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Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 15, 2013 08:04PM
There has long been a transportation corridor SW from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. Through a combination of portage-ing (schlepping) and canoeing people and goods could make the (mostly) water trip from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. The Chicago Portage route was one. Another Portage Route went between Stoney Creek (Blue Island) and the Saganashkee Slough. Various tribes like the Fox disrupted trade along the route occasionally but it was a wellknown location ...so when the US had a chance to claim it as their own, just after the close of the War of 1812 they did and attatched it to the Treaty Of St. Louis in 1817, the midwest version of the Treaty of Ghent. The Sac and Fox signed off on the so called Indian Boundary Lines even though it really wasn't their turf. The southern Indian Boundary line was surveyed in the winter of 1818/19. It ran SW from the mouth of the Little calumet. The northern IBL started at a point 10 miles north of the mouth of the chicago River and reuns SW as well, passing through much of the northside, down through Bolingbook and beyond. I know my southern IBL, do you know the Northern IBL? Is there evidence of it on the ground? Streets? Property boundaries?
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 15, 2013 08:08PM
The southern IBL passes through South Chicago, crosses Lake calumet (there was once a marker for the IBL just west of the Lake at 119th) interrupts propert west of St5ate and turns into Brayton Avenue near Wentworth...it finally becomes a frontage road on the north side of I-57 where it wass known as the George Brennan Highway, named for the Roseland historian/educator.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
nordsider
()
Date: December 15, 2013 10:40PM
See: The Northern Indian Boundary Line
http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/the-northern-indian-boundary-line/
http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/the-northern-indian-boundary-line/
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 16, 2013 12:45PM
Nicely done...has anyone extended this into the suburbs? Oh also the remark about our south IBL only showing up as one street (thats Brayton just east of wentworth @ about 126th) is innaccurate. The southern IBL became the route for Harbor Avenue, South chicago's main street when it was first laid out after Col. James H. Bowen got Federal monies to "do" the harbor in 1869. The southern IBL also is represented by a couple hundred feet of old fence as it crosses an old stream bed on Brayton just east of Wentworth. Brayton was named rather unimaginatively after the developer who put a bunch of houses on the old Jaegger Farm in the 1950's.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
kiernansanders
()
Date: December 16, 2013 02:03PM
Paul Petraitis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The
> southern IBL also is represented by a couple
> hundred feet of old fence as it crosses an old
> stream bed on Brayton just east of Wentworth.
> Brayton was named rather unimaginatively after the
> developer who put a bunch of houses on the old
> Jaegger Farm in the 1950's.
Could you identify exactly where this fence is on Google Maps? I'd love to find it but I can't quite tell where it is. Thanks for the information, by the way - this is really interesting!
-------------------------------------------------------
> The
> southern IBL also is represented by a couple
> hundred feet of old fence as it crosses an old
> stream bed on Brayton just east of Wentworth.
> Brayton was named rather unimaginatively after the
> developer who put a bunch of houses on the old
> Jaegger Farm in the 1950's.
Could you identify exactly where this fence is on Google Maps? I'd love to find it but I can't quite tell where it is. Thanks for the information, by the way - this is really interesting!
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 16, 2013 02:23PM
Jaeggers Creek used to drain the east side of the Stewart ridge spit (as geologists sometimes refer to it) until Brayton bought the old Jaegger farm (the farmhouse was on state near 125th) If you follow Brayton west from State it makes a jog to the SW as it hits the IBL, just past the old creekbed. To the SW it goes across Wentworth Avenue, but is abandonned as it passes diagonally behind an old gas station. The IBL doesn't reappear until Halsted where on the west side of the street it formed the north border of an old abandonned minature golf place (don't you just love abandonned miniature golf places?!)...the fence that follows the IBL and crosses the old creek bed runs NE from where Brayton makes that jog. The confluence of the IBL and an 8000 year old creek bed make this a delightfully irregular block that has kept away developers. Tim Samuelson and I took clippings off an old apple tree that one was right on the old IBL (probably from Ohio apple stock brought west by the Periams in 1838 when they built their orchard on this block...Cook County's first commercial orchard) the fence continues NE across this irregularly shaped block causing a street to end in a cul de sac...find it yet? e mail me at paulpetraitis@comcast.net
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Dunning1
()
Date: December 16, 2013 04:55PM
I might be mistaken but I always thought the Northern Indian Boundary Line was represented by Rogers Avenue, and Forest Preserve Drive across the north and northwest sides of the city. Where they intersect with the southern boundary, alas, I am not sure.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
nordsider
()
Date: December 16, 2013 06:57PM
In the book Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis by Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade (published 1969), a map is shown on page 11, titled: Principal Indian Trails and the Indian Cession of 1816 Related to the Physiographic Features of the Chicago Region.
