Randolph
A RANDOLPH COUNTY PAPER FOR RANDOLPH COUNTY PEOPLE.
VOL. 6. NO. 25.
ONE DOLLAR A YEAR
ASHEBORO, N. C, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1910.
Id TSse km of
Second Letter of the Puye Cliff OwaLers and their Forg&ten Past.
A Great, Human Beehive.
(By M. J. Brown, Editor
:With this letter I will conclude j
the cliff dweller description, and
then to other places, and some of
the places, people and things to
come j think you will find equally
intere'sting.
Abiut in the center of this long
cliff as a stone strairway, with a
kiva before we go up.
The best discription of it would
be one of our cess pools a well
perhaps ten feet across and
twenty feet deep. The roof has
longj 'since washed awray and the
hole! partially filled up, but the
Smithsonian people have excavat
ed itj and placed therein a ladder.
We descended, and th 2re found
the only fire place, or rather the
ruins of one that is to be found
in the whole cliff city, The floor
is cement and in front of the fire
place are two rows of holes in
the floor, six on a side, and the
walls are full of nitches, each
seeming to conform with similar
places on the opposite side. This
kiva is supposed to have been the
secret room where the religious
and ceremonial rites of these
strange people were performed,
and a room where but few of the
cliff dwellers' feet ever trod.
But most wonderful of all is the
jtairway that leads to the top of
the cliffs. Here one gets some
idea of the ages these people lived
here and of the multitude which
used this path, for human feet
Jiave worn the solid rock to a
depth of twelve inches, and when
you consider that this outside
rock is not of the soft com
position of the caves, than
you have some conception of the
age and the density of population.
In one place across this path a
stone has fallen and rather than
to remove it these little men of
the cliffs walked over it, and on
its surface the trail was but half
as deep. I took a limb and raised
one side of it and underneath
was the old foot-worn path.
And on each side of the path
at the steep and difficult places
are hand holes, where these
people helped to pull them-selves
up, little nitches worn smooth by
the human hand, as the solid rock
was cut deep by bare or moecasin
edfeet. It is estimated by the Smith
sonian people than 10,000 people
lived on the face of this one cliff
and that the population of the
adjoining cliff and on themessas
was fully 100,000 people.
We climbed the cliff, putting
our patent leathers in the deep j
worn foot-path and our gloved
hands in the handholds, and
gained the top. And what a sight!
There in the bright sunshine
lay the ruins of a great commu
nial dwelling, one building that
once sheltered 1200 people a
human beehive of t. e
days
fore history. Ages
ago this
house fell into ruins, but it has j water, nor these mountains with
been carefully excavated and j enough game,
cleared'away, and the first story j And there is nothing to indi
and its walls now stand as they j cate any great calamity or exter
did when built. ' mination. All is in order and
The great building reminds one what ever the process of exter
of our modern stock yards an
enclosure cut up into small pens
or rooms each room about 5x10 !
feet, and each communicating
with the other by a door about
three feet high by eighteen inches
wide just one great beehive
with no outside entrances. And
over one of these doors apiece of
cedar wood was placed at the time
of the building, as a frame to
Trie Cave Men.
Littls Valley, N.
u, Hub.)
clobie blocks, and
support
the'
hat support still stands through
all th
ese
age?,
crumbling with
dry
rot, but surely
wood yet. I
broke off a piece of this door
frame that some little man plac
ed there long before Columbus
found this country, and I treasure
it with my other souvenirs.
From the quantity of the ruins
it is pretty thoroughly establish
ed that this building was at least
three stories high, one great
enclosure around a court, and
with one main entrance, or street
which is clearly defined. In the
center, or court, are many hand
some stone relics, grinding stone,
skinning stons, pieces of pottery
and many whose use one can only
guess at, but plainly fashioned
for some purpose.
And just behind this ruin is a
burial ground, 'where during the
past summer, the Smithsonian
people excavated 250 skeletons,
and all kinds of trinkets and
pottery buried with them. The
graveyard is but partially ex
cavated and hundreds of other
skeletons yet sleep there.
The excavators did not do a
very thorough job. Some of the
skeletons they dug up are not
complete nor ever will be. I
have a part of a rib and some
finger and hand bones. The
custodian was not looking and I
was.
