Mound Day

The Daily Telegram

November 5, 1908

     All the grades in the city schools observed Mound Day this afternoon for half an hour.  Appropriate programs were rendered and funds raised for the preservation of the mound at Moundsville.

     Mr. McConkey presided over the high school and Superintendent Burdette gave an historical account of the mound.  Miss Bertha Bland and Frank White, high school representatives, read sketches.  There was patriotic music.  The fund will be deposited in the bank to be drawn on by State Treasurer Ogdin.

     The Clyclopedia Americana says of the mound:

     "One of the most interesting mounds of North America is that know as Grave Creek Mound located in Moundsville, West Virginia.  The Mound is situated on an artificial truncated mound, some 70 feet high and 900 feet in circumference at its base.  The mound was built by a race superior and previous to Indians, and is the most notable mound in the Ohio Valley.  Its cubic contents are equal to the third pyramid of Mycerinus, but was heaped up by a people destitute of the knowledge of iron, and who had no domestic animals or machinery to aid them.  They were evidently people like the Egyptians, ruled by some one monarch, who was able to combine vast numbers in the erection of one structure, and at the same time, able to provide them with food in abundance.  The mound-builders cultivated the soil like the Egyptians, and had maize for their food, as the date and leek and onion supplied the wants of the laborers on the Nile.  No Indian was ever known to toll in this manner.  No government existed among the Indians that could bring them so much servitude.  The authority of a chief or sachem is too slender a thread for such a people.  It must be remembered that in Egypt to build one of the pyramids required the labor of 360,000 men for 20 years.  This Mound was visited by white men at a very early date, for, in 1818, on of the large trees growing on the Mound bore the date of 1734, and several names cut in the bark were yet distinguishable.  Tomlinson, the owner of the Mound, was induced - by his neighbors and friends in Wheeling - to open the Mound, which he did in 1838.  From the north side he excavated toward the centre an adit ten feet high and 7 feet wide along the natural surface.  At the distance of 111 feet he came to a vault that had been excavated in the earth before the Mound was commenced;  8 feet by 12 feet square and 7 feet in depth.  Along each side, and across the ends, upright timbers had been placed, which supported timbers thrown across the vault as a ceiling.  Those timbers were covered with loose unhewn stone, common in the neighborhood.  The timbers had rotted, and the stone tumbled into the vault.  In this vault were two human skeletons, one of which had no ornaments.  The other was surrounded by 650 ivory beads and an ivory ornament about six inches long.  A shaft was also sunk from the top of the Mound to meet the other.  At 34 feet above the first or bottom vault, was found another, similar to the first.  In this vault was found a skeleton which had been ornamented with copper rings, plates of mica, and bone beads.  Over 2,000 discs cut from shells were found here.  The copper rings, or bracelets found, weighed about 17 ounces."   

The Flatwoods Monster

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/Flatwoods_monster_newspaper1.png

       Seven Braxton County residents Saturday reporting seeing a 10 foot Frankenstein-like monster in the hills above Flatwood.

     They said they saw the monster Friday night when they climbed a wooded hill to investigate reports that a flying saucer had landed.

     Mrs. Kathlyn May, Flatwood, said she and six boys, including a 17-year-old member of the national guard, started to search for a bright object which her two small sons said they had seen come down.

     However, State Police laughed the reports off as hysteria.  They said the so-called monster had grown from seven to 17 feet in 24 hours.

     The National Guard member, Gene Lemon, was leading the group when he said he saw what appeared to be a pair of bright eyes in a tree.  At first he thought it was an oppossum or a raccoon but when he shone his flashlight on it, he said, he saw a 10-foot monster with a blood-red face and a green body that seemed to glow.  Mrs. May said Lemon let out a terrified scream and fell over backwards.  She said the monster started toward them with a bounding motion. 

     All of the party agreed that there was an overpowering smell that burned the nostrils and made them sick.  Several of the party fainted and vomited for several hours after returning to town.

     A. Lee Stewart, co-publisher of the Braxton County Democrat, said he and several men armed with shotguns returned with Lemon about half-hour to an hour later, and reported a sickening odor still present.  He said there were also slight heat waved in the air.

     "Those people were the most scared people I've ever seen,"  Stewart said, "People don't make up that kind of story quickly."  Both Mrs. May and Lemon described the thing as having the shape of a man, blood-red face, bright green body, protruding eyes, and hand extended forward and appeared to give off an eerie light.  They said it had a black shield affair in the shape of an ace of spades behind it and wore what looked like a pleated metallic shirt.

     "It looked worse than Frankenstein," Mrs. May said.

