Madison County, Illinois - Chapter 33: Archaeology of the County, 1912

The Cahokia District - Monks' Mound - Sugar Loaf Mound - The Temple of the Sun - Probably Antedated the Buffalo - From Agriculturists to Nomads - Cahokia Pyramid Greatest in the World - The Trappists.

Ages before the dawn of modern civilization Madison county was the seat of an empire of primitive vanished races whose history is written only in the relics and mute evidences of occupancy they left behind them. They antedated the Indians known to the first white settlers, and, for want of a better name, are called Mound Builders. Whence they came, how long they held sway and whither they vanished are matters of conjecture that have long puzzled antiquarians. Dr. .F. J. Snyder, of Virginia, Illinois, the renowned ethnologist and archaeologist, has written instructively of them, as has the late Hon. William McAdams, of Alton, also widely celebrated in the same field of research. The son of the latter, Clark McAdams, of St. Louis, has likewise made valuable contributions to the unwritten history of Madison county's primitive peoples, and from the papers of these authorities, pub¬ lished by the State Historical Society, the ed¬ itor makes the appended excerpts bearing on the subject in preference to submitting his own observations.

In the State Historical Society Journal of July, 1909, Dr. Snyder writes: "The large level-top mounds built by the Indians, known to antiquarians as Temple or House mounds are, in this latitude an exceptional class. There are less than fifty of them in the state of Illinois; but in that limited number are included the largest earthworks of the aborig¬ ines in the United States. In form they are either truncated pyramids, square or oblong - the "teocalli" of the Mexicans - or describe the frustrum of a cone, with a circular base. They vary in outline, as well as in dimensions, from low platforms elevated but a few feet above the surrounding surface to huge struc¬ tures elaborately terraced and provided with broad ascending roadways.

"For form and magnitude and for surpris¬ ing numbers in such a limited area, the wellknown group of Indian mounds in the north¬ ern end of the American Bottom is the most remarkable of all the aboriginal works in the United States. In their very accurate and re¬ liable map of that wonderful antiquarian dis¬ trict, published in 1906 by Dr. Cyrus A. Peterson and Clark McAdams, of St. Louis, they say of the great Cahokia mound, that it is treble in size of any similar structure in the country, and was originally the central feature of several hundred mounds within a radius of six miles. As sixty-nine mounds are figured on their map, within a radius of only two miles, their estimate does not seem extravagant.

"Brackenridge, who visited that part of Madison county in 1811, says: 'I crossed the Mississippi at St. Louis, and after passing through the wood which borders the river, en- tered on an extensive plain. In fifteen min¬ utes I found myself in the midst of a group of mounds, mostly of a circular shape, and at a distance resembling enormous hay ricks scat¬ tered through a meadow. One of the largest, which I ascended, was about 200 paces in cir¬ cumference, though it had evidently under¬ gone considerable alteration from the washing of the rains. The top was level with an area sufficient to contain several hundred men. Around me I counted 45 mounds or pyramids, besides a great number of smaller artificial elevations, in a semi-circle about a mile in ex¬ tent, the open space on the creek. Pursuing my way along the bank of the Cahokia I passed eight others in the distance of three miles before I arrived at the largest assem¬ blage. When I reached the foot of the prin¬ cipal mound, I was struck with a degree of astonishment not unlike that which is experi¬ enced in contemplating the Egyptian pyra¬ mids. What a stupendous pile of earth ! To heap up such a mass must have required years and the labor of thousands. Nearly west there is another of smaller size, and forty others scattered through the plain. Two are also seen on the bluff, at the distance of three miles. Near the mounds I also observed pieces of flint and fragments of earthen ves¬ sels. I concluded that a very populous town had once existed here, similar to those of Mex¬ ico described by the first conquerors.'

"Many of the mounds seen here by Brackenridge have vanished before the inexorable agencies of civilization, the plow and harrow, and from natural erosion. In that Cahokia district may still be counted a dozen mounds of the domiciliary type - square or circular, with flat tops - the most noted of which is the great Cahokia mound deriving its name from the creek near its base. It is also known as Monks' mound from the colony of Trappist monks once located thereon. On the crest of the bluffs, three miles east of the great mound, are situated two 'sugar-loaf' mounds, over¬ looking on opposite sides a deep ravine. They were signal stations of the Indians." There is another similar mound in St. Clair county, six miles from Cahokia. A third mound stands on a high bluff below St. Charles in Missouri and was called by the French La Mammalle, a teat ; while the one in Madison county was called du Sucie, sugar loaf. Gov¬ ernor Reynolds says: "It is supposed that the mounds were intended to sustain beacon lights, to give the alarm if the country was in peril. I have been on two of them and it ap¬ pears to me they are the work of man."

