This was the last photo of the three-day Huntington outing October 2004. I had thought I might at best make it as far as the Michigan border, so Myra wouldn’t have to come so far to get me. I stopped at Ligonier, though. She may have been visiting in Shipshewana for part of the day, IIRC, so it wouldn’t have been too far from there.

I do recall that it was chilly riding the last part of the afternoon. My goal for that year was 5200 miles. I did 211 miles on the three-day outing, but still had 751 miles to go. I wondered if I could possibly get in that many miles before December 31. (I did.)

This is another photo of the Nuck House.

This is the home of the man the Nuck’s worked for, Chief Francis Lafontaine. His name in Miami was Topeah, which is said to mean something like Frost on Leaves or Frost on Bushes.

This house, too, was moved from its original location. It was in the way of US-24 when that road was widened, and was moved here. US-24 runs right alongside the Forks of the Wabash, so it was not a distant move. The building still has much the same relationship to the terrain that it had at its original location.

Stewart Rafert’s book, “The Miami Indians of Indiana: A persistent people 1654-1994″ (1996) has some information about him. He was almost more a representative of the U.S. Indian Agent, who was working for Indian removal, than of his own people. The Miami people did not want to be removed, and they resisted his authority. “Lafontaine went west with the removal group and died suddenly in the spring of 1847 at Lafayette on his journey home from Kansas. Lafontaine’s death freed the village chiefs from further interference from the federal government and traders in Indiana. The Miami were able at last to maintain a tribal council form of government without a compromised chief.”

Writing about this bike ride is refreshing my memory. I actually stopped my bike ride not five miles short of the campground, nor ten miles, but about 20 miles from it. It took me a while to get two different bike rides to that campground unconfused in my mind.

Next morning Myra had business back in Michigan, and I rode to the Historic Forks of the Wabash at Huntington.

I had called ahead and learned that the place is mostly oriented toward group tours. Since I was going to be a group of only one, they suggested I could tag along with a school group that was coming for a field trip.

That sounded fine to me, but I almost didn’t get there on time. I got lost in Andrew — couldn’t figure out how to get out of town and ride east to Huntington on the south side of the Wabash river. Then I couldn’t find the place when I got there. And it was harder than I would have expected to find someone to ask for directions. I finally pulled into the place a few minutes late — and learned that the school group was going to be even later.

It turned out to be a Lutheran school group from Fort Wayne. I don’t know if I bothered to mention to any of the people in the group that I had been a teacher in Lutheran schools myself for five years. But that was a long time ago, and the docents at the Forks had a busy program for the group.

One of the main attractions is this old log cabin. It was built by a German couple who had come here, and who worked as hired help for Chief Lafontaine of the Miami people for a few years before getting their own place. There is a nice writeup about the family here. This was the house they built when they got their own land.

But their house was not built at the site where it stands now. In the late 70s the owners didn’t even realize it was a log house until they started to tear it down. It was moved here to preserve it.

I don’t like historic buildings that are not on their original sites — I could go onto a long rant about it — but it’s better they are preserved than torn down.

More later about the Forks of the Wabash. I see I’m still on their mailing list. I got a copy of their latest newsletter just yesterday, and from it I learn that 54 school groups visited the Forks last year — 3738 students and sponsors altogether. I can attest that there is a fine group of volunteers at the Forks who make the experience worthwhile for them.

This photo was taken a couple miles or so before I got to the Eel River Post-Fort site. Like I said, I’m looking for excuses to do some more riding along the Eel River.

The intersection of De La Balme and Johnson was about a mile from Little Turtle’s post. I didn’t know what it was about until I looked it up just now. But this site is very near where Augustin De La Balme was defeated by Little Turtle and a force of Miami warriors during the American Revolution. He had started from Kaskaskia, gathered recruits from the French communities there and at places like Vincennes, and hoped to do the same in taking Detroit. But he was wiped out and killed here. I see from this article reprinted from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that a commemorative event was held here about a year after my bike ride. And it makes mention of a marker that the DAR placed in the area in 1930.

I think I have all the excuse I need for another bike ride so I can take a better look.

Vicinity of the De La Balme defeat

This is my first attempt at including a Google Map in the post to identify just where these markers are located. I’m using a plugin provided by Avi Alkalay. I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do.

BTW, today’s commute home from work was my first bike ride of 2008.   The weather was suitable and the roads were finally clear.   In all the 14 years I’ve been bicycle touring and doing long-distance riding, I don’t think it has ever until now taken until the middle of March before I could start riding, except for one year when I was recovering from surgery.    Some years I’ve done a few hundred miles already by this time.  It was good to get out on the road again.

