Highlighting Hoosier Archaeological Sites: Northwest

Site 12BN152 is part of a small cluster of sites (with 12BN164 and 12BN165), recorded in Pine Township, Benton County in 2015 by the Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) students and staff as part of a Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) grant (Balough et al. 2016; Nolan et al. 2019). This site cluster reveals a story of precontact Indigenous relationships with wetlands and wetland resources (Figure 1). While Euro-Americans viewed wetlands as obstacles to be conquered and transformed into productive farmland, Native Americans incorporated wetlands into a comprehensive environmental interaction and management pattern (see Surface-Evans 2015).

Benton County is characterized predominately by former prairie and wetlands (Petty and Jackson 1966); however, there is much variability. This ecology presents a special setting for Indigenous land use. While many areas of the Till Plains have precontact site densities near one site every 2 to 3 acres, this survey of 841.3 acres in Benton County resulted in one site every 20.03 acres. The survey documented the human occupation of the county with identified occupations during the Early Archaic (possible), Late Archaic period, and terminal Middle Woodland periods.

Benton County is comprised primarily of poorly drained Argiudolls (clayey prairie soils) and Endoaquolls (saturated prairie soils), with rises of moderately well drained Hapludalfs (soils formed in forest with humid climates). The micro-ecologies created by this combination of soils are generally small and present a unique diversity of resources (Barnes et al. 1989:1). Site 12BN152 and adjacent sites illustrate settlement pattern favoring this micro-ecology (Figure 1).

The survey shows differential use by landforms, with floodplains avoided. Four soil orders were represented within the nine Survey Areas, which include Mollisols (prairie soils, 78.6%), Entisols (young soils, 14.3%), Alfisols (forest soils, 5.8%), and Inceptisols (young/poorly developed soils, 1.3%), which is fairly representative of the percentages within the entire county. Sites were discovered on Mollisols (60.4%, or 58 sites), Entisols (32.3%, or 31 sites), and Alfisols (7.3%, or 7 sites). That is, Indigenous people preferred forested soils and areas of developing soils (higher proportion of sites than surface area), while modestly avoiding prairie soils (lower proportion of sites than surface area).

Site 12BN152 is located in an area of ground and end moraines that includes topographic rises and ridges with well-drained soils (Gray 2000; Schneider 1966). These moraines have soils that are associated with upland features. Further, 96% of sites recorded during the larger survey (Balough et al. 2016) are located on ground and end moraines, a strong indication that Native Americans preferred to settle on dry, well-drained forest soils elevated above adjacent wetland prairie soils (Balough et al. 2016; Leeuwrik et al. 2016, 2017, 2018; Nolan et al. 2019; Surface-Evans 2015).

At a finer scale, 84% (n=16) of precontact sites recorded near 12BN152, including 12BN164 and 165, are located on rises of well drained soils (Figure 1), suggesting that the people were focusing on the elevated well-drained soils (Balough et al. 2016:132; Nolan et al. 2019:45). The combination of dry, elevated forest surrounded by wet prairie (Aquolls) and marshy (Saprists) soils created a unique micro-ecology providing diversity of resources and a suitably dry sheltered area for a base camp.

The area around site 12BN152 is relatively unique culturally as well as environmentally. This unique micro-ecological combination yielded a total of 28 sites (32.9% of total), and 52 precontact artifacts (64.2% of total) in 105.86 acres (12.6% of total surveyed area). Sites 12BN152, 164, and 165 exhibit evidence of exotic trade and various stages of stone tool production. The vast majority of stone artifacts are located on the rises. This area is the only area surveyed during the FY2015 investigation that yielded artifacts made of Attica (~20 km [12.4 miles] south), Blanding (~300 km [186 miles] northwest), Flint Ridge (~415 km [258 miles] east), Lost River (~230 km [143 miles] south southeast), Muldraugh (~280 km [174 miles] south southeast), and Wyandotte (~270 km [168 miles] south southeast) cherts. With the exception of Attica, these cherts were carried substantial distances by trade or migration to eastern Benton County. The presence of these valuable cherts suggests highly organized and important activities taking place in this unique environment.

Site 12BN152 is a Lithic Scatter and a Historic Scatter which yielded a single diagnostic artifact (Steuben Expanded Stem) made of Attica chert (Figure 2) dating to the terminal Middle Woodland (200 B.C. - A.D. 600) to early Late Woodland (A.D. 600 - 1200) (Justice 1987). Site 12BN164 was a Lithic Scatter which yielded a possible Thebes-notched scraper (Figure 2) (Justice 1987). The scraper was made of Wyandotte chert and possibly associated with the Early Archaic period (8000 - 6000 B.C.). Site 12BN165 was a Lithic Scatter which yielded a Brewerton Corner Notched point (Figure 2) made of heat-treated Muldraugh chert and dating to the Late Archaic period (3000 - 1000 B.C.) (Justice 1987). This area was the only area in the FY2015 HPF survey that exhibited this pattern of landscape exploitation. Similar environments may hold similar patterns of regionally intense use of small forest rises surrounded by wetlands (see Surface-Evans 2015).

Individually site 12BN152 and the nearby sites would not typically be considered significant (c.f. Nolan 2020); however, as a group they illustrate a pattern of behavior that represents an important trend in precontact Native American interaction with the wetlands of northwest Indiana. Based on the artifact assemblages, the soil context, and the relatively unique micro-ecology, sites 12BN152, 164, and 165 were recommended as potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as a group under Criterion C (36 CFR 60.4(c)) (Balough et al. 2016:134). These sites and others in similar settings offer the opportunity to explore cultural differences in perspectives on wetland environments, and alternative ways of interacting with the environment. Further study of similar locations combined with an approach grounded in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (see Nelson and Shilling 2018) may provide substantive insights into the economic and environmental management systems of Indigenous populations in northwestern Indiana, and inform future sustainable land management practices in the region.

References

Balough, Amanda, Christine Thompson, and Kevin C. Nolan (2016). An Archaeological Survey of Benton County: Enhancement of a Data Deficient Region. Reports of Investigation 93. Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Barnes, James R., Paul McCarter, George McElrath, and Bryon G. Nagel (1989). Soil Survey of Benton County, Indiana. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

Gray, Henry H. (2000). Physiographic Divisions of Indiana. Indiana Geological Survey No. 16. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Justice, Noel D. (1987). Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.

Leeuwrik, Jamie M., Shelbi Long, Christine Thompson, Erin Steinwachs, and Kevin C. Nolan (2017). A Data Deficient Region: An Archaeological Survey of Newton County, Indiana. Indiana Archaeology 12(2):124-153.

Leeuwrik, Jamie M., Christine Thompson, and Kevin C. Nolan (2016). An Archaeological Survey of Newton County: Enhancement of a Data Deficient Region, Part II. Reports of Investigation 92. Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Leeuwrik, Jamie, Christine Thompson, and Kevin C. Nolan (2018). Archaeological Investigations of the Northern half of Newton County, Indiana. Indiana Archaeology 13(1):7-26.

Nelson, Melissa, and Dan Shilling, editors (2018). Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Nolan, Kevin C. (2020). Bringing Archaeology into the Information Age: Entropy, Noise, Channel Capacity, and Information Potential in Archaeological Significance Assessments. Quality and Quantity 54:1171-1196. doi:  10.1007/s11135-020-00980-0 

Nolan, Kevin C., Amanda E. Balough, and Christine Thompson (2019). Archaeological Investigations of Northern Benton County, Indiana. Indiana Archaeology 14:34-53.

