USA > Indiana > Marshall County > A twentieth century history of Marshall County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 6
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HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
been ratified by the government, and the reservations having been made subject to entry, there was nothing to be done but to remove the Indians. That, as I was told, was done as quietly and humanely as it was possible under the circumstances. The country was new and unimproved, and in northern Indiana an unbroken wilderness. There were no wagon roads then and the Indian trail was difficult of passage with wagons and pack- horses. There were among the Indians many old men and women and papooses, and not a few sick and unable to go without being transported in wagons or on packhorses. This was the condition, as it was told to me, on that September morning in 1838, when over 800 Indians started on their long journey to the far west."
MRS. EMMA DICKSON, being asked her recollection of Chief Menominee and the old Indian chapel, replied: "My recollection is not very clear, but as I remember him Menominee was a large, fine-looking man, square built, tall, rather stern looking; would think he would be brave and determined in whatever he undertook that he thought was right. I lived with my father, John Houghton, about midway between Menominee village and Benak vil- lage, and the Indian trail between the two villages ran close by our cabin. In his travels between these two villages, Menominee would nearly always stop to get something to eat and drink. Along this trail there would some- times be twenty or thirty Indians go and come daily, especially when they had meetings of any kind.
"I cannot remember much about the old Indian chapel, only that it was a rough-hewn log building, and the cross at the end of the building was of the same material as the house. The priest, Father Petit, was of medium height and rather nice looking. He talked in the French language. A French woman interpreted his sermons into the Pottawattomie language to the Indians. I cannot remember how she looked to me. At one time when I was at the chapel a squaw came out at the close of service with her nose blacked and lay down at the foot of the cross, crying. I asked why she cried, and some one said she had been drunk and was doing it as a pen- ance for forgiveness. I felt very sorry for her.
"It was a sad sight to see the Indians forced away, for their lands were taken by fraud; government would treat for their land and give firewater to drink, and while drinking the chiefs would sign their rights away."
THOMAS K. HOUGHTON-"In 1838 I lived with my father on the Indian trail between the Ben-nack village in Tippecanoe township and the Me- nominee village, where the Indians were congregated to get ready to be removed. I was not there at the time, but it was about the only subject of conversation for many years, and I heard considerable about it, and my recollection of it is that the facts are about as stated by David How and William Sluyter."
MR. I. N. CLARY, Lucerne, Cass county (since deceased), being inter- viewed, said: "I was a boy of twenty and went with the caravan as a team- ster, driving a four-horse team. Gen. Morgan, of Rush county, was major- general, and William Polke lieutenant. Dr. Jeroloman, of Logansport, was the physician in charge. The Indians camped the first night on the Tippe- canoe river, and the third night at Horney's run, north of Logansport. The caravan moved in wagons and on foot, the Indian men walking and hunting as they went. The number of wagons was sixty, and the distance made
33
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
each day was from seven to twenty miles. Stops for the night were made where water was plenty, and all slept in tents and wagons. The Indians were well treated by the removing party, and did not suffer for food or water. The caravan went west from Logansport and passed through Sag- ama town, crossed Sagama river, and forded the Illinois river near Dan- ville, Ill., and passed through Jacksonville and Springfield, Ill. We crossed the Mississippi at Alldan, Ill., in an old shattered steamboat that was not safe to cross on, and it took us two days before we were all on the other side. The Grand river was crossed near the mouth of the Missouri, and that river at or near Independence. We left the Indians at a point near the Osage river in Kansas, having been sixty days making the journey."
None of these Indians were ever heard of here after they were located on the reservation. The report of the government agent for 1855 contained the following: "According to the roll of 1854. there were 3,440 Pottawatto- mies on the reserve. There are about 250 others living among the Kicka- poos, some of whom have intermarried in that tribe, and all of whom ob- stinately refuse to move to the Pottawattomie reserve. There are a few scattering families in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, and among the Sacs and Foxes. From all I can learn, this once numerous tribe cannot number in all quarters over 4,000 souls."
At the present time it is doubtful if there are as many left in the entire United States as were embraced in the caravan of Menominee and his band, about all of whom have undoubtedly by this time passed over to "the happy hunting grounds."
The Future of the Pottawattomies.
