Trail Of Death Journey

2006-07-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

READ THIS BLOG FROM BOTTOM UP TO FOLLOW THE HIKE--click on April below in the archives section for the beginning of the walk.

The BOOK is now available here real cheap.... includes the other half--petit's story and 40% additional devotional and reflecting insights.

This material here is the "raw" unedited blog I did while walking before the additional research and writing of the "rest of the story"

If you buy the book and don't like it--send it to me and I'll buy it form you--it is a good read!

2006-07-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Reflections on this trek

I’m two weeks past the end of this trek so I’ve started thinking of its nature and effect on me, though from past experience, it takes a year to really know how an experience impacts me. But here’s my first start of the little things that influenced me:

1. My dominant feeling is simply tiredness. I am weary from this journey. Sure, not as weary as the Potawatomi, but I’m worn out. Other trips I’ve taken have rejuvenated me—this one drained me.

2. I sensed God more on this trip than on other treks. Most folk imagine that hiking in beautiful mountains brings one closer to God than walking on roads through towns. Not true. I saw God’s characteristics better in the generosity, grace, and kindness of people on this walk far more than I ever see it in nature. After all, God never claimed to create mountains after His likeness…but He did say He created men and women in his image. I saw this image of God often.

3. Road-walking is torment to the feet. I would rather walk 25 miles on a mountain trail then ten on a hard road surface. Yikes it hurt!

4. I never got into shape. On other hikes I’ve gotten into pretty good shape in about three weeks. I never got into shape on this trip—too many little restaurants along the way to eat in. I lost ten pounds in the first two weeks, but gained most of it back the final three weeks of the trip.

5. Two months is a long time to reflect on injustice. It got depressing at times. Walking in the Potawatomi footsteps, reading the journal daily really immersed me in that story and I “felt” the injustice better than I ever could have reading about it. But it is a long time to ponder injustice.

6. Father Petit has become a hero of mine. I have not yet even integrated his journal into my writing—I read privately for writing in the future. But boy, when I put that into the manuscript (the spiritual part) it will be monumental. Petit is the first Roman Catholic hero to make my personal heroes list. What a guy!

7. The world is far less dangerous than TV tells us. People often asked me about “crazy people” or warned me about “walking through Kansas City.” They believed their TV reports that the world is full of weirdoes out to kill ordinary folk. I found the roads full of ordinary people who went out of their way to help and be kind. I had only two experiences with harsh people and none at all with downright bad people—in two months of walking public roads and getting water every few hours from strangers. Sure there are evil people and life can be dangerous—but far less so than the TV leads us to believe.

8. The Indian removals were evil, but they are more complicated than meets the eye. My Native American friends won’t like this, but while the removals (indeed almost ALL the government’s dealings with the Indians) were wrong and sin but they are not as simple as most folk believe. In fact I believe the government (and business, and races, and even churches) are doing similar evil today that is considered a “fair shake” to the people. I think we’d do the removal all over again even today given a similar situation—we might even consider it patriotic and compassionate. Indeed I think we are doing it—we just don’t recognize it as sinful...as most didn’t back then.

9. Small towns are dying. I got to walk through scores of little towns that once boasted bustling downtowns. They are all dying similarly. The citizens all think their town is unique but they are all going down the same chute and I mourn for them and miss the locally-owned shops that used to be true Americana. The fault, of course, can be charged to the very citizens who mourn the loss—who drive 25 miles to the nearest big-box store to buy things in the evening for 25% less. Me too.

10. Women especially care about this story. I can’t explain it, but women were far more likely to connect with this story than men. Why is that? I don’t know yet. Do they better relate to injustice due to their own experience? Are they more compassionate than men? Are they more inclined to the story format? I don’t know. I just know that in readership and in on-the-road connecting they outnumber men gigantically in really caring about this story. Men tend to say, “Get over it” in response to the story. Women tend to mourn. (Of course this is good news if I get a book published—most books in America are bought by women.)

11. I am far more sensitive to injustice I’m “not a part of.” The vast majority of Americans had nothing whatsoever to do with the injustice that preyed on the Indians. They were bystanders, observers. They read about it in the newspapers like we read about illegal immigrants from Mexico. They watched as the President and politicians “corrected” things. They benefited. The national legislation was considered a “sensible compromise” to “the problem of the Indians.” It was even touted as a benefit to the Indians. I am now far more sensitive to how history will eventually view my own “standing by” while government does evil to people. More so, I now recognize how a popular “sensible compromise” today might be considered outright evil in the future.

MY NEXT STEPS toward a book manuscript.
1. Download the core diary from the blog and re-order it in proper sequence and post it at www.trailofdeath.com
2. Integrate all of Father Petit’s journal into the proper days of the story—the spiritual story.
3. Write the short essays in related topics then and today. (I have not decided if I should have one per day or only periodically—I have more than 80 outlines dictated—still thinking on this.)
4. Have a market analysis done on the promise of the book—if 3000 people won’t buy it the manuscript will never get published.
5. Print a short run of the manuscript and get corrections and input from historians.
6. Do rewrite—I usually do about ten or fifteen drafts of a manuscript in order to make it “shine.”
7. Submit it to a publisher.
8. Wait for acceptance or rejection (if rejection, then submit it elsewhere, again and again)
9. If accepted, wait about a year while the publisher does his thing editing and do whatever rewrite they command.
10. (Finally) see the finished book after about another year. This painful and elongated process of re-write and editing is why most people don’t ever finish books ;-) I’ve done a dozen that made it into print and they are still selling years later…but one never knows...we shall see if this one is worthy too.
--Keith Drury 7/9/06

2006-06-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

THE REST OF THE STORY...
What happened after the Trail of Death ended?

Dr. George Jeroloman.
The oft-absent doctor for the emigrating party was only 27 years old when he accompanied the party. He had graduated from Union College in Schenectady, NY and rowed himself from Ft. Wayne to Logansport but his rowboat capsized and he lost all his medicines causing him to rely on natural medicines for sicknesses and of course there was always “bleeding” a patient, so popular at the time. He was sick for much of the journey staying in nearby towns. The Indians tried to get him expelled from the party but Polke suggested they were free to not use his services but he would be retained for the officers. On returning from the trek he increasingly practiced farming more than medicine and after a successful and lucrative career in farming he built a large house at the corner of Walnut and 10th street in Logansport which is the present day home of the Cass County Historical society. He lived until March 4, 1883 dying at the age of 72 and was generously praised by his home town newspaper. He was not remembered much for his role on the Trail of Death.

General Tipton
Indian-hater Tipton left the party just after Danville, Illinois and returned to Logansport with 85 or so of the Indiana Militia since his authority expired at the Indiana State line. He continued to send and receive letters from those on the journey as if he were still in charge in some way, though he was not officially so. Maybe his position as the former Indian agent and (perhaps more so) as a US Senator gave him this sort of clout with Polke and even Father Petit who also wrote to him regarding promised money for the new mission and education for the Indians. But he did not influence things long. On returning the Logansport his young wife died within five months. Then on March 3 his term in the U.S. Senate ended and just a month afterward, on April 5, 1839 Tipton himself died in his home at Logansport, just seven months after he commanded the round-up of the Potawatomi at Twin Lakes. Some say the Indians pronounced a curse on him, but weather or not, the man of oft cursed today by both white and red men and women for his role in this ugly affair.

Judge William Polke
Judge Polke did not leave Kansas for home until December 3 so perhaps he kept his promise to stay around to ensure that the new Indian agent understood the oral promised given to the Potawatomi. However he had relatives in the area so he likely visited them too while in Kansas. With rushed travel it would have been possible for this 63 year old man to have made it home for Christmas, but he would have to average 30 miles per day with no days off, which was possible for a man on a horse but unlikely for a 63 year old man on a horse. Whatever, a few years after returning he was appointed Registrar of the land office in Ft. Wayne and moved there to die in 1843, five years after leading the Potawatomi to Kansas. He was 68.

Chief Menominee
Menominee “the Potawatomi preacher” had refused to sign the treaties selling his land and was thus confined with several other refusing chiefs to a jail wagon until Father Petit arrives in Danville, Illinois and got him released (just as General Tipton left, probably no coincidence). Having not signed away his land the government leaders simply refused to consider him a “Chief” but only as one of the “head men” even though he was a signatory on four major treaties before the dastardly 1836 treaty he had refused to sign. He probably was about 48 years old when he was forcibly removed to Kansas without receiving any payments for his land. Did he survive the journey? He did. He was among the Potawatomi who relocated from the Governments drop-off point to Sugar Creek and he lived another three years. He dies at the St. Mary’s Mission on Sugar Creek April 15, 1841. He was about 50 year old.

Father Petit
Petit, the priest to the Potawatomi had been commanded by his Bishop to stay long enough to hand over his congregation to a Jesuit priest assigned to them in Kansas. He did this but waited for his next orders from his Bishop back in Vincennes, Indiana. Soon he took sick with the fever again (as he had been all along on the journey). This time he was cared for in the home of Joseph Bourassa for the next 19 days, probably not right in the camp but somewhere nearby. When he did recover nineteen days later instead of traveling home he returned again to the camp still awaiting a letter from his bishop—always in submission to church authority. Just a few days before Christmas, 1838 he received his letter commanding his return and he bought several items to prepare for the long journey—still weakened by the fever and thumb-sized sores all over his body. Accompanied by his faithful Potawatomi assistant Abram Burnett (of whom I shall write far more in the final book).

Petit arrived in St. Louis January 15, intending to take a steamboat home once the Wabash river thawed. He arrived exhausted and once came down with the “fever.” Until now he had only described the agony of the Potawatomi in the trek but now on January 18th he wrote to his Bishop describing his own anguish. “”After a horseback ride of 160 miles I found it impossible to continue: my weakness growing worse every day… The good Lord permitted me to make this journey with an open sore on the seat, another on the thigh, and a third on the leg—the remainder of the numerous sores which covered my whole body during my illness at the Osage River.” He closed his hopeful letter to his superior with “I close, thinking that I shall be restored in a fortnight, and that, when the Wabash opens, I shall have the long-denied happiness of receiving your benediction.” This letter was dated January 18, 1839. Petit did not make the trip in a fortnight. He weakened and on February 10 he died in the hand of the Jesuits who were caring for him. He was 28 years old.

*Father Petit was buried then in St. Louis but in 1856 his body was brought back to St. Mary’s Lake, now the site of the University of Notre Dame where it lies today.

The Potawatomi

As mentioned elsewhere in this story the Potawatomi did not stay at the drop-off site near Osawatomie Kansas but relocated 20 miles south to the new St. Mary’s Mission where they came under the spiritual direction of Father Hoecken and Mother rose Philippine Duchesne a Catholic sister who was at the time in her 70’s but could not master the language so she gave herself to tangible acts and prayer. But the Sugar Creek location was not to last. As always “the US Government got a new idea.” IN 1848 the government decided all the Potawatomi West of the Mississippi should be gathered in one place so the generation that a decade before had endured the removal from Indiana now were removed another 150 miles to St. Mary’s on the Kansas river where a Catholic school for them was opened. They remained here another 20 years until the Civil war when threatened by the duel threat of the Confederate forces and the plains Indians many were scattered to the winds. Today many Potawatomi can be found in Kansas and Okalahoma though they are found in Indiana, Canada and throughout the USA. Many are spiritually devout and many have clung diligently to the Roman Catholic spirituality.

COMING NEXT.... the influence the journey ahd on me spiritually and theologically... coming as soon as this emereges for me... I can see some of it already... it will take a few weeks for all of it to jell.

2006-06-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

AFTERGLOW... ending my trek: (the third leg)

The final leg of my conclusion to this trek involved people. Having walked for two months with the ghosts of the Potawatomi Indians I wanted to complete the trip with real people—living descendants of those original Indians who walked the Trail of Death in 1838.

The first I met in Kansas City. Daniel Bourassa was probably in his 40’s when he walked the Trail of Death with nine members of his family including a son in his 20’s. Though his family experienced the hardships of the trek all of them survived according to family oral history. My first contact with a descendant was with Peggy Kinder great-great-great granddaughter of Daniel Bourassa along with her mother and her two sons—three generations of survivor-descendants. She had found my blog on the walk and had written several times to me at mail drops inviting me to visit her family. Peggy and her family are Baptists which is the protestant strain in the Potawatomi story (Menominee the "Potawatomi Preacher" was examined and approved by Baptist Missionary McKee in Ft. Wayne and the mission to the Potawatomi in Niles Michigan was also Baptist.) Though the Baptists sent no missionary on the Trail of Death as the Catholics did, they are still in the heritage picture.

I got to see a copy of a hand-written Potawatomi dictionary from the Smithsonian written by Joseph Napoleon Bourassa, the son of Daniel and Peggy’s great grandfather. Even more impressive was the hand-written book he wrote packed with medical treatments and healing recipes of that day, a matching book to the one in the Smithsonian. Peggy’s mother Elizabeth told me family stories of the journey passed down in the family. Peggy and her family now attend a Baptist church. They had just returned from an Indian gathering that week. We ended the day with a taco dinner with Peggy’s husband and whole family before I headed west to find the second family of descendants.

This happy laughing family dinner brought a sense of completion to the journey for me. I was not alive in 1838 and my own family was still in England at the time. Yet I felt a sense of ownership in what our government did to these Indians and needed a reconciliation of sorts. Peggy’s and her mother were so open, generous and loving that I left near dark with a sense of reunion with the past. There is little I could think of to make up for the wrong of President Andrew Jackson, General Tipton and others, but somehow fellowshipping eating together gave some sense of healing to me. At dark I headed west where I would meet the other family the next day.

For my final connection I had to drive 150 miles west into Kansas—to find the descendants of Equakesec (Teresa Slaven) who was about a year old when she traveled the Trail of Death with her older sister of about nine years of age. The family does not know for sure if they traveled with their parents or if their parents had dies in a plague and these two little girls were cared for by others. We do know that these two little girls survived the 660 mile trek west where so many children died. Indeed the nickname for little surviving Teresa was “Living” since so many other children from that journey park the path from Indiana to Kansas.

Why I had to drive so far into Kansas to find her descendants is yet another story of abuse and injustice to the Indians—one I am not primarily concerned with in this tale. The Potawatomi did not stay at St. Mary’s Mission south of Osawatomie long—just a decade when the government got new ideas and moved them again—this time to a new St. Mary’s Mission in what is not St. Marys, Kansas where still another Catholic mission and school was established by the devoted priests and nuns. Here in St. Mary’s I found the descendants of little survivor Teresa.

I found not just one descendant but a whole family! I had received several letters at my mail drops from Virginia Pearl a nun in mid-Kansas who had invited me out. When I contacted her she immediately arranged a family reunion of sorts for me to meet her family. I spent the afternoon and evening with this laughing-living family and it was a powerful tonic. Here I ate a huge feast with more than a dozen devout Catholic Potawatomi who told all kinds of family stories as we sat around Marge’s large round table. Marge is the oldest of these 4th generation descendants of little Teresa. I sat near her three brothers, Jim, Bob and Jerry each of whom told me stories punctuated with lots of laughter. And of course there was Virginia Pearl, the nun of the sisters of St. Joseph who is the sort of nun that would inspire any little girl to consider the “religious vocation” a wonderful option for her life.

Virginia (just call me “Ginger”) Pearl never intended to be a nun and even tried to avoid it in college by plentiful dating. But she expected at least one in the family would enter a religious vocation. (She expected it to be Bob, but he joined the Army, though later on became a Eucharistic Minister). Then she hoped the order would reject her but she says, “once I crossed the threshold of the convent I never again had any doubts.” “Ginger” is a chaplain at a state hospital and lives on (and works on) an ecumenical organic farm with several from other orders and two Mennonite families. I don’t know how old she actually is—she might be 70 or she could be 75, but she acts about 30.

I spent the entire afternoon and evening with the laughing loving Pearl family. We ate together, looked at photos together, told stories together, and prayed together. They are a forgiving family and while condemning the injustice of the removals and treatment of their tribe they (like Peggy and others) seemed to have no bitterness. Ginger explained how her mother had told of the horrors of the past yet always with the admonition not to become bitter.

At first I felt like a stowaway at a family reunion but before many minutes passed I was included as if I was one of these big strapping brothers and energetic women of retirement age yet still active. We sat around the table until it was almost dark and I needed to head back to Kansas City to the airport so after a thousand pictures or so I was escorted out the door and bid farewell with plentiful hugs.

I drove to the airport in the gathering darkness full of grace… grace that was mediated by Peggy Kinder’s family and the Pearl family of Potawatomi Indians. Nothing any of us can do will take away the wrongness of the Indian removals and the repeated breaking of treaties by our government. But these two families brought healing and reconciliation to me personally. After walking in the steps of their forebears for two months I got to actually meet and love –and be loved by-- the descendants of some of the survivors.

What happened in 1838 was wrong—a national sin. And like all sin it can only be treated on a spiritual level—with confession, repentance, penance, restitution and full reconciliation.

2006-06-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

AFTERGLOW... ending my trek (Seconde leg)

The second place I had to visit to end this trip properly was 20 miles south of Osawatomie. In an hour and two quick hitches I got back to the mall where I had parked my car. I drove back south to Osawatomie again then 20 miles beyond where I knew the “spiritual destination” of this journey turned out to be.

The Potawatomi did not stay at Osawatomie long. The promised houses did not exist—not the final time the promises of the government would be forgotten. The bitter cold prairie wind came soon after their arrival in November. By Christmas they were shivering and cold and felt abandoned by the government and perhaps even their God. As the bitter cold swept in they heard of the St. Mary’s mission just 20 miles south of them. Here was a band of about 150 Potawatomi that had moved there t3wo years earlier. On this smaller band's arrival they had sent for a priest to teach them religion. Father Christian Hoecken responded who had been working with the Kickapoo tribe with slim results. He founded the St. Mary’s Mission at Sugar Creek. By March most of the Pottawatomie had relocated to Sugar Creek joining the Indians who had been living there already.

Here they found a refuge--a fresh flowing spring, a small creek and plentiful rock formations in the creek’s ravine where poles, blankets and bark could be arranged to provide protection from the bitter prairie winds and snow. Besides Father Hocken and some other lay missionaries the Indians were most influenced by a devoted nun, Rose-Philippine Duchesne. The Indians called her “Woman-Who-Prays-Always.” Mother Duchesne was a Mother Teresa to the Indians.

Philippine Duschene was called to missions as a young person. She had grown up in a wealthy French lawyer’s family then heard a Jesuit missionary speak about evangelism. She immediately felt called to missions--to evangelize in America. She joined a religious order but her missionary call was delayed by the French revolution which outlawed organized religion of her type. Even when she could publically practice her calling she was delayed again. Finally at age 49, (1818) she was sent as a missionary to the recently acquired Louisiana Territory. She arrived in New Orleans and worked her way up the river.

When the opportunity came to join the new mission to the Potawatimi at Sugar Creek she had her lifelong calling fulfilled—working with the American Indians. Here at the St. Mary's Mission she ministered to the Potawatomi through prayer, teaching and service. Soon a small town grew up that including a chapel, blacksmith shop, a school and houses. The Potawatomi practiced their devoted Catholic spirituality though not without opposition. (Within a year two rascals from Logansport--the Ewing Brothers--went all the way to Kansas and set up a trading post so the Potawatomi did not get beyond the evil influences of white civilization for long--and liquor became available at a price so much so that the fathers at the mission had to operate a kind of bottle-smashing crusade reminicent of what would become the temperance crusades of later years). Since whole books have been written on the Sugar Creek Mission I will not tell the whole story here, having previously restricted myself to the 62 day journey alone in my writing. The story is powerful, the devotion of the missionaries inspiring, and the devoted response of the Potwatomi is moving. I had to go to this place to end this walk.

AS FOR ME I drove my rental car to the out-of-the-way site of Philippine Duschene Memorial Park, the spiritual terminus of the Trail of Death . Charismatic and Catholic Christians along with Native Americans agree on the notion of sacred place—there are places that offer “holy ground” where one is drawn closer to God and His work. I had heard of such power in this place from historian Shirley Willard and several Native Americans who had been writing me at my mail drops along the way. Sure enough, it was a powerful and intense experience for me and properly wrapped up the trek.

Here I walked among the rock formations where the Potawatomi huddled that first winter. I saw the location of the chapel and foundation of the cabin of Mother Duschene. I lay on my back stariung at the seven raised crosses on the hill with the inscribed names of all the Indians who died and were buried here.

But I knew where I would be moved most of all so I saved it for last. Near the spring is a stone monument where the entire diary of the 1838 journey is inscribed. I sat and read the daily summary of the journal that I had been living with two months straight. I recalled day by day the events of the Indians I had pondered so much. Logansport where more than 300 were sick. Danville-Jacksonville-Qunicy and a dozen other memories I had of the Indian’s journey. Where General Tipton turned back, where father Petit arrives, where they hunted for game and “filled the camp with venison.” Where it rained, where it snowed, where they were issued shoes, where they smoked a keg of tobacco, where they argued over the power of the various chiefs.

I sat for several hours as the sun sagged in the sky reading and re-reading this journal and pondering all the memories I had created of the 1838 journey which flooded back. And I recalled the pertner memories of my own journey: rainy days, mental and physical exaustion, blisters and the people--the Mountain family’s care for me, of Don, Liz Gander, the dinner and night at Josephine Gander's house, Steve & Janet Tieken, Phil Woodbury, Brooks Sayer, Jason Dennison, Mark & Jess Schmerse, Kerry Kind, and a score or more of others who faithfully sent letters and even snacks to my mail drops along the way—I recalled them all tied to this day by day journal on the stone monument. The memoried of the past two months flooded back--the Potawatomi memoried mixing with my own memories--1838 with 2006.

The sun sank slowly and quiet darkness crept in as I pondered both journeys: the Potawatomi's and mine. I realize I can never completely feel what they felt. I’m a modern white man. It can’t happen. Y et living with this story for two months as I took the actual steps every day experiencing my own blistering heat and chilling rain has helped me catch a bit of what they experienced better than sitting in an air conditioned office reading about it. And I know what happend was wrong, sin, evil. And sin should not be dismissed easily, even if it is the sins of our forefather's government.
As the final glow of the light leaked from the sky I reluctantly left the park. I headed and headed out to complete the third leg of my completion journey--meeting the survivors of the trek in person.

2006-06-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

Day 62 Potawatomi Creek Mile 660
Nov 4, 1868

After two hours delay allowing for the Catholic Indians to have worship they ended their 62 day journey with the 8-9 mile walk from Bull Town to Osawatomie Kansas to “Pottawatomie creek” where they were to be deposited and “welcomed by many of their friends.” The journey was over. The Indians had been “relocated.” “Removed.” The journal-writer tried to put the best light on the Indians response saying, “The emigrants seemingly delighted with the appearance of things—the country—its advantages—the wide spreading prairie and the thrifty grove, the rocky eminence and the medowed valley—but particularly with the warm and hearty greeting of those who have tested (and but to become attached to,) the country assigned to them by the Government.”

The journal overestimated their positive response. A speech would be made by chief Pe-pish-kay (which is recorded in the official journal putting a different light on their response including the following: “We have been taken from our homes affording us plenty, and brought to a desert—a wilderness—and we are now to be scattered as the husbandman scatters his seed.” Pe-pisj-kay’s speech probably better represents the Indian reaction than the “spin” reported in the official journal.

