Relic hunters excavated many Indian sites in Wilcox County in the 1890s

Clarence Bloomfield Moore

A couple of weeks ago in this space I wrote about ancient Indian mounds that have been documented over the years in Wilcox County, and much of what is known about these sites is due to the work of Philadelphia archeologist, Clarence Bloomfield Moore.

Moore, who was born in Philadelphia in 1852, was a wealthy, Harvard-educated man, who loved archeology and relic-hunting. During the 1880s, he began nearly 30 years of traveling the southeastern United States, where he located, excavated and wrote about hundreds of ancient Indian sites. Most of his travels were along rivers in his steamboat, The Gopher, which served as the mobile headquarters for his veteran team of diggers.

In early 1899, Moore, who would have been in his late 40s by this time, and The Gopher found themselves in Wilcox County, and in his report to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, he noted that “no systematic investigation” of archeological sites along the Alabama River had been made prior to his arrival. During this time, Moore and his team investigated Indian mounds in Wilcox, Monroe, Clarke and Dallas counties, in addition to other points up and down the Alabama River.

In Wilcox County, they investigated mounds near Burford’s Landing, Webb’s Landing and Matthews Landing and found a wide variety of Indian artifacts and remains. Moore and his diggers routinely found skulls, teeth, shells and arrowheads as well as other not-so-common items, including stone knives.

Moore's steamboat 'The Gopher,' pictured in foreground.

In one instance, they found a “beautifully wrought” celt, that is, a prehistoric implement with a beveled cutting edge that was used as a weapon and tool. The one found by Moore’s team was about 10 inches long and was thought to have been made out of greenstone. One is left to wonder if this stone knife is on display today in some museum out there in the world or perhaps in storage somewhere like the Smithsonian Institute.

Moore’s team also found small gorgets made of shells that Indians wore to cover their throats. In another location, they found a broken piece of earthenware pottery carved to look like the head of a duck, and Moore theorized that this had been part of the handle of some type of earthenware vessel. Again, one is left to wonder what became of these unique artifacts.

Probably the most gruesome find unearthed by Moore in Wilcox County were at mounds near Matthews Landing, where they found numerous burial sites. In one case, they found a burial urn that contained the skulls and skeletons of several infants. Moore noted that in all his travels he had not seen a “plural burial” of this type.

Eventually, Moore moved on to points elsewhere along the Alabama River, but he left behind a trail of disturbed Indian sites. Many of the artifacts that Moore collected ended up in museums in Philadelphia and around the world. If you’re interested in reading more about his explorations in Wilcox County, I recommend that you read “The Southern and Central Alabama Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore,” a 2001 book which was edited by Dr. Craig T. Sheldon Jr.

In the end, I’d be interested in hearing from anyone in the reading audience with more information about old Indian village sites and mounds in present-day Wilcox County. No doubt many of these sites still exist today, and it would be fun to see them in person. I think it’s important to document these locations for future generations, and it would be a shame for them to become lost in the fogs of time like so much of our history.