Simon Pokagon, the last chief of a small band of Pottawattomie Indians occupying a small reservation near Holland, Mich., in an article just before his death, in 1899, on the subject of the future of his race, said :
"As to the future of our race, it seems to me almost certain that in time it will lose its identity by amalgamation with the dominant race. No matter how distasteful it may seem to us, we are compelled to consider it as a prob- able result. Sensitive white people can console themselves, however, with the fact that there are today in the United States thousands of men 'and women of high social standing whose forefathers on one side were full- blooded so-called savages, and yet the society in which they move, and in many cases they themselves, are ignorant of the fact. All white people are not ashamed of Indian blood; in fact, a few are proud of it.
"The index finger of the past is pointing to the future, showing most conclusively that by the middle of the next century all Indian reservations will have passed away. Then our people will begin to scatter, and the result will be a general mixing of the races. By intermarriage the blood of our people, like the waters that flow into the great ocean, will be forever lost in that of the dominant race, and generations yet unborn will read in history of the red men of the forest and inquire, 'Where are they?'"
It may be added, and this much is certain: that the last Indian will be in every sense of the word the "last." He will leave nothing behind him to mark the place he occupied in the world-no history nor even the monument the writer secured an appropriation to erect to the Pottawattomie Indians at Twin lakes. Books there will be, and museums and collections, but none
34
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
by him. Should an Indian become so learned and accomplished as to write a history he would become a white man. Many white men have followed him, have studied him. Learned men from foreign countries have jour- neyed here for such purposes, but who of all of them has learned the secret of the Indian's heart? To do that it would be necessary to become for the time an Indian-to "put yourself in his place." And what white man has ever done that? The Indian has no record, or it is as if whispered to the winds or committed to the leaves that fall or to the water that runs away. The Indian rears, while he is an Indian, no habitation that endures; when it is gone there is nothing but a ring on the ground that the rain washes away. He throws up no highway; his narrow path through the grass lasts no longer than the buffalo's road to the ford in the stream. So there must come a time when, leaving no trace behind, he shall pass out of this world, when the "last Indian" shall go-like the mist.
Slumber Song of A Vanished Race. To be sung in Minot, slightly " off key" and arowsily like the signing of the breeze.
> Crese. z dim.
> CYesc.
f- e-ab-ab, cf- e-ab-ab,
be
Cresc.
8- a, O- A, A- e-ah-ah, f- e-ah-ah, O-A, f Zaim preit- Cresc
0
Bg- a, A. o, 1
A - 0 , > crase,
e-ah-ah, f- e-at-ab,
0-a, A- e-aby-al,
> dim
A- e-ah-ah, of- e-ah-ah, A- e-ab-al, of-0, 1- o, A- c-siyah, f-e-ab-al, 1> crese >
7 มิ.พระ
29
29
A- e-ab-aly, f- e-ah-ah, C
Q-a, A- o, A-o, f- e-ah-ah, f- e-aly-ah, > nit. . > sit ..
* > dim ..
muffled humming like the droning of bees.
Maestoso.
100to
ff
fff-
C
Ty-aby! Ugh Ty-ab!
Many a time old Chief Menominee heard those drowsy cadences from the long rows of bronzed warriors at Menominee village at Twin lakes, now a vanished locality. Fainter and fainter grew the melody, until the singers who were seated side by side leaned toward each other, drooping closer and closer, nearer a reclining position, until gradually one by one pillowed his head on his brother's shoulder. Then sleep prevailed so profound that noth- ing could waken it. Yet that constant muffled hum of the pianissimo mel- ody, "A-e-ah-ah ! A-e-ah-ah! O-a, O-a," and the reiteration of the same to an indefinite degree, till the listeners were actually drowsy, too! Then the leader at the head of the row of sleeping warriors roused them suddenly with the explosive fortissimo call, "Ty-ah!" and again almost simultane-
Adlibitum
35
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
ously, by the doubly fortissimo, "Ugh, Ty-ah!" Instantly every Indian was awake, risen to his feet, all greeting each other noisily and with joy, as though they had been parted for a long time-many a year !
IV. INDIAN TREATIES. 194133
Among the treaties made between the government and the various tribes of Indians then occupying this part of the Northwest Territory a number of reservations were set off to various bands of the different tribes. Those who occupied the territory now known as Marshall county were the Pottawattomie tribe of Indians. They were divided into bands and governed by chiefs.
