Friends of the Log Cabins to be host of Potawatomi Indians Trail of Death memorial caravan on Wednesday

QUINCY — The Friends of the Log Cabins Association will host the Potawatomi Indians Trail of Death Memorial Caravan at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20, with a carry-in picnic at the shelter house on Quinsippi Island. The shelter house is next to a second commemorative rock near the Log Cabin Village. Quincy Mayor Mike Troup will greet the travelers and provide a proclamation from the City of Quincy.

The caravan consists of 20 to 30 Potawatomi Indians and friends who travel through Quincy every five years to recognize the Potawatomi Indians Trail of Death that went through Quincy. At that time in Quincy in the fall of 1838, a group of approximately 850 Indians, 396 horses and 52 wagons, plus military escorts, passed through Quincy.

The Potawatomi Indians camped in the Mill Creek area just off Highway 104, where the first commemorative stone is located. They celebrated mass at St. Boniface Church, where another commemorative rock is located, before crossing the Mississippi River on their forced march to Kansas.

As part of this commemorative journey, the group will visit the commemorative rock next to St. Boniface Church at 8:05 a.m. before traveling to West Quincy, where another rock is located.

People in the Potawatomi Indian Trail of Death Memorial Caravan will travel 660 miles from the Chief Menominee monument near Plymouth, Ind., to the end of the trail at St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park in Kansas, following the route Menominee and his followers took on foot and horseback in 1838. Caravan members include historians and Potawatomi Indians who had ancestors on the Trail of Death.

Anyone interested in traveling the route is welcome to travel with the caravan for an hour, half a day or all the way from Indiana to Kansas. Pre-registration is encouraged. Go to www.potawatomi-tda.org for the schedule and registration form.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The name of the organization participating in the caravan was misidentified in a headline in an earlier version of this story.