Local Doctor Measures Giant Skeleton from a Grant County, Burial Mound at Nine Feet
Combination Atlas Map of Grant County Indiana, 1877
The largest of mounds found in Grant County is that one found two miles south and one mile west of Upland, in Jefferson Township. About forty years ago the mound was five or six rods in diameter and about fifty feet high. At that time it was covered with all kinds of timber.
After people began settling near the mound they began clearing away the timber. The dirt was carried about a quarter of a mile. There is a basin near, rather deep, and at that time it was covered with trees, the same as the mound. The supposition of the old settlers was that the dirt in the mound was carried from where the basin is now.
People owning the land cleared the mound and for years have plowed it down until at the present time it is merely nothing but a small hill. In plowing and digging the mound many relics of the mound builders have been found, such as darts, hatchets, gun-barrels and bows.
The darts were just ordinary shaped ones like those found in later years. The hatchets were made of stone, mostly of blue granite. They were large and rudely shaped. The guns were old-fashioned flint-lock guns.
The owner of the mound gave many people permission to dig into it. One day two men were given permission to dig. The dug a trench north and south about four feet deep. After-they found a part of a skeleton of a man, the thighbone, ball and socket joint, and many small bones. When the small bones were exposed to the air they immediately crumbled. The ball and socket and thighbones were taken to a physician in Upland and he estimated the bones were of a man at least nine feet tall and weighing not less than three hundred pounds and the man was not fleshy.
A stone smoking pipe was found. The
bowl of the pipe was two and half inches in diameter and the