The largest reservation was called the "Me-no-mi-nee reserve." It was located beginning about a mile west and north of Plymouth, near where the Catholic cemetery is located. The east line ran directly south to a point about a mile south of Wolf Creek Mills, thence about three miles and a half west, thence north to the north line and east to the starting point. It contained twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres in all, and embraced within its boundaries Pretty lake, Twin lakes, and a considerable portion of Yellow river southwest of Plymouth. The most noted Indian village in the county (Menominee) was located on this reservation near Yellow river and near Twin lakes. Here a treaty was negotiated which will be noted further on.
There was another small reservation containing several sections located on Maxinkuckee lake, beginning a short distance south of where Mr. Van Schoiack formerly lived, thence north along the water's edge of the lake to about where the Peru point now is, thence east far enough to take in the town of Maxinkuckee. It was called Neeswaugee and Quashqua reserva- tion. All the summer cottages from a short distance north of the Peru club house, now the Brownell cottage, to the division line between Mr. Van Schoiack and Mr. Edwards are in what was once this reservation.
Adjoining the Neeswaugee and Quashqua reservation on the south and extending south a considerable distance into Fulton county was what was called the Aubenaube reservation. Next to the Menominee it was the largest reservation in the county. It contained ten or twelve sections in this county and quite a number in Fulton county. It extended east from the lake five or six miles.
Immediately east of Aubenaube reserve was what was called Mankekose reserve, containing four or five sections. These are all the Indian reserva- tions in the county of which any record has been kept.
On December 4, 1834, a treaty between William Marshall, commis- sioner on the part of the United States, and Comoza, a chief of the Pottawattomies and his band, was concluded on the banks of this lake, which is spelled in the document "Mux-ee-nie-kuc-kee." By this treaty the Indians ceded to the United States two sections of land reserved for them by the second article of the treaty between the United States and the said Indians on the Tippecanoe river October 26, 1832, and they further agreed to yield peaceable possession within two years, and in consideration of the sum of
36
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
$400 in goods and an annuity of $400 for one year. The treaty was signed by William Marshall, Neeseeawquet, Comoza, Ah-he-pah-am-sa, Pawpee, and was witnessed by J. B. Duret, secretary of the commission, and by Cyrus Taber and Joseph Barron, interpreters.
Another treaty was made August 5, 1836, at the camp near Yellow river known as the Menominee village, near Twin lakes, between Abel C. Pepper on the part of the United States, and Pe-pin-a-waw, Na-ta-ka and Mac-a-ta-ma-ah, chiefs and headmen of the Pottawattomie tribe of Indians and their bands. By this treaty the Indians ceded twenty-two sections reserved for them, for which the government agreed to pay the Indians the sum of $14,080 in specie after the ratification of the treaty. It was further agreed that the chiefs and headmen and their bands should remove to the country west of the Mississippi river provided for the Pottawattomie nation within two years. At the request of the band entering into this treaty it was stipulated that after its ratification the United States should appoint a commissioner who should be authorized to pay such debts of the band as might be proved to his satisfaction to be just, to be deducted from the amount stipulated to be paid for the land ceded.
The treaty was signed by Abel C. Pepper as the agent of the United States, and the following Pottawattomie chiefs :
Pee-pin-a-waw,
Paslı-po-ho,
Pah-siss,
Qua-taw,
Pam-bo-go,
Wee-wis-saw,
Na-ta-ka,
I-o-wah,
Ma-che-saw,
Kan-kaw-kay,
Co-qua-wah,
Nas-waw-hah,
Mac-a-taw-mo-way,
Mup-a-hue,
Mas-saw,
Pis-saw,
See-co-ese,
Ash-kum,
Wi-aw-koos-say,
O-kah-maus,
Me-shaw-ki-to-quah,
Nas-waw-kay,
Nu-bosh,
Ku-waw-nay.
