Portrait of Orlean

From a Spokesrider point of view, the portrait on the left is the most valuable item in the Log Cabin Museum in Cassopolis. I hope it doesn’t get destroyed in another leaky roof incident. I took the photo on our visit there Sunday before last by holding the camera up and aiming it in the general direction. Someday, hopefully while the log cabin is still standing, I’ll go back and try again, this time remembering to turn on the vibration-reduction feature on my lens.

The left portrait is of Orlean Putnam, younger brother of Uzziel Putnam, on the right. (In a previous post, “Riding in the dark to Castalia, Ohio,” there is a different portrait of Orlean, sans hat, taken from one of the county histories.) Someone had mixed up the typewritten labels. The one attached to Orlean’s portrait belongs on Uzziel’s.

I get the impression that Uzziel was the stereotypical eldest son, earnest and dutiful, while Orlean was a stereotypical younger son, sociable and carefree. Uzziel was the first American settler in Cass County. Orlean stayed with him the first winter, but before settling down on a farm of his own worked a few seasons as a chainman on government survey crews.

When he was five years old, Orlean and their mother had been captured by Odawa Indians near present-day Castalia, Ohio. He would have been killed along with the other small children in the party, but a chief apparently saw chief-material in little Orlean, and saved his life. Following up on Orlean’s stories in an attempt to corroborate them has led me to some of my best adventures both in the archives and on my bicycle. And I may not be finished yet. I still haven’t done anything to follow up on his story of what happened at the outbreak of the Black Hawk war.

On my afternoon ride in LaGrange township, I rode past the farm where Orlean eventually settled down and riased a family. It’s the farmstead in the distance on this photo, up on a slight rise on LaGrange Prairie. It’s now the most prosperous-looking place that I know of in the township. Orlean wasn’t so carefree that he didn’t chose an excellent piece of ground for himself.

I thought of stopping to say hello to the owners. Several years ago, after having met them, I sent them photos of the place where Orlean had lived when he was captured by Indians. But I checked my watch and saw that it was dinnertime — a bad time to be knocking on someone’s door. So I kept moving.

YTD mileage: 1791.5