SHOVELERS FIND HUMAN SKELETON

That Osgood Shepherd, supposed horse thief and innkeeper of  ill repute, was the first white settler in what is now Cedar Rapids, has long been established. The tree of Five Seasons was erected about where his cabin was built. But what more is known of Shepherd?

In March 1909, workmen building the new Cedar Rapids Candy Co. were startled by this discovery:

    While the workmen who are digging the excavation for the new building that is to be erected by the Cedar Rapids Candy company on A avenue and Fifth street were loading the dirt into wagons yesterday afternoon, one of  the men, to his surprise and horror, uncovered a human skull, which leered up at him from the bottom of  the hole in which he was working. After the men who were brought to the place by his shouts had partially recovered from their surprise, they threw out a few more shovelfuls of  earth they brought to light a complete human skeleton in a fairly good state of preservation. The skeleton was taken to the police station, where it will be held for a few days and then disposed of under the direction of Coroner King.

The skeleton was found near the south side of the excavation, about thirty feet from the sidewalk, and was only about three feet from the surface. This lot was formerly occupied by the residence of the late R. W. Bushnell, who was for a number of years master mechanic at the B. C. R. & N. shops, and the skeleton was under the spot that had been occupied by the veranda of the Bushnell home. The soil at this particular point is nearly all sand,  which accounts for the well-preserved condition that the bones were in. The body had been buried with the head towards the northwest, and the bones were all together when found, but were broken apart by the men in digging  away the sand and some of them were lost, although all the larger bones were found. There was no sign of a coffin or box, not even a nail or screw being found, and there was absolutely nothing there but the bones.

Skeleton of a Man

After the bones had been removed to the police station Coroner King was called  and after examining them carefully stated that it was the skeleton of a man, undoubtedly white, and that they had been in the ground for a great many years. Judging from the size of the skeleton and the shape of the skull the man was nearly six feet tall and of slender build. The skull is rather small but well formed and was that of a man with a rather narrow forehead and a long narrow face. The teeth, nearly all of which were in place when the skull was found, but all but one of which dropped out later, were small and at the time of the man's death must have been in an almost perfect condition, as all that were found were still in perfect condition.

     All of the  bones were in good condition when first discovered, but as soon us they were exposed to the air many of the smaller ones began to crumble away.

 Problem Solved by David King

For a long  time everybody who had heard of the finding of the skeleton was at a loss to account for it, but finally David King, father of the coroner and one of the pioneer residents of the city, was able to tell the story, and it was indeed a romantic and strange one. Away back in the year 1839, when the Cedar Valley was the home of the Indians and wild animals, Osgood Shepherd came from Ohio, where it is rumored the vigilantes made things too warm for him, and built a cabin on the bank of the river on the land that is now occupied by the Y. M. C. A. building. It was the first house that was built by a white man in what is now the city of Cedar Rapids. For a long time it was the only house on the east bank of the river, and so it became the stopping place of travelers and was known as Shepherd's tavern.

 Bones of Elder Shepherd

          Shepherd's aged father lived with him for a time, but he died in the early forties and was buried in the woods on the hill where the skeleton was found yesterday. At that time this ground was covered by trees and underbrush, and was in every sense of  the  word a "forest primeval.” The Shepherds moved away after that, but they came back again about the year 1859  as near as Mr. King can remember. Mrs. Shepherd was a friend of his mother at that time and one day she expressed a wish to go to the woods on the hill where her husband's father had been buried many years before. Mr. King took her and his mother to the place but they could find no sign of the grave, as the underbrush had grown up over the little mound. N. B. Brown, another of  the early settlers, was living near there at that time but he could give them no definite information and the grave was never found until yesterday.

   Were that empty skull which now rests on a table in the office of Dr. King able to talk it could doubtless tell a story that would make some of the historic novels seem like a religious novel in comparison. Mr. Shepherd was a very old man when he died, at least eighty, and was probably a good sized boy at the time of the revolutionary war. Since his death at least one house has been built and fallen to decay over his grave, what was then a trackless forest was later one of the finest residence districts of the city and his bones were found while preparing the foundation for a new factory building. The land for two or three miles beyond his grave is now occupied by some of the best residences in Cedar Rapids, and a couple of  hundred feet west of where he was lain for so many years a least a hundred trains have passed daily.

   While the skeleton was resting under less than three feet of earth, it is probable that the body was buried much deeper at first, as a considerable portion of the top of the hill has been cut away since that time to make way for different buildings and in clearing off the timber and pulling out the stumps. The body was, of course, not buried in a casket, as there probably was not a coffin within a hundred miles of what is now the city of Cedar Rapids at that time. He may have been placed in a rude box of some kind, but this has long since rotted away, the dry sand preserving only the bones.

 (Wed, March 17, 1909)

ANOTHER SKELETON FOUND IN CANDY CO. EXCAVATION

Another human skeleton was unearthed by the workmen who are digging the excavation for the new building of the Cedar Rapids Candy company, the bones being found only a few feet from where the skeleton of a man was found yesterday afternoon. The first of the bones of the second skeleton were found shortly after noon today, and in a few moments the fragments of a skull and a number of the larger bones were unearthed. The bones are much smaller than those found yesterday,  and are apparently those of a girl about fourteen years of age. They are all badly decayed, and onlv about fifteen or twenty were found. They were about four feet south of where the skeleton was found yesterday, and were about the same distance under the surface. There was no sign of a box or coffin of any kind.

Was Shepherd's Daughter

There is little doubt but that the bones were those of  a daughter of Osgood Shepherd,  the first white man who built a cabin in what is now Cedar Rapids, as it is known that he had a daughter buried there alongside his father, whose bones were found yesterday. The Rev. Dr. Geo. R. Carroll's history of the Pioneer Life in Cedar Rapids has a few paragraphs relating to these people, as follows:

   "Mr. Shepherd's father and one of his children died in this little cabin, and from it were borne to their last resting place, on the adjacent hill, not far as some say,  from where the Episcopal church now stands."

 Find Four Quarts of Whisky

The workmen also unearthed four quart  bottles of whisky from the excavation this morning, but these were underneath what had been the cellar of the house that formerly stood on the lot and were not near the place where the bones were found. The bottles were all full of whisky, and bore on the bottom of each flask the date "September, 1879."