Lela Armstrong’s Wisconsin Tube Pipe	by Steve Hart
Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal	Huntington, Indiana

This excerpt from "Lela Armstrong’s Wisconsin Tube Pipe" published in the 2023 Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2024

Figure 1. Side view of the tube pipe found in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. It measures 6 ¾” in length. Collection of the Author

 

 

In the spring of 1887, Mrs. Lela Armstrong was watching her husband work and level a piece of land in southern St. Croix County, Wisconsin, where they were preparing to plant an orchard. The Armstrongs lived near Onalaska, in La Crosse County about 100 miles to the southeast. Both counties border the Mississippi River. The work was done using a horse drawn slip scoop, and as the scoop passed over a rise, she saw a greenish clod of dirt appear with a black, slick stone in the center. Upon further examination and cleaning, she discovered they had unearthed a long, stone tube pipe surrounded by 93 round, flat copper beads, plus three additional ones inside the center opening of the larger end of the pipe. This pipe was a tubular, bulbous type, typical of several Late Archaic/Early Woodland Midwestern cultures (3,000 – 500 B.C.). The pipe, pictured in Figures 1, 2, and 3, is made of blackish-green steatite, probably from eastern Tennessee or western North Carolina. It is large, 6 ¾” long. The mouthpiece, or small end of the tube is ¾” in diameter with a ?” opening. From the mouthpiece, the tube has a linear taper leading upward to an attractive ridge expansion, then tapers in a straight line to the bowl opening, which is ¾” in diameter. The above information was recorded by A.D. Grutzmacher of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, a prominent collector of the time (Ref. 1).

George West, a prominent Milwaukee lawyer at the turn of the 20th century, had a strong interest in archaeology. He helped found the Wisconsin Archeological Society in 1903 and served several years as its president. West also served on the Board of Trustees of the Milwaukee Public Museum for 32 years, most of which were as president. West’s archaeological passion was collecting and documenting prehistoric smoking pipes. He later authored the two-set volume entitled Tobacco, Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians (Ref. 2). West began collecting pipes in 1873 and acquired the pipe and beads from the Armstrongs, probably in the 1890s.

West exchanged the pipe and beads to Grutzmacher in the early 1900s. Grutzmacher in turn sold the pipe and beads to Dr. T. Hugh Young, a Nashville, Tennessee medical doctor who was amassing a huge collection in the early-mid twentieth century. In 1962, Young sold the pipe to Max Shipley or his father of Columbus, Ohio. The beads were sold several weeks later to Frank Morast, Sr., a banker from Chattanooga, Tennessee. My dad, Gordon, acquired the pipe from Max and then 45 of the beads from Frank Morast, Jr, of Columbus, Georgia in 1987. The remaining beads stayed in the Morast family collection, but more...