Dig reveals rich details about settlers, mount builders

June 12, 2005 

By Charles M. Bartholomew
Post-Tribune correspondent

On a shelf at the University of Notre Dame is a flake of obsidian from the Rocky Mountains, one of 15,000 items unearthed last summer near Baums Bridge, just south of Kouts.

An amateur archaeologists’ show in DeMotte last year showcased chunks of obsidian, a volcanic rock usually not found within a thousand miles of Indiana, pulled from Kankakee Valley farm fields.

“This shows somebody was flaking obsidian here during the Middle Woodland Period, around 1 A.D.,” said associate professor of anthropology Mark Schurr, who is about to start a third summer of excavation at the old Collier Lodge, owned by the Kankakee Valley Historical Society.

The society has a contract with Notre Dame to excavate the one-acre site that holds the last of the old hunting clubs that dotted the Grand Kankakee Marsh a century ago, for historic and prehistoric artifacts — anything made by man.

Finding the flake has added to the excitement Schurr has developed from his three-year association with the Kouts-based group.

“The obsidian comes from the Yellowstone region in Wyoming,” he said. “There’s been a debate over whether obsidian tools were imported fully made or the rock was brought here to be worked.”

The site is half a mile south of the site of the Hopewell Indian settlement named for the former village of Maysville.

These were the people who built the burial mounds near Boone Grove around the time of Christ.

Schurr’s work is the third major scientific investigation of prehistoric and historic man in Porter County since the 1930s. It suggests Northwest Indiana has been the Crossroads of America for 10,000 years, a game-rich lure for hunters and traders from all over the continent, almost since the end of the last Ice Age.

Kankakee Valley Historical Society President John Hodson’s excitement over the flake doesn’t focus on its scientific importance.

“It tells a story,” he said.

Just from last summer’s dig, there are thousands of stories waiting to be researched, stories of hunters, mound builders, traders, trappers, settlers, soldiers and presidents.

“There’s a military button,” Hodson said. “It may be from the army unit that crossed the river on its way to remove the Potawatomi.”

High on this summer’s wish list is the chance of finding remains of the cabin for the original river ferry, Schurr said.

“The most exciting thing we found was a brick hearth foundation,” he said. “We don’t have a record of a log cabin at the site of Eaton’s ferry in the 1840s. This may be Eaton’s cabin.”

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Schurr said evidence of LaSalle’s 1679 expedition, which must have camped somewhere nearby, has yet to be found.

The same goes for anything left by fugitives on the Underground Railroad line that ran from Lafayette to Michigan City through Rensselaer.

“We’ve got lots of (spear) points and arrowheads, fish hooks and lures, buttons, beads, coins, all kinds of shell casings — from wood and metal — to plastic, poker chips,” Schurr said.

That’s still a lot of stories.

Even a Stroh’s beer can is on Schurr’s to-be-researched list.

“It needs a church key (can opener),” he said. “We need to find out when Stroh’s started using pop tops.”

Schurr said there’s also the remote chance of turning up something that can be tied to one of the famous hunting lodge visitors, like Teddy Roosevelt or “Ben Hur” author General Lew Wallace, who owned 10 acres nearby from where he launched boats on the river.

By contract, everything found at Collier Lodge goes to Notre Dame as curator for the excavation, keeping the discoveries safe while the society works toward a place to show them.

“That’s why we’re restoring the lodge, to use it as a museum,” Hodson said. “We may make arrangements with the Kouts Library, too. You can’t hide history away in drawers.”

The society has filed an application to put the lodge on the National Register of Historic Places, which will make it easier to get grants and publicity for the state’s only volunteer-excavated archaeological site.

With the help of a $2,000 matching state grant, the society has obtained an engineering study for the project with its estimated $250,000 cost.

Hodson said he’s getting up to four or five calls a day from prospective volunteer diggers, pushing the society’s roster past 130. All that’s needed is a membership and a signed release, and the only age restriction is that those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The three-week Wednesday-to-Saturday digging schedule starts this Wednesday, weather permitting, running from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A 60-foot trailer donated from the remodeled Baums Bridge Inn across the road — where two more hunting lodges were located — w

Prehistoric and Historic Period in Indiana

Paleo-Indian: to 8000 B.C.

Archaic:

8000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.

Early Woodland:

1000 B.C. to 250 B.C.

Middle Woodland:

250 B.C. to A.D. 350

Late Woodland:

A.D. 350 to A.D. 1100

Upper Mississippian: A.D. 1100 to A.D. 1500

“Proto-Historic” or Contact:

1500 to 1679

Historic:

1679 to present, subdivided by Schurr into:

French influence:

1679 to 1760

British influence:

1760 to 1776

Removal:

1795 to 840

Pioneer:

1840 to first railroads

Additional “periods” (sometimes called “phases”) depend on the field of who is doing the naming, such as “Hunting Lodge” and “Agricultural.”

Indiana’s Antiquities Act defines an “artifact” as anything dating from before December 11, 1816, the date of admission to the Union. It is illegal to search or dig for artifacts, even on your own property, without a state permit from the Department of Natural Resources. Artifacts found or discovered anywhere must be reported to the State Historian and further activity on the property must cease until an authorized investigation has been made.

SOURCE: Expanded from “An Introduction to the Prehistory of Indiana” by James H. Kellar,” Indiana Historical Society, 1983, using notes by Mark Schurrill serve as a field office.