USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 5
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"An Indian told Rachel, at one time, that they liked a few whites with them to trade with, to act as interpreters, and that they learned many useful things of them: but when they commenced coming they came like the pigeons."
A pioneer could appreciate that comparison, but "like the pigeons" is not expressive to those of this generation, to those who never saw a wild pigeon.
Although for a time, on account of Miss Carter's reply to Twin Squaw, the Indians disappeared, in 1836 "some five hundred of them camped in and about Westville."
The desecration of an Indian grave at the Wiggins' Point has been mentioned. "It is said that one day, after the robbing of the grave, two Indians armed
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with rifles came into the field where Wiggins was at work alone. They went to the grave, and sat down their rifles, and talked. Wiggins was alarmed. He conjectured that avengers were near, and he was in their power. The Indians were evidently much dis- pleased, but finally withdrew without offering any violence. Wiggins, who had claimed this part of the Indian village, allowed his breaking-plow to pass over the burial ground.
"This desecration did not pass unnoticed by the Red men. When, in 1840, General Brady, with eleven hundred Indians from Michigan, five hundred in one division and six hundred in the other, passed through this county, some of both divisions visited these graves, and some of the squaws groaned, it is said, and even wept, as they saw the fate of their ancient cemetery. Thoroughly have the American Indians learned the power and the progress of the Anglo- Saxon civilization, but not much have they experi- enced of its justice towards them and theirs."
Some other incidents of the life at Indian Town are instructive, taken, as was the last, from Lake County, 1872 :
"Simeon Bryant selected that section for a farm, and leaving Pleasant Grove, built his cabin near the village. The Indians at first were not well pleased with the idea of a white neighbor; but the resolute squatter treated them kindly, would gather up land tortoises and take to their wigwams, for which, when he threw them on the ground, the women and children would eagerly scramble; and after he had fenced around some of their cornfields he still allowed them to cultivate the land. This kindness and consideration secured their regard. A father and son from La
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Porte County were stopping with this Bryant family while improving their claims, and the daughter and sister, a girl of eighteen or twenty, came out to assist in the housekeeping. She was necessarily brought in contact with the villagers. Among these were two young Indians about her own age, sons of a head man, who were quite inclined to annoy the white girl and play pranks. They would lurk around and watch her motions, and sometimes when she would enter the little outdoor meat-house, would fasten her in. One day, when she was coming out with a pail of buttermilk, one of these young Potta- watomies stood in the doorway, with his arms stretched across, and refused to allow her to pass out. Reasoning and entreaty were unavailing, and as a last resort she took up her pail and, to the great surprise of the impolite young savage, dashed the buttermilk all over him. He then beat a retreat, and left her mistress of the field, with only the loss of one bucket of milk. Some time afterward an errand took her among the wigwams, and at a time, it appeared, when the occupants had obtained some "fire-water." *Raising the curtain of their doorway, according to custom, to make an inquiry, the young savages sprang up and threatened her with their tomahawks. She stood and laughed at them, and at length, ashamed perhaps to injure the bold, defenceless girl, they let her pass on and accomplish her errand. This she succeeded in doing, and then returned in safety to the Bryant cabin, glad to have escaped the peril through which she had passed. The heroine of these
*The French traders, it is said, did not sell whisky to the Indians, but other traders and some few settlers did sell to them.
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incidents soon afterward married, and became an in- habitant of Lake, having 110w several grown up daughters, and being the head of one of our well known and highly respected families.
"A still greater peril was experienced by Mrs. Saxton, who became a resident on the Wiggins place. Her husband was away, and she was at home with small children. The evening was cold and stormy, and, as it advanced, an Indian called at the door re- questing shelter. At first his request was refused, but one of the children pleaded for him; the storm was pelting without, and he was admitted. He was a young man, and unfortunately had with him a bottle of whiskey. He wanted some corn bread. It was made, but did not suit him. He drank whiskey and was cross. An intoxicated man, whether white or red, is an unpleasant guest. A second trial in the bread line was made, using only meal, and salt, and water, which succeeded better. The Indian talked some, sat by the fire, drank. He went to the door and looked out. Something to this effect he muttered, "Potta- watomie lived all round here; white man drove them away. Ugh!" Then he went back to the fire. A little child was lying in the cradle, and he threatened its life. The alarmed mother and children could offer little effectual resistance. But the Indian delayed to strike the fatal blow. At length he slept. Then the startled mother poured out what was left in the bottle, and waited for the morning. The savage and drunken guest awoke, examined his bottle, and finding it empty, said, "Bad Shemokiman woman! Drink up all Indian's whiskey." He then went off to Miller's Mill, replenished his bottle and returned. Sometime in the day Dr. Palmer came along and succeeded in re-
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lieving this family of their troublesome guest. The next night this Indian's father came; apologized as best he could; said that was bad Indian and should trouble them no more.
