Do 'Mystery Stones of Pine Orchard' hold key to location of lost Maubila?

One of the 'Mystery Stones of Pine Orchard'

(The “Mystery Stones of Pine Orchard” is one of my favorite subjects from local lore, and I’m constantly on the lookout for more information about these unusual objects, which I got to examine first hand about 10 years ago. Last Friday at the Monroe County Library in Monroeville, I stumbled across the following feature story about the “mystery stones,” which was written by Monroe Journal reporter Anna Thibodeaux. Originally published under the headline, “Mystery in 12 stones: Do these Indian disks belong to Maubila?,” this story originally appeared in the Oct. 31, 1991 edition of The Monroe Journal. What follows is the complete text from the article. Enjoy.)

Mystery in 12 stones: Do these Indian disks belong to Maubila?

By Anna Thibodeaux

Embedded along with seashells and limestone in the 12 “mystery stones” of Pine Orchard are also the elusive clues to their makers and purpose.

Discoverers of the stones, as well as those who have seen them since, believe there is much to learn from these artifacts. In the balance may be the longstanding debate over the location of the historic Indian village that was invaded by Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto.

State archivists, who chronicled them as the “mystery stones,” inspected the find and left scratching their heads. Archaeologists willing to visit the remote community in northern Monroe County to look at them left equally baffled. Dust continues to settle on the lingering mystery.

Milford Champion and the late Fred D. McClammy, both of Pine Orchard, reported the existence of the stones. Now one of the smaller stones serves as the footstone at McClammy’s grave, placed in tribute to his love for area history.

The two feared the relics would be destroyed by intruders, so they moved all of them onto their land. McClammy asked area historian George Singleton to visit the site, and Singleton explained the location’s possible historic connection to DeSoto.

Standing east to west

According to Champion, 74, a collector of Indian artifacts, he found the stones lined up from east to west and from largest to smallest, spaced about 40 feet apart. He speculates that the disks were rolled there and further chiseled (shavings were still on the ground nearby) to the desired shape. The larger ones had holes bored in the center.

“The Indians always made things that didn’t make any sense to white people,” Champion said. “It’s something the Indians had, but I just don’t know what for. The stones weren’t a grinding corn mill – they’d have broken up.”

These disks rested in a basin hidden in thick underbrush about a mile northwest of the Pine Orchard community. The stones were intact, and showed some fossilized seashells and pebbles exposed by years of washing from stream that had been rerouted there.

Champion and McClammy realized the historic value of these artifacts and decided to preserve them. The two used a small bulldozer to push the stones on a trailer and haul them to their property; the largest stone weighed 500 pounds, and the smallest, 50 pounds.

National Geographic Society and Auburn University experts were invited to study the disks, but Champion said neither responded.

The largest of the disks rests in Champion’s flower bed in full view of any visitor entering his driveway. He hopes to restore some smaller ones that have broken in half, either damaged during the move or crumbling from atmospheric changes.

Fish in stone

Older Pine Orchard residents have told Champion the white man came to the community around 1818, and the stones were there then. Since the relocation, a friend has pointed out to Champion the barely visible outline of a fish pattern in the largest disk. He has no clue as to its meaning.

Champion’s neighbors, Bob and Donna Wesley, have five of these stones in their yard. Mrs. Wesley is the former Mrs. McClammy. Wesley, an avid historian, supports the contention that the stones are too fragile to have been used for any type of grinding or rolling.

“I was told there are some similar stones in Peru, and they date back about 4,000 years,” Wesley said. “They are believed to have been used to display wealth. But since these particular stones, when they were originally found, were in a linear formation, I would think they were used in some type of ceremony.”

Early records indicate these early Americans’ religious beliefs and ceremonies defy modern man’s understanding, he said. Spanish conquerors considered their rites heresy and tried to destroy much of the Indian teachings, which often referred to telepathic powers and man’s relation to the cosmos.

Wesley bases his opinion on how the stones were arranged in the basin. He has since learned from a topographical map that there is a large mound and four smaller ones at this site, possible Indian burial grounds.

“North Monroe County is extremely rich in artifacts left by early American civilizations,” he said. The Wesleys have found approximately 3,000 artifacts, mostly at old village sites around Flat Creek and its tributaries, according to Wesley.

According to Singleton, the linear direction of the stones indicates they served as some type of calendar or recorded the movement of the moon or seasons.

DeSoto’s search for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold took him to Alabama and eventually to the Pine Orchard community in Monroe County, Singleton said. The explorer did not find the cities, but his travels may have taken him to the Indian village of the Alabamas, home to the stone carvers.

“Contrary to everyone’s belief that DeSoto’s expedition crossed from west to east, the Spanish records indicate they turned in a northeasterly direction. DeSoto went to the Alabamas village of Piachi (pronounced pee-aw-chee) which they described as a mountainous region – what is now northeast Monroe County – on their way to Maubila (pronounced maw-bill-a).”

Clarke County historians claim the village was where the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers join, but Singleton believes DeSoto’s quest guided him across what is now called the Alabama River, near where Cargill Marketing Co.’s grain elevator is today, and to the crossing of two large streams in Pine Orchard.

“My feelings were there was something of very great historical value,” Singleton said, describing when he first saw the stones.

“Having a friend who had studied and investigated DeSoto’s route and had shared this information with me,” Singleton said, “Along with other research I had done, caused me to believe this was the location of Maubila.”

Singleton says DeSoto’s attack on Maubila cost him at least 100 of his best war horses and scores of men. The Spaniards collected all weapons and armor from the battle site.

The explorer was injured in the battle and was left disoriented. He led his army to Little Rock, Ark. instead of what is now known as Pensacola, Fla. to rendezvous with his fleet. DeSoto died and was buried in the Mississippi River, and his army eventually returned to Pensacola.

Nearly 500 years after the explorer’s historic mission, Singleton saw the stones at their original location shortly before they were moved in the late 1960s. The stones were partially sunk in the ground and were concealed by undergrowth, and some were resting in a stream.

“I had seen only one other place that had these type stones, and that was a restored temple in Mexico City in 1955,” he said. “This leads me to believe that it is something of great historic value.”

Other large Indian villages were located to the north and east along what is now the Old Federal Road or Old Stage Road, now the line between Monroe and Conecuh counties, according to Singleton. Indians lived along this trail in the early 1300s to 1500s.

He added, “I believe the stones played a very important part in the lives of the Indians from the 1200s to shortly after the time of DeSoto.”

Evidence that could pinpoint Maubila and identify the mysterious stone builders may lie six inches below the accumulating layers of earth in the basin where the stones rested for thousands of years, according to Singleton.

Before the battle, the Alabamas scattered nearly 300 pounds of freshwater pearls over the village grounds to conceal them from DeSoto, he said. Those pearls and possibly some human teeth and other Indian artifacts may be the only remaining hope for identifying Maubila. DeSoto did not chronicle the mystery stones in his log.

Singleton believes anyone who finds the pearls also finds Maubila. Unless this information is carefully documented, however, the truth about this Indian village may remain as silent and somber as the mystery stones themselves.