From many indications, still existing, it seems evident that the aborigines of this section of country had their cemetery at and near the mouth of the Sandy River. It is likely that their dead were brought from great distances and buried there. Evidences of this are found in the fact that for miles the skeletons of human bodies are found on digging wells, cellars, and vaults, not only immediately at the Mouth of the Sandy, but for miles up and down that stream. Bones of human beings are found buried even on the top of the high bluffs back of Catlettsburg, as though all the bottom land had been taken up. It is hard to find a place on the Ohio River where more of the remains of the Indian, or prehistoric race of man, have been and are still being found than at the Mouth of the Sandy River. Mr. Franklin Fairbairn, a very intelligent gentleman, living as a recluse two miles back of Catlettsburg, who is well informed in antiquarian lore, has collected vast quantities of these relics, by which many a private museum of the country has been enriched, as well as adding to Mr. Fairbairn's exchequer.

William Ely, The Big Sandy Valley. A History of the People and the Country, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. Catlettsburg, Kentucky, 1887; rpt., 1969.

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