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By MARY HAUSE Along the banks of the steepy Youghogheny river, about a mile from Somerfield, is the little farm of Frank Montague. While plowing a field, that dips down to the water's edge, Mr. Mon tague noticed large areas of black ground. The whole field has excep tionally rich, black ground, but those spots were much blacker than the rest. He became curious, and reported his find to Mrs. J. W. Endsley in Somerfield, who has ever been interested in the history of her native surroundings. This farm is directly at the point in the river known as Great Cross ings, where General Braddock en camped and crossed the waters dur ing the French and Indian War, Mr. Montague, and Mrs. Endsley thought the black areas in the ground, might be spots on which General Braddock in his encamp ment, built great fires to cheer and warm his men, and cook food. The find was reported to Dr. Don ald A. Cadzow, state archaelogist, in Harrisburg, Dr. Cadzow, and four of his assistants, who have been working at various points in Somer set county for some weeks, which were known to be sites of Indian ac tivities, left his work and moved to Somerfield His eye, trained to read signs in Old Mother Earth, knew that those black spots had been created from fires which had burned for some time on those particular spots, but whether they were made by General Braddock could not be told at a glance. He and his as sistants, H. Mathor Rupp of Phila delphia, George Rumpff of Athens, Dale Woodruff of Sayre, and Rich ard Witmer of York, began careful ly removing the top soil in one spot and before long, they found evidence that they had not uncovered long buried ashes from Braddock’s great fires, but the deep earth fireplaces of an Indian encampment instead. (Please Turn to Page Five)
Newspaper Details
Somerset Daily Herald
Somerset, Pennsylvania, US
Fri, Nov 02, 1934
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 06 Nov 2025
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