I was on my way from Peru to Chili to look at the place where Flower’s village had once been. This back road is called Warsaw Trail. I take it that it was once the main road between Peru and Warsaw. This segment of what remains of that road is fairly modern. It even has asphalt pavement.

The land where the barn stands had once been owned by a Daniel R. Bearss. He probably didn’t ever farm it himself, though. According to one of the county histories, he ran a hotel in Peru, and in early years had a partial interest in a trading post at Mexico.

Peru, Chili, Mexico: It seems there are a lot of Latin American placenames around here. And much earlier in the day I had been in Santa Fe.

YTD mileage: 1334

In Front Porch Primitives I told about Niconzah (Squirrel), a native leader who was one of the subjects of the day’s rides. There is a lake named for him just half a mile from the Frances Slocum cemetery. For some reason I didn’t even think to ride over to get a photo.

I don’t know why that lake got his name. One of the places where he had his village for a few years was on a reservation a couple miles north of Miami, Indiana. I made a couple of stops in Miami on my way from Kokomo to the former site of the reservation.

I couldn’t tell if the grocery store was open for business or not.

On the other side of town, towards the Grissom AFB which is a few miles away, was the former Miami School. Judging by the size, it would seem there had once been a lot of children in the area. The school is now a place for Fellowship of Praise.

The railroad that once served the town is now a bike trail. I rode it north for a mile, but then due to boredom, got back on the roads. The traffic wasn’t any heavier there, and the view was better.

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June 1. The building is in Miami County, near Peru, on the south side of the Wabash. The sign says “Poor Farm Country Candies” but it turns out that this was not the poor farm where James Malcom ended his days.

There was a poor farm a few miles to the west, where it operated from ca 1918-1978, i.e. long after Malcom had died. Some of the buildings are still standing, or at least were still standing at the time of the Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory in 1998. I had not thought to make that site a part of the day’s itinerary. There had been an earlier poor farm on the north side of the river, nearer to Malcom’s homestead in settlement days, and I had not thought to visit that site, either. But as far as I know this building was never the site of a poor farm.

I went up to the door, but a sign on the window said it was closed. So I never got to talk to anyone who could explain it.

If I could, I’d like to ask why the business isn’t called “Circus Country Candies” instead, because this was once the site of the winter quarters of Benjamin Wallace’s circus. Wallace had returned to Peru after the Civil War, and started in the circus business in 1882. In 1886 he started sending it out on tour by railroad. He bought this land as a place to keep the animals in the off season. It was in the middle of a Miami Indian community, and became a source of employment for many of those Miami, who got jobs as animal caretakers and as performers, among other things. (This is from Stewart Rafert’s book, “The Miami Indians of Indiana.”)

The brick barn had housed some of the animals.

The house had already been built by the time Wallace bought the property. In a few years his operation outgrew the place so he bought a larger farm from the Miami leader Gabriel Godfroy. It was located a few miles closer to Peru, and at that site there are prominent signs indicating it had once been a circus place. I’ll save those photos for another time.

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The day’s route is marked in red.

The

YTD mileage: 1272.5

James Malcom (or Malcolm,or Malcomb) was the first settler in Perry County, Miami County, Indiana. His farm was on this road a little north of the Eel River, on the place whose driveway is shown going off the road to the right. The 1887 county history almost apologizes for him, explaining how he ended his days:

He lived to see all these changes take place, but, contrary to his expectations, instead of accumulating a competency and living to enjoy the same, was compelled to pass his declining years in the county poor house where he died a common pauper.

Those settlers who ended up in a poor farm are not usually given much coverage in the county histories, but maybe there wasn’t much choice in saying something about it this case, given the man was the first settler and could hardly be ignored.

The above photo is one of the last I took on June 1 on the last day of our Kokoko-based outing. The first day of the next bicycling weekend was last Friday, and it so happened that my first stop was at the Jay County poor farm.

It was not an intentional destination, but it was a good place to stop. And it’s no longer called a poor farm. It’s now the “Jay County Retirement Center.”

There are still barns and farm buildings. Whether the residents get to make use of them, I don’t know, but there is reason to believe the residents appreciate the place. I found this item in the minutes of a recent meeting of the Jay County commissioners:

Were informed by Jay County retirement home director Rob Smith that a resident who recently received more than $20,000 in inheritance has spent the money in order to remain on the Assistance to Residents in County Homes (ARCH) program.

