This is celebrated as being the remains of some ancient work, and was
supposed to have been a _fort_. Though the name is pronounced as if
_hill_ was the name of some individual, yet the place is a fort on a
hill, in the loose use of the word. The name designates the place as
_Fort_-hill, to distinguish it from the hills which have no fort on
them. Neither is it _a hill_, except as you rise from the swale on the
north, for it is lower than the land to which it naturally belongs.
As you pass towards Fort-Hill in the road from Le Roy village, which
is about three miles to the south, you descend a little most of the
distance to this place. The road passes a little west of the middle of
the space nearly north and south.
The shape is quadrangular, and is shown in the diagram or ground plot.
On the right and east side is the deep water course of _Allen’s Creek_,
cut down through the rocks for a mile or more, perhaps one hundred and
thirty feet deep; on the north is that of _Fordham’s Brook_, of nearly
the same depth, which drains a wide swale from the north and northwest;
and on the west is a short and deep ravine, which is a water course
in some seasons of the year, where the waters fall over a precipice a
little south of the quadrangular space, or fortification. This ravine
is not so deep as the water courses on the east and north. The descent
is quite steep on these three sides. At the northeast Allen’s Creek
turns to the east and receives the waters from Fordham’s Brook.
The quadrangular space, D, A, B, C, was enclosed by a trench, D A,
nearly a north line on the east, by A B on the north, and B C on the
west.
[Illustration]
A B is the north trench about sixty rods long, and nearly east and
west. A D is about thirty rods, and B C is fifteen rods, and terminates
at the ravine at C. The trench D A, and A B lies on the brow of the
descent to the streams below. At D the bend of the ravine stops the
trench. At the northwest corner B, a trench is continued about 15° to
the right and down the declivity 15 rods to a spring; 50 feet perhaps
below A B, and B G is the brow of the descent west of the trench at B,
and G C is the edge of the ravine on the west. Q W is Allen’s Creek on
the east; H I K is Fordham’s Brook on the north, and L P M is the water
course on the west to the precipice at M, over which the water falls at
some seasons, and the surface at M is only a few feet lower than the
general level of the quadrangle. The space F was a burying ground, as
bones, skulls, pipes, beads, have been ploughed up there. The road R N
passes through the middle nearly of the space enclosed by the trench,
and at N turns to the right to descend to the flat below; but formerly
the road turned to the right at U and passed down at the right of the
trench at D to T.
The place was pointed out to me by H. M. Ward, Esq., who was familiar
with it when it was covered with the forest. He states that the trench
must have been eight to ten feet deep and as many wide; that the
earth was thrown either way, but much of it inwards; that the forest
trees were standing in the trench and on the sides of it and of the
same apparent age and magnitude as on the ground generally; that the
heart-wood of black cherry trees of large size was scattered over
the ground, evidently the remains of a forest anterior to the then
growth of maple and beech, and that this black cherry was used by the
settlers for timber; that the road, when first made, crossed the trench
at N by a _bridge_; that the trench at D and A was cut down the bank
a few feet, or else in time water had worn a passage from the trench
downwards; that there was no tradition heard of among the Indians of
the country, in respect to the use or design of the work.
The underlying rock is the hydraulic limestone of this section, which
is fully exposed at the falls of Allen’s Creek, half a mile south of
Fort-Hill. This rock was struck in digging the trench on the north line
in some places, and portions of it were thrown out with the earth.
Of the pipes found at F one was formed from granular limestone; one was
of baked clay, in the form of the rude outlines of a man’s head and
face, nose, eyes, &c., and it reminds one of the figures in some of
Stephens’ Plates of the ruins of Palenque. It has the hollows for the
ears to be fastened on, and shows no little effort. The top of the head
is surrounded by a fillet or wreath, and behind are two more fillets.
At the bottom of the neck is a similar ornament, and on the front is
another below it. This is the most curious.
Another pipe is of reddish baked clay, with some pits or dots for
ornament upon it, two rows of dots around it and another below like a
chain suspended at several points and curved by its own weight.
The forest has been removed. Not a tree remains on the quadrangle, and
only a few on the edge of the ravine on the west. By cultivating the
land, the trench is nearly filled in some places, though the line of
it is clearly seen. On the north side the trench is considerable, and
where the road crosses it, is three or four feet deep at the sides of
the road. It will take only a few years more to obliterate it entirely,
as not even a stump remains to mark out its line.
From this view it may be seen or inferred,
1. That a real trench bounded three sides of the quadrangle. On the
south side there was not found any trace of trench, palisadoes, blocks,
&c.
2. It was formed long before the whites came into the country. The
large trees on the ground and in the trench, carry us back to an early
era.