who wished the final plots of land the Indians owned, ruthlessly executed a plan to seize the land and send the Indians west.
Although the Indians resisted, the Trail of Death began on September 4, 1838. The Indians were lined up and at gunpoint marched away from their tribal lands. Those who did not appear to be a threat to the soldiers were allowed to walk unrestrained. Among the group were the very old, children and babes in arms. Several were seriously ill; all were forced to march through terrible heat across northwestern Indiana.
Many died from thirst. Others succumbed to sickness. The dead were left in shallow, unprotected graves as the mourning families were forced to continue their march across Illinois.
Paukooshuck attempted to escape at every chance. As they neared the Mississippi River he made a last desperate attempt. One of the soldiers caught him and swiftly cut his throat. He was left for dead. However, the cut hadn’t severed the jugular vein.
Determined to return to his home at Long Point, weak from loss of blood and the ordeal, he slowly made his way through the brush, avoiding settlements and roads for fear of being discovered and returned.
All of his friends were gone, his home on Long Point was gone, and even the wild animals seemed to have abandoned the land. The settlers had laid their claim to the land by cutting trees, plowing and planting and damming the streams. Much of the wild beauty of the area had been destroyed.
One day, drinking and wandering disheartedly, he entered Chief Winamac’s village where he got into the worst fight of all. He was mortally wounded and his body was returned to Long Point.
Why does Paukooshuck’s spirit appear at Long Point as some say? Why can he not break his earthly bonds? If he had been a Catholic, as Menominee was, perhaps the burden of guilt for having carried out the execution of his father keeps him from finding eternal peace.
You’ll Also Want to See:
The spooky House of a Thousand Candles on East Shore Road, written about by Meredith Nicholson in a well-known book of the same name, and the site of Neswaugee’s Camp on 18B on a hill on the north side of the road, where within living memory sixty-four campsites have been seen at spring plowing time and some people say plumes of smoke can be seen on a moonlit night. Near Plymouth Menominee’s Monument stands lonely above the settlers’ cornfields that he despised on Peach Road.
PORTER COUNTY
Established in 1835, Porter County reaches from Lake Michigan in the north to the Kankakee River in the south. The county is named for commodore David Porter, Commander of the Essex in the war of 1812.
Porter County contains the Indiana Dunes State Park and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Joseph Bailly, a French-Canadian fur trader, was the first white man to settle in northwest Indiana. Arriving in 1822, he built a trading post near the Little Calumet River, where the North Sauk and Potawatomi trails converged. For ten years it was one of only two posts between Fort Dearborn (at the present site of Chicago) and Detroit.
The Bailly family occupied the forty-two-acre homestead until 1918 when it became a Catholic retreat. After passing through private hands it became a part of the national park in 1971.
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