How a Local Civil War Hero Preserved the Tecumseh's Trail History

 Lookout Lodge is Point of Interest

 By Diana Vice

 A life-long resident of Lafayette, Vice is Honorary Regent and Historian for the General de Lafayette Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. She also serves as co-chair for the America 250 Committee for Tippecanoe County. She can be reached at dvice1960@gmail.com.

Did you know that there was an old Potawatomie Trail along the Wabash River in West Lafayette known as Tecumseh’s Trail? Those who are familiar with local history are likely aware of this; however, many of the details about the surrounding area have been forgotten. The path was part of an old Indian trail that led from Vincennes to Detroit.  A study into the life of a local judge and old Civil War Colonel, Richard P. DeHart, has uncovered some interesting facts that will make traveling around the area as it stands today more fascinating. 

A famous point of local interest in the early part of the 20^th century was a log house built by DeHart called Lookout Lodge. Located halfway between Lafayette and Soldier’s Home, it was described as characteristic of an old settler’s cabin. The lodge consisted of one big room that was filled with Indian and Civil War relics, which made it more of a museum than a home. Although DeHart’s family residence was located at 634 N. Fifth Street in Lafayette, he spent many leisure hours entertaining friends at Lookout Lodge. A big flagstaff with stars and stripes at the peak gave the place a quasi-military look.  The structure was built of logs that had been taken from the blazed trail once traveled by many tribes of Native Americans.

 

634 N. 5th as it stands today was the former home of Col. DeHart

Lookout Point, a little above the lodge, presented a spectacular view of the Wabash River Valley that reached for miles. According to reports, it was here that Indian sentinels watched the approach of an enemy or shadowed the movements of a prey. Below the lodge, but beyond the reach of the highest tide of the Wabash River, was the beaten trail of the Potawatomie’s, the Miami’s and other tribes who for years after the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 roamed this neighborhood.

A 1905 newspaper article gave more clues about scenery of that area during the early part of the 20^th century. “The street railway replaces the old trail, and signs of modern improvement have wiped out the traces of the red man but blazed along the memory of the oldest settler is the Tecumseh Trail, as vivid as interesting, as romantic as ever, and the march of events has so far failed to erase the traces of another time.”

 By this time, Judge DeHart was growing old; however, he continued to “tramp the hills and valleys in the neighborhood of the Tecumseh Trail and the Soldiers’ Home, and he unearthed enough relics to make of his lodge a museum of rare value.” This subsequent account from the February 4, 1905, edition of the Journal and Courier offered the following illustration:

“It was only a few weeks ago when the judge took a trip to the Big Spring up the river a few miles from this city. Forty years ago, he had found evidence of Indians having camped there; a few weeks ago, he noticed a giant elm stretched across the stream that led from the spring. The tree was dead and had been for years, but it did not give way to the winds last fall. Colonel DeHart pried away a piece of the bark, several inches thick, and on the inside, next to the trunk, he found almost a hundred incisions that had been made by Indian hatchets. From the exterior, the cuts could not be seen, but next to the trunk were the tell-tale marks of Indian visitation. The supposition is that the Indians, approaching the spring, threw their tomahawks at the tree and then knelt to drink.

 “The big piece of bark has been added to the store of curios in the lodge. A hackberry tree with marks of the tomahawk, cut down several years ago on the old trail, furnished a stump which is used as a seat at the old fireplace. The fireplace is characteristic of pioneer days, with the old settler’s crane, the tongs and andirons and other details that make it complete. Indian relics galore adorn the walls and form cozy corners. Indian chopping bowls of wood found half a century ago in extinct Indian village near the Soldiers’ Home are prominent in the room. Colonel DeHart has not confined his relics to Indian times alone but has taken advantage of his long service in the Civil War and has stocked the lodge with many relics from that period. A pair of cymbals taken from a rebel military band at Vicksburg; a tree trunk with a solid shot taken from the battlefield of Chickamauga; the elks antlers taken from the Elkhorn Tavern at Pea Ridge, and numerous other rarities complete the appointments of the lodge. Some of the furniture that was first installed at the Lahr House in this city about war times finds peace and quiet at the lodge. A valuable sideboard that was the wonder of Lafayette sixty years ago when old John L. Reynolds brought it here from the east does adequate service and harks up memories of receptions and social affairs of past generations.

Elkhorn Tavern at Pea Ridge

“Judge Dehart has a pretty home in this city, but he would rather spend his idle time at his lodge in the winter or at his camp on First Island in the summer. In 1833, when the government made its last survey of the Wabash River there was no “First” Island, but since that time, growing from a sandbar to a prominent piece of land, there has formed in the river a big island. It is only a few hundred yards above Lookout Lodge, and it is here that Colonel DeHart spends vacation. The ethics of Army life are observed, except when visitors are on the island, and the etiquette of the camp always admits civilians. Not far from the Soldiers’ Home, the island affords a comfortable retreat for the veterans who spent some of the years of their Army life under the command of Colonel DeHart. The colonel recently obtained title to the island and will probably build a permanent house.