Te-cum-seh,
Jo-quiss,
These names were taken down by the interpreter, as the Indians did not know how to spell or write, and the interpreter spelled them according to the sound as well as he could, and it is not strange that there should be many ways of spelling different names and places bearing Indian names. The reader will undoubtedly see in Kan-kaw-kay, our present Kankakee; in I-o-wah, the state of Iowa; in Ku-waw-nay, the town of Kewanna, in Fulton county; Nas-waw-kay, and Nas-waw-hah, brother chiefs were what finally came to be in English "Nees-wau-gee."
None of the foregoing chiefs, except Pee-pin-a-waw, Na-taw-ka and Mac-a-taw-may-ah, had any interest in the twenty-two sections named in the treaty. The securing of their names to the treaty was more as a blind to make it appear that they really had some interest in the reservation than for any other purpose. This was done because Chief Me-no-mi-nee, the principal owner of the reservation, refused to sign the treaty or become a party to it in any way. The names of these chiefs were readily secured, because most or all of them were indebted to the white traders and schemers for articles which they had sold them, and for which they could get no pay unless they were connected with the treaty and filed their claims with the commissioner and had them paid out of the amount the government was
37
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
to pay the Indians for the twenty-two sections of land ceded. This was the final result of it. The white traders secured the allowance of their claims, which were paid out of the amount the government agreed to pay for the reservation, and the Indians received just that much less. And to make the matter worse the government agents dickered with these three principal Indian chiefs for the 14,000 acres of land at $1 an acre instead of $1.25, the regular price. So in this way the Indians were cheated out of $3,500, besides the fraudulent claims that were allowed and paid out of the amount agreed to be paid for the reservation. Before the two years expired in which the Indians had to vacate the reservation, the white traders and schemers had sold the Indians enough whisky, tobacco, beads, red calico and trinkets of no practical value (in fact, a detriment to them), at exorbitant prices, to eat up all the government had paid them for the reservation, and when the time came for them to be driven away west of the Mississippi river they had not a cent of the $14,080 left. No wonder Menominee, who had not disposed of his interest in the reservation, when the government agents and soldiers came to forcibly remove him west of the Mississippi cried aloud in the agony of his heart: "My God, has it come to this?"
V. INDIAN BORDER WARS.
In the early settlement of this part of the great northwest there was a great deal of trouble between the Indians and the white people that settled in among the Indians for the purpose of eventually driving them out and occupying their lands. This naturally created bad blood among the Indians, and they determined to resist the encroachments of the white intruders to the last extremity.
A few miles south of Maxinkuckee lake, on the north bank of Eel river. about six miles from the point where that river enters into the Wabash, near where Logansport has since been built, was a large Indian village known as Ke-na-pa-com-a-qua, whose inhabitants were of the Shaw- nee and Pottawattomie tribes, whose principal chief was the Shawnee Prophet and his brother, the famous Tecumseh, who were at that time temporarily located at what was known as "Prophet's Town," near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers, several miles below. That was a few years after the close of the war of 1812. Traders and explorers and those looking for homes were finding their way into this section of the unexplored west, and quite a number of pioneers had pitched their tents, or erected log cabins, and settled down to the realities of life among the Indians in the wilderness.
The Indians were not very friendly at best toward the white settlers, and especially were they opposed to these intruders taking possession of the watercourses leading to the southwest. The few white settlers that were attempting to make a settlement at that time were continually har- rassed and annoyed by these vicious warriors, and they had no assurance when they went to bed at night in their little cabin home that their scalps would not be taken off before morning. These depredations and petty annoyances were kept up so continually from this village that the govern-
38
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
ment decided to send a regiment of troops, then doing service at various points along the river Ohio, for the purpose of quieting the disturbances. Accordingly about five hundred men under Capt. Wilkenson moved some time in June, 1791, for the scene of the outbreaks. According to the report of the expedition, after many days' hard marching through the wilderness the little army reached the Wabash river at the very point for which the commander had aimed at the commencement of his march-a very remark- able circumstance, as finding one's way through the tangled wilderness of this part of the country at that time was like attempting to navigate the boundless ocean without compass or rudder.
Here the little army crossed the Wabash river, and, following the trail a north-by-east course a distance of three miles, Eel river was reached. While reconnoitering it was discovered that the Indians had taken the alarm and were flying in every direction from the village.