Nolan, Kevin C., Christine K. Thompson, Jamie Leeuwrik, and Amanda Balough (2016).  Recent Survey in Benton and Newton Counties: Data Deficient, or Differently Populated . Poster presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Iowa City.

Petty, Robert O., and Marion T. Jackson (1966). Plant Communities. In Natural Features of Indiana, edited by Alton A. Lindsey, pp. 264-296. Indiana Academy of Science, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Schneider, Allen F. (1966). Physiography. In Natural Features of Indiana, edited by Alton A. Lindsay, pp. 40-56. Indiana Academy of Science, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Surface-Evans, Sarah (2015). Intra-Wetland Land Use in the Kankakee Marsh Region of Northwestern Indiana. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 40(2):166-189.

A story highlighting Jasper County has not yet been received. Please check back soon.

Indiana has been called the “Crossroads of America,” and for good reason. Our waterways connect the Hoosier state to other parts of the country, to the Atlantic, and to the Gulf of Mexico. People have used the waterways to travel and to transport goods and materials for thousands of years. The shipping industry has always been an essential part of commerce. Water vessels are designed for ransporting passengers and cargo or tailored for a specific use. This has led to innovative technological progress through the history of the shipping industry. The Material Service, a cargo barge, was innovative for its time but was short lived in the dynamic and dangerous waters of Lake Michigan. 

The Material Service was built in 1929 at the Leatham Smith Shipyard in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.  Leatham Smith was an engineer with a family in the quarry business. The vessel was named after the Material Service Company (a sand and gravel company) with Leatham Smith as part owner. The purpose of this ship was to transport sand and gravel along canals in the Chicago area (Figure 1). The vessel served the company’s plant in Lockport, Illinois on the southwest side of Chicago. Operating on steam power, the barge had twin diesel engines and a propeller.  The Material Service was the first barge with Smith’s self-loading design. The barge was completely made from steel and had a flat hull with a low superstructure. This allowed heavy loads to be quickly unloaded and did not require drawbridges to open for passage through the tight canals. The vessel could carry 2,500 tons of sand and gravel per load. Through the 1930s, sand and gravel were essential commodities for building projects and road construction. Other vessels changed their design to conform to the efficient technology following Smith’s success with the Material Service.  Even during a financially difficult time, several companies in the Chicago area prospered as a partial result of efficient transportation of the necessary materials. The Material Service Company became a predominant supplier of building materials (Ellis 1985; Kaufmann 2013; Williamson 2011; Wilson 2004).    

Chicago and Lake Michigan were dangerous times in the 1930s. The Material Service had only been operating for a year and a half when there was an explosion on board. Several crew members were injured, and one died. There was an investigation by the Chicago Association of Commerce (Kaufmann 2013). It was determined that the explosion was caused by dynamite or another type of explosive. There was speculation that this was a result of the Material Service Company not participating in the trade cartel of the Chicago mafia, but there was no confirmation from the investigation. The Material Service continued to operate until the summer of 1936. In the middle of the night during a thunderstorm with rain and high winds, the deck of the fully loaded vessel flooded and turned toward the port side.  The crew tried to pump out the water, but the waves and water were too much. Most of the crew (15 out of 22) perished after trying to escape but were trapped below deck by the suction of water caused by the sinking of the vessel. The Calumet Harbor Lighthouse staff, other vessels, and the U.S. Coast Guard were involved with the attempt to rescue the surviving crew members (Ellis 1985; Kaufmann 2013).   

After the storm cleared, the deceased sailors were recovered, an investigation into the cause occurred, and insurance claims were filed by the owners of the vessel. Salvage activities were conducted in 1936 and in 1945. The Material Service still lies upright along the bottom of the lake in Indiana waters outside Chicago. Most of the vessel is intact; however, some of the pilot house and bulkheads (inner walls) are damaged. Algae, zebra mussels, storm damage, and time have impacted the shipwreck since it sank (Kaufmann 2013).

Historic shipwrecks are protected by federal and state laws, which includes: the Abandoned Shipwreck Act (1988), the Sunken Military Craft Act (2004), Indiana Code 14-21-1, and 312 Indiana Administrative Code 6-3. Qualified underwater archaeologists with the proper permitting can legally conduct archaeological field investigations of historic shipwrecks. However, recreational diving is a wonderful opportunity to observe Indiana’s nautical history. Divers must adhere to the law and follow proper safety procedures. 

Non-intrusive archaeological investigations are important to learn about shipwreck sites and to assist in preserving them for future generations.  In the 1980s, Indiana’s first State Archaeologist (Gary D. Ellis) worked with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) Conservation Officers to locate and record shipwrecks in Lake Michigan. They accomplished this by conducting archival research, sonar survey, and underwater diving to photograph and document the ruins of the sunken vessels. These early efforts were a great place to start, but the work did not stop there. In 2011, Dr. Kira Kaufmann continued the documentation to see how the wrecks have fared through time. She used similar methodology, but the quality of imaging has improved with advanced technology (Ellis 1985; Kaufmann 2011, 2013). Photogrammetry (the process of taking numerous digital photographs to create a composite image) was used to create the 3D virtual tour on IDNR’s website, IndianaShipwrecks.org (Figure 2). On the website you can take the virtual tour and learn about the Material Service and other shipwrecks in Lake Michigan.

The Material Service was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 (Kaufmann 2013), making it the second shipwreck listed in Indiana (the Muskegon being the first). Resurveying shipwreck sites is important in order to monitor changing conditions through time. For example, a shipwreck may become more exposed or covered over by sediment during different archaeological investigations. The survey also records effects by human and natural causes. Dr. Charles Beeker and staff at Indiana University Underwater Services have been working collaboratively with IDNR in monitoring other shipwrecks of Lake Michigan, and the Material Service is on the list for continued monitoring and survey.   

Shipwrecks tell an important story about those who came before us. Technology is cumulative, building and growing from past success stories and failures based on the demands of the time. The design of the Material Service with self-loading capability was a success. This vessel was a first of its kind that used a combination of past construction ideas and improved them to make the vessel more efficient. Other vessels followed suit. The success also led to the prosperity of several companies in the Chicago area, including the Material Service Company. These companies transported much-needed materials (like sand and gravel) for construction projects to keep the economy going.  Progress takes many people working together, and this is also true for preservation. The best preservation motto when it comes to shipwrecks is: “Take only photos; leave only bubbles.” By preserving Indiana’s shipwreck sites and conducting ongoing monitoring of their conditions, we can learn from and enjoy them for years to come.