The mileages are confusing. Again today the journal-writer uses the cryptic words “The distance of to-day’s travel is computed at twenty miles.” There is hardly any campsite on Bull Creek that would produce a 20 mile journey to Potawatomie Creek at Osawatomie Kansas. Probably this day produced eight or at the most nine miles. It’s odd. The mileages have been meticulously recorded for six weeks then in the final days they got sloppy either recording no miles at all or listing longer-then-possible miles according to their time traveled or the geography. In the cumulative miles above I have used the nine mile figure which is about as far as can be stretched.

The journal curtly reports, “Mr. Davis the (Indian) agent, we found absent.” We can imagine how Polke and the soldiers felt about this. They had traveled two months to deposit more than 800 Indians into the hands of the Indian agency here and the agent was not even present. Pe-pish-kay noted the same in his speech the next day. The Indians wanted to assess what sort of man they would now be at the mercy of. Polke they knew and trusted, but they knew nothing of this absent Mr. Davis. Indeed they plead with Polke to stay with them until Davis showed up. Polke could not, having to go back to Independence to report on the successful mission, but promised to leave his son with them until he returned. We do k=not know how this turned out. Did Polke actually leave his son? Did he return? There is no record and my answer to the question (or yours) is based on an assessment of Polke’s character. I tend to believe that he kept his word. However there is not enough evidence to say either way.

The journal continues for several days beyond this Sunday. On Monday it records Pe-pish-key’s speech and the Indians request that Polke stay with them, and his promise to leave his son behind. It also records the death of an old man. One of the most surprising reports in Monday’s journal is the arrival of a wagon belonging to Andrew Fuller, a Potawatomi from Michigan who had traveled all the way on his own bearing all his own expenses for the trip. Here is an example of tribal loyalty—if a tribe was being forced to move west, he and his family would go too—even at his own expense. The Indian’s anxiousness to arrive was replaced on Tuesday by the anxiousness of the soldiers to depart and get home. It was the first week of November and if their journey home took two months that would miss Christmas. However they were a small party and probably could actually make it by late November.

THAT’S THAT! The Indians were simply “dropped off” at Potawatomie Creek near present day Osawatomie Kansas with a new and still-absent Indian agent. Certainly Polke and his soldier’s thoughts turned to home the moment they headed East again. However they must have felt like a father who had just dropped off the sick family pet in the country. The Indians were in the way of progress. “Something had to be done.” Removing them all to the “Indian territories” was the nationally agreed-upon popular political solution for the “Indian problem.” There! That’s that” The “Indian problem” was solved. Indiana only had to clean out the remaining pockets of Indians and it could becomes, “the land of the free and home of the brave.” The Miami Indians and others would soon follow. Indiana would soon be “clean” of Indians and the white Europeans could have “their” land free and clear. Out of sight out of mind. No longer would they have to see the poverty of the once-proud race of Indians. No longer would they be bothered by drunken Indians in their towns. They were largely expunged from the state—though it would retrain the name of the state as Indiana –“Land of the Indians.

AS FOR ME I had decided several weeks ago on my three-point plan for ending this trek. Several folk had offered to come and meet me or arrange a “ceremony” at the ending. I asked them all to let me finish this trek privately. Living with this story for two months made my finish an intensely private and personal thing.

I rose at 4 AM soaked from the night fog resulting from yesterday's rain, but knowing I would not be using my sleeping bag tonight. I walked into nearby Paola then on the Osawatomie and found Potawatomie Creek where I sat on the bank trying to feel like the Indians must have felt. Relief that the hard journey was over. Grief for the many dead children buried along the way. A sense of injustice at the whole affair. Maybe a feeling of resignation—a sense that power and the lust for land had won over justice and goodness and their life from here on would be as wards of the state—children hidden in the back closets of the country. Who knows?

I buried in the creek bank the precious arrowhead given to me by Josephine Gander. The ceremony was not fancy--just a simple affair that I had determined was perfectly suited to reflect how this whole unseemly affair had ended itself--they simply dropped off the Indians then heading home to Indiana. Covering over the arrowhead and tamping it with my foot into the soft creekbank, I turned back to town and hitched the 30 miles north back to my rental car because I had two more things to do before this trip could end in my mind. To do this I needed a car. (see next entry)

2006-06-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

Day 61 Bull Creek (Paola) –Mile 651
Nov. 3, 1838

Traveling six hours the party came to Bull Creek where a settlement of Wea Indians was located (near present day Paola, Kansas). The journal reports the Indians anxious to be finished with the journey and to meet with the Pottawatomi Indians already resettled there by previous removals. The mileage was not reported today but might best be calculated at 15 miles based on the locations of the two campsites and their travel of aqbout seven hours.

The journey would end tomorrow so the officers attempted to take a census of the Indians to satisfy the military’s record-keeping penchant. Tomorrow they would be reunited with other Indians and sorting out the exact number in the migration would be more difficult. They made little progress. The journal puts it this way: “During the evening an attempt was made to enroll the Indians, but not very successfully. They did not seem (or would not) to understand or appreciate the object.”

Tomorrow was Sunday and they had been promised no traveling on Sundays. The chiefs may have sensed Polke would try to travel on Sunday, or perhaps they caught wind of a discussion. Whichever, late on this Saturday evening several of the chiefs came to Polke requesting that the Sunday day-off promise be kept. Not only did they want to worship, they may have wanted to get cleaned up and prepared to meet their friends already at Potawatomi creek just eight or so miles ahead. Polke denied their request agreeing only to allow for a two-hour delay for their worship services.

AS FOR ME I returned from my week off with my wife anxious to finish the trail. Taking an redeye overnight flight and renting a car I drive to the trail where I left off and walked briskly south until past dark, down Rt. 169 an Interstate highway wannabe almost to Paola. Tuning to the car radio I heard of only a “slight” chance of rain so I left my tent in the car, chancing the final might on the trail would be clear.

The “slight chance” gave me about an inch of rain in a one-hour downpour. Luckily I was near an exit and slipped under the protection of a drive-through portico of a day care center for rich kids at the far edge of suburban Kansas City. Sleepy from the airplane night I fell asleep on the concrete entryway awaking an hour later to clear skies and bright sunshine. Refreshed, I walked another eight miles making the total for the day almost 20 miles. I was as anxious as the Indians to be finished. I slept on still-wet grass near a tree nursery under open skies without my tent, crossing my fingers that there would ne no more rain.

2006-06-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Day 60 N. Fk. Blue River--Mile 636
November 2, 1838

Even though the day was rainy-miserable they set out anyway today. Polke was anxious to get there. So were the Indians in general, so they moved in spite of the rainy conditions. Once they started moving the rain did not stop--it increased. In an hour they crossed out of the "states" and into Kansas--so called, "Indian Territory. "

As soon as the party crossed into Kansas "civilization" disappeared. Roads were gone. And it was raining. The rain would have it hard to follow the "trace" of the wagons ahead. They were traveling on the open roadless prairie now. At noon a large portion of the party on horseback lost the "trace" of the wagons in front of them and wandered about for four hours on the prairies trying to find the trace of the wagon's wheels. There were more than 300 horses so this must have been a soggy mess. Finally they found the trace again and caught up to the wagons. They camped at the North Fork of the Blue River--their third campsite on one or another forks of this river. The journal-writer then records "having traveled a distance (it was computed) of twenty-five miles." This is one of the rare instances where the Jesse Douglas, the scribe, uses the term "it was computed" to refer to miles. Perhaps this figure includes some of the wandering to find the trace and Douglas was not with that group? We do not know, but it is an unusual phrase this day and probably means something. This 25-mile figure probably ioncluded the getting lost wandering and may have been the miles of the last group into camp--the lost group. They left this morning at 8 AM and record coming into camp at 3PM--a total of seven hours travel. Their usual 2 1/2 MPH rate would get them 17-18 miles assuming the rain did not slow them down. If they equaled the best-time-even of 3MPH the seven hours could have gotten them 21 miles, thus 25 mile figure likely includes the wandering miles. The cumualative miles figure above uses the actual miles from the last camp which is 12.

AS FOR ME I walked down the state line road until my time ran out then turned west and walked into Overland Park, Kansas and slept beside a creek behind a Cineplex 16 movie theater. Zoning is so strict here that they must have set-asides for natural areas because I chased away several deer while setting up my tarp-tent. Having walked the miles of another "double day" I dropped off asleep by eight rising at five and went along searching for coffee--and I was quickly rewarded.

Walking into Olatha Kansas I found MidAmerica Nazarene University where the Librarian was delighted to let me post these reports and is even trying to arrange my travel to the airport. Checked out the story that ran last night on KMBC here:

I'M TAKING A WEEK OFF NOW. I had originally hoped I could finish this journey today before flying to Washington state to meet my wife, Sharon who is there waiting for me to have a vacation with her. But alas, I plodded too slowly across central Missouri so I still have 2-3 days remaining. Thus I shall take a short beak and be back again walking on Sat. June 24 and posting my final two days (and the "rest of the story section" after that. I've been thinking for the last two weeks about how I want to end this journey. I have an idea and I'm going to think about it more over the next week before doing the final leg. Stay tuned, I'm going to meet Sharon now...

2006-06-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Day 59 Blue River --Mile 624
November 1, 1838

Many of these Indians were devout Christians. Not all of them of course, but many were devout Cetholics. Indeed, they were probably more devout than their escorts. We already know that they had a full multi-hour mas on Sundays and had requested no travel on Suindays for religious reasons. However the journal generally ignores these religious matters. However, in today's journal we catch a glimpse. It says the party "left camp a little after 9--one hour or so having been allowed for their religious exercises." What is this? It was a Thursady, what special services were these. Father Petit's letters indicate a virtual flood of services, sometimes all night as they sang hymns and prayed. He also tells of how he officiated at the funerals. And, every day they had morning prayers and evening prayers. this was a worshipping community of faith being removed to Kansas. they were Christians--orbably more devout Christians than their escorts. But we still are not told why they delayed their departure an hour today for services--were these some special services? Was the November 1 date some sort of early beginning of Advent? Was this a special saint's day? Or was this just a lengthening of their normal morning prayers? We do not yet know--but we do know that many of these Indians were devout Christians.

They traveled sixteen miles almost to the state line today. Food and forage for the animals was in abundance and they were happily anticipating crossing the state line into Kansas and what the maps would label, "Indian Territory." If they only knew.

AS FOR ME I rose long before sunrise intent on crossing into Kansas. Heading for Grandview I was delayed only by a Kansas City TV interview with Martin Augustine--a reporter who was not just making a story to "fill up the news hour" but was genuinely interested in this story. He even walked a good distance with me! His film crew kept leapfrogging and filmed me repeatedly as I walked toward the "State Line road" where one side of the street is Missouri and the other Kansas.

2006-06-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

Day 58 Independence, MO --Mile 608
Oct. 31, 1838

Passing through Independence the column camped just two miles below the city. They made ten miles for the six hour's walking, slower than usual. (They almost always average 2 1/2 miles an hour, and occasionally 3 MPH). Perhaps walking through independence slowed them down. A hint of this comes at the end of the short entry for the day: "Many Indians came into camp during the afternoon mich intoxicated."

Once again they handed out shoes: "in the evening a small quantity of shoes were distributed among the emigrants." Perhaps they had purchased these in independence? I think that in 1838 there was not yet mass production of shoes where a "shoe store" would carry a large stock of shoes--am I right on this? If so, presumably these shoes were purchased from the town's cobbler? Or from people? Were they buying shoes off people's feet? Were they in the wagons from the beginning? Who knows. Once again, we do not know if the Indian's moccasins had worn out and they had become bare-footed, or they had been walking bare-foot all along--just that they distributed a small quantity of shoes.

AS FOR ME I camped about where the Indians had camped--two miles south of the old center-city Independence. My campsite was a motel--since I am now in completely built-up cityscape. On arriving at the motel Kerry called a local Wesleyan Church pastor who cheerfully offered to take him back to Lexington where he had parked his van. We hugged each other goodbye and I went to my room and to bed before sunset. Together we had walked more than 40 miles and I had gotten a good rest for my feet with Kerry's tent-toting. I'm closing in on the Kansas line now!

2006-06-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

Day 57 Blue River -- Mile 598
Oct. 30, 1838

The Indians were marched five hours today the 14 from Prarie Creek to the Blue River (probably present-day "Little Blue" river, East of Independance, Mo. The atmosphere was jovial as the Indians visited and caught up with the 23 friends who had arrives last night. The party of 23 Indians had among them three wagons transporting all their earthly possessions (and any sick people) and only five horses. Today this group was officially attached to the main column under judge Polke.

AS FOR ME I am cruising with Kerry. One cgain we put in a "double day" covering two of the migration party's days in one day. We walked toward Independance setting a walk-five-miles then take a break.

2006-06-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

Day 56 Prairie Creek --Mile 584
October 29, 1838

Today was a quick four hour/ten mile day for the Indians as they moved west along the Missouri River to camp at Prairie Creek (now Fire prairie Creek, East of near Buckner, MO). Presumably the day had started with a funeral. If the child that died through the night was under the care of Father Petit there would have been a Catholic funeral and he would have consecrated the ground where the child was burred.

The journal reports the food as "flour, corn-meal, beef and pork and game of every kind." They were eating better now. The Indians had gotten tired of flour and beef but now they had the added corn-meal along with pork and all kind of game. This may be a point to remind us all that the Indians probably hunted and gathered food every afternoon and evening. Seasoned backpackers might wonder why they walked only 4-5 hours on many days but the Indians may have spent much of the afternoon hunting, gathering firewood along with setting up their shelter so stopping by mid afternoon in late October was sensible.

At five o'clock Captain Hull came into camp with 23 Indians who had been left behind five weeks ago--the first week in Logansport (more than 300 Indians were ill there). This small party of Indians and their escorts had remined behind until they got well then traveled more than 500 miles trying to catch up with the main column. This may also remind us that the official death count (42) does not include the deaths of those who had escaped the party (more than 100) nor does it include any deaths of those who separated from the party and traveled on their own. The journal reported the condition of these 23 as "tolerably good health and spirits" but says nothing about any dying. My own hunch is there may have been a dozen or more other deaths among the escapees and those left behind or traveling separately, but I can't prove that.

AS FOR ME, my new companion, Kerry Kind helped the miles fly. Not only because of stimulating conversation by the because he insisted on carrying my tent making my own load lighter. He said he had two days to ruin his feet then he'd go home and I had to keep walking so he'd help that way. Since I still have a healing silver-dollar blister on one heal I accepted. What a great friend! We walked on along the river through the triple towns of Wellington, Waterloo, and Napoleon (I'm serious). We took a wonderful rest at the US Army Corps of engineers headquarters for Kansas City where I was interviewed for yet another newspaper story. We clipped along past prairie Creek and headed toward Buckner, hoping for a place to eat.

Today was only the second time I was kicked off the grass while taking a rest break. We spied a delightful shade tree near what appeared to be a pay-to-fish pond and both of us sprawed out under its shade only to be sighted by a woman 100 yeard away who said nothing but repeatedly gestured "move along" with her hands. We complied without arguing, putting on our wet socks as she stood with her hand on her hip gesturing each time we looked her way.

By dusk we arrived in Buckner Mo. just ten minutes before their Misty's restaurant closed. Kerry reminded me that if the owman had not shooed us away from her grass we would have arrived after the diner had closed. HA! Thanks Ms. shoo-away ladty! We both feasted on a meal I thought I'd never forget (though I already have by the time I am writing this down). When we had finished eating our meal (accompanied by the heavy scent of Pine-sol as they mopped the floor) it was almost totally dark. We slipped actross the street to the edge of town and pitched my tarop-tent behind an apartment building in a little playground. This sort of "stealth camping" seldom bothers people--coming after dark--leaving before sunrise. Kerry did not even bring a sleeping bag--he slept all night just wearing a thin jacket.

2006-06-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

Day 54-55 Little Schuy Creek -- Mile 574
Oct. 27, 1838

As soon as the Indians ferried across the Missouri River they were hurried through Lexington and on their way causing the column to spread out along the shore of the Missouri as they headed to Little Schuy Creek for the night. The front part of the party reached reached camp by 4PM but the rest of the column must have straggled in hours later making the total miles for the day eight.

They camped two nights here since they had agreed to not walk on Sundays so the Indians could worship. However worship was not the only order of the day on this Sunday. In the morning chief Ash-Kum headed a delegation of Indian leaders to the headquarters protesting the "unrestricted power by I-o-weh whom they did not choose to acknowledge as a chief of the blood." This if not the first time a rivaling had emerged among the chiefs, not uncommon in the white man's dealings with the Indians, usually to the great disadvantage to the Indians.

The second issue they raised was their promised annunities. As part of the purchase and treaty settlement with the Indians the government promised various short or long term annual payments. Polke "hoped they would cease to speak of a subject which could not be of benefit to them" and apparently avoided addressing the matter. Did Polke know that the too-often practice of the government was to walk away from such deals eventually--sometimes right away? Is this why he avoided speaking on the subject? He was not an Indian agent and there is some evidence he thought this whole affair was questionable. If so was he wagging his head inside at what he was participating in? Did he know that the government almost always walked away from their promises? The trouble of course was that the Indians took the verbal promises to be binding while the government considered only written promises with any sort of seriousness--and even the written promises were often discarded "because the situation has now changed." I wonder what Polke knew this morning when the Indians, now approaching their new homes asked about their payments. As always Polke approached his diplomacy with tobacco--he offered some "in hopes that they would continue in peace and harmony." He did tell them he know of their anunities but did not act as an agent in the matter, presumably leaving that up the their new Indian agent in Kansas.

The journal reported the sad news of the day: "A child died in the night some time--the first for the last four weeks." Many of the children were already dead of course. Now after this child making 574 miles west he or she finally gave up and passed away. how sad.

AS FOR ME I got a great boost this morning. Kerry Kind, an old friend from Indianapolis showed up at my little brick motel this morning saying he was "going to walk with you a couple days." Kerry had gotten into his car at dark the night before and drove all night to catch me before leaving Lexington's only motel. We drove back down town where we asked the city police where we might park his van a few days and got invited into the early morning coffee-break briefing of the city's police force. Parking the van right outside the police department we headed west down the delightful and historic route 224 waling almost all the morning in 100% shade as we walked the border of the Missouri River chatting and theologizing together. The miles flow past as we talked and soon we were passing the party's Little Schuy camp ground before we even had a sit-down break.

2006-06-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Day 53 Lexington – Mile 566
October 26, 1838

In a short two hours the party made it to the ferry crossing of the Missouri River at Lexington. By ten AM they were crossing the wagons, as usual leaving the Indians on the opposite shore form a town. All that hampered them was “we found the ferry fully engaged in transporting females who were flying from their homes. Reports are rife throughout the country of bloodshed, house-burning, etc. The people seem completely crazed. Apparently the woman and children were fleeing the region allowing the men to stay behind and fight off the threat from the Mormons. But they did get all the wagons but a few across by dark leaving the next day to complete the ferriage of the Missouri River.

AS FOR ME I got in high gear today. It was cool with a strong breeze blowing so I walked into Hardin then Richmond and then all the way to Lexington anticipating the “weekend” of a full day off I’ve not had for a while.

As I crossed the Missouri I rebembered the 1999 trip I took by canoe down the entire Missouri river, including a stop at Lexington. This is the first time in all my trekking that I have ever crossed a precious trail--Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Colorodo Trail, Missouri River; White River-to Mississippi river... this is the first "intersection" of two treks... what I remember most from that trek was the abject loneliness I felt alone on that river for so long. That's oe of the things I like better about this walk--I meet people every day--friendly and interesting people.

I had to walk three miles past Lexington to find a motel and when I found them I registered two nights. When I went to the large Lexington Inn I found it abandoned and grass growing everywhere. Rats! I asked a lady back on the highway if there was any other motel in Lexongton to which she replied, "There's a little brick one across the river run by forigners--if they're there." Sure enough I found a brick 1950’s motel operated by folk from India. (They have operated it for 27 years--I wonder when they will be considered "Americans" by their neighbors?) . No pool, no phone, all-smoking rooms I was heppy that it was suitably clean and I determined to have a full day without walking--Monday.

Of course the library and post office was 3 miles away a six-mile round trip. However the owner of the motel offered his van and the motel handiman drove me into the library reducing my 6-mile trip to a mere 3 mile return trip--merely enough to keep my muscles warm. And I already walked the 3 miles south getting ot the motel last night!

Too bad the new bridge across the Missouri has bypassed the traffic around Lexington. It will hurt this downtown I'm afraid. Stoplights and narrow roads make for off-the-cuff stops which is what keeps towns like this afloat. I hope people come on purpose. Just watch how friendly the people are--even if you are a walker. And that's saying something since people naturally are suspicious of walkers.

I plan to return to the trail Tuesday morning after updating this blog today (Monday) getting my mail drop here and answering letters, taking several afternoon naps, and generally taking a day of rest. I hear that Kerry Kind may join me for a few days on Tuesday, hope you make it Kerry! I'm going back to the motel to take a nap!

Added late afternoon:
Well, no nap yet. At the post office I recieved more than 30 pieces of mail! Woah! Some of them had bounced four times as they skipped across post offies like a flat stone skips across a lake--now they caught me (I'm here in Lexington several days after my announced date too! THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! As I promised I have answered every one. I LOVE THIS TOWN! The librarian greeted me happily. the Mexican restaraunt was delicious. The postal clerk was gracious. The town has more than 25 BENCHES all around the sidewalks expecting people to rest and relax. As I answered my letters on one of these benches eight--count 'em EIGHT--people slowed down and greeted me with a friendly hello... and only one person, the ninth walked past without a friendly greeting. Lexington is a town that has not yet been Wal-Martized. You can still buy things in the down town--things like shoes or furniture or office supplies. It is only a town of 5000--yet has a sixplex theater. What a delightful clean and friendly town! I think I'll go out and enjoy it more!

2006-06-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Day 52 Snowdens – Mile 561
October 25, 1838

Today’s march was probably the longest mileage to date—perhaps 25 miles but we don’t know for sure since it was the first day in the journal that the mileage was not listed –just “an unusually long journey” and the campsite was “near Richmond.” . The marker is located in Lexington but the markers are placed at sites where permission can be gained and almost always refer to the camp as “near here.” It was probably south of Richmond.

From tomorrow’s journal we know they made it to the Missouri river in two hours (again for the second day in a row the journal does not list the miles. The party so far has been traveling at 2 ½ mph (or occasionally as fast as 3mph) which means they must have camped on a circle within six miles of the Missouri River crossing at Lexington—perhaps somewhere around present day Henretta where a permanent water source (Willow Creek) passes through. We know they camped near “Snowden’s farm” so research yet to be done may show exactly where this land is and how close to Richmond it was actually located.

Perhaps it was the furor over the Mormons that made them forget listing the mileage. Soon after camping a delegate from nearby Richmond came to Polke to request he join them with his soldiers to protect Richmond who was expecting an attack from the Mormons that night. Polke declined explaining he had a federal assignment he could not abandon—removing the Indians to Kansas.

