THREE QUARTER GROOVED AXE
FOUND IN FALL CREEK

Kelly Bastin

    It was the last day of July and it was hot, real hot! I decided to go for a bicycle ride just to cool off. I headed out of town, not even thinking about arrowhead hunting because the crops were all too tall in the fields. The only other available site I knew of had been picked over. I rounded a corner and remembered a creek not far off the road that still had a lot of water despite the fact that it had been very dry this year. So I wheeled down the farm lane to an old ford, got off the bike and lay down in the cool pool of water.

     I had hunted creek beds in the area with some success, having found several cork bottles and an assortment of points in other creeks in the countryside But I had not hunted in this particular creek before. When I got up out of the cool water, I decided to check this one out. I had not even gone twenty yards before the creek began to dry up I came across a dead owl lying in some water and thought to myself this was probably all that I would find this day, but something told me to keep going. I rounded the bend and to my astonishment, about fifty feet farther up the creek, was what I thought might be an axe. When I got a little closer I knew it was an axe! I rushed down the creek bed and looked down at the greatest axe I had ever seen.

    This three-quarter-grooved axe is 6 inches long and four inches wide. It was made from green-gray-brownish granite. It has nice polish on the bit, is well formed and absolutely perfect! The groove is 1 1/4 inches wide and is also well made. I can still remember jumping up and down, screaming and dancing because this was the best axe I had ever found. I was in heaven despite the heat.

   Then I thought I would leave it there and go get my camera, but I couldn't leave it. I walked over, picked it up and wondered how it got here, who made it, did someone lose it, did it wash down to this spot from somewhere up stream. Since I had never found anything in the fields along side this creek, I was certain I was the first human to touch this ancient tool in thousands of years.

  I could hardly wait to get it home to clean it up and show it to my 84-year-old dad. He was equally thrilled. Then I charted it on my map and entered it into my records. The next day I asked a friend to go back with me to the spot where I found the axe, and we took photographs We were careful to lay it back in the impression it had left in the creek bed and snapped the pictures. I felt the Great Creator had truly blessed me on that day. It really made my summer.