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Shelby County |
HISTORICALCHAPTER V. - INDIANS.
In the matter of specific Indian occupation of a territory so small as an inland county like Shelby, it is difficult to secure data, records, or accurate information. Early records cluster about navigable streams where fur traders established themselves. There is little doubt that Shelby county, in common with most of southwestern Iowa, was long the hunting ground, at least, of several tribes of Indians. There is, however, very little evidence to be found in Shelby county of the existence of Indians here in the past. There have been occasionally picked up on the prairie in various parts of the county stone arrowheads. R. R. Sandham, of Harlan, picked up, a few years ago in the woods near Harlan, a stone mortar and pestle apparently used for grinding corn by the Indians. From a Shelby county paper of date January 29, 1877, it would appear that there were Indians buried in the north part of Shelby county, presumably in Galland's Grove: "Certain parties living in the north part of the county, we will not mention their names, opened several Indian graves to see what they contained. They took from one a set of silver ear-rings and some beads; from another, a pipe, several arrow heads and a tomahawk made of stone. They were unable to discover even the ashes of the 'poor Lo' who had been the happy possessors of these useful articles in their lifetime." The original government land surveys of Shelby county, the plats and field note's of which are in the office of the county auditor, show that at the time of the survey there was an Indian trail traversing the west part of Jefferson township running north and south, passing through parts of the following sections: 6, 5 (southwest comer), 8, 17, 20, 19 (southeast corner), 30 (near the northeast corner of the southeast quarter of said section), thence through the southwest quarter of section 32 into Polk township. This trail would start somewhere near the old farm of Robert W. Nellis, run somewhere near the James H. Edwards eighty in section 5, across the West farms in section 7, across the John T. Jack and George W. Clark farms in section 17, across the Joseph L. Clark farm in section 20, across the W. H. Townsan farm in section 19, across the F. H. Erickson farm in section 32. The trail crossed the Nishnabotna near the northeast corner of the southeast quarter of section 30 and crossed the stream known as Elk run in the northeast quarter of section 6. The government plat does not dearly indicate, but it would appear that this trail continued in a southerly direction almost entirely through Polk township, at least into the northeast quarter of section 31 near the Nishna botna river, in the vicinity of Bowman's Grove. If the trail ran here, it would, apparently, be close to the vicinity of the Indian trail, which J. B. Stutzman is of the opinion crossed the McQueen farm, located in the southwest quarter of section 8 in Jackson township. Running then six miles in a southerly direction, it would be in the vicinity where Gen. G. M. Dodge in 1852 found a band of thieving Indians going north, as recorded in his reminiscences elsewhere published in this volume. In a letter to the author, General Dodge says: "There were Indian trails leading north and south up Indian creek and up the East Botna, and it is possible there was one up the West Botna; but on the East Botna and on Indian creek they were plain. It was on this trail running up Indian that I struck the band of Indians who had been south to Missouri stealing hogs."
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