AS FOR ME I walked from Carrolton in two days reversing my sometime double-days of the Indians by halving their long day. The journey took me across billiard-table flat bottomlands of the Missouri. I camped at an abandoned farmhouse. IN fact for more than 20 miles there was only one actual farm where I could ask for water—the rest have been abandoned, perhaps bought up by huge agribusiness enterprises who make their millions on federal subsidies purportedly protecting the family farm. For me it made for plentiful campsites under the remaining trees, but space sources of water. I walked by thousands of acres of Fritos, Karo Syrup, and Corn Flakes. Overnight a great storm moved in dumping four inches of rain on my tiny tarp-tent but I stayed dry though dampish.

2006-06-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

Day 51 Carrollton Mo –Mile 536

Oct 24, 1838

The most shocking entry of all appears in today’s journal. To me, at least. They were walking a dozen miles into Carrollton and it was bitter cold on the prairie. Here is the casual entry in today’s journal: “This morning before leaving camp a quantity of shoes were distributed among the indigent and bare-footed Indians, the weather being too severe for marching without a covering to the feet.”

Can you believe this? Some of these Indians had come 536 miles in bare feet! This was not merely an upgrade from moccasins to hard shoes—the journal specifically cites the Indians "bare feet." Incredible! Some of the Indians had walked more than 500 miles in bare feet—probably the children for sure. No wonder so many kids gave up an died at the end of the day. Sure, the Indian feet were hardened, but still 500 bare-footed miles. Astonishing.

Where’d they get the shoes? Did they have them all the time and were hoping to not have to issue them thus saving on the government's budget? Or, did they buy them up along the way then save them up until it got cold? What about last week’s snow? Since they had failed to issue shoes then we must presume these bare-footed Indians walked all day in the snow with bare feet. Incredible!

Some have mistakenly theorized that all the Indians rode horses or rode in the wagons for the journey after General Tipton left (he claimed to have recommended this to Polke to shorten the trip). Today’s entry shows that at least some Indians were still walking 500+ miles into the journey—and they were doing so bare-footed!

Today’s journal also mentions the Mormons for the first time. Missouri in 1838 was the location of the infamous Mormon Wars between the Mormons and the settlers. The Mormons had established their settlement in Missouri (as they had before in Illinois before being kicked out) but the settlers wanted them out and hostilities arose including armed troops, cabin-burning and outright warfare on both sides. The journal reports it this way: “The country through which we passed to-day is very much excited. Nothing is heard—nothing is talked of but the Mormons and the difficulties between them and the citizens of Upper Missouri. Carrollton is nightly guarded by its citizens.”

The Indians were removed because they were in the way of “ordinary people” (white European settlers) who wanted their land. The Mormons were also white and European but they were in the way too. In their case it was religious differences, not racial veriety that brought their removal. Mormons had not been welcome in Illinois. They were not welcome in Missouri either. Having been expelled from both states they would go west until they found land nobody else wanted. Just like the Indians.

AS FOR ME I spent most of the day thinking about the Mormons and the Indians and their similarities and differences and the fate for both groups whose paths almost crossed in 1838 in Missouri. But mostly I thought about shoes. I am on my fourth pair of shoes and I cannot even imagine walking one day of this journey in bare feet—let alone 51 days in a row before getting shoes. Incredible!

I walked into Carrollton by noon and found a fairly new motel about a mile north of town to spend the afternoon and night in. While shopping in the Country Mart grocery store the manager asked, “You walkin’ across America or something?” I told him what I was doing and he asked, "you like fish?” I assured him I liked anything edible and he disappeared to return with a huge Styrofoam container of cooked fish with no charge" written on the top--which I partnered up with a loaf of bread and several cans of corn for lunch and dinner. I simply sat out the rest of the day and evening in my motel room watching TV and eating fish sandwiches with my corn-from-the can. By bedtime I felt like I had actually had a day off, though in fact I had already walked a full Indian day from dawn to noon. I enjoyed my life of leisure so much I tried to add a second night (Saturday) to my "weekend off" but the hotel is filled up Saturday night with “old people coming back for a class reunion.” Thus I must move on .

I did get a call last night from Martin Augustine of KMBC Kansas City and he plans to connect with me for a story when I get closer this coming week.

Posted Saturday morning from the beautiful new Carrollton library which open seven days a week.

2006-06-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Day 50 Thomas’ Campsite --Mile 536
Oct. 23, 1838

The party got the remaining wagons over the Grand River by noon and headed off ten miles away from the Missouri bottomlands recording in the journal “the bottom lands of the Missouri being too flat and wet to encamp upon an hour longer than was essentially necessary. They marched three hours and camped at what they called |Thomas’ Encampment.” The only other entry of interest for this day was about food: “Subsistence beef, flour and corn.” So far on the trip they had repeatedly listed beef and flour daily but here the journal adds corn which had to date only been listed as forage for the horses. Was this a slip of the pen or did they add corn or corn meal to the Indian rations? The last week of October is too late for fresh corn. The horses were fed “corn and corn fodder” so certainly corn was plentiful in the area where their advance purchasers would round up supplied ahead of the main column.

AS FOR ME I walked this day at the end of the previous day when I felt so bothersome to the Brunswick people. I walked pondering how a town can collectively develop an attitude that a visitor can sense in six or seven contacts with people. I walked and thought about this for hours until darkness. And I outlined an interesting third section (which goes into the final book) on how local churches can become this way—busily engaged and not mean—just so busily engaged in what they do that an “outsider” feels in the way there. But that will have to wait for the final book manuscript.

2006-06-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

Day 49 Grand River (Brunswick MO) –Mile 514

Oct. 22, 1838

After passing through Keatsville the party walked 15 miles to the Grand River just before it flowed into the Missouri River where a ferry ran. They were at the river by 2PM and began immediately ferrying the Indians across and had all Indians and many wagons across by dark. They were now in the broad flood plain of the Missouri-Grand Rivers. They camped immediately across the river intending to bring across the rest of the wagons in the morning.

AS FOR ME, I walked early in anticipation of visiting the James Pecan Farm about a dozen miles west of Keatsville but alas when I arrived they were closed. This part of Missouri is considered to be “Old Dixie.” Southerners settled here after the war of 1812 and made tobacco the number one crop along with great pecan orchards in this area. In October when the pecans are ripe it is a booming area with several on-the-road shops open. Today they were all closed as I headed into Brunswick where the Indians crossed the Grand River.

Brunswick was not closed, just busy. Everyone was busy about their work and I seemed to be an intrusion. I had entertained the thought of a hotel night, having heard there was one in Brunswick in the original house of the city’s founder (same person as Keytesville). When I approached the small hotel the presumed owner was on the front porch wildly tearing away at a 2-liter bottle with a Bowie knife turning it into shreds. :”A recycler” I thought to myself approving this behavior, thinking even more positively about stopping over. I stood and watched him work as he furiously tearing into tiny shreds the bottle. Then with a quick glance my way he stood up, turned around and flung his 12” Bowie knife with all his might at the side wall of the porch where it stuck deeply into the wood. I noted that it had struck right in the center of a human outline marked no the wall. I moved on.

Brunswick people were a busy people. Too busy for me at least. I’ve noted there are two ways of saying, “May I help you?” One is a sincere offer of help. The other says the same words with the subtext saying “Yes---what do you want—I’m busy here so hurry up and tell me so I can return to my work.” It is this second way I heard the question in Brunswick. Nobody was mean or harsh—just busy and I was an interruption. At first I attributed it to an isolated instance when encountering this sort of response at the Casey’s general store and the dime store and gas station But I met the same sort of response at the grocery store, and even in the library were two women were shelving books and made it clear I was unwelcome today: “We’re really not open this week.” I sighed and left and they returned busily to their work I walked to the edge of town where a newly renovated B&B was located but I walked right on past—no reason to stay longer in this busy town. Perhaps it was just me. Or maybe they only treat walker this way and usually they go out of their way to make customers feel welcomed. Or, maybe this only happens on Thursdays, but for me I just moved on.

I pitched my tent under a large water tower in the country beside the road. In most Midwestern towns a water tower indicates a town. In this part of Missouri it could be in the middle of the country since they are committed to provide rural water service to almost every farm. Tomorrow I shall get to Carrolton and there is a motel there-I'll sleep inside tomorrow night maybe.

2006-06-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

Day 47-48 Keatsville -- Mile 498
Oct. 20-21, 1838

After the recent snow then rain, the roads were muddy today for the Indians and their escorts. The air was very cold as they covered the eleven miles from the Middle branch of the Chariton River to the Grand Chariton river in four hours (the location of their campsite is about two miles east of present day Keytesville, MO). The journal reports the health of the Indians as "almost completely restored" suggesting that there were less than a dozen sick Indians in the camp (though there were one or two of the officers who had been "disposed" the last several days).

The subsitence was (as always) "beef and flour" which had been the daily fare for the Indians for the last 46 days. Jesse Douglas adds "of which the Indians are becoming tired." Apparently it was difficult to get "bacon or pork" though there is some evidence that the white escorts may have gotten some (they had refused eariler to accept standard "Indian rations" as was the custom insisting on upgraded rations). The group almost always camped by a water source. This one was plenty large. I checked the depth and it was chest deep today--imagining the difficulty of fording it in the "Missouri muck" that forms the bottom of the riverbed. Even more difficult would be getting the wagons across without them sinking into the soft sandy soil. 1838 was a drought year but during the previous few days the party had experienced lots of rain and snow so the flow of water may have been similar to this week's levels. Whatever, there were no ferrys on these "smaller" rivers and they ahd to ford them.

The party took all day Sunday off at the Grabnd Chariton too so the vevot Catholic Indians could worship as was their custom. We do not know if other Indians joined in on the edges or of any of the white escort attanded the mass faithfully led by father Petit, the french missionary who served these Indians.

The big treat on Sunday for everybody was "During the day a considerable quantity of apples and cider was purchased and given to the Indians." After seven weeks of mostly beef and flour (along with occasinal deer meat ) the fresh fruit and cider must have been a wonderful and healthy treat. Since they were traveling in September and October there woudl haev been some remaining berries along the route but a "considerable quantity" of apples would have been a real boost to morale.

AS FOR ME I walked early before the heat of the day arrived from Salisbury to Keytesville. I saw the corn in one field that was now chest high. I've been able to watch the corn grow as I walked--from Indiana's tiny sprouts on May 1 to this flourishing crop delighting in the very heat I am suffering in.

Today I met my first walker--he was headed east. It's interesting--in 498 miles of walking he was the first walker other than people walking along city dtreets. I crossed the road for a visit. I met Lee ("everybody calls me Gator") Jackson who was out on his daily walk of 15 miles or so collecting aluminum cans ("they're up to 70 cents a pounds now, you know.") He wanders the roads daily collecting cans to sell for recycling. "Here, want a cigarette?" he offered . "It's amazing what people throw out their windows," he remarked, citing a memorized inventory of things he'd found along the way from hats, to screw drivers, to jackets. "Last week I found a $20 bill rolled up like a cigarette beside the road!" he said reported smiling through his intermittant teeth. "I usually come back down the other side on the way home collecting thecans over there" he said jerking his head toward the side of the road I'd been walking on. "But, here, you want a sack to collect them youself--they're worth plenty?" I declined both the cigarette and the sack down and shook hands with Gator then headed west again impressed with his generosity. He was willing to share what he had, even share his clim on the westbound cans. The rest of the way into Keytesville I loked for cans and when I found them I kicked them up onto the shoulder of the road for him (I also gleefully wrapped a few dollar bills like cigarettes and dropped them here and there with a chuckle. But I was not generous enough to drop a $20 bill--now that I'm thinking back on it though, I wish I had). I favor a five or ten cent deposit on all cans and bottles. Not because it will reduce litter--it probably won't. But to enable people like "Gator" to get more than $4.00 for walking 15 miels picking them up along the road. People who get up off the couch and collect cans should be amply rewarded for it.

I am now sitting out the hottest part of the day in the Keytesville library (population 400). At the door I was greeted by librarian Ann Smith with, 'You must be from Indiana" (Shirley Willard, my Indiana guardian angel had called her this morning). I shall move west again after the heat dies down in late afternoon.

2006-06-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

Day 46 Middle Chariton River – Mile 481
October 19, 1838

After two days cooped up in tents sleeping on soggy ground the Indians got up early today and were ready to move one quickly. By dawn the rain had stopped and the sky cleared though it was a cold day. The eleven mile walk to the Middle Chariton River was without incident. The journal again reports the Indians “to be anxious to reach their destination.” The journal says little more. They walked four hours to the river and camps. Lots of normal people's days are like this. You get up, do your thing then go to bed. On a long trek like this one many days will filled with this "normal" kind of day. The only item that jumps out is the report that the Indians seemed "anxious" to get to their destination

AS FOR ME I am "anxious" too. After five weeks of steady walking I am like the Indians—I just want it to be over. As a gentle rain fell last night I found an obscure corner of a recently cut hayfield and fell hard asleep awakened only by periodic freight trains rumbling past my campsite every hour or so. I really intended to go further than I did but my feet refused. It went something like this:

FEET: “I’m stopping here, I’ve walked enough today.
HEAD: “No you’re not—I’m in charge here—keep walking.”
FEET: “You can be in charge all you want—but I’m not walking any more today.”
HEAD: “I command you to keep going.”
FEET: “Command all you want—I’m turning in to that hayfield to camp.”
HEAD: “I am the head—I make these decisions.”
FEET: “Sorry head—I have to carry you all day, and I’m done carrying dead weight.”
HEAD: (To hands) Don’t you collaborate with him—don’t touch those shoelaces.”
HAND: I’m voting with head—you are overruled.”

The feet won. They are right about one thing. They do most of the work.. It is one of the errors outdoor stores perpetuate—that a comfortable backpack enables a person to carry more weight. This is only true in the store. Out on a walk the feet have to carry every ounce on the back no matter how comfortable the shoulder and waist straps are. Half the bones in my body are in my feet—and most of them hurt.

My hurts however do not compare to those of the Potawatomi Indians who took this trip in 1838. The worst I experience is really only an irritant, not a real hardship. But these irritants add up for a modern person used to an easy life. The blisters are my chief irritant—they keep forming on top of old blisters-now-calluses. But there are other irritants. There is almost no place to sit down that is not infested with chiggers and ticks. Picking them off before they swell up like grapes is a constant irritant, and scratching the chiggers on my legs is only kept at bay because I am too tired to bed over. The gnats are a regular irritant, especially when they insist on flying into the channels of my ear and then bounce off the walls with their frenzied bussing to death. Worse than these are the gnats who nose dive (literally) up my nostrils on a Kamikaze flight toward my nasal passages. They always die trying but they still try. What is it up there they want? Mosquitoes are a bother in the evening. \My heals ache like a toothache day and night—probably from the incessant pounding on hard surfaces. At night I frequently awake with a Charlie horse revolt of my muscles. And I tire of being constantly soggy wet—drenched in my own sweat all day, sleeping on a soggy sleeping bag, and rising the next day to walk again with yesterday’s leftover dampness still in everything. But I suppose the most nagging irritant is the constant tiredness that comes from a long trek like this. I just want to collapse in a heap on the grass somewhere and go to sleep for a week. A long trek has a way of wearing a person’s energy down gradually until a walking pace by the end of the day is more like a stagger.

But all these are mere irritants compared to the Potawatomi's pain. I have little country stores every day or two where I get refreshed on nice food. I can walk up to any farmhouse and get fresh water that is safe to drink. I can even stay at a motel every week if I want to. And I do not have little children and grandparents along to worry about. Anyone who has ever taking a child to the mall to walk around knows that a child’s ability to walk ten miles is rare. Certainly Indian children were no different. Lots of energy t the start but in a moment this energy runs out and they want to be carried. Did their mother or dad carry them? Did the Indians have the “right” to put their tired children in the sick wagons? Who knows? I just know that even with the relatively short miles the party is doing in this section of Missouri I am weary like they must have been. No wonder they were “anxious” to get to their new homes in Kansas.

I walked this morning into Salisbury, Missouri by noon, in time for the library to open giving me access to my online blog. I find myself increasingly following the Potawatomi pattern of leaving early in the morning to get as many miles out of the way before the sun rises high in the sky. And the heat is only one reason for this, the second being for westward walkers the afternoon sun beats directly into the face of the traveler. So I walk before sunrise until noon then find a shady place (such as this library) to hide out in until late afternoon when I return to the road for that most pleasant walking time of all--the two hours before sunset and the first half hour after. Thus I now have the next few hours here to read the local history section of this library in a town of 1700.

While typing my day's journal the librarian slipped up and said, "Several members of the D.A.R and Museum board have gathered down at the Museum and want you to come down and talk to them" then with a wink she added, "Small town, you know, everybody knows when someone new's in town." I agreed and spend the rest of the afternoon with these delightful woman all a decade or two (three?) older than me. They were full of energy and excitement for the Trail of Daeth, their geneology library and four full rooms of displays. After a long chat I got a personally escorted tour of their museum with the story behind each item. I even got to see a quilt that was made before the 1838 emigraition party, along with a variety of Indian artifacts that wer made several thousand years before it.

By late afternoon as the day cooled I headed out of town with rumbling thunder in the sky and severe thunderstorm warning on my tiny radio. Then I spied a tony roadside motel of the 1950's variety. "Why not" I said to myself and entered the motel office-hose of the owner. Looking around I asked, 'Could I see a room first?" She agreed and I instected room 17 which (compared to the groud) was OK and I checked in for the night. It was a spartan motel (a single thin bar of soap doesn't go very far for a walker who wants to bathe and wash all his clothing out.) But I rested fine and revelled in the 60 channels of Tv--apparently more important than soap in a roadside motel. Opening the covers I had the strange sensation I might be sleeping on the same sheets as my predessor, but I didn't know that--it just felt that way. Which all made my night's sleep a little restless. I kept feeling like I was being chewed on by little invisible insects, but it was probably all in my mind. At dawn I rose, walked back to Casey's country store for a couple cups of coffee, then headed west toward the Grand Chariton river and beyond to Keatsville, the destination of the Indians and myself for the day.

2006-06-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

Day 44-45 Huntsville, MO – Mile 470
Oct 17, 1838

SNOW! The party left Burkhart’s camp with forbidding clouds in the skies and sure enough soon after departing, at 8AM snow started falling and continued all day. Jesse Douglas records it, “…the snow commenced falling very fast and continued during the greater part of the day. Traveling was difficult, the road being exceedingly slippery, and the snow falling so fast as to render very cold and unpleasant the whole journey.”

How much accumulation of snow he does not say—but a “very fast” snowfall all day long certainly would have produced a significant accumulation which would have made walking difficult and slippery. Imagine the cold feet and slush in the Indian’s moccasins. Yet Douglas reports “The Indians traveled without complaint” adding that they “seemed greatly to approve the exertion of government to place them at their new homes.” While we can easily accept this first statement the second may be a tad bit harder to swallow. Yet, considering the promises given perhaps it was true. They were to have houses in Kansas and the land was reported to be rife with game—a virtual paradise for these Indians. I suppose we must remember that the whole country was moving west at this time to the glories there—and perhaps the over-promising that was being done to whites in the east (and in Europe) was doubly done to the Indians. They still had hope—that the government’s promises are good and that this “emigration” farced-as-it-was, would be good for them ultimately. We have yet to see if this will turn out to be true.

They slipped and slid their way for more than seven hours to a camp near Huntsville, Missouri, a total of 13 miles for the day. After pitching camp in the snow during the night it turned to rain. Imagine pitching a floor-less tent for the night where the Indians would have to sleep on the snowy-soggy ground. Polke somehow bought from neighboring farmers straw for them to spread on the icy ground to make their night tolerable.

The next morning, (Day 45) dawned with continuing rain. Polke commanded a day off. As a result of months of drought the roads were already covered with a fine dust which the snow-then-rain turned to a mush that made traveling impossible. The Indians and their white escorts spent a cold rainy day huddled around fires and resting. The journal says “Nothing occurred during the day, save for the drunkenness of a few Indians who had procured liquor at Huntsville.” Once again, no matter how carefully the party watched the “free market” prevailed and buyer and seller made the deal. Nothing is said of arresting them as before. Perhaps in the snow and rain a drunken person merely fell on the straw and went to sleep.

AS FOR ME “nothing occurred during the day” for me too. Since I had overshot their day yesterday, today’s walk was fast--only actually being the last half of their day(see previous day's post). I took the short walk from Moberly to Huntsville in a slight breeze that was much relief from the day before where there was no breeze at all save a passing truck. By 1PM I was in the Huntsville library writing a post. The day is still 85 degrees warm, but the breeze makes it tolerable and I shall push on soon.

Posted from the Huntsville, Missouri library

2006-06-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

Day 43 Burkhart's Camp (Moberly MO) Mile 457
Oct. 16, 1838

ICE! When the party woke this morning in Paris their water was frozen. Paris became a turning pint of sorts for the migration party. Up to Paris the challenge was sun, heat and dust. Afterward it would beocold bitter wind on the open praries, rain and mud. The Indians lived more by nature's calendar than printed ones. The first morning's frozen water indicated a change of seasons--a harbinger of the coming winter season. It may have made them want to hasten their pace to get the the promised new houses in Kansas. Beaking the ice on the water they drank plenty before leaving, ate a bit, took down their tents and packed the wagons and horses--all of which took several hours each day, a wearisome task.

The party moved west in a cold wind for seven hours to Burkhart's camp--a few miles east of present day Moberly, MO. They would have followed the old "bee trace" a road at that time which connected the Mississippi and Missouri rivers across Missouri, generally following today's US 24. (Or perhaps maybe something closer to the old Wabash Rail Road--now Norfolk-Southern. Indeed, for the last three weeks I have been crisscrosing the NS railroad route. Of course that railroad did not exist in 1838 but it almost always follows the route and never "squares off" corners for farms so I've wondered if it picked up the old "bee trace" right-of-way in Missouri or it is present-day US 24--something I've got to research.) The road map from the period (showed to me by Nancy Stone, Monroe County historian) pretty well gave me an idea of the "roads" in 1838 so I now I have a pretty good grasp of the route where it follows or departs from 24. This section offered little water continued to the Indians and their escorts and thus required a longer than usual day. Jesse Douglass, the scribe for the official journal reports "Health still improving. Complaints of sickness are scarcely to be heard. It is a short entry.

Actually their probable "Burkhart's camp" was more likely near the present day town of "Old Milton" where they crossed the Elk fork of the Salt River. That woiuld make true the journal's locating the camp 18 miles west of Paris and 13 miles east of Huntsville. But, of course the markers usually say "camped near here" and the boy scouts and historical societies have a gargantuan task of getting permiussion to place these markers and are often limited to city parks, rest stops and public locations. There is actually a marker beside the men's rest room door in West Quincy--the only place that would give prmission in the area for the marker.

AS FOR ME Sharon left this morning after our day together. I headed west in a somber mood, knowing I would not see her again until the very end of the journey. This day was a turning point for me too. I noticed by the end of the day I qiuit counting UP and started counting DOWN. I have come 457 miles but have quit looking at that number so much as how many are LEFT (202 miles). At the same time I've noticed the people I meet have switched the opposite way. They are less interested that I am "walking all the way to Kansas" and more commonly exclaim, "You walked all the way here FROM Indiana?"