A general charge was ordered. The men forced their way over every obstacle, and plunged through the river with great bravery. The Indians were unable to make the slightest resistance. Six warriors and, in the hurry and confusion of the charge, two squaws and a child were killed. Thirty-four prisoners were taken with a loss on the part of the whites of two men killed and one wounded. "I found the village," says Capt. Wilkenson in the report of the battle, "scattered along the Eel river for full three miles, on an uneven, scrubby oak barrens, intersected alternately by bogs almost impassable, and impervious thickets of plum, hazel and blackjacks. I encamped in the town-Ke-na-pa-com-a-qua-that evening, and the next morning I cut up the corn scarcely in the milk, burned the cabins, mounted my young warriors, squaws and pappooses in the best manner in my power, and, leaving two infirm squaws and a child with a short talk, took up the line of march for a Kick-a-poo town, on the Wabash, where disturbances had been reported. Not being able to dis- cover any path in the direct course of the Kickapoo town, I marched by the road leading to the Tippecanoe. in the hope of finding some diverging trail which might favor my design. I camped that night about six miles from Ke-na-pa-com-a-qua, and marched next morning at 4 o'clock. My course continued west until 9 o'clock, when I turned to the northwest on a small hunting path, and at a short distance I launched into the boundless prairies of the west, with the intention to pursue that course until I could strike a road which leads from the Pottawattomies of Lake Michigan immediately to the town I sought. With this view I pushed forward through bog after bog, to the saddle skirts in mud and water; and after persevering for eight hours I found myself environed on all sides by morasses which forbade my advancing, and at the same time rendered it difficult for me to extricate my little army. The way by which we had entered was so much beaten and softened by the horses that it was almost impossible to return by that route, and my guides pronounced the morass in front impassable. A chain of thin groves extending in the direction of the Wabash at this time presented itself to the left. It was necessary I should gain the groves, and for this purpose I dismounted, went forward, and, leading my horse through a bog to the armpits in mud and water, with great difficulty and fatigue I accomplished my object ; and changing my course to southwest I regained the Tippecanoe road and
39
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
encamped on it at 7 o'clock, after a march of thirty miles which broke down several of my horses.
"I was in motion next morning at 4 o'clock, and reached the Tippe- canoe village by noon, and found that it had just been abandoned. After the destruction of this town last June the Indians had returned and cul- tivated their corn, which I found in high perfection. To refresh my horses and give time to cut down the corn, I determined to halt until next morning. In the course of a day I had discovered some murmurings and discontent among the men and reluctance to advance further into the enemy's country. This induced me to call for a state of the horses and provisions, when, to my surprise and mortification, 220 horses were returned lame and tired, with barely five days' provisions for the men. Under these discouraging circumstances I was compelled to abandon my designs and return to the Ohio river, where I arrived on the 21st of Angust, after a march by actual computation of 451 miles."
Precisely over what territory Capt. Wilkenson's little army traveled in their skirmish after the Indians in this region cannot be ascertained to a certainty, but it is quite certain that it struck the "boundless prairie," it was in the neighborhood of Kewanna and Bruce's lake in Fulton county, and also in the region west of Maxinkuckee lake southwest of the now town of Culver in Marshall county, as there was said to be a village or retreat there on a spot which was so completely surrounded with bogs and marshes as to be almost inaccessible.
The Indian trail the captain was trying to find, leading from Lake Michigan to the Kickapoo town, came by way of South Bend, Sumption's prairie, thence by way of Potato and Pine creek, near Knott's mill in Polk township, Marshall county; thence in the direction of the old La Porte road to the west of Plymouth and near the old brewery; thence along the west bank of Yellow river to the village at Twin lakes; thence through the Burr Oak flats near Culver and west of the lake by way of the Kewanna prairie and Bruce's lake, and so on to Logansport and Winamac. There were several other trails, but this was the one he was trying to find.
After the Indian Wars Had Ceased.
About the time the territory embraced in what is now northern Indiana first began to be settled, the regular, or more properly the irregular Indian wars and outbreaks in the Northwest Territory, of which this region was a part, had practically ceased, and most of the warriors had gone west to assist their tribes in resisting further encroachments of the whites upon what they believed to be their inalienable rights. Those that were left here were mostly old men, women and children, sick and crippled and otherwise helpless, among whom were a number of chiefs who had charge of the remnants of the bands that inhabited the various villages scattered promiscuously all over the county.
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