References

Ellis, Gary (1985). Shipwreck site form for the Material Service Barge. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indianapolis, Indiana. Indiana Department of Natural Resources (n.d.). Indiana Shipwrecks. Lake Michigan Coastal Program. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis, Indiana. Electronic website,  https://www.in.gov/dnr/lake-michigan-coastal-program/ images/material-service/index.html,  accessed on March 24, 2022. Kaufmann, Kira (2011). Report of Investigations for Submerged Cultural Resources within Indiana’s Territorial Waters of Lake Michigan. Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc., Jackson, Michigan. Kaufmann, Kira (2013). Material Service. National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination Form. Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc., Jackson, Michigan. Milwaukee Public Library (n.d.). Material Service. Courtesy of Great Lakes Marine Collection / Milwaukee Public Library. Digital copy on file at Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indianapolis, Indiana. Williamson, Patty (2011). Legacy on the Lakes: Leatham Smith’s Innovations Live on 65 Years After his Death. Door County Pulse. Electronic document, https://doorcountypulse.com/legacy-on-the-lakes/, accessed on March 9, 2022. Wilson, Mark R. (2004). Material Service Corp. Encyclopedia of Chicago. Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000). Electronic document,  http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/792.htm l, accessed on March 9, 2022.

The Goodall site (12LE9) was first recorded in 1834 when land surveyors were laying out a section line in what is now LaPorte County. They noted four mounds on one side of the line and eight on the other, ranging between 5 to 10 feet tall, by a small creek that flowed into the Kankakee Marsh. The Goodall site was the largest mound group in northern Indiana, containing at least 12 mounds and perhaps as many as 22 (Mangold 2009). Due to plowing and leveling, the mounds are no longer clearly visible. However, geophysical surveys conducted over part of the site were able to detect the remnants of at least four of the mounds, showing that intact archaeological deposits are present and that the site should be protected (Schurr 1999). In 2006, a large portion of the site was purchased by  The Archaeological Conservancy  (Gardner 2007). 

 The contents of the mounds may have been explored by many people over the years, contents of the mounds may have been explored by many people over the years, but the best documented explorations were conducted by Dr. T. Higday, a physician from LaPorte (Foster 1873:143-144; Lilly 1937:91). In the 1860s and 1870s, he excavated pits into several of the mounds and collected artifacts. Today we would call that looting, but there were no laws protecting archaeological sites at that time. Higday found many artifacts including pottery, copper hatchets (celts) and awls, galena (a lead ore used to produce gray or white pigment), pieces of mica, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, pipes, pottery, artifacts made of high quality cherts, and human burials. Although the excavations were poorly documented by modern standards, they provide clear evidence that the Goodall site mounds date to the Middle Woodland period when Hopewellian burial mounds were constructed in Indiana (Jones and Johnson 2016:9-10).

The artifacts that Higday collected, especially the pottery jars, were later studied by George Quimby (1941), a professional archaeologist who used them to define the Goodall focus. The Goodall focus was probably the first formally-defined archaeological culture in Indiana. During the time when Quimby was working, archaeologists used the Midwestern Taxonomic Method (McKern 1939), a typological system, to organize sites. Within this method, a focus consisted of a group of sites that shared many similar traits. As originally defined, the Goodall focus contained 10 sites, only one of which, the Goodall site, was located in Indiana. The rest were located in Michigan and are no longer considered part of the Goodall tradition (Mangold and Schurr 2006).

When the Goodall focus was originally defined, the most distinctive traits of the focus were burial mounds containing specific types of artifacts. At that time, relatively little was known about the archaeology of the Midwest and how it compared to other regions. But even then, Quimby recognized that the Goodall focus sites were more similar to mound sites in Illinois, especially those in the Illinois Valley, than they were to mounds reported from other regions, such as southern Ohio. James A. Brown (1964) studied pottery sherds that had been collected from habitation areas at the Goodall site and at other northwestern Indiana Middle Woodland sites by Ernest Young, an avocational archaeologist from South Bend. Brown noted that the typical pottery used in daily activities was similar or identical to pottery from Middle Woodland sites in the Illinois Valley that were classified as Havana Hopewell. Brown concluded that the Goodall focus was a northeastern extension of Havana Hopewell.           

 The similarity of pottery and burial mounds from Goodall-focus sites and that of the Illinois Hopewell has been interpreted in different ways. Quimby (1941) thought that it showed that the Goodall tradition was produced by the migration of people from Illinois into northwestern Indiana and Michigan. Brown (1964) thought that the similarities showed that there was significant regional interaction and that people from Indiana were communicating with people from Illinois and adopting similar ways of life. Perhaps some mix of migration and interaction is the best explanation, and multiple processes have been incorporated into the most recent theories about Goodall origins (Chivis 2015; Mangold 2009:82; Schurr 1997). The Middle Woodland occupations of northwestern Indiana are now thought of as belonging to the Goodall tradition (Mangold and Schurr 2006). Tradition, in this sense, means that a group of people lived in the area for several centuries and that we can trace their evolving way of life through changes in their material remains.

At Goodall, the mounds are arranged in what appear to have been three separate arcs running roughly east to west. This pattern is very similar to the arrangement of Havana bluff top mounds in the lower Illinois Valley. However, unlike the Havana area in the Illinois Valley, where large habitation areas may have been occupied year round (Ruby et al. 2005), Goodall tradition sites appear to have been occupied for shorter periods of time by a more mobile population. There is no evidence available about how living areas were structured. If the populations were relatively small and mobile, they were probably organized as bands or family groups.

There is clear evidence that the Goodall tradition people participated in inter-regional trade networks. Most of the evidence comes from mound sites that produced Hopewell artifacts composed of materials that could not have been obtained in the region including copper, galena, mica, high quality cherts, and marine shells. Some of the pottery vessels from Goodall are so similar to examples from Illinois that they may have been imported too. Although many of the vessels from Goodall are identical to pots one would find in the Illinois Valley, there are some unusual exceptions. The most notable is a fragmentary jar that was recovered on the surface from the vicinity of a badly disturbed mound at the Goodall site (Brown 1964). This jar departs from the typical highly structured designs of Hopewell Zoned style vessels. It has been described as the product of a prehistoric “Picasso” (Mangold 2009:82) and is evidence that local potters were reinterpreting Hopewellian styles.

Goodall tradition sites produce artifacts characteristic of Havana Hopewell, especially dentate-stamped pottery sherds of the type Naples Stamped and Havana Zoned (Griffin 1952). Dentate stamping is characteristic of Havana Hopewell (Figure 1), and the presence of these types is the main reason why Goodall is considered a variety of Havana Hopewell. Lithic artifacts include projectile points that are also characteristic of Havana Hopewell, including Snyders points (in the early part of the Middle Woodland) and variants of Steuben Expanding Stem points (in the later part). Lamellar blades are razor blade shaped stone tools that are very characteristic of the Middle Woodland period. Very high quality chert was needed to manufacture them. There are no high quality chert sources in northwestern Indiana because those sources consist of limestone bedrock, which is deeply buried under glacial deposits. The only chert available consists of relatively small pieces of relatively low quality. To overcome the local lack of quality chert, the Goodall people imported chert from elsewhere. The most common exotic cherts used for blades were Burlington (from near St. Louis, Missouri) and Wyandotte (from Harrison County, Indiana), although examples of Flint Ridge (from Licking and Muskingum Counties in Ohio) and even Knife River flint (from western North Dakota) are known.