Today was a long day for me. The journal records their journey as 18 miles, and they took a direct westerly route as I did. I went to the marker on a puddle-creek and knew the miles were wrong--before realizing later that actually they probably camped at the Elk fork of the Salt River 3-4 miles before I stopped--thus I put miles in the bank for tommow. This night I was able to actually camp at the boulder-marker site-- unusual for me since the spots are often in a too-public place to sleep nearby. But I arrived well after sundown and one can about sleep anywhere after dark if you are on foot (assuming you also rise before sunrise, which I do).

I have greater relief from the sun this week, thanks to my umbrella. I had started off tis trip with a Go-Lite umbrella and dropped it in the middle of the journey. I added the umbrella back this weekend. It is such a relief. I look silly walking along the road with an umbrella--as if I am some sort of blueblood sissy walking with my parasol. However, in walking across the Mojave desert last summer I discovered the great secret of walking with "Portable shade." I can leave off my hat and let my bare head catch tiny breezes of refreshment on my sweat-dripping face. Even passing truck-wind was welcome today to bring a bit of coolness.

My progress this week will determine my ending date. Since I must fly to Washington state June 17-24 I have to either finish this trek by the 16th, or come back and complete the final leg the 25the and after. This week's progress will determine which will be my ending date. Of course it is not up to me but my feet. My feet are the executive branch of bodily government. I can walk 25-30 miles a day with my head, heart, back and other body parts. The feet are always the weakest link. My blisters are healing though 20 mile days on roadway surface does add new blisters on top of the old almost-healed ones giving me blister-layers. So I will let my feet be the governors of my progress and they shall decide my actual finish date--and they'll decide this week probably.

I updated this in Moberly where the Holiday Inn Express kindly let me use their business computer.

2006-06-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

Day 42 Paris MO –Mile 439
Oct. 15, 1838

It took the party only four hours to cover the twelve miles from Clinton to Paris. A strong wind had come up “which rendered our passage across the prairie very disagreeable. Many of the Indians suffered a good deal.” The writer of the journal didn’t know it, but this wind may have been their first hint at what was to come—a major shift in the weather and trials of travel. The heat and dust would exchange places with cold and mud before long.

In the evening at Paris the chiefs assembled to get an answer to their demands that Doctor Jerolaman be terminated and “a large number of the Indians came up to Head Quarters and repeated their request of last night.” This time the speaker strengthened their demands, saying he “did not demand it for himself or for his associates alone, but for every man, woman and child in the camp—they all united in soliciting [Polke] discharge Dr. Jerolaman.”

In response Judge Polke “divided the baby” by giving his decision. He told the Indians they were free to refuse to be treated by Jerolaman but that he would be retained to treat the officers of the government thus wriggling out of a sticky situation. Then Polke pled with the Indians to not let this dispute mar the otherwise unity of the trip thus far or cause any dissention or bad feelings between “the officers and their red brethren.” Then to conclude the negotiation successfully he announced he had bought a keg of tobacco which he “wished them to smoke in token of continued friendship.” The Indians then retired but requested the opportunity to raise the Jerolaman issue again as they wanted to. The journal does not record the issue coming again—the judgment of Polke (along with a keg of tobacco) apparently resolved the issue for the time being.

AS FOR ME I continued on from my sub sandwich lunch at Clinton in the pouring rain across swollen creeks and along tiny gravel roads. Having lost the sun I navigated by sense and headed south to Paris, secretly hoping I’d make it before dark and there would be a motel there so I would not have to pitch my soaking wet tent again tonight. I noted that the wind had shifted directions and I took one turn, then another carefully keeping track of which way was south. After three or four hours of walking in soaking rain I finally came to a paved road but was a bit uncertain as to which way to turn—the first time I was not clear of the direction in my head. I knocked on a nearby farmhouse and a grizzled old man came to the door to tell me I needed to turn back around and head down the long road I had just arrived on. Certain he was wrong I argued a bit and pointed to my map and his eyes glinted as he said, “Sonny I don’t care what your map says, this is road CC and Pair is that way.” Sure enough I had walked several hours and wound up North of where I had started on my Southward journey—the wind had not shifted—I had shifted in direction! Returning down long roads you’ve already walked is the hardest walking one does—“repentance” of sorts.

The rain did clear off by supper time and I was making progress toward Paris after all. Passing one house two women were inspecting the garden and I asked, “Is there a motel in Paris?” They shouted back—two miles below town” then asked where I was walking. After hearing it they invited me around to the patio for coffee and cookies, an invitation I gladly accepted pretending that this day was just starting and this was my morning coffee!

After Lois’ coffee I set out with renewed energy and determination to make it to Paris and that motel. On my cell phone I heard from Nancy Stone, President of the Monroe county historical society who promised me she’d take me out to the motel as soon as I got to the blinker light in Paris. Sure enough she picked me up at the blinker light and after a meal of several hamburgers dropped me off at the motel where I turned the heat up to 95 degrees turning the motel room into a virtual drier and spread my gear about until it dried off again.

On Friday morning I stayed in Paris—where I was scheduled to be today. After breakfast with Nancy Stone again (where the restaurant picked up my ticket refusing to let me pay). People are so kind.

Then there’s the Post Office story. I had Paris Missouri as a mail drop but Nancy Stone told me last night that there’d be trouble. “You listed the zip code for Paris Illinois not Missouri” she told me. Oh Oh. I went to the post office in the wrong state and offered my license. “Oh it’s you!” the postmistress said and told me the story of how I actually got mail in this “wrong” state. The postmaster in Paris Illinois had called her to ask if she knew how Keith Drury was—she said no. Oh oh. Then the Illinois postmaster got some mail forwarded from Exeter/Bluff where I had passed through a week before. The postmaster called them and they said, “Oh yes—that guy—he’s on the Trail of Death headed west” and he knew then that I probably did actually mean Paris Missouri not Illinois so he forwarded a whole bundle of mail to the next state and it was waiting for me here! Who says you don’t get careful treatment by a quazi-government organization like the post office!

While sitting on the park bench reading my mail waiting for the noon opening of the library she actually showed up and took me in early. The rest of the afternoon
was spent updating these posts through her gracious permission to use a computer all afternoon. I was interrupted only for an interview by the local newspaper, and then some TV filming from a distant station (KTVO located at http://ktvo.com/Global/story.asp?S=4982330 where they plan to run a piece on the Trail of Death this weekend) and finally by the arrival of my wife, Sharon from Indiana. I did not think she was coming this weekend until the last minute—and she announced she would! Tomorrow is our 39th anniversary and we plan to spend it in Paris (Missouri!). I shall return to the trail next week continuing my journey across Missouri. I am in far better spirits than I was when I entered the state. Lots of this is because there is an angel back in Rochester Indiana who seems to be making contact with people before I arrive! Thanks Shirley Willard—I know you are there!

2006-06-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

Day 41 Clinton, MO Mile 427
Oct. 14, 1838

The Indians had been promised in Quincy that they could take Sundays off for worship and Polke kept his promise and they stayed a second day in Clinton. Father Petit gathered his flock for an extended worship service—much more than the usual morning and evening prayers for the devoted.

On Sunday evening the political intrigue returned. General Morgan was gone so that was a lost cause now—he was gone. The next issue that arose related to Doctor Jerolaman. Chief Ash-Kum and I-o-weh were in agreement on this issue: get rid of Doctor Jerolaman. The journal says the two chiefs along with others came to “demand the dismissal or suspension of Dr. Jerolaman, the physician for the emigration whom they had ceased to like and did not wish him longer to accompany the emigration.”

What was behind this demand? Was it a common ground unity-demand that both Ash-Kum and I-o-weh could agree on. While they differed on Morgan they agreed wholeheartedly on Jerolaman—he must go. Why? What had the Doctor done that incurred their wrath? Was it his bedside manner where he despised the Indians and they caught his attitude? Was it his intermittent presence—especially in Indiana and Illinois when all their children were dying—i.e. “Where were you when our babies were dying—you were in your comfortable town and now you show up when most of them are gone?” Did they sense the fat paycheck he would collect at the end of this expedition—the equivalent of 908 acres of Indians land at the prices they were forced to sell—a tidy sum for two months work where all expenses are paid and you get a generous sick day policy that enables you to stay in comfortable towns when the Indians needed you most? What caused their insistence that the doctor be fired?

Whatever, they were not dealing with a military man but a judge. Judge Polke was not given to rash decisions and answered them informing them “that their request was one of so much importance and so unusual in emigration, that he hoped he might be allowed time not only to decide himself but to council with his officers.” This seemed to satisfy the Indians with the promise that a final answer would be given the next evening.

AS FOR ME my regimen for healing my silver-dollar-blisters was to walk less, rest more and air out my feet every hour. That strategy failed today. It rained all night—six inches nearby farmers said. And it was still raining in the morning when I took down my tent and packed up my now-damp sleeping bag. I thought of the Potawatomi folding their wool blankets chuckling that in the dampness wool is far better than modern down sleeping bags. I walked my five miles into Clinton/North Fork by noon in pouring rain and there I was met by Don and Liz Gander again—the son and daughter-in-law of Josephine Gander with whom I had stayed two night’s before. They had driver all the way from Monroe City to bring a Sub and soda for my lunch. Joining them in their pick-up truck I wolfed down the sandwich and chatted one final time before bidding this wonderful family goodbye. I carry in my pocket an arrowhead found by the late Josephene’s husband who was a farmer and “could see an arrowhead from 25 feet” while on a tractor. She had given it to me as I departed the day before. Now I bid farewell to her son and his wife, Liz. I even got a quick hug from Don, a retired Air Force office probably not given to hugs. I headed south toward Paris in the pouring rain secretly hoping I’d make it before dark and maybe even be able to get a motel room so I would not have to pitch my sopping wet tent this night. There was no hope of drying it—it was raining.

2006-06-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Day 40 Clinton (North Fork) -- Mile 427 Oct. 13-14 1838

The political intrigue thickened on this day as General Morgan prepared to leave. Chief Ash-kem and others came to the headquarters first thing in the morning before departing to Clinton, to speak with Polke, the federal conductor of the outfit. They stated they were not happy with Morgan’s leaving. There were promises Morgan had made they were not sure would be kept in his absence. They also requested that they travel less and remain in camp longer.

However the Indians were not unanimous in their support of Morgan. While Ash-kum and his group rejected Morgan’s leaving Chief I-o-weh disagreed ‘in strong terms” stating that these other men were not in fact chiefs and were not entitled respect as such, and Judge Polke should conduct them to their new homes in Kansas.

It was often true in the white’s negotiations with the Indians (and usually to the disadvantage of the Indians) competing tribes and competing chiefs undercut each other and allowed the whites to almost always have at least one “chief” on their side. Indeed the whole land “purchase” was accomplished without all the chiefs signing—and some chiefs (and especially the whites) claiming that certain men were not chiefs at all (e.g. as Tipton claimed against Menominee’s claim that he did not sign the treaties). Here the Indians were divided and they lost—as always.

We do not know what happened behind the scenes but after Polke had stated that General Morgan had offered voluntarily his resignation then Morgan himself thanked the Indians for their supportand promptly left before they left for Clinton. The party moved on to Clinton MO (present day North Fork) and the day was windy and dusty and “exceedingly afflicting.” They had arrived at Clinton by 3 PM and camped along See’s Creek facing the difficulty of wind and dust again.

As to their request to travel fewer miles it is not clear it was heard. So far they had walked 427 miles in 40 days--less than 10 miles per day average. IN the next dozen days they would walk another 119 miles with three days off an average of about ten miles a day--but 13 a day figuring walking days only. However it may have seemed to be listened to--since they were now taking every Sunday off.

AS FOR ME I left with several of Josephine’s sausage biscuits in my pack and decided to take a few shorter days as blister treatment—several the size of silver dollars on my heals. Walking on all gravel roads I stopped for water at a nearby farmhouse to be greeted by Shane McClintic “Sure—I saw you on TV” (Quincy WGEM news coverage). Not only did I get cold water, Shane made a giant sandwich of home made bread with slabs of ham and cheese on it. I sometimes feel guilty at all the great treatment I’ve gotten given the original travelers on this route. I camped for the night by mid afternoon as a great rainstorm rolled in planning to sleep late the next day--say, 7AM or so.

2006-06-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

Day 39 See’s Creek Mile 410
Oct. 12, 1838

The party now were traversing rolling hills and having camped outside of town they passed through the Palmyra at ten AM. It must have been quite a spectacle for these small towns to see more than 800 Indians and their guards pass through town single file—a column almost three miles in length. Of course one risk is that the Indians (or the soldiers) would buy liquor in these towns, get drunk and cause trouble with the townsfolk who may have been delighted to respond. Everyone was watched carefully, but it is difficult to keep a motivated buyer from meeting a motivated seller and the journal reports “two or three Indians were found to have procured liquor and became much intoxicated.” They were arrested and put under guard until they slept it off.

The health of the Indians was apparently improving because “medicine has not been for some time administered to them.” They reported the wagon that had lost its oxen had caught up to the column and in a simple line that must hide tremendous maneuvering the journal says, “Gen. A. Morgan, who has heretofore been acting in the capacity of Assistant Superintendent in the emigration gave notice that he should offer his resignation to-morrow.” The day before Capt. Holman arrived as an Assistant Superintendent and today Morgan announces his resignation—Hmmmmmmm.

What was going on? We do know that General Tipton thought little of Morgan. He had written September 3 to Abel Pepper, “Gen’l Morgan hangs on to the emigration although we were compelled to stop him from even dividing the provisions to the Indians for which he is wholly unfit, without personal respect or sense of honor he will cling to the noxious vapors of an Indian camp for money the sport of every wag.” What did this mean? Was Morgan crooked and used the Indians as a means of profit? Or did he identify with the Indians and hung around their camp (instead of staying with the elite fellow officers, some of whom even had their own personal servants along to cook for them?

I have seen this among missionaries—where the missionary who identifies too much with the people (instead of their fellow missionaries) almost always is rejected by the other missionaries. Was this the case for Gen’l Morgan? Is he a good guy in this story or was he out to make money off the Indians? He did make some money. He was paid $594 for his work—only the federal conductor, Polke ($842) and doctor Jerolaman ($908) received more money on the final accounting. Was he an incompetent officer hanging on just for this pay? Was he making money off the distribution of the provisions or selling to the Indians? We don’t know. All we know is one day Capt. Holman shows up and the next day Gen’l Morgan announces he will resign the next day. And why do this? Why announce you are going to resign tomorrow? Why not just resign today? What was really going on here?

AS FOR ME Ryan and I picked up a big breakfast at the Hardies where one of the markers is located and walked all day on gravel roads in the blistering sun. In a late afternoon stop laying on the tall grasses and picking ticks off our legs Don and Liz Gander appeared from their car with cookies and a cooler of iced drinks. They announced that I would stay tonight with Josephine Gander, an 89 year old woman who has sponsored two of the trail markers and still lives in the farmhouse she moved into the year I was born (1945). Picking up the pace we walked to Mt Vernon church where the marker is located remembering the See’s Creek campsite where three women were baking cinnamon rolls for the church’s bake sale and insisted we have one each to encourage us on our way. Ryan had planned to hitch back to his car in Palmyra but Liz insisted she would take him back after dinner. 89 year old yet spry Josephine Gander prepared a meal of garden corn, beans, creamed potatoes, ham and topped it off with pineapple-coconut pie before Liz took Ryan back to his car and I retired for the night before dark in this old farｍｈｏｕｓｅ. I ａｍｍｕｃｈｅｎｃｏｕｒａｇｅｄｏｉｎｔｈｉｓｔｒｉｐ!

2006-06-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

Day 38 Pleasant Spring (Palmyra MO) Mile 387
Oct. 11, 1838

The longer rest at Quincy must have restored the Indians’ spirits and bodies. The journal puts it, “The rest of yesterday and the day before had much recruited the health and spirits of the Indians.” The day’s march was “without the occurrence of any difficulties.” At Pleasant Spring (Near Present Palmyra) Capt. J. Holman arrived to become an Assistant Superintendent” of the party. Why he shows up at this point in the journey and what the secret political machinations were going on behind the scene are not told. Only that he had “received his appointment at the suggestion of reports unfavorable to the health of the officers.” What were these reports? What was wrong with the health of the officers that Dr. Jerolaman had not cared for? Was this medical or otherwise? Who knows? All we know is Capt. Holman shows up as a new Assistant Superintendent.

One event of the day was one of the wagons had lost it oxen and had to stay behind at the Mississippi until it rounded up its escaped beasts. The rest of the party had traveled over the flat plains of the Mississippi to Pleasant Spring—nicely named, though it was of course not pleasant for all. An adult woman died shortly after they made camp.

AS FOR ME my days off at Quincy restored me too as it had the Indians. I started at Mill Creek where I had ended the week before in total mental and physical exhaustion and walked to the river with archeologist Steve Tieken which gave me a chance to hear the awesome story of his own spiritual journey. After an interview with WGEM TV (which was broadcast that night) Steve’s wife Janet took me across the Mississippi bridge which allows no foot travel. On the western shore I headed west only to be found by Mark and Jessica Schmerse former students of mine from the quad cities who had driven down to “walk a day with coach D.” We walked in burning sun all day but the delightful conversation was by all means worth it. IN the late afternoon while sitting in the heat beside a side road I had another Schwan’s experience.” This time a Schwan’s ice cream truck pulled off the road without beckoning and out popped the woman driver who opened a side door and brought us three ice cream cones and said, ‘I saw you way back at Quincy and now you’re here—this is for you.” Before this trip I hardly knew of these deliver-to-your-home ice cream people—but I know about them now!.

With threatening thunderstorms rolling in I left Mark & Jess waiting for their hitch back to their car and made camp under a power line above Palmyra and went to asleep before a gentle rain began to fall. Then an hour or two later I woke up to a light in the front of my tent door—it was Ryan Robertson, a recent IWU graduate seeking a job as a teacher. He had found out the general location of my campsite from Mark & Jess announcing he planned to walk with me the next day and wanted to come at night “to get the full 24 hour experience.” I made room in my tent and soon we were both asleep preparing for the next day’s travel.

2006-05-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

Day 35-37 Quincy Mile 384
Oct. 8-10, 1838 May 27-28, 2006

This was an entire city moving to Kansas—young people, babies, pregnant women, middle aged men with bad knees, the elderly. It would be like going down the street to select in order 900 people from your neighborhood announcing they are about to walk to Kansas. And they had white militia guarding them, plus wagon-drivers on contract with the government. All this mixed group of people had more to do than travel. There were moccasins to make, clothes to wash, wagon spokes to repair and salaries to the contract workers to be paid. The party did this on the west shore of the Mississippi facing Qunicy.

When the Indians passed through Quincy they attended the St. Boniface church-a brand new congregation of German Catholics. Quincy was at the time perhaps 300 people, with 250 of them being German Catholics. Their little frame church had just been built that year and this is the only constructed church the Catholic Indians worshipped in since they had left behind in Twin Lakes the beloved log chapel they had built with their own hands when they heard that they’d get a priest.

Accounts were organized and the officers, laborers and wagoners were paid. Two soldiers and a wagoner decided they’d had enough and requested discharge to go home—and they were left go. There were talks to hold—with several of the chiefs meeting with Polke asking that they not travel any more on the “Sabbath” so they could hold “devotional exercises.” Our intermittent Doctor Jerolaman returned to the party here in Quincy, having joined the party late then gotten sick Septermber 24, left the party in Springfield the 29th and now returned to work October 9th—having just missed about 25% of the trip in this instance alone—it will be interesting to see if he is “docked” for this when he is paid at the end of the trip (the payment records still exist).

These days were given to organizing, paying, sorting, packing and repacking the wagons along with shoeing the horses and repairing the wagons for the second half of the trip. All this required them to ferry back and forth into town for supplies since they were camping on the opposite shore from town. The official journal spins the frequent shuttles this way: “This might have been avoided by remaining on the Quincy shore, but the dissolute habits of the Indians and their great proneness to intoxication, forbid such a step...” This seems to be a change of tone in the journal from previous entries where the writer seems to brag about “nothing of the sort” of drunkenness being allowed. And it is particularly hard on the Indians, many of which were Catholics committed to total abstinence. What had changed?

By evening of October 10th they were ready to push on for their second leg of the journey.

AS FOR ME I too took several days off in Quincy with Sharon. We both had a delightful supper with Steve & Janet Tieken. Steve is an Archeologist and plans to walk with me Monday through Quincy. Also got to interview the priest at St. Boniface church and attend a service there. The rest of the weekend was spent on sleeping and giving myself to purposeful laziness in order to charge my batteries physically for the walk across Missouri which Shirley Willard (the foremost historian on the Trail of Death) warns me will be like walking through a ninety degree steam room.

I leave Monday morning to walk with Steve Tieken. On Tuesday Ryan Robertson, a recent IWU graduate headed into teaching will join me for the day. After that I’m on my own in the steam room.

I'VE BEEN THINKING TODAY about alcohol and the Indians...(dictated for final book)

ROUTE FROM HERE:
Quincy
Palmyra
Monroe City
Paris
Moberly-Huntsville
Salisbury
Keytesville
Brunswick
DeWitt
Carrollton
Lexington
Wellington
Napoleon
Buckner
Kansas City
Payola KS
Potawatomi Creek
Cherry Creek mission

2006-05-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

Day 34 Mill Creek (near Quincy, IL) Mile 378
Oct. 7, 1838 May 26, 2006

Polke generally camped outside of a large city or on the opposite shore of a river town, probably to avoid any trouble in town and to especially deprive the soldiers, Wagoneers and Indians of alcohol which often led to trouble between an organized traveling party and a town. In the case of Quincy he did both -- stopping short of town at Mill Creek then crossing the Mississippi river and staying several days on the western shore.

The twelve mile trip from Hobson's Choice campsite to Mill Creek passed over rolling holls then across a high level prairie before dropping slightly to Mill creek. Polke planned to get up early in the morning and get the entire party safely across the river then take several days and "to allow the teamsters and others engaged in the service, sufficient time to repair their wagons, etc."

Other than reporting the journey pleasant and "better than usual supplied with water" the only other item is the almost daily common line closing out the journal, "a child died shortly after we arrived in camp."

AS FOR ME, after checking the marker in Liberty I walked to Mill Creek with little news and little thought. At the Mill Creek historical marker I sat soaked in the humidity until Sharon arrived the now-410 mile distance from our home in Marion, Indiana. The party of Indians took several days off on the western shore of the Mississippi and so shall I.

The half-way mark should be a celebration for me but it's not. It seems like this journey should be over by now, not merely half-over. I am tired and worn-out, have blisters on my feet and the bones in my ankles, heels and knees are screaming, "Go home with your wife tomorrow!" I am tired of walking, tired of eating whatever I can find, tired of sleeping on the ground, tired of the sun, tired of noisy trucks and dirty roads and the overly humid heat. I am tired of writing blog entires that I'm not sure are being read by many, tired of thinking about Indians 150 years ago constantly and continually, I'm tired.

I want to switch channels. I want to think of something else. Go home and write great prose in my air conditioned writer's studio. Attend a good movie. Read a book I don't have to carry in my pack all day. Sleep in my own bed. Go out to a quiet dinner with our friends. I'm tired of this trek. The romance and adventure have been displaced by drudgery. I want to quit. This is how I''m feeling here at the Mill Creek marker, waiting for Sharon to arrive.

