CHESTER — Bicentennial Ambassadors Grant Adams, Brielle Newland, and Cooper Schagel unveiled the eleventh Bicentennial Marker at the Mound Cemetery Mound in Chester Township on Wednesday evening.
Adams welcomed those in attendance at the ceremony by saying, “It is wonderful to see so many people turn out for the unveiling, I believe it is the largest group ever.”
This is the first Bicentennial marker to honor a Native American cultural location. The Mound was chosen because it is one of only a few traces in the county of its original people, or of their civilization. The fact that it has never been excavated makes it unique in Meigs County, and earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The Mound is estimated to have been constructed by the Adena culture that lived in the area during the Early Woodland Period, an archeological classification ranging from approximately 1000 BC to 200 BC. Archeologists theorize and have some evidence to suggest Native cultures built mounds along the Ohio River Valley for burial, religious, and perhaps occasionally defensive purposes.
“The Mound Cemetery Mound is believed to have been built as a burial structure, or a marker for ceremonial, historical, or community gatherings. We are unable to know specifically what the Adena culture used this mound for without digging up the contents that have laid underneath the Mound for thousands of years,” said Bicentennial Ambassadors Brielle Newland.
Meigs County and the Ohio River Valley were once so populated with mounds that travelers such as Henry Brackenridge, passing through Ohio and the Mississippi Valley, could write in 1811: “There is hardly a rising town, or a farm of an eligible situation, in whose vicinity some of these remains may not be found.”
“Since then, the presence of these mound has dwindled as curious settlers looted the mounds in hope of finding treasure. Other mounds were destroyed by the plows of farmers who flattened the land to develop fields and grow crops.”
According to locals, two smaller mounds close to the Cemetery Mound have disappeared because of farming practices in the last 75 years.
Another unique quality of this mound is the fact it sits in the middle of a cemetery. Numerous inquiries have been made as to why settlers of Chester built a cemetery around the Mound, but no one knows for certain.
“There is speculation that given the Mound Cemetery in Marietta was purposefully built around a mound in order to preserve it, settlers in Chester did the same, but no one knows for sure,” said Newland.
Following the unveiling, Schagel thanked everyone for attending, and announced the twelfth and final Bicentennial Marker will be placed in Rutland Township in December.
Lorna Hart is a freelance writer for Ohio Valley Publishing.