Source: The Manchester Republican, September 7, 1872

The Mastodon Giganteus.

In company with Mr. Hymer, we visited Laketon last Saturday to see the BIG BONES discovered on 28th of Aug. by Marcus Scott, Amos Nye, Jacob Stephenson and others who were digging a ditch for the purpose of draining a marsh on what is known as the Mendenhall land. The ditch empties into Silver Creek about two miles West of Laketon. The bones were discovered in a blue sand which probably got its color from the four feet of black muck above. The sand was mixed with a white substance what was once perhaps shell fish or fish bones. There is a bed of firm gravel below to which the diggers go in their search.

The bones already exhumed, number about 120. Thirty-three are ribs, near 40 belong to the spine, 10 to the feet, the rest were scattering. The longest rib measured 4 feet less 1/2 inch. The femur weighs over 30 lbs and measures over 36 inches in length and 32 1/2 inches in its greatest circumference.

The shoulder blade, or Scapula had probably measured 3 feet in length by 2 feet in width though considerable of the thin part had been broken off. The knee cap (Patella) forms one half of a globe slightly concaved on its posterior surface, and measures 15 inches in circumference. The Axes, Vertebrae, the Cervical, Dorsis and Lumbar were 10 inches in traverse measurement and thirty in circumference. The largest piece of the Dorsal Vertebrae with its long spinous process measures 11 inches traverse diameter and 24 in its longitudinal. The Glenoid cavity measures 8 inches diameter, it had probably lost an inch of its margin by the wear and tear of thirty centuries.

When Remus and Romulus were being suckled by the wolf, this monster was probably feasting on "Whortleberries," bushes and all, between Laketon and New Harrisburg, or for a delicacy, rooting up a turtle from the quicksands of Silver creek in which pastime he no doubt lost his life. Be that as it may he has certainly maintained a dead silence for a great many centuries; and the muck and water that have kept his vigils have also preserved his bones as well as the lost arts and catacombs of Egypt have those of her proudest Kings.