12 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



the constitution, and due to the careful work of Robinson 

 and his associates in registering descriptions of squatter 

 lands and in settling disputes over current possession, 

 speculators found scant encouragement for carrying on 

 their operations. 1 In March, 1839, when the official sale 

 of lands took place at La Porte, all bona fide settlers who 

 desired to buy their holdings at the regular price of $1.25 

 an acre obtained them without competition. 2 Perhaps the 

 attendance of Solon and his cohorts, well armed, helped 

 to ease the situation. 3 This episode was to give Robinson 

 the title, "King of the Squatters," a designation which 

 everyone agreed he had fairly earned. 



Repeated effort to deprive Solon of his own land was 

 one of the reasons which influenced him to organize the 

 Squatters' Union. He had settled upon and improved 

 part of section 8, township 34 north, range 8 west. 

 Shortly after his arrival, William Butler, a Michigan 

 land speculator, hired one Huntley to come from Twenty 

 Mile Prairie and erect the bodies of three log cabins upon 

 section 8. Difficulty was averted when Huntley, in return 

 for a payment of $75, agreed to leave. Butler, upon 

 learning that Shobonier, 4 a Potawatomi chief, had lived 

 at one time where Solon was now residing, and, further, 

 that Shobonier had had two sections reserved to him "at 

 his village" in the Treaty of October 20, 1832, attempted 

 to have this reserve located on sections 8 and 17. If this 



1 The Constitution is printed post, 69-76. 



2 This sale did not cover the holdings of Robinson and a few of 

 the other very early settlers, since they had already acquired title 

 by compliance with the existing preemption law and subsequent 

 purchase from the United States before 1839. 



8 See Ball, Lake County, 1834- to 1872, 64-65; Goodspeed, Weston 

 A., and Blanchard, Charles (eds.), Counties of Porter and Lake, 

 Indiana, 405-12 (Chicago, 1882). 



* This was not the famous Illinois chief, known as Shabonee, 

 Shaubena, Shaubenay, etc. A reserve was made to Shabonee in 

 the treaty of July 29, 1829. Kappler (ed.) Indian Affairs. Laws 

 and Treaties, 2:298. The reserve to "Sho-bon-ier, two sections at 

 his village," was made in the Treaty of October 20, 1832. None 

 of the land ceded by this treaty was in Indiana. Ibid., 2:353. 



