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Civil War, Native American issues among HPS topics
Looking ahead to help repair the past might as well have been the theme of the Heritage Preservation Society (HPS) of Putnam County annual meeting Thursday evening at the county museum.
The organization's two biggest future endeavors are the restoration of the historic Civil War Monument at Forest Hill Cemetery, an effort that has essentially consumed the group's fundraising efforts and interest the past couple of years, and the restoration of the existing courthouse clock with an additional timepiece added to the north side of the structure.
Both efforts have been designated as official Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Projects by the state, HPS officials said.
The Civil War Monument restoration is listed as a $125,750 project to save the unique memorial that bears the names of 321 Putnam County soldiers who died during the War Between the States.
Last September, HPS board member Phil Gick noted, Forest Hill Cemetery earned inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Hoping to capitalize on that, the HPS applied for a Heritage Preservation Fund grant of an additional $40,000 to help restore the 30-foot-tall Civil War Monument.
The State Historic Preservation Board has approved that request, he said, but the funds have not yet been awarded, pending National Park Service approval.
Gick envisions the restoration process beginning this May with work likely taking until spring 2017 to finish.
"We hoped it would be done a little quicker than that," HPS President Mike Murphy said, adding that the goal was for the restoration to coincide with Indiana's 2016 bicentennial celebration.
Regardless, Murphy said the organization and the major project it has undertaken stand as "proof of what a few dedicated individuals can do."
HPS is also under final consideration for a $17,500 Indiana Historical Society Heritage Support Grant for the courthouse clocks project.
Meanwhile, nominations to the National Register of Historic Places are also in the pipeline for districts in Cloverdale, Bainbridge, Roachdale and Russellville. If approved, those areas become eligible for certain funding and protection.
"The designation not only gives people living in those areas a greater sense of pride," Gick suggested, "but you can't help but think it would enhance the value of their property."
At the 2015 HPS annual meeting, the group proposed six new historic districts, also listing Fillmore and Putnamville.
"Two of them have just lost too much to be viable historic districts," Gick lamented.
He also cautioned the group that getting approval for the other four areas won't be a quick process.
"Don't get too excited," he said, "this can take a year or a year and a half to get through the state."
Guest speaker Harry Brown, the DePauw University English Department chairman who specializes in Native American literature and early American literature, entertained with a presentation on "Indiana Territory and Indian Nations."
Before he started exploring the historical significance of Prophetstown, Tecumseh and the Battle of Tippecanoe, however, he noted that he is a "Civil War buff,"and one of his first stops after moving to Greencastle in 2003 was Forest Hill Cemetery and its noted Civil War Monument.
Prophetstown was established in 1808 near Lafayette at the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers by Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (known as the "Shawnee Prophet") as the capital of their Indian confederacy. Tecumseh attempted to create the greatest Indian resistance movement in American history, hoping to end the westward expansion of the white European settlers.
Prophetstown, which extended for two miles, was home to approximately 3,000 Native Americans at one time, Brown said, while serving as a training ground for more than 1,000 warriors from several Indian nations.
"Although it was less than one-third the size of Greencastle (population 10,300), at one time it represented that largest concentration of Indians in the Great Lakes region," Brown said.
The close proximity to Putnam County is noteworthy, he suggested.
"Putnam County was well within the orbit of Prophetstown, so there was a very significant point in time that happened right up the road from here," Brown told the HPS.
He added that tribes that occupied the Putnam County area at the time were mainly the Miami, the Potawatomi and later the Shawnee, Brown said.
It was also noted that one of the first Indian trading posts in the territory was known to exist on a well-positioned knoll that can still be seen from Interstate 70 in Putnam County.
Brown explained that William Henry Harrison, Indiana Territory governor who would later become president, was alarmed by the numbers at Prophetstown, and moved 1,200 troops to the area while Tecumseh had gone south, gathering additional support.
Historians believe that wanting to avoid a fight, yet fearing an attack, The Prophet decided to strike first in the early morning hours of Nov. 7, 1811. The battle raged for two hours before the villagers withdrew and fled to Wildcat Creek. Harrison's forces then burned Prophetstown to the ground and destroyed the Indians' food supplies.
Harrison claimed that the Battle of Tippecanoe was a deathblow to Tecumseh's confederacy, and many historians agree. Forever after known as "Tippecanoe," Harrison eventually became the president largely as a result of the victory and his notoriety, which was popularized in the song "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" during the election of 1840.
The Battle of Tippecanoe was a "pivotal moment in the history of the United States," Brown noted, after which the Indian struggle "took a more subtle economic turn."
He said one theory suggests the various independent Indian languages and customs helped keep Native Americans from uniting in their fight to stop the westward migration that took their land and moved them out.
They were "doomed by their own diversity," Brown said, quoting Vine Deloria.
Brown also suggested interesting comparisons can be drawn between the Indian removal from their land -- aka The Trail of Tears -- and American slavery, as well as immigration issues and the Indian removal.
"We don't often talk about slavery and the removal of tribes in the same dialogue," Brown said.
Nonetheless, they remain "the two great sins of 19th-century America," he added.