Chapter II ARRIVAL OF DESOTO The physical features of the section in which Macon is situated possess the same confirmation as was left by the Eocene period. This period left the site of Macon a “key site” where the key city was destined by the natural conditions later to arise. The early races of men and even the earlier animals traveled always along the lines of least resistance as do trades and people of today. This law of travel makes Macon important today and made its site important in prehistoric times. Key sites on natural trade and travel routes have been the determining factor in the location of sites for cities ever since man came upon the earth and began to move from one region to another. An Indian desiring to leave the crowded ancient Alabama cities around the Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers would read his “time table” mapped out along high, drier ground to the ancient aboriginal cities on the Savannah river near Augusta. The topographical map shows the highest, driest, and best course to be through Georgia, by way of Macon, crossing the Oconee at the mouth of Buffalo creek, and the Ogeechee near the mouth of little Ogeechee, thence to the old towns which formerly existed near Augusta. The maps of the early white traders show this to be the identical route followed by a great prehistoric trail. There is also strong evidence that the first pioneer who first picked this path was the lordly mammal, the mastodon who in the Pleistocene age emigrated from Asia down into this continent, and there later followed in his trail the horses and camels which were once native in America. Then from some unknown origin man came into this kingdom of the bird and beast. Like every creature endowed with life and the power of locomotion, man was restless and moved often from place to place. These early humans found this readymade trail prepared by the animal lords of this land with such splendid discernment that man could not improve upon the location. The early first settlers continued using the trail. When the white men traders came, they also used it and from them it took the name of “The Trading Path.” The Georgia portion of this trading path lead northward into Tennessee, down the Kanawha river, crossing the Ohio river, and thence through Ohio to Lake Erie. The Georgia map of the trading map is shown on Purcell’s map of 1770, which is reproduced in Dr. John Swanton’s “Early History of the Creeks and their Neighbors.” Bulletin 73, recently issued by the Bureau of American Ethnology.
MACON’S MANY NAMES AND ITS MOUNDS The key site of Macon has probably borne many names as it was occupied at various times by each wave of successive migrations which have slowly passed through Central Georgia. Mr. William Bartram spent several years among the Indians in the South and in 1774, stopped on the Ocmulgee river near Macon. He says of this trading path that “on the east bank of the Ocmulgee, this trading road runs two miles through ancient Indian fields called ‘Ocmulgee Fields;’they are the rich lowlands of the river. “ On the heights of these lowlands are yet conspicuous very wonderful remains of the power and grandeur of the ancients of this part of America, in the ruins of a capital town and settlement of vast artificial hills and terraces. These old fields and planting land extend up and down the river fifteen or twenty miles from this site.” We do not know how many races inhabited this mound city, nor whence they came, nor why or how they departed. The town was probably taken and destroyed many times in that vast unrecognized stretch of time. A gifted Georgian, Mr. Charles C. Jones, Jr., has left a map of these remains as they appeared in 1870. Our entire knowledge of this section’s earliest residents must be secured from these mounds, as we conclude from all the evidence produced to date that the very first settlers built these tumuli, or began them, at any rate, though later settlers may have adopted and even adapted and made additions to the mounds. It is important therefore, to give here some description of these mounds. Mr. Jones reports: “The largest and most noteworthy of the tumuli, lying farthest down the river is located upon the summit of a natural hill and occupies a commanding position. The earth of which it was built, was gathered from the valley and conveyed to the top of the hill to increase its height by forty-five or fifty feet. The summit diameters of this tumulus, measured north and south and east and west, are respectively one hundred and eighty and two hundred feet. On the west side is an artificial plateau still about eight feet high and seventy-two feet long and ninety-three feet wide. On the north and east are three spurs or elevated approaches, over which, on paths, the laborers during the construction of the mound carried their burdens of sand or clay in cane baskets, and by means of which, when the tumulus was completed, ascent to its summit was rendered more facile. It is
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