Project Scroll Research Note 2026-41: Coquillard's Potawatomi emigrating party of 1840: the records place its gathering and departure at South Bend, not Potato Creek
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Chapman's History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880) says that Alexis Coquillard of South Bend, "appointed in 1840 to carry through a Pottawatomie emigration, … established a rendezvous at Potato creek." Later accounts of Potato Creek repeat it. The records of 1840 place the party elsewhere. Gen. Hugh Brady, who directed that year's emigration, wrote from "South Bend, Indiana" on 10 June and 10 August 1840. In the August letter he says that "Mr. Coquillard, who leaves here in a few days in charge of an emigrating party," would call on the commissioner. The South Bend Free Press, quoted in the Daily National Intelligencer of 8 September 1840, reported that the Potawatomi "were to leave that place on the 17th inst., under the charge of Mr. A. Coquillard," and that "something over 500" had consented to go. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs reported that 536 set out for the Osage River sub-agency, of whom 526 were delivered there on 6 October. None of these records names Potato Creek. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-41, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-41/.
Author: Urbanski, Michael
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225338829