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The Watchdog | Minor Park marker recalls tragic trek of Potawatomi people

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The problem

Watchdog fan Maggie Finefrock, who often uses the trails along the Blue River Parkway, wonders about a marker near the picnic area off Red Bridge Road in Minor Park.

Its title is “Trail of Death.”

Finefrock wants to know more about the event it commemorates and how the marker came to be there.

“I appreciate your dogged research into all regional mysteries,” she says.

The answer

The Watchdog, never accused of being intellectual, turned first to Ann McFerrin, archivist at the Kansas City Department of Parks and Recreation. Her research indicates that the marker was placed about five years ago by Boy Scout Troop 280.

The marker recalls the forcible roundup in 1838 of more than 850 Potawatomi Indian people, who were marched that autumn from Indiana to a reservation near present-day Osawatomie, Kan.

“Because of the many deaths that occurred on the ten-week journey, the removal became known as the Trail of Death,” according to a website maintained by a historical society in Indiana.

Diaries from the journey indicated that the group camped two miles south of Independence on Oct. 31, and the Minor Park marker commemorates the spot along the Blue River where camp was set up the following night.

Roughly 40 people died on the 660-mile journey.

In a letter posted online, a Catholic priest who accompanied the group described a recurring scene:

Often throughout the entire night, around a blazing fire, before a tent in which a solitary candle burned, fifteen or twenty Indians would sing hymns and tell their beads. One of their friends who had died was laid out in the tent; they performed the last religious rites for him in this way. The next morning the grave would be dug; the family, sad but tearless, stayed after the general departure; the priest ... recited prayers, blessed the grave, and cast the first shovelful of earth on the rude coffin; the pit was filled and a little cross placed there.

Scout Troop 280, based at Red Bridge United Methodist Church, no longer exists, said former committee chairman Charles Hasenyager. He recalls that placement of the marker was gratifying, but came “after eight years of ‘torment’ ... total aggravation.”

The monument was the idea of the Fulton County Historical Society in Indiana, which wanted to place markers at every campsite along the route, Hasenyager said. The project was offered to his daughter’s Girl Scout troop, which lacked the resources, so Troop 280 took up the cause.

The project was put on hold while Kansas City debated the widening of Red Bridge Road, Hasenyager said. Then there were permits to get, and meanwhile, individual Scouts were growing up.

The stone found its home in 2007, however, ensuring that Kansas Citians won’t forget their connection to a tragic episode in U.S. history.

Do you have a problem or a question about a public issue? Write to The Watchdog, The Kansas City Star, Newsroom, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108, or send email to watchdog@kcstar.com. Include your name, phone number and city of residence.