Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/49

 HISTORY OF GOODHUK COUNTY 21 gully. The following week Mr. Brower, Dr. W. M. Sweney and myself visited the place and made a careful examination of it. A detailed drawing of the fort appears in Vol. VI, plate XII, "Minnesota Memoirs." The number of pits, mounds, and other earthworks in this locality is forty-one. At Mr. Brower 's urgent request that the discoverer give the place a name. I deemed it proper to call it Fort Sweney. in honor of Dr. W. M. Sweney and his father. Dr. W. Y. Sweney. for the very valuable services rendered by them to the study of Minnesota archaeology. What the former history of Fort Sweney is can at present only be conjectured. Mr. Brower pronounced it the finest fortification he had seen in Minnesota. This is saying a good deal, because he has examined a great number. The absence of other fortifi- cations in Goodhue county seems -to tell us that the aborigines, who inhabited this region held undisputed sway over this part of the state. Fort Sweney may therefore only indicate a sporadic but powerful attack upon the inhabitants of this region by some roving band or tribe. It may also mark the place where the last possessors of the land, the Sioux, besieged the previous owners, the Iowas. At present there are not sufficient data at hand to determine what the exact truth is. Repeated careful observation and searches at the place have so far failed to reveal any implements of war of any kind. The place has never been plowed and the mounds have never been explored. Further research may throw more light on the obscure problem as to who the warring parties were, and whether the conflict was a sanguinary one or not. At any rate, the place chosen was one well calculated to enable a small party to make a stubborn defense. The sides of the hill are as steep as gravel can lie on an incline. The approach from the neck of land where only a few men could approach simultaneously was fortified by pits, an embankment and by a stockade. Traces of the latter are seen in the dent or depression that runs across the approach at right angles to its length. The valley side towards AVelch was undoubtedly fortified by the river, which at an earlier period skirted the base of the hill, as is shown by the depression in the plane of the valley at this particular point. A portion of the ancient bed is still filled with water and forms a pond. If this be true, then the construction of the fort must be placed at a considerably remote period of the past to allow time for the subsequent changes made by the river, which now flows on the other side of "the valley. A party besieged in the fort could easily render an approach up the hillside exceedingly dangerous, while the river gave an unfailing supply of water. Some of the pits at Fort Sweney could accommodate from twelve to twenty- five men. The pottery and other relics which we have found