Cherebusco was at about the 40-mile mark, or 50 if you count my before-breakfast ride. I bought something to eat at a gas station. There was a place to sit inside, but I did my usual and asked if there was a town park where I could sit down with it.

While sitting here I heard a loud bang echo off that school building, as if two railroad cars had run into each other. I wondered, but then forgot about it. A few minutes later all the eastbound US-33 traffic was directed onto the side streets next to me. There had been a collision of some sort that blocked the main street.

Even though it was late enough in the day that I was already having a difficult time taking photos with the sun so low in the sky, I took a detour to the site of Hardin’s Defeat in 1790. This was the first of two armies that the Shawnee and Miami people defeated. General Harmar tried mightily to spin it as a successful mission, and that spin made its way into some old history books. The Wikipedia Article on Hardin’s defeat seems to be a better source of information on it.

But one thing not mentioned there, which I didn’t realize until now, was that Alexander Hamilton had basically given a heads-up to the native people about the coming of Harmar’s army. He was cozy with the British, who were allied with the native peoples of this region, and told them about the American’s plans. Hamilton’s boss, President Washington, didn’t know at the time he was passing on that information. I got this from “Kekionga!: The Worst Defeat in the History of the U.S. Army” (1997) by Wilbur Edel, page 80.

One thing I still don’t know is what Washington did when he found out, or whether he ever even found out about it. Some people in the early 1790s were accusing Hamilton of having too much influence on Washington. What would Hamilton’s adversary in the Cabinet, Thomas Jefferson, have done with that information if he had found out? Or did he? I’ve read several biographies and histories about Hamilton vs Jefferson, and am pretty sure I would have noticed if any of the authors had mentioned this.

It was already late, the day was getting cool, I wanted to make one more history stop, and I was still 40 miles from the campground on the Salamonie River. I didn’t stay long at this place.

After leaving the Turkey Creek valley I did stop for a few photos on my way to the Wabash River (on October 10, 2004). This was taken a couple of hours after leaving that road along Turkey Creek.

Just looking at these photos makes me wish the snow would go away so I could go riding in places like this again. Sometimes people look at me funny when I say things like that. I suspect this type of landscape doesn’t have the same appeal for everyone else. Maybe it’s why I run into very few bicyclers on my rides.

A town that didn’t come into existence until 1875 is way too new to be of much interest to me, but I took a photo anyway. I just now got around to looking for information about it. It wasn’t easy to find anything, partly because there is another Ripley in Indiana, along a railroad line in Pulaski County.

I probably have a map somewhere where I marked my route, I recall approximately where I went. From the timestamps on the photo, figuring I probably average about 10 mph, including the occasional stop for photos, I decided it must be somewhere between Avilla and Albion, in Noble County. Then I went to the Noble County genweb site and did a search for Ripley. I found this page about train accidents, and learned that a few had taken place here at Ripley:

A wheel broke on one of the cars on an eastbound freight near Ripley Sunday morning about 4 o’clock, and delayed train Number 5 which throws mail off at this station. A number of freight trains were compelled to lay on the side track at this place. The wrecking train was summoned and the track was not cleared for traffic until 9 o’clock this forenoon. The Albion Democrat, January 20, 1898

Quite a disastrous freight wreck occurred on the B&O railroad at Ripley, east of this city, Friday morning shortly after midnight. An eastbound freight was on the main track waiting for a westbound freight to take the side track, but the westbound train was running rapidly and as there is a steep down grade, the air brakes would not hold and the engines collided with terrible force. Each train had two engines and all four locomotives were badly wrecked along with a number of the cars. An engineer on one of the freights jumped and his skull was fractured, but it is thought he will recover. Homer Braden was conductor on the west bound freight and Carl Talbert was conductor on the east bound. The Albion Democrat January 26, 1899

Train number 17, due at Albion at 12:01, was more than an hour late Saturday on account of a wreck at Ripley. The Albion Democrat, October 21, 1903

There was no such excitement when I was there. It was a quiet afternoon.

Turkey Creek is on the west end of Brushy Prairie. The photo in the previous entry was taken on the east side. Not that it’s a big place.

After my early morning photo expedition, I had gone back to the campground where Myra was impatiently waiting in the cold. We broke camp and went to get breakfast in Mongo. Then we parted ways for the day, and I rode to Brushy Prairie.

The dog on the other side of the creek was barking away and would have liked to get closer to me.

I presume the Potawatomi village was on one side of the creek, near enough so people could easily get water. But I’m not sure which side. The information about the Gage and Langdon war is vague on a lot of points.