The Madison Sugar Loaf was examined, in 1887, by employes of the bureau of ethnology who reported that "at the depth of three feet the earth was a yellowish clay, very dry and hard and different in character from the loess of the bluff on which the mound stands. At a depth of fifteen feet a layer of ashes, nearly an inch thick, was disclosed, and a foot below this another layer of ashes a foot or more thick." This seems clear proof of artificial origin. This mound is now a station of the United States geodetic survey.

"That part of the American Bottom lying north of a line drawn from the mouth of Cahokia creek east to the bluffs, is the richest field for archaeological research in Illinois, if not in the United States. It was for a pro¬ tracted period the abode of Indians much higher in the scale of barbarism, as judged by their progress in mechanical arts, than the tribes surrounding them, and far in advance of those found there on the discovery of the country. Henry R. Howland, who explored these mounds in 1876, refers to those on Long lake near its junction with Cahokia creek. He writes : 'At the western border of this group, and close to Mitchell station, stood originally three conical mounds of considerable size which were first cut into some three years ago in laying the tracks of the Chicago & Alton road. On the 20th of January, 1876, I visited this group and found the largest of the -three mounds was being removed to furnish mate¬ rial for building a dike across Long lake, re¬ placing a bridge. The mound was originally about 27 feet high and 127 feet in diameter at the base. During the excavation the work¬ men found, four or five feet above the base of the mound, a deposit of human bones some six or eight feet in width and eight inches in thickness, stretching across the mound from east to west, as though the remains had been gathered together and buried in a trench. On this level had been discovered a large number of relics, with a large quantity of matting in which many of them had been wrapped. The relics there discovered were chiefly of copper, including a number of small imitation tortoise shells made of beaten copper scarcely more than a sixty-fourth of an inch in thickness, remarkably true to nature. There were also pointed implements of bone and wood, cop¬ per-plated in the same manner, the entire workmanship evincing a skill of which we have never before found traces in any discov¬ ered remains of the arts of the Mound Build¬ ers. Until a comparatively recent period there was much diversity of opinion regarding the origin of the mounds. Those who believed they were artificial attributed their construc¬ tion to a semi-civilized race antedating, and in every element of culture superior to the In¬ dians, by whom they were displaced and in some mysterious manner totally exterminated, Two talented early writers, Rev. John M. Peck and Prof. John Russell, both held that the mounds were natural geological forma¬ tions. They both pronounced the bones found in the mounds to be those of recent Indians whose custom was to bury their dead in ele¬ vated places. Prof. A. H. Worthen, state ge¬ ologist, declared that ninety per cent of the mounds were natural formations and the great Cahokia mound simply an outlier of the gla¬ cial drift. !But at present,' says Dr. Snyder, 'it is positively known that the mounds, with some few exceptions, are genuine antiquities, made long ago by American Indians for spe¬ cific purposes. That the temple and domicili¬ ary mounds are correctly classified is well established not only by ocular proof but by abundant historical evidence.' "

The theory of Dr. Snyder is now, I believe, generally accepted by scientists : That the mounds are artificial ; that they were built by a race which drifted up from the south or southwest, occupied the country for a time and then vanished. Dr. Snyder is a native of St. Clair county, has been a student of the mounds from his youth and is recognized as the high¬ est authority in the state on antiquarian sub¬ jects.

study of those ancient peoples whose occupa¬ tion of the Mississippi valley antedated our own. I was quite familiar with the great Cahokia mound before I heard of the pyra¬ mids of Egypt. In my early youth I was quite aware that all was dross in the ceramic arts that had not come from the mounds. Kindred spirits visited my father's house. They spent days in investigating things in our house which was a veritable museum. The late Major J. W. Powell, chief of the bureau of ethnology, was one of the men who visited my father at our home.

"When I grew old enough I became my fa¬ ther's companion in the field. We worked for years in that great chain of mounds which stretches from end to end of the Illinois river. Through the two years, prior to the Colum¬ bian Fair in Chicago, we worked in the field as much as the climate permitted. My father was preparing the Illinois Archaeological ex¬ hibit for the fair and was anxious to have things fresh from the mounds. A portion of our field work was in the great Cahokia group of mounds in the American Bottom, in Madi¬ son county.

