Mysteries of Warren County, Indiana: Kickapoo Falls

I include Kickapoo Falls in my series of mysteries because I regard the place as mysterious. In the 1960s, my parents took my brother and me to see the cliff, which was on Kickapoo Creek deep in a forest across the Wabash River from Attica, Indiana. The rocky cleft loomed up from the shadows and impressed my young imagination as ancient and elemental: a defile formed from cosmic clashes. I saw no water splashing from the heights, but I guess that rivulets might cascade from the stone precipice during rainy weather. My father warned us children not to circle around to the top of the falls—a proposal from my brother, as I remember—because someone long before had slipped and died. I needed no further persuasion, as I was fearful of heights anyway. I felt relieved when we returned to our car.

Kickapoo Falls in Warren County, Indiana

In his article entitled “The Potawatomi Reservations in Benton, Fountain, Warren and Tippecanoe Counties,” published in The Indiana Magazine of History, Attica attorney and historian J. Wesley Whickcar (occasionally spelled Whicker—which is a mystery to me) said that Sheshepah, or Little Duck, the representative of the Kickapoo and Potawatomi, was the son of a Potawatomi father and a Kickapoo mother. Sheshepah was born at Kickapoo Falls. He signed the treaty at Greenville, Ohio, on July 22nd in 1814 as chief of the Kickapoo and affixed his signature to three subsequent treaties. Allegedly, he lived to be 110, when Nankuah murdered him at Nebeker Springs near Covington in Fountain County.

When my family visited Kickapoo Falls, the site was on private property. After I had left for college, the cliff became a destination for rock climbers, and the landowner did not want to be held responsible for any injury; accordingly, the falls were closed to visitors.

My father was right (as he nearly always was): a person had died at the falls. She was Elizabeth Jean Cecil, age 24. She perished on Halloween in 1942. She had taught social sciences and physical education classes at Attica High School for only a year. She and Harold Bowman, a high school student, visited Kickapoo Falls “on a bicycle outing,” according to her obituary posted on Findagrave.com. The obituary continues, “She was gathering moss when she lost her footing and fell.”

I saw Kickapoo Falls only once, but, to this day, I recall the place as exceedingly somber. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem entitled “Ulalume” mentions a “ghoul-haunted woodland.” I consider Kickapoo Falls such a ghastly place.

Mysteries of Warren County, Indiana: Kate's Pond

My Photograph of Kate's Pond, Taken in 1972

In 1926, the Indiana Magazine of History published under the title “Tri-County Historical Itinerary” the talks that J. Wesley Whickcar gave at stops along the way during a tour of historical sites, most of them in Warren County, Indiana. He spoke these sentences at Kate’s Pond:

“Originally this body of water was known as Lake Kickapoo. It then covered more than a hundred acres of land and was much deeper than it now is. It is the furthest south of any of the Indiana lakes, and in the native wild, is said to have been a beautiful lake, full of fish … . It was called Lake Kickapoo until 1812, and is only about two hundred feet northwest to Kickapoo Creek, which helped to make it a popular and much frequented camping ground for the Indians. … There is a legend connected with Lake Kickapoo, that in 1811 when Zachariah Cicott decided to cast his fortune with General William Henry Harrison and the Americans, he had a sweetheart among the Kickapoo, a very beautiful Indian maiden by the name of Kate, to whom he was very devoted, and she was equally fond of him. When Zachariah Cicott left Independence by special request from Harrison to serve as a scout for his army, he pledged himself and promised Kate that when the troublesome times were over and the white winged dove of peace hovered over the Wabash Valley, he would return and make her his wife. Before leaving to join Harrison he met Kate, who was the only person that knew of his departure and where he was going, and when they finally parted they both looked hopefully forward to the happy culmination of their love affair in their marriage. All the warriors in Kate’s tribe and in Kate’s family took part in the Battle of Tippecanoe and fought with the Indians there. Some of them were killed. On their return, having seen and recognized Cicott with Harrison and his army, they decided that Kate had betrayed their confidence, and divulged the secrets of the tribe to Cicott, her lover. Soon after their return from the Battle of Tippecanoe there was a council held which was attended by all of the Kickapoo tribes living near this lake. It was decided that Kate should be put to death by drowning, and in compliance with that decision, Kate was drowned in this lake by her tribe. Since that time it has been known as ‘Kate’s Pond’ or ‘Kate’s Lake.’” My online searches revealed relatively recent testimonials from those who have heard the shrieks of Kate’s ghost.

