Looking at an historic map of Indiana. In the great expanse of land in the center of the state that was deeded to the U.S by the Treaty of St. Mary’s in 1818 lay a little square that was the “Thorntown Reserve.”
Indiana became a state in 1816 and the southern part of the state was experiencing great growth. The U.S. government called tribal leaders together to try to extract further land concessions from them. Miami, Wea, Potawatomi, Delaware, Ottawa, Shawnee, Seneca and Wyandot tribes were represented. The 1818 Treaty of St. Mary’s resulted in the “New Purchase” – a massive land transfer to the federal government. The Miamis alone ceded over seven million acres, almost the entire central third of Indiana.
There were two tracts where the Miami retained tribal community ownership: the Big Miami Reserve and the Thorntown Reserve. These lands were to permanently be their homes.
The Thorntown Reserve was a ten miles by ten miles section of northwest Boone County and southern Clinton County. It consisted of about 64,000 acres around Sugar Creek and the Indian town of Kah-we-ok-ki-un-gi or ‘place of thorns.’ It was the home of the Eel River people, an Algonquin tribe that had recently associated themselves with the Miami. It’s not clear why the Eel River people were singled out for their own reserve.
The first mention of Kah-we-ok-ki-un-gi or Thorntown in historical documents is from the journal of Thomas Dean. His party travelled northeast from Terre Haute to the White River. August 4, 1817 – “We continued travelling rapidly until we came to the village, about 5 p.m. The village is on a prairie containing thirty or forty houses in different places. I had a letter of introduction from Lt. Lafond to the French trader at the village. He invited us to his cabin to lodge. The man who rode with me shot a young deer as we rode along. We had some of it cooked for our supper. There were many Indians who came to see us where we put up.” Then two years later, there is the account of William Kenworthy. “In 1819 Judge Kenworthy in company with other white men, lodged all night with an Indian near where Thorntown now stands, and that the place then was a French trading post.” Thorntown stood at the crossroads of two important trails, the Fort Wayne Trace and the Strawtown Trail. Other reports say the town had a population of about 400.
The next mention of Thorntown is from Sanford C. Cox. He tells of his family’s trip across the wilderness of what would become Boone County. On the night of Oct 28, 1824 they camped in the Thorntown Reserve. “The rising sun on the morning of the 29th found us pursuing our journey. About eight o’clock a.m. we arrived in Thorntown, once a large Indian and French village, which sent hundreds of warriors to the battlefield. It is now deserted; or rather its inhabitants are all absent on a hunting expedition. Wigwams composed of pole and bark cover many acres of this beautiful and salubrious plain on which Thorntown is situated.”
The ‘permanent’ part of the St. Mary’s Treaty didn’t last long. Pressured by whites eager for more land, the federal government negotiated a new treaty just ten years later and the Eel River people were moved to a much smaller reserve near Logansport, Indiana.
“An Act for the Dissolution of the Thorntown Reserve, February 11, 1828:
The Chiefs, Head Men and Warriors agree to cede and by these presents do cede and relinquish to the United States all their rights, title and claim, to a reservation about ten miles square, at the Village on Sugartree Creek, Indiana, which was reserved to said party by the second article of a treaty between the commissioners of the United States and the Miami Nation of Indians; made and entered into at St. Mary’s in the State of Ohio, on the 6th day of October, 1818.”
The Act goes on to outline the compensation for the 64,000 acres: $10,000 and some oxen, horses, cabins, saddles, bridles, a wagon and other considerations.
Seventeen Eel river men signed the Act so we know the names of some of these early Thorntown residents: Ne-go-ta-kaup-wa, Shaw-po-to-seaw, Na-tah-ko-ke-aw, Aw-waw-no-zaw, Kaw-koaw-ma-kau-to-aw, Awsown-zou-gow, Shin-go-ou-zaw, Oh-zou-ke-at-tou, Wa-pow-ko-se-aw, and Mack-ken-zaw.
Within a few years all of the Thorntown Reserve had been sold to settlers. By 1830 there was enough population to form Boone County.
Connection: My family are farmers. The farms of my paternal grandparents, parents, and brother and sister-in-law all lie in the old Thorntown Reserve.
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