this work; but elsewhere will be found yet more particulars in regard to human remains, or prehistoric

man.

That the pioneers found not a few Indians here has been already stated, and they found that these true native Americans had villages, camping places, dancing floors and burial grounds, and gardens and corn fields. South of the Kankakee River, in what became known as Beaver Woods, and along the Iroquois and Tippecanoe rivers, they had many favorite resorts, and a large Indian village was found and a favorite dancing floor or ground a few miles north of where the whites started their village called Morocco. Corn fields were found in various places near that same locality.

In White County an Indian village was found half a mile north of the present Monticello, and another five miles up the river, where large corn fields were cultivated. For some reason these Indian fields seem to have been much larger on the south than on the north side of the Kankakee. For one thing, the soil was quite different. A noted Indian trail passed along the bank of the Tippecanoe, crossing it where is now Monticello, and leading from the Wabash River up to Lake Michigan.

In what is now Jasper County many corn fields were found, generally small patches of land, but sometimes in a single field would be an area of ten or fifteen acres. One large field was four miles and another seven miles west of the present county seat of Jasper County. There were groves of sugar maple trees along the Iroquois River, and the first settlers found the Indians along that river knowing how to make maple sugar.

North of the Kankakee, at what took the name of Wiggin's Point, now Merrillville, in Lake County, was found, in 1834, quite an Indian village. It was called McGwinn's Village. There was a large dancing floor or ground, and there were trails, which were well-trodden foot-paths, sixteen in number, leading from it in every direction. The dancing ground, called a floor, but not a floor of wood, is said to have been very smooth and well worn. A few rods distant was the village burial ground, the situation, where the prairie joined the woodland, well chosen. A few blackwalnut trees were found growing there, of which very few are native in Lake County, as also there were two or three near an Indian burial place found on the northeastern shore of the Red Cedar Lake.

At this Wiggin's Point burial place the pioneers found in the center of the ground a pole some twenty feet in height on which was a white flag. This was the best known Indian cemetery in Lake County. As many as one hundred graves were there. Some desecrating hands, said to have been those of a physician from Michigan City, took out from the earth here an Indian form about which were a blanket, a deer skin, and a belt of wampum; and with the body were found a rifle and a kettle full of hickory nuts. The pioneers. found that some of these Indians had not only the idea of a future life, but that they had received from their white teachers some idea of the resurrection of the body. Some of them preferred not to be placed in the earth, as they were to live again; and some of these early settlers found suspended in a tree, in a basket, with bells attached, the dead body of an Indian child. The writer of this obtained his best knowledge of an Indian cemetery and of Indians lamenting

their dead, from a sand mound in Porter County, near the shore of Lake Michigan, which will be mentioned in the account of City West.

Besides the Indians themselves, (and some of them were in contact with the settlers for ten full years) and their gardens, where the Indians cultivated some choice grapes as well as vegetables, and their trails, and camping grounds and dancing grounds, these pioneers found, and the later inhabitants have been finding through all these seventy years, flint and stone instruments of various kinds, evidently the work of human hands. A very little copper, not in its native bed or form, they also found. One of the large collections of arrow heads, spear heads, and various small instruments, whose manufacture is attributed to our Indians, is in possession of the present genial and intelligent trustee of St. John's Township, H. L. Keilman, all, some two hundred in number, having been found on the Keilman farm near Dyer, on section eighteen, township thirty-five, range nine west of the second principal meridian.

It seems desirable that some impression should be upon these pages of the real life of the Indians, as near as it can be obtained from such contact as they had with the whites, thus showing what the pioneers found Pottawatomie customs and ways to be. As, besides other camps and gardens, so-called, in the winter of 1835 and 1836 about six hundred had an encampment in the West Creek woodlands, where deer were abundant, and an encampment was there again the next winter; and on Red Oak Island, where they had a garden, about two hundred camped in the winter of 1837 and 1838, and about a hundred and fifty on Big White Oak Island, south of Orchard

Grove, and quite an encampment the same winter south of the present Lovell, and a camp of thirty Indian lodges the same or the preceding winter north of the Red Cedar Lake, and many wigwams along the Calumet, and a large Indian village at Indian Town, it is evident that the pioneers had some opportunities to learn something of their dispositions and ways.

The following is from "Lake County, 1872."

"On Red Oak Island they had two stores, kept by French traders, who had Indian wives. The names of these traders were Bertrand and Lavoire. At Big White Oak was one store, kept by Laslie, who was also French, with an Indian wife. Here a beautiful incident occurred on new year's morning, 1839. Charles Kenney and son had been in the marsh looking up some horses. They staid all night, December 31st, with Laslie. His Indian wife, neat and thoughtful, like any true woman, gave them clean blankets out of the store, treated them well, and would receive no pay. The morning dawned. The children of the encampment gathered, some thirty in number, and the oldest Indian, an aged, venerable man, gave to each of the children a silver half-dollar as a new year's present. As the children received the shining silver each one returned to the old Indian a kiss. It was their common custom, on such mornings, for the oldest Indian present to bestow upon the children the gifts.

A beautiful picture, surely, could be made by a painter of this island scene; the marsh lying round, the line of timber skirting the unseen river, the encampment, the two white strangers, the joyous children, and the venerable Pottawatomie who, long years before, had been active in the chase and resolute as a

warrior in his tribe, bestowing the half-dollars and bending gracefully down to receive the gentle kisses of the children. Such a picture on canvas, by an artist, would be of great value among our historic scenes." The following incidents, from different sources, are all well attested:

Into what became Newton County in the time of the Black Hawk War, about five hundred Kickapoos came from Illinois and staid for some little time, but gave no trouble to the few whites then there unless whiskey was furnished them.

In the spring of 1837, a party of Indians came to the location of David Yeoman, on the Iroquois, to catch fish. These they took not by means of spears or hooks, but by throwing them out of the water with their paddles. They were economical. They would exchange the bass with the whites for bread and would themselves eat the dog-fish.

North of the Kankakee, near Indian Town, an enterprising settler proposed to plow some ground for planting. To this the head Indian objected, saying that the land was his, and the squaws wanted it to cultivate. This pioneer knew quite well that the squaws would not cultivate very much land, so he said. to the Indian man, "I will plow up some land and the squaws may mark off all they want." As he could turn the ground over much faster than could the Indian women, this was quite satisfactory. They marked off the little patches which they wanted, and left a good field for the white man. This incident certainly shows a good side of the Indian character.

As mentioned elsewhere, an early school of La Porte County, the first in New Durham Township, was taught by Miss Rachel B. Carter, the school open