Shawanassee’s Village

The memorial boulder honoring Chief Shawanassee (note the variant spelling, “Shau-wa-na-see”) is located near Rock Creek in Kankakee River State Park. The unidentified man was likely a member of the Kankakee County Historical Society, which erected the memorial in 1920. (Kankakee County Museum Photo Archive)

By Jack Klasey

September 27

The largest and most important of the Pottawatomi Indian villages in what is now Kankakee County was located east of Rock Creek, about one mile north of the Kankakee River. It was the village of Shawanassee (often spelled “Shaw-Waw-Nas-See”), a prominent chief of the Potawatomi tribe.

An excellent description of the by-then abandoned village (the residents had moved west of the Mississippi in 1836) appeared in the 1883 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Kankakee County. It was written by H.S. Bloom, a young member of a family that had settled in what is now Rockville Township in early 1837.

“The first trip I ever made down Rock Creek was in company with my brother George,” recalled Bloom, “and we were much delighted with its rocky chasms and the falls, reminding us so much of our Pennsylvania home. After arriving at the mouth of the creek, we followed up the river for about a mile, until we arrived at a large Indian mound, from which we could overlook the country for a long distance. North of the mound some eighty rods [1320 feet, or one-quarter mile], was a deserted Indian village, Shawanassee….Many of the old lodge poles were yet standing, there was a large number of graves still visible; they were in regular rows, running north and south, facing the west with a stake at each warrior’s mound, marked with red. The number of marks, it was said, indicated the number of scalps the warrior had taken. These marks ranged from one to thirteen.”

Bloom continued, “This was, undoubtedly, a very old Indian village and a great favorite with them….The land gave evidence of having long been in cultivation….The old corn hills were still visible and extended two miles along the grove, though the fields were overgrown with plum brush and timber. To the northeast of the village… was a place where the Indians held their feasts and war dances. A space of seventy-five or eighty feet in diameter was leveled off, smooth as a barn floor. The sod or turf had been removed and piled up around the edge or the circle. This had stood for a long time, evidently, as [on] the outside of the ridge of earth a heavy plum brush growth was standing, but the interior was yet smooth. Nearby this place was a spring of water which in those days never became dry.”

An important landmark of the deserted village was the burial structure that held the remains of the Potawatomi village’s chief, Shawanassee. Bloom noted that the chief died in 1834, and was the last member of his tribe to be buried in the village. The manner of the chief’s burial was quite different from the simple graves of the warriors: “He was buried above ground in a sitting position, facing the west and surrounded by a pen of split logs or puncheons, which were about three and one-half feet in length and two and one-half feet wide…a hole of about three by four inches was cut in the west side….George Beckworth and Benjamin Scroggins, under the direction of the chief men of the tribe, prepared the pen and duly deposited the  chief therein.

“With the chief were deposited his blankets, his rifle, a brass kettle, tomahawk, scalping knife, a pouch of tobacco, pipes, and various other small articles to keep him comfortable on his journey to the spirit land. But alas for human hopes: his gun, tomahawk, tobacco and pipes were stolen soon after his family left for the West. The remains of the chief I saw as late as 1837, sitting upright in his little house, very little disfigured.  Some three or four years after, his skull and larger bones were, by some unknown party, carried away. Today, there is no sign of the burial place, nor are there but two or three who know where his house stood (Bloom notes that the first house erected in what is now Rockville Township was “a double log house built for Shawanassee in 1832 by William Baker. Shawanassee had ten acres of land broken and put in cultivation.”

In 1920, the Kankakee County Historical Society placed a large boulder in Kankakee River State Park, as a monument to mark the location of the village and the chief’s burial place. The boulder, approximately three feet in height, bears the inscription, “Chief Shau-wa-na-see, 1838. [The spelling “Shau” is a bit of a mystery, since “Shaw” is normally widely used. Also a mystery is the date 1838—the chief died in 1834, and the remaining residents of the village departed in 1836.]

The Potawatomi chief and his band are also memorialized by a large summer youth camp, (“Camp Shaw-Waw-Nas-See”) founded in 1956.  The facility is located across Rock Creek from the Potawatomi village.

Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted at jwklasey@comcast.net.