Precontact sites are often dated by radiocarbon dating. A single radiocarbon date from the Goodall site (Beta-105210: 2370 ± 40) on a small piece of charcoal collected from midden used to build one of the mounds appears to be several centuries too early by comparison with sites in Illinois and Michigan. Given the lack of reliable radiocarbon dates, we are forced to rely on parallel chronologies from neighboring areas, especially the middle Illinois valley (Munson 1986). Several different chronologies have been proposed. Mangold and Schurr (2006) reviewed them and proposed a series of successive phases that parallel developments in the central Illinois Valley. This chronology was based on changes in pottery, stone tools, and site locations, and not on independent dating methods such as radiocarbon dating. In the middle Illinois Valley, sites producing similar artifacts date between AD 1 to AD 200. More radiocarbon dates are clearly needed, but our ability to obtain them is limited by access to suitable samples.

References

Brown, James A. (1964). The Northeastern Extension of the Havana Tradition. In Hopewellian Studies, Scientific Papers Vol. 12, edited by Joseph R. Caldwell and Robert H. Hall, pp. 107-122. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.

Chivis, Jeff (2015). The Introduction of Havana-Hopewell in West Michigan and Northwest Indiana: An Integrative Approach to the Identification of Communities, Interaction Networks, and Mobility Patterns. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing.

Foster, John W. (1873). Pre-Historic Races of the United States of America. S. C. Griggs and Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Gardner, Paul (2007). Key Hopewell Site Preserved. American Archaeology 11(1):47.

Griffin, James B. (1952). Some Early and Middle Woodland Pottery Types in Illinois. In Hopewellian Communities in Illinois, Vol. 5, pp. 93-130. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.

Jones, James R. III, and Amy L. Johnson (2016). Early Peoples of Indiana. Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis.

Lilly, Eli (1937). Prehistoric Antiquities of Indiana. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.

McKern, William C. (1939). The Midwestern Taxonomic Method as an Aid to Archaeological Culture Study. American Antiquity 4:301-313.

Mangold, William L. (2009). The Middle Woodland Occupations of the Kankakee River Valley and Beyond: The Goodall Tradition Revisited and Reinterpreted. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Mangold, William L., and Mark R. Schurr (2006). The Goodall Tradition: Recent Research and New Perspectives. In Recreating Hopewell: Perspectives on Middle Woodland at the Millennium, edited by Douglas Charles and Jane E. Buikstra, pp. 206-226. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Munson, Patrick J. (1986). Black Sand and Havana Tradition Ceramic Assemblages and Culture History in the Central Illinois River Valley. In Early Woodland Archeology, Vol. 2, edited by Kenneth B. Farnsworth and Thomas H. Emerson, pp. 280-300. Center for American Archeology Press, Kampsville, Illinois.

Quimby, George I. (1941). The Goodall Focus: An Analysis of Ten Hopewellian Components in Michigan and Indiana. Indiana Prehistory Research Series 2(2):63-161. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.

Ruby, Bret J., Christopher Carr, and Douglas K. Charles (2005). Community Organizations in Scioto, Mann, and Havana Hopewellian Regions: A Comparative Perspective. In Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual, and Ritual Interaction, edited by Christopher Carr and D. T. Case, pp. 119-176. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.

Schurr, Mark R. (1997). The Bellinger Site (12 SJ 6) and the Origin of the Goodall Tradition. Archaeology of Eastern North America 25:125-142.

Schurr, Mark R. (1999). Geophysical Surveys of Middle Woodland Mounds in Northwestern Indiana. Vol. 99-1. Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Archaeological results from site 12N345 tell a unique story about early to mid-nineteenth century activities in Newton County, Indiana. The site is located just north of what is locally known as Bogus Island in the former Beaver Lake bed in McClellan Township. Beaver Lake covered 16,000 acres (6,475 hectares) of Newton County with additional marshland of 26,000 acres (10,522 hectares), and provided an abundance of resources for the Native Americans who once populated the area (Heistand 1951:8-9). Beaver Lake was drained over a period of 20 years to north of Morocco through Lake Ditch and into the Kankakee River. The draining was completed in 1894 when Beaver Lake was reduced to a large ditch and converted entirely to agricultural land (Taylor 2009:12).

During Euro-American settlement of the area that would become Newton County in the early to mid-nineteenth century, the area surrounding Beaver Lake was a hub of criminal activity. A large sand island within the south-central portion of the lake, Bogus Island once rose 75 feet (23 meters) above the lake surface. It earned its moniker as a hideout for horse thieves and counterfeiters. To add to its natural remoteness, the criminals put elaborate protection systems in place and created hidden dens and caves within the sand island to keep illicit activities concealed. In 1858, concerned citizens formed the Jasper County Rangers to deal with the rising crime rates across a multi-county area. The Rangers worked outside of the law without repercussion to bring the bands of criminals to justice. The Jasper County Rangers were successful in drastically reducing the crime rate, which led to increased security for settlers and population growth in Jasper and Newton counties (Battey 1883:639-641; Heistand 1951:39).

The Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, archaeologically surveyed and recorded site 12N345 as part of FY2015 Historic Preservation Fund grant project 18-15FFY-05. The site is approximately 2.9 acres (1.17 hectares) in size and is north of Bogus Island (Figure 1). Site survey methods included a Phase Ia pedestrian survey with transects 10 meters (32.8 feet) apart, with the transect interval reduced to 5 meters (16.4 feet) where artifacts were discovered. All artifacts were collected on the ground surface. No archaeological features were encountered during the survey. The site, located in the former Beaver Lake bed, contains Zaborosky fine sand (ZaA), Oakville fine sand (OaB), and Granby loamy fine sand (Gt) soils. The artifact density for the site is ~115.2 artifacts per acre (Leeuwrik 2016:136-156).

A total of 334 artifacts were collected from site 12N345, including six precontact lithic flakes and 328 historic artifacts. The historic artifacts date from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, and include large amounts of glass (aqua, clear, cobalt, green, amethyst, carnival glass, yellow), plain and decorated whiteware, plain yellowware, stoneware, decorated and plain ironstone, and various metal artifacts (Figure 2). One of the historic artifacts could have been used as part of a blacksmith’s tuyere (The Blacksmith & Wheelwright 1902:118). A tuyere is a nozzle through which air is forced into a furnace or smelter during the process of forging of metal. Much of the diagnostic glass, historic ceramics, and metal could date to the era when adjacent Bogus Island was used as a hideout for criminal activities, and some artifacts could relate to the “workshops of the band” that “contained guns, ammunition, saddles, bridles, counterfeit coin, dies, provisions, etc.” (Battey 1883:641). More modern artifacts include asbestos roofing tiles, a Pepsi Cola bottle fragment dating from 1906-1940, an early twentieth century shotgun shell, and a 1944 wheat penny. Due to several sand mining events and natural erosion, the size of Bogus Island has decreased drastically since its role in Newton County’s early Euro-American settlement. Phase Ia survey results could not determine the exact relationship between site 12N345 and Bogus Island. However, the proximity between the two, combined with the archaeological survey results, indicate site 12N345 could yield additional significant information on the nineteenth century economic/criminal activity associated with Bogus Island, and other aspects of early settlement of Newton County. Therefore, site 12N345 is considered potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (Leeuwrik 2016:136-156). 

Site 12N345 is located within 8,400 acres of prairies and wetlands of the Efroymson Restoration at Kankakee Sands, owned and managed by the Indiana chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Information regarding the site was shared with Kankakee Sands staff before bison were returned to the prairie in 2016 (The Nature Conservancy 2020), and the archaeological results from 12N345 help tell the history of Beaver Lake and Newton County. 

