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The monument reads: This is the site of a village and burial ground of the Pottawatomie Indians from ancient times until 1835 when they were exiled to lands beyond the Mississippi. Later this locality was known as Indian Hill Here stood the cabin of Leon Bourasea, the trapper. His Indian wife, Margaret, had been reared in this grove and, after the exodus of her tribe, she chose to remain near the graves of her ancestors. As the years passed the visits of the Pottawatomies became ever less frequent and this memorial has been erected to perpetuate their memory. In 1832 Federal troops under General Winfield Scott skirted this grove, forded the river a mile north, and marched on to the Black Hawk War in the Rock River Country. These soldiers had encamped at a point that is now the village of Riverside to rest and recover from an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. Upon the arrival of white settlers these acres became the homestead of Ferdinand Haase and his family. The first person to die in this new home was buried on this hill in 1854. Thus, many years ago, Ferdinand Haase and his sons re-established and dedicated to sepulcher the ancient forest home of the Pottawatomie to become the present Forest Home of the white man. AD 1941 |
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