Orators Mound

[4] During the 1840 election campaign, the mound served as an orator's platform for Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, who spoke before a great audience on the same summer afternoon.

[3]: 674  Until it was excavated in 1953, the mound was built of stone and measured 15 metres (49 ft) in diameter and 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 in) high, although its size may have grown since white settlement of the region, since locals are known to have added earth to the mound to resist erosion.

[7] The earliest known excavation of the mound took place in 1953 and 1954, under the supervision of a man known as Frank Van Wort; little of this excavation is known, because Van Wort published no reports of his work nor wrote any surviving unpublished reports.

Van Wort found five skeletons within the mound — two men and three infants — that he interpreted as being from the Adena culture, as well as Adena-style projectile points.

[1] The mound's continued preservation was threatened in 2008, as maintenance funding and labor was ended when Antioch College closed for lack of funds, but multiple grants obtained in 2010 included money for upgrading the trail by which the mound is accessed.