I'VE BEEN THINKING TODAY (dictated for book)

2006-05-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

Day 33 Hobson’s Choice (Liberty, IL) Mile 366
Oct. 6, 1838 May 25, 2006

Dust was a constant trial for the Potawatomi. The drought had left the land powder dry and by the time almost a thousand people and more than 300 horses pass down a road there would have been several inches of dust on the road like talcum powder billowing up and choking the riders and walkers. In a letter to his bishop, Father Petit described catching up to his congregation thus: “Soon afterward I saw my poor Christians under a burning noonday sun, amidst clouds of dust, marching in a line, surrounded by soldiers who were hurrying their steps.” The billowing dust must have blurred the eyes of both Indians and the soldiers and brought in hacking coughs.

On this day they got wonderful relief—Rain! The journal puts it, “During the night we were visited by a fall rain which rendered the traveling to-day unusually pleasant. The dust has been completely allayed, and the air much cooled.” After seven hours of travel over the rolling prairies they pitched camp at a site they labeled “Hobson’s Choice” near present-day Liberty, IL. “Hobson’s choice” was a idiom of the day based on a Thomas Hobson who owned a livery in Cambridge England in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s. When a customer wanted a horse he supposedly told them to take the horse nearest the door or none at all—“Hobson’s choice” the rough equivalent of our phrase today “take it or leave it.” The site was roundly condemned in the journal “from the barrenness of the spot in everything save grass, brush and weeds, we have appropriately names Hobson’s Choice.” By now the party was used to ending the day as this one ended: "A child died since we came into camp." Somewhere near Liberty this child lies burried.

AS FOR ME I walked this day blessed repeatedly by the Mountain family—brothers, uncles, wives, husbands took it on themselves to meet me every hour or two on the road with ice water, bananas, apples, oranges, beef jerky and nuts so that on this day I probably actually gained weight! Interesting turnaround: when the Potawatomi passed through Jacksonville just a few days ago the white blessed them with gifts. Now more than 150 years later these Potawatomi descendants bless a white man on the road with gifts.

I’VE BEEN THINKING TODAY (dictated for book)

2006-05-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Day 32 McKee’s Creek (Perry, IL) Mile 348
Oct. 5, 1838 May 24, 2006

The entry for October 5 is one of the shortest entries of the trip. It only says, “Left encampment opposite Naples at 8 o’clock and reached at a little after 12 our present encampment, at McKee’s creek, twelve miles from the Illinois river. We were forced to-day to leave the road and travel a considerable distance to find water—even such as it is—standing in ponds—the streams are nearly all dry. Subsistence, beef and flour. Forage of a good character.”

That’s it. Nothing more. Just the location of the campsite, assessement of forage and food, and the perennial complaint about water. ON any long trek there are many days that have no stand-out event. This one too. At least there were no deaths on this day.

AS FOR ME, once I left the river I walked on what the locals call ‘John Deere road” with only four vehicles passing me all afternoon. The fourth was a Schwans Ice Cream truck and I half-in-jest flagged it down with an ice-cream-cone pantomime. Glancing over my shoulder I saw the truck’s brake lights go on, then turn around in a lane down the road and come back to open up the store for me. I purchased a pint of raspberry-chocolate ice cream and ate all 1100 calories of my supper walking toward the now-setting sun.

In Perry I found Darin and Nikki Mountain who have been faithfully flowing my journey on this blog and have written to every mail drop. Darin’s great-great grandmother was Potawatomi but kept it wuiet until the family unearthed the evidence in pictures and family memorabilia years later. Darin makes gigantic radio transmitters sold mostly overseas and Nikki is a junior high school teacyher with the energy you’d expect from someone who is successful at that task. The Mountains gathered together a delightful collection of folk all involved in setting the Potawatomi monument here in Perry and we had a sweet evening of discussion. A reporter for the local newspaper, a retired school teacher joined in and took notes as we talked. I spent the night in the Mountain’s pop-up camper which avoided my packing up a soaked tent the next morning since there was a huge pop up thundershower in the night.

2006-05-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Day 30-31 Naples Mile 336
Oct. 3 & 4, 1838 May 24, 2006

In a quick three hour walk the Potawatomi walked the nine miles from Exeter to the Illinois river at Naples, IL. This was the first mighty river of their journey. Naples was a primary port city on this river so it offered both keel boats and flatboats to ferry the Indians and large wagons to the west shore. They spent the entire day crossing and re-crossing the river so that by 9 Pm they had landed the final baggage wagon and camped on the shore opposite Naples. A child died right after. On their arrival at the river a child had died.

William Polke, the federal conductor of the expedition decided to take the next day off. Crossing the river had been exhausting work and the party had been traveling every day now for a long time. Everyone needed a break so they took a zero mileage day to rest and catch up on the little duties that had been ignored too long. The Indians had been successfully hunting deer for more than a week so they now had plenty of deerskin to make new moccasins. Certainly they had previously made moccasins since it is unlikely that a single pair of moccasins could have lasted all 336 miles to the Illinois River. The Lewis and Clarke expedition had made them every few days on the roughest part of their journey. Perhaps they even made some to put in stock for later use. The blankets and clothing needed washed. The journal was optimistic” “the health of the Indians is now almost as good as before we commenced our march from Twin Lakes—a few days more will entirely recruit them.” The sick and weak—mostly children had mostly died off including one child the day before. Immediately following this optimistic report the journal closes with “A young child died this evening.” Apparently all the Indians were not in such good health. Soon there would be few children left.

AS FOR ME I left the delightful night’s rest at the Herrings and walked the quick four miles to Bluff, IL and picked up my mail. I had used Exeter as a mail drop, but discovered no post office in the tiny town. The “big” town in this region is Bluff (Population 749). When the Post Office opened at nine I was there to collect several letters form friends and readers of this blog—THANKS! In the little park across the street I answered every letter and mailed them before stopping off that the one-room library and chatting with the librarian about the region then she let me use the library’s dial-up to catch up on my blog.

I then walked into naples in another two hours. Seven cars stopped in this short trip asking if I wanted a ride—usually only one or two a day do this. The difference? Huge dark thunderclouds with slicing lighting were rolling in from the west. I wonder if people have a natural inclination to “race for cover” in the presence of a severe thunderstorm and thus are quicker to offer to help you find cover as well? I do know that almost nobody ever offers a ride during a rainstorm, yet they all want to help as it threatens. It's interesting--what is this about people? Anyeway, I declined of course but thanked each of them arriving in Naples just as the strome broke loose with a torrential downpour. I took cover in one of those little roadside wait-for-the-school-bus sheds for the next hour’s crenching.

While sitting cozily in the lean-to up drove two matching golf carts driven by two gigantic men with matching beards and mathcing bellies—"we're brothers and kind of the sheriffs around here " they told me. “You that guy walking the long Indian walk?” I said I was. “Jerry’s told us about you--he had surgery and is recovering--but Bud here could take you across the river.” I was unable to rouse Jerry from his afterglow sleep so I left a note for him tucked in his door. Finding a person in a town of 137 people is not hard. Bud was a twentysomething local guy living in a trailer next to his dad. "It's my house and I own this land" he said. helped Bud clean out his fishing boat on the trailer when Bud’s mother insisted showed up insiting, "You’re not going out on that water—there’s gold ball size hail coming.” Indeed another great dark thunderfront was moving in so we waiting for it to blow off a few dozen branched then as soon as it broke we launched and he dumped me on the western side of the river saying “just walk through those woods until you find the power line then follow that to a road.” He was right—I pushed through the woods and found the levee, then gravel road and finally a paved road—though all the names of the road were different from my maps (why do counties do this?).Here on this side of the river is where the Potawatomi camped. two days. I would move on toward McKee’s creek 12 miles further.

2006-05-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

Day 29 Exeter, IL Mile 327
October 2, 1838; May 23, 2006

In the morning as the Potawatomi passed through Jacksonville the town band came out to lead them. They arranged with Judge Polke for the band to lead the Indians into the city square “where they remained for fifteen o twenty minutes." "Presents of tobacco and pipes in abundance were made by the citizens to the Indians.” How did this happen? Who suggest it? How hatched the idea of the presents? Who spread the idea around the night before and in the morning? Incidents like these seldom “just happen” –somebody thinks of the act of kindness then speaks up. When the Potawatomi marched through Springfield they got tobacco from the federal conductor as pay-for-good-behavior (and for dressing up) . In Jacksonville, however they got tobacco and pipes as gifts directly from the Jacksonville citizens. What a tribute to these folk. And here we are remembering their hospitality 158 years later.

Today they will make 16 miles to Exeter on a warm and dusty day with scarce water along the way.

AS FOR ME, I breakfasted with Wolf and Ann-Marie for several hours over coffee and a wonderful omelet seasoned with spices grown in their yard. Wolf is a retired professor of political science in this town of two colleges. Marie was a professor of German. Wolf has written a weekly column for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier for 23 years, more than twice as long as my 12 year run online--so I consider him an experienced master of the craft. Following this multi-hour stimulating breakfast conversation I headed to the Jacksonville library where the archivist helped me with accessing the county’s resources on the Trail of death then graciously permitted me to write and post these drafts of my diary online. I heading Exeter near lunchtime assuming I would not make it all the way. I simply drifted westerly and before long was in the town by accident, not due to purpose as much as my sloth in selecting a campsite for the night.

I have crossed the point in this trek where psychologically it is as if I am floating in a westward flowing river—my only job is to pick up each foot and let them float forward with the "current" toward the setting sun. This is how I found myself in Exeter just before dusk. However my autopilot indolence paid off. Here in this town of 75 people I stayed with Paul Herring who with his wife Kate restored an old three story hotel/school into a comfortable house that was built in 1860 on word that the railroad route would come through Exeter. It didn’t but went 3 miles to the north. The man finally sold his hotel and it became a school for 75 years, then fell into total disrepair. Paul and Kate bought the remains for $500 in 1973 and took the next few decades to restore it into a beautiful home. Paul is a math teacher in Jacksonville and Kate, once an attorney now works for the Girl Scouts in Quincy and is in process of credentialing for ministry among the United Methodists. I arrived while Paul still had some supper left in the large iron skillet so once again the kindness of a Jacksonville-related person brought to me a wonderful meal and I was asleep by 9PM having walked 16 miles after lunch today.

ROUTE AHEAD:
Wednesday: Get mail at Exeter by noon; walk through Bluffs (Potential Internet at library?) to Naples IL by dark (on the Illinois river) Contact Jerry Smith in Naples (thanks for this hook-up to Gary & Judy from decatur who drove their motorcycle over here a few days ago to see if I could get across the river at Naples like the Potawatomi did rather than taking the day-long detour up to rt. 104)
Thursday morning: Cross river in morning and walk to Perry IL –contact local Potawatomi, the “Nikki Mountain” family who has written me on the trail twice so far.
Friday: Leave Perry and walk to “Hobson’s choice” camp near liberty IL… walk until Sharon (my wfie) shows up to take the weekend off together in the Quncy area and around.
Monday: On the trail again, hoping to contact Ryan Robertson who is from Qunicy IL at the Mississipiand left a message on my cell phone without a call-back number.

All this of course is subject to the general "drift mentality" of "taking whatever miles the trail gives me" attitude."

2006-05-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Day 28 Jacksonville, IL Mile 311
October 1, 1838; May 22, 2006

What is it that makes one city (or a family) a place of hospitality and another one of hostility? Why are some towns suspicious of outsiders while others open their arms? Or families? Who knows, but Jacksonville was such a town of hospitality in 1838. Leaving island Grove the Potawatomi traveled to a spot just outside of Jacksonville to camp. During the day two more Indians escaped. One wonders who and why. Was it two braves intent on returning to Indiana? Or was it a young couple—husband and wife who snuck away to blend into the local citizenry and their heirs are our mayors and senators? We don’t know, the journal simply states, “to-night some of the chiefs reported two runaways, who left this morning.” The name “Trail of death” arose especially because of the greatly reduced number of Indians arriving in Kansas from those who left Indiana. It was originally thought by some that the death rate was over a hundred, maybe even 200. But these runaways constantly reduced the number in the party and the best estimate now is that maybe 42 people died, mostly children. But that is not to dismiss even that number—the death rate of 20 people per month out of 1000 is enough to wipe out the entire population in a few years, so 40 deaths is a tragedy just the same. And, of course when it is your own child even a single death can never be dismissed.

This day had brought such a tragedy. A little , a member of Chief Metteah’s family, had fallen and been crushed under the wheels of one of the wagons. She had not yet died by the time they arrived at the campsite outside Jacksonville. Imagine the parent’s grief. Did they blame themselves for not holding on to her more carefully? How did they feel as their little daughter lay groaning in their tent about to die?

This is where Jacksonville’s hospitality emerged. As darkness settled the Indians heard music. The Jacksonville city band had gathered and marched to the edge of camp to serenade the Indians. The music must have been a soothing melody for the grieving parents—and for all the Indians. Why did the band come? Who suggested the idea first? Was it like the movie “It’s a wonderful life” – a single person made a difference by simply saying, “let’s go out and serenade the Indians?” We don’t know. We just know they did it. It must have brought some Indians to tears.

But that would not be all to the story. The next morning (October 2) Jacksonville showed even more hospitality. (See next entry.)

AS FOR ME Jacksonville showed me a similar knod of hospitality 158 later. Wolf and Ann-Marie Fuhrig had contacted Shirley Willard back in Indiana offering to host my stay in Jacksonville. Wolf picked me up at the city square near the Potawatomi memorial. I soon found myself eating an all-you-can-eat pasta dinner at the restored train station in Jacksonville with five PhDs ranging in field from theater to German to American history. The gathering including both the president and vice President of the county historical society. After my three-licorice-stick meal this was an inviting fill-up! But the conversation was even more delightful than the food with one after another person filling in the local history as it related to the 1838 removal. It turns out Jacksonville has a long history of hospitality. The Potawatomi incident was not an anomaly. I heard the fascinating story of thousands of persecuted Portuguese Presbyterian protestants who also were received with hospitality when they fled their country. Perhaps a collective attitude of hostility to outsiders breeds more such hostility as does an open attitude of hospitality. I surely benefited. I spent the night in Wolf and Ann-Marie’s back yard sleeping on their soft grass.

2006-05-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Day 27 Island grove Mile 294
September 30, 1838; May 22, 2006

The Potawatomi only went six miles this day, camping at the idyllic “Island Grove.” For whatever reason in this vast open spaces of prairie there were “islands” of great trees groves and shade periodically—such was “Island Grove” as was Sidorus Grove before. The next water was another 10-15 miles which would have made for a 20 mile day, a distance that may have killed off more Indians than were already dying, so the party stopped at only six miles.

The journal recorded a doctor-less report “health of the sick still improving” it also recorded “the death of a child occurred a few hours after encampment.” It is interesting how many of these children apparently survived the day then would expire once they got into camp. In many cases Father Petit would preside over their funeral at night or in the morning before the party would move westward. While there are large stone boulders and bronze plaques marking this route I’m following, the real markers are unmarked—the invisible graves of more than 40 people who died along the way, mostly children.

The Indians were still bringing in “large quantities of sufficient for their subsistence” so the government was saving money on issuing rations. It is ironic that the Indians now saving the government money in their own forced removal. No matter—they enjoyed both hunting and eating the wild better than the standard beef and flour rations given them by the government. Today a soldier was also dismissed for intoxication stating “nothing of the kin is permitted.” It was important that the soldiers not get drunk when the leaders of the migration wanted to keep as many Indians from intoxication as they could. They had already dismissed a driver of a wagon for drunkenness, now one of the soldiers is fired and would have o take the long walk back to Indiana alone.

AS FOR ME I drifted past Island Grove since getting water was not my problem, getting food was. My last food was yesterday in Springfield so I kept looking forward to a gas station on the “Old Jacksonville Road” as I traveled…all day long, the next 23 miles I looked but got none--not even a soda machine. Each house I knocked at was empty--the farmer was out on the field and the spouse teaching school or working at a factory. I could not even buy a can of beans. I knew this is one risk of my “living off the land” approach to this walk—sometimes I have to go hungry, but that is part of the experience. Ane by late afternoonI was indeed hungry. I even found an unopened pack of gum along the road and chewed all five sticks for the sugar value. That didn’t last.

Finally, after more than 20 miles and a day and a half without food a pickup stopped. A man in his 30th with odd beads of perspiration all over his face said, “What you up to?” I told him and he asked, ‘How can I help?” I suggested if he had anything to eat it would be great and he promptly gave me three stick of red licorice and a Mountain Dew. I profusely thanked him and he responded with a pained look in his eyes, “Would you pray for me—I’m on my way to the Psychiatrist—they just can’t get my medicine right." I did pray for him aloud right then, and when I said “Amen” he reached out and grasped my hand saying, “Thanks—I needed that.” I’m not sure who got more out of this interchange.

I went to a grassy spot beside the road and laid out my three course dinner, savoring one stick of licorice at a time washing them down with Mountain dew and no Outback steak has ever tasted so good to me. Renewed with sugar-energy I walked the rest of the way into Jacksonville (my overnight stay in Jacksonville is on tomorrow's entry for it is more relevant to that theme).

2006-05-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

Day 26 McCoy;s Mill (Riddle Hill) Mile 288
September 29, 1838; May 21, 2006

The migrating party made a scene in Springfield, the new capitol of Illinois. Promised some tobacco for their best behavior the Indians dressed up in their finery and “arranged themselves into a line with an unusual display of finery and gaudy trumpetry marched through the streets of Springfield.” The citizens completely crowded the streets so that it hampered the party’s progress. They saw how a neighboring state had handled “the Indian problem” and seeing the Indians in fancy dress was their entertainment for the day. Right down town and through the Capitol square they marched. To us today this seems a demeaning act—like using children for entertainment of s, but perhaps at the time it was less so?

The Indians would have seen the impressive new Capitol under construction already for a year. Here, more in line with the awe of Greek construction rose up a mighty stone building no match for the natural Indian wigwams. It was a sign of the future. The new owners of this country would build great stone Capitol buildings, skyscrapers, Interstate highways, go to the moon and introduce big box stores in the coming years. The simple life of the Indians would become a minority sidetrack in a culture of BIG—to be observed like the Amish.

Did 29 year old Abraham Lincoln see this parade? He had moved to Springfield a year before and lived only a few blocks from the city square. Perhaps. Or he may have been out practicing circuit riding law in one of the county seats around Illinois at the time. Whatever, it was a city-wide spectacle that day. As a sidelight, just nine years later from this city square would leave the ill-fated Donner party for California. Here in comfortable Springfield our intermittent physician, Dr. Jerolamon requested permission to stay behind to recuperate—the late-coming doctor was still sick.

After marching through Springfield the party camped a half dozen miles past the city at McCoy’s mill (near present day Riddle Hill) where a marker is found in from of the New Salem United Methodist Church. The journal calls the stream east of the church a stream ‘affording little water.”

AS FOR ME I checked in at all the Lincoln sites and moved west, including his home and offices (which were not yet occupied at the time of the Potawatomi emigration) then headed westerly. I’m in my fourth week of walking now so a sort of westward drift has settled in—less goal oriented and less scheduled, just constantly drifting west unconcerned about distance and mileage. I pitched my tent in a grassy spot overlooking a new millionaire "gentleman’s farmhouse" under construction but not yet occupied.

2006-05-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Biography: WILLIAM POLKE

Like General Tipton, William Polke, the federal conductor of this “migration” had a negative experience with Indians as a child. Only different form Tipton, Polke chose to let the experience turn his hart toward the Indians rather than away from them. He became a friend of Indians--at least as much as any white man was in those days.

When Polke was born in (what is now ) West Virginia but moved west (as many aggressive whites did in those days did) down the Ohio river to Kentucky in 1780. When Polke’s father was gone Indians attacked and killed many of the families in the “station” where several families had gathered for safety. On the last day of August in 1782 little seven year old William Polke was captured along with his mother and two sisters. The Indians force-marched about 30 survivors north completely across Indiana to Detroit--a "forced migration" of the whites in this case.

During the forced walk William Polke’s mother who was pregnant gave birth to a fourth child. And on this trip the Indians adopted little William and he learned their language and essentially forgot English.

When Polke’s father came home he recruited others and set about finding his family. Thirteen months later, on Christmas eve he was reunited with his family and William learned to speak English again. Yet this experience did not turn Polke botter, but turned his heart toward the Indians.

William Polke fought with “Mad” Anthony Wayne at age 17 and at age 33 he became an associate judge in Knox county--hence his nickname thereafter Judge Polke.” He had fought (and was wounded) at the battle of Tippecanoe. He ran for lt. Governor of Indiana in 1822 and came in second.

His life took a sharp turn at age 49 when he became a missionary when he began teaching Indians at Niles Michigan with his brother-in-law, Isaac McCoy which he continued for several years. He was appointed a superintendent for building the Michigan Road from the Ohio river to Michigan and was the first white settler in Fulton County—founding the village of Chippeway, the location of the first campsite of this emigrating party. He had built the first frame house (called the “white house”) which is still on the grounds of the Fulton country historical society—the “round barn place” in existing route 31 just south of the Menominee statue).

His wife, Sarah was known as a friend of Indians too and a devout Christian—she was remembered as having memorized the four gospels and the psalms (though this is probably stretched by those who reported—it probably seemed like that to others).

In 1838 when the nation needed a federal “conductor” to take charge of the “removal” of the Indians they turned to “Judge Polke.” Once General Tipton escorted the Indians to the state line Polke took over. It was an injustice—this entire affair. But when something evil is going to be done, at least you hope for a good man to do it. Polke was such a good man. The Indians trusted him. He was wise and fair. In other removal stories the leaders may have intentionally attempted to “lat nature execute” the Indians. Not in this journey. While many died, and the trip is referred to as the “Trail of Death” Polke cannot (in my opinion) be accused of dire evil considering the day. William Polke was 63 when he led this trip.

William Polke was a good man who did an evil deed the best way possible. This is no strange assignment for anyone in leadership.

AS FOR ME, today is Sunday and I'm moving west after a great visit with Gary & Judy from decatur who rode over on their way to an Indian Methodist church to have breakfast with me--wonderful people who were former missionaries to mexico and now attend either Afro-American churches or Native American churches. I'm off to church myself then points west.

2006-05-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Day 25 Sangamon Crossing #2 --271 miles
Sept. 28, 1838; May 20, 2006

After 18 miles the party now reached their second Sangamon River crossing a few miles before they were to enter Springfield the first major city on their route. The federal conductor of the “migration,” Judge Polke, asked Chief I-o-weh to get the Indians to dress up to make a snazy appearance as they would apss through this town. The journal expected that they would “present quite a gaudy appearance” to the city folk, and to get them to dress up fancy they were promised some tobacco, something they ahd been wanting for several days.

This would be their last camp on the pleasant Sangamon Rver and they journaled that they expected there would be a greatly reduced number of sick once the doctors quit being sick themselves and could chack on the Indians again. However, inspite of the cheery entry two children died during the night. What must it be like to wake up in the morning to find your child dead beside you in the tent?

AS FOR ME I walked a hard and quiet day. My companions are now gone which makes it quiet, and the 85 degree heat makes it hard. I walked from one town of 500 to another. In Illopolis I had breakfast at a tiny diner and answered my mail received at Decatur and listened in to the conversations of the local farmers and other complainers at the next table.