 Retiring from the war with the commission of a colonel, Dick DeHart nursed his wounds in the woods along the banks of the river. He fished and hunted where Tecumseh Trail, a summer resort and park, is now situated, and rested from the years of service. It was while he was resting near the roadway that Thomas Nottingham and Old Man Heath told DeHart of the traces of the Indian trail near the river. The colonel scraped away the leaves and twigs and found a beaten path; he followed it, and his discoveries opened a new life before him. He found Indian bones, arrowheads, stone hammers, tomahawks and unearthed petrified corn near the place where the ashes of an old fire were barely discernable. Then, in 1868, he bought a strip of land, upon part of which the Soldiers’ Home is now located. He improved the place and built log cabins on the tract, stocked a museum with thousands of Indian relics; invited old settlers and exchanged stories of Indian life.

Tecumseh Trail Pavillion was a popular park and resort when Col. DeHart owned the property.

“The museum is now gone; the Soldiers’ Home bought part of the ground, and the street railway purchased the rest. The log houses still remain and there are traces of pioneer life at the Trail, but in the main, the appearance is modern rather than primeval. A few miles above the Trail, the Battle of Tippecanoe was fought, and leading up to that famous battlefield, along the trail, trees were blazed and the path leading to Prophet’s Rock could be seen until the early 70s. Colonel DeHart was told a story which has not been given to history. The story came to him from an old settler who was one of General William Henry Harrison’s men. An old half-breed names Jones was sent to the Kickapoo Village, which was then located where the Soldier’s Home pumping station now stands, to learn what the one-eyed prophet, brother of Tecumseh, was going to do. It was only a few days before the Battle of Tippecanoe, Jones went into the camp, for he was well-known among the Indians and tried to spy upon the plans of the Indians, Tecumseh was about to leave for his famous trip down the Mississippi to unite the Indian nations.

 

“Jones was ushered to a wigwam where he was to spend the night, but he suspected something was wrong and did not sleep. It was after midnight when he saw the bearskin at the entrance slip aside and the body of an Indian glide into the tent. It was Tecumseh.

‘Come with me,’ said the warrior. ‘Don’t ask questions but come with me.’

“When they had gone beyond the limits of the village, Tecumseh said, ‘Now, you get for your life. Your squaw saw you come into camp. She know you and tell all Potawatomie squaws to kill you.’ Jones disappeared and the Indian woman he had married and deserted was cheated of her prey.

“The land which is now occupied by Tecumseh Trail, a part of the Soldiers’ Home reservation, Judge DeHart’s lodge and other buildings was formerly owned by the Children of Cakimi, a sister of Topinnibe, the great Potawatomie Chief. Cakimi was the wife of a man named Burnett, and the Potawatomie ceded a strip of land south of Flint Creek to the government for which the Burnett children were to have the land in the strip north of Flint Creek along the Wabash River. This property passed from the possession of the Burnetts and finally a large portion of it fell into the hands of Judge DeHart. The land has caused years of litigation in the courts and abstract writers who have gone back to the original treaty for evidence of possession or to trace property rights have found an endless tangle.

 “The late Judge John Pettit, United States Senator from Indiana, collected several Indian treaties, and

among them was the treaty made at St. Mary’s, Ohio, October 2, 1918, between Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass and Bejamin Park, commissioners of the United States and the Potawatomie nation of Indians. The treaty affects what is now known as Burnett’s Reserve of which Tecumseh Trail was a part. It reads as follows:

 Article 1. The Potawatomie nation of Indians cede to the United States all the country comprehended within the following limits: Beginning at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River and running up the same to a point twenty-five miles in a direct line from the Wabash River; thence on a line as nearly parallel to the general course of the Wabash River as practicable, to a point on the Vermillion River, twenty-five miles from the Wabash River to its mouth, and thence up the Wabash River to the place of beginning. The Potawatomie also cede to the United States all their claim to the country south of the Wabash River.

Articles 2 and 3 refer to the payment of annuities by the United States to the Indians and other minor considerations.

Article 4. The United States agree to grant to the persons named in the annexed schedule, and their heirs, the quantity of land therein stipulated to be granted; but the land so granted shall never be conveyed by either of the said persons, or their heirs, unless by consent of the president of the Untied States.

In addition to the names of the three commissioners, the Indian names of Potawatomie are attached to the treaty. The schedule referred to in the treaty is as follows:

There shall be granted to James Burnett, Jacob Burnett and Abraham Burnett, two sections of land each; and to Rebecca Burnett and Nancy Burnett one section of land each; which said James, John, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, Rebecca and Nancy, are children of Cakimi, a Potawatomie woman, sister of Topinibe, principal chief of the nation; and six sections herein granted shall be located from the mouth of the Tippecanoe River, down the Wabash River, and the other six (five) sections shall be located below the mouth of Pine River.

The treaty came as a result of the annihilation of Tecumseh’s forces in the Battle of Tippecanoe, and although it was several years later before the treaty with the Miami’s was made, it was nevertheless due to that victory that the Untied States dictated terms.”

This is Part 1 of 3 in the DeHart Series.