Society, was reported to Mr. Spetnagel, who immediately took steps to secure the specimens. It developed that workmen on the building contract had come upon the offering at a depth of about eighteen inches below the surface, placed apparently in some order but without accompanying skeletal remains or any particular preparation. Evincing no interest in the find, the workmen permitted scrapers to drag the specimens out into the garden lot where the earth was being used for grading purposes. At considerable expense Mr. Spetnagel had this earth carefully examined and thus recovered the specimens so carelessly disposed of. In addition, he secured from numerous individuals specimens which had been carried away as curios.

The ceremonial spears, upwards of 200 in number, are chipped from the drab nodular flint found in southern Indiana and in Tennessee. They range in length

from 3 inches to 1011⁄2 inches, and are of two types, as shown in the accompanying drawing, by H. R. Goodwin, of the Museum staff, which illustrates typical speciments in their natural sizes. By far the greater number are of the type of the smaller of the two spears illustrated.

A regrettable feature of the find is the fact that prior to depositing the spear-points in the shrine-like aperture, the aboriginal owners intentionally broke them the ceremonial "killing", so often observed in exploring mounds of the great Hopewell culture group. Fortunately a number of the specimens were only slightly broken, or were fractured into but two or three parts, so that about one-half the entire number were readily re-united and restored. They completely fill a large display case in the Museum, in close proximity to the specimens from the Mound City group in Camp Sherman. The nearness of the site of the cache-find to the mounds in Camp Sherman, together with the fact that the ceremonial spear-points apparently belong to the same (Hopewell) culture, indicate strongly that the builders of the Mound City mounds were the original possessors of the spears.

It is presumed that this unusually large and finely made lot of spears were deposited where found as an offering to some deity of the ancient inhabitants of the present Ross county.

OHIO STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL

SOCIETY

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

BY THE EDITOR

DR. DANIEL DRAKE'S MEMOIR OF THE MIAMI COUNTRY, 1779-1794

The April-September number of the Quarterly Publications of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio prints a very interesting and historically valuable monograph from an unpublished manuscript in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is edited by Dr. Beverly W. Bond, Jr., associate professor of history in the University of Cincinnati. We quote briefly from his informing explanatory note:

The occasion for writing the Memoir was a celebration that was planned at Cincinnati for December 26, 1838, in honor of the semi-centennial of the first permanent settlement ca the present site of the city. A committee, appointed by the city council to make arrangements, invited old pioneers to come as guests of the city for the day, and arranged an elaborate program, including literary exercises at the First Presbyterian Church. Here "the most interesting and important feature" of the program was to be the "historical discourse" by Doctor Daniel Drake, and it is the manuscript of this address which is being published in the present volume. To aid Doctor Drake in securing material for his address, the committee issued a circular letter, asking for historical facts and anecdotes relating to the pioneer history of the settlements in the Miami country. The response to this appeal was widespread, and many of the letters that were received have been preserved in the Drake Papers.

Vol. XXXII — 41.

The celebration of the city's semi-centennial was a huge success. The First Presbyterian Church, it is recorded, was "filled to overflowing" with an audience whose attention was "enchained" for three hours by Doctor Drake's address. The other main feature of the day was the dinner at the Pearl Street hotel, which was prepared and served in "superior style."

The choice of Doctor Drake as the orator for this celebration was a happy one, for no one in Cincinnati at that time was better fitted than he to commemorate the days of the pioneers. Born in 1785 at Plainfield, New Jersey, Daniel Drake had come with his father and mother to Mayslick, Kentucky, when he was scarcely three years old. There he had experienced the hardships of the pioneer, and there too he had learned to love the forests and the simple democratic life of the early West. Late in 1800 he left the clearing in the Kentucky forest to take up his medical studies in Cincinnati. As physician, as founder in 1820 of the Ohio Medical College and thus pioneer in medical education in the Middle West, and as an accomplished scientist and literary man, Dr. Drake lived in Cincinnati with brief intervals until his death in 1852.

"WORTH-WHILE AMERICANS"

There has recently been added to the library of the Society a book entitled Worth-While Americans, by Dr. Edwin Erle Sparks, whose annual address appeared in the April QUARTERLY. We quote from the Preface in which the author sets forth briefly why the book was written:

In a meeting of public school teachers, one who had taught American history for many years ventured a criticism upon the supplementary reading matter supplied to students in the grades of our public schools.

"We are anxious to teach," said he, "that America is the land of opportunity; that no one need remain in the station in which he was born, provided he has the will power to shape himself and an ideal to achieve. But we lack available examples for proof. The heroes of the past are demigods whom no child can hope to imitate. There are certain men and women of the present or recent day whose examples, properly presented, would beget high ideals and stimulate a determination

in the minds of the students to imitate them. We lack a book describing such people."

Whereupon some person in the audience called out, perhaps not without sarcasm, "Why don't you write one?"

The challenge was accepted and the result is here presented to the teaching public. The choice of subjects is not beyond criticism and the method of treatment may not satisfy all admirers. We are too near the subjects for exact appraisement. All are living or have only recently passed away. except two are American born; all have done their work in America.

Among the notables sketched in the very interesting volume are the following: Anna Shaw, Luther Burbank, Thomas Edison, Frances Willard, Robert Edwin Peary, Henry Ford, Helen Keller, John Wanamaker, General John J. Pershing, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Some one has deplored the juvenile mind of the average American. Of course it is important that the minds of as many of our citizens as possible may reach the adult stage, but few of us lose entirely the juvenile mind and sympathy and it would be unfortunate if we did. The object should be not to lose this but to add to it. That is a fortunate book that may be read with interest by boys and girls from eight years of age to eighty years. Worth-While Americans, while intended as supplemental reading in the grades of our public schools is very interesting, as we can attest, to busy persons of mature years who enjoy brief sketches of the notables included in its well chosen list.

HARDING MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

On October 8, 1923, there was filed with Secretary of State Thad Brown letters of incorporation for the Harding Memorial Association.

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