(September 26, continued.) From DeGraff I rode south of town to the bridge across Stony Creek on County Road 63.

In an old post I had told about my trip to this bridge in 2005. At that time Ken remarked on how badly deteriorated this bridge was. It was now three years later and the bridge was in much worse condition.

And the historical marker that was there in 2005 (above) was gone.

BTW, this marker had said the meeting of Kenton and Tecumseh took place a quarter mile north. Or maybe it was trying to say the sign was a quarter mile north of the meeting place. The second interpretation would be more accurate. According to the map in Alan Eckert’s book, “A sorrow in our heart,” the place where Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa had a village was just upstream from this bridge, on the south side of the creek.

There are many stories of Indian war councils that we know about because white observers were welcome to attend and listen. But Tecumseh did not usually care to make such meetings so open. In Tuckabatchee in 1811 he tried to wait until the white observers were gone before explaining his mission. And according to Eckert, this place on Stony Creek was picked by Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa because it was away from the usual travel routes of the few white settlers that lived this far north on the Great Miami. There were guards posted to keep white people from entering.

The following is from a footnote in Eckert’s book:

The first Stony Creek Council had been accidentally discovered on the third or fourth day after it commenced by Kenton as he was passing through the area with a friend, Jim McPherson, of Urbana, 15 miles southeast. Kenton crept up and spied on it from hiding and observed the war dance and tomahawks being struck into the war posts, but was not close enough to hear what was being said. Kenton and McPherson warned all nearby residents, who forted up in the blockhouse at Springfield, waiting attack. When it had not occurred in four days, Kenton and McPherson returned to the site along with Charles McIlvain and Maj. Thomas Moore and approached openly under a white flag. They were at first turned away and then allowed a small council in a nearby cabin, at which the Indians stated that the council was a private Indian matter but there was no need for white residents to be alarmed. (One of the accounts, highly romanticized, states that at this point Kenton had a verbal altercation with Tecumseh which, if such altercation did occur, which is highly doubtful, could not have been with Tecumseh, since the quoted conversation indicates no recognition whatever of Kenton for Tecumseh or vice versa, and the same account has Kenton thrashing one of the warriors with a hickory stick and theatening others with his knife; the whole account, in the author’s opinion, is unbelievable.)

The Jim McPherson who was with Kenton is the same James McPherson I told about here, which led to a discussion of Shawnee pronunciation. One of my destinations on a ride a few days later was connected to this same McPherson.

But on September 26, my destination was to the southeast, on the other side of Urbana. I only made it as far as Urbana before I ran out of daylight, though. Eckert’s footnote says Urbana is 15 miles to the southeast of this bridge. I’m pretty sure it took me more miles than that to get there. Along the way I met someone who told me what was happening with the bridge and the historic marker.