Slept Here

Ken Steinhoff’s new blog reminded me of this photo. It’s one I took on July 27, at the end of a two-day tour that took me down to the extreme northwest corner of Ohio. At the end of the ride back I stopped at the cemetery in Allen, hoping to find the gravestone of Lucinda Wight Southworth. I had looked for it in other cemeteries a few months earlier, with no success.

Lucinda Wight was a girl of perhaps twelve in 1830 when Black Hawk slept in her family’s cabin, near Jonesville. She told about it later in life. Her story is the title chapter to my project, “Black Hawk Slept Here.” Over the past dozen years or so I’ve made many stops at the site where I take the cabin to have been. I have also visited the site down the road where her family moved shortly thereafter. But it was not until this year that I thought to look for the farm where she lived as a married woman. It turned out to be easy to find. And it was not until this year that I thought to look for her gravestone. After having no luck at a couple of cemeteries near her home, I thought to look in Allen. I found it almost immediately, and took the above photo. (Maybe it’s appropriate that the cemetery lies right next to Black Hawk’s usual route through southern Michigan.)

In the eastern U.S. there are many places that claim, “George Washington Slept Here.” I long ago decided that the places visited by Black Hawk deserved that kind of recognition, too, and that even the gravestones of the people who encountered him deserve a visit of my own.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that I enjoyed the article in Ken Steinhoff’s new blog, “President Taft and I Both Visit Cape Girardeau.” Cape Girardeau is Ken’s boyhood home and is where he learned how to be a newspaper photographer. He’s now digitizing a lot of his old photos and putting them on a blog called “Cape Central High Photos and History : Coming of Age in Cape Girardeau.” Those are especially interesting for those of us who were in high school at the same time Ken was.

He also posted a recent photo of a mural commemorating President Taft’s visit to the town a hundred years ago this year. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Taft really spent the night there. I hope he did, or that he at least took a nap there. Either one would easily qualify for the designation, “President Taft Slept Here.” And even if he did neither, it’s still worth a mural.

Maybe someday someone will make one for Black Hawk’s visit to Lucinda Wight’s home, too.