From one of the caves in the
cliff Mr. Hoag showed me some
leg bones he "had hidden, the
bones both above and below the
knee, and by comparison they
were fully a third shorter than
my 1910 bones. There are many
proofs that these dwellers of the
cliffs were much shorter in stat
ure than the Americans of today.
Farther along the messa is the
ruins of what seems to have been
a great reservoir, but it might
have been a fort. Its circular
walls
are plainly to be
seen i
' I
witti an opening leading to it
from the rising ground above.
This opening might have been a
ditch to bring in water in time
of floods, or a roadway to bring
in the people in time of danger.
If a reservoir, it is what I would
call a work of loose engineering
for should it break or overflow
tnere would oe a iViagara oven
the cliff homes bebw, and
!
shower baths for the dwellers
im , T
mere must nave neon
great
climatic changes in this thirsty
land amce these
thousands of
Today there
people lived here
is not an ounce of water to be
found anywhere just a great
burned up, heaved up, dried up
waste. Such a great population
must have had water and such
a population could not have sub
sisted entirely on game, for cer-
be-jtamly rainfall could not have
! supplied .them with sufficient
mination was, it must have been
slow. In the ruins of southern
Colorado, I am told that a cala-
i mity befeitbe people and that
the skeletons lie unburicd an
the general confusion every
where denoted a sudden end,
but on the Puye ruins there is
a
utely no indication of
e these thousands of people
wher
went, or how they went.
It is my guess that far back
in, the past ages a great river Iff
flowed at the bottom of these
clifs, that rainfall was plenty,
that the inhabitants were farm
ers and that what appears to
have been a fort or reservoir on
top of the cliffs was a storehouse
for the community's grain.
Where did these strange peo
ple go, and why did they go?
You guess, for your guess is as
good as any history or theory I
can fmd-
Lummis says they did not
appear but that their descendants
are the Pueblo Indians.
Hewett says this cannot be so,
for there is too great a difference
in the heads of the cliff dwellers'
skeletons and the present Indians
to allow any connection or rela
tionship. The Pueblos have no traditions
legands or anything regarding
these cliff people.
Old mountaineers will tell you
that a plague exterminated them;
others that volcanic fumes stiffled
them at one stifle, and so on, but
as before stated, there is abso
lutely nothing to bear out any
change but that of a slow order
of extermination.
Over the doors of many of the
homes on the cliffs face are rock
pictures whose meanings I
would give much to read and of
some I am sure there are mean-
ings. The sun symbol is promi
nent, and they were no doubt
sun worshippers, while there are
many crude drawings represent
ing men, beasts and birds. One
carving particularly interested
me, as representing a heart.
Over one door was a sun sym-
' bol, and then at a later time a
sort of a circle had been cut over
it. Whether the sun symbol
indicated the resident was ori
ginally the presiding elder for
the district, and that the circle
indicated that later on he had
been appointed a notary public,
I am not sure. It's a land of
guess work, these weird old
cliffs, and mine is as good as any
history.
Where the great quantities of
cement came from that plas
tered almost every room of these.
hundreds, is another for the
puzzle department to go to.
Nothing has ever been found
here of the sticky nature, yet
these aboriginees must have had
a Portland source from -somewhere,
for it was used in abund
ance. In but one room of the hun-
dreds, and on but one of the rock
j pictures is there any color. But
in one we found the interior
I painted red, faded through the
many generations, but plainly
red, and the picture of some
unintelligible man or animal over
this "door had been first carved
and then painted. Another one
to guess on.
1 r.'vpr lpf t n nljirp with nrsnrp
reg
iet man tuese cave uozjies oi
the Puye. I had seen them and
explored them to my heart's con
tent, but I wanted to know more
of them, wanted some little
brown man to rise up frcm his
ancient grave and give me the
password to all this age and
mystery. But never a bone
rattled.
But there was a fitting close.
Just as we were about to leave
and I was taking a last look at
this white cliff and its human
holes; a gaunt raven, perched on
the highest cliff and uttered his
discordant croaks, and it seemed
almost a half fulfillment of mv
j j wish, and a fitting farewell to
U i , 1 J. J J.,l
this city of mystery and death.
