One especially noted as containing a great quantity of broken shells and pottery existed on the high land between Laurel run and the Youghiogheny River, on a tract formerly owned by Judge Young, and remains of the fort are to be seen. There are yet distinct traces of one on land of General Henry W. Beeson, formerly Colonel McClean's, about miles east of Uniontown.
There was one northeast of New Geneva, at the locality known as the "Flint Hill," on land now owned by John Franks.
Two miles northeast of New Geneva, on the road to Uniontown, and on land late of William Morris, now Nicholas B. Johnson, was one celebrated for its great abundance of mussel-shells. In the high ridge southwardly of the headwaters of Middle Run several existed, of which may be named one on the Bixler land, one on the high knob eastwardly of Clark Breading's, one on the Alexander Wilson tract, and one on the land of Dennis Biley, deceased, formerly Andrew C. Johnson's. Judge Veech also states that "a very noted 'old fort' and of most commanding location was at Brownsville, on the site of Fort Burd, but covering a much larger area. Even after Colonel Burd built his fort here, in 1759, it retained the name of the 'Old Fort,' Redstone Old Fort, or Fort Redstone." I am quite sure that Judge Veech is in error in locating this old fort on the site of Fort Burd.
Of the antiquities immediately around Brownsville no trace at present remains. On the original draught of Fort Burd, made by Major Joseph Shippen in 1759, and now in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, can be seen, immediately to the rear of Fort Burd, the old Indian Fort, which is now so entirely obliterated that very few remember where it was located. The fullest description of this earthwork is found in "Travels in America, performed in 1806, for the purpose of exploring the rivers Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi, &c., by Thomas Ashe, esq., London, 1808." In the fifth letter of this work the author says:
"The neighborhood of Brownsville or Bedstone abounds with monuments of Indian antiquity. They consist of fortified camps, barrows for the dead, images and utensils, military appointments, &c. A fortified camp (which is a fortification of a very complete nature, on whose ramparts timbers of 5 feet in diameter now grows) commands the town of Brownsville, which undoubtedly was once an Indian settlement. This camp contains about 13 acres, inclosed in a circle, the elevation of which is 7 feet above the adjoining ground. Within the circle a pentagon is accurately described, having its sides 4 feet high and its angles uniformly 3 feet from the circumference of the circle, thus leaving an unbroken communication all round. Each side of the pentagon has a postern opening into the passage between it and the circle, but the circle itself has only one grand gateway, which directly faces the town. Exactly in the center stands a mound, about 30 feet high, hitherto considered as a repository for the dead, and which any correct observer can perceive to have been a lookout. I confess that I examined
