Ancient Civilization under Kentucky

In his 1806 book Travels In America, Thomas Ashe writes of his experiences with a vast cavern originally discovered in 1783 beneath the city of Lexington, 300 feet long, 100 feet wide and 19 feet high, containing exotic artifacts, a stone altar for sacrifices, human skulls and bones piled high, and mummified remains. The mummies are very strange looking and have red hair. The local native Americans claimed that these were the remnants of an ancient civilization that died out long ago, Respected historian George W. Ranck also discusses this "lost city" buried beneath Lexington in 1872. It is said that local Native Americans identified the bodies as being from the ancient race who inhabited the area long before them. In 1792 an early settler, General John Payne, made a strange discovery while building his house in the tiny town of Augusta, KY, 63 miles North of Lexington. From Historical Sketches of Kentucky by Lewis Collins, Maysville, Ky. 1847, page 205: "The bottom on which Augusta is situated is a large burying ground of the ancients...They have been found in great numbers, and of all sizes, everywhere between the mouths of Bracken and Locust Creeks, a distance of about a mile and a half. From the cellar under my (Payne's) dwelling, 60 by 70 feet, over a hundred and ten skeletons were taken. I measured them by skulls, and there might have been more, whose skulls had crumbled into dust...The skeletons were of all sizes, from seven feet to infant. David Kilgour (who was a tall and very large man) passed our village at the time I was excavating my cellar , and we took him down and applied a thigh bone to his. The man, if well-proportioned, must have been 10 to 12 inches taller than Kilgour, and the lower jaw bone would slip on over his, skin and all. Who were they? How came their bones here?" "When I was in the army, I inquired of old Crane, a Wyandot and of Anglerson, a Delaware, both intelligent old chiefs, and they could give me no information in reference to these remains of antiquity. Some of the largest trees of the forest were growing over the remains when the land was cleared in 1792." A few years later, on December 21, 1806, the town of Augusta, KY was visited by Harman Blennerhassett, lawyer, occultist, and member of the Illuminati. Was he aware of the ancient underground civilization in the region? Blennerhassett was born on October 8, 1764 in Ireland and moved to the USA after graduating. He and his wife (who was also his niece) lived on Blennerhassett island on the Ohio River. Blennerhassett was a friend and colleague of Adam Weishaupt, and a member of his Order of the Illuminati, reaching the level of Illuminatus Magus. He was also a friend of Vice President Aaron Burr, with whom he engaged in a conspiracy to remove President Thomas Jefferson from power. The plot was discovered and Blennerhassett's secret camp at Marietta was destroyed on December 19, 1806. Blennerhassett fled with about 50 of his fellow initiates, leaving his wife, his sons and the rest of his guerrilla troops behind. But instead of making a direct exit, Blennerhassett risked making a mysterious side trip to Augusta, KY, arriving on the day of the solstice. Clearly, there was some occult significance to his visit to Augusta. But what? That Blennerhassett was interested in the forgotten ancient civilization is a distinct possibility.