References

Battey, F.A. & Co. (1883). Counties of Warren, Benton, Jasper, and Newton, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F.A. Battey & Co. Publishers, Chicago, Illinois.

Heistand, Joseph E. (1951). An Archaeological Report on Newton County Indiana. Indiana Historical Bureau, Indianapolis, Indiana. Reprinted in 2005 by the Newton County Historical Society, Family History Division.

Leeuwrik, Jamie M., Christine Thompson, and Kevin C. Nolan (2016). An Archaeological Survey of Newton County: Enhancement of a Data Deficient Region, Part II. Reports of Investigation 92. Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Taylor, Amanda J. (2009). Newton County Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Blacksmith & Wheelwright (1902). The Blacksmith & Wheelwright, Volumes 45-48, March 1902. M.T. Richardson Company, New York.

The Nature Conservancy (2020). Efroymson Restoration at Kankakee Sands: Kankakee Sands in northwest Indiana is a prairie jewel in progress.  https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/kankakee-sands/?tabq=tab_container-tab_element_1430865153 , accessed June 28, 2020.

The Collier Lodge site (12PR36; also known as the Baum’s Bridge site) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 (Schurr and Rotman 2009, 2010). It is historically significant because it provides information about the precontact period of Porter County and the history of recreational hunting and fishing on the former Kankakee Marsh. The site is named for a hotel that was built by the Collier family to serve people engaging in recreational hunting and fishing on the Kankakee Marsh. Unfortunately, the drainage of the Indiana portion of the marsh between 1906 and 1917 converted the marshland to farmland, ending the era of the “Rancher and Recreationist’s Kankakee” (Meyer 1936). The Collier Lodge building continued as a country inn and store and eventually became a private residence by the 1980s. In 1999, the property was purchased by John Hodson, who helped establish the Kankakee Valley Historical Society (KVHS) with the aim of preserving the deteriorating lodge. 

The site was first reported as an archaeological site in 1932 by James Gilbert McAllister, who conducted an archaeological survey of Porter County in 1931 (McAllister 1932). McAllister described 36 sites. The last site he visited was Baum’s Bridge where he described finding precontact pottery sherds on the surface. At that time, it was one of only two sites in the county known to produce precontact pottery, the other being the nearby Weise Mound (12PR35).

From 2004 to 2011, the KVHS and the University of Notre Dame collaborated in an annual KVHS dig which gave KVHS members and Notre Dame students the opportunity to explore the site’s archaeology (Figure 1). The seven years of excavation, supplemented with two later archaeological field schools, produced a rich archaeological record of a complex site (Schurr 2006, 2011a, 2011b, 2015; Schurr and Wells 2012). Baum’s Bridge was built at the site because it was one of the few places that the Kankakee River and Marsh could easily be crossed. The archaeological record from the site shows that people camped at the site as early as 11,000 years ago, probably also attracted by the good crossing place. The site has produced artifacts from almost all precontact time periods of northwestern Indiana except for the Middle Woodland period (circa 200 B.C to A.D. 400). The lack of evidence for Middle Woodland use of the site is surprising because people were constructing nearby mounds such as those at the Weise site and Boone Grove (the Upp-Wark mounds) at the same time (McAllister 1932) and is one of the mysteries that remains to be explained. Because the site was used over and over again as a temporary stopping place for brief periods of time, most of the artifacts are found in mixed deposits and are not separated neatly by time periods.

Two periods are well-represented in feature contexts, the Upper Mississippian and the Historic. The Upper Mississippian period is the last precontact period in the region, dating from about A.D. 1200 to 1650. During this period, Native Americans camped at the site and harvested aquatic tubers (probably pond lily, Nuphar lutea) (Bush 2012) from the marsh that they roasted in deep pits (Figure 2). They then refilled the pits with soil that often contained some artifacts. Excavation of the pits found pottery characteristic of the precontact phase called Late Fisher (Schurr 2017), one of several sites from this time period known from the region (Faulkner 1972). Late Fisher people cultivated maize and practiced a seasonal round that took them from summer agricultural villages through winter hunting camps and warm-season visits to the edge of the marsh to exploit the rich resources available there. 

The nineteenth century historic use of the site is well-represented by archaeological features, including the base of a fireplace made of hand-struck bricks and a cellar pit filled with soil and refuse. Both of these probably belonged to a cabin or house that stood on the site in the early 1800s. The Lodge era is well-represented by trash pits containing a great variety of domestic garbage from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As expected, ammunition and fish hooks and lures show that hunting and fishing were important activities here.

 The artifact collection is housed at the University of Notre Dame where it continues to be used for teaching and faculty and student research projects, including using multi-elemental composition and lead isotope ratios to learn about early nineteenth century pottery production (Schurr et al. 2018). Student projects have examined the types of animals that were harvested during the early 1800s (a mix of domesticated and wild animals, including many fur bearers), whether white clay smoking pipes could be dated based on the styles present (they cannot), the types of flatware found at the site (many more knives than spoons or forks), a study of the manufacturers, dates, and composition of the many gun cartridges found (the average date of the assemblage was 1906, consistent with the hunting lodge era), and the distribution of Upper Mississippian pottery at the site. The data acquired from the excavations will continue to provide new insights into Porter County’s precontact and historic eras in the future.

References

Bush, Leslie L. (2012). Five Late Prehistoric Roasting Pits on the Kankakee: Flotation and Carbon Samples from the Collier Lodge Site, 12PR36. Manuscript on file, University of Notre Dame.

Faulkner, Charles H. (1972). The Late Prehistoric Occupation of Northwestern Indiana: A Study of the Upper Mississippi Cultures of the Kankakee Valley. Prehistory Research Series 5(1).

McAllister, J. G. (1932). The Archaeology of Porter County. Indiana History Bulletin 10(1).

Meyer, Alfred H. (1936). The Kankakee 'Marsh' of Northern Indiana and Illinois. Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 21:359-396.

Schurr, Mark R. (2006). Archaeological Investigations at the Collier Lodge Site (12 Pr 36). Report 2006-1. Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Schurr, Mark R. (2011a). Archaeological Investigations at the Collier Lodge Site (12 Pr 36): The 2006 through 2009 Field Seasons. Manuscript on file, Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Schurr, Mark R. (2011b). Archaeological Investigations at the Collier Lodge Site (12 Pr 36): The 2010 Field Season. Manuscript on file, Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Schurr, Mark R. (2015). Report on Limited Excavations to Better Define the Eastern Distribution of Archaeological Features at the Collier Lodge Site (12PR36). Manuscript on file, Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Schurr, Mark R. (2017). The Upper Mississippian Occupation at the Collier Lodge Site (12PR36): Ceramics and Chronology on the Eastern Edge of Oneota. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 48(1):87-110.

Schurr, Mark R., Patrick H. Donohue, Antonio Simonetti, and Emily Dawson (2018). Multi-element and Lead Isotope Characterization of Early Nineteenth Century Pottery Sherds from Native American and Euro-American sites. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 20:390-399.

Schurr, Mark R., and Deborah L. Rotman (2009). National Register Nomination, Collier Lodge Archaeological Site (12PR36). Notre Dame, Indiana.

Schurr, Mark R., and Deborah L. Rotman (2010). The Collier Lodge Archaeological Site: Why it belongs on the National Register of Historic Places. Indiana Archaeology 5(1):93-112.

