Melby Hill

H. Melby Hill:

 

A bold promontory one and one‑half mile south and two miles west from Grace City on Northeast 1/4 Section 29‑147‑64. On top of this hill are three well worn rings or circles. One large and two small. The drawing indicated the shape and dimensions. Evidently an old Indian pow‑wow ground. Possibly, Indian Spirit dance ground. Ed Halaas, Carrington was possibly the first white man to view this hill. In 1884, while gathering buffalo bones went over this hill. The U.S.

Geological survey in 1934 erected a signal tower on this hill.

The unknown people who toiled on Melby's Hill erected two memorials. One, a mound forty feet in diameter. The other an embankment four feet high and one hundred feet long extending to the northwest. It was here that the Sioux Indians burned various Council fires during the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries between the Yankton and Yanktonai Sioux who lived along the upper course of the James River in the early historic period, and the Sioux nations of the western Great Lakes region, when attacks were being planned against the Mandan, Hidatsas, Cheyenne, Arikara and the Chippewa nations. It was in the middle of the seventeenth century that the white man brought firearms to the Chippewa, the traditional enemy of the Sioux. Thus the Chippewa were able to hold the forest while the Sioux were forced to take to the prairie which they held as far west as the Missouri and White rivers.

Flint arrowheads, scrapers and broken fragments have been found in a number of places in the county. Yet, no local flint quarries are known. Many of the arrowheads, well shaped and polished are from the western quarries. Some are very crude, evidently brought in by Indians from the North. (Hartosa)

Other names for Melby Hill are "Brogus Haugen", or "Miller's Point". It rises about 100 feet above the surrounding prairie. (Hortan's report)

Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 395