"One pleasant Red Cedar Lake incident may be here recorded. A party of nine, eight men and one squaw, called one morning at the residence of H. Ball, and desired breakfast. It was soon prepared for theni, and all took places at the table and ate heartily. At first only the men took seats for eating, but their en- tertainer insisted that the squaw also should sit down with them. This caused among the Indians no little merriment. They had brought with them consider- able many packages of fur, and as they passed out each one took two muskrat skins and laid them down as the pay for his breakfast. They then went into a lit- tle store on the place and traded out quite a quantity of fur. After some hours of trading they quietly de- parted.
"And still further illustrative of the mode of liv- ing and customs of these French-taught Pottawa- tomies, let us look again upon the village and white family at Indian Town.
"A head man resides there called a chief. J. W. Dinwiddie, his father, and sister, are staying with the Bryant family until their own claim is ready for oc- cupancy. The chief keeps a cow, and so do the whites. The chief's wife would bring up their cow, and also would drive along sometimes the other cow, saying as she passed the settler's cabin, "Here, John, I have brought up Margaret's cow. This squaw had quite a fair complexion, was between thirty and forty years of age, in appearance; could talk some English, and was very kind to the whites. The chief's name was
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called Shaw-no-quak. Here was also a dancing floor. The Indians would form in a line for a dance according to age, the oldest always first, the little chil- dren last. They danced in lines back and forth. The old chief, a young chief, and an old Indian sat to- gether and furnished the music. This was made by skaking corn in a gourd. The song repeated over and over the name of their chief. After the dance they feasted on venison soup, with green corn, made in iron kettles served in wooden trenches with wooden ladles. The white neiglibors present at one of these enter- tainments were invited to partake. This the women declined doing, which the chief did not like. And thus he expressed his displeasure : "No good Shemo- kiman! no good! no eat! no good Shemokiman woman!" Then he would pat S. Bryant and say, "Good Shemokiman! Good Shemokiman! Eat with Indian !"
The Indians here, on the gardens, and elsewhere, lived in lodges or wigwams. These were made of poles driven into the ground, the tops converging, and around the circle formed by the poles was wound a species of matting made of flags or rushes. This woven flag resembled a variety of green window shades seen in some of our stores and houses. The Indian men wore a calico shirt, leggins, moccasins, and a blanket. The squaws wore a broadcloth skirt and blanket. They "toted" or "packed" burdens. The Indians along the marsh kept a good many ponies. These they loaded heavily with furs and tent- matting when migrating. They also used canoes for migrating up and down the Kankakee. The village Indians lost some eighty ponies one winter for want of sufficient food. Those at Orchard Grove wintered
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very well. During the winter the men were busy trapping. Three Indians caught, in one season, thir- teen hundred raccoons. They sold the skins for one dollar and a quarter each, thus making on raccoon fur alone $1,625. Other fur was very abundant and brought a high price in market. They trapped eco- nomically until they were about to leave forever the hunting-grounds of their forefathers. They then seemed to care little for the fur interests of those who had purchased their lands, and were destroying as well as trapping, when some of the settlers interfered.
One of these was H. Sanger. He, in company with some others, went on to the marsh to stay the destruction it was said was there going on. He went in advance of the others after reaching the trapping ground, and told the Indians they must cease to de- stroy the homes of the fur-bearers. He was himself a tall, and was then an athletic man, and said he, "Look yonder. Don't you see my men?"
They did see men coming, and were alarmed, and mentioned to others the threatening aspect of the "tall Shemokiman."
One Indian burial-place has been mentioned, the one at the McGwinn village. This contained about one hundred graves. Another has also been referred to at the head of Cedar Lake. This one has not been specially disturbed. At Big White Oak Island was a third. Here were a good many graves; and among them six or seven with crosses. There were prob- ably others over which the plowshare has passed and no memorial of them remains. At Crown Point was a small garden, and on the height Indians seem to have camped, but no burial-place is known to have been found here. A few tomahawks have been found near the present town."
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Few of the Indians remained after 1840, except around Winamac, where they lingered till 1844.
To us the Pottawatomies have left their known and unknown burial places, the names of some of the rivers, "and their own perishing memorials and re- membrances as treasured up by those with whom they had intercourse." And few of those who saw them at their encampments, on their hardy ponies, in and around their wigwams, and received some of them into their houses, are living now.
It is only justice that the citizens of Northern In- diana, as was written in 1872, should treasure up and transmit to posterity, among their own records, some memories and incidents of the once powerful Potta- watomies.
Although coming in contact more or less with the Indians for ten years, the settlers here were fortu- nate, so far as any record has been found, in this re- spect, that no Indian life was taken by a white man. No murder of an Indian by a settler seems to have been committed, although a settler while hunting came near to taking life unintentionally. What kind of justice would have been administered here in case of the murder of an Indian is uncertain.
INDIAN TRAILS.
The early settlers found here some well marked or well trodden pathways, trodden apparently by hu- man feet and pony feet, but not by buffalo feet, to which the name was given of "trails."
This word as often used by hunters and frontier men denotes the slight trace that is left where a wild animal or a man has passed but once, and to follow
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such a trail is not an easy matter ; but it is also used to denote a narrow pathway that may have been trodden a hundred or a thousand times.
One well defined trail, called the Sac Trail, as made or as supposed to have been made by the Sacs in journeying from their eastern to their western limit, passed across La Porte, Porter, and Lake counties, and as the ground was well chosen it became the line, occasionally straightened in the years of advancing settlement, for the main eastern and western thor- oughfare from Michigan to Joliet. To see in one continuous line, living and moving westward now, the Indians that during their occupancy had passed along it, and then, after them, the white covered wagons with ox teams and horse teams that from 1836 till even now have passed along that roadway, would be a sight, a procession, worth going many miles to see.
Southwest a short distance, that is, a few miles from Kouts, two trails coming together, crossed the Kankakee River, at a good river and marsh fording place. Traces of some kind of earthworks, covering four or five acres, were found there in 1836, to which the early settlers gave the name of fort, conjecturing that it was once a French fort, when Tassinong first was named. A well-marked trail came up from the Wabash River called the great "Allen trail," passing near the present town of Francesville, and crossing the Kankakee, probably, at this fording place where the trails just mentioned divided.
These seem to have been the larger trails. From the Sac trail one led off, passing near the Lake of the Red Cedars and across what was named Lake Prairie, to the Rapids of the Kankakee, where is now Mo-
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mence. And passing by the old Baillytown one seems to have passed near or along Lake Michigan to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago. Traders, travellers, scout- ing parties, and frontier-men, passed along these trails before the wagons of the pioneers widened them out with their wheel tracks.
CHAPTER V.
PIONEER LIFE-1830 to 1850.
From the year 1830, or rather as early as 1829, when the first families of early settlers came in among Indian residents and Indian owners of the prairies and woodlands, down to the year 1840, when but few of the children of the wilds remained, the white families that here made homes were true pioneers. They led the true American pioneer life; but different in one respect from the pioneers of the Atlantic sea coast colonies, and of the South, and of some in the far- ther West in later times, inasmuch as the Indians, among whom for a time they were, remained on friendly terms, and there were no massacres of families no wakeful nights when on the still air came the In- dian warwhoop, no need for building barricades or resorting to forts or stockades for the preservation of life. A few, it is true, there were, in the neighbor- hood that became Door Village, who had settled as early as 1832, who thought it needful to build a stock- ade fort when the Black Hawk War in Illinois broke out ; but they soon found that there was no need. The days of peril from Indians east of the Mississippi, and of perilous excitements had passed, before much set- tlement was made in North-Western Indiana. Some settlement had been made in White County, and some alarmed families left their homes when the rumors
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reached them in regard to Black Hawk. More set- tlement had been made in La Porte County before the Black Hawk War of 1832, and the opening events of that war did cause some alarm and some prepara- tions for defense. In May, 1832, information was sent to Arba Heald, near Door Village, from whom in 1831 Sac Indians had stolen some horses, that hostilities had commenced at Hickory Creek, in Illinois, and im- mediately the inhabitants of that settlement, forty-two men among them, erected earthworks, dug a ditch, and planted palisades around an enclosure one hun- dred and twenty-five feet square, located half a mile east of Door Village. About three miles further east
a block house was built. General Joseph Orr, a noted La Porte pioneer, who had received a commis- sion as Brigadier General, from Governor Ray in 1827, reported the building of this fort to the Gov- ernor of Indiana and was by him appointed to raise a company of mounted rangers for service, if needed. This company he raised, reporting to the commandant at Fort Dearborn and also to General Winfield Scott. Mrs. Arba Heald refused to repair to the stockade, but obtaining two rifles, two axes, and two pitchforks, determined to barricade and defend her own home.
For the rangers, although they did some march- ing or scouting, there proved to be no need. The chief, Black Hawk, was soon captured and the alarm in La Porte County was over.
The alarm could not extend over those then un- purchased and unsurveyed lands where there were no white families, and in La Porte and White counties it caused but a little break in the quiet of pioneer life.
Although the pioner period has, to quite an ex- tent, been placed between 1830 and 1840, during
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which time some of the Indians remained and some settlers were still "squatters," yet the real pioneer life in its general aspects continued, and will thus in this chapter be viewed, until the first half of this Nine- teenth Century was closing; and as the second half of the century opened, the era of railroads in Northern Indiana commenced, when modes of life rapidly changed. This gives us pioneer or frontier life till 1850, or for a period of twenty years.
What was this life? In all our land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is not much to be found that is like it now. It is difficult to picture it vividly before the minds of the young people of the present.
Hon. Bartlett Woods, of Crown Point, in an arti- cle on "The Pioneer Settlers, Their Homes and Habits, Their Descendants and Influence," prepared for the Lake County Semi-Centennial of 1884, gave some fine pen-pictures of this variety of life.
In a history of Indiana forty pages of a large vol- ume are devoted to a description of it. A more brief view will be given here.
There were then, it should be recalled to mind, no railroads leading out from the Eastern cities, from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, across all the great Valley of the Mississippi. The mountain ranges and the dense forests were great barriers then between New England and New York and the new Indiana and Michigan Territory. Until 1837 Michigan was not a state. There was in that year a canal from Troy to Buffalo. Some steam- boats were running on Lake Erie. There was a short horse-car railroad extending out from Toledo. Some vessels passed around, it was said "through the great lakes," and took freight to the young Chicago. Some
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schooners sailed on Lake Michigan. Here, in this northwest corner of Indiana, there were in 1830 no roads, except Indian trails, no bridges, no mills, no stores, except, perhaps, some Indian trading posts, no workshops of any kind. All the necessities and conveniences of our modern civilization were then to be made. The families came in strong covered wagons drawn sometimes by horses, but often by oxen. The men brought a few tools, especially axes and iron wedges, hammers, saws, augurs, gimblets, frows, and some planes. The women brought their needles, scissors, thimbles, pins, thread, yarn, spinning wheels, and some looms. Especially the men and boys brought their guns and bullet-molds, for on the grand Indian hunting grounds they were entering, and that ganie, which had been so abundant ior the Indians, was as free and as abundant now for them. Game laws then were not.
A few cooking utensils these pioneers brought with them, tea-kettles, bake-kettles, skillets, frying- pans; also a few plates, cups and saucers, knives, forks, and spoons. Their household furniture, tables, chairs, bedding, were very simple outfits for house- keeping in the wilderness.
After a location was chosen, and that must be near water, the erection of a log cabin was the first work, and then a little clearing was made, for these first settlers staid by the trees. They built few cabins in the open prairie. In the heavy timber of our eastern border and in the groves or woodlands skirting the prairies, along the Tippecanoe and Iroquois, and near to Lake Michigan, and on the borders of the little lakes, here and there cabins were erected, and what was called "squatter life" commenced. It was a wild,
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a free, in some respects a rich, a delightful life. The land like the game was free to all. Each one could go when he wished, locate wherever he chose, take whatever he could find on the prairie or in the woods, provided he interfered with no Indian and with no other settler's rights. He could cut down trees, pasture his few cattle, cut grass for his winter's hay, plow and plant the soil anywhere, careful only not to infringe on any other who was a squatter like himself. Largely was each man a law unto hiniseif. It was a large freedom. And well was it that these squatters brought with them the power of self-restraint ac- quired in their eastern homes. Well was it that they kept in practice where scarcely any law but that of God was over them, their moral and religious principles, and so formed virtuous and religious communities.
From at first a dozen and then a score of pioneer families, there gathered in several hundred families scattered over this region before 1840 came, and for ten years there were some Indians left among them.
But now we may, to some extent, look at their modes of life and see them in their homes, in their schools, at their social and religious gatherings, and at their work.
After the cabin was erected, the main tool used in its construction having been "the woodman's axe," the few articles of furniture from the wagons were placed within upon the "puncheon" floor, and the rude bedstead was constructed by boring, if one was fortu- nate enough to have that very needful frontier tool, an augur, a hole in one of the logs, about six feet from one corner, the proper height from the floor for a bedstead, and then another four or five feet from the corner, in a corresponding log that formed a right
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angle with the other; then cutting two saplings and making from them the one sideboard and the foot- board for the bedstead frame, and cutting a good solid post for the upright and boring two holes in that, and inserting in these the prepared ends of the two pieces of saplings, the other ends also prepared being placed in the holes in the walls, and see ! the frame of the bed- stead was all up. It had one post. The head board was the log wall, one side was the log wall, one side and the foot-board were held up by the sapling post, and only a little more ingenuity was then needful to enable one to stretch a bed cord for the support of the hay-filled tick or mattress. But if the family had not been so thoughtful as to bring bed cords, which were in such general use in those days, then poles were cut and fastened to the side sapling and to the opposite log. This might require additional use of the augur, a tool next to the axe and saw in its usefulness. But the luxury of one of these primitive bedsteads, on one of which the writer of this slept on his first visit to Lake County, was not always enjoyed. What the pioneers called the "soft" or smoothi side, the hewed side, of a punchcon answered quite well in those days for resting weary limbs.
The ample fire-place, the chimney made of clay and sticks, the sticks split out with that other needful frontier instrument, a frow, and laid up as children make cob-houses, the clay between the layers and on the inside spread over thick and well to keep the wood from taking fire,-this fire-place furnished a place for cooking, and the blazing logs with hickory bark fur- nished some liglit at night. But more light was often needed. The most primitive method of obtaining this was, to take an iron tablespoon, fill the bowl nearly
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full with some of the fat from the fried meat, insert the handle of the spoon between the logs among "the chinks" of the wall, lay a piece of cotton cloth in the fat, and light the end, and thus light was obtained by means of which, when visitors were present, sonie families took supper. But others used candles, hav- ing brought the molds with them, by means of which with candle wicking they made first-class tallow can- dles. But a more rapid way of making candles, and affording a pretty sight in a winter evening, was the quite common way of dipping. Small wooden rods were easily made, and on these the wicks were placed cut the right lengtli for a candle, having about six on each rod. The tallow, melted and quite hot, was in a large, deep vessel, and into this the women and girls dipped the wicks that were on the rods. At each dip the wick took on a coating of tallow and time was allowed for it to cool between the dips. When the melted tallow became too shallow to cover all the wick hot water was poured in to fill up the vessel, tlie melted tallow rising to the surface. Thus the process was continued till the full sized candle was formed. In this way, before the oil wells were dug or kerosene known our pioneer women made candles. And a good many dozen could thus be made in one evening. An American home needs fire by day and light at night, and with these were the pioneer homes pro- vided. There was much sewing and knitting to be done in the long winter evenings. No machines tc work with then. There were books to be read, and sometimes papers, for many of these families were far from being ignorant; and it seems remarkable now, looking back from our bright kerosene and electric lights, into those homes of sixty-five and sixty years
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