"I never stood upon a spot which impressed me as the peat mound can, and it is not hard for me to close my eyes upon its summit and think I may almost see its primitive builders at work transporting in skins and bags the burdens of which it is built. Here is a group of seventy-two mounds, one of them the larg¬ est remaining work of the ancients north of Mexico, and the group itself unquestionably marking the site of the metropolis of our country in ancient times, which is yet to be explored. This does not mean that for a hun¬ dred years they have not been gophered at, for they have been the scene of desultory ex¬ ploration since the time of Brackenridge in 1811, until now. It does not mean that they have not yielded anything to the science of archaeology, in a local or comparative sense, for we regard them today as the nearest ap¬

"What it does mean is that the archaeology of Illinois, and that of the whole country as well, has not opened its most promising page while the Cahokia group remains without proper exploration ; while the great mound which is the glory of the group remains un¬ opened. But it is doubtful if the whole ceme¬ tery of the Cahokia ancients has ever been discovered. I think my father's experience when he took ioo pieces of pottery from the flat field at the northeast corner of the big mound is the nearest approach that has been made to actual discovery of the principal ceme¬ tery of Cahokia. I believe it is the general opinion of archaeologists, who have studied the question, that the Cahokia mounds mark the site of the ancient aboriginal population of the United States.

"Cahokia dates back to the antehunting era in which the Indians were agricultural. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the actual builders of Cahokia may have never seen a bufifalo. The immensity of their village site, as we can see it in its ruins; the wholly agri¬ cultural type of much of their work in flint, such as the great spades and hoes almost pe¬ culiar to that vicinity, and the suitability of the rich alluvial bottom land for such agriculture as they had, these considerations and what we know of the bufifalo and the effect its phenom¬ enal increase and spread across the country had upon aboriginal life, all contribute to prove that the people who populated Cahokia were perhaps wholly agricultural. In this consid¬ eration we find discover the line which divides the two principal eras of aboriginal life in the Mississippi valley.

"When the bufifalo multiplied with such ra¬ pidity as to overflow its native plains and cross the Mississippi to penetrate as far east as Vir- ginia, the Indians in this territory covered by this overflow began to find the chase an easier and more engaging means of subsistence than growing crops. Fewer corn lands were planted and more hunting done. The buffalo wave seems to have reached its eastern and southern crest between the sixteenth and eigh¬ teenth centuries. In 1540-41 DeSoto marched from Florida through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Only upon crossing the Missis¬ sippi did he find himself in a buffalo country. Yet the buffalo is known to have ranged over all this southern country, later on.

"From which we must conclude that the transition in aboriginal life (i. e., from agri¬ cultural to nomadic life) was probably pro¬ ceeding at the time of the Columbian discov¬ ery and doubtless worked its greatest changes even after that time. It marked the close of the agricultural era which in its fullness had produced the Cahokia mounds. We can eas¬ ily understand how one mode of life made Cahokia and how the other destroyed it. We know that agriculture, when practiced prac¬ tically to the exclusion of other means of sub¬ sistence, influenced the Indians to live in permanent homes, in communal relations and to be comparatively peace-loving. Upon the other hand we know that the chase made them nomadic and war-like. The inevitable result of the appearance of the buffalo at Cahokia would have been the gradual abandonment of agriculture and the eventual breaking up of the community."

(The deduction of Mr. McAdams, which follows, is to the effect that, becoming no¬ madic the Cahokia Indians sank into barbar¬ ism. and eventually followed the buffalo across the Mississippi when it turned its migration again westward, and their places were taken by a lower type of aborigines sweeping down from the north.)

"In conclusion, a word as to the origin of the first considerable migration of primitive people into Illinois. Unquestionably, their monuments are at Cahokia. And such monu¬ ments ! The great Cahokia mound is 102 feet high. Its longest axis is 998 feet ; the short¬ est 721 feet. It covers sixteen acres, two rods and three perches. The great pyramid of Cheops in Egypt is 746 feet square. The temple mound of the Aztecs, in Mexico, is 680 feet square. In volume the Cahokia pyramid is the greatest structure of its kind in the world. The preponderance of evidence teaches that the people of Cahokia were sun worshippers. Some vestiges of this solar re¬ ligion remained in the lower Mississippi val¬ ley when the explorers came. Knowing the influence which an agricultural and communal life had upon the Indians we must conclude that the great Cahokia mound was a religious temple. There is so much about Cahokia that is similar to the work of the Aztecs that we cannot escape the conclusion that it was from that part of the world that these sun worship¬ pers came, bringing their religion, their priest¬ hood, their corn, their mode of life and primi¬ tive order of civilization. But we do not associate with Cahokia the terrible Aztec sac¬ rifices, nor even believe that the people were, in fact, Aztecs. The American Indians sprang from a common stock of indigenous life, and the human history of the far southwest seems so much older than that of this far northern country that when we look for the trails over which our people came to Cahokia, we nat¬ urally turn our faces to that wonderful land as the only source, seemingly, from which they could have sprung.

