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Have you ever travelled somewhere and suddenly felt you were in the presence of something sacred, something special, and had some sense of having been there before?

This indeed was my experience when, about 20 years ago, I ventured to the community of Keene. Somehow I found myself in a place that challenged my memory. Why was it so familiar? What was I sensing? This is my story. I ventured out that day to visit Keene and the sacred burial mounds, and to learn the history.

Keene itself is located on the banks of the Indian River, just before it flows into Rice Lake. The countryside, made up of rolling hills, was at one time heavily wooded. The sparkling waters and the islands of Rice Lake create a perfect picture-postcard. It is truly a place of divine creation. It was here the Natives lived, hunted, fought, and died long before Thomas and Andres Carr arrived in 1820. Their presence was but a mere dot on the timeline of this rolling land. John Gilchrist, the first doctor in Ontario to be granted a licence to practice “Physic Surgery and Midwifery,” has been credited with the initial development of the community.

The good doctor was quite an entrepreneur. He built a gristmill and a sawmill on the Indian River, not to mention a distillery and houses for the workmen. In a short time, he became a lumber baron and ran a flourishing export business. By 1850, Keene’s population had risen to 400 people.

Water transportation played a key role in the early development of this community. In 1882, however, the mainline of the Canadian Northern Railway from Toronto to Belleville was laid down about 2 kilometres (1.5 miles) north of Keene, and the importance of water transport declined. Keene’s industries declined as well.

David Boyle, the teacher and archeologist, was ultimately responsible for the discovery and preservation of Serpent Mounds at Keene.

Archives of Ontario

There was, nevertheless, always something of greater importance located in the landscape near Keene that had somehow gone unnoticed. It was a sacred place to those who knew of such things; it was a site near water, a site where a marvelous grove of oak trees grew. What was it? Why had such a special place been abandoned, neglected, and ignored by those around it? Who changed all of that? David Boyle!

David Boyle was a gifted man of great insight and intuition. He was born the son of a blacksmith in Greenock, Scotland, on May 1, 1842, and immigrated to Ontario in 1856. When Boyle was only 14, he apprenticed to a blacksmith in Eden Mills, Wellington County, Ontario. He was a self-taught individual who rejected the materialistic values of the day. He pursued instead the ideal of self-culture and acquired and imparted knowledge to any who would listen. This quest for knowledge took him to the classroom. During this career his caring and patience led him to teach a deaf-mute girl how to read and write. This was a great accomplishment and amazed many people at the time. Boyle then followed a brief career as a textbook promoter and proprietor of Ye Olde Booke Shoppe and Natural Science Exchange in Toronto. His next career was the field of archaeology.

His first major archaeological excavation began on October 5, 1885, when he investigated the historic Neutral Dwyer ossuaries northwest of Hamilton. He obtained enough artifacts to establish an exhibit in the front window of his bookstore. Boyle dearly wanted to educate people about the importance of the preservation of history. In his opinion enough damage had already been done by early settlers who had desecrated Native gravesites and spread ancient earthen walls over their newly-developed fields. Numerous artifacts were discovered and discarded or destroyed during the 17th and 18th centuries in Ontario. Few people recognized the historic value or the sacredness of such sites (skeletons stored in museums, as well as sacred objects, such as medicine bundles and masks, are being returned to Natives today).

In 1884, Boyle became the curator-archaeologist of the Canadian Institute Museum (1884–1896) and later the Ontario Provincial Museum (1896–1911). It was Boyle who, in 1887, established the Annual Archaeological Reports for Ontario. This was the first periodical published in Canada that was devoted primarily to archaeology. He continued this work until 1908.

During the first week of September 1896, Boyle ventured forth into the field for what was about to become the most thrilling four weeks of discovery in Keene — The Serpent Mounds.

On his arrival, Boyle sought out the property owned by his friend H.T. Strickland of Peterborough. There, on the crest of a hill near the mouth of the Indian River, Boyle first observed the mounds and quickly noted evidence of early relic hunters. Stepping back a distance, he walked to a ridge about 15 metres (50 feet) to the west. It occurred to him, at that point, that the end of the embankment was tapered. He hastened to the other extremity of the structure and saw how it rose abruptly to a height of 1.3 metres (four feet). He knew it right there and then. What he was looking at was a great “serpent mound” like the one discovered in Adam County, Ohio. Boyle walked back and forth, keenly assessing the mound from every direction. No matter what his vantage point, he could still see the head of a serpent at the eastern end of the mound, a tapering tail to the west, and three well-marked convolutions. Boyle measured the structure and realized that each zig-zag section was roughly 13 metres (40 feet) long. He knew the builders intended the structure to be serpentine. The position of the oval mound, accurately in line with the head and neck portion of the long structure, suggested “the ancient combination of serpent and egg.” There, in front of him, was a burial effigy mound, and it is still the only example of its kind in Ontario.