Schurr, Mark R., and Joshua J. Wells (2012). Archaeological Investigations at the Collier Lodge Site (12 Pr 36): The 2011 Field Season. Manuscript on file, Archaeology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.

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In the late eighteenth century, the town of Kethtippecanunk (12T59) was a hub of Native American and Euroamerican fur trading in the central Wabash River Valley, located approximately 9.5 miles northeast of present-day Lafayette, Indiana, and situated near the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers. The site was occupied by members of the Wea tribe, along with a number of fur traders who lived in their midst. Despite Kethtippecanunk’s historical significance, contemporary descriptions of the town are few and do not provide much information regarding its spatial extent, the density of the occupation, and whether the two ethnic groups were segregated or intermixed. Although site 12T59 was positively identified as the town of Kethtippecanunk in the 1970s, little archaeological research had been conducted at the site until relatively recently. Since then, much has been learned about this important site and its part in the eighteenth-century fur trade economy of the lower Great Lakes.

Kethtippecanunk was a settlement of the Wea tribe since at least 1733, when it was mentioned in reference to a smallpox epidemic that was sweeping the region at the time (Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society 1905:108-109). For most of its existence, it appears that the town was a purely Native American habitation site. By the later eighteenth century, however, Kethtippecanunk evolved into a multiethnic town with a resident population of French and British fur traders. Though documentary sources are sparse, evidence suggests that the traders moved to the town in the 1780s, possibly having migrated from the Fort Ouiatenon area, 12.5 miles to the southwest. Their arrival may have been due to the sorry condition of the fort, which was described in 1774 as “a miserable stockade surrounding a dozen miserable cabins” (Krauskopf 1955:157; Quaife 1921:330-331).       

With the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, the lower Great Lakes were formally incorporated into the United States. The U.S. claim, however, was on paper only, and the British continued to occupy posts in the area. To the south, along the Ohio River, large numbers of American settlers were pouring into the region. Native American peoples of the central Wabash Valley (i.e., the Wea, Piankashaw, Kickapoo, and Mascouten), feeling threatened by the increasing numbers of land-hungry settlers, conducted numerous raids into Kentucky and along the Ohio River to try to stem the tide (Barnhart and Riker 1971:246). During this time, the British continued to maintain alliances and trading relationships with the Wabash River tribes, and it was widely believed by the Americans that the British authorities (and the ethnic French fur traders) were encouraging Indian violence against the settlers (American State Papers, Indian Affairs 1832-1834:96; Quaife 1921:301; Wheeler-Voegelin et al. 1974; White 1991:399-400, 434). 

As a result of Native American depredations and perceived British complicity, Secretary of War Henry Knox authorized a punitive expedition against the Wabash towns. Brigadier General Charles Scott raised 900 Kentucky militia and proceeded to the central Wabash Valley with the purpose of destroying the towns and capturing as many women and children as possible to be held as hostages until the tribes agreed to peaceable relations with the United States (American State Papers, Indian Affairs 1832-1834:129-130). On June 1, 1791, Scott's force attacked and burned the Wea, Kickapoo, and Mascouten towns located in the vicinity of the former site of Fort Ouiatenon. The next day, 360 men under Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson were dispatched to destroy Kethtippecanunk. Wilkinson's force lay in wait until 4:30 in the morning on June 3 ^rd , at which point he attacked, catching the residents by surprise. After a short fight, the town’s inhabitants fled across the Tippecanoe River, and Kethtippecanunk was burned.        

According to eyewitness accounts, Kethtippecanunk was quite impressive for a frontier settlement. One anonymous soldier from Wilkinson’s expedition noted that the town “contained about 120 houses, 80 of which were shingle roofed…; the best houses belonged to French traders, whose gardens and improvements round the town were truly delightful, and every thing considered, not a little wonderful; there was a tavern, with cellars, bar, public, and private rooms; and the whole marked a considerable share of order, and no small degree of civilization” (Imlay 1916:12). William Clark, later co-leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition, was also present during the attack, and provides additional details, indicating that they burned 70 houses, 30 or 40 of which had shingle roofs. Other items destroyed during the attack included 1,000 bushels of corn, bear's oil, plows, carts, salt, cattle, and hogs. Notably, Clark also indicated that “these Indians appear to be wealthy,” suggesting that he was impressed by the town and the quantity of material goods and livestock they owned (Draper Manuscripts 1949:63J:141). Scott himself described Kethtippecanunk as “the most important settlement in that quarter of the federal territory” (American State Papers, Indian Affairs 1832-1834:131). After the town’s destruction, Kethtippecanunk was not reoccupied, though Native American settlement continued in the immediate area for some time afterward (Smith 1954:287).

Archaeological work at 12T59 has documented multiple occupations at the site, dating from the Early Archaic, Late Archaic, Middle Woodland, Late Woodland, and Mississippian cultures, indicating that the area had been seen as an attractive settlement location for thousands of years. In the late nineteenth century, Indiana state geologist Sylvester Gorby (1886:73) recorded the presence of eleven mounds on the blufftop overlooking Kethtippecanunk, six of which are still extant. Nineteenth century and 1970s-era excavations in the mounds suggest that most or all likely date to the Middle Woodland period, approximately 1,500 years before the fur trade era (Coon 2008:8; Gansfuss 1977; Gorby 1886:74). 

While 12T59 was surface collected over many decades, significant archaeological work at the site did not occur until the early 2000s. In 2005, 2006, and 2009, the IPFW Archaeological Survey and the University of Southern Indiana conducted an extensive magnetometry survey across the site in an attempt to locate structures and artifact concentrations that might be related to the town’s occupants. The results of the survey pointed to a number of locations where intact deposits might be found. Excavations in one of these areas revealed features likely related to a fur trader’s cabin. These included a very large roasting pit filled with river cobbles and lined with a thick layer of wood charcoal (Figure 1). The feature was most likely used for roasting tubers. Close by was a large rectangular storage pit once located beneath the floor of the cabin. The feature was filled with burned wood, ash, chinking, artifacts, and, interestingly, charred camas (wild hyacinth) tubers – possibly destined for roasting in the nearby pit. The presence of burned structural material in the storage pit suggests that it was filled up when the cabin was burned in Wilkinson’s 1791 attack. One of the most interesting artifacts found during these excavations was a fob seal, used for impressing sealing wax on important documents. Made from brass and clear glass, it depicts the official seal of the masonic Premier Grand of England, strongly suggesting the presence of a British mason at Kethtippecanunk in the late eighteenth century (Figure 2). Notably, a fragment of a white clay pipe bowl with a masonic compass impressed on the site was found in the roasting pit, further confirming the presence of a mason at the site (Strezewski et al. 2007).        

