Theodore H. Lewis and Alfred J. Hill

Theodore Hayes (T.H.) Lewis was the first archaeologist to systematically survey and record Minnesota's archaeological sites. His publications form the basis for much of our present knowledge about petroglyphs, incised boulders, burial mounds, and cave art in Minnesota. He was born in 1856 and disappeared in Colorado in 1909. He was educated in Ohio and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1878 where he worked as a surveyor investigating antiquities around St. Paul from 1878-1880. He began work on the Northwestern Archaeological Survey during the years 1880-1883 and he associated with Alfred J. Hill in 1881 - who paid most of his research expenses.

Photo of Alfred J. Hill
St. Paul Weekly Pioneer Press (Aug. 6, 1905) and Winchell (1911).
Minnesota Historical Society: St. Paul

In 1883 Hill contracted with Lewis to do a survey of the Native American burial mounds in Minnesota and other nearby states. Between 1883 and 1895 Lewis surveyed more than 12,000 mounds in Minnesota, Canada. and surrounding states. From 1895 to 1905 Lewis was a partner in a St. Paul publishing company. From 1884 to 1907 T.H. Lewis published over 50 scholarly articles about his research. Many of the mounds and many of the petroglyphs disappeared in the years after he conducted his research and we are fortunate that he recorded these sites during his lifetime.
Go to T.H. Lewis' Field Methods for Tracing Petroglyphs
(See also The Fort Ransom Writing Rock and Cup-Marked Boulders of the Upper Midwest)

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