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Then hopped from tiny town to another until I was wonderfully rewarded in Buffalo IL where the friendly postmistress of the tiny post office steered me to the only store in town—B & D grocery where I got the best meatball sandwich in my life—piled high with onions and cheese and ate it along with a quart of chocolate milk in the perfectly manicured Buffalo Park across the street which even offered a pavilion. How I appreciate public parks, benches, and especially pavilions as a walker. Automobile travellers can always drive on ten miles for a place to stop—that’s a half day’s journey for me though.

An hour or two later I started feeling seasick--with the hot 85 degree afternoon sun blazing down on me, and that quart of chocolate milk churning in my stomach and the seven meatballs that were on that sandwich floating around—I simply had to lay down in a shady place for several hours for my stomach to deal with what was by now chocolate buttermilk meatball stew. By 6PM I was able to walk again and I walked to the Sangomon river to discover the bridge completely out and I took a bypass road and spent the night courtesy of a field between a cell phone tower and a local model airplane club’s “airport.”

ON THE MORNING OF SATURDAY THE 20th I walked the 3-4 remaining miles into Springfield where I headed south on a three-mile “side trail” to the Drury Inn (appropriate) where I will stay all day tomorrow, picking up my journey again Monday, hopefully refreshed and scrubbed clean. Also I can catch up on my blogging and writing tomorrow after church--refining thse rough posts a bit, and writing up a short bio of my favorite white man on this journey--the federal conductor, William Polke. ON SECOND THOUGHT. After one night in a smoking room which did not improve the cough I've had since Thursday night I decided on Sunday morning to "walk on" catching a worship service on my way out of town. It's funny...when hiking I almost always sleep so much better in a tent than in a hotel... looking forward to a better sleep tonight in my tent again. (That's no slight to Drury inn--if you're gonna' stay in a hotel they're the best!)

2006-05-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

Day 24 Long Point --253 miles
Sept. 27, 1838; May 18, 2006

Continuing down the river the party passed through Decatur as the Indians continued to “scour the prairies in seach of game.” They were seccessful. The quantity of venison was so great the leaders did not have to issue rations of beef and flour The journel puts it “the camp- is now full of venison.” One of the assistant conductors left the group today sick, turning back to indiana and he was not replaced. Water was plentiful and the leaders were encouraged that the future might improve. Even forage for the horses was less difficult to procure. With a feast of venison to enjoy and nobody dying on this day the journal-writer was encouraged, though there was no official report from the docors, they were still sick. They camped at long Point (near present Niantic) after 14 miles.

AS FOR ME I ate a big breakfast of something besides venison, then found a laundramat where I could fluff up my sleeping bag and dry out its constantly more soggy condition in the rain, then walked into downtown Decatur for a long interview with the newspaper who featured the story on Friday including a great map and Picture Thanks Alicia for a good story!

I gathered up a pile of mail for answering the next days, and dumped my Solomon shoes in the garbage can in the city park, consumating my remarriage to my new balance sneakers at the city park. By evening I had reached Long Point/Niantic, where Michael McNamer (pastor of the local Wesleyan Church) met my two companions of the last fours days—Phil and Jason and hauled them back to their car left at the Sidney post office at the beginning of the week. I found the stone marker in Niantic then walked West out of town until I found a tiny slice where I could put up my tent next to a field of winter wheat. For the last four nights I had lots of conversation and friendship—this night was quiet except for the occasional howling of farm dogs checking up on each other through the night. And I read mail.

2006-05-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Day 23 Near Decatur --239 miles
Sept. 26, 1838; May 17, 2006

The Indians traveled 14 miles today down the river and camped just outside of Decatur. The doctors were still sick so no official report was made on sickness but the journal-writer says “the sick appear to be somewhat recruited.” A child died after dark this day.

AS FOR ME my party of three walked a “double day” today—covering both their party’s journey the day before (to the Sangamon Crossing) then walking their next day’s route almost to Decatur. I got to see my first funnel cloud today—I have lived in the Midwest since 1972 and have hoped to see one some day—today I got my wish. It never touched down but made for an impressive spiral in the sky. Finding an abandoned railroad grade we pitched out tents longways and looked forward to a break in Decatur in the morning. We took turned listening to the repeated tornado warnings on our little radio until finally the warnings were lifted and we fell asleep more bothered by the eight railroad trains passing on the occupied tracks 20 feet from us than the tornado warnings--though several times though the night we did think of the idea that "a tornado sounds like a freight train roaring in."

2006-05-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Day 21-22 Sangamon Crossing --225 miles
Sept. 24-25, 1838; May 17, 2006

The party now walked downstream for 15 miles along the banks of the Sangamon River where game was plentiful and there was shade from the burning sun. They had left 29 behind at Piatt’s Point sick who would catch up to them later Two people died today as they passed downstream. In the day they stayed in camp another two died: a woman from the group left behind died as they caught up, and a child died in the evening--four deaths total here at the crossing. In spite of the previous hopeful entries in the journal now the writer states, “So many emigrants are now ill that the teams now employed are constantly complaining of the great burthens imposed upon them in transporting so many sick.” The standard procedure was to let the sick ride in wagons.

The great joy for the Indians was that they were permitted to go hunting. They brought in a "considerable quantity of game." Indeed, along the Sangamon River they would hunt daily to the delight of the Indians and their white guards. The wagons spent the second day reloading and re-weighing the wagons after the river crossing.

The party stayed two days here at the Sangamon crossing to allow the sick left behind to catch up and the rest to get well. On this day’s entry is where the report is given that the doctors were also sick and had been the last several days. However the weather was delightful and they seemed cheered by the country being more thickly settled—at least the white men who wrote the jounal were.

AS FOR ME the journey along the river was a welcome treat for us too—sweet shade, chirping birds, a dozen deer and and peaceful roads. We looped to out for a breakfast-lunch-snack at Judy’s diner st Cerro Gordo including several hamburgers and fresh pie then walked on to cover the next day’s miles too—interested keenly in getting to Decatur where I would get back a pair of New Balance shoes and I could summarily dump the present Solomon shoes in the nearest trash bin. My Solomon shoes are excellect at making hamburger out of my feet and I regret switching several days ago thinking I’d give my feet a break from New Balance sneakers. That’s what I get for leaving my faithful NB shoes! Sharon is sending them to Decatur.

2006-05-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

Day 20 Pyatt’s Poiint (Montcello) --210 miles
Sept. 23, 1838; May 16, 2006

Father Petit persuaded William Polke to let the group leave late this Sunday—so he could hold mass. Polke was the official federal “conductor” of this journey, and he was now in charge since General Tipton had left, his authority expiring at the Indiana state line.

After mass the party walked across 15 miles of open land without a tree until they reaced the Sagamon River at Piatte’s Point (Montecello, Ill). The doctor must have improved in health and gave a report of 40 sick Indians. Two deaths occurred, a child early in the morning and on on the road to this camp on the river.

The river must have been a welcom site to these woodland Indians. There were not used to living in open prarie and thus the next few days as they followed the Sagamon River would be a treat.

AS FOR ME and my new partners we walked the roads and once some sun came out we dried out bags on a grassy spot across from a farmhouse who responded by calloing the Sheriff who ran ouor IDS through his system and half-apologized for the landowner’s response to us “doing our laundry” across the road. In Montecello I ate two pounds of fresh fruit salad from the grocery store salad bar (to the tune of $6.04) and we sat several hours in the McDonald’s waiting for the rain to lighten up. Here an 85 year old man who watched us come in offered his stories of runnning the rails and living in the Hobo Jungle in the 1930’s—assuming we were today’s equivilent. Once the rain cleared we walked out of town and camped on the ridge just above the Sangmon river—a river we will generally follow all the way to Springfield, as the Indians did.

2006-05-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Day 19 Sidoris Grove --195 miles
Sept. 22, 1838; May 15, 2006

Up to now heat and dust had been a problem but now, on the way to Sidoris’ Grove it turned cold late in September when the Potawatomi made this journey. Heay rain brought a cold front and they walked the 16 miles from Sidney to the grove of trees at Sidoris on open prarie. The official journal assesses the health of the camp improving “not a death has occurresd to-day.”

Sidoris Grove had been a traditional gathering place for the prarie Indians long before Henry Sidoris settled here 14 years before the Potawatomi passed through. Henry drove six yoke of oxen pulling a prairie Schooner to this site, the oxen strong enough to break the foot-thick sod of the prarie to “turn the land into something useful.”

The westward moving band discharged a wagoner for drunkeness today, which meant he had to turn around his wagon and head home on his own, no small punishment. And they needed the wagons for the sick too. In the evening two Indians also became intoxicated and were arrested and put under guard. (Of course they did not dischare and send the drunken Indians back to Indiana, however.) This may be a good point to remind us that though Menominee preached total abstinence from alcohol this migrating group included many not in his band, who followed other chiefs, and who were not Catolic or Christian. While I am especially interested in the Christian aspects of this story as a Christian minister, not all these Indians were devout Catholics any more than all of Americans religious today. Menominee is perhaps the most famous of the chiefs (General Tipton refused to even consider him a chief, but only a “principal man”) because he refused to accept payment for his land, but there were a variety of other chiefs in this traveling band—at least a hafl dozen. Same for religious affiliation.

AS FOR ME I now have two companions for the next four days: Phil Woodbury, a retired Physician from Indianapolis, and Jason Denniston, a youth pastor from Fairmount, Indiana. We started out Monday morning in steady rain, passing through Tolono then on for a rest at the only “store” in Sidoris, owned by the local entraneprenuer who is also the mayor—a storage unit that had a coke machine in front of it. We headed past Sidoris and a giant thunderstorm came up so fast we got soaked us before we could pitch our tiny tents between two Alfalfa fields. We slept wet tonight.

2006-05-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Day 18 Sidney --179 miles
Sept. 21, 1838; May 12, 2006

They are on the Grand Prairie now—open for miles across unbroken sod with trees only in groves clinging near creeks or streams. It was hot with blistering sun and the dry dust billowed up chocking the riders, walkers, and especially those in the sick wagons where the canvas tops only served to capture and collect the dust. The journal reports the Indian health “scarcely a change” from yesterday with fifty sick in camp and three dying since the last journal entry. Once they made camp near the present town of Sidney even that was “poorly watered” and a child died since coming into camp. This morning one of the chiefs died, Muk-kose “a man remarkable for his honesty and integrity” states the journal for the day. The journal for the day does report that forage for the animals was a bit easier to procure and they were even occasionally to purchase some bacon to add to their usual diet of beef and flour.

While Indians continued to die, one or more daily, they were at least accompanied by their beloved priest now, Father Petit, and they would be for the next six weeks as they made gradual progress to their new homes in Kansas. This seems like a good place to give a short sketch of Benjamin Petit’s life so far.

FATHER BENJAMIN PETIT

Benjamin Petit did not start out as a missionary or a priest, but as a lawyer. He prepared for a career in law in Rennes, France where he felt called to become a priest and a missionary to America. He arrived at the Twin Lakes village at age 27 just one year before the removal. In a single year he learned their language and became their trusted friend. He assisted chief Menominee in attempting to get the President to relent on the removal but as a foreigner Petit had to walk the fine line between condemning wrong and condemning it so stoutly that the US government would send him packing.

One example of this careful negotiating of the political minefield is in his letter to General Tipton on September 3, 1838. In Petit’s draft of the letter he condemns the action stating, “…to make from free men slaves, no man can take upon himself to do so in this free country. Those who wish to move must be moved, those who want to remain must be left to themselves. …of course it is against men under protection of the law, that you act is such a dictatorial manner; it is impossible for me, and for many to conceive how such events may take place in this country of liberty.” However, when Petit copied his draft to actually send he omitted these words and the entire scathing paragraph to Tipton. Since his predecessor priest had been banished for stirring up trouble against the government’s wishes, Petit apparently decided to be a priest to the crushed rather than attack the crushers. Whether he made the correct choice or not is debated by every minister and missionary every week—should they stay at the bottom of the river pulling out bloodied and broken souls to mend them, or go upriver and engage the thing that is doing the bloodying and breaking. Petit did a bit of both, but by the time he joined the expedition west in Danville the die was cast—the deed was done. He was downstream with a bloodied and bruised people and he did his best to bringing healing and care.

His bishop refused to allow Petit to have any part in the immoral removal initially fearing it would appear that the church somehow approved of the shameful deed. But after the Potawatomi were gone he gave permission for Petit to g along so this is why Petit caught up to the party in Danville, Illinios13 days and 150 miles after they left Twin Lakes.

He buried the dead, comforted the bereaved, led prayers morning and night, and generally cared for the sick along with celebrating mass each Sunday morning. His job was to provide spiritual care for his flock and turn them over to a Jesuit father at the Sugar Creek mission in Kansas near the site where the Potawatomi were dropped off. The journey was no easy trip for this young missionary. He frequently came down with the fever—probably Typhoid. For half of his journey—an entire month—one of his eyes was infected and inflamed and the constant dust clouds did no help. He became increasingly exhausted as he moved west. By the end of the trip Petit’s body became covered with a kind of infected boils as large as a person’ thumb so that he could not lie or sit in any position without pain. But even in the depths of pain he wrote glowingly about his Indian flock, describing their religious zeal: “Often through the entire night, around a blazing fire before a tent in which a solitary candle burned, fifteen or twenty Indians would sing hymns and tell their beads.” And again, “The Indians would attend Holy Sacrifice, during which they astonished the ears of the spectators by singing hymns, some of which—for me at least—had a sweet harmony indeed.”

This 28 year old missionary priest was willing to pay the price to perform his ministry. At this point he doubtless knew what that price would finally be.

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AS FOR ME I continued a “double day” covering the two day’s Potawatomi journey in one day, walking into Sidney half frozen in the 40 degree wind and rain where Sharon met me at Clancy’s gas station, the only “restaurant” in Sidney. We are taking the next day or so off at the Drury Inn at Champaign/Urbana… I may have two companions joining me this coming week it appears—at least if my phone messages are right.

2006-05-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

Day 17 Davis Point IL (Homer) --167Mi.
Sept. 20, 1838; May 12, 2006

The party rose early (3AM) in order to discharge the Indiana Militia this morning. By sunrise they had lined them all up, marched them to Tipton’s headquarters and paid them off based on the accounting they’d been organizing the last few days. Only sixteen of the volunteers would remain, and they’d now be under the command of William Polk, the federal “conductor” of the emigration. Here the command of the column transitioned from General Tipton of the Indiana Militia to William Polke, the federal conductor who would escort the Indians the rest of the way to Kansas. This is the point in the story where we bid Tipton farewell—or good riddance depending on your view. So it seems wise to outline his biography at this point and you can decide.

JOHN TIPTION
John Tipton was an Indian-hater and a military man at heart. At age 23 (1809) he become a member of the “Yellow Jackets” a local militia in Harrison County Indiana. He fought at the battle of Tippecanoe with William Henry Harrison at age 25 (1811) and wrote descriptive accounts of what happened there as the Indians were perceived to have broken their promise to not attack. He was able to cash in some of his military glory for political gain. He became sheriff of Harrison county and got elected to the state legislature. He got appointed to the commission to select Indiana’s new capital (they chose the tiny town of “Fall Creek” which later was named Indianapolis). He divorced his first wife (his cousin) at age 35. He landed the appointment as Indian Agent for both the Potawatomi and the Miami tribes at 37. At 39 he remarried, this time the daughter of his best friend Spier Spencer whom he had seen die in the battle of Tippecanoe.

Tipton at age 42 moved the Indian agency from Ft. Wayne to the Eel river and there he laid out the city of Logansport, Indiana. During his time as Indian agent he negotiated the treaties that got the government land for the Michigan Road and eventually significant lands for white settlers. As we already mentioned, he also personally purchased the land where the battle of Tippecanoe occurred and gave it to the state. When U.S, Senator Noble died, Tipton was appointed to replace him, filling out his term—he was 45 at the time and was reelected at age 46. When Tipton was 52 Governor David Wallace appointed “General Tipton" (he held the rank of Brigadier General in the Indiana Militia) to recruit volunteers and swear them into a militia to forcibly remove the Potawatomi Indians from Indiana. Tipton recruited 100 men and marched them to the Twin Lakes village of Menomonee and surrounded the Indians while in a council of peace. Intimidating the Indians into submittingthe began this sad march to Kansas where they were promised new homes and a year’s worth of government payments to help them get on their feet.

General Tipton may have received glory on the Tippecanoe battlefield but there was no glory in this assignment. He may have been a famed Indian-hater, but the poor tattered tribe he forced to Kansas were remnants with little fight remaining and he certainly sensed no gory in it. His letters about the removal carry no feeling of glory or even hate—just a sense of doing a messy clean-up task that needed to be done. He may have hated the Indians at one time, but the worst feelings coming through his letters by now is contempt or scorn for the defeated nation--his hate had lost its edge. For a powerful and triumphant nation to force a remnant band of leftover Indians living in abject poverty off their lands at bayonet point holds no glory—and Tipton must have known it. This was a messy thing that "had to be done" according to the governor, and Tipton would do it. He would get rid of this “Indian problem” once and for all by removing the remnant far from the borders of Indiana.

So was Tipton a bad man? There were reports that he did not allow time for the Indians to drink along the way but hurried them before they were finished drinking with a threatened prick of the bayonet. The Logansport newspaper reported these rumors and denied them defending their founder and leading citizen. Were they true? I think they were. Any person who has led a traveling group knows how hard it is to get the group to move and how they tend to lag behind at every stop. I’ve led groups of college students through Europe and have experienced the frustration of “one more stop at the bathroom before we leave” then one more, then another, until finally the first person who went to the bathroom has to go again! I’ve hiked with students who languish at every break stop and the only way to get them going again is to start up and leave them sitting by the stream. I think it is human nature when people are in large groups to lazy around at every stop until their leader forces them to march on. I suspect at streams when the command was given to move on any normal human being (especially while crossing the dusty prairies in1838) would want to take one more drink. And I suspect that the militia rode up to shout at them, even threaten them with bayonets to get moving. So I think it happened. Tipton hated Indians and it is no wander He had a personal history. When he was just seven years old living in Tennessee the Cherokee killed his father Joshua Tipton. At age seven he took on the role of “man of the house” and cared for his family. He and his mother moved the family to Indiana at age 21. How much his hate came form being robbed of his father at such a young age we do not know, we just know he hated Indians, as was in fact the norm for the day (hence the term “Indian lover” rose to label a person who had the unusual attitude departing from the average collective attitude).

Whatever, General Tipton is not remembered today for his fighting at Tippecanoe nor even for his two terms in the Senate, but he is remembered for this crowning achievement of removing the Indians from Indiana in 1838 at the age of 52. A the time it made him a hero to his fellow citizens. Today it stains his entire life’s contributions.

It would be convenient for us to blame John Tipton for this entire shameful thing but that would let too many others off the hook. Tipton did not act alone. This was no lynching, it was the legal and intentional act of government. Others must carry the blame too. Governor Wallace made the decision from his safe location in the state Capitol. The treachery of Col. Abel Pepper in using alcohol and deceit to coerce the unwary Indians in signing over their land deserves robust condemnation, of course But there is also the entire state legislature to blame—people who voted on resolutions that encouraged whites to take land by “pre-emption.” And certainly the national congress must share blame for their “humane” removal acts forcing Indians across the Mississippi River. And certainly we cannot let the arrogant law-defying President Andrew Jackson off the hook either. No, this was an action of the entire government and its leaders against the Indians. A wrong action. It was a sin. Evil. But Tipton alone cannot be blamed for the line between good and evil is not drawn between Tipton and Petit, white men and red men, this nation or that one—the line crosses through the heart of every man and woman—ours too.

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AS FOR ME I continued walking into the wind and rain pondering Tipton’s life and its lessons as I tried to reach the party’s next campsite at Sidney IL where I hoped to meet my wife, Sharon for a weekend off. Maybe the rain and cold will pass while we rest in the Champaign area this Saturday Sunday.

(When I assemble all this into something mroe passable than a "walking blog" I will certainly give credit to the various sources and interviews that have enriched my understanding of this story. So much credit will have to go to Shirley Willard of course, as I've mentioned already. And Potawatomi Susan Campnell has done a treffic job at a John Tipton biography which I relied heavily on and have read every day this week as I've pondered his career. Also, Irving McKee's 1941 book on the letters of Benjamin Marie Petit, and the Indiana Magazine of History's Vol 21--but I've said enough or this will turn into a bibliography When I gagther these thoughts together and add my essays on theology and spirituality I shall then cite the sourses. If you are realy hot to read them sooner--Shirley Williard and Susan Cambell have collected many of them into a recent 2003 book "Potawatomi Trail of Death" which is available from the Fulton County Historical Society in Rochester Indiana (37 E 375 N, Rochester, IN 46975)

2006-05-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Day 14-16 Sandusky’s Point IL (Catlin)
157 Miles
Sept. 17-19, 1838; May 11, 2006

The Indians and their guards stayed three nights at Sandusky’s Point (near present day Catlin) for two reasons. First, the Indiana militia had to be discharged since they were beyond the state borders and thus no longer had any jurisdiction. Second was the “weak condition of many of the emigrants demanding rest.”

On the first day here several of the sick who were left at the “filthy stream” near the state line caught up with the column, including among them a new child who was born to the woman left behind in labor. However the birth of a new child was countered with the journal entry, “a young child died directly after coming into camp.” Plus one minus one.

On their second evening a child and a woman died though they had also another birth. On this day more than two weeks into their eight week journey Dr. Jerolaman the official physician of the party finally arrived. After inspecting the Indians he reported 67 sick, 47 of them with “intermittent fever” among other physical complaints. He considered eight “dangerously ill.”

On the third day at Sandusky’s Point the administrators completed their record-keeping and finished organizing their accounts. The doctors reported not much improvement among the sick, and there continued to be “six or eight cases as very dangerous.” In the evening a child of six or eight died which was no longer unusual. During the night an adult person dies too. The camp simply buried their dead in the evening or morning along the route—more than 40 of them in unmarked graves “marking” this “Trail of Death.”

AS FOR ME I left the Danville Post office in high spirits with a pack of mail in my hand. Letters and cards (and sometimes even packets of candy) came from all sorts of people—some I know and many I’ve never met. Former students like Josh Jackson and Beth Lahni, my wife who faithfully sends clippings and news from home, Larry Wilson my editor, plus a half dozen folk I’ve never met who learned about the walk in their local newspaper or online. I read and responded to them all before leaving town.

Today as I walked the road out of Danville a carload of giggling high school girls slowed down to simultaneously shout out the window garbled and giggling things I couldn’t make out as they drove by giggling and laughing their way as if they were out of school forever and not just the day. Then I saw far ahead their car turn into a driveway and back up, coming my way again. Assuming they might toss out a bottle or something at me I veered off the road into the grass. Sure enough, as the car slowed a bit their sniggering rolled out of the car as a window rolled down and out came a scarf at me. Or, what I thought was a scarf, which actually turned out to be a pair of panties floating down to the grass on the wind. I could hear the girl’s laughing and giggles as their faces filled to windows looking back at me. I walked past the underpants recognizing that what may seem like forward flirting to a young man was simply old-man-taunting to someone my age. As more evidence of my age, the first thought that crossed my mind when I recognized what they’d done was, “Boy I wonder how much those underpants cost?”