Image Source:  here.

     

     Those who saw the monster:

1. Edward May - 13
2. Fred May - 12
3. Tommy Hyer - 10
4. Kathlyn May
5. Neil Nunley - 14
6. Ronnie Shaver - 10
7. Eugene 'Gene' Lemon - 17

      The "Braxton County Monster" has been described by a local insurance man and amateur astronomer as an illusion created by the remains of a gaseous meteor.
     He is Earl Stephens of nearby Belle, whose theory is one of the best offered here on the origin of "the thing" that scared the daylights out of a Braxton County family.
     His theory was advanced after Mrs. Kathleen May and Gene Lemon of Flatwoods returned from New York where they described their experience before a nation-wide television audience.
     It is Stephens' opinion that the meteor, commonly called a fire ball, originated from an electrical discharge in the outer atmosphere, forming the shape of a gaseous ball.

Odor of Sulphur

     "The odor of sulphur was the tip-off," declared Stephens.  "It burns with a green flame accounting for the apparition the people saw."
     Stephens said one of the party apparently flashed their light on the gas ball just the instant before it disintegrated into thin air.  The reflection of the light on the gases gave it the shape the people described, he said.
     The " monster" story came to light a week ago after reports that Mrs. May, Lemon and four youths ran smack into the thing while searching for a strange object they saw floating into the woods near their home.
     They described the monster as about eight feet tall, with red eyes and a green body, topped by a strange pointed mantle.
     However, during a thorough search of the area by county officials the next day only the sulphurous odor remained.
Facts Support Theory
     Stephens said his theory is backed up by the fact the earth entered a meteorite stream on Aug. 24.  He believes the gaseous body may have been ripped from Biela's Comet which has been splitting up during recent years, showering the earth with its fragments.
     During the same period several local residents observed a strange luminous body that was believed to have fallen within a 50-mile radius of Charleston.
     The gaseous theory is further bolstered by the stories of two residents of rural St. Albans, who declared they saw a lighted object float lazily to the ground and disappear.
     A search of that area by two Gazette reporters failed to turn up any....

 [Caption under the picture]   

     THE MONSTER which prowled the hills of Braxton County on Friday, Sept. 12, was drawn by a New York artist from descriptions given him by Mrs. Kathleen May and Gene Lemon, Flatwoods residents who said they saw the "thing."  The two witnesses, with A. Lee Stewart, Jr., Sutton publisher, told their experience on "We The People" television show in New York Friday night.  [The artist's?] conception was featured on the program with a background of weird [music?].  Lemon and Mrs. May hold the portrait which they say is "quite accurate."  The [picture?] was taken in Charleston at the Greyhound bus terminal.

The Waffle Rock Boulder

     Once upon a time there was a rock.  This rock was different from all the other rocks, and the local natives believed it was sacred.  The years passed and the area near the rock became known as a town called Shaw.  This town was located somewhere in Mineral County, West Virginia.

Image Source: here.

     The town of Shaw had a river running through it called the Potomac.  Then one day some engineers decided to build a dam on this river.  To build this dam meant that the town of Shaw would be flooded forever, along with this magnificent rock.  In place of the town and rock would be a lake - Jennings Randolph Lake.  
     Luckily, someone realized that this rock should not be lost to the people, and decided to move it.  Unfortunately, this rock was a big one.  So it was decided that a portion of the rock, now dubbed "Waffle Rock," would be removed from the whole and saved.  
     A portion of Waffle Rock now sits on an overlook of the lake.  This rather large 'hunk' has been dubbed as the Waffle Rock boulder, and has been a tourist attraction since its placement there in 1985.  Another piece of the rock now resides at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

Larger view of original rock.  Image Source: here.

     Waffle rock is not only interesting to look at, but it's also surrounded in mystery.  No one seems to know just how the strange geometric patterns came to be.  Of course, there are many theories out there.  To name a few:

• Carved by ancient native Americans
• Reptilian aliens
• More aliens/made a landmark
• An alien craft landed on it and left the markings behind
• Electromagnetic fields
• An electrical storm or lightning strike
• Sandstone formed cracks, and over time those cracks filled in with quarts.  Since the two rocks erode at different rates the 'waffle' appearance formed. 

     To me it looks like the inside of a beehive.  Back in prehistoric times lots of insects and animals were ginormous compared to today, so who knows, maybe this is a giant beehive fossil.  Hey, my guess could end up being the truth, right?  Unlikely.  Still, I'm glad that at least a part of it was saved and I hope to see it for myself one day.

Who doesn't like a good mystery now and then?