Owasippe Scout Reservation

The village over which the chief presided was on the flat at the foot of a hill near the Bishe-Gain-Dang (beautiful river in the Potawatomie language).

To gain protection from hostile bands, the white men had built Fort Dearborn at the mouth of the river.

Every day, he would climb to the top of a high hill and sit for hours beneath a great pine tree, scanning the long marsh and watching for their reappearance on one of the many streams that wound through the tall grass.

Owasippe’s people buried him in a sitting position on the spot where he died and covered his grave with a huge mound, as was worthy of a chief of his status.

In the early 1890s, three boys were following a trail near the mouth of Silver Creek when they noticed something that resembled the end of a canoe protruding from the bank.

They also found the metal parts of a flintlock rifle, bits of decayed blankets, a copper kettle and a silver ornament.

The two boys had apparently pulled their canoes up along the high bank for the night, and the river, constantly cutting into the earth, had caused the bluff to cave in, burying them where they slept.

The mounds have been settled beyond recognition and the incredible legend of Chief Owasippe would have been lost except for the marker placed near his grave by the Boy Scouts of Chicago Area Council.

Experts believe the name to be derived from the word “Awassisibi,” meaning “one who looks beyond the river.” The courage and nobility displayed by the sons of Owasippe on their journey speak to the Scout virtues of Friendliness and Bravery, and their knowledge of the wilderness and ability to survive by their skills echoes the training of today’s modern Scout laws.

It is said that the spirits of Chief Owasippe and his two sons still walk the trails of the Reservation and join with the many Scouts who visit us each year.

After digging through a layer of charcoal, the result probably of some ancient combustion, they came upon the bones of two skeletons, evidently of male and female adults.

Cloth in a very rotten state still adhered to the buckles and the cedar wood of the shaft was rotted away to where the silver bands encompassed it.

The boys have been offered various sums for them, but have not yet parted with these souvenirs of our Indian predecessors”[4] In 1898, Frederick Norman submitted a legend called "An Aboriginal Spot" for the book "White Lake Reminiscences."

[5] “Along the banks of White Lake are many beautiful points that were once the abode of a prehistoric race whose existence is proved by the numerous relics they left behind, buried in the earth and which the plow or the shovel brings to the surface in the shape of arrow points, stone hatchets and bits of quaintly shaped pottery, ornamented in a way that is truly wonderful for a people who, taken as a whole, could have had but little opportunity or material for ornament.

Sometimes a copper knife or string of beads is picked up where the cows have tramped their paths along the banks or side hills and the searcher after those relics is seldom disappointed if he looks closely for them One of the finest spots, as well as one of the most interesting, is Burying-Ground-Point, about three miles above the village of Whitehall.

The numerous mounds that are found on the high grounds just back of and overlooking the places where the homes of these people were made, show plainly where their dead were buried.

Near the mouth of Silver Creek which the Indians called Bishegaindang (the beautiful) stood a little village presided over and governed by an aged chief, who at the time of my story had two sons just grown to manhood.

These boys were the pride of the old man’s heart for they were great in the chase, and excelled in the games that these primitive people knew: the bird in the highest tree was not safe from their arrows, while the finny tribe of the river and creeks paid tribute to their skills One morning in Autumn when the wood and marshland was all aglow with the red and gold of an Indian Summer, these young men, taking their canoes, started for the great water (Lake Michigan) and promised the old father that they would be back before the fog and shadows of night fell; a promise that was never to be fulfilled, for the shadows of night fell, and the days came and went, but the pride and life of the old chief’s heart never came.

Leading straight up from the bank of Silver Creek was a high bluff from the top of which one could see for many miles, and every afternoon as the day was waning, the old man would climb to the top of the hill and seating himself under the huger pine that crowned the summit would gaze across the wood and marshland towards the open waters from whence his boys should come.

His people found him dead under the tree where he had daily watched, and buried him where he died, his face still turned in the direction he had looked for their coming A few years ago some boys who were fishing at the point, noticed the partially decayed prow of a canoe projecting from the bank where the waters had undermined the soft sand and exposed it to view.

The great loss grieved the old Chief so much that he died of a broken heart.”[7] “For a long time, the name ‘Deadman’s Rollway’ had been a mystery of the country.

It became later, that he spent all of his time upon the lookout, and one day his people found him dead at his post under a pine, looking out over the country he had ruled.” “The sons never returned, although the Chief has send out scouts and runners, and what became of them was never known until the people found the canoes at Burying Ground Point.” “The supplement was that the sons were returning and were just off of the Point, when the storm overtook them.

The man recalls an afternoon where he played near a spring with a young Native named Deerfoot and the old Sachem Owasippe.

The old chieftain told the two boys a legend about a wise and good Sachem who ruled over all the Indians in the territory and was able to effect a peaceable settlement between two hostile tribes.

The canoe drifted to the shore near the old chieftain's wigwam, where the body was buried with great reverence, and the lake has since been known as "White Lake—The Beautiful.