Later, in 2014 and 2015, additional excavations were undertaken at Kethtippecanunk, this time by Cultural Resource Analysts (CRA). During their work, CRA identified three additional features related to the eighteenth-century occupation. Two were wall trenches, likely related to French-style poteaux-en-terre structures. This type of house was constructed by digging a rectangular trench that followed the desired outline of the walls, with squared off logs placed vertically into the trench. The trench was then backfilled, and a wooden framework was constructed between the vertical logs. After this, the gaps were filled with bouzillage, a chinking made of clay and straw (Moogk 1975). The third feature found by CRA was a large, 9 by 8-foot cellar, once located beneath a structure (Figure 3). A portion of the cellar was excavated, indicating that it too was filled with burned structural material, including hundreds of pounds of burned chinking from the destroyed cabin that once overlay it. At the bottom of the pit was a layer of charred material from the collapsed structure’s floor. The remains of a wooden cask were also found within the cellar and analysis of the soil within the cask indicates that it was once filled with corn. One of the most interesting artifacts found in the cellar was a wrought iron double leaf spring leg trap, an essential item in the fur trade (Figure 4). The trap found at Kethtippecanunk was medium-sized, thought to have been used for trapping animals such as beaver or wolf (Martin 2018).  

Excavations have shown that the remains of burned structures likely related to Wilkinson’s attack are still preserved at 12T59. Fortunately, the site is now within Prophetstown State Park and is therefore protected from looting and agricultural-related damage. In recent years, the site has been restored to prairie vegetation and will continue to serve as a reminder of the too-frequent cultural clashes that shaped the history of our region.

References

American State Papers, Indian Affairs (1832-1834). American State Papers, Indian Affairs [1789-1827], volume 1. Gales and Seaton, Washington, D.C.  

Barnhart, John D., and Dorothy L. Riker (1971). Indiana to 1816: The Colonial Period.  Indiana Historical Bureau and Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis. 

Coon, Matt (2008). An Archaeological Records Check and Phase 1a Field Reconnaissance: SR 43 Wetland Mitigation at Prophetstown State Park (Des. No. 9700240), Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Prepared for the Indiana Department of Transportation, Office of Environmental Services, Indianapolis, Indiana.  

Draper Manuscripts (1949). Draper Manuscript Collection [microform]. Department of Photographic Reproduction, University of Chicago. 

Gansfuss, John E. (1977). A Geophysical Investigation of Three Archaeological Sites. Unpublished manuscript. 

Gorby, Sylvester S. (1886). Geology of Tippecanoe County. In Fifteenth Annual Report of the Indiana Department of Geology and Natural History, edited by Maurice Thompson, pp. 61-96. William B. Burford, Indianapolis.

 Imlay, George (1916). A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America, 1793. In Indiana as Seen by Early Travelers: A Collection of Reprints from Books of Travel, Letters, and Diaries Prior to 1830, edited by Harlow Lindley, pp. 9-16. Indiana Historical Commission, Indianapolis. 

Krauskopf, Frances, (editor and translator) (1955). Ouiatanon Documents. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.  

Martin, Andrew V. (2018). Phase II and Phase III Investigations at Site 12T59/530 in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Contract Publication Series 15-381. Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., Lexington, Kentucky.  

Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society (1905). Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Collections, vol. 34. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford, Lansing.

Moogk, Peter N. (1975). Building a House in New France. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto.  

Quaife, Milo M. (1921). Fort Wayne in 1790. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.  

Smith, Dwight (1954). Notes on the Wabash River in 1795.  Indiana Magazine of History 50(3):277-290.  

Strezewski, Michael, Robert G. McCullough, Dorothea McCullough, Craig Arnold, and Joshua J. Wells (2007). Report of the 2006 Archaeological Investigations at Kethtippecanunk (12T59), Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Reports of Investigations 703. Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Archaeological Survey, Fort Wayne.  

Wheeler, Voegelin, Erminie, Emily J. Blasingham, and Dorothy R. Libby (1974). Miami, Wea, and Eel-River Indians of Southern Indiana. Garland, New York.  

White, Richard (1991). The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Cambridge University Press, New York.

The Cicott Trading Post site (12WA59) was a nineteenth century French Canadian/Native American trading post on the central Wabash River in present-day Warren County, Indiana. The Cicott Trading Post site is situated atop a precipitous Pleistocene terrace overlooking the Wabash. The site is now incorporated within the bounds of a park, and the undeveloped nature of the setting helped preserve the integrity of the archaeological record at the site. 

Brief History of the Cicott Trading Post

Zachariah Cicott, a French Canadian fur trader from Detroit, established his home and trading post at the site sometime between 1809 and 1816. At that time Cicott (also spelled Cicot, Cicotte, or Chicot) was married to a Potawatomi woman named Pe-say-quot. She was the sister of Pierre Moran (variously known as Parish, Peerish, Perig, or the Stutterer), a minor okama or leader of the Potawatomi. Moran's band was living on the St. Joseph River in northern Indiana early in the nineteenth century and likely hunted along the central Wabash (Berthrong 1974:152-153). Cicott and Pe-say-quot had four “mixed-blood” or métis children. Their status as “Indians by Descent” made them eligible for grants of land requested by Great Lakes Indian tribes as part of special provisions of the several treaties signed during the first half of the nineteenth century. The section of land surrounding Cicott’s trading post was granted to Cicott’s son, Jean Baptiste by the Chicago Treaty of 1821.

The 1820s were the peak years for Cicott as a trader. Evidence from trading licenses granted to him in the 1820s indicate that he was trading with the Piankashaw, Wea, Kickapoo and Miami in addition to his kin among the Potawatomi (Mann 1994:70). Cicott no longer wintered among the scattered hunting bands along the Wabash but rather remained at his post year round. It became a gathering place for Native Americans who would come by on their seasonal rounds to provision themselves on credit and to drop off their furs to satisfy their debts and then begin the whole cycle again.

The trading post must have been a lively place during these visits, which often lasted several days on end. The earliest Anglo-American settlers witnessed some of these gatherings and left behind their impressions. "Many Indians," wrote one settler, "infested this locality to our small annoyance, but seldom offered us violence ... They cared more for satisfying their appetite than the demand of politeness" (Hanes 1880). Another settler, Benjamin Franklin Magee (1983:9), recounted his family's arrival on the central Wabash, "[T]hey reached the Wabash at a trading post kept by a Frenchman by the name of Cicott ... When my father got across the river they spent their first night at the trading post ... It happened to be the time of year when the Indians met there to trade for their winter supply of ammunition and there were a large number of them 2 or 3 hundred camped near the post."

Pe-say-quot disappears from the historic record sometime around 1825, and it is presumed that she died. Cicott's second wife, Elizabeth, was a member of the Brotherton Indians, a remnant band of Native Americans made up of Mahicans, Wappingers, Mohegans, Pequots and Narragansets (Hodge 1912:166; Tanner 1987:75). Elizabeth and Zachariah had two children, Ursula and Susan. In 1832 Cicott platted the town of Independence and begun to sell lots to pay off his substantial debts. Over the next several years he sold 84 town lots and other parcels of land for over $6,000 (Henry 1982:30). Elizabeth passed away in 1836, and Cicott seems to have spent his remaining years as a sort of unofficial "mayor" of Independence. H. N. Yount (1901:4), an acquaintance of Cicott, summed up his later life this way, “Cicot, like most Frenchmen, enjoyed having something in the nature of an amusement going on around him ... On Christmas, New Year's, or on the Fourth of July, he would give a large public ball, make extra preparations and charge a good price per couple ... He was a lively old man, full of fun and a favorite with all. He loved to play cards, bet on horse races and gamble, and he usually won.” Cicott died in 1850, and his trading post was abandoned at that time.