"The builders of Cahokia are gone. The fire which burned through the watches of the night is dead, and the four winds have scat¬ tered its ashes. But the temple ! The temple

The most interesting colony that settled in Madison county in the early days was that of the Monks of La Trappe, who located on the great Cahokia mound early in 1810 and thereby gave it the name it still bears. The explorer, Brackenridge, visited the mound while the monks were there. He saw their houses and the grains and fruits growing on the great mound. He also commented on the great number of bones and relics everywhere dug up around the mounds. He says that the bluffs east of the mound seem to have been one vast burying ground.

The Trappist order is celebrated among the religious orders of the Catholic church for ex¬ treme austerities. It is so-called from an abbey of the Cistercian order in France founded in the middle of the twelfth century and existing in that country for the next six hundred years under varied systems of dis¬ cipline. The original regulations finally be¬ came lax and in 1663 the celebrated Armand Jean le Bouthelier De Ranee, to whom the abbey had fallen as an ecclesiastical prefer¬ ment, introduced new austerities which subse¬ quently characterized the order. The monks were forbidden the use of meat, fish, wine and eggs. All intercourse with externs was cut off and the old monastic habit of manual labor was revived. The reform of De Ranee was founded on the principle of prayer and entire self-abnegation. The day and night were divided into hours for labor and hours for re¬ ligious services and private prayer and medi¬ tation. Perpetual silence was enjoined except in case of extreme necessity. Their fare con¬ sisted of bread and water, vegetables cooked without butter or oil, and a little fruit. The minor practices were so devised as to remind the monk of the shortness of life and the rigor

The inmates of La Trappe shared at the Revolution the common fate of all the relig¬ ious houses of France and were driven into exile. After the restoration they returned to France and resumed, by purchase, possession of their old home at La Trappe, which con¬ tinues to the present time the head monastery of the order, with branches in various coun¬ tries of Europe and parts of the United States, notably in Kentucky. The best local history of the occupation of the Cahokia mounds by the Trappists seems to be the in¬ formation obtained from headquarters by Clark McAdams of St. Louis, formerly of Al¬ ton, who related it in a paper read before the Illinois Historical Society in 1907. He writes : "The local history of this occupation was never satisfactory to me, and some two years ago I set about learning more of it. The Rev. Father Obrecht, abbot of the Trappist monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, was then upon the eve of departure to visit the parent monastery in France. I secured his promise to make inquiry for anything bearing upon the Cahokia mounds that might have found its way into the archives in France, and upon his return he wrote me the following letter :

" 'About the end of November, 1808, Father Urbain, superior, and Father Joseph, looking for a favorable settlement for their colony of about thirty-five religious brothers and chil¬ dren, met M. Jarrot, formerly procurator of the seminary of St. Sulpice, who, having set¬ tled at Cahokia, remained there several years. He offered to Father Urbain four hundred acres of land, consisting of vast prairies sur¬ rounded by thick forests on the border of a little river near the Mississippi. This offer seemed at first advantageous, but for some reason was not accepted. Father Urbain was then very sick. He remained, however, at Ca¬ hokia and St. Louis, until the last of Janu- ary, 1809, when with Father Joseph he re¬ turned to Casey Creek, Kentucky. Shortly after the major part of the community left Kentucky for St. Louis, Father Urbain re¬ maining with four brothers to settle up some business. He left six months later and wTith three of his brothers and six children, three of whom were negroes, went to Florissant, Missouri, where he arrived November 2, 1809. This place not proving convenient Fa¬ ther Urbain resolved to settle on the lands pre¬ viously offered him. by M. Jarrot on the other side of the Mississippi, where he repaired with his community. On the first days of 1810 he bought on the Looking Glass prairie the two highest of the forty ramparts which formed the necropole of the Indians (this place was most probably the great burying ground of the Indian tribes under preceding ages). When digging the ground to lay the founda¬ tions of their homes, the religious Trappists found many bones, idols, arms and materials of war, and many other Indian antiquities. These elevations were generally called ram¬ parts, and the highest of them still has the name Rampart of the Monks, or Monks Mound. The Indians had erected these gigan¬ tic monuments, pyramid-like (not square-, however, and built with stones and brick, like the pyramids of Egypt), but with ground purposely carried and heaped up on a circular basis of 160 feet, and reaching a height of more than 100 feet.

