For yesterday’s bike ride, I looked for a destination in Eaton County. The wind forecast suggested that would be a good direction. I searched the county histories, and came up with a Black Hawk anecdote that was new to me. From the 1880 history of Eaton County, page 477, is the following material (which seems to have been taken from some other source):

He began his military career soon after coming into the county, in Washtenaw County, as a minute-man. He had been there but one year when the Black Hawk war broke out. He was then orderly sergeant in Capt. Loomis’ company. The Indians were numerous, and people becoming fearful many returned to the East. So general was the alarm that the authorities stopped navigation on the lake for the time being to prevent settlers leaving. In line of his duty as orderly sergeant he warned out the men from four townships, and the companies were marched to Ann Arbor. In anticipation of leaving for the seat of war, Montgomery had arranged to have his wife return to her parents; but the celebrated chief was defeated, and the men returned in peace to their firesides.

Previous to the Toledo hostilities, Montgomery had been commissioned as major, and at the breaking out of that demonstration he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was chosen by the general voice of the troops to be their leader in the campaign. They marched to Toledo, then consisting of a few scattering houses, remained there three days, fired some shots into the river, and, as no more rampant foe put in an appearance, they marched home again.

The part about the Black Hawk war is a bit of a puzzle, because Le Roy Barnett’s roster of Michigan men in the Black Hawk war does not list Montgomery. Nor does it show that there was a company under a Captain Loomis. The roster of Michigan men in the Toledo war does list Montgomery, though, with the rank of Major. I haven’t yet investigated this very far — I haven’t even checked all the easy-to-check sources. I needed a bicycle destination, and it seemed a good chance there was something to this story, so I went with it, thinking there was a chance that Montgomery’s house was still standing.

One might notice that the above events took place in Washtenaw County, while my bike ride destination was in Eaton County. The same 1880 county history tells about the connection. Montgomery first settled in Washtenaw County. He came with an idea once common among farmers from the east, that good farmland was land that could grow trees. He would not be talked into anything else. He found some such land, near Dexter (and very near some other anecdotes from the Black Hawk war) but soon realized his mistake. He sold his farm after five years and then looked for prairie land.

The above-pictured house is on prairie land Montgomery bought just east of Eaton Rapids. An 1873 atlas shows a residence at that location, on land that still belonged to J.S. Montgomery. And the 1880 history says he was still alive at the time of writing. So I presume it was a farm house that he built. It’s now a residential area, not farmland. But just to the east, across the county line in Ingham county, is part of the prairie that is still being farmed.

Mileage for the day: 64. Year-to-date miles: 691. I’m still way behind on my yearly mileage goal. Yesterday’s afternoon ride gets me to about the first week in March. This 64 miles was a lot easier than last Sunday’s, which is no surprise given that this time I was going mostly with the wind, was not carrying all my camping gear, and was well rested. It took me well under half the amount of time, and instead of collapsing at the end of the day I had enough energy left to work in the garden and do a little drywalling.

After Salamonie, there were more gravel roads to mark the treaty line.

It was probably this sign, at the crossroads known as Boundary City, that got me started seven years on looking for the marks left on the landscape by the Indian treaties. For this particular boundary of this particular treaty (the Fort Wayne Treaty of 1809) they are pretty obvious.

This was the end of the road as far as following the northern boundary of the treaty. The boundary crosses US-27 here.

But here is a puzzle that I didn’t notice until I got back and started looking at my photos. What possessed the local Daughters of the American Revolution to say that this treaty line was established by the Treaty of 1818? The line I had been following was established by the Treaty of Fort Wayne of 1809.

Here is a map showing the Indian cessions in Indiana. Royce Area 72 was part of what was given up at the Treaty of 1809. The modern highway between Portland and Winchester is US-27, and that’s where this marker is located. The Treaty of 1818 was the instrument by which the land to the north and west was ceded, identified as Royce Area 99. But the boundary had already been established before 1818. The 1818 treaty made it into something that was no longer important. So why did the good Daughters put those words on the marker? There has got to be a story behind it — maybe something to explain their perceptions of the process by which the U.S. took this land from the Indians.