And as I stood watching this j
black bird of prey, afar off from!
the Rio. Grande came the faint
echo of an engine's whistle, and
it seemed like a false note to this
u u y
iiiuai ui me yci&u, emu me-iaveii s
croaks seemed as if written for
the scene as harmony for the
time and place.
Q
Asheville, Dec. 19 Rev. D
J. Miller, pastor of Bethel Metho
dist church, a small church in j
the cotton mill section of this
city, left his home Friday and
notlrng has since been heard of
him. Before leaving home, he
dressed himself in two suits of
underwear, and two pairs of
trousers, showing that he was
preparing for a journey and did
not take along a suitcase, al
though he did take his college
diploma and credentials z
minister. The cause of his
; a
de-
sertion of his wife and his charge
ia-upposed i be lack of funds
the church being a small one, the
congregation is said to not have
paid up very well.
His premeditated departure
seems to lead to the belief that
he was not mentally deranged,
and it is supposed that he has
gone to the west. He borrowed
a small sum of money from one
of the members of his congrega
tion before he departed.
HELP THE EDITOR TO GET NEWS.
The county editor, who has
innumerable little details of of
fice work to look after, frequent
ly overlooks important news
items, a fact which constitutes
an unpardonable sin in the eyes
of some patrons who think that
news gathering is the only work
the editor has to do. Along this
line the Lincoln News thought
fully adds:
"The newspaper man is blamed
for a whole lot of things he can't
help, such as using partiality in
mentioning visitors, giving news
about some folks and leaving
others out, etc. He simply
prints all the news he can find.
Some people inform him about
such things and others do not.
An editor should not be expected
to know the names and resi
dences of all your uncles, aunts
and cousins, even if he should
see them get off the train. Tell
us about it. It's news t,at
makes the newspaper, and every
man, woman and child can be
associate editors if they only will.
Never apologize when you give
this bit of information to an
editor, for if there lives one so
dead that he has lost his appre
ciation ol such favors he is dead,
indeed, to every virtue that im
parts value to a paper. Lenoir
Topic.
Working for a New County.
High Point citizens are work-
I ing zealously for a new county
. . .
joining counties, with High Point
as the county seat. It is figured
out that the new county would
make 231 square miles of terri
tory, about 25,000 population and
$6,000,000 assessed property
valuation according to the figures
of the promoters of the. enter
prise. Ransom county has been
talked of as the name of the newr
county, but this being claimed
for a proposed new county with
Wendell, Wake county as the
seat, the question of the name
is left open. Or course, tliere
will be zealous opposition as there
" T 1UV
are a pauper counties
in the state at present. As The
Republican sees it no new ones
should be established unless the
nax i ,
new ones and those from whom
they are taken are able to pass
the pauper requirement, Union
Republican.
'readier Departs
cretly.
Lorimer Not Guilty of Bribery
Charqes.
W-hiLo-ton De 17-Thel
Wc.ohii.gton, be.. 1 . ihe
senate committee on pnvihges ;
, , ..
ana eiections held a meeting to-
day for the purpose of consider
ing what report to make to the
senate on the charges against
Senator .Lorimer, of Illinois. The!
sebcommittee, which conducted
the investigation completely and
unanimousy cleared the Illinois
senator.
Great secrecy is maintained
today but it is generally under-
stood that Lorimer is cleared aLo !
by the full committee of any
participation in the - bribery
scandals.
It is understood to be held that
there is no proof that he was
guilty of bribery and no showing
that enough members of the leg
islature were bribed to change
the result, and, therefore, that
he should not be expelled from
the senate,
The report of the full com
mittee, exonerating Senator
Lorimer will not be presented to
the senate until next Tuesday.
Members of the committee
objected to sending the report of
the full committee to the senate
today, because some of them
wished to read all the evidence
contained in the report of the
sub-committee.
A GREAT PROBLEM SOLVED.
No more cold storage eggs.
New laid eggs for breakfast
every morning. This is the hap
py prospect for every American
family whether in town cr
country.
