SOLON ROBINSON, 1847 51 



County, Indiana. By the treaty of the U.S. with the Pot- 

 towottomie Indians, in 1828, a strip of land ten miles 

 wide on the north line of the state was acquired : which 

 extended in a very narrow strip to the extreme south 

 bend of Lake Michigan which is on Section 35 in Town 

 37 of Range 8. This was the first purchase from the In- 

 dians in what is now Lake County.^ Not yet nineteen 

 years. 



By the treaty of 1832, the remainder of the land was 

 acquired, together with all that that tribe owned in the 

 state except some smal reservations. Previous to this 

 time no whites but the hunters and trappers of the Ameri- 

 can Fur Co., and the soldiers of the garrison at Old Fort 

 Dearborn had ever trod the fertile soil of these broad 

 prairies. This was the year of the celebrated Black-hawk 

 war. At that time there was a garrison and a few Indian 

 traders living at a place on Lake Michigan, about 12 miles 

 from the N.W. corner of Lake Co., called Fort Dearborn, 

 and this almost unknown and far remote frontier post 15 

 years since is now the City of Chicago. There were also 

 a few settlers in what is now La Porte Co. in 1832. Some 

 time in the year 1833, I believe the first settlement of a 

 white family was made within the territory of what is 

 now Lake Co.,- near the mouth of the Old Calamic, by a 

 man by the name of Bennett, for a tavern ; for the accom- 

 odation of the necessary travel along the beach of the 

 Lake, then the only road. Though I believe that the Old 

 Sac trail began to be traveled the same year, from La 

 Porte to the Hickory Creek settlement — but an incident 

 that I shall soon relate will show you that it was but a 

 blind path of the wilderness. 



The next family was by the name of Berry, also tavern 



' See Robinson, 1:11. 



' Obadiah Taylor, ancestor of the large group of Taylor families, 

 with several of his sons and his son-in-law, Dr. Calvin Lilley, came 

 to Lake County in 1832 from South Bend, Indiana, and Erie 

 County, Pennsylvania, but they did not remain. They returned, 

 however, in the spring of 1836, settling at Cedar Lake. Letter of 

 Arthur G. Taylor to Herbert A. Kellar, July 12, 1929. 



U. OF ILL LIB. 