Boyle dug in, starting with the oval mound at the eastern extremity of the structure. Soon a trench two metres (six feet) wide, across the mound and to the western end, was completed. He discovered two skeletons in a sitting position, a skull, and long bones at a depth of 0.6 metres (two feet). He concluded that these were recent burials. At a level of one metre (three feet) in the second trench, he located another skeleton lying on its right side and surmised that the body had been placed there prior to the construction of the mound itself. He also found a human skull, an animal mandible, canine teeth, mussel shells, and charcoal. It was near the centre of the mound that he unearthed burnt human bones (not associated with ashes or charcoal), several pottery fragments and, at the base level, a circle of stones “crudely put together” about 1 metre (3 feet) in diameter. Next was the opening of the serpentine structure in two places. The first opening was made about 21 metres (68 feet) from the tail and the second at the eastern extremity, near the head. There he discovered a much-decayed human bone in the first cut and comparatively recent burials less than 45 centimetres (18 inches) from the surface, near the head of the serpent. Boyle also found human remains in the other four elliptical mounds lying along the south side of the serpent.

Boyle began, almost at once, to pressure the government to preserve the site as a provincial park, as an ancient historic site, and as a Native burial ground. He even approached the owner of the property, who offered to sell the four-acre site for $450. The government, unfortunately, had no intention of providing more parks for the public so soon after the creation of Algonquin Park in 1893. It was fortunate, indeed, that the mounds were protected by the owners. In 1933, the Hiawatha band of the Mississauga Nation purchased the property and leased it to the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests. In 1956, the site was turned into a provincial park — 60 years after Boyle had first proposed the idea.

News of the discovery prompted people throughout the county to provide information about other possible mounds and village sites in the area. Soon, Boyle was back to do a field survey of the Rice Lake– Trent River shoreline and islands. At the mouth of the Otonabee River, he found three burial mounds. It was there that he discovered a large engraved stone, resembling a turtle, the back of which was crudely ornamented with concentric circles, scrolls, and shallow depressions or borings. Burial mounds were also discovered on some of islands of Rice Lake. One site revealed a half-seated skeleton with its legs drawn up and its hands on its breast. Around the neck was an eight-strand necklace of copper beads and shell disks, and near the right arm was a perfect tablet, a biconcave gorget, or armour plate, of translucent Mexican onyx.

Boyle believed he had discovered structures that had been made by Middle Point Peninsula people who were indigenous to the Trent water system and who had in some way been influenced by the Ohio Hopewell Indians.

There is a recorded oral account by Paudash, son of Paudash, son of Cheneebeesh, son of Gemoghpenassess. It states, “I, Robert Paudash, with my son Johnson Paudash, am desirous of putting on record for the first time the solemn traditions of the Mississaugas with respect to their present place of settlement in Ontario, and the migration which led them thither. No word of what I am about to say has come from reading, or in any other way than from the mouth of Paudash, my father, who died, aged 75 in the year 1893, the last hereditary chief of the tribe of Mississaugas, situated at Rice Lake, and from the mouth of Cheneebeesh, my grandfather, who died in 1869, at the age of 104, the last sachem, or head chief, of all the Mississaugas [Ojibwa].”

The story refers to the migration of the Ojibwa into southern Ontario around 1690 and what happened in the Rice Lake district. According to Robert Paudash, the Mississaugas held a great council of war and decided to attack the Mohawks and drive them out of what is now southern Ontario. The Mohawks, a fierce and warlike nation, resisted. The Mississaugas travelled down the Severn River to Shunyung (Lake Simcoe) and stopped at Machickning (which means Fish Fence) in the narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching to get supplies of food. There they also received reinforcements, made preparations for a campaign, and divided into two parties. The main body proceeded along the portage, now called Portage Road, to Balsam Lake, while the other party went south to what is now Toronto. After a number of skirmishes, the Mohawks retreated down the valley of the Otanabee and onto Rice Lake. Several battles were fought until they made a stand at what is now Keene.

Robert Paudash adds, “There was a Mohawk village in front of the former site which is a mound in the shape of a serpent, and having four small mounds about its head and body in the form of turtles. These mounds are a pictorial representation of Mohawk totems placed there by the Mississaugas in memory of the occurrence and of the Mohawks. It has been supposed by some to mean more than this, but my father has so stated it.

“The Mohawks fought well, but the Mississaugas were just as good. An attack having been made upon this village the Mohawks were compelled once more to retreat.”

Back now, to my personal story.

When I first approached Serpent Mounds, I had a feeling that I had been there before. Climbing up the path, I came to an historic plaque and read the inscription. When I saw the name David Boyle, I knew there had to be a connection. I approached the mounds and then caught sight of the oak trees. I knew immediately that these trees somehow played a significant role in this site, as did the view of Rice Lake. You could sense the sacredness. No words needed to be spoken. Serpent Mounds left me with an impression of beauty, reverence, and mystery.

Serpent Mounds inspired me to learn more about David Boyle and the oak trees. On a trip south, I stopped at a burial mound in the state of Michigan. I needed to compare it to the mound at Keene. Sure enough, the mounds were located in a grove of oaks and were also close to water. The sites looked and felt the same. Coincidences?

If you visit Serpent Mounds, or Keene, or perhaps another place to which you find yourself drawn, don’t ignore your feelings. Explore them and you may unlock some mysteries of your own.