Smith mentioned the situation earlier in the month and said the resident will attempt to spend the money to remain on assistance in the county home.

The resident purchased a van for $16,000 which he will lease to the county for retirement center use after ownership for one year and will take the remainder of the money and donate it to the county home.

There’s not enough information in those sentences for an outsider like me to pass judgment on whether that’s a proper and welcome use of the county facility. But from the appearance, I could see that the place has its attractions.

BTW, now that I think about it, I believe that on that June 1 ride I passed by the location of the former Miami County poor farm where James Malcom ended his days, and even have photos of it. So maybe I’m not finished posting about poor farms.

YTD mileage: 1255.5

This antique shop is just across the road from Grissom AFB, north of Kokomo. I wanted to get a photo of the big planes that were parked next to US-31. We had seen them a couple of days earlier after Myra picked me up at the end of a ride in Peru. But I hadn’t remembered where those planes were in relation to anything else, and didn’t want to go to any more effort (i.e. extra miles) than I already had. So I contented myself with this photo and then rode on to Bunker Hill.

What I really wanted to do was visit the site of Squirrel’s Reserve. Squirrel (aka Niconzah) was a Miami leader who lived in this area in the 1820s and 1830s. The boundaries of this reserve (which is just one in a series of places where he lived) are shown on an old county atlas. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can even say that if you look at the tree line in this photo, that you’re seeing part of his former reserve. A corner of it was less than a mile from here, though. The west boundary of the reserve was roughly three tenths of a mile (m/l) from the east boundary of Grissom AFB. The east boundary is in Bunker Hill.

There are some mentions of Squirrel in the John Tipton papers — in all three volumes. It sounds as though his village on this reserve contained a few brick homes. There is correspondence about having them appraised when Squirrel was made to move in 1838, which sounds as though there may have been as many as five brick homes worth $600 each. I have no idea if any of those are still standing. The only brick home of a Miami leader that I know of for sure is one that I stopped at much later on the day’s ride.

But before taking off I noticed the Front Porch Primitives sign on this antique shop. I figured it would come in handy at Front Porch Republic, which is a blog about “Place. Limits. Liberty.” I especially like that blog when there are articles and comments about those three topics, and not as much otherwise. Maybe that makes me a Front Porch Primitive, just like the sign says. (It also says, “Antiques and more…”, which also seems like a good fit for me these days.)

I’ve decided that the photo goes with a recent article titled, “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” which had a few of us snarking at some uncatholic church signs we’ve seen on the road, including this one which I saw on a ride in Tennessee a few years ago.

There seems to be a heavy sprinkling of Catholics on Front Porch Republic, amongst the usual crowd of scoffers and who knows what. I’m not Catholic myself, even though I gladly recite the creed that says, “I believe…in the holy catholic church…” Catholic and uncatholic church signs and symbols do catch my attention on the road.

But what about that word, “Primitive”? Who wants to be called that? In my reading about Baptist missionaries among the Native people (and about anti-missionary baptists) I came to learn that there are such things as Primitive Baptists. I used to roll my eyes upon reading about the quarrels among these and other Baptists. But a book I’m currently reading in my ongoing search for bicycle destinations is starting to make them more interesting to me. The book is, “At Home in the Hoosier Hills : Agriculture, Politics, and Religion in Southern Indiana, 1810-1870″ by Richard F. Nation (2005). I’m not sure what Nation’s background is, but he gives all the southern hill country Baptists a more sympathetic treatment than you get in most academic histories. And he says that the Primitive Baptists and Catholics in southern Indiana had a lot in common. I’m not going to explain until I understand it better myself. Get the book and read at least as far as pages 74-75.

It would be interesting to put some of the Front Porch Catholics and Primitive Baptists together in the same room and see if you’d end up with any Front Porch Primitives (in yet another sense of the term).

No riding today.

I had forgotten just how much I enjoy the Eel River country, even though I had designated the Eel River country as a favorite after a ride there back in 2007. The last part of today’s ride took me to a part of it that was further downstream than the places I had visited that time. But it was just as enjoyable.

Today’s mileage: 71.5 YTD: 1014.5

And the people were friendly.   Lots of oncoming drivers gave friendly waves.  It was almost like being in Amish country.

Or maybe it was the fact that I used deodorant today.   I had forgotten my toiletry kit at home, so went without Monday.  And I do ride with the wind as much as possible.