Giant's Massacre Site in Erie County, Pennsylvania

History of Erie County, Pennsylvania Illustrated 1884

   Many indications have been found in the county proving conclusively that it was once peopled by a different race from the Indians who were found here when it was first visited by white men. When the link of the Erie and Pittsburgh Railroad from the Lake shore road to the dock at Erie was in the process of construction, the laborers dug into a great mass of bones at the crossing of the public road which runs by the rolling mill. From the promiscuously way in which they were thrown together, it is surmised that a terrible battle must have taken place at some day, so far distant that not even a tradition of the event has been preserved. The skulls were flattened and the foreheads were were seldom more than an inch in width. The bodies were in a sitting posture, and were no traces that garments, weapons or ornaments had been buried with them. On account of the superstitious notions that prevailed among the workmen, none of the skeletons were preserved, the entire collection as far as was exposed being thrown into the embankment further down the road.  At a later date, when the roadway of the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, where it passes through the Warfel farm, was being widened, another deposit of bones was dug up and summarily disposed of as before. Among the skeletons was one of a giant, side by side with a smaller one, probably that of his wife. The arm and leg bones of this Native American Goliath were about one-half longer than the tallest man among the laborers; the skull was immensely large; the lower jawbone easily slipped over the face and whiskers of a full face man, and the teeth were in a perfect state of preservation.

    A skeleton was dug up in Conneaut Township some years ago, which was quite remarkable in its dimensions. As in the other instance, a comparison was made with the largest man in the neighborhood, and the jawbone readily covered his face, while the lower bone of his leg was nearly a foot longer than the one with which it was measured, indicating that the man must have been eight to ten feet in height. The bones of a flat head were turned up in the same township some two years ago with a skull of unusual size.