From Brushy Prairie I rode southeast along a county road that follows the shallow creek valley. Roads like that are among my favorites.

This is a view looking back. Like I said, it’s a shallow valley, but the land slopes up just a bit on the left. The creek is on the right.

This ride along the creek was the idyllic part of the route. But it was only about three miles long.

I had been having a leisurely morning of it, with my morning ride north to take photos, a leisurely breakfast, an easy ride to Mongo and then along this creek. But the campground was still 75 miles away, and the days are short at this time of year. From this point on I had to keep moving.

Well, I did make a few more brief history stops, and I ended up quitting after dark, 5 miles or so short of the campground, where I accepted a rescue mission from Myra.

Brushy Prairie is on US-20, about 3.5 miles upstream of Mongo on Turkey Creek. A Potawatomi village was near here in 1832. The 1882 county history explains what happened after the little practical joke that was played at the mill at Mongo. (This story is probably told at 3rd hand.)

Langdon fled to Brushy Prairie, and told the few settlers there of the massacre at the mill. Men for miles around armed themselves and repaired in haste to the spot, to assist in quelling the outbreak. Over one hundred assembled, though, for some reason unknown, no organization was effected. About seventy-five Indians were encamped near by. They thought the whites were going to attack them, and hung out the white flag. In truth, the settlers could hardly be restrained from firing upon them. It was not long before the truth became known, and then the perpetrators of the hoax were treated to an exhibition of wrath and indignation.

This was another stop on my morning bike ride near Mongo. English Prairie in Greenfield Township, LaGrange County, was so named because many of the early settlers came from England. Their neighbors later noted that they had for some time kept their English ways, such as the men wearing knee breeches and stockings instead of trousers like American men usually wore.

The 1882 history of LaGrange County says it this way:

“English Prairie” received its name from the fact that many of the first to locate there had just come from England. People, in speaking of the place, called it by that name. It is also permanent. Many of the English retained for a number of years their foreign customs. “Old Tommy” Burnell wore knee-breeches and long stockings, as did some of the others. Mr. Burnell brought with him from his temporary home in Michigan two small sashes, in which were three or four panes of glass. These were used in his old log cabin.

A few days ago I was trying to find information about Samuel Burnell, perhaps “Tommy’s” brother. Samuel was mentioned in connection with the 1882 meeting of the St. Joseph County (MI) Pioneer Society. 1882 was the 50th anniversary of the Black Hawk war, and the old settlers of St. Joseph County invited all of of those known to the local people to have served in the militia in the Black Hawk war to come as special guests. Ten of them came. Several others died after invitations were sent out, but before the meeting was held in June.

One of the ten was Samuel Burnell of Lima (now Howe), Indiana.

Samuel Burnell is not listed in the rosters of Michigan militia companies, nor is he listed in such lists of Indiana militia that have been compiled. I wish he had been one of those who got up at that 50th anniversary meeting to say a few words. It would be interesting to know if his militia service had anything to do with the aftermath of that practical joke at Mongo. Another county history says he settled at White Pigeon in 1829, and died in Lima in 1889. Where was he during the Black Hawk war? I don’t know.

Next time I ride to this area, I’ll look for his grave and that of the “Tommy” who wore knee breeches and long stockings. It would be interesting to me to know if Samuel is buried in this cemetery, near where he had bought land from the government, or in another cemetery closer to Lima.

The story of the Gage and Langdon war has it that the two farmers, upon seeing the fake shooting of the miller by his Potawatomi buddies, fled through the countryside, warning the settlers of Indian attack. The settlers started to build forts to protect themselves. One was at Lexington, a small village now named Brighton (seen above, from the east). I took this photo on my pre-breakfast ride here in October 2004.

I’ve always wanted this old garage to be the site of the fort, but haven’t really gone through land ownership records to see if it’s plausible. If I remember right, it was said to be at the site of the blacksmith shop. Well, in some of the small towns in the midwest, the blacksmith shop eventually became a gas station. This garage is one that looks like it once beloned to a gas station. It’s a pretty flimsy thread of supposition, but there isn’t a lot else to photograph anyway.

By the way, it has always struck me as remarkable how many names have changed in LaGrange county. What was once Lexington is now Brighton, Lima is now Howe, and Haw Patch is now Topeka. I don’t think there is any other county in the range of my Black Hawk travels that went through so many name changes.

And it just now occurred to me to wonder if the name Lexington became attached to the place after Gage and Langdon played Paul Revere, warning the countryside of impending attack. If I find out that the name Lexington pre-dates the Black Hawk war (and it probably does, because I haven’t heard of any other name that pre-dates Lexington) I’ll have to abandon that notion.