Mounds, Myths, and Grave Mistakes: Wills De Hass and the Growing Pains of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology

Antiquity appears to have begun,Long after their primeval race was run.¹

For much of the nineteenth century, antiquarians, who frequently came from professions and backgrounds outside of the scientific realm, dominated the study of American prehistory. In their writings, they mused upon how the past might have looked rather than rigorously described the context of archaeological findings. Although their efforts in the field rescued countless artifacts from the path of American expansion, their own excavations typically were haphazard. By the midpoint of the century, the first descriptive archaeological texts were beginning to emerge, laying the groundwork for future methodology, but the discipline still lacked the characteristics of a modern profession, including full research support and opportunities for advanced training. At the same time, early archaeologists themselves were given to wild speculation, with many still believing that a separate non-American Indian race had been responsible for the mounds of the South and Midwest.²

Wills De Hass embodies the complicated legacy of these transitional archaeologists. A physician and historian of then-western Virginia, De Hass parlayed his curiosity and self-funded research of local earthworks into a committee chairmanship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and, later, an appointment to lead mound exploration for the new Bureau of Ethnology. But De Hass did damage to his own reputation and to the progress of American archaeology by defending the Grave Creek stone—a celebrated hoax of the time—and by elevating the Moundbuilder quest above other research pursuits. These fervent beliefs ultimately contributed to De Hass's professional downfall and served to obscure his myriad contributions to the nascent discipline.

De Hass was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1817. His ancestors, originally French Huguenot stock, came to the New World generations earlier by way of Holland. One ancestor, John Philip De Hass, served the colonial army during the American Revolution, rising to the rank of brigadier general. His father Charles, a civil engineer, plotted various townships in the Washington region and conducted surveys for the Washington and Pittsburgh Railroad Company.³

Grave Creek Tablet; courtesy of the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office

Wills De Hass received his education at the Western University of Pennsylvania—today the University of Pittsburgh—as well as at Washington & Jefferson College. He attended lectures at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, studying under Joseph Gazzam, a founder of the Pittsburgh Medical Society. For a time, De Hass served as a physician in Washington before moving with new wife Amanda to Marshall County in present-day West Virginia.⁴

When De Hass was twenty years of age, a Marshall County sensation commanded his attention and ultimately altered the course of his career. On March 19, 1838, in the town of Moundsville, Abelard Tomlinson began an excavation of the Grave Creek mound, a conical Adena earthwork on his property. In April, Tomlinson and a team of local workers discovered a burial vault and two skeletons at the base of the mound. Two months later, on June 16th, they discovered a second chamber filled with beads, shells, perforated mica, copper bracelets, and a single human skeleton. The men also allegedly discovered a small sandstone tablet. The grayish stone, oval in shape, measured approximately one-and-a-half by two inches. More significantly, it bore a series of inscribed characters, interpreted by the excavators as Indian hieroglyphics.⁵

Wills De Hass; courtesy of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, WVU Libraries

In ensuing years, De Hass became deeply interested in the history of the Grave Creek mound. He already had acquired some renown as an expert on the settlement history of the region, and, when noted ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft came to Moundsville in August 1843 to examine the earthwork, he sought out De Hass for counsel. Inside the mound, the two men found the Grave Creek stone, neglected alongside other artifacts. Later taking leave of Moundsville, Schoolcraft charged De Hass with...