In 1990 the Warren County Park Board (WCPB) launched a program to establish the Cicott Trading Post Park. As part of this effort a systematic shovel test survey was conducted over the site of the trading post, clearly indicating the presence of a nineteenth century structure/domicile. The following year the WCPB allocated funds for limited test excavations over portions of the site. The 1991 excavations revealed that substantial subsurface remains — Including large pit features, fire pits, wall and palisade trench features — were present on the site. Over 7,000 artifacts were recovered, indicating a substantial, long-term occupation at the site. Additionally, the artifact assemblage included the first conclusive evidence that the site occupants were involved at some level in the fur and Indian trade. Trade goods included stone smoking pipes, glass beads, silver trinkets, and other personal adornment items (Jones and Mann 1992).

In 1992 test excavations continued at the site, once more uncovering numerous cultural features including a linear concentration of stone and brick fragments interpreted as a portion of the foundation for the trading post (Mann 1994). Research at the site resumed in 1997. Geophysical, archaeological, and historical investigations were undertaken primarily to further identify and evaluate the archaeological resources present at the site. Central to these goals was an effort to more precisely identify and delineate the stone foundation of the Cicott trading post/house. Fundamental to the 1997 field investigations was a public information and education program designed to allow local residents and students to take an active role in the archaeological process. The public information and education program consisted of: (1) a series of public lectures, (2) a volunteer program, (3) daily site tours, (4) interactive site visits for local school groups, and (5) media coverage of all aspects of the project.

Following the topographical and geophysical survey of the site, a total of 38 square meters were hand excavated by trowel and brush. Within each unit all soils were removed in 5-centimeter levels, and artifacts were piece-plotted as encountered. Excavated soils were then water screened through 1/8 inch mesh. The 1997 excavations resulted in the recovery of over 10,000 cultural artifacts, uncovered ten subsurface cultural features, and revealed the tentative whereabouts of several others (Mann 1999, 2003). Feature types recognized on the site include pit features, trench features, and architectural features. The latter included another linear concentration of both dressed and undressed, dry laid fieldstones that is interpreted as the east foundation wall of Cicott’s trading post/home. A complex concentration of stone, and brick rubble was found partially articulated with stone foundation of the east wall. These stones and brick fragments overlaid an area of soil discoloration. The overall matrix of this soil stain was comprised of brown silt loam with smaller lenses of a dusky red, mottled, ashy silt loam, a dark grayish brown silt loam mottled with a light brownish gray, slightly greasy and ashy silt loam, and a dark yellowish brown silt loam flecked with burned clay and charcoal (Figure 1). It is interpreted as the remains of a hearth. More specifically, the position of the stone and brick rubble on the “inside” of the foundation wall suggests that it is the collapsed remains of the firebox and fire-place. 

When combined with the evidence of the west foundation wall uncovered in 1992, it is possible to estimate that Cicott’s trading post/house was 25 ft. (7.6 m) long by 20 ft. (6.1 m) wide, which cor-responds well with documented French Canadian folk housing practices (Moogk 1977). 

The nature of the stone foundation, coupled with historic accounts, suggests that Cicott’s home and trading post was a type of French Canadian vernacular architecture known as pièce-sur-pièce. French Canadian folk housing in the Great Lakes was characterized by the use of hand hewn, vertical timbers. Pièce-sur-pièce construction (log on log; literally, piece on piece) utilized hewn timbers placed horizontally between the vertical posts. The horizontal timbers were stacked one upon the other to form a solid wood wall. Such a structure would have been a material expression of Cicott’s ethnic identity and occupational status as an independent fur trader (Mann 2008). 

The artifact assemblage recovered from the Cicott Trading Post site provides additional details about the daily life of a nineteenth century fur trader and his family. For example, analysis of the locally produced (on site) stone and mass produced clay smoking pipes recovered from the site indicate that tobacco was smoked both as a leisure activity (clay pipes) and as part of social rituals (stone pipes) to facilitate trading relations between Cicott and his trading partners (Mann 2004). Likewise, trade goods such as glass beads and Euro-American style clothing-related artifacts such as buttons provide insights into the practices of dress within Great Lake fur trade society (Figure 2). Rather than suggesting that Cicott, his Native and métis family, and Native trading partners were acculturating toward normative Anglo-American styles of dress, the seemingly endless combinations of glass beads, buttons, European cloths, animal hides and skins, and trade silver ornaments, led to the inventive creation of unique clothing styles among the members of Great Lakes fur trade society (Mann 2007). The archaeological excavations at the Cicott Trading Post site have added to our understanding of how identities were created, negotiated, maintained, and modified on the late fur trade frontier in the Wabash Valley.

References

Berthrong, Donald J. (1974).  Indians of Northern Indiana and Southwestern Michigan. Garland, New York.

Hanes, Jacob Sr. (1880). Early Recollections of Independence, Warren County, Indiana. Warren Republican, September 2, 1880.

Henry, John (1982). Zachariah Cicott. In The Independence Sesquicentennial. Warren County Historical Society, Williamsport, Indiana.

Hodge, Frederick Webb (editor) (1912). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, part 1. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 30, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.

Jones, James R. and Rob Mann (1992). The Cicott Site: Evidence of Early Nineteenth Century Trade, Acculturation, and Ethnicity on the Wabash River, Warren County, Indiana. In Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and Historic Archaeology, edited by Amy L. Young and Charles H. Faulkner, pp. 135-146. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Magee, Benjamin Franklin (1983).  Recollections of Benjamin Franklin Magee 1834-1915. Dickinson Printing Inc. Mooresville, Indiana.

Mann, Rob (1994).  Zachariah Cicott 19th-Century French Canadian Fur Trader: Ethnohistoric and Archaeological Perspectives of Ethnic Identity in the Wabash Valley. Master’s thesis, Ball State University, Muncie Indiana.

Mann, Rob (1999). The 1997 Archaeological Excavations at the Cicott Trading Post Site (12Wa59). Report of Investigation Number 520, IMA Consulting, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Mann, Rob (2003). Colonizing the Colonizers: Canadien Fur Traders and Fur Trade Society in the Great Lakes Region, 1763-1850. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton.

Mann, Rob (2004). “Smokescreens: Tobacco, Pipes and the Transformational Power of Fur Trade Rituals.” In Smoking and Culture: The Archaeology of Tobacco Pipes in Eastern North America, edited by Sean M. Rafferty and Rob Mann, pp. 165-183. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Mann, Rob (2007). “True Portraitures of the Indians, and of Their Own Peculiar Conceits of Dress:” Discourses of Dress and Identity in the Great Lakes, 1830-1850. In Between Art and Artifact, Diana DiPaolo Loren and Uzi Baram, guest editors. Historical Archaeology 41(1):37-52.

Mann, Rob (2008).  From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society. In The Archaeology of French Colonial and Post-Colonial Settlements, Elizabeth M. Scott, guest editor. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 12(4):319-337.

Moogk, Peter N. (1977).  Building a House in New France. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto.

Tanner, Helen H. (1987). Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Yount, H. N. (1901). Zachariah Cicot, an Eccentric French Trader. In Pearls along the Wabash: The Reminiscences of Newlin Hoover Yount, edited by Doris Holtman Cottingham, pp. 3-4. Warren Graphic Printing Company, Williamsport, Indiana.

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