Karens Road

The Trail of Courage, Living History festival was held again this past weekend in Fulton County. One of the many festivals you will find in Indiana, this festival celebrated its 25th year! We took our kids to this festival many times as a way to show them how things were done in the past. Participants dress in early 1800s clothing. You will see men walking around in buckskin clothing or cloth britches, blouse type shirts with wide sleeves gathered at the wrist, vests and high boots, or period uniforms. Women wear long dresses, crocheted or wool shawls over their shoulders and caps on their head. Some of the ladies had buckskin dresses on. They wore some type of leather shoes, moccasins, or went barefoot. The wooded area is perfect for places to set up giant kettles to fry potatoes and make homemade chips. We used to be able to get homemade root beer and drink it while we checked out the booths of handmade wares. Just about the only thing out of ordinary was a porta pot. Otherwise you felt as if you were in an encampment. Canvas tents or lean-to’s were set up with their campfire out in front. There were Indian teepees erected so we could enter them. I was amazed at how much room there was inside. Homemade 1800 period crafts and foods were being sold. The people were cooking over open fires, sitting on stools made from a couple of boards that could be taken apart and stored. You didn’t see any hand held games in this setting. Small children were being pulled around by older siblings in home made wagons with spoke sides and wooden wheels. For the weekend these people lived here as their ancestors did in the 1800s, -no electricity, no gas grills or stoves, no coleman burners. In the evenings the torches or lanterns were lit, or the light from their cooking fires were used for illumination.

From the Fulton County Historical Society, Inc. webpage, The Trail of Courage
Living History Festival
by Elaine Shepard:
It all began in 1976. Shirley Willard’s son was looking for a project to earn his Eagle badge in Boy Scouts. He asked his mother if there were any old Indian trails in the area. They started to do their research and discovered that Chief Menominee, a Potawatomi, had refused to sign the treaties and sell his land. He and his band and all Potawatomi within about a 30-mile radius of his village at Twin Lakes south of Plymouth were rounded up and marched at gunpoint down Rochester’s Main Street on September 5, 1838.
Further research showed that on September 27, 1838, a band of 850 Potawatomi Indians camped near Niantic at Long Point. They were on what was to be called the “Trail of Death”, forced removal at gunpoint from their homeland in northern Indiana to Kansas. Many of the Potawatomi walked the 650 miles to present day Osawatomie, KS. It took two months. More than 40 died, mostly children of typhoid fever and the stress of the forced removal according to the official journal kept by a government agent.
It started with a project to earn an Eagle badge, to find the “old Indian trail” and erect a marker to commemorate the Potawatomi who traveled that forced removal. Since that time 53 trail markers have been erected by communities and boy scouts through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. Mrs. Shirley Willard, a former history teacher who is now the president of the Fulton County Historical Society (FCHS), requested the assistance of the Indiana Historical Society and had the Trail of Death route declared a regional historical trail by the Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas state legislatures in 1994-96.
The more research that was done, the more they (Fulton County Historical Society) began to wonder about the descendants of the people of the “Trail of Death.” They began looking at treaties for the names of the chiefs that signed and finding the descendants, and then contacting them asking them to come and be honored at the “Trail of Courage-Living History Festival.” Each year the “Trail of Courage Living History Festival” honors a different Potawatomi family with roots in Indiana’s frontier history. This year it was the descendants of Chief Menominee.