Early Archaeological Discoveries at Big Bone Lick
Since the eighteenth century, Big Bone Lick has been a destination for explorers and collectors, fascinated by the large deposit of Pleistocene and Holocene prehistoric remains surrounding the salt lick. Many references detail the numerous expeditions and excavations conducted at Big Bone Lick. For the purposes of this context, centered around Big Bone’s historic period, only a few notable examples are mentioned here.
One of the first known expeditions was in 1739 when Major Charles LeMoyne de Longueuil, a French soldier from Fort Niagara, conducted a survey of the territory (Yealey 1960:12). A map created the following year noted that the area of Big Bone Lick where Longueuil and his party collected some bones was the “Place where the bones of many elephants were found by the army from Canada commanded by the Baron de Longueuille” (Cooper 1831:2; Hedeen 2008:33).
In 1744, Indian trader Robert Smith passed through the area and described what he saw at Big Bone to Christopher Gist, an employee of the Ohio Land Company of Virginia. Smith realized the importance of the mineral water and deposit of bones within Big Bone and spent the next seven years collecting numerous bones for display in his home near Urbana in present day Ohio, effectively creating the first museum west of the Allegheny Mountains. An Indian raid destroyed the village and with it, Smith’s collection of bones. Gist himself visited the area in 1751 after King George II issued a patent of 500,000 acres of land to the Ohio Company, and Gist surveyed the territory with Lawrence Washington (George Washington’s brother). Gist also extracted a large collection. A year later, John Findley visited the region while on a trading expedition and brought word back to Daniel Boone (Yealey 1960:2,27).
Further east in Augusta County, Virginia, Irish immigrant Thomas Ingles moved in 1735 with the Draper family to a settlement they called Draper’s Meadows. Thomas’ son William later married Mary Draper. On July 30, 1755, the settlement was attacked by Shawnee Indians, and Mary, two of her children, and her sister-in-law were kidnapped. The family members were separated, and Mary was taken west to a camp in present-day Ohio. As prisoner, she worked for the Shawnees to make shirts and clothing in exchange for money and goods. In October. she was taken to extract salt from Big Bone Lick. Ingles, along with another woman, escaped and traveled by foot for over 40 days back east back to Virginia to reunite with her family. Mary Ingles is known as the first Euronamerican woman to visit Big Bone Lick, as well as the first woman to travel through modern day Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia (Edwards 2018c; Staunton Spectator 1885:1).
Nearing the conclusion of the French and Indian War, an Irish immigrant in Pittsburgh named George Croghan served as England’s deputy superintendent of Indian affairs for the colonies in 1756. A well-known Indian agent, he traveled to Big Bone Lick multiple times, sharing his findings with botanists and those interested in American natural history. After the war, in 1765, Colonel Croghan led a party from Pittsburgh to deliver supplies to Illinois tribes, stopping at Big Bone Lick on the way.
They amassed a large collection, but it was lost a week later when their party was attacked near the mouth of the Wabash River. Croghan and others were taken prisoner to what is now Lafayette, Indiana, but negotiated their release back to Pennsylvania later that year. In June 1766, the British government instructed Croghan to return to the Illinois territory to convince tribes there to heed British rule. Again, the party stopped at Big Bone Lick, and another collection was extracted. Half of the shipment traveled down the Mississippi River south to New Orleans and then up the east coast to New York, before sailing to England in 1767, while the other half was sent to Benjamin Franklin (Cooper 1831:2; Hedeen 2008:40-44; Layne 1987).
Word spread in the late eighteenth century. of the massive quantities of large prehistoric bones near Big Bone Lick prompting subsequent surveys and expeditions to excavate and extract bones for future study. In 1774, a company led by John Floyd and William Preston completed a survey known as “The large Buffalos Lick & Salt Spring known by the name of the big Bone Lick.” Floyd and Preston were surveyors from Fincastle County, Virginia, and completed the first land grant surveys in the Big Bone region (Hedeen 2008:52-53; Striker 2000:6-7; Yealey 1960:27).
In a 1778 map of the Ohio Valley, drafted by British army engineer Thomas Hutchins, he labeled the location of the Lick as “Big Bones” (Figure 3-3). A map of Kentucky drafted by John Filson in 1784, lists “Big Bone Lick; Salt and Medicinal Spring. Large bones are found there” (Figure 3-4) (Hedeen 2008:52-53; Striker 2000:6-7).
Figure 3-4. Portion of 1784 Filson map. Big Bone is labeled near the center (Hedeen 2008:73)
In 1803, Dr. William Goforth of Cincinnati traveled to Big Bone and removed approximately five tons of bones that included various tusks and molars. These were sent to England for display and study by way of Thomas Ashe, however, he in turn sold the collection and pocketed the proceeds (Yealey 1960:28; The Courier-Journal 1899:28).
Hearing of this discovery by Dr. Goforth, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned William Clark, (following his famous expedition with Meriwether Lewis) brother of General George Rogers Clark, to travel to Big Bone Lick for excavation and collection. The large collection Clark sent east was distributed to three locations: one to President Jefferson at the White House, one to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and one to the Institut de France in Paris. This expedition is known for establishing the study of American vertebrate paleontology (Yealey 1960:28; The Courier-Journal 1899:28; Hedeen 2008:90- 94).
After the early years of the nineteenth century, archaeological investigations of Big Bone slowed as expedition parties removed all the fossils readily found near the Lick. Classification and further study determined that these bones were primarily Pleistocene mammals including mastodon, mammoth, ox, and bison. Excavation resumed following erosion near the Lick, exposing new fossils and prompting further study (Jillson 1936:59-60).