A 'Connecticut man, taking ad
vantage of the natural credulity
of the humble, trusting hen, be"
guiles it into laying every morn
ing by letting it gaze fondly up
on a few flowers in a greenhouse.
A small greenhouse, a small run
and a few nets for the hen and
the musical cackle of the hen is
heard from the first days of dud
November until ground hog days
are over. No longer a glut of
eggs in spring and a famine in
winter; the problem of eggs in
winter is solved for all time to
come.
Think
it! a few daffodils
and hyacinths judiciously placed
and the hen innocently thinks it
is a balmy day in April instead
of a zero day in January. The
plan presents a well nigh per
fect combination of the useful
and beautiful. Its esthetic val ue
also is to be commended. The
plebean barn yard fowl equally
with the aristocratic Orpingtons,
Wyandottes, Rocks and Reds
will respond to its refining in
fluence. rr.i j. - : j.
li:e.l, iO;;, li lb
s a pian tnat
everyone can adopt. To be sure
a greenhouse is not always pos
sible, but it is the flowers and
not the warmth, we understand.
t.hsr. wnrk thftchnrm. Tf nat:ir:-ii
flowers are not available doubt-; tuticn will embrace lea fea
less a few artificial ones placed j lures 0f both the American and )
with studied negiienc1, or 2 i : - ,
. ' ,, : Lh iusn systems. ;
flower piece or two upon the wa;i j
opposite the nests will answer ! . m r
the purpose. Come to think ! notice uo Policyholders.
it to what berter use cart' tht j The regular annual meeting of
large colored pb'tes in seed cata- i the Randolph county branch of
logues be put? If anything can I Farmers Mutual Fire Insur
make hens lay in winter tbey ance association of North Car
can, lu fact, having in rnind olina will be held sn the L-xing-the
gigantic size of the flowers torl Grocery Co. building in
portrayed on the plates any hen Aneboro N. C. mi Monday Jan.
looking earnestly upon them - 1811 at 12 o'clock m. for th i
would naturally lay eggs twici ! purpose of electing officers -for
the usual size. j eesuring year and for the
. . . 'i transaction of such other bu-.
Some people say something and ; ss as may lavfully come be- '
others have something to say. GrP- the meeting.
There is a great difference be-1 S. S. Cox, President,
tween the two. 1 U. S. Hayes, Sec.
Iieboro Graded school
The fal1 term f Ashlbor0
m d Wednes.
t ar. M . , .
dflv Dec. 21. Work will resume
' , , T . Tj?
Wprlnpsrlav mornincr Jan. 4. If
there are those who would enter
the spring term of school they
are urged to do so the first day
of school as the time for enrolling
new students 'will.be limited. If
there are school subjects who
have became so since the open
ing of school in September they
may enter during the first three
days: It would however be bet
ter for them to stay out till the
next term. No first year pupil
would be promoted on a half
year's work.
By order of the school board
those students who are number
ed in the Asheboro district but
outside of the town limits will
be permitted to continue in
school on condition that they pay
half of the following tuition
rates:
First, second, and third grades
$1.00 per month; fourth and
fifth grades $1.50 per month,
sixth and seventh grades 2.00
per month; eighth, ninth and
tenth grades $3.00 per month.
Those enjoying the privilege
of half rates, will not be granted
reduction for absences.
We trust no -parents will stop
their children at this the middle
of the school year and thus
force them to go over the same
work next fall.
Let them end up the full year's
work which they have so well
begun.
O. V. Woosley, Supt.
By a singular coincidence the
very time the English parliament
is passing through one of the
most fateful elections in its his
tory China, politically one of the
most backward of nations, has
been promised a representative
government.
Because of its antiquity and
its influence the British institu
tion is known as the "Mother of
Parliaments," and to a greater
or less extent it has served as
the model for every legislative
body now existing. It has an
unbroken history of over 600
years and it is a suggestive
commentary upon the slow yet
sure development of human lib
erty and popular government
that after all these centuries it
is now engaged in a contest
which will probably result in a
radical change in the relation be
tween the lords and commons
and in a more ready response to
the popular will.
Other nations as they have
adopted popular rule have profit
e 1 by the varied experiences of
the British, parliament and no '
doubt China will do the same-''
In all likelihood its new.
" T