Waterbury Democrat., 1902-06-11
THE POTTAWATOMIE TRAIL
Tree That Were Bent Years Ago By
 Indian Tribes.

lnQ1an 1TlDeS.
 The Pottawatomie Indians, eighty years ago, did their best to prepare for the present generation of pale faces proof positive of the adage, sAs the twig is bent the tree is inclined" A score of oak trees bent and twisted out of all semblance to their natural shape and still bearing signs of the scarifying axe of the savage, stand to-day mark ing points along the line leading from the shore of Lake Michigan few miles north of Chicago to the famous swamp of the Skokie. These oaks, when saplings, were cut and bent by the Indians to mark the line of their trail through the dense forest of the northeastern Illinois shore.
 The villages of suburban Chicago, in which most of the Indian trees are found, were settled and staked out into town lots for long time before the settlers knew what the trees were. They learned finally from some of the pioneers the significance of the bent oaks, but thought the matter hardly worthy of comment. The axe was laid at the root of many of the oaks in the belief that the trees were simply freaks of nature. Others were cut down in the full knowledge of what they were by men in whose minds there was room for nothing but commercial conSidera- tions.
 On the lake bluff in the town of Highland Park, III, and almost at the doorstep of the summer residence of J. McGregor Adams, is a circle of stones marking the place where once the Pot tawatomies built their council fires. It is from this point almost directly northwest that the Indian trail, along which the bent oaks stand as sentinels, led away through the woods to the haunts of the mallard in the marshes and thence again through the woods to the waters of the DespIaines. As one follows to-day along the path trod by so many moccasined feet in the long ago, he finds the first surviving trail marks in two trees which grow on the lawn Of the late Lucien G. Toe The presence of two of the bent trees stand ing so close together shows that from this point branch trail was blazed. The members of MT Yoe's family have cared for these trees in every way possible, but it is feared that the care has come too late.
 About 150 yards beyond the Voc treea is an oak which the Indians bent to such an extent that the top struck the ground. It rests on the ground to-day at the point where nearly century ago it found Judgement, but. naturally aspiring, it turned from it's resting place and sent LID a noble trunk straight at the zenith. This tree was bent at a point about two feet from the ground. It was apparently about IWelve feet high at the time of it's bending. To-day the great tree bends at the same point where the Indian hatchet struck it; thence it grows for distance of twelve feet diagonalIy. until it touches the ground and from that point it shoots vertically fifty feet into the air.
 m the case of some of the oaks the sapllngs' ends, after the bending. not only turned and grew toward the sky, but a strong limb shot upward rom the point where the Indian had cut deep into the wood. When one views these trees from a little distance this upward growing limb appears to De simply a part of the trunk of the oak and it becomes necessary to look at matters from another standpoint to have the fact shown that in reality tne main trunk shoots off at right an- gles and that the towering limb is a subsidiary part of the tree.
 There is a tradition among the Ro- man Catholics of northern Illinois that Pere Marquette once camped on the site of little cemetery which is now within the limits of highland park. Long years after Marquette's day and well within the days of the republic. priests occasionally visited this Potta- watomie country. The early white set tiers found wooden cross on the site of what became the Roman Catholic burial ground. The cross, evidently. had been recently erected. but the h. dians said that the other crosses had been there before. and that the spot was a praying place for those who ''believed what the sbIack gowns taught One of the branch paths of the great Pottawotamie trail leads df- rectly to the place where A'ere Mar quette may once have prayed with the of old Pokagon. the last of the hereditary chiefs of the tribe of ottawotamies.-E B. Clark in