The boundry lines do not intersect. The North boundary line ends at the Fox River; and the South boundary line ends at the Kankakee River.
And, from another source: the book, Indians of the Chicago Region; Editor Charles S. Winslow (copyright 1946), "in 1816 the Indians ceded a long strip of land southwestward from Lake Michigan to the Illinois and Fox rivers, twenty miles in width."
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2013 09:21PM by nordsider.
The boundry lines do not intersect. The North boundary line ends at the Fox River; and the South boundary line ends at the Kankakee River.
And, from another source: the book, Indians of the Chicago Region; Editor Charles S. Winslow (copyright 1946), "in 1816 the Indians ceded a long strip of land southwestward from Lake Michigan to the Illinois and Fox rivers, twenty miles in width."
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2013 09:21PM by nordsider.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 17, 2013 02:43PM
Yes the lines do not intersect. And everybody on FC ought to go out and buy a copy of Growth Of A Metropolis. It is the bible!
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Mr Downtown
()
Date: December 18, 2013 12:57PM
[url=http://usgwarchives.org/maps/cessions/ilcmap17.htm]Here's a map showing Indian land cessions in Illinois.[/url] The one we're discussing is number 78.
[img]
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
davey7
()
Date: December 18, 2013 04:10PM
There's an Indian Boundary Road in Chesterton (Indiana) which runs east-west.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 18, 2013 04:30PM
The Chesterton one is really old and dates from 1787 when they were first thinking about how to divide up the newly created NorthWest Territory into states. Thomas "TJ" Jefferson envisioned E/W states like Tennessee and Kentucky and started by drawing an E/W line through the southern tip of Lake Michigan (TSTOLM for short). Both Indiana and Illinois rejected this notion, Indiana first cause it deprived them of a harbor on Lake Michigan and also cuz it messed up Toledo sothe controversey became known as the Toledo Wars. It later became known as "The Ten Mile Line" because they moved the border ten miles to the north for state hood. It is totally invisible in Illinois. It's roughly 151st Street on the chicago grid. We pushed our border up to where the Wisconsin border is, much more than 10 miles! BTW Michigan was given the UP to compensate for the lost 10 mile strip which was thought worthless until they discoved the ore deposits! It appears that Lake Michigan has retreated northward about 200 yards from this survey line. Early settler J. Baily who settled in what became Chesterton in 1822 thought he was in Michigan!
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
davey7
()
Date: December 19, 2013 04:39PM
Oh yes, the Bailey Homestead is great.
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 20, 2013 11:53AM
The original Treaty language calls for the point of beginning of the South IBL to be, like its northern cousin "10 miles" from the mouth of the chicago River...that would've put it at about 79th street but SOMEBODY decided to keep walking a few miles further along the beach and begin the line at the mouth of the Little Calumet River at 92nd Street, a very recognizable landmark for sure, and roughly the same spot the Five(6?)Nations (from upstate New York) claimed as the boundary of their "western hunting grounds" when they treatied "their" land to the Brits in the 1750's at the Treaty of Ft. Stanwick. What? Iroquois Indians hunting out here in Illinois? Why? Because they could!
Re: Indian Boundary Lines
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 20, 2013 12:03PM
I like meandering through the topics here on FC 'cause it jogs my memory and I just thought of something. Those poor SOBs who had to draw the line east and west from the southern tip of Lake Michigan (TSTOLM) had to mark their line ...so did the guys who slogged through the ice to do the southern Inidan Boundary Line (SIBL) during the winter of 1818/19...there's a boulder along the old SIBL (north of I 57 aka the George Brenan Highway) near 151st st...that's probably where the 1787 Line crossed the Indian Boundary! Coulkd this be the only spot in Illinois where this "state boundary" is indicated? Thomas Jefferson had some wierd state names he was considering "Sinnesippia" is the one that comes to mind...
