The Crimsoned Hills of Onondaga: Romantic Antiquarians and the Eu ...

Illustration 3. Plan of a prehistoric stone foundation on Noyer Creek in Missouri from American Antiquities, and Discoveries in the West (1833) by Josiah Priest (frontpiece).

Regional Lore

Romantic Antiquarians often relied upon accounts they gathered from settlers who cleared the land and were the first to find artifacts and earthworks. They interviewed farmers who worked the land, year by year, gradually leveling the earthworks, destroying artifacts, or carrying them away in large quantities to build collections or sell. Thus, antiquarian writing preserves regional lore from the nation’s early days—true Americana. As a result, in the case of writing where the fanciful can be separated from the factual, antiquarian accounts contain much valuable information that is still of use to archaeologists. In addition to using regional oral lore, the Romantic Antiquarians drew freely, and often without acknowledgement, from early histories and newspaper and journal articles.