The Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville (Marshall County) is the largest conical type burial mound in the United States, approched in size by only the Miamisburg, Ohio mound. The 62-foot high, 240-foot diameter mound, originally of a heighth of nearly 70 feet, contains approximately 57,000 tons of dirt. The digging of such an amount of earth left a sizeable moat or ditch surrounding the mound, no longer in existence. By testing the soil, archaeologists estimate the mound was built between 250 and 150 B.C.E. by the Adena culture, which occupied the area from about 1000 B.C.E. to 200 A.C.E. The mound and two forts were the essential features of an Adena village in the shape of a triangle. "The mound construction probably began with the death of a very important person. There is no way to know who this person was -- great warrior, chieftain or religious leader. We know that 25-30 years later another important personage died and his remains were placed in an 8 by 12 foot vault on the top of the mound when it was approximately 35 feet high. The natives then covered this with dirt until the mound reached its maximum height." (See Footnote 1)
The first person of European descent to discover the mound was early settler Joseph Tomlinson, who literally stumbled off the top while hunting in 1770. In 1838, a descendant, Jesse Tomlinson and Thomas Briggs gutted the mound, destroying much of the archaeological evidence provided by the scientific study of other mounds. Tunneling from the side and top, the two men discovered a burial chamber in the center containing two skeletons and large amount of jewelry and another room with one skeleton and jewelry. Tomlinson opened the center chamber as a museum, charging 25 cents admission. Five years later, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft mapped the area. In 1909, the state acquired possession of the mound, placing it under the care of West Virginia Penitentiary warden M. S. White. In 1975, Dr. E. Thomas Hemmings of the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey conducted the first scientific excavation of the area, locating among other items the previous existence of a moat. During the last two-hundred years, the top of the mound has been home to a saloon, dance platform, and artillery pieces during the Civil War. Today, the state operates the Grave Creek Mound State Park and Delf Norona Museum and Culture Center, featuring numerous Native American artifacts from the mound and region. (See Footnote 2)
1. History of Marshall County West Virginia 1984 (Marshall County Historical Society, 1984), 6.
2. History of Marshall County West Virginia 1984, 6-7; Phil Conley and William Thomas Doherty, West Virginia History (Charleston: Education Foundation, Inc., 1974), 52-53.