'Trail of Death' to be topic at Canal annual meeting

The 1800s journey that the Pottawatomie Indians call the "Trail of Death" will be the topic of Shirley Willard's talk at the annual meeting of the Wabash & Erie Canal Association on April 15 at the Canal Conference and Interpretive Center.

Dessert, coffee and drinks will be available at 6:30 p.m., and the program will begin at 7. A short business meeting and announcements will follow.

The public is welcome, and there is no admission charge.

Shirley Willard, Fulton County historian, first became involved in the subject in 1976 when one of her sons, a Boy Scout at the time, placed a sign at Mud Creek south of Rochester. The sign marks the first death on the trail that the Indians followed when they were removed by the government from their village in northern Indiana to new lands in Kansas.

To help preserve the trail's history, Willard and the Pottawatomie Trail of Death Association began working in 2006 to place highway signs along the trail. A portion of the trail crosses Carroll County. The association has finished placing signs in Fulton and Marshall counties, and hopes to erect signs next in Cass, Carroll, Tippecanoe and Warren counties. After marking the trail in Indiana, they hope to place signs in Illinois, Missouri and Kansas.