The Minneapolis journal., 1904-06-21
4 PETRIFIED TO
AS CIGAR SIGN
WEIRD STORY COMES FROM
THIEF RIVER FALLS.
Curiously Preserved Bodies Were
Found in Moving Cemetery and a
Joker Who Was Identified with the
Work Had Serious Sessions with
Bereaved Relatives.

From out Of the woods of northern
Minnesota there comes to Minneapolis
a story of the remarkable work of
Joe De Champ, a peculiar backwoods
apolitans who have travelled in the
| Thief River Falls region. Recently
Joe had been engaged in the interest
ing task of removing the. bodies of
Indians from their graves IN the ceded
lands and reburying them in other
Thief River Falls with some entertain
ing, tho shuddersome, accounts of his
strange adventures in the cemetery of
| the redmen.
| :. Not the least interesting Of these
tales pertains to the finding of sew
eral perfectly petrifed bodies, and the
uncanny, feeling which one has when
he listens to the account is intensified
at the end where it is related that one
of the petrifled aborigines was used
as a hitching post, while another
served as a cigar sign.
| Eight men worked with Joe digging
for the bodies of the dead Indians
Joe receives $14.50 per corpse from
the government; therefore he is ex-
ceedingly Industrious. The moon
beams, filtering thru the branches of
the pines, shone down on Joe one
night as he labored with pick and
spade. About him the razed fence
resting place of a tribal leader, formed
decorative festoon. Dig, dig, dig,
stopping only to wipe the perspira-
ton from his brow, Joe labored on.
He heard not the croaking Of the
frogs In the pond nearby, nor paid he
any attention to the echoing calls of
the animals that roamed abroad in
their nocturnal search for food.
Encountering what appeared to be a
stone, Joe laid aside his shovel
mopped his sweaty face, and then set
to work with pick Joe is a callous
man, used to looking composedly- or
grinning skulls and. heaps of bones
but when he saw there, in the uncer-
tain light, the grim countenance OF q
real red man, sticking up in the hole
he had made, he fed for his assist
: ants aroused them from their sleeE
and enlisted their services in calming
his perturbed mind and in completing
, the removal of the body
:. Finally the report reached the Chip.
> pewa villages and then there was
, more trouble for De Champ who ha6
= various heart-to-heart talks with in.
. .Equiring red people.
\; The upstart of it all was that the
8 cigar sign and the hitchingpost have
\ been decently buried-if indeed, the
2 bodies were ever used for that pur
i pose.
e It was almost perfectly preserves
8 and was removed from it's shallow
II grave with difficulty. Nearby an
other body was encountered in th
g same condition and the two were lait
e aside while the work of removing tn
n other mortal remains progressed.
d 1t so happens that De Champ is
e great joker and when the story of tn
e petrifed cigar Indian and the oborig
h inal hitchingpost got around, hi
r friends began to ask about his resur
rection operations with mock serious
ness.
Altogether Joe has taken up 113 In
dians. EOf the number 26 were of tn
: Catholic faith and were reburied a
n the agency The remainder, who wer
\ old-time pagans, were taken acros
the Beltrami county line for buria
|. The Catholics, when taken up, wer
found to be incased in wooden cot
J, fins, but those who remained loyal t
,f the old Indian faith were wrappe
= in pitch bark. Thus far only the tw
"a petrified bodies have been found.