RIVERBOAT ARCHAEOLOGIST

LEGENDS OF ARCHAEOLOGY

The stern-wheeler Gopher of Philadelphia

The Alligator

U.S. FOREST SERVICE RIVERBOAT

Archaeologist

Former businessman C. B. Moore plied the rivers of the Southeast to pioneer archaeology in the region.

By Tamara Stewart

From 1891 until 1920,Clarence Bloomfield Moore of Philadelphia excavated and wrote about most of the major mound sites in southeast North America,from Archaic sites dating to about 1000 B.C., to Mississippian sites dating between approximately A.D. 1000 and 1540, and everything in between.The first to systematically investigate and document prehistoric ceramic sites in the American Southeast,Moore excavated hundreds of mounds within the coastal estuaries and major river drainages of Florida,Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee,Louisiana, Mississippi,and Alabama,bringing Southeastern archaeology into the public and academic arena in a way no other researcher had ever done.

Moore was born in 1852 to Bloomfield and Clara (Jessup) Moore,a wealthy Philadelphia family. He graduated from Harvard University in 1873,and became president of the Jessup and Moore Paper Company following his father’s death in 1879—a position he held for the next 20 years.Before settling into this position,however, he used some of his sizable inheritance to embark on a six-year world tour,traveling to Europe,Central America,and Asia. In South America he crossed the Andes on foot and by horseback,and made his way down the Amazon on a raft.

A lack of biographical information about Moore makes one wonder what motivated him,at the age of 39, to pursue archaeology. Perhaps it was the many winters spent in Florida making observations on the St. Johns shell middens that inspired him to embark on what would become his life’s work and make him one of the leading prehistoric Southeastern specialists of his day.

In 1891,Moore organized the first of his archaeological expeditions to the shell middens of the St. Johns River in Florida. Jeffries Wyman,the first curator of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,had initially investigated the shell middens,and there is speculation that Moore may have come into contact with Wyman while a student at Harvard, and possibly even worked with him on several of Wyman’s expeditions.Although there is no direct evidence for this connection,Moore was certainly influenced by Frederic Putnam,who succeeded Wyman as curator of the Peabody Museum (see Legends of Archaeology, American Archaeology,Spring 2001).Putnam also served as editor of the journal American Naturalist in which Moore published the first results of his shell midden investigations in Georgia,and South Carolina,and Northern Florida.

For the next 27 years,Moore organized crews to undertake annual archaeological explorations,gradually expanding his research to include mounds along the major rivers of Arkansas,Louisiana, Mississippi,and Alabama.A lack of decent roads and the mound sites’ proximity to rivers made travel by boat the most logical solution for Moore.Moore first used the Osceola and the Alligator, both Ocklawaha River steamers,during his early investigations in the St. Johns River drainage, where he excavated a total of 83 mounds.

Moore’s most famous vessel,the Gopher,was built to his specifications in Jacksonville,Florida,in 1895.Researchers speculate that Moore likely named the boat for the gopher tortoise that is prolific in east Florida and that could be found digging into the sand mounds in the area where Moore worked.The steamboat was customized for use as an expedition vessel,with artifact analysis and storage space,and a photography laboratory on the lower deck (Moore was an award-winning photographer).The Florida Times-Union reported the Gopher’s launching into the St. Johns River in 1895 under the headline:“To Hunt for Skulls and Other Relics of the Mound Builders,Such is the Gopher’s Mission.”

Working out of the Gopher, Moore and his crew of trained excavators and supervisors traveled up the rivers of the Southeast in late fall,stopping periodically to excavate mound sites until early spring before the fields were plowed for cultivation.

An eyewitness, Charles Earle of Bradenton,Florida (then known as Bradentown), reported seeing Moore’s Gopher in 1920: “As I stepped out upon the beach and looked seaward, what did my wondering eyes behold but a stern-wheel steamboat steaming up the Bay! There she was,big as life and twice as natural,with her smokestack

