The Importance of Marking Historic Spots An Address By HENRY W. SHOEMAKER [Illustration] At Dedication of Marker Nittany Furnace, Near State College, Pa. October 30, 1922 _Tribune Press_ [Illustration] _Altoona_ The Importance of Marking Historic Spots An Address by Henry W. Shoemaker DR. SPARKS, DEAN WATTS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Probably the first attempts at marking historic spots in Pennsylvania were made by the Indians many centuries ago. We of today are merely followers in their footsteps. Two of the most conspicuous examples are the hieroglyphic rocks on the Allegheny River, near Franklin, formerly called “Venango”, in Venango County, and the so-called Picture Rocks on Muncy Creek, in Lycoming County. Both were said to commemorate military victories, though the rocks on the Allegheny River were chiselled at a much earlier period than the mural paintings of Muncy Creek. The hieroglyphics are crude affairs, but the painting on the “Picture Rocks” were said to be of rare beauty and marvelous coloration. The rocks of the Allegheny River will defy time, but the rapacious lumbermen who insisted on running logs off the mountain top above the “Picture Rocks” at that particular spot destroyed forever this master-work of the redman’s artistry. Unfortunately we do not know the particular events which these early memorials were supposed to commemorate. All is shrouded in mystery so that the mere event of erecting and dedicating a marker does not insure its legend being permanent. When the white men came on the scene the Indians renewed their earlier custom of carefully marking historic spots in several gruesome manners. After Major Grant’s defeat in 1757 in Western Pennsylvania the victorious Indians (they were on that occasion worthy of the appellation of savages) took particular pleasure in beheading all dead Highlanders who had participated in that unpleasant engagement, and impaling their heads, draped with caps and kilts, on the stakes which marked their race ground, as they called the path where they made their enemies run the gauntlet, near the stockade of Fort Duquesne. This was their way of marking an historic spot, and it was also a war memorial to the Highlanders who they looked upon as their most dogged and unflinching foes. There was a kindly, almost fraternal feeling born of the hardships of forest life among Virginians, Royal Americans and Pennsylvania Riflemen recruited largely among the borderers and the redmen, but the Highlanders looked upon the Indians with an uncompromising hatred, and would give no quarter. When General Forbes’ Scotch regiments approached the scene of this grisly memorial several months later they were shocked at the sight which met