Palos Springs

That part of the Worth Indian village lying south of the Sag arm had its center on the Gleason farm, the southeast quarter Sec 23, Palos township. From here a minor Indian village extended for half a mile east over the Mike Powers farm on the low bluff bordering the canoe path in the Sag-water, more than half a mile south to the Palos springs of which there are three. The spring brook meandering through the Gleason farm to the Sag. On the Gleason farm, just north of the house and the orchard in 1902, moulding sand was taken out underneath the bank and an Indian chief dug out. He had been buried in a sitting position with his rifle together with the bones of his Indian pony and his dog.

Weapons and implements of the Stone Age and the scorched and broken stones of ancient firesides are found all over the Theo. Lucas farm, which, like the adjoining farms, is located upon the last remnant of the "Calumet Beach" (page 72, Bulletin No. 2, Pleistocene Features Chicago, C.A.S.). Here is where the far-sighted aborigine could see his way to clear the Au-Sagaunashke. And here also the early French explorers sought to plant their forces (Boyer manuscript).

The old Theo. Lucas residence is one of the pioneer log houses and stands today fronting the Sauguanash, the main and only branch of the Archer Ave trail of Indian and pioneer days, about four hundred feet west of the present highway. Part of the trail can be seen as it passes through the barnyard and is still in use as a field road. Descending south it now crosses the here only half a mile wide Sauganash marsh coming out on the old Hathaway farm in the west half of Sec 22 where the remains of an Indian camp were found by Ed. Lucas and the early white settlers who used this trail also had a village of half a dozen houses. Here another ford is encountered, also still in use, that of Paddock creek and the trail and old wagon road running southwest and south rises with the bluff passing the old McCloughry farm and Orland, takes its course southwest to Hadley, meeting the Archer Ave trail again at Indian village No. 18 in Joliet.

The third part of the Sag Indian village. Returning to the Theo. Lucas farm we find the Jere Day farm extending into the southeast quarter of Sec 16, part of which Mr Day has occupied for the last sixty three years. Mr Day says: "There was an Indian cemetery on the sandy ridge along the Sag where in the early days I plowed up many bones of the Indians from the shifting sand and so did Mr Heck who lived there after me. Mr Heck when he moved to Minnesota took with him a water pail full of flint spear and arrowheads. Even last March an Indian burial was found on the same place."

The fourth minor Indian village, beginning also in the southeast quarter Sec 16, town of Palos, on 80 acres occupied by Mr John Laatz, extends north with the trail running to Willow Springs and west with the trail following beneath the bluff, crossing the Thos. Kelley farm Sec 18, also southwest one mile to the opposite side of the Sag, Sec 20. Thus we have the Indian villages of the Sag strung out in its valley for five or six miles. Of the fourth minor Indian village Mr Laatz says: "On my farm we have found flint points by the hundred, also stone axes and Indian pottery. The ground even now is covered with flint chips, likewise the land adjoining us on the west." The slope to the Sag here is very gentle, there being no bluff, only sandy knolls.

The Indian camp found on the Thos. Kelley farm Sec 18, town of Palos, at a most strategic point, where the trail running west through the Indian village at Sag Bridge and the Archer Ave trail L from the northeast on the bluff "stealing a march on the Sag valley and its ford," met at a group of two Indian mounds situated on the very edge of the high bluff from where a view is had east and west in the Sag-Desplaines valley for eight miles.

Half a mile due north from this group of mounds, on the Herzog farm were found indications of a minor Indian village extending still further north and down into the valley of the Desplaines. This is Sec 7. From here communication was had across the canoe path in the Desplaines river to the village up Flagg creek and Santa Fe Park, which is only one mile north, thus completing the chain of Indian villages and camps around the ancient "Mount Forest Island" (Saulisbury & Alden Geography Chicago). One mile down stream from Sec 7 there was a ford over the Desplaines river coming out on the opposite side a quarter of a mile east of what is Byrnville today, Sec 12, town of Lemont.

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