2016 Fall Newsletter

Lloyd’s Le ers

To: Miami County His. Museum From: Lloyd Peckman

Subject: SEARCHING FOR THE MIAMI INDIAN SETTLEMENT BETWEEN ROCKVILLE AND WEST-POINT; Where is that? Yes, West-point, Missouri was destroyed by fire during the Civil War and Rockville, Kansas was mostly bulldozed away. They were located near the extreme southeast corner of Miami County where the Mil itary Road goes out to West-point. Halfway between these early sites was where the U.S. Government dumped the 350 plus Miami Indians on November the 5th of 1846. Others came later. A le er dated 1967 to Walter Crotche and Ethel Hunt states in part that the Miami Indians stayed the first win ter 1846-47 encamped within sight of the calico flag flying from the roof of a saloon owned by Joseph Clymer Jr. at West Point. The last Museum Quarterly I explained that our 1878 Atlas reports this encampment as 2 miles southeast of Rockville. Stanley Gunnells told us the burial site was located one fourth mile south of the Big Barn. A picture was taken of that barn located at the highest point here along the east edge of Sec on 3 and across the road from the Gunnell’s house. Another picture was taken of Bill opening the red gate just immediately NW of the burial site. I recently visited with Ola Mae Earnst, Director of the Pleasanton Museum and she gave me her son’s cell phone number. He has been the caretaker for this large Cobbs-Dunn ca le ranch for 15 or 20 years and knows it very well. He is especially interested in the loca on of the Military Road which probably ran right by his house. On October 15, 2016 I spent 5 hours with Bill Earnst who showed me around the 1000 acre Dunn Ranch as well as the next south Brian Miller Ranch. Sure enough; Bill explained to me that the only area of pasture dirt deep enough for burial is located one forth mile south below this barn. It is very near the intersec on of 391st and Coldwater boundary. Only State Line and Rockville go completely through north and south and only the Drexel road and 399th through east and west. For my explora on, Bill first took me NW more than one mile to the edge of the Dunn property. This is just SE of Rockville and very near a deep valley covered by trees on north Li le Sugar Creek. Here also on the edge of the slope we looked at a nice water spring and a nearby bare-sterile area. Nothing was growing there and I found a small piece of glass there. We feel this may have been a horse barn on the trail. Generally speaking, this large pasture west of the big barn slopes slightly to the west and the southwest. It goes out in finger-like patch with small creeks between each patch. Then it goes steeply down toward north Li le Sugar Creek. The 25 buildings were probably sca ered in 3 sec ons all near water. We have in our museum a picture of Carroll Gunnell’s with this statement on the back;

“Gunnells, Carroll 1829-1904 As a young man, he helped Joseph Clymer, Jr. build “25 good and substan al” log houses for the Indians (Miami) near Rockville, Miami Co. in the fall of 1846 page 32—“The Prelude” by Clar ence W. Long’’. Near one of these drop-off points we found a large rock where Bill said the metal detector team of Jerry Emberlin and Jack York had used a back hoe and found house hold items. These items were shown to me two weeks later by Jerry in a glass covered box dated 1997. A small picture in this box shows Jerry with a shovel and Jack with a metal detec on device in that dug hole.

Iems excavated by Jerry Emberlin and Jack York

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