The summer of 1843 was a dark time for the Wyandots, the last Indian tribe in Ohio. That summer 170 years ago was also a dark time in Ohio's history, because the Wyandots were forced to leave their reservation near Upper Sandusky and travel to a strange land to the west: Kansas.
The summer of 1843 was a dark time for the Wyandots, the last Indian tribe in Ohio.
That summer 170 years ago was also a dark time in Ohio’s history, because the Wyandots were forced to leave their reservation near Upper Sandusky and travel to a strange land to the west: Kansas.
They had tried to assimilate into the white man’s world by becoming farmers, but that didn’t work because, in truth, the white man wanted their land.
The Ohio Wyandots had assimilated so completely that they even refused to join forces with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh during the War of 1812 and fight against their white neighbors. That took restraint because at one time they had been a very warlike people.
In gratitude for their remaining neutral, the U.S. government built them a mill on the Sandusky River to grind their grain into flour. The mill was destroyed by a flood, but it was rebuilt and still stands. It is sometimes open for tours. A sign along Rt. 23 near Upper Sandusky directs you to the Indian Mill.
The Wyandots even embraced Christianity, and their church also still stands, in a cemetery in Upper Sandusky. Behind the church, you can still see Wyandot graves. As I remember, one of the graves is that of an Indian named Between the Logs.
They left their Ohio reservation on July 9, 1843, and traveled to the Ohio River, where they boarded the steamboats Republic and Nodaway and headed west. The contingent of 674 tribe members included 120 wagons and 300 horses. There were even some white people who had married into the tribe, according to Mike Bergman, a Madison County historian.
One local newspaper editor wrote, “Most of them are noble-looking fellows, stout of limb, athletic and agile, devoted to their families and brave and generous to a fault.”
Bergman told me that, before leaving for Kansas, they had sent scouts to reconnoiter the new land. One bit of disturbing news the scouts brought back was that there were no sugar-maple trees where they were going. They complained about that to the treaty negotiator.
You see, Bergman said, maple syrup was a staple in their diet, not just something to put on pancakes in the springtime. One way they used it was by mixing it with bear fat; the resulting combination was used as a garnish, he said.
Wyandot women made large quantities of maple syrup and used some of it as a trade item with the whites, Bergman said.
A place with no sugar maples! They were indeed going to a strange land.
Now, about the only thing that reminds us of the tribe’s one-time presence in the state is the name of the county where they resided: Wyandot.
Retired weather columnist John Switzer writes a Sunday Metro column.