Camp Chopunnish (Long Camp), waiting for snow to melt — Patrick Gass: May 17, 1806
A footnote from the publisher describes a stone war-mallet head recently found at Hatfield, a farm near Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. The roughly spherical, seven-ounce stone has a groove for fastening to a club's strap, and Gass confirmed it matched weapons he had seen in the West. The publisher notes such a mallet would be a deadly close-combat weapon. The day's actual entry records light rain throughout the day at camp, while two returning hunters reported killing two large bears and encountering snow in the surrounding hills.
* The publisher has seen one of these stone heads, lately found at Hatfield, the
farm of Mr. David Davis, three miles from Pittsburg on the Allegheny river. It is
of a hard species of stone and weighs seven ounces. It is nearly spherical with a
groove cut round to hold, as is supposed, the strap by which it is fastened to the club.
Mr. Gass says it is exactly like those he had seen to the westward. There is perhaps
nothing which in form it so much resembles as a common round pincushion. In close
combat the war-mallet, when skilfully wielded, must be a destructive and deadly weapon.
234 GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE
light rain all day. Our other two hunters came in and had
killed two large bears. They said it snowed on the hills, when
it rained at our camp in the valley.
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* The publisher has seen one of these stone heads, recently found at Hatfield, the farm of Mr. David Davis, three miles from Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. It is made of a hard kind of stone and weighs seven ounces. It is nearly spherical, with a groove cut around it to hold, as is supposed, the strap by which it is fastened to the club. Mr. Gass says it is exactly like those he had seen out west. There is perhaps nothing it resembles in shape so much as a common round pincushion. In close combat, the war-mallet, when skillfully wielded, must be a destructive and deadly weapon.
234 GASS'S JOURNAL OF THE
Light rain all day. Our other two hunters came in and had killed two large bears. They said it snowed on the hills while it rained at our camp in the valley.
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