" 'The Trappists having bought these mounds, they erected on them twenty small structures of various kinds. Their inten¬ tion was to build upon the highest mound an abbey near the highway, a few miles from St. Louis. The highest and largest of these little buildings, in the middle of the others, was the church; another the Chapter room; another the Refectory, etc. Each was large enough to contain them all. Seen from a short distance these dwellings of Monks' mound looked like a little village or camp of travellers. To this

" 'Shortly after their arrival at Monks' mound, the Trappists had to suffer from a very malignant fever, the fatigue and hard¬ ships of their first installation, and usually a corrupted water - the only one they could drink and use for their cooking - having sick¬ ened them all. At their door was flowing a little river, so full of fish that many of them, dead, were floating upon the water. Such un¬ healthy water the Trappists drank; they had not time to dig a well. Long before several Indian tribes having tried to settle there were, for these reasons, obliged to leave. Father Urbain fell sick like the others. The soil, at first tilled and sown, was abandoned for ab¬ solute want of work. At last they could dig a well which provided them with excellent wa¬ ter. A good Catholic of Cahokia came to their assistance, and soon the community was on foot. Only one religious had died so far.

" 'The first difficulties had not depressed the courage of the Trappists. They were ready to suffer much more for the glory of God and the welfare of their adopted country. But another difficulty presented itself. Father Ur¬ bain had some doubts about the titles of the lands he had bought in Illinois. The govern¬ ment might contest them and make the Trap¬ pists lose the results of all their labors, to¬ gether with their hopes for the future. He then intended to have the titles of ownership of the 400 acres he then possessed ratified by the two houses of the next congress, at the same time he would try and secure the same ratification and sanction for 4,000 acres addi¬ tional he intended to buy in the same neigh¬ borhood. When congress met he had no trouble in obtaining the ratification and sanc¬ tion of the 400 acres actually in his possession, but, in spite of all his efforts and many sacri¬ fices (Father Urbain was obliged to remain a long time in Washington without any other resources than the public charity), he could never obtain the hope of similar action for the 4,000 acres he intended to buy (owing to op¬ posing landed interests). From Washington, Father Urbain returned to "Our Lady of Bon Secours" (Monks' Mound) and found the .majority of his religious in good health and very busy with their plantation. The rough buildings had been somewhat improved. All from the superior of the colony to the last head of cattle had much to do. Father Urbain's attention, however, was directed to the surrounding population which, he said, was in a deplorable moral condition. This in a letter dated April 28, 1810. There was only one Catholic priest - Rev. Rogation Olivier - who resided at Prairie du Chien and attended Kaskaskia, Cahokia, St. Louis and St. Genevieve. For fourteen years he was the only priest in that country. To instruct and evangelize these communities he sent two assistants - Father Joseph and Father Bernard, a Cana¬ dian, whom he brought with him from New York to Casey Creek. Father Bernard had for his task St. Louis and the two borders of the Mississippi, but being old already and ex¬ hausted by many previous labors, he soon succumbed, probably in February, 1811. Father Joseph was intrepid. [His name was Jean Pierre Dunand, born in France in 1774; grenadier in the French arms during the great Revolution. He was one day ordered to shoot a priest. He refused to obey and, leaving the army, became a Trappist relig¬ ious.] He went farther into the west be¬ yond the great river, baptizing, evangelizing, visiting the sick, burying the dead, etc. He went through almost the whole country with¬ out a stop, traveling day and night, correct¬ ing abuses and converting the sinners. At the death of Father Bernard, Father Urbain, to¬ gether with the care of his community, took upon himself the task left by his departed brothers, and showed the greatest energy and most admirable zeal in continuing this most excellent work of civilization. *

" 'About the middle of the year 1812 a ter¬ rible calamity befell the community at Monks' Mound. A very pernicious fever had for two years, and mostly during the summer of 1811, devastated the whole country, At the begin¬ ning of the following year it was the turn of the Trappists at Monks' Mound. In a very short time all of them were unable to do any¬ thing, even to help one another. The inten¬ sity of the scourge decreased during the au¬ tumn, but the following year brought it back with renewed severity. The most necessary things became out of price; many people who could not care for their children sent them to Father Urbain, who could not refuse them. All sacred vessels, except a single one, were sold one after another. Religious and broth¬ ers fell victims of the epidemic. There was scarcely left a sufficient number to bury the dead. More than half the community had disappeared, and those who were still alive were so weak it seemed impossible for them to stand any longer against such unhealthful conditions. Having sold the best they could their property and materials, in March, 1813, the Trappists left Monks' Mound, going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later returning to France. A new colony of Trappists came to America in 1848 and founded the colony of Gethsemane, Kentucky.' "