Next: Following the western side of the treaty boundary through Randolph County.

Back to the July 1 ride. After leaving Fort Recovery (finally) I rode, mostly along the treaty line roads, to Salamonia, on the upper reaches of the Salamonie River. There was more to the town than I expected, given that there are no state highways that go to it. This was part of it. Whether there are any extant businesses elsewhere in town, I don’t know. I didn’t see any.

Here I stopped and finally figured out the cause of the noise I had been hearing for some time, which had made me wonder if my derailleur was finally shot after 30,000 miles. The small gear on my cassette had come off and was just making a tinkling sound now and then. It may have been a good thing I hadn’t tried shifting into that gear. It took just a few minutes to repair.

Outside of Salamonia, the road turned to the southwest to rejoin the treaty line. This was the first of several stretches of gravel along this part of the treaty line. Most of them weren’t hard to ride on, though.

I rode mostly on the St. Mary’s side of the Wabash River. The terrain here is mostly flat, much of it very flat. This view from an old schoolyard is a small sample. I never got near my granny gear for the entire four-day outing.

Here’s another view of the school.

More flatness. I got to see a lot of the wheat harvest over the four days, starting here, near Bluffton. (The Amish version of the harvest looked a little different than this.)

I thought the barn in the distance was the most likely place where the Allen Norcross farmstead had been. I learned a couple of days later that it may not be that simple. But when he died in 1879, Norcross owned some of the land seen here.

I rode up and down the streets of Murray, looking for the cemetery. It didn’t take long, but I had no luck. But people were out setting up their holiday barbecues, so I found people to ask. The first person said he was too new in Murray to know where there is one. The second person pleaded newness, too, but gave me directions to a cemetery north of town, even though he hadn’t yet learned the road and street names.

I had no luck finding the Allen Norcross gravestone, but later I learned where it was. I don’t have a good excuse for missing it. The ride ended here, though. Myra came and joined me in the search, and then we drove to the site of one of the other early settlers who had also fled at the time of the Black Hawk war. Then we got a bite to eat. All in all, it was fine for a starter ride. In the evening there were 4th of July fireworks at the campground.

I left about 1 p.m. In Bedford I stopped in the school parking lot to get out my MP3 player. A young boy, maybe of 4th or 5th grade age, rode up on his bike, asking if I was taking a break. He announced that he was going to take a break himself. He was full of questions about where I was from and where I was going. He said he lived on Bedford Road, and had been riding all day. It was good to see a young man take such enjoyment in his bike riding. We both agreed it was a good day for it.

Other than that, I didn’t make contact with any humans. Traffic was almost surrealistically light. I found a few backroads I had never before ridden, too.

The Convis Township hall is next to a huge landfill. I had ridden past it several weeks ago, and had noticed how smelly it was on the downwind side. It wasn’t any better this time.

There is a cemetery a half mile away. I had suspected Reuben White might be buried there. Sure enough, he was. I had no trouble finding the gravestone.

The late afternoon sun brought out the colors and edges of the place. But once in a while there was a slight whiff of methane from that landfill to make it less picturesque.

The last time I had ridden this way I hadn’t known about Reuben White, so hadn’t paid careful attention to the farm places. But the old farm place is still there, just across from the township hall. It’s no longer a working farm, and in fact is somewhat rundown. It doesn’t look too bad in this photo, though. It’s the house off in the distance, to the left of the township hall.

White hadn’t lived there at the time of the Black Hawk war. He started his farm a few years afterwards. But it’s a point of connection, which is all I ask for.

The township hall is about a mile from a place on an I-60 exit called Turkeyville. Usually the parking lots there are full of people who’ve come for the food, but on Thanksgiving day Turkeyville was vacant and quiet.

On the way home I called to make sure I wasn’t going to miss out on Thanksgiving dinner. Myra said it might not be ready even at 6 p.m. So I didn’t take the very shortest way home, and got to ride on a few roads close to home that I had somehow never before encountered. Even at that, I was home before 5:30.

46 miles for the day, leaving me only 131 short of the goal of 3900 for the year.