these lands bordering on the Kankakee River were, before the white man came, the favorite stamping grounds of the Indians. Many of the islands have their mounds and burying grounds, and on some of them are plats of ground which still hold the name of the Indians' gardens. I have never seen larger or finer grapes grown anywhere than some which I have gathered on these islands and which were planted by the Indians. On Curve Island on the west half of the northeast quarter, section 21, township 32, range 8, is the old Indian Battle Ground (so called). The entrenchments or breastworks cover a space of from three to four acres and are almost a perfect circle, with many deep holes inside the same. All this can be plainly seen to-day; but when it was made or who did the work the oldest settler has not even a tradition.

In a high sand mound a few rods southwest from the Battle Ground can be found by digging a few feet down plenty of human bones, old pottery, clam shells, flints, etc. Could these old mounds and relics of the past speak, they would no doubt tell a story well worth hearing. Fifty years from now, when the citizens of Lake County meet to celebrate our county centennial, these old land marks will be all obliterated, and the Red Man who once was the only human here will be forgotten except in history. And we too, who meet here to-day to celebrate this our semi-centennial, will then have left the shores touched by that mysterious sea that never yet has borne on any wave the image of a returning sail.

CHAPTER XXIX.

DRAINING MARSHES.

In May, 1852, the Legislature of Indiana passed an act to provide for draining "Swamp Lands." In this part of the State it was mainly for draining the Kankakee Valley.

In Pulaski County, not on the the Kankakee, ditching began in 1854, and at about the same time in Lake County.

The work of developing the Kankakee Region has been a very different process from that which was needful in opening farms in the woodlands and on the prairies. Before the large areas of grass land could be made very useful, before the abodes of muskrats and of mink could be made into cornfields a large amount of ditching for drainage was needful. And when this all was done by spades in human hands it was slow work. But when steam dredge boats were put into operation, in Lake County in 1884, the process of ditch-making was vastly different. There are now, north of the river, many large ditches. About 1870 draining quite extensively began in White County. And south of the river are now many large. ditches. Of these the big Monon ditch in Jasper and White Counties has a channel, cut through a layer of solid rock for a mile and a quarter, thirty feet wide. and said to be from ten to twenty feet in depth. It

was not a light undertaking. In Starke county several enterprising men have had ditches cut leading into Cedar Lake, now called Bass Lake, and into the river, so that now sugar-beet culture is taking the attention largely of the owners of the low lands. For raising beets that land is said to be excellent. One of these ditches in Starke is called Craigmile, and one the Kankakee River ditch.

One of the large owners of Jasper County, of whom quite an extended notice will be given, has himself laid out in improvements of various kinds more than six hundred thousand dollars. He has used his own dredge boat very successfully.

Another large land holder south of the Kankakee river, of that land which was a part of the wild region of the large Jasper County, is Nelson Morris of Chicago. He holds about 23,000 acres; but, as he is a cattle man, he leaves his land for pasturage instead of draining and cultivating and building, and thus producing wealth by means of the dredge boat and locomotive.

Newton County has not received as much attention in respect to internal improvements as some of the other counties, yet in the north part, some ditching has been done, especially in draining Beaver Lake.

In the north part of Newton County are large cattle ranches kept in the interest of cattle men of Chi

cago.

Mrs. Conrad, an intelligent and enterprising woman, is successfully carrying on a large establishment, a farm or ranche, near Lake Village. Not far from Thayer is what is called the Adams ranch of about five thousand acres.

In Newton vegetables are raised and fruit and stock.

In Lake County there are more than sixty, perhaps seventy miles, of dredge ditches in the Kankakee. marsh lands; but these were not made by the individual owners of the land as such. They were paid for by a general assessment of the cost on all the lands supposed to be benefitted by the drainage. The main ditches are known as the Singleton ditch, named from W. F. Singleton, agent of the Lake Agricultural Company, the Ackerman ditch, the Griesel ditch, and the Brown ditch. As a result of this draining large quantities of vegetables and of grain have already been produced.

ROCK AT MOMENCE.

Among other efforts made for draining the Kankakee Valley in Indiana, it was suggested and proposed to remove a ledge of limestone rock at a place in Illinois about seven miles below the State line, a place called by the early settlers the Rapids, afterwards named Momence. The matter was at length brought before the Indiana Legislature and an appropriation of $40,000 was made in 1889 for the work proposed. Various objections and difficulties were disposed of, James B. Kimball, Franklin Sanders, and John Brown becoming commissioners, who organized as a board November 12, 1891, with W. M. Whitten as Chief Engineer. A contract for performing the required work was entered into by the board of commissioners and David Sisk of Westville, La Porte County, Indiana, for the removal of the stone in the ledge at the rate of "83 cents per cubic yard." A bond was executed by David Sisk with William R. Shelby of

Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Lake Agricultural Company as securities, the sureties on the bond "being worth," says the report to the Governor made in 1893, "more than a million dollars." It was found that it would be "necessary to remove 68,819 cubic yards of the rock," and that some further appropriation would be needful. An additional appropriation of $20,000 was made, but by some means a change of contractors took place, and in 1893 J. D. Moran & Co., performed the work of removing the rock.

This outlay of sixty thousand dollars appropriated by the General Assembly of Indiana, although expended in Illinois, has been a large help to the drainage of the Indiana part of the valley.

Many of the citizens of Jasper County, both pioneers and later settlers, have done much in developing the resources of the county and adding value to its once wild lands; but no one, in some lines, has done so much as Mr. B. J. Gifford, a resident at present in Kankakee, Illinois. Before detailing what he has accomplished and designs yet to do, some notice of his earlier life will be of interest.

He was born on a farm in Kendall County, Illinois, in the poineer days of that part of the state; was left motherless at six years of age; at eleven he arranged to obtain some prairie Government land which he thought was valuable, but "his father thought it worthless," and so he gave up that first land arrangement land which afterward sold for one hundred and twenty-five dollars an acre, as many dollars as the price from the Government would have been in cents; and at the early age of thirteen, "small in stature, without