J. Wesley Whickcar, Occasionally Spelled Whicker

Attorney and Historian from Attica, Indiana

In a wide array of publications, many of them online, J. Wesley Whickcar left a legacy of historical writings about Fountain County, Warren County, and neighboring counties. In the foreword to Whickcar’s 1916 book entitled Historical Sketches of the Wabash Valley, Harry F. Ross, editor of The Attica Ledger, introduced readers to Whickcar:

“The author, Mr. Whicker (sometimes spelled Whickcar), is a well known lawyer of Attica, Indiana. He was born and reared a few miles east of this city, not far from the old town of Maysville, the first town of consequence in Fountain county, but now only a memory. He is a typical Hoosier, born in a log cabin during the great Civil war (1863). After more than the average vicissitudes of the youth of his day he educated himself for the law, located in Attica and has built up a wide and successful practice. An omnivorous reader from his youth and possessed of a phenominal [sic] memory he accumulated a remarkable store of facts concerning the things in which he was especially interested. He took keen delight in tracing the developement [sic] of the Wabash Valley and thus has been collecting all his life the material which is here preserved to posterity. Mr. Whicker has traveled extensively, having visited every state of the union, and is a keen observer so that his comments and comparisons are of real value. Many of the stories told in these pages are of things in which he or his friends were participants while much of the other material was gathered from the lips of men who themselves had a hand in shaping the course of events. As a youth he spent much time in the company of these graybeards, plying them with questions and delving into veins of rich material of which the present generation is almost wholly ignorant.”

While I was growing up in Warren County, my parents often drove past Kate’s Pond and shared the heart-wrenching tragedy of Kate and her doomed love for Cicott. I was suspicious of the authenticity of the story back then, and I remain suspicious today. I will classify the story of Kate’s Pond as a “tale” asking us to believe that a Kickapoo woman in the time of the Battle of Tippecanoe accepted the name “Kate,” an English name derived from “Katherine.” Further, we are called upon to assume that the Kickapoo people felt obliged to drown a young woman because they felt betrayed by her when such behaviors are not characteristic of Kickapoo people. Anthropology has made vast strides in the past half century; we now recognize that demonizing the enemy often includes stereotypes designed to thwart interracial love. The fact that Cicott was born to a French father and a Kickapoo mother may have given settlers a subtext to Cicott’s ill-fated betrothal to Kate in the moral tale of Kate’s Pond, possibly intended to underscore the assumption that Indians were savages.

A key word in Whickcar’s account is legend, by which he probably meant an unhistorical story falsely perceived as historical: “There is a legend connected with Lake Kickapoo … .” Whickcar most likely doubted the romantic tale of unrequited love.

My Photograph of College Rock

Warren County, Indiana

Taken About 1967

Near Kate’s Pond was College Rock, one of Indiana’s largest boulders, over half of which is buried underground. Various stories account for its name. None of them are satisfactory to me, and I wonder if college could have been a corruption of collage, which an early geologist might have used to describe gneiss. When I was growing up in Pine Village, the remains of a one-room schoolhouse, nicknamed “Rock College,” stood in a gloomy tangle of weeds across the road from College Rock. By then, the boards of the building were gray with age. My grandfather Seymour Alfred Rhode had taught in that school. I still have the bell he rang to call the students to their benches and slates.

My Grandfather Seymour Alfred Rhode’s Bell

Used Long Ago in the Schoolhouse

Across from College Rock

In the 1960s, I perceived Kate’s Pond as wild, incapable of being tamed by tile and plow. Glancing across its steely surface from the window of my parents’ passing car, I shuddered, wondering what might lie in the muck at the bottom of the lake. I imagined vicious animals with glowing eyes prowling along the banks in the dead of night, and I struggled to shake off the impression that ghosts might well drift above the water in the moonlight.