pouring out volumes of pitchpine smoke and her wheel kicking up a foamy wake that stretched out behind her like a string of white shell beads! Is it necessary to add that her name was Gopher?” The Gopher’s captain,J.S.Raybon of Tampa,Florida, served as Moore’s advance scout,exploring the rivers in a small boat in the off season,asking locals about nearby ruins,and researching names and addresses of landowners so that Moore could obtain permission to excavate sites the following season.Milo Miller,a physician and Moore’s friend,served as the crew’s secretary and,when human burials were encountered,as an osteological consultant. Other crew members lived on the Gopher for the duration of the field season.They were supplemented by local African American laborers hired to do some of the heavy work and to backfill completed excavations, about which Moore was very conscientious. According to local legend,Moore frequently paid the laborers with whiskey. Moore personally supervised the excavations,taking rough notes in small field notebooks,which he later transposed to narrative form for his published reports. At the end of each field season,Moore returned to Philadelphia by train with his field notes and artifacts to write up the results of the season’s excavations.He managed to publish these results within a year of completing the fieldwork,a remarkable feat unmatched by his contemporaries or even by archaeologists today. Moore’s artiC. B. Moore cles,with their wealth of data, rich illustrations, and photographs, were published in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He also published numerous papers on special topics in the American Anthropologist regarding the prehistoric earthworks,burial customs,and artifacts he found at sites on every southern waterway accessible to the Gopher. Moore’s thoroughness is described in the preface to his 1894 report on the St.Johns River: “The river has now been many times carefully covered by us from Lake Washington to the sea—practically from its source to its outlet—with a boat so light of draft that almost no contiguous lagoon or tributary creek has been left unvisited,and the employment of native guides and printed promises of reward widely distributed have,we believe,brought to our notice every mound of any importance bordering the river.Where these mounds have not been leveled to the base,the fault has not been ours.” Despite Moore’s claim to have leveled all the mound sites he encountered,archaeologists working in the Southeast today contend that many of the surviving sites that Moore investigated still contain a great deal of information.

As for those sites that have been destroyed, Moore’s investigations serve as the only record of them.

“Much has been written decrying Clarence B.Moore’s field methods,or lack thereof,” said Jeffrey M.Mitchem,an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas and a researcher with the Arkansas Archeological Survey.“But his publication record remains unmatched by any North American archaeologist before or since.”

After retiring as head of the paper company in 1899 at the age of 47,Moore focused all his energies on archaeology. In 1900,Moore began the first of his five expeditions to the northwest Florida region with the intent of using pottery to trace prehistoric cultural influences and connections across the south.Moore’s work at the northwest Florida mounds was practically the only archaeological information from this region for two generations.This work informed the first regional syntheses and the initial cultural chronologies of Florida that were developed by other pioneers of Florida archaeology such as Gordon Willey and John Goggin.

Between 1905 and 1906,Moore worked at the now famous Moundville site in Alabama,bringing the site to the attention of the academic world through his excellent photography, incredibly detailed illustrations,and expert, though primarily descriptive,commentary, published in Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River and Moundville Revisited.Some scholars consider these two works,which were recently reprinted by the University of Alabama Press along with the other classic Moore volumes on Southeastern archaeology, to represent the pinnacle of his career.A popular companion article to Moore’s Academy publications appeared in Harper’s Monthly in 1906,entitled “The Treasures of Prehistoric Moundville,” bringing his Moundville research to a wide public audience. From 1907 to 1916,Moore investigated mound sites along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and by 1918, he had explored all navigable rivers in the Southeast that were not likely to freeze in winter.

Moore’s predilection for seeking burial mounds that contained unusual and elaborate grave goods has led to comparisons with such flagrant looters as “Captain”C.W. Riggs,a contemporary of Moore’s who plied the rivers of the Mississippi Valley in a houseboat,plundering grave mounds and sites for museum-quality artifacts that he sold to the highest bidder.However,scholars then and now tend to agree that Moore was a very careful excavator and observer who took detailed notes,was very familiar with the relevant literature,placed an emphasis on provenience, context,and prompt publication of his research results, clearly setting him apart from the likes of Riggs.

The artifacts recovered by Moore are a continuing source of research for scholars,and the scientific value of his many publications increases as more and more of the sites he investigated are destroyed by development, vandalism, agricultural practices,and erosion.Moore’s largest artifact collection,originally given to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, was later purchased by George Heye for his Museum of the American Indian in New York, and is now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

“Sure, we all wish he would have done a more careful job or told us more about some sites,but the reality is that modern archaeologists owe Clarence B.Moore a debt of gratitude for the information he recorded,”Mitchem said.

Moore’s tendency to steer clear of broad-scale conclusions regarding Southeastern prehistory led to criticism of his work as merely descriptive.However, several of his suppositions that were considered highly controversial in the 1800s—the prehistoric use of copper, the recognition of historic as well as prehistoric burial mounds,the existence of prehistoric dogs in North America—are now accepted as a matter of course.

In September of 1926,a major hurricane struck Tampa, sinking many of the boats docked there,including the Gopher, which had been purchased by two Tampa residents that same year.Ten years later, at the age of 84,Moore died.

“If Clarence Moore had followed the lead of many of his contemporaries,and had summarized his findings in a major book on the archaeology of the southern states,he would have taken his place among the giants in the history of American archaeology,” said Vernon Knight,a professor of archaeology at the University of Alabama.“But this was not his manner, and so his quiet greatness will always lie in the breadth,thoroughness,and scientific mold of his field investigations,including his persistence in prompt publication over 28 years of field work.” TAMARA STEWART is the assistant editor of American Archaeology and the Conservancy’s Southwest projects coordinator.

The carved head and neck of a duck embellish this distinctive stone vessel that was found by Moore near the Black Warrior River in Alabama. (Below) This beautifully carved vessel was discovered at a mound near Point Washington in northwest Florida.