PIONEIlR H'JN'FKRS of the KANKAKEE 

 remains of two white men that had been buried 

 for a number of years by unknown hands where 

 history does not reach. In the Pall of 1844 as 

 Rens Brainard was hunting on the river he dis- 

 covered the body of a man lodged against some 

 driftwood near the French Island Landing, lie 

 recognized the body as that of John Drago, a 

 German who lived near the island. Drago had 

 been m.urdered and two pieces of an old iron 

 pump tied to his body and then cast into the 

 river to be buried in the still waters and peace- 

 ful sands, with no marks of his last resting place. 

 But the old iron pump that w^as used for a 

 weight was not heavy enough to hold the body 

 down to the sandy grave in which the murderer 

 had placed it. The body arose and lodged 

 against some old driftwood. t\r. Brainard re- 

 ported the finding of the body of a man in the 

 fiver at French Island to the Jasper County 

 authorities who came and took up the body and 

 made a postmortem examination and found 

 that he had been- murdered. To conceal the 



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