Today I walked into the wind all day, like swimming against a powerful current. In this case the “current” is about 40 mph and I walked leaning toward it as the rain increased all day. And it is cold today—in the 40’s with 40 mph wind and raining—the very worst conditions for walking. I’d far rather walk in snow than 40 degree rain. Having only a tee shirt and a windbreaker with me my body temperature gradually dropped until I could no longer tie my shoes Finally I found shelter in the leeward side of a farm implement shed and pitched my tiny tent and crawled in and went to sleep by suppertime hoping for a warmer and drier day in the morning.

2006-05-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Day 13 – Danville IL 151 Miles
Sept. 16, 1838 May 10, 2006

The migrating party left seven sick people behind at the "filthy stream", one of whom was about to go into labor. They would catch up later. The heat and dust distressed the travelers today. The journal reported, “the horses and jaded, the Indians sickly, and many persons engaged in the emigration are more or less sick.” After a fifteen mile trip they camped by the town of Danville, Illinois which was a village about the size of the emigrating Potawatomie—about 800-1000. No person was recorded to have died among the Potawatomie Indians today, but the journal reported that in the nearby town of about the same size four people died today. He says, “it is worthy of remark, perhaps, that such a season for sickness in this country is almost unparalleled.”

But no deaths in the party today is only one of two great bright points . The other is the arrival of Father Benjamin Petit, the Potawatomie’s beloved priest who caught up to the party today. He had left Twin Lakes when the trouble started. The Indian’s homes had been burned to the ground but as soon as Father Petit dismantled the articles from his log cabin chapel so lovingly built by the Indians, a white settler moved in behind him and took possession. (see later writing on the law of pre-emption)

Petit’s Bishop had refused to allow him to accompany the party from Twin lakes, believing it might appear that the Catholic church somehow approved of this shameful thing. But, after the party was well along its way he relented and allowed Petit to catch up and join the party. Here in Danville he caught his beloved following on a Sunday, to the delight of the Indians who trusted him so completely.

Seldom has it ever paid for Indians to trust a white man completely (and never has it paid off for them to trust a white institution completely). But Petit was a true Christian and a true missionary and he was as worthy of their trust as you could expect. On arrival he immediately prevailed upon Tipton to release Menominee and all other chiefs from the jail wagon on Petit's word. Soon he would negotiate for Sundays off for a full mass and rest. Now he joined the Indians in their twice daily morning and evening prayers (which they had continued without him all this time).

Father Petit was not an old man at the time…he was 28. It is Petit’s story that has so captivated me about the Trail of Death. There is plenty of bad to go around in this story. But Benjamin Petit is some of the good that goes around. Along with William Polke—but we’ll hear more about him soon enough.

AS FOR ME I walked hurriedly into Danville where a reporter from the Danville commercial http://www.commercial-news.com/ connected with me for an interview just as it started to pour down rain. (The story will probably run Friday) As a reward for walking the first 150 miles, and entering a new state, (but most of all because of the downpour) I got a room at the Days Inn where the delightful night manager allowed me to use their business computer to write late into the darkness and finally to upload this journal. Tomorrow I go to the post office to collect my mail—thanks in advance to those of you who send a letter to cheer me up. I crawl in my tent tomorrow night and read them all!

2006-05-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Day 12 – Filthy Stream --136 Miles
Sept. 15, 1838 May 10, 2006

The removal party only made ten miles today, stopping at noon an “an unhealthy and filthy stream” near the Illinois line. Later reports from the leaders of this journey said they drank water from streams that even the horses refused to drink—perhaps this was one of such streams. The local folk had reported too far a distance to the next water source so they stopped early—it was too far to make it all the way to Danville, yet this stop seemed too short. Supplying water for 900 Indians plus the militia was no easy task from the trickling streams and still puddles.

For the Indians the highlight of the day was permission to go hunting. The whites allowed 25 of the young Indians to hunt for the fist time on the journey. While nothing is reported of their catch, it is doubtful that they hunted without adding something to the pot that night. The party was now 136 miles from home so the chances of these young men disappearing and going home was reduced by now.

On this day “two small children died along the road.” Again, the journey wiped out so many of the young. These two simply gave up and passed away while traveling. And perhaps the leaders didn’t even know about it until they got into camp and the dead bodies were produced. They were getting used to death.

It is worth noting that all of these days Chief Menominee did not ride with his people but was forced to ride in the jail wagon. Why? What crime had he committed? He stayed sober and refused to sell his land to the state of Indiana. For insisting on his right to not sell his land at a dollar an acre he was jailed as a criminal and forced to ride in this jail wagon right behind the flag of the militia who arrested him. A flag representing the state of Indiana—land of the Indians.

CHIEF MENOMINEE
There were lots of chiefs among the Indians, why did Menominee get the impressive statue at Twin Lakes? Because, though they all experienced injustice, his was perhaps the greatest injustice of all the shameful deeds of the period.

Menominee was known as the Potawatomie Preacher.” As a late-twentysomething he began preaching. He was examined by Rev. Isaac McCoy as to his worthiness for preaching. McCoy was founder of the Baptist Carey Mission just across the Indiana line in Niles Michigan. ON the irst day in April in 1821, 17 years before the removal, McCoy recorded Menominee’s visit. The Indian claimed a call many years before to preach to the Indians to avoid drunkenness, theft and other evil. Apparently McCoy was satisfied with the interview for he issued a paper attesting to having heard him pray and preach and calling all to treat him kindly—a proto ordination of the day—at least for a Baptist.

Menominee did preach and reportedly added a notch to a coup stick each time he delivered a sermon. What did he preach? Total abstinence from alcohol, avoiding stealing, hard work, adopting the white mans ways of farming, and to become Christians and blend into the new country causing no trouble. What did this get him? Nothing—a trip West in the jail wagon with no money for his land. Menominee wound up with neither land nor the money for it. All he got was a statue when long after his death the shame of his treatment roused white men generations later to honor the man their grandfathers cheated. This is how it is—the prophets they once killed get the honor posthumously.

Menominee was a successful preacher too. His village expanded from four to more then 100 cabins and wigwams in the following 17 years. While no preacher’s following are 100% obedient many of Menominee’s Indians did practice total abstinence and were successfully planting hundreds of acres of corn in Northern Indiana.

Menominee’s ties with the Baptists however lasted only 13 years. In 1834 he invited the “black robes” to establish a Catholic mission at Twin Lakes. Why the switch? The journey from Baptist to Catholic is longer than one from Indiana to Kansas—how did this happen? Actually the tribe had originally be “evangelized” by Jesuit missionaries a generation before Menominee was born. Many of the older folk were devout Catholics in their heart and the tribe continued the custom of twice daily prayers after the fashion of the Catholics. They continued this practice though they had not had a missionary priest for more than 40 years. This tribal heritage may have been a factor. Or he could have simply considered the Catholic style of Christianity a more robust form. Or maybe the natural alliances with the French made Catholicism more attractive. For wherever reason, Menominee invited the “black robes’ to establish a mission at Twin Lakes.

Menominee’s conversion to Catholicism cost him. He had taken his wife’s sister as a second wife, which was the custom to care and provide for her. He had asked McCoy if he needed to discard this second wife and Baptist McCoy thought it would be like gouging out an eye so (after a fast seeking God’s leading from which he heard no guidance) Menominee kept both wives. The first “black robe” priest, (Father Deseille) insisted on only one wife so when Menominee was baptized a Catholic he first wife was baptized with him and they received a Catholic marriage ceremony. Thus a Baptist preacher became a devout Roman Catholic.

Menominee’s fame comes from his refusal to sign the treaties selling his land to the state of Indiana. Most other chiefs did sign these treaties and received payment for the land at $1 acre. Menominee wouldn’t sign. He even went to Washington DC intent on seeing the President to defend his right to stay in Indiana but all efforts failed. Father Deseille actively worked to defend the Indian’s rights, but that got him in trouble with the state—after all he was a Frenchman and finally the government got rid of him, which is how Father Petit a young new missionary got assigned to Twin Lakes.

It is this Chief Menominee who has ridden all this way in a jail wagon choked with dust and on parade for all to see as they went through every small town. See the Indian chief defeated and jailed and on his way to unknown parts! All for the crime of refusing to sell his land to the state of Indiana. It is this Menominee who has just camped his 12th night dray and chocked with dust.

As for me I have plenty of water—at every farmhouse full of willing-helping people happy to help me on my journey so I pressed on anxious to get to Danville before the threatening storm-that-never-came last night caught up to its reputation. Saluting the Gopher Hill Cemetery, and State Line City I walked on toward Danville.

2006-05-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

Day 11 -- Williamsport -- 126 Miles
Sept. 14, 1838; May 9, 2006

As the party moved further west onto the prairies water became increasingly sparse. Their campsites were determined by water—sometimes at 18 miles distance and at other times just eight or ten miles. Streams for them were literally dried up. The party had been marching now for 11 days and they were weary. Walking with scant water they were likely dehydrated which makes for a bleary-eyed listless staggering. Today the journal writer wrote, “indeed not infrequently, persons thro weariness and fatigue take sick along the route. This occupies much of our time. We places them in the wagons which are every day becoming more crowded.” The party covered 18 miles today. During the evening two deaths occurred, with no mention if they were children or the aged, man or women. Just two deaths.

The journal describes the patches of prairies thus: “passing over a dry and seemingly unhealthy portion of the country.” What does an “unhealthy country” look like? Probably the unhealthy contributor to the party’s sickness was the water which carried invisible Typhoid.

AS FOR ME the “unhealthy portion of the country” was Attica, which was only a mile off my route and announced in the sky by golden arches its unhealthiness. After a big breakfast I talked to a reporter from Lafayette who promised to send out a photographer that afternoon—“keep walking on that route.” After saluting the Trail of Death marker at the part in Williamsport (on one of their two 2nd streets) I pressed on toward the state line. By dusk it was cloudy and threatening rain but in tiny Marshfield I purchased several candy bars for dinner and washed them down with a couple sodas bought at the only other merchant in Marshfield—a body shop specializing in restoring Corvettes from all over the Midwest. “Why locate such a business here in this tiny crossroads?” I asked. “Simple—the wife was raised here and wouldn’t move.” That seemed like a good enough reason.

As I enter increasingly open prairie lands the farmhouses are further apart. And there are fewer trees and thus fewer places to pitch my tiny tarp-tent. I finally found a tiny slick of trees bordering Possum Creek and prepared for what appeared to be a great rain shower overnight.

2006-05-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Day 10 LaGrange IN --108 Miles
Sept 13, 1838; May 8, 2006

Dressed in their new shirts and leggings made from the calico cloth distributed at Battle Ground, the Potawatomie party now passed beside Lafayette skirting the north then west side of the town to return back to the shores of the Wabash river to Lafayette’s rival port town, LaGrange. Here from this bustling town they invited a father-son team of physicians, the Ritchies to examine the Indians. The doctors reported 106 cases of sickness among the 900 Indians. The records of the party shows no record of any payment to the Ritchies so I presume they did this work gratis. There was an official physician of the party, but he had yet to show up (though he was getting paid).

In 1838 LaGrange on the Wabash competed successfully with Lafayette. But, alas, having a good port on the Wabash River would not be enough in the future. When the mighty railroad came through later it bypassed LaGrange and went through Lafayette. Today, Lafayette has both the railroad and Purdue University; LaGrange has a sign telling how it went out of existence.

There is one written record of seeing these Indians. One citizen from Lafayette went out to LaGrange to see the Indian removal, Sanford Cox. His mournful description was published in his 1860 book which has been recently been reprinted under a new title Old Settlers.” He and a few others rode horses out the 8-9 miles West of Lafayette to see the band and he wrote the following: “It was a sad and mournful spectacle to witness these children of the forest slowly retiring form the home of their childhood… All these [lands, trees] they were leaving behind them to be desecrated by the plowshares of the white man. As they cast mournful glances back toward these loved scenes, that were rapidly fading in the distance, tears fell from the cheek of the downs cast warrior, old men trembled, matrons wept, the swarthy maiden’s cheek turned pale, and sighs and half-suppressed sobs escaped from the motley groups as they passed along, some on foot, some on horseback, and others in wagons—sad as a funeral procession.”

It is not clear if this description was written at the time, or as Sanford Cox remembered it 20 years later, but forgiving the sophomoric attempt at poetry, if he did not describe the Indians wholly accurately what he said was nevertheless true—for this was certainly the spirit of the forced removal of these Indians. They were a broken people. A remnant. They had taken on the US Empire and lost. Now they depended on the white man for their calico and blankets. Once proud and ferocious warriors now begged to be allowed to go hunting for a bit of game—and were told no by their white guards. So they marched west to Kansas where they were told they would have houses to live in and a full years welfare payments from the government to help them get established across the Mississippi where there were no “states” and into land now called “Indiana Territory.” If they only had known that even these Indian territories would one day all be states too they might have been less submissive. But as good Catholics they submitted and tried to show their Christian character to be a witness to their guards.

AS FOR ME I returned to this trail after a day off with my wife and began walking through Lafayette Sunday evening when behind me I heard, “Dr. Drury, is that you?” It was Micah, a grad student at Purdue in history who had heard about my walk from Brooks Sayer in Logansport. Micah was on his way to see his girlfriend when he spied me on the road in front of her house. I spent the night on Micah’s couch and left long before he took his first morning rollover I suspect.

For my breakfast I had a hot dog at the Ravines golf course where I also took a census of who plays golf Monday mornings. I counted 37 golfers in all (34 white males, one afro-American and one woman.)

Like the Indians, I too returned to the Wabash and found the site of LaGrange moving right past it since I’d heard from Shirley Willard that Linda Klinger had a great restaurant in Independence. I mentally ordered several suppers before finding the restaurant burned completely to the ground. I ate supper at the only other business in Independence Indiana—the Coke machine where I deposited 50 cents and pressed Root Beer and got a Mountain Dew. I put in another two sets of quarters and this time I pressed a seven up and got—another Mountain Dew. Shrugging I chugged them both down and walked on with enough caffeine in me to get to the next state before dark. In an hour I found a shady spot near a creek and I camped for the night—and was asleep by seven o’clock, long before dark. Despite the 24 oz. of Mountain dew.

2006-05-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

Day 9-- Battleground, IN -- 89 Miles
May 5, 2006; Sept. 12, 1838

By 11 Am this day the Pottawatomie had forded the Tippecanoe River the same river they had spent their first night camped along at Chipeway though at this point it was a much larger body of water. Within an hour they passed the site of the old Tippecanoe battle ground which certainly brought back deep memories for everyone. Just 30 years , in 1808 Tecumseh and “the prophet” established “Prophets Town” in an attempt to unify and consolidate all remaining Indians into a single voice that could be the Indian equivalent of Washington DC and the President.

And they came to this Indian field of dreams—up to a thousand of them by 1811 when William Henry Harrison gathered a thousand soldiers together to put down this latest threat from Indiana solidarity. Harrison’s troops arrived and agreed with The Prophet there would be no engagement until the next day. Tecumseh was away recruiting other tribes into the new unified structure and had left word to not get into any scrape with the whites. Harrison posted a strong guard around the camp in spite of the agreement with The Prophet. Sure enough, upon seeing a vision where the white’s bullets could not harm the Indians The Prophet rallied them into a 4AM surprise stack that met strong resistance immediately due to the guard around camp.

The Indians were dealt a hearty turning point defeat in the realm of what Gettysburg would later become for the Civil war. The Tippecanoe battle ground was the end of Indiana hopes to be a strong enough unified body able to negotiate with Washington DC on somewhat equal terms. The Indians left the battlefield defeated and Harrison eventually became President. The Indiana retreat in despair was a painful memory. When Tecumseh did return there was nothing there—no village, no Indians—just ruins of a dream.

Some of the Pottawatomie had fought at Tippecanoe so these travelers were perhaps recalling the humiliation and feelings of betrayal by The Prophet. But so did the whites remember it. General Tipton was an officer in the fight. Judge Polke had been wounded in the fighting. It was a place of powerful memories and meaning for both races.

Perhaps this is why when they made camp an hour after passing the battle ground (15 miles for the day) the expedition’s leaders did what they did. Breaking open the wagons of supplies they distributed dry goods to the Indians: cloth, blankets, calicos—it must have seemed like one gigantic birthday party. And not a little either. That day the expedition distributed $5469.81 worth of dry goods to the Indians—more than $5 per person, man woman and child. Did the leaders of the journey choose this day to shower these gifts on the Indians to make a special point? And, if so, what was that point?

One person died today, a very old woman—the mother of chief We-wiss-sa—who was said to be over 100 years old. How exactly does a 100 year old woman handle a forced trek from Indiana to Kansas? By dying, I suppose. As in plagues and times of trial the children go first, then the aged.

AS FOR ME my day was happy without the calico cloth. Rising an hour before dawn I walked in the dark then twilight and when the sun actually rose I was a long way toward Battle ground where Sharon drove to meet me near Interstate 65. After a weekend together I shall return to the trail on Sunday afternoon and walk into Illinois next week.

By the way, the Tippecanoe Battlefield also has another tie to our story. General Tipton, the leader of the Indiana State militia, and a well known Indian hater was in command of this entire removal to the Indiana border. We will reflect more on this man when we get rid of him at he Illinois border, but for now we will mention here that he had amassed enough wealth that we was eventually able to purchase the battlefield site and give it as a gift to the state. If this good deed balances his evil deeds will be left to you to decide.

2006-05-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

Day 8 Pleasant Run, IN
May 4, 2006; Sept. 11, 1838

The trip to Pleasant Run was one of the happiest entries in the journal. The route led over open, Champaign country “which circumstance rendered the traveling more pleasant than that of any previous day.” The sick among the party seemed to “be recruiting” and the writer of the journal hopefully reported “everything bids fair for a comfortable and prosperous emigration.”

The journal-keeper (Jesse Douglas was the scribe for the journal) went on to say on the Indians themselves as follows: “If we may be allowed to judge from the gayety of our encampments—the bright smile that gild the sunny faces of our unhappy wards, and the contentment which seems to mark the sufferance of imposed restrictions, we may safely calculate upon the pleasantest and happiest emigration west.”

Who knows what the reality was. Pleasantness may have been in the eyes of the beholder. Certainly it was not pleasant to Chief Menominee. He was still forced to travel in a jail wagon bouncing along caged up for no other crime than refusing to sell the land he rightfully had been granted by treaty with the US government. Certainly it was not such a happy occasion for the parents of the many children who had already died along the route. But camp was made at Pleasant Run, north of Pittsburg Indiana and 17 miles south of Winnemac’s old village. Pleasant Run is indeed a pleasant place today—a delightful shady creek emanating the invisible feeling that all trekkers understand: “Here’s a great place to camp.” If the journal writer reflects the majority of the party’s feeling we do not know. At least on this day there was one bit of good news: nobody died.

AS FOR ME I walked on past Pleasant Run. In fact this is why I have a bit of doubt about the journal writer’s positive point of view. He recorded 17 miles for the day and I whizzed through it in a half day while purposely shuffling slowly. I’ve done that—optimistically guessed my mileage longer than it was when I was particularly feeling good. But I really can’t argue with him. He was using dead reckoning and so am I, so until I re-travel this route. I’ll take his word for it for now and give myself 20 miles credit by mid-afternoon. (those who have trekked with me in the past will doubt these numbers too.) I’ll let Shirley Willard figure that one out. So far I’d say the journal has been right on the money, or rather mileage.

Whatever, I walked all day in the bright sunshine without my hat until my skin started to tingle. Why does sunburn feel so nice while you’re getting it? Last night’s Gummi Bears and Reece’s pieces had worn off by noon so I stopped at a farmhouse and offered to buy a can of beans or can of whatever. The woman inside happily returned and said, “You can’t buy it—it’s yours” then handed me a can of condensed vegetable soup. Down the street I opened the can and ate it cold. How good something tastes is directly related to how hungry a person is. I was hungry.

I walked pass the Pleasant Run campsite and walked right into Pittsburg since I was now feeling as optimistic as the writer of the journal. At US 421 I left the route and walked a mile or so into to the town of Delphi, Indiana where I treated myself to a huge breakfast erasing the aftertaste of the condensed soup, mailed some letters, and went to the Laundromat to take the dampness out of my sleeping bag. There I met Barbara Humphrey and we struck up a conversation about my journey. It turns out Barbara’s grandfather was a full blooded Pottawatomie and she told several stories that had been passed down in her family. Next I found the Delphi public library where the crew was especially helpful in letting me sit before a computer typing long after a ordinary person should have moved on.

During the evening I met Will and Marsha on the first gravel road I’ve walked on this journey. They showed me a morel mushroom the size of a person’s hand and once they discovered the intention of my walk they drove home and came back at dusk with a meal for me—Hot ham and beans, Macaroni salad, a couple of colas, a half pound of cheese, bread and enough napkins for a Sunday school picnic. “We just wanted to help you on your way” they remarked then headed back home again. Propped against a fence I feasted sumptuously then found a secluded woods at the edge of a field and slept it off. Or tried to, tonight was my first night accompanied by mosquitoes and several farmhouse dogs who barked the days news back and forth to each other until about midnight when they apparently ran out of the day’s gossip[ and we all went to sleep and let the mosquitoes do their work in silence. Thanks Will and Marsha for a wonderful dinner!

Just like the Pottawatomie experienced, today was for me my best day yet on this trek. Why? Was I influenced by their journal? Is it my anticipation of seeing Sharon tomorrow and the successful end of my first week’s walking? Or was it the spirit of place? The Indians believed some places bode ill or good will and that passing through those spots affected the person. So the modern Charismatics. Who knows? Maybe a combination of these things—but as I lay down tonight I felt better than any night yet. Curious.

2006-05-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

Day 7 Winnemac’s old village, IN
May 4, 2006; Sept. 10, 1838

The Pottawatomie party left Logansport Monday morning. Since we know that tea and sugar are feeble remedies for the likes of Thphoid must have been the rest for they were off by 10AM. It this point the party turned West for the first time on their trek. They had first headed east several miles to pick up the Michigan Road, then south on that road to Logansport. Now they turned west along the Wabash river toward Kansas. It took the Pottawatomie seven hours to cover the ten miles along the north shore of the Wabash river from Logansport to the former site of Chief Winnemac’s villiage. Winnemac had been killed November 22, 1812 and the village by now was just a “former site.” Of course Twin Lakes where the Pottawatomie left would some day also join this site as a “former village site.”

The atmosphere of the journey might have shifted at this point. The route now lay along the Wabash river and most likely was more shaded then their walk along the Michigan road. The Wabash and Erie canal was under construction at the time (having been already finished west to Logansport) so they may have walked along the developing towpath of this famous canal. If they did the Pottawatomie and the canal were related in other ways.

Indiana purchased the land for the Wabash and Erie canal by treaty with the Pottawatomie. The scheme was clever: Buy the land cheap from the Indians, sell it at a couple hundred percent markup to white settlers, use the profits to build roads and canals like the Erie and Wabash.

