CHIEF MENOMINEE’S CAMP BURIAL GROUND

[NOTEWORTHY POTAWATOMI]GRAVES AT

LOGANSPORT , EEL TOWNSHIP , CASS COUNTY , INDIANA

In “deporting” to Kansas, nearly 1000 Marshall County [and other] Potawatamie Indians in early in September 1838, Indiana State Troops, mercifully permitted them to camp for several days in Horney Creek Hollow, on what is today Logansport’s north side, in order that the Indians might rest, and might receive urgently needed medical & other attention.  Approximately two of the Indians died while camped here. A few others had died in the wagons en-route to Logansport [from Menominee’s Village near Plymouth , IN ]. Reportedly between three & seven Indian children & adults were laid to their final rest on a ridge overlooking Horney Creek. The location of these graves were pointed out to historian, Dr. J. Z. Powell by his own ancestor Jacob Powell, who had been one of the soldiers, and also by James Horney, land-owner who had seen the graves when their small mounds were still plainly visible.  Powell’s writings and notes tell us that the graves are immediately south of what is today “ Smith Street ,” and immediately East of & partly on the right-of-way of the Logansport-to-South Bend line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

This is less than half a city block east of U.S. Highway 25, the Old Michigan Road , [now known in Logansport as “ Michigan Avenue .”]  It is along the western edge of the lawn of what is today the side-yard of the STETSON TARVER residence, at 1121 Smith Street , which house stands at the corner of Smith & Morgan Streets.

The deportation of this large group---the last of Indiana ’s Potawatomi’s ---is one of the very the saddest chapters in the entire history of the state of Indiana .  The route taken by these suffering [and often dying] Indians on these hot, dry days, has been known ever since as “The Trail of Death.”

As part of the observance of the ONE HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY of this tragic event, and of the Indians who are resting in this beautiful hollow [where the unfailing waters of spring-fed Horney Creek saved so many of their lives & brought refreshment to them all], a sizeable concourse of Logansport grade-school children [including at least two from each of Logansport’s numerous public, parochial & diocesan schools] placed many flowers on the graves of these Potawatomi children & adults who were buried here. Just as the Logansport school children of 1838 had joined other Logansport citizens in performing acts of kindness & mercy to the suffering Indians themselves.

This floral tribute followed a memorial service held in the nearby Wesleyan Methodist Church [and at the graves themselves] by the L’Anguille Valley Memorial Association of Cass County, Indiana.

Following the dual service, a quite large and attractively painted showcard was displayed on the heavily traveled federal highway nearby [within sight of the graves], reading:

1838-1938

IN MEMORIAM

CHIEF MENOMINEE’S 1000

POTAWATOMI INDIANS

FROM MARSHALL COUNTY ,

WHO CAMPED HERE WHILE

BEING DEPORTED TO THE

WEST, AND THOSE OF THEM

WHO DIED, AND ARE BURIED

NEAR THIS SPOT.

THE SCHOOL CHILDREN

OF LOGANSPORT

AND CASS COUNTY .

NOKAMENA’S VILLAGE BURIAL GROUND

[ MIAMI INDIAN]

Site is in Logansport ’s Southside’s Residential Section in EEL Township , CASS County , INDIANA .

 Around 1830 & probably a few decades before that, The MIAMI’S had sizeable village or “Perennial Camp” in the extreme N.W. corner of their vast Great Miami Indian Reserve. This was on the south side of the Wabash River & immediately East of what is now Anthony Street, west of what had been established in [1828] as “The Government Indian Agency formerly located in the city of Fort Wayne .

  South of this village, in [and near] the vicinity of what is now the western end of  West Main Street , [which despite its name, is not even the “Main” street even of the city’s South side!]  There was formerly was an Indian Burial Ground. It was at least partly on the summit of a high hill which has since been entirely cut away [presumably because of the profit value of its gravel].   In early Civil War days, Logansport ’s first steam railroad [an extension of the old New Castle & Richmond ] entirely removed its repair shops and tracks from this region which then slowly grew into a well-populated, paved, residential district.

Burial flags were still waving here in 1835 but the present copyist can furnish no names. On Feb.24, 1835, Nokamena [“Captain Flour”] is said himself to have been murdered on nearby Biddle’s Island [in Wabash River], the victim of a drunken enemy, and to have been buried just east of the Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice, H.P. Biddle’s Island Home.

MISCCELLANEOUS INDIAN BURIALS

IN EEL TOWNSHIP , CASS COUNTY , INDIANA

From time to time during the past century [1839-1939], workmen on various excavating projects [in the city of Logansport ], have accidentally uncovered single skeleton’s which have been identified as of Indian nativity.  These burial had taken place approximately [or at least a century before] 1939. One or two were found in Lower Horney Creek Hollow not far from the point where Heber’s Dry Run joins that tributary, just a few hundred yards north of where the latter mentioned creek confluence with Eel River [across from Riverside Park].  Although this was in sight of a terrace-Rim table-land on which the Potawatomi’s are known to have had a semi-permanent camp, it can not yet be definitely proven that these graves were a part of a real Indian Burial Ground or were isolated individual graves. 

  One similar grave was found in the ravine which splits Dykeman Park ’s Golf course in to a letter “V”.  On being declared the skeleton of an Indian, these remains were [about 1934], re-interred with a small boulder as a marker. Extensive excavation in the vicinity might possibly reveal an Indian Burial Ground.

Input by Pat Fiscel from the L'Anguille Valley Memorial Association Report for the Cass County INGenWeb Project.

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