The Wabash and Erie canal was the longest canal in the USA, connecting lake Erie and the eastern states with the Mississippi River VIA the Wabash. Begun in Ft. Wayne, the highest point on the route (hence the nickname “Summit City) the canal originally was intended only to get to the Wabash which was purported to be deep enough to let boats travel all the way to new Orleans. Alas, someone did not measure right—the Wabash River was too shallow for the heavily laden canal boats and the canal eventually had to be continued all the way to Evansville to connect directly to the Ohio River. In the process it bankrupted the state who was unable to pay back even the interest on the bonds and it influenced the state’s constitution who changed forever how the state can borrow money. Canals were great ideas of the day. Owners make millions on the canals in Pennsylvania and New York. Once established price of shipping dropped by ten times—this would be like gasoline dropping from $3 gallon to 30 cents just by building a canal to your town. No wonder most everyone on those days was a canal booster. But Indiana’s canals came too late—the Railroad was already invented when the first section of canal was dedicated. Railroads got the stuff there just as cheap and far faster. The railroads did the canals in, just as today trucking and air travel seem to be returning the favor.

I suppose the great public works project like the canal may have appeared to the Pottawatomie as a prime example of the white man’s supremacy. Crews of the latest immigrants including especially Irish laborers were busily digging and building up the sides of the canal. Surveyors were carefully measuring the fall of land to make sure the flow was right. Masons were building great stone locks. It must have appeared to the Pottawatomie a crowning achievement of the white man. Yet in less than a generation this canal would fall into disrepair and people walking it toady must have a trained eye to even spy to indentation where it once crossed this state. It is easier to find a Pottawatomie than the site of the Wabash and Erie canal in these parts today.

The Pottawatomie made camp at Winnemac’s old site. A man died today while they were traveling who had been sick since Logansport. He was the first adult to die on the trek. After coming into camp another child died.

AS FOR ME, my former student Pastor Brook fixed a gigantic breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes complete with home-boiled down maple syrup I headed West for the first time in the journey enjoying the shaded “Towpath road” along the beautiful Wabash river. What a change from the last few days where I was constantly turning back to pick up my hat blown off by 18 wheelers driving by a bit too close to me. Here on this forgotten road I saw only one or two cars an hour. I am walking amidst Trillium, wild Flox, Blue and white violets, and Asters. Everywhere flowers are blooming and in the fields the corn is less than one inch high. Since my blisters are painful I am taking a full shoes-off rest stop every 3-4 miles and the day is bright and the sun is beautiful. By early afternoon I reached Winnemac’s villiage site and took a long break, then walked on a few miles until I found a delightful ridge I could climb with a view of the rich bottomland and river and I pitched my little tarp for the night. I ate half of Josh Jackson’s Gummi Bears for lunch, then for dinner I ate the rest along with a packet of Reece’s pieces from Sharon. I am not out of food.

I went fast asleep long before dark and was awakened only a few times through the night, once to raindrops on the tarp, twice to howling coyotes, and twice to dear passing my tarp on their way to the Wabash. I checked in on my cell phone tonight and I have no partners for next week, but the following week, May 15th there are three people interested in joining me—Kevin Wright, a student at Duke Divinity school; Phil Woodbury, a Physician from Indianapolis; and Jason Denniston, a pastor from Indiana. My cell phone service goes in and out along the Wabash, so we’ll see who of these actually shows up on the 15th.

2006-05-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Day 3-6 Logansport, IN
May 3, 2006; Sept. 6-9, 1838

Once the Pottawatomie reached Logansport the party collapsed into sickness. It is strange how the third and fourth days of a journey can be the most difficult of a whole trek. People take a year off intent on hiking the entire Appalachian trail starting at Springer Mountain in Georgia. Yet three days later in Suches, Georgia as many as 10% of these “Thru-hikers” give up and go home. The euphoria of the start is quickly replaced by the drudgery of the trail. Three days is just long enough for blisters to develop and for all the fun to have run out.

The Pottawatomie weren’t just suffering from blisters. They were probably facing Typhoid. We don’t know for sure but “the fever” or general sickness they experienced that year may have been Thypoid which they had picked up from the stagnant water. Whatever, in Logansport a great many fell sick. The party stayed in town the entire weekend—camping Thursday night on the Eel river where it meets the Wabash and staying through until Monday morning—a weekend of sickness and death.

On Friday morning a child died, the second death of the journey. On Saturday a three year old child died and was buried. On Sunday physicians came into the camp to do a check-up and reported 300 cases of sickness. By Sunday a “kind of medical hospital” was erected and the doctors began their treatment. It wasn’t much in those days: tea, sugar and rest. Probably the rest without the tea and sugar would have done as much. On Sunday yet another child died during the day and still another after dark making five children dead in six days. The children were the first to go. The long walking and the disease took the weakest and most vulnerable first—the kids.

Yet amidst all the sickness on Sunday evening a great worship service was held with Bishop Brute presiding (Catholic Bishop from Vincennes) and almost a thousand Indians, a third of whom were sick gathered for mass. This is the famous scene sketched by frontier artist George Winter who was an eyewitness. The Pottawatomie were devout Catholic Christians. Even though Menominee had flirted for a while with the Baptists he and his tribe were Catholics at heart. The tribe was evangelized by Jesuit missionaries but had not had any Catholic presence for 60 years yet they continued morning and evening prayers after the fashion of the Catholics. They held these prayer and preaching services (without the Eucharist) for decades with no missionary present. No wonder when the “black robes” returned they were a loyal and devout following, and no wonder they had no trouble turning out for the Sunday evening service at Logansport!

AS FOR ME I did not stay any extra days in Logansport. My feet argued for several days off insisting that they had Typhoid or something worse. My back chimed in suggesting that another night in a real bed would be a great tonic as well. But my head cast the deciding vote. I leaped from day three to day 7 in one night.

2006-05-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

Day 3 --to Logansport
(May 2, 2006; Sept 6, 1838)

The journal of the party is a mere paragraph for today, though the group walked 17 miles into Logansport and the Wabash River. The only entry of note was that nine Indians who had been left sick on the first night caught up to the party. Logansport was a major town and in some ways the jumping off point for the journey west. It was Tipton’s town (he is buried here) and so far the Indians headed for Kansas had headed east then south. Here they would turn west.

Also here they would leave the “Michigan Road” which was constructed just eight years before the Pottawatomie forced removal. It was Indiana’s pride of the day—a road connecting the Ohio River at Madison to Michigan at Michigan City. It was built on Pottawatomie land purchased by treaty which the government turned around and sold parcels to white settlers to pay for the road’s construction. It was in this decade also—the 1830’s—that Indiana saw the National Road or Cumberland Road (Present US40) enter Indiana eventually forming a cross with the Michigan road in Indianapolis.

AS FOR ME I faced less rain today and had a straightaway walk into town too with no stores on the route except my cup of coffee and microwave sausage and egg sandwich at the Fulton gas station. A border collie took a liking to me today and was determined to follow me to Kansas. I scolded him, shouted at him, threw sticks and stones at him to get him to go back home but he refused. He looked at me with his brown eyes saying, “I know you really want a partner for this trip—and if I need to follow you a stones throw behind I shall do so—I love you, you know.” What’s a guy to do? I found bigger stones, but he only followed just beyond my distance and watched my lobs as if it were a game. His irritating trait was to walk right down the middle of route 25 playing chicken with the coming 18 wheelers then sauntering off the road just in the nick of time (and after the trucks had burned off a quarter inch of their brake linings). It is funny, I noticed that cars and trucks automatically slow down when there is a dog nearby—even off the road. It was interesting, I could tell the moment a trick would spy the dog in the grass.., they’d leave off their accelerator and start to coast. Those “I brake for animals” bumper stickers must be working. Apparently there are no “I brake for walkers” stickers for I found the traffic considerably slower for the ten miles the dog insisted on accompanying me. Perhaps he had seen my Internet post and just forgot to call me? Who knows, but after one pickup truck almost went careening into the ditch to avoid killing “my” dog I had enough. I took him to the next house and asked the owner to tie him up for an hour then let him loose so he’d go home. (I do not intend to treat human companions so harshly, I promise).

The rain lifted today for the most part. But blisters arrived—on my right foot. The right foot is especially hard for road walkers. I walk facing the traffic and the road is “crowned” meaning my right foot is effectively about a quarter inch “longer” then my left foot, which throws everything off and causes considerable stress on road-walkers. I took two long breaks today to dry out my feet, hoping the blisters would evaporate (they didn’t) so I limped the last 5 miles into Logansport.

But I was faced by a real treat in Logansport that lifted my spirits far above blister-level. Brook Sayer a 2003 graduate of IWU is pastor of a church directly on the route—beside the Eel river just before it flows into the Wabash. Actually he lives about 100 or so yards from the actual site of the camp here. Brook and I went out for a steak dinner at Ponderosa and we returned to the all-you-can-eat buffet at least 17 times. His wife Jill is a nurse and comes home after one of her 12 hour shifts. We stopped by the Postr office and I collected my mail—from Josh Jackson, Megan Iazeolla, Beth Lahni, And Sharon—THANKS!!! I forwarded any mail coming in the next few days “down the line” so I’ll get it later—I’m ahead of “schedule” so far, but my blisters will take care of that soon enough! After sleeping next to Clara and James last night in the Fulton cemetery, tonight I get to sleep on a real bed all alone. Ahhhhhh….what luxury, I’m almost forgetting the burning blisters as I type this sitting on my bed-for-the-night.

The Pottawatomie spent four nights here in Logansport—but that’s another story, for now I am going to bed in a BED.

2006-05-02T17:48:00.000-07:00

Day 2 --Mud Creek
(May 1, 2006; Sept 5, 1838)

I walked quickly the next morning to Chippeway, on the Tippecanoe River the site of the Pottawatomie first campsite. On their first night 20 Indians escaped and despite a band of soldiers sent to round them up they were never found. The Indians trip today was short one of 9 miles to Mud Creek (Sketched by George Winter)which was aptly named then as it is today. At this campsite the first death occurred on this “Trail of Death” the first fruits of many to come, mostly children and the elderly. One can imagine the sorrow around one of those late-night cooking fires where the Indians cooks their daily rations of beef and flour. A mother’s child had died today. Yet around another cooking fire there may have been joy, subdued though it may have been—a child was also born on this second night and one can imagine the celebration too. Such is life—a blending of both sorrow and joy, sickness and health, evil and good.

AS FOR ME I sloshed on the route today largely depressed at the incessant rain until I was lifted up by a great treat. A car stopped across form me asking, “You still walkin’? It was Bill Willard who quickly arranged for his wife Shirley to meet us for lunch as soon as I walked the next few miles into the town of Rochester, Indiana where they treated me to a huge luncheon special at the Evergreen Cafe topped off with home-made Cherry pie and about 40 cups of coffee. Shirley Willard probably knows more about the Pottawatomie Trail of Death than any person alive and is the historian I could never hope to be. She toted along her huge collection of maps of the Indiana route which she is arranging to put online eventually and I was able to correct my maps all the way to the Illinois line. Leaving the Evergreen café I was several pounds heavier but walked 20 pounds lighter in the echo of warm conversation with Bill and Shirley. I soon passed Mud Creek the site of the Indian’s second night and the first death/birth on the trail and walked to the edge of Fulton, Indiana where I found an inviting cemetery at the edge of town and I spent the night between Clara and James, having to put up my tiny tarp because of gigantic thunderstorms which kep me awake most of the night.

2006-05-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Day 1
(April 30 2006; Sept 4, 1838)

The first day of a long journey often yields longer miles than later days. You’d think the opposite would be true—that the early days of a trek would give lower miles so that when the walker “go it shape” they’d increase their miles. But the first day one’s spirit is high, drudgery has not yet set in, and there are no blisters and muscle cramps.

This was only half true for the Potawatomie Indians. True, they did walk 21 miles their first day out—longer than any other single day of their two month journey. But high spirits was not the reason. Water was.

The summer of 1838 brought a sever drought to the “Northwest USA” (as Indiana was considered then). The creeks were dry, streams offered only stagnant pools of water and the “emigrating party” was forced to plan their journey so they could camp as water sources. This meant some days they stopped sooner than they wanted to, and other days they went further—as on this day, Tuesday September 4, 1838 when they walked 21 miles.

The official journal put it thus: “The day was exceedingly sultry, and the roads choked with dust.” No wonder. 958 Indians with their 285 horses plus a hundred militia who were “escorting” these Indians West traveled the dusty “Michigan Road” south toward “Chipeway” (several miles North of present day Rochester Indiana) where they spent their first night. As was their custom the Indians traveled in single file making a line three miles long according to a newspaper account (Delhi, Indiana). Such a single filoe line would be raising up from the dry road a billowing cloud of dust which was almost unbearable for those in the back of the line. Hot and thirsty and dust in their ears, eyes, and mouths. The scarcity of water would plague them for weeks to come.

AS FOR ME, scarcity of water is not my problem—an abundance of it is. I started this walk in pouring rains and it continued all day long with only one break on the porch of a Child Evangelism Fellowship office where I ate 8 OZ of Josh’s leftover “Swedish fish” my only food for the day. Back on the road sloshing until I lay down for the night soaked and exhausted short of the Pottawatomie camp in Argos, Indiana where I found a partially finished new house—with the roof finished but no door yet. I rolled out my sleeping bag in the back corner “bedroom” chuckling that the people living here later would never know they entertained their first house guest long before moving in. It rained all night with cracking thunder awakening me frequently, but otherwise I slept well—all 13 hours of it.

2006-05-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Day 0
(August 31-Sept. 3, 1838)

Under pretense of a conference of unity the Potawatomie Indians were gathered at Twin Lakes Indiana only discover themselves surrounded by General Tipton and a hundred of the Indiana State Militia soldiers. They were to be transported west to the great promised land in Kansas where houses were waiting for them. Most Chiefs (having been served generous amounts of free alcohol) had sold their land by treaty to the state two years before. They had two years to vacate. Now the day had arrived. But this was not so for Chief Menominee. The “Potawatomie preacher” taught abstinence from alcohol and thus never lost control of his senses enough to make an “X” on the treaty selling all his land to Indiana (for $1 acre). Menomonee insisted he’d stay in his own state—the state of Indiana (“land of the Indians”). He refused to sell.

It made no difference. The Indians who had already sold their land and Menominee’s tribe were all rounded up like cattle and under the gun and bayonet forced west to the land promised them across the Mississippi. Menominee along with two other chiefs was put in a jail wagon, the houses and log cabins in the village of Twin Lakes were burned and the tribe was forced to leave in less than a week.

General Tipton (also a Senator) took less than a week to gather the stragglers and soon the party was on its way south to the Wabash River then West to Kansas—almost a thousand Potawatomies.

This is the trail I will follow. 660 miles to (what turned out to be) a less-than-promised land with no housing whatsoever. But Tipton (and the governor of Indiana, and the US Congress) has solved their “problem.” They had gotten rid of the “Indian problem’ by moving the problem west across the Mississippi into “Indian land.”

Why am I doing this walk? At first glance it may seem like guilt, but that’s not it. My great-great Grandparents were digging in the coal mines in England at this time—I carry no family blame for this injustice. Perhaps shame is a better word. In some ways I’m ashamed of what my race and my nation did at this time and I feel ashamed. But that’s not the right word either. As I begin this walk at the statue of Menominee the word that emerges strongest is mourning. It is a deep sense of sadness and pain for what the Pottawatomie Indians experienced and I want to identify with it. The Bible says, “Blessed are those who mourn.” I am exploring the blessedness of this mourning on this trek. I’m setting aside two months to mourn with the Pottawatomie and I think I can do that best actually retracing their route step by step. If you’re reading this you can go along too—just check back periodically and read about their story, and mine.

2006-04-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Graduation finished about noon. As I rode my moped home I saw students loading their rooms into their parent’s cars and trucks in the misty rain. It was time for me to pack too—so I finally gathered the stuff I’d been listing in my head during the Baccalaureate and Commencement addresses. There’s not much…

--Go-lite pack @ 15 oz,
--sleeping pad @ 7 oz
--Moonstone sleeping bag @ 28 oz
--Go-lite umbrella @ 7 oz,
--Patagonia fleece @ 7 oz,
--Nylon running shorts @ 2oz
--Fleece night cap @ 3 oz
--2 water bottles @ 4 oz
--Writing materials @ 4oz
--Research notes @7 oz
--Toiletries & misc @ 4 oz
--Electonics @ 9 oz
TOTAL of about 7 pounds on my back.

I’ll be wearing the rest:
--Columbia desert pants
--Wal-mart Starter® shirt,
--Desert sun hat & sunglasses
--New Balance ® 806 sneakers
--4 pr liner socks

FINALLY I’m packed and ready to go. Just in time. Sharon will drop me off tomorrow afternoon in at the Twin Lakes statue of Chief Menominee near Plymouth Indiana and I’ll start my 660 mile trek in the path of the Potawatomi Indian removal to Kansas.

A student yesterday upon hearing of my walk asked, “Why in the world would you want to go to Kansas?” That, of course, was exactly the question the Potawatomi asked. ;-)
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To join me for a day or week call 765-618-0990
To send a postcard or note see the mail drops below in previous post.

2006-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'd love to get a short note or or post card while walking from you...When I go into a Post Office hoping for something and they say, "Sorry, nothing for you here" I walk away with my head down for the next week. I know..everybody is busy so I understand, but if you want to make this walker happy a short note to one of my mail drops along the way is a real pick-me-up on a long walk like this. And I always answer every one. I guess I like to hear from friends because I have 15 hours a day while walking to ponder friendship, your news, what's happening elsewhere--it is my "newspaper" of sorts. So if you want to write a note here are my mail drops on this walk. (If I beat your note to the PO I'll leave a forwarding address to the next PO so it will still catch me)

Address mail to Keith Drury-General Delivery at these addresses by these dates.
Keith Drury-General Delivery
May 5 Logansport In 46947-9999
May 11 Danville IL 61832-9999
May 18 Decatur IL 62525-9999
May 25 Exeter IL 62621-9999
June 3 Paris MO 61944-9999(Married 39 yrs today).
June 9 Lexington MO 64067-9999
June 16 Paola KS 66071-9999

2006-04-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

I still have not packed... grading papers every waking hour... in the Spring I always wonder why I've assigned my student so much writing--which only means I have to read it all. (They think likewise).

I have about 5-6 people who have talked about walking some of this trek with me so far--but usually only one of five every actually shows up--no matter, I can walk-without-thinking alone as easily as with someone else.

The way I have this scheduled is in one-week segments so I should take each weekend off... I'll hitchhike home each weekend at the beginning or Sharon plans to come to meet me on some weekends. The Indian removal journey took 1-2 days a week off on average. There was so much sickhness and death the first 3-4 weeks that they sometimes had to stay 2-3-4 days to get the number of sick down under 100. I will try to stay on track with their rough schdeule which gives me a "Sabbath day" or two each week. Most treks I've done (and most other trekkers) find a day off a week or two actually INCREASES their total mileage -- there's a lesson in that I think.

OK back to grading--my reward for getting this done is getting to leave and start walking... I'm ready..wish I could leave tomorrow! Maybe I'll just give them all A's and leave early!

2006-04-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

I find myself thinking (even dreaming) about this walk--probably as an escape from the mounds of grading before me this weekend. While I am excited about the story to be experienced and told, right now I'm most anticipating "just walking." College professors like me only "work" eight months but in reality I simply cram 11 months of labor into those eight months. Right now I am looking forward to "nothing." That is, I am wanting to just walk for 12 hours a day thinking about nothing whatsoever except the next step I need to take, or blisters on my feet, or thiking about the fact that I'm thirsty, or noting the heat of the sun or the coming rain--simple things that humans have thought about for thousands of years.

Sometimes people ask why I do trekking. Thay assume "You must really get a lot of ideas while walking, right?" Actually, no. Mostly I think about nothing at all. I "fast" thinking, and talking, and (usually) even writing--on wilderness trips I don't even take a pen and paper. I look forward most to rebooting my mind...doing a "disk defrag" of my mind—clearing out half-thought thoughts, deleting wasteful thinking, opening up fresh disk space of the mind. That is what I yearn for right now in the midst of the final flurry of grading and exams.

This walk will be different. I am writing on it (thus this blog) but I’ll be tracing the steps of other walkers—almost a thousand Indians forced to leave Indiana so we could plant our own corn and soybeans. It is a sad tale yet a story of great hope and love at the same time. So, while I’ll be emptying out my mind of the usual things, I’ll be filling it with different stuff. I want to feel the pain of the two million footsteps those Indians took to get to their new land in Kansas. And I want to feel their remorse and despair…but also their hope and happiness too.

And I especially want to feel what the white folk who conducted this removal felt. They are not all bad men—indeed one of them is a hero of sorts—a guy stuck with doing a bad thing the best way possible. And I especially want to feel what the young priest who went along felt. This trip for me is not so much a trip of the mind, but one of the heart.

The sooner I start the better. Which means I need to go pack…at least I should go pack.

2006-04-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have been reading all year getting ready for this journey, the letters from people who went on the journey, especially the Priest and the "conductor" of the removal. But now it is time to actually get gear ready--yet I'm not ready for that. I have another week of classes--where I have to grade final "papers" then a week of exams grading, then graduation..then I'm off... I plan to leave the day after graduation, the last day of April so I can starting walking may 1st. When will I pack? Who knows... I'm packing in my head now, but I probably won't do it until the night before. Oh well, this trek is not like my normal wilderness backpacking treks on the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail where you go a week without a store. I'll pass some little store daily I suppose, so I'm not freaking out yet. My head is working in "background" but most of my attention is on finishing my semester strong, not on this walk. I should have given myself a few days cushion--no matter I'll just do it.

2006-04-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

May-June 2006 Trail of Death Journey
In 1838 Americans were moving west and wanted the fertile land of Northern Indiana. The problem: the Potawatomi Indians were in the way and owned the land by treaty. Through a series of deals and decisions the State of Indiana initiated the “removal” of nearly a thousand Potawatomi 660 miles to Kansas. It is called the “trail of Death” because almost daily as they crossed Indiana and Illinois children and old folk died.

The famous chief Menominie who had refused to cave in and give up his land to the state was known as the “Potawatomi preacher” insisting on twice daily Christian worship and total abstinence from alcohol. A young Catholic Priest, Father Petit accompanied the tribe on the journey and kept a careful diary as did the commander of the troops.

Keith Drury, religion professor at Indiana Wesleyan University is walking this 660 mile route as he writes the book, “Meditations for Christians along the Trail of Death.” The book will integrate two areas—the history of the event and religion, reflecting on events in 1838 from a religious (particularly Christian) perspective. The walk will begin near May 1, 2006 and for the year before this walk Keith Drury has been researching the history of the journey.

More resources will appear on this site one he takes the walk and the book as well will be available here. Until then his email address is kdrury@indwes.edu and you might also get captivated by this story by reading some of the resources available on the web:

Tentative schedule of 2006 Drury walk
First week of May (RED)
Second week of May (PINK)
Third week of May (LIGHT GREEN)
Last week of May (BLUE)
First week of June (YELLOW)
Second week of June (GREEN)
Third week of June (BLACK)

Want to join me?
If you are a friend or student and you might like to join me on a few days or a week of this trip let me know by writing kdrury@indws.edu or (once the trip has started) call my cell phone at 